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try to pass his agenda.
Obamacare repeal and replace failed in the Senate, not because McConnell wasn’t determined to pass it, but because three Senate Republicans went their own way despite McConnell’s good-faith efforts.
If Moore were in the Senate, he’d presumably be a reliable Republican vote like any other Alabama senator. The only difference is that he hates McConnell. Is that worth the reputational risk to the party of being associated with such a compromised figure? If there is a new Republican Senate leader in the next Congress, he sure as hell isn’t going to be a bomb-thrower (Senate leaders never are). So what’s the point?
Apparently to find an unbelievably checkered collection of Senate candidates, and to put Senate seats at risk by nominating them, no matter what their electoral appeal or vulnerabilities. Steve Bannon wants as many Roy Moores as possible.Guacamole is one of my favorite things. I admit, I have eaten tacos made only of guacamole and a tortilla. While I don't stray from my favorite guacamole recipe often, this one has a nice smokiness to it that's a great fit for fajitas or anything grilled. I suggest a really bright white wine, one with lots of minerals. If you are more of a red drinker, avoid the fruit, stick to herbal notes or a smoky Mourvèdre.
4 ripe avocados
3 tomatoes
1 lime, zested
2 limes, juiced
1/2 bunch of cilantro, washed and dried
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 green onions, diced
1 serrano chiles, finely diced
2 cloves of roasted garlic
Salt
1. See how to properly slice and pit an avocado.
2. Grill the avocado slices for five minutes.
3. Scoop the flesh into a large bowl and mash.
4. Slice the bottom off each tomato using a serrated knife.
5. Using the same knife, make "C" cuts to the tomato. The key here is to cut off the flesh and to avoid the seed membrane.
6. Dice the tomato slices. The remaining tomato ball is perfect for soup stock!
7. Toss a handful of garlic cloves with olive oil and roast them for about 20 minutes or until your kitchen smells like you want to eat it.
8. Mince the garlic and add it to the avocados.
9. Finely chop the red onion and green onions.
10. Remove the cilantro leaves by holding the bunch with one hand and "peeling" off the leaves with a knife away from you.
11. Don't worry if you get some stems. Finely chop the leaves.
12. Finely chop the serrano chile. Wear latex gloves if you are sensitive to the oils. Seed first if you want less heat.
13. Add the above ingredients to the avocados.
14. Zest one of the limes. Add the zest and the lime juice to the mixture. Juice the second lime and add it.
15. Mix enough to coat all of the ingredients with the mashed avocado. Salt to taste.
16. Reserve some for yourself because once your friends and family get a hold of it, they will eat it all! Trust me.
Visit TreeHugger's Green Wine Guide for more green wineries, recipes and virtual tours.
Follow the @GreenWineGuide or @JerryJamesStone on Twitter or fan us on Facebook.Cyclists with a dream of extending the Midtown Greenway across the Mississippi River and into St. Paul are trying to muster support for a plan that petered out years ago after a legal battle.
Many hurdles remain before the trail could become reality. The greenway that cuts across south Minneapolis along an old railroad bed dead-ends just before the river, and bridging the waterway would be just one of the challenges. Then there are costs — unknown — and the trouble of negotiating with a railroad for a route through St. Paul.
But the idea was enough to lure 75 people to a meeting this week to discuss the potential, starting with the Short Line Bridge, owned by Canadian Pacific. It would be a natural connection, Midtown Greenway Coalition Executive Director Soren Jensen said.
“It’s sitting there, waiting,” he said. “We just need to get the political will behind it.”
He wants to create a coalition, with representatives from county and city governments on both sides of the river who support using the railroad bridge. A 2006 Hennepin County study found the bridge has major structural problems. Jensen said that study didn’t answer some important questions.
“Can it be repaired and how much would it cost?” he said, calling for a new study.
Bicycling advocates are pushing to extend the Midtown Greenway into St. Paul. Some are also hoping the Min Hi Line, a greenway between Minnehaha and Hiawatha avenues pictured in this rendering, could also be a reality someday.
Meanwhile, cycling advocates said they would like to see St. Paul work on a greenway within the city, which would put additional pressure on government officials to create the bridge connection.
St. Paul previously tried to negotiate with Canadian Pacific to use part of its property for a trail, following the railroad east from the river bridge and then along Ayd Mill Road. The railroad did not support the idea, and in 2009 the City Council told staff to use condemnation if needed to acquire the property. That prompted Canadian Pacific to file a federal lawsuit challenging whether the city could use eminent domain to take railroad land.
The court sided with the railroad, and the city’s efforts came to a stop.
“I think the railroad is willing to talk,” City Engineer John Maczko said this week, but he suggested trail supporters reach out to the company early on.
Safety would be the railroad’s number one concern in considering the bike trail, Canadian Pacific spokesman Andy Cummins said. Without a specific proposal, Cummins said, he could not say whether the company would be interested in property negotiations.
One meeting attendee noted there is not a firm cost projection for a greenway extension, and cities already lack funding to maintain existing trails. It’s a point that hit home for Maczko, who is frustrated by the lack of money for trail maintenance at all levels of government.
The city estimated in the early 2000s that it would cost $13.8 million to acquire right of way, design and build the greenway through St. Paul. The city hasn’t completed a recent estimate, Maczko said, but inflation and negotiations with the railroad would likely bump the cost higher.
Min Hi Line
Biking enthusiasts who attended the Wednesday meeting had other ideas for expanding the greenway system.
South Minneapolis resident Cora Peterson, a founder of the Min Hi Line Coalition, would like to see a new greenway east of Hiawatha Avenue, in the freight rail corridor that runs parallel to the highway.
A bike trail would be just one piece of the 3-mile Min Hi Line, along with parks and amenities, between Minnehaha and Hiawatha avenues.
The line would connect to the Midtown Greenway in the north and run south to Minnehaha Regional Park. It would not be a “bike highway,” Peterson said, but a place where residents are encouraged to walk, bike and play.
The Min Hi Line could drive economic growth, she said, noting that a similar trail in Atlanta has been a boon to some nearby businesses.
Greenway advocates need to reach out to small business owners who would be impacted by the new trails and get their support, St. Paul resident Amy Gage said. She lives near Cleveland Avenue, where the city’s recent addition of bike lanes caused outrage from some business owners who lost on-street parking.A Wake County judge says there will be no concealed handguns at the North Carolina State Fair.
At a hearing Monday afternoon in Raleigh,Grass Roots North Carolina sought a preliminary injunction. The group is challenging a recent change in state law allowing the fair to ban concealed-carry permit holders from bringing guns to the fair that begins on Thursday.
But, Judge Donald Stephens said allowing guns at the fair would be "unwise and imprudent", agreeing with State Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler.
Previous Story
A gun-rights group is challenging a ban on concealed handguns at the North Carolina State Fair.
A hearing is set in state court in Raleigh on Monday on the action being brought by Grass Roots North Carolina. The group is challenging a recent change in state law allowing the fair to ban concealed-carry permit holders from bringing guns to the fair that begins on Thursday.
The group wants a judge to issue an junction blocking the ban.
North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler is a gun owner and supporter of gun rights but says firearms don't mix with crowds, children and fair rides.
However, a legal scholar from the University of North Carolina says the gun-rights group has a strong argument.
(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
PREVIOUS STORY:
North Carolina could join a small number of states that allow concealed handguns at state fairs when a judge considers a legal challenge to the ban on firearms at the annual event.
The gun-rights group Grass Roots North Carolina argues in a legal filing that a recent change in state law makes it illegal for the fair to ban concealed-carry permit holders from bringing guns, and a legal scholar agrees that they have a strong argument going into their hearing Monday. The fair starts on Thursday.
Grass Roots North Carolina claims several other states allow concealed carry permit holders to bring their handguns to state fairs, including Florida and Texas. The law enforcement agencies that oversee the Florida and Texas fairs said they know of no problems stemming from the concealed firearm rules.
"I don't think it's been an issue at all," said Debbie Carter, spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office in Florida, where a 2012 change in state law prompted the fair to allow permit holders to bring concealed handguns.
Only in recent years have state fairs begun allowing concealed handguns, said Jim Tucker, president and CEO of the International Association of Fairs and Expositions.
"I think it's a pretty small number that actually allow them to be brought onto fairgrounds that are state-owned," he said, adding that he didn't have a list.
He said his group doesn't take a stance on the policy: "Our advice to our members is to follow to your state laws."
North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler has said he is a gun owner and supporter of gun rights, but he believes firearms don't mix with crowds, children and fair rides.
"The fair's weapons policy, which has been in place for decades, also plays an important role in maintaining that safe environment," Troxler said in response to the legal action.
Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, argues in court papers that safety features of firearms and holsters should prevent guns from being ejected from fair rides or discharging in crowds. His group is asking the judge for an injunction preventing the fair from imposing the ban on concealed handguns.
Valone cited violence in recent years at other state fairs to argue that permit holders should be able to carry their guns. In 2011, 31 people were arrested and 11 injured in violence on the opening night of the Wisconsin State Fair, which does not allow concealed weapons.
Valone's group argues that Troxler's ban is illegal because of a North Carolina law passed in 2013 expanding where concealed handguns can be carried.
A legal scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says that while the laws on the topic are nuanced, the gun-rights advocates have a strong argument.
Jeffrey B. Welty, an associate professor of Public Law and Government at UNC, noted in a legal analysis that state law bans concealed firearms in certain state buildings including the Capitol, but it doesn't list the fairgrounds. State law allows private property owners to keep concealed weapons out, but it's not clear if that aspect of the law strengthens the argument of those who run the fairgrounds, which are public property.
"I think that the somewhat stronger argument is that Commissioner Troxler doesn't have the authority to ban concealed carry," Welty said in an interview.
One of the primary sponsors of the gun law passed in 2013, Rep. George Cleveland, said he doesn't recall any discussion for or against allowing guns at the State Fair while the bill was being crafted.
"To my knowledge, it was not discussed at all," said the Jacksonville Republican.
"The intent of the bill was to open concealed carry in places where people gather," he added. "The way I understand the bill, it allows concealed carry at the agricultural fair, at the State Fair. And if that's what the bill allows, that's what should happen."
(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)Unions that represent Cleveland police officers and first responders will not participate in one of the annual rites that precede NFL openers, with leaders saying they were offended when Browns players knelt during the national anthem before a preseason game.
The head of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association says that they have decided not to hold part of the gigantic American flag as part of the pregame ceremony at the Browns' Sept. 10 opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Typically, players, first responders, politicians and military members join in, too.
"When management allows you to do those things, then that's on them," Steve Loomis, the police union's president, told Cleveland.com. "It's hypocritical of the Browns management and ownership to want to have an armed forces first-responder day, and have us involved in it when they allow their players to take a knee during the national anthem. That's the very representation of what we stand for. That's why we aren't going to."
However, a police spokeswoman noted that the union "does not speak" for the department. public information officer Jennifer Ciaccia told HuffPost. "The Division of Police is in no way boycotting the Browns," public information officer Jennifer Ciaccia told HuffPost, "nor denying participation in events with our officers."
The president of a union that represents EMTs and other first responders told HuffPost that it would not participate, either.
"The NFL brags about how they love the military and safety forces and everything that we do for this country, but obviously they don't show it because they're not setting forth any rules about (the national anthem)," Daniel Nemeth, president of a local branch of the Cleveland Association of Rescue Employees, said.
A dozen Browns players took a knee during the national anthem on Aug. 21, with a white player for the first time joining in the protests that began with Colin Kaepernick during the 2016 preseason. The Browns specified that they were taking a knee in prayer.
"There's a lot of racial and social injustices in the world that are going on right now," rookie safety Jabrill Peppers said, explaining the message they'd hoped to send. "We just decided to take a knee and pray for the people who have been affected and just pray for the world in general."
During their final preseason game on Aug. 31, Browns locked arms during the anthem and drew the support of management. "Professionally, thoughtfully, probably as thoughtfully as any others have," Sashi Brown, the team's executive vice president of football operations, told Cleveland.com last week.
"These are guys that mean well. We really push our guys to be active and conscious about the communities they live in and what goes on around them that might be even larger than football. They do that, and we support them. We respect their efforts to use their platform to make some change and express themselves. And I think for all those guys that knelt initially and then last week decided to stand - I won't get into why they made that decision - I think they are going about it in a very responsible and thoughtful way. I'm actually proud of them."Q: Is President Obama’s trip to India going to cost $200 million per day?
A: This highly doubtful claim originated with one Indian news agency quoting an anonymous source in Mumbai. The White House says it is "wildly exaggerated," and there’s no evidence to support such a huge figure.
FULL QUESTION
There are reports all over that Obama’s India trip will cost $200 million per day. I haven’t been able to find a credible rebuttal to this but I can’t believe it could be true.
FULL ANSWER
This story has spread rapidly among the president’s critics, but there is simply no evidence to support it. And common sense should lead anyone to doubt it. For example, the entire U.S. war effort in Afghanistan currently costs less than that — about $5.7 billion per month, according to the Congressional Research Service, or roughly $190 million per day. How could a peaceful state visit cost more than a war?
What else can you get for $200 million? Try the New Jersey Nets basketball team or possibly the Hope diamond — if only the Smithsonian were selling it.
The hard-to-swallow claim originated with a Nov. 2 Press Trust of India article quoting an unnamed "top official" in the government of Maharashtra (one of India’s states). The source was quoted as saying that Obama’s upcoming trip to Mumbai will cost $200 million per day for security and living arrangements, among other things. The story claimed that the president would be accompanied by about 3,000 people, including Secret Service agents, government officials and journalists, and will stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel — the scene of a 2008 terrorist attack.
We find stories based on anonymous sources always deserve special caution, especially when they come from only one news organization. In this case, the anonymous official is not even in the U.S. government, and any information about costs would necessarily have come second-hand at best, an added reason for caution.
Nevertheless, the story was widely repeated without any additional reporting. Soon after the article was released, The Drudge Report — a news aggregation website — linked to the Press Trust of India article, with the headline "REPORT: US to spend $200 million per day on Obama’s Mumbai visit…" Later that day, Rush Limbaugh claimed on his radio show that "Five hundred seven rooms at the Taj Mahal, 40 airplanes, $200 million a day this nation will spend on Obama’s trip to India." He repeats the "$200 million a day" claim several times throughout the show without specifying its source.
The allegation has generated a great deal of Internet discourse over the past few days, including a Washington Times post that claims Obama’s entourage on the trip "will spend enough to bankrupt a small nation." According to the Economic Times and The Daily Mail, Obama will take over the entire 570-room Taj Mahal Hotel for the trip. A Google search for the exact words of the original Press Trust article returned about 11,000 results. And we received about two dozen queries about it.
The White House is always reluctant to discuss cost figures about presidential trips, since the bulk of the expense is for Secret Service security. Not this time. The White House press office, which said it had been flooded with queries, gave us the following statement:
Matt Lehrich, White House Office of Media Affairs: The numbers reported in this article have no basis in reality. Due to security concerns, we are unable to outline details associated with security procedures and costs, but it’s safe to say these numbers are wildly inflated.
It is always costly to move a U.S. president around the world. And in this case, the president is attending a G-20 meeting and will be accompanied by several cabinet officials. But given the dubious source of this assertion, the fact that the claimed cost exceeds the cost of a war, the flat denial by the White House and the lack of any evidence to support the claim, we’ll classify this one as false.
–Lara Seligman
Update, Nov. 4: Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota repeated the claim Nov. 3 on CNN’s "Anderson Cooper 360," attacking Obama for "over-the-top spending." When Cooper countered that "no one really knows the cost, because for security reasons they don’t disclose the cost," Bachmann responded, “Well these are the numbers that have been coming out in the press."
On Nov. 4, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell called the story "absolutely absurd," because it had claimed that the U.S. Navy was sending 34 warships to the coast off Mumbai as part of the president’s visit:
Morrell, Nov. 4: I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy — some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier — in support of the president’s trip to Asia. … That’s just comical. Nothing close to that is being done.
ABC News reported that 34 ships would actually amount to nearly 12 percent of the 288 in the Navy’s fleet, not 10 percent.
Later the same day, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said during his regular press briefing that the $200 million per day estimate is incorrect.
Gibbs, Nov 4: Well, we have set the record straight with you guys. I’m not going to go into how much it costs to protect the president. Costs are comparable to when President Clinton and when President Bush traveled abroad.
So how much did those trips cost? In the case of some Clinton trips, we have figures from a 1999 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office — now called the Government Accountability Office. The GAO said that Clinton’s trips to Africa, Chile and China in 1998 cost at least $42.8 million, $10.5 million and $18.8 million, respectively — not counting the still-classified cost of providing Secret Service protection.
In Africa, Clinton was accompanied by about 1,300 individuals — not including members of the Secret Service — representing the White House, the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. The president visited six countries in 12 days, which means the trip cost $3.6 million per day.
Clinton made the five-day Chile trip in order to attend the second Summit of the Americas — a meeting of 34 heads of state or governments from countries in the Americas — and to hold meetings with the president of Chile. About 600 individuals accompanied the president on the trip, which we calculated would have cost $2.1 million per day.
When Clinton visited China to conduct talks with the president of China, he brought along about 500 individuals. The trip lasted nine days, which works out to a little less than $2.1 million per day.
The total cost including Secret Service protection would of course be somewhat higher, but even doubling or tripling those figures and adding in an adjustment for inflation would not produce anything close to the figure given by the Indian news article for Obama’s trip.
Sources
Schmelzer, Paul. "Using inaccurate figure, Bachmann calls Obama’s India trip ‘massive overspending.’" The Minnesota Independent. 4 Nov 2010.
Martinez, Luis "Pentagon Dismisses Reports of 34 Warships for Obama Trip Security" ABC News. 4 Nov 2010.
General Accounting Office. "Costs and Accounting For the President’s 1998 Trips to Africa, Chile, and China." 21 Sept 1999.
Congressional Research Service. "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11." 2 Sep 2010.
Eichelberger, Curtis. "Prokhorov’s $200 Million Purchase of Nets Gets NBA Approval." Bloomberg Business Week. 12 May 2010.
"Mystery of the Hope Diamond." Press release. Smithsonian Channel.25 Oct 2010.
Press Trust of India. "US to spend $200 mn a day on Obama’s Mumbai visit." NDTV.com. 2 Nov 2010.
Sengupta, Somini. "At Least 100 Dead in India Terror Attacks." New York Times. 26 Nov 2008.
The Drudge Report. 2 November 2010, accessed 3 Nov 2010.
Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page. The Rush Limbaugh Show. 2 Nov 2010, accessed 3 Nov 2010.
Knight, Robert. "Pulling back the curtain on Obama’s audacity." The Washington Times. 29 Oct 2010.
Mumbai Mirror. "Barack and Michelle’s Mumbai darshan plans." The Economic Times. 23 Oct 2010.
White, James. "’$200m-a-day’ cost of Barack Obama’s trip to India will be picked up by U.S. taxpayers." The Daily Mail. 2 Nov 2010.Why humiliated Aston Villa now have to going into the Lions’ Den on a cold Friday night in bid to avoid second shock of week
Millwall have moved their FA Cup fourth round tie with Aston Villa from Saturday to Friday night, but it’s all for a good cause.
The club decided not to hold the game on Saturday after it was announced that a major demonstration against cuts at Lewisham Hospital, starting at midday, is planned for the weekend.
It is anticipated that the demonstration and rally at Mountsfield Park will attract thousands of protestors, which means that a substantial supply of police forces will be needed.
The match is now due to kick off at 7.45 on Friday night.
Supportive: The club allowed hospital staff to hand out leaflets and petitions at their game against Burnley
Loss: Millwall lost out to Burnley 2-0 on Saturday
Dejection: Stephen Ireland and Co face going out of another cup competition to lower-league opponents
‘Whilst changing the date of our Cup tie is an inconvenience to us, we believe there is a bigger picture here,’ said the club website.
‘Millwall Football Club, our players, staff and many thousands of fans have, over the years, had reason to be grateful for the resources, facilities and care we have received from our local hospital.
We are not persuaded by the arguments put forward in favour of closing the A&E department, childrens ward, intensive care and maternity services at Lewisham.’
Staff and supporters from the hospital were present at the team’s match against Burnley, which Milwall lost 2-0, handing out leaflets and petitions destined for Secretary of State Jeremy Hunt’s office.
The players took to the pitch in T-shirts declaring their support and the club now intends to create a video to promote it.
Villa could have used any extra practice time after their loss on aggregate to fourth-tier Bradford in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday.
The League Two side lost last night’s match 2-1 after a late strike from Andreas Weimann, but their 3-1 advantage from the first leg sent them through to the final at Wembley.Philippe Coutinho scored 14 goals last season
Liverpool have rejected a bid of 100 million euros (£90m) from Barcelona for Brazil playmaker Philippe Coutinho.
Barca's second bid for the 25-year-old, which was rejected immediately, comprised an initial 85m euros (£76.8m) plus 15m euros (£13.5m) in add-ons.
Liverpool have reiterated that Coutinho - who joined them from Inter Milan for £8.5m in 2013 - is not for sale.
Barcelona sold Brazil forward Neymar to Paris St-Germain for a world record transfer of £200m last week.
Coutinho who scored 14 goals last term and spent six weeks out with an ankle injury, signed a new five-year deal in January, which did not include a release clause.
Manager Jurgen Klopp said the Reds were not "a selling club" when Barca's previous £72m offer was rejected in July, and Liverpool consider the matter closed.The city announced yesterday that it would begin seeking construction contract bids for three major transportation improvement projects in the Loop: the Union Station Transit Center, the Washington-Wabash CTA station and the Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project. In total, the projects are estimated to cost $150 million, and the city hopes to break ground on all three by the end of next March.
↑ Washington-Wabash CTA station This new station will replace and consolidate the Randolph/Wabash and Madison/Wabash stations under one roof. Designed by engineering and architecture outfit exp (formerly Teng + Associates), the sleek Calavatra-esque station will be open for service in 2016.
↑ Union Station Transit Center This new center will allow for off-street boarding of buses and add sheltered staging areas for buses going through it. It will be located on Jackson Boulevard, just due south of the old Union Station terminal. The city has indicated that this project is expected to be completed by late next year.
↑ Central Loop BRT The BRT program for the Loop was initially anticipated to be completed by the end of this year, however due to delays, CDOT announced earlier this summer that the plan would be pushed back to 2015. The plan will speed up buses on Madison, Washington, Canal and Clinton Streets by creating dedicated lanes and adding raised boarding platforms to the streets. Washington and Madison will also have protected bike lanes. Similar to the Union Station Transit Center, the city anticipates completing this project by the end of 2015.
·City Seeks Construction Contract Bids on Three Major Loop Transit Infrastructure Projects [CTA]
·CDOT Is Finally Moving Forward With the Loop BRT Project [Streetsblog Chicago]
·Get On Board: Central Loop Bus Rapid Transit Is Coming Soon [Curbed Chicago]
·Chicago's Newest (and Sexiest) CTA Station Is Well On Its Way [Curbed Chicago]Jeanine Pirro, host of Fox News’ “Justice with Judge Jeanine“, slammed fired FBI Director James Comey Saturday for his overly dramatic and perhaps dishonest testimony before a Senate panel last week.
Calling it “the greatest political hoax since Eve convinced Adam to eat that apple” Jeanine points out Comey’s not so righteous indignation put on display the weakness put on display by the disgraced director during the hearing. “Poor Jim. You sound like a two-year-old,” she said.
Pirro then went on to point out James Comey’s impending legal trouble for having removed his memo from FBI storage to have a friend leak them to the press.
“The only problem, the record is a federal record and removing it is a clear violation of the Federal Records Act.”
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Jeanine then questions Comey’s ethical judgment for having leaked a presidential conversation to the press and suggests that if he did it this time, he’s probably been comfortable leaking privileged or classified information in the past.
Pirro ends her “Opening Statement” by predicting Comey’s ruin and putting the blame precisely where it belongs.
“Your downfall is a consequence of a tragic flaw, a major weakness – your hubris.”
Jeanine expertly tears James Comey’s testimony, career and character apart piece-by-piece. Enjoy!
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Pirro’s show airs Saturdays on the Fox News Network at 9 PM Eastern Time.For the past few years, I have pointed out that the economy is an ecosystem and that, as in any ecosystem, when one set of participants begins hogging a huge percentage of the overall resources, other participants get weaker or die and the whole ecosystem becomes unstable.
Eventually, if the hogging becomes too overwhelming, the ecosystem may collapse.
(Think of an algae-choked pond in which all light and oxygen gets consumed by one particularly rapacious plant.)
Specifically, I have observed that over the past three decades, more and more of this country's wealth and income have been consumed by a small percentage of the population — for lack of a better term, "the 10%" — while everyone else has gotten hosed.
I have also observed that what's wrong with this picture — aside from romantic notions of sharing, teamwork, et al. — is that the 90% of the people in the country who are getting screwed are actually the customers of the companies owned by the 10%. Therefore, by paying themselves as much as possible and paying the 90% as little as possible, the 10% are in fact impoverishing their own customers.
At some point, when the 10% have finished extracting every ounce of wealth from the 90%, the 90% will simply have no money with which to buy the products and services of the 10% — at which point the companies owned by the 10% will collapse.
(Before that, though, we might also have a revolution, political or otherwise. Economic inequality and desperation like the kind we are developing has triggered many of those throughout history.)
Whenever I point all this out, of course, I get pelted with fruit and garbage by the 10%, who say, in effect, "You get what you deserve. If the 90% are unhappy, they should stop being so lazy and get to work."
I would respectfully suggest that it has apparently been a while since the members of the 10% who say this have had to try to support families by working two jobs at McDonald's and Pizza Hut for $8 an hour, and that "laziness" is not actually the causal agent here. But that's another argument.
Anyway, today, to avoid getting pelted with fruit and garbage, I'll take a different tack.
Specifically, I'll congratulate the 10% for their ongoing drubbing of the "other team" in our economy, the hapless 90%. A few more years like this and the game will be over, and the 10% can high-five their way into the sunset. (Though they may have to move fast, to outrun the torches and pitchforks.)
Way to go, capital! You're totally crushing labor! You've reduced your workers' wages so much that wages have hit an all-time low as a percentage of the economy! Meanwhile, your profits have hit an all-time high! Today's jobs report confirmed it! Yes, you've had to give a few more people jobs, but for the past five years you've held their wage growth down to a tiny 2% and falling! Over the past 30 years, you've captured an astonishing 90% of the growth in incomes in this country! Admire the charts below and toast to your great work. You're killing it!
WAGES AS A PERCENT OF THE ECONOMY (lowest in history)
Business Insider, St. Louis Fred
CORPORATE PROFITS AS A PERCENT OF THE ECONOMY (highest ever)
Business Insider, St. Louis Fred
WAGE GROWTH (flat and low for five years)
Nick Bunker
INCOME SHARE OF THE 10% (the highest in history except for 1929)
Emmanuel Saetz
NOW WATCH: 11 Facts That Show How Different Russia Is From The Rest Of The World20th Century Fox According to The Los Angeles Times, a new study and database created by the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has confirmed something that's been on a lot of minds over past several months with movies like "Hidden Figures," "Get Out," and "Wonder Woman" performing so well at the box office: Movies starring people of color, women, and LGBTQ actors make money.
The study suggests that a diverse cast means a more diverse audience, which means more money at the box office. (Though it's important to note that correlation does not necessarily mean causation.)
CAA examined the diversity of the top 10 billed actors in 413 theatrical films released from the start of 2014 through the end of 2016, along with box-office performance and audience demographics. It found that the most successful films at the box office had a relatively large share of nonwhite viewers — of the top 10 grossing movies in 2016, 47% of the opening weekend audience (and 45% in 2015) were people of color. And films with what the CAA regards as "truly diverse" casts tend to outperform ones with less diverse casting.
The most successful film studied was 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac.
"The hope is that seeing real numbers attached to the success of the inclusion of more voices and diverse casts will be further motivation for studios, networks, and others to be really conscious of the opportunity," CAA President Richard Lovett said.
The LA Times also reports that CAA's revenue from multicultural clients went up by 14% between 2015 and 2016. CAA was also recognized in a USC study for representing the "largest share of female and African American directors." Those directors include "Selma" director Ava Duverany and "Wonder Woman" director Patty Jenkins.Digital measurements of millions of trees indicate that previous studies likely overestimate the amount of carbon stored by temperate U.S. forests, according to a new NASA study.
The findings could help scientists better understand the impact that trees have on the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Although it is a well-established fact that trees absorb carbon and store it long-term, researchers are unsure how much is stored in global forests.
"Estimates of the carbon content of living trees typically rely on a method that is based on cutting down trees," said Laura Duncanson, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It takes a lot of effort to cut down trees, particularly the biggest ones, so this just isn't practical to do in large numbers."
Because of this limitation, field studies aim to strategically sample trees. When looking at U.S. forests, for example, on average about 30 trees of each species would be cut down and measured. Researchers would then use basic mathematical models to scale up those measurements to many thousands, or even millions, of trees, resulting in an estimate of the biomass - the amount of carbon stored - for an entire forest.
In the paper, published on Nov. 24 in Scientific Reports, Duncanson and her co-investigators, Ralph Dubayah and Oliver Rourke, both from the University of Maryland, College Park, found that this widely used method tends to overestimate the height of large trees, leading to biomass figures that are much too high for temperate forests. This overestimation occurs because of a sampling bias: many more young, smaller trees get selected for analysis than older, larger trees. Because the mathematical models that predict tree biomass are mostly based on the smaller trees, the resulting models do not make accurate predictions for the largest trees.
Instead of sampling trees by cutting them down, the new study used lidar, a laser-based technique that can analyze whole swaths of forest from above. The data were provided primarily by Goddard's Lidar, Hyperspectral and Thermal instrument, known as G-LiHT. This portable lidar can be flown on an aircraft to provide fine-scale observations with a resolution of less than 3.3 feet (1 meter) over large areas.
"One of the innovations of this work is our use of lidar remote sensing to measure potentially millions of trees," said Dubayah, a professor of geographical sciences. "This is a dramatically different approach when you consider how few trees are normally used to develop these relationships."
From the lidar data, the researchers extracted digital measurements of the height and crown radius - the average horizontal spread of the limbs - for every tree selected. The team studied six U.S. forests, |
Our family, for example, used to be coal miners at Eglingham. This is a small village found in the North East of England, not that far from the Scottish border.
Aerial view of North of England (Google Earth)
I have marked an overview of the village with a couple of arrows to show where the two tips were that I have walked around (and where my ancestors no doubt worked) on an overall view of the village (using Google Earth) which is at the bottom of the picture. Given the fact that I am going to show you that it was a mining site, it was wryly amusing to see signs in the local parish hall asking for action to protest the location of wind turbines on this "pristine English countryside."
Eglingham (Google Earth)
Right in the center of the picture however, if one zooms in until GE tilts a bit, you can see a third tip quite clearly.
Pit tip at Eglingham (Google Earth)
My aunt (the Teacher) had done some research on where we lived, and this was not down in the current village but up where the top left arrow points, and where all that is left of the houses are circles where the gorse grows, but where rabbit warrens have brought up small pieces of china, and other remnants of the time that folk lived there, only a couple of hundred years ago.
Ruins at Tarry, near Eglingham (55deg 28”55.84” 1deg 49”43.76W)
In those days it was pre-mechanization, and the miners used only a pick and a shovel to break the coal from the solid. It was then put into woven baskets called corves, that were dragged to the surface on a wooden board, either by younger boys, or by women. The board would slide up the tip, and could be dumped before being dragged back underground. The tunnels were driven to the height of the coal, which in the area may have been somewhere around 4 ft 10 inches (with an interbedded layer of stone that ranged from 3 inches to 2 ft thick) or 5 ft 8 inches, (with 3 ft of interbedded stone) not the richest of workings. It was only after some years, and larger mine developments that the baskets went from being carried on folks backs, or on these boards, to being put on flat cars and moved by rail.
Bottom of the shaft, Walbottle Colliery Hair (1844)
Stephenson, who invented the Rocket, the first locomotive as a way of hauling mine chauldrons down to the staithes, began his working career by weaving canes into these corves in a pit yard.
In these small operations, with all the excavation from the initial tunnel into the side of the hill, the coal was mined by individual workers, or families. The miner would work with a candle as a light, and that would be mounted to a wooden post that he would use to hold the roof up.
Undercutting the coal
Laying on his side, he would then take his pick and cut out a slot at the bottom of the coal. This undercut, perhaps 3 ft deep, would be cut along the total face of the coal, before the miner would start to work up. Depending on the size of the tunnel he may also make a vertical cut to create a second free face. (You can see some of these markings in the walls of old stone quarries, and in the mines under Bath in the UK, and the salt mine at Wieliczka in Poland). He would then break out the coal in individual lumps that were several inches in size. (4-6 would be ideal). If he used the joints (called cleat) and the bedding planes of the coal, then this was not too difficult to do, and so he could mine out several chauldron’s worth of coal in a shift. In the measurement of the work he did using a modern measure it would take as little as 4 joules/cc of energy to break out that coal.
Wall at Wielicza, showing the pick patterns used to cut the initial slot to which the rest of the rock would then be broken.
A typical shift would be around 8 hours, but it shrank, so that when I went into the mines it lasted only 7.25 hours. As well as mining the coal, the miner had to hold up the roof, and, if there was a roof fall repair it. But of all his concerns the most prevalent was that of gas. Remember both that he had to breathe, and that coal emits methane, or natural gas, from most seams. The methane will burn, or in the right concentrations in the mine can explode. And when that happens it consumes all the oxygen, so that even if the miners aren’t in an area where the explosion happened then they may still die as the de-oxgenated air circulates underground.
Initially the miners would work only a short distance into the outcrop and though the mining site here was worked at least from the early 1700s, in the south of England miners had already learned to sink shafts and to mine out from them – but I will get to that next time.While Android is, perhaps, the most feature-rich mobile operating system in the market today, it does not, at all, offer the best possible user-experience*. There are plenty, plenty of small things, petty things that eventually add up to an inconsistent, not-so-well-thought-out experience. I could go on forever about the little things that annoy me on a daily basis, but that would be quite tedious, especially when folks like thoomfish over on Reddit have already talked about a few.
I came across a very useful tweak recently. It’s a tweak many Android device owners will appreciate since it solves a problem they probably face on a daily level. Check it out after the jump!
One of the many small things that add up to a not-so-engaging experience on Android is the fact that when you hold the volume down button to silent your phone, this only silences the ringer. This means that only incoming phone calls and notifications are muted, while media volume (the setting which determines the volume of sound coming from apps) remains the same.
This became an annoying issue for me recently. I have this boring class every week in which I try to focus but eventually end up flipping out my phone to watch cats do funny stuff on YouTube. This one time, when my ringer volume was muted, I launched a video and, lo and behold, before I could mute the media volume, the teacher heard the video and, well, don’t ask me what happened next.
Anyway, RealSilent for Android – developed by Daniel Velazco (the same person behind Tinfoil for Facebook) – does what it says: it actually silences your phone when you mute the ringer volume. So next time you silence ringer volume, your media volume will be silenced automatically**!
From Market:
Battery-friendly background app that will automatically mute the media volume on your phone when you change the ringer to silent.
I’ve been using this app all week and have no issues at all with it. It does what it says and solves a rather dire problem. The best part? It’s absolutely free! Download it from the link embedded below:
Download RealSilent [Market Link]
*Let me get this out of the way: I am a platform-agnostic smartphone enthusiast. I like both Android and iOS and I appreciate both their strengths and weaknesses. Currently a happy, satisfied owner of the Samsung Galaxy S II, will own an iPhone next.
**Important: This does not silence your alarm. It didn’t silence our alarm and it shouldn’t silence yours either. Still, be sure to confirm this on your own device, we wouldn’t want you to miss an alarm in the morning on a critical workday. 🙂
Be sure to check out our Android Apps gallery to explore more apps for your Android device.
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Related StoriesIn these long absences I guarantee I’m not just sitting on my ass twiddling my thumbs. I am playing, thinking, and enjoying new strategies to games. Recently, I’ve played five open world titles. Of those, I’ve beaten two, retraced my steps in the third, and am a total noob in the last two.
Applying proper nouns, I’ve beaten both Arkham City and Skyrim, am going back into Far Cry 2, and have no idea what I’m doing in Minecraft and DayZ. What I find fascinating is, despite their shared genre of being sandbox games/mods, they could not be more different in terms of not just scope, but mood, tempo and design theory. I don’t want to spend too much time on either Skyrim or City, since many of you probably already know those games well. Instead, I want to look at Minecraft and DayZ in contrast to the more streamlined open worlds offered by the big names.
Building a life from nothing
Games offer one of the most exquisite escapes from real life in existence beyond some of the most powerful hallucinogens.* Which for me is what makes Minecraft perhaps the greatest example of a life-game that stays both immersive and endlessly fun. When brought down to its most basic, Minecraft is essentially a giant toybox filled with blocks, much like those you may have played with as a kid. There is no goal, no quest, no villain trying to destroy whatever it is you hold dear. There isn’t even a single NPC to talk to. In single player, it’s just you and the world. In a populated server, it’s you, some other people you may or may not know, and the world. The story is yours to make or destroy.
The argument exists that the same is true for Skyrim, or Far Cry. There is no one correct way of doing anything, no singular path to your end, or even a correct way of forging your character. The difference is focus. In Skyrim, you have Alduin. Far Cry has The Jackal. Even if you spend a hundred hours collecting every diamond briefcase, unlocking every safe house, charting every point on the map, The Jackal remains, and your mission is still to kill him.
In Minecraft, you build a house. Then a bigger house. Then a dungeon to fill with monsters. Then a monster farm. Then a giant Golden Wrench that you fully intend to blow up in honor of some charity event. And you still haven’t found those diamonds yet, or a Nether portal, or even enough ore to build a TNT house with to test your graphics and processing limits. There is no built in cap on what you can and cannot do.
For all its complexity, Minecraft knows exactly what it is: a game with funky elements that add spice to the experience. It makes no pretentions of being realistic or catering to any real world design aesthetic. That’s your job. It engenders cooperation and betrayal only as much as it will make someone else laugh and you angry, or vice versa. Neither is necessary for success, and many players never encounter them in their hundreds of hours.
Life is rare; don’t waste yours
Spend any amount of time in the fields of Chernarus, and cooperation is as commonplace as betrayal. More so at some times due to the frequency of the one following the other. But as unforgiving and construction-less as DayZ is, it shares plenty in common with Minecraft. In neither game are you given a goal other than to make some kind of a life for yourself. In neither game are you initially given the tools to make that life, and once found they are hard to maintain, though for different reasons. And in both games failure means death and the complete loss of your accumulated wealth.**
The largest difference, and the main thing that I think makes DayZ so successful is the adherence to the concept of “game.” Minecraft is aesthetically, conceptually, and emotionally opposed to DayZ in almost every way. At few points in the blocky world are you reminded of your imminent and inevitable demise. Creepers, while frustratingly destructive, are not a life-threatening force if you have at least two functioning brain cells.
Zombies in DayZ will murder you. A lot.
They respond to the slightest sound or light source, move erratically and claw at you with great force, and take several precious bullets to take down. Moving across a street can be more dangerous than spending hours in a house, and equally as productive. I mentioned the price of failure meaning death, and by extension the loss of accumulated materiel. In Minecraft, this is again something of an annoyance, especially with the addition of lava. But there is always more of what you lost, and it’s likely easier to find the second time around.
Again, Dayz is quite different. Unarmed, visible, and likely without friends to back you up, survival is uncertain even before you’ve begun to try. Set in the best game for something like a zombie apocalypse, ArmA 2 touts itself as the most realistic shooter on the market. Nowhere are there bright colors, or clear indicators of where you might find the next horde of sweet loot. Sure there are towns with abandoned buildings, but you aren’t promised anything for your efforts. You might be right behind someone who raided the place, and he left you with the last can of Who Hash. Damage can’t be healed by eating anything not nailed down, and you if you can’t run, say goodbye to at least one life and hours of work.
Is DayZ still aware that it’s a game? Of course it is. You can’t easily qualify hunger or thirst without a psychical sensation. It’s somewhat forgiving when it comes to the zombies seeing you, and it rewards you for smart play, barring outside interference. Soda is the drink of choice, and raw meat is good for patching up bullet holes. Despite what little quips I could make, DayZ comes closer to a real zombie apocalypse than anything so far. Like Minecraft, it gives it players free reign to do, say, and kill what they want. The only punishment for legitimate play is dealt by the edge of an ax or the barrel of a another player’s gun.
*Conjecture only. I swear.
** Seems kind of like the stock market, now that I think of it…0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
According to adherents of the Christian religion, the entire bible is the immutable, unquestionable, and infallible word of god regardless it is rife with contradictions that are mysteriously invisible to its devotees. For America’s evangelical followers of Christ, the gospel accounts of the life of Jesus do not exist because his teachings are contrary to their worldview that aligns with the Hebrew Scriptures detailing god’s vengeance, anger, and strict demand of absolute obedience on pain of death. However, there is one particular concept in the so-called Old Testament that pro-life evangelicals refuse to acknowledge because it eliminates their sole reason to control women and dictate when they give birth. Over the past few years there has been a well-organized and frenzied crusade to define a human being as the instant a living sperm punctures and enters a living ovum, and the pro-life movement’s goal is banning abortion as well as most forms of contraception.
According to the Hebrew Scriptures evangelicals claim represent the “mind of god” and the basis for their belief system, the personhood and “life begins at conception” movement are wrong because god says life begins at first breath. The distinction of when a living being comes into existence is central to a criminal case in Mississippi where a 23 year-old woman faces a charge of “depraved heart murder” and life in prison because a discredited medical examiner (MA) determined she murdered the fetus in her womb when she prematurely gave birth seven years ago. According to the medical examiner’s autopsy report, the 16-year-old black teen committed murder because he claims to have found traces of a cocaine byproduct (benzoylecgonine) in the dead fetus’s blood leading him to rule death by homicide caused by “cocaine toxicity.”
According to experts who examined the medical record, the stillborn fetus’s cause of death was “umbilical cord compression” (umbilical cord wrapped around its neck). Experts claim the toxicology results did not support the MA’s finding, and although there were traces of benzoylecgonine, cocaine was “not detected” according to the lab that did the tests. A forensic pathologist in Atlanta associated with Emory University, Kimberly Collins, said in an affidavit: “It is impossible to conclude from the very small amount of benzoylecgonine that the stillbirth was caused by cocaine toxicity” and two other experts concurred with her finding. Putting aside the folly and injustice of charging the then-sixteen year old teen of murder and possible life sentence if convicted, it is the ridiculous idea that a fetus is a human being that could be murdered. The pro-life movement hopes a conviction of the 23-year-old will set a precedent deciding the personhood question once and for all to allow their advocates to charge women across Mississippi with murder in cases of miscarriage and abortion.
This one case covers a wide range of issues that, although not unique to Mississippi, highlight the justice system’s disproportionate treatment of poor people of color, the evangelical push to strike down Roe v. Wade, and the religious right’s effort to establish “personhood” for fetuses to abolish abortion and most forms of contraception. According to PersonhoodUSA, it is a “movement working to respect the God-given right to life by recognizing all human beings as persons who are ‘created in the image of God’ from the beginning of their biological development, without exceptions.” It is apparent that the Personhood movement, like all pro-life activists, either have never read their precious bible, or they dispute god’s utterances and are blasphemers and heretics. According to their Old Testament, god says despite how fully formed, or from the “beginning of their biological development, without exceptions” a collection of living tissue is, it is not a living being until it draws a breath.
For example, in Genesis 2:7 it says that god “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and it was then that the man became a living being” clarifying that although god fully formed the man in all respects, he was not a living being until after taking his first breath. In Job 33:4 Job said, “The spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” In Ezekiel 37:5-6 the prophet wrote, “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live.” According to the bible, destroying a living fetus does not equate to killing a living human being even though a fetus might become a person after it breathes, it is impossible to murder a fetus that has not been born and taken a breath. It means the Mississippi 16-year-old’s stillborn could not be considered a human being according to god’s word and she should have never been charged with murder regardless if the fetus had high concentrations of cocaine, heroin, or opium in its blood.
There are “feticide” or “fetal harm” laws in several states in America that have been responsible for outrageous miscarriages of justice due to pro-life Christian legislators and rabid personhood advocates frantic to abolish Roe v. Wade and restrict contraception use. For example, in Indiana a distraught pregnant woman who attempted suicide spent a year in jail before murder charges were dropped last year. A woman in Iowa was arrested and thrown in jail after she fell down the stairs and suffered a miscarriage, and a New Jersey woman who refused to sign a preauthorization for a cesarean section ended up not requiring the operation, but she was still charged with child endangerment and lost custody of her baby after it became a living being when it emerged from the womb and drew breath.
It is an outrage of epic proportion that a 23-year-old woman is charged with murder and faces life in prison for delivering a stillborn fetus seven years ago, but that is the peril of being Black in uber-religious Mississippi where lawmakers do not know the difference between a collection of living tissue and a human being. However, Mississippi is not unique and there are states across America implementing “personhood” laws under the guise of fetal harm, feticide, fetal pain, and most recently in Ohio a pending “fetal heartbeat” law. It is still confounding that no-one in states like Mississippi, Ohio, or any other state pushing various iterations of fetus or personhood laws opposes them on the grounds they are founded on religion even though the religion’s deity clearly refutes their claim that a fetus is a living person. One would think the least Christian fanatics seeking to ban abortion and contraceptives could achieve was finding even one “utterance from god” that substantiated their claim a fetus is a living human being worthy of rights exceeding those of the woman carrying them, but they have as much knowledge of their god’s word as they do the Constitution they claim affords them dominance over America.
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:Correction: An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, was established in July 2012. SIGAR was created by Congress in 2008 and began its work in 2009.The article has been updated.
In its latest report sharply criticizing U.S. government aid programs, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction charged Thursday that millions of U.S. dollars being spent on public health programs is “at risk of waste, fraud and abuse” and that there is “little assurance” the funds are being used as intended.
The report, made available here by officials of the U.S. Agency for International Development, recommended that no further U.S. funding be provided to Afghanistan’s Public Health Ministry for basic services “until program costs are validated as legitimate.” It called for aid officials to address 55 “deficiencies” found in a previous review of the ministry’s financial practices before spending any more money.
The criticism was focused on a $236 million USAID program called Partnership Contracts for Health, which provides, among other things, immunizations, prenatal exams, hospital equipment and salaries in 13 Afghan provinces. Most of the services are delivered through local nonprofit groups, reaching hundreds of thousands of people who have little means to pay for them.
USAID officials here, in a hastily arranged briefing Thursday for American journalists, strongly rejected the accusations made by the special inspector general, known as SIGAR. They said that no U.S. funds were being provided directly to the ministry and that they had set up a special unit inside the ministry, along with other foreign donors, to monitor all grants and contracts.
“The report provides no evidence that the extensive measures taken by US AID to safeguard taxpayer resources have resulted in high risk of misuse of funds,” William Hammink, the agency’s mission director in Kabul, said in a written response. He said that SIGAR also had found no evidence of waste, fraud or abuse in the health service program and that its recommendations for stronger financial oversight were already being carried out.
“We are very careful before we spend a dollar,” said one USAID official here, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of his agency’s restrictions on public comments. “We do not provide direct assistance to the ministry, and we do have full assurance on how it is used.”
USAID officials here said they objected to the alarmist tone of the SIGAR report, which declared that financial management deficiencies at the ministry had “put millions of taxpayer dollars at risk.” They said they did not know of a single instance in which fraud or abuse had been detected in the health program’s finances.
The “deficiencies” listed by SIGAR, the officials said, were problems they had flagged in their own 2012 review and have since been working to correct. According to the SIGAR report, those problems included some salaries being paid in cash, no double-
entry accounting system, a lack of external audits, poorly prepared internal auditors and inadequate transaction procedures.
The report is the latest in a series of hard-hitting critiques of U.S. aid management and practices issued by SIGAR in recent months. The Afghanistan aid mission is one of the largest in the world, and Congress has appropriated more than $95 billion for Afghan reconstruction since the Islamist Taliban regime was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
SIGAR, which was created by Congress in 2008 and began work in 2009, is headed by John Sopko, an aggressive former federal prosecutor. His investigations have found waste, delays and mismanagement in a variety of programs and facilities.
Recent reports by SIGAR have described aid funds being wasted on conferences and meetings, a program to create “stability” in troubled provinces that spent $47 million in preparations but none on field projects, and a $34 million military facility built for the Marine Corps in southern Afghanistan, though Marine officials said it was not needed and would probably never be used.Ceremony are exhausted. The California quintet are sitting in Sandoony USA, a sparse, humid, and highly chlorinated Russian bathhouse in Brooklyn. Singer Ross Farrar, 30, sniffles and coughs while apologizing for a cold he's battling; drummer Jake Casarotti, 26, sits in sleepy silence. At the moment, the band's taking a substantial break from touring as they put the finishing touches on their fifth LP, The L-Shaped Man—and it's one that is well deserved, as the punk experimentalists performed four sets in just over 16 hours at this year's SXSW. When we first meet post-festival, they're still nursing what they call a "bangover."
"When you play a show and you haven't for a while..." starts bassist Justin Davis, 27, before Farrar interrupts, "My whole body is sore." Headbanging and violent pogoing can take its toll on punks of all ages—but after a full decade in action, Ceremony aren't as young as they were a decade ago, when the band was formed. At 33, guitarist Andy Nelson's the oldest member of Ceremony, as well as the only one who's familiar with bathhouse ethics, so he leads the rest of the band—clad in white bathrobes, ill-fitting bathing suits, and plastic slippers—through the facility. Still, he can only do so much: while in the steam room, guitarist Anthony Anzaldo, 28, is reprimanded by Sandoony staff for wearing a small pair of underwear instead of the required swim trunks.
Nelson eventually corrals the crew to a nearby hot tub, where they recount their recent SXSW trip—which marked the first time that they performed a fair amount of material from The L-Shaped Man. The crowd response to the new stuff was largely positive, if a little different than usual. "If we play a show in the middle of nowhere and no one's singing along or dancing, It's clear they're not into it," Anzaldo says, a straightedge "X" tattoo peeking above his robe. "But our new stuff doesn't lead to that type of crowd reaction."
Each of Ceremony's records has involved a reactionary departure from the sound of the one that preceded it, but none has been as big of a jump as The L-Shaped Man. Nearly five years after Farrar screamed that he was sick of Black Flag / sick of Cro-Mags on the opening track of 2010's Rohnert Park, he's traded in his adenoidal adolescent angst for a throaty baritone. The band around him has similarly scaled back, stripping down their careening rush to anxious single-note guitar lines and thunderous drum rolls. The record represents a radical head-snapping change of pace for Ceremony—one that underlines their Joy Division-referencing band name—but then, as Nelson is quick to affirm, Ceremony's sound has always been in a state of flux: "Exploration and growth are our constants."Of all the suggestions by the three state agencies to change Washington State’s medical marijuana laws after full legalization, the one that concerned me the most was the proposal to eliminate home growing for patients. I consider this change to be both misguided and premature at this time for three main reasons:
1) Guarantee access – It is important that home growing still be allowed to assure legitimate medical marijuana patients will always have access to cannabis. The agencies assume patients will easily be able to buy marijuana at the newly licensed stores but that might not be the case.
While the Attorney General Eric Holder claims the federal Department of Justice will take a mostly hands off approach regarding Washington’s recreational marijuana laws, it is premature to assume everything will work out smoothly. After all the Obama administration previously failed to live up to its past memos regarding states’ marijuana laws. With marijuana still technically illegal under federal law individual district attorneys could still cause significant problems.
2) Making sure patients have the right marijuana – Even if the stores are allowed to function as planned there is no guarantee they will carry the strains that work best for each patient. There are probably thousands of different strains of cannabis and the limited number of new retail stores will only carry a few. Some patients may have spent years searching for just the right strain that works best for them to grow at home. It would be wrong to force these patients to give up their best treatment option.
3) Home growing is unlikely to undermine the legal market – It would seem the main reason for eliminating home growing by patients is due to concerns that it could significantly undermine the legal market and deprive the state of the expected tax revenue. It think there is sufficient evidence to show these worries are misguided. When people are given the option to easily buy marijuana from legitimate stores, that is overwhelmingly what they will choose to do.
For example a 2013 European Commission report found that among European countries the Netherlands has the fewest regular marijuana users growing their own plants at home. “The proportion of intensive users reporting growing their own cannabis as dominant way of obtaining cannabis is lowest in the Netherlands (5%) and England and Wales (9%) and highest in the Czech Republic (21%), Italy (19%) and Sweden (18%).” The country with public marijuana stores has the fewest people going through the hassle of trying to grown their own. Coffee shops are where 87 percent of users in the Netherlands get their marijuana. People want convenience and selection.
Similarly, it is possible to avoid significant taxes on tobacco products in Washington State by growing your own tobacco, but extremely few residents in the state bother. It is a lot of work for relatively little savings and it is tough for individual to produce the same quality as a commercial operation.
I believe it is premature, unnecessary and unfair to eliminate home growing for medical marijuana patients at this time. At the very least any decision on this home grow issue should be put off for a few years until we know that the retail marijuana stores will operate as planned and will provide a sufficiently diverse selection. I would strongly encourage the Washington State Liquor Control Board, the Department of Revenue and the Department of Health consider changing this part of their draft recommendations.
This piece is being sent to the Washington State Medical Marijuana Working Group during their comment period.Prince Chandrasena, an electrician from Sri Lanka, demonstrates his head-and-mouth-operated computer mouse (swissinfo.ch)
Shock-absorbing stilettos, a pepper-spray watch, an anti-wrinkle tuning fork and a personal earthquake detector are all vying for a commercial break in Geneva.
Creators from around the world have gathered at the 37th Geneva inventors' fair this week to show off their wacky – and perhaps useful - prototypes at the world's leading invention exhibition.
Unlike the Pittsburgh Invention and New Product Exhibition (INPEX) in the United States, which was forced to cancel its June show due to the financial crisis, the Geneva fair appears in good shape.
Individual private inventors have compensated a small drop in the number of institutional exhibitors, say the organisers. As in recent years, some 710 exhibitors from 45 countries are in attendance, and 72,000 visitors are expected at the annual event, which runs until Sunday.
"When there is a crisis there are ideas and when there are ideas there are creations. Surprisingly we have exactly the same exhibition floor space as last year, which was a record," Gérard Sermier, chief spokesman of the fair, told swissinfo.
The exhibition is seen as the ideal place for inventors to rub shoulders with manufacturers, distributors and investors. Every year more than 45 per cent of the inventions exhibited are the object of licensing contracts, which in 2008 amounted to $40 million (SFr45.6 million).
To have a reasonable chance of success, it should be possible to manufacture a new invention prototype immediately and have access to a fast distribution network, said Sermier.
Health and safety
Despite its reputation for gizmos and wackiness, this year there are fewer gadgets and more practical inventions on display, with a strong focus on health, safety and the environment, say the organisers.
"This invention has been created for people who have lost both hands and can't operate computers like us," said Prince Chandrasena, an electrician from Sri Lanka, demonstrating his head-and-mouth-operated computer mouse that took two years to develop.
"To move the cursor to the left you move your head a tiny distance to the left, and the same to move it to the right; to click on the left button you blow into the tube and you suck on the tube to click on the right button."
Just down the aisle a Mercedes lorry with a strange-looking crane dominates the area occupied by the Romanian delegation.
"It's an x-ray scanning machine that can scan trucks or containers," explained Emil Mieilica. "It optimises the process of cargo delivery, as you don't have to unload a truck and can verify things quickly by just looking at the pictures."
His company, MBTechnology, has already sold five items to the Romanian customs authorities.
Algerian Mohamed Allal and his invention are likely to shake up the exhibition jury.
He has built a device for the home that detects minor earthquakes and then automatically cuts off the gas and electricity.
"And in the event of a gas leak, the small white box broadcasts a security message and instantly contacts emergency telephone numbers," he explained.
"I'm not at all sure how my invention will be received here," said 80-year-old Eric Stucky, pointing to his personal security lift for the home, designed for getting to those high, out-of-reach places.
"But Suva [the Swiss Accident Insurance Fund] convinced me I was on the right track when they told me that 6,000 people a year fall off ladders in Switzerland."
Running wild
Yet the serious side to developing a new product hasn't stopped people's imagination running wild.
Frenchman Serge Cotaina's 007-style watch contains a disposable mini cartridge that can be filled with pepper spray or medicine.
"Women carry pepper sprays in their handbags, but in 99 per cent of aggressions thieves snatch their bags. And with the watch, even if you are on the floor or up against a wall, the gas will always come out in the right direction – at 12 o'clock," he explained.
Crowds of people were also hypnotised by the "Touche le Mirage" tuning fork, which Spanish beautician and acupuncturist Encarnación Mira used to carry out a "passive gym session" on volunteers' faces to iron out wrinkles.
"It improves circulation, bringing extra oxygen to cells and the skin appears younger just after four 45-minute sessions," she claimed.
The tuning fork, crafted out of a secret alloy and using a semi-precious stone, is a "great success" at her Madrid salon, she said.
Another crowd-puller was Brazilian Milene Pontarollo and her unusual high heels, fitted with tiny shock absorbers to help soothe aching feet.
"They are great for walking, dancing, shopping - even cleaning the house," she said.
swissinfo, Simon Bradley in Geneva
Geneva inventions fair The fair runs from April 1-5. According to organisers, a quarter of the 710 exhibitors are private inventors and researchers while the rest are companies, research institutes and universities.
Attendance at previous fairs suggests that more than half the 70,000 visitors over the five days will be industrialists, distributors and businessmen.
59% of exhibitors come from Europe, 35% from Asia and 6% from other continents. 8% of them are Swiss.
The countries best represented this year after Russia, Iran, Malaysia, Romania, China, France, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Germany, Spain, Croatia, Moldova, Bosnia Herzegovina, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka.
Global turnover from the exhibition is estimated at $40 million (SFr40.5 million). An invention may only be exhibited in Geneva once and must be protected by intellectual property rights. end of infobox
Neuer Inhalt Horizontal Line
SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram SWI swissinfo.ch on InstagramEli Drake won the GFW Title on last week’s Impact Gauntlet for Gold match and it was a thing of beauty. An unsurprising surprise, if there ever was one.
If you caught Eli Drake’s work in 2016, especially late that year, you knew you were watching something special. A natural you could place into 90s WWF, WCW, and ECW and get the exact same invested reaction from the live crowds. The moment those Facts of Life segments started rolling you knew this was no ordinary run-of-the mill heel. It’s the next game changer in the business. Worthy of being called a home-grown GFW/TNA original and more.
Drake’s talent on the mic feels reminiscent of prime WCW Chris Jericho and WWF’s Corporate Rock. A heel so-good at his job you can’t help but cheer. Even now, on the last episode of Impact, Drake shushed the crowd when they were begging to sing-a-long with the now Champ.
Eli Drake’s GFW Title Win: The Perfect Setup
It all started in pristine fashion, Eli Drake, the dodging take-the-easy way out heel comes to visit new authority figure Jim Cornette. Cornette indulges the seemingly ‘innocent’ request from Drake to change his number to something better than #1 at the Gauntlet match… If he agrees to leave him alone for the rest of the night that is! Drake of course agrees, thrilled his plan seemingly was a success.
In classic wrestling comedy, Cornette changes his number to #2. Which he tells Drake ‘is better than #1’ so there should be no problem. Drake is irate and promises retribution for the act. Foreshadowing in the back of the mind |
21 February 2019 (UTC) Keep: even a complete lack of a mention isn't a reason to delete a redirect. It isn't misleading, spam, abusive, highly unlikely, or any of the other standard reasons to get rid. Now that the redirect target mentions it, it is a nailed-on keep. Lithopsian (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
ATTINGAL PARVATHIPURAM GRAMOM - SREE MAHA GANAPATHY TEMPLE [ edit ]
Delete per WP:RCAPS UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:42, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete as unlikely capitalization -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:42, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Cogency [ edit ]
Not mentioned in given target article. Hildeoc (talk) 19:19, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY [ edit ]
Delete per WP:RCAPS, this subject has no affinity with all caps. -- Tavix (talk) 19:07, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
DELETE PER ABOVE AND FOR WP:SHOUTING. Narky Blert (talk) 11:55, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
PER ABOVE AND FOR WP:SHOUTING. Narky Blert (talk) 11:55, 22 February 2019 (UTC) delete per nom -- Lenticel ( talk ) 13:22, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Flow arts [ edit ]
Delete no indication of how this redirect relates to its cross-namespace target. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:32, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
I made the redirect, have been involved in "flow arts" since before 'flow' was a common term. In those days, 'Dexterity Play' was a common term for playing with toys that require or build dexterity, and the articles in the category are articles involving 'toys' and 'props' used for dexterity play AKA flow arts. If we had an article on flow arts, then we would not need a redirect, we would refer to the category in the article. right now it may be nearly impossible to have an NPOV article on flow arts. Try it and see. User:Pedant (talk) 22:50, 2 February 2019 (UTC)
I would have no problem with retargeting to List of skill toys, which is the target for the dexterity play redirect. UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:05, 3 February 2019 (UTC) would be awesome if someone made sure the list has all the toys/props/tools/gear/arts included in the category from which the redirect was made. Otherwise I think this one is solved/done and ready to archive the discussion. Thanks to anyone involved! User:Pedant (talk) 01:30, 3 February 2019 (UTC) That is separate maintenance that is unrelated to the redirect discussion. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete. From my understanding, List of skill toys is not going to be what someone searching "flow arts" expects to find. Properly a red link. --Bsherr (talk) 17:22, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 19:55, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: The above discussion seems worth considering further.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:10, 21 February 2019 (UTC) The above discussion seems worth considering further.
Delete Per nominator; makes no sense. --Geolodus (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete I have to agree with what has already been said here. A loose necktie (talk) 04:15, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Robert de La Salle [ edit ]
Sbalfour (talk · contribs) blanked this redirect saying "no citation can be found to support this - it is not his name". I haven't researched this and I myself have no opinion - this is a procedural nomination. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 20:57, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
This redirect page mixes part of a name and part of a title, of which there are numerous variants. This page name used to be an alternate title of the article itself, and challenged [citation required]. I cannot find a scholarly citation that states his name thus, so I deleted the errant name. Robert La Salle for example, was another person, a prominent resident of New Orleans in the 1800's but not notable enough to have a wiki article. Is that the same name as Robert de La Salle? I'd say it is, and that it's just another wayward misspelling. The page name is not the name of anyone and shouldn't point, well, anywhere. Sbalfour (talk) 21:26, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
Keep, whether it is incorrect or not it is used in various sources (e.g. [13], [14], [15], [16], etc) so it's very likely people will use this search term when looking for the Wikipedia article about him. What matters for redirects is that they are useful search terms, not necessarily correct (see Category:Redirects from incorrect names), correcting misconceptions, etc is the job of the target article. Thryduulf (talk) 13:40, 8 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 19:56, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ Amory (u • t • c) 17:10, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Keep per Thryduulf's identification of sources that use the form. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
per Thryduulf's identification of sources that use the form. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2019 (UTC) Keep per Thyrduulf. It doesn't matter if the name is correct or incorrect, readers could be searching for this name, and the primary objective is to point them to the right place. Any confusion can be cleared up in the article. Narky Blert (talk) 09:40, 24 February 2019 (UTC)
Temporary title left over from move. I have several similar cases. Would it be helpful for me to continue listing these singly, together or not at all; or do they qualify for a speedy G6? Certes (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete as housekeeping. I would G6 pages like this as 'unambiguously created in error'. Narky Blert (talk) 12:01, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
as housekeeping. I would G6 pages like this as 'unambiguously created in error'. Narky Blert (talk) 12:01, 22 February 2019 (UTC) Delete as housekeeping -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:42, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Temporary page left over from round robin move. Certes (talk) 16:02, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete as housekeeping. (The one time I left a page behind like that, I spotted it and embarrassedly WP:G7ed myself.) Narky Blert (talk) 12:02, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
as housekeeping. (The one time I left a page behind like that, I spotted it and embarrassedly WP:G7ed myself.) Narky Blert (talk) 12:02, 22 February 2019 (UTC) delete as housekeeping -- Lenticel ( talk ) 13:24, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Not a helpful search term. Non-musical forms of havoc are available. Certes (talk) 16:00, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete as housekeeping. Narky Blert (talk) 12:03, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Swinging/Archive 1 [ edit ]
Not a search term for target. Talk:Swinging/Archive 1 has significant content and should be kept, but the mainspace redirect can go. Certes (talk) 15:51, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete - as per Certes, not a valid search term. Onel 5969 TT me 16:14, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
- as per Certes, not a valid search term. 16:14, 21 February 2019 (UTC) delete per nom -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:43, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
Czechs/First Archive [ edit ]
Title not relevant to target. No significant history or talk page. Certes (talk) 15:49, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete - not a relevant search target. Onel 5969 TT me 16:36, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
- not a relevant search target. 16:36, 21 February 2019 (UTC) Delete as confusing. Looks like someone wanted to make a talk archive for the page. -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:52, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Closed online games page not covered on Wikipedia Certes (talk) 15:43, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete as confusing at best since we don't cover the game and it no longer active in the first place -- Lenticel ( talk ) 01:51, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Henry VI or Henry VII [ edit ]
Unhelpful "either/or" redirect, where the reader could more easily look up the option they seek. Makes other Henrys harder to find. See also WP:XY. Certes (talk) 15:15, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete per above and as an unrealistic search term (unlike e.g. James VI and I, which is a good article title). Narky Blert (talk) 12:06, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
List of First Ladies and Gentlemen of Brazil [ edit ]
Delete Per WP:XY, and misleading: Brazil has never had a First Gentleman. (no prejudice against re-creating should that change). UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:59, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Keep, this is a {{R from move}} and having this allows procedural linking to articles about various countries without needing to know which have and have not had first ladies and/or gentlemen. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
Glory God and gold [ edit ]
Neither God, gold, glory (in any order) nor the three G's appear in the target article, which may be confusing for someone looking for specific information about either of these phrases. -- Tavix (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
Delete. These redirects might cause confusion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:32, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
. These redirects might cause confusion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 19:32, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Keep unless there are competing uses. It's anecdotally ascribed to various sources that early European seafarers sought new oceanic trade routes to Asia and Africa ("gold") at a time when all of the major overland routes were controlled by Muslims ("god"), and of course for their own achievement ("glory"). I'm having trouble finding a reliable source for this but see this (which might be someone's homework). The search for new routes to Asia led Columbus to crash in the west Indies, which has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. (Perhaps European colonization of the Americas would be a better target) Ivanvector ( Talk / Edits ) 20:36, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
unless there are competing uses. It's anecdotally ascribed to various sources that early European seafarers sought new oceanic trade routes to Asia and Africa ("gold") at a time when all of the major overland routes were controlled by Muslims ("god"), and of course for their own achievement ("glory"). I'm having trouble finding a reliable source for this but see this (which might be someone's homework). The search for new routes to Asia led Columbus to crash in the west Indies, which has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. (Perhaps European colonization of the Americas would be a better target) Ivanvector ( / ) 20:36, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Delete. Confusion not a common description or alternate name OrlandoCityFan (talk) 20:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
. Confusion not a common description or alternate name OrlandoCityFan (talk) 20:38, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Funny, this makes me think of "The Virginia Company" from Pocahontas (n.b., the phrase isn't used at Virginia Company or London Company). I understand the current targeting, though also how they could be confusing for readers. Glory, God and Gold is apparently a book by Paul Wellman, though that seems like it would be a huge WP:SURPRISE. --BDD (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
(n.b., the phrase isn't used at Virginia Company or London Company). I understand the current targeting, though also how they could be confusing for readers. is apparently a book by Paul Wellman, though that seems like it would be a huge WP:SURPRISE. --BDD (talk) 22:30, 4 February 2019 (UTC) Keep, (at least for those that are spelled out); a Google Books search brings up multiple relevant results: [17][18][19][20]. It seems a common enough phrase summing up the motivations for imperialism. Huon (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 19:57, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
Retarget to Age of Exploration. Most searches point to a nClay Daniel Buchholz (born August 14, 1984) is an American professional baseball pitcher who is a free agent. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks. Buchholz made his MLB debut with the Red Sox in 2007. In his second major league start, he pitched a no-hitter, becoming the third MLB pitcher since 1900 to throw a no-hitter in his first or second start and the first Red Sox rookie to throw one.[1] He is a two-time MLB All-Star.
High school [ edit ]
Raised in Lumberton, Texas, Buchholz played baseball for the local youth baseball leagues, and then for the Lumberton High School Raiders.[2]
College career [ edit ]
Buchholz began his college career in 2004 at McNeese State University.[3][4] He was subsequently dismissed from the McNeese baseball team after stealing 29 laptop computers from a middle school and selling them on the McNeese State University campus.[5]
Buchholz then transferred to Angelina College. In 2005, while competing for the Roadrunners, Buchholz appeared in 15 games, winning 12 and losing 1.[6] His 1.05 ERA, seven complete games, and 129 strikeouts all stand as team records (through the 2010 season). He was also named an All-American in 2005.[7]
Winning % CG ERA Innings Pitched Hits Runs Earned Runs BB Strikeouts 92.3% 7 1.05 85.2 44 19 10 29 129
Professional career [ edit ]
Minor leagues [ edit ]
Buchholz was drafted by the Red Sox in the supplemental first round of the 2005 draft. The Red Sox obtained their supplemental pick, the 42nd overall, as compensation for losing free agent Pedro Martínez to the New York Mets.[6]
Buchholz pitched 41 1⁄ 3 innings for the Lowell Spinners of the New York–Penn League, compiling a record of 0–1 with 45 strikeouts in 15 starts. He then pitched for the Wilmington Blue Rocks (Class-A Advanced) and the Greenville Drive (Class-A). Between the two teams, Buchholz struck out 140 and walked 33 in 119 innings while going 11–4.
Buchholz started his first spring training game in 2007 against the Tampa Bay Rays. He pitched 4 2⁄ 3 innings, gave up seven hits and three runs, and recorded three strikeouts. While competing for the Portland Sea Dogs in 2007, Buchholz played in fifteen games, winning seven and losing two. His success led to his selection for the All-Star Futures Game at AT&T Park.
Buchholz was promoted to the Pawtucket Red Sox, the Triple-A affiliate of the Red Sox, on July 8, 2007. He finished the Triple-A season with a 1–3 record while recording 55 strikeouts, 13 walks, and a 3.96 era over eight starts in 38 2⁄ 3 Triple-A innings.
Boston Red Sox (2007–16) [ edit ]
2007 season [ edit ]
Buchholz made his Major League debut with the Boston Red Sox against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on August 17, 2007 at Fenway Park. The Sox won the game 8–4 and he picked up the win, going six innings and giving up four runs (three earned). After the game, however, Buchholz was optioned to the Sox' Triple-A team in Pawtucket. "I got my feet wet", he said to a reporter. "I hope I can come back in September and help out."[8] Before Buchholz' first major league start, Red Sox manager Terry Francona said: "This kid can come up and pitch a no-hitter, and he's going to go back down... If he throws a no-hitter I may send him back with a present. But he's going back."[9]
In only his second career major league start on September 1, 2007, he became the first Boston Red Sox rookie to throw a no-hitter when he blanked the Baltimore Orioles 10–0. He threw 115 pitches, struck out nine, walked three, and hit Nick Markakis.[10] After the game, Buchholz told the media, "It's amazing. That's all I can say... I'm in a blur right now." According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Buchholz became the third pitcher since 1900 to pitch a no-hitter in his first or second major league start. Bobo Holloman did it in his first start on May 6, 1953, for the St. Louis Browns at home against the Philadelphia Athletics, and Wilson Álvarez did it in his second start on August 11, 1991, for the Chicago White Sox at Baltimore.[10]
Buchholz became the 11th Red Sox pitcher to throw a no-hitter in Fenway Park history, and the 17th[11] in Red Sox history.
Following the game, general manager Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona each independently confirmed that they had spoken by phone to each other in the seventh and eighth innings concerning Buchholz' pitch count. He had not thrown more than 98 pitches in a game all year, and was threatening to significantly exceed that total if he finished the game. Epstein reported that in no way would Buchholz have been allowed to face a batter after reaching 120 pitches, expressing concern about excessive pitches potentially damaging such a young and inexperienced arm. Buchholz finished the game with 115 pitches, allowing Francona to escape what would have been an unpleasant decision to remove a pitcher from the game in which he was throwing a no-hitter.[12]
Buchholz' no-hitter was the third of a record-setting four caught by Jason Varitek. The first two were for Hideo Nomo and Derek Lowe (in which the final score was also 10–0); the fourth was Jon Lester's on May 19, 2008, against the Kansas City Royals, which was also the first no-hitter in major league play after Buchholz'.
Shut down [ edit ]
Buchholz pitched in two more games after the no-hitter, earning a win while pitching three innings of relief at Baltimore on September 6,[13] and taking a loss after a start of 4 2⁄ 3 innings at Toronto on September 19.[14]
When Buchholz experienced shoulder fatigue, Red Sox management made a decision to shut him down for 2007. Buchholz was left off the postseason roster as the Red Sox eventually won the 2007 World Series in a four-game sweep over the Colorado Rockies.[15] In spite of this, he was awarded a World Series ring by the Red Sox.[16]
2008 season [ edit ]
Buchholz pitching for the Portland Sea Dogs, Double-A affiliates of the Boston Red Sox on August 25, 2008.
Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell stated that Buchholz would most likely be in line for 180–190 innings in the 2008 season.[17] On May 15, Buchholz was placed on the 15-day disabled list as the result of a torn fingernail.[18] He was optioned to Triple-A Pawtucket following the injury, and remained there for several weeks to work on his fastball. On July 11, he was recalled to Boston and was part of their regular pitching rotation, though he did not record a single win after his return. On August 20, as the Red Sox were trying to sweep the Orioles, the team that Buchholz had no-hit the preceding year, he gave up a 4–0 lead by allowing three runs in the second inning and two more in the third. He was removed after only pitching 2 1⁄ 3 innings. In his previous start, he had only lasted three innings. In 2008, the Red Sox were 3–12 in Buchholz' fifteen starts. After the game, Buchholz was demoted to Double-A Portland. Buchholz stated "I've never had a streak like this", and "I've never been one to say the pressure was too much for me, but I've felt like I've had a lot of weight on my shoulders just trying to be perfect and trying to do everything as well as I could to help this team win".[19] Following the 2008 season, Buchholz pitched in the Arizona Fall League.
2009 season [ edit ]
Following spring training, Buchholz was optioned to Triple-A Pawtucket.[20]
In his eighth start at Pawtucket in 2009, Buchholz took a perfect game into the ninth inning against the Louisville Bats, but it was denied after a leadoff single; ultimately, he pitched a one-hit shutout.[21]
After a July 12 win before the All-Star break, Red Sox manager Terry Francona announced that Buchholz would be activated to pitch against the Toronto Blue Jays on July 17, in order to give more time off to the starters who were in the All-Star game.[22] Buchholz went on to win the game, pitching five and two thirds innings, allowing four hits with one run, while walking three and striking out three. It was his first major league win since May 2, 2008.
The Red Sox pitching staff floundered in the second half of the year. Tim Wakefield, Josh Beckett and Lester were the only dependable starters in the first half (John Smoltz, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Brad Penny all had losing records). While Lester remained effective in the second half, Beckett began to struggle, and when All-Star Tim Wakefield was placed on the disabled list, Buchholz replaced him in the rotation. Buchholz' pitching down the stretch played a large role in helping the Red Sox make it into the playoffs (along with a strong return from Matsuzaka). He finished the season 7–4 with a 4.21 ERA and 68 strikeouts in 16 starts.
2010 season [ edit ]
Buchholz delivered a strong first half of the 2010 season. On the strength of his 10–4 record, and a 2.45 ERA, he was selected to the American League All-Star Team. In the month of June, Buchholz went 3–1 with a 1.84 ERA, including a five-hit shutout at Baltimore on June 4[23] — his first shutout since his 2007 no-hitter, which, coincidentally, was also against Baltimore. On the road in the season's first half, he went 5–1 with a 1.70 ERA. Though earning a spot on the roster, Buchholz was not called upon to pitch in the All-Star Game; he pulled a hamstring June 26 during an interleague game against the San Francisco Giants and was placed on the disabled list.
He made his first start after his stint on the DL on July 21 against Gio González of the Oakland Athletics, pitching four innings, giving up five earned runs, with two strikeouts and three walks in a 6–4 loss. Buchholz returned to his pre-injury form after the start in Oakland by going 4–0 in August with a 1.03 ERA and winning the AL pitcher of the month award. Buchholz finished the season with a 17–7 record and 2.33 ERA, thereby finishing second in ERA to Félix Hernández.[24] Buchholz finished sixth in the voting for the American League Cy Young Award, also won by Hernandez.[25]
2011 season [ edit ]
Buchholz began the season as the number three starter in the Red Sox rotation. On April 10, Buchholz signed a 4-year contract extension, worth nearly $30 million.[26] On June 16, he went on the disabled list unexpectedly and in August it was reported that he had a stress fracture in his back. He then missed the rest of the season.[27] In 2011, Buchholz made 14 starts going 6-3 with a 3.48 ERA.
2012 season [ edit ]
Buchholz started the 2012 season 8-2, winning four consecutive decisions. However, he was placed on the 15-day disabled list after he was hospitalized with a "gastrointestinal situation", stated then-manager Bobby Valentine. On August 16, Buchholz pitched an immaculate inning against the Baltimore Orioles in the sixth inning. He went on to win the game 6-3 in eight innings of work.[28] On June 26, he was diagnosed with esophagitis, an inflammation that damages tissues of the esophagus. For the 2012 year, Buchholz made 29 starts with an 11-8 record and a 4.56 ERA.
2013 season [ edit ]
On April 14, Buchholz took a no-hitter into the top of the eighth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays before allowing a hit. Buchholz went on to finish the month of April with a 5-0 record, followed by picking up his sixth win in his first start of May. This made his ERA in those six starts 1.01, to go with a win in every appearance. In April he was named Pitcher of the Month along with Matt Harvey. Buchholz had a 9-0 record until being placed on the disabled list on June 18 due to a neck strain that had been bothering him since June 9,[29] causing him to be out until September 10. Buchholz won 3 of his 4 starts after returning from injury, finishing the regular season with a record of 12-1. In the postseason, Buchholz made 4 starts despite re-aggravating his shoulder injury and won the World Series for the second time of his career when the Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in six games.[30]
Clay Buchholz warming up before Game 2 of the 2013 ALCS.
2014 season [ edit ]
Buchholz struggled to start the 2014 season, posting a 7.02 ERA through two months. He finished the year with an 8-11 record and a 5.34 ERA. He was the only pitcher on the Red Sox Opening Day rotation not to be traded.
2015 season [ edit ]
Buchholz made his first Opening Day start for the Red Sox on April 6 against the Philadelphia Phillies.[31] He ended the season with a 7-7 record in 18 starts, compiling an ERA of 3.26 and a WHIP of 1.21 with 107 strikeouts.[32] Once again, his season was cut short by injury.
2016 season [ edit ]
Buchholz made his first start on April 6 against the Cleveland Indians, receiving a no decision after giving up 5 runs in 4 innings.[33] After a loss on May 26 against the Colorado Rockies, with a record of 2–5 and an ERA of 6.35,[32] the Red Sox announced that he would be moved to the bullpen.[34] After three scoreless relief appearances, he was moved back into the rotation.[32] On July 2, Buchholz gave up 6 runs (3 of them earned) in 4⅓ innings against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a game the Red Sox would go on to lose 21–2. With that loss, his record was 3–9 for the season, and two days later the Red Sox announced that he would again be moved to the bullpen.[35] He next pitched on July 21, and made a total of eight relief appearances before returning to the rotation for three starts in August.[32] He then returned to the bullpen for three more relief appearances, then returned to the rotation in September for five starts.[32] In his final eight starts of the year, he had a record of 4–0 plus four no decisions. For the season, Buchholz made a total of 37 appearances, including 21 starts, with an ERA of 4.78 in 139⅓ innings pitched, and a won-loss record of 8–10.[32] He tied for the major league lead in grand slams allowed, with three.[36]
Philadelphia Phillies [ edit ]
On December 20, 2016, Buchholz was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for minor league second baseman Josh Tobias.[37]
2017 season [ edit ]
Buchholz made his debut with the Phillies on April 6, giving up four runs in five innings and getting a no decision against the Cincinnati Reds, followed by 2 1⁄ 3 innings against the New York Mets on April 11, when he gave up six runs and took the loss.[38] On April 12, it was announced that Buchholz had a partial tear in the flexor-pronator mass of his right arm.[39] On April 18, Buchholz underwent surgery on his right forearm to repair the flexor tendon, expected to require four to six months of recovery.[40]
Kansas City Royals [ edit ]
In March 2018, Buchholz signed a minor league deal with the Kansas City Royals; he was released on May 1.[41]
Arizona Diamondbacks [ edit ]
In early May 2018, after opting-out of his minor league deal with the Royals, Buchholz signed a minor league deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks.[42]
2018 season [ edit ]
Two weeks after signing with the Diamondbacks, manager Torey Lovullo announced that Buchholz would start on May 20, against the New York Mets.[43] Buchholz went on to pitch well against the Mets in his first start since April 2017, pitching five innings of one run ball, striking out two and walking one, while ultimately receiving a no decision.[44] On August 16, he pitched a complete-game against the San Diego Padres, yielding only a solo home run to Hunter Renfroe. Buchholz finished the season 7-2 in 16 starts. He posted an ERA of 2.01 in 98 1⁄ 3 innings.
Scouting report [ edit ]
Buchholz throws a four-seam fastball (90–94 mph) topping out at 96 and has reached 99 in the past, a two-seam fastball (89–93), a cutter (87–91), a curveball (75–79), and a straight changeup (78–81). Since 2010, he has not thrown a slider (78–81). In 2012, he threw a handful of splitters to left-handed hitters, but the pitch was thrown just 2% of the time the whole season.[45] His most commonly thrown pitch when ahead in the count is his 11–5 curveball. His repertoire does not vary greatly between left-handers and right-handers. Buchholz has never compiled large strikeout totals, but his changeup does have a high whiff rate of 45%.[46]
Awards and honors [ edit ]
Carolina League Pitcher of the Week (August 21–27, 2006)
Red Sox Minor League Pitcher of the Month (August 2006)
2006 Red Sox Minor League Pitcher of the Year
Red Sox Minor League Pitcher of the Month (May 2007)
2007 Futures Game All-Star
2007 Eastern League All-Star
Eastern League Pitcher of the Week (June 25 – July 1, 2007)
Pitched a no-hitter (September 1, 2007)
2007 American League Player of the Week
MLB.com TYIB Single Game Performance of the Year (December 13, 2007)
2× MLB All-Star (2010, 2013)
American League Pitcher of the Month (August 2010)
2013 World Series champion
Charity work [ edit ]
Buchholz has regularly supported the Jimmy Fund charity while a Red Sox. In November 2006, when he was Red Sox minor-league pitcher of the year, Buchholz was announced as a member of the New Stars for Young Stars team. In 2010, he was named Jimmy Fund Co-captain with Tim Wakefield. He signed on for the same role in 2011. He and Wakefield are the 2011 Spokesplayers for the Rally Against Cancer. [47]
In March 2011, he partnered with Charity Wines to release his own wine label under the Longball Cellars brand. Proceeds from sales of his ChardonClay Chardonnay support the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber. He partnered with former teammate Jon Lester, who also released a Charity Wine, called CabernAce, to raise money for the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.[48]
Personal life [ edit ]
On November 14, 2009, he married Lindsay Clubine, a model on the TV show Deal or No Deal who was featured in People magazine's "100 Most Beautiful People."[49] They have three children together, daughters Colbi Dawn and Landri Grace,[50] and son Jax Daniel.[51] Clay was introduced to Lindsay by future President Donald Trump at an event Trump hosted after a UFC fight in Anaheim, CA in 2008.[52] Their wedding was held at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA; Trump did not attend but "footed a significant bulk of the tab."[52]
He is related to pitcher Taylor Buchholz.[53]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]The so-called “gender pay gap” suggests that women are paid 78 cents for every dollar earned by men doing the same work. The broad, average incomes of men and women are compared without factoring in variables like job choice and hours worked total. Still, women are painted as victims of “the patriarchy” for no other reason than having a uterus.
But this is false. Women are not discriminated against when it comes to pay—not even a little bit.
This truth flies in the face of identity politics espoused by the left on a consistent basis, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton giving new life to the fallacy continually, as she proudly “plays the woman card” this election cycle. Even Republicans are now apparently taking-up the false talking point: Ivanka Trump spoke about the so-called “gender pay gap” while addressing the Republican National Convention crowd. Disturbingly, she was met with wild applause from attendees.
Here are seven facts that directly dispute that women are victims of pay discrimination:
1. Women choose career paths which make less money.
As The Washington Post notes, a Georgetown University survey concerning the “economic value of different college majors,” revealed that women dominated nine out of the 10 least lucrative majors:
1. Counseling Psychology: 74% female
2. Early Childhood Education: 97% female
3. Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% female
4. Human Services and Community Organization: 81% female
5. Social Work: 88% female
6. Drama and Theater Arts: 60% female
7. Studio Arts: 66% female
8. Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female
9. Visual and Performing Arts: 77% female
10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female
On the flip side, men make up |
Just south of our small effigies the tunnel in M15-01228 resurfaces and runs topside for some distance before submerging beneath the surface once more. The handsomely processed gif file below comes to us courtesy of Keith Laney. The glass tunnels translucent quality and distinctive "riblike supports" are a stark contrast to the surrounding terrain.
Crop of M15-01228
Image credit: Keith Laney - 2000
This shape from shading (SFS) of the area serves to verify the three dimensional aspects of the glass tunnel phenomenon. Created from algorithms that compare relative levels of albedo (light vs. dark) this 3-D rendering shows our section of tunnel to be a raised structure that runs just above the surface of the channel prior to submerging below the ground. This would seem to support our contention of surface structures that have slumped or been covered with debris over long periods of time resulting in their eventual inundation. If as JPL purports, these are simple dune trains formed in channels they would not stand up above the surrounding terrain so dramatically.
Shape from Shading for crop of M15-01228
SFS courtesy of Chris Joseph - 2000
"Now it will be noticed that these shapes are as unnatural as they are definite, and that they all agree in one peculiarity: they are all convex, not concave, to the entering canals. They are not, therefore, mere enlargements of the canals, due to natural causes; for, were the spots enlargements of the canals, at their crossing-points they should be more or less star-shaped, or concave to the canals, whereas they are round, or roundish rectangles,--that is, convex to the same. Such convexity negatives, at the outset, their being purely natural outgrowths of the canals."
-Percival Lowell
Further investigation has revealed that MOC image M0702589 has another of the immense geodesic "dome" type structures which we catalogued two of in MOC image strip M15-01228 and discussed in the article "Is this an Artificial Construct on Mars?". For all intents and purposes these objects are identical in size and surface characteristics with their characteristic "golfball" like surface texture. The glass tunnels anomalies appear to connect directly our "domes" in MOC image strips. Again it becomes apparent that we are seeing a particular "class" of similar objects upon the surface of the angry red planet. The high incidence of such unusual crater morphologies directly adjacent to our "glass tunnels" must surely imply some type of systemic relationship exists between these fascinating structures seen standing watch on each other and the surface of Mars. Shown below is a comparison of these three "domes" which are so similar in design or nature. They are approximately twice the size of the dome at Epcot Center in Florida.
Comparison of crater domes
Image courtesy of Chris Joseph and Eric C. Lausch
©2003 Dangerzone Productions
What possible explanation suffices for these domes so intimately associated with the Martian tunnel system and the Acidalia Planitia region? The gamut runs from possible intelligently designed arcologies and water reclamation plants to lava domes or possible alien plant life. Whatever the explanation, one cannot deny the high incidence of such anomalies adjacent the Martian tunnel system. As our glass tunnel anomalies appear to run directly to these immense domed structures, they look hauntingly familiar when compared with Lowell's plates detailing Martian canal system.
My guess is our old friend Lowell would have been connecting the dots in regards to all this revolutionary data available today about Mars. Or more likely, perhaps that's precisely what he did during the 1894 opposition. Perhaps Lowell and others saw a sort of planetary autumn on Mars back then while we now study the Martian winter with our orbiting probes a century later. What marvels might the Martian springtime reveal?
The "canali" or glass tunnel anomalies can be found in over two dozen MOC images thus far and we've mapped barely three percent of the Martian surface since 1997 when MGS commenced it's primary mission. An interesting fact is that MSSS has taken an inordinately high numbers of images in and around the Cydonia Mensae and Acidalia Planitia region. This is partly because of public interest generated by the Face as well as the the FACETS litigation which force the re-imaging of the the Face at Cydonia. However, it seems almost as if there is some clandestine interest at MSSS in this geographic vicinity as the number of images for this region is quite high.
Image courtesy Danger Team Image Labs
©2004 Dangerzone Productions
The fact that these anomalous structures are found geographically adjacent to the Face and city proper is in itself an added dimension to this mystery. McDaniels "Coathanger" anomaly which in profile resembles a dolphin has a series of parallel striations running along it's length. Large scale effigies, as well, appear to be closely associated with this phenomenon. Statistically, we'd bet that we'll see a lot more of these things as we image the areas between 28 and 40 degrees north latitude, especially the area west of the Cydonia Mensae region. After all, Lowell saw them there. And elsewhere, I'd wager, at say, 300 to 1 odds.
Image courtesy Danger Team Image Labs
©2003 Dangerzone Productions
MOC Image E2100136 reveals one of our tunnels opening up directly into a basin. Rather than becoming preoccupied with the size of the tunnel mouth ( it's around 60m-70 m) I ask you to direct your gaze just south to the two large bulbous "things" perched atop the crag directly adjacent to the canal entrance. These "eggs" have a distinctly "biological" quality about them.
Again we ask, "Just what the heck is that?" Looking for all of Mars like some Martian Mega-puffball just waiting for the right impetus to release it's spores and initiate Schiaparelli's process of "Gemination". These artifacts stand over a hundred meters high from the scarp of the crag. One wonders what possible type of sand dune these may turn out to be. Lowell's intimation that the canals deliver water to oases to sustain life seems quite plausible when considered in this light. Like the "Dalmatian spots and the south polar "trees", most likely this is indicative of some type of life form. The possibilities range from enormous Martian puffballs to giant alien mega-spider sacs. Or mayhaps it's naught but an egg shaped sand dune.
Image Courtesy of Eric C. Lausch
©2003 Dangerzone Productions
Near the very bottom of strip E2100136 we find a small basin containing intricate internal details. To the casual observer one sees a crater with what appears to be a series of gently curving ramps or walls arcing down from the rim.
An individual of Percival Lowell's disposition would have little trouble explaining this image. "A waterfall exits at twelve o'clock beneath the rim crashing down into the breakwater one can see arcing in from the one o'clock position. After hitting the breakwater, the churning flood backwashes through the opening to the left, filling the large standing pool before cascading through the narrow openings between the ramparts down to a second, lower pool at the two o'clock position. From the lower pool the precious liquid is returned to the underworld via the dark opening at the basins edge. A second spillway can be seen entering just above three o'clock followed by a series of smaller sluices".
Image Courtesy of Eric C. Lausch
©2003 Dangerzone Productions
That makes for a pretty picture. Very soon we'll have definitive answers on the presence of liquid surface water on Mars and beneath it. Time and continued research will tell the tale. The large, gently moving pool of water would provide an excellent location for contaminants and particulates churned up by the waterfall action to settle to the bottom, providing fodder for whatever Martian bacteriological denizens that might frequent this spot. Not unlike the filtration pools once sees at a typical urban water treatment plant. Lowell would chalk this up as yet another tertiary appendage of the much larger infrastructure for Martian water management.
At the northern border of Acidalia MOC M1500835 sports what to date appears to be the largest relatively intact section of Lowell's tunnels. The image is terribly underexposed having been targeted with a combination of gain and offset mode parameters that render it practically unviewable. The section of tunnel imaged is over 600 meters wide. The crop is approximately 3.2 kim wide. Two large surface structures can be seen near the junction of the two forks. The distinctive banding of the ribs appears fractured and disjointed, possibly indicating a state of partial collapse of the tunnel canopy.
Bright ribs in northern Acidalia
©2004 Dangerzone Productions
Image strip after image strip we see myriad examples of an interconnected system of underground conduits which are directly tied to large surface structures, domes, effigies or intaglios and a plethora of unusual craters or basins which show possible openings from which gain access to the tunnel system. Closer examination of these basins seems to indicate some type of structures inside many of them. Nearing the limits of our resolution capabilities, these areas may hold some surprises for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2005. The very name, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter seems to imply gathering intelligence, as in surveillance of a foreign power. If indeed there really are such edifices on Mars as these images seem to imply, real proof of intelligent design should begin to appear as the MRO's superior imaging capabilities allow for closer inspection of fine details (provided we can get NASA to target them in the first place). This would provide for analysis of items in the range of the surface structures apparent in M1500835.
Image Courtesy of Eric C. Lausch
©2004 Dangerzone Productions
Currently, the prudent action to take is to continue to examine and document imagery of such curious nature with hopes of petitioning NASA and the ESA into analyzing these areas in greater detail using it's their newly acquired radar, spectroscopic and color imaging capabilities.
Until that happens, a picture's worth a thousand words. In our next section we will examine MOC strip from E0101630, an astounding image which exemplifies the artificial nature of this alien infrastructure that Lowell envisioned so long ago when planetary science was in its infancy.
Lowell's Legacy- Part 7Search Gallery Star Wars 80's High School Re-Design Star Wars 80s High School - Biker Boba Fett DenisM79 408 Star Wars 80s High School - sample page 2014 DenisM79 133 Star Wars 80s High School - Coach Yoda DenisM79 229 Advertisement Advertisement Star Wars 80s High School - Leia Dance DenisM79 294 Star Wars 80s High School - Luke Rebels Team DenisM79 189 Vader Wants YOU DenisM79 278 STAR WARS 80s High School - Breakfast Wars DenisM79 762 MAY THE 4th - Star Wars 80's High School DenisM79 610 STAR WARS 80's High School - Luke at Canitna DenisM79 535 STAR WARS 80's High School - Han approaches Leia DenisM79 1,077 STAR WARS 80's High School - Vader and Luke DenisM79 1,120 STAR WARS 80's High School - Boba imprisons Han DenisM79 888 STAR WARS 80s High School - Vader, Leia and Troops DenisM79 1,311 STAR WARS 80s High School - Han meet Lando DenisM79 914 STAR WARS 80's High School - Prof Yoda train Luke DenisM79 955 STAR WARS 80's High School - MillenumFalcon DenisM79 648 STAR WARS 80's High School - Prof Kenobi save Luke DenisM79 901 STAR WARS 80's High School - Let Chewbie Win DenisM79 745 STAR WARS 80's High School - Ackbar+Ninb+Lobot DenisM79 429 STAR WARS 80's High School - Vader the Bullit DenisM79 816 STAR WARS 80s High School - Luke Binary Sunset DenisM79 770 STAR WARS 80s High School - Han Shot First DenisM79 983 STAR WARS 80s High School - Leia message DenisM79 882 STAR WARS 80s High School Re-Design - Gallery DenisM79 1,869It's not news that reruns of Friends aren't what cable TV really wants you to be watching. Networks make money by showing ads, and for years those networks have been looking for ways to pack in more and more quick spots to get you to buy Charmin, Tide, and Viagra. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that many networks are desperately trying to increase the number of commercials you watch per hour, sometimes resorting to subtly speeding up older shows and reruns in an effort to recapture the revenue from tanking ratings.
The Journal notes that TBS used compression technology to speed up the Wizard of Oz during its airing last November, causing pop-culture writer Stephen Cox to notice that the munchkins' voices were pitched higher than normal. TBS, TNT, and TV Land have also sped up shows including Seinfeld and Friends.
Speeding up shows isn't the only way networks are trying to fit in ad time. On TNT, reruns of Law and Order have truncated opening credits—once a minute and 45 seconds long, the introduction is now just 24 seconds. “It feels wrong,” Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman told the Journal about the show's “squashed” opening and closing credits. “It is not how it was shot, written, or imagined. It wasn’t meant to be that way, so don’t make it that way."
In 2014, A&E averaged three more minutes of commercial time per hour than it did in 2013. The History Channel averaged two more minutes year-over-year. The changes come as cable TV is struggling to maintain viewership and fighting for valuable advertising dollars. Still, packing more commercials in per hour may be self-serving to the detriment of networks' relationships with both viewers and advertisers. Commercial clutter not only makes it more difficult for advertisers to get their message across to viewers, it also turns viewers away from the cable TV experience.
“It is a way to keep the revenue from going down as much as the ratings,” a top executive at one major cable programmer told the Journal. “The only way we can do it is to double down and stretch the unit load a little more.”
Cable networks have some tough competition ahead. A glut of commercials has turned viewers increasingly to Internet-based subscription services like Netflix, Hulu, and now Amazon. Netflix and Amazon have also made splashes in developing original content, with Amazon also announcing that it would produce 12 feature films for theatrical release. Even traditional cable networks have turned to delivering “over the top” subscriptions, allowing users to forgo paying for a traditional cable package and just buy standalone content via an Internet connection.
HBO is the most anticipated of those endeavors—it plans to launch its standalone streaming service in March of this year. Earlier this year, Dish also announced Sling TV, a streaming service for $20 a month that comes complete with over a dozen network channels. Sling TV, however, still delivers those hated commercials, and there's no way to fast-forward through them, DVR-style. Undoubtedly, cable TV providers will continue exploring every avenue to ensure that viewers are watching as many ads as possible.Shock filled faces at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where many of the 21 injured were taken.
KARACHI: The people who have been known as the most peaceful in Karachi faced the worst form of terror on Tuesday.
“Nothing like this has happened in 45 years since we moved here,” said a Dawoodi Bohra man, whose relative was one of the eight people fatally injured in a bomb blast outside Burhani compound in Hyderi. “I don’t understand why this has occurred. We are a peaceful community.”
Twenty-one people were injured in the explosion and many of them were taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where chaos unfolded.
Of the eight people killed in the attack, including a woman and a 12-year-old girl, at least five belong to the community. “An innocent community has been targeted,” health minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed told journalists outside the emergency ward of the hospital. “This goes to show how the city’s security has been compromised.”
The twin explosions occurred outside the compound, where many members of the community manage their shops, including boutiques and eateries. The police have found a large quantity of explosives at another market in Hyderi, where Burhani compound is located.
A sea of people thronged the hospital. Relatives frantically searched for the injured as a large crowd of spectators kept pouring into the emergency ward, trying to get a glimpse of the action. At the other end of the hospital, the mortuary had only two bodies.
Doctors, who have treated many bomb blast victims in the past, were not sure what kinds of explosives were used in the latest attack. “The bodies seem to have shrapnel wounds,” said Dr Yousuf Baig, who had carried out a preliminary check of the bodies. “I didn’t find any ball bearings but it seems as if something sharp pierced the victims.” He added that the wounds could have been caused by objects which had exploded into pieces after the bombs went off. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan typically uses explosives with ball bearings in its attacks.
Azhar Hussain, who had lost his 18-year-old cousin Sajid Mehmood, was too shocked to even cry. Mehmood ran an ice-cream vending machine outside the compound. “What do I do now?” Hussain asked. He had been asked to get a death certificate first. “I have to take my cousin’s body back to his family in Rahim Yar Khan. But how will we open the coffin and let his mother and sister see his face?”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 19th, 2012.
Read full storyHello, SUMO Nation!
Change is a constant, and Mozilla is no different. Bigger and smaller changes are coming up across many a project, including SUMO – and we need your help figuring out what they should be like. Learn more about the ways you can make us be better below!
If you just joined us, don’t hesitate – come over and say “hi” in the forums!
LATEST ONE: 28th of September- you can read the notes here and see the video at AirMozilla.
28th of September- you can read the notes here and see the video at AirMozilla. NEXT ONE: happening on the 5th of October!
If you want to add a discussion topic to the upcoming meeting agenda: Start a thread in the Community Forums, so that everyone in the community can see what will be discussed and voice their opinion here before Wednesday (this will make it easier to have an efficient meeting). Please do so as soon as you can before the meeting, so that people have time to read, think, and reply (and also add it to the agenda). If you can, please attend the meeting in person (or via IRC), so we can follow up on your discussion topic during the meeting with your feedback.
Thank you for the SUMO Day today! It was a record day for the number of people logging in – you rock!
The new training for filtering in widgets is available here: http://screencast.com/t/llm6PF5rI2 – it also shows the new support thread-specific inbox for the dashboard.
Some issues popping up nowadays are startup crashes – caused by AVG and WebSense in particular.
Inactive accounts may be removed soon, so if you’re still active, please log in this week. If you no longer have an account, please get in touch with Rachel!
Want to join us? Please email Rachel and/or Madalina to get started supporting Mozilla’s product users on Facebook and Twitter. We need your help! Use the step-by-step guide here. Take a look at some useful videos: Getting started & replying to users Replying to users (continued)
We need your help! Use the step-by-step guide here. Take a look at some useful videos:
We are 5 weeks before next release / 1 week after current release What does that mean? (Reminder: we are following the process/schedule outlined here). No work on next release content for KB editors or localizers All existing content is open for editing and localization as usual; please focus on localizing the most recent / popular content
Since pizza turned out to be a great success, if you have ideas how to virtually gather your l10n team mates, contact me about that!
for Android Version 50 is slated to come out on November 8th. It should bring video viewing and controlling improvements.
for Desktop Version 50 (November 8th as well) will bring the following goodies: WebRTS – full duplex audio streams Tracking Protection supporting Do Not Track Electrolysis – e10s RTL for Windows and Mac First e10s sandbox for Mac OS X and Windows Find in page with a mode to search for whole words only New preference for cycling tabs using Ctrl + Tab Improved printing options via the Reader Mode
for iOS Still quiet… Keep using 5.0!
…and that’s it for this week! Remember that we <3 you all for being there for the users when it matters most! Keep rocking the helpful web!It seems that even if the presidential election happened now, after all this time, Hillary Clinton would still not defeat Donald Trump.
A new poll from Bloomberg shows that the president has a 41 percent approval rating among Americans, but his former Democratic rival has only 39. The survey also indicates that Clinton has lost a great deal of support, even from those who voted for her in the 2016 election.
The polls is all the more remarkable since Clinton has mostly stayed out of the spotlight, while Trump currently helms one of the most controversial administrations in American history.
Bloomberg found that the former Democratic candidate has a 58% unfavorable rating compared to Trump’s 55%. Survey participants who voted for Clinton denied that their personal dislike caused her to lose the election, though many said they only voted for her to support the lesser of two evils.
“There’s growing discontent with Hillary Clinton even as she has largely stayed out of the spotlight,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer. “It’s not a pox on the Democratic house because numbers for other Democrats are good.”
The poll also found that Barack Obama has 61 percent favorability rating, and Joe Biden is only one point behind him.
The survey was conducted among 1001 participants earlier this month, and the margin of error was set at +/- 3.1 percent.
[Image via screengrab]
— —
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A Discovery Channel reality TV star facing a charge of using a helicopter in a bear hunt suffered injuries from a fall about 6 a.m. Monday morning at Otter Cove in Kachemak Bay.
Atz Lee Kilcher, 38, had to be medevaced by LifeMed helicopter from the scene to a hospital, Alaska State Troopers said in a press release on Tuesday. Kilcher’s injuries made transportation by boat too painful, the release said.
In Homer Court on Tuesday morning, lawyers for Kilcher and his wife, Jane Kilcher, 40, entered not-guilty pleas on one charge each of using a helicopter to hunt black bear last fall. Lawyers for an Encino, Calif., production company, Wilma TV, also entered a not-guilty plea for a related charge of facilitating transportation to hunt by helicopter.
The charges stem from an episode of the Discovery Channel show, “Alaska: The Last Frontier,” in which Jane Kilcher hunts for a bear. In a criminal complaint filed in late July, Kenai assistant district attorney Nick Torres alleged that the Kilchers and Wilma TV violating Alaska game laws prohibiting the use of helicopters to hunt.
The incident came to light after someone with the production company for the show told troopers that a helicopter had been used in a black bear hunt, said Megan Peters, a trooper spokesperson. Troopers contacted the helicopter company involved and checked their records. She said the company had not been told a hunting trip was involved. The helicopter company has not been charged in the incident.
Because of Atz Lee Kilcher’s accident, Homer District Court Judge Margaret Murphy waived the rule that the Kilchers appear in person at their arraignment. Atz Lee Kilcher’s Anchorage lawyer, Patrick Bergt, appeared telephonically and told the court of the accident.
Murphy also released the Kilchers without bail and on their own recognizance. In the case of Wilma TV, Murphy didn’t set any conditions of release.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever even had a criminal case with a corporate defendant,” she said.
With other members of the extended Kilcher family, Atz Lee and Jane Kilcher appear on “Alaska: The Last Frontier,” a reality show about the family’s struggles to survive on the family homestead about 11 miles east of Homer off East End Road.
Jane Kilcher did not return a request for comment left on her cell phone. Otto Kilcher, Atz Lee’s uncle, returned a call, but said the Kilchers would not be likely to comment because of what he called tabloid journalism by the Homer News and the Alaska Dispatch.
Murphy scheduled the next court appearance for Wilma TV and the Kilchers at 9 a.m. Sept. 14 at the Homer Courthouse.Social media lit up Wednesday after a business leader presented an inflatable doll to Chilean Economy Minister Luis Felipe Cespedes at a formal dinner.
Roberto Fantuzzi, president of the Manufacturing Exporters Association (ASEXMA), made the guests at the year-end dinner laugh Tuesday night when he said that the economy, like women, needs to be "stimulated" to become more dynamic.
Over the years, Fantuzzi has made a name for himself for giving government officials "creative gifts" with some kind of allusion to the economic situation.
"Efforts to respect women have been a major principle in my two administrations," President Michelle Bachelet said in a Twitter post. "What happened at the ASEXMA dinner cannot be tolerated."
Former President Sebastian Piñera, a conservative who may seek another term at the La Moneda palace, tweeted that "the ASEXMA's gift to the economy minister: an inflatable doll to stimulate the economy shows unacceptable vulgarity and crudity."
Former President Ricardo Lagos, another possible future candidate, deemed the gift "disrespectful and offensive to all Chileans. Women's dignity was assaulted and that is not acceptable."
The main actors involved in the drama hurried Wednesday to apologize, but it was not enough for critics.
"We apologize. I have a wife, daughters and granddaughters," Fantuzzi said. "It was not the intention to promote violence against women."
Cespedes, for his part, said the gift surprised him but also apologized.
"What happened is not in line with respect for women's dignity," the minister said.
Sen. Carolina Goic, president of the Christian Democratic Party, said the gift was "in bad taste and of unacceptable male chauvinism."
"Women are persons, not objects," the senator said.
"We regret the present," Women's Affairs Minister Claudia Pascual said. "Yes, the economy must be boosted. But women cannot continue to be used as objects for male chauvinist jokes."Artibonite R.
Mirebalais
DAY 7
DAY 6
DAY 5
DAY 4
DAY 3
DAY 1
DAY 2
In the month after the epidemic was identified, the outbreak spread to all regions of Haiti. More than 3,500 died by the end of 2010.
Port-au-Prince
St. Marc
2012
2011
Septic pit
Sewage from U.N. camps was dumped above the stream.
First Fatality
United Nations Camp
Nepalese peacekeeping troops arrived on Oct. 8 after a cholera outbreak in their homeland.
2,000
1,000 cases
In the first week, cholera spread from Mirebalais to the the delta region near St. Marc.
In 2011, rains and flooding led to resurgences in Port-au-Prince and other regions.
The man identified as the first victim was found on the banks of the Latem River in Mirebalais.
100It was the tale of two opposite ends of a career.
Amos Rusie had starred as a dominating pitcher for the New York Giants for eight seasons highlighted by five straight seasons of 30 or more wins (1890-1894), while Christy Mathewson was an unknown 20-year old just drafted by the Cincinnati Reds for a price of $100.
On Dec. 15, 1900, a trade between these two future Hall of Famers occurred in what turned out to be one of the most lopsided deals of all-time.
Before the trade, John Brush, the Cincinnati Reds owner, was in negotiations with the New York Giants’ owner, Andrew Freedman about buying the Giants. Although Rusie compiled 248 career wins in just nine seasons, Freedman agreed to trade away the Hoosier Thunderbolt to Cincinnati in exchange for Mathewson. It turns out that Freedman was fully aware that Rusie’s arm was failing and his days were numbered.Week 2 for the Pac-12 conference in this early college football season played out much like we expected it to (unlike the horror show that was Week 1). Other than one surprise result (and a good one at that - looking at you Wazzu), our conference got wins where it was supposed to. The Pac-12 came out 10-2 with the two Oregon schools taking the biggest blemishes.
Let's see what grades each Pac-12 team got for their Week 2 play. Let us know what you think of these assessments - fair, too easy, too harsh?
Arizona
Grade : B
Outcome : win over Nevada, 44-20
The Wildcats put away the Nevada Wolf Pack in a game that many expected to be a decent challenge for UofA. This matchup was really close last season in Tucson with the Wildcats pulling it out at the end, but this time around was not as exciting. Arizona got a nice methodical win after their Week 1 matchup against UTSA was too close to build much confidence in the team for the fanbase. QB Anu Solomon connected with Johnny Jackson early in the 1st quarter, followed by RB Nick Wilson running it in a few minutes later to quickly put the Wildcats up 14-0. Solomon had a respectable game: completing 24 of 33 passes and throwing for 264 yards, 2 TDs, and 0 INTs. The highlight player for UofA was Wilson with 21 carries for 194 yards (that's 9.2 yards per carry!) and 3 TDs. Are we having an early sighting of Ka'Deem Carey 2.0 in Tucson?!
Arizona State
Grade : D-
Outcome : win over Cal Poly, 35-21
This game should've never been played - it was such a non-event that Vegas didn't even allow people to bet on it. After getting shown-up the week before against Texas A&M, everyone thought the Sun Devils were going to destroy the lowly FCS Mustangs this week. Well, ASU needed all four quarters of this game to pull-out the win. QB Mike Bercovici threw for 2 TDs in the last eight minutes of the game to come away from their tie heading into the fourth quarter. RB Demario Richard rushed for 121 yards on 25 carries and got 2 TDs in this game. WR Devien Lucien had a decent game with 7 receptions for 79 yards. But, seriously though, one could argue that ASU deserved an F for even letting this game be close for three quarters.
California
Grade : A
Outcome : win over San Diego State, 35-7
Cal performed admirably in a game that many expected to be a lot closer. After two games, the Bear Raid is in full attack mode. After a tough first quarter in which only SDSU got one TD, Cal shut-out the Aztecs the rest of the way. QB Jared Goff completed 17 of 24 passes and threw for 321 yards (that's a major 18.9 yards/completion!), 3 TDs, and 1 INT. RB Daniel Lasco amassed 123 yards on the ground and 1 TD. And, WR Trevor Davis had only 3 receptions, but collected 138 receiving yards - including his longest catch for 75 yards! - and 1 TD. The Golden Bears showed a very balanced offensive skillset all game long, and the defense was no slouch either.
Colorado
Grade : B+
Outcome : win over UMass, 48-14
The Buffs took a trip to Hawaii in Week 1 that they won't soon forget. But, their Week 2 game will surely be a nice way to start healing those early wounds. Colorado welcomed the Minutemen into Boulder and then proceeded to lay the hammer, cruising to an easy victory. QB Sefo Liufau completed 15 passes on 24 attempts and amassed 168 yards through the air, 1 TD, and 0 INTs. RB Michael Adkins II had 19 carries for 119 yards and 1 TD. And star WR Nelson Spruce had 6 receptions for 64 yards and 1 TD. The Buffs defense held UMass to only 147 yards on the ground as well as creating 1 INT. This is going to be a long season for Colorado, but victories like these will go a long ways in developing this squad.
Oregon
Grade : B+
Outcome : loss to Michigan State, 28-31
You can't get an A for losing, but Oregon did everything they could to get a win - Michigan State was just too good. In the marquee matchup of the weekend, the Ducks come out strong and put up a real fight against the Spartans. QB Vernon Adams Jr. had a decent showing - completing 22 of 39 passes and collecting 309 yards through the air, 1 TD, and 2 INTs. RB Royce Freeman had 24 carries for 92 rushing yards and 1 TD. WR Bralon Addison had 7 receptions for 138 receiving yards. Oregon's offense is still developing around Adams, but things are still looking bright for the Ducks this season. Kudos to them for scheduling such a challenging opponent so early in the season.
Oregon State
Grade : C
Outcome : loss to Michigan, 7-35
In their second Pac-12 matchup of the season, the Michigan Wolverines laid the hammer on OSU. After losing their Week 1 game to Utah, the entire world knew HC Jim Harbaugh would have his team ready to play and win - and that was too bad for the visiting Beavers. Freshman QB Seth Collins had the reins pulled in on him - completing 9 of only 16 passes and throwing for 79 yards and 1 TD. Rather, OSU HC Gary Andersen elected to run the ball on the Wolverines D - utilizing a committee of runners on 33 rushes - but only amassing 90 total yards on the ground. Michigan, on the other hand, piled up 225 yards rushing (RB De'Veon Smith had 126 yards and 3 rushing TDs) and 180 yards through the air. Nevertheless, kudos to the Beavers for taking on the challenge of going to the Big House and attempting match-up against the Wolverines.
Stanford
Grade : B+
Outcome : win over UCF, 31-7
The Cardinal arguably took the worst loss in Week 1, but came back strong in Week 2 and walloped the UCF Knights. QB Kevin Hogan had a career-high 341 yards through the air, including completing 17 of 29 throws and collecting 3 TDs. RB Christian McCaffrey had 20 carries for 58 rushing yards. WR Bryce Love had just 2 receptions, but had 135 receiving yards (including a 93-yard catch) and 1 TD. The Stanford run D showed-up this game, too - allowing the Knights to only get 30 yards on the ground and 151 yards through the air. This was a good win for the Cardinal as they head into their Pac-12 games next week (@ USC).
UCLA
Grade : A
Outcome : win over UNLV, 37-3
The Bruins are starting off their 2015 campaign with a lot of buzz right now. Their only real question mark heading into the season was how true freshman QB Josh Rosen would perform - well, those questions seem to be all answered now. Rosen threw for 223 yards in his second ever game, including 1 TD and 1 INT - had this game not been a blowout, he would've had more snaps. Star RB Paul Perkins had 18 carries for 151 rushing yards and 2 TDs against the Rebels. In addition to gaining 273 yards on the ground, UCLA also pulled-in 260 yards from its air attack (which was led by WR Jordan Payton with 5 catches for 70 receiving yards and 1 TD). UCLA's stout defense - despite losing star defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes for the season - held UNLV to only 56 yards in the air and 181 yards on the ground. UCLA may be having a special season one whole year earlier than expected.
USC
Grade : C+
Outcome : win over Idaho, 59-9
No top FBS team ever gets high marks for playing Idaho - period. This game looked like your classic varsity vs JV matchup. QB Cody Kessler had a fantastic game - completing 26 of 31 passes and throwing for 410 yards and 3 TDs. On the ground, the Trojans rushed for 284 yards, led by RB Ronald Jones II with 8 carries for 83 yards and 1 TD. In the air, USC did not let up and really let its athletes shine all game long - led by emerging star WR JuJu Smith-Schuster with 10 receptions for 192 yards and 2 TDs. But, other than putting up video game numbers and highlights for an easy W, this game didn't tell us much about the Trojans. Fortunately, we only have to wait until next week to see what USC is really made of with Stanford coming to town.
Utah
Grade : B-
Outcome : win over Utah State, 24-14
While this was a win for the Utes, it came at a heavy price. Starting QB Travis Wilson got injured (shoulder) in the |
said.
"It is very specific around kickoff times and, regrettably, it makes it difficult for us to host the Anzac Test.
"That has come on the radar with the ARLC recently and we've been working through that with them and what that means for us.
"So until the new deal takes effect in 2018, when there aren't any of those particular clauses in the contract, that's when I know we'll be hosting test matches against Australia at a kickoff time and venue that suits us. But between now and then, it's difficult."
It appears Newcastle is the most likely venue for next year's Anzac Test, although Townsville is in the running for it. The previous two Anzac tests, in Sydney and Brisbane, provided the NZRL with little financial return.
NZRL are also in talks with their Tasman counterparts about a test between the Kangaroos and Kiwis in October next year before both teams leave for the Four Nations in England and Scotland.
"Again, the conditions will be bound by the Channel Nine agreement, so it will be played over there if we're able to conclude an arrangement that makes sense to both parties."
The Kiwis haven't played in Auckland, the biggest market for rugby league in New Zealand, since 2012 and they won't get an opportunity to play there until the 2017 World Cup.
The NZRL are desperate for the Kiwis to be seen in New Zealand more because it has proved difficult to sign up sponsors as companies don't get an opportunity to capitalise on their investment with the team not playing on home soil.
"We're obviously frustrated about that and disappointed, but I must stress that there has been a massive degree of genuineness from the people we're dealing with in Australia in understanding the impact this has on us," Holden said.
"The good thing is that in 2017 there's the World Cup here, which will see a huge amount of football being played in New Zealand and then from 2018 onwards the international landscape changes forever."
The new broadcasting deal in Australia kicks in 2018 and under the new terms Channel Nine won't be able to dictate what time tests start. Although the Anzac Test will be scrapped, the ARLC are committed to playing tests against New Zealand at the end of every season.Why Is This Rogue Needle Exchange Handing Out Meth Pipes? The People's Harm Reduction Alliance is one of the most daring and innovative needle exchanges in the country. And it's run by users. Five years ago, they started giving out crack stems. Now they're expanding services for methamphetamine users.
Shilo Murphy is the director of the People’s Harm Reduction Alliance. Kelly O
On a sunny afternoon the first week of March, in an alley behind the University District post office, volunteers for the People's Harm Reduction Alliance needle exchange open the doors, set up their outreach table, and begin another afternoon's work.
They greet and chat with clients while handing out clean syringes and other injection tools: little metal containers for cooking up a dose, tiny balls of cotton, strips of latex for tying off an arm or leg (as well as a non-latex option). They also offer kits of naloxone, a drug that can be administered via needle or nasal spray to reverse the effects of an overdose. Two young volunteers from the Hepatitis Education Project encourage people to go inside for free hepatitis C testing. A nearby shelf holds dozens of pamphlets on subjects like proper vein care, which parts of the body are safer for injection than others, what to do if you're with someone who overdoses, HIV and hepatitis C information, a "bad date list" by sex workers about johns who are known to be difficult or dangerous, and so on.
The clients who approach the table seem to come from all over the place: innocuous-looking people in midrange cars, scruffy older gentlemen with baggy clothes and gentle voices, a few cackling, wise-cracking ladies, the occasional jagged and angry young man, and one very young woman who looks painfully timid as she approaches the table. "We love you and respect you," a volunteer reassures her.
This is one of the meth pipes PHRA started passing out earlier this month. Kelly O
It was the kind of afternoon you might expect at any needle exchange, but the People's Harm Reduction Alliance (PHRA) is a little different than most needle exchanges. As an independent operation, not run by any government agency, it offers services you won't find elsewhere. They're willing to hand out many syringes at once, for example, instead of the traditional "one-for-one" policy. And they're willing to hand out more than just needles and naloxone. That afternoon in the alley, volunteers give clients small glass stems for smoking crack and bubble-ended pipes used to smoke methamphetamine. Syringes, crack pipes, and meth pipes are all technically drug paraphernalia, and handing out drug paraphernalia is technically illegal, though Washington State courts have given public-health officers broad powers to do what it takes to prevent the spread of disease.
Even within the context of lenient local harm-reduction policy, PHRA—which took over the University District needle exchange in 2007—has earned a national reputation for being rogues and experimenters. They pioneer new ideas, like trying to bring crack and methamphetamine users into the fold, and letting them know there are services and health-care options for them, not just the more traditionally accepted services for heroin users. Because of the HIV crisis in the 1980s, says PHRA director Shilo Murphy, heroin injectors have gotten decades' worth of attention from the public-health community that has passed other drug users by.
Five years ago, PHRA began handing out glass stems to crack users to help prevent the spread of hepatitis C. The thin glass tubes used to smoke crack get very hot, sometimes blistering users' lips, and blisters on lips make shared stems a potential vector for infection. Murphy says this was a controversial move, but PHRA did it anyway. They let local law enforcement know what they were up to, but the police never interfered.
“People who inject meth would come to the table and say, ‘I’m only grabbing these needles because I don’t have access to a pipe,’” Murphy says. Brendan Kiley
After PHRA took the initiative, other needle exchanges around the country began to follow suit—although the effectiveness of the crack-pipe program is still unknown. A 2008 study by the National Institutes of Health concluded that transmission of hepatitis via crack stems "seems possible," but a 2012 study published in the Journal of Public Health found no significant connection between sharing crack pipes and hepatitis. (Both studies also said there needs to be more research.) PHRA provides crack stems anyway—not because of some robust data anyone in the organization could point to, but because the local community of crack users asked for them. Public-health-run needle exchanges are still too timid to do this work. You can imagine what Fox News would do if it got wind of a government-funded agency handing out crack pipes.
PHRA cofounder Tom Fitzpatrick, a medical student, says the crack-stem program has had one undeniable effect: It's diversified PHRA's client base. The community they served used to be "very, very white," he says. "Whether it's correlation or causation I don't know, but since we began handing out crack pipes, the percentage of people who come here and identify as white has decreased every year." (PHRA conducts annual surveys and elections, where users can vote on what they'd like the organization to do differently—like hand out crack pipes.)
A few weeks ago, PHRA quietly launched its latest project: providing pipes to methamphetamine users. Meth can be consumed several different ways, but injecting it is said to pack the most punch. (Preparing a meth injection is similar to preparing a heroin injection—the drug is mixed with water, but isn't heated.) Smoking is generally considered a safer way to take any drug than injecting it, especially if there's a risk that you're injecting with a needle that has been used by somebody else. But handing out meth pipes has another more long-term benefit: starting a conversation with meth users.
As Allan Clear, executive director of the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York City, puts it, "If you want to engage with drug users and build their trust, you have to provide something meaningful to them. A stem or a pipe helps build that relationship... it makes it more likely that they'll return for advice or medical care if you have provided them with something useful in your first interaction—something you didn't have to give them."
In the alley behind the post office, Murphy, the PHRA director, makes the point a little more strongly: "Drug users need more respect and love," he says. "Why is it always us that has to step up? Because we're drug-user run instead of run by bureaucrats?"
PHRA, like some other independent needle exchanges, is "peer run"—meaning that the board, staff, and volunteer base include active narcotics users.
Just then, Murphy calls out to a client as she steps away with a new meth pipe: "We love you! We love you just the way you are!"
Shilo Murphy came out as an active opiate and cocaine user in 2011 at a national harm-reduction conference in Austin. While sitting on a panel, he told the stunned audience that "heroin saved my life" and that he had no intention of quitting. The reaction was swift and strong, especially among harm-reduction experts who see needle exchanges as a short-term solution to a long-term problem, and treatment and abstinence as the eventual goal. One renowned needle-exchange leader told Murphy he'd set the harm-reduction world back 25 years.
But Murphy maintains an unapologetically activist stance. Shortly before his watershed moment in Austin, he'd founded the first chapter of the Urban Survivors' Union (also called the "users' union"), an advocacy group for people who use more stigmatized drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. To become a member of the USU, you have to be a user—marijuana doesn't count. The idea for the users' union occurred to Murphy after a PHRA member described him as a hero. He didn't think that label could possibly apply to him. "I thought, 'Heroes don't use heroin,'" Murphy says. "The union came out of my own inner struggle."
"Our program is run by drug users for drug users," Murphy says about PHRA. "Our program is a reaction to our community's needs... we don't provide a service that's pretty, we provide a service that's necessary." Then he repeats his frequent refrain: "I'm a drug user and I'm proud."
The meth-pipe project could be PHRA's most controversial move yet. Unlike crack pipes, meth pipes are not suspected to have any more infectious potential than marijuana pipes. Murphy thinks PHRA is the first group to distribute meth pipes in North America—and he's proud to be doing it. Usually, Canada beats the United States to the punch on harm reduction for hard-drug users. Clear, of the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York City, says he isn't 100 percent certain that PHRA is the first to pass out meth pipes. Regardless, he says the organization has certainly "taken the leadership role on this."
Just like the crack stems, PHRA is offering meth pipes primarily because its clients have said they want them. "People who inject meth would come to the table and say, 'I'm only grabbing these needles because I don't have access to a pipe,'" Murphy says. "Eventually, I was handing them needles and I'm like, 'This is dumb.'" He points out that men who have sex with men and inject methamphetamine have the highest rates of HIV infection in King County. Why not give them the option to smoke instead?
Kris Nyrop—who ran the University District's needle exchange before PHRA, back when it was under the aegis of a group called Street Outreach Services—says smoking drugs is generally preferable to shooting them, and not just because of the potential for infection. "Every time you put a needle in your arm, you run the risk of hitting an artery and losing a finger or thumb or a whole appendage," Nyrop says. "As part of the general public-health, harm-reduction thing, I would encourage people to smoke their drugs instead of inject them."
But not everyone agrees that handing out meth pipes will have a significant impact on public health. Susan Kingston, who worked with King County's HIV/AIDS prevention program from 2002 to 2008 (a high-water mark of meth use among gay men), says she's a little perplexed by PHRA's meth-pipe initiative. Kingston knows better than anyone that men who have sex with men and inject meth have high rates of HIV. But she says that's because of the sex, not the meth: "The primary mode of transmission was not the injection, but unprotected sex while high on methamphetamine—and lots of it."
Methamphetamine injectors, she says, use relatively few needles, injecting once a day or even once a weekend. Regular opiate users, on the other hand, tend to inject several times a day. In her mind, giving out pipes isn't really addressing a major, population-wide health concern and burns up resources that could be used to address more urgent problems. During our interview, she even questions the newsworthiness of this article, saying the pressing harm-reduction story right now is about pharmaceutical companies "jacking up" prices for naloxone just as opiate-overdose-prevention programs are finally getting more traction with the public and demand for the drug is increasing. "I guess that's just capitalism and entrepreneurialism at its best," she says. (For the record, King County public health officials say the naloxone price hikes have not affected their access to naloxone because the county qualifies for a federal program to provide medications to the public at significantly reduced rates—but, they admit, things are unstable and could change at any time.)
"Smoking would, in theory, reduce your risks," Kingston says. "I'm all for providing drug users, if they're not going to quit, any measure to make their drug use safer." But she questions the logic behind devoting resources to any program, such as the distribution of meth pipes, that isn't going to show a statistically significant return on the investment. "I don't dismiss this as a potential harm-reduction strategy that would have a benefit for individuals," she says. "But on a larger scale, I don't think it's going to have a big impact."
That difference between the PHRA approach and Kingston's approach—give the people what they want versus give the people what the data says they need—reveals a difference between user-union needle exchanges and government-run needle exchanges. "Harm-reduction programs, the activist ones, begin work in an environment where what they're doing isn't strictly authorized," says Clear. The very first needle exchanges in the country were committing crimes by distributing drug paraphernalia, but the HIV crisis led 27 states—including Washington—to carve out explicit exemptions for them.
Crack stems and meth pipes do not enjoy similar legal protection.
Clear argues that independent operations like PHRA are vital for staking out new territory that is not officially sanctioned (yet) and widening the bandwidth for what government-run programs might be able to get away with in the future. It's not unlike the old conventional wisdom of politics—radicals make extreme demands to broaden the political field, giving mainstream parties more room to maneuver while still appearing moderate. We need people at the fringes to change what mainstream culture will eventually consider acceptable.
Activist needle exchanges in New York are starting to experiment with supervised-injection sites, which aren't legal but could reduce the number of deaths and infections associated with opiate injections. (The only legal supervised-injection site in North America, called Insite, is located in Vancouver, Canada.) "If you run a syringe exchange and do it indoors, you spend an awful amount of time figuring out how to patrol the bathrooms," Clear says. "People swear they're not going to inject drugs in there, but then they do. So switch it around: If people are already injecting, how do we make it safer?" One New York program, he says, has installed a countertop (a more sanitary place to prepare an injection than a toilet seat) and an intercom to check on people if they've disappeared for a worryingly long period of time.
Independent activist groups can get away with that—and take the political heat, when it comes—without jeopardizing their jobs, their funding, or the services they provide to their clients. While organizations like PHRA are occasionally accused of being reckless, they have the luxury of operating without the same degree of fear. King County doesn't provide funding to PHRA, although it does provide some in-kind support, including roughly 40 percent of PHRA's syringe stock. PHRA is funded primarily by foundations and private individuals who support its work, even if it pushes at the boundaries of what's legal or considered acceptable.
"That's the history of harm-reduction movements in the US," Clear says. "Those activist programs, underground programs, are in the vanguard. They make the connections, do the outreach, do the HIV and hepatitis C prevention. Then they see if they can get health departments to do something about it afterward."
In many parts of the country, underground and user-union exchanges are all people have. In Greensboro, North Carolina, government-run syringe exchanges don't exist, because they're against the law. "Things that are accepted as totally okay in Seattle are illegal in North Carolina," says Louise Vincent of the Urban Survivors' Union. The organization was founded in Seattle but went national in 2013. Vincent is now the president of the USU Greensboro chapter. She admits she's been arrested many times for her own drug offences, but also says she's been arrested several times for simply doing harm-reduction work. On one occasion, she was charged with heroin possession for having used syringes in a biohazard container, she says. (Robert BB Childs of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition confirmed the risks of running a syringe exchange there, saying, "There have been arrests in North Carolina related to syringe exchanges.")
"North Carolina is conservative," Vincent says. "We are backward." And being "backward" comes with real costs. According to a 2011 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Greensboro area has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States—and is number one for HIV infection among women. King County, on the other hand, has one of the lowest rates for HIV infection among injection-drug users in the country.
Vincent says that when she learned about the harm-reduction movement 10 years ago, "I really felt like I'd found something wonderful—something that made sense, was based in science, and was compassionate." Users are among the most likely people to be cut out of social-services programs, she says. "If you can't abstain or won't abstain, you are told to leave treatment until you're ready," she says. "Basically, 'Come back when you're well.' It's outrageous, when you think about it."
Regg Thomas, current president of the USU Seattle chapter and former volunteer with PHRA, says the stigma against drug users is more dangerous than the drugs themselves—the shame, the furtiveness, and the cycle of incarceration make users' lives unnecessarily perilous. Thomas speaks from firsthand experience: He's 48, has been using methamphetamine off and on since his early 20s, and has been to prison several times. "The users' union is all about undoing the stigma against drug users laid out by the war on drugs," he says. "Of course, we don't have any problem with people abstaining, but if you're going to use, I want you to be the safest user you can be." He says activist and user-union-type programs like PHRA are on the front lines of changing attitudes that could eventually change legislation.
Michael Hanrahan, who manages King County's HIV/STD prevention program, cautions against thinking there's any significant schism between independent and government-run needle exchanges. "I don't think there's any more tension there than there is among alternative newspapers," he says. "Weekly newspapers have different approaches, but they have more in common than differences."
He points to the origin of King County's syringe-exchange program in 1989 as an example—that was a collaboration between public health officials and activists from ACT UP, who pushed for an exchange while the county worked to align support from the mayor, the police, the county executive, and the city and county councils. Within three months of ACT UP's start date for the syringe exchange, the county public-health department was able to assume responsibility for the program. Hanrahan also points out that King County has supported PHRA for a long time—like the syringes it donates—and that independent needle exchanges aren't the only ones that respond to clients' needs. "We talk to our clients with quite a bit of regularity," Hanrahan says. "Suggestions and requests that people make pretty often find a way into the program."
But Clear says the partnerships between activists and government-run needle exchanges aren't always so amicable. "I've been in that position, I've been really frustrated with health departments, and I've done my share of screaming and yelling," he says. "And there are a fair number of idiots working in public health—just like there are a fair amount of idiots in activism and harm reduction. We can be shrill and annoying."
Out behind the post office in the University District, Murphy talks about trying to reverse the lack of solidarity in the drug community. "When we first had crack pipes, injectors would ask why," Murphy says. Five years later, he thinks the heroin injectors and crack smokers are getting closer to seeing themselves as part of the same constituency. Moving the organization to become more inclusive of methamphetamine users is the logical next step. PHRA's work is not just about preventing infections and overdoses, and not just about getting new faces to the table to see what other programs might be available to them.
"It's about creating a community," Murphy says. "Our thing is that whoever you are, you should be the best damn drug user you can be."Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144.[1]
Marcion believed Jesus was the savior sent by God, and Paul the Apostle was his chief apostle, but he rejected the Hebrew Bible and the God of Israel. Marcionists believed that the wrathful Hebrew God was a separate and lower entity than the all-forgiving God of the New Testament.
Marcionism, similar to Gnosticism, depicted the God of the Old Testament as a tyrant or demiurge (see also God as the Devil). Marcion was the son of a bishop of Sinope in Pontus. About the middle of the second century (140–155) he traveled to Rome, where he joined the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo.[2]
Marcion's canon, possibly the first Christian canon ever compiled, consisted of eleven books: a gospel consisting of ten sections drawn from the Gospel of Luke; and ten Pauline epistles.[3] Marcion's canon rejected the entire Old Testament, along with all other epistles and gospels of what would become the 27-book New Testament canon, which during his life had yet to be compiled.[4][5] Paul's epistles enjoy a prominent position in the Marcionite canon, since Paul was considered by Marcion to be Christ's only true apostle.[6]
Marcionism was denounced by its opponents as heresy and written against – notably by Tertullian in a five-book treatise, Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion), in about 208. Marcion's writings are lost, though they were widely read and numerous manuscripts must have existed. Even so, many scholars claim it is possible to reconstruct and deduce a large part of ancient Marcionism through what later critics, especially Tertullian, said concerning Marcion.[7]
History [ edit ]
According to Tertullian and other writers of early proto-orthodox Christianity, the movement known as Marcionism began with the teachings and excommunication of Marcion around 144. Marcion was reportedly a wealthy shipowner, the son of a bishop of Sinope of Pontus, Asia Minor. He arrived in Rome c. 140, soon after Bar Kokhba's revolt. The organization continued in the East for some centuries later, particularly outside the Byzantine Empire in areas which later would be dominated by Manichaeism.[citation needed]
Schism within Marcionism [ edit ]
By the reign of emperor Commodus (180–192), Marcionism was divided into various opinions with various leaders; among whom was Apelles, whom Rhodo describes as: "...priding himself on his manner of life and his age, acknowledges one principle, but says that the prophecies are from an opposing principle, being led to this view by the responses of a maiden by name Philumene, who was possessed by a demon".
But others, among whom were Potitus and Basilicus, held to two principles, as did Marcion himself. Others consider that there are not only two, but three natures. Of these, Syneros was the leader and chief.[8]
Teachings [ edit ]
The premise of Marcionism is that many of the teachings of Christ are incompatible with the actions of the God of the Old Testament. Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially any association with the Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth. He further regarded the arguments of Paul regarding law and gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death and life, as the essence of religious truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two principles, the righteous and wrathful God of the Old Testament, who is at the same time identical with the creator of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is only love and mercy.[9]
Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the material world he created was defective, a place of suffering; the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious demiurge.
“ In the God of the [Old Testament] he saw a being whose character was stern justice, and therefore anger, contentiousness and unmercifulness. The law which rules nature and man appeared to him to accord with the characteristics of this God and the kind of law revealed by him, and this God is the creator and lord of the world ( κοσμοκράτωρ [English transliteration: kosmokrator/cosmocrator]). As the law which governs the world is inflexible and yet, on the other hand, full of contradictions, just and again brutal, and as the law of the Old Testament exhibits the same features, so the God of creation was to Marcion a being who united in himself the whole gradations of attributes from justice to malevolence, from obstinacy to inconsistency."[10] ”
In Marcionite belief, Christ was not a Jewish Messiah, but a spiritual entity that was sent by the [Monad] to reveal the truth about existence, thus allowing humanity to escape the earthly trap of the demiurge. Marcion called God, the Stranger God, or the Alien God, in some translations, as this deity had not had any previous interactions with the world, and was wholly unknown. See also the Unknown God of Hellenism and the Areopagus sermon.
In various popular sources, Marcion is often reckoned among the Gnostics, but as the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd ed.) puts it, "it is clear that he would have had little sympathy with their mythological speculations" (p. 1034). In 1911 Henry Wace stated:
“ A modern divine would turn away from the dreams of Valentinianism in silent contempt; but he could not refuse to discuss the question raised by Marcion, whether there is such opposition between different parts of what he regards as the word of God, that all cannot come from the same author. ”
A primary difference between Marcionites and Gnostics was that the Gnostics based their theology on secret wisdom (as, for example, Valentinius who claimed to receive the secret wisdom from Theudas who received it direct from Paul) of which they claimed to be in possession, whereas Marcion based his theology on the contents of the Letters of Paul and the recorded sayings of Jesus — in other words, an argument from scripture, with Marcion defining what was and was not scripture. Also, the Christology of the Marcionites is thought to have been primarily Docetic, denying the human nature of Christ. This may have been due to the unwillingness of Marcionites to believe that Jesus was the son of both God the Father and the demiurge. Scholars of Early Christianity disagree on whether to classify Marcion as a Gnostic: Adolf Von Harnack does not classify Marcion as a Gnostic,[11] whereas G. R. S. Mead does.[12] Von Harnack argued that Marcion was not a Gnostic in the strict sense because Marcion rejected elaborate creation myths, and did not claim to have special revelation or secret knowledge. Mead claimed Marcionism makes certain points of contact with Gnosticism in its view that the creator of the material world is not the true deity, rejection of materialism and affirmation of a transcendent, purely good spiritual realm in opposition to the evil physical realm, the belief Jesus was sent by the "True" God to save humanity, the central role of Jesus in revealing the requirements of salvation, the belief Paul had a special place in the transmission of this "wisdom", and its docetism. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article on Marcion:[13]
“ It was no mere school for the learned, disclosed no mysteries for the privileged, but sought to lay the foundation of the Christian community on the pure gospel, the authentic institutes of Christ. The pure gospel, however, Marcion found to be everywhere more or less corrupted and mutilated in the Christian circles of his time. His undertaking thus resolved itself into a reformation of Christendom. This reformation was to deliver Christendom from false Jewish doctrines by restoring the Pauline conception of the gospel, Paul being, according to Marcion, the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Christ. In Marcion's own view, therefore, the founding of his church—to which he was first driven by opposition—amounts to a reformation of Christendom through a return to the gospel of Christ and to Paul; nothing was to be accepted beyond that. This of itself shows that it is a mistake to reckon Marcion among the Gnostics. A dualist he certainly was, but he was not a Gnostic. ”
Marcionism shows the influence of Hellenistic philosophy on Christianity, and presents a moral critique of the Old Testament from the standpoint of Platonism. According to Harnack, the sect may have led other Christians to introduce a formal statement of beliefs into their liturgy (see Creed) and to formulate a canon of authoritative Scripture of their own, thus eventually producing the current canon of the New Testament.
“ As for the main question, however, whether he knew of, or assumes the existence of, a written New Testament of the Church in any sense whatever, in this case an affirmatory answer is most improbable, because if this were so he would have been compelled to make a direct attack upon the New Testament of the Church, and if such an attack had been made we should have heard of it from Tertullian. Marcion, on the contrary, treats the Catholic Church as one that 'follows the Testament of the Creator-God,' and directs the full force of his attack against this Testament and against the falsification of the Gospel and of the Pauline Epistles. His polemic would necessarily have been much less simple if he had been opposed to a Church which, by possessing a New Testament side by side with the Old Testament, had ipso facto placed the latter under the shelter of the former. In fact Marcion’s position towards the Catholic Church is intelligible, in the full force of its simplicity, only under the supposition that the Church had not yet in her hand any 'litera scripta Novi Testamenti.'[14] ”
Marcion is believed to have imposed a severe morality on his followers, some of whom suffered in the persecutions. In particular, he refused to re-admit those who recanted their faith under Roman persecution; see also Lapsi (Christian).
Marcionite canon [ edit ]
Tertullian claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament.[15] Marcion is said to have gathered scriptures from Jewish tradition, and juxtaposed these against the sayings and teachings of Jesus in a work entitled the Antithesis.[16] Besides the Antithesis, the Testament of the Marcionites was also composed of a Gospel of Christ which was Marcion's version of Luke, and that the Marcionites attributed to Paul, that was different in a number of ways from the version that is now regarded as canonical.[17] It seems to have lacked all prophecies of Christ's coming, as well as the Infancy account, the baptism, and the verses were more terse in general. It also included ten of the Pauline epistles, in the following order: Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Romans, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, Laodiceans, Colossians, Philippians, Philemon.[18]
Marcion's Apostolikon did not include the Pastoral epistles or the Epistle to the Hebrews. According to the Muratorian canon, it included a Marcionite pseudo-Paul's epistle to the Alexandrians and an epistle to the Laodiceans.[19] The contents of this Marcionite Epistle to the Laodiceans are unknown. Some scholars equate it with the Epistle to the Ephesians, because the latter originally did not contain the words 'in Ephesus', and because it is the only non-pastoral Pauline epistle missing from the Marcionite canon, suggesting Laodiceans was simply Ephesians under another name.[20] The Epistle to the Alexandrians is not known from any other source; Marcion himself appears to have never mentioned it.
In bringing together these texts, Marcion redacted what is perhaps the first New Testament canon on record, which he called the Gospel and the Apostolikon, which reflects his belief in the writings of Jesus and the apostle Paul respectively.
The Prologues to the Pauline Epistles (which are not a part of the text, but short introductory sentences as one might find in modern study Bibles[21]), found in several older Latin codices, are now widely believed to have been written by Marcion or one of his followers. Harnack makes the following claim:[22]
“ We have indeed long known that Marcionite readings found their way into the ecclesiastical text of the Pauline Epistles, but now for seven years we have known that Churches actually accepted the Marcionite prefaces to the Pauline Epistles! De Bruyne has made one of the finest discoveries of later days in proving that those prefaces, which we read first in Codex Fuldensis and then in numbers of later manuscripts, are Marcionite, and that the Churches had not noticed the cloven hoof. ”
Conversely, several early Latin codices contain Anti-Marcionite prologues to the Gospels.
Comparison [ edit ]
Reaction to Marcion by early Christians [ edit ]
According to a remark by Origen (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew 15.3), Marcion "prohibited allegorical interpretations of the scripture". Tertullian disputed this in his treatise against Marcion.[citation needed]
Tertullian, along with Epiphanius of Salamis, also charged that Marcion set aside the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John, and used Luke alone. Tertullian cited Luke 6:43-45 (a good tree does not produce bad fruit)[23] and Luke 5:36-38 (nobody tears a piece from a new garment to patch an old garment or puts new wine in old wineskins),[24] in theorizing that Marcion set about to recover the authentic teachings of Jesus. Irenaeus claimed,
“ [Marcion's] salvation will be the attainment only of those souls which had learned his doctrine; while the body, as having been taken from the earth, is incapable of sharing in salvation.[25] ”
Tertullian also attacked this view in De Carne Christi.[citation needed]
Polycarp, according to Irenaus in his work, Adversus Haereses, had an encounter with Marcion:
“ And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." ”
Hippolytus reported that Marcion's phantasmal (and Docetist) Christ was "revealed as a man, though not a man", and did not really die on the cross.[26] However, Ernest Evans, in editing this work, observes:
“ This may not have been Marcion's own belief. It was certainly that of Hermogenes (cf. Tertullian, Adversus Hermogenem) and probably other gnostics and Marcionites, who held that the intractability of this matter explains the world's many imperfections.[ page needed ] ”
Islamic accounts [ edit ]
The Arabic name for Marcionism, marḳiyūniyya, is attested to by several historical sources of the Islamic Golden Age which appear to reveal that a meagre, though not non-existent, Marcionite community continued to exist in lands of the medieval Near East into the tenth-century. For example, the Christian writer Thomas of Margā states that, at the end of the eighth-century, the Metropolitan of Gēlān and Daylam, S̲h̲uwḥālīs̲h̲ōʿ, travelled into the remote parts of his see, preaching "among the pagans, Marcionites and Manichaeans."[27] In a similar way, the tenth-century Muslim bibliographer Ibn al-Nadīm goes so far as to claim that the Marcionites are "numerous in Ḵh̲urāsān" and that there "they practice openly, like the Manichaeans."[28] Although information about the Khorasanite Marcionites is not related |
before, but I never really sat down with him and talked a lot,” Marner said at Leafs practice Friday. “I was kind of (in awe), I went over and shook his hand, and we started talking. One of the first things he said, ‘are you 93 this season?,’ and I said, ‘nah, I think I’m going in a different direction with that.’ But he said, hey, no problem wearing it. That was a special feeling for me... I grew up a huge fan of him and the way he played.” Gilmour, now the GM with the Kingston Frontenacs, said there are several similarities between him and Marner, especially since both fought through the stigma against smaller players. Gilmour and Marner are roughly the same size, about 5-9 to 5-10. Gilmour essentially helped blaze a path for smaller NHL players over his career, which was highlighted by a Stanley Cup with the 1989 Calgary Flames, and six storied seasons with the Leafs.
“I watched Mitch as a player since he was 11 years old, seeing him come up and in his draft year, we (Kingston) were picking sixth overall and we passed on him as a small player,” Gilmour said. “Now, seeing what his skill level is and how he’s played... it’s kind of what I went through as a player. He proved everyone wrong. I’ve said this before, but when people asked me about Mitch, I always said he’s too good for our league (OHL), He became my favourite player.” This week, Gilmour launched “Let’s Do it For Gordie,” a campaign to raise money for the Tragically Hip singer’s “Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research at Sunnybrook Hospital.”
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“We’re all from Kingston, and we all stick up and support each other,” said Gilmour, who is offering up personal items to donors, including signed jerseys, his Harley Davidson motorcycle, and tickets to a private box where winners can watch a Leafs game with Gilmour. “The biggest thing is when we all found out about Gord, it was a shock. Talk about that song, “Courage... ” he’s a remarkable man.”
Read more about:“We will not build two (nuclear) bombs in the face of (America’s) 20,000,” said Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency report this week that accuses Iran of doing just that. He called Yukiya Amano, the head of the IAEA, a U.S. puppet, saying: “This person does not publish a report about America and its allies' nuclear arsenals.”
Well, that’s true, actually. Amano will never publish a report about America’s nuclear weapons (only 5,133 of them now, actually). He hasn’t said anything about Israel’s, Britain’s, and France’s weapons of mass destruction either. And his report is largely based on information fed to him by Western intelligence agencies.
But apart from that, Amano is as impartial and free from U.S. influence as you would expect a career Japanese diplomat to be. Only cynical people will see any resemblance to Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations in 2003, when the U.S. defense secretary held up a test tube and assured us all that Iraq really was working on germ warfare.
Iraq was allegedly working on nuclear weapons, too: former president George Bush’s famous “smoking gun,” which also subsequently went missing. And on the basis of this “intelligence” about Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction,” the United States and its more gullible allies invaded the country. Hundreds of thousands died, no weapons were found, and nothing was learned. Here we go again.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The same intelligence agencies are producing the same sort of reports about Iran that we heard eight years ago about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, and interpreting the information in the same highly prejudiced way.
Many people in the West realise that they are being hustled into yet another attack on a Middle Eastern country, but they don’t really worry about it too much. After all, it will only be air strikes, and we all know that an air-only war is practically casualty-free for the side with air superiority. Look at Libya, for example.
But how many citizens of the United States or Britain know that Iran has ten times as many people as Libya? Maybe one in 10, maybe one in 20. How many know that Iran is a partially democratic, technologically proficient state with no history of attacking its neighbours, not a tinpot dictatorship run by a vicious loon? About the same number. How many realise that the war would not end with a few days of air strikes? Practically none.
The interesting exception to all this is Israel, where people do know those things, and where there is a vigorous debate about whether attacking Iran is a good idea. A lot think it is not, and that also goes for both of Israel’s intelligence agencies, Mossad and Shin Bet. Meir Dagan, the recently retired head of Mossad, said last January that an attack on Iran was “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard.
So Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Ehud Barak, who do both want to attack Iran (or rather, have the United States do it for them), have gone public. If the Western powers don’t act at once, they warn, then Iran will get nuclear weapons and Armageddon will be just around the corner.
There are two things wrong with this proposition. One is the evidence. If you believe it all, it shows that Iran wants the knowledge and equipment that would let it build a nuclear weapon very quickly if necessary: an Israeli nuclear threat, a military coup in nuclear-armed Pakistan that brings young Shia-hating officers to power, whatever.
The evidence does not show that Iran is actually building a nuclear weapon now, or has any present intention of doing so. And having the knowledge and equipment that would let you do so fast in an emergency is entirely legal under IAEA rules.
The other problem with the accusations against Iran is the logic behind them. Building a nuclear weapon now would be extremely costly for Iran in terms of economic sanctions, global diplomatic isolation and the like if it became known. But it would be completely pointless from a deterrence point of view if it remained secret.
Deterrence is the only logical reason that Iran would ever want nuclear weapons, since it would be suicidal for it to attack anybody with them. As Mahmoud Ahmadnejadi pointed out (above), it would have at the most a few nuclear warheads. The United States has thousands of them, Israel has hundreds of them, and even Pakistan has dozens.
If Iran’s leaders were completely logical in their thinking, they wouldn’t waste a minute thinking about nuclear deterrence. They’d just rely on the fact that their military can completely shut the Gulf to oil traffic and bring the global economy to its knees if anybody attacks them. However, they are still a lot more rational than their Western counterparts— or at least than their Western counterparts can afford to seem in public.
You heard about that recent exchange between French president Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. president Barack Obama that went out on an open microphone? Sarko said “I can’t stand (Netanyahu) any more. He’s a liar.” And Obama replied: “You're sick of him? I have to deal with him every day.” What about? One gets you 10 that it’s about bombing Iran.Fourth Cargo of Kurdish Oil sailing to Croatia
Kurdistan has delivered its third cargo of crude oil, and a fourth is reportedly on its way to Croatia. According to a Reuters report, around $350 million in oil sales have been completed since the creation of Kurdistan Region\'s pipeline to Turkey. KRG has announced plans to increase oil sales to around 1 million bpd by next year in pursuit of Kurdistan\'s independence ambitions.
Kurdistan has delivered its third cargo of crude oil, and a fourth is reportedly on its way to Croatia. According to a Reuters report, around $350 million in oil sales have been completed since the creation of Kurdistan Region\'s pipeline to Turkey. KRG has announced plans to increase oil sales to around 1 million bpd by next year in pursuit of Kurdistan\'s independence ambitions.
UK pledges one month\'s water and medicine supply for Yezidi refugee camp
Rudaw - The United Kingdom has pledged one month\'s supply of water and medicine for displaced Yezidi families who managed to escape Shingal Mountain. The International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: \"These 12,000 Yazidi refugees have escaped a siege, walked 60km in 50 degree heat and found their way across the Syrian border to a refugee camp that used to house just 20 families. They have shown immense courage to make it this far and we are extremely concerned for their wellbeing. By supporting the work of the International Rescue Committee, Britain will provide vital medicine and water to give immediate assistance.
Rudaw - The United Kingdom has pledged one month\'s supply of water and medicine for displaced Yezidi families who managed to escape Shingal Mountain. The International Development Secretary Justine Greening said: \"These 12,000 Yazidi refugees have escaped a siege, walked 60km in 50 degree heat and found their way across the Syrian border to a refugee camp that used to house just 20 families. They have shown immense courage to make it this far and we are extremely concerned for their wellbeing. By supporting the work of the International Rescue Committee, Britain will provide vital medicine and water to give immediate assistance.
Mosul: ISIS Sends Foreign Fighters to the Frontline
RUDAW�Leaders of the Islamic State (IS) are asking the people of Mosul to donate blood to the group for their cause. A source in Mosul told Rudaw that the IS has marked three mosques: Al-Rahma, Sabirin and Ahmed Ismail, as blood donation centers. The source also said that 50 the corpses of 50 IS militants have been brought to the city morgue and that ambulances bring more of their wounded to the Mosul hospitals daily. According to the source who didn�t want to be named, IS has deployed all its foreign fighters to the battlefront and assigned young local men to serve at checkpoints around the city.
RUDAW�Leaders of the Islamic State (IS) are asking the people of Mosul to donate blood to the group for their cause. A source in Mosul told Rudaw that the IS has marked three mosques: Al-Rahma, Sabirin and Ahmed Ismail, as blood donation centers. The source also said that 50 the corpses of 50 IS militants have been brought to the city morgue and that ambulances bring more of their wounded to the Mosul hospitals daily. According to the source who didn�t want to be named, IS has deployed all its foreign fighters to the battlefront and assigned young local men to serve at checkpoints around the city.
US to Use Drones Against ISIS
RUDAW - According to an interview with Guido Steinberg, former advisor to the German Federal Chancellery, the United State (U.S.) is likely to use drones against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Kurdistan Region and Syria. "Preparations for using drones have begun. But it is not clear in which country the drones will be based, but launching them from Kurdistan Region will be the best option," said Steinberg.
RUDAW - According to an interview with Guido Steinberg, former advisor to the German Federal Chancellery, the United State (U.S.) is likely to use drones against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Kurdistan Region and Syria. "Preparations for using drones have begun. But it is not clear in which country the drones will be based, but launching them from Kurdistan Region will be the best option," said Steinberg.
Kurdish Shabaks whereabouts unknown, ISIS destroy villages
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Salim Shabaki, a Kurdish MP in Iraqi Parliament revealed to Rudaw that since the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized control of Mosul, at least eleven Shabak villages were destroyed. Shabaki also said houses were looted and 147 Kurdish Shabaks whereabouts are currently unknown. Residents of these villages have fled to surrounding villages where Peshmerga are stationed.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Salim Shabaki, a Kurdish MP in Iraqi Parliament revealed to Rudaw that since the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) seized control of Mosul, at least eleven Shabak villages were destroyed. Shabaki also said houses were looted and 147 Kurdish Shabaks whereabouts are currently unknown. Residents of these villages have fled to surrounding villages where Peshmerga are stationed.
Peshmerga forces Launch Major Offensive Against ISIS
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish Peshmerga forces have launched a major offensive against the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). An officer from Zervani forces revealed to KDP-INFO, \"Earlier we received an order to launch a major offensive against ISIS militants in Zumar and Sinjar\". He also added, \"We received dozens of advanced new weapons\" and that militant groups will be forced to retreat from these areas.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish Peshmerga forces have launched a major offensive against the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). An officer from Zervani forces revealed to KDP-INFO, \"Earlier we received an order to launch a major offensive against ISIS militants in Zumar and Sinjar\". He also added, \"We received dozens of advanced new weapons\" and that militant groups will be forced to retreat from these areas.
Peshmerga Forces Prepare for Major Offensive Against ISIL
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ali Awni, an official from Kurdistan Democratic Party reveals to Rudaw that despite claims to the contrary, not all of Sinjar is under the effective control of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He said, \"Peshmerga forces are stationed in one part of Sinjar, and are waiting for reinforcements to arrive\". He also added,\"A heavy force from Peshmerga under the leadership of Mansoor Barzani has arrived in the area, and in the next few hours will conduct a major offensive operation against ISIL to get rid of them in the area\". Anwar Haji Osman from the Ministry of Peshmerga briefly commented saying, \"Peshmerga are planning an operating, and will have a big victory in the area soon. ISIL will have no choice but to leave this country, and they know this very well\".
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ali Awni, an official from Kurdistan Democratic Party reveals to Rudaw that despite claims to the contrary, not all of Sinjar is under the effective control of the Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He said, \"Peshmerga forces are stationed in one part of Sinjar, and are waiting for reinforcements to arrive\". He also added,\"A heavy force from Peshmerga under the leadership of Mansoor Barzani has arrived in the area, and in the next few hours will conduct a major offensive operation against ISIL to get rid of them in the area\". Anwar Haji Osman from the Ministry of Peshmerga briefly commented saying, \"Peshmerga are planning an operating, and will have a big victory in the area soon. ISIL will have no choice but to leave this country, and they know this very well\".
Turkish Minister of National Defence: We Can Train Peshmarga Fighters
RUDAW - Ismet Yilmaz, the Minister of National Defence of Turkey, said that the Turkish army was ready to train the Kurdish Peshmarga. According to a report by the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, in answering the questions of the reporters Yilmaz stated, "Regarding giving military training to the Peshmarga, we have not received such a request yet, but we will evaluate it once the request is made." Yilmaz added, "The strongest ties of Turkey in this region are with the government of northern Iraq." Yilmaz stated that Kurdistan Region could open up to the world through Turkey, "The government of northern Iraq at the moment is serving as a good buffer zone to Turkey. It is clear that not only the southeast of Turkey, but also north of Iraq sees its future with Turkey. I saw it in the newspapers, there were voices calling for joining Turkey, so their future is with Turkey," said Yilmaz. The Turkish media claimed that during his last visit to Turkey, the President of Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, had asked the Turkish armed forces to give military training to the Peshmarga fighters.
RUDAW - Ismet Yilmaz, the Minister of National Defence of Turkey, said that the Turkish army was ready to train the Kurdish Peshmarga. According to a report by the Turkish Milliyet newspaper, in answering the questions of the reporters Yilmaz stated, "Regarding giving military training to the Peshmarga, we have not received such a request yet, but we will evaluate it once the request is made." Yilmaz added, "The strongest ties of Turkey in this region are with the government of northern Iraq." Yilmaz stated that Kurdistan Region could open up to the world through Turkey, "The government of northern Iraq at the moment is serving as a good buffer zone to Turkey. It is clear that not only the southeast of Turkey, but also north of Iraq sees its future with Turkey. I saw it in the newspapers, there were voices calling for joining Turkey, so their future is with Turkey," said Yilmaz. The Turkish media claimed that during his last visit to Turkey, the President of Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani, had asked the Turkish armed forces to give military training to the Peshmarga fighters.
IS: Rumors of Our Enemies!
RUDAW - The Islamic State (IS) published a document in which they denied the claims of IS's evicting the Kurds from Mosul city. The document which was published on 25/07/2014, states that such claims were "Rumors of the enemy aimed at distorting the image of the Islamic State." In that document IS referred to the Kurds as "Our brothers" and vowed to protect them as long as they remained faithful to their religion.
RUDAW - The Islamic State (IS) published a document in which they denied the claims of IS's evicting the Kurds from Mosul city. The document which was published on 25/07/2014, states that such claims were "Rumors of the enemy aimed at distorting the image of the Islamic State." In that document IS referred to the Kurds as "Our brothers" and vowed to protect them as long as they remained faithful to their religion.
Kurdish Oil en Route to Texas
RUDAW - The United States (U.S.) Department of State, softens its statements about Kurdistan Region's exportation of oil independently from the Iraqi government. A source within the U.S. Department of State said, "We can not say that exporting Kurdish oil is illegal." This statement comes while a tanker, United Kalavrvta operated by Unicom Management Services Ltd., carrying $100,000,000 worth of Kurdish crude oil is currently sailing towards the port of Teakwood in Houston in the state of Texas. According to ship tracking data the tanker's Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) to Teakwood port is 26/07/2014.
RUDAW - The United States (U.S.) Department of State, softens its statements about Kurdistan Region's exportation of oil independently from the Iraqi government. A source within the U.S. Department of State said, "We can not say that exporting Kurdish oil is illegal." This statement comes while a tanker, United Kalavrvta operated by Unicom Management Services Ltd., carrying $100,000,000 worth of Kurdish crude oil is currently sailing towards the port of Teakwood in Houston in the state of Texas. According to ship tracking data the tanker's Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) to Teakwood port is 26/07/2014.
Rudaw's Reporter Detained
RUDAW - Rudaw's reporter was detained by the Kurdish authorities after he tried to film the process of transporting the bodies of a number of Peshmarga fighters to Zakho Hospital. The Peshmarga fighters were killed on Friday 25/07/2014 during clashes with militants of the Islamic State (IS) in Rabia, a border town in Mosul province northwest of Iraq. Gharib Majeed, correspondent of Rudaw in Zakho, was barred from covering the proceedings and detained by the local authorities.
RUDAW - Rudaw's reporter was detained by the Kurdish authorities after he tried to film the process of transporting the bodies of a number of Peshmarga fighters to Zakho Hospital. The Peshmarga fighters were killed on Friday 25/07/2014 during clashes with militants of the Islamic State (IS) in Rabia, a border town in Mosul province northwest of Iraq. Gharib Majeed, correspondent of Rudaw in Zakho, was barred from covering the proceedings and detained by the local authorities.
Will Iraqi President Give Up His British Passport?
RUDAW - Khidir Masum, brother of Fuad Masum the newly elected President of Iraq, said that his brother would give up his British passport after becoming the President Iraq. According to article 18 of the Iraqi constitution, Iraqis holding sovereign posts in the Iraqi government must not be citizens of foreign countries. Fuad Masum, politburo member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and holder of a British passport, was appointed as the President of Iraq on 24/07/2014. Jala Talabani, the Secretary-General of the PUK, was also holding a British passport but he did not give up his British citizenship during his two terms as the Iraqi President. The system of the Iraqi government is similar to the Lebanese Confessionalism model, where the important government posts are divided among the main religious groups. In Iraq the government posts are divided among the Shiites,Sunnis, and the Kurds as an ethnic group. The post of the Iraqi President has been allocated for the Kurds since 2003.
RUDAW - Khidir Masum, brother of Fuad Masum the newly elected President of Iraq, said that his brother would give up his British passport after becoming the President Iraq. According to article 18 of the Iraqi constitution, Iraqis holding sovereign posts in the Iraqi government must not be citizens of foreign countries. Fuad Masum, politburo member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and holder of a British passport, was appointed as the President of Iraq on 24/07/2014. Jala Talabani, the Secretary-General of the PUK, was also holding a British passport but he did not give up his British citizenship during his two terms as the Iraqi President. The system of the Iraqi government is similar to the Lebanese Confessionalism model, where the important government posts are divided among the main religious groups. In Iraq the government posts are divided among the Shiites,Sunnis, and the Kurds as an ethnic group. The post of the Iraqi President has been allocated for the Kurds since 2003.
IS Ambushes a Peshmarga Vehicle
RUDAW - According to a source within the Eighth Brigade of Peshmarga forces and the Peshmarga command of Spilk in Kurdistan Region, five Peshmarga fighters in a vehicle heading towards the border town of Rabia, northwest of Iraq, was ambushed and killed on Friday 25/07/2014 by the militants of the Islamic State (IS). Muhammad Amin Muhammad, Lieutenant in Spilk Peshmarga Command, said, "We know that one of the five Peshmarga fighters was martyred, but we do not know whether the other four were also martyred or taken as prisoners by the IS militants."
RUDAW - According to a source within the Eighth Brigade of Peshmarga forces and the Peshmarga command of Spilk in Kurdistan Region, five Peshmarga fighters in a vehicle heading towards the border town of Rabia, northwest of Iraq, was ambushed and killed on Friday 25/07/2014 by the militants of the Islamic State (IS). Muhammad Amin Muhammad, Lieutenant in Spilk Peshmarga Command, said, "We know that one of the five Peshmarga fighters was martyred, but we do not know whether the other four were also martyred or taken as prisoners by the IS militants."
Why Peshmarga Fighters Retreated
RUDAW - Yesterday 20/07/2014 Mustafa Seid Qadir, Minister of Peshmarga in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), visited Jalawla to investigate the causes that led Peshmarga fighters lose the territories they captured earlier on 24/07/2014. According to information gathered by Rudaw, after the Peshmarga fighters successfully ejected the militants of the Islamic State (IS) from Tajneed and Wahda quarters in Jalawla, they ran out of ammunition and lacked backup units in the newly gained territories. Lack of logistics forced Peshmarga forces retreat in the face of the IS counter attack that was launched a few hours later. During the clashes on that day Peshmarga fighters killed 38 IS militants, but suffered 13 losses and 40 injuries
RUDAW - Yesterday 20/07/2014 Mustafa Seid Qadir, Minister of Peshmarga in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), visited Jalawla to investigate the causes that led Peshmarga fighters lose the territories they captured earlier on 24/07/2014. According to information gathered by Rudaw, after the Peshmarga fighters successfully ejected the militants of the Islamic State (IS) from Tajneed and Wahda quarters in Jalawla, they ran out of ammunition and lacked backup units in the newly gained territories. Lack of logistics forced Peshmarga forces retreat in the face of the IS counter attack that was launched a few hours later. During the clashes on that day Peshmarga fighters killed 38 IS militants, but suffered 13 losses and 40 injuries
Jalawla Under Kurdish Control
RUDAW - Early this morning 24/07/2014 at 2:00 am the forces of Peshmarga launched an offensive operation to capture the Quarters of Tajnid and Wahdah of Jalawla, where the Islamic State (IS) Militants were stationed. The Kurdish forced were able to capture those areas and eject IS militants completely from Jalawla after intense clashes that continued for seven hours. Six Peshmarga were injured in the operation and one killed. Jalawla town is located in Diyala Province east of Iraq. The IS militants were controlling parts of Jalawla for more than a month.
RUDAW - Early this morning 24/07/2014 at 2:00 am the forces of Peshmarga launched an offensive operation to capture the Quarters of Tajnid and Wahdah of Jalawla, where the Islamic State (IS) Militants were stationed. The Kurdish forced were able to capture those areas and eject IS militants completely from Jalawla after intense clashes that continued for seven hours. Six Peshmarga were injured in the operation and one killed. Jalawla town is located in Diyala Province east of Iraq. The IS militants were controlling parts of Jalawla for more than a month.
Maliki Rejected Soleimani\'s Request
RUDAW - Two senior Shiite politicians claim that Nuri al-Maliki had rejected a request from Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Commander of Quds Forces (a special forces unit of Iran\'s Revolutionary Guards responsible for extraterritorial operations), who asked Maliki to give up seeking a third term as the Iraqi PM. One of those Shiite politicians was present in the meeting between Maliki and Soleimani said that Soleimani was surprised by Maliki response. Maliki\'s excuse to Soleimani was that his party won in the elections and that gave him the right to seek a third term. Soleimani is considered one of the most powerful figures in Iran and plaid a major role making Maliki Iraq\'s PM for a second time in 2014. (report by AP)
RUDAW - Two senior Shiite politicians claim that Nuri al-Maliki had rejected a request from Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Commander of Quds Forces (a special forces unit of Iran\'s Revolutionary Guards responsible for extraterritorial operations), who asked Maliki to give up seeking a third term as the Iraqi PM. One of those Shiite politicians was present in the meeting between Maliki and Soleimani said that Soleimani was surprised by Maliki response. Maliki\'s excuse to Soleimani was that his party won in the elections and that gave him the right to seek a third term. Soleimani is considered one of the most powerful figures in Iran and plaid a major role making Maliki Iraq\'s PM for a second time in 2014. (report by AP)
Ki-Moon to Visit Erbil
RUDAW- The Secretary-General of the United Nations (U.N.), Ban Ki-moon, is expected to visit Erbil today 24/07/2014. According to information obtained by Rudaw, Moon will visit the Christian refugees who fled from Mosul. Moon is currently in Baghdad meeting with Nuri al-Maliki and a number of other Iraqi officials before heading to Erbil. The U.N. secretary general is expected to discuss the security situation in Iraq, the formation of the next Iraqi government, and the refugees of Mosul with the Iraqi officials.
RUDAW- The Secretary-General of the United Nations (U.N.), Ban Ki-moon, is expected to visit Erbil today 24/07/2014. According to information obtained by Rudaw, Moon will visit the Christian refugees who fled from Mosul. Moon is currently in Baghdad meeting with Nuri al-Maliki and a number of other Iraqi officials before heading to Erbil. The U.N. secretary general is expected to discuss the security situation in Iraq, the formation of the next Iraqi government, and the refugees of Mosul with the Iraqi officials.
The Islamic State Captures Three Peshmarga Fighters Near Mosul
RUDAW - A source within the Peshmarga forces told Rudaw that militants of the Islamic State (IS) had captured three Peshmargas fighters near Mosul on Wednesday night. "Three members of the Peshmarga forces were captured after clashes with IS militants near the Badush junction in Mosul," said the source. The source added, "The Peshmarga forces withdrew from three checkpoints in Badush and a medicine factory in that area. The withdrawal was a tactical move because that area is too far from the Peshmarga stronghold and cannot be defended."
RUDAW - A source within the Peshmarga forces told Rudaw that militants of the Islamic State (IS) had captured three Peshmargas fighters near Mosul on Wednesday night. "Three members of the Peshmarga forces were captured after clashes with IS militants near the Badush junction in Mosul," said the source. The source added, "The Peshmarga forces withdrew from three checkpoints in Badush and a medicine factory in that area. The withdrawal was a tactical move because that area is too far from the Peshmarga stronghold and cannot be defended."
Maliki Contradicts Maliki
RUDAW - Today 23/07/2014 Iraqi caretaker PM Nuri al-Maliki gave his weekly speech to the Iraqi people. Among other things Maliki talked about the "monstrosity" of the Islamic State (IS) militants by giving the example of the IS attacks against the Christians of Mosul, the Kurds, and the Iraqis. This is a clear contradiction to what he said in his weekly address on 09/07/2014 when he alleged that Erbil became "A base for IS, terrorists, and former Baathists."
RUDAW - Today 23/07/2014 Iraqi caretaker PM Nuri al-Maliki gave his weekly speech to the Iraqi people. Among other things Maliki talked about the "monstrosity" of the Islamic State (IS) militants by giving the example of the IS attacks against the Christians of Mosul, the Kurds, and the Iraqis. This is a clear contradiction to what he said in his weekly address on 09/07/2014 when he alleged that Erbil became "A base for IS, terrorists, and former Baathists."
Kurdish Blocs Warn PUK
RUDAW - Last night 22/07/2014 the Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi Parliament held a meeting in Baghdad in which they demanded from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to nominate only one candidate for the post of Iraqi President. "In the meeting we pressured the PUK bloc to come forward with only candidate for the Iraqi Presidency post. We also told them that the Kurdish blocs are not obliged to choose between the two candidates of the PUK," said Zana Rostayi, MP in the Iraqi parliament for the Kurdistan Islamic League (Komal). Today 23/07/2014 and before the meeting of the Iraqi parliament at 1:pm, the PUK is expected to respond to that demand.
RUDAW - Last night 22/07/2014 the Kurdish blocs in the Iraqi Parliament held a meeting in Baghdad in which they demanded from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to nominate only one candidate for the post of Iraqi President. "In the meeting we pressured the PUK bloc to come forward with only candidate for the Iraqi Presidency post. We also told them that the Kurdish blocs are not obliged to choose between the two candidates of the PUK," said Zana Rostayi, MP in the Iraqi parliament for the Kurdistan Islamic League (Komal). Today 23/07/2014 and before the meeting of the Iraqi parliament at 1:pm, the PUK is expected to respond to that demand.
New Training Camps of IS
RUDAW - The Islamic State (IS) militants have set up training camps near Kirkuk province. According to information gathered by Rudaw, the IS camps are located in the districts of Riyadth and Rashad in the outskirts of Kirkuk province. "They are training their recruits in those camps. A number of Kirkuk's police and officers have joined the IS and set up checkpoints. Some officers who have served in the previous Iraqi army are training the IS members in those camps," said Sarhad Qadir, police chief of Kirkuk, to Rudaw.
RUDAW - The Islamic State (IS) militants have set up training camps near Kirkuk province. According to information gathered by Rudaw, the IS camps are located in the districts of Riyadth and Rashad in the outskirts of Kirkuk province. "They are training their recruits in those camps. A number of Kirkuk's police and officers have joined the IS and set up checkpoints. Some officers who have served in the previous Iraqi army are training the IS members in those camps," said Sarhad Qadir, police chief of Kirkuk, to Rudaw.
Taxing Rich Christians Only
RUDAW - One of the leaders of al-Jibour tribe from Mosul described the current situation of Mosul to Rudaw today 21/07/2014. \"The IS militant are controlling the entire city but through coordination with other armed groups of al-Naqshbandi, the Islamic army, and the Revolutionary Twentieth Brigades,\" said the tribal leader who spoke under the condition of anonymity. The source confirmed that the court, customs, and other government institutions are completely paralyzed and do not offer any services to the people. The marketplaces are becoming gradually less crowded as the shops are running low on food supplies and goods due to the embargo imposed on the city. The forest areas of Mosul that was once a destination for families are now visited only by young males and avoided by families. There is also no electricity or gas in the city. Waves of fleeing Christians from Mosul fled to Kurdistan Region in the last few days after the Islamic State militants in Mosul warned the Christian and gave them a deadline on 19/07/2014 to either convert to Islam, agree to pay tax or leave the country. \"People of Mosul are shocked about this decision of IS and they feel sad for the Christian families,\" said the al-Jibour tribal leader. Regarding the details of this tax and its amount, the source said, \"The tax was imposed on the rich Christian families only, not the poor. The amount of the tax was $80 per year.\"
RUDAW - One of the leaders of al-Jibour tribe from Mosul described the current situation of Mosul to Rudaw today 21/07/2014. \"The IS militant are controlling the entire city but through coordination with other armed groups of al-Naqshbandi, the Islamic army, and the Revolutionary Twentieth Brigades,\" said the tribal leader who spoke under the condition of anonymity. The source confirmed that the court, customs, and other government institutions are completely paralyzed and do not offer any services to the people. The marketplaces are becoming gradually less crowded as the shops are running low on food supplies and goods due to the embargo imposed on the city. The forest areas of Mosul that was once a destination for families are now visited only by young males and avoided by families. There is also no electricity or gas in the city. Waves of fleeing Christians from Mosul fled to Kurdistan Region in the last few days after the Islamic State militants in Mosul warned the Christian and gave them a deadline on 19/07/2014 to either convert to Islam, agree to pay tax or leave the country. \"People of Mosul are shocked about this decision of IS and they feel sad for the Christian families,\" said the al-Jibour tribal leader. Regarding the details of this tax and its amount, the source said, \"The tax was imposed on the rich Christian families only, not the poor. The amount of the tax was $80 per year.\"
Jalal Talabani Cried
Sheikh Jangi, the elder brother of Jalal Talbani, talked about the moment he saw Talabani for the first time after his return from Germany. "He cried when he saw us," said Jangi, who also added, "He was well. He said that he was hungry. We brought him rice, two pieces of chicken and some vegetables. He said thank God I am well and wanted to return. He then told us that he needed to retire to his bed because he was tired."
Sheikh Jangi, the elder brother of Jal |
should let it go. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 29% of all Likely U.S. Voters think congressional Democrats should do their own investigation if the Mueller probe fails to find proof that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. Sixty-four percent (64%) say Democrats in Congress should move on to other issues instead. (To see survey question wording, click here.) (Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on February 13-14, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.Freedom, generally, is having an ability to change without constraint.
Freedom may also refer to:
Philosophy [ edit ]
Companies [ edit ]
Freedom Yachts, an American yacht builder
Computing [ edit ]
Freedom (application), a software utility designed to allow a person to block their own access to the Internet for a set period of time
Freedom! (video game), an educational computer game on the history of slavery
(video game), an educational computer game on the history of slavery Software freedom
Transport [ edit ]
Geography [ edit ]
In the United States
Arts and entertainment [ edit ]
Animation [ edit ]
Freedom Project, an original video animation series
, an original video animation series ZGMF-X10A Freedom Gundam, a mobile suit from the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its sequel, Gundam SEED Destiny ZGMF-X20A Strike Freedom Gundam, its successor unit
and its sequel,
Books [ edit ]
Freedom (Jonathan Franzen novel), a 2010 novel by Jonathan Franzen
(Jonathan Franzen novel), a 2010 novel by Jonathan Franzen Freedom (William Safire novel), a 1987 novel by William Safire
(William Safire novel), a 1987 novel by William Safire Freedom™, a 2010 novel by Daniel Suarez
, a 2010 novel by Daniel Suarez Freedom, original title of Freedom, Vol. 1: Freedom in the Making of Western Culture, a 1991 history by Orlando Patterson
, original title of, a 1991 history by Orlando Patterson FREEDOM!, a 2014 philosophical treatise by Adam Kokesh
Fictional entities [ edit ]
Freedom, a Bald Eagle from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1985 TV series)
Film and television [ edit ]
Games [ edit ]
Freedom: Underground Railroad, a 2013 board game about the Abolitionist Movement in the 1800s in the United States.
Graffiti [ edit ]
Chris Pape, known as Freedom (20th century), an American graffiti artist
Music [ edit ]
Albums [ edit ]
Songs [ edit ]
Sculpture [ edit ]
Statue of Freedom, the statue on top of the U.S. Capitol dome
, the statue on top of the U.S. Capitol dome Freedom, by Zenos Frudakis, outside of GlaxoSmithKline world headquarters in Philadelphia
Mathematics and physics [ edit ]
Press [ edit ]
Freedom Communications, a privately held national media company headquartered in Irvine, California
Freedom (magazine), a Scientology publication
(magazine), a Scientology publication Freedom (newspaper), a British anarchist newspaper
(newspaper), a British anarchist newspaper Freedom Press, a British anarchist publishing house
Sports [ edit ]
Florence Freedom, an independent minor league baseball team that plays in the Frontier League
Washington Freedom, a women's professional soccer (football) team
Other [ edit ]
Freedom (Azerbaijan), an electoral alliance in Azerbaijan
Freedom (charity), a UK charity dedicated to helping victims of forced marriage
Freedom (yacht), a 12-metre class racing yacht and winner of the 1980 America's Cup
(yacht), a 12-metre class racing yacht and winner of the 1980 America's Cup Freedom of the City, an honour bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community or an important visitor to itBy Tony Cartalucci
BLN Contributing Writer
Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution penned the book "From Dictatorship to Democracy," originally designated for the destabilization and recolonization of Myanmar, still called "Burma" throughout much of the West. Sharp's book would then be utilized by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout Eastern Europe, throughout Asia, and eventually, in 2011, for the US-engineered "Arab Spring."
According to Sharp's own Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) 2000-2004 annual report, AEI had been sponsored by the US government's National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and its funded subsidiary International Republican Institute (IRI) to train activists in Serbia (page 18) Zimbabwe (page 23) and Myanmar (page 26) to help overthrow their respective sovereign governments.
Australia's Southern Cross University's "Activating Human Rights & Peace (AHRP)" conference had put out a revealing account of their 2008 proceedings illustrating that all of Gene Sharp's work, beyond what was even mentioned in his own institution's annual report, had been fully funded and in support of the US government and its global domineering agenda. Beginning on page 26, Sharp's affiliations, in particular with the National Endowment for Democracy, which is described as carrying out "a lot of work that was formerly undertaken by the CIA," as well as the Ford Foundation, and billionaire Wall Street patriarch George Soros' Open Society Institute are fleshed out in immense detail.
Gene Sharp Has Defenders
Despite this, there are still voices out there calling criticism of Gene Sharp's affiliations with the US government and the CIA "wild accusations" and "conspiracy theories." One of these voices is director and Sky News/freelance journalist Ruaridh Arrow of the UK. Arrow has a lot invested in his views, as he is the director of "How to Start a Revolution" and has invested a tremendous amount of time and effort attempting to portray Sharp as anything but an agent of US-funded sedition promoting corporate-fascist global hegemony.
Photo : Ruaridh Arrow in Egypt. He is the director of "How to Make a Revolution," a disingenuous take on the "Arab Spring," which sidesteps documented evidence and even overt admissions that foreign corporate-financier interests drove the unrest, not indigenous aspirations for "democracy."
....
The "Arab Spring" is Fake
Mr. Arrow Stands by His Work
Country by Country - Wall Street is ThereA former police officer who sexually assaulted a woman while on duty gets to have a gun. Photo by Burlingham/Shutterstock
What does someone have to do in order to lose gun rights in Georgia? Apparently, sexually assaulting a woman at gunpoint—even threatening to anally penetrate her with the gun—is not enough. Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress reports on the shocking case of Dennis Krauss, a now former police officer who was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in 1999 who had called 911 to complain that her husband was beating her. According to the appeals court decision that upheld Krauss’ conviction, instead of helping the woman, Krauss threatened to take her to jail if she didn’t have sex with him.
Krauss checked them into a motel room while the woman sat terrified, thinking she was under arrest, in the car. “I had to, I was afraid to leave, he, you know, he is a police officer; you don’t just leave,” the victim explained. Once he had her in the motel room, according to the 2003 appeals court decision, “Krauss took his gun from his gun belt and told the victim he wanted to have anal sex with her with the gun.” Then he pushed her, pulled off her pants, and raped her.
Despite Krauss’ sexual assault conviction, the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles restored his right to carry a firearm in July 2013. This is coming to light now because the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has published an exposé of the Georgia courts’ tendency to restore gun privileges to convicted felons. The Journal-Constitution counted 358 violent felons who were able to regain gun rights in a six-year period, 32 who killed someone and 44 who were convicted of sex crimes.
Krauss was not only convicted of this particular sexual assault, but had a record that “was filled with allegations of misconduct,” according to the Journal-Constitution. The allegations: “that he beat a prisoner so severely the man’s brain bled; that he threatened to fabricate charges against a suspect so he could sleep with the man’s wife; that he pressured at least 10 women for sex to avoid arrest.”
Last week, the Charleston Post and Courier published a major investigative report on how a conservative culture that puts an emphasis on gun rights but not on women’s rights has led to South Carolina’s high domestic homicide rate. This case suggests that Georgia is suffering from a similar problem of skewed priorities, allowing the gun lobby to run rampant over not just women’s rights but basic common sense. Surely keeping guns out of the hands of men who are convicted of sexual assault at gunpoint is not too big an ask.Springdale couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar Courtesy 19 Kids and Counting / Wikipedia
With pre-election fundraising reports now in, it’s time to see how much money candidates have raised for their City Council campaigns in Fayetteville.
State law requires any opposed municipal candidate who received or spent more than $500 to file official reports with the County Clerk’s office. As part of the requirements, each candidate must list all contributions over $50 and all expenditures over $100.
According to finance and expenditure reports filed this week with the Washington County Clerk’s office, Fayetteville candidates have raised more than $44,000, almost one-fourth of which came from Springdale residents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.
The Duggars, who are featured in the TV show “19 Kids and Counting,” have so far donated $10,000 toward the campaigns of the three most outspoken opponents to Fayetteville’s new Civil Rights Administration ordinance. The Duggars gave $2,000 to John La Tour, and $4,000 to both Joshua Crawford and Paul Phaenuef.
The new law would prohibit business owners and landlords from unjustly firing or evicting someone because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and other characteristics.
The ordinance was passed by the Fayetteville City Council on Aug. 20, but a group called Repeal 119 gathered enough signatures to put the new law to a Dec. 9 public vote.
La Tour, Crawford, and Phaneuf have all said they oppose the ordinance and were each listed as contacts on a press release for Repeal 119.
It’s not the first time the Duggars have come into Fayetteville in an apparent attempt to help repeal the new law.
Shortly before the council vote in August, Michelle Duggar narrated a robocall sent to Fayetteville residents that claimed the new civil rights law would affect the safety of women and children. In the call, Duggar echoed the claims of several local pastors who said protections based on gender identity could lead to men using women’s restrooms or showers, and that the ordinance would be “opening a door” for pedophiles and sexual predators who wish to abuse people.
The Duggars were the leading contributors in the City Council races, followed by the Rosemary Conrad Trust, which gave $2,000 to Robert Patton; and Lighthouse Baptist Church of Fayetteville, which gave a total of $1,331 to Crawford and Phaneuf.
Candidates have so far spent their money on advertising and campaign materials like yard signs, and direct mail post cards.
Campaign reports by ward
Ward 1
Paul Phaneuf, who is a vocal opponent of the civil rights ordinance, raised the most money in Ward 1, thanks to the $4,000 he received from the Duggars and $631 from Lighthouse Baptist. Phaneuf reported $6,081 in total contributions from 13 donors, but has only spent $913, according to paperwork filed Tuesday.
Incumbent Adella Gray, who voted for the civil rights ordinance, spent the most money in Ward 1, with $2,677 in expenditures. Gray reported $3,205 in total contributions, including $2,420 of her own money. She received $500 from the Fayetteville Firefighters Association; $350 from Ward 4 Alderwoman Rhonda Adams; $250 from the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee; and $100 from former Ward 3 Alderman Bobby Ferrell.
Sonia Davis Gutierrez, who said she supported the civil rights ordinance, raised and spent the least amount of money in Ward 1, with $1,805 in contributions and $1,204 in expenditures. Gutierrez’s top contributors were Stephen Smith and Fran Alexander, who gave $200 and $150 respectively.
Ward 2
Robert Patton, who called the civil right ordinance “a mess” and later stated on his website that he supports the new law, raised and spent the most money in Ward 2, with $5,483 in contributions and $6,628 in expenditures. Patton received $2,000 from the Rosemary Conrad Trust; $500 from Buffington Homes of Fayetteville; and $200 from local developer Mark Zweig. Patton reported spending $1,600 of his own money this year.
Joshua Crawford, who said he would’ve voted to repeal the civil rights ordinance, raised the second-highest amount of money in Ward 2. He reported $5,184 in total contributions, including the $4,000 he received from the Duggar family and $700 from Lighthouse Baptist. Crawford reported $4,540 in expenditures.
Incumbent Mark Kinion, who voted for the civil rights ordinance, has so far raised and spent the least in Ward 2, with $1,025 in contributions and $1,252 in expenditures. Kinion received $250 from the Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee; $200 from local property manager Cynthia Morris; and $100 from former Ward 3 Alderman Bobby Ferrell. He reported $1,300 in personal loans to his campaign.
Ward 4
John La Tour, who said he would work to repeal the civil rights ordinance, reported the most spending in Ward 4, at $17,395. That’s over $6,000 more than all five of the other candidates’ expenditures combined. La Tour reported contributions of $9,965, and noted a personal loan of $12,156 to his campaign. La Tour received $2,000 from the Duggar family; $1,000 from DFI Printing of Fayetteville; two $1,000 donations each from local physicians Ted Fish and Martha Fincher; and $400 from Sweetser Construction of Fayetteville.
Ray Boudreaux, who signed a petition seeking a vote to repeal the civil rights ordinance, raised the second-most money in Ward 4, at $4,825. He reported spending all his money, which included $2,825 of his own money; a $250 donation from Bob Nickel; and two $200 donations each from Robert Costrell and Dr. James E. McDonald.
Craig Honchell, who said on his website he would’ve voted against the civil rights ordinance, raised and spent the third-most money in Ward 4, with $3,400 in contributions and $3,077 in expenditures. Honchell spent $500 of his own money and received $500 donations from Fayetteville residents Bill Goforth, Charlie Goforth, Mark Marquess and Charlie Sloan.
Phillip McKnight, who said it was well within the rights of a councilman to introduce the civil rights ordinance, raised $1,965 and spent $1,896, according to his financial report. McKnight’s top donors were his neighbors Maxine and John Williams and Scott Busch, who each contributed $250. McKnight received nearly $900 from donors who each gave less than $50.
D’Andre Jones, who said he supported the civil rights ordinance, raised $1,352, including a $300 donation from Esther Parker. Jones, who has so far spent $1,068 of his funds, loaned his campaign $623. He also received a $355 loan from Fayetteville resident Lance Reed.
Robert Williams, who said the civil rights ordinance will make business owners nervous about operating in Fayetteville, did not report any monetary donations in his most recent finance report, but noted $471 spent this month on printed materials.
Final campaign contribution and expenditure reports are expected to be filed in late December or early January.
2014 pre-election campaign spending
Ward 1 Candidates Contributions Expenditures Adella Gray $3,205 $2,677 Sonia Savis Gutierrez $1,805 $1,204 Paul Phaneuf $6,081 $913
Ward 2 Candidates Contributions Expenditures Joshua Crawford $5,184 $4,540 Mark Kinion $1,025 $1,252 Robert Patton $5,483 $6,628
Ward 4 Candidates Contributions Expenditures Ray Boudreaux $4,825 $4,825 Craig Honchell $3,400 $3,077 D’Andre Jones $1,352 $1,068 John La Tour $9,965 $17,395 Phillip McKnight $1,965 $1,896 Robert Williams $0 $471
Source: Washington County Clerk’s OfficeRALEIGH, NC—Saying the law provides women with an opportunity to carefully consider all their options, North Carolina officials today praised the state’s abortion waiting period for allowing women to explore alternatives to making their own decisions. “We want to make sure any woman seeking an abortion has ample opportunity to reconsider determining for herself what is best for her body,” said state spokesman Jeremy Neumark, adding that the mandatory 72-hour waiting period gives women the time needed to weigh alternatives to the difficult choice that they had already made and now simply wished to carry out. “When a woman comes to her doctor for an abortion, we know she’s arrived at that choice as the result of a lengthy and often painful decision-making process, and we’d like to respect that by giving her some additional time to second-guess herself.” Neumark went on to say that any woman who has decided to not have an abortion is encouraged to trust her own judgment on such an important and personal matter.SINGAPORE - A former Mediacorp producer abused and used criminal force on police officers who had responded to a complaint by a security guard at Tanjong Beach Club in Sentosa a year ago.
Zhao Xiaotian, 26, was on Wednesday (April 20) sentenced to two weeks' jail after admitting to slapping Sergeant Muhammad Fahmi Osman, 27, at 8.42pm, and spitting twice at Sgt Muhammad Hafiz Kamsari, 30, as they executed their duties outside the club on April 26 last year.
A district court heard that Zhao had gone to the club at about 1pm that day to meet her friends. They remained there through the afternoon and into the evening, and consumed alcohol.
At about 8.30pm, security guard Zainal Abidin Amir Hamzah, 39, heard a commotion at the pool area and found that Zhao had removed her bikini top and was topless in the pool.
He asked her to put her bikini top back on which she did when she came out of the pool.
A short while later, she removed her bikini top again and went back into the pool.
Mr Zainal Abidin saw this and asked for her identity card, but Zhao did not cooperate and started behaving aggressively.
Later, police were called as she remained aggressive.
Sgt Fahmi and Sgt Hafiz arrived and interviewed the people involved.
Zhao was uncooperative and was abusive to the two police officers.
When Sgt Fahmi asked to see her identification, she placed her black bikini top on Sgt Fahmi's shoulder, close to his face.
Warned about her conduct, Zhao slapped Sgt Fahmi on the left side of his face.
She put up a violent struggle and resisted arrest, but was eventually restrained.
When the two officers tried to place her into the backseat of the police car, she continued resisting and shouted at them, hurling vulgarities.
While Sgt Hafiz was trying to restrain her in the backseat of the car, she spat at him twice.
When a female sergeant arrived to provide back-up, Zhao remained hostile and used abusive language towards these officers.
Her blood-alcohol level was found to be 121mg/100ml.
Her lawyer Nakoorsha A.K. said Zhao, who was drunk at the time, was genuinely remorseful and deeply regretted the offence. What she did was out of character, he said.
Pleading for leniency, he said the University of New York graduate worked in Mediacorp from July to September 2012, and from December 2014 to September last year. She also freelanced with Global Executive Network and now works as a sales and marketing associate.
Zhao, who had six other charges taken into consideration, is appealing. Bail of $10,000 was allowed.
She could have been jailed for up to four years and fined on each charge.Security forces detained a Japanese citizen on suspicion of seeking to cross the border into Syria to join the Daesh terror organization, Turkish media outlets reported.
The 24-year-old man, whose name was given only as M.M., was detained late on Tuesday in the Nizip district of the southern city of Gaziantep, close to the Syrian border.
According to Doğan News Agency (DHA), he had admitted to wanting to travel to Syria after getting to know an unnamed contact by telephone and then agreeing to cross the frontier. He will be deported from Turkey back to Japan once the investigation is completed, DHA added. It said he was detained during a routine check by the gendarmerie while being driven toward the border settlement of Karkamış.
Anadolu Agency (AA) said police had confirmed his contacts with the group by examining messages on his cellphone. Images published by DHA showed the man kneeling in the middle of the road with his hands above his head, guarded by an armed soldier.
Officials from the Japanese Embassy in Ankara said they were "investigating" the reports on M.M.'s detention, and did not confirm whether the man was a Japanese national.
Turkish officials said security forces on Tuesday arrested 10 suspected Daesh members at the Syrian border in the Gaziantep region, including a would-be suicide bomber. Their nationalities were not disclosed.
Meanwhile, Istanbul police arrested seven suspects linked to the Daesh terrorist group during anti-terror raids on Tuesday.
During the raids conducted on three previously determined addresses by Istanbul Counter Terrorism and Intelligence Department units, in cooperation with German intelligence, two foreign and one Turkish national were arrested.
The alleged suspects were reportedly part of a possible terror attack plot against German schools and the German consulate in Istanbul.
The suspects were identified as Turkish national, Muhammet N., Iraqi national Ibrahim G.C.Ş., and Syrian national Ali F.. The Iraqi suspect was reportedly already on police's wanted list.
Turkey is on high security alert after a Daesh suicide bomber blew himself up on Istanbul's most famous shopping street, İstiklal Avenue, on Saturday. Due to its proximity to Syria and Iraq where the terrorist group is active, Turkey is exposed to threats from Daesh, which classifies the country among its many enemies. The group's clashes with rebels occasionally spill over into Turkish territories, while Turkey struggles to keep its lengthy border with war-torn Syria well-protected with walls and firepower.
Turkey has listed Daesh as a terrorist organization since 2013. So far, more than 3,300 suspects have been investigated for links to Daesh and other extremist groups.
According to the Interior Ministry, 847 suspected Daesh members are currently in custody, most of whom are foreigners.
Turkey is also at risk from a flow of foreign recruits to the group in Syria. The latest figures show some 27,000 people from more than 100 countries were stopped as they attempted to travel to Syria to join the militants. Though Daesh recruits militants from all across the globe including East Asian countries, no figures are available indicating whether or not Daesh recruited any from Japan. In 2015, the terrorist organization killed two Japanese hostages, a freelance journalist and a contractor, after the duo was captured by Daesh in Syria.NBC’s Heroes Reborn this Thursday drew 4 million total viewers and a 1.3 rating, rising 30 percent in the demo week-to-week to hit a five-week high.
Leading out of that, The Blacklist (6.3 mil/1.4) dipped a tenth and The Player (3.2 mil/0.7) was steady.
Elsewhere in the ratings….
CBS | Pending adjustments due to NFL preemption in Cleveland and Cincinnati…. Big Bang returned to Thursday with 15.1 million viewers and a 3.8 rating, down 7 and 14 percent from its most recent Monday outing. Life in Pieces (9.2 mil/2.3) was up two tenths, delivering best-since-premiere numbers. Mom — which TVLine readers gave an average grade of “A-” — returned to 8.4 mil/2.0, down sharply from its previous premiere but matching its May finale. Elementary (6.6 mil/1.5) is currently up from both its previous premiere and its May finale, scoring its best demo number since Jan. 22.
FOX | Bones (5.3 mil/1.2) dipped a tenth, while Sleepy Hollow (3 mil/0.9) dropped 33 percent and two tenths from last week’s crossover episode.
ABC | Grey’s Anatomy (8.5 mil/2.3) dipped a tenth, Scandal (8 mil/2.3) was steady and How to Get Away With Murder (6.5 mil/1.9) ticked up.
RELATED Read Recaps for Grey’s, Scandal and HTGAWM
THE CW | Vampire Diaries (1.4 mil/0.6) added a few eyeballs while The Originals (1 mil/0.4) was steady.
Want scoop on any of the above shows? Email [email protected] and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line.Last year, the Center for Work-Life Policy reported that 43% of college-educated women ages to 33 to 46 are childfree. When I read that, my heart swelled with hope. Harp music started playing, and angels sang “Rejoice! Rejoice!” It was as if someone had just told me unicorns were real.
And I was convinced that they would all move to my neighborhood and be able to go to the movies with me on a moment’s notice.
Now, a few months later, I’m wondering: Where the eff are they?
My husband and I live in a small town that is more subrural than suburban. We’ve been here for four years. I know basically three people in the area:
Kim, a newlywed with babies on the brain. (You may remember Kim from an earlier post.)
.) Sue, an empty-nester and kindergarten teacher who uses Facebook to share G-rated jokes that involve puns and talking fruit.
Mary, an 87-year-old lifelong resident who remembers when the town was so small her graduating class was 13 people—and they were all related.
I enjoy hanging out with all of these women. They are all good people and interesting conversationalists. But “age and phase” differences sometimes crop up—like when Mary has to cancel our lunch plans because her arthritis is acting up.
It would be nice to have some friends who are my age and in my phase of life. I have no idea where to find such people. It seems like it is easy for parents to find other parents—the kid hanging onto the leg is usually a giveaway. But how do we childfree folks find each other?
Can we all just agree to wear an ankle bracelet with bells? Grocery shop on Tuesday nights? Dress left when we’re at a bar? Affix “DINK on Board” stickers to our car windows?
At this point, I think I am more likely to find a unicorn or a leprechaun or the Loch Ness Monster than a childfree woman in her late 30s.
Where do you find your childfree friends?
AdvertisementsAs one of the greats of American black metal Xasthur left its mark on the indelible and the hard-won. Sadly, Xasthur, as of 2010, is no more but the legacy of main black Scott Conner carries on in not-so-new project, Nocturnal Poisoning.
Certainly a sound to divide fans right down the middle of Xasthur’s “X”, Nocturnal Poisoning has less to do with black metal and more to with bluegrass music, which isn’t so much of a head-scratcher when the Euros—mostly former black and death metallers—are diving into their respective folk musics to connect to a distant past. Bluegrass is, essentially, American heritage music.
Nocturnal Poisoning’s new album, Doomgrass, sums up where Conner’s head and musical fingers are at. On the surface and deep under it, the music has a dark, homespun atmosphere. It reveals Conner’s inner and outer workings.
So, sit back in your grandfather’s antique leather chair, pour yourself a libation of old, and get true (to yourself) to Nocturnal Poisoning.
** Nocturnal Poisoning’s new album, Doomgrass, is out October 7th on The End Records. It’s available for pre-order HERE. If Burzum can put together several albums of halfwit Super Mario Bros. music, Scott Conner has the right to strum to America’s heartbeat. It’s only logical.'Someday a woman will be president' T-shirt (Etsy)
Hillary Clinton became the first woman nominated for president by a major American political party, but just 21 years ago — when she served as First Lady — Wal-Mart wouldn’t even sell T-shirts promoting the idea.
In August 1995, a Wal-Mart store in Florida sold T-shirts showing Margaret, a character in the comic strip “Dennis the Menace,” proclaiming that “Someday a woman will be president.”
A customer spotted the T-shirts and complained, reported The Associated Press, and the store removed them.
“It was determined the T-shirt was offensive to some people and so the decision was made to pull it from the sales floor,” said Jane Bockholt, a spokeswoman for the company at the time.
The store, which was located in Miramar, had sold about two-thirds of its 204 shirts in about two weeks, and was about to order 100 more when the customer complained.
The designer of the T-shirt said a buyer for Wal-Mart’s national office told her the Arkansas-based company would not carry her design nationwide because the message “goes against Wal-Mart’s family values.”
Ann Moliver Ruben, a psychologist who was then 70 years old, said the company had censored her message.
“Promoting females as leaders is still a very threatening concept in this country,” Ruben said at the time.
Ruben bought the rights to use the character from King Features Inc, and planned to sell the shirts for $10 to $15 to women’s groups in hopes of inspiring girls, but she approached Wal-Mart about spreading her message even wider.
Wal-Mart’s decision sparked protests, and the company ordered 30,000 of Ruben’s shirts in December 1995 to sell nationwide in its stores.
“Loud and clear, our customers told us it was a mistake to remove them,” said Bockholt, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman. “It was just a cute T-shirt. It had nothing to do with politics.”
Two decades later, Michelle Obama, the wife of the nation’s first black president, told the Democratic National Convention that a woman president was no longer a controversial notion.
“Because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States,” Obama said.
In a statement, a Walmart spokesperson said: “Wow, it still pains us that we made this mistake 20 years ago. We’re proud of the fact that our country – and our company – has made so much progress in advancing women in the workplace, and in society.”ARC Three: The Other Days
Chapter Sixteen: Gifts and Training
A few days passed after Batman and Subaru made some preparations for Rem and Ram's birthday. Subaru convinced everyone else in the mansion to keep it a secret, even threatening Beatrice with tattling on her with Puck. This way, the surprise would be legitimate. Days went by as Ram's suspicion of the others was high, but luckily it went off without a hitch.
The early morning of the day started with everyone giving the two sisters some form of distraction.
Subaru helped Rem make cookies for themselves.
Emilia had a long tea break with Rem, with the assistance of Puck.
Roswaal had a long meeting with Ram.
And Beatrice asked for some drinks to be prepared by her.
When the time for dinner had finally come, almost everyone hid in the dining room.
The two maids were surprised by the absence of the others. Batman had then arrived, saying he was looking for everyone as well. He led them to the dining room even with Ram being suspicious.
"Batman-san, do you know something?"
"Not really, I've been too busy these last couple of days, training with magic."
"True, but you could have still conspired something."
"Do I look like the kind of guy who does that?"
"Hmph!"
The two had made it, Batman opened the doors as they made a creaking sound. When the doors finally opened, loud popping sounds were heard and confetti flew into the air. Rem was about to fling her Morningstar into the room out of fear, only to be stopped by Batman. As she took a second glance, she saw everyone gathered in the dining room with a feast on the table. Over them was a banner saying, "Happy Birthday to Our Two Favorite Sisters, Ram and Rem!"
Rem could only gaze upon this with star filled eyes.
Ram also couldn't help but be utterly shocked by the level of detail.
The patrons gathered together in front of the two..
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU TWO!"
Rem started to have a smile form on her face, tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
Ram simply smiled back.
The two sisters found out it was actually Batman who helped everyone cook the meal in front of them, using a cookbook Roswaal found in his study, as well as remembering lessons Alfred had taught him for fun. One of the dishes was a soup that everyone seem to really enjoy, Subaru especially enjoyed it with a few globs of mayonnaise mixed in. Emilia was all the more curious.
"Wow! This is sooo good! What is this soup called?"
"It's Mulligatawny soup."
"Hmm..what a strange name. Is this from your hometown?"
"In a way, yes. In particular, it's my favorite food."
"I see then, yes, I can see why you love it then."
Emilia gave a bright smile as she sipped on another spoonful. Subaru and Puck plowed through the soup, Beatrice were elegantly enjoying their portions, and as for the sisters…
"Batman-san, Rem wishes to thank you so much for letting Nee-sama enjoy this along with me."
"Rem, you and your sister are more than welcome to enjoy it. Think of it as my birthday gift to you."
"...Rem doesn't know if she deserves this."
"...You do, both you and your sister. After all the nonsense with the Ma-beast and dealing with Subaru everyday, you earned this."
Subaru slightly winced at this, but after seeing Batman tilt his head toward Rem, he knew it was the signal. Subaru nodded and walked over to Rem. He slightly blushed a bit, but then he pulled out something from behind him that startled Rem.
"Ah!"
Subaru pulled out a necklace made of flowers. It was intricately made, looking like something one would have to buy from a high class flower shop. But it was in fact crafted by himself over the past few days, just for Rem.
"Happy Birthday Rem, here's to another month, year, or heck, century together here!"
"...Subaru-kun…"
Subaru placed it gently around her neck, she lightly brushed her hand against it, her face now crimson red. She gazed up at Subaru who smiled back.
"Hope you like it."
"...Yes, Rem adores it. Thank you so much Subaru-kun."
"Yup, and for Ram…"
Subaru rushed back to his seat and pulled out a small box and quickly handed it to Ram. When she opened it she saw a small pink stuffed animal. She didn't recognize it, but it was an elephant.
"And what is this Barusu?"
"Just a little something I whipped up during my breaks, I thought that an elephant was the perfect fit for Ram-chi!"
"Ele-phunt?"
"Elephant. Where I'm from, they're these big animals that are super strong and known for their high intelligence, but also for their almost cute appearance. So, it's a perfect fit for Onee-sama."
"...Tsk. Barusu being somewhat genuine about his gift choices?...Disgusting."
"Could you be a little more grateful for your gifts?!"
Subaru gave a thumbs up as he turned around to look at Emilia.
"Do not fret Emilia-tan! When your birthday celebration comes around, I'll give ya the best gifts I can muster. That way, maybe your heart will falter towards me!"
"Sure, Sure."
Subaru smiled as always, but then turned back to Rem and scratched the back of his neck, unsure of his next statement.
"Well, I also made a blue scarf for Rem, but I never really finished it-"
"-Rem would like to see it, Subaru-kun!"
Rem gazed at him with a determined expression, leaving him with no choice. He pulled out from under the table a blue and white streaked scarf that looked nearly done. But Rem stood up and softly took it from him.
"Can Rem have this?"
"Well, of course, it's yours and all...but it's not done."
Rem shook her head and looked up at him with a soft smile on her face.
"If it's from Subaru-kun...then this is not unfinished, it's far beyond ready. Thank you so much Subaru-kun."
Subaru patted her on the head and smiled down at her, while whispering soft words.
"Happy Birthday."
The party went on without a hitch, |
was kept all well and good. During his short time as President, he sent 50,000 Marines into Thailand in 1962 “to support that country during the threat of Communist pressure from outside”, and who stayed for over two months; he began the US role in Laos which would continue until 1975 under the pretext of being “military support of anti-communist forces” in the country; he implemented the infamous quarantine “on the shipment of offensive missiles to Cuba from the Soviet Union;” he begun the war against the Vietnamese people in 1960 (continued until 1975), he authorized the failed CIA-directed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuban exiles in 1961, and put in place an “alert during Berlin Wall crisis” the same year.
William Blum added to these offenses in his comprehensive book, “Rogue State: a Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, which acts almost as a truth commission report reveling the blood, death and destruction of the American empire.
Blum writes that from 1959 to present, the CIA has engaged in “terrorist attacks, bombings, full-scale military invasion, sanctions, embargos, isolations, assassinations.” Specifically he notes that during the 1960s, “the CIA apparently supported a French military coup in Algeria to block that country’s independence in the face of French president Charles de Gaulle’s determination to grant independence [because] the US was concerned that an independent Algeria would have a “communist” government [and hated]…de Gaulle [because he]…was a major obstacle to American hegemonic plans for NATO.” At the same time, JFK’s administration opposed nationalist, Catholic, and millionaire land owner President Joao Goulart of Brazil because he, in Blum’s words, “took an independent stand in foreign policy, resulting relations with socialist countries and opposing sanctions against Cuba; his administration passed a law limiting the amount of profits multinationals could transmit outside the country; a subsidiary of ITT was nationalized; he promoted economic and social reform.”
More directly, with the support of the UK, JFK gave a direct order for the ouster of the democratically-elected leader of Guyana, Cheddi Jagan, because he “was another Third World leader who incurred Washington’s wrath by trying to remain neutral and independent…his policies were not revolutionary…he was still targeted…[because he might] build…a society that might be a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model.” Despite this, JFK was not directly involved in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba who “called for the nation’s economic as well as its political liberation,” but instead it was his predecessor, Eisenhower, who called for Lumumba to be ‘eliminated’ by the CIA.
Similarly, while the CIA infiltrated “virtually every department of the government [of Ecuador] up to, and including, the second and third positions of power, along with an abundant use of dirty tricks,” it seems that JFK was not directly involved in this ouster but he would have wanted to out “communists” from power. Premier political observer and writer Gore Vidal added to this in his detailed analysis of presidents from George Washington to Bill Clinton. He wrote that while Truman and Eisenhower “knew that the Communist threat was all nonsense [and] that it was good for business…Kennedy believed the nonsense, and he wanted to win the Cold War…[he] wanted to be a war president.” He continued on, saying that while JFK was very charming, he was one of the ‘worst presidents’:
…He gave the green light to an invasion of Cuba and suffered a humiliating defeat. Nevertheless he was still so confrontational that Khrushchev…put nuclear missiles into Cuba, bring the whole world to that famous brink. Then, undaunted, Jack started his hot war in Vietnam, by committing 20,000 troops as advisors to the South Vietnamese Army…In the gospel according to Oliver Stone, after a little trip to Dallas, Kennedy would bring back the troops that he has only just sent into battle. Why? Because he’s the good guy. Actually he has no intention of ending the war that he has just begun. “After Cuba,” he told mutual friends, “I have to go all the way with this one.”
While some readers might be screaming bloody murder at me saying that I have it all wrong, I ask you to look at some of his speeches as starters. In his nomination acceptance speech for President of the United States, he not only declared that there be a “New Frontier” but that:
Communist influence has penetrated further into Asia, stood astride in the Middle East and now festers some ninety miles off the coast of Florida…We must prove all over again whether this nation, or any nation so conceived, can long endure; whether our society, with its freedom of choice, its breadth of opportunity, its range of alternatives, can compete with the single-minded advance of the Communist system.
In his inaugural address, despite his flowery, seemingly liberal rhetoric, Kennedy used an even stronger tone, clearly indicating that he would stand up for the American empire no matter what:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty…To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends…To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny…we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves for whatever period is required…To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge to convert our good words into good deeds in a new alliance for progress…Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas and let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house…In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility, I welcome it…And so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
This inaugural address set the stage for his pro-empire foreign policy for the rest of his presidency. The Spanish language magazine, Razón y Palabra, wrote about the transformation of international broadcasting, including relevant US policy, noting that “in the early 1960s, President Kennedy sought to build up Voice of America broadcasting for the “peaceful evolution” of socialist countries. The President aimed to make the broadcasts “leap national borders and the oceans, the ‘Iron Curtain’ and stone walls, in a life-and-death competition with communism.” According to an article about propaganda outlets for the US government, VOA’s activities during the Cold War included “broadcasting to Soviet citizens in order to counter the propaganda of the USSR.” He brought this into a whole new realm, ignoring Eisenhower’s warning of a military-industrial-complex while thinking that the threat of ‘communism’ was a real one. As a result, he drastically increased military spending and created scares about possible military build-ups by the Soviets in order to justify continuing nuclear superiority.
Then, there are those who cherry-pick certain facts and instances to show that Kennedy was anti-military which can’t be further from the truth. Instead, it is important to recognize how JFK “… allowed the attempted CIA assassinations of José Figueres, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Fidel and Raul Castro.” At the same time, according to filmmaker, Joe Giambrone, “there was a time when no one trusted the CIA…they were the prime suspects in the assassination of president John F. Kennedy, and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. CIA support of terrorists was well known, if not loudly opposed.”
There’s more. JFK basically courted the likes of many right-wing dictators. Helen Chapin Metz, in a 1992 US Government Printing Office report, noted that in 1963, JFK “ordered a squadron of fighters to Saudi Arabia to protect the kingdom from Egyptian air assaults.” Then, the good ‘ole dictator and US puppet in Iran, the Shah, was deeply supported by Kennedy. In a 1962 letter, JFK wrote to the Shah, thanking him for engaging in a “program of progress and reform,” that the US “greatly appreciates the highly important strategic location of Iran and your steadfastness in remaining vigilant against the pressures of international communism” and that the US government had a “great interest…in the security and modernization of Iran.” For him, it was no big deal that while Iran was becoming “modernized,” inequality and corruption increased”, the Shah became increasingly autocratic and crushed any rumblings of political dissent through an extensive repressive apparatus including the well known infamous SAVAK.
However, there is one event that is not well-known: the 1963 coup in Iraq which was supported by the US. In a memorandum to President Kennedy on the night that the government would be overthrown, Robert Komer, who worked to “pacify” Vietnamese, wrote that: “We will make informal friendly noises as soon as we can find out whom to talk with, and ought to recognize as soon as we’re sure these guys are firmly in the saddle. CIA had excellent reports on the plotting, but I doubt either they or UK should claim much credit for it”.
More directly, Professor Bill Zeman in an article on this topic, noted that:
The way the U.S. assisted the 1963 Iraqi coup by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party was financially…The CIA would have paid a lot of money for this steady supply of information, especially because American planners had determined that the Ba’ath Party would be the best for U.S. policy in Iraq going forward in 1962…At least they helped fund it and gave assurances that the Ba’ath would be well received in Washington.
The primary evidence supports this claim. A memo sent after the conclusion of the coup by Stephen O. Fuqua of the Bureau of International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense reads: “It is believed by members of CIA that the coup was triggered by Qasim’s recent arrest of a large number of Bath Party members” who believe deeply in “anti-Communism…[and] the consensus of members of State and CIA is that if the coup is successful, relations between the U.S. and Iraq will be considerably improved and the internal situation in Iraq should gradually improve.”
Another memo, this one from Secretary of State Rusk to President Kennedy after the coup, said that the current US Chargé’ D’affaires in Baghdad would “indicate that the United States would welcome public affirmation that the new Iraqi regime intends to carry out Iraq’s international obligations. He will also ask for assurance that the new regime will safeguard American citizens and interests in Iraq.” Around that same time, a telegram was sent from the State Department stating: “…US statements cannot be disseminated without distortion within Iraq, and shortwave broadcasts would not have impact on wide group…Should harassment of mission operations accompany rise in Qasim’s critical propaganda, Department would wish consider counter moves.”
Clearly, there was a US interest in getting rid of Prime Minister Abd al-Karim Qasim (or Qassem), who had enacted a “land reform programme and construction of the massive urban development of…Revolution City [now called Sadr City], to provide low-cost housing” as noted by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. Additionally, while he was not a communist, “the arrangement of players that made this partnership expedient tended to drive Iraq out of the American orbit…and towards that of the Soviet Union. Qasim partly nationalized the oil industry…and hosted the meetings where OPEC was born. Washington looked askance at these developments, and it was well before 1963 that it took steps to abort them.”
It is important to note that British officials, US officials and multinational corporations were very angry and demanded that JFK place pressures on the Qasim government after he partially nationalized the oil in 1960, which was definitely a reason for his overthrow.
Richard Sanders adds to this, writing that when Qasim took “power in a popularly-backed coup in 1958, he certainly got recognized in Washington…[he began] starting the process of nationalizing foreign oil companies in Iraq, withdrawing Iraq from the US-initiated right-wing Baghdad Pact…and decriminalizing the Iraqi Communist Party. Despite these actions, and more likely because of them, he was Iraq’s most popular leader…In 1959, there was a failed assassination attempt on Qasim….In 1963, a CIA-organized coup did successfully assassinate Qasim and Saddam’s Ba’ath Party came to power for the first time. Saddam returned from exile in Egypt and took up the key post as head of Iraq’s secret service. The CIA then provided the new pliant Iraqi regime with the names of thousands of communists, and other leftist activists and organizers…[who] were soon dead in a rampage of mass murder.”
Similar information about the lists being provided by the CIA is also noted by Global Policy. In the words of Andrew and Patrick Cockburn, since Qasim in 1961 threatened to “occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq’s oil,” getting rid of him was “in retrospect, it was the CIA’s favorite coup.”
This overthrow is very similar to the countries described earlier in this section including the CIA-assisted overthrows in the 1950s, the attempted overthrow of the Castro government and pushing for the overthrow of the government of Brazil. Let us also not forget that from 1959 to 1965, around 259 “Tibetan guerrillas were secretly trained at Camp Hale by the CIA” while the CIA had “quite extensive Agency involvement with the plotters” who overthrew Rafael Trujillo as noted in the CIA’s Family Jewels document. While Trujillo was clearly a dictator and authoritarian who instituted a reign of terror, he still “welcomed US businesses and investors in the Dominican Republic and he maintained a pro-US foreign policy” but when he tried to kill US ally and liberal Rómulo Betancourt, the relationship between the two countries frayed as the US feared that “the Dominican Republic would follow the revolutionary model of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.”
As a result, Frank Smitha expanded on this, writing that “six months after the Bay of Pigs invasion and two months after the Berlin Wall had gone up” the Kennedy administration responded to this overthrow by having a show of force: “United States warships with 4000 Marines appeared just outside the three-mile limit. A jet fighter flew overhead, and all members of the Trujillo family fled the country, to live thereafter on savings from Swiss banks.” This is a key as it notes that JFK and his administration clearly believed Trujillo should go as well. Then, there’s JFK’s involvement in the assassination of Diem, the US favored leader who was causing too much trouble and making the US look bad.
According to the National Security Archive:
Top U.S. officials sought the November 1, 1963 coup against then-South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem without apparently considering the physical consequences for Diem personally….U.S. officials, including JFK, vastly overestimated their ability to control the South Vietnamese generals who ran the coup…the United States supported, remained in the throes of a civil war between the anti-communist government the U.S. favored and communist guerrillas backed by North Vietnam…The weight of evidence therefore supports the view that President Kennedy did not conspire in the death of Diem…The documentary record is replete with evidence that President Kennedy and his advisers, both individually and collectively, had a considerable role in the coup overall, by giving initial support to Saigon military officers uncertain what the U.S. response might be…The ultimate effect of United States participation in the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem was to commit Washington to Saigon even more deeply.
There is also a wonderful PDF that has been published online, which is a memorandum of a conference with the president on November 1st, 1963, in part about this assassination. Let’s not forget that JFK started off his presidency by continuing “the policies of Truman and Eisenhower in Southeast Asia…[including approving] a secret plan for various military actions in Vietnam and Laos.”
Beyond these overthrows of government, the Kennedy Administration had an interesting policy that was interventionist, anti-communist and imperialist. This revolved around what one could call the Kennedy Doctrine which pushed for containment of ‘communism’ and the stopping of ‘communism’ from further taking a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. As noted by Saeid Naji and Jayum A. Jawan in the International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, “there were, indeed, the efficient role of oil in political and economic relations between the United States and the Middle Eastern oil-rich countries, but as it was mentioned the main focus was Latin America, and the Venezuela‘s oil had an important quota in the US oil imports,” which explains the US support for that government. It also must be noted that the Trade Expansion Act, which led to a new round of tariff negotiations under GATT, (see Part 2 of this series) has a deeper reason for being pushed by JFK.
Thomas W. Zeiler writes that “John F. Kennedy had to placate not only oil and coal interests at home, but also traditional trade partners like Venezuela abroad…[meaning] he also had to foster the broad national security aim of retaining domestic oil reserves.”
This adds to David S. Painter’s analysis that “most of the major doctrines of postwar U.S. foreign policy— the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter Doctrines—related, either directly or indirectly, to the Middle East and its oil.”
As for the Congo, which was rich in resources (like cobalt) which the US corporations wanted, “Lumumba[‘s]…death eased American fears that the crisis would open an avenue for Soviet power into the heart of Africa” and to counter the ‘communist’ inversion, JFK’s administration pushed U.N. efforts that would “prevent outside assistance from entering the Congo” (i.e. Soviet assistance), support a “broadly-based government” that included the participation of Lumumba supporters and wanting a “greater U.N. role in providing administrative and technical assistance to the Congo, as an additional safeguard against a Lumumba takeover” as noted by the US Department of State’s Office of the Historian. On top of this, the central problems for the US “were the need for retraining the Congolese Army (ANC) and the need for technical and economic aid as part of a program of economic and financial stabilization.”
Even though Lumumba was no communist, he sought Soviet aid as the only choice, and declared a view of ‘positive neutralism’, saying that “we are not Communists, Catholics, Socialists. We are African nationalists.” Clearly, the US did not like where this was going, and JFK would have none of it. After all, before he was President, “JFK was an active Cold Warrior,” wanting more money for the military, and while as president he increased “spending on nuclear missiles that set off an arms race, supporting the partial test ban treaty “chiefly for environmental reasons,” increasing the amount of US troops in Vietnam tremendously, disagreeing with those “who were suggesting the idea of a pullout” from Vietnam, accepting the domino theory, an “often zealous commitment to counterinsurgency, and his determination to never appear soft on communism.”
Kennedy’s hard stance as a Cold Warrior had an even deeper influence, as it was connected to, as noted earlier, the business community. This showed in his so-called “Alliance for Progress” which contained a provision that committed governments in Latin American to promoting “conditions that will encourage the flow of foreign investments” to the specific region, connected to an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act which benefited domestic multinational corporations to foreign ones. Sold as “a program of help for Latin America, emphasizing social reform to better the lives of people,” the Alliance of Progress quickly revealed its true self: a program of mostly military aid to keep “in power right-wing dictatorships and enable them to stave off revolutions.”
As for the still-seeming-good and great Peace Corps, there is something bad behind that as well. For instance, it does little to expand on experiences of volunteers once they are out of the service; it is possibly a PR image front for the American empire; may legitimize dictators, and doesn’t really help the poor. At the time there was a controversy at a university in Nigeria as volunteers were immediately denounced “as agents of imperialism” and “members of America’s international spy ring” which shook the program to its core. This expanded into different realms, with JFK embracing a “strategic doctrine, which theoretically incorporated a capability to engage simultaneously or serially in irregular, conventional, or nuclear warfare” which was started when he ordered “his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, to plan and manage an across-the-board buildup of America’s conventional military forces…[and] mandated that the U.S. military, in coordination with other national security agencies, be mobilized to wage wars of suppression against revolutionary guerrilla upheavals in the Third World…As a result, the U.S. Army was ordered to expand its Special Forces detachments and to step up training…Kennedy’s near-obsession with guerrilla warfare gave rise to the doctrine of counterinsurgency, which inexorably led the United States into the jungles of Indochina…In his last year in office,. President Kennedy authorized a buildup of Special Forces advisers, the deployment of U.S. combat aircraft, and the initiation of a broad “civic action” program in South Vietnam in order to counter stepped-up guerrilla activity by the National Liberation Front (NLF).”
Noam Chomsky adds to this belief of counterinsurgency with a deep focus specifically on Cuba. He notes that the prelude to the Cuban Missile Crisis included “an actual confrontation between Russian and Cuban forces about who was going to have physical control of the missiles…[then] right in the middle of it, one of the Operation MONGOOSE activities took place…the C.I.A. blew up a factory in Cuba, with about four hundred people killed according to the Cubans…fortunately, the Cubans didn’t react–but if something has happened to us at the time, Kennedy certainly would have reacted, and we would have had a nuclear war” and the background of this crisis is that “the United States was planning to invade Cuba at the time, and the Russians knew it, and the Cubans knew it…the American people didn’t know it.”
At the same time, the often ridiculed Bay of Pigs Invasion was based on an expected “general rising against Castro. But it was a popular regime…in three days, the CIA forces were crushed by Castro’s army. The whole Bay of Pigs affair was accompanied by hypocrisy and lying. The invasion was a violation…of a treaty the U.S. had signed, the Charter of the Organization of American States.” One has to look, then, at Operation Mongoose, also called ‘the Cuban Project’, itself. Chomsky describes it as the “world’s leading single international terrorist operation, started by the Kennedy administration right after the Bay of Pigs…a terrorist campaign…without even remote comparison in the history of international terrorism.”
A Top Secret Program Review of this operation, by the US Department of State, headed by anti-communist Dean Rusk, noted that the objective was to “help the Cubans overthrow the Communist regime from within Cuba and institute a new government with which the United States can live in peace….the operation is to bring about the revolt of the Cuban people.”
It continues on, reading like a set of terrorist attacks to destabilize power:
The political actions will be assisted by economic warfare to induce failure of the Communist regime…psychological operations to turn the peoples’ resentment increasingly against the regime, and military-type groups to give the popular movement an action arm for sabotage and armed resistance…The popular movement will capitalize on this climactic moment by initiating an open revolt. Areas will be taken and held. If necessary…the United States….will then give open support to the Cuban peoples’ revolt. Such support will include military force, as necessary….The major task for our diplomatic capability is to encourage Latin American leaders to develop independent operations similar to this Project, seeking an internal revolt of the Cuban people against the Communist regime…Sabotage of transport, mills, sugar sacking and cane fields was explored…Equipment to enable TV intrusion of Havana TV broadcasts has been reactivated on a small vessel under CIA control….Defense has been tasked with preparing a contingency plan for U.S. military action, in case the Cuban people request U.S. help when their revolt starts making headway…CIA has concluded that its realistic role should be to create at least the illusion of a popular movement, to win external support for it…and to help create a climate which will permit provocative actions in support of a shift to overt action….State to report…on possibilities to obtain the discreet cooperation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers to influence U.S. firms having subsidiaries abroad to adhere to the spirit of U.S. economic sanctions….status of plans to gain cooperation of NATO allies…[and] Japan…CIA to submit by 15 February its operational schedule for a psychological campaign to provoke a relaxing of police state control…[the] CIA apparently believes that its role should be to create and expand a popular movement, illusory and actual, which will create a political climate which can provide a framework of plausible excuse for armed intervention. This is not in conformity with the Presidential directive now governing Project tasking. Actually, the role of creating the political climate and plausible excuse for armed intervention would be more properly that of State and Defense, if such an objective becomes desirable.
Operation Northwoods was part of this plan, which “included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States” creating a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign” in parts of the US, a real or simulated sinking of a “boatload of Cuban refugees…faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner” and blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters, blaming it on the Cubans in order to create “Remember the Maine” incident, like that which began the Spanish-American War as noted by the National Security Archive. While this Operation was rejected in February 1962, Operation Mongoose was still in place until October 1962 when it was suspended. Interestingly enough, this meant that those in the highest levels of government were basically formulating terrorist attacks, and this time it’s no conspiracy theory. In the end, JFK’s support of right-wing dictators, and being an anti-communist stalwart would affect how he dealt in the domestic realm.FILE - In this Oct. 9, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, right, speaks as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump listens during the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Sunday, Oct. 9, 2016. (Rick T. Wilking/Pool via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton says Donald Trump’s pacing, hovering demeanor onstage during an October 2016 presidential debate made her so uncomfortable “my skin crawled.” She says in her upcoming book that Trump shadowed her so closely she had to resist shouting out, “Back up you creep, get away from me.”
The Democratic presidential nominee recounts her struggle to keep composed during that pivotal Oct. 9 faceoff in St. Louis less than a month before the election. Two days earlier, their bitter campaign was rocked by the release of footage in which Trump bragged aggressively about groping women.
During the town-hall style debate, the 6-foot-3 Trump repeatedly hovered over Clinton, who’s closer to 5-foot-5, as she responded to questions.
“This is not OK, I thought,” Clinton says in her audio narration of “What Happened,” set for release Sept. 12. “It was the second presidential debate, and Donald Trump was looming behind me. Two days before, the world heard him brag about groping women. Now we were on a small stage and no matter where I walked, he followed me closely, staring at me, making faces. It was incredibly uncomfortable he was literally breathing down my neck. My skin crawled.”
Clinton says, “It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, ‘Well, what would you do?’ Do you stay calm, keep smiling and carry on as if he weren’t repeatedly invading your space? Or do you turn, look him in the eye, and say loudly and clearly, ‘Back up you creep, get away from me! I know you love to intimidate women, but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.’”
Clinton says she “kept my cool, aided by a lifetime of dealing with difficult men trying to throw me off.”
“Maybe I have overlearned the lesson of staying calm, biting my tongue, digging my fingernails into a clenched fist, smiling all the while determined to present a composed face to the world,” Clinton says.
Excerpts of Clinton reading from the book aired Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”After months of speculation, Kailyn Lowry is finally admitting she has a girlfriend!
On the Teen Mom 2 star’s podcast Coffee & Convos with Lindsie Chrisley, she shockingly and confidently replied “Ya!” when Chrisley asked if she had a girlfriend.
Lowry, who has made headlines in the past over speculation that she might be lesbian, revealed they’ve gone on only casual dates, but nothing too over-the-top.
PHOTOS: Meet Kailyn’s Baby Boy! See First Photos Of Teen Mom Lowry’s Newborn Son
The reality star doesn’t name her new leading lady, but fans speculate it could be her friend Dominique Potter, who has recently been photographed wearing a necklace with Kailyn’s name on it.
Potter also referred to herself as Lowry’s “girlfriend” on Snapchat.
Lowry said she wasn’t looking for love, and that it all happened organically.
PHOTOS: Back On? Kailyn Lowry Heads Home From Hospital With Baby Daddy Chris!
“We were friends for a year, until it just kind of like turned into it [a relationship],” Lowry said. “It’s not like she was trying to wine and dine me to ask me to be her girlfriend.”
The new couple have already discovered some difficulties of dating with a family.
“We go out to eat, but it’s kind of hard cause I have kids, I have a baby,” Lowry admitted. “I have never gotten a baby sitter and gone on a date.”
PHOTOS: ‘You B***h!’ Jenelle Evans Goes Off On Enemy Kailyn Lowry Over Child Abuse Claims
No word yet on how Javi Marroquin feels about his ex’s new flame.
We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at [email protected], or call us at 800-344-9598 any time, day or night.Instead of putting your smartphone away in your pocket, Lenovo wants you to bend your phone around your wrist.
SEE ALSO: This foldable screen could make smartphones exciting again
YouTube personality Meghan McCarthy showed off the flexible smartphone during during Lenovo's Tech World conference Thursday, taking a pretty standard-looking smartphone and bending it around her wrist like a slap bracelet.
She then proceeded to take a tablet and bend it right in half to show how a tablet could also be comfortably used to take a phone call with bendable technology.
Lenovo SVP and CTO Peter Hortensius told the audience that the technology not only has a bendable screen, but also bendable hardware components like motherboards and batteries.
Lenovo did not announce any names or potential release dates for its new flexible electronics, although Hortensius mentioned that McCarthy should be careful with them because "they cost a little bit more than your average phone or tablet right now."
After the keynote, Lenovo released this video:
Lenovo's announcement comes just a couple days after Samsung showed off and announced its own bendable smartphones, which will likely be available in early 2017.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.If you love to bike, you'll love Davis.
The California city, located 11 miles west of Sacramento, has long been known for its progressive approach to transportation and its love for all things bike. Davis has more bikes than cars, operates two bicycle advisory committees and employs two full-time bike coordinators, and has bike lanes on 95-percent of its major streets. It's innovative approach and long-term commitment to creating and maintaining bicycle-friendly infrastructure and policy has led many to hail the city as the number one bike friendly communities in the United States.
"I don't know about number one," John Berg, Chair of the Davis Bicycle Advisory Committee, told Wired.com. "But we are a leader."
Part of what has placed Davis on the cutting edge of progressive bike policy is that it started early. "We've been doing this for a long time," Berg says. "We opened our original bike lanes in 1967." But at that time, California didn't share Davis' enthusiasm for bike lanes, arguing that they were against the law. So Davis went to the state legislature and fought to have the laws changed. Later, when the California Department of Transportation began developing its own statewide bicycling guidelines, it looked to Davis as a model.
Since then, the city has implemented a series of bike friendly innovations that other cities should look to for inspiration. It's built bike-only roundabouts, bike signal heads to improve traffic flow and detection technology that increases efficiency and safety.
Innovation has been supported by strong and consistent funding. The League of American Bicyclists says that Davis budgets $100,000 a year for bike path maintenance and has spent $14 million dollars on bike projects in the last 10 years. That comes out to $215 for each of the city's 65,000 residents. "Our budget isn't huge," Berg says. "But we work effectively with what we have."
Demographics have also worked to Davis' advantage. "Being a college town is a big benefit for us," Berg says. "The central (UC) campus is closed to cars, so if students want to get around bikes are really their best bet." He adds that today most of Davis' new residential developments are designed to include bike infrastructure, which eliminates the need to spend big money later on retrofits.
Davis' commitment to bikes hasn't gone unnoticed. It is one of only three cities to have achieved a platinum designation on the League of American Bicyclists ranking of bike friendly communities (.pdf), and is regularly cited as a model for how bike policy can enhance quality of life. In 2005, Davis was ranked as one of the top 25 top cities to live well by Forbes magazine.
But Berg admits that its not all perfect. He says the city is struggling to accommodate bikers in its congested downtown core, and that the percentage of city residents using bikes as their primary mode of transport has dropped as new arrivals from Sacramento settle into the area. "Newcomers love the idea of moving into a community where everyone bikes, but then they need to get into their cars everyday to drive," he says.
And while the city might be progressive, it's facing the same financial realities as every other community, and Berg admits that there hasn't been lots of money to go around. He's hopeful though, that economic stimulus dollars will make a difference.
"I'm feeling optimistic about where things are going," he says. "We're already starting to see some effects, and I think there will be money there for us to dedicate to transit projects."
Photo: Flickr/kate at yer ownriskImage copyright AP Image caption Four recent North Korean missile launches - such as this one last month - are said to have failed
North Korea has test-fired two mid-range ballistic missiles from its eastern coast, says South Korea.
The first launch was considered to have failed, travelling about 150km (90 miles) before landing in the sea.
But the second, launched hours later, flew about 400km and reached an altitude of 1,000km, the most effective test to date.
A confirmed successful test would mark a step forward for North Korea after four failed launches in recent months.
Both launches are believed to have been intermediate-range Musudan missiles.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Seoul and the US were "carrying out an in-depth analysis" of the second missile, and did not say whether it was considered a success.
North Korea, which is developing nuclear weapons, is banned by UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology.
In January it conducted its fourth nuclear test, claiming it to be its first using a hydrogen bomb. Shortly after that Pyongyang launched a satellite, widely seen as a test of long-range missile technology.
South Korea has held a national security meeting to discuss Wednesday's missile launches, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Analysis: Stephen Evans, BBC News, Seoul
Image copyright EPA Image caption North Korea has never conducted a full flight test of a Musudan missile
North Korea has tested these medium-range missiles four times now in three months and twice on Wednesday. Outside experts and intelligence agencies believe the first five launches were certainly failures, but aren't sure about the sixth.
It seems to have gone about 400km, far short of its maximum range. That may be because it failed or it may be because a decision was taken not to send it over Japan which had said it would shoot any missile down.
So why is North Korea conducting tests so frequently?
Some Western scientists say that the more conventional way of testing is to conduct the test, and if it fails, to go away and work out why before trying again some months or even a year later.
If this steady method over a long period isn't being followed by North Korea, it may be because of intense pressure from the top, a pressure the scientists on the ground will no doubt feel.
'Provocative actions'
The US State Department has strongly condemned the launches, with spokesman John Kirby saying they would only increase international efforts to stop North Korea's weapons programme.
"We intend to raise our concerns at the UN to bolster international resolve in holding [North Korea] accountable for these provocative actions," said Mr Kirby in a statement.
North American Defense Command (Norad), which tracked the missiles, determined they did not pose a threat to North American territories.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption South Korea's presidential office has announced that it would hold a national security meeting to discuss the launch
Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the launches "undermine international security and dialogue".
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said such tests "clearly cannot be tolerated".
The Musudan is believed to have a range of about 3,000km - far enough for it to hit South Korea, Japan and the US territory of Guam in the Western Pacific.
North Korea is thought to have dozens of Mus |
terminals in port of Odessa; military ship building yards in Nikolayev; an oil refinery; chemical plants; grain export silos; hydro-electric plants; two of the largest nuclear power stations in Europe; lots of magnesium, coal, and iron ore.
We can add that Putin would save $20 billion by building his South Stream gas pipeline overland through Crimea instead of under the Black Sea to Bulgaria.
According to some Kremlin insiders, the Crimea operation has been six years in the planning.
It is hard to put a dollar amount on the existing and potential assets in these regions, let alone on their strategic and ideological value.
But perhaps a $70 billion or a $100 billion price tag is quite cheap, especially since America and Europe have such short memories.
When the dust settles, even if people on both sides get killed and some of Putin’s friends end up on EU and US blacklists, he will have achieved his aims.
Then he can spend a few billion dollars more on a new charm offensive to reset relations with the West.
The writers are British journalists who have set up a PR firm, Whites Communication, in KievJason Koebler is a freelance science and technology reporter based in Brooklyn. Follow him @jason_koebler.
On message boards and Facebook groups, he’s known as Trappy. Fellow drone hobbyists call him an “ aerial anarchist” and marvel at the videos he’s taken with his five-pound foam aircraft of the Statue of Liberty, the French Alps and the Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship that ran aground in the Mediterranean in 2012.
“Ask anyone who the most daring pilot is,” says Trappy himself, never one for false modesty. “The answer is probably going to be unanimous.”
Story Continued Below
But ask officials at the Federal Aviation Administration, and they’ll tell you Trappy is a 29-year-old Swiss thorn in their side named Raphael Pirker, someone who flies recklessly, flaunts the agency’s rules and might even threaten its slow, careful plans for the safe integration of commercial drones into American skies.
In 2011, the FAA slapped Pirker with a $10,000 fine after he flew his Styrofoam drone around the University of Virginia while filming an ad for the university’s medical school. With that, the most famous pilot in the underground drone world became a test case for the FAA’s authority to prohibit people from making money off their hobby.
Pirker has asked a judge with the National Transportation Safety Board to throw out the fine, and a decision is expected any day now. In the meantime, the case exposes what would seem to be a rather large loophole in the law: The FAA has been saying since 2007 that commercial drone use is not allowed, but the agency never went through the official rule-making channels to make it illegal. I asked an FAA spokesman at least five times whether flying a drone for profit is illegal and, after several attempts to follow up, was told that the agency was not prepared to answer that question.
As a result, the case against Pirker hinges not on whether he was operating a drone for commercial purposes but instead on whether the FAA can prove that he was flying in a “reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.” In other words, the FAA needs to show that Pirker could have killed someone or seriously damaged a building with what is essentially a flying toy. If the agency fails and his fine is thrown out, the ruling could be taken as a sign to would-be commercial drone operators that the FAA lacks the authority to stop them—at least until it can issue an official rule, a process that typically takes more than a year. All of which could mean that the agency’s multi-year effort to plan for the gradual introduction of commercial drones—with safety controls and privacy protections to reassure those who worry about allowing small, flying cameras to operate with impunity—would fall by the wayside as the skies immediately open to a buzzing, whirring horde.
Whether the FAA is ready or not, the drone age could suddenly be upon us.
***
Unmanned aircraft have been zipping through American skies since before there even was a Federal Aviation Administration. The Academy of Model Aeronautics, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting model airplane flight, was founded in 1936 and now has more than 140,000 members. But while model aviation has evolved—from a hobby dominated by ex-military pilots flying gas-powered airplanes to one popular among Silicon Valley types with iPad-controlled hexacopters—the laws that govern the skies haven’t kept up. This has especially become a problem as technologies like high-definition cameras and smartphone integration have made even very small drones—some no bigger than a songbird—potentially useful tools for a variety of businesses.
Trappy with the drone he flew over UVA. | Team BlackSheep
The FAA has never officially regulated model airplanes or small drones. The closest it has come was an “advisory” issued in 1981 that created a set of voluntary guidelines for model aircraft: stay within the line of sight, do not fly within three miles of an airport, do not fly a model airplane higher than 400 feet. Then, in 2007, the FAA said in a policy statement that the 1981 advisory applies only to hobbyists, not to businesses—a move the agency has repeatedly said makes the commercial operation of drones illegal. Back in 2007, the FAA said it would soon release new rules for small commercial drones, but it still has not produced those rules and just this month announced that they wouldn’t be ready until at least November.
In the meantime, countries in Europe and Asia have run laps around the United States in their use of commercial drones, and companies in South America and Africa are looking to get in on the action as well. In July, I met Ernesto Sanchez, a representative from North Carolina’s UTC Aerospace Systems, at an air show in Colombia. He was there because the company isn’t allowed to sell drones in the United States except to public agencies that have an FAA waiver. “Our business has been limited by what we can do in the United States,” he told me. “Here, we’re not seeing that as much.”
***
Two years ago, Congress pushed the FAA to speed things up when it passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which directed the agency to release guidelines for commercial drones within a year and to have a plan for commercial drones to begin flying “no later than September 30, 2015.”
Since then, the FAA has missed nearly every deadline Congress set—in part, critics say, because the agency didn’t have the foresight to take the rise of the drone age seriously. “Ten years ago, the FAA said [unmanned aerial vehicles] were never going to amount to anything, that they’d be a niche market,” says Missy Cummings, a former Navy fighter pilot who runs Duke University’s Humans and Automation Laboratory. “They’ve created a rigid system that can’t tolerate new, disruptive technologies.”Edmonton residents tempted to dip their toes in the river can now get a better sense of just how clean or dirty that water is right here in the city.
The North Saskatchewan Riverkeeper is testing for recreational water quality at three different sites and started posting results online three weeks ago. Water quality can change quickly in the swift-moving river, but the weekly updates are intended to at least give historic trends to help swimmers make wise decisions.
"Recreational users want to know why they should or shouldn’t swim," said Hans Asfeldt, the main contact for the local environmental non-profit dedicated to water protection and education. His team is monitoring for E. coli at three sites: the Capilano boat launch near 50 Street, the Laurier boat launch near the Valley Zoo and the beach-like sandbar near the Fort Edmonton footbridge.
Water quality in the North Saskatchewan River naturally changes throughout the summer. The spring runoff and storm events make it silty and more likely to contain pollutants. Clear water is more likely to be clean.
Swimmers should also be aware swimming in water with a current can be more difficult than swimming in still water at a lake or pool. It’s recommended to wear a life jacket and always swim in groups.
So far, the best water quality Asfeldt’s team has found is at the Fort Edmonton footbridge sandbar, close to where the river first flows past the city boundary. They did one test there when the water looked clear and found water quality was almost pristine, he said.
A screen capture from the app Swim Guide showing part of the post for the sandbar near the Fort Edmonton footbridge.
The worst results were at the Laurier boat launch, where both tests failed to pass federal recreational water quality standards, he said. Asfeldt thinks that’s because of the Quesnell Bridge outfall. The runoff seems to hug the bank downstream, rather than mixing into the general flow, causing increased E. coli counts even when the water is clear.
The team also tested at the Capilano boat launch twice. It’s downstream from many Edmonton storm sewer outfalls with road runoff, not sewage. The test there failed when the water was silty. When the river water was clear, the site had higher E. coli counts than at the Fort Edmonton footbridge but it was still within the federal guidelines for recreational use.
Asfeldt is publishing full results online at saskriverkeeper.com, and basic results on the Canada-wide swimguide.org and the app Swim Guide. Residents can find the app for both iPhone and Android devices with a dark blue icon of a swimmer (ignore the Lake Ontario label). There’s a minimum two-day delay to get the samples tested and posted but the app will also show historic averages.
[email protected]
twitter.com/estolteImage caption Syrian soldiers celebrated driving rebels from the Midan area of Damascus
Syria's national security chief has died from injuries he received in an attack in Damascus on Wednesday, state TV has announced.
Hisham Ikhtiar is the fourth high-ranking official killed by the bombing at the national security bureau.
Clashes have continued in Damascus, with the military repelling a rebel assault in the Midan area of the city.
Meanwhile, Russia's envoy to France has sparked a row after saying President Bashar al-Assad was ready to step down.
Alexander Orlov said Mr Assad had, in effect, agreed to step down last month at a conference in Geneva which had planned for a democratic transition.
"Assad nominated his representative to lead the negotiations with the opposition for this transition. That means he accepted to leave, but in a civilised way," said Mr Orlov.
His comments triggered an angry response from Syria, where the information ministry said the claims were completely baseless.
Border skirmishes
The announcement of Mr Ikhtiar's death came as the other three high-profile victims - the defence minister, his deputy who is also Mr Assad's brother-in-law, and a former defence minister - were buried.
Syrian official TV said a state funeral was held in Damascus for the three men, and that there was a big official turnout for the occasion.
However, the report did not mention whether Mr Assad attended, and no pictures have so far been shown, itself a clear sign of extraordinary times, says the BBC's Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon.
The attack at the National Security Bureau came shortly after rebels declared an all-out assault on the capital, calling it Operation Damascus Volcano.
Eruptions of violence have been seen across the city since Sunday.
In the latest fighting, state media announced the area of Midan had been "cleaned" of "terrorists".
Rebels said they had withdrawn from Midan after coming under bombardment.
Journalists were allowed into Midan on Friday, and pictures showed dust-covered corpses lying in the streets, with tanks and burnt-out cars littering the area.
But elsewhere in the country rebel fighters managed to seize control of several border posts late on Thursday.
The rebels attacked crossings both on the southern frontier with Iraq and the northern border with Turkey.
Government forces have been trying to retake some of the areas since, and it is unclear who is in control of the borders.
The UN's refugee agency says it is receiving reports of between 8,500 and 30,000 people fleeing across the border into Lebanon over the past 48 hours.
Other reports suggested more than 3,000 had crossed into Iraq in the past day.
Activists said more than 300 people were killed on Thursday, making it the bloodiest day since protests against Mr Assad began in March last year.
Some 16,000 are estimated to have died in the past 16 months.If you find no other argument against American intervention abroad persuasive, how about this one? When the U.S. government invades and occupies other countries, or when it underwrites other governments’ invasions or oppression, the people in the victimized societies become angry enough to want and even to exact revenge — against Americans.
Is the American empire worth that price?
We should ask ourselves this question in the wake of the weekend news that al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist organization that rules parts of Somalia ISIS-style, appeared to encourage attacks at American (and Canadian) shopping malls.
Maybe the Shabaab video was just a prank to scare us. Maybe it was an attempt to plant violent thoughts in the minds of Somalis living in the United States. No one believes that the organization itself is capable of attacking Americans where they live, but that doesn’t mean Shabaab-inspired violence is impossible.
At any rate, it’s unsettling to be advised to watch out for terrorism when we shop at the mall.
Here’s the thing: We don’t have to live this way. The empire is just not worth it. We must understand that people in the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia who subscribe to fringe militant interpretations of Islam would not be wishing us harm except for the violence the U.S. government has inflicted or helped to inflict on Muslim societies for many decades. In fact, those militant interpretations wouldn’t be nearly so attractive without the American empire and its ally Israel.
Why won’t the media describe this context? It’s because their job, despite what they say, is to be the government’s megaphone, not its adversary.
Let’s look at Somalia, where the latest threat originated.
U.S. intervention goes back to 1992, when President George H.W. Bush sent the military into a civil war there. Among the military’s activities was the suppression of the Somalis’ use of the intoxicant khat, which has been part of their culture for millennia.
That’s right. The U.S. government imposed a war on the Somali drug of choice.
President Bill Clinton withdrew the forces after two Blackhawk helicopters were shot down, but that was not the end of U.S. intervention. After the September 11 attacks, Somali warlords seeking American largess played on the George W. Bush administration’s concerns about al-Qaeda. The CIA obliged the warlords with suitcases of cash. As a result, everyday life became intolerably violent. So when the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) — a relatively moderate coalition of Sharia courts in the capital, Mogadishu —drove out the warlords and produced a measure of peace and stability, the Somali people were relieved.
That should have been deemed satisfactory, except that the warlords and their American backers were unhappy with the new situation, as Jeremy Scahill reported in 2011. “Most of the entities that made up the Islamic Courts Union did not have anything resembling a global jihadist agenda,” Scahill wrote. “Nor did they take their orders from Al Qaeda.”
Nevertheless, the U.S. government was determined to oust the ICU. To achieve that goal the Bush administration in 2006 backed a military invasion by Ethiopia, Somalia’s long-time Christian adversary, which overthrew the ICU.
“The Ethiopian invasion was marked by indiscriminate brutality against Somali civilians,” Scahill wrote.
Ethiopian and Somali government soldiers secured Mogadishu’s neighborhoods by force, raiding houses in search of ICU combatants, looting civilian property and beating or shooting anyone suspected of collaboration with antigovernment forces.… If Somalia was already a playground for Islamic militants, the Ethiopian invasion blew open the gates of Mogadishu for Al Qaeda. Within some US counterterrorism circles, the rise of the Shabab in Somalia was predictable and preventable.
To make things worse, the U.S. government has waged a drone war, with civilian casualties, and special operations against the Somalis. According to Scahill, the CIA also operates a secret prison and other facilities there.
So the U.S.-sponsored intervention sowed the ground for the most militant group in Somalia, al-Shabaab. Had the ICU been left to govern, we might never have heard of these young Islamists, whom the Obama administration now uses to scare American shoppers.
We can live without the fear of terrorism — but only if the U.S. government stops antagonizing foreign populations that have never threatened us.Broward Sheriff’s Office Dep. Peter Peraza killed Jermaine McBean. This fact is not in dispute. McBean, 33, was shot dead while carrying an unloaded air rifle through an Oakland Park apartment complex. Court records indicate that McBean, who was black, also suffered from mental illness, and a photograph showed that he likely had earbuds in his ears when he was killed, suggesting he was unable to hear the police when they arrived. Peraza now faces manslaughter charges.
In what is clearly a tone-deaf show of support, Broward’s former police union, the Police Benevolent Association, has rallied around Peraza, raising money for the officer’s family by hosting all-you-can-drink “pub crawls.”
In January, the Broward Police Benevolent Association, run by longtime union boss Jeff Marano, hosted a pub crawl to benefit the Peraza family. (BSO recently voted to drop the PBA in favor of the International Union of Police Associations, but the PBA is still representing Peraza because the incident occurred before the unions switched hands.) According to a flier the PBA sent out in January, deputies could buy $20 wristbands and then saunter from Hollywood’s Whiskey Tango bar to the Greek Joint to Mickey Byrne’s Irish Pub. The proceeds were placed in the PBA’s HOPE Fund, which provides financial support to families of officers who have suffered a “catastrophic incident.” Another crawl is planned.By State of Green, June 07, 2016
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State of Green’s new white paper on Sustaianble Urban Transportation, developed in collaboration with the Cycling Embassy of Denmark, the Danish EV Alliance and the Danish Transport Federation, provides insights into managing an integrated approach to mobility management, as well as how to create green and liveable cities, and ensure the right conditions for testing and developing state of the art bicycle infrastructure solutions.
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– SEE THE TOTAL LIST OF THE TOP 24 GREEN NEWS FROM 2016Video (01:37) : The suspect met the 13-year old girls online, picked them up in Andover and brought them to Burnsville home, charges say.
A Burnsville man was charged Thursday with sexual assault and kidnapping after allegedly bringing two 13-year-old Andover girls he met online to the basement of his parents’ home, a case that is focusing renewed attention on online safety.
Authorities say Casey Lee Chinn, 23, met the girls through Omegle, a free online chat site, and picked them up around 7:30 Monday evening in Andover. Using clues gleaned from the girls’ electronic devices, police tracked them to the Burnsville home Tuesday morning.
Chinn was charged Thursday with six felonies — two counts of third degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of solicitation of a child to engage in sexual conduct.
According to the charging documents, the girls had been communicating with Chinn via text and other social media apps for about a month and the chats were “sexually explicit.”
Chinn told police he believed the girls were unhappy and agreed to pick them up near where they lived. He drove them around and eventually to his home in Burnsville. He told them to enter the back door and to stay in the “basement because he lived with his parents,” the documents said.
Chinn knew the girls’ ages and acknowledged picking them up, the documents say.
Casey Lee Chin
When officers went to the Burnsville residence, he initially denied the girls were there, but eventually acknowledged that they were. When officers searched the residence, they found the two “huddled behind a couch in the basement, crying and upset.”
According to the charges, Chinn engaged in sexual activity with both girls.
Chinn remains in the Anoka County jail with bail set at $300,000, with conditions.
He has no criminal record in Minnesota. He was cited for speeding in 2009, when he was 18.
Jeff Gray, Chinn’s attorney, said his family is still in shock and “devastated at the allegations.”
“This is so out of character,” Gray said. “Casey is not the monster he is portrayed to be.”
Chinn has worked at several metro-area schools and organizations as a coach, according to authorities.
On Tuesday, officials at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis placed Chinn on leave from the part-time job as volleyball coach he began in September.
“We are cooperating fully with the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and are encouraging our school families to discuss any interactions that their children may have had with Mr. Chinn and to come forward with any concerns,” the school said Tuesday.
Chinn also has worked as a volunteer junior varsity baseball coach at East Ridge High in Woodbury for the 2014 season.
Chinn is not affiliated with the South Washington County Schools District and “will not have an affiliation in the future,” a statement from the school district said Thursday.
Local and national cyber safety experts say this latest case illustrates the risks associated with newer, lesser known mobile apps.
About 81 percent of teens use social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, according to a Pew Research Center’s study.
With all the hot new online sites and apps, it could be overwhelming for parents to stay on top of the new technology, said Shayla Thiel-Stern, a University of Minnesota associate professor who researches young people and social media.
“Very rarely will they be in this situation,” Thiel-Stern said. “You have to have ongoing conversations about common sense and ethics … and trust your kids.”
Chinn met the girls on Omegle, a free online chat site that randomly links users with strangers. Its promotional tagline is “Talk to strangers!”
Chinn
Justin Patchin, professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, said these mobile devices and apps, like Omegle, are extremely popular with teens and are where most of the victimization could occur.
“These apps are where they are liable to encounter strangers or people they don’t know all that well,” Patchin said. “But you can’t watch over their online behavior 24/7. It’s really important to have that dialogue and conversation.”
Chinn’s next court date is scheduled for Oct. 30.Cedric Richmond, left, Cory Booker center, and John Lewis, right, prepare to testify against Jeff Sessions during the attorney general's confirmation hearing in January. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
With Breanne Deppisch
THE BIG IDEA: Friends, House colleagues and even his own staffers have urged the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Cedric Richmond, not to sit down with Donald Trump this afternoon.
“I have family members who say, ‘Don’t go meet with him. He means you no good,’” Richmond, a Democratic congressman from New Orleans, said in an interview. “But, as policymakers, we cannot let the only opinions that he’s getting about the African American community … come from entertainers and people who he’s comfortable with that only tell him what he wants to hear.”
Richmond and a delegation of five other African American House Democrats feel duty-bound to go to the Oval Office to see the president and vice president at 3 p.m. “Part of it really is an education thing,” he explained yesterday afternoon. “Some of the things they say out of the White House are just not factual. But, even more than that, what they’re saying just doesn’t make a lot of sense. So instead of just criticizing, we will try to give them the benefit of our experience. … There’s a strong feeling, and I think a valid feeling, that the people around him are not in a position to do that. One, it’s not a very diverse group. Two, I don’t think they have the policy bona fides … I don’t think somebody’s connecting the dots for him.”
-- Despite routinely describing himself as “the least racist person,” Trump has done a great deal to antagonize the African American community. After years of trying to de-legitimize the first black president by insisting that he was born in Kenya, the 70-year-old now clings to a discredited conspiracy theory that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and refuses to apologize for falsely accusing his predecessor of the worst political crimes since Watergate.
He accused John Lewis, who was nearly beaten to death in Selma because he peacefully resisted American apartheid – of being “all talk, talk, talk—no action, or results.”
He’s stocked his government with top advisers and an attorney general who have, at times, been tone-deaf and tin-eared when race comes up.
Trump’s long history also complicates matters. In the 1970s, the Justice Department accused Trump and his dad of systematically discriminating against black tenants who wanted to rent in their apartment buildings. In the 1980s, Trump ran full-page ads calling for the Central Park Five to be executed – even though they had been falsely convicted of raping a white woman. In the 2000s, Trump pitched NBC on a white-versus-black season of “The Apprentice.” The list goes on.
Every one of these things makes it difficult for the White House to build basic trust with African American leaders, let alone goodwill. Some of the most vocal critics of the president in the past two months have come from communities of color. The ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, for example, tweeted this yesterday:
Get ready for impeachment. — Maxine Waters (@MaxineWaters) March 21, 2017
-- Even the way today’s meeting came together has frustrated many. During that 77-minute press conference Trump held last month after firing Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks asked Trump if he would include the CBC in discussions about his agenda for addressing urban policy. Trump didn’t seem to know what she was referring to. “Am I going to include who?” he asked. “Are you going to include the Congressional Black Caucus,” Ryan, who is black, replied. “Well, I would,” Trump interrupted. “Tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting? Do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours? Set up a meeting!” Ryan noted that she is a journalist and not part of the CBC. “I’m sure some of them are watching right now,” she said.
“That is the impetus of how we got to a meeting,” Richmond recalled. “Once they made a more appropriate request, then we granted it. … It all makes it extremely difficult for our base (and) for our supporters.”
Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, will meet with President Trump this afternoon. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
-- In the final weeks before the election, Trump added an appeal for African American votes to his stump speech. He painted a picture deeply at odds with reality, speaking as if the vast majority of black people live in some kind of urban hellscape. Then he’d ask: “What do you have to lose?"
“We lose a lot in his budget,” said Richmond, rattling off a list of proposed cuts to everything from Pell Grants to afterschool programs and community redevelopment grants that he said would directly hurt his constituents if enacted.
The congressman expressed concern that Trump’s high command has not clearly laid out all his options. “I’ve served with Mick Mulvaney,” Richmond said, referring to the director of the Office of Management and Budget. “We’re all a product of our life experiences, and I promise you Mick’s life experience is not one that’s duplicated by many in the inner cities or poor areas around the country. Mick’s view is one of austerity. He thinks we need to cut our way out of our social and economic problems. That’s just not true.”
Richmond also expressed skepticism about the ability of Ben Carson, the only African American in the cabinet, to manage the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “He may have been the best neurosurgeon of all time, but that doesn’t transfer over into the area of HUD,” the congressman said. “Because of that, we have to let them know that (their proposed cuts) will lead to chaos, more poverty and barriers to success for many families. We have to just tell him what I am sure he’s not hearing from the people around his table.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at his briefing yesterday that Trump invited the lawmakers to "continue to have a dialogue -- sitting down with people, talking about the issues, talking about common ground." Spicer noted that Trump already met earlier this month with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). "They found common ground," Spicer said. "The president talked about areas, despite the narratives out there--issues where they both probably share concerns.... The willingness to sit down and talk -- that's the first step." Cummings, who hails from Baltimore, privately challenged the president over his "hurtful" and "insulting" language about the black community, per David Nakamara.
Richmond, only half-joking, said “there are a million policy issues” he wants to cover during today’s meeting, from health care to infrastructure and urban renewal. He feared that if all 49 members of the black caucus came to the White House, it would just become a photo opp. To have a focused conversation, only the executive board of the CBC is trekking down Pennsylvania Avenue. Andre Carson (D-Ind.), who is Muslim, will express concern about the travel ban. Anthony Brown (D-Md.), who spent eight years as Martin O’Malley’s lieutenant governor, wants to talk about funding for higher-education, specifically historically black colleges and universities. Also set to join are Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) and Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.).
Ayana McAllister was fatally shot in the District on Monday night. A student in North Carolina, she was home for spring break. (Courtesy of St. Augustine's University)
A SAD UPDATE:
The Saturday before the election, trying to ascertain which way North Carolina would break, I went to talk with voters at a football game in Raleigh between two historically-black institutions.
Ayana McAllister, then 18, had moved south to attend St. Augustine’s University, following in the footsteps of several family members. She was delighted to chat with a Washington Post reporter because she grew up in the D.C. suburb of Largo, Md., and was homesick.
Two weekends before, Ayana had gone with classmates to a Hillary Clinton rally on campus. She recalled how five “Mothers of the Movement” – women who have lost children to gun violence or police-involved incidents – accompanied the Democratic nominee. She had been moved by Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin. “There is no excuse, no excuse, for you not to vote,” Fulton had told the crowd. “It’s important. Your life depends on it.”
Ayana, who planned to major in criminal justice, was bummed that she never got to vote for Obama. She lamented the negativity in the political discourse and the nasty turn the fall campaign had taken. America deserves better than this, I remember her telling me as a marching band performed on the field behind her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I feel like I’ve got to settle for Hillary. I feel like I’m going to vote because I know I need to, not because I want to. I feel like neither of them should be president, but I feel like Hillary will be better. Really, it’s like two children arguing back and forth.”
This was a common refrain during all my interviews that day. I led the next morning’s Big Idea with her quote to highlight Clinton’s soft support among African Americans, and I’ve thought often since November of her call to elevate the discourse.
Now Ayana has died, before she could even finish her freshman year. Home for spring break, she was gunned down Monday night.
Ayana and another woman were shot near the Benning Road Metro stop in Northeast Washington. An aunt said she was a bystander, watching a friend who was helping to film a music video. “At this point, we are not in a position to say whether she was the intended target or not,” said Dustin Sternbeck, a police spokesman. (Martin Weil and Dana Hedgpeth have more.)
At Largo High in Prince George’s County, where she graduated last year, Ayana was on the honor roll, participated in the ROTC program and loved basketball. The school’s principal tweeted this picture from the yearbook:
This is the 24th homicide in the District since the start of 2017. That is on par with this point last year, when the city would go on to record 135 murders.
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The U.S. and South Korean military said they have detected a failed North Korean missile launch attempt.
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING:
-- A North Korean missile fired early Wednesday morning exploded within seconds of its launch, the South Korean and U.S. militaries said – a reassuring sign for global allies worried about the speed at which Pyongyang’s weapon program is progressing. Anna Fifield reports: "The attempted missile launch comes at a time of heightened tensions in the region, with the United States and South Korea conducting joint military exercises aimed at countering the North Korean threat and the Trump administration clearly signaling it is prepared to use force to stop the Kim regime. It was not immediately clear what kind of missile North Korea had fired. Both militaries were working to analyze the data."
Migrants crowd the deck of their wooden boat off the coast of Libya. (Reuters/Jason Florio)
GET SMART FAST:
More than 6,000 migrants have been rescued in the Mediterranean Sea in recent days while crossing from North Africa to Europe. The influx suggests that growing numbers of migrants, refugees and others are attempting to make the dangerous sea passage to Europe as weather conditions improve, and smugglers ramp up their operations. (Michael Birnbaum and Brian Murphy) The Senate voted 52-47 to abolish an Obama administration rule that restricted certain kinds of hunting inside Alaska national wildlife refuges, including trapping and aerial shooting. Republicans said states should set the terms for public land conservation “within their own borders.” The vote, basically along party lines, is the latest instance of the Congressional Review Act being used to get rid of regulations. (Juliet Eilperin) The former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party was charged with voter fraud for allegedly forging his wife’s mail-in ballot in last year’s election. If convicted, he would face up to three years in prison. (ABC Denver) Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was indicted in a sprawling corruption case, accused of repeatedly selling his influence and seeking thousands of dollars in bribes from deep-pocketed donors. In exchange for his legal help, Williams reportedly accepted luxury trips abroad, a Jaguar convertible, and a spate of other gifts including a $205 Louis Vuitton necktie and Burberry watch. (Philadelphia Inquirer) Preet Bharara, fired by Trump as U.S. attorney, will join NYU'S School of Law as a distinguished scholar in residence. (New York Times) The Los Angeles police chief reports that sexual assault and domestic violence reports have plummeted from the city’s Latino community this year because victims are terrified of being deported. (LA Times) Grammy-winning hip-hop artist Wyclef Jean accused Los Angeles authorities of racial profiling after he was “thrown up against” a squad car and placed in handcuffs as officials investigated a robbery. The musician posted video of being handcuffed by authorities, saying he had done “absolutely nothing” and was on his way home from the studio when the incident occurred. (Peter Holley) The U.S. has agreed to pay $1 million to the family of a 16-year-old Mexican who died after border officers told him to drink liquid meth. He had claimed the substance was apple juice in an effort to smuggle it across the border, and officers – suspecting nefarious activity – told him to "drink it to prove he wasn’t lying.” (Kristine Phillips) Houthi forces appear to be using Iranian-made drones to attack Saudi and UAE missile defense sites in Yemen, according to a new report by the Conflict Armament Research group. Though Houthi forces claim the drones were indigenously built in Yemen, |
opened in IE6. The malicious script executes and can be used to send any of your local files to a remote evil destination.
2. The SVG(Scalable Vector Graphics) file is a registered extension in some Safari versions and hence a SVG file gets automatically opened in Safari. If you ever had an older version of Safari on your computer, this extension will be most probably there in your registry. Hence, it does not matter what your current version of Safari is (and you may very well be using the latest version of Safari). So the exploit works like this:
An evil site opened inside Chrome can automatically download a SVG file to your computer. If the user clicks on this downloaded file from the Chrome’s download bar or opens this file through Windows Explorer, it gets automatically opened in Safari. The malicious script executes and can be used to send any of your local files to a remote evil destination.
3. An evil site opened inside Chrome can automatically download inappropriate content such as a por_ographic image to your computer.
FIX DESCRIPTION
Google Chrome Team fixed this vulnerability by appending these dangerous extensions such as.mht,.mhtml,.svg, etc to already existing extension blacklist.
Check out the fixes done in Chromium Source Code here [2,3].
Chrome Team is also actively looking how to improve this mechanism in the long run, but because of the need to maintain compatibility with certain existing uses, this needs to be done carefully.
SOLUTION
Chrome: Upgrade to latest version of Google Chrome (v3.0.195.32 or higher). If you remain connected to the internet, this should be automatic.
The more secure solution is to configure your browser to prompt you explicitly before downloading any file type. This can be done by going to Chrome Configuration Options -> Under the Hood -> Check the ‘Ask where to save each file before downloading‘ flag.
References
1. Downloads: Downloading a file – Google Chrome Help
http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95759
2. Google Chrome Code Fix 1
http://codereview.chromium.org/243115
3. Google Chrome Code Fix 2
http://codereview.chromium.org/261022
4. Interesting Reads – thanks to Michal.
(a) Security in Depth: Local Web Pages – Adam Barth
http://blog.chromium.org/2008/12/security-in-depth-local-web-pages.html
(b) Same-Origin Policy:Browser Security Handbook – Michal Zalewski
http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Part2#Same-origin_policy
DISCLOSURE TIMELINE
Oct 5, 2009 12:14 AM: Vulnerability reported to Google Security Team.
Oct 6, 2009 11:19 AM: Automated Response from Google Security Team.
Oct 6, 2009 01:46 PM: First Status update provided by Michal Zalewski. Vulnerability confirmed.
Oct 6, 2009 11:33 PM: Second Status update provided by Michal Zalewski. Code Fix 1 checked in by Adam Barth.
Oct 8, 2009 12:30 AM: Code Fix 2 checked in by Adam Barth.
Nov 5, 2009 01:18 PM: Chrome v3.0.195.32 Released containing the Security Patch.
I would like to thank Michal Zalewski and Adam Barth from Google for their prompt responses and getting the patch ready in a timely manner. It was a pleasure working with them. I am grateful to Google for providing credit for my research by listing me on their “We Thank You” Page.1. Ryan’s position opposing abortion even in cases of rape, and his attempts to define cytoblasts as legal ‘persons’ (which would outlaw all termination of pregnancies and some forms of birth control) came under scrutiny when Republican Todd Akin, running for the Senate in Missouri, provoked a furor. Akin said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape because in ‘legitimate rape’ the woman’s body rejects fertilization. Akin’s insensitivity to a situation that affects a third of a million American women every decade, plus his ignorance of Biology 101, drew widespread condemnation. Mitt Romney put out a statement that both he and Ryan believed abortion was permitted in case of rape. Problem: Ryan has repeatedly opposed that position and appears to agree with Akin more than with his running mate.
2. Ryan keeps attacking Prsident Obama’s stimulus program now. But in 2002 when then President George W. Bush proposed stimulus spending, Ryan supported it. “What we’re trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan told MSNBC in 2002.
3. Even more embarrassing, in 2010, Ryan asked for $20 million in stimulus money from Obama for companies in his district, then repeatedly denied requesting stimulus funds. He finally admitted he had done so, but continues to slam the stimulus program as a failure (even though the economy pulled out of a Depression as a result of it).
4. Ryan slammed President Obama for the closure of an auto plant that closed in late 2008 under George W. Bush. Ryan’s running mate, Mitt Romney, opposed Obama’s actual auto bailout, which was a great success and returned Detroit to profitability.
5. When Ryan was challenged on his lack of foreign policy credentials, he replied that he had ‘voted to send men to war.’ That is, he is boasting that his support of the illegal and disastrous Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq qualifies him to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. The Iraq War left over 4,000 US service personnel dead, over 30,000 seriously wounded, and likely hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead; failed to uncover any weapons of mass destruction, contributed to the US debt, and led to the takeover of Iraq by Shiite elements close to Iran, who are now helping Iran get around US sanctions. Does Ryan really want to run on that record of foreign policy ‘success’?
6. Paul Ryan charges that Barack Obama has ‘stolen’ $700 billion from medicare for his Obamacare. In fact, these expense reductions do not cut Medicare benefits, and, moreover, Romney and Ryan supported these reductions! The difference is that they would give the savings to the affluent, whereas Obama uses them to cover the presently uninsured.
7. Ryan, seeking the youth vote, was foolish enough to list “Rage against the Machine” as one of his favorite bands. Band leader Tom Morello lambasted him, saying Ryan is the embodiment of the machine against which they are raging. Face it, Ryan, you are stuck with Megadeath and Ted Nugent.
8. It became clear that under Ryan’s tax plan, Gov. Mitt Romney would pay less than 1% in annual federal taxes, highlighting Romney’s already low rate compared to ordinary Americans (slightly lower than Ryan’s own!) and putting the spotlight back where Ryan’s appointment was supposed to misdirect it.
9. It turns out Ryan and his wife own shares in oil and gas companies that indirectly benefit from tax breaks for Big Oil that he wants to keep in the federal budget.
10. Ryan continues to push his longstanding plans for a steal-from-the-elderly-and-give-to-the-rich medicare plan, which President Obama warned would cost ordinary recipients over $6000 a year extra. Politifact checked and rated Obama’s charge as correct, though they noted that the figures referred to CBO analyses of Ryan’s last plan, not his ‘new’ one, which hasn’t been subjected to similar analysis. Ryan certainly recently put forward a plan that would cost ordinary people that much extra.The Government Digital Service (GDS) will take no further direct involvement in the development of the new “enhanced IT” required to roll out the troubled Universal Credit project.
GDS was brought in by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to help put Universal Credit’s IT back on track after substantial failings were revealed and millions of pounds wasted.
But Computer Weekly sources said disagreements over the new approach to IT development, announced yesterday by DWP, has caused GDS to step back from direct involvement, with all new IT work being handled by the DWP.
Secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith was finally forced to confirm that Universal Credit will be delayed beyond its deadline of 2017, with 700,000 benefits claimants having to wait to transfer into the system.
But, to avoid immediately writing off all the £303m spent on IT for the Pathfinder pilot projects, DWP decided to continue to add functionality to the current systems, while also developing what it called “enhanced IT” to roll out the full system.
“As announced in July, the department has been working with the Government Digital Service to explore an enhanced IT system for Universal Credit that uses the latest in technological advances. Ministers confirm that this system has proved viable and the department will further develop this work with a view to rolling it out once testing is complete,” said the DWP announcement yesterday.
In effect, that “twin-track” approach merely delays the likely scrapping of all the IT developed so far for the Pathfinder, according to Computer Weekly sources.
However, insiders claim that GDS – with the backing of Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude – preferred to scrap all the existing work and start again, with rumours that Maude and Duncan Smith disagreed on the way forward. As a result GDS has stepped back from the project.BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tammam Salam, scion of a prominent political family, was officially named the new prime minister of Lebanon on Saturday after receiving a string of endorsements from the country’s warring factions over the past few days.
Mr. Salam, 68, was named to the post by the Lebanese president after he garnered 124 of the 128 votes in Parliament. A Sunni whose father, Saeb Salam, served six times as prime minister between 1952 and 1973, Mr. Salam will head a new government that many hope will overcome a dangerous political stalemate that last month led to the resignation of his predecessor.
Lebanon’s government is based on a delicate sectarian system, in place since the end of the civil war in 1990, that is meant to balance power among the country’s multiple sects. The formula requires that the president be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the Parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim.
Eager to present himself as an independent, Mr. Salam emphasized at a news conference on Saturday that he would not bow to pressure from any group and intended to establish a national unity government made up of technocrats.Over the past few years, conservative outsiders, many of whom were members of the tea party, ran over the establishment in a number of key Republican primaries for the U.S. Senate. In 2010, tea-party-aligned candidates won in Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada, Wisconsin and Utah. In doing so, they almost certainly cost Republicans the Senate seat in Delaware, and probably in Colorado and Nevada. Two years later, the process was repeated in Indiana and Missouri.
In choosing less presentable candidates for the general electorate, the GOP may have forfeited Senate control. If this pattern continues in 2014 and 2016, it would represent something new: Functional parties tend to choose candidates who are seen as more moderate the longer they are out of power, and Republicans have been out of the Senate since 2007 and the White House since 2009.
But, just as we would expect, the pattern doesn’t seem to be happening. Establishment Republicans look to be in good shape in many states where a more conservative candidate could cost the party a seat. (Deciding who is the establishment candidate and who is an outsider is an inexact science. But I looked to see who was being backed by establishment groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and who was backed by more right-leaning or tea party groups.)
Alaska — Joe Miller (outsider) trails Daniel Sullivan (establishment), the former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, in early primary polling (polls have not been conducted in the past few months). If Miller loses the primary, he could run as a third-party candidate in the general election.
Colorado — Rep. Cory Gardner (establishment) managed to clear the field in his fight against Democratic incumbent Mark Udall. Gardner even pushed 2010 Republican nominee and tea partyer Ken Buck (outsider) out of the race.
Georgia — Republican insiders were worried that either Rep. Paul Broun or Rep. Phil Gingrey, both conservative firebrands, would be nominated. Although the primary hasn’t taken place yet, Broun and Gingrey are fourth and fifth, respectively, in current polling. The current leaders — Rep. Jack Kingston and David Perdue — are both more moderate than Broun and Gingrey.
Kansas — Milton Wolf (outsider), who posted X-rays of gunshot victims online, doesn’t seem likely to overcome Sen. Pat Roberts (establishment), even though Roberts faced question about whether he actually lived in Kansas. Roberts has been well ahead in polling.
Kentucky — Matt Bevin (outsider), who had some controversial things to say about cockfighting, has never pushed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (establishment) below the 50 percent mark in polling.
North Carolina — State Rep. Thom Tillis, the establishment favorite, looks to be in good shape, but he isn’t a sure thing. Polls show Tillis near or above the 40 percent necessary to avoid a primary runoff. And there are plenty of undecided voters, who may help him reach 40 percent.
Establishment candidates also lead (or have already won) in South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, though Republicans would probably win these states no matter who was nominated. The only state where the incumbent looks to be in trouble is Mississippi, and that’s because Thad Cochran might be too liberal for the state.
The races noted above could change, though in most of them, the movement has been toward the establishment or static. It’s also important to mention that being endorsed by the establishment doesn’t necessarily mean a candidate is more moderate, but the two often go hand in hand. It tends to mean that a candidate is considered to be more electable.
The point is, Republican voters don’t appear to be making the same choices they did in 2010. They seem to be following historical precedent and becoming more pragmatic. That suggests that the normal political rules are holding, which might increase the GOP’s chances of taking the Senate in November.For the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, Nickelodeon decided to invite guest animators to create a trilogy of short cartoons based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Why? You got me. But these things are pretty cool, so I’m glad they did it. Nick also made the cartoons available for viewing on their YouTube channel, so no grainy camcorder footage for US!
The shorts don’t ascribe to any particular continuity and the guest animators were free to use whatever aesthetic, setting, and cast they wanted. In a way, it’s reminiscent of that experimental “Guest Era” of the original Mirage TMNT comic, where Eastman and Laird decided to shelve their ongoing storylines and invite guest cartoonists to write and draw the TMNT book for three years.
Only, you know. These are *good*.
“Don vs. Raph” (by Jhonen Vasquez)
Raphael is sick of Donatello’s s--t. Perfect timing, because Donatello is also sick of Raphael’s s--t! The two rivals decide to settle the old “brains vs. brawn” debate once and for all with a series of challenges. Leonardo, Michelangelo and April all act as judges and some unexpected guests take the part of spectators.
Hey, it’s Jhonen Vasquez! You know, the Invader Zim guy?
Alright, that’s not fair. He’s done plenty of stuff since Invader Zim got cancelled fifteen years ago, like design work for the Disney cartoon series Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja, and… uh… well, there’s an Invader Zim comic from Oni Press going right now, and it’s pretty good!
Vasquez returns to Nickelodeon for this TMNT short and it features all his trademark humor and visuals. It might live and die by whether you enjoy Invader Zim, or at least if you enjoy the sound of screaming, but I think it was my favorite of the Comic-Con trilogy.
Directed by Sung Jin Ahn and animated by Titmouse, the visuals of the short are extremely manic, high-strung and everyone’s sort of malleable and gooey. It’s a ride to watch, as you can tell this was drawn on a frame-by-frame level and not done with s----y Canadian-style Flash puppetry. Everything is always moving and pulsating and it looks sort of like Bob Clampett if he was a weeaboo.
Vasquez’s credits stem from the writing, character design and voice directing. He didn’t direct the short, but his style of humor is all over it. “Don vs. Raph” has plenty of rewatch value, too, as there are little gags you might not notice the first time around (the happy face sticker on Mikey’s plastron has eyes that move and emote). There’s a lot of juvenile, lowbrow humor running the gamut of farting, burping, pooping and vomiting. So yeah, if that’s not your thing then it’ll probably turn you off. But in defense of the vomiting gag, April puking up a magical glitter fountain was pretty great.
The cast for this one are a bunch of people I’ve never heard of, with the exception of Eric Bauza as Donnie and Matt Yang King as Splinter/Shredder (King previously voiced Shredder in the 2013 Out of the Shadows video game). The rest of the cast (Adam Devine as Raph, Anders Holm as Leo and Blake Anderson as Mikey) are apparently all from a show called Workaholics, which I’ve never seen. So I guess it was an in-joke. But whoever they are, they do a good job with the characters. I especially liked Anderson’s Michelangelo, who sounds youthful and funny without overdoing the idiot-factor.
This is the most energetic of the three shorts and the fast paced, rapid-fire visual humor elevates it as the standout installment to me. There’s great music from Jason Lazarus, too, that ties it all together.
“Turtles Take Time (and Space)” (by Brandon Auman)
April brings an antique scepter down to the lair to the show the Turtles, and what usually happens when April brings an antique scepter down to the lair to show the Turtles? The Turtles get sent on a journey through time! And now space! The Turtles fight their way through many strange universes and settings in an attempt to get home.
Directed by Rie Koga and animated by Studio MIR, this short goes for a very Japanese “anime” look (despite being written and designed in America and animated in South Korea, but hey). MIR’s animation is very smooth and detailed and if you recognize the studio it’s because they’ve done Legend of Korra, Voltron: Legendary Defender and other “Ameri-Korean cartoons pretending to be Japanese anime” shows. The design-work is nice and even if the faux-anime aesthetic isn’t to your liking you can’t deny how technically pleasing the all-on-ones framerate is.
Brandon Auman’s story is actually a loose adaptation of TMNT (Vol. 1) #33, “Turtles Take Time” by Jan Strnad and Richard Corben. That said, it’s also a celebration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand in its entirety, with a setup that harkens back to the TMNT III feature film, design-work and some casting that recalls the 2012 Nickelodeon cartoon, a segment that sorta-kinda spoofs the Michael Bay movies with an overdesigned Japanese influence, and a “twist” ending that guest stars the 1987 Fred Wolf cartoon TMNT (with Townsend Coleman reprising Michelangelo)! It’s certainly a love-letter to the franchise, cramming in as many references as possible for six minutes.
The short has to move at a hectic pace to get through all its segments, but if I had to pick a favorite I actually think I liked the “baby Turtles in the pet shop” sequence. I’ve seen the Turtles fight pirates and I’ve seen them fight the Shredder and I’ve even seen them cross over with their 1987 cartoon counterparts (more than once!), but I’ve never seen them as hatchlings crawling through the pet shop, being chased by monitor lizards. It’s maybe a tad overly cute, but it also provides nice contrast with the other segments, that are more on the action-adventure side.
The “Michael Bay” segment is a bit of a misnomer, since it’s as much a spoof of the Platinum Dunes films as it is overdesigned anime characters in general. The pirate segment was great, at least until the actress playing pirate-April (Jessica McKenna) tries to do a British accent.
Speaking of the cast, it has a strange mix and match of some familiar voices. Greg Cipes reprises Mikey from the 2012 Nickelodeon cartoon, while Eric Bauza plays Leo (despite having played Donnie in the last short). Instead, Scott Menville plays Donnie, and he actually had a brief go at the role in a TMNT spoof crossover on Teen Titans Go! of all things, so even his performance was a little familiar. Darren Criss plays Raph and Brian Bloom growls for the Shredder, and they do good work for their parts.
I think this was my second favorite of the three shorts. “Turtles Take Time (and Space)” is a very different type of cartoon from “Don vs. Raph”, however, and I love all the variety executed through these cartoons. A little something for everyone.
“Pizza Friday” (by Kevin Eastman & Paul Jenkins)
The Turtles want to hit up Pizza Friday at the cafeteria, but April won’t let them set foot in her high school so long as they look like mutant freaks. To remedy that, Donnie builds a holographic cloaking device to disguise the Turtles as ordinary teenagers. Of course, their lack of social skills threaten to make April die from embarrassment. Then the Kraang show up and threaten to make April die for real.
Directed by Paul Jenkins and animated by House of Cool, I suppose this was my least favorite of the bunch. Doesn’t make it bad, but I think it had more problems than the other two shorts. For starters, House of Cool’s animation is really uneven. There are moments, such as the beginning in the alley, where the Turtles look incredibly stiff and puppet-y, like they stepped out of Johnny Test or something. Other times, such as during the climax in the cafeteria, they look really fluid and kinetic. So the animation isn’t bad, just bad in… places.
That aside, this short follows the most linear story of all three cartoons. It takes time to breathe and let the Turtles explore high school in their human disguises; the previous shorts were in a hurry to rush the characters from one zany set piece to another and felt a bit ADHD. The more traditional scripting (co-written by Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the TMNT) actually helps it to stand out the most in the trilogy, even if all three cartoons are visually and tonally diverse.
The bulk of the short revolves around April being mortally embarrassed by the Turtles as they obliviously blunder around her school trying to act like regular teenagers. Even at six minutes, the joke wears a little thin, but we get to see the Turtles doing something pretty unique and that counts. Raph hits on cheerleaders, Mikey tries to start slang trends like he sees on TV, Donnie signs up for mathletics clubs, and Leo… uh… Well, he’s Leo. He never gets to do anything interesting.
The Human Turtles are designed by Saud Boksmati and Chris Macdonald and they capture the look of the characters about as much as you’d expect. Raph is a burly jock, Mikey is a cool dude with cutoff sleeves and sunglasses, Donnie is a bespectacled poindexter, and Leo is… uh… A lanky bystander. Jeez, Leo.
It might all be a bit on the nose, but I can’t say the designs aren’t fitting. Mikey’s maybe a bit too buff and Leo’s maybe a bit too skinny, but there’s a narrative “out” where Donnie says the hologram device projects an image of how each Turtle sees themselves. So if Mikey thinks he’s a bodybuilder then that’s his business.
The cast is another one of those downsides to the short. The Turtles are played mostly well, with Yuri Lowenthal as Leo, A.J. Locascio as Donnie, Sam Riegel as Raph and Zach Callison as Mikey. Callison’s Mikey is maybe a little obnoxious, but that seems in keeping with how the character is portrayed most of the time. There’s also Jason Canning as the Kraangdroids; he’s an English comedian and sometimes voice actor, and as such, the Kraangdrodis all have English accents.
April is played by Kevin Eastman’s wife, Courtney Eastman, and her acting is pretty bad. It’s something of a tradition for Eastman to give his wives acting gigs in whatever cartoon he’s working on; his previous spouse, Julie Strain, played the lead in the Eastman-produced Heavy Metal 2000 (a terrible animated film I really ought to review someday) and the end result was just as unpleasant for the audience.
So while it seems I’m ending this review on a critical note, keep in mind that just because I felt “Pizza Friday” was the weakest of the three shorts, I don’t think it was actually unenjoyable. All three shorts were wonderful, with very different looks and goals. It was a fun experiment and something I’d certainly love to see more of. Heck, I think more companies with legacy franchises should branch out and invite guest animators to produce short films featuring the characters. It’ll never happen since there isn’t much profit in it (none of these shorts promote a single action figure!), but it’d be cool all the same.Maneck Dalal, the man responsible for expanding Air India into an international operation, began his career with the airline looking after celebrity passengers. In the late 1940s, when the Hollywood star Errol Flynn was thrown off a BOAC plane in London for being drunk, it was Dalal who arranged for him to be transferred to an Air India flight. “By then he had sobered up and was charming,” Dalal recalled. “He said ‘Call me Errol’ and he asked me to make sure that his girlfriend left for Europe in two hours.” Ever polite, Dalal made small talk with Flynn’s female companion, who claimed to be a penniless eastern European princess.
With his beautiful manners and his impeccable dress sense — he was partial to a Savile Row suit when funds allowed — Dalal acquired something of a fan club among Air India’s celebrity passengers. His “network” became so extensive that when Barbara Cartland, the romance novelist, wanted to feature an Indian prince in one of her plots, she turned to Dalal and he was able to introduce her to a maharaja who was a frequent flyer.
Dalal regularly met Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India and a man known for his impatience. Once, arriving in Heathrow from New York, Nehru demanded to be taken to a particular café a considerable distance away, against the will of his security team. Dalal smoothed the way and arranged for a full English breakfast. Sitting opposite the jet-lagged prime minister, he was relieved when Nehru gave him a big smile and exclaimed: “That was quite a long way!” On another occasion Dalal was asked to accompany Nehru and a “friend” to a West End cinema. The friend turned out to be Nehru’s lover, Lady Edwina Mountbatten.
As well as tact, Dalal was known for his diplomacy. When his air hostesses threatened to refuse to fly a businessman who had suffered leprosy, Dalal made a point of shaking hands with the man in question and offering him coffee as he explained, in an uncharacteristic flirtation with the facts, that the flight was full. The businessman accepted the explanation and the tense situation was defused.
The most dramatic moment of Dalal’s career came during India’s bloody Partition from Pakistan in 1947, when he was 28. Then running Air India’s office in Delhi, he recalled Connaught Circus being full of dead bodies: “They just lay there, because no one dared to pick them up in case they themselves were fiercely attacked.” In his official capacity he was responsible for transporting Muslims from Delhi in India to Lahore in Pakistan. With angry mobs gathering outside the airport, he protected Muslim women passengers by giving them Hindu red tikkas on their foreheads and Hindu names. Every morning he was given a list of names of people who had been prioritised. “I would often have middle-aged Muslims in my office, literally begging me to take them and their families out of Delhi and offering me huge sums of money to do so,” he recalled.
One afternoon when he came home from the office for lunch, there were four Sikhs with swords bared outside his gate. His 21-year-old English wife, newly arrived from England, saw a man with a machete dripping blood running through the garden. Dalal received a telephone call from a man threatening to kill him. “I couldn’t believe it was real. I thought it was a friend larking around and told him, ‘Look, I’m very tired.’ ” He and his wife promptly moved to the sanctuary of the Imperial Hotel. “It was a tough time,” he wrote.
Maneck Ardeshir Sohrab Dalal was born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1918, into the tightly knit Parsi community. His father was a government official and the family were required to move to a town in the country called Nasik. One of four children, he grew up in a large house with a tennis court and gardens full of mango, custard apple and mulberry trees, which he would climb.
His mother was a small, strict woman to whom he was deeply attached. He once shot her with a cork pop-gun and when she pretended to fall he was distraught. He would dance at home with his siblings, rolling up the carpet and playing records on the gramophone.
After doing well at an English-run school he was offered a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1937 and set sail for England with a stopover in Port Said. Young and naive, he found himself in a strip club with some of his shipmates. When he reached Cambridge he was shocked to discover that the house he had been allocated had no electricity and no telephone — comforts he had enjoyed in India. He bought a three-piece brown tweed suit and opened his first bank account.
Athletic, slim and handsome, Dalal adored Cambridge and excelled at racket sports — he was a triple blue, who captained the university tennis team and would still beat much younger men later in life — and wooed his first girlfriend, whom he took punting and dancing. He enjoyed telling a story about one of his neighbours in his digs, an Indian prince who told his landlady: “I won’t need any dinner tonight — I am off to London to see the whores.” The prince meant that was he was off to see the Hoares (a well-known family).
He spent “vacs” in a grand house in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, with a wealthy aunt. At one student dance he met a young blonde, blue-eyed girl, called Kathleen Richardson, known as Kay. He proposed to her after playing a tennis match at Wimbledon and took her to dinner at the Savoy. Her father disapproved and insisted that Dalal must first return to India and get a job.
Dalal set up the first Air India flights from London Heathrow to Bombay in the late 1940s
Arriving in Bombay in 1946, he was put in touch with a director at the Tata Group and landed a job with the fledgling Tata Airlines, set up by the industrialist JRD Tata in the 1930s. “I knew nothing about aviation,” Dalal admitted. Rising daily at 4.30am, he learnt the ropes quickly, from passenger reservations to accounts and cargo handling. The planes were mostly Dakotas and the only routes were to Delhi, Calcutta and Karachi. When he managed to clock off early enough, evenings were spent enjoying milkshakes on Marine Drive. He came to admire Tata for his thrifty nature. The tycoon often arrived to business dinners in a shabby Fiat while allowing his driver to ferry his servants’ children in his bigger car.
The company became Air India soon after Dalal joined and he was made manager of the new office in Delhi, living at first in a suite of the Cecil Hotel. He and Kay were reunited and married in England in 1947. Returning to India, they were the only passengers on a new aircraft and were allowed to choose their route via Rome and Cairo.
When he flew he knew most of the passengers, to the chagrin of his wife
After independence the government wanted Air India to become international. Still in his twenties, Dalal was asked to open offices at the overseas terminal in London Heathrow, still a barren area with rabbits bounding around. The airlines based there at first operated from caravans. “In winter months we had oil heaters to try and keep warm. It was a delicate balance between freezing to death and choking from oil fumes.” After a year, there were daily flights to and from India.
Dalal recalled the early days of air travel fondly. Passengers never needed security checks. “They would arrive at wing hangars and wait in comfortable cane armchairs,” he said. At first it took 21 hours to get to India from London. Whenever he flew he knew most of the passengers — to the chagrin of his wife, who would be left to manage their children as he chatted.
By the end of the Fifties Air India was taking about 55 per cent of the passenger traffic from the UK to India. As more Indians came to live in the UK, Dalal sent staff around the country to see how he could attract Indian air traffic. Eventually he was persuaded that if he could keep the economy fare to £200 people could afford to travel to India every two years. He recalled little racism, except for one travel agent in Edinburgh who was genial until he suddenly said: “Tell me laddie, would it be black boys who would fly your planes for you?”
Dalal settled in a comfortable house in Hampton with Kay, a medical social worker, who survives him, and their three daughters. Sue became a solicitor; Caroline a family therapist and his eldest daughter, Tina — born at the same time as the first Air India aircraft was delivered to Heathrow — was a social worker. She died of cancer in 2009.
Dalal retired from Air India in 1977 — by then his knowledge was such that he had become a civil aviation attaché at the Indian High Commission in London. A conscientious man, he declined to leave work early on his final day. The next day he started as managing director of Tata Ltd in the UK. He also chaired various committees, including that of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London, which was devoted to promoting Indian culture and had Lord Mountbatten as its patron. Under Dalal it grew from its home in a room 12ft by 10ft on Oxford Street to the largest Indian cultural centre outside India.
Every summer Dalal would host a champagne party for members of the Cambridge University India Society. “They are my future passengers,” he would say.”PHILADELPHIA – The long road back spanned 60-some miles on Interstate 476, the main highway extension connecting Philadelphia and Allentown, Pa., and opened for business on Oct. 6, 2015, the day Andrew MacDonald cleared waivers and headed to the minor leagues. It contained stops both humbling and illuminating, with signposts reminding the 30-year-old defenseman why his career had come to this. “Sometimes,” he says, “you just need a little push to help things out.”
Last season, according to CapFriendly.com, 139 NHL players carried salary cap hits of $5 million or higher. Aside from MacDonald, only one of those—then-Florida forward Dave Bolland ($5.5 million)—appeared in the American Hockey League at any point. Demoted on a conditioning assignment to cure his struggles, Bolland skated just twice for the Portland Pirates before persistent ankle injuries shut him down indefinitely. He is still recovering, currently residing as dead salary in Arizona.
MacDonald, on the other hand, spent four months and 43 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms after failing to make the NHL roster in training camp, facing an internal conflict unusual for others at his pay grade. “A lot of guys will go down, sit and pout: Poor me, poor me, poor me,” Flyers GM Ron Hextall says. “It’s not easy to be in the NHL for years and all of a sudden get sent down.”
The product of Judique, Nova Scotia, a small Cape Breton Island town of several hundred residents where “the idea of traffic is one car ahead of you on a rural road,” MacDonald handled the demotion with a calm befitting his roots. When Hextall offered MacDonald some time before reporting to Lehigh Valley, MacDonald was instead in the opening-night lineup against Syracuse on Oct. 10. Even then, some Phantoms wondered what kind of teammate they’d be getting. Those concerns quickly faded.
“We were all like, ‘Oh, man, if I was there, I’d be pretty mad too,’” says Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere, who was paired with MacDonald for a time in the minors. “But I think it didn’t even affect him. He just went through his daily routine.”
To those around him in the AHL, MacDonald went all-in on the reassignment. He moved into the Renaissance Allentown Hotel, connected to the Phantoms’ home rink at PPL Center, while his wife, Hali, and son, Mason, stayed back in Philadelphia. Gostisbehere remembers MacDonald ponying up for everyone’s Chipotle during a road trip, buying a team meal after a big win, and shelling out for transportation for the rookie dinner in New York City, even though MacDonald never got to attend.
A 2016 Calder Cup finalist, whose mid-November recall to the Flyers’ coincided with their rise into the playoff picture, Gostisbhere also found |
best political quality is that she truly understands both the issues and the political institutions that mediate them. Her true, unfiltered opinions on these topics are earned by long experience and almost inhuman amounts of hard work.
In the debates, she's frequently dominated the stage simply by knowing more than anyone else on it — which is one reason it was so counterproductive for the Clinton campaign to limit the number of Democratic debates to six and ensure they would only be showed at ridiculously inconvenient times. But that, too, stemmed from their mistrust of a press and an electorate that they worry won't respond to Clinton's best qualities.
The argument for Clinton is that she's the Democrat most likely to make progress on progressive priorities because she's the Democrat who best understands both the issues and how unbelievably difficult it actually is to get anything done in a divided political system. Sanders can talk all he wants about political revolutions, but no one seriously doubts that the next Democratic president will face a Republican House, a 5-4 Republican majority on the Supreme Court, and a country that mistrusts government action.
In that world — the world we actually live in — there's a strong case to be made for a pragmatic approach that respects the sensitivities of the electorate and the power of the status quo. Liberals might disagree with Clinton's true position on single-payer, but I think they would respect it. Instead, in her effort to avoid that disagreement, she's blundered into a position that no one agrees with and no one respects. Worse, it's a position that makes people think Clinton doesn't respect them.Waterloo University is set to repatriate a box of 18th-century bone fragments to a New York community that did not even know the bones were missing.
The bones came from Fort William Henry, a former British fort that was the scene of a brutal massacre of British troops by Huron warriors during the Seven Years’ War, an events depicted in the film The Last of the Mohicans.
Following a 1950s archaeological dig, the dug-up skeletons of the dead British soldiers were put on display as part of a full-scale reconstruction of the fort, which is located in Lake George, New York.
However, in 1993, local officials decided to rebury the bodies in a Memorial Day ceremony. At the time, organizers neglected to mention that some of the bones remained in archaeology labs in Arizona and Waterloo, Ontario.
“We didn’t make an issue out of it,” Robert F. Flacke Sr., longtime president of the Fort William Henry Corp., told an Associated Press reporter.
When news of the missing bones broke earlier this year, the community struck a campaign to have the remains returned.
National PostRyan Clark explores what makes the Falcons' offense so productive and examines how it can be stopped. (0:57)
Aaron Rodgers has recaptured the imagination of the football world with an eight-game run for the ages. After predicting that his Green Bay Packers could "run the table" following a 4-6 start, Rodgers has elevated his game to heights rarely seen in NFL history. He has produced gasp-inducing throws and eye-popping pocket presence to lead his team to the NFC Championship Game.
With that said, can I share a little secret?
There is another NFL quarterback who has matched Rodgers throw for throw, from a statistical perspective, during that span. In some regards, the Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan -- the presumptive league MVP and Green Bay's opponent Sunday -- might actually have performed better than Rodgers.
Let's take a closer look at the numbers, derived with help from research by ESPN Stats & Information senior statistics analyst Jacob Nitzberg, since the Packers' winning streak began in Week 12.
First, the basics.
Overall Stats, Since Week 12
Ryan has the better Total QBR, the most complete measure of quarterback play we have; it ranks No. 1 in the NFL since Week 12.
Rodgers created national headlines by throwing 318 consecutive passes without an interception -- before the Dallas Cowboys safety Jeff Heath picked off the Packers QB in last Sunday's divisional-round meeting. But Ryan hasn't been much worse over that same span, with two interceptions (albeit in one less game). Their ratios rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the league, respectively.
It's worth noting, moreover, that Ryan has been on the field for 97 action plays without receiver Julio Jones (toe) on the field. Rodgers lost his top receiver, Jordy Nelson, to a rib injury midway through a wild-card victory over the New York Giants. But until that point, Nelson had missed only three action plays since the start of Week 12.
Here's how Rodgers and Ryan have performed on plays with Nelson and Jones, respectively, on the sidelines.
Stats without top targets on the field, since Week 12
It's also worth looking at how Ryan has performed on third downs, which in sum could be considered the most important plays of any game. Ryan's Total QBR has been nearly perfect on such plays, significantly higher than Rodgers and more than double the NFL average.
Ryan has completed more than 80 percent of his passes on third down, by far the highest mark in the NFL. Rodgers ranks second at 70.6 percent.
The Packers (54.4 percent) have converted a slightly higher percentage of third downs on passing plays than the Falcons (53.6). But on an individual level, it's pretty amazing to realize that Ryan completes four out of every five third-down passes.
Third down, since Week 12
Accuracy, of course, can be a tricky attribute to measure. Completions depend not just on ball placement from the quarterback, but on his protection as well as the skills of the receiver and defender.
ESPN Stats & Information reviews every throw to evaluate the quarterback's delivery. It doesn't take into account a receiver's route-running error, but it does use the same standard (passes that appear either overthrown or underthrown) for all quarterbacks. Since the start of Week 12, Rodgers has thrown a higher percentage of off-target passes than Ryan.
Off-target percentage, Since Week 12
One explanation for that difference: Rodgers has thrown a far higher total of downfield passes, which naturally will be completed at a lower percentage. He has attempted an NFL-high 80 passes that traveled at least 15 yards in the air since the start of Week 12. Ryan has thrown 39.
Ryan has completed a higher percentage of passes that traveled between 15 and 29 yards downfield, albeit on a lower number of attempts, but Rodgers has been much better on throws longer than that.
Completion percentage on downfield throws, since Week 12
To be clear, this exercise isn't to relegate Rodgers' performance, nor is it to exaggerate Ryan's. It's to note and document that, during the past two months, we've seen not one historic quarterback performance -- we've seen two.Master of None was one of 2015's biggest hits. The Netflix series, created by comedian Aziz Ansari and producer Alan Yang, is inventive, charming, and hilarious in the way it explores the relationships — with parents, significant others, friends — people have today and how we behave in those spaces. The show took us to places that felt new.
And on Sunday night, at the 2016 Critics' Choice TV Awards, it was recognized for excellence and awarded the trophy for Best Comedy Series.
Master of None owes a lot of its brilliance to its diverse cast, its writing, and Ansari's signature brand of comedy. But according to Yang's acceptance speech, it really wouldn't have been possible for the show to feel fresh and amazing without help from an unlikely source.
"Thank you to all the straight white guys who dominated movies and TV so hard, and for so long, that stories about anyone else seem kind of fresh and original," Yang joked. "Because you guys crushed it for so long, anything else seems kind of different."
Yang's speech emphasizes the progress that television has recently made with respect to diversity after such a long time. Minority-led shows like Master of None, How to Get Away With Murder, Empire, Fresh Off the Boat, and Black-ish — which all feature nonwhite actors and characters in prominent roles — largely didn't exist five years ago. Today, it's hard to imagine television without Cookie Lyon, Annalise Keating, Dev, or the Huangs or the Johnsons.
American television is starting to reflect what America looks like, and it's getting better because of it.In the last couple of years there have been a growing number of languages "ported" to the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) or created solely to run on the JVM. Some examples include Ruby (JRuby), JavaScript (Rhino), Groovy and Python (Jython). Specifically, in the past year or so Python has really been gaining a lot of traction on the JVM, thanks to the recent advancements of Jython.
Jython is an implementation of the Python programming language designed to run on the JVM. It has been around for a little more than 10 years but it was in a fairly stagnant state for much of that time. More recently there has been a lot more going on in the Jython camp which is helping Python increase it's footprint on the JVM. InfoQ recently had the opportunity to interview the Jython project lead, Frank Wierzbicki, about Jython and the state of Python on the JVM.
Over the past year or so it really seems like there is more buzz surrounding Jython, why do you think that is?
I think the 2.5 release of Jython, which is more compatible with CPython than any previous release of Jython, has been a big part of that. We are able to run a much larger percentage of Python apps and frameworks than ever before. Django, Pylons, Py2Web are working well, SQLAlchemy 0.6 will work with Jython, and work is progressing on Twisted, TurboGears, and Grok (to name a few). All of this while being able to access Java libraries as if they where native to Python.
What's Sun Microsystems role in the development of Jython?
Sun allows me to work on Jython full-time. I have also been helping the NetBeans folks make Python and Jython a first class part of the NetBeans IDE, and getting Jython, Django, and Pylons working with GlassFish. And of course those teams are helping with Jython by incorporating it into their work.
What are the most important changes for Jython 2.5?
The focus of 2.5 was to make Jython a great, modern, CPython compatible implementation of Python. We really tried to make as many pure Python frameworks and applications work as we possibly could. We didn't put too much time into performance tuning, but we're looking at that next. That said, we perform reasonably well compared to CPython.
What's on the road map for Jython 2.6?
We are now looking hard at performance, but we are also adding plenty of features. For example, we are planning to improve our integration with Java libraries. In particular, we need to replace a tool from Jython 2.2.x and back called "jythonc" that made it more convenient to implement certain kinds of Java integration and package the results up in jars (One of Java's distribution formats). We were unable to support some of the new Python features with jythonc because of its internal design. We will also be making sure that even more applications and frameworks will work on Jython. We're looking forward to the day when having an app that doesn't run on Jython will be considered a bug in the app :)
Is there going to be a Jython3k?
Most definitely! 3.0 is the future of Python, and so it is the future of Jython. We have not started working on Jython3k in earnest, but I expect that we will get very serious about it once we release 2.6. The reason we are waiting for 2.6 is that the tools for migrating from Python 2 to Python 3 require 2.6 as a staring point.
Are you seeing Jython being adopted for more enterprise applications?
I have been hearing about people putting WAR files containing Pylons or Django on Jython into production, and I've heard of a few shops that find Jython's integration with JDBC is working better for them than CPython's database access in certain circumstances. The fact that 2.5 is a modern Python is making it a good choice in many situations. I'm not sure people generally realize how old Jython is -- it's first release happened in July of 1998. At the time it was the most full featured programming language on the JVM outside of Java. So enterprises have actually been using it for a long time. For example, Jython is the admin scripting language for both IBM WebSphere and Oracle WebLogic.
What's your view on the state of python on the JVM?
Things are going very well for Python on the JVM. The Da Vinci Machine project led by John Rose has been working hard to make the JVM a better place for dynamic languages. This work is making its way into JDK 7 and will go a long way towards helping Jython perform screamingly fast once we are able to take advantage of this work. I am prototyping a Jython to take advantage of this work now.
Besides a lot of the work happening on the Jython programming language there have been other resources popping up surrounding the language including a new book about the language, a book about administering WebSphere with Jython, an online book, a podcast and talks and tutorials at PyCon. To get started check out some of the links above or head over the Jython Home Page for everything you'll need to explore Python on the JVM.
Additional Resources:Photo via @imperial_army on Instagram
Matt Nieto, San Jose Sharks forward, famous team DJ and member of the Galactic Empire.
View the above amazing custom "Star Wars" Clone Trooper that Nieto bought for himself from Factory Xtreme, a store based next to Disneyland in Anaheim. Nieto is living in Anaheim for the summer.
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Sadly, Nieto has not seen any of the "Star Wars" films. But he was more drawn to the coolness of the figurine.
“I’ve collected hockey dolls since I was a kid and I went out to lunch the other day and walked past the store and saw these Storm Trooper dolls and Clone Trooper dolls with players on them,” Nieto said in a phone interview with Puck Daddy. “So I kind of just walked into the store and said, ‘Where can you get these?’ And the guy said ‘I actually make them myself.’ I asked if he could make one for me and he did.”
According to Paul from the store, Nieto’s custom-made model ran about $400, so you don’t have to break the bank to join the Dark Side apparently.
[Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football: Sign up and join a league today!]
Just look at the detail. The helmet has a CCM logo on it. It even has Nieto’s CCM stick. Nieto was even amazed by how closely Paul (who didn’t reveal his last name), followed his pattern. Nieto went for the black Sharks color scheme because he thought it was the “meanest.”
Photo submitted by Factory Xtreme
“I showed him a picture of me in the jersey and he didn’t really take any notes down or anything,” Nieto said. “He said he would figure it out online. It’s crazy because the hockey stick he used was actually a Bauer mini hockey stick, but he saw I use CCM sticks, so he painted over that.”
Check out the front:
Photo submitted by Factory Xtreme
And the back:
Photo submitted by Factory Xtreme
That is just so... awesome.
Story continues
This is not the only hockey-related Clone Trooper figure. Take at look at the Alex Ovechkin 2015 Winter Classic version and a Teemu Selanne Anaheim Ducks look.
Photo submitted by Factory Xtreme
(Note: Nieto said Clone Troopers, rather than Storm Troopers, are used by the store as hockey player models because it's easier to fit a stick in how the hands are shaped.)
Nieto said he immediately heard from woolly Sharks defenseman Brent Burns about the figurine. Because really, what other teammate would you expect to react right away at such Sci-Fi related awesomeness?
“I’m sure he’s going to want one done. I don’t know who wouldn’t want one. It’s a cool toy to have and keep forever,” Nieto said.
Could there be a specialty request for Burns as Chewbacca?
“That would be pretty funny,” Nieto said.
Per Paul, Nieto is the first hockey player who has inquired about a model from his store.
Considering the amount of reaction Nieto has gotten on this purchase, could this lead to him to actually watching all six films?
“I feel obligated to now,” Nieto said
Just don’t watch the prequels dude … except "Revenge of the Sith," which isn’t horrible and is mostly Jar Jar free.
- - - - - - -
Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
MORE FROM YAHOO SPORTSRendering of proposed Hall of Fame and fields. (Gensler)
The Poconos are a popular destination in northeast Pennsylvania for camping, fishing, hiking, skiing, even gambling.
Will they also become an attraction for soccer fans?
A Pennsylvania group has approached the U.S. Soccer Federation about bringing the National Soccer Hall of Fame to the region as part of a major development project, the Insider has learned.
The Hall of Fame has not had a home since 2010, when the financially strained museum in Oneonta, N.Y., closed. While the search for a new venue continues, most artifacts and memorabilia are being stored in North Carolina. Annual induction ceremonies have been staged in conjunction with soccer events around the country.
The other prominent candidate for the Hall of Fame is the Dallas suburb of Frisco, which last fall entered into a nine-month exclusive negotiating agreement with the USSF. According to one source, the federation has “made progress” in talks with local officials and the Hunt family, which operates Frisco-based FC Dallas.
Several other informal proposals have surfaced, including one tied to a potential new soccer stadium in Los Angeles for an MLS expansion team.
“We’ve had a number of different people reach out to us and there has been a good amount of interest, which we are happy about,” USSF spokesman Neil Buethe said. There is no timetable for selecting a site, Buethe said.
The Poconos’ plan calls for building a complex in Monroe County, which sits on the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border 80 miles from Manhattan and 100 miles from Philadelphia. The identified location, on a closed golf course, is outside of East Stroudsburg and about four miles off I-80.
In documents presented to the USSF, the group cited 27 million people in a 100-mile radius, 25 million visitors to the region annually, year-round attractions and six of the largest youth tournaments within driving distance. The effort has received endorsements from a state legislator, the Pocono Mountains Visitor Bureau, Penn State University and the business community.
The proposal also cites the state’s deep soccer roots: Bethlehem Steel’s national championships in the early 20th century, the Philadelphia Oldtimers founding of the Hall of Fame in 1950, and the third-most registered youth clubs in the country.
Specific details of the proposal were not available, but documents show the museum adjacent to a hotel, retail outlets, 5,000-seat stadium, indoor practice facility and numerous outdoor fields.It was not a surprise, but it is official: Trail Blazers point guard
won the season's first Western Conference Rookie of the Month award.
Lillard, the No. 6 pick in June's draft out of Weber State, became the third Portland player to win a rookie-of-the-month award after he averaged 18.4 points and 5.9 assists in the season's first 16 games.
The NBA took games played in October and November into consideration for the honor.
Lillard, at the Blazers' shootaround in Indiana today, downplayed the award.
"I’m happy that I can get it, but I think all that it says is that I played good for one month," he said. "My mind has been focused on being consistent for the whole season, so... it’s a big deal to win the award, but it’s not a big deal for the season. I’ll be happy about it and then it’ll be gone. It’s a new month already."
Previous Blazers to win a rookie-of-the-month honor are
who won for the entire league in April 1996, before the honor was split into two conference awards starting in the 2001-02 season; and
, who won the Western Conference award three consecutive months starting in January 2007. Roy went on to the Rookie of the Year award.
Lillard led all NBA rookies in October/November in points, assists, minutes (36.8) and steals (1.4).
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist of Charlotte won the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month award. Kidd Gilchrist averaged 10.9 points and 6.5 rebounds in October/November.
--Abstract
Importance Asthma is common and can be exacerbated by air pollution and stress. Unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) has community and environmental impacts. In Pennsylvania, UNGD began in 2005, and by 2012, 6253 wells had been drilled. There are no prior studies of UNGD and objective respiratory outcomes.
Objective To evaluate associations between UNGD and asthma exacerbations.
Design A nested case-control study comparing patients with asthma with and without exacerbations from 2005 through 2012 treated at the Geisinger Clinic, which provides primary care services to over 400 000 patients in Pennsylvania. Patients with asthma aged 5 to 90 years (n = 35 508) were identified in electronic health records; those with exacerbations were frequency matched on age, sex, and year of event to those without.
Exposures On the day before each patient’s index date (cases, date of event or medication order; controls, contact date), we estimated activity metrics for 4 UNGD phases (pad preparation, drilling, stimulation [hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”], and production) using distance from the patient’s home to the well, well characteristics, and the dates and durations of phases.
Main Outcomes and Measures We identified and defined asthma exacerbations as mild (new oral corticosteroid medication order), moderate (emergency department encounter), or severe (hospitalization).
Results We identified 20 749 mild, 1870 moderate, and 4782 severe asthma exacerbations, and frequency matched these to 18 693, 9350, and 14 104 control index dates, respectively. In 3-level adjusted models, there was an association between the highest group of the activity metric for each UNGD phase compared with the lowest group for 11 of 12 UNGD-outcome pairs: odds ratios (ORs) ranged from 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2-1.7) for the association of the pad metric with severe exacerbations to 4.4 (95% CI, 3.8-5.2) for the association of the production metric with mild exacerbations. Six of the 12 UNGD-outcome associations had increasing ORs across quartiles. Our findings were robust to increasing levels of covariate control and in sensitivity analyses that included evaluation of some possible sources of unmeasured confounding.
Conclusions and Relevance Residential UNGD activity metrics were statistically associated with increased risk of mild, moderate, and severe asthma exacerbations. Whether these associations are causal awaits further investigation, including more detailed exposure assessment.
Introduction
Asthma is a common chronic disease—in 2010, 25.7 million people in the United States had asthma, a prevalence of 8.4%.1 Asthma is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms (including cough, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness), reversible airflow obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness, and underlying inflammation.2,3 In 2009, there were 11.8 million outpatient visits, 2.1 million emergency department visits, and 479 300 hospitalizations for asthma in the United States.1
Outdoor air pollution is a recognized cause of asthma exacerbations. A large body of literature links asthma exacerbations to exposure to air pollutants, including ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide,2,4 and exposure to even low levels of these pollutants has been associated with asthma hospitalizations, emergency department visits, and rescue medication use, with latency between 0 and 5 days.5-11 Stress at the individual and community levels is also associated with asthma exacerbations.12 Psychosocial stress can modify the effects of environmental triggers13 and is associated with worse asthma control and medication aderence.14
Unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) has recently become a major energy source domestically and worldwide. Pennsylvania has proceeded with UNGD rapidly—between the mid-2000s and 2012, 6253 wells were drilled. In contrast, New York and Maryland, also in the Marcellus shale, have not developed.15,16 Despite calls for research on the health effects of the industry, there are few published studies of public health impacts of UNGD.17,18
The first step of UNGD is well pad preparation, lasting about 30 days, during which 3 to 5 acres are cleared, and materials are brought to the site.19 Drilling begins on the spud date and typically lasts up to a month as a well is drilled vertically 2000 to 3000 m and horizontally 600 to 3000 m.19 After drilling is completed, the horizontal portion is perforated. Stimulation, also called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” follows; this process lasts about a week and requires 11 to 19 million liters of water, sand, and chemical additives (eg, friction reducers, biocides, gelling agents).19,20 Development to this point requires over 1000 truck trips per well.19 After stimulation, gas production begins. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires companies to submit documentation at most of these stages of well development.21
UNGD has been associated with air quality and community social impacts.22-29 Psychosocial stress,12 exposure to air pollution4,30 including from truck traffic,31 sleep disruption,32,33 and reduced socioeconomic status34 are all biologically plausible pathways for UNGD to affect asthma exacerbations. To date, there have been no epidemiologic studies of UNGD and objective respiratory outcomes. Respiratory outcomes are appropriate outcomes to assess potential health impacts of UNGD because these have clear links to air pollution and stress, have short latency between exposure and health effects, are common in the general population, and prompt patients to seek care and so are captured by health system data. Using electronic health record (EHR) data from the Geisinger Clinic, located in over 35 counties in Pennsylvania, including many with active UNGD, we conducted a nested case-control study of the association between 4 UNGD activity metrics and asthma exacerbations.
Box Section Ref ID
Key Points Question Is there an association between unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) and asthma exacerbations?
Findings In this nested case-control study of 35 508 patients with asthma, those in the highest quartile of residential UNGD activity had significantly higher odds of 3 types of asthma exacerbations (new oral corticosteroid medication orders, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations) than those in the lowest quartile.
Meaning UNGD activity near patient residences was associated with increased odds of mild, moderate, and severe asthma exacerbations.
Methods
Study Population
We identified patients with asthma from the Geisinger Clinic population, which is representative of the general population in the region.35 We included Pennsylvania and New York patients and, using International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes, excluded patients with cystic fibrosis (277.0x), chronic pulmonary heart disease (416.x), paralysis of vocal cords or larynx (478.3x), bronchiectasis (494.xx), and pneumoconiosis (500.xx-508.xx). We required patients to have at least 2 encounters or medication orders with ICD-9-CM codes for asthma on different days.36 Patients were geocoded using previously published methods,37 88.9% to home address, 2.6% to ZIP + 4, and 8.5% to ZIP code centroid. Inclusion criteria also included contact with Geisinger from 2005 through 2012 while between the ages 5 and 90 years and recorded information on sex (n = 35 508). The study was approved by the Geisinger Health System institutional review board (which has an authorization agreement with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) with a waiver of consent and a waiver of HIPAA authorization. Patients were not paid for their participation.
Outcome Ascertainment
We identified and defined new oral corticosteroid (OCS) medication orders, asthma emergency department encounters, and asthma hospitalizations as mild, moderate, and severe exacerbations, respectively. For patients with more than 1 exacerbation of a given type within a calendar year, we randomly selected 1 event. For mild exacerbations, we distinguished new OCS medication orders from 2008 through 2012 for an asthma exacerbation from standing orders or OCS ordered for other diseases (Figure 1). The medication order date was considered the index date. OCS orders from before 2008 were excluded because these were not consistently captured before then. For moderate and severe exacerbations, we identified all emergency and hospitalization encounters from 2005 through 2012. Primary or secondary diagnoses for asthma (ICD-9-CM code 493.x) were used to identify emergency or hospitalization encounters. Patients who had multiple emergency or hospitalization encounters within 72 hours were considered to have a single event. Emergency and hospitalization encounters within 72 hours were identified as a single hospitalization. The first encounter or admission date of each group of combined encounters was the index date. For patients with more than 1 type of exacerbation within a week, we retained only the higher category.
Controls and Matching
We identified controls from patients with asthma under observation by the health system, so that if the patient were to have an exacerbation, it would be captured by the EHR. All patient contact dates were identified (eg, encounter, order, test). Because many of the covariates and the UNGD metrics were time varying, we needed a single date on which to assign these variables. Therefore, for controls, we randomly selected 1 contact date per year per patient. A case patient was always eligible to be a control for a less severe event or for an event of equal or greater severity until the year of the case patient’s event. We frequency matched cases to controls by age category (5-12, 13-18, 19-44, 45-61, 62-74, or ≥75 years), sex (male or female), and year of encounter.
Covariates
We created time-varying covariates (age, season of event, smoking status, overweight and obesity status, Medical Assistance [as a measure of low family socioeconomic status], type 2 diabetes) for each index date and non–time-varying covariates (sex and race/ethnicity) for each patient. Race/ethnicity was assessed by patient self-report and was included because it is a well-documented confounder in studies of asthma.2 We estimated the patients’ distance to the nearest major and minor road using a network from the Federal Highway Administration38 and used patients’ geographic coordinates to assign them to a community using a mixed definition of place and calculated community socioeconomic deprivation for these places.37,39 In cities, communities were defined by census tracts; elsewhere, communities were defined by minor civil divisions (townships and boroughs). We estimated the peak temperature on the day before each index date using data from the nearest weather station to each patient.40
Well Data
Well data were obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for well spud (start of drilling) and production, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for information on well stimulation (hydraulic fracturing) and depths, and SkyTruth, which used crowdsourcing of aerial photographs from the US Department of Agriculture to identify the location of wellpads.41 For each well, we had information on the well pad; latitude and longitude; dates of spudding, stimulation, and production; total depth; and volume of natural gas produced and the number of production days. We imputed missing total depths (0.4%) using conditional mean imputation. We estimated missing production quantities (0.2%) by averaging production quantities in the prior and following period. We extrapolated missing spud (2.0%) and stimulation (34.6%) dates using the well’s available dates of development by requiring that the stimulation date fall between the spud and production start dates and by using median durations between phases from wells without any missing dates.
Activity Metric Assignment
We estimated the UNGD activity metrics using an inverse distance-squared method for pad preparation, spud, stimulation, and production phases. We compared activity metrics on the day before, 3 days before, the sum of 3 to 5 days before, and the sum of 1 to 5 days before the index date, and because they were highly correlated (Spearman correlation coefficients ranged from 0.96 to 1.00), we used only the day before the index date.
For the pad preparation and spud metrics, we used Equation 1:
where n is the number of wells and d2 ij is the squared distance (in meters) between well i and patient j. For the stimulation metric, we used Equation 2:
where n is the number of wells, d ij 2 is the squared distance (in meters) between well i and patient j, and t i is the total well depth (in meters) of well i. Total depth was used as a surrogate for truck traffic because volume of water used during stimulation42 was highly correlated with total depth, and water is trucked to the well during stimulation. For the production metric, we used Equation 3:
where n is the number of wells, d ij 2 is the squared distance (in meters) between well i and patient j, and v i is the daily natural gas production volume (cubic meters) of well i. Production volume was used as a surrogate for fugitive emissions and compressor engine activity.22
Based on descriptions of the process19 and our data, we estimated that pad development lasted 30 days before the spud date for the first well on a pad; drilling lasted between 1 and 30 days after the spud date based on total depth; and stimulation lasted 7 days. All wells in Pennsylvania in a given phase on the day prior to an index date contributed to that phase’s activity metric (Equations 1-3). We divided the 4 continuous metrics (pad preparation, drilling, stimulation, and production) into quartiles using all 69 548 index dates from all 3 outcomes (mild, moderate, or severe asthma exacerbation), so the cut points were the same for all outcomes (very low, low, medium, or high).
Statistical Analysis
To assess the association of the 4 UNGD activity metrics with the 3 types of asthma exacerbations, we used multilevel logistic regression with random intercept for patient and community to account for multiple events per patient and patient clustering within communities. The base model included 1 of the 4 UNGD activity metrics (very low, low, medium, or high), age category (5-12, 13-18, 19-44, 45-61, 62-74, or ≥75 years), sex (male or female), race/ethnicity (black, Hispanic, white, or other), family history of asthma (yes or no), smoking status (former, current, never, or data missing), season (summer, fall, winter, or spring), Medical Assistance (yes or no), and overweight/obesity status (using BMI percentile for children and BMI for adults43) as covariates. We then added, 1 at a time, type 2 diabetes (yes or no), community socioeconomic deprivation (across quartiles),37,39 distances to nearest major and minor arterial road (in meters, z transformed), and maximum temperature on the day prior to the event (degrees Celsius, per interquartile range [IQR]) (eFigure 1 in the Supplement). We included the continuous covariates as linear and quadratic terms to allow for nonlinearity and used a 2-sided type 1 error rate of.05 for significance testing. We used Stata software, version 11.2 (StataCorp LP) and R software, version 3.1.2 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing), for our analyses.
Model Building
We calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient for the person and community levels. The proportions of total variance that were accounted for by between-community variation and between-person variation, respectively, were 14% and 63% for severe exacerbations, 41% and 89% for moderate exacerbations, and 1% and 59% for mild exacerbations. We evaluated covariates for conditional significance as they were added to the models.
Sensitivity Analyses
To evaluate how the 4 separate UNGD activity metrics compared with a summary measure, we calculated z scores using continuous metrics, summed the z scores, and re-ran the final models with this combined UNGD activity metric (across quartiles). To explore whether an unmeasured confounder was responsible for our associations, we evaluated associations with encounters for a negative control44 (intestinal infectious disease and noninfectious gastroenteritis, ICD-9-CM codes 001-009 and 558.9, respectively) among patients with asthma, and we also replaced the UNGD activity metric with indicators for counties. We were concerned about the unbalanced numbers of cases and controls for certain age categories, sex, and years in the mild exacerbations analysis, so we reran the analysis dropping the unbalanced cells. To check the sensitivity to geocoding level, we re-ran the final model for the production UNGD metric and each outcome using only patients who were geocoded to their home address. We estimated how large an unmeasured confounder would need to be to account for the observed associations, in whole or in part.45
Results
Descriptions of Wells and Patients
Between 2005 and 2012, 6253 unconventional natural gas wells were spudded on 2710 pads; 4728 were |
the actual reductions are expected to come in the fall, when many parents hoping to enroll their kids won't find any space available.
"There are a whole plethora of people sitting on the wait list who won't be getting a call," said Joel Ryan, executive director of the Washington State Association of Head Start.
In Ramsey County, Minn., where Head Start serves only 10 to 15 percent of 3- to 5-year-olds, the waiting list to get into the program ranged from 900 to 1,500 children prior to sequestration. A $488,000 cut means 120 fewer slots and desperate pleas from local parents.
"I get calls every day from parents crying, in every language, because they want their child to learn English before they get to kindergarten," said Deb Moses, who runs the Ramsey County Head Start program. "It is a daily occurrence."
* * * * *
Because much of the Head Start harm caused by sequestration lies in what won't happen (a child who could have been enrolled, money spent on day care that could have been spent elsewhere, etc.), assessing the overall damage is a difficult task. But one place to start is by observing local news coverage, which provides a daily drip of depressing developments. In a two-week period this June, it was announced that Head Start was eliminating staff positions and student spots in Cincinnati, Hannibal, Mo., Hennepin County, Minn., Cullman County, Ala., Cicero, N.Y., and elsewhere.
Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, said that her group anticipates 65,000 fewer slots for children and 11,500 Head Start jobs being lost nationally. The impact on the Head Start community, she said, has been demoralizing, so much so that the association has begun running a mental health webinar to help with depression among Head Start staff.
"We built the whole system on relationships, on holistic, sustaining, affirming relationships between the teachers and the family," said Vinci, "and then [Congress] went and they cut it. People are naturally upset about it."
Rebecca Boyer with her son, Will.
Indeed, even those who have been minimally harmed so far say that the cuts to Head Start are taking an emotional toll. In the town of Goldendale, Wash. -- population just under 3,500 -- the Early Head Start program, which works with children 3 years old and under, was forced to shut down two weeks early this spring to deal with sequestration. In all, 26 children were affected, one of whom was Rebecca Boyer's son, Will.
Boyer's life didn't change much. She's in the self-publishing business, which allows her to work at home and tend to Will, 3. But there is fear that the cuts to Head Start are just beginning. It was through the program that Will's astigmatism was first discovered. A nurse found it during a checkup, and a doctor who volunteered with the program confirmed it later. Head Start also helped Will acclimate to a new community (Boyer had moved from Seattle). And because there is no day care in Goldendale -- there isn't even a Starbucks -- the loss of Head Start would make the days more cramped and life less flexible.
"When these resources get cut, it hurts families," said Boyer. "It's making it more difficult for low-income people. It is frustrating. It feels claustrophobic. It feels helpless really."
* * * * *
With sequestration now more than four months along, members of Congress have had ample time to observe and digest what the Obama administration cooked up and they, ultimately, passed. They don't seem particularly nauseated by the meal.
Small fixes have been made, most infamously to end the furloughing of air traffic controllers. Plenty of lawmakers, meanwhile, have protested the injustice of the other cuts, including those to Head Start. Even the occasional fiscal conservative will argue -- while back in his or her district -- that it all could have and should have been avoided.
But as far as legislative items go, getting rid of sequestration has fallen far from the top of Congress' priorities.
"There is nothing being done to fix it at the moment," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), one of Head Start's foremost champions in the House. "There is a total lack of understanding of what the severity of the effects are. You have people who have lost their jobs, who are waiting and can't get in. The door is shut, and they won't know that until they try and enroll their child and can't do it. And so far the weight of this has not made its way to the psyche of the people who have the power to turn it around."
Advocates for Head Start long ago stopped telling themselves that once the pain set in, pre-sequestration order would be restored. In its place, there is anguish and disbelief that Congress was able to move so quickly, and without apparent regret.
"I used to have what I thought I needed to be comfortable," said Orlow, the Burlington mother. "It's when the rug gets pulled out from under you that you realize, 'Oh wow, without programs like this I probably still would be lost.'"
A single mom, dependent on government programs she never thought she would need, Orlow has seen life grow more challenging since she left her husband in Las Vegas. "I wish that Congress would just walk a little bit in the shoes of somebody who that happened to."
UPDATE: 3:34 p.m. -- Hours after this story was published, Rhonda Reynolds received a call from officials at the local public school informing her that they could take her daughter, Bella, for the next academic year. They would be taking the other 13 kids dropped from Bella's Head Start program as well, Reynolds told HuffPost.
Those Pratt parents hoping to get their children into Head Start next year will still face closed doors, however, unless they can find the private revenue streams to keep the local program open. And that remains a daunting task.
"It was kind of hard to find someone who would guarantee two hundred and fifty big ones every year," Reynolds said of her brief efforts to locate a Head Start benefactor.
HuffPost Readers: We're working on a project to document the nationwide impact of sequestration, and we want to know what the budget cuts have meant for you. If you or someone you know has been affected by reductions to Head Start or other programs, or has been laid off or furloughed, we'd like to hear your story.
Call us at (860) 348-3376, and you can leave a message to record your story in your own words. Please be sure to include your name and phone number. You can also email us here. We will never use your name or any identifying details without your permission.For all the talk about his shooting prowess, it might have been a slick pass Wednesday night that best demonstrated why R.J. Hunter could be the most likely of the Boston Celtics' three rookies to earn playing time this season.
Late in the third quarter, after the Brooklyn Nets had rallied within four, Hunter found himself alone in the corner -- the most comfortable spot on the floor for a shooter -- when his man wandered to swarm the ball in the high post. Most rookies might have stayed glued to that spot, but recognizing that defenders would soon be swarming his way, Hunter instead cut along the baseline where he took a feed from Jared Sullinger. Brooklyn center Brook Lopez shuffled over to pick up Hunter and tried to steer him past the end line. Instead, the soon-to-be 22-year-old rookie somehow threaded a backhand bounce pass through two defenders while falling out of bounds and generated an easy layup for Evan Turner.
Logging 30 minutes of floor time in Boston's thin backcourt, Hunter posted 11 points on 3-of-8 shooting -- all his makes coming beyond the 3-point arc -- with four rebounds, four assists, four steals and a block as part of Boston's 109-105 triumph over Brooklyn at the Barclays Center.
"I think it’s pretty obvious, just watching him, he really has a feel," Celtics coach Brad Stevens told reporters in Brooklyn. "It just comes pretty natural -- little passes, simple plays, being able to put the ball on the money to other people, understanding spacing, understanding where his opportunities are going to come. And he’s got a pretty good feel for the game."
Even while at full strength overseas, Stevens raised some eyebrows by making Hunter an early sub during the first quarter of an exhibition in Milan. That's not exactly confirmation that Hunter will see consistent rotation minutes in the regular season, but it suggests that Stevens is confident enough in Hunter's abilities to give him a chance to distinguish himself early in his NBA career.
Hunter got even more floor time Wednesday as the Celtics played without the starting backcourt of Marcus Smart (illness) and Avery Bradley (rest), while fellow rookie first-round pick Terry Rozier sat out with a knee injury. While Hunter said he's still not nearly as comfortable as he'd like to be on the floor -- his head is still spinning a bit as the coaching staff overwhelms him with information in the infancy of his NBA career -- he did admit to feeling as comfortable as he has during Boston's exhibition slate during Wednesday's game.
Hunter downplayed his four steals, suggesting that three of them came as the result of a teammate's deflection. But his four assists -- combined with a general hustle and determination on the defensive end -- hammered home his ability to make good things happen even as he gets his feet wet.
"As he continues to make shots and feels more comfortable, he’s going to be better," said Stevens. "Defensively, he’s way ahead of where I thought he would be. He’s just long and active."
The Celtics have three obvious players for guard minutes in Isaiah Thomas, Smart and Bradley. It's a combination of Turner, Hunter, Rozier and James Young that will battle for whatever is left over at the guard/wing position. Hunter tried to stay grounded after Wednesday's solid outing.
"It’s just next man up," Hunter said. "I was telling somebody earlier, that’s the league. [Injuries are] going to happen throughout the year, so you have to be mentally ready whether you’re going to get in or not, just stay ready, and that’s what we did tonight."
Hunter has plenty to improve on -- including staying consistent with his shot and being able to fight through defensive situations where his lack of strength will put him in tough spots -- but that hasn't stopped him from making a strong first impression.
A few more notes from Boston's win on Wednesday night in Brooklyn:
• Johnson the scorer: Amir Johnson, Boston's biggest offseason splurge in the free-agent market, has endeared himself to the coaching staff early with his hustle-heavy, defensive-minded play. But on Wednesday, he showed he can score the ball as well while putting up 17 of his team-high 19 points in a dominant first-half effort that saw him show nice touch around the basket and bury two open 3-pointers beyond the arc. "Amir was great," Stevens said. "And Amir hasn’t scored it like that every day in practice. But Amir has been a threat to make shots everyday. He’s probably made 40 percent of his 3s in practice and that might only be 4 out of 10 in all of the practices, but he’s very capable. He just knows how to play -- both ends -- he makes easy plays with the ball. Then, on the defensive end, he makes everybody better. We saw a bunch of possessions today where he was the one that kinda held the fort together as other people were scrambling and getting back."
• Typical Thomas: Isaiah Thomas, the catalyst for last season's second-half surge, has been the team's leading scorer this preseason but has done it quietly. On Wednesday, he scored all 17 of his points in the first half (connecting on 6 of his first 7 shots) then seemed content to simply quarterback the offense (putting up a team-high nine assists overall). Thomas has played well in the preseason but looks like he still has another gear to shift to when the games start to matter.
• Loose Balls: After sitting out both tilts overseas, Evan Turner logged 25 minutes in his preseason debut Wednesday and put up 10 points, seven assists, five rebounds, a steal and a block. That sounds a lot like the triple-double-producing Turner we saw at the end of last season.... Kelly Olynyk found early foul trouble (not that it matters in the preseason) but made up for it with some timely 3-pointers, particularly when Brooklyn tried to rally to make it a game in the third quarter.... Jonas Jerebko's most notable play of the night might have been absorbing a hard flagrant-2 shoulder charge from Jarrett Jack (who was ejected), but Jerebko was quietly plus-11 in plus/minus over 18 minutes and continues to make good things happen with his hustle when he's on the floor.... Jared Sullinger, who acknowledged this week that he's in a competition for minutes in an overcrowded big-man rotation, put up a clunker while connecting on just 1-of-8 shots over 12:22.... Jordan Mickey, the rookie second-round pick who earned high praise from Stevens for his efforts in Tuesday's practice, played a solid fourth quarter with six points, two rebounds and a ladder-climbing block.... Corey Walden was the first of Boston's training camp bodies to see floor time this preseason, playing the final 10 minutes.... The Celtics were without David Lee (rest) for Wednesday's game.9/11 FACT SHEET
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
1. Don't all the high-level officials agree on what happened on 9/11?
No. Numerous present and former high-level military leaders and politicians have questioned the administration's version of 9/11.
2. Isn't 9/11 a partisan political issue, where extremists in one party are simply trying to smear the other party for political gain?
No, credible people from across the political spectrum question 9/11, including prominent conservatives, prominent liberals, and prominent centrists.
3. Isn't it disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families to question the events of that day?
No. Many of the families of the victims question the official story and are demanding that the truth be disclosed. The same is true of many dying heroes - the first responders who worked tirelessly to save lives on and after 9/11 - and are soon to become victims of the 9/11 attacks themselves. See this article.
4. Isn't it clear that Muslims carried out 9/11, and the war on terror is a clash of civilizations and religions? Therefore, isn't 9/11 skepticism harmful to our faith? And aren't the people questioning 9/11 anti-Semites?
Actually, 9/11 truth is a vital issue for all people of faith. That is why prominent Christian theologians state that 9/11 was an inside job.
Moreover, many people of Jewish faith question 9/11. Indeed, prominent Jewish scholars and rabbis say that uncovering the truth of 9/11 has the power to bring positive, lasting change to our nation and to our world.
5. Isn't this kind of thinking really a psychological problem?
Not at all. Some very prominent psychologists question the government's version of 9/11.
6. Aren't conspiracy theories anti-American, and isn't all the questioning of 9/11 part of what's wrong with America today?
Questioning our government is part of what it means to be a patriot and to love your country. People who question 9/11 are patriots who love their country.
7. Doesn't questioning 9/11 distract from much more important issues facing America today?
On the contrary, it is one of the very most important issues facing our country, and is closely connected with other problems we face.
8. But the government would NEVER hurt its own people. At least not intentionally.
Actually, the U.S. government -- and many other Western governments -- have done so before. Initially, the Joint Chiefs of Staff actually approved a plan to carry out terrorist attacks and kill U.S. citizens and blame it on Cuba, as a justification for invading Cuba. And a government informant has stated that he tried to stop the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but that the FBI intentionally let the bombing happen. There are many other examples of other governments killing their own people for political gain, and the U.S. government killing its own as well.
As additional examples of the U.S. government letting U.S. citizens die based upon deceptions, many people breathed in highly toxic dust near ground zero, after the government knowingly misrepresented the risk, going as far as discouraging first responders from wearing masks. The U.S. government also misled the American people into the Iraqi war, causing thousands of American deaths.
9. Terrorists crashing planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon was wholly unexpected in 2001, wasn't it?
No, it was not unexpected.
10. But there is always confusion in any battle situation. Wasn't it the "fog of war" which prevented a successful response to the 9/11 attacks?
It was not the fog of war. Instead, it was the multiple war games, including hijack exercises involving real planes, and the injection of fake radar blips onto air traffic controller's screens which prevented the good people in the military from stopping the attacks from succeeding against their targets in New York and at the Pentagon. The dedicated people in the U.S. military were tricked and betrayed, so that they could not do their job.
11. Wouldn't a huge conspiracy involving thousands of people have been necessary to carry out 9/11, and wouldn't someone have spilled the beans by now if there really was a conspiracy?
Not necessarily. In fact, a small handful of people could have pulled it off.
12. Let's get back to the government's failure to stop or intercept the attacks. If the U.S. government wasn't perfect in stopping the 9/11 attacks, wasn't it due to a series of innocent mistakes or -- at the very worst -- incompetence?
Initially, the incompetence argument doesn't really pan out, and appearances may be deceiving. And there are many examples of the U.S. faking intelligence in order to promote its political goals.
Moreover, the government has not acted like it is trying to close vulnerabilities or fix problems which supposedly were unforeseeable before 9/11. Why wouldn't such vulnerabilities be corrected if they were the real cause of 9/11?
And there has been a clear government cover-up of the facts surrounding 9/11. Why would the government work so hard to cover up the true facts of 9/11, going so far as to repeatedly misrepresent the facts and change its story, if incompetence was the only problem with the official story?
And, apparently, fake evidence was planted to implicate certain people for 9/11. Why would fake evidence be needed if the official story was true? Do innocent people plant fake evidence?
13. Didn't a government agency come clean about its mistaken timeline, solving the whole 9/11 "conspiracy" once and for all?
Norad's newest "confession" is just the latest of multiple, completely conflicting versions of what happened on 9/11 (also listen to this interview).
Moreover, the latest statements by the military simply attempt to scapegoat one government agency, since the previous attempts to blame other agencies made no sense.
14. Isn't talk about "demolition" of the Twin Towers just a crazy theory by a couple of nutty people?
In fact, a lot of credible eyewitness testimony supports this theory, and more and more credible experts are discussing this theory every day.
15. But no one could have planted all of the explosives needed to bring down the Twin Towers without people noticing, right?
No, that is not true.
16. If rogue elements within the U.S. government did cause 9/11, why would they have used bombs to bring down the Twin Towers, when crashing planes into the buildings would have been sufficient to act as a "Pearl Harbor" type justification for war?
Apparently, for its shock and awe effect, which made for a very overwhelmed, afraid, and thus docile and compliant population.
17. If the government's account of 9/11 is not accurate, wouldn't the media have been "all over it"? Isn't the fact that most mainstream media sources don't spend much time covering these questions show there's nothing there?
No. Even well-known news anchors and writers say that self-censorship, censorship by editors and producers, and pressure from the government means that many important stories are not being covered. 9/11 is one of those stories.
18. I've heard claims made by the so-called "9/11 Truth Movement" which have turned out to be false. Doesn't that invalidate the whole 9/11 thing?
No, for two reasons. First, there are so many lines of evidence which overwhelmingly prove that 9/11 was an inside job, that even if one or two theories are disproven, the basic thesis still stands.
Moreover, there are some people who are simply sloppy in their thinking, and who throw out unfounded theories which do not stand up under scrutiny. In addition, there are, unfortunately, disruptive people who are working hard to make crazy claims to intentionally discredit the movement. This is a traditional tactic for undermining those who question the government.
Updated April 4, 2007 • Design byWASHINGTON (CNN) -- The day after Jim Johnson resigned from Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential candidate vetting committee, Sen. John McCain set his sights on Eric Holder, one of the two remaining members of the committee.
Sen. John McCain on Thursday critized Eric Holder for his recommendations about a commodities trader.
"I think people in the media and observers will make a decision as to whether these people, individuals, should be part of Sen. Obama's campaign," McCain said in Boston, Massachusetts, on Thursday. "I think it is a matter of record that Mr. Holder recommended the pardoning of Mr. [Marc] Rich."
Rich was a commodities trader who fled to Europe in 1983 after tax evasion charges and allegations of illegal oil dealings with Iran. He was pardoned by former President Clinton at the end of his second term, while Holder was deputy attorney general.
In a response Thursday, Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan said McCain was raising old allegations rather than talking about the issues.
"It's telling that John McCain -- whose vice presidential search process is headed by a prominent D.C. lobbyist who served as the Reagan administration's point man on the Iran-Contra scandal -- would try to recycle a tired attack on Mr. Holder," she said.
Sevugan was referring to A.B. Culvahouse, who is leading McCain's vice presidential candidate search and was counsel to the president in the Reagan White House.
Johnson stepped aside Wednesday amid criticism that he received a favorable mortgage from Countrywide Financial, a company that Obama routinely attacks on the stump.
Johnson, a former CEO of Fannie Mae, was one of three people on Obama's search team, alongside Holder and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of President Kennedy. Watch more on Johnson stepping down »
"All those things will be taken into consideration by the media and the American people, especially when you are entrusting individuals with one of the most important decisions that a presidential candidate can make before that individual is elected, and that is who the running mate is," McCain added. Watch McCain react to Johnson resignation, take aim at Holder »
Following criticism by the McCain camp after Johnson stepped down, Obama spokesman Bill Burton quickly responded, pointing to two of McCain's top advisers, including Culvahouse.
"We don't need any lectures from a campaign that waited 15 months to purge the lobbyists from their staff, and only did so because they said it was a 'perception problem,' " Burton said in an e-mail.
"It's too bad their campaign is still rife with lobbyist influence and doesn't see a similar 'perception problem' with the man currently running their own vice presidential selection process, a prominent D.C. lobbyist whose firm has represented Exxon and a top Enron executive, or their campaign chair and John McCain's top economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who presided over thousands of layoffs at Hewlett Packard while receiving a $21 million severance package and $650,000 in mortgage assistance," he added.
Meanwhile, with the presidential campaigns' vice presidential search teams under scrutiny for ties to special interest groups and lobbying firms, some in Washington say it's hard to find qualified aides detached from business dealings.
Steve McMahon, a Democratic analyst and former adviser for Howard Dean's 2004 presidential campaign, said Thursday that perception that campaigns are void of special interests and lobbying ties are "at the heart of the problem."
"Both campaigns, which have made it a priority to distance themselves from special interest groups and lobbyists, may not be so detached from Beltway insiders," he said. "People inside the Beltway have histories.... There aren't very many people in this town who do politics exclusively for a living." Watch more of McMahon's interview »
McMahon added that campaign advisers "have other jobs and do other things. If you want to get experienced people in your campaign, you're going to have this challenge.... But certainly, this idea of running clean campaigns that are free of special interests does set up this contradiction when you look at some of the people they have to hire."
It's a point that David Gergen, a former Clinton administration official and current CNN senior political analyst, agrees with.
"You know, if we're going to take everybody who has commercial ties on either side of the campaign and question anything, any little cloud or any little suspicion and force them out of the politics, I must tell you, we're going to take an awful lot of talent out of politics. And the country will not be better off."
Marcus Mabry, of The New York Times, adds that the problem "isn't Washington."
"People go from these jobs in government to jobs in the private sector all the time," he said. "Some of those jobs are lobbyists. We're not even talking about a lobbyist problem here. We're talking about taking a loan."
Gergen says the fallout from the resignation has been a "blow for the Obama campaign, a major distraction."
"It hit them just at the time they were trying to get traction. They were trying to get some momentum built around the economy, and here they now get diverted over this other issue. And it sort of takes some of the glow off."
For several days, Obama pushed back against the attacks on Johnson, the first person he named to head his search team.
Republican Party spokesman Alex Conant called Obama "naive" and "hypocritical" after Obama's remarks Tuesday, before Johnson stepped down. McCain's campaign ramped up that notion after Johnson's resignation.
Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the presumed GOP presidential nominee, said Johnson's resignation "raises serious questions about Barack Obama's judgment."
CNN political producer Alexander Marquardt contributed to this report.
All About Barack Obama • Countrywide Financial CorporationThe £15 million-rated Brazilian, who can play in central midfield or defence, is regarded as a proven candidate for the midfield anchorman hole left by Alex Song's departure
THE VIEW FROM GERMANY
'GUSTAVO DELIVERED WHEN IT MATTERED'
Falko Bloeding | Goal.com Germany
Many people in Germany thought that Bayern Munich's signing of Javi Martinez was unnecessary. The Spaniard cost £34 million and he plays in the same position as Luiz Gustavo, who was a regular last year. The ex-Hoffenheim man had his bad moments during the season but rose to the challenge when it mattered; the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid being a perfect example of Gustavo delivering in a big game.
His strengths are winning the ball and retaining possession as well as his passing although it's fair to say that he does make basic errors and loses the ball too easily at times. In terms of his future, since there could be changes when Pep Guardiola takes over in the summer, Gustavo's exit certainly isn't unlikely.
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By Wayne Veysey | Chief Correspondent Arsenal have identified Bayern Munich star Luiz Gustavo as a key midfield target for the summer,understands.The Gunners began closely tracking the £15 million-rated Brazil international earlier in the season when he was struggling to get a regular starting spot with the German giants.Arsenal made an enquiry for Gustavo but stopped short of making a January bid after learning that Bayern were unwilling to sell him in mid-season.The 25-year-old once again features high on Arsene Wenger's shopping list as the club begin assembling targets for the summer.Gustavo is not expected to start for Bayern in the Champions League first-leg showdown at Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night, with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Javi Martinez likely to be named as the German club's central midfield pairing, but his versatility and experience has impressed Arsenal's scouts.The north Londoners are targeting a battle-hardened midfield anchorman who can fill the void left by the departure of Alex Song last summer.Arsenal pulled out of a move for West Ham powerhouse Mohamed Diame in January after failing to be convinced that he was better than the options they already had in central midfield, most notably Jack Wilshere, Mikel Arteta, Abou Diaby and Aaron Ramsey.Gustavo is believed to be regarded more highly than Diame by Arsenal's scouts, who have been instructed to continue watching him closely.The Brazilian, whose Bayern contract runs until 2015, has featured in 17 matches for die Roten this season, although he was out for a month at the end of last year after undergoing groin surgery.Doctors pushing for the change say that grueling hours prepare trainees for the future, when they will practice medicine unsupervised.
The private group that oversees physician training in the United States has proposed rolling back rules so that young doctors just out of medical school can work shifts as long as 28 hours.
The proposal relaxes work restrictions put in place in 2011 when mounting evidence showed that exhausted residents — the term for doctors in training — were endangering patients and themselves. Currently, first-year residents are restricted to 16-hour shifts.
Studies show that residents make more potentially deadly errors in caring for patients the longer they work.
The extended shifts also expose residents to an increased risk of car accidents as they drive home from work. At UCLA, nearly 20 percent of residents said in a 2007 survey that they had fallen asleep while driving because of work-related fatigue.
Doctors pushing for the change say the current shift limits can jeopardize patients by forcing residents to leave at critical times. They also say grueling hours prepare trainees for the future, when they will practice unsupervised.
“Training to become a practicing physician can be compared to training for a marathon,” said Thomas Nasca, chief executive of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, in announcing the proposed change. “With enough experience comes resilience and the ability to perform under expected, sometimes challenging, conditions.”
The council is collecting comments on the proposal until late Monday at www.acgme.org. A final vote is expected in February.
Some physicians and consumer groups have blasted the proposal, pointing out that it goes against the findings of a yearlong review by the Institute of Medicine, which concluded in 2009 that having doctors work more than 16 consecutive hours was dangerous for both patients and doctors.
“This is deeply troubling,” said Charles Czeisler, a professor at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who has studied what happens as residents work extended hours. “It is very well-established that staying awake for 24 hours severely degrades performance.”
In one trial, Czeisler and his colleagues found that interns — residents in their first year — working in the intensive-care unit for 24 hours or more made 36 percent more serious medical errors than those working shorter shifts.
At times, the Harvard researchers found residents sleeping while standing up, Czeisler said.
Under the council’s proposal, interns would have the same 28-hour limit as residents with more experience.
The proposal would also let all residents work longer than 28 straight hours in rare cases in which they are needed for a patient’s care, with no need to document why the extended hours were necessary. And it would eliminate a requirement that residents get at least eight hours off after shifts of less than 24 hours.
The plan, however, keeps rules in place that say residents cannot work more than 80 hours a week, averaged over four weeks.
“We aren’t changing the total number of hours a resident is working,” Nasca said.
And because residents are at risk of depression and anxiety, in part because of their long hours, hospitals must begin providing 24-hour access to affordable mental-health treatment for them under the plan.
Not long ago, there were few limits on how long doctors in training could work. In the early 20th century, trainees often lived in the hospital after graduating from medical school — which is why they are called residents.
But the death of Libby Zion, 18, in a New York City hospital in 1984 raised questions about the system. Zion’s father learned that his daughter’s primary doctors had been two residents who were caring for dozens of patients that day with little supervision.
“You don’t need kindergarten,” her father, Sidney Zion, wrote in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, “to know that a resident working a 36-hour shift is in no condition to make any kind of judgment call — forget about life-or-death.”
As a result of the Zion case, New York state passed a 1989 law banning residents from working more than 80 hours a week or shifts of more than 24 hours.
The council, which accredits graduate medical-education programs, adopted similar nationwide rules in 2003. And after the Institute of Medicine detailed the dangers of the long hours, the council went another step in 2011 by prohibiting first-year residents from working longer than 16-hour shifts.
Surgeons have been especially critical of the restrictions, which have at times required residents to leave a surgical team in the middle of an operation.
“They had to leave because their clock was up,” said Karl Bilimoria, a professor of surgery at Northwestern, “and clearly no one wanted that to happen.”
He said that while practicing surgeons only “sometimes” work more than 24 hours, “you have to understand how to handle those hours.”
The restrictions on how many hours the young doctors can work have also been expensive to teaching hospitals, which had to hire more staff to do work once performed by the physician trainees.
“Residents represent free labor,” said Andrew Schumacher, a resident at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles.
Schumacher noted that four hospital executives sit on the council’s 35-member board that will vote on the proposal. He said he believes those executives have a conflict of interest that could influence their votes.
Medicare pays the teaching hospitals as much as $130,000 or more a year for each resident. The hospitals then pay residents just a fraction of that, with many receiving a salary of about $60,000, with no overtime. After covering the cost of the residents’ benefits, the hospitals can use the money for other purposes.
Nasca, the accreditation council executive, said it had “extensive” policies in place to deal with any potential conflicts.
The hospitals have tried to help residents manage the demanding shifts. At UCLA, residents are taught to recognize when they are sleep deprived, according to a slide presentation on the university’s website. The signs of sleep deprivation include dozing off while writing notes or reviewing patients’ medications, and poor memory or judgment.
The UCLA residents are told that lack of sleep can cause hostility, high blood pressure and a higher risk of car accidents on the drive home. One tip, according to the presentation, is to drink coffee 30 minutes before driving home.Over the weekend, comic book, TV and film fans were out in droves to experience the fun and mayhem of the London Film and Comic Con.
Cast and crew from Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Sherlock and much more were on hand to take pictures, sign autographs and give insightful talks into what goes on behind our favourite shows. There was also the comic book legend that is Stan Lee.
Here are just some of the things we discovered over the course of the weekend:
1. Stan Lee is basically just a hilarious old man.
His hearing is pretty awful but he managed to entertain and speak to many fans over the weekend.
Two of his favourite cameos, he told me, are when he is turned away from the Fantastic Four wedding and the librarian sequence from Spider-man, though he did also say that ‘my cameos are like my characters! I love all of them.’
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He did just film one for the Avengers sequel, which he says is well worth a watch and we should all check it out!
Lee also asked that we get on to the Queen and see if we can get him a knighthood. He wants to tell his wife she’s a dame!
2. Nobody actually calls Steven Moffat ‘Moff’.
Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue (Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
He didn’t know where it started and said that he had thought perhaps it was Matt Smith who started it, but has since discovered that his wife (Sue Vertue) had put ‘wife of The Moff’ in her Twitter bio.
3. Steven Moffat has a photo of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman sitting on the TARDIS.
If this was to be posted online it would surely break the internet.
4. Tom Baker ‘lit up like a Christmas tree’ when Jenna Coleman went to watch his scene in the fiftieth anniversary episode, according to Moffat.
It seems her admiration for the veteran Doctor Who actor was not all that one-sided.
5. Daniel Portman, who plays Podrick in Game of Thrones, has a brilliantly dry sense of humour.
The actor joked – at least we assume he was joking but the delivery was so deadpan it’s hard to be sure – that the pressure that scene with the prostitutes has brought him is immense and the notoriety that accompanies it is ‘destroying my social life’.
He also added that Podrick would react to any hypothetical action or drama with a ‘bemused expression’ and went on to give us his best.
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6. Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin ‘has a wicked laugh’ according to actor Finn Jones who plays Ser Loras Tyrell in the TV show.
I wonder if his characters would see the funny side…
7. Sherlock producer Sue Vertue had never read a Sherlock Holmes story before taking on the show.
She has now read just two. She insists that this is because she wants to retain her ‘fan perspective’ while looking at the scripts and seeing if they work for people who enjoy the TV show but haven’t actually read the books.
8. There will not be a Doctor Who/Sherlock Holmes crossover.
At least it certainly doesn’t look that way. Steven Moffat said that Madame Vastra is basically Sherlock Holmes in the Doctor’s world – which arguably makes Jenny her John Watson |
“Autolevel” and it will write an autolevelled version of your original GCode file to disk. You can then just load this file into your CNC control software (Mach3, LinuxCNC etc.) and run it as you normally would.
Click “Generate PFG” and just the probing stage is written to the output GCode file; the milling / etching part will be done in a separate GCode file. Running the file, the probe values will be written to a separate log file which can then be viewed in Autoleveller. You can then use 2-stage levelling to perform Autolevelling.
Note: Autoleveller simply reads GCode files and outputs modified GCode files. It does not have any direct interaction with your control software during this process. Autoleveller is not a script or plugin etc.
Videos
2-stage levelling is shown here with AutolevellerAE v0.7.6 and the use of the RPF file.
Another user of AutoLeveller etches a design on a black anodized extruded aluminium half-case.Diagram of naming conventions, using John Fitzgerald Kennedy as an example. First names can also be called given names, and last names ( surnames ) can also be called family names. This shows a structure typical for English-speaking cultures (and some others). Other cultures use other structures for full names.
A given name (also known as a first name, forename or Christian name) is a part of a person's personal name.[1] It identifies a specific person, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a family or clan) who have a common surname. The term given name refers to the fact that the name usually is bestowed upon a person, normally to a child by his or her parents at or close to the time of birth. A Christian name, a first name which historically was given at baptism, is now also typically given by the parents at birth.
In informal situations, given names are often used in a familiar and friendly manner.[1] In more formal situations, a person's surname is more commonly used—unless a distinction needs to be made between people with the same surname. The idioms "on a first-name basis" and "being on first-name terms" refer to the familiarity inherent in addressing someone by their given name.[1]
By contrast, a surname (also known as a family name, last name, or gentile name), which is normally inherited, is typically shared with other members of one's immediate family.[2] Regnal names and religious or monastic names are special given names bestowed upon someone receiving a crown or entering a religious order. Such a person then typically becomes known chiefly by that name.
Name order [ edit ]
The order given name – family name, commonly known as the Western order, is used throughout most European countries and in countries that have cultures predominantly influenced by European culture, including North and South America; North, East, Central and West India; Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
The order family name – given name, commonly known as the Eastern order, is primarily used in East Asia (for example in China, Japan, Korea, Malaysian Chinese, Singapore, and Vietnam, among others), as well as in Southern and North-Eastern parts of India, and in Hungary. This order is common also in Austria and Bavaria, and in France, Belgium, Greece and Italy, possibly because of the influence of bureaucracy, which commonly puts the family name before the given name. In China and Korea, part of the given name may be shared among all members of a given generation within a family and extended family or families, in order to differentiate those generations from other generations.
The order given name – father's family name – mother's family name is commonly used in Spanish-speaking countries to acknowledge the families of both parents. Today the order can also be changed legally in Spain and Uruguay using given name – mother's family name – father's family name.
The order given name – mother's family name – father's family name is commonly used in Portuguese-speaking countries to acknowledge the families of both parents.
Multiple given names [ edit ]
In many Western cultures, people often have more than one given name. One of those which is not the first in succession might be used exclusively as the name which that person goes by, such as in the cases of John Edgar Hoover and Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland.
Legal status [ edit ]
A child's given name or names are usually chosen by the parents soon after birth. If a name is not assigned at birth, one may be given at a naming ceremony, with family and friends in attendance. In most jurisdictions, a child's name at birth is a matter of public record, inscribed on a birth certificate, or its equivalent. In western cultures, people normally retain the same given name throughout their lives. However, in some cases these names may be changed by following legal processes or by repute. People may also change their names when immigrating from one country to another with different naming conventions.[3]
In certain jurisdictions, a government-appointed registrar of births may refuse to register a name that may cause a child harm, which is considered offensive or which are deemed impractical. In France, the agency can refer the case to a local judge. Some jurisdictions, such as Sweden, restrict the spelling of names.[i]
Origins and meanings [ edit ]
Parents may choose a name because of its meaning. This may be a personal or familial meaning, such as giving a child the name of an admired person, or it may be an example of nominative determinism, in which the parents give the child a name that they believe will be lucky or favourable for the child. Given names most often derive from the following categories:
Aspirational personal traits (external and internal). For example, the name Clement means "merciful". [5] [6] English examples include Faith, Prudence, and August.
English examples include Faith, Prudence, and August. Occupations, for example George means "earth-worker", i.e., "farmer". [7]
, "farmer". Circumstances of birth, for example Thomas meaning "twin" or the Latin name Quintus, which was traditionally given to the fifth male child. [8] [9]
, which was traditionally given to the fifth male child. Objects, for example Peter means "rock" and Edgar means "rich spear". [10] [11]
Physical characteristics, for example Calvin means "bald". [12]
Variations on another name, especially to change the sex of the name (Pauline, Georgia) or to translate from another language (for instance, the names Francis or Francisco that come from the name Franciscus meaning "Frank or Frenchman"). [13] [14] [15]
Surnames, for example Winston, [16] Harrison, [17] and Ross. [18] Such names can honour other branches of a family, where the surname would not otherwise be passed down (e.g., the mother's maiden surname).
Harrison, and Ross. Such names can honour other branches of a family, where the surname would not otherwise be passed down (e.g., the mother's maiden surname). Places, for example Brittany [19] and Lorraine. [20]
and Lorraine. Time of birth, for example day of the week, as in Kofi Annan, whose given name means "born on Friday", [21] or the holiday on which one was born, for example, the name Natalie meaning "[born on] Christmas day" in Latin. [22] Also Tuesday, April, May, or June.
or the holiday on which one was born, for example, the name Natalie meaning "[born on] Christmas day" in Latin. Also Tuesday, April, May, or June. Combination of the above, for example the Armenian name Sirvart means "love rose".[23]
In many cultures, given names are reused, especially to commemorate ancestors or those who are particularly admired, resulting in a limited repertoire of names that sometimes vary by orthography.
The most familiar example of this, to Western readers, is the use of Biblical and saints' names in most of the Christian countries (with Ethiopia, in which names were often ideals or abstractions—Haile Selassie, "power of the Trinity"; Haile Miriam, "power of Mary"—as the most conspicuous exception). However, the name Jesus is considered taboo or sacrilegious in some parts of the Christian world, though this taboo does not extend to the cognate Joshua or related forms which are common in many languages even among Christians. In some Spanish speaking countries, the name Jesus is considered a normal given name.
Similarly, the name Mary, now popular among Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, was considered too holy for secular use until about the 12th century. In countries that particularly venerated Mary, this remained the case much longer; in Poland, until the arrival in the 17th century of French queens named Marie.[24]
Most common given names in English (and many other European languages) can be grouped into broad categories based on their origin:
Frequently, a given name has versions in many different languages. For example, the biblical name Susanna also occurs in its original biblical Hebrew version, Shoshannah, its Spanish and Portuguese version Susana, its French version, Suzanne, and its Polish version, Zuzanna.
East Asia [ edit ]
Despite the uniformity of Chinese surnames, Chinese given names can be fairly original because Chinese characters can be combined extensively. Unlike European languages with their Biblical and Greco-Roman heritage, the Chinese language does not have a particular set of words reserved for given names: any combination of Chinese characters can theoretically be used as a given name. Nonetheless, a number of popular characters commonly recur, including "Strong" (伟, Wěi), "Learned" (文, Wén), "Peaceful" (安, Ān), and "Beautiful" (美, Měi). Despite China's increasing urbanization, a great many names – such as "Pine" (松, Sōng) and "Plum" (梅, Méi) – also still reference nature.
Most Chinese given names are two characters long and – despite the examples above – the two characters together may mean nothing at all. Instead, they may be selected to include particular sounds, tones, or radicals; to balance the Chinese elements of a child's birth chart; or to honor a generation poem handed down through the family for centuries. Traditionally, it is considered an affront and not an honor to have a newborn named after an older relative, so that full names are rarely passed down through a family in the manner of American English Seniors, Juniors, III, etc. Similarly, it is considered disadvantageous for the child to bear a name already made famous by someone else, although Romanizations might be identical or a common name like Liu Xiang might be borne by tens of thousands.
Korean names and Vietnamese names are often simply conventions derived from Classical Chinese counterparts.[citation needed]
Many female Japanese names end in -ko (子), meaning "child". This can make them seem decidedly unfeminine to Europeans accustomed to Indo-European tendencies to end masculine names in o.[citation needed]
In many Westernised Asian locations, many Asians also have an unofficial or even registered Western (typically English) given name, in addition to their Asian given name. This is also true for Asian students at colleges in countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia as well as among international businesspeople.
Gender [ edit ]
Most names in English are traditionally masculine or feminine, but there are unisex names as well, such as Jordan, Jamie, Jesse, Alex, Ash, Chris/Kris, Hilary/Hillary, Kim, Leslie/Lesley, Joe/Jo, Jackie, Pat, Dana, or Sam. Often, one gender is predominant. Also, a particular spelling is often more common for either men or women, even if the pronunciation is the same. Predicting gender using names in the US or Europe is about 99% accurate.[25]
Many culture groups, past and present, did not or do not gender names strongly, so that many or all of their names are unisex. On the other hand, in many languages including most Indo-European languages (but not English), gender is inherent in the grammar. Some countries have laws preventing unisex names, requiring parents to give their children sex-specific names. Names may have different gender connotations from country to country or language to language.
Popularity distribution of given names [ edit ]
Most popular US baby names from 1880 to 2012
The popularity (frequency) distribution of given names typically follows a power law distribution.
Since about 1800 in England and Wales and in the U.S., the popularity distribution of given names has been shifting so that the most popular names are losing popularity. For example, in England and Wales, the most popular female and male names given to babies born in 1800 were Mary and John, with 24% of female babies and 22% of male babies receiving those names, respectively.[26] In contrast, the corresponding statistics for England and Wales in 1994 were Emily and James, with 3% and 4% of names, respectively. Not only have Mary and John gone out of favour in the English speaking world, the overall distribution of names has also changed significantly over the last 100 years for females, but not for males. This has led to an increasing amount of diversity for female names.[27]
Choice of names [ edit ]
Education, ethnicity, religion, class and political ideology affect parents' choice of names. In the United States, popular names tend to be chosen by parents with more education.[citation needed] Politically conservative parents choose common and traditional names, while politically liberal parents choose the names of literary characters or other relatively obscure cultural figures.[28] Devout members of religions often choose names from their religious scriptures. For example, Hindu parents may name a daughter Saanvi after the goddess, Jewish parents may name a boy Isaac after one of the earliest ancestral figures, and Muslim parents may name a boy Mohammed after the prophet Mohammed.
There are many tools parents can use to choose names, including books, websites and applications. An example is the Baby Name Game that uses the Elo rating system to rank parents preferred names and help them select one.[29]
Influence of popular culture [ edit ]
Popular culture appears to have an influence on naming trends, at least in the United States and United Kingdom. Newly famous celebrities and public figures may influence the popularity of names. For example, in 2004, the names "Keira" and "Kiera" (anglicisation of Irish name Ciara) respectively became the 51st and 92nd most popular girls' names in the UK, following the rise in popularity of British actress Keira Knightley.[30] In 2001, the use of Colby as a boys' name for babies in the United States jumped from 233rd place to 99th, just after Colby Donaldson was the runner-up on Survivor: The Australian Outback.[citation needed] Also, the female name "Miley" which before was not in the top 1000 was 278th most popular in 2007, following the rise to fame of singer-actress Miley Cyrus (who was named Destiny at birth).[31]
Characters from fiction also seem to influence naming. After the name Kayla was used for a character on the American soap opera Days of Our Lives, the name's popularity increased greatly. The name Tammy, and the related Tamara became popular after the movie Tammy and the Bachelor came out in 1957. Some names were established or spread by being used in literature. Notable examples include Pamela, invented by Sir Philip Sidney for a pivotal character in his epic prose work, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia; Jessica, created by William Shakespeare in his play The Merchant of Venice; Vanessa, created by Jonathan Swift; Fiona, a character from James Macpherson's spurious cycle of Ossian poems; Wendy, an obscure name popularised by J. M. Barrie in his play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up; and Madison, a character from the movie Splash. Lara and Larissa were rare in America before the appearance of Doctor Zhivago, and have become fairly common since.
Songs can influence the naming of children. Jude jumped from 814th most popular male name in 1968 to 668th in 1969, following the release of the Beatles' "Hey Jude". Similarly, Layla charted as 969th most popular in 1972 after the Eric Clapton song. It had not been in the top 1,000 before.[31]
Kayleigh became a particularly popular name in the United Kingdom following the release of a song by the British rock group Marillion. Government statistics in 2005 revealed that 96% of Kayleighs were born after 1985, the year in which Marillion released "Kayleigh".[citation needed]
Popular culture figures need not be admirable in order to influence naming trends. For example, Peyton came into the top 1000 as a female given name for babies in the United States for the first time in 1992 (at #583), immediately after it was featured as the name of an evil nanny in the film The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.[31] On the other hand, historical events can influence child-naming. For example, the given name Adolf has fallen out of use since the end of World War II in 1945.
In contrast with these anecdotal evidence, a comprehensive study of Norwegian first name datasets[32] shows that the main factors that govern first name dynamics are endogenous. Monitoring the popularity of 1000 names along 130 years, the authors have identified only five cases of exogenous effects, three of them are connected to the names given to the babies of the Norwegian royal family.
Name at birth [ edit ]
Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births register or birth certificate may by that fact alone become the person's legal name.[33] The assumption in the Western world is often that the name from birth (or perhaps from baptism or brit milah) will persist to adulthood in the normal course of affairs—notably throughout life for men, and until marriage for women. Some possible changes concern middle names, diminutive forms, and changes relating to parental status (due to one's parents' divorce, or adoption by different parents). Matters are very different in some cultures in which a birth name is for childhood only, rather than for life.
The term "dead name" is sometimes used by transgender people who change their names to match their gender identity as part of their transitioning.[34][35]
Maiden and married names [ edit ]
The French and English-adopted terms née and né (; French: [ne]; from French né[e], meaning 'born')[a] have been used to indicate maiden or married names.[36] The term née, having feminine grammatical gender, can be used to denote a woman's surname at birth that has been replaced or changed. In most English-speaking cultures, it is specifically applied to a woman's maiden name after her surname has changed due to marriage.[37] The term né, having masculine grammatical gender, can likewise be used to denote a man's surname at birth which has subsequently been changed or replaced.[38] The diacritic marks (the acute accent) are considered significant to its spelling, and ultimately its meaning, but are sometimes omitted.[38] According to Oxford University's Dictionary of Modern English Usage, the terms are typically placed after the second surname (e.g. 'Ann Smith née Jones' or 'Adam Smith né Jones').[39][38] Because they are terms adopted into English from French, they do not have to be italicized, but often are.[39]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ [4] Protesting Swedish naming laws, in 1996, two parents attempted to name their child Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, stating that it was "a pregnant, expressionistic development that we see as an artistic creation".
^ Both née and né are pronounced the same. The second 'e' in née is silent.Now that civil unions are legal in Illinois, groups that receive public money cannot discriminate against gay couples. So when a few Catholic adoptions agencies were faced with the prospect of giving children to gay parents, they decided to shut down instead. In their view, only straight couples and single-people-who-are-not-cohabitating are worthy of being adoptive parents.
In these Catholics’ eyes, having no parents is better for the children than having gay ones…
(Thankfully, the secular, non-discriminatory Youth Service Bureau of Illinois Valley took in the kids that the defunct Catholic agencies had to give up.)
Now, the state of Illinois has taken this kerfuffle one step further. They’re not even waiting for the other Catholic charities to shut themselves down; they’re planning to speed up that process:
The state has declined to renew its foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities across Illinois… Though four Catholic Charities agencies had already stopped licensing new foster parents, three of them will seek an injunction from a Sangamon County judge on Tuesday to continue serving families and abiding by Catholic principles that prohibit placing children with unmarried cohabiting couples. … At an unrelated news conference Monday, [Governor Pat] Quinn, a practicing Catholic, reiterated his support of the civil union law and the state’s decision to sever ties with Catholic Charities. “We’re not going back,” he said. “They made a choice. Any organization that decides that because of the civil unions law that they won’t participate voluntarily in a program, that’s their choice.”
That means the Catholic groups will no longer be receiving over $30,000,000 in funding.
Bravo to the governor for taking a strong stance against bigotry and discrimination against LGBT people. It ought to be a simple thing to do, but most politicians don’t have that sort of courage.
The Quinn administration’s decision drew praise from the civil unions law’s chief House sponsor, state Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago). “They’re totally within their rights to determine who can or cannot be married under their church law or who can be married by a priest or rabbi or in their facilities, but this is different,” Harris said of the religious groups. “But here, they’re coming to the state to get contracts to provide government services on behalf of the state. They can’t pick and choose which Illinoisans they think are worthy of those services.”
The Catholic Charities in Joliet, Peoria and Springfield have already sued the state because they want to continue discriminating against loving gay couples, and they were in court yesterday to seek an injunction. A judge ruled in their favor, meaning they can continue providing services… for now. But I hope that’s just temporary. No group should be able to receive taxpayer money and use it to deny equal rights to people.
(Thanks to CarrieBeth for the link!)5:21pm: An MLB spokesperson tells Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (via Twitter) that the news on Braun is premature and no decisions have been made.
5:07pm: Major League Baseball is expected to suspend Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez, and as many as 20 players connected to the Biogenesis clinic sometime after next week's All-Star break, several sources told T.J. Quinn and Mike Fish of ESPN.com. Commissioner Bud Selig's office is considering 100-game bans for Braun and Rodriguez, the punishment for a second offense, despite neither player receiving a previous suspension for violating MLB drug rules.
Suspensions appear to be a certainty for both players and the only issue in question is the length of time that they'll be sidelined. One source said that the league's argument would be that they, and possibly other players, committed multiple offenses by receiving PEDs from Tony Bosch's clinic and lying about it.
As Quinn explains on Twitter, suspensions are usually levied, appealed, and ruled upon by an arbitrator months later before becoming public, but MLB is allowed to announce suspensions publicly because case has been public. Players who appeal the forthcoming suspensions may continue playing until an arbitrator rules, however.
Braun, who has repeatedly denied using PEDs, refused to answer questions during a recent meeting with the league office about his connection to Bosch, according to sources. Rodriguez will meet with baseball officials on Friday, sources familiar with the meeting tell Michael O'Keeffe, BIll Madden, Nathaniel Vinton, and Teri Thompson of the Daily News.
Late last month, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reported that suspensions were likely in the Biogenesis case. Nelson Cruz, Everth Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, Jesus Montero, and Bartolo Colon were among the other players linked to Biogenesis in the initial report.The honeymoon is coming to an end, as if there ever was going to be one in the first place. Brazil's new interim government leader Michel Temer has global investors rooting for him, but no one with millions of client money on the line can ignore the fact that this country is very much on fire. Temer's job is to get everyone out of the building in an orderly fashion. Doing so without injury is next to impossible.
"There is sufficient political incentive for the passage of limited reforms. However, if Temer government’s struggles become more serious, we will have to reassess our view," says Craig Botham, emerging markets economist for Schroders in London.
Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff was forced to step down early last month. She faces an impeachment hearing for breaking budget laws. No date has been set for the Senate trial. Temer was her vice president. His first two weeks have been burdened with anti-government protests, the resignation of two new cabinet ministers, and wire-tapped phone calls revealing party allies hopes to derail the Petrobras 'Car Wash' scandal. The graft scheme has taken down a sitting president, A-list executives, and promises to take down many. Every day is a new twist, a new risk for Brazil-bound investors.
The economy managed to pull through the first quarter in better shape than anyone imagined, thanks to exports and government spending. Few believe this is sustainable given the magnitude of Brazil's twin economic and political crises.
According to this week's economic data, Brazil's current account went into surplus for the first time since 2009. The government even ran a primary surplus in April when Dilma was still in power. Much of this was due to the weaker currency and not because of government policy. Dilma was forced to rule by decree for most of her second term. Congress has been unwilling to cooperate with her due to the ongoing investigations into corruption that's panicked the ruling party coalition. April’s current account surplus was $412 million versus a consensus expectation of a deficit of $900 million. Not bad.
As for the primary surplus, it was larger than expected too and came in at around $3.3 billion in April versus consensus estimates of $700 million. The surplus was due in large part to seasonal effects that may reverse in coming months regardless of what Temer does, Ashmore Group analysts said in London this week.
Meanwhile, the labor market continues to deteriorate and banks aren't lending because businesses are not taking on debt. Temer could exacerbate this problem by passing austerity measures, some of which are needed to reverse a deficit two times greater than Dilma said it was -- around $40 billion. Temer and his new Finance Minister, Henrique Meirelles, proposed cuts to congress last week of more than 2% of GDP. Some of these cuts include monies believed to have been squandered in Workers' Party social welfare programs. Temer said those programs would remain, but according to published reports in Brazil, some people were getting benefits who did not qualify to receive them. If congresses passes these cuts, Brazil‘s public finances could gradually move back onto a sustainable footing.
Brazil's first quarter GDP growth of -5.4% year-on-year sounds "devastatingly bad," says Botham. Nevertheless, the quarterly growth figures were better than imagined. Temer's austerity, stubbornly high inflation, and Brazil's ongoing political crisis leaves no room for celebration. This will not be a banner year for the economy.
“Temer is not a solution, but it is a step in the right direction even though he and his party are involved in the Petrobras scandal,” says Bert Van Der Walt, a fund manager with Mirae Asset Global Investments in New York. “Trustworthiness is important,” says Van der Walt. “We invest in companies not in coalitions or countries. We pick stocks. But one of the key fundamental parameters for us in picking stocks is we have to trust the institutional framework in that market. What’s going on right now in Brazil is not so much about political infighting for us. What’s important in this situation to us is whether we can trust the institutional framework to withstand these challenges. This is a crucial issue.”
Van der Walt is a Petrobras shareholder.Michael Ball presents a Gala performance of the entire show with a spectacular celebratory finale as the cast of the current production are joined by members of the original company, all on stage at the Prince Edward Theatre on September 22nd. It's one of the most successful musicals of all time which ran for over 4000 performances in London and for nearly 10 years on Broadway. From the high octane start of 'The Heat is On' through the poignant declaration of love in 'The Last Night of the World' to the turmoil of Kim's Nightmare, Miss Saigon tells the tragic tale of young bar girl Kim, orphaned by war, who falls in love with an American GI called Chris, but their lives get torn apart by the fall of Saigon. Making her professional and West End debut Eva Noblezada stars as Kim, Alistair Brammer as Chris and Jon Jon Briones (who was in the original London cast) now plays one of the lead roles as The Engineer. The music was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg with lyrics by Alain Boublil. During the interval Michael Ball savours the backstage atmosphere and talks to both composer and lyricist. Repeat.
Show lessWho are they and where do they come from?
Two of the most profound questions we find ourselves pondering when dealing with the UFO phenomenon. The often elusive nature of these mysterious objects, the almost mystical interactions with supposed extraterrestrials, and even the reports of abductions by non-human entities leave us wondering how in the world anything like this could ever be the work of humans. We then find ourselves searching the skies for many of the answers to these deeply complex inquires. But could the answers we seek actually be closer than we think? When we begin to move away from the magical and mystical, we see that maybe science, in all its methodical and unforgiving glory, could bring about proof that aliens do not only exist, but that we may be the aliens we seek.
A Feeling of Alienation
In his recent book, Humans are not from Earth: A Scientific Evaluation of the Evidence, noted ecologist, Dr. Ellis Silver, makes a rather controversial argument that human physiology could perhaps show signs that it isn’t suited properly for this blue planet we call home. Comparing us as human beings to that of most animals on the planet, Silver also says, in an interview with Yahoo! News, that “Lizards can sunbathe for as long as they like, and many of them do. We can just about get away with it for a week or two. But day after day in the sun? Forget it. You might as well just lie down on the freeway and wait for a bus to hit you.”
Going into greater detail, Silver also says that human beings have vastly more chronic illness than that of other mammals. “Indeed, if you can find a single person who is 100% fit and healthy and not suffering from some condition or disorder, I would be extremely surprised.” He also theorizes that because most adults seem to have bad backs or signs of onset scoliosis, this could be an indicator that humans may have evolved on a planet with much lower gravity.
Perhaps his most intriguing theory is that we innately feel almost prisoners to our own world. “There’s a prevailing feeling among many people that they don’t belong here or that something just isn’t right,” Silver continues. “One reason for this, is that the Earth might be a prison planet, since we seem to be a naturally violent species, and we’re here until we learn to behave ourselves.” This is a very interesting theory, and one I personally glean with a skeptical lens. Could there perhaps be a similar race of human-like beings, watching us from afar, shaking their heads at us as we kill, rape, and torture one another? Is this a penal colony of cosmic proportions? Maybe we should begin to entertain the possibility that we are being watched not by big brother in the form of three letter agencies here on Earth, but a perhaps by a galactic federation somewhere beyond the stars.
Ryan Sprague asks, 'Are We ET?' Click To Tweet So the real question is, does Silver have any proof to back up the sweeping claims above? “Recent scientific reports suggest that life itself might not be from Earth,” he explains. “…but might have arrived here on meteors or comets. This primitive form of life then evolved over billions of years into what we find on the earth today. My thesis proposes that mankind did not evolve from that particular strain of life, but evolved elsewhere and was transported to Earth (as fully evolved Homo sapiens) between 60,000 and 200,000 years ago.” Here we have one person’s opinion that we may in fact be alien to our own planet. But is there actual scientific evidence, as Silver suggests, that we stem from somewhere else? It’s actually much more possible than we may think.
Planting the Seeds
“Seeds everywhere.” This is the literal translation of the Greek word panspermia. It states that the seeds of life on Earth exist all over the universe and can be propagated through space. These seeds are mechanisms that include the deflection of interstellar dust by solar radiation pressure and extremophile micro-organisms traveling through space within asteroids, meteorites, and comets. There are several forms of panspermia such as Lithopanspermia (from one solar system to another) or Ballistic Panspermia (from one planet to another). This idea does not set out to explain evolution or the origin of life in the Universe, but it attempts solely to solve the mystery of the origins of life on Earth and the potential transfer of life throughout the Universe.
We see the first variations of this concept through the writings of the Greek philosopher, Anaxagoras, somewhere around 500 BC. Although it differs from what we consider panspermia today, it still remains relevant in terms of this ambitious way of thinking. Anaxagoras states that “All things have existed from the beginning. But originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There were the seeds (spermata) or miniatures of wheat and flesh and gold in the primitive mixture; but these parts, of like nature with their wholes, had to be eliminated from the complex mass before they could receive a definite name and character.”
The theory of panspermia was then touched on in the writings of French diplomat and natural historian, Benoit de Maillet. In 1743, de Maillet wrote that he believed life on Earth was seeded by germs in space that had descended to the oceans rather than ascending from abiogenesis (living cells emerging from chemical evolution on Earth.) Panspermia continued to theoretically evolve throughout the nineteenth century by many scientists such as Jons Jacob Berzelius and Hermann von Helmholtz. Then, in 1973, Nobel Prize winning molecular biologist, physicist, and neuroscientist, Francis Crick (along with British chemist, Leslie Orgel), brought forth the even more ambitious theory of directed panspermia, which consists of possible deliberate transport of microorganisms in space to planets that have no life whatsoever. Perhaps most ambitious in their theories is that an extraterrestrial civilization may have been responsible for our seeding on Earth.
NASA Gets Involved
As the theories on panspermia continued to evolve throughout the scientific community, it soon became clear that the official space program had to weigh in on the topic. This is when NASA eventually got involved. Dr. Michael Callahan, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, once stated that: “People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960’s, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life.”
But as time progressed, Callahan, along with other astronomers were able to deduce that the building blocks of life were most likely created in space. This discovery came on the tail end of evidence that suggests that the chemistry inside meteorites is capable of producing biological molecules. Therefore, it is also likely that the molecular structure of life on Earth could have been chemically created outside of the planet, and then were seeded when certain asteroids or meteorites crash landed on the planet itself.
Martian in the Mirror
So while many theorize that earth-based life could have potentially started in space, what about the possibility that it perhaps started on another planet? This is one theory brought to the table by chemist, Steven Benner, one of the leading experts on the origins of life. Benner postulates that because meteorites stemming from the planet Mars contain boron and molybdenum, these could be precursors to the formation of RNA, which is in essence, a molecule that takes on many biological roles, including expression, regulation, coding, and decoding of human genes.
Benner’s theories are strengthened by the work of Elizabeth Hausrath and Christopher Adcock, researchers from the University of Nevada. They discovered that Martian meteorites also contained phosphates, which is another vital chemical in the formation of RNA and DNA. They also discovered that proteins in these meteorites are vastly more water-soluble than proteins seen on Earth. They have deduced that since life supposedly began in the presence of water, Mars could have perhaps formed life much more efficiently than on Earth.
Conclusions
While the ambitious claims of Dr. Silver, Dr. Callahan, Elizabeth Hausrath, and Christopher Adcock are enticing, there simply isn’t irrefutable evidence to back up their claims to a point of certainty. But their theories remain in a hopeful state of evolution, resting on the shoulders of the many panspermia theorists before them. Only time will truly tell as we move forward in our exploration of both Mars and the many other planets within our reach.
The explosive budget increase in NASA missions to explore these planets could give us further insight into the possibility that we may have stemmed from somewhere other than this blue, rocky planet we call home. As we draw closer to manned missions to these potential planets, this could unlock many mysteries not only to the universe itself, but where we may lay in the cosmic agenda we call life. The |
of choice right now, and so is Missy (laughs).
CG: Mountains or ocean?
B: Ocean. Ask me ‘Would you rather’ questions!
CG: I’ve never been on this side of ‘Would you rather…’ before. OK are you cool with gross ones?
B: Yeah, really cool with those.
CG: Would you rather have to eat a live bug or your own snot?
B: I mean, I guess my own snot. If the live bug is a delicacy in Paris, then probably the bug. I thought you were going to go way grosser with that though.
CG: I was but then I was like “Man she doesn’t know me, don’t do there, go one phone call without grossing the person out” so I’ll hold back. But we’ll come back to would you rathers. What was your favourite TV show growing up, or a character you really wanted to be?
B: I really wanted to be ‘Hey Arnold’.
CG: You wanted to be the whole show?
B: I wanted to be Arnold, the football head.
CG: Why? He’s so boring.
B: He was the chillest. Nothing fazed him and he lived with all these kooks and his grandpa and he had the craziest room. But also there’s this character on ‘Adventure Time’ called Marceline, who is this sort of vampire, she’s this really weird girl. I want to be her, too.
CG: I play the voice of her, when they do the gender swaps.
B: WHAT? YOU’RE ON ADVENTURE TIME?
CG: Yeah I play the voice of her when she’s Marshall Lee. I’m the boy version of your favourite character.
B: YOU’RE ON ADVENTURE TIME?
CG: Yeah yeah.
B: Are you kidding me?
CG: Yeah you’re like explaining the character, and I’m like “I know” haha.
B: I’m literally star-struck right now. I’m tripping out.
CG: That was a fun show to work on.
B: What other shows are you on?
CG: China, IL, Spiderman… I’ve done a few cartoons.
B: You’re on Spiderman?
CG: I’m on a new Spiderman, they’re doing a black Spiderman. You should do voice-work, you have a perfect voice for it.
B: This is the most fun interview I’ve ever had. Wanna FaceTime?
CG: [Laughs] We should FaceTime.
B: OK, now I’m going to ask ‘would you rather?’ Would you give birth to a baby or would you rather never be able to have a baby at all?
To read the rest of this hilarious chat, pick up a copy of Miss Vogue now.
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Georgia May Jagger on nights out with Cara and Suki and being rock royalty
A fast 15 with Rita OraMichael Drake founded Drake’s in 1977. Today it is the largest independent maker of handmade ties in England. The picture of Michael was taken in 1973 by Lord Litchfield
Style, comfort, and quality – rather than just fashion – have always been the hallmarks of a gentleman’s wardrobe. A beautifully tailored suit, a perfect shirt, and handmade shoes send a message of natural assurance. But it doesn’t matter who your tailor is or how beautifully your suit has been cut (or what it cost), you will not be well dressed without paying attention to some rather simple details.The small consideration, the subtle element, the fine points really do matter.It’s not a question of having the world’s largest wardrobe, and certainly not an elaborate one. It’s a matter of the right clothes, clothes that illustrate the inspiration and taste of the man wearing them. The aim is a relaxed elegance, a nonchalant nod towards a simple refinement.First there’s what I call the V area, that’s the jacket collar and lapel, the shirt collar and the tie. This V, which both supports and causes us to visually focus on the face, is arguably the most important aspect of the whole wardrobe, and getting it wrong will be even more obvious than you might fear.Start with the shirt. Keep it simple; blue is always a good colour, as is white, in solids, small stripes or checks. Avoid extremes; theatrical collar shapes are really dumb, as is edge stitching or fancy-coloured buttonholes. Go for softness and simplicity; allow the make to show through.Avoid jacquard weaves, anything that looks shiny, and select twill weaves only if it’s a cotton flannel. Opt for two-ply, crisp cottons. If the fabric is too fine chest hair will show through and this is, let’s be delicate, not a good look. Best stick to 2x100s or 2x120s cotton broadcloth. Good buttons are mother-of-pearl, of course.Next the tie. The tie is important not only because it’s so much the focus of attention, but because it’s more symbolic than utilitarian. The best ties are hand made, never stitched by machine. You have a suit made in the round, and so the tie should be three-dimensional as well.Avoid extremes: no wider than nine centimetres and no narrower than seven. Eight will look right on any occasion.The pattern should not be overly designed, with too many colours, or too shiny; although solid satin in navy, grey or purple is fine for the evening, for a more formal look. The time-honoured tradition of lighter coloured ties in the morning, a little darker in the afternoon and darker still in the evening is hard to beat.Seventy percent of the ties we produce at Drake’s of London are shades of blue. It’s always a good starting point.There are only two knots worth considering, the four in hand and the half Windsor, the second also being a good standby if the tie is too long or a slightly fuller knot is required.Best not to use the loop or ‘keeper’ at the back of the tie, to remain nonchalant. It’s ok to see part of the tail. Avoid a look that’s too stiff and rigid – think the Duke of Windsor or Snr. Gianni Agnelli rather than your local bank manager, whose ties will often look ironed flat.Wearing a tie that is either too long or too short is another give away. In an ideal world the tie should reach the top of the trouser waistband with both the front and tail finishing at the same length. If this can’t be achieved, better to have the tail slightly longer than the front. Often the rise of the trousers can cause the tie to be the wrong length.The chicest suit, the softest handmade shirt is a sartorial dream; but with an inappropriate tie the dream becomes a nightmare.Similarly simple things are making sure your cufflinks do not resemble Byzantine coffin lids and the metals match up. If you are wearing a stainless steel watchstrap, your cufflinks shouldn’t be gold. For me the simple choice is a knot link made from both white and yellow gold.A few other small, but telling details. Never puff up a white linen hank, always wear it folded. Choose the leather trim on your braces to match your shoe colour. It’s difficult but possible to find braces with silk braided ends, which are preferable to fasteners. A slight and personal disregard for coordination can be charming, but carried too far one drifts from harmony into jarring chaos.Socks are another give away. Never wear short socks with a suit. Navy socks always work with brown shoes but black socks do not with brown. Personally I am inclined to wear purple socks with almost anything, and like to think of it merely as a signature eccentricity.Avoid extremes in shoes: those that are too flamboyant, too pointy (or too square for that matter) or over designed. It’s too easy for shoes to call attention to themselves and spoil the overall effect.The idea is to not look as if you have just arrived on the boat from Naples. The best-dressed Neapolitans aim for an understated English style.As Coco Channel once said, women should dress to either look chic or sexy. Men should look stylish.View the most accurate Honda 0-60 times and 1/4 mile times for all Honda models from the most popular car magazine sources.
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Honda Accord 0-60 >> Top 10 2018 Honda Accord Specs You Need To Know Autoguide Com NewsThe mother of a Franco-Algerian jihadist who is believed to have died in Syria was sentenced Thursday in Paris to two years in prison for "financing terrorism" by sending him money, a conviction her lawyer said she intends to appeal.
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The criminal court did not, however, order the immediate incarceration of Nathalie Haddadi, as requested by the prosecutor at a September 5 hearing. The prosecution had requested 18 months' imprisonment.
The 43-year-old intends to appeal, according to her lawyer, Hervé Denis.
Speaking to reporters after the verdict, Denis noted that there are some 2,000 radicalised French citizens fighting with jihadists abroad. “So this case doesn’t only concern Mrs Haddadi, it involves all parents of radicalised children.”
"I can understand severity when you are guilty," he said. "But when it comes to sentencing a crying mother just as a matter of principle, I think that is disgraceful."
He added: "It’s not tough – it’s mean."
Haddadi's lawyer, Hervé Denis, speaks to reporters
Haddadi, a non-practicing Muslim and business adviser in Alsace, was accused of buying airline tickets to Algeria for her son, Belabbas Bounaga, who joined his father there in early November 2015.
She said she sent her son to Algeria so that his father could "save" him.
Haddadi said she had informed the authorities that her son had been radicalised while doing a stint in jail for drug trafficking and aggravated assault. Boulaga was subsequently prohibited from leaving French territory.
"I cannot believe that I am being associated with financing terrorism; I helped my son" to eat, Haddadi said. "I never sent money to Syria or Turkey."
Haddadi's youngest son, Tarik, and the elder’s best friend, Souliman Hamouten, were also tried for sending money to Bounaga, and were sentenced to a one-year suspended sentence and three years in prison, respectively.
Haddadi was also accused of hiding her son’s passport from the authorities and of having paid for other flights as well as sending some €2,800 to him while he was travelling in Malaysia.
From Malaysia Bounaga eventually joined the jihadist Islamic State group in Syria. In August 2016, his mother received a call telling her of his death at 21 years of age.
Speaking to the press on the day of the hearing, she denounced the "double punishment" of losing a son and going on trial.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)By Jade Azim / @JadeFrancesAzim
So far, Open Labour, in its fledgling stages, has not expressed opinion on one of the most integral exercises in shaping the future of the Labour Party: internal elections. This is true in particular of the recent and forthcoming Young Labour elections.
In our early days, we are developing governing principles and a distinct philosophy to carry us forward, but sticking to our commitments to openness, it is quite clear that we have our own vision for the Labour Party. We will not hide away from our influences. We also very much intend to be key developers alongside our comrades from other Labour Groups in the formation of a new agenda for the Labour Party going into 2020.
For now, we will be developing a wealth of ideas to carry us forward, based in our historic traditions that are already well-known influencers of Open Labour: Tribune, the former Bevanites, John Smith, Robin Cook and other historical figures of the Labour Left. But we are more than the past, and we are more than the interim that often came to be the mark of our predecessors, to fill a space from one shift to the next. We believe we can build a new, Open Left philosophy that can win, not just the hearts of Labour members –for whom we believe we represent the majority- but the hearts and heads of the general public. We will be comprehensive in our reviews and our new Open Left ideas, on housing, public services, the NHS, technology, new forms of public ownership, welfare and the welfare state, economic growth, and election strategy. New and exciting modern, democratic socialist approaches to the issues we face in the 21st Century, and to the electorate.
That is what we are busy doing, collating our views and organising our principles. From the blogposts we already have, on technology, to the nature of the centre ground, to a Citizens’ Income, that is starting to take shape: our contributions come from far and wide and they are grassroots-driven. To be a glorified think tank would be a mistake, though academia plays a part: our members will decide the future. And in that we too encourage the young, enthused members that have recently joined the Labour Party, and the wider youth movement as a whole. We encourage candidates to make their pitches to us, and to our audience. We encourage them to attend our future events, to write for us.
For now we have asked James Elliott and Jasmine Beckett, both standing to be our Youth Rep on the National Executive Committee (NEC), for their pitches to Open Labour and our members with a consideration of our traditions. (EDIT: due to unforseen circumstances and tribulations of the race, the candidates had to drop out.)
As we organise our future principles, we are happy to provide platforms to everyone in the Labour Party, from across the spectrum. This open debate is key not only for the new politics of Labour, but for Open Labour too. We will decide what the best route is, and that comes with vigorous debate. That is the nature of Open Labour.
With this approach, the formation of our guiding philosophies will be entirely out in the open, debated in public, carefully considered and decided on by the grassroots. They will be blogged, published as reports, debated on at events such as the one forthcoming in Manchester, put forward at stalls during Labour events and conferences, and discussed on panels alongside our peers.
Once we have established a comprehensive set of principles, we will be in a position to play a key role internal to the Labour Party. The future will involve far greater involvement, and we will do as our comrades in our counterpart Labour groups do now: promote, endorse candidates, engage, debate, and persuade members that our vision is worthy of consideration. And then we will put that forward to the electorate. We have considerable talent and knowledge under our belts, we will make sure to be worthy of being a key player in future debates. For now we are deciding our own future. We ask you to help.One commonly posited theory, which informs everything from shampoo commercials to doctoral dissertations, is that being perceived as rude is so abhorrent to women that we need to make ourselves less obtrusive before we speak up. According to a 2010 study in the journal Psychological Science, “women have a lower threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior,” so are more likely to see a need for an apology in everyday situations. We are even apt to shoehorn apologies into instances where being direct is vital — such as when demanding a raise.
I’m dubious about this catchall explanation. The bend-over-backward compulsion to avoid giving offense might account for plenty of unnecessary “pleases” or “excuse me’s,” but it doesn’t sufficiently account for the intensity of a “sorry.”
Here’s the paradox: Every day, we see more unapologetically self-assured female role models, yet women’s extreme prostration seems only to have increased. A recent “Inside Amy Schumer” sketch wonderfully skewered our propensity to apologize: One by one, various accomplished women on a panel apologize, first for trivial things like being allergic to caffeine, or for talking over one another, but finally for having the gall to exist in the first place. The discrepancy between what those women offer the world and how they conduct themselves in it elevates the sketch from amusing to disturbing.
This is not to suggest that all men are rude and unapologetic and that women are the inverse, but something incongruous is happening in women’s behavior that can’t be chalked up to reflexive politeness. Look at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new ads warning New York straphangers against inconsiderate behavior, like eating on the subway or manspreading. Graphics depict men displaying almost all these behaviors, except, perhaps in an effort to provide gender balance, the one that advises women to avoid elbows-out personal grooming.
The scenario seems ridiculously unrealistic — and not just because it’s the only one I’ve never witnessed firsthand. The ads are saying that men are far less likely to be conscious of personal space than women. So why, even after making ourselves physically smaller on the subway, are we still the ones apologizing?We see that Donald Trump’s transition team made the news Thursday morning in the form of a short write-up in Politico describing the industriousness with which the group is going about its business. Or something like that. The idea of Trump even having a transition team is simultaneously terrifying (as it reminds us that he might yet actually become the president) and grotesquely comical, like David Duke taking sensitivity training. It’s fitting that the team is led by a bunch of hangers-on of Chris Christie, the governor who managed to hit the exacta of being both thoroughly incompetent and totally corrupt.
Anyway, it seems like a good time to remind readers of what Trump—and a Republican Congress, because if he were to win the GOP would be virtually guaranteed to hold the House and the Senate—would actually do as president. Substance has been lost in this campaign, more than usual, and with the media still largely hyperventilating about Hillary Clinton’s emails, I’d like to direct your attention to some other matters.
First of all, here’s what Trump wouldn’t do: He wouldn’t save manufacturing. This is why a lot of people are voting for him, people who aren’t the deplorables, who aren’t crazy racists. They like what he’s saying about blue-collar work.
People love the image of the America of the 1940s and ’50s, when we made all the stuff in people’s houses. Televisions, console stereos, refrigerators. Made in the USA. Let’s start doing that again!
It’s a mirage. Just Google “Can Trump revive manufacturing?” and you’ll get a flood of articles like this one explaining that it’s impossible, and why. In a word it’s automation. We still make stuff in this country, plenty of stuff, from broomsticks to auto parts to the most sophisticated elements of high technology. But the stuff is made with a fraction of the old workforce. In the 1940s, 40 percent of the U.S. workforce was in manufacturing. Today it’s 10 percent. It’s not going up. It’s just not. It’s going down. A lot of economists even think this kind of work will be done more by machines than people in the not-too-distant future.
And a President Trump is not going to be able to call the CEO of Ford or General Electric and instruct them not to move that plant to Mexico. Those executives are responsible to shareholders, not the president. He’s sold people a fantasy about how the world ought to work, with a strongman bending others to his will.
He’s not reviving coal, either. Coal jobs have dried up, again, because of automation. They’re mining as much coal in my home state of West Virginia as they did in the 1940s, by tonnage, even a little more. And they’re doing it with about one-tenth of the workforce. Now, coal is dying even more because natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. China is laying off 1.3 million coal miners. Trump would do away with Obama’s EPA rules, and they’d cheer that in Appalachia, but it wouldn’t have much effect against these larger trends.
Here’s a third thing he won’t do: He won’t build that wall. Trump has said it would cost around $10 billion. The Washington Post fact-checker came up with $25 billion. Others came up with much higher figures. And that’s just to build it, forget manning it and maintaining it. And no, Mexico isn’t paying. This isn’t Atlantic City. He has no mechanism to make Mexico do anything. And anyway, the engineers would report to him that along much of the terrain, building a wall would be well-nigh impossible. He’d scrap the idea and try to pretend he never said it, the way he does.
That’s what he wouldn’t do. Here’s what he would do, which of course is a lot more disturbing.
He’s talking a lot about Obamacare lately, and the Affordable Care Act has its problems, although they’re overstated in the media—drastic premium spikes are regionalized, not a national phenomenon. But OK, there are problems. But they can only be fixed by getting more younger and healthier people to sign up. More of those types of customers, who are less expensive to cover, will keep insurers in the game.
Republicans in Congress have voted a jillion times to repeal Obamacare. But have you noticed how they never seem to get around to the “replace” part? That’s because they know they can’t, on the cheap—the way they’ve promised. Trump, proudly ignorant about most issues, employs a lot of people and presumably insures them, so this is something he might actually know.
He’d start a trade war with China. Again, just Google “Cost of Trump’s trade war with China” and you’ll get the picture fast. If you want to pay 30-35 percent more for your next refrigerator, Trump is your man.
Likewise, Google “Cost of Trump’s deportation plan.” Of course the chief cost here would be moral, as the United States of America raises a police force that goes into people’s homes and breaks families apart (because some people came here legally and others didn’t). But the general estimate is $500 billion to implement this. And then there are the associated costs to the economy, because you’re talking about 12 million people—the vast majority of whom do work.
Those are his major so-called plans. Now let’s picture him handling the presidency. We’re due for a recession. Overdue. It’s going to happen no matter who’s president. Do you really want to hear that cretin whining, blaming the Fed (i.e., Jews), blaming the media for not reporting the truth about the economy? Then let’s say a mass shooting happens. Will you be reassured to hear your president stand up there and say this just proves that we need to arm everybody, which is surely what he’d say? Then comes an incident in the South China Sea, which he would elevate into a crisis. And on, and on, and on.
Oh: And bear in mind that he would be serving while involved in a fraud trial over his bogus university, and quite possibly a child-rape trial as well.
I suppose the people on this transition team are fooling themselves by preparing briefing papers and whatnot. But really, they might as well be playing Free Cell all day. And through some miracle in these last few days it might be nice for cable news to stop obsessing about the latest supposed crisis in Hillaryland and remind people that they are voting for a president, and one of the two candidates has been deemed unqualified by nearly every newspaper in the country, by most retired generals, by a huge phalanx of foreign-policy people of both parties, by nearly every serious economist, and basically by everyone except a few people who are either blinded by their hatred of Clinton or too scared of their more rabid constituents to say a cross word about this madman. To quote someone close to the situation, believe me, it’s a disaster, folks.On Monday, the Democratic-leaning group ACORN, which has been painted as a criminal enterprise by the GOP for its voter registration and housing policy efforts, pushed back against its critics by producing a photo of John McCain attending its March 2006 rally.
It was a reminder that, for all their electoral histrionics, Republicans have aligned themselves with ACORN in the past.
Indeed, in addition to the McCain photo, there is a host of examples of prominent McCain surrogates attending ACORN events, signing ACORN legislation, or complimenting the group's efforts.
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, for example, partnered with ACORN in March 2008 for a "Homeownership Promotes The Economy" taskforce. More recently, Crist declared that -- contrary to GOP outrage -- he was not upset with the group's voter registration efforts in his state. The New York Times reported that ACORN supported a law signed by Governor Crist, which "changed the rules last year to restore the voting rights of about 112,000 former convicts."
In July 2005, meanwhile, another Republican governor, Rick Perry of Texas, signed ACORN's Lending Law Reform Bill that changed the state's homelending practices.
In July 2008, California Governor and McCain supporter Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill that ACORN helped draft aimed at California homeowners facing foreclosure.
In June 2007, Minnesota Governor and McCain VP short-lister Tim Pawlenty signed a similar bill -- drafted by ACORN -- that helped homeowners get fairer deals on their mortgages.
"The legislation was drafted according to recommendations made by a predatory lending study group established by Swanson prior to the legislative session," wrote the Northwestern Financial Review. "The study group contained representatives from the banking industry and the mortgage brokers association, as well as consumer advocates from organizations such as Illegal Aid and ACORN."
As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney signed an anti-predatory lending bill that ACORN supported. In February 2006, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman met with the ACORN Katrina Survivors Association. And back in July 2005, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg actually got a kiss from ACORN's state leader, according to the publication City Limits, during an announcement that the city would protect or create 65,000 affordable units in a new housing proposal. Bloomberg, it should be noted, has not endorsed a candidate.
It would be, in a normal political context, highly unremarkable that Republican and Independent officials would praise and work with a group as large and influential as ACORN. But in recent days, it seems, Republicans and the McCain campaign are keen on painting the community-organizing group as something inherently corrupt. The primary target of complaint has been the organization's voter registration efforts, which have led to numerous non-existent individuals being put on the rolls.
Recently the McCain campaign went farther, releasing a web advertisement that linked Barack Obama to ACORN, and blamed the group for helping instigate the crisis in the nation's housing market -- itself a contributor to the financial mess.
ACORN "bull[ied] banks" and engaged in "intimidation tactics," says the ad. "ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans. The same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today."Angry Imran has been downloaded several thousand times since it was released for android phones and tablets three days ago.
Its developers say they are stunned by the excitement it has generated.
Players catapult Imran into the giant heads of Pakistan's political leaders, smashing his way through wooden planks and stone plinths, as he vies for control of key cities before marching on the capital Islamabad.
"I find it quite funny," said Mr Khan on Friday, whose PTI party rallies have certainly seen him develop an angry streak as he denounces drone strikes and American aggression in Afghanistan.
"Status quo is petrified of PTI especially after our Rawalpindi tsunami."
Last weekend, he attracted 90,000 supporters to a rally in Rawalpindi.
While critics say his momentum has stalled since a series of monster gatherings late last year, he looks set for a breakthrough in elections expected early next year – and could even win enough seats to become the kingmaker in coalition negotiations.
In the computer game, he must sweep away the heads of President Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, the main opposition leader, and Altaf Hussain, who rules the city of Karachi from exile in London.
Victory at each stage is greeted by the voice of Mr Khan roaring "Tabdeeli agayi hai – Urdu for "the change has come".
The game was put together by a group of budding young developers, who call themselves CreatiXe.
Muneeb Ali said the idea for the game came from friends and that it was made for fun, rather than as a political tool.
"We have been really surprised at how it has taken off," he said.
"Maybe it's a good way for people to vent their frustration with Pakistan's politicians." He added that the team planned more Imran Khan games in the future.Lets take a quick recap at how was the 2nd day of the International 2017.
The day was a roller coaster ride for many of the top teams in Dota 2 history as we witnessed some of the most exciting and close matches of the meta yesterday with teams not giving up until the throne falls.
The day kicked off with TNC and LFY. Tnc had closes matches with LFY but Chinese force was way to strong for TNC
Tnc will try it luck today in the lower bracket bo3 vs OG Gaming.
Then we had LGD vs VP, fight of east vs west.
Vp took the games 2-0 easily toring apart LGD and giving them a fight for there internationals.
Vp advance to the upper bracket and will face another chinese team LFY who is in awesome form this series.
LGD will face DC in the lower brackets today.
Then we had lower bracket Secret vs Liquid in lower bracket best of 3.Puppey vs Kuroky both former teammates of Navi (Natus Vincere gaming )
This series was one of the most close and nail biting series overall of the ti7 and after a dominant performance secret felled weak towards the heavy push and healing from team Liquid and could stand the ground and tapped out of ti7.
It was elimination for Puppey and his team in the run for Internationals 2017,ti7.
Last bo3 of the day were between EG and team Empire. One of the last hope of Usa, Evil Geniuses hada terrible run vs Empire and formet ti champions run for the internationals ended in lower bracker against brilliant performance from Team Empire.
Happy faces for Empire as they give upset to Evil Geniuses and show KeyAreana.EG takes $360,010 dolars.
Here is the fixture for today
Before we end, Here is a new trailer from a new gaming coming from Valve
A new courier is also available at the dota 2 shop. Do checkout Strongback the swift37 Pages Posted: 5 Feb 2012
Date Written: August 1, 2011
Abstract
“Analytic Jurisprudence Established” is Chapter 1 of Legal Philosophy in the Twentieth Century: The Common Law World (Springer, 2001). The book tells a critical history of Anglophone general jurisprudence and legal philosophy in the twentieth century as a tale of two Boston lectures, separated by sixty years, and their respective legacies: Holmes’s “Path of Law” (1897) and Hart’s Holmes Lecture “Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals” (1958). This opening chapter sketches the developments of British jurisprudence from Austinians in the late nineteenth century through Salmond to Glanville Williams in the mid-twentieth century. In this remarkable story, most of the familiar doctrines elegantly articulated and defended in Hart’s Concept of Law are anticipated, including his pivotal doctrine of the rule of recognition. Also in this period we find roots of the distinctive methodological commitments of analytic jurisprudence evident throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, along with searching critiques of them. It is a story of surprisingly rich ideas in embryo that matured only with debates over Hart’s seminal work in the last third of the century. Bibliographical references are available upon request of the author.A Brazilian-born researcher who runs minority health programs at a public university in Alabama has convinced the U.S. government to give her $1.5 million to help women quit smoking in her native country.
A noble cause indeed, but likely not on the high list of the American taxpayers funding the project. Nevertheless, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation’s medical research agency, has given the Brazilian researcher, Isabel Scarinci, a five-year, $1.5 million grant to fund her international tobacco-control project.
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The goal is to better understand “women and their tobacco-related issues” in the South American country, especially in Scarinci’s Brazilian hometown of Parana. In the last two years alone, the researcher has received north of $560,000 for the initiative, according to NIH records for fiscal years 2012 and 2013.
Here is what Uncle Sam’s generosity is getting us, according to the NIH: “An understanding of women and their tobacco-related issues” as well as the “development of gender-relevant tobacco control efforts.” Wait, there’s more information from the NIH to justify the grant, though it’s unlikely to keep Americans up at night: A “smoking epidemic is rapidly spreading to women in developing countries.”
In Brazil girls are taking up smoking in particularly high numbers, Scarinci tells a university magazine piece celebrating her federal grant. Additionally, it can be hard to convince women in the South American nation of the dangers of smoking and “other risky health behaviors.” The researcher feels a sense of responsibility, saying “I can’t forget where I came from. Twenty years have gone by and their needs haven’t changed. For me, it’s personal.”
At the University of Alabama Scarinci is a preventative medicine expert who specializes in reaching out to “at-risk populations.” As part of her duties she operates several publicly-funded initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles and disease prevention among “Latino immigrants and African Americans in underserved rural communities.” This likely includes illegal aliens.
The Obama administration has made minority health a huge priority and has funded projects accordingly through different federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as well as the NIH, which annually doles out north of $31 billion to hundreds of thousands of researchers at thousands of universities and institutions around the globe.
Earlier this year the NIH hired a Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity as part of a $500 million initiative to boost minority causes in biomedical research and the federal grant process. Under Obama the agency also created a new committee that makes “diversity a core consideration of NIH governance and ensures fairness in the peer review system that erases “unconscious bias related to disparities in research awards.” The plan also implements “ |
stood up and walked back to the news van" after finishing his dirty deed, the report said.
The witness said Lowe's van had been parked in front of her residence for about 40 minutes prior to the incident.
The report said the woman told police "that if Jonathan had knocked on their door, she would've let him use their bathroom."
An officer spoke to Lowe inside the news van.
"I know what you want me to talk to me about," the report quotes Lowe as saying. "I've been feeling very sick and I've been stuck in this van all day. So I went over to that person's yard and took care of business. Those people who called on me just wanted to start problems."
Lowe was arrested on a charge of public defecation.
The station's news director, Dan Wilson, said Wednesday that Lowe was still employed by the station, but he said Thursday that Lowe was no longer a station employee. He did not clarify whether the reporter was fired or resigned.Man gave morphine to baby, court told
Updated
A man has gone on trial accused of putting a lethal dose of morphine into a four-month-old baby's bottle.
Graham Andrew Wilson, 41, allegedly put morphine into his partner's baby's bottle at the couple's Elizabeth South home in Adelaide in 2007.
Wilson has pleaded not guilty to a charge of criminal neglect and is facing trial before a jury in the District Court.
Prosecutor Jeff Powell said Wilson suffered a workplace accident and had taken a variety of painkillers, including morphine.
He said the mother had put the baby down after the girl drank some of the formula made up by Wilson and noticed the infant seemed to be staring and breathing strangely.
The reality may be as simple as this, that he just wanted to get a good night's sleep and that he did something stupid, so stupid in the extreme that it amounted to criminal neglect Prosecutor Jeff Powell
A locum doctor thought the infant had bronchitis and sent her to the Lyell McEwin hospital in northern Adelaide, where blood tests were done.
The baby was then sent to the Women's and Children's Hospital and spent a week on a ventilator, eventually making a full recovery.
Mr Powell said Adelaide's Forensic Science Centre analysed the blood samples and they indicated there was a potentially-lethal concentration of morphine.
He said Wilson was interviewed twice by police.
'Medical impossibility'
The first time he told them the infant liked to lick his arm and may have extracted the morphine from his perspiration.
Mr Powell said evidence presented during the trial would suggest that was a medical impossibility.
The prosecutor said Wilson subsequently told police he had no recollection of the day concerned, due to his consumption of painkillers and that he may have accidentally dropped a capsule of the painkiller into the feeding bottle while he was taking a capsule himself.
Mr Powell said medical evidence would suggest morphine capsules were intended to work by time release, so for the drug to take immediate effect the capsule would have had to have been crushed into the baby's milk formula.
"It is not the prosecution case that he set out to endanger [the baby's] life," he told the court.
"The reality may be as simple as this, that he just wanted to get a good night's sleep and that he did something stupid, so stupid in the extreme that it amounted to criminal neglect."
The trial before Judge David Smith continues.
Topics: courts-and-trials, crime, drug-use, law-crime-and-justice, babies, family-and-children, drugs-and-substance-abuse, community-and-society, drug-offences, sa, adelaide-5000, australia, elizabeth-south-5112
First postedImage copyright SPL
UK scientists have been given the go-ahead by the fertility regulator to genetically modify human embryos.
It is the first time a country has considered the DNA-altering technique in embryos and approved it.
The research will take place at the Francis Crick Institute in London and aims to provide a deeper understanding of the earliest moments of human life.
It will be illegal for the scientists to implant the modified embryos into a woman.
But the field is attracting controversy over concerns it is opening the door to designer - or GM - babies.
DNA is the blueprint of life - the instructions for building the human body. Gene editing allows the precise manipulation of DNA.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Fergus Walsh explains how gene editing works
In a world-first last year, scientists in China announced they had carried out gene editing in human embryos to correct a gene that causes a blood disorder.
Prof Robin Lovell-Badge, a scientific advisor to the UK's fertility regulator, told the BBC: "China has guidelines, but it is often unclear exactly what they are until you've done it and stepped over an unclear boundary.
"This is the first time it has gone through a properly regulatory system and been approved."
Groundbreaking
The experiments will take place in the first seven days after fertilisation.
During this time we go from a fertilised egg to a structure called a blastocyst, containing 200-300 cells.
Image copyright Kathy Niakan Image caption The embryo divides and develops from a single fertilised egg (top left) to a blastocyst (bottom right)
The work will be led by Dr Kathy Niakan, who has spent a decade researching human development.
Earlier this year, she explained why she had applied to edit human embryos: "We would really like to understand the genes needed for a human embryo to develop successfully into a healthy baby.
"The reason why it is so important is because miscarriages and infertility are extremely common, but they're not very well understood."
Out of every 100 fertilised eggs, fewer than 50 reach the early blastocyst stage, 25 implant into the womb and only 13 develop beyond three months.
And at the blastocyst stage, some cells have been organised to perform specific roles - some go on to form the placenta, others the yolk sac and others ultimately us.
How and why this takes place is unknown - but some parts of our DNA are highly active at this stage.
It is likely these genes are guiding our early development, but it is unclear exactly what they are doing or what goes wrong in miscarriage.
The researchers will alter these genes in donated embryos, which will be destroyed after seven days.
The regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has given its approval and the experiments could start in the next few months.
Arguments
Paul Nurse, the director of the Crick, said: "I am delighted that the HFEA has approved Dr Niakan's application.
"Dr Niakan's proposed research is important for understanding how a healthy human embryo develops and will enhance our understanding of IVF success rates, by looking at the very earliest stage of human development."
Dr David King, the director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "This research will allow the scientists to refine the techniques for creating GM babies, and many of the government's scientific advisers have already decided that they are in favour of allowing that.
"So this is the first step in a well mapped-out process leading to GM babies, and a future of consumer eugenics."
Dr Sarah Chan, from the University of Edinburgh, said: "The use of genome editing technologies in embryo research touches on some sensitive issues, therefore it is appropriate that this research and its ethical implications have been carefully considered by the HFEA before being given approval to proceed.
"We should feel confident that our regulatory system in this area is functioning well to keep science aligned with social interests."
Follow James on Twitter.Lawyers for Peter Liang, the former New York City police officer convicted of manslaughter in the shooting of an unarmed man in a public-housing project stairwell, asked a judge on Tuesday to set aside the verdict after they learned, through a newspaper article, that a juror in the case might have lied during jury selection about his father’s criminal past.
On March 26, The Daily News published an article that quoted an unnamed 62-year-old juror at the trial criticizing the decision of Ken Thompson, the Brooklyn district attorney, to recommend probation, not a prison term, for Mr. Liang, who was found guilty in February in the death of Akai Gurley in November 2014. After calling Mr. Thompson’s recommendation “a slap on the wrist,” the juror was quoted as saying that his own father had served seven years in prison for accidentally shooting a friend — an act not dissimilar to the one in which Mr. Liang was convicted.
Court papers filed by Mr. Liang’s lawyers contend that the same juror, identified as Michael Vargas, told the court during jury selection that none of his close relatives had ever been accused, let alone found guilty, of a crime.
“The record demonstrates that Mr. Vargas lied knowingly and for the purpose of securing a seat on the jury,” the papers say, adding that the “falsehood was not accidental or inconsequential” but rather “was a major lie.”A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that New Zealand evangelist Ray Comfort was about to release an anti-gay film called Audacity.
Well, I watched it a few hours after the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality nationwide.
It was an emotional day; my colleagues at the LGBT nonprofit where I work stood in a circle and cried together, my girlfriend and I sent heartwarming news clips back and forth, and I left work early to hang out at the Stonewall Inn and high-five other people who were overcome with joy at the news.
And I capped off my day with Audacity, which all about the lifework of Christians to “save” doomed LGBT people like me. It did absolutely nothing to sully my euphoria from the morning’s victory, but it did give me serious pause about what actually goes on in the brains of Christian civil rights opponents around me.
In case you’re actually planning to watch the film — and, in that case, I recommend splitting the $19.99 price tag with 20 of your closest friends and throwing a heathens-only viewing party — my thoughts below are laden with spoilers.
Our protagonist in the film is Peter, a nervous bicycle delivery guy probably in his early 20s, who sometimes struggles in social situations because people shudder when he tells them he’s a Christian. Every time he “comes out” to a new person, he’s met with questions like “Oh… so do you actually believe that stuff?” and “Don’t most Christians think gays are going to hell?”
This “hostility” comes primarily from our other protagonist, Diana, although some of it is exaggerated in Peter’s mind. Toward the beginning of the film, Peter has a dream about chit-chatting with Diana when it comes up that she has a gay sister. As soon as Peter tells Diana he’s a Christian, she sticks up for her sister, telling Peter about how hard she’s had it and furious that “You have the audacity to tell me she’s going to hell. Go ahead, say it.” Peter is uncomfortable and leaves.
On his way to work (still dreaming), he encounters two giddy young women in an elevator who tell him they’re about to get a marriage license. He starts to reach for his Bible in his pocket and then thinks better of it.
When they exit the elevator and he tries to leave for his floor, the elevator drops and lurches to a halt between two floors with the doors stuck halfway. He calls the operator, breaks through the doors, and has to climb out, but the operator orders him to stay right there and prevent anyone else from coming in, because “If anybody gets on this elevator, they’re gonna die!” For real.
But Peter has to rush to drop something off at work. So he scribbles a “DANGER!” sign on a piece of paper and sticks it on the elevator doors with his gum, before asking a snooty-looking man nearby to watch it for him. That man, who was seen earlier glaring at the two women, hears their homosexual happiness off in the distance and sneakily takes the paper off the door.
Oh, no! Now, nobody knows the elevator is a death trap! The women come back and push the elevator button. The snooty man does nothing. Peter comes running back as they get in the elevator, but he’s too late! We hear a crash, then screams, and we assume they have fallen to their death.
Suddenly, Peter wakes up. Phew. Nobody is dead. But Peter realizes the symbolic value of his dream — if you don’t warn the homosexuals about their deviance, they will fall down an elevator shaft. He Googles “how to witness to a homosexual.”
This is where Ray Comfort comes in.
He shows a series of real, unscripted interviews that he conducted with random LGBT people and allies on the street. In these manipulative, cringeworthy clips, he tricks people into saying that being gay is a choice through a series of faulty comparisons and leading questions.
It’s a little hard to follow because he jumps back and forth between people, but the basic conversation goes like this:
Ray Comfort: “Do you believe being gay is a choice? Do you think people are born that way?” Innocent Bystander: “I don’t think it’s a choice. I think we’re born that way.” RC: “What about adultery and fornication? Do you think we’re born with that instinct?” IB: “Uh. Sure, I guess that’s human nature.” RC: “But even if it’s human nature, we don’t act on that, because we know it’s bad.” IB: “I guess.” RC: “People are born with a nature that does what they want to do instead of what God wants.” IB: “I guess.” RC: “So now do you think being gay is a choice?” IB: “Yeah, I guess it is.”
That’s his entire framework.
With a camera in your face and a stranger suggesting that you’re going to hell, it’s kind of hard to argue for yourself; most people would get nervous in that sort of situation. But Comfort has a particular methodology in his interrogations. Because he’s laying out “sins” in a step-by-step way, the flustered bystander can’t always think quickly enough to counter his points. It’s like when a canvasser stops and asks if you have a minute to spare for the environment. I mean, technically I do, but I don’t have the $12 a month you want, and I can’t say that to you right away!
Back to the movie.
The next time Peter sees Diana, he asks if she has a gay sister, and she says no. (Dodged that bullet!) But he still asks her to watch some videos to try to understand his point of view. She isn’t into it.
Diana: I’d rather not. Those people are so condescending. Peter: Most Christians aren’t like that! Diana: The Bible says a lot of things, like that God sends gays to hell. Peter: You don’t get it, he wants to save you!
They bicker. It’s kind of cute. Before Peter leaves, Diana tearfully asks him a favor. Her brother is dying of cancer and she is angry at God. She wants Peter to tell her why it happened, and he says he’ll pray on it.
New scene! We flash to a convenience store, where a rude, young, straight couple is being obnoxious toward a young gay couple. Suddenly, a man pulls out a gun, tells everyone to drop to the floor, and demands all the cash from the register. In a weird moment of comedic relief, the clerk shouts, “Nobody pays with cash anymore!”
The gunman takes turns pointing the gun at different people’s heads until Peter (who happens to be in the store) shouts at him that he’ll have to answer to God. Then he volunteers to take the bullet: “If you’re going to shoot someone, shoot me!”
The gunman considers it, but then grabs the girl from the straight couple and drags her out of the store with his gun to her head. The police have shown up. He won’t let her go!
That’s when Peter saves the day: He eyes a can of spinach in the store, walks up being the gunman, and clocks him in the head with it.
Peter is a hero, and he takes a series of selfies as the gunman sits in the police car. (I am not making that up.)
Now, we’re back to Diana, who is watching more videos featuring Ray Comfort. This time, he’s manipulating people into saying they are hell-bound sinners who need to repent. Again, it’s a mishmash of phrasing and conversations, but here’s how most of them happen:
Ray Comfort: Do you think you’re a good person? Do you think you’ll go to heaven? Innocent Bystander: I think of myself as a good person. I think I’ll go to heaven. RC: Well, are you sure about that? Do you know what the Ten Commandments say? Let’s look at them. Have you ever lied? IB: Yeah, I’ve lied. RC: You have. And have you ever stolen anything, even something of inconsequential value? IB: Probably once in my life, sure. RC: Have you ever looked at a woman with lust? IB: Lol. Yeah. Totally. [One guy said, “I’m gay, so no,” so Comfort had to change his phrasing. It was great.] RC: Okay, so now do you think you’d go to heaven? IB: Hmm. You’re right. I’d probably go to hell. Uh oh.
It’s a series of questions Comfort and his frequent partner-in-crime Kirk Cameron have been asking for years.
Comfort compares repenting to paying a fine for a crime you’ve committed:
“This person is guilty, but their fine is paid, so they’re out of here.”
And when someone tells him they go to church, he says that’s not enough:
“Repent and trust alone in him. It’s like you trust a parachute. When you jump out of a plane, you don’t save yourself by flapping your arms.”
Oof. What a ride. I don’t know why these people didn’t just walk away; I guess we’re a polite bunch.
Back to our stoic protagonist. The gay couple from the convenience store wants to take Peter out for dinner as a thank-you for what he did, but things turn sour over drinks when he mentions he was compelled to save the day because he’s a Christian. One of the men grills him about the Bible condemning shellfish, the word “homosexuality” being a recent addition to the Bible, etc. Peter produces more pamphlets and defends himself.
“The bottom line is that I believe the Bible. Even though I’m terrified to do it, I have to speak the truth, no matter what people think of me. It’s not even about me, it’s about this wonderful living God.”
Here’s more of this tired rhetoric: that Christians are the ones being oppressed. That it is harder to be a vocal anti-gay Christian than it is to be gay. Hearing this, the more agitated man leaves in a huff, while the other guy actually sticks around to talk more with Peter about Christianity. It’s weird.
Cut to a conversation between Diana and Peter at a comedy club. Diana says that she heard about what happened and she “actually prayed… I can’t remember the last time I did that.” She’s been watching the videos all day. It makes sense to her now. She’s starting to come around.
Suddenly Diana gets an urgent call about her brother in the hospital and she has to leave. On the road in the pitch-black night, she runs out of gas. Stuck and emotional, she calls Peter and leaves him a message. We only hear a bit of it, but basically, she’s been thinking a lot about this Jesus stuff and she wants to talk about it even more. I’m not sure why she didn’t open with “Help, I’m stuck on the highway in the middle of the night with no gas,” but to each their own.
That’s when the scariest non-witnessing part of the movie happens. A giant, red-faced man starts banging on Diana’s car window and yelling. We can’t make out the words, but Diana is screaming, understandably, as she is stuck and a man is presumably going to assault her in her car. The man backs up, punches through her window, and grabs her. What’s happening?! We’re terrified for Diana! He starts to pull her out of the car, and then we see what’s up: She was stopped on train tracks, and he was pulling her out of the way of an oncoming train. Do you smell the metaphor coming?
The screen goes dark and we’re thrown into the plot twist of the century: DIANA IS GAY!
The camera pans over conspicuous photos in her house, set in frames that say “Forever in love.”
Next to them is an open Bible with a particular passage highlighted and underlined:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed.
Now we hear Diana’s voicemail to Peter. She heard that God gave second chances. And she really could have used a second chance.
Flash to Diana in a hospital bed. She is alive. Her makeup is impeccable. Peter brings her flowers and they share a knowing smile.
We end with media coverage of the crash, which glorifies the man who saved Diana and frames her as an ungrateful wench. Prime quotes include:
“The victim refused to be rescued.” “She just kept screaming at him and looking at him like he was evil.” “She didn’t understand what he was trying to do. She thought he was trying to hurt her, but he was trying to save her.” “She thought he was an enemy, but he turned out to be a friend.”
It’s almost as if someone twice your size screaming at you when you have no way to escape is threatening!
But no, it’s Diana’s fault for not immediately leaping into the scary man’s arms. Blame her for her bruises. End of movie. Cut to real-life resources on witnessing to homosexuals.
…
Clocking in at a little over 50 minutes, this film is a true work of hilarious nonsense. Some Christian movies of this nature make you weep for children who are clearly being abused, or leave you consumed with thoughts about extremists who are actively plotting your death. This is not one of those movies.
The target audience is not “homosexuals” seeking to repent, but supportive Christians who aren’t doing enough to marginalize and harass their LGBT friends and family. Peter says over and over that he loves gay people, that he doesn’t think they should be stoned, that he wants the best for them. Viewers are supposed to see themselves in him. But he also sends people Ray Comfort videos, so can we really trust him?
Now that I own it, I might watch this film again with a group of friends and turn it into a drinking game. And then I’ll revel in the fact that I can now get married in any state I want.
There were Christians from a nearby church handing out bottles of water to Pride attendees yesterday, and I gladly accepted the offering. Maybe that’s not Ray Comfort’s idea of Christianity, but it’s the one that’s winning.10. L.E.V.
May 2
Laboral Ciudad de la Cultura
Gijón, Spain May 2Laboral Ciudad de la CulturaGijón, Spain
09. International Music Summit
May 21 - May 23
Various Venues
Ibiza, Spain May 21 - May 23Various VenuesIbiza, Spain
08. Mysteryland USA 2014
May 23 - May 26
Bethel Woods
New York, USA May 23 - May 26Bethel WoodsNew York, USA
07. Life Festival 2014
May 23 - May 25
Belvedere House & Gardens
Westmeath, Ireland May 23 - May 25Belvedere House & GardensWestmeath, Ireland
06. Love Saves The Day
May 24 - May 25
Castle Park
Bristol, UK May 24 - May 25Castle ParkBristol, UK
05. Southport Weekender
May 9 - May 11
Butlins Resort
Somerset, UK May 9 - May 11Butlins ResortSomerset, UK
04. EM15
May 27 - June 1
Various Venues
Montreal, Canada May 27 - June 1Various VenuesMontreal, Canada
03. Primavera Sound
May 29 - May 31
Parc Del Forum
Barcelona, Spain May 29 - May 31Parc Del ForumBarcelona, Spain
02. Nuits Sonores
May 28 - June 01
Various
Lyon, France May 28 - June 01VariousLyon, France
01. Movement
May 24 - May 26
Hart Plaza
Detroit, USA May 24 - May 26Hart PlazaDetroit, USA
Squirreled away in the Spanish city of Gijón, L.E.V. has all the hallmarks of a well-kept secret. Chris Mann's rave review from last year told of "good food, cheap bear, a welcoming and intelligent crowd," and "glorious sunshine." The festival's emphasis on experimental sounds may not scream fun-in-the-sun to everyone, but the lineup is pretty hard to argue with. Laser-happy electronic pioneer Robert Henke tops this year's bill, joined by Atom TM, Vessel, Vatican Shadow and Luke Abbot, plus a raft of impressive Spanish artists.At a festival exploring "the natural synergy between image and sound," we can't imagine Robert Henke not smashing it.To call Ibiza's International Music Summit a "festival" is to sell it short. Taking place across three days and nights at the brand new Hard Rock Hotel in Playa d'en Bossa, the event treats delegates to an onslaught of workshops. Guest speakers this year include Danny Tenaglia, Alfredo, Boiler Room founder Blaise Belleville and Paul McGuinness, former manager of U2, to name but a handful. Once the conference is done, everyone heads up to the iconic Dalt Villa for The Grand Finale, soundtracked this year by Seth Troxler, Eats Everything and Jamie Jones.Nile Rodgers was the talk of the town last year; this time it'll be Mr. Parliament Funkadelic himself, George Clinton.Mysteryland is the latest big-tent festival to make its way from Europe over to The States. Going down over Memorial Day Weekend, it takes over the gorgeous fields of Bethel Woods, which you might recognize as the historic home of the original Woodstock festival. For us, the most appetizing part of the program is Sunday School's Mini-Fest, which will take place within Mysteryland all weekend. Sunday School have three whole stages all to themselves, featuring the likes of Chris Liebing, Scuba and Seth Troxler.Josh Wink playing a vinyl-only set to celebrate 20 years of Ovum Recordings.An 18th Century manor makes an arresting backdrop for Life Festival, the annual outdoor event in Ireland's County Westmeath, with lakes and woodland spilling out from the main area. This year organisers have plumped for a mix of house (Dixon, Maya Jane Coles, DJ Koze), techno (Ben Klock, Rødhåd, Nina Kraviz) and big name festival favourites like Groove Armada and LFO. There's also a healthy sprinkling of Irish talent, including techno vet Sunil Sharpe and Hivern Disc affiliate New Jackson, whose live show was one of the highlights of this year's RA party at The Twisted Pepper in Dublin.Dixon's elegant house selections should nicely match the stately surroundings.Last year Bristol's Love Saves The Day expanded from one day to two. It will keep that format in 2014, with a wealth of house, bass, dub, disco and techno spread across six stages at Castle Park. Saturday's highlights include Craig Richards, Nina Kraviz, Motor City Drum Ensemble and a live performance by Todd Terje, while Sunday sees John Talabot, Jamie xx, Tessela, Special Request and SBTRKT take to the stage. Hometown talent will be well represented on both days, with Livity Sound, Futureboogie and Pinch all repping Bristol.Expect Jamie xx to drop his new single "Sleep Sound," and expect it to get a huge reaction.It's the big 5-0 for the Southport Weekender this year, and boy have they booked a lineup fit for the occasion. In fact, the organisers have done such a comprehensive job of charting house and disco through the ages, it would almost be easier to name the acts thatplaying. Nestled amongst the usual slew of pioneers (Carl Cox, Tony Humphries, Greg Wilson, Kenny Dope) and current favourites (Seth Troxler, Ben UFO, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Vakula), are some of the most revered vocalists in house and disco. Omar? Check. Faith Evans? Check. Ch-ch-chaka Khan? Check.World premieres are always worth catching, especially when they involve Kerri Chandler and a full live band.MUTEK by itself is already a force to be reckoned with—for years it's been a leader among electronic music festivals in North America and around the world. This year they've teamed up with Elektra, an event whose digital arts vibe meshes well with MUTEK's. Both will be celebrating their 15th anniversaries, and with a lineup that includes Donato Dozzy, Move D, Nicolas Jaar and Robert Henke, there's more than enough get excited about.Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer playing live together in a rare North American appearance.Barcelona may be synonymous with Sónar in electronic music circles, but have you seen the lineup for this Primavera Sound thing? Headliners like Neutral Milk Hotel, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Slowdive might seem more college-radio than Mix Of The Day, but the electronic side of things is far from an afterthought. Darkside, Disclosure, SBTRKT and Laurent Garnier will all play headlining sets. And The Haxan Cloak, Demdike Stare, Genius Of Time, Daniel Avery and Dominick Fernow (as both Prurient and Vatican Shadow) bring a wealth of edgy, underground heat to the programme.Take a quick reprieve from 4/4 beats and get your eardrums blown out by Wolf Eyes.The bullet points for Nuits Sonores are convincing enough on their own: a sprawling lineup that connects the dots between Huerco S, Nina Kraviz and Kraftwerk, spread over four days in the lovely French city of Lyon. But anyone who's been to the festival knows that's only part of the picture. What makes Nuits Sonores truly memorable are the countless other surprises: the friendly and upbeat local punters, the spectacular food to be found across town (it's the gastronomic capital of France), and most of all, the free parties you stumble upon between venues—under bridges, down back alleys, perched on a hillside overlooking the Saône. Combine all that with the staggering lineup and you've got what is undoubtedly one of the best electronic music festivals in the world all year.Not to toot our own horn, but Robert Hood during the day on the RA stage should be one to write home about.There's something almost biblical about Movement. The ritual of artists from around the world converging on the birthplace of techno, prompting thousands of fans to make a pilgrimage to Detroit—even just the idea of the thing is epic. But the main reasons Movement stays at the top of this list year after year are much more concrete. For one, the programming is absolutely killer, always capturing the full breadth of the electronic zeitgeist (where else would Jeff Mills bump elbows with Tale Of Us, Kode9, Tiga and Jamie XX?). Movement means more to more people than most festivals in the world, and it's not hard to see why.You can't do much better than Jeff Mills on his home turf.Part of the #WFIFriday series, written by @JDNalton
Matías Kranevitter was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, a city located in the north of Argentina, where he began playing football as a youth for Club Atlético San Martín de Tucumán.
At this time he was also a keen golfer and would work as a caddy on the local courses to earn money for his family. He would also go out onto the course with family members, who include the PGA and European tour golfer Andrés Romero who is his cousin.
He could have chosen to pursue a career as a professional golfer, but when River Plate scouts came to watch him play football for San Martin under-15s, they saw enough in the youngster to offer him a place at their youth sides in the capital.
Moving to Buenos Aires, far from his home town, forced the young Kranevitter to adapt quickly, encouraging him take a professional approach to his new football life from the outset.
Coming from a poor family can add a weight of responsibility to a young footballer’s life, and It’s at this stage in a career when the first ‘now or never’ moments occur.
Kranevitter knuckled down and got on with the job he was brought to do, working his way up through the youth sides at River. He won the U20 Copa Libertadores with the youth team in 2012, which was the first of a collection of titles he would go on to win at the club.
He made his debut for the first team on December 2nd 2012 aged 19. It was a 1-0 win against Lanus at the Monumental, where he replaced Rodrigo Mora deep into injury time.
“I went on for a few minutes. I think even got to touch the ball. I was not nervous, but perhaps anxious.” said the midfielder of his debut.
The work ethic he’s displayed throughout his life is now built in, and follows him onto the football pitch. This trait is present in many South American players from poor working class backgrounds, and it’s embodied in Kranevitter.
When asked the question “how did Kranevitter play?” the answer is often the same: how Kranevitter always plays.
Even when his team play badly, you can usually bank on a decent performance from him. During Argentina U20s’ miserable display in the 2013 South American Youth Championships, he was one of the few steady players in the side, wearing the number 5 shirt he may well hold for the seniors in the future.
Luciano Vietto, Juan Iturbe, and Lucas Romero also played in this tournament, and may advance with him to the big time.
His style of play looks simple, but it’s effective. The role of defensive midfielder has become one which requires the ability of an all-rounder; someone who can defend and be physical, whilst also possessing the technique to pass and move within tight spaces. It’s not as easy as those who excel in the position make it look.
He’s willing to hold back and do the work whilst others take the glory, which may be one of the reasons he’s reached the age of 22 and is still in the Argentine league. He has the ability, mentality, and physical attributes to play in any of the European leagues, and some clubs might now be beginning to notice him.
It would be difficult to find a more tactically disciplined defensive midfielder, and at just 22-years-of-age Kranevitter has learnt quickly when it comes to this side of the game. The nice round zero in his goals scored column might almost be seen as an achievement rather than something to worry about.
He’ll make a foray up the field if his team are dominant in possession, moving forward to clean up scraps cleared by opposing defenders, or provide a fallback when his team are patiently building up an attack.
He’ll also advance when River’s opponents have the ball if he spots an opportunity to close down an unsuspecting midfielder. Even if he misses them first time he can usually recover his position and attempt to stop the attack for a second time.
The defensive side of his game relies on his good tackling, as well as the ability to anticipate opponents passing and seek out interceptions, as he patrols the space in front of the centre backs.
With the ball he can pass with his left foot as well as his stronger right, and moves into space to receive the ball again once he’s let it go to a team-mate. Coaches today talk about bravery on the ball being more important than bravery in the challenge, but Kranevitter has both.
He has cited some greats of the game when it comes to role models and players he’s watched and learnt from.
“I always admired Fernando Redondo. I also learned from Mascherano and Braña. Today I also look at Bastian Schweinsteiger of Bayern Munich. I try to look at them a lot and learn from them, noticing their touch, how to track back, and also how before receiving the ball they know where they will pass it next, because they have a picture of the whole field.”
Kranevitter has just won the 2015 Copa Libertadores with River Plate, adding South America’s biggest competition to his list of honours which includes a Copa Sudamericana title and a domestic Torneo Final win, both from 2014.
The next Mascherano or the next Redondo? It doesn’t matter. Kranevitter will always play how Kranevitter always plays, and the only thing that matters is that he’ll be Argentina’s next number five. In the future, football fans might be looking to River Plate to see who the next Matías Kranevitter will be.TV Reviews All of our TV reviews in one convenient place.
“Pilot” (season 1, episode 1 and 2; originally aired 9/22/2004 and 9/29/2004)
In which a plane crashes onto an Island
(Available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.)
After 10 years, after countless blogs and forums and discussions, after the show’s DNA has seeped into everything on TV, the Lost pilot still makes me froth at the mouth to see the rest of the show. I know what’s coming. I’ve seen the whole series and liked most of it (while finding some of it iffy). I know which questions are answered well and which are answered poorly and which are sort of just sidestepped. I know everything. But Charlie’s “Guys, where are we?” at the end of this episode still gets me every time. I want to know, too. And I want to know how these characters are going to |
That was no trouble at all. She was Akal; she liked being Akal. It was not like acting a part. She never had been herself with other people, had always felt a falsity in her relationships with them; she had never known who she was at all, except sometimes for a moment in meditation, when her I am became It is, and she breathed the stars. But with Shahes she was herself utterly, in time and in the body, Akal, a soul consumed in love and blessed by intimacy.
So it was that she had agreed with Shahes that they should say nothing to Otorra, nothing even to Temly. “Let’s see what Temly makes of you,” Shahes said, and Akal agreed.
Last year Temly had entertained the scholar Enno overnight at her farmhold for instruction and worship, and had met her two or three times at Danro. When she came to share worship today she met Akal for the first time. Did she see Enno? She gave no sign of it. She greeted Akal with a kind of brusque goodwill, and they talked about breeding ariu. She quite evidently studied the newcomer, judging, sizing up; but that was natural enough in a woman meeting a stranger she might be going to marry. “You don’t know much about mountain farming, do you?” she said kindly after they had talked a while. “Different from down there. What did you raise? Those big flatland yama?” And Akal told her about the farm where she grew up, and the three crops a year they got, which made Temly nod in amazement.
As for Otorra, Shahes and Akal colluded to deceive him without ever saying a word more about it to each other. Akal’s mind shied away from the subject. They would get to know each other during the engagement period, she thought vaguely. She would have to tell him, eventually, that she did not want to have sex with him, of course, and the only way to do that without insulting and humiliating him was to say that she, that Akal, was averse to having sex with other men, and hoped he would forgive her. But Shahes had made it clear that she mustn’t tell him that till they were married. If he knew it beforehand he would refuse to enter the sedoretu. And even worse, he might talk about it, expose Akal as a woman, in revenge. Then they would never be able to marry. When Shahes had spoken about this Akal had felt distressed and trapped, anxious, guilty again; but Shahes was serenely confident and untroubled, and somehow Akal’s guilty feelings would not stick. They dropped off. She simply hadn’t thought much about it. She watched Otorra now with sympathy and curiosity, wondering what made him look so hangdog. He was scared of something, she thought.
After the water was poured and the blessing said, Shahes read from the Fourth Discussion; she closed the old boxbook very carefully, put it on its shelf and its cloth over it, and then, speaking to Magel and Madu as was proper, they being what was left of the First Sedoretu of Danro, she said, “My Othermother and my Otherfather, I propose that a new sedoretu be made in this house.”
Madu nudged Magel. He fidgeted and grimaced and muttered inaudibly. Finally Madu said in her weak, resigned voice, “Daughter of the Morning, tell us the marriages.”
“If all be well and willing, the marriage of the Morning will be Shahes and Akal, and the marriage of the Evening will be Temly and Otorra, and the marriage of the Day will be Shahes and Temly, and the marriage of the Night will be Akal and Otorra.”
There was a long pause. Magel hunched his shoulders. Madu said at last, rather fretfully, “Well, is that all right with everybody?”—which gave the gist, if not the glory, of the formal request for consent, usually couched in antique and ornate language.
“Yes,” said Shahes, clearly.
“Yes,” said Akal, manfully.
“Yes,” said Temly, cheerfully.
A pause.
Everybody looked at Otorra, of course. He had blushed purple and, as they watched, turned greyish.
“I am willing,” he said at last in a forced mumble, and cleared his throat. “Only—” He stuck there.
Nobody said anything.
The silence was horribly painful.
Akal finally said, “We don’t have to decide now. We can talk. And, and come back to the shrine later, if... ”
“Yes,” Otorra said, glancing at Akal with a look in which so much emotion was compressed that she could not read it at all—terror, hate, gratitude, despair?—“I want to—I need to talk—to Akal.”
“I’d like to get to know my brother of the Evening too,” said Temly in her clear voice.
“Yes, that’s it, yes, that is—” Otorra stuck again, and blushed again. He was in such an agony of discomfort that Akal said, “Let’s go on outside for a bit, then,” and led Otorra out into the yard, while the others went to the kitchen.
Akal knew Otorra had seen through her pretense. She was dismayed, and dreaded what he might say; but he had not made a scene, he had not humiliated her before the others, and she was grateful to him for that.
“This is what it is,” Otorra said in a stiff, forced voice, coming to a stop at the gate. “It’s the Night marriage.” He came to a stop there, too.
Akal nodded. Reluctantly, she spoke, to help Otorra do what he had to do. “You don’t have to—” she began, but he was speaking again:
“The Night marriage. Us. You and me. See, I don’t—There’s some—See, with men, I—”
The whine of delusion and the buzz of incredulity kept Akal from hearing what the man was trying to tell her. He had to stammer on even more painfully before she began to listen. When his words came clear to her she could not trust them, but she had to. He had stopped trying to talk.
Very hesitantly, she said, “Well, I... I was going to tell you.... The only man I ever had sex with, it was... It wasn’t good. He made me—He did things—I don’t know what was wrong. But I never have—I have never had any sex with men. Since that. I can’t. I can’t make myself want to.”
“Neither can I,” Otorra said.
They stood side by side leaning on the gate, contemplating the miracle, the simple truth.
“I just only ever want women,” Otorra said in a shaking voice.
“A lot of people are like that,” Akal said.
“They are?”
She was touched and grieved by his humility. Was it men’s boastfulness with other men, or the hardness of the mountain people, that had burdened him with this ignorance, this shame?
“Yes,” she said. “Everywhere I’ve been. There’s quite a lot of men who only want sex with women. And women who only want sex with men. And the other way round, too. Most people want both, but there’s always some who don’t. It’s like the two ends of,” she was about to say “a spectrum,” but it wasn’t the language of Akal the fleecer or Otorra the carder, and with the adroitness of the old teacher she substituted “a sack. If you pack it right, most of the fleece is in the middle. But there’s some at both ends where you tie off, too. That’s us. There’s not as many of us. But there’s nothing wrong with us.” As she said this last it did not sound like what a man would say to a man. But it was said; and Otorra did not seem to think it peculiar, though he did not look entirely convinced. He pondered. He had a pleasant face, blunt, unguarded, now that his unhappy secret was out. He was only about thirty, younger than she had expected.
“But in a marriage,” he said. “It’s different from just... A marriage is—Well, if I don’t—and you don’t—”
“Marriage isn’t just sex,” Akal said, but said it in Enno’s voice, Enno the scholar discussing questions of ethics, and Akal cringed.
“A lot of it is,” said Otorra, reasonably.
“All right,” Akal said in a consciously deeper, slower voice. “But if I don’t want it with you and you don’t want it with me why can’t we have a good marriage?” It came out so improbable and so banal at the same time that she nearly broke into a fit of laughter. Controlling herself, she thought, rather shocked, that Otorra was laughing at her, until she realised that he was crying.
“I never could tell anybody,” he said.
“We don’t ever have to,” she said. She put her arm around his shoulders without thinking about it at all. He wiped his eyes with his fists like a child, cleared his throat, and stood thinking. Obviously he was thinking about what she had just said.
“Think,” she said, also thinking about it, “how lucky we are!”
“Yes. Yes, we are.” He hesitated. “But... but is it religious... to marry each other knowing... Without really meaning to.... ” He stuck again.
After a long time, Akal said, in a voice as soft and nearly as deep as his, “I don’t know.”
She had withdrawn her comforting, patronising arm from his shoulders. She leaned her hands on the top bar of the gate. She looked at her hands, long and strong, hardened and dirt-engrained from farm work, though the oil of the fleeces kept them supple. A farmer’s hands. She had given up the religious life for love’s sake and never looked back. But now she was ashamed.
She wanted to tell this honest man the truth, to be worthy of his honesty.
But it would do no good, unless not to make the sedoretu was the only good.
“I don’t know,” she said again. “I think what matters is if we try to give each other love and honor. However we do that, that’s how we do it. That’s how we’re married. The marriage—the religion is in the love, in the honoring.”
“I wish there was somebody to ask,” Otorra said, unsatisfied. “Like that travelling scholar that was here last summer. Somebody who knows about religion.”
Akal was silent.
“I guess the thing is to do your best,” Otorra said after a while. It sounded sententious, but he added, plainly, “I would do that.”
“So would I,” Akal said.
A mountain farmhouse like Danro is a dark, damp, bare, grim place to live in, sparsely furnished, with no luxuries except the warmth of the big kitchen and the splendid bedfleeces. But it offers privacy, which may be the greatest luxury of all, though the ki’O consider it a necessity. “A three-room sedoretu” is a common expression in Okets, meaning an enterprise doomed to fail.
At Danro, everyone had their own room and bathroom. The two old members of the First Sedoretu, and Uncle Mika and his child, had rooms in the center and west wing; Asbi, when he wasn’t sleeping out on the mountain, had a cozy, dirty nest behind the kitchen. The new Second Sedoretu had the whole east side of the house. Temly chose a little attic room, up a half-flight of stairs from the others, with a fine view. Shahes kept her room, and Akal hers, adjoining; and Otorra chose the southeast corner, the sunniest room in the house.
The conduct of a new sedoretu is to some extent, and wisely, prescribed by custom and sanctioned by religion. The first night after the ceremony of marriage belongs to the Morning and Evening couples; the second night to the Day and Night couples. Thereafter the four spouses may join as and when they please, but always and only by invitation given and accepted, and the arrangements are to be known to all four. Four souls and bodies and all the years of their four lives to come are in the balance in each of those decisions and invitations; passion, negative and positive, must find its channels, and trust must be established, lest the whole structure fail to found itself solidly, or destroy itself in selfishness and jealousy and grief.
Akal knew all the customs and sanctions, and she insisted that they be followed to the letter. Her wedding night with Shahes was tender and a little tense. Her wedding night with Otorra was also tender; they sat in his room and talked softly, shy with each other but each very grateful; then Otorra slept in the deep windowseat, insisting that Akal have the bed.
Within a few weeks Akal knew that Shahes was more intent on having her way, on having Akal as her partner, than on maintaining any kind of sexual balance or even a pretense of it. As far as Shahes was concerned, Otorra and Temly could look after each other and that was that. Akal had of course known many sedoretu where one or two of the partnerships dominated the others completely, through passion or the power of an ego. To balance all four relationships perfectly was an ideal seldom realised. But this sedoretu, already built on a deception, a disguise, was more fragile than most. Shahes wanted what she wanted and consequences be damned. Akal had followed her far up the mountain, but would not follow her over a precipice.
It was a clear autumn night, the window full of stars, like that night last year when Shahes had said, “Marry me.”
“You have to give Temly tomorrow night,”Akal repeated.
“She’s got Otorra,” Shahes repeated.
“She wants you. Why do you think she married you?”
“She’s got what she wants. I hope she gets pregnant soon,” Shahes said, stretching luxuriously, and running her hand over Akal’s breasts and belly. Akal stopped her hand and held it.
“It isn’t fair, Shahes. It isn’t right.”
“A fine one you are to talk!”
“But Otorra doesn’t want me, you know that. And Temly does want you. And we owe it to her.”
“Owe her what?”
“Love and honor.”
“She’s got what she wanted,” Shahes said, and freed her hand from Akal’s grasp with a harsh twist. “Don’t preach at me.”
“I’m going back to my room,” Akal said, slipping lithely from the bed and stalking naked through the starry dark. “Good night.”
She was with Temly in the old dye room, unused for years until Temly, an expert dyer, came to the farm. Weavers down in the Centers would pay well for fleece dyed the true Deka red. Her skill had been Temly’s dowry. Akal was her assistant and apprentice now.
“Eighteen minutes. Timer set?”
“Set.”
Temly nodded, checked the vents on the great dye-boiler, checked the read-out again, and went outside to catch the morning sun. Akal joined her on the stone bench by the stone doorway. The smell of the vegetable dye, pungent and acid-sweet, clung to them, and their clothes and hands and arms were raddled pink and crimson.
Akal had become attached to Temly very soon, finding her reliably good-tempered and unexpectedly thoughtful—both qualities that had been in rather short supply at Danro. Without knowing it, Akal had formed her expectation of the mountain people on Shahes—powerful, wilful, undeviating, rough. Temly was strong and quite self-contained, but open to impressions as Shahes was not. Relationships within her moiety meant little to Shahes; she called Otorra brother because it was customary, but did not see a brother in him. Temly called Akal brother and meant it, and Akal, who had had no family for so long, welcomed the relationship, returning Temly’s warmth. They talked easily together, though Akal had constantly to guard herself from becoming too easy and letting her woman-self speak out. Mostly it was no trouble at all being Akal and she gave little thought to it, but sometimes with Temly it was very hard to keep up the pretense, to prevent herself from saying what a woman would say to her sister. In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.
They talked about the next step in the dyeing process, and then Temly said, looking off over the low stone wall of the yard to the huge purple slant of the Farren, “You know Enno, don’t you?”
The question seemed innocent and Akal almost answered automatically with some kind of deceit—“The scholar that was here...?”
But there was no reason why Akal the fleecer should know Enno the scholar. And Temly had not asked, Do you remember Enno, or did you know Enno, but, “You know Enno, don’t you?” She knew the answer.
“Yes.”
Temly nodded, smiling a little. She said nothing more.
Akal was amazed by her subtlety, her restraint. There was no difficulty in honoring so honorable a woman.
“I lived alone for a long time,” Akal said. “Even on the farm where I grew up I was mostly alone. I never had a sister. I’m glad to have one at last.”
“So am I,” said Temly.
Their eyes met briefly, a flicker of recognition, a glance planting trust deep and silent as a tree-root.
“She knows who I am, Shahes.”
Shahes said nothing, trudging up the steep slope.
“Now I wonder if she knew from the start. From the first water-sharing.... ”
“Ask her if you like,” Shahes said, indifferent.
“I can’t. The deceiver has no right to ask for the truth.”
“Humbug!” Shahes said, turning on her, halting her in midstride. They were up on the Farren looking for an old beast that Asbi had reported missing from the herd. The keen autumn wind had blown Shahes’ cheeks red, and as she stood staring up at Akal she squinted her watering eyes so that they glinted like knifeblades. “Quit preaching! Is that who you are? ‘The deceiver?’ I thought you were my wife!”
“I am, and Otorra’s too, and you’re Temly’s—you can’t leave them out, Shahes!”
“Are they complaining?”
“Do you want them to complain?” Akal shouted, losing her temper. “Is that the kind of marriage you want?—Look, there she is,” she added in a suddenly quiet voice, pointing up the great rocky mountainside. Farsighted, led by a bird’s circling, she had caught the movement of the yama’s head near an outcrop of boulders. The quarrel was postponed. They both set off at a cautious trot towards the boulders.
The old yama had broken a leg in a slip from the rocks. She lay neatly collected, though the broken foreleg would not double under her white breast but stuck out forward, and her whole body had a lurch to that side. Her disdainful head was erect on the long neck, and she gazed at the women, watching her death approach, with clear, unfathomable, uninterested eyes.
“Is she in pain?” Akal asked, daunted by that great serenity.
“Of course,” Shahes said, sitting down several paces away from the yama to sharpen her knife on its emery-stone. “Wouldn’t you be?”
She took a long time getting the knife as sharp as she could get it, patiently retesting and rewhetting the blade. At last she tested it again and then sat completely still. She stood up quietly, walked over to the yama, pressed its head up against her breast and cut its throat in one long fast slash. Blood leaped out in a brilliant arc. Shahes slowly lowered the head with its gazing eyes down to the ground.
Akal found that she was speaking the words of the ceremony for the dead, Now all that was owed is repaid and all that was owned, returned. Now all that was lost is found and all that was bound, free. Shahes stood silent, listening till the end.
Then came the work of skinning. They would leave the carcase to be cleaned by the scavengers of the mountain; it was a carrion-bird circling over the yama that had first caught Akal’s eye, and there were now three of them riding the wind. Skinning was fussy, dirty work, in the stink of meat and blood. Akal was inexpert, clumsy, cutting the hide more than once. In penance she insisted on carrying the pelt, rolled as best they could and strapped with their belts. She felt like a grave robber, carrying away the white-and-dun fleece, leaving the thin, broken corpse sprawled among the rocks in the indignity of its nakedness. Yet in her mind as she lugged the heavy fleece along was Shahes standing up and taking the yama’s beautiful head against her breast and slashing its throat, all one long movement, in which the woman and the animal were utterly one.
It is need that answers need, Akal thought, as it is question that answers question. The pelt reeked of death and dung. Her hands were caked with blood, and ached, gripping the stiff belt, as she followed Shahes down the steep rocky path homeward.
“I’m going down to the village,” Otorra said, getting up from the breakfast table.
“When are you going to card those four sacks?” Shahes said.
He ignored her, carrying his dishes to the washer-rack. “Any errands?” he asked of them all.
“Everybody done?” Madu asked, and took the cheese out to the pantry.
“No use going into town till you can take the carded fleece,” said Shahes.
Otorra turned to her, stared at her, and said, “I’ll card it when I choose and take it when I choose and I don’t take orders at my own work, will you understand that?”
Stop, stop now! Akal cried silently, for Shahes, stunned by the uprising of the meek, was listening to him. But he went on, firing grievance with grievance, blazing out in recriminations. “You can’t give all the orders, we’re your sedoretu, we’re your household, not a lot of hired hands, yes it’s your farm but it’s ours too, you married us, you can’t make all the decisions, and you can’t have it all your way either,” and at this point Shahes unhurriedly walked out of the room.
“Shahes!” Akal called after her, loud and imperative. Though Otorra’s outburst was undignified it was completely justified, and his anger was both real and dangerous. He was a man who had been used, and he knew it. As he had let himself be used and had colluded in that misuse, so now his anger threatened destruction. Shahes could not run away from it.
She did not come back. Madu had wisely disappeared. Akal told Shest to run out and see to the pack-beasts’ feed and water.
The three remaining in the kitchen sat or stood silent. Temly looked at Otorra. He looked at Akal.
“You’re right,” Akal said to him.
He gave a kind of satisfied snarl. He looked handsome in his anger, flushed and reckless. “Damn right I’m right. I’ve let this go on for too long. Just because she owned the farmhold—”
“And managed it since she was fourteen,” Akal cut in. “You think she can quit managing just like that? She’s always run things here. She had to. She never had anybody to share power with. Everybody has to learn how to be married.”
“That’s right,” Otorra flashed back, “and a marriage isn’t two pairs. It’s four pairs!”
That brought Akal up short. Instinctively she looked to Temly for help. Temly was sitting, quiet as usual, her elbows on the table, gathering up crumbs with one hand and pushing them into a little pyramid.
“Temly and me, you and Shahes, Evening and Morning, fine,” Otorra said. “What about Temly and her? What about you and me?”
Akal was now completely at a loss. “I thought... When we talked... ”
“I said I didn’t like sex with men,” said Otorra.
She looked up and saw a gleam in his eye. Spite? Triumph? Laughter?
“Yes. You did,” Akal said after a long pause. “And I said the same thing.”
Another pause.
“It’s a religious duty,” Otorra said.
Enno suddenly said very loudly in Akal’s voice, “Don’t come onto me with your religious duty! I studied religious duty for twenty years and where did it get me? Here! With you! In this mess!”
At this, Temly made a strange noise and put her face in her hands. Akal thought she had burst into tears, and then saw she was laughing, the painful, helpless, jolting laugh of a person who hasn’t had much practice at it.
“There’s nothing to laugh about,” Otorra said fiercely, but then had no more to say; his anger had blown up leaving nothing but smoke. He groped for words for a while longer. He looked at Temly, who was indeed in tears now, tears of laughter. He made a despairing gesture. He sat down beside Temly and said, “I suppose it is funny if you look at it. It’s just that I feel like a chump.” He laughed, ruefully, and then, looking up at Akal, he laughed genuinely. “Who’s the biggest chump?” he asked her.
“Not you,” she said. “How long.... ”
“How long do you think?”
It was what Shahes, standing in the passageway, heard: their laughter. The three of them laughing. She listened to it with dismay, fear, shame, and terrible envy. She hated them for laughing. She wanted to be with them, she wanted to laugh with them, she wanted to silence them. Akal, Akal was laughing at her.
She went out to the workshed and stood in the dark behind the door and tried to cry and did not know how. She had not cried when her parents were killed; there had been too much to do. She thought the others were laughing at her for loving Akal, for wanting her, for needing her. She thought Akal was laughing at her for being such a fool, for loving her. She thought Akal would sleep with the man and they would laugh together at her. She drew her knife and tested its edge. She had made it very sharp yesterday on the Farren to kill the yama. She came back to the house, to the kitchen.
They were all still there. Shest had come back and was pestering Otorra to take him into town and Otorra was saying, “Maybe, maybe,” in his soft lazy voice.
Temly looked up, and Akal looked round at Shahes—the small head on the graceful neck, the clear eyes gazing.
Nobody spoke.
“I’ll walk down with you, then,” Shahes said to Otorra, and sheathed her knife. She looked at the women and the child. “We might as well all go,” she said sourly. “If you like.”
First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1996.Kameel Premhid on the challenges facing each of these parties, in this regard
Now that the election is over, South Africans face the prospect of a markedly new political culture. A smaller ANC, growing DA and emergent EFF will, over the next 5 years, come to dominate the public discourse on the issues of the day. That is apposite to their size in Parliament, reflective of the support that they enjoy in the country. Each of these parties face their own unique challenges.
What is certain, however, is that if they do not start addressing those issues today the 2016 and 2019 election already threatens to run away from them. As most politicians will attest, you win elections between elections. In order to do so, it is important to examine the leadership challenges each of these parties need to overcome so as to try and understand what will happen in the run-up to the next electoral cycle.
The ANC
For the ANC, then, Jacob Zuma's continued leadership of the party, and the country, proves to be the most challenging. Since his ascension to the Presidency, the ANC has been beleaguered by his personal scandals which have come to dominate not only the party but the government machinery too. One of the inadvertent consequences of blurring the separation between party and state is that the latter's credibility can do very little to rescue the former.
Despite the objectively commendable progress that the state has made in rolling back the pernicious effects of Apartheid, under the ANC, it is the ANC's internal issues that overshadow any good performance that it has to its name. Nkandla and the lengths to which the ANC has gone to defend it - and by extension, Jacob Zuma - has not only been voting manna for the opposition: it has disillusioned many within the ANC too.
That explains why, to some extent, Zuma was largely out of the spotlight during the ANC's campaign. Not only would he be an easy target from the outside, there are many on the inside who faced difficulty in campaigning for ‘him.' It also explains why the ANC cleverly delineated the party from Zuma personally. For example, by running the ‘I Am ANC' message, the party managed to create a sense of personal ownership, connection and history between it and the voters.
The merit in this is clear: the ANC relied on its own credibility to try and quell the rebellion it faced at the ballot box because of Zuma's actions that had rattled its own base. And it worked - to an extent. What is clear though is that for as long as Zuma remains at the helm, supported by a far-reaching and powerful group of patronage appointees, the ANC's ability to campaign for a better tomorrow - as opposed to a better yesterday - is severely limited.
But, Zuma is not going to be around for much longer. And replacing him is not as easy as it may seems. Nor does it necessarily get rid of all the problems that the ANC presently faces. Zuma has himself said that he will be retiring from the ANC and state presidency in due course. He has no intention of seeking a third ANC term and is unable to do so for the country in terms of our Constitution. But, given the personal interest he has in ensuring that whomever replaces him will continue to protect him once he is out of office, it is likely that he will play a significant role to influence who the next president is. It may not be to protect his legacy as much as it will be to protect himself.
Because the obvious choice that any new ANC president faces is clear: in order to rescue a dwindling organisation that is getting tired - both as a source of intellectual strength and good governance - the easiest thing to do would be to hang Zuma out to dry. It would be an immediate boon to the ANC's ebbing credibility and any person brave enough to do that would undoubtedly ride high upon a wave of public support. Zuma and his allies must be consciously aware of that. Given that many of his allies are also implicated in the Nkandla scandal, among others, they too have a vested interest in determining who the next president is.
That is why the manoeuvrings within the ruling party to replace Zuma will be particularly worthy of noting. While it is assumed that Ramaphosa will be the next ANC and South African President it is not a certainty. He may have proven to be a useful addition to the pro-Zuma ticket at Mangaung but his seeming reluctance to give unwavering loyalty to Zuma - in light of his own ambitions - may explain why the rumour mill is working overtime suggesting that Baleka Mbete and a few other more predictable Zuma allies will have an enhanced role to play in the new government. Ramaphosa faces a difficult balancing act: he must be loyal enough to survive but not so loyal that he cannot be thought of as being independent. While he may have been well regarded as a skilled negotiator during the transition, his skill and prowess has yet to be seen when matched against Number 1.
Further to this, whomever manages to build a successful coalition to assume the leadership will also face their own internal challenges at managing a diverse grouping with their own demands. As Zuma's first term illustrated, coalition partners cobbled together for the sake of winning internal elections then demand payment at a later stage. The acrimonious split with NUMSA, and within COSATU more generally, shows how these tensions - if they go unattended - not only threaten the internal dynamics of the alliance but can also threaten the ANC's status as the ruling party too. Especially with the emergence of the EFF on the left the ANC's guaranteed support of the unions is no longer as watertight as it once was. Not since Thabo Mbeki's administration - which decapitated unions, civil society and internal critics - have we witnessed such an open and sustained assault on the ANC President.
The ANC can, theoretically, silence many of its critics by governing better. However, that is unlikely. For the ANC has, by-and-large, been paralysed by internal factionalism and position jockeying. Its own political popularity will be its undoing: as more careerist politicians view the ANC as a means of personal wealth and power accumulation, rather than as a party to serve the people, it will turn its focus inwards and do so to the detriment of the voters. While it may be a long yet while for the ANC to be ejected from office, the series of scandals that are, of late, becoming more synonymous with the party will only increase as the number of internal disputes grow.
The ANC has some very clever people at the top who are not policy or intellectual lightweights. But, as is clear, even the cleverest of people can be reduced to state of incompetence when what consumes the organisation's energy is not getting things done but fighting to maintain one's own turf. It will take true leadership to turn the ANC's fortunes around. And we should all care about that given that while it is in government its crises become ours too.
The DA
The DA is in a slightly more interesting position. Indeed, its leader, Helen Zille, is the only political leader (other than Tony Leon and Thabo Mbeki) who can, at present, show demonstrable and sustainable growth during her tenure. While much of the initial success is arguably attributable to Leon's repositioning of the DA, the supersonic way in which that has been accelerated under Zille cannot be ignored as the cause for the party's recent growth. Zille's project has, electorally, proven successful but it has come at a certain cost: the party, on her watch, has made some calamitous errors.
The BBBEE debacle and the Mamphela Ramphele fiasco immediately come to mind. They isolated the very target that Zille so prizes: increasing numbers of black voters. Despite these incidents, a couple of unfortunate tweets and personal run-ins with journalists, Zille's position is more or less secured. While she faces some internal opposition within the party - as is to be expected - she well and truly dominates the DA.
But therein lies the problem. Zille was elected to lead the party in 2007. She has been party leader for 7 years now. The question that many are asking is how much longer can she last? Some asking the question may be motivated by their own desire to replace her. Others know that the longer a political party leader remains in office the more dangers present themselves. Not necessarily because of the leader's lack of skill to continue in that job but because of the sheer presence they maintain while in office and out. John Major's struggle to dominate the Conservative Party after succeeding Margaret Thatcher is testament to that.
The shadow Thatcher cast over Major's leadership did to the Tories what is presently happening to the ANC: it made the party hold on to a better yesterday where any incumbent faces comparison to a fondly nostalgic through completely unrealistic standard. And, as happened with the Tories, they were destroyed electorally and were only able to partially recover 13 years later. Zille's successor possibly faces the same daunting task.
Zille, of course, managed to avoid the happening to her for two reasons: (1) Tony Leon had been so caricatured by the time he left anything different to him would be welcomed; and (2) Zille physically changed the DA's branding to something which only she was associated. David Cameron attempted something similar with the Tories, as did New Labour under Blair. Whether Zille's successor would be able to do that considering the brand loyalty the DA has now developed is questionable.
Another interesting facet of the DA's leadership, especially with respect to Zille's replacement, is the leadership election that won't take place. Gareth Van Onselen, who has penned a remarkable attack on the DA and Zille, had long suggested that Mmusi Maimane would, after the election, abandon the voters of Gauteng and take up a seat in the National Assembly. So Van Onselen's thesis went, Maimane would then use that as the basis to challenge Mazibuko for the parliamentary leadership and, assuming he won, use that as the platform to replace Zille.
Van Onselen suggests that the breakdown in the relationship between Zille and Mazibuko is what convinced Zille to switch allegiances from Mazibuko to Maimane, the former being too independent and the latter being suitably malleable because of his ambition. Whatever the truth is - and in her own words Mazibuko has suggested that Van Ons |
great man doesn’t get it. Edhi is called the Mother Teresa of Pakistan. But unlike her he does not inject religion into his charity.
M A Jinnah
Quaid-e-Azam was a constitutionalist before he was anything else. He should have been valued in the subcontinent for that alone, but we are a people who perennially clamour for identity. After Partition, he would have been comfortable neither in India’s anarchic democracy nor in Pakistan’s anarchic theocracy. He liked order and he had values.
He was a man of refined European taste who would have disliked Bollywood, and would have been unable to access Faiz and Manto. He spoke Gujarati well and I translated an interview of his from the archives of the Gujarati magazine Visami Sadi (20th century). He told his interviewer in 1916 that the quality a man should be admired for was independence.
It is said the Labour Party denied him a ticket because he was “too much of a toff”. He was a superb advocate, possibly the best of his time, as his defence of Bhagat Singh showed. He was deeply secular for most of his life, a truly great man and the greatest Gujarati of Pakistan.
Javed Miandad
Who is Pakistan’s best Gujarati cricketer? We have the brothers from Junagadh, Mushtaq and Hanif Mohmmad and of course Danish Kaneria, the Gujarati whose name his own countrymen cannot say property (it is Dinesh — Lord of the Day). And then we have Javed Miandad, Pakistan’s greatest cricketer of any community. Less popular than Imran because he is dark and speaks Urdu nasally like a Gujarati, Miandad is nonetheless the man that people would want to bat for their lives.
His heroism is not from his machismo but from his refusal to be defeated. He broke the hearts of Indians with his last-ball six off Chetan Sharma in Sharjah, but he truly let his Indian fans down by arranging his son’s marriage to Dawood Ibrahim’s daughter.
Maj-Gen A O Mitha
Aboobaker Osman Mitha had a Hindu wife. His fellow officers would have been wary of him for this fact given the Pakistan army’s indoctrination, and he would probably have been more comfortable in the Indian army.
He would certainly have been uneasy with the one Muslim equals 10 Hindus bombast of his army, especially after 93,000 Pakistanis surrendered in Dhaka. Mitha, a Memon from South Bombay, was one of the few intellectual officers in the army who grasped immediately what the problem in East Pakistan was. Lt-Gen Niazi’s memoir, The Betrayal of East Pakistan, has a telling paragraph, a message that Mitha sent to the GHQ on reaching Dhaka:
“This operation has now developed into a civil war. No long-distance moves, no rail moves possible. No ferries of boats available. In fact, movement has become the chief obstacle for conducting operations or restoring economy and will remain so for some time…”
Pakistan was partitioned through civil war, not India’s perfidy. Mitha’s book, Unlikely Beginnings, is the best written by a Pakistani soldier. Bhutto, always one to do the wrong thing, sacked him, a fatal mistake.
Ahmad Dawood
The Memons are converts from the caste of Luhanas and they speak a mix of Kutchchi and Gujarati. Among India’s Sunnis they are the peerless merchants, superior to the Chiniotis of Punjab, the Malabaris of Kerala and even the neo-mercantile Gujaratis, like the Sunni Bohras of Rander.
Ahmad Dawood left Bombay and moved to Karachi with Jinnah. He set up mills in Burewala, Lawrencepur and Karachi. The Dawood family’s businesses also span insurance, chemicals and paper.
Bhutto skewered the Memons with Mubashir Hasan’s half-baked economic ideas, taking over businesses that the government had no competence to manage. Dawood Petroleum was nationalised in 1974, as was Habib Bank. There is no chance that the Pakistan state would have been able to run any business as well as the Memons, and many of them migrated to Europe in that period, their second flight after 1947. But resilience is one of their qualities and the Memons still dominate large parts of Pakistani industry (ARY is owned by a Memon).
Ardeshir Cowasjee
The story is that when the Parsis landed in Gujarat, fleeing the Arabs under Caliph Abu Bakr (RA), they were sent a glass brimful of milk by the Rana of Sanjan. This indicated that there was no room in his land for more people. The Parsis added sugar to the milk and sent it back.
It is indisputable that the Parsis, the greatest community of Bombay, have sweetened India. The people of Bombay believe that Parsis lose their marbles after 60. All interviews and profiles of Cowasjee mention the man’s eccentricity. Despite his grouchiness, and constant predictions of doom, Cowasjee is an optimist. Someone who has written as many decades on the issues he has would surely have stopped if he did not believe change were possible.
As a journalist, Cowasjee is methodical as Parsis are. He reported Zardari’s illiteracy (“may Gaad give us strut to save Pakistan”) or dyslexia at the Mazar-e-Quaid. Every paper in Pakistan – journalism is the laziest profession on the subcontinent — bought the state’s version and ran him down till he demonstrated that he did not write things he had not verified. He represents the best of Gujarat and the best of Pakistan. (The News)
The writer is a former newspaper editor who lives in Bombay. Email: aakar.patel@ gmail.comOlympic Fencing is probably one of the first things that come to mind when one tries to explain what is not a Historical European Martial Art
The reality of defining a group’s identity is that it is often easier to determine what it isn’t than what it really is.
HEMA isn’t any different, and recent debates have shown this very eloquently. With the rise in popularity of the practice, questions as to what exactly constitutes HEMA – or rather what doesn’t- have been raised and illustrate the difficulty of describing this weird animal
The reason is simple: there isn’t really anything like it. Kenjutsu, for example, can be simply described as a martial art of Japanese origin dealing primarily with the use of the sword. It is itself part of a larger category, the Japanese martial arts which include arts originating of what is considered today the country of Japan. This system is true in any other country. But then there is HEMA.
In no other kind of category will you find such a diverse array of practice; concerned with the whole history of European personal combat, or by certain standards from the 13th century up to WW1 or 2, assembling fencing with any kind of sword or weapon, wrestling, boxing, knife fighting, combative and even some hybrids like Bartitsu. Be they combat games, sports, martial arts; everything falls into this category. It is then normal that people would try to draw a line into such a huge selection, and that is where the problem starts.
For many people, HEMA is exclusively the domain of martial arts with an extinct tradition (or rather at this point a re-established one, since HEMA in many cases has already been transmitted to the next generation) reconstructed with the use of historical documents. Although it is a concept which gathers a substantial support, it is not one to which everyone adhere. This text will explain why I think that HEMA should not limit itself only to extinct and documented martial arts, and how such a limitation does not reflect on the study of History.
Show me the paper
Much of this concept’s fault lies in the misconception that history is solely the study of ancient documents. While it is true that a hundred years ago many historians used to limit themselves in such ways, scholars agree today that studying history is first and foremost multidisciplinary and that in order to truly understand the past one cannot simply study manuscripts but needs to consider archeology, anthropology, economics, geography or ethnology. Without these sources, our understanding of history would be terribly incomplete and flawed.
The field of HEMA is vastly dominated by Medieval and Renaissance martial arts, and so definitions are often aimed at the realities of these eras of study.
This is why my understanding of HEMA is that it is a discipline which seeks to study the martial arts (the term martial arts here encompassing also combat games and sports) of the past from a technical aspect. For this reason, I also include living traditions and martial arts recreated mostly from experimentation. I do not include pursuits for which the study of technique is not necessarily a goal; such as many tourney activities.
Too much in the “now” not enough “then”
The main criticism of HEMA as encompassing living traditions is the same criticism which Victorian scholars would have made concerning the study of oral history. It may come as a revelation to some, but many historians make use of oral history as a source of study. Oral history today is not only a respected source but is most of the time considered a primary source, even when it represents knowledge passed on for generations. Archeologists in America still use oral history from the first nations to uncover undocumented sites unoccupied for centuries, with sometimes surprising precision. Studying how some contemporary Egyptians live has allowed historians to better understand how the Egyptians of Antiquity also lived, as some parts of their life still remain unchanged after centuries.
Interview with a Civil War veteran
Of course oral history can be deformed, it can be changed or downright invented, and this is also a common criticism of traditions; that they are unreliable and not as precise as the “good old” manuals. But again such a conception reveals a critical misunderstanding of oral history. Historians are not supposed to simply accept any source as fact simply because it was put on paper or told to them, there is a certain study involved which includes evaluating the credibility of the source. The same holds true to the study of traditional martial arts: comparing these arts to historical manuals, to accounts of their practice or to their cultural bearings is part of a good research.
It is rather laborious at this point, as we do not know much about historical martial arts, but as our field of study progresses. it will be easier to determine what is credible or not.
Considering that living traditions are too much in the “now”, compared to historical manuals, is also flawed. While it is true that many traditions have been adapted to suit contemporary society, such changes can often be easily retraced. It is quite simple for someone to understand what changed in the practice of savate or La canne; by comparing it to historical documentation. The Canne de combat federation is even at the moment “restoring” their great stick curriculum in order to bring it closer to the Joinville tradition. As we speak La Canne students can now acquire grades in the Joinville method. This is a wonderful application of HEMA where tradition and documentation meet.
Bâton de Joinville being reintroduced to contemporary Cannistes
This separation seems to also consider that HEMA practitioners dealing “exclusively” with documents are not affected by contemporary notions and bias and are the most objective. It is quite evident when we observe modern practice that HEMA in all of its forms is a product of the 21st century. We are all men and women of our times, we are not medieval knights and live in a very different society with its own laws and preconceptions, and transpose them to our practice; living or reconstructed. Failure to recognize our bias leads to the Historian’s fallacy.
The culture of the manual
But where does this conception comes from? Arguably the notion of HEMA was created, in its first installments, to consider the recreation of martial arts from manuals, and as a way to explain it simply to practitioners of other arts and the public. But as the field of HEMA has considerably progressed, this does not stop us in any way to revisit this idea to make it more relevant.
It seems rather that a part of the HEMA community has forged its identity out of a certain distrust of traditions. Barely 10 years ago, the community was in full-blown hostilities with “Japanese swordsmanship arts”. It was the perfect enemy: not only was it the farthest from being European, it also dominated the popular culture of martial arts as being considered by certain members of the public to be the most advanced system of fencing ever devised. It was also one of the closest arts to longsword fencing, arguably the figurehead of HEMA. This, of course, brought many arguments between two groups, which couldn’t, and often didn’t want to understand each other.
To the HEMA eye, JSA was stuck in tradition and simply couldn’t see how far it had erred from its roots. To the Japanese martial artists, HEMA was sketchy and relied too much on manuals; which were widely considered inferior to traditional teaching. As time went on, HEMA slowly outgrew this rivalry as it saw several parallels in JSA with its own practice, and perhaps understood that it could not elevate itself by climbing on its neighbor, but by building its own skills and reputation. The Japanese crowd is also slowly realizing that there is value to the European arts, as they are now more polished both in techniques and in overall decorum.
This conflict left stigmas, and among them is, again, this idea that HEMA is somehow separate from tradition. As we have argued, traditions are in fact another source, equal to documentation as long as it is properly studied; which, just like manuals, should always be.
Documented elite and forgotten people
One very negative aspect of limiting HEMA to historical manuals is that by doing so, HEMA would essentially become the historical martial arts of the elite. It is a well-known problem in historical studies that documents often suffer from a certain elitist bias. Peasants and working class (and even sometimes the middle class) had none or very limited access to printing, until very recently. You might wonder what’s wrong with that. The problem is that the elites had no time nor desire to document every single thing they saw, and often considered the activities of lower classes to be beneath their consideration, or simply weren’t aware of them.
Even through certain manuals like those of Paulus Hector Mair, or the writings of Donald Walker or Allanson-Winn, we are only shown an outsider’s view of the martial arts of the people. They are often very limited accounts and sometimes may rearrange the system in ways which they find to be more adequate. We are then left with an anecdotal view of the art through the lenses of an outsider.
Donald Walker wrote on Irish stick fighting in 1840. Although little is known about Walker, his view on the “unscientific” shillelagh seems to be that of an outsider, and he wastes little time describing it.
If we limit ourselves to studying manuals, we will essentially learn what the elite of the time wished to communicate. Nothing more. This is an argument which is often presented to justify the study of oral history; as through these stories and traditions, we get a perspective which we could not get through documentary records. It is my opinion that HEMA should not shut itself from such a rich source of knowledge if it wants to fulfill its ambitions.
Where are the instructions?
Another category which is often rejected from common definitions of HEMA are martial arts reconstructed through limited evidence. Techniques of the Roman legionaries, Greek pankration or Viking fencing can fall in this category sometimes called “Prehistoric martial arts”; a rather confusing definition as they are not dating from Prehistory and their practice is often recorded, simply in a limited and indirect format.
Hurstwic Viking combat reconstructed through the Sagas
Their study is also erroneously referred to as “experimental archeology”. Archaeology is the study of human activity in the past, through material culture and environmental data. It uses a variety of sources to interpret its data; including historical documents. A researcher willingly ignoring a historical manual or material evidence in order to recreate a past practice would not be considered credible. In this regard, the whole field of HEMA could be characterized as experimental archeology as it seeks to recreate a human activity using a variety of relevant data.
So how is this once again HEMA? As long as a group research martial arts using a proper methodology- and this is the critical part of “any” HEMA- it can be considered a valid way to do HEMA. Of course there would always be doubt, but honestly such is the field of history as a whole and dare I say it, of HEMA itself; or, at least, it should be. If one claims to have reproduced the same system as Meyer without any difference, or doubt whatsoever, run away!
There are various groups who have successfully reproduced undocumented historical martial arts, such as the ACTA in France, who work on gladiatorial combat and Greek combat games. But here is the key, their research is complex and well documented, and is always in flux; because they use proper methodology. They do not simply pick up a gladius and pretend to fight like a Roman soldier; they pick up historical replicas, actual artifacts, research historical documents which describe their art, and closely study the culture and society which surrounded these arts. Their method is slow and complex and dare I say much more demanding than most studies made around documented martial arts. One cannot simply look at some illustrations to criticize their approach but they actually have to examine their whole research, and such is how science works.
The ACTA demonstrating Gladiatorial combat at DIJON in 2010
It might be too complex for most to undertake, but it is HEMA and one which in my opinion should receive more attention than it does.
Your timeframe is up
Another object of debate is “when” does HEMA cease to be? A variety of dates have been submitted, some ranging from WW1 or WW2, some even stopping at 1900, or even at the introduction of Asian martial arts in the West…
WW2 combatives. HEMA or not?
This is probably the hardest stance to defend as it implies that somehow historical martial arts would be different from their main preoccupation –history- and somehow have a limit in time. The only real argument given towards such discrimination reveals actually a lot about the need to define HEMA as a very exclusive group: Because otherwise “insert modern combat sport” can be considered HEMA.
Such a stance can have some practicality. One wouldn’t wish to see every single boxing gym, or Olympic fencing salle, in the world claim to be teaching HEMA, and add their training halls to the ever increasing virtual maps. But if we really examine this fear, it ceases to be relevant.
So let’s do it. Is boxing HEMA? I would say… yes. But before rolling your eyes please consider that HEMA is the study of martial arts techniques of the past. Now could modern boxing techniques be considered representative of the past? Yes, but not if you intend to study pre-Queensberry boxing! At that point, it would be demonstrably too different. The same applies to Olympic fencing. While both sports can be used as a source to replicate their close ancestors, they cannot claim to be the same.
Although no doubt worthy of interest, few people try to replicate the fighting style of Rocky Marciano for the sake of historic studies. A school of HEMA based on this style would probably not thrive.
So could there be someone claiming to do HEMA while they are training at Church street Boxing Gym? Sure, but why don’t they? Because there is no interest from the community to discover or replicate how Mohammed Ali fought. There is much more interest in discovering how John L. Sullivan punched, but that is not what they are teaching. So the answer to this problem is simple: the community doesn’t need to fix arbitrary limits to its practice. These limits will appear by themselves as they follow the interest of HEMAists. Maybe in 100 years somebody will pick up “The greatest ever boxing workout” and consider it HEMA. At that point, the WW1 timeframes will have as much relevance as they do today.
Then what isn’t HEMA?
If there is one common point to all of HEMA it is this: the desire to understand how people fought in the past. For some the interest will be in the medieval period, others will prefer to study the Renaissance. In these cases, living traditions will hold little interest and seem somewhat alien, after all, there are very few living arts which can claim to have remained unchanged since the reign of the Tudors. But the closer you get to today, the more traditions will have been preserved. To people researching 19th-century martial arts, the notion that living traditions are HEMA often makes perfect sense. Catch as catch can wrestling still exist, so does Jogo Do Pau, classical fencing or Irish Stick fighting, all of them in a very close format to their 19th-century incarnation. But you also find historical manuals on their techniques. Drawing a line then seems rather superfluous, as people will often study both manuals and tradition in order to complete their practice with the relevant sources.
Jogo do Pau is a popular resource for people studying longsword today (credit: Roger Norling)
Then what can’t be considered HEMA? HEMA must be defined not by the type of sources used, but by the type of research that leads to it. A group studying combat techniques of the Renaissance but refusing to study relevant historical manuals cannot be considered credible. Someone presenting a living tradition as historical without being able to present any evidence linking the practice to the past is not doing HEMA.
In the end, there is bad research, which is not HEMA, and there is good research, which is. If the end result can be presented as a credible format, using every relevant source at its disposal to practice the art: it is HEMA.The free Windows 10 license you receive is tied to your PC’s hardware. You’re still allowed to use Windows 10 on that same PC even after changing its hardware. Activating that license is easier than ever in Windows 10’s Anniversary Update.
How to Associate Your Windows 10 License with a Microsoft Account
In Windows 10’s Anniversary Update, it’s now possible to associate your free Windows 10 license with your Microsoft account so you can more easily reactivate your PC after hardware changes in the future. This happens automatically when you sign into your PC with a Microsoft account.
If you haven’t yet signed in with a Microsoft account, head to Settings > System & Security > Activation and you’ll be prompted to add a Microsoft account to make reactivation easier.
Once you’ve added a Microsoft account, you’ll see the “Windows 10 is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account” message here.
How to Activate Your Windows 10 License After a Hardware Change
RELATED: How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10 the Easy Way
When reinstalling Windows 10 after a hardware change–especially a motherboard change–be sure to skip the “enter your product key” prompts while installing it.
Microsoft has never actually wanted to explain exactly how the hardware-based Windows activation process works. Just replacing your hard drive or upgrading your graphics card shouldn’t cause a problem. If you’ve just changed a few peripherals, Windows 10 may just automatically activate itself after you clean-install it. But, if you’ve changed the motherboard or just a lot of other components, Windows 10 may see your computer as a new PC and may not automatically activate itself.
Head to Settings > Update & Security > Activation and you’ll see a “Troubleshoot” option if activation failed. Click that option and sign in with the Microsoft account you associated your license with. You’ll be able to tell Windows that you “changed hardware on this device recently” and select your PC from a list of devices associated with your Microsoft account. Microsoft’s documentation now explains exactly how this works.
Why You Can’t Just Use a Simple Product Key
RELATED: How Does Windows Activation Work?
The free Windows 10 license works very differently from previous Windows licensing systems. These all required a product key. Even modern Windows 8 and 8.1 PCs–and new PCs that come with Windows 10–have a Windows product key embedded in their UEFI firmware. If you buy a new copy of Windows 10–for example, to install it on a PC you’re building yourself–you’ll also have a product key.
In this case, the product key would always serve to activate Windows. But Microsoft hasn’t been handing out Windows 10 product keys to upgraders. There’s no way to find your Windows 10 product key if you’ve upgraded for free–you just don’t have one.
The free Windows 10 license Microsoft is providing to upgraders works differently. Microsoft won’t issue you a Windows 10 product key. Instead, when you perform an upgrade from within Windows 7 Service Pack 1 or Windows 8.1, the upgrade process registers a unique ID associated with your PC’s hardware on Microsoft’s Windows activation servers.
In the future, whenever you install Windows 10 on that same PC, it will automatically report to Microsoft’s activation servers. Microsoft will confirm that the PC with that specific hardware configuration is allowed to use Windows 10, and it’ll automatically be activated.
This isn’t actually made clear in the installation process itself. To clean-install Windows 10 on a machine activated in this way, you have to continually skip all the product key prompts while installing it.
This automatic process only works if your PC has the same hardware it had when you upgraded to Windows 10.
You Can’t Move a Free Windows 10 License to Another PC
RELATED: What’s the Difference Between the “System Builder” and “Full Version” Editions of Windows?
Bear in mind that this will only work on the same PC. This does create some an inconvenient situation for people who bought a full retail license–not an OEM license–of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1. Most people don’t do this, though–even people building their own PCs usually seem to buy OEM copies of Windows.
Those retail licenses are portable between different PCs, so you can take them with you from PC to PC. You might have purchased a Windows 7 license and built your own PC. Build a new PC a few years later and you can take that Windows 7 license with you as long as you remove it from the first machine. Rinse and repeat over and over–as long as you’d like to continue using Windows 7.
However, that free Windows 10 license you get as part of the upgrade process is tied to an individual PC. Even if you upgraded from a retail copy of Windows 7, 8, or 8.1, you won’t be given a retail copy of Windows 10. You just can’t move that free Windows 10 license to another PC. Now that the free Windows 10 upgrade offer is over, you’ll have to buy a new copy of Windows 10 if you want to move it to an entirely different PC.
This may feel a bit inconvenient. But, on the other hand, that Windows 10 license was just a free bonus in the first place. Retail licenses of Windows 10 you purchase can be moved between PCs in the same way.
In the past, Microsoft told people to contact its support staff. Gabriel Aul, Vice President of Engineering for the Windows & Devices group at Microsoft, tweeted that you could contact support from within Windows 10, explain the situation, and they’ll activate Windows 10 for you. This is no longer the officially encouraged way to reactivate Windows 10 after a hardware change now that the automatic troubleshooter is here.CHICAGO — David Pountney is hardly the first director to assert that his production of Wagner’s epic “Ring” cycle will focus on telling the story, rather than telling audiences what it means. Yet is it possible to tell any story without interpreting it, even inadvertently?
Mr. Pountney admits as much in a program note for his new production of “Das Rheingold,” the first installment of a complete “Ring” for the Lyric Opera of Chicago (in a coproduction with Teatro Real, Madrid). It opened here on Saturday night, with a strong cast and Andrew Davis conducting a lean-textured and urgent performance. (The next three operas in the cycle will be presented, one per season, through 2020.)
Though he has a long record of acclaimed work in opera, Mr. Pountney had never directed the “Ring” when Anthony Freud, the Lyric Opera’s general director, asked him to take on this challenge. The most compelling elements of “Das Rheingold” arise when Mr. Pountney’s few interpretive ideas come through.
The production sets the opera in the skeleton of an old theater, with wood scaffolding on both sides of the stage. (The set designs by Johan Engels, who died in 2014, were developed and carried out by Robert Innes Hopkins.) Three ghostly old women, perhaps the spirit guides to this theater, appear from the wings. They unpack a frayed travel bag to begin the opening scene of the opera, which takes place at the bottom of the Rhine. To suggest the river’s flowing waters, the women unfurl large swaths of billowing blue cloth.I’ve been ignoring the European burqa ban. It’s fraught. Nonetheless, the issue marches on. Recent attention has focused on France.
French burka ban: police arrest two veiled women French police arrested two veiled women this morning just hours after the country’s new ban on wearing the burka in public came into force. The women were arrested along with several other people protesting in front of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris against the new law. Jourrnalists at the scene said the arrests came after police moved in to break up the protest which had not been authorised. On Saturday police arrested 59 people, including 19 veiled women, who turned up for a banned protest in Paris against the draconian new law, the first of its kind to be enforced in Europe. Earlier, French police said they will be enforcing the country’s new burka ban “extremely cautiously” because of fears of provoking violence.
To start off, I think the covering is a repressive religious tactic to keep women under wraps and under control.
On the other hand, if I wanted to flaunt my stuff rocking a burqa (or anything else that covers my bits), why should the government stop me? Good on those protesters for their civil disobedience. (Something one hasn’t always seen from certain quarters.) We don’t want the law to be just another form of coercion, unless some better good is served, like the liberation of women from religious tyranny.
Which brings up a point: Burqa bans do not automatically lead to female emancipation. When the Shah of Iran banned it (I am told), many women were accustomed to it, and would never have appeared outside without it. So they just didn’t go outside. But that just shows that religious tyranny, when entrenched, creates unfortunate situations of moral conflict for believers.
If there is a principle behind the burqa ban, it could be worded like this: People should be allowed to wear what they want, free of coercion. Unfortunately, it’s not simple to tell what someone ‘wants’, or when someone is being coerced. People can report that they want things that they have been coerced into wanting. The fact that the burqa is associated with religion tells me that, ipso facto, there’s some coercion going on. I have no doubt that women who wear burqas will tell you they ‘want’ to wear it, just as Mormon women will happily tell you they don’t ‘want’ the priesthood.
So, let’s give both sides their due. I think forced burqa wearing is coercive, and I’ll even allow that government prohibition of the burqa is also coercive. Which leaves Muslim women caught in the unenviable middle.
(Notice that I’m not touching the ‘security risk’ side of the argument. I think it’s bullshit, like all security theatre.)
But even though I can’t stand ostentatiously religious and/or oppressive clothing, I’m reluctantly coming down against the burqa ban. Two things are pushing me. One: Legislating against the rights of minorities is a Very Bad Thing, and I can only think of a few things that would justify it. Harming bystanders or children would be two. These women are adults. Maybe they are in a coercive environment. Yes, that is messed up. I wish it weren’t so. But we can fight this in better ways than controlling how people dress. If they can be told what not to wear, I can be told what not to wear. Will I be told not to wear my patently offensive ‘Gay Jesus’ t-shirt? Come on.
Two: The law also gives right-wing jerks the ability to push minorities around. Forget that.
What do you think? I’m still convincible.
UPDATE: A good bit, this.Cisco Blog > Executive Platform
A Q&A with Cisco President Rob Lloyd and Cloud Senior Vice President Nick Earle
One year ago this week, Cisco announced a plan and a billion dollar investment to build the world’s largest Intercloud – a globally connected network of clouds from Cisco and our partners. As we arrive at the one-year anniversary, I took a few minutes to chat with Cisco President Rob Lloyd and Cloud SVP Nick Earle – two of the ‘architects of the Intercloud’ – about how the idea came about, and what they have learned in the year since the vision was unveiled.
David McCulloch: Can you take us back to early 2014 and remind us why Cisco needed to evolve its cloud strategy?
Rob Lloyd: In late 2013, even as sales of Cisco’s SaaS and cloud enabling technologies continued to rise, we started to see demand for a new cloud model: a hybrid cloud model that took into account our customers’ current IT investments and augmented those with a choice of cloud providers, and access to local and national cloud options to more easily comply with data privacy and industry regulations. We realized that if we could deliver all of that with one holistic hybrid cloud strategy that gave customers a high degree of control over security, policy and application performance, we had a huge opportunity on our hands.
DM: Enter Cisco Intercloud! How did the idea come about?
Rob: A few weeks before Cisco’s annual executive leadership team meeting, Nick Earle, Edzard Overbeek (head of Cisco Services), Jim Sherriff (chief of staff) and I met to brainstorm what it would take to deliver the hybrid cloud strategy our customers wanted. We knew we had some valuable assets already: Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) was capable of enabling consistent security and policy across clouds. Intercloud Fabric enabled portability of workloads between clouds. And our Integrated Architecture offers in the Data Center were already market leading. But we realized we could go further still if we fully embraced our extensive global ecosystem of partners. If we could combine Cisco’s strengths together with those of our partners, and move quickly, we knew we could disrupt current cloud models and become the market leader in hybrid cloud solutions.
DM: Whiteboard, notebooks or napkin?
Nick Earle: White board! The four of us began drawing the current partner/technology/services ecosystem on a whiteboard in the ‘Bat Cave’, a meeting room that is full of mementos Rob has collected on his business travels. The first sketch centered on applications running in Cisco data centers with remote access provided to our partners and customers, but that posed serious scalability challenges. We realized no company – not even Cisco – could deliver the global reach and local scale our customers were asking for to meet the massive challenges and opportunities presented by the Internet of Everything.
DM: So what was plan B?
Nick: We restarted the design from scratch, this time taking ourselves temporarily out of the picture and drawing everything from the perspective of the customer. We asked: what would it take to deliver the seamless hybrid cloud experience they wanted – irrespective of vendor or cloud provider? This was the key breakthrough. We redrew the global cloud network diagram with a green dot inside each element in the ecosystem – the green dot representing a technology capability that was at once secure and open – that would enable cloud federation. A pattern of green dots began to emerge and the lights went on – this was it! We had no name for the idea at the time so we began referring to it as the ‘Green Dot Strategy’.
DM: So how did the ‘Green Dot Strategy’ become the Cisco Intercloud strategy?
Rob: We wanted to make this strategy real for our customers as quickly as possible. So we compiled an inventory of all the capabilities we would need to pull it off: Secure hypervisor agnostic distribution of applications? Intercloud Fabric. Check! Application policy extensibility into other clouds? ACI. Check. Real time data analytics to billions of new devices and data at the edge of the network? Cisco Data Virtualization. Check! An extensive partner ecosystem that could put data centers in every country to provide global data sovereignty and provide a huge go to market advantage? Check again. We realized we had a winning strategy on our hands and we needed to move quickly to launch the strategy – at ‘Dev Ops’ speed.
DM: And we did move quickly. Cisco unveiled its Intercloud strategy fifty-six days later at our Partner Summit in Las Vegas. But that was really just the beginning, wasn’t it?
Rob: It all began with Telstra, our first Intercloud alliance partner, but once our ecosystem of partners had a chance to digest the concept, the feedback and uptake was off the charts! Now, one year after the unveiling, we’ve filled in a lot of the ‘green dots’ that we sketched on that whiteboard. We have amassed 60 Intercloud alliance, ecosystem and cloud provider partners with a footprint of 400 data centers across 50 countries, and the momentum continues.
Last week, I announced new Intercloud services together with DT at CeBit in Germany. This week I reviewed the revenues being generated by SunGard Availability Services that leverage their domain expertise in cloud recovery services, SAP and public cloud, and witnessed the faster time-to-market enabled by Intercloud.
When I see those advances, it’s clear to me that we have a created a big idea with the potential to truly be a game changer. Consider this: within nine months we’ll have a service availability capability that matches what the best known player in this category has taken nine years to build.
DM: What’s next?
Nick: Ha! You ain’t seen nothing yet! We’re really still at phase one of our strategy. In time, we’ll add hundreds of cloud service providers with thousands of services into the mix. That will arm our customers and crucially our partners with the industry’s best cloud service portfolio. The next phases are all about scaling out the availability of those services globally with alliance partners like Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, and others to be announced. Ultimately, we plan to create the world’s most compelling global cloud service exchange for business, where orchestration and management of services on |
Trials,” but to conclude this account with a concise explanation, it is worth noting the following passages taken from that article:
[I]n a blistering op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, two months after his resignation, Col. Davis stated, “I was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until Oct. 4, the day I concluded that full, fair and open trials were not possible under the current system. I resigned on that day because I felt that the system had become deeply politicized and that I could no longer do my job effectively or responsibly.” [Col. Davis] explained that the particular trigger for his decision was [a] memo … informing him that he had been placed in a chain of command under Haynes. Stating that he resigned “a few hours after” being informed of this, he mentioned that “Haynes was a controversial nominee for a lifetime appointment to the US 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination died in January 2007, in part because of his role in authorizing the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques some call torture.” He added, “I had instructed the prosecutors in September 2005 [shortly after taking the job] that we would not offer any evidence derived by waterboarding, one of the aggressive interrogation techniques the administration has sanctioned.”
In February 2008, Col. Davis told Ross Tuttle of the Nation about a conversation he had with Haynes in August 2005:
“[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time,” recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings. “I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals. We’ve got to have convictions.’”
This, I’m sure you’ll agree, is far more explosive than Col. Davis’s op-ed and letter regarding the Military Commissions, but even had he chosen to talk about these matters, he should have been free to do so. The fact that he has not is a loss for those of us who wish to see the Bush administration held accountable for its crimes (and who are keen to follow the chain of command from Haynes, via Susan Crawford, the Commissions’ Convening Authority, to Dick Cheney and David Addington), but it also provides another demonstration that, when it came to exercising his freedom of speech whilst employed by the CRS, Col. Davis had no intention of demonstrating “poor judgment” at all.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and launched in October 2009), and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
As published on the Huffington Post. Cross-posted on Common Dreams, The Public Record and Campaign for Liberty.
See the following for a sequence of articles dealing with the stumbling progress of the Military Commissions: The reviled Military Commissions collapse (June 2007), A bad week at Guantánamo (Commissions revived, September 2007), The curse of the Military Commissions strikes the prosecutors (September 2007), A good week at Guantánamo (chief prosecutor resigns, October 2007), The story of Mohamed Jawad (October 2007), The story of Omar Khadr (November 2007), Guantánamo trials: where are the terrorists? (February 2008), Six in Guantánamo charged with 9/11 attacks: why now, and what about the torture? (February 2008), Guantánamo’s shambolic trials (ex-prosecutor turns, February 2008), Torture allegations dog Guantánamo trials (March 2008), African embassy bombing suspect charged (March 2008), The US military’s shameless propaganda over 9/11 trials (April 2008), Betrayals, backsliding and boycotts (May 2008), Fact Sheet: The 16 prisoners charged (May 2008), Afghan fantasist to face trial (June 2008), 9/11 trial defendants cry torture (June 2008), USS Cole bombing suspect charged (July 2008), Folly and injustice (Salim Hamdan’s trial approved, July 2008), A critical overview of Salim Hamdan’s Guantánamo trial and the dubious verdict (August 2008), Salim Hamdan’s sentence signals the end of Guantánamo (August 2008), Controversy still plagues Guantánamo’s Military Commissions (September 2008), Another Insignificant Afghan Charged (September 2008), Seized at 15, Omar Khadr Turns 22 in Guantánamo (September 2008), Is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Running the 9/11 Trials? (September 2008), two articles exploring the Commissions’ corrupt command structure (The Dark Heart of the Guantánamo Trials, and New Evidence of Systemic Bias in Guantánamo Trials, October 2008), The collapse of Omar Khadr’s Guantánamo trial (October 2008), Corruption at Guantánamo (legal adviser faces military investigations, October 2008), An empty trial at Guantánamo (Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, October 2008), Life sentence for al-Qaeda propagandist fails to justify Guantánamo trials (al-Bahlul, November 2008), 20 Reasons To Shut Down The Guantánamo Trials (profiles of all the prisoners charged, November 2008), How Guantánamo Can Be Closed: Advice for Barack Obama (November 2008), More Dubious Charges in the Guantánamo Trials (two Kuwaitis, November 2008), The End of Guantánamo (Salim Hamdan repatriated, November 2008), Torture, Preventive Detention and the Terror Trials at Guantánamo (December 2008), Is the 9/11 trial confession an al-Qaeda coup? (December 2008), The Dying Days of the Guantánamo Trials (January 2009), Former Guantánamo Prosecutor Condemns Chaotic Trials (Lt. Col. Vandeveld on Mohamed Jawad, January 2009), Torture taints the case of Mohamed Jawad (January 2009), Bush Era Ends with Guantánamo Trial Chief’s Torture Confession (Susan Crawford on Mohammed al-Qahtani, January 2009), Chaos and Lies: Why Obama Was Right to Halt The Guantánamo Trials (January 2009), Binyam Mohamed’s Plea Bargain: Trading Torture For Freedom (March 2009).
And for a sequence of articles dealing with the Obama administration’s response to the Military Commissions, see: Don’t Forget Guantánamo (February 2009), Who’s Running Guantánamo? (February 2009), The Talking Dog interviews Darrel Vandeveld, former Guantánamo prosecutor (February 2009), Obama’s First 100 Days: A Start On Guantánamo, But Not Enough (May 2009), Obama Returns To Bush Era On Guantánamo (May 2009), New Chief Prosecutor Appointed For Military Commissions At Guantánamo (May 2009), Pain At Guantánamo And Paralysis In Government (May 2009), My Message To Obama: Great Speech, But No Military Commissions and No “Preventive Detention” (May 2009), Guantánamo And The Many Failures Of US Politicians (May 2009), A Child At Guantánamo: The Unending Torment of Mohamed Jawad (June 2009), A Broken Circus: Guantánamo Trials Convene For One Day Of Chaos (June 2009), Obama Proposes Swift Execution of Alleged 9/11 Conspirators (June 2009), Predictable Chaos As Guantánamo Trials Resume (July 2009), David Frakt: Military Commissions “A Catastrophic Failure” (August 2009),
9/11 Trial At Guantánamo Delayed Again: Can We Have Federal Court Trials Now, Please? (September 2009), Torture And Futility: Is This The End Of The Military Commissions At Guantánamo? (September 2009), Resisting Injustice In Guantánamo: The Story Of Fayiz Al-Kandari (October 2009), Military Commissions Revived: Don’t Do It, Mr. President! (November 2009), The Logic of the 9/11 Trials, The Madness of the Military Commissions (November 2009), Rep. Jerrold Nadler and David Frakt on Obama’s Three-Tier Justice System For Guantánamo (November 2009), Guantánamo: Idealists Leave Obama’s Sinking Ship (November 2009).Step 3: Setting the Items
0 = RK
1 = Pistol
2 = Silenced Pistol
3 = Signal (scoped assault rifle)
4 = Sniper Rifle
5 = Eagle (shotgun)
6 = Dagger (rocket launcher)
7 = Frag
8 = Quicksilver (smg)
9 = Night Vision Goggles
10 = Ammo
11 = Medic
12 = SLAM (other rocket launcher)
13 = MLG Horn
14 = Patriot (assault rifle)
15 = HMG (machine gun)
a = Recon (scoped rifle)
b = Spearhead (stun grenade)
c = Hydra (missile launcher with 6 rockets)
d = SCALPEL (missile launcher with 1 rocket)
e = Wrench (sadly not golden)
f = Conder (revolver)
Now comes the fun part. Inside the right side of the screen you see a bunch of names and numbers. Most of these represent in game settings, but there are four you want to look for. Look for the fields with names beginning with 'gear1' 'gear2' 'gear3' 'primary' and'secondary' as seen below. The numbers at the end of the names might be different, but that doesn't matter. Note secondary is on its own for some reasonBasically, these fields are used to store your in game loadout. gear 1, 2, and 3 represent side items like deployables, grenades, and rocket launchers, and primary/secondary are self explanatory. Double click on the field you want to edit (for example, primary,) and this should pop upThe number in the value box determines the item you want in the slot. This is a list of each number/letters you can use, and the item it corresponds with.Type in the number for the item you want (for example, 13 would set it to the horn, c would set it to be the Hydra) and press enter, only use the numbers/letters I described, as using any others will just cause the inventory slot to become empty. Your also not limited by inventory slots, so you can place Hydras into all of the slots if you want.Once you've finished setting your item, repeat for the remaining slots and when you're finished choosing your items, close Regedit (it saves automatically,) launch the game, and open a new match. You should now see your inventory filled with the items you chose. Be warned that most items in gear 2 will appear to take up gear 3's slot as well, but you will still have the third item as long as you have it equipped. You will also need to redo the setup if you change an item.Students Seen Bullying Bus Monitor Suspended For A Year
The Greece Central School District in Western New York has decided on a punishment for the students seen bullying their 69-year-old school bus monitor on a YouTube video that went viral earlier this month.
Enlarge this image toggle caption youtube.com youtube.com
Superintendent Barbara Deane-Williams said the parents of the four middle school students agreed to a one-year suspension and 50 hours of community service with senior citizens. They will also be required to complete a bullying prevention program.
"The Greece Central School District is legally required to provide all students ages 5 to 16 with an education, therefore, during the 2012-13 school year, the students who have been suspended will be transferred to the district Reengagement Center, located in a non-school facility," the district said in a statement. "This alternative education program keeps middle school students on track academically while providing a structured opportunity for students to take responsibility for their actions by completing community service hours and receiving formal instruction related to conduct and behavior that prepares them for a productive future."
The students will be able to apply for readmission to their regular school — Athena Middle School — if they've stayed out of trouble for 30 weeks.
As we've told you, the video showed 10 minutes of profane and relentless taunting of their school bus monitor Karen Klein. The video caused so much concern for Klein that a fund was started on her behalf.
So far, it has collected $667,304. Some of the students and their parents had also issued apologies.NEW DELHI—India’s government clamped down on more than 850 pornographic websites over the weekend by asking Internet companies to block access, even as many users complained online and critics said that it was impossible to police the Internet. “We have blocked 857 sites. Under the Indian law, we are duty-bound to examine and block websites that transmit content that violate morality and decency,” said Ram Sewak Sharma, secretary of the ministry of communications and information technology.
India has ordered Internet service providers to block access to more than 850 adult websites in what the government has described as a way to protect social decency. ( Rajesh Kumar Singh / The Associated Press )
According to the country’s information technology law, publishers and transmitters of “material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons” shall be punished with between five and seven years of imprisonment and a cash fine. An older 1986 law also prohibits publishing content that contains “indecent representation of women.” Many Indians learned about the government action from a Reddit India thread on Sunday that said some porn sites were inaccessible. “We are grateful to the government for enforcing the law because such sites are corrupting the minds and moral fibre of society and also lead to crime against women. It leads to social pollution,” said Vijay Panjwani, the lawyer who filed public-interest litigation against Internet porn in the Supreme Court three years ago.
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“It is not practical for the government to stop viewers or actors of the pornographic content,” Panjwani said. “That is why we have been saying ‘block, block, block.’ The easy access to online pornographic content must stop immediately.” The news portal Firstpost.com on Monday called it “a dangerous misstep towards hurting the freedom of the Internet. “Right now, there seems to be a ‘ban first, debate later’ policy and that can’t be a good thing,” Firstpost said. India has the second-largest population of Internet users in the world today, trailing only China. More than 500 million Indians are likely to use the Internet by 2017, up from about 350 million today, according to a new report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India. The rapid growth of smartphones is fuelling Internet use, say analysts. Millions of Indians are accessing online porn on their smartphones or by inserting memory chips preloaded with racy videos that are cheaply available at street corner shops, reports say.
Canadian-born porn star Sunny Leone moved to India a few years ago and is now a mainstream Bollywood actor here. Seeking an image makeover, she stopped producing porn. In 2012, three members of the legislative assembly in the southern state of Karnataka were caught watching a pornographic video on their smartphones. The politicians had to resign following widespread public outcry.
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This is not the first time the government has tried to block Internet content in India. In 2011, the Congress party government that preceded Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ordered Internet sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google to screen and remove offensive content about religious figures and political leaders. Lawyers say that while the government is legally empowered to block pornographic content, its effectiveness is questionable. “We are going on a wild-goose chase. We have to learn from other countries that have tried to block and have failed,” said Pavan Duggal, a lawyer who specializes in cyber law and pornography. “You block 10 sites today, 100 new sites will mushroom tomorrow. It is a very naive move.” Last month, Supreme Court Chief Justice H. L. Dattu said the court could not pass an order to stop an adult from watching porn privately. But the judge added that the issue was “definitely serious and some steps need to be taken” and said the government is “expected to take a stand.” Some Internet companies have said that it is impossible to block everything because many of the servers that host these sites are outside India. Some social commentators say that banning porn websites is a populist measure by Modi’s government. Modi belongs to the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, whose members often speak about preserving Indian cultural values. Other critics said that such a move is practically irreversible because no political party can afford to be seen to be demanding the restoration of these sites. “Banning porn is an age-old trick that many countries have tried. It will always find many supporters,” said Mahesh Bhat, the Bollywood filmmaker who wrote the script for a movie that launched Leone as a lead actor three years ago. “But what is this idea of India that they are trying to promote? There are many Indias — one is where centuries-old erotic Hindu temples still exist with stone carvings of all kinds of sexual postures. These temples are celebrated as our heritage. The other is an India that became sexophobic after the Muslims and the Judeo-Christian rulers came here.”
Read more about:On the backdrop of devastating earthquake in Nepal, the BJP's junior partner Shiv Sena in the Central and Maharashtra government, has raised serious doubts over the safety of nuclear power plants already operational and those proposed in the seismic zones. The obvious reference was the proposed development of 9,900 MW Jaitapur power plant in the state and party's strong opposition.
The saffron party reiterated that the government should shift Jaitapur project outside Maharashtra as the natural calamity like earthquake and human errors will adversely affect the population and the environment. It would create a havoc.
Shiv Sena MP Anil Desai raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday and sought government's reply on precautionary safety measures. He wanted to know how the Jaitapur project site is safe especially when country's 58.6% area is earthquake prone.
Further, Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray declared that the party will continue to oppose the development of nuclear plant at Jaitapur. Thackeray roared despite chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said that the project has now reached a stage from where there is no option of going back. He down played Shiv Sena's protest and added that This project will be completed at any cost now.
Thackeray has also announced that the party MPs will soon make a representation to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an appeal to shift nuclear project outside the state.
Incidentally, the Jaitapur project site is located in seismic zone III as per the Indian Standard 1893 (2002).
Nuclear Power Corporation of India td (NPCIL), which is the developer of nuclear plant at Jaitapur, admitted that seismicity is one of the key criteria in site selection. NPCIL official said Jaitapur site meets the requirements as stipulated in the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board's code on safety in nuclear plant siting, including absence of any capable faults within 5 km.
Further, the official informed that Jaitapur project site has much greater safety margins as there is no capable fault within 30 km. The site is safe and engineerable from seismic criteria. He added that the Indian nuclear power plants have been located in zones II, III and IV.0 Shares
By Gabrielle Seunagal
It appears that GOP leaders might actually be completely unfit to be calling the shots in Washington. Everyone in America knows that the Republican Party has control of the White House, the Senate, and House of Representatives, yet there is still serious talk about an impending government shutdown. Earlier today, President Trump tweeted that America needed a “good shutdown” to fix the ailments in Washington. The people of this nation are considerably frustrated by the gridlock and inability of Republicans to make progress with matters like healthcare, the spending bill, tax reform, etc. Placing the blame on Democrats won’t work when Republicans have majority control.
A government shutdown is disgraceful and represents utter failure in Washington. The current events do not cast Republicans in the strongest or most favorable light. If Democrats had control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, they would be passing all kinds of policies. There wouldn’t be any gridlock. Republicans have blamed Democrats for the failures in Washington for years, but now that they have the power, they are unable to get anything done. It is utterly deplorable and they all should be ashamed of themselves. Republicans look weak and ineffective.
Republicans in Washington need to work together and start making some serious progress. A good start would be repealing and replacing Obamacare like they vowed to do. Additionally, House and Senate Republicans should get the President’s tax reform policies passed. They will have a tremendous impact on working families and the economy. If a government shutdown occurs, it will serve as a serious political blow to Republicans and could affect the outcome of elections for years to come. It is high time for the GOP to get it together.
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Related Posts:As every author knows, writing a book is the easy part these days. It’s when the publication date looms that we have to roll up our sleeves and tackle the real literary labor: rabid self-promotion. For weeks beforehand, we are compelled to bombard every friend, relative and vague acquaintance with creative e-mails and Facebook alerts, polish up our Web sites with suspiciously youthful author photos, and, in an orgy of blogs, tweets and YouTube trailers, attempt to inform an already inundated world of our every reading, signing, review, interview and (well, one can dream!) TV appearance.
In this era when most writers are expected to do everything but run the printing presses, self-promotion is so accepted that we hardly give it a second thought. And yet, whenever I have a new book about to come out, I have to shake the unpleasant sensation that there is something unseemly about my own clamor for attention. Peddling my work like a Viagra salesman still feels at odds with the high calling of literature.
In such moments of doubt, I look to history for reassurance. It’s always comforting to be reminded that literary whoring — I mean, self-marketing — has been practiced by the greats.
The most revered of French novelists recognized the need for P.R. “For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself noticed,” Balzac observed in “Lost Illusions,” his classic novel about literary life in early 19th-century Paris. As another master, Stendhal, remarked in his autobiography “Memoirs of an Egotist,” “Great success is not possible without a certain degree of shamelessness, and even of out-and-out charlatanism.” Those words should be on the Authors Guild coat of arms.
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Hemingway set the modern gold standard for inventive self-branding, burnishing his image with photo ops from safaris, fishing trips and war zones. But he also posed for beer ads. In 1951, Hem endorsed Ballantine Ale in a double-page spread in Life magazine, complete with a shot of him looking manly in his Havana abode. As recounted in “Hemingway and the Mechanism of Fame,” edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Judith S. Baughman, he proudly appeared in ads for Pan Am and Parker pens, selling his name with the abandon permitted to Jennifer Lopez or LeBron James today. Other American writers were evidently inspired. In 1953, John Steinbeck also began shilling for Ballantine, recommending a chilled brew after a hard day’s labor in the fields. Even Vladimir Nabokov had an eye for self-marketing, subtly suggesting to photo editors that they feature him as a lepidopterist prancing about the forests in cap, shorts and long socks. (“Some fascinating photos might be also taken of me, a burly but agile man, stalking a rarity or sweeping it into my net from a flowerhead,” he enthused.) Across the pond, the Bloomsbury set regularly posed for fashion shoots in British Vogue in the 1920s. The frumpy Virginia Woolf even went on a “Pretty Woman”-style shopping expedition at French couture houses in London with the magazine’s fashion editor in 1925.
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But the tradition of self-promotion predates the camera by millenniums. In 440 B.C. or so, a first-time Greek author named Herodotus paid for his own book tour around the Aegean. His big break came during the Olympic Games, when he stood up in the temple of Zeus and declaimed his “Histories” to the wealthy, influential crowd. In the 12th century, the clergyman Gerald of Wales organized his own book party in Oxford, hoping to appeal to college audiences. According to “The Oxford Book of Oxford,” edited by Jan Morris, he invited scholars to his lodgings, where he plied them with good food and ale for three days, along with long recitations of his golden prose. But they got off easy compared with those invited to the “Funeral Supper” of the 18th-century French bon vivant Grimod de la Reynière, held to promote his opus “Reflections on Pleasure.” The guests’ curiosity turned to horror when they found themselves locked in a candlelit hall with a catafalque for a dining table, and were served an endless meal by black-robed waiters while Grimod insulted them as an audience watched from the balcony. When the diners were finally released at 7 a.m., they spread word that Grimod was mad — and his book quickly went through three printings.Futurama, which originally aired from 1999-2003 and then again from 2009-2013, has been cropping up a lot lately though in slightly different forms. A mobile game called Futurama: Worlds of Tomorrow was released in June and the Futurama crew came back for a single 42-minute long podcast last month. The show will also start to air on Syfy in November.
Hulu has been adding a ton of popular shows to its service of late. It now has the entire backlog of Will & Grace, a slew of NBC series including Parenthood and 30 Rock, TGIF throwbacks like Boy Meets World and Step by Step and has added new content like Runaways to air alongside its successful The Handmaid's Tale.
For those excited to finally get their hands (and TVs) on Futurama, you only have a few more days to wait. The show's whole catalog will be available to stream on October 16th.SEATTLE — The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has killed more than 10,000 people. If anything good can come from this continuing tragedy, it is that Ebola can awaken the world to a sobering fact: We are simply not prepared to deal with a global epidemic.
Of all the things that could kill more than 10 million people around the world in the coming years, by far the most likely is an epidemic. But it almost certainly won’t be Ebola. As awful as it is, Ebola spreads only through physical contact, and by the time patients can infect other people, they are already showing symptoms of the disease, which makes them relatively easy to identify.
Other diseases — flu, for example — spread through the air, and people can be infectious before they feel sick, which means that one person can infect many strangers just by going to a public place. We’ve seen it happen before, with horrific results: In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 30 million people. Imagine what it could do in today’s highly mobile world.
Much of the public discussion about the world’s response to Ebola has focused on whether the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other groups could have responded more effectively. These are worthwhile questions, but they miss the larger point. The problem isn’t so much that the system didn’t work well enough. The problem is that we hardly have a system at all.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Russian oligarch once close to Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, has offered to testify to congressional panels investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but lawmakers are rejecting his conditions, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing congressional officials.
FILE PHOTO: Oleg Deripaska looks on before a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan with Russian and Turkish entrepreneurs at the Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, August 9, 2016. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhi
The offer by aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska comes amid growing attention to his ties to Manafort, one of several Trump associates under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation over possible collusion with Russia during the presidential campaign.
Manafort and Deripaska did business in the mid-2000s, when Manafort, a Republican operative, was providing campaign advice to Ukrainian politicians backed by Moscow, but their relationship later deteriorated, resulting in a lawsuit, the Times said.
Representatives for Deripaska in the United States did not respond to the Times’ requests for comment.
Manafort has denied any impropriety with his ties to Russia and has turned over documents a Senate intelligence panel had requested.
Deripaska, who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, recently offered to cooperate with congressional intelligence committees in exchange for full immunity, according to three congressional officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, the Times said.
However, the Senate and House panels rejected his offer because of concerns that immunity agreements create complications for federal criminal investigators, the officials said, according to the Times.
The congressional investigations into Russian interference in the election is separate from a probe into the matter being led by a special counsel appointed last week by the Justice Department, former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Trump’s administration has been dogged by concerns about its ties to Russia and questions over whether Trump associates may have cooperated with Russians as they sought to meddle in last year’s election on Trump’s behalf.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Moscow tried to sway the November vote in Trump’s favor. Russia has denied involvement, and Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russia.
Controversy has engulfed Trump since he fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9 as Comey oversaw an investigation into possible collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.Image caption Sherlyn Chopra recently became the first Indian to pose naked for Playboy
Authorities in India have rejected a plan by the adult entertainment company Playboy to open its first club in the country, in Goa.
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said Playboy's proposal would not be considered by his government on "technical grounds".
The club was planned to open on north Goa's Candolim beach.
Playboy, along with several other adult magazines, is banned in India under its obscenity laws.
PB Lifestyle, the Indian firm with rights to the Playboy brand that plans to set up eight Playboy Clubs over three years and have 120 clubs, bars and cafes in 10 years, has not yet commented on the development.
Reports said the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Goa had rejected the proposal after misgivings in the party.
BJP legislator Michael Lobo reportedly alleged that the Playboy club would promote "vulgarity" and threatened to go on a hunger strike if it opened.
Goa Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar was quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency as saying that there had been a lot of debate on "the promotion of vulgarity" if the Playboy Club were set up.
The Goa club was planned to be 22,000 sq ft.
Last year Bollywood's Sherlyn Chopra became the first Indian to pose naked for Playboy.32 Shares
After a long hiatus, WWE Network’s “Table for 3” will be making its return with a brand new episode this upcoming Wednesday, April 27 at 4:00 pm EST. The guests will be three members of the legendary WWE Hall of Fame stable, The Four Horsemen. The three members are Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. The following is WWE Network’s brief synopsis of the episode.
“Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard reunite to discuss their historic run, their family legacies, and the state of WWE today.”
Mark’s reaction: There is currently no word yet as to whether or not this is the first episode of a second season. WWE Network hasn’t labeled the initial string of “Table for 3” episodes as season 1, so maybe they’re not going with a seasonal format. This Four Horsemen episode was filmed during WrestleMania 32 week in Dallas, so maybe there were more episodes filmed during that week. I surely hope so because I enjoy the Table for 3’s. Alongside Breaking Ground, it may be my favorite of the WWE Network original programming (excluding NXT of course).
I always considered Flair, Arn and Tully to be the core three of The Four Horsemen, so it’s nice WWE was able to get them together for a Horsemen edition of Table for 3. Do you like Table for 3? Are you looking forward to this episode? Let us know in the comment section below.One of the first things I mentioned when I started working at LearningSpaces two months ago is that LearningSpaces needed an overhaul on the iPad in portrait mode. The iPad, in my opinion, is the single most suitable device for information consumption; a handy, lightweight device that can be held like a book and needs no extra peripherals to work well.
What was the deal?
The iPad Space views I had to work with were essentially squashed together desktop views, what resulted in a less than good awful reading experience. The navigation bars on desktop are viewed as sidebars. So the screen is built up in columns. This fits the typical landscape ratio of laptops and desktops very well. But on a smaller, portrait oriented screen, such as that on the iPad you would expect the interface to be built up in rows as opposed to columns. This would result in more usable space and a much nicer reading experience.
Readability
My primary mission was to improve the focus of the user. Especially when learning, focus is key.
Read mode
One way to improve focus is to minimize the clutter on the page. When a user reads, all clutter such as a navigation bar or chapter index are redundant and distractive. This called for a distraction free mode that hides the whole interface of LearningSpaces. This leaves only the text to be read and results in an improved focus on the matter.
Line length
To achieve optimal readability a text line needs to be between 45 to 75 characters. Too narrow lines will result in having the eye travel back too often, which breaks the rhythm. Too long lines will result in having a difficult time to focus on the text. It also makes it more difficult to stay on the same line. I chose to aim around 75 characters per line which fits nicely within the bounds of a portrait iPad.
Typeface
In 1982 Robin Nicholas and Patricia Saunders designed the sans serif typeface Arial to increase legibility on low resolution displays. Arial and Helvetica (from 1957, where Arial is based on) are two of the most used fonts on the web as a result.
Today, typical mobile devices have much better, higher density screens (324dpi vs. ~100dpi). This alone makes reading a much better experience, but it also allows serif fonts to be used. We conducted a small experiment among our colleagues to find out what font is preferred; Open Sans (sans serif) or Charter (serif).
We asked the readers to focus on information intake and focus and found a preference toward Charter.
Another thing noted by the readers was that the Charter font felt more 'book-ish' and because of that, more immersive. Obviously, I went for Charter in Read mode. In'standard' mode I kept Open Sans, because it is the default font of the LearningSpaces interface. The two fonts clashed enough to discard the introduction of another type of font in the same view.
Font size
Larger fonts on websites is one of the current web trends that make a lot of sense. For a long time web designers applied font sizes equal to or even smaller than 12 pixels. This resulted in a lot of complaints among end-users. Especially older users experience more difficulty reading small text on the web. With forty year old readers, only half of the light in their environment gets through to their retinas compared to young adults.
Screen size / (char count * typeface font) == base font size
Well, at least, something like that anyway. Combine line length and typeface with available screen real-estate and you will find out your base font size. Is it comfortable to read? Congratulations, your base font-size is ready. Is the font size too small? Try to take a little more space from the sides or reduce the line-length until everything feels 'right'. Is the font size too large? Add more margin on the sides (reduce the articles width).
Don't forget that the articles width is not the same on different |
Now qp 1401 all day since 4am. Give me a break. Anyone had luck getting refund/credit. I tried & they sent me a link to cancel. — BG (@Cyrusdigsit) January 15, 2017
@directvnow Ive begged your chat support for a refund for two weeks now. Who can i call? Your service does not work. — James Garrison (@jamesdgarrison) January 15, 2017
@directvnow 6 weeks of hell TG I have antenna. isnt it illegal to charge and not suply svc. I want a refund — Michael Greenberg (@Mgreenb561) January 14, 2017
https://twitter.com/H3LV/status/819986275285499904
@directvnow Service out again all morning. And you all have the nerve to hide behind a weak no refund policy. I wonder how @Sling works… — Diego Berishnakoff (@diegoberish) January 13, 2017
https://twitter.com/Winter1sHere/status/818115934829342721
@directvnow this is not customer service. It's been a month and you're still chasing your tails. Where is my refund? Unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/zpSFIFZIkh — Jessehkahh (@Jessehkahh) January 4, 2017
Because of this, one customer got so fed up, they filed a complaint with the FCC, which did provide them with a $25 refund after they explained that AT&T wasn’t offering refunds, credits or extensions of its service period, despite the service’s failure to properly function.
Many others have now done the same.
https://twitter.com/mtthwbckmn/status/820428457762963458
If you want full refunds for @directvnow CRAPPY service, contact the @FCC. Complaint processed and full refund given. Process took 3 weeks — RF (@Rick783) January 14, 2017
@directvnow should've just issued the refund. Now ANOTHER case has been opened with the FCC and my bank refunded it for me. They are coming! — #ThePersistence (@IdontKneel1776) January 14, 2017
Hey @directvnow @DIRECTVNowHelp I got that refund.Went all the way to your executive complaints office with the help of the FCC #DirectTVNow — Lunchbox (@AnotherLunchBox) January 5, 2017
The demand for refunds is due to the fact that DirecTV Now has been struggling with performance issues.
Of course, new streaming services often face stability problems and bugs at first launch while they ramp up network and server capacity to handle an influx of users.( Just ask Sling TV, for example. It was buggy at launch, but later stabilized.)
However, AT&T’s DirecTV Now – which was not marketed as being in “beta,” we should note – has has more than its fair share of problems. The company is aware, as it asked questions about bugs and glitches in a recently emailed customer survey.
@DIRECTVNow New PROBLEM with Directv now. All of the sudden I can't login. I've paid 2 months now with problems WEEKLY but no refund? pic.twitter.com/Iv3fQlLsvC — Lawrence Adisa (@LawrenceAdisa) January 6, 2017
Meanwhile, customers postings to AT&T’s user forums and social media have been complaining about the service freezing and buffering, app crashes, being automatically logged out, and more. In particular, the issues seem worse in the evenings and on Apple TV, some have stated. (This latter complaint is only anecdotal for now.)
“Constant buffering, freezing and lockups at various times of the day…,” lamented one forum user. “DirecTV Now is NOT ready for prime time.”
In any event, it seems unfair – and potentially illegal – to charge for a service that doesn’t work, then refuse to refund money when the customer complains and requests a cancellation.
For AT&T, its inability to quickly address these issues, including not only DirecTV Now’s problems but also its customer service failures, could spell doom for the otherwise promising offering.
The service has aimed to take on traditional pay TV with a low-cost streaming option that delivers over 120 live TV channels, including a number of sports stations and the ability to add on HBO or Cinemax for just $5 more.
But it’s not the only option on the market. Dish’s Sling TV is also available, as is PlayStation Vue, and Hulu is preparing to soon enter the space with its own live TV service, too.
For those looking to cut the cord, channel lineup alone is not a determining factor. The experience itself also matters, including the user interface, recommendations, ease of use, pricing, cross-platform support, performance, and more.
Reached for comment, an AT&T spokesperson offered the following statement:
With any new technology there are going to be fixes that need to be made. While we understand we still have work to do, overall feedback on DIRECTV NOW has been very positive. We’re continuously updating the app to provide a better experience for customers. We encourage customer to keep the app updated.
The company did not answer questions regarding the refund process (or lack thereof), nor why it was at least not honoring refunds in the case of an email that promised a 30-day free trial, but then switched it to a 7-day trial when customers clicked through.
If AT&T chooses to further comment, we’ll update here.
Update, 1/17/16, 2:30 PM ET:
The company commented on its decision to not offer refunds, explaining that partial refunds are not provided:
DirecTV Now is a prepaid monthly service that allows customers to cancel at any time. Since charges are prepaid each month, customers can enjoy the service through the end of the current billing cycle. Refunds are not issued for a partial month.
And it said that it would honor the 30-day trial in the isolated incidents where it didn’t work:
We’re currently offering all new customers a free 7-day trial for DIRECTV NOW. We’ve provided a select number of customers with a 30-day free trial code to be input during signup. Customers who may have input the incorrect code would likely have continued their signup with the default 7-day trial period. While these seem to be very isolated instances, we’re happy to honor the 30-day trial and encourage those who initially intended to register with that code to contact us for a resolution.
For what it’s worth, Sling CEO Roger Lynch has been gleefully promoting his DirecTV competitor, responding to customer complaints on Twitter with tweets that suggest they “try Sling” instead:
Were you able to get a refund? What was your experience? Email the author: [email protected]/Decending
I'm sure most people are aware that there is a new album in the works - and that it might actually even be released in 2018. At least Justin and Danny have said as much - Maynard seems to disagree with that sentiment. With a new APC record & tour on the way, expecting a full release from TOOL in the same year might be expecting a bit much.
In the meantime, we can play clips like this on repeat while we continue to chew our knuckles waiting for the real deal. Wings started off as a live jam inbetween songs during the latter portions of the Lateralus tours, so If this doesn't make it onto the new album in some variation, I'll be surprised.
This is just my personal thought - but I believe this next album may eclipse Lateralus. Just a feeling.
Have faith.D.C. United Head Coach Ben Olsen, midfielder-forward Chris Pontius, and defender Mike Chabala recorded a public service announcement for the You Can Play Project, an organization dedicated to ensuring equality, respect and safety for all athletes, without regard to sexual orientation. The PSA will air as part of the in-stadium program for United Night Out on September 15 against the New England Revolution.
A portion of the script reads as follows: "We are united. We are united in pursuit of championships. We are united in our service to the community. We are united in support of all our teammates, coaches, and fans - gay or straight. All that matters to us is your talent, work ethic, and passion. If you can play, you can play."
Athletes from around the country, both amateur and professional have joined this admirable cause. Learn more: youcanplayproject.org1 of 1 2 of 1
The transit referendum result is finally out and, as expected, voters vetoed this desperate loose-tongue promise made by Premier Christy Clark during the last provincial election campaign.
I refer to it as a “desperate loose-tongue promise” because this referendum is unusual in light of the years of B.C. Liberal rule, or the way Clark usually governs. While the premier wants to demolish the George Massey Tunnel and replace it with a bridge in Richmond, she did not include this in the transit and transportation referendum. Why? When she wants to spend $10 billion to build Site C, the most expensive and controversial construction project in this province, why did she not consult us by way of a referendum?
Premier Clark’s loose-tongue promise was being treated as the golden rule, whereas the governing party kept a distance from it. When the plebiscite was launched, the transportation minister stressed in the media that the Liberal government was standing on neutral ground, whereas the Opposition teamed up with the mayors to lead a campaign to support the transit and transportation improvement plan. It is indeed intriguing that the governing party abandoned its role to support a government initiative, unless they saw this as a lost cause.
Since there are a lot of discussions on why the referendum has failed, I am going to skip the cause. My interest is in providing a Plan B that could raise funds for transit and transportation improvements and yet would be supported by the public.
My proposition is the government should bring in a super-luxury vehicle surtax.
B.C. has been collecting a surtax on luxury vehicles since the ’90s. The current practice is this: if a vehicle costs over $57,000, the provincial government will charge an extra three percent tax. If we could add a new category for super-luxury vehicles, say set the bar at $80,000, that would fetch considerable new tax revenue.
People might notice nowadays that more and more super-luxury vehicles are rolling down the streets, be they Porsche, Maserati, Bentley, Austin Martin, Ferrari, or the price-unlisted Lamborghini. If you live in Vancouver and Richmond, you can see these cars every day. Sometimes you may even see an N plate hanging in the back of the vehicle.
I once wanted to find out how much a Ferrari or Lamborghini costs in Canada, but I couldn’t find the list prices on the dealers’ websites. All I could find on the web were two 2008 used Lamborghinis and the listed price was over $200,000. Well, if a seven-year-old used car costs over $200K, what do you think a new Lamborghini would cost?
In a capitalist and democratic society, everyone has the freedom to choose and drive the vehicle they like. In an advanced civilized society, the government often has a progressive tax system (i.e. low-income earners pay less while the wealthy pay a higher tax rate). Our income tax system is like that, so tax on vehicles should be like that too.
According to recent consumer studies, B.C.’s sale of luxury vehicles topped the country in 2014; it was 41 percent over the national market-share average. For super-luxury vehicles, B.C. was 69 percent over the national average!
For the wealthy folks from China and Hong Kong, driving a super-luxury vehicle in Canada is a bargain. In Hong Kong, when the government collects a first-time registration tax on new vehicles, the tax for the first HK$150,000 (i.e. around $24,000 Canadian) is 40 percent, then 75 percent for HK$200,000, and for a vehicle valued over HK$500,000 (around $80,000 Canadian), the tax rate is 115 percent. In China, driving those super-luxury vehicles is even more expensive.
So that is why there are these super-luxury vehicles on the streets of Greater Vancouver. Not only are the owners wealthy, it’s a real bargain for them here in Canada.
In B.C., a 12 percent sales tax plus three percent luxury vehicle surtax means there is still quite a bit of room to move up. If the province implements a five to eight percent super-luxury vehicle surtax, the revenue collected should be able to cover the 0.5 percent sales tax that was rejected.
If merely collecting a surtax on purchases is not sustainable enough, the government could consider adding a super-luxury vehicle surcharge to auto insurance. Then there would be more funds for public transportation.
For the general public, the super-luxury vehicle surtax has no effect on their wallets. To those who can afford it, the extra tax is merely small change and it’s still a great bargain to drive these magnificent automobiles. Perhaps their extra financial contribution to our public transit system could earn them some respect.The day before the Boston Celtics opened their season-long six-game road trip in Los Angeles, second-year coach Brad Stevens was asked what his goals were for the team's high-mileage journey.
"We just need to get better," Stevens said. "We haven’t played well enough to get over the hump against the best of the best. And so we need to take care of what we can take care of to get a little bit better to do that.... You’ve got to make sure you take care of the ones in your control. We’re just not as good as we need to be at doing that, for whatever reason, right now. I don’t think anybody is exactly where they want to be at the end of the year in doing that, but our margin is such that we better be pretty close to it."
Stevens' words stuck with us, especially after Boston stole Thursday's nail-biter in Portland on Evan Turner's late-game heroics. Three of Boston's final four games on the trip were against non-playoff-caliber teams (Denver, Utah, Minnesota) and it seemed an opportunity to make up some ground despite the obstacles working against them in terms of travel and lack of rest.
Boston didn't just beat Denver and Utah, it put up a solid fight against the league-leading Golden State Warriors in between those triumphs. Now Boston has a chance to finish off this road trip at 4-2 with a win against the league-worst Timberwolves on Wednesday night. It would be the first time the team produced a winning record on a road trip of at least five games since February 2010, according to ESPN Stats and Info.
For the moment, Boston sits 11 games under.500 at 16-27, but that's good enough in the downtrodden Eastern Conference to be just two games out of a playoff berth and in a cluster of teams that could potentially jockey for final playoff berths.
It seems a bit ludicrous to be talking playoffs. These overhauled-on-the-fly Celtics were supposed to head out west, come fully unglued and stumble back home ready to spend the second half of the season jockeying for ping-pong balls.
But these scrappy Celtics have found something out west, while embracing their blend of youth and veteran leadership. And if Boston heeds Stevens' words and takes care of those games it can control over the final 40 tilts of the season, there is a very real chance that Boston could legitimately hang around in playoff contention.
Consider this: The Celtics own the easiest remaining schedule in the league, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Boston's remaining opponents own a.451 winning percentage. Compare that to the teams around them in Brooklyn (11th most difficult,.516); Orlando (16th,.496); Charlotte (17th,.492); Detroit (20th,.483); and Indiana (25th,.474).
What's more, John Hollinger's computerized Playoff Odds currently peg Boston with a 40.9 percent chance at making the playoffs. In fact, the projections as of Tuesday had Boston, Detroit and Charlotte finishing in a three-way tie at 36-46 (with Detroit sneaking in via tie-breaker).
Getting to 36 wins means essentially playing.500 ball over the second half of the season. Impossible? Boston still has a total of five games to play against the East's bottom-dwellers (three games vs. the Knicks; two vs. the 76ers), which will offset some of the more daunting remaining tilts, including three games against Cleveland, along with visits from Atlanta and Golden State.
That means Boston's playoff fate is likely to hinge on a series of games against those teams it's hovering around. Boston plays three games against Miami (including a visit this Sunday in a Super Bowl appetizer), along with two games apiece against Charlotte, Orlando, Indiana and Detroit.
In those games, Boston essentially controls its own fate. Win the majority of those tilts against those teams nearest them in the standings and it's even more likely Boston sneaks into the postseason.
Let's table the discussion about whether it's in Boston's best interest to make the playoffs for further down the road. We'll simply say this for now: Instilling a winning expectation and teaching a young team to be competitive is extremely important for the Celtics moving forward, especially if this young nucleus will serve as the core of the team as it builds.
There is, of course, the looming February trade deadline that, if Boston's roster is stripped of some veterans as other more surefire playoff teams load up, could affect the team's ability to make a sustained run.
And there is a chance that we're simply overreacting to a positive stretch for Boston. But what the Celtics have shown on this road trip is hard to ignore. Boston is winning the close games that were so elusive earlier in the season. Before Thursday's win in Portland, Boston was a mere 5-15 in "clutch" games, where the team was within five points of its opponent in the final five minutes.
The Celtics are 3-1 in such games over their last four. This team is learning how to compete in close games and capitalizing in winnable situations. It's the sort of progress that was sorely lacking earlier in the year and prompted, in part, the decision to trade away the likes of Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green.
Unfathomable as it seemed after the roster overhaul and enduring some of those tough losses earlier in the season, these Celtics can legitimately daydream about the postseason.
They simply must take care of what they can control.In what officials are calling a "tragic medical error," a surgical team removed the wrong kidney from a patient with kidney cancer last week at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, the hospital disclosed Monday.
Officials said the error occurred weeks before the surgery, when the kidney on the wrong side was identified on the patient's medical charts as cancerous. The patient, who was not identified, was left with the cancerous kidney when the healthy one was removed.
"We feel just profoundly responsible for this," said Dr. Samuel Carlson, chief medical officer for Park Nicollet Health Services, which owns Methodist Hospital.
Hospital officials said that they apologized to the patient and family, and "are working closely with them to support them in every way we can."
The hospital took the unusual step of announcing the mistake in a memo to Park Nicollet employees on Monday. "An error of this degree has, to the best of our knowledge, never happened at this hospital before," Carlson said.
Officials would not discuss what effect it may have on the patient's chances of recovery.
They said the family has asked for privacy, that "the patient has chosen to remain at Methodist Hospital" and that all treatment options are being discussed.
"This is a devastating tragedy for the family," officials said in Monday's staff memo. "It is also a tragedy for all of us at Park Nicollet."
They said the surgeon in this case has voluntarily stopped seeing patients until the hospital completes its inquiry of how the mistake occurred.
Statewide, a total of 24 wrong-site surgeries were reported to the Minnesota Department of Health between October 2006 and October 2007.
Two of those errors were at Methodist, but Carlson said they were relatively minor in comparison to last week's error: a needle biopsy on the wrong lung, and a diagnostic exam of the wrong bronchial tube.
He said they decided to go public in this case because of its unusual nature and severity. This time, he said, the mistake was "certainly more severe and more significant."
Kathleen Harder, a University of Minnesota researcher who studies medical errors, said mistakes of this magnitude are rare but do happen.
"They remove the wrong ovary, take off the wrong leg," she said. Many hospitals have stepped up efforts to catch errors in the operating room. But as in this case, she noted, the problem can occur long before the operation begins. "It's wrong in the chart... and that sets it up for a train wreck."
Nationally, wrong site surgeries are proving difficult to eliminate, according to the Health Department's annual report on medical errors.
In December, the Minnesota Hospital Association started a statewide campaign to try to reduce the number of wrong-site surgeries, with such things as safety checklists and routines for marking surgical sites. Some 90 hospitals agreed to adopt those procedures.
Methodist said those procedures were used in this case. But the day after surgery, a hospital pathologist reported that the kidney that had been removed had no evidence of cancer.
Hospital officials would not talk about the next steps for this patient. But Carlson, speaking generally, said that the options would depend on individual circumstances, such as "where the cancer in the kidney was located," and whether only that part could be removed. Asked about the possibility of a kidney transplant, he said that would depend on a patient's condition, as well. In some cases, he noted, a history of cancer could make someone ineligible for a transplant.
Ultimately, the decision will be up to the patient and the patient's family.
"As you can imagine, currently they are needing a lot of support and understanding," he said, "and we're doing our very best to provide them with that."
Josephine Marcotty • 612-673-7394 • [email protected] Maura Lerner • 612-673-7384 • [email protected] by passing a Life at Conception Act, you can end abortion in America
Since the Supreme Court is waiting for someone to tell them who the law counts as persons, let's not wait another minute
No matter the amount you give, your donation will be matched by a generous supporter
Dear Pro-life American,Tragically, over 4,000 babies are aborted every day in our nation.That's over 1.6 million every year!The Supreme Court itself admitted in Roe that once Congress establishes the personhood of unborn children, they must be protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution which explicitly says: "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property."Your petition will let your Senators and Congressman know that their constituents support full protection for the unborn and that they must stand for life in Washington.After signing the petition, please consider chipping in with a donation of $10, $25 or more to NPLA.Sincerely,Rand Paul,United States Senator (R-KY)Has he no shame? Defiant Lance Armstrong defies critics by posting provocative picture of himself surrounded by yellow jerseys he won by cheating... and image is already mocked in new set of hilarious memes
Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles last month after an investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency
Picture sweeps the internet as new meme poking fun at Armstrong's cheating scandal
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Lance Armstrong has posted a picture on Twitter of himself relaxing surrounded by his tainted Tour de France yellow jerseys in what is seen as a provocative gesture toward his opponents, but it appears the internet may have the last laugh.
The Texas cyclist was stripped of the seven titles last month after the U.S. Anti-doping Agency (USADA) found that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during his record-breaking Tour de France run.
But Armstrong is clearly not letting it get to him, as he posted a panoramic photo on Twitter of him lounging in his home - surrounded by the one thing the USADA can't take away from him - with the cap tion 'Back in Austin and just layin' around...'
Cheek: Lance Armstrong posted a picture of himself lying down surrounded by his yellow jerseys
Meme: It wasn't long before internet jokesters took Armstrong to task over the Twitter image
The jerseys are hanging in frames on the walls near the L-shaped sofa, each spotlighted by an individual lightbulb, with a pair of curtains left open to clearly display the last of them.
Last month, the International Cycling Union (UCI) ratified the sanctions recommended by USADA, who concluded Armstrong and his U.S. Postal team ran 'the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.'
All Armstrong's results from August 1, 1998 were expunged from the record books, including his seven consecutive Tour de France 'wins' from 1999 to 2005, and the 41-year-old was banned from cycling for life.
It wasn't long before internet jokesters took Armstrong to task over the image - as he was mocked in hilarious memes based on the photo.
Last week, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) also announced last week that it would not appeal the sanctions, while the International Olympic Committee has opened an investigation which could see Armstrong stripped of his road time-trial bronze medal from the 2000 Games in Sydney.
Admirers? Another Twitter user took the image of Armstrong and added other famous cheaters
Disgrace: All Armstrong's results from August 1, 1998 were expunged from the record books, including his seven consecutive Tour de France 'wins' from 1999 to 2005, and the 41-year-old was banned from cycling for life
Armstrong did not cooperate with the USADA investigation and has consistently denied wrongdoing.
The doping allegations brought critics out of the woodwork, who blasted the cyclist as a cheater who shamed the sport.
Betsy Andreu, the wife of Armstrong's former teammate Frankie Andreu went so far as to call Armstrong the 'Bernie Madoff' of sport, telling NBC's Rock Center that he played the world and the media like a fiddle for years while knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs.
She said: 'Bernie Madoff was one of the biggest frauds in the history of the world, in the history of finance maybe? Lance is the biggest fraud in the history of sport,' she told the TV station.
Playing dirty: Dutch soccer bad boy Mark van Bommel and his yellow cards were also in on the Lance Armstrong fun
Shamed: The doping allegations brought critics of Armstrong out of the woodwork, who blasted the cyclist as a cheater who brought shame to the sport
Passive aggressive: Though he has since removed the line '7-time Tour de France champion' from his Twitter profile, the picture is sure to be seen as provocative gesture
Last week, Armstrong also cut formal ties with his cancer-fighting charity to avoid further damage brought by doping charges and the removal of the Tour titles.
Armstrong resigned from the board of directors for Livestrong on November 4 after he had previously quit as chairman of the charity on October 17.
Though he has since removed the line '7-time Tour de France champion' from his Twitter profile, the photo posted over the weekend is sure to be seen as provocative gesture.
The fall-out from the USADA's verdict has been extensive, with 11 of Armstrong's former team-mates receiving six-month bans after admitting their own doping offences in the course of their testimonies against him.Jason Howe, 48, and Adrian Perez (L), 48, who were married in Spain, and again in California, hold their one-year-old twin daughters Clara (R) and Olivia at a playground in West Hollywood, California after the United States Supreme court ruled on California's Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act on June 26, 2013. Photo by Lucy Nicholson for Reuters.
The Utah Supreme Court on Thursday lifted an order that had blocked spouses in same-sex marriages from adopting their partners’ children, state officials said.
The state’s highest court had imposed a stay on the adoptions in May, while Utah appealed a federal ruling last year that permitted same-sex marriages for 17 days before the Supreme Court halted them pending appeal.
Earlier this month, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied appeals of same-sex marriage bans and an appeals court reaffirmed its order making same-sex marriage legal in the state, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes ordered county clerks to recognize all legally performed same-sex marriages.
On the same day, Reyes petitioned the state Supreme Court to remove its stay of the adoptions, saying the issue was now moot.
Missy Larsen, a spokeswoman for Reyes, said the high court’s action on Thursday came in response to that petition.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Peter Cooney)Mike Pence said he could remember debating during the Bill Clinton years "whether character mattered to the presidency." | Getty Pence targets Bill Clinton's character
MESA, Ariz. -- Mike Pence took aim at Bill Clinton on Thursday, saying “character matters to the presidency.”
"I’m old enough to remember back in the last Clinton administration where America really had a debate over whether character mattered to the presidency," the Republican vice presidential nominee told a few hundred people at Living World Bible Church. "We don’t need to have that debate again. Character matters to the presidency and Donald Trump will bring the highest level of integrity to the highest office in the land. You can count on it."
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Pence has frequently hit Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for what he calls a lack of integrity, but Thursday marked the first time he implicated Bill Clinton in the argument. He avoided his typical indictment of Hillary Clinton's use of private email server while secretary of state, instead focusing his attack on her husband.
Pence’s running mate, Republican nominee Donald Trump, has not shown a similar reticence in attacking Bill Clinton over the sex scandal that led to Clinton's impeachment in the House but an ultimate acquittal in the Senate.
"I'm so glad they kept that dress," Trump said a rally in August, in reference to an infamous blue dress that implicated the former president in the affair.
Hillary Clinton, for her part, is preparing for Trump to raise the scandal in the upcoming presidential debate. Trump has also gone further in attacking Bill Clinton, accusing the former president of rape.Newcastle United will reportedly make a last-ditch effort to sign Saido Berahino before the January transfer window closes. The 22-year-old has been persistently linked with a move away from West Bromwich Albion and the Magpies are thought to be among the clubs interested in his services.
Berahino nearly left The Hawthorns in the summer, when he came close to signing for Tottenham Hotspur. Since then, however, he has been in and out of the West Brom team, and manager Tony Pulis recently admitted the forward had failed to recapture his sparkling form of last season.
Newcastle boss Steve McClaren is keen to take the player to St James' Park, with Aleksandar Mitrović struggling in front of goal. The Magpies intend to make an £18m ($25.6m, €23.67m) bid for the sought-after forward, according to the Daily Star.
Meanwhile, Pulis has admitted the uncertainty surrounding his future at West Brom is damaging Berahino's career. "He has to clear his mind and get down to doing what he does best and that's playing," the West Brom boss said. "This situation is not doing anyone any favours and it's certainly not doing Saido any at all.
"He's a footballer and a young lad who has a tremendous talent. He should be a 38 games a season man, every season. He's missed too many games this half of the season without a doubt."
Pulis also stressed to Berhaino the need for him to be respectful towards his current employers, West Brom.
"He has to realise and recognise that whichever way it goes, whichever way the wind blows, it's about football and his football life," the West Brom manager said. "Saido still has 18 months-two years left of his contract. No one broke his hand to sign that contract, so he's got to respect that the club have looked after him well.
"I said to him, sometimes in life things don't run your way and you have to react in a way that'll take you the next step. You can't fall over and stay down too long, you have to get straight back up."1. Here’s the bald truth: Fur and hair are essentially the same thing, constructed of identical protein building blocks called keratin.
2. All mammals have hair at some point in their lives, be it the fuzz on a newborn whale, a shield of hard porcupine quills or your long locks.
3. Insects can wear it, too. The microscopic belly hairs on the male freshwater Micronecta may help amplify its mating call. Some scientists think that when the bug rubs its penis against the tip of its abdomen, the hairs trap air and sound, making it the world’s loudest animal relative to its size.
4. The leg hairs on hunting spiders and crickets function as ears. The hairs sense air motion and can “hear” low-frequency sounds — buzzing bees, for example — and medium-frequency ones, such as car horns.
5. Human hair can “taste.” Our lungs and nasal passages have exquisitely tiny hairs called cilia that sweep out impurities. A University of Iowa graduate student discovered that lung cilia respond only to bitter flavors, such as nicotine. Upon tasting it, the hairs increase their rate of sweeping.President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE touted Christmas spending and a strong stock market in a Monday evening tweet.
"The world was gloomy before I won — there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars!" the president-elect wrote.
The world was gloomy before I won - there was no hope. Now the market is up nearly 10% and Christmas spending is over a trillion dollars! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 26, 2016
According to a Deloitte University Press forecast, total 2016 holiday sales were expected to exceed $1 trillion. However, PolitiFact noted that the National Retail Federation expected November and December sales to reach about $655 billion.My visit to Barcelona was two short-sweet-glorious days.
Determined to make the most out of the last day, we started with Les Quinze Nits set in the lovely Plaça Reial Square off the Ramblas.
Care to join us for a lovely stroll before brunch?
Lucky for us, we arrived & seated before the queue started.
You must be hungry after that walk, have a few bites with us?
I know you want to...Go on, get stuck in with us under this glorious morning sunshine.
Let me pour you a glass of this refreshing Sangria.
Tapas are variety of appetizers in Spanish cuisines.
Abundance of snacks with just the right portions are a perfect brunch in my book.
We weren't the only hungry ones waiting for our tapas to arrive.
Say hello to our nice-looking-chap neighbor.
Remember this place?Let's start with fresh greens & veggies.With a little drizzles of olive oil & vinaigrette, of course.And followed with some fried deliciousness.Having inhaled everything in & drunk the wine, an impromptu walk was much needed.Let's stop here for now.I promise I will share with you the details of our last day in Barcelona in the next blog post.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said the world’s No. 1 polluter will stick to its pledges to tackle global warming, underscoring the risk of U.S. isolation if President Donald Trump pulls out of the Paris climate accord.
Li made his comments during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, at which both leaders stressed the importance of promoting free trade allied to low-carbon, sustainable economic growth.
China accepts its international responsibility and is ready to steer the world toward green growth, Li said in Berlin through an interpreter. “In sum, China will honor its commitments in the framework of the Paris climate protection agreement,” he said.
Li was speaking ahead of a two-day summit that begins in Brussels later on Thursday, when China and the European Union will re-commit to free trade and the Paris Agreement in a sweeping rejection of Trump’s protectionist policies. Trump said on Twitter that he’ll make an announcement on whether to stay in the climate accord at 3 p.m. in Washington.
Trump is said to be leaning toward pulling the U.S. out of the climate-change agreement after other Group of Seven leaders failed to win him over at a summit in Italy last week. The discord prompted Merkel to suggest the U.S. had become an unreliable partner.
The chancellor welcomed Li’s announcement that China will stand by its obligations on climate, saying that China and Germany are partners in building a “rules based international order.”
“We agreed that trading nations like Germany and China should cooperate and make clear commitments to free trade,” said Merkel, who held a private dinner with Li in the Chancellery on Wednesday evening. “We have underscored those commitments once again.”
In Brussels, EU and Chinese officials will seek to work on a stalled investment deal and China will look to make progress on being recognized as a market economy — a status that makes it more difficult to impose anti-dumping measures to its exports. A draft statement obtained by Bloomberg says the EU and China want climate change and clean energy to “become a main pillar of their bilateral partnership, including in their economic relations.”
The two sides also “recognize the importance of developing global free trade and investment.”
The EU and China will call on all parties to uphold the Paris agreement because climate change is a “national security issue and multiplying factor of social and political fragility, and constitutes a root cause for instability,” according to the draft statement.
I’m opposed to behaving like vassals of the Americans. It’s Europe’s obligation to say: You can’t do that
“The Americans can’t just exit this climate protection treaty,” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who will be among the officials meeting Li, said in a speech in Berlin on Wednesday. |
when we could live prosperously in vastly improved, safe, secure, inexpensive, enormously simplified fashion?
[1] Aiguo Dai, 2010. Drought under global warming: a review. wires.wiley.com/climatechange. DOI: 10.1002/wcc.81
[2] For example, James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Paul Hearty, Reto Ruedy, Maxwell Kelley, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Gary Russell, George Tselioudis, Junji Cao, Eric Rignot, Isabella Velicogna, Blair Tormey, Bailey Donovan, Evgeniya Kandiano, Karina von Schuckmann, Pushker Kharecha, Allegra N. Legrande, Michael Bauer and Kwok-Wai Lo, 1016, Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 ◦C global warming could be dangerous. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 3761–3812, 2016 www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/3761/2016/ doi:10.5194/acp-16–3761–2016.
[3] Mitchel, Alanna, 2008, Seasick, the hidden ecological crisis of the global ocean, Murdoch Books, Millers Point, Australia.
[4] See also: Waking Science, 2017, Massive ocean DIE OFF foreshadows the era of global human population collapse. March 21. http://wakingscience.com/2017/03/massive-ocean-die-off-foreshadows-era-global-human-population-collapse/.
[5] Ellis, Erle C., Kaplan, Jed O., Fuller, Dorian Q., Vavrus, Steve, Goldewijk, Kees Klein and Verburg, Peter H., 2013, “Used planet: A global history”. PNAS, vol. 110, no. 20, 7978–7985.
[6] Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich and Rodolfo Dirzo, 2017, Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signalled by vertebrate population losses and declines. PNAS, www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1704949114; Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, Todd M. Palmer, 2015, Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Sci. Adv. 2015;1:e1400253 19 June.
[7] Boulter, Michael, 2002, Extinction, Evolution and the End of Man, Fourth Estate, HarperCollins, London.
[8] For example, Waking Science, 2017, Op. Cit.
[9] Jean Baudrillard. The Vital Illusion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000:15–16.
[10] Louis Arnoux. “West of the Dateline, Entrepreneurship as Poesy”, in Baudrillard West of the Dateline, Edited by Victoria Grace, Heather Worth and Laurence Simmons. Dunmore Press, 2003; Louis Arnoux. “Critical Futures”, International Conference on Environmental Justice, Global Ethics for the 21st Century, University of Melbourne, Australia, October 1–3, 1997.
[11] See for example, Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, III, F.S., Lambin, E., Lenton, T.M., Scheffer, M., Folke, C., Schellnhuber, H., Nykvist, B., De Wit, C.A., Hughes, T., van der Leeuw, S., Rodhe, H., Sörlin, S., Snyder, P.K., Costanza, R., Svedin, U., Falkenmark, M., Karlberg, L., Corell, R.W., Fabry, V.J., Hansen, J., Walker, B.H., Liverman, D., Richardson, K., Crutzen, C., Foley. J., 2009, A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461: 472–475 DOI 10.1038/461472a. Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson, Johan Rockström, Sarah E. Cornell, Ingo Fetzer, Elena M. Bennett, Reinette Biggs, Stephen R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, Jens Heinke, Georgina M. Mace, 2015, Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science. Vol 347 ISSUE 6223. sciencemag.org; and Johan Rockström, “Bounding the Planetary Future: Why We Need a Great Transition,” Great Transition Initiative (April 2015).
[12] Anthony D. Barnosky, Elizabeth A. Hadly, Jordi Bascompte, Eric L. Berlow, James H. Brown, Mikael Fortelius, Wayne M. Getz, John Harte, Alan Hastings, Pablo A. Marquet, Neo D. Martinez, Arne Mooers, Peter Roopnarine, Geerat Vermeij, John W. Williams, Rosemary Gillespie, Justin Kitzes, Charles Marshall, Nicholas Matzke, David P. Mindell, Eloy Revilla & Adam B. Smith, 2012, Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere. Nature, Vol 486. doi:10.1038/nature11018.
[13] In recent years, numerous researchers have reached the same stark conclusion, for example, McPherson, Guy R., 2011, Walking Away from Empire: A Personal Journey, Baltimore, Maryland, Publish America, 230 pp., ISBN 978–1–4626–3887–1; New Scientist, 2008, “Special report: How our economy is killing the Earth”, Issue №2678; MacKenzie, Debora, 2008, “Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable”, New Scientist, 02 April; Lovelock James, 2009, The vanishing face of Gaia, Basic Books; Lovelock, James, 2006, The Revenge of Gaia, Basic Books..
[14] Garrett, Tim, J., 2012, “No way out? The double-bind in seeking global prosperity alongside mitigated climate change”, Earth System Dynamics, 3, 1–17, www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/1/2012/, doi:10.5194/esd-3–1–2012.
[15] Spratt, David, 2013, Is climate change already dangerous? Climate Code Red, Carlton, 3053 Australia). See also, Spratt, David, 2014, The real budgetary emergency and the myth of burnable carbon, http://www.climatecodered.org/2014/05/the-real-budgetary-emergency-burnable.html. See also for example, Anderson, Kevin, and Bows, Alice, 2012, A new paradigm for climate change. Nature Climate Change 2, 639–640, doi:10.1038/nclimate1646; Hulme, Mike, 2012, What sorts of knowledge for what sort of politics? Science climate change and the challenges of democracy, 3S Working Paper 2012–15, Norwich: Science, Society and Sustainability Research Group.The volatile rock music scene of 1970s New York will live again in a new HBO series shaped by a couple of contributors who know a thing or two about 1970s New York and rock music.
HBO said on Tuesday that it had given a series order to an untitled drama whose producers include Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, and which will “explore the drug- and sex-fueled music business as punk and disco were breaking out, all through the eyes of a record executive trying to resurrect his label.”
The series will star Bobby Cannavale (“Blue Jasmine”) as the fictional executive, Richie Finestra, and Olivia Wilde (“House”) as his wife; other cast members include Ray Romano, Juno Temple and Andrew Dice Clay. Terence Winter, the show runner of HBO’s period crime drama “Boardwalk Empire,” will be the show runner of this new series and Mr. Scorsese – whose use of Rolling Stones music in films like “Goodfellas” and “Casino” usually signals that something dire is about to happen – will direct its pilot episode. A debut date for the show was not immediately announced.Get the biggest Liverpool FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Liverpool's Sadio Mane has been included in Senegal's squad for their World Cup qualifiers next month - with his coach suggesting there's "no doubt" he will be 100% fit.
Mane was injured on Senegal duty during the international break and Liverpool suggested he would be out for six weeks.
That would put him coming back into the Reds squad for around November 21, AFTER Senegal's two World Cup qualifiers against South Africa on November 10 and 14.
But Senegal coach Aliou Cisse insists the player can be back earlier than feared and can help his nation in their crucial games.
(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)
Former Birmingham City midfielder Cisse said: "In my mind there's no doubt he will be with us for the double header against South Africa and that he will be 100% fit.
"Until now, he has just been doing some individual training - running in straight lines - but from next week, he is going to train harder and start working with the ball.
Senegal are currently top of their qualifying group and need just two points to confirm their place at Russia 2018.
The first game against South Africa is being replayed after Senegal lost 2-1 but it was found that the referee was guilty of match manipulation.
Liverpool are relaxed about Mane's inclusion for Senegal, seeing it as natural that he would be included in the hope that he would have recovered.
Mane is progressing well and is regarded as a quick healer but there has been no giant leap forward in his recovery.
Liverpool can not withdraw their players from national squads and it will be up to Mane himself to indicate whether he is or isn't fit enough for national consideration.
Jurgen Klopp will no doubt make his thoughts known to the player while Senegal are entitled to ask for their medical staff to examine the player should he withdraw due to his ongoing problem.Former Inkster, Mich., police officer William Melendez, here in court last year, was convicted of assault and misconduct. He is appealing the verdict. Photo: David Coates/The Detroit News/Associated Press.
Gary Allen Steele fired a gun near his former girlfriend during an argument. Donald Snider harassed a minor. Claudia Wright faced forgery charges. Frank Garcia was accused of shooting out his window while driving drunk.
All pleaded guilty to crimes or left jobs to avoid prosecution. All were police officers at the time of their alleged misconduct. All still are.
They are among hundreds of officers in America who still have badges after being charged with crimes, The Wall Street Journal found in an examination tracking outcomes of police-misconduct cases across every state.
Infractions that can disqualify barbers, child-care providers and others needing state certification don’t necessarily bar officers from retaining jobs or getting new ones. In America’s patchwork system, most states let some officers remain on the force despite misconduct, including actions that other states might consider disqualifying.
And while states routinely have databases letting citizens check the licensing status of, say, an auctioneer, many states don’t readily offer such listings of police, and some refuse to make public even the names of officers.
It is frequently possible for problem officers to keep their posts or move from job to job, the analysis shows. Some police agencies don’t always check whether applicants have records of misdeeds. Among states with processes for stripping officers of certification, some didn’t decertify a single one in 2015. Union rules often help officers retain their jobs.
Police officials acknowledge standards should be high given the life-or-death authority vested in officers. While all accused officers deserve due-process rights, that shouldn’t be a barrier against holding them accountable for severe misconduct, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell. Discharging problem officers “is a challenge for police chiefs and sheriffs across America,” he said “because the review process will sometimes uphold the findings of misconduct, but reduce the penalty of termination to suspension days.”
The Journal traced outcomes for 3,458 police officers from across the U.S. whose arrests resulted in their losing jobs or being convicted—or both—in the seven years through 2011. The information about the arrests was compiled from news reports by Bowling Green State University criminologist Philip Stinson, who holds some of the most detailed U.S. data on police misconduct.
To track what happened to each officer, the Journal reviewed police-officer listings, employment histories and other records from all 50 states, sometimes using public-record-act requests. The Journal found that 1,927 who left their departments after brushes with the law weren't in law enforcement in 2015 but had not been placed on any list of decertified officers, which would create a formal prohibition to their returning to the profession in their states. Of the remainder, 430 were imprisoned, including 261 who hadn’t been decertified. Another 738 were decertified but not incarcerated, and 31 had died.
Almost 10%, 332 of the officers, remained in law enforcement. Some officers stayed in the profession after convictions for killing or injuring people through negligence or recklessness, or for drunken-driving infractions. Others were convicted of crimes such as beatings, brandishing weapons illegally, stealing or lying.
In a few cases, convictions were overturned on appeal, though many underlying facts of the misconduct weren't generally in dispute.
Back on the job
A felony conviction—such as rape or assault with a deadly weapon—almost always ejects an officer from the profession. Officers can survive misdemeanors, however, in states such as Michigan, where Gary Allen Steele of the Detroit Police Department was arrested in March 2008 after a fight with his former girlfriend.
Police reports alleged he hit her with a bat, pinned her down, fired three shots near her head and put the gun into her mouth while screaming he would kill her, before releasing her.
Mr. Steele acknowledged firing the gun, police reports show. Wayne County, Mich., prosecutors charged him with torture, assault with intent to murder and other felonies. The department suspended him. In 2009, he was back on the job after pleading no contest to reckless firearm discharge, a misdemeanor which, in Michigan, doesn’t disqualify an officer.
Mr. Steele might not have stayed working in at least five states—Maine, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, West Virginia—where a misdemeanor is grounds for revoking certification. Forty-five states require such a certification, which can include training and background checks, said the International Association of Directors of Law Enforcement Standards and Training. This professional organization maintains a database of decertified officers available to police agencies, but reporting can be spotty.
Richard Convertino, Mr. Steele’s attorney, said prosecutors “exponentially overcharged” his client “with crimes he didn’t even remotely commit.” He said the former girlfriend was the aggressor and Mr. Steele fired to stop her.
Detroit Police spokesman Michael Woody said Mr. Steele was suspended when he was charged. Even after that was resolved, he said, the officer continued serving a “lengthy suspension period” because an internal investigation determined he violated department policy “in a number of areas.” Wayne County prosecutor’s office spokeswoman Maria Miller declined to comment. A court clerk said the case files were sealed.
File sealing, which the Journal found in other cases, makes it hard for potential employers and citizens to research an officer’s past. And arbitration panels can limit ability to discharge an officer, say police officials.
Officer Donald Snider, 54, of the Pittsburgh police was charged in 1999 with indecent assault against a 16-year-old girl and corrupting the morals of a minor. The department fired him, rehiring him after he pleaded no contest to a summary charge of harassment, court documents show.
Mr. Snider might not have kept his job if he were a cosmetologist, one of 29 professions licensed by Pennsylvania. The state cosmetology board would have considered revocation or other discipline for a cosmetologist accused of the same thing, said a lawyer for the board.
Mr. Snider was fired again when internal investigators concluded he unlawfully arrested a man and lied about the man’s swallowing heroin, arbitration documents show. He was arrested at an arbitration hearing in January 2005, accused of trying to bribe the man to change his testimony. He was found not guilty of criminal solicitation and criminal conspiracy. Arbitrators decided he had reasonable suspicion for the arrest and there wasn’t enough evidence to show he lied. He got his job back.
Mr. Snider’s attorney, Bryan Campbell, said his client declined to comment and his legal record shouldn’t disqualify him from being an officer. “The question gets to be, does every criminal matter merit a termination?” said Mr. Campbell. “I think it’s gotta be something fairly serious.” The Pittsburgh Bureau of Police declined to comment.
Mr. Snider works in one of many states that strip certification from very few officers. Pennsylvania has reported no officer decertifications since 2012 and just 31 in the past 12 years, according to data the state provided to the Journal. Cpl. Adam Reed, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania agency in charge of decertification, said the state’s law is “very specific” as to when an officer can be decertified and the agency “does not act as an ‘internal affairs.’ ”
There are striking disparities in how often states decertify. Georgia provided the Journal a list of 5,624 officers decertified from 2004 to 2015. Louisiana reported nine decertifications over that same time frame. Bob Wertz, who works for the Louisiana state council that handles decertifications, said the local departments must start the process by reporting the matter.
“We are just floored” when hearing about states that decertify just a few, said Ryan Powell, director of operations at the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council. “Officers in other states are doing the same things we discipline them for here.”
Problem officers make things difficult for good ones, said Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, America’s largest police-labor organization. “If you find an officer has committed an egregious wrong” and due process is followed, he said, “that officer should be decertified.”
New state, new badge
Losing her badge didn’t keep Claudia Wright from getting a new one in another state. In 2011, the Daytona Beach police officer relinquished her certification in Florida in a plea deal to resolve forgery and identity-theft charges.
Police investigative documents said she allegedly forged her grandmother’s signature to buy a car and she agreed to forfeit her certification as part of felony charges being dropped. The agreement said the relinquishment was “permanent with no opportunity for reinstatement.”
Methodology How We Tracked Problem Officers.
She is now certified in Virginia, working at the Richmond City Sheriff’s Office. Florida failed to send information concerning her to the decertification database. After a Journal inquiry, Ms. Wright’s decertification action was submitted. Gretl Plessinger, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said the officer’s name should have been forwarded to the database.
Virginia law doesn’t prevent a local police department from hiring an officer decertified in another state. A Richmond-sheriff spokesman declined to comment. Virginia state officials said it is up to local agencies to do background checks. Ms. Wright said she hadn’t been convicted of a crime, declining to discuss her employment.
Some states don’t have a decertification process, including California and New Jersey, where hiring and firing is left to departments. Frank Garcia was a Huntington Park, Calif., officer when arrested in 2003 and charged with a misdemeanor for driving drunk and a felony for firing his service revolver out the window, court documents show. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of discharging a firearm from a public roadway and resigned.
In neighboring Arizona or Oregon, the arrest and plea would have been grounds for decertification proceedings, officials in those states said. A decertification in either state is permanent.
A year later, a judge let Mr. Garcia withdraw his plea. Nearby Maywood police department hired him. There, Mr. Garcia was a defendant with two other officers in a suit alleging they mistreated a mentally handicapped woman. It was settled for $18,000 without admission of wrongdoing.
The Maywood department disbanded in 2010 after California’s attorney general found it was riddled with excessive-force and sexual-misconduct problems and had a reputation as an “agency of last resort” for troubled officers.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2011 hired Mr. Garcia and other Maywood officers. The sheriff’s office of independent review later criticized its hiring procedures as lax, saying in a report that, when confronted with details of Mr. Garcia’s criminal case, the undersheriff “stated that he may not have hired the applicant given the specifics of the case.”
The watchdog agency faulted the department for paying attention only to the final disposition of Mr. Garcia’s criminal case and failing “to appreciate the troubling facts regarding the applicant’s specific behavior and acts which were serious in nature.” The report didn’t name Mr. Garcia; people familiar with the inquiry said he was the applicant.
A Los Angeles County Sheriff spokeswoman declined to comment on why Mr. Garcia left the department.
Mr. Garcia began using the surname Huizar. In 2013, he was hired by California City, where he is a lieutenant. He said he would “rather not talk about” his past and that using the surname was “personal.”
His police chief, Eric Hurtado, in a written response said the department thoroughly reviewed Mr. Garcia, who listed both names when he applied for the job. He said tolerance has grown for blemishes on officers’ records.
“Right now, there is a vast shortage of ‘Perfect People’ who are willing to put on a bulletproof vest and have to carry a gun just to go to work,” said Mr. Hurtado. The chief has since gone on administrative leave for personal reasons, the city said. He didn’t respond to subsequent requests for comment.
Paying the price
Some police agencies, because of lack of money, can’t attract high-quality candidates and hire officers who couldn't get jobs elsewhere, said David Harvey, executive director of Michigan’s Commission on Law Enforcement Standards. That may be part of why Inkster, Mich., hired William Melendez, said Mr. Harvey, who was previously the police chief in neighboring Garden City.
Officer William Melendez left a courtroom following a 2015 probable-cause hearing. Photo: Jose Juarez/The Detroit News/Associated Press.
Mr. Melendez joined the nearly bankrupt town’s force in 2010 after about 15 years as a Detroit officer, where he was a defendant in at least a dozen civil lawsuits alleging excessive force, wrongful death and other misconduct, federal court documents show. Several were dropped and a few were settled without admission of wrongdoing, including a 1996 case in which Mr. Melendez and another officer allegedly fatally shot an unarmed motorist who was lying down. Detroit settled with the man’s family for more than $1 million.
In 2003, federal prosecutors in Detroit charged him with being part of a group of officers who conducted illegal searches, planted drugs, beat suspects and made arrests without probable cause, according to the indictment. Mr. Melendez was acquitted and retired.
His record didn’t prevent him under Michigan law from working in Inkster. Last year, cameras caught him dragging a man who ran a stop sign out of his car and beating him. He was convicted of assault and misconduct. Inkster settled with the victim for $1.4 million.
James Thomas, a lawyer for Mr. Melendez, who is appealing, said his client declined to comment, calling the 2003 indictment a “witch hunt.”
Gregory Gaskin, the former Inkster police chief who hired Mr. Melendez, didn’t respond to inquiries. In a recent deposition in a separate civil suit against Inkster and Mr. Melendez, Mr. Gaskin was asked about a pre-hiring background investigation of Mr. Melendez that noted the 2003 indictment. He answered: “Well, I read it, but as far as significance, I didn’t think much of it.”
Advocates for stronger reporting say records should follow officers systematically. Some urge focusing on misconduct, not just convictions.
A commission President Barack Obama created after the 2014 Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Mo., calls for the national decertification database to be expanded to all police agencies.
St. Louis University law-school professor emeritus Roger Goldman, among America’s pre-eminent experts on police, points out Congress has made such reporting mandatory in medicine, requiring data on practitioner’s malpractice payouts and disciplinary actions be sent to a central repository.
“With all the concern about bad cops,” he said, “you would figure the feds would have something similar for law enforcement.”DETROIT — From the start of her presidential campaign 11 months ago, Hillary Clinton has presented an upbeat assessment of an improving economy, saying Wall Street and corporations would be held accountable, but must be part of the solution for all Americans to benefit from the country’s prosperity.
“I want to be the president for the struggling, the striving and the successful,” she often said.
Her message has at times collided with an angry electorate drawn to the populist pitch of Senator Bernie Sanders. In Michigan on Tuesday, it crashed.
The state’s voters, scarred by the free trade deals associated with Mrs. Clinton and her husband that have been widely blamed for the loss of American manufacturing jobs, delivered a surprise victory to Mr. Sanders, who railed here against “disastrous trade agreements written by corporate America.”
While his victory did little to bridge the delegate gap with Mrs. Clinton, the loss in Michigan left the Clinton camp confronting an urgent quandary as the Democratic contest moves to other Midwestern states like Ohio, Illinois and Missouri, which will vote on Tuesday: Will Mrs. Clinton’s we’re-all-in-this-together approach work in what has been called an off-with-their-heads election year?I went commando to my high school prom.
This wasn’t an attempt for post-prom easy access. And I wasn’t trying to be sexy for my date.
It just so happened that I couldn’t find a single thong or no-show panty that didn’t expose a visible panty line in my dress. Under certain material, even seamless panties won’t do the trick.
So what’s a girl to do?
Fortunately, some European designer loathes panty lines just as much as I do and has remedied this chronic problem. I introduce to you… the C-string!
LoveHoney—the makers of the C-string—describe their product as invisible underwear. The website says “C-String has a flexible internal frame that hugs and holds it to the body both securely and comfortably. Your modesty remains safely covered at all times.” Basically, it’s a thong sans side-straps that is shaped like the letter C. Awesome.
While I’m the #1 cheerleader for anything that diminishes panty lines, a few skeptical thoughts came to mind when I saw this nouveau thong:
• Uhh… is it just me, or is that a headband? I don’t know about you… but I’m not really down with wearing a headband as a thong. I’m all for versatile clothing, but that’s pushing it.
• Could that possibly be comfortable? There is basically a cotton-covered wire in your crack. Hmm. Questionable.
• Would guys even find it sexy? Yea, I know, guys think thongs are hot. But the C-string looks kind of awkward.
That being said, the sole review of the C-string on the product website claims that it’s both sexy and “surprisingly comfortable.”
I was considering ordering it until I realized that one C-string would cost me nearly $50 (including overseas shipping and handling).
I think I’ll let the rest of the world feel the C-string out first. If I can get a few people to promise me that it didn’t fall off in the middle of the street, I’ll give it a shot. Until then, I’m going commando. Or maybe I’ll wear a headband of my own.And earlier this month, they died in bed, holding hands, just hours apart
They told their children their final wish was to pass in each other's arms
Mr Toczko kept a photo of his wife at her Holy Communion in his wallet
They married in 1940, had five children and lived in San Diego, California
A poignant photo has emerged which shows an elderly couple who were married for 75 years fulfilling their final wishes to die together.
Jeanette Toczko, 96, and her 95-year-old husband, Alexander Toczko, from San Diego, California, died just hours apart as they held hands in bed.
The pair spent their lives in love after becoming boyfriend and girlfriend when they were only eight years old.
But several weeks ago, Mr Toczko suffered a broken hip in a fall and was left bed-bound. A local hospice delivered a special bed to his home, which staff pushed up next to his beloved wife's bed.
As Mr Toczko's condition quickly declined, Mrs Toczko's own health took a turn for the worse. The couple had always said they wished to die 'in their own bed, holding hands, in each other's arms'.
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Dying wish: Jeanette Toczko, 96, and her 95-year-old husband, Alexander Toczko, from San Diego, California, who were married for 75 years have fulfilled their final wish to die in each other's arms after they passed away clutching hands, within hours of each other, in their bed (pictured)
Childhood sweethearts: Jeanette and Alexander Toczko (both pictured above), aged 96 and 95 respectively
Declining health: The couple, from San Diego, spent their lives in love after becoming boyfriend and girlfriend when they were only eight. Above, the couple are seen sitting in their home, in ill health, earlier this month
And in scenes reminiscent of the 2004 film The Notebook, they passed away while clutching hands earlier this month: Mr Toczko on June 17, as he lay beside his wife; and Mrs Toczko, the next day.
The couple's daughter, Aimee Toczko-Cushman, described the moment she told her mother she had lost her husband, who kept a photo of Mrs Toczko at her Holy Communion in his wallet.
'I told my mother he was gone,' she told 10 News. 'She hugged him and she said, "See this is what you wanted. You died in my arms and I love you. I love you, wait for me, I'll be there soon".'
Mrs Toczko-Cushman, and the couple's other children, Donna Tang, Richard Toczko, Lynne Edwards and Andra Toczko, then left the room, to allow their mother to say a private goodbye.
And less than 24 hours later, Mrs Toczko herself passed away.
'Even the hospice nurse said it was the most incredible thing to see the two of them taking those last breaths together,' Ms Toczko-Cushman said of her parents, both born in Stamford, Connecticut.
Marriage: Several weeks ago, Mr Toczko (pictured with his wife during their 1940 wedding) suffered a broken hip in a fall and was left bed-bound. A local hospice delivered a special bed to his home, which staff pushed up next to his beloved wife's bed. As Mr Toczko's condition quickly declined, Mrs Toczko's own health worsened
Doting grandparents: Mr Toczko, a passionate golfer who regularly attended Balboa Golf Course, plays with one of his great-grandsons (left), while his wife beams widely as she holds their great-granddaughter (right)
Mr and Mrs Toczko, who were the children of Polish immigrants, started dating as youngsters, before their innocent relationship flourished into love, marriage and five children of their own.
Following their wedding in 1940, Mr Toczko joined the U.S. Navy as a telegraph operator, according to ABC. He later moved to New York City with his family, where he worked for an advertising firm.
In 1971, the Toczkos moved to San Diego, where Mr Toczko established his own advertising and fashion photography firm, Blue Sky, U-T San Diego reported. Mrs Toczko was his chief stylist.
During their lengthy marriage, the couple also went traveling together, visiting Bermuda. 'Their hearts beat as one from as long as I can remember,' said Mrs Toczko-Cushman.
Before his recent fall, Mr Toczko, a passionate golfer, had been a regular at Balboa Golf Course. The war veteran had a keen interest in drawing, and often sat and sketched at the golf course.
In love: In scenes reminiscent of the 2004 film The Notebook, the couple (pictured above) passed away while clutching hands earlier this month: Mr Toczko on June 17, beside his wife; and Mrs Toczko, the next day
Beloved: Mr and Mrs Toczko (both pictured, center, with some of their loved ones) started 'dating' as youngsters, before their innocent relationship flourished into love, marriage and five children of their own
Meanwhile, his wife doted on her 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
As the couple neared death, in early June, a confused Mrs Toczko reportedly told her children that the date was June 29 - the day she and Mr Toczko would have celebrated 75 years of marriage.
The couple's children went along with it, telling their mother it was, indeed, the anniversary.
'We said happy anniversary, and my mother was thrilled because it was their anniversary and she knew that he was going and that they had made it to 75 years,' said Mrs Toczko-Cushman.
Mr and Mrs Toczko were buried at Miramar National Cemetery in San Diego on Monday.Nic Cage is one of my favorite action movie actors.
However, Nic Cage is also one of my favorite actors in not action movies. Whaddaya call them? Boring movies? Is that right? It sounds right.
Now, that doesn’t mean best. It just means that, for better or worse, putting Nic Cage in your movie will improve my chances of seeing it roughly 800%.
I love the character work he’s done. The dumb but well-meaning dad-to-be (by force if necessary) in Raising Arizona, the con man in Matchstick Men, or the writer with the impossible book in Adaptation are all great roles, and anyone looking to bring the man down tends to “forget” those films when mocking his other roles.
But here’s the thing, those other roles are also great. I say, without a hint of irony or tongue-in-cheek-ness, that the Rock is one of my favorite movies. Probably not Top Five material, but the point is it is endlessly entertaining and every time it’s on I stop what I’m doing to take in all the mayhem. A lot of that has to do with Cage.
I saw Kick-Ass a few weekend ago, mostly because I had some time to kill, but also because it has Nic Cage dressed up like Christian Bale Batman, talking like Adam West Batman, and dispatching bad guys like Ray Stevenson Punisher.
Christ, I’m only human.
I ended up loving the movie due to a sense of energy and underlying hope that the comic never even approached, and also because the movie is entirely insane.
This combination of explosions, damaged characters, and mental illness is right in Nic Cage’s wheelhouse.
I have a theory. Would you like to hear my theory? Well you don’t have a choice. Unless you close your browser window.
Please don’t close your browser window.
My theory is this, every time Nic Cage sits down to read a script, he somehow, due to a metric we’ll never know, or maybe just a mental alchemy unknown even to himself, decides exactly how weird the movie is and then never backs down from that invisible line. Watch his movies, and like Swayze and Keanu, he never blinks. He never lets the audience think he’s in on the joke.
And that, my friends, is why he’s brilliant, and why any time a movie doesn’t work it’s because the rest of the movie didn’t step up with him. No one else, other actors, the art department, or the director could match his fucking crazy and the movie suffers.
Want proof?
Here’s a list of directors who worked on movies where Nic Cage’s performance was praised:
The Coen Brothers
Franics Ford Coppola
Michael ‘Fucking’ Bay (mainly by me)
Ridley Scott
Spike Jonze
Andrew Niccol
Gore Verbinski
Matthew Vaughn
And every one of those movies had one or two things going for it. The first is an underlying, permeating weirdness that settled throughout the entire movie. The stories took place in a world slightly left of center.
The second, they were so fucking nuts that you had to embrace the over the top nature simply to not be consumed and overwhelmed by it.
For example, in Pirates of the Caribbean, who stepped up to the weird and over the top elements of those movies, Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom? There’s a reason people dress up like Captain Jack Sparrow and not Billy Dumps (okay, I looked it up, his character’s name was Will Turner).
Most actors who turn in a performance like Heath Ledger did in the Dark Knight are, rightfully, lauded for their efforts and ability. Yet, Nic Cage brings that exact same crazy and intensity to every role he ever plays.
The scene in Kick-Ass where we see him put on his helmet is a bizarre cross between a brave applying his war paint and a transvestite preparing for cabaret, and HE KNOWS IT. It was a conscious decision on his part!
Jesus, when he’s shooting his daughter, it’s not weird in the movie, let alone, real life. If you saw that, you’d just sort of shrug and be like, ‘ |
isha 17 Mar 2016 This lady called me an i new it was a scam i made it to the wester union an they hung up on them [***] scam smh Reply!
0 andrew antonetz 28 Mar 2016 | 1 reply They called me and asked me if my home information is correct. They said they would send money to me western union. What do I need to do Caller: they said they were with the gov't Reply!
0 Joseph Rosario replies to replies to Crystal 6 Apr 2016 The same exact thing just happened to me 2 hours ago. Reply!
0 Erick 8 Apr 2016 They did it to me and I was like "why am I going to do that?" I believe its a scam so no. Caller: "The Goverment" wht goverment???????? Reply!
0 Mary 8 Apr 2016 If you "play along" with these scammers, they'll tell you that you qualify for a government grant. The amount will vary depending on...I don't know....how much coffee they had???? Anyway, they'll tell you that you have to send a "transcribing fee" or "administrative fee" or some sort of fee and it is usually $200. Then you will get your grant of $5000. I told them to just take the $200 out of my $5000 and send me $4800. She hung up on me! Caller: GRANT SCAM SCAM SCAM Reply!
0 Midori 12 Apr 2016 The same people called me. Scam scam scam don't give them your money Caller: 2023501168 Reply!
0 Midori replies to replies to andrew antonetz 12 Apr 2016 Do not do it its a scam Reply!
0 Margo Fogg 14 Apr 2016 Just got off my (new) cell phone. Number came up unavailable. Said I needed to call 202-350-1168 and give them a grant conf. # (for $9,000)to get the funds released. I asked why he (English not his 1st language) couldn't do that. He impatiently explained that he was in a different dept. I asked how he got my cell phone number (new to me)..and went on and on about demographic lists..etc..Said 3 options to get the money...3rd was Western Union..I am not calling the number..as I am sure they are going to ask some kind of fee like mentioned above...Crazy! Caller: US Government Reply!
0 Crystal 15 Apr 2016 | 1 reply I received a call from the same people. Told me to call 202 350 1168 to receive $9000. I asked how the government decided I was a recipient of this money and was told, "it's part of the American Recovery Reinvestment Act and that's it's a loyalty grant for paying my taxes on time and not being housed in jail in the last six months." Caller: 226 122 1233 Reply!
0 Chelsea replies to replies to Crystal 15 Apr 2016 I just got told the same thing... Smh... Reply!
0 Mona 18 Apr 2016 I just got the same call from unknown number a man with a thick accent getting 9000 for all the same reasons and gave me a phone number( the 202 number ) with a confirmation code. I called it and this time a female also an accent not near as thick reexplained why I'm getting the 9000 but in order to get the western union I need to put down $269 for 5-10 minutes to pay taxes and pip. I questioned why I need to do that for western union she says it again. I said something like I really don't understand why I need to do that and get reimbursed for it if it pays taxes and pip. Then asked what is pip and if it's paying taxes why am I getting it back? She then yells at me about having to keep explaining it to me. I tell her she doesn't need to yell at me I just didn't understand. She then saying she's not yelling at me as she's yelling at me going on about me not understanding and she's explained it over and over and if I don't want it fine they will open up to someone else. I tell her I want it I just said and I didn't understand why she interrupts says I don't get it goodbye and hangs up! I called the number back and get the voicemail of some very English speaking women. I hung up called it again same women I left message asking to call me back I was given that number to call back just checking who this is. No return call to yet!
Beyond scam!! Don't fall for giving any account number and when u state u don't have the 269 next line is they can hold it to give me time to get it together or open to someone else. Let them the lady's just gonna yell at you!! Caller: U.S.Treasury Reply!
+1 Danielle 18 Apr 2016 hahaha....these scammers are from nagaland...mostly from dimapur...they dnt know how to speak english....poor people from nagaland Caller: irs
Call type: Telemarketer Reply!
0 stacie1212 18 Apr 2016 lol.....thats correct...they dnt even know how to speak english...these dumb girls are really scumbags....why dnt they spent a night to earm money, instead of stealing money.... Caller: stacie Reply!
0 stacie1212 18 Apr 2016 lol.....thats correct...they dnt even know how to speak english...these dumb girls are really scumbags....why dnt they spent a night to earm money, instead of stealing money.... Caller: stacie Reply!
0 Mona 19 Apr 2016 | 1 reply You won't believe this but a couple hours later a women with accent called back with the same scam except I was to get 10,000!
Be careful guys they are good. Just ask yourself Why are foreigners calling me from the U.S. Treasury?! Caller: U.S. Treasury! Right Reply!
0 Tamianth replies to replies to Mona 19 Apr 2016 https://800notes.com/forum/ta-de071afa5bd5041... nd-in-irs-scams
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Tax-Scams-Consumer-Alerts
http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/contact_report.shtml
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-8c2f64bf2b91fa5/irs-warns-of-telephone-scam
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4b849c65e54346... leader-irs-scam
Report the Calls to the real IRS here:
• Report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.
• You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at FTC.gov. Add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments in your complaint.
To file complaints on Foreign company's and scams:
Read up on it here:
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-d20d86fdc3e145c/reporting-international-scams
https://www.econsumer.gov/#crnt
eConsumer.gov: Report Your Complaint
E-mail: [email protected]
Do a search on call blocking devices and phones.If its a cell phone, there are free call blocking apps out there including trac & straight talk.
https://800notes.com/forum/ta-5d4e343675a5629/call-blocking-devices Report the incident to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration at 800-366-4484.You can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at FTC.gov. Add "IRS Telephone Scam" to the comments in your complaint.eConsumer.gov: Report Your ComplaintE-mail: [email protected] Reply!
0 TERI replies to replies to Crystal 20 Apr 2016 I JUST HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN TODAY.... Reply!Illustration by Joey Alison Sayers
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Known also as "suicide headaches," because sufferers have been known to take their own lives, cluster headaches are considered by many to be the most painful condition known to science—described as more painful than broken bones, any degree of dermis burn, and even child birth. Yes—mothers have essentially said, "I would rather eject another small human being from out of my undercarriage rather than have one of those things again."
They're not migraines—rather, they're more like a series of short headaches that occur in patterns of one or more each day for weeks or months on end (thus the "cluster" designation). I've had them for 25 years, since I was 16. The pain is indescribable, but here I go describing it to you anyway: If you have ever stubbed your toe, then you know how bad that kills. A cluster is like that, except it happens just behind the eye, right in the temple. The pain camps out, throbs there for at least 30 minutes and as long as two hours. A taste of earthly hell.
Scientists don't know what causes them, and typical painkillers and narcotics usually don't help. Believe me: In efforts to deal with this pain, I've orally ingested, injected, snorted and/or smoked oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, demerol, dilaudid, cocaine, heroin, codeine, morphine, and more, all to no avail. You get super fucked up, sure, but the pain is still there, at full strength, almost made worse because the dope just adds an unpleasant weirdness to the scene.
I've tried dropping dumbbells on my foot in an attempt to displace the pain. I've banged my head against the wall, then the floor, then the wall again. I've slammed bags of ice against my temple, leaving my face reddened and bruised. I've fantasized for hours about sparkling knives and imagined the relief of filleting my temple open like a raw chicken breast, as if the pain would bleed out. Yes, it's that dramatic.
To put it simply: Treatments are elusive. "These are very hard and very painful headaches to treat," said Dr. Mark Green, director of headache and pain medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, "and the agents that we usually use work sometimes, but they sure don't work all the time."
Doctor-sanctioned treatments for clusters include Imitrex (an injectable medicine that narrows the brain's blood vessels) and rapid oxygen inhalation. They're good at stopping attacks, but not preventing them. I've tried them, too—but nothing has provided me with even a 100th of the relief that psychedelics have.
A couple of years ago, I discovered Cluster Busters, a ground that advocates the use of alternative (though, sadly, illegal) cluster treatments. It was founded by Bob Wold, who broke a cycle of clusters using psychedelics in 1998 and felt he had to spread the word. Since starting Busters, Wold said that 95 percent of cluster sufferers he's come across who have been treated with psychedelics never go back to prescription drugs again.
With thousands of members, Cluster Busters offers a strong online community that helps cluster sufferers seek relief from their condition through psychedelics. The cure they advocate comes down to replacing doctor-prescribed prescription drugs with hallucinogens like mushrooms, LSD, rivea corymbosa seeds, or 5-MeO-DALT.
There's scant medical proof that they work—most everything we know about how psychedelics treat clusters is anecdotal. One small interview-based study showed promising results, but because psychedelics are hard to refine to medical purity and offer little profit motive for pharmaceutical companies to investigate them, Green said, forming large-scale regular psychedelic studies is difficult. And without them, case reports don't offer enough conclusive evidence that it's psychedelics themselves that are relieving symptoms.
"I've been doing headaches for more than 40 years, and I've got to tell you, I have story after story of people who say, 'I took this, and it made it go away,' and then, of course, it never held up in the long-term," he said. "I'm not being negative, and certainly I have a number of patients who experiment with mushrooms, grow them, and take various compounds, and some of them report efficacy, but I don't know, and I don't know about their safety either." To restate the obvious: These treatments can be risky, and they haven't been proven by medical science to work.
But Green also emphasized that "people with clusters have a real, genuine suicide risk," and that he's "certainly understanding and sympathetic that someone who just can't get relief with existing products would be willing to do most anything to get rid of the attacks."
Watch "Inside a Psychedelic Healing Retreat":
Personally, shrooms and DALT are what work for me. Three years ago, the first time I dosed on mushrooms instead of reaching for Imitrex, I knew I had found my answer. Instead of feeling like my head was an eggshell that a cluster could crack into at any second, I felt like I had a forcefield around my skull. My life has been shut down annually by clusters, with anywhere from one to seven headaches daily for periods that come once a year and last from one to six months. Discovering a way out of this hell cycle was as awesome as what I imagine seeing an alien or finding God would be like.
Shroom dosage varies based on how one elects to manage their condition. One can micro dose by putting a small piece under their tongue day as a preventative method. A somewhat larger dose (a stem or two) can be used at the onset of an individual cluster to knock it back. Or, by taking a large dose every seven days, I can "bust" my season of headaches and be free from pain until the next time it comes around. Dosing with 5-MeO-DALT is a different story (but I've found it to be the most effective treatment of all); when I feel a season coming on, I simply take 15 milligrams every five days, and my head will stay clear without experiencing any seriously debilitating trips.
What's tricky is that because psychedelics interact with prescription meds, you have to make the choice to use one or the other, and because psychedelics become ineffective if taken too regularly, if you get a cluster between doses, you're forced to grin and bear it. But the payoff is worth it.
I call the time of year in which my headaches come the mean season, and when I'm in the mean season, I am always less than ten minutes away from my home, mostly in my bed, either having a headache or anxiously preparing for one. I can't drink, I can't get high, and I can't fuck my boyfriend, because all those things will trigger a cluster. (Oddly, when I feel a cluster coming, I've found I can sometimes divert it by masturbating, though it's hard to kindle a chub when you know you might soon be squirming from unimaginable pain.)
What's crazy is how long the psychedelic solution has been out there, waiting for me to find it. If you had asked me at one point what was the worst thing I could imagine, I would have said, "Having a cluster while tripping." Funny how the answers are sometimes in the last place we think to look. I've now been pain-free for three years. Unless you suffer yourself, you have no idea just how beautiful that actually is.
Follow Giancarlo DiTripano on Twitter.Yesterday it was Larry Pressler from South Dakota. Very VERY interesting that a Republican US Senator would back Obama. The old boy network runs deep in the Senate. Pressler served on the Commerce Committee with McCain. I suspect Pressler learned a thing or two about McCain during that period, and he was none too impressed. The people who know McCain the best are turning on him. This really is remarkable.
Today, Maryland’s Charles Mathias, who also has known McCain for a long time, weighed in for Obama:
I have known John McCain for many years, even before he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1982. And like so many other television viewers, I have come to know Barack Obama as he has made his spirited quest for the highest office in the land through this long and unprecedented campaign. Sens. Obama and McCain have vastly different backgrounds and strikingly different visions of how America should navigate these tumultuous times. For me, the decision on who should be the next president transcends private friendship or political affiliation. My decision is based on the long-range needs of our country and which of these two candidates I feel is better suited to recharge America’s economic health, restore its prestige abroad and inspire anew all people who cherish freedom and equality. For me, that person is Barack Obama.
Again, I ask, other than Lady de Redneck, what other prominent Democrats have turned on Obama? None.Here's something from The New York Times that everybody missed. Over at Treasury, where jet-set dweeb Steve Mnuchin presides—and have I pointed out that putting a foreclosure merchant in charge of the nation's economy was A-OK with Bob Corker?—they are planning to take a hatchet and two power-saws to the Dodd-Frank financial regulations which were, you may recall, passed in response to the fact that the financial services industry nearly blew up the world.
(Here's Man Of Great Principle Bob Corker, with all the customary flummery about small business, expressing relief that his donor...er...the economy will be freed from the requirement that money managers not lie to their customers.)
Some of the proposed overhauls would do away with a requirement for companies to divulge the pay ratio of chief executives to workers, streamline derivatives rules, and give companies more access to capital and investors more places to put their money. The ideas were welcomed on Wall Street, where banks complain that Dodd-Frank rules have needlessly hobbled growth. But they attracted skepticism from consumer groups and others, who consider the suggestions a dangerous relaxation of checks against a cavalier financial system.
The report offers a guide to agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which police activity relating to stocks, bonds and derivatives. But the detailed 220-page document also serves as a gauge of the administration’s attitude toward Wall Street — namely, that market restraints should be loosened.
Mnuchin got rich as a vulture capitalist. However, unlike most respectable vultures, who feed only on carrion killed by other means, vulture capitalists like Mnuchin and his friends kill their own food. As a nation, we learn nothing in this regard, as we discovered the other day when Dave Dayen revealed how J.P. Morgan finessed even the piddling fine that had been levied against the company for the last time it had helped destroy people's lives. They are setting the rubes up for a fall one more time and, I might mention, that Bob Corker is doing nothing to stop it.
Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page.Politicians have a knack for taking on problems that aren’t really problems, proposing solutions that won’t really do anything and then exaggerating the significance of what they’ve just done.
The latest Inland politician to do this is Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, who has introduced the “Keep Kids Safe at School Act,” touted by Leyva and her staff as “important legislation to protect school children from dangerous sex offenders.”
In brief, Leyva’s legislation calls for prohibiting registered sex offenders from entering school campuses. This certainly sounds important until you realize it isn’t and that it probably won’t protect a single child from dangerous sex offenders anymore than current laws already do.
To begin with, it is already a misdemeanor under state law for registered sex offenders to enter school grounds without lawful business and written permission from the school’s principal (or equivalent). Those who have committed offenses against minors age 16 and under are also barred from working or volunteering directly and unaccompanied with minors.
Under an awkwardly worded 2013 state law, registered sex offenders unrelated to any pupil at a school can theoretically volunteer on school grounds if they receive permission from the principal and all parents are notified of their potential presence 14 days in advance.
This 2013 law came under scrutiny in the Fontana Unified School District in September when the school board sought to integrate it into district policy, mostly as a formality.
Social media promptly went ablaze with hysteria, leading many to believe the district was actively encouraging sex offenders to show up on school campuses and would let them volunteer without a problem.
This wasn’t true, of course, but the frenzy prompted the board to vote against incorporating the state law into their policies and instead they passed their own rule banning registered sex offenders from their campuses, prompting a lawsuit.
Leyva wants to strike language allowing registered sex offenders on school campuses, even if they have a lawful reason to be there.
“I am proud to stand with concerned parents and community leaders in Fontana and across California to ensure that registered sex offenders do not roam school classrooms, halls and playgrounds,” she said.
If we are to take Leyva’s version of reality at face value, why would any parent send their child to school? Fortunately, dangerous sex offenders aren’t free to roam the halls and playgrounds of schools — there are already laws to prevent that.
The reason no one has really noticed the 2013 law is because registered sex offenders are unlikely to go out of their way to apply to volunteer at a K-12 school under the conditions presented, and school officials are even less likely to grant permission and go through the process of notifying each parent of their decision to allow a registered sex offender on campus.
It’s worth noting not all registered sex offenders are dangerous, pedophiles or dangerous pedophiles.
Public urinators and teen sexters are among those on the registry, and may be crime-free for years, even decades, but still remain on the registry.
California is one of the few states that require lifetime registration for sex offenses.
If anything, teachers and other school staff pose bigger threats to students on campuses than registered sex offenders.
In 2014, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing opened 328 investigations for sex crimes against children.
Of course, teachers have strong unions by their side. Registered sex offenders don’t.
Sal Rodriguez is a staff columnist. He may be reached at: [email protected] — Nomura CEO Kenichi Watanabe has resigned in the wake of an insider trading scandal that has tarnished the reputation of Japan Inc. and its biggest investment bank. Watanabe announced his resignation at a news conference Thursday in Tokyo, ending his four year leadership of Nomura Holdings Ltd. Takumi Shibata, another top executive at the bank, also resigned.
Nomura CEO Kenichi Watanabe, right, announces his resignsation at a press conference at the company's headquarters in Tokyo on July 26, 2012, as his succesor Koji Nagai, left, looks on. ( YOSHIKAZU TSUNO / AFP )
Watanabe, 59, will from Aug. 1 be replaced by Koji Nagai, the president of Nomura Securities Co., which is part of the Nomura banking empire and at the centre of the insider scandal. Japan’s financial regulators are investigating Nomura Securities for leaking information to clients ahead of planned securities offerings by energy company Inpex, Mizuho Financial Group and Tokyo Electric Power Co. in 2010. Nomura has admitted that some its employees were involved in leaking inside information.
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“Our reputation has been badly damaged,” said Nagai. “To try to restore trust is easily said, but to actually accomplish that is a huge undertaking. Rather than just change our approach, we need to fundamentally rebuild the company. All corporate employees need to be involved in this,” he said. A panel of external lawyers commissioned by the company said in a June 29 report that its equity sales staff would seek information from colleagues about upcoming offerings that Nomura was underwriting and then pass along those tips to customers. The panel made a series of recommendations to prevent such incidents in the future, including banning conversations with clients about rumours regarding financing transactions and using personal cellphones for business. Nomura is reportedly losing underwriting business in wake of the scandal. The company is still being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission and could face penalties. Nomura’s share price has more than halved since word of the investigation first surfaced in March, falling from 417 yen to 259 yen. It was up 5.7 per cent Thursday on reports of Watanabe’s resignation.
Read more about:An amazing tutorial surfaced this week, showing how one geek has proven that nerdery and romance really can go hand in hand. Ben Kokes apparently decided some time ago that a store-bought wedding ring was far too boring for his (potential) marriage, and decided to make one that had a more personal meaning. For an engineer working in inertial sensors, that meant making some very cool electronics.
The ring is a titanium band featuring LED lighting set just below the surface, but it’s not designed to give his wife a brightly shining finger all day. Rather, the LED is linked to a small coil of copper wire which, when exposed to precisely the right alternating magnetic field, produces enough current to power the LED. Set inside the ring itself, this pale light illuminates the ring’s stones from behind.
The truly ingenious part of the design is the way Kokes decided to deliver the alternating current. Strapped under the arm of his suit jacket is a cleverly concealed powering unit that looks a bit like a MegaMan gun — stealthy it is not, but Kokes managed to get the bulky “transmitter” unit in place. When the two units come close enough to one another (when the couple holds hands) her wedding ring springs to life.
Carved from titanium and featuring 23 evenly spaced stones, the ring is an impressive piece even without the wireless power aspect. What’s most impressive about the tutorial is the fact that Kokes had virtually no experience in this sort of work. Being a professional engineer is presumably a good starting point, but everything from inductive power to cutting titanium was still apparently totally new to him.
The dedication on display is staggering. The website chronicles several false starts and dead ends, and funnily enough the most difficult part seems to have been boring the stone settings into the ring itself. All told, it took Kokes about 5 months and 10 prototypes to get a ring he felt comfortable presenting.
For the record, she said yes.Lately, I’ve been getting into making homemade bagels. I remember vaguely making them in culinary school, and of course I love getting fresh bagels and cream cheese at Dunkin’ Donuts or Great American Bagel, but it was only recently that I rediscovered how easy and fun they are to make at home.
Basically, my bagel dough formula is exactly the same as my pizza dough formula. The only difference is that I substitute a little of the flour with corn meal. This changes the flavor slightly — it’s just a little bit sweeter — and also affects the texture, giving it a little more chewiness.
What makes bagels different than dinner rolls, burger buns or bread, for that matter, is that their outside skin has a little “bite” to it. This is accomplished by boiling the dough after it has been formed into the traditional bagel shape and allowed to rise overnight in the refrigerator.
Making bagels the right way is a two-step process. In fact, it’s a two-day process because you make the dough the night before and proof it in the ‘fridge. I suppose I could just let it rise on the counter the way I do with pizza dough, but putting it in the refrigerator overnight helps to develop the “snap” of the outer skin.
My wife, Sandi, always says this makes it a complicated process, but it’s not really. Each step only takes a couple of minutes and the payoff — fresh, homemade bagels in any flavor you want — makes it totally worthwhile.
My favorite part of making bagels is adding whatever toppings I want at the end. I bought a big container of poppy seeds at my excellent local produce market, but I also like to use toasted sesame seeds, dehydrated onion, and garlic powder.
I made cinnamon raisin bagels by simply adding a little sugar, cinnamon and raisins to the dough. If you try this, be warned: A lot of the raisins pop out when you knead the dough and you have to keep pushing them back in.
For my next batch, I bought some dehydrated blueberries for blueberry bagels. Using dried blueberries rather than fresh or frozen blueberries helps prevent the dough from turning purple. I’ll give you an update later as to how they turn out.
Homemade Bagels
1 tsp Dry Yeast (or one envelope)
1-1/4 cup Warm Water
1 TBS Raw, Organic Sugar (or honey or agave nectar)
2 cups Unbleached Organic All-Purpose Flour
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup Corn Meal (plus a little more for dusting the bottom of the baking pan)
1 TBS Sea Salt
Pan Spray
1 Egg, whisked smooth (for egg wash)
Sesame Seeds, Poppy Seeds, or whatever topping you want
1. Whisk yeast and sugar into warm water in a mixing bowl (I use the bowl of my Kitchen Aid) and set aside for a minute or two to let the yeast activate (little bubbles indicate the yeast has awoken from its slumber!).
2. Meanwhile, combine the flours, corn meal and salt in another mixing bowl and stir together.
3. Using the bread hook attachment, turn the Kitchen Aid on low and slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet a little at a time and mix on medium-low until a dough is formed, about two or three minutes. (If you don’t have a Kitchen Aid, you can do this with a mixing bowl and a wooden spoon, the same way people have been doing it for hundreds of years!)
4. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and knead with your hands for a few minutes until the dough is smooth and springs back when you poke it. If it’s too wet (sticks to your hands while kneading it) simply add a little more A/P flour until it’s the proper consistency. Place the dough in a clean, greased mixing bowl, flip it over so ther is oil on all sides, cover with a clean dish towel and let it rest in a warm, draft-free place until it doubles in size, about an hour or two.
5. Punch the dough down, let it rest for about five minutes, then cut it into eight even pieces (I cut the dough in half, then cut those peices in half, then cut them each in half again). Meanwhile, spray a sheet pay with pan spray and dust it lightly with cornmeal. Take each individual piece of dough and use your hands to roll it into a log, about eight inches long. Then twist the cylinder of dough around your hand — with the seam on the inside part of your hand — and squeeze to bind it together into a ring. You may need to pinch the seam a little so there is a smooth seal, otherwise it might open up during the proofing/boiling/baking stage. As you make each bagel, place it on the sheet pan with the best side facing up. When all the bagels are formed, cover the sheet pan lightly with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight. Or you can make the bagels in the morning and let them proof all day, at least eight hours.
6. When you get up the next morning, the first thing to do is to put a large pot of water on to boil and preheat your oven to 450F. Remove the bagels from the refrigerator, carefully peel off the plastic wrap and let them warm up a little while you wait for the water to boil. Once it’s at a rolling boil, use a spatula to place the bagels into the water a couple at a time — thanks to the trapped air from the proofing, they will float. Boil one minute on one side then flip them over with the spatula and boil them another minute on the other side. Carefully use your spatula to remove each bagel from the boiling water, letting the excess water drain for a few moments, and place them back on the sheet pan, rounded side up.
7. Brush each bagel with egg wash and sprinkle with whatever topping you want. Then place them right away into the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until they are browned and sound hollow when you tap them. Transfer to a cooling rack and let them cool to room temperature.
These homemade bagels are amazing when you eat them fresh. They are also really fun to give away. Enjoy!Simon Danczuk has lambasted the Labour leader Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband is a 'f****** knob' who costs Labour votes, according to one of his own MPs.
Outspoken backbencher Simon Danczuk said the Labour leader was seen as more of a 'toff' than David Cameron because he was too 'aloof' from voters' everyday lives.
Ordinary people would rather go for a pint with the Prime Minister than the Labour leader - and any MP who said otherwise was 'telling lies', Mr Danczuk said.
He said: 'I spend four hours knocking on doors on a Sunday – they [constituents] say things like 'you're doing an alright job as MP but I don't want Ed Miliband as Prime Minister, so I won't vote for you'.'
Mr Danczuk's bombshell remarks come just 45 days before the general election – and less than two weeks before the official campaign kicks off.
The Labour backbencher tore into Mr Miliband for failing to connect with voters outside London and lambasted his decision to apologise for posing with a copy of the Sun newspaper.
He said the public couldn't understand the Labour leader's decision to pose for a picture holding the Sun – while also claiming he had been right to apologise after the image sparked fury on Merseyside.
Mr Danczuk said: 'It's that sort of double speak from politicians: How could he be right on both counts? That turns people off politics.
'So when somebody hears a politician say that, you know what they think, if you pardon the language: 'What a f****** knob'. That's the reality of it.'
Mr Danczuk also blasted Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman for the same 'double speak'.
The Labour backbencher said Mr Miliband was harming his chances of re-election. Mr Danczuk only won his seat by 889 votes in 2010, narrowly defeating the Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Rowen.
Voters would prefer to go for a pint with the Prime Minister than the Labour leader - pictured in Scotland today - and any MP who said otherwise was 'telling lies', Simon Danczuk said
Mr Miliband delivered a speech to activists in Clydebank, Scotland, today as the party's struggles north of the border continue - with the latest polls showing a landslide victory for the SNP in May
SIMON DANCZUK: LABOUR'S OUTSPOKEN ATTACK DOG Simon Danczuk was only elected in 2010 but has already established himself as one of Parliament's most prominent backbench MPs. The Rochdale MP led the campaign to expose historic child sexual abuse - revealing in shocking detail the crimes of his paedophile predecessor, Cyril Smith. But Mr Danczuk has also launched a series of attacks on his own party - including over immigration, benefits and the lack of working class MPs. He even criticised his own mother for relying on welfare and revealed he had taken drugs. His profile has also been enhanced by his wife Karen, who has risen to fame after posting a series of provocative selfies on Twitter.
He said: 'You get it on the doorstep. If we're having a straight conversation about this, he [Miliband] has an image of being more of a toff than David Cameron. That's how the public see it.
'And what they mean by that is that he's seen as more aloof. They'd prefer to go for a pint with David Cameron than they would with Ed Miliband, that's the reality of it.'
Mr Danczuk said if the Labour Party knew the cost of electing Mr Miliband in September 2010 they would have chosen another leader.
This scathing criticism, in an interview with the New Statesman, comes amid growing concern in the party over Labour's chances in the election in May.
But Mr Danczuk said the Labour Party could be in trouble for years to come.
He said: 'I do think the party has almost been hijacked by what I've described previously as a north London liberal elite. It's just so disconnected.
'I think Labour has a real problem if they don't realign themselves actually, after the general election. If they don't start thinking afresh about how they approach politics and how they involve people at a community level.'
Mr Danczuk added: 'You know, this north London elite view of the world, just doesn't play in Rochdale, Rotherham, Runcorn or anywhere else beginning with an 'r' outside the M25.
'We should be winning Rugby shouldn't we? Why aren't we winning Rugby – we won't win Rugby. Why won't we win Rugby? It's ridiculous.
'So you can't, as leader, just do set piece speeches for three years – hidden behind a lectern – and hope that gets on the 10 o'clock news and convinces loads of people to vote Labour.'
The infamous Gillian Duffy (right) - accused by the former prime minister Gordon Brown of being a 'bigoted women' - opens the new office of Labour MP Simon Danczuk (left) in Rochdale in 2010
The Labour MP used Twitter to insist he had had a'very difficult day' and was 'feeling emotional' about the election
Mr Danczuk said voters were also unenthusiastic about the Prime Minister David Cameron and insisted he wanted Ed Miliband to win the election
He said he was trying to get across the need for more working-class politicians in positions of power
Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps MP said Mr Danczuk's remarks showed even Labour MPs knew Mr Miliband 'just isn’t up to the job'.
He said: ‘He is a weak leader who it utterly out of touch with the lives and concerns of hardworking taxpayers.
‘Not only is Ed Miliband ‘aloof’, his short-term gimmicks would cause chaos and damage the economic security upon which British families depend.’
But Mr |
his career] with everything I could do. When he needed more people in the crowd, I provided more people in the crowd. When he needed security, I provided security. I supported my dude!
When did the two of you have a falling-out?
We never really had a falling-out, that’s the problem. This is why I’m so confused. There was no argument, there was none of that. I don’t want an apology [from him], I want a reason. What happened? When my case [a federal drug-conspiracy charge] came in 1998, I never seen him again too much anymore. The case had nothing to do with him, his name never came up, so I’d like to ask him, “What happened?” Where did his departure come from?
When he talks about you on “No Hook,” is he accusing you of snitching?
I think he’s talking about the way I went about this YouTube project [and not about snitching]. But he’s into subliminal messages, so [I think] he’s trying to get me hurt. That goes beyond disrespect. He’s getting my safety involved. I can’t believe my own daughter’s godfather is trying to get me hurt. But it won’t work. Being that I’ve been in prison a lot of times, a lot of people know my credibility. They know I went all the way to trial with my federal case, and I won.
One of Jay’s former collaborators Jaz-O also has beef with Jay, and former drug dealer Calvin Klein also accuses Jay of appropriating his story.
Me and Jaz sat down and had a long talk not too long ago. Jaz has a right to have a beef. Jaz was there in the beginning. Jaz took him away from the projects and put him in the studio first. Big Daddy Kane had a lot to do with his career too, and he’s not showing no kinda love to him neither. With Klein, if Jay told him he “got him,” then Klein got a right to be mad.
Do you want money from Jay?
Not now! We went beyond that. I was hoping from the first YouTube that we could sit down and discuss this like men. But he didn’t go that route.
Have you seen any financial benefits from this project so far?
No, but I’m looking to see that off of this DVD and this book. They’re about a lot of things that we’re talking about. A lot of people come forward, verifying what I’m saying. In the book I go into full detail about [my] case, about, when I did see Jay, what we talked about. It’s full of details.
Will they be self-released?
Right now, everything is still in the works. I have two major companies which are doing a little bidding war. I might just do something independently if they don’t come up with the proper numbers. —Ben Westhoff
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Washington –Yesterday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin welcomed dozens of key academics, policymakers, advocates and industry stakeholders to the Treasury Department to discuss the Administration's efforts to cut bureaucratic red tape.
"The Administration's goal is to create a regulatory environment that works for, instead of against, the American people. I am proud to welcome to the Department a range of advocates to discuss ways in which we can work together towards a more efficient, appropriately-tailored regulatory system," Mnuchin said.
Attendees heard remarks from Secretary Mnuchin, followed by a panel discussion with Treasury's General Counsel Brent McIntosh, Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy David Kautter, and Counselor to the Secretary Craig Phillips. Moderated by Chief of Staff Eli Miller, the speakers welcomed questions and engagement from the attendees to foster a robust dialogue on the need to ease burdensome and unnecessary regulations.
A common theme emerged from both attendees and the speakers: that efficiency and certainty in regulatory regimes will stimulate growth and level the playing field to position American businesses to succeed in the global economy.
President Trump has issued several executive orders aimed at reducing regulatory burdens. In particular, Executive Order 13772 instructs the Treasury Secretary to report to the President the extent to which the existing financial regulatory system promotes the Administration's "Core Principles" of financial regulation. Similarly, Executive Order 13789 instructs Treasury to review all "significant tax regulations" issued on or after January 1, 2016, and take concrete action to alleviate the burdens of regulations that impose an undue financial burden on U.S. taxpayers or add undue complexity.
####Fashion is all about freeing the nipple, so it was only a matter of time before it started freeing the vulva, too.
Namilia is a Berlin-based design house helmed by Nan Li and Emilia Pfohl, and its latest collection is called “My Pussy, My Choice.” The collection, which showed at New York Fashion Week on Saturday, was a colorful display of garments and shoes adorned with both large and small renderings of female genitalia.
Frazer Harrison via Getty Images Talk about power of the pussy.
According to the show’s invitation, the collection was inspired by the 1748 novel “The Indiscreet Jewels,” written by Denis Diderot and published anonymously. It’s “an allegory that portrays Louis XV as the sultan Mangogul who owns a magic ring that makes women’s genitals (‘jewels’) talk.”
Models strutted down the runway proudly wearing images of vulvas ― some discreet, some not-so-discreet ― on collars, sleeves and skirts.
The NSFW show also featured this interesting bra-type piece:
Theo Wargo via Getty Images Now that's a conversation piece.
There were also ass-less chaps, for good measure:
Frazer Harrison via Getty Images So, this is a look.
Not to mention, as any sexually charged event would have, the New York Post reports the models walked down the runway to Disney music.
Check out more images from the show below.Here's the full statement just sent out by Courtney Sanders in the senator's D.C. office, which speaks -- at length -- for itself:
Announcement by U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison To my fellow Texans: For the past 17 years, it has been my greatest honor to serve the people of Texas in the United States Senate. Working for the citizens and communities of our state is a privilege. I am announcing today that I will not be a candidate for re-election in 2012. That should give the people of Texas ample time to consider who my successor will be. In the next two years, you can be assured that I will pursue my duties, and my responsibilities to our state and people, with the same vigor that I have employed during my Senate service. I have loved visiting all 254 counties in Texas. During my travels, I have been most touched by the constituents who have told me how my work in the Senate has personally impacted their lives. From the man in Dallas who thanked me for passing my Homemaker IRA legislation which allowed him and his wife to save more for their retirement; the teacher and sheriff's deputy in Houston who saved thousands each year because they knew I fought for my bill to relieve the marriage penalty tax; the military families who know I have been a champion of health care and housing for these heroes; and the many constituents that we have been privileged to assist with social security and veterans benefits. Knowing that I have been able to truly help my fellow Texans and make a positive difference in their lives is a public servant's greatest reward.
When my current term is up, I will have served Texas for 19 years in the United States Senate. I intended to leave this office long before now, but I was persuaded to continue in order to avoid disadvantage to our state. The last two years have been particularly difficult, especially for my family, but I felt it would be wrong to leave the Senate during such a critical period. Instead of putting my seat into a special election, I felt it was my duty to use my experience to fight the massive spending that has increased our national debt; the government takeover of the our health care system; and the growth of the federal bureaucracy, which threatens our economy. I will continue that fight until the end of my term in 2012.
I will be forever grateful for the privilege of working for you in the United States Senate. I will now look forward to living full-time in Texas with my family, and to keep working for our state's interests as long as I live.The idea here is that social connection in the broad sense does not need to rely on social connection in the narrow. Gone are the days when we needed formal "notes of introduction" to be connected to people whose acquaintances we want to make. Gone are the days, too, when we needed to be networked with people in order to communicate with them. Now, for the price of maybe-a-dollar, Facebook will act as your social secretary. The benefits of this to the desirer of acquaintance, Facebook suggests, are so obvious as to be implied. For the receiver, the benefits are less obvious -- though this method, Facebook points out, "allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them."
So. On the one hand, this is a legitimately interesting monetization experiment -- and, for that matter, a legitimately interesting social experiment. Will people actually want to be connected in this money-moderated way? How will the introduction of money to the workings of introduction itself -- the "economic signals" Facebook mentions -- change those workings' dynamics? The system could have a nice deterrent effect, Facebook points out, discouraging spammers (who ostensibly wouldn't be so willing to pay to play) from reaching your inbox.
On the other hand, though, this experiment is also a slippery slope to another kind of violation -- not so much of user privacy as of user private-ness. Of people's ability to determine the environments that surround them as they go about their days online. Facebook is, by default, a very public place. But it is also varied in its publicness: In its ecosystem, there are some spaces that are meant to be seen by everyone, and some that are meant to be seen only by you; some that are meant to be highly serendipitous, and some that are meant to be highly controlled. The private message box, in theory, occupies the upper-right corner -- the most controlled and the most private area -- of that matrix.
And in that, importantly, it follows a logic established by the rest of the Internet, a long time ago: the assumption that there is something just a little bit sacred about an inbox. Even the word -- in, box -- suggests containment, separateness, a sense of not-yours-but-mine-ness. The inbox is not only a kind of highly personalized publication; is also in some sense the ultimate social network, curated largely and implicitly by connections one has chosen for oneself. There are exceptions to this, as the sea of spam in my own inbox will attest. But the logic remains: My messages are for me and of me and by me, even when they occasionally include notes from Nigerian princes.
That logic, you would think, would hold especially true for Facebook's inbox. Because on Facebook, that community where so much is public, the private takes on an even higher value. There, the implications of the private message -- inbox as place, inbox as network -- matter even more. Users carry the curatorial logic of email to Facebook. And they take that logic one step further, believing that the messages they receive will come only from people they know -- believing that they'll see notes from Nigerian princes only if those Nigerian princes are also their Facebook friends. Only, that is, if they're already connected. They believe that because it is the logical thing to believe, but they believe it as well because it is what Facebook has told them all along. Whatever the worth of this latest "small experiment," to Facebook or to anyone else, it's another reminder that what Facebook thinks of as "evolution" often means, for its users, disruption -- of expectation, of trust, of the environment they'd adapted to.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] student-athletes took to Twitter on Monday night to share a statement asking for action from the university regarding racial discrimination on campus.
Below is the full statement, as seen in a tweet from men’s basketball forward Nigel Hayes:
As a student, I demand change from @UWMadison. pic.twitter.com/NZEaqBeevP — Nigel Hayes (@NIGEL_HAYES) November 8, 2016
A lengthy list of UW-Madison student-athletes who also shared the message on their Twitter accounts on Monday night is included at the bottom of this article.
UW-Madison has been at the forefront of a dialogue on race relations over the last couple of weeks after two fans wore a despicable set of costumes depicting Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump lynching Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama with a noose during the Badgers’ overtime win against Nebraska at Camp Randall Stadium on Oct. 29. The fan complied with a request from stadium staff to remove the noose and was allowed to stay in his seat.
The university released the following statement immediately after the game:
During the first half of this evening’s Wisconsin football game against Nebraska, UW officials were made aware that an individual in the seating bowl had donned a highly insensitive and offensive costume. UW Athletics’ guest services staff were dispatched to the individual’s seating area where they asked him to remove the offensive components of the costume. He complied. UW Athletics’ policy regarding admission into the stadium with a costume stipulates that no one may be wearing a mask upon entering the facility. Once inside, it is permissible to wear a mask. The costume, while repugnant AND COUNTER TO THE VALUES OF THE UNIVERSITY AND ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT, was an exercise of the individual’s right to free speech. The university also exercised its rights by asking the individual to remove the offensive parts of the costume. UW-Madison is dedicated to promoting a campus environment where all people feel valued, safe and able to thrive. To that end, the university continues to encourage all of our community members to engage in discussion over vital issues in ways that promote greater understanding and respect for all persons.
Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez met with community leaders later in the week to discuss the university’s reaction to the incident.
On Monday, UW-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank addressed comments to the UW-Madison Faculty Senate, which included the news of the university revoking season tickets for the pair of individuals “related to the situation.”
“I am personally very sorry for the hurt that this incident and our response to it has caused. I have heard from students, faculty and community members who are dissatisfied with our response, and I understand why. A noose is a symbol of some of the worst forms of racial hatred and intimidation in our country’s history. We understand this and we should have communicated this more forcefully from the beginning. A noose displayed in this fashion has no place in Camp Randall. I understand the deeply hurtful impact this has on our students and communities of color. We are reviewing our carry in and ticket policies at Camp Randall, together with what our tickets and other information says about conduct at the stadium; We are also reviewing facilities use and other policies to clarify conduct rules at all of our sports facilities. Changes in our carry-in policy and ticket policies will be in place prior to the next football game this Saturday and announced later this week. Other policy review will require input from the Athletic Board and other stakeholders and will occur over the next several months. I’m limited in how much I can say today, but can announce that we’ve indefinitely revoked the season tickets of a pair of individuals related to this situation. We took this action because the person using the tickets brought a prohibited item into the stadium and failed to follow the direction of our event staff. We are also in touch with our new community advisors group and are listening to them, along with everyone who has shared thoughts. We have launched many new initiatives in the past year in an effort to improve our campus climate situation. Many of you are involved in them. This is a work in progress, and we are a long way from where we want to be. But with your advice and input of governance, we have invested time, energy and effort into things like the Our Wisconsin program aimed at incoming freshmen, a bias reporting system, a review of our ethnic studies curriculum, and a black cultural center. We will learn from this incident and do better next time.”
Here are the UW-Madison athletes who joined Hayes in tweeting the statement as of Monday night:
Football
Men’s basketball
Hayes
Forward Charles Thomas
Women’s hockey
Women’s track and Field
Men’s track and field
Men’s tennis
Softball
Men’s soccerWhen a musical project starts out in someone's basement apartment, it usually either evolves into a rock band or a one-man electronica/programming extravaganza. What it typically doesn't turn into is a rotating ensemble of vocalists and musicians that takes current and classic pop songs and recasts them in vintage musical styles. For example, a quick browse through the YouTube page for Postmodern Jukebox, the aforementioned basement-born musical project in question, will reveal a Motown-style cover of Beyonce's "Halo," a Gene Kelly version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" (complete with yellow raincoat-clad tap dancers), and a vintage-jazz cover of Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive."
PMJ is headed up by pianist and arranger Scott Bradlee, who filmed these videos DIY-style in his living room. Within those tight confines, he groups horn players, upright bassists, his own piano, and a series of talented vocalists dressed to the early 20th-century, jazz-diva nines. There are also occasional appearances by Puddles the Clown, whose saloon-song version of Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" is an exercise in giddy, theatrical depression. The result is a catalogue of songs that have been seen and heard over 100 million times.
It might seem like a novelty — some young hipsters in vintage duds redoing pop songs — but it's a lot more than that. Bradlee is a self-taught jazz player with a genuine affection for legends like Fats Waller and Art Tatum. He's a musician whose life changed at age 12 when he heard Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" for the first time. At the same time, Michael Jackson's Bad is the first album he ever loved. Perhaps there's a kernel for the idea behind Postmodern Jukebox somewhere in there.
There are some who say that Bradlee is educating listeners about these older forms of music, though he says that's more or less by accident. "That's just a nice by-product of what we're doing," he says. "This really is about exactly what it sounds like: taking pop songs and recasting them and taking them back in time. But by doing that, we're also doing a number of other things. We're reviving a lot of these older styles of music and maybe encouraging fans of ours to check out our inspiration, where all these songs came from. But we're also providing a platform to showcase new talent and emerging artists."
That group of emerging artists includes a stable of versatile vocalists, from the soulful Mykal Kilgore to the sassy Miche Braden to, improbably enough, former American Idol contestant Haley Reinhart. They've also been joined by renowned sax player Dave Koz and featured on Good Morning, America and NPR. It's still a bit overwhelming for Bradlee, given PMJ's humble beginnings. "I had all this studio equipment and microphones and stuff, and I had this idea to combine new songs with vintage styles," he remembers. "And I invited my friends over to show them the arrangements and help me record them. It started very organically, and it's stayed that way, too. It's spread through word-of-mouth and friends of friends."
Interestingly enough, Bradlee's inspiration often comes from the words to the songs, not anything he hears in the music. "The lyrics a lot of times are my primary focus when I'm doing the arrangements," he says. "For example, we did 'My Heart Will Go On' as '50s R&B. When you look at the lyrics, it could easily be a 1950s song. That's the kind of language they use. And that was the case with 'Livin' on a Prayer' and 'Sweet Child O'Mine,' as well. In fact, when we stripped down 'Sweet Child O'Mine,' we discovered that it was a pure blues song. You could hear it being sung by a Bessie Smith or someone like that. A big part of our success for me is having people hear one of our songs and think, even if it's just for a second, that this could conceivably be from another era."
That success has led to increasingly popular live shows. "What would it be like if you went back in time, hung out with the Rat Pack, and went to a New Year's Eve party in old Hollywood? That's what our show is like," Bradlee says. "It's a variety show. We have an MC that narrates the evening. We have a phenomenal tap dancer that performs, a full band with a horn section — we bring the party."Continuing on in the line of Aardman films, we get to Peter Lord’s Pirates film! I have picked out some of the best hidden details in the film. to show you today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy just like I did when watching the film again today.
Having been to Weston and Bristol this week, I can see why Aardman decided to add this little nod towards Weston Super-Mare. Weston is just down the road from Aardman’s home of Bristol.
This is the only nod to any other Aardman films as far as I can see.
This poster is a reference to Mrs. Slocombe from classic BBC sitcom Are you Being Served? Throughout the episodes, Mrs Slocombe always references her cat as “pussy”. This is a playful nod toward that great sitcom character.
This is another nod to a classic British show. This time it is a reference to Opportunity Knocks. The reference is the Applause – o – Meter in the film as a nod to the one in Opportunity Knocks. In the show the different acts were judged the applause of the audience.
This is Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea written by Jules Verne.
This poster is after a new captain for the ship Bounty. They must have had a mutiny or something.
Whether this is a reference to the Madagascar films, or just a coincidence. But these lemurs certainly remind me of King Julian.
Being a massive fan of the Beano, as I am sure you know, this reference was not lost on me. The Pirate King asks the Pirate Captain for his membership badge with the googly eyes back. This is meant to remind the viewer of the Gnasher badge that was given out to members of the Beano club.
The Pirate King in the film is voiced by Brian Blessed. We see his name mentioned on the Pirate of the Year nomination sheet where it asks about the roaring of the applicant; the options were regular, incessant, or Brian Blessed.
Another British show is referenced, with the Blue Peter badge being on the hat of the Pirate with Gout.
We now see a Blog Blowfish reference. I wish.
A great pun on the gossip mag Hello! made to look like a pirate version.
If you like this post make sure to check out the Aardman films I have searched through. You should find some real hidden gems.
Grand Day Out – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/10/02/easter-eggs-in-wallace-and-gromit-a-grand-day-out/
Wrong Trousers – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/easter-eggs-in-wallace-and-gromit-the-wrong-trousers/
A Close Shave – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/09/01/easter-eggs-in-wallace-and-gromit-a-close-shave/
Chicken Run – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/easter-eggs-in-chicken-run/
Curse of the Were Rabbit – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/easter-eggs-in-wallace-and-gromit-the-curse-of-the-were-rabbit/
Flushed Away – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/easter-eggs-in-flushed-away/
Matter of Loaf and Death – https://blogblowfish.wordpress.com/2015/10/06/easter-eggs-in-wallace-and-gromit-a-matter-of-loaf-and-death/
AdvertisementsIain Duncan Smith has been criticised by the UK’s statistics watchdog for allegedly misusing figures to argue that his benefits cap is pushing people into work.
The work and pensions secretary and Chingford MP previously said the cap was producing “the desired impact” as 8,000 people who would have been affected by the cap had now got jobs.
But the UK Statistics Authority said this statement was not reflected in official figures.
Mr Duncan Smith is rolling out a cap on the total number of benefits people of working age are eligible for across the UK, and told the Daily Mail in an interview that 8,000 people “decided to act” after his department wrote to them to advise their benefits were to be cut.
The authority said the official figures do demonstrate that 8,000 people who could potentially have been hit by the cap had got jobs.
But the authority claimed the figures had come with a warning that they were “not intended to show the additional numbers entering work as a direct result of the contact [from the DWP]”.
The authority further points out that although the number of households expected to be affected had fallen from 56,000 to 40,000 that was due to policy changes rather than any “behavioural change” in those receiving benefits.
However, the article quotes Mr Duncan Smith saying: "The benefit cap sets a strong incentive for people to move into work and even before the cap comes in we are seeing thousands of people seeking help and moving off benefits."
“Already we've seen 8,000 people who would have been affected by the cap move into jobs. This clearly demonstrates that the cap is having the desired impact."
UK Statistics Authority chairman Andrew Dilnot has written an open letter to the secretary of state to say the figures, released in April, do not fully comply with UK codes of practices on statistical releases.
He raised concerns around information on the methodology and sourcing of the figures, and the possible sharing of the data with media outlets in advance of their release.
A petition has now been started on www.change.org which has attracted more than 50,000 signatures calling on MPs to hold Duncan Smith’s use of statistics to account.
The DWP said responses of staff and claimants supported Mr Duncan Smith's public statement.
A spokesman added: "The secretary of state has long held the position that the benefit cap would have an impact on the behaviour of claimants.
"As the minister for employment made clear in a recent interview, DWP staff and claimants are telling us the cap is impacting behaviour and leading to those affected finally entering the world of work.
"It's important to remember that all those potentially impacted by the cap have been contacted by DWP staff who work with the unemployed day in, day out."Google (GOOG) and other online advertising companies subverted privacy settings in Apple’s (AAPL) mobile and desktop Web browser, installing small bits of code meant to track users that Safari normally refuses to accept, according to a report Thursday night.
A Stanford researcher discovered that Google’s “+1” button coding, used on ads the Mountain View company provides across the Web, was able to place an unlimited number of so-called cookies in users’ browsers using a workaround code that is well-known in engineering circles. The Wall Street Journal independently verified that the code was present in Google’s ads and was successful at tracking users.
Safari’s default security settings do not allow advertising suppliers to transmit cookies, the small bits of data that allow websites to identify certain users as they surf the Web. Google, which uses its “+1” button to allow users to identify ads or ad content they like on the Google+ social network, successfully placed cookies on Safari from 22 of the Web’s top 100 sites on a Mac and 23 sites on an iPhone, according to testing by a Journal technical adviser.
Google removed the code, originally discovered in its ads by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer, after questions from the Journal, the newspaper reported. An Apple official told the Journal that the Cupertino company was “working to put a stop” to the practice.
Rachel Whetstone, Google’s senior vice president of communications and public policy, said in an emailed statement “The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.”
The code in advertising tricked Safari into believing that a Web surfer was submitting a form to Google, allowing the company to place cookies into a user’s browser and identify them across the Web. Whetstone’s statement called the code “a temporary communication link between Safari browsers and Google’s servers, so that we could ascertain whether Safari users were also signed into Google.”
While the cookies reportedly expired in 12 to 24 hours, the loophole in Safari allows a company to place unlimited cookies once it has placed one, giving Google the ability to track some users continually. “We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers,” Whetstone wrote.
Three other online advertising companies were found to be using the code as well, according to the Journal: Vibrant Media, WPP’s Media Innovation Group and Gannett’s PointRoll. However, those three combined cannot match Google’s market share in the online advertising business. Google brought in more than 51 percent of the mobile advertising market’s $1.45 billion haul in 2011, eMarketer reported earlier this year, and was behind only Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO) in display advertising market share, with 9.3 percent.
Advertising that successfully placed cookies in users’ browsers appeared on sites including online-dating hub Match.com, AOL.com, AT&T’s YellowPages.com and even the Journal’s own website, WSJ.com, the newspaper reported.
“We were unaware this was happening on WSJ.com and are looking into it further,” a Journal spokeswoman said.
“We were not aware of this behavior,” AT&T spokesman Michael Balmoris told the Journal. “We would never condone it.”
Facebook also uses the code in some of its apps and games, the Journal reported, and a page Facebook provides for app developers links to a blog post that helped popularize the workaround with engineers, posted two years ago by an Indian Web developer named Anant Garg.
Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.Last week, I was driving down West 24th Street when I noticed something…
They’re tearing down the West 24th Street skybridge.
Once connecting the two buildings that comprised the now defunct International Toy Center, the southern building at 1107 Broadway is currently being converted into luxury condos. While there’s certainly no need for the bridge anymore, I’m sorry to see it go.
I love Manhattan’s skybridges, the kind that connect two buildings over busy streets. They’ve always reminded me of a future New York as imagined in the early 1900s, a time when it seems everyone expected the city’s thoroughfares to ascend with the tallest skyscrapers. Below, William Robinson Leigh’s 1908 Visionary City…
Sadly, the 21st century requires a decidedly grounded passage through Manhattan. However, a handful of skybridges can still be found around Manhattan that speak to that futuristic city that never was. Here they are:
The East 24th Street Skybridge
This is one of my favorite Manhattan skybridges, connecting 1 Madison Ave and 11 Madison Ave:
Decked out in gorgeous stainless steel, the bridge was erected at a time when both gargantuan buildings were owned by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Today, the offices are primarily occupied by Credit Suisse, with the tower portion soon to become an upscale hotel. No word on whether the bridge is still in use, though working lights can be seen from the street.
The Staple Street Skybridge
Manhattan’s lowest skybridge is nonetheless one of its most photographed.
Located on an archetypal New York alley lined with wonderful brick buildings and zig-zagging fire escapes, the Staple Street skybridge was built in 1907 to connect 9 Jay Street to 67 Hudson Street, which were then the House of Relief medical clinic, run by New York Hospital.
On the north side, the skybridge actually angles out…
…to wrap around the side of 67 Hudson:
To this day, 67 Hudson Street still houses medical offices:
Also, be sure to look to the third floor of the 9 Jay Street annex…
…where you’ll see a terra cotta emblem from its New York Hospital days.
The West 32nd Street Skybridge
Another one of my favorites dates to a time when the Macy’s flagship store had a rival just a block away.
This gorgeous three-story (!!) copper skybridge was built in 1925 to connect the Gimbels Department Store (today, the Manhattan Mall)…
…to an annex at 116 West 32nd Street.
The art deco skybridge is no longer in use, though someone was able to snap a few photos of its interior this past June.
The West 15th Street Skybridge
Our next skybridge is located where the Oreo cookie was invented.
Though most know it today as Chelsea Market, the enormous, block-sprawling complex was once home to the bakeries of Nabisco (from National Biscuit Company, formerly the New York Biscuit Company).
In 1930, this skybridge was built to connect the bakery to Nabisco’s offices across the street.
Today, the skybridge is no longer in use. I was told the bridge is boarded up on the annex side; no word on the Chelsea Market side. I love the arched windows and zig-zagging motif below:
In fact, Nabisco liked skybridges so much…
The 10th Avenue Skybridge
…They built another one! Head around the corner and you’ll find Nabisco’s second skybridge, which connected the bakeries to a second office building on the west side of 10th Avenue.
Girded in an aluminum art deco motif, the skybridge runs above the rail tracks which once brought goods to the factory, since transformed into the High Line elevated park.
The Pine Street Skybridge
Probably the least photogenic of the bunch, the two-story skybridge on Pine Street connects 70 Pine Street to 74 Wall Street, infamous for being the former headquarters of AIG.
AIG purchased the properties in 1976, though I couldn’t find any mention of when this unremarkable skybridge went up.
Today, as 70 Pine Street undergoes renovations into luxury condos, cardboard covers the windows of the bridge. No word on whether it’ll remain in place.
Fun sidenote: when walking by the towering 70 Pine Street building, be sure to look above the entrance…
…where you’ll see a miniature model of the building:
The Lexington Avenue Skybridge
On the Upper East Side, Hunter College has several modern skybridges connecting its campus buildings, one of which can claim the prize for being the only skybridge in the city that crosses two different streets…
…first, spanning Lexington Ave…
…then, angling north-west…
…and continuing across 68th Street to connect with the school’s original building.
The 60th Street Skybridge
Not to be outdone by Gimbel’s, Bloomingdale’s also has a skybridge of its own on 60th Street.
Once connecting the flagship store to an office across the street, the annex is reportedly no longer in use by Bloomingdale’s, and the bridge has been sealed.
Another digression: I love this row of original Bloomingdale’s buildings wedged between the larger department store complex. The uniform white paint almost make them feel like ghosts of their former structures.
The New York-Presbyterian Hospital Skybridges
The last bunch takes us up to New York Presbyterian Hospital, which is home to at least six different skybridges by my count…
Four crossing Fort Washington Avenue…
…and two more spanning Riverside Drive.
My favorite thing about the NY Presbyterian skybridges? Unlike nearly every other example on this list, people are actually still using them.
-SCOUT
PS – Did I miss any? Be sure to let me know! Note: I’m specifically talking about inter-building skybridges that cross active streets or avenues (as opposed to pedestrian bridges crossing highways/streets, or inter-building skybridges that do not cross active streets).
If you enjoyed reading this post, would you consider making a donation to help me make my first movie? The goal is $50,000, and to date, 1,728 Scouting NY readers have donated $36,348! Just $5 or $10 can make a difference - AND you get this snazzy Scouting NY sticker/magnet as a Thank-You gift! Click here to donate today!
And hey, if you've made it this far, why not follow us via RSS, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or Tumblr?Washington Times Warns Opposition To Voter Suppression Is The "Real Threat" July 23, 2013 6:01 PM EDT ››› Blog ›››››› SERGIO MUNOZ
As The Times noted in reference to Virginia, now that the VRA's ability to prevent the worst historical actors from enacting election practices that discriminate on the basis of race is nullified, these voter ID laws that were previously blocked by the "preclearance" mechanism of Sections 4 and 5 are proceeding across the old Confederacy at a rapid clip. Calling these laws "common sense" that protect "the integrity of the ballot," The Times ignored that the voter fraud these laws purport to prevent is virtually non-existent, a fact even recently recognized by Shepard Smith of Fox News.
If Congress doesn't act, these laws that were illegal prior to Shelby County will be much harder for the courts to stop, even if their racially discriminatory effect is clear. North Carolina, for example, recently released a study that "confirm[ed] what many suspected." As explained in The New Republic:
The North Carolina data confirms what many suspected: Voter ID laws have a disparate impact on non-white |
, you know,” he said. “When I saw her at the beginning, she was responding to me.” Later, he said, Warren “didn’t seem to be waking up.”
A witness to the incident told The Times of phoning USC President C.L. Max Nikias’ office, giving two employees an anonymous account of the overdose and demanding that USC take action against Puliafito.
Phone records reviewed by The Times showed the witness made a six-minute call to Nikias’ office on March 14, 2016, 10 days after the overdose.
Last week, Puliafito’s successor as dean, Dr. Rohit Varma, told a gathering of scores of students that USC had found “no evidence, particularly, of that phone call.”
But on Tuesday, a crisis management specialist representing USC, Charles Sipkins, said that Nikias’ office did receive an anonymous call about Puliafito’s presence at the hotel overdose. However, the anonymous report did not make it to top university officials, Sipkins said.
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Former USC medical school dean no longer seeing patients; Pasadena police discipline officerST. THOMAS — Trial got underway Monday morning for Enrique Saldana who is accused of murdering his wife almost three years ago.
The 53-year-old former police captain is charged with one count each of first-degree murder, seconddegree murder, first-degree assault, second-degree assault and three counts of third-degree assault, all crimes of domestic violence, in connection with the May 2014 death of his wife, Jeanette Saldana, 43.
Prosecutors will be relying on the testimony of a number of witnesses to help them prove that on May 2, 2014, Mr. Saldana showed up at his wife’s house and they began arguing. Then, he debilitated her so that she couldn’t fight back and then killed her.
Later, Mr. Saldana called 911 to report that his girlfriend wasn’t breathing and that he needed assistance to go to the hospital; he was in the area of Food Center at the time. An off-duty police officer, Cpl. Bernard Burke who heard the transmission, met Mr. Saldana at the hospital and helped him remove Jeanette Magras-Saldana from the jeep Mr. Saldana was driving.
“I had a hard time lifting her,” Cpl. Burke testified at the start of the trial. “To me, I was lifting dead weight.”
The nine men and six women empaneled to hear the case also heard the testimonies of six other witnesses, including crime scene technicians and medical personnel.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant Attorneys General Ednin Martinez, Nadja Harrigan and Quincy McRae.
V.I. Superior Court Judge Michael Dunston is presiding over the trial.
Feature Image: Jeanette Saldana.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
UK police are hunting an Irish girl and another man after an ASDA worker was slapped across the face with a WET FISH.
The 52-year-old victim was working behind the fish counter in Asda, Accrington, when a young woman approached the stall to ask about different fish.
Without warning the woman then picked up a large bream from the counter and slapped the worker across the face before running out of the store, the Accrington Observer reports.
Officers said the victim believes the incident was being filmed on a mobile phone by a man who stood nearby and also ran away when challenged.
The woman they want to speak to is described as being Irish and aged between 15 and 18 with blonde, shoulder-length untidy hair.
She was wearing dark jeans and a blue coat with white cuffs, white down the front and a red collar with ‘I love PB’ on the left breast pocket.
The man they want to speak to is described as being around the same age, 5ft 8ins tall, wearing a dark coat and dark grey trousers and boots.
The incident happened at around 3pm on Tuesday, February 4 at the supermarket on Hyndburn Road.
PC Graham Hartley said: “This behaviour is completely unacceptable and I would appeal to anybody that witnessed this incident or recognises either the man or the woman pictured in the CCTV images to come forward and contact me, PC 1183 Hartley on 101.”For affordable housing advocates, this spells trouble. Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Deep cuts to HUD could exacerbate the nation’s already severe affordable housing crisis.
Think of a school bus driver, truly the most thankless job of all. Brutally underpaid. Subject to world-historic levels of daily harassment. On the best of days, bus drivers still spend their workday lurching through traffic. Plus, for the most part, school bus drivers live paycheck to paycheck. In none of the 210 metro areas in the U.S. can school bus drivers afford to live where they work. They are subject to difficult decisions, according to the National Housing Conference—think soul-crushing commutes or substandard housing—or cruel tradeoffs, such as forgoing medical care in order to pay the rent. School bus drivers are just one class of underpaid, underprivileged workers who stand to be much worse off under President Donald Trump. On Thursday, the Trump administration released details of its planned budget, and as expected, it features deep cuts to a wide array of social safety net spending. Housing assistance took a particularly dramatic blow. Trump’s proposal calls for gutting whole categories of rental aid for some of the nation’s must vulnerable families.
The administration’s budget includes $6.2 billion in cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Relative to funding levels necessary for HUD in fiscal year 2017, the cuts amount to a 15 percent reduction—the largest cuts in housing aid since the Reagan administration. Trump’s budget would eliminate several core categories of housing assistance at HUD. Community Development Block Grants, HOME Investment Partnerships, the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program, and several other aid programs at HUD would be nixed. As a result, more than 200,000 families, seniors, and people with disabilities who benefit from housing assistance will be at immediate risk of homelessness, according to Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. “This budget proposal must not and will not stand,” she says. Trump pledges to make cuts in rural housing aid permanent, essentially targeting his most ardent supporters. The budget cuts would affect a broad array of American workers and families. Trump’s budget would eliminate the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which former HUD Secretary Julián Castro described as “vital” to reducing homelessness among veterans. Under the Obama administration, veteran homelessness plunged by 47 percent, thanks in part to work by the Interagency Council. The Trump budget also includes big cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, specifically to portions of the program that provide rental assistance to rural households. Rural rental assistance saw steep cuts during the Obama years. Trump pledges to make those cuts in housing aid permanent, essentially targeting his most ardent supporters.
Federal affordable housing dollars may be squeezed even further in the short term, in order to meet the president’s goal to boost defense spending. Cuts to housing aid will compound costs in other corners of the economy. For thousands of vulnerable families, the other side of housing aid is homelessness. The nation, already in the grips of an affordable-housing crisis, could see a rise in homelessness unmatched since the Reagan administration. Affordable housing advocates have already fired off the first round of promises to fight the proposed budget, stressing its potential impact on other federal expenses. “Living in an affordable, healthy home directly affects the ability of children to succeed in school and the health of older adults and people with disabilities,” said Chris Estes, president and CEO of the National Housing Conference, in a memo. “Access to quality stable homes is a key component of reducing health care costs, especially in Medicare and Medicaid.” In an email to CityLab, former HUD Secretary Castro was unsurprisingly harsh in his assessment: "This budget proposal deserves an F,” he wrote. “It would benefit the wealthy and military contractors at the expense of America's middle class and the poor. By cutting funds for housing opportunity, this budget would drive up homelessness for veterans, families and young people. Congress should reject it." Meanwhile, in Detroit, new HUD Secretary Ben Carson just launched a national listening tour. Wherever he goes, he’s bound to get an earful from local housing advocates about the effects that deep budget cuts will have on their work: Across the country, no single county has enough affordable housing to meet the needs of its lowest income residents.Child poverty map of UK paints a bleak picture
By Dennis Moore
27 January 2012
In some of the poorest areas of the UK, between 40 and 50 percent of children live in poverty, with areas of London featuring heavily.
The “Child Poverty Map of the UK” classified poverty as families claiming out-of-work benefits or in-work tax credits where income is less than 60 percent of the median—£25,000 a year. At below 60 percent of the median income, material deprivation leads to families struggling to meet basic needs like food, heating, clothing and the extra costs of schooling such as school trips.
After housing costs, household bills and general family spending needs will have to be met by approximately £12 or less per family member a day. For those families on benefits, this figure can be substantially less.
The figures used to compile the report by the Campaign to End Child Poverty were taken from tax credit data showing the number of families with children living on low incomes in a given local authority, parliamentary constituency or ward in the UK. It is considered to be an accurate and up-to-date picture of child poverty in the UK as recently as mid-2011.
Four in 10 children are in poverty in 19 parliamentary constituencies, with 50 to 70 percent of children facing poverty in 100 local wards.
London has some of the most deprived areas. Tower Hamlets borough, with a population of nearly 238,000, is the worst affected, with 52 percent of children living in poverty. Islington is at number two, with Hackney, Westminster and Camden also in the top 10.
In other areas of the UK, Birmingham Ladywood, Liverpool Riverside and Belfast West all stand at or above 46 percent in terms of child poverty.
Manchester came out as third worst in the country, with the Manchester Central constituency recording a child poverty level of 49 percent. In Manchester overall, 40 percent of children are living below the poverty line.
In Scotland, the Springburn area of Glasgow has 52 percent children living in poverty, and 44 percent in the northeast area of the city.
Campaign to End Child Poverty executive director Alison Garnham said, “The child poverty map paints a stark picture of a socially segregated Britain where life chances of millions of children are damaged by poverty and inequality.”
Poverty will shorten lives. It is estimated that a boy in Manchester will live seven years less than a boy in Barnet and a girl from Manchester is expected to live six years less than a girl from Kensington, Westminster and Chelsea.
Poor children are born too small, with low birth weights associated with infant death and chronic diseases in later life. Children growing up in poverty are more likely to leave school at 16 with fewer qualifications. Two percent of couples and 8 percent of lone parents are not able to afford two pairs of shoes for each child.
The UK has one of the highest rates of poverty in the industrialised world, with 4 million (almost one in three children) currently living in poverty. This number has increased dramatically in the last 30 years. In 1979, there were around 1 in 10 children living in poverty. Inner urban areas are generally much higher.
A statement in the report says, “Parents will often try and shield their children from some of the impacts of financial hardship and the stigma of ‘poverty’.
“Sometimes parents will make sacrifices, such as skipping meals, so that they can send their child off to school with a warm coat, or out to play in the same popular brand of trainers that their friends have.
“They do not want their children to feel excluded, or become bullied. But behind the doors of the home, the hardship is often far more visible and many are deeply trapped in debt.”
The unprecedented austerity programme being imposed by the Conservative Party/Liberal Democrat government, including drastic cuts in social benefit entitlement and wage freezes as well as rises in fuel and food prices, is making it more difficult for families to survive. This trend in increasing poverty and misery for millions of children in the UK is set to rise, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies predicting that the figure for child poverty will rise by 400,000 by the year 2015, with a couple with two children expected to be worse off financially by £1,250 a year.
The demand on charities that assist poor families in need is increasing. Jan O’Connor, manager of the Manchester-based charity Wood Street Mission, which provides bedding, clothes and toys to families in need, has said, “We saw a nine percent increase in people seeking our help last year, and I feel that more people will end up in poverty as the recession continues.”
The trend in rising child poverty has taken place ever since the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives in 1979, driven by the offensive waged against jobs, wages and welfare provisions. For all Labour’s hand-wringing about the plight of poor families, and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal pledge to “end child poverty” in a generation, the gap between the rich and poor reached record levels under Labour’s rule. Even though it was targeted for special attention, child poverty fell just a few percentage points, from a high of 33 percent in 1998, in a period of economic boom. It is now climbing and set to go beyond its previous high.
The Conservative/Liberal government’s policies will throw further millions of people into poverty. The government is currently legislating to cap the total benefit payment that can be received by a household to £26,000 per annum. The cap affects those in areas with high housing costs, with 55 percent living in Central London.
The move amounts to a form of social cleansing. Tim Leunig, the chief economist at the Centre Forum think tank, told the Observer, “The worst hit, of course, are large families in the south-east, where rents are higher. Even in Tolworth [in south London], described by the Evening Standard as the ‘scrag end of Kingston borough’, a four bedroom house will give you little change from £400 a week. Cutting housing benefit to £100 a week—which is broadly what the cap means if you have four children—makes life impossible. After rent, council tax and utilities, a family with four children would have 62 pence per person per day to live on. That is physically impossible.”
The measure is reported to save £270 million towards the government’s overall target of cutting a massive £18 billion from the welfare bill in the lifetime of the parliament. The Observer reported a leaked government memo suggesting that just this one measure will push 100,000 children below the poverty line—an indication of how many will suffer the same fate as a result of overall cuts many times that figure.On the FAQ page, Valve writes that there isn't a catch for the company not charging licensing fees. And while that's technically true, you do need to attend a $3,000 in-person training session in Seattle as part of the process. Valve hopes to allay that in the future, but for now, classes start in September, with Gabe Newell and Co. recommending that groups of industrial designers, and mechanical-and-electrical engineers attend rather than individuals. Those sessions start in September.
Honestly, they sound a bit like a college class and will have lecture and lab sessions covering SteamVR integration, troubleshooting and designing your own trackable objects. Are you ready to go back to school? Then maybe use Intel's recent advancement in VR tracking for inspiration.
Update: A previous version of this story said that Valve was open-sourcing the tracker. That is inaccurate, and the article has since been edited for clarity.This is a list of windows on Main Street, U.S.A. at the Disney resorts. The names painted in the windows serve as credits for some of the many people who contributed in some manner to the parks (Disneyland Paris being an exception, where some refer to characters or stories from Disney films and shows). Typically they appear as fictional businesses (realtors, dentists, etc.), and often refer to a hobby of or development made by the person honored. Bob Gurr's window, for example, refers to his development of most vehicles at the park.
According to Marty Sklar, "to add a name [on a window] today, there are three requirements: (1) Only on retirement. (2) Only the highest level of service/respect/achievement. (3) Agreement between top individual park management and Walt Disney Imagineering, which creates the design and copy concepts."[1]
Windows are listed in alphabetical order by last name.
A [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Milt Albright Milt Albright - Entrepreneur - No Job Too Big - No Job Too Small Above the Opera House Disneyland Charles Alexander Carpenters & Joiners - George Mills - Ray Conway - Chas Alexander Above the Market House Disneyland Bob Allen Windermere Fraternal Hall - “Lodge Meetings Every Friday” - Charter Members - Bob Allen, Pete Crimmings, Dick Evans, Bill Hoelscher, Bob Mathieson, Bill Sullivan[2] Center Street - Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] C.F. Allen C. F. Allen, MD - C. V. Patterson, MD Above New Century Timepieces Disneyland Hideo Amemiya Happiest Dreams on Earth - International School of Hospitality - Hideo Amemiya, Headmaster - "We put people first" Above the Disney Showcase Disneyland Ken Anderson Ken Anderson - Bait Co. Above the Market House Disneyland X Atencio The Musical Quill - Lyrics and Librettos by X. Atencio Above the Opera House Disneyland Above Confectionery Magic Kingdom[3]
B [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Buddy Baker Plaza School of Music - Sheet Music—B. Baker Above the Car Barn Magic Kingdom[3] Renie Bardeau Kingdom Photo Services - Renie Bardeau Photographer, Archivist Above Main Street Photo Supply Disneyland H. Draegart Barnard Real Estate—Houses Bought and Sold, H. Draegart Barnard Above the Disney Clothiers Disneyland Tony Baxter Main Street Marvels - Tony Baxter Inventor "Imagination is at the heart of our Creations" Above the Magic Shoppe Disneyland The Camelot Core—Road Show Installations—Tony Baxter, Dave Burkhart, Ed Johnson, Gary Younger Magic Kingdom[3] Main Street Gazette - Since 1867 - "We Print the News Before It Happens" - Martin Sklar, Editor-in-Chief - Tony Baxter, Managing Editor Above the Main Street Gazette Disneyland Paris Mary Blair Center Street - Painting & Sculpture - Collin Campbell, Herbert Ryman, Blaine Gibson, Mary Blair, Dorothea Redmond Magic Kingdom[3] Wally Boag Golden Vaudeville Routines - Wally Boag - Prop. Above the Carnation Company Disneyland Chuck Boyajian Royal Care Co. - We Keep Your Castle Shining - Chuck Boyajian - Prop. Above the Market House Disneyland Charles Boyer Partners Portrait Gallery - Charles Boyer, Master Illustrator Above the Emporium Disneyland C. "Randy" Bright Photographic Studio - C. "Randy" Bright - Proprietor Above Castle Bros. Disneyland Roger E. Broggie "Can Do" Machine Works - Mechanical Wonders - Live Steam Engines - Magical Illusions - Cameras - Roger Broggie, Shopmaster - "Advisor to the Magic Makers" Above the Main Street Magic Shop Disneyland Broggie's Buggies - Roger Broggie, Wheelwright - Wagons - Surreys - Sleighs Corner of the Fire Station and Emporium Magic Kingdom[4] Howard Brummitt Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom Ed Bullard Project Detective Agency Private Investigations - We Never Sleep - Ed Bullard, Investigator Above the Emporium Magic Kingdom Dave Burkhart The Camelot Core—Road Show Installations—Tony Baxter, Dave Burkhart, Ed Johnson, Gary Younger Magic Kingdom[3] Harriet Burns The Artisans Loft - Handmade Miniatures By Harriet Burns Above Carriage Place Clothing Company Disneyland Bruce Bushman Ship Models - Bushman & Dagradi - Mfgs. Above the Market House Disneyland
C [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Collin Campbell Center Street - Painting & Sculpture - Collin Campbell, Herbert Ryman, Blaine Gibson, Mary Blair, Dorothea Redmond Magic Kingdom[3] John Louis Catone John Louis Catone — Locksmith Above the Mad Hatter Disneyland Ken Chapman Golden State Graphic Arts Studio - Latest Artistic Principles Employed - Ken Chapman, Paul Hartley, Sam McKim, Elmer Plummer, Ernie Prinzhorn[5] Magic Kingdom[3] Royal Clark United Audit - Book Keeping - Accounts Auditor - Royal Clark - Mgr. Above the Carnation Co. Disneyland Claude Coats Coats & Co. - Claude Coats Proprietor Above the Emporium Annex Disneyland Big Top Theatrical - Claude Coats, Marc Davis, John De Cuir, Bill Justice Above the Main Street Athletic Club Magic Kingdom[3] Lee A. Cockerell The Main Street Diary - "True Tales of Inspiration" - Lee A. Cockerell, Editor-in-Chief Above the Watches Store Magic Kingdom Malcolm Cobb Daughterland Modeling Agency - Instruction in the Arts & Crafts - What Every Young Girl Should Know! - Bob Sewell, Counselor - Malcolm Cobb, Jack Fergus, Fred Joerger, Mitz Natsume[5] Above Uptown Jewelers Magic Kingdom[3] Renie Conley Milady Fashions Renie — Dressmaking, hemstitching & picating Above the Carnation Cafe Disneyland Ray Conway Carpenters & Joiners - George Mills - Ray Conway - Chas Alexander Above the Market House Disneyland Jim Cora Global Exports and Expats - Specializing in Land & Sea Operations - Our Motto: "The Sun Never Sets on our Magical Kingdoms" - Jim Cora, Master Operator Above Disney Clothiers Disneyland Charles Corson New Era Band & Choir Studio- If It's New, It's the Latest -Instruction – Talent Agents - Robert Jani, Bandmaster - Charles Corson, Casting Director Above the Emporium Magic Kingdom[2][3] W. Dennis "Bill" Cottrell W. Dennis Cottrell, Detective Agency, Private Investigator. "We Never Sleep" Above the Market House Disneyland Meg Crofton Center for Leadership Development & Mentoring, Meg Gilbert Crofton, "We start leaders on their journeys" Across from Crystal Arts Store Magic Kingdom Peter Crimmings Windermere Fraternal Hall - “Lodge Meetings Every Friday” - Charter Members - Bob Allen, Pete Crimmings, Dick Evans, Bill Hoelscher, Bob Mathieson, Bill Sullivan[2] Center Street - Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] Roland Fargo "Rolly" Crump Fargo’s Palm Parlor - Predictions That Will Haunt You – Bazaar, Whimsical & Weird – “Designs to Die For” – Roland F. Crump – Assistant to the Palm Reader Above Fargo’s Palm Parlor Disneyland
D [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Don DaGradi Ship Models - Bushman & Dagradi - Mfgs. Above the Market House Disneyland Hank Dains The Back Lot - Props & Scenic Backdrop - Frank Millington, Chuck Fowler, Hank Dains, Marshall Smelser[6] Center Street-Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] Alice Davis Small World Costume Co. - Alice Davis - Seamstress to the Stars Above Disneyana Disneyland Marc Davis Far East Imports - Exotic Art - Marc Davis - Proprietor Above Disneyana Disneyland Big Top Theatrical - Claude Coats, Marc Davis, John DeCuir, Bill Justice Above the Main Street Athletic Club Magic Kingdom[3] Marvin Davis Richard Irvine - Marvin Davis Above Main Street Bank Disneyland Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom John DeCuir Big Top Theatrical - Claude Coats, Marc Davis, John DeCuir, Bill Justice Above the Main Street Athletic Club Magic Kingdom[3] Abigail Disney Sailmaker - Roy E. Disney - Specializing in the Gentlemanly Sport of Racing at Sea - Sailing Lessons - Aboard the Ketch Peregrina - Patty Disney, First Mate - Roy Patrick, Abigail - Susan, Timothy Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom Elias Disney Elias Disney - Contractor - Est. 1895 Above the Emporium Disneyland[3] Center Street - Above Uptown Jewelers Magic Kingdom[3] Patricia Disney Sailmaker - Roy E. Disney - Specializing in the Gentlemanly Sport of Racing at Sea - Sailing Lessons - Aboard the Ketch Peregrina - Patty Disney, First Mate - Roy Patrick, Abigail - Susan, Timothy Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom Roy E. Disney Pyewacket Cruise Lines - For a Day You Will Treasure Book a Cruise That's a "Pleasure" - Capt. Roy E. Disney Above Ribbons & Bows Hat Shop Disneyland Paris Roy O. Disney "If We Can Dream It - We Can Do It!" - Roy O. Disney - Dreamers & Doers Development Co. Above the Main Street Confectionery Magic Kingdom Two Brothers Inc. - Dreamers & Doers - "If we can Dream it we can Do it!" - Roy O. Disney, Walt E. Disney, Founders and Partners Above Delicious Sweets Disneyland Paris Roy Patrick Disney Sailmaker - Roy E. Disney - Specializing in the Gentlemanly Sport of Racing at Sea - Sailing Lessons - Aboard the Ketch Peregrina - Patty Disney, First Mate - Roy Patrick, Abigail - Susan, Timothy Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom Susan Disney Tim Disney Walt Disney Open Since '55 - Disneyland Casting Agency - "It takes People to Make the Dream a Reality" - Walter Elias Disney, Founder & Director Emeritus Main Street Cinema Disneyland Open Since '71 - Magic Kingdom Casting Agency - "It takes People to Make the Dream a Reality" - Walter Elias Disney, Founder & Director Emeritus Magic Kingdom Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Walt Disney World Railroad Office - Keeping Dreams on Track - Walter E. Disney, Chief Engineer Above the Railroad Station Two Brothers Inc. - Dreamers & Doers - "If we can Dream it we can Do it!" - Roy O. Disney, Walt E. Disney, Founders and Partners Above Delicious Sweets Disneyland Paris Ron Dominguez Orange Grove Property Mgt. - "We Care For Your Property As If It Were Our Own" - Ron Dominguez - Owner Above the Market House Disneyland
E [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Don Edgren Yesmen Engineering Associates - No Challenge Too Big for our Yes Men - We know No "No" - Don Edgren, Chief Engineer Above the Silhouette Studio Disneyland Michael Eisner Conducted Daily - Main Street Marching Band - Leading the Parade since 1884 - Conductors, Michael Eisner, Frank Wells - "We Work While You Whistle" Above the Emporium Disneyland Paris Peter Ellenshaw Plaza School of Art - Instructors - Herbert Ryman - John Hench - Peter Ellenshaw Above Main Street Photo Supply Company Disneyland Tom Elrod Main Street Gazette - Advertisers Welcomed - Publicity Experts At Your Service! - Jean-Marie Gerbeaux, Tom Elrod Above the Main Street Gazette Disneyland Paris Greg A. Emmer The Cast Doctor Celebrating Our 50th - Operating in Many Lands Around the World - "Every Cast a Perfect Fit" - Greg A. Emmer - Specializing in Casting Since '68 Above the Main Street Cinema Disneyland Dick Evans Windermere Fraternal Hall - “Lodge Meetings Every Friday” - Charter Members - Bob Allen, Pete Crimmings, Dick Evans, Bill Hoelscher, Bob Mathieson, Bill Sullivan[2] Center Street - Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] Morgan "Bill" Evans Evans Gardens - Exotic & Rare Species - Freeway Collections - Est. 1910 - Morgan (Bill) Evans - Senior Partner Above the Opera House Disneyland You Show 'em - Morgan Evans DTS, Tony Virgina ATS Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] Spin Evans Evans and Markham Advertising - Products Tested Above the Liberty Arcade Disneyland Paris
F [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Mark Feary Main Street Gazette - Classified Department - We Demonstrate the Highest Regard for Truth In Advertising - Honest - Mark Feary, Ron Kollen Above the Main Street Gazette Disneyland Paris Jack Fergus Daughterland Modeling Agency - Instruction in the Arts & Crafts - What Every Young Girl Should Know! - Bob Sewell, Counselor - Malcolm Cobb, Jack Fergus, Fred Joerger, Mitz Natsume[5] Above Uptown Jewelers Magic Kingdom[3] Orlando Ferrante Pico Organization - Installation & Coordination of World Class Projects - "We Never Sleep - In Any Time Zone" - Orlando Ferrante, Founder Above the Market House Disneyland The Original Dick Nunis Gym Turkish Baths – Massage Parlor 24 Hour Service Supervisor Dick Nunis, Night Manager Ron Miller, Masseur O. Ferrante[5] Above the Main Street Bakery Magic Kingdom[3] Van Arsdale France Van Arsdale France - Founder and Professor Emeritus - Disney Universities Above the space between Great American Pastimes and the Main Street Magic Shop Disneyland Bob Foster Pseudonym Real Estate Dev. Co. - Roy Davis President, Bob Price Vice-President, Bob Foster Travelling Rep. Magic Kingdom[3] Chuck Fowler The Back Lot - Props & Scenic Backdrop - Frank Millington, Chuck Fowler, Hank Dains, Marshall Smelser[6] Center Street-Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3]
G [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Jean-Marie Gerbeaux Main Street Gazette - Advertisers Welcomed - Publicity Experts At Your Service! - Jean-Marie Gerbeaux, Tom Elrod Above the Main Street Gazette Disneyland Paris Blaine Gibson The Busy Hands School - Sculpting, Whittling & Soap Carving & Blaine Gibson - The Eternal Pursuit of the Artists Craft Above the Opera House Disneyland Center Street - Painting & Sculpture - Collin Campbell, Herbert Ryman, Blaine Gibson, Mary Blair, Dorothea Redmond Magic Kingdom[3] D. S. Gilmore D. S. Gilmore, MD - E. G. Upjohn, MD Above New Century Timepieces Disneyland Yale Gracey Buena Vista Magic Lantern Slides - Treat Your Friends To Our Special Tricks - Yale Gracey, Bud Martin, Ken O'Brien, Wathel Rogers Above the Main Street Confectionery Magic Kingdom Vic Greene Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom Bob Gurr Leading the rare to the future – Meteor Cycle Co. – Our vehicles pass the test of time – Fast, Faultless, and Fadless – Bob Gurr – Design Impresario Above the Disney Clothiers Disneyland The Big Wheel Co. - Horseless Carriages - Bob Gurr Above Main Street Fashion and Apparel Magic Kingdom[3]
H [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park J. S. Hamel J.S. Hamel - Consulting Engineer Above the Main Street Bank Disneyland Paul Hartley Golden State Graphic Arts Studio - Latest Artistic Principles Employed - Ken Chapman, Paul Hartley, Sam McKim, Elmer Plummer, Ernie Prinzhorn[5] Magic Kingdom[3] John Hench Plaza School of Art - Instructors - Herbert Ryman - John Hench - Peter Ellenshaw Above Main Street Photo Supply Company Disneyland Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom Bill Hoelscher Windermere Fraternal Hall - “Lodge Meetings Every Friday” - Charter Members - Bob Allen - Pete Crimmings, Dick Evans, Bill Hoelscher, Bob Mathieson, Bill Sullivan[2] Center Street - Above Crystal Arts Magic Kingdom[3] Fred Hope Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom
I [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Alexander R. Irvine Alexander Irvine, M.D. Above the Baby Care Center Disneyland Richard Irvine Richard Irvine - Marvin Davis Above Main Street Bank Disneyland Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom Don Iwerks Iwerks-Iwerks Stereoscopic Cameras - Ub Iwerks, Don Iwerks - Repairs, Modifications Above the Main Street Bakery Magic Kingdom Ub Iwerks
J [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Robert F. Jani Main Street Electrical Parade World Headquarters – Robert F Jani, Master Showman Above the Opera House Disneyland New Era Band & Choir Studio- If It's New, It's the Latest -Instruction – Talent Agents - Robert Jani, Bandmaster - Charles Corson, Casting Director Above the Emporium Magic Kingdom[2][3] Fred Joerger Decorative Fountains and Watercolor - By Fred Joerger Above the Carnation Co. Disneyland Daughterland Modeling Agency - Instruction in the Arts & Crafts - What Every Young Girl Should Know! - Bob Sewell, Counselor - Malcolm Cobb, Jack Fergus, Fred Joerger, Mitz Natsume[5] Above Uptown Jewelers Magic Kingdom[3] Ed Johnson The Camelot Core—Road Show Installations—Tony Baxter, Dave Burkhart, Ed Johnson, Gary Younger Magic Kingdom[3] Merlin Jones M. Jones Electronics - Edison Talking Machines Above the Liberty Arcade Disneyland Paris Bill Justice New Century Character Company - Custom Character Design and Parade Illuminations - Bill Justice, Master Delineator Above the Main Street Cone Shop Disneyland Big Top Theatrical - Claude Coats, Marc Davis, John DeCuir, Bill Justice Above the Main Street Athletic Club Magic Kingdom[3]
K [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Ron Kollen Main Street Gazette - Classified Department - We Demonstrate the Highest Regard for Truth In Advertising - Honest - Mark Feary, Ron Kollen Above the Main Street Gazette Disneyland Paris Emile Kuri Emile Kuri - Interior Decorator Above the Market House Disneyland
L [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Bruce Laval Partners in Planning - B. Laval & Associates - "What We Build Together Can Last Forever" Above Watches Store Magic Kingdom Fred Leopold Attorney at Law - Youngman & Leopold Above the Disneyana Shop Disneyland Gunther R. Lessing Gunther R. Lessing, Esq. Above the Disneyana Shop Disneyland Jack Lindquist J. B. Lindquist - Honorary Mayor of Disneyland - "Jack of All Trades. Master of Fun" Above City Hall Disneyland Peterson Travel Agency - Reservations by Cable Anywhere in the World - Passages Boarded By Sea & Rail - “Exclusive Representatives for the Titanic”- Jack Lindquist, Purser[6] Above the Emporium Magic Kingdom[3] Ron Logan Main Street Music Co. - Ron Logan - Conductor - Leading the Band into a New Century Above the Emporium Magic Kingdom[7][8]
M [ edit ]
Name Inscription Location Park Mary Anne Mang Good Neighbor Foundation - "Caring and Giving Come From the Heart" - Mrs. M. A. Mang - Director Above New Century Timepieces Disneyland Marty Markham Evans and Markham Advertising - Products Tested Above the Liberty Arcade Disneyland Paris Pete Markham Construction Company - General Contractor - Pete Markham - Engineer Forth window above Confectionery, Main Street Magic Kingdom Bill Martin Walter E. Disney - Graduate School of Design & Master Planning - Instructors, Howard Brummitt, Marvin Davis, Fred Hope - Headmaster, Richard Irvine - Dean of Design, John Hench - Instructors, Vic Greene, Bill Martin, Chuck Myall Above the Plaza Restaurant Magic Kingdom Bud Martin Buena Vista Magic Lantern Slides - Treat Your Friends To Our Special Tricks - Yale Gracey, Bud Martin, Ken O'Brien, Wathel Rogers Above the Main Street Confectionery Magic Kingdom Ivan Martin Buena Vista Construction Co. - Jack Rorex - Ivan Martin - Cash Shockey Above the Market House Disneyland Wilson "Bill" Martin Wilson Martin - Gabriel Scognamillo Above the Main Street Bank Disneyland Bob Matheison[2] Community Service Recruitment Center - Bob Mathieson - Quality, Integrity & Dedication Above Plaza Ice Cream Magic Kingdom[3] Windermere Fraternal Hall - “Lodge Meetings Every Friday” - Charter Members - Bob Allen, Pete Crimmings, Dick Evans, Bill Hoelscher, Bob Mathieson, Bill Sullivan Center Street - Above Crystal Arts Sam McKim Cartography Masterworks – Sam McKim – Map Maker to the Kingdom – “There’s Magic in the Details” Above the Main Street Photo Supply Company Disneyland Golden State Graphic Arts Studio - Latest Artistic Principles Employed - Ken Chapman, Paul Hartley, Sam McKim, Elmer Plummer, Ernie Prinzhorn[5] Magic Kingdom[3] Edward T. Meck The Disneyland |
operate routinely.[77] Submarines use batteries (charged by diesel or gasoline engines at the surface), nuclear power, fuel cells[78] or Stirling engines to run electric motor-driven propellers.
Electrically powered spacecraft [ edit ]
Electric power has a long history of use in spacecraft.[79][80] The power sources used for spacecraft are batteries, solar panels and nuclear power. Current methods of propelling a spacecraft with electricity include the arcjet rocket, the electrostatic ion thruster, the Hall effect thruster, and Field Emission Electric Propulsion. A number of other methods have been proposed, with varying levels of feasibility.[specify]
Energy and motors [ edit ]
trolleybus uses two overhead wires to provide electric current supply and return to the power source
An electric bus at Lucerne
Most large electric transport systems are powered by stationary sources of electricity that are directly connected to the vehicles through wires. Electric traction allows the use of regenerative braking, in which the motors are used as brakes and become generators that transform the motion of, usually, a train into electrical power that is then fed back into the lines. This system is particularly advantageous in mountainous operations, as descending vehicles can produce a large portion of the power required for those ascending. This regenerative system is only viable if the system is large enough to utilise the power generated by descending vehicles.
In the systems above, motion is provided by a rotary electric motor. However, it is possible to "unroll" the motor to drive directly against a special matched track. These linear motors are used in maglev trains which float above the rails supported by magnetic levitation. This allows for almost no rolling resistance of the vehicle and no mechanical wear and tear of the train or track. In addition to the high-performance control systems needed, switching and curving of the tracks becomes difficult with linear motors, which to date has restricted their operations to high-speed point to point services.
Properties [ edit ]
Components [ edit ]
The type of battery, the type of traction motor and the motor controller design vary according to the size, power and proposed application, which can be as small as a motorized shopping cart or wheelchair, through pedelecs, electric motorcycles and scooters, neighborhood electric vehicles, industrial fork-lift trucks and including many hybrid vehicles.
Energy sources [ edit ]
Although EVs have few direct emissions, all rely on energy created through electricity generation, and will usually emit pollution and generate waste, unless it is generated by renewable source power plants. Since EVs use whatever electricity is delivered by their electrical utility/grid operator, EVs can be made more or less efficient, polluting and expensive to run, by modifying the electrical generating stations. This would be done by an electrical utility under a government energy policy, in a timescale negotiated between utilities and government.
Fossil fuel vehicle efficiency and pollution standards take years to filter through a nation's fleet of vehicles. New efficiency and pollution standards rely on the purchase of new vehicles, often as the current vehicles already on the road reach their end-of-life. Only a few nations set a retirement age for old vehicles, such as Japan or Singapore, forcing periodic upgrading of all vehicles already on the road.
EVs will take advantage of whatever environmental gains happen when a renewable energy generation station comes online, a fossil-fuel power station is decommissioned or upgraded. Conversely, if government policy or economic conditions shifts generators back to use more polluting fossil fuels and internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), or more inefficient sources, the reverse can happen. Even in such a situation, electrical vehicles are still more efficient than a comparable amount of fossil fuel vehicles. In areas with a deregulated electrical energy market, an electrical vehicle owner can choose whether to run his electrical vehicle off conventional electrical energy sources, or strictly from renewable electrical energy sources (presumably at an additional cost), pushing other consumers onto conventional sources, and switch at any time between the two.
Issues with batteries [ edit ]
Efficiency [ edit ]
Because of the different methods of charging possible, the emissions produced have been quantified in different ways.[81] Plug-in all-electric and hybrid vehicles also have different consumption characteristics.[82]
Electromagnetic radiation [ edit ]
Electromagnetic radiation from high performance electrical motors has been claimed to be associated with some human ailments, but such claims are largely unsubstantiated except for extremely high exposures.[83] Electric motors can be shielded within a metallic Faraday cage, but this reduces efficiency by adding weight to the vehicle, while it is not conclusive that all electromagnetic radiation can be contained.
Charging [ edit ]
Grid capacity [ edit ]
If a large proportion of private vehicles were to convert to grid electricity it would increase the demand for generation and transmission, and consequent emissions.[84] However, overall energy consumption and emissions would diminish because of the higher efficiency of EVs over the entire cycle. In the USA it has been estimated there is already nearly sufficient existing power plant and transmission infrastructure, assuming that most charging would occur overnight, using the most efficient off-peak base load sources.[85]
In the UK however, things are different. While National Grid's high-voltage electricity transmission system can currently manage the demand of 1 million electric cars, Steve Holliday (CEO National Grid PLC) said, “penetration up and above that becomes a real issue. Local distribution networks in cities like London may struggle to balance their grids if drivers choose to all plug in their cars at the same time."
Charging stations [ edit ]
A Sunwin electric bus in Shanghai at a charging station
EVs typically charge from conventional power outlets or dedicated charging stations, a process that typically takes hours, but can be done overnight and often gives a charge that is sufficient for normal everyday usage.
However, with the widespread implementation of electric vehicle networks within large cities in the UK and Europe, EV users can plug in their cars whilst at work and leave them to charge throughout the day, extending the possible range of commutes and eliminating range anxiety.
A recharging system that avoids the need for a cable is Curb Connect, patented in 2012[86] by Dr Gordon Dower. In this system, electrical contacts are fitted into curbs, such as angle parking spaces on city streets. When a suitably authorized vehicle is parked so that its front end overhangs the curb, the curb contacts become energized and charging occurs.
Another proposed solution for daily recharging is a standardized inductive charging system such as Evatran's Plugless Power. Benefits are the convenience of parking over the charge station and minimized cabling and connection infrastructure.[87][88][89] Qualcomm is trialling such a system in London in early 2012.[90][91]
Yet another proposed solution for the typically less frequent, long distance travel is "rapid charging", such as the Aerovironment PosiCharge line (up to 250 kW) and the Norvik MinitCharge line (up to 300 kW). Ecotality is a manufacturer of Charging Stations and has partnered with Nissan on several installations. Battery replacement is also proposed as an alternative, although no OEMs including Nissan/Renault have any production vehicle plans. Swapping requires standardization across platforms, models and manufacturers. Swapping also requires many times more battery packs to be in the system.
According to Department of Energy research conducted at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 84% of existing vehicles could be switched over to plug-in hybrids without requiring any new grid infrastructure.[92]:1 In terms of transportation, the net result would be a 27% total reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, a 31% total reduction in nitrogen oxides, a slight reduction in nitrous oxide emissions, an increase in particulate matter emissions, the same sulfur dioxide emissions, and the near elimination of carbon monoxide and volatile organic compound emissions (a 98% decrease in carbon monoxide and a 93% decrease in volatile organic compounds).[92]:13 The emissions would be displaced away from street level, where they have "high human-health implications."[92]:4
Battery swapping [ edit ]
Instead of recharging EVs from electric socket, batteries could be mechanically replaced at special stations in a couple of minutes (battery swapping).
Batteries with greatest energy density such as metal-air fuel cells usually cannot be recharged in purely electric way. Instead, some kind of metallurgical process is needed, such as aluminum smelting and similar.
Silicon-air, aluminum-air and other metal-air fuel cells look promising candidates for swap batteries.[93][94] Any source of energy, renewable or non-renewable, could be used to remake used metal-air fuel cells with relatively high efficiency. Investment in infrastructure will be needed. The cost of such batteries could be an issue, although they could be made with replaceable anodes and electrolyte.
Chassis swapping [ edit ]
Instead of replacing batteries, it is possible to replace the entire chassis (including the batteries, electric motor and wheels) of an electric Modular vehicle.
Such a system was patented in 2000 by Dr Gordon Dower and three road-licensed prototypes have been built by the Ridek Corporation in Point Roberts, Washington.[third-party source needed][95] Dower proposed that an individual might own only the body (or perhaps a few different style bodies) for their vehicle, and would lease the chassis from a pool, thereby reducing the depreciation costs associated with vehicle ownership.
Other in-development technologies [ edit ]
Conventional electric double-layer capacitors are being worked to achieve the energy density of lithium ion batteries, offering almost unlimited lifespans and no environmental issues. High-K electric double-layer capacitors, such as EEStor's EESU, could improve lithium ion energy density several times over if they can be produced. Lithium-sulphur batteries offer 250 Wh/kg.[96] Sodium-ion batteries promise 400 Wh/kg with only minimal expansion/contraction during charge/discharge and a very high surface area.[97] Researchers from one of the Ukrainian state universities claim that they have manufactured samples of pseudocapacitor based on Li-ion intercalation process with 318 Wh/kg specific energy, which seem to be at least two times improvement in comparison to typical Li-ion batteries.[98]
Safety [ edit ]
The United Nations in Geneva (UNECE) has adopted the first international regulation (Regulation 100) on safety of both fully electric and hybrid electric cars, with the intent of ensuring that cars with a high voltage electric power train, such as hybrid and fully EVs, are as safe as combustion-powered cars. The EU and Japan have already indicated that they intend to incorporate the new UNECE Regulation in their respective rules on technical standards for vehicles[99]
There is a growing concern about the safety of EVs, given the demonstrated tendency of the Lithium-ion battery, most promising for EV use because of its high energy density, to overheat, possibly leading to fire or explosion, especially when damaged in a crash. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a defect investigation of the Chevy Volt on November 25, 2011 amid concerns over the risk of battery fires in a crash. At that time, automotive consulting firm CNW Marketing Research reported a decline in consumer interest in the Volt, citing the fires as having made an impact on consumer perception.[100] Consumer response impelled GM to make safety enhancements to the battery system in December, and the NHTSA closed its investigation on January 20, 2012, finding the matter satisfactorily resolved with "no discernible defect trend" remaining. The agency also announced it has developed interim guidance to increase awareness and identify appropriate safety measures regarding electric vehicles for the emergency response community, law enforcement officers, tow truck operators, storage facilities and consumers.[101][102]
Advantages and disadvantages of EVs [ edit ]
Environmental [ edit ]
EVs release no tail pipe air pollutants at the place where they are operated. They also typically generate less noise pollution than an internal combustion engine vehicle, whether at rest or in motion.[103] The energy that electric and hybrid cars consume is usually generated by means that have environmental impacts. Nevertheless, adaptation of EVs would have a significant net environmental benefit, except in a few countries that continue to rely on older coal fired power plants for the bulk of their electricity generation throughout the life of the car.[104][105][106]
There are special kind of electric vehicles named SAFA TEMPO in Nepal that help lower the pollution created by vehicles.[107] These vehicles are powered by electricity - usually charged batteries - rather than oil or gas and currently heavily promoted by the government to facilitate environmental and vehicle management issues. Electric motors don't require oxygen, unlike internal combustion engines; this is useful for submarines and for space rovers.
A study by Cambridge Econometrics shows the potential air pollution benefits of EVs. According to one of the scenarios in the study, Europe would be on track to reduce CO2 emissions from cars by 88% by 2050. The associated technology improvements would cut toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx) from cars from around 1.3 million tonnes per year to around 70,000 tonnes per year.[108]
Mechanical [ edit ]
Electric motors are mechanically very simple and often achieve 90% energy conversion efficiency[109] over the full range of speeds and power output and can be precisely controlled. They can also be combined with regenerative braking systems that have the ability to convert movement energy back into stored electricity. This can be used to reduce the wear on brake systems (and consequent brake pad dust) and reduce the total energy requirement of a trip. Regenerative braking is especially effective for start-and-stop city use.
They can be finely controlled and provide high torque from rest, unlike internal combustion engines, and do not need multiple gears to match power curves. This removes the need for gearboxes and torque converters.
EVs provide quiet and smooth operation and consequently have less noise and vibration than internal combustion engines.[103] While this is a desirable attribute, it has also evoked concern that the absence of the usual sounds of an approaching vehicle poses a danger to blind, elderly and very young pedestrians. To mitigate this situation, automakers and individual companies are developing systems that produce warning sounds when EVs are moving slowly, up to a speed when normal motion and rotation (road, suspension, electric motor, etc.) noises become audible.[110]
Energy resilience [ edit ]
Electricity can be produced from a variety of sources, therefore it gives the greatest degree of energy resilience.[111]
Energy efficiency [ edit ]
EV 'tank-to-wheels' efficiency is about a factor of 3 higher than internal combustion engine vehicles.[103] Energy is not consumed while the vehicle is stationary, unlike internal combustion engines which consume fuel while idling. However, looking at the well-to-wheel efficiency of EVs, their total emissions, while still lower, are closer to an efficient gasoline or diesel in most countries where electricity generation relies on fossil fuels.[112][113][114]
Well-to-wheel efficiency of an EV has less to do with the vehicle itself and more to do with the method of electricity production. A particular EV would instantly become twice as efficient if electricity production were switched from fossil fuel to a wind or tidal primary source of energy. Thus, when "well-to-wheels" is cited, one should keep in mind that the discussion is no longer about the vehicle, but rather about the entire energy supply infrastructure - in the case of fossil fuels this should also include energy spent on exploration, mining, refining, and distribution.
The lifecycle analysis of EVs shows that even when powered by the most carbon intensive electricity in Europe, they emit less greenhouse gases than a conventional diesel vehicle.[115]
Cost of recharge [ edit ]
The cost of operating an EV varies wildly depending on location. In some parts of the world, an EV costs less to drive than a comparable gas-powered vehicle, as long as the higher initial purchase price is not factored in. In the US, in states which have a tiered electricity rate schedule, "fuel" for EVs today costs owners significantly more than fuel for a comparable gas-powered vehicle. A 2011 study done by Purdue University found that in California most users already reach the third pricing tier for electricity each month, and adding an EV could push them into the fourth or fifth (highest, most expensive) tier, meaning that they will be paying in excess of $0.45 per kWh for electricity to recharge their vehicle. At this price, which is higher than the average electricity price in the US, it is dramatically more expensive to drive a pure-EV than it is to drive a traditional pure-gas powered vehicle. "The objective of a tiered pricing system is to discourage consumption. It's meant to get you to think about turning off your lights and conserving electricity. In California, the unintended consequence is that plug-in hybrid cars won't be economical under this system," said Tyner (the author), whose findings were published in the online version of the journal Energy Policy.[116]
Stabilization of the grid [ edit ]
Since EVs can be plugged into the electric grid when not in use, there is a potential for battery-powered vehicles to even cut the demand for electricity by feeding electricity into the grid from their batteries during peak use periods (such as midafternoon air conditioning use) while doing most of their charging at night, when there is unused generating capacity.[117][84] This vehicle-to-grid (V2G) connection has the potential to reduce the need for new power plants, as long as vehicle owners do not mind reducing the life of their batteries, by being drained by the power company during peak demand. It is also proved that an electric vehicle parking lot was able to well play the role of an agent that provides demand response.[118]
Furthermore, our current electricity infrastructure may need to cope with increasing shares of variable-output power sources such as wind and solar PV. This variability could be addressed by adjusting the speed at which EV batteries are charged, or possibly even discharged.
Some concepts see battery exchanges and battery charging stations, much like gas/petrol stations today. Clearly these will require enormous storage and charging potentials, which could be manipulated to vary the rate of charging, and to output power during shortage periods, much as diesel generators are used for short periods to stabilize some national grids.[119][120]
Range [ edit ]
Electric vehicles may have shorter range compared to Internal Combustion Engines, however, the price per mile of electric vehicles is falling.[121][122] Most owners opt to charge their vehicles primarily at their houses while not in use due to their typically slower charging times, and added convenience.[123]
Heating of EVs [ edit ]
In cold climates, considerable energy is needed to heat the interior of a vehicle and to defrost the windows. With internal combustion engines, this heat already exists as waste combustion heat diverted from the engine cooling circuit. This process offsets the greenhouse gases' external costs. If this is done with battery EVs, the interior heating requires extra energy from the vehicles' batteries. Although some heat could be harvested from the motor or motors and battery, their greater efficiency means there is not as much waste heat available as from a combustion engine.
However, for vehicles which are connected to the grid, battery EVs can be preheated, or cooled, with little or no need for battery energy, especially for short trips.
Newer designs are focused on using super-insulated cabins which can heat the vehicle using the body heat of the passengers. This is not enough, however, in colder climates as a driver delivers only about 100 W of heating power. A heat pump system, capable of cooling the cabin during summer and heating it during winter, seems to be the most practical and promising way of solving the thermal management of the EV. Ricardo Arboix[124] introduced (2008) a new concept based on the principle of combining the thermal-management of the EV-battery with the thermal-management of the cabin using a heat pump system. This is done by adding a third heat-exchanger, thermally connected with the battery-core, to the traditional heat pump/air conditioning system used in previous EV-models like the GM EV1 and Toyota RAV4 EV. The concept has proven to bring several benefits, such as prolonging the life-span of the battery as well as improving the performance and overall energy-efficiency of the EV.[125][126][127][128]
Electric public transit efficiency [ edit ]
Shifts from private to public transport (train, trolleybus, personal rapid transit or tram) have the potential for large gains in efficiency in terms of an individual's distance traveled per kWH.
Research shows people do prefer trams,[129] because they are quieter and more comfortable and perceived as having higher status.[130] Therefore, it may be possible to cut liquid fossil fuel consumption in cities through the use of electric trams. Trams may be the most energy-efficient form of public transportation, with rubber wheeled vehicles using 2/3 more energy than the equivalent tram, and run on electricity rather than fossil fuels.
In terms of net present value, they are also the cheapest—Blackpool trams are still running after 100-years,[citation needed] but combustion buses only last about 15-years.
Incentives and promotion [ edit ]
In May 2017, India was the first to announce plans to sell only electric vehicles by 2030.[131][132] Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government kickstarted the ambitious plan by floating a tender to purchase 10,000 electric vehicles,[133] hailed as "the world’s single-largest EV procurement initiative."[134] Along with fulfilling the urgent need to keep air pollution in check, the Indian government aims at reducing the petroleum import bill and running cost of vehicles. With nearly a third of all cars sold in 2017 of all new cars either fully electric or a hybrid, Norway is the world leader in the adoption of electric cars and pushes to sell only electric or hybrid cars by 2030. The other nations followed the lead, with France and UK announcing the plan to ban the sale of gas and diesel cars by 2040. Austria, China, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Korea and Spain have also set official targets for electric car sales.
Many governments offer incentives to promote the use of electric vehicles, with the goals of reducing air pollution and oil consumption. Some incentives intend to increase purchases of electric vehicles by offsetting the purchase price with a grant. Other incentives include lower tax rates or exemption from certain taxes, and investment in charging infrastructure.
In some states, car companies have partnered with local private utilities in order to provide large incentives on select electric vehicles. For example, in the state of Florida, Nissan and NextEra Energy, a local energy company, are working together to offer $10,000 incentives on the all-electric 2017 Nissan Leaf. In addition, the government offers electric vehicle incentives up to $7,500 to people who meet the qualifications outlined by the Federal Electric Vehicles Tax Credit. A standard 2017 Nissan Leaf costs around $30,000. As a result, Florida residents could purchase a new Leaf for less than half of the market value price. [135]
San Diego's local private utility, San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), offers its customers an electric vehicle incentive of $10,000 for a 2017 BMW i3.[136]
Sonoma Clean Power, the public utility that serves both Sonoma and Mendocino, offers its customers EV incentives up to $2,000 on a Volkswagen e-Golf. In addition, Volkswagen offers an incentive of $7,000 towards the purchase of an e-Golf. On top of these local incentives, and the federal tax credit, California residents can receive state incentives up to $2,500 in the form of state rebates. Therefore, Sonoma Clean Power customers can potentially save up to $19,000 on an e-Wolf.[137]
In March 2018, NPR reported that demand for electricity in the U.S. had begun to decline. The Tennessee Valley Authority projected a 13 percent drop in demand among the seven states it serves, which is "the first persistent decline in the federally owned agency's 85-year history." To combat this, companies in the utility sector launched programs to get more involved in the electric car market. For example, utility companies began to invest in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and to team up with automobile manufacturers to offer rebates to people who purchase electric vehicles.[138]
In the UK the Office for Low Emission Vehicles offers grants[139] for the installation of up to two charge points both in private residences and up to 20 for commercial organisations.[140]
Future [ edit ]
Over 9000 Londoners may die early every year from toxic air. Transport is a major contributor to the problem, so the city plans to become Europe’s ultra-low-emissions vehicle capital and achieve zero transport emissions by 2050. A government-funded scheme is helping London’s boroughs install over 1000 charge points across the city by the end of 2020.[141]
Rimac Concept One, electric supercar, since 2013. 0 to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds, with a total output of 800 kW (1,073 hp)
Tesla Model S, since 2012. 0 to 100 km/h in 2.5 seconds, recharging in 30 minutes to 80 percent, range 600 km
Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, head of the Centre of Automotive Research at the Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences in Germany, said that "by 2025, all passenger cars sold in Europe will be electric or hybrid electric".[142]
Improved batteries [ edit ]
First, advances in lithium ion batteries, in large part driven by the consumer electronics industry, allow full-sized, highway-capable EVs to be propelled as far on a single charge as conventional cars go on a single tank of gasoline. Lithium batteries have been made safe, can be recharged in minutes instead of hours (see recharging time), and now last longer than the typical vehicle (see lifespan). The production cost of these lighter, higher-capacity lithium batteries is gradually decreasing as the technology matures and production volumes increase (see price history).
Toyota Motors Corporation is trying to replace the current lithium ion battery with solid-state battery technology by 2020. The solid-state battery replaces the liquid electrolyte with a solid electrolyte.[143][144]
Rechargeable lithium-air batteries potentially offer increased range over other types and are a current topic of research.[145]
Battery management and intermediate storage [ edit ]
Another improvement is to decouple the electric motor from the battery through electronic control, employing supercapacitors to buffer large but short power demands and regenerative braking energy. The development of new cell types combined with intelligent cell management improved both weak points mentioned above. The cell management involves not only monitoring the health of the cells but also a redundant cell configuration (one more cell than needed). With sophisticated switched wiring it is possible to condition one cell while the rest are on duty.
Electric trucks [ edit ]
Small electric trucks have been used for decades for specific and/or limited uses, such as milk floats or the electric Renault Maxity.
Larger electric trucks have been made in the 2010s, such as prototypes of electric Renault Midlum tested in real conditions[146][147] and trucks by E-Force One and Emoss. Mercedes-Benz, a division of Daimler, began delivering ten eActros units to customers in September 2018 for a two-year real-world test.[148] DAF, a division of Paccar, delivered its first CF articulated truck to Jumbo for testing in December 2018.[149]
Fuso, a division of Daimler, began deliveries of the eCanter in 2017.[150] Freightliner, another division of Daimler, began delivering e-M2 trucks to Penske in December 2018, and will commercialise its larger e-Cascadia in 2019[151]. MAN, a division of Volkswagen AG, delivered its first unit of its e-TGM articulated truck to Porsche in December 2018, larger-scale production is scheduled to begin in 2019[152].
Renault and Volvo will launch their first mass-produced electric trucks in early 2019.[153][154]
Announced in 2017, the Tesla Semi, is expected to hit production lines in 2019.[155]
Hydrogen trains [ edit ]
Particularly in Europe, fuel-cell electric trains are gaining in popularity to replace Diesel-electric units. In Germany, several Länder have ordered Alstom Coradia iLINT trainsets, in service since 2018,[156] with France also planning to order trainsets.[157] The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Canada[156] and Mexico[158] are equally interested. In France, the SNCF plans to replace all its remaining Diesel-electric trains with hydrogen trains by 2035.[159] In the United Kingdom, Alstom announced in 2018 their plan to retrofit British Rail Class 321 trainsets with fuel cells.[160]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]How Dangerous Is the Plutonium Leaking from the Japanese Nuclear Reactor?
On March 29, Japanese officials announced that toxic plutonium had been detected in the soil surrounding the earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The plutonium is thought to come from partially melted fuel rods in one of the plant’s reactors. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which runs the stricken plant, maintains that the plutonium doesn’t pose any threat to human health, but given the number of times the company has been caught downplaying the crisis over the last few weeks, it’s understandable that the public would be skeptical. Isn’t even a tiny bit of plutonium extremely dangerous?
Yes, but it’s far from the biggest problem at Fukushima right now. We don’t yet know exactly how much plutonium was detected in the soil near the plant, but it’s unlikely to pose a serious health threat, particularly for those beyond the immediate vicinity of the plant. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the amount of plutonium detected does not exceed the levels normally tracked by Japanese authorities. Traces of plutonium are often found in soil around the world — an unfortunate consequence of decades of nuclear testing — and it’s only because of the isotopic composition of this sample that authorities can say for certain it came from the damaged reactor.
Plutonium is scary stuff, largely because of how long it stays radioactive: The plutonium-239 isotope, among those used in one of the Fukushima reactors — has a half-life of 24,000 years. However, the immediate dangers posed by plutonium exposure are often exaggerated. According to a 1995 report from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, you would have to ingest about.5 grams of plutonium to die immediately, compared to about.1 grams of cyanide. The plutonium at Fukushima isn’t in the air, but inhaling about 20 milligrams of plutonium would probably kill you within a few months. External exposure carries almost no risk.
It is possible that, down the road, plutonium inhalation could be a concern, but it’s still a relatively small one. Inhaling 0.0001 milligrams of plutonium would increase the risk of cancer mortality from about 200 in 1,000 to 201.2 in 1,000.
But at the amounts and levels currently detected, it’s unlikely that anyone will be inhaling even that much plutonium from the Fukushima leak. What about plutonium in the drinking water? It, too, is a relatively minor threat: Plutonium is a heavy element that does not dissolve easily in water. If 10 ounces of it were introduced into a reservoir, only about 3 milligrams (one part in 100,000) would be dissolved; the rest would settle into sediment. If, somehow, the entire 3 milligrams were ingested by a population, it would, in theory, only cause about 0.6 additional cancer deaths.
Plutonium may be grabbing the headlines right now, but it’s not the most dangerous substance being emitted from Fukushima. The steam intentionally vented from the plant contains iodine and cesium, both of which have a far shorter half-life than plutonium, but are being released in much higher amounts and, being airborne, can travel much farther. Radioactive iodine-131 has been detected off the coast of Fukushima at levels 1,150 times higher than normal. These elements may not be quite as radioactive as plutonium, but if ingested or inhaled, they also pose a risk of causing cancer.
The severity of Japan’s crisis shouldn’t be downplayed, but plutonium is not the element that should be keeping people up at night.
Thanks to John Lee, professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences at the University of Michigan.Zillow Backs Off Legal Threat Against Hopkins Grad Student
The operator of McMansion Hell is probably in seventh heaven right now.
Zillow announced Thursday afternoon the real estate website wouldn't pursue any legal action against Johns Hopkins grad student Kate Wagner and her blog, which is known for its snarky commentary on upscale real estate.
Earlier this week, Zillow sent her a cease and desist letter. Wagner then got legal assistance from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
"EFF has stated that McMansion Hell won’t use photos from Zillow moving forward," Zillow officials said in a statement. "It was never our intent for McMansion Hell to shut down, or for this to appear as an attack on Kate’s freedom of expression. We acted out of an abundance of caution to protect our partners – the agents and brokers who entrust us to display photos of their clients’ homes."
The reversal follows a nationwide stream of backlash to Zillow's initial threat against the website.
In a statement posted earlier Thursday on Wagner's behalf, EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer wrote that Zillow's original letter made "highly dubious legal claims," and said her blog constituted fair use of the Zillow photos for criticism and commentary.
"Zillow has no basis for such a demand and our client will not be removing any previous posts," Nazer wrote. "She has informed Zillow, however, that she is not interested in using its site for her blog in the future."About
Rare Pepes are unique illustrations and photoshops of the character Pepe the Frog which are ostensibly valued as if they are trading cards based on their relative saturation on the web. After a collection was posted for sale on eBay in March 2015, Rare Pepes have been frequently listed by users on other online marketplaces.
Origin
Starting in October 2014, users on the /r9k/ (robot9000) board on 4chan began referring to original illustrations and photoshops of Pepe the Frog as "Rare Pepes"; sharing the "rare" images of Pepe as if they were trading cards, some of which were posted with watermarks to retain their value (shown below).
Spread
On March 28th, 2015, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a thread to the /r9k/ board, which confessed to stockpiling “rare Pepe” images in order to “flood the market” and depreciate their value (shown below).
On March 31st, a post was submitted to /r9k/ highlighting an Imgur gallery with over 1,200 pictures of Pepe. In the first week, the gallery received more than 260,000 views. In early April, the collection of Pepe images were listed on eBay, where it reached a price of $99,166 before being removed from the site (shown below).
On April 1st, the /r/rarepepemarket subreddit was launched for discussions about the images. On April 3rd, the Internet humor site Smosh published an article about the rare Pepe images. The same day, YouTuber mustard uploaded a video titled "1,200 Rare Pepe Memes for Sale," featuring a slideshow of Rare Pepe images (shown below).
Also on August 3rd, Redditor QuahogBay submitted a post asking for an explanation of the Rare Pepe phenomenon to the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit, garnering upwards of 1,200 votes (92% upvoted) and 200 comments in five months. By April 9th, there were over 230 “rare Pepe” listings on eBay. On April 12th, The Daily Dot published an article about the origins of the Rare Pepe meme. On May 11th, BuzzFeed published an article about Rare Pepes online. On May 18th, YouTuber ayy caramba uploaded a clip from an Israeli television show with fake subtitles discussing a Rare Pepe economic crash (shown below).
Online Listings
In the coming months, additional postings selling Rare Pepes were postings on eBay, with over 230 active listings as of September 2015. Additionally, ads for Rare Pepe collections were created on Craigslist. On August 13th, 2015, an ad titled "Seeking Rare Pepe Trader – Third Roomate" was created on the Chicago Craigslist board. On September 9th, a request to buy Rare Pepes for $50 was placed on the New York City Craigslist board (shown below). The same day, The Daily Dot published an article about the Craigslist listings.
Market Exchange
In September 2016, the site RarePepeWallet was created as a database for Rare Pepe images formatted as trading cards, which can be traded using the cryptocurrencies Counterparty or PepeCash.
In February 2017, Bitcointalk Forums member American Pegasus purchased a card design titled "My Little Pepe," featuring an illustration of Wojak riding Pepe the Frog (shown below), for 1 million PepeCash (approximately $3,500 at the time of sale).
On February 13th, Twitter user @ActualAdviceBTC tweeted that Pepe would be bigger than Dogecoin, since it can "literally rarify memes" (shown below). On February 21st, The Daily Dot published an article about RarePepeWallet titled "The Rare Pepe economy is real, and there's serious money behind it."
Homer Pepe
On July 3rd, 2017, a Homer Simpson-themed Rare Pepe was placed for sale for auction, starting at 250 of the Counterparty (XCP) cyrptocurrency (shown below).
On January 13th, 2018, the card sold for 350,000 PepeCash, valued at approximately $38,500 USD that day, at a Rare Pepe auction in New York, New York. According to an article on Motherboard, the auctioneer referred to the card as the "most expensive Rare Pepe in existence."
Various Examples
Search Interest
External ReferencesA new WikiLeaks email dump reveals Hillary Clinton may have been boozed up at 4:30 in the afternoon when her campaign tried to reach her in August 2015.
An Aug. 8, 2015, email exchange between Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and communications aide Jennifer Palmieri revealed the two discussing whether to call Hillary and “sober her up some.”
“Should I call her and talk this through or better leave with you?” Podesta asked at 2 p.m. “I’m worried she’ll get on with Cheryl [Mills] and we’ll end up in a bad place.”
It took Palmieri two hours to respond to Podesta’s question.
“I think you should call her and sober her up some,” she said.
It’s unclear whether Hillary may have been consuming |
be notified of the switch, she said.
In addition to the more than four-month chlorine burn, Robottom said the administration added more than 20 automatic flushers to help with water flow, and drained, treated and refilled water storage towers. "Our team has worked closely with DHH officials throughout this entire process and made immediate adjustments to our systems to protect our residents," Robottom said. "We want to thank our residents for their patience and cooperation and reassure them that we will continue our all-out efforts to ensure this never happens again."
Robottom said daily water sampling will continue at the beginning and end of the water line for the entire system, and those results will be submitted to the state.A parade of horses was expected to cause significant delays for drivers heading to Washington, D.C. from Prince William County, but as of 6 a.m. Thursday, only one cowboy could be seen galloping down the roadway. (Published Thursday, Oct. 16, 2014)
A parade of horses galloped into Washington, D.C. Thursday morning to petition the government for more land control.
The Grass March and Cowboy Express began its trek along the Route 234 and Route 29 corridors at 4 a.m. But when News4's Molette Green caught up with the convoy just before 6 a.m., there was only one rider. He told News4 that he was on his way to meet with a larger group at the Key Bridge.
By the time they crossed into the District, several other riders on horseback had joined the protest.
The group left Bodega Bay, California on Sept. 26, riding 2,800 miles to D.C. to petition the government for more land control in central Nevada and other local communities, according to their website.
Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corrine Geller said the group could only travel at a pace of about 10 mph.“It’s so totally ridiculous,” Clinton told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Friday.
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“Perhaps it is good politics with the, you know, the — the most intense, extreme part of their base,” she added. “I guess that is, or otherwise why would they be doing it?”
Brooks said she “would be subject to impeachment,” adding that “should the House and Senate so choose, she could be impeached based on offenses, high crimes and misdemeanors, that she has in all probability already committed.”
Brooks cited federal law that prohibits “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material,” referring to the private email server Clinton held while secretary of State that contained information labeled “ Top Secret.”
Clinton also justified her decision to break with the Obama administration and support a no-fly zone in Syria.
“Part of the reason I have proposed a no-fly zone as a coalition effort, not a United States effort, is to have conversations with the Russians at the table,” Clinton said.
“I think the no-fly zone, which the Turks have asked for for a long time and humanitarian organizations have, is a device as well as a potential outcome to see how we get people to the table.”
The former first lady also defended her record on civil rights, saying the Defense of Marriage Act, which her husband President Clinton signed into law, was a “defensive action” to prevent a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.
“On Defense of Marriage, I think what my husband and I believed – and there was certainly evidence to support it – is that there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States, and that there had to be some way to stop that,” Clinton said.The world's second-largest film market experienced its first year-over-year decline in more than half a decade, with ticket sales dropping 18 percent for the month of July.
The Chinese box office is suffering its first big ticket-buying slump since the Mainland market exploded five years ago — and Hollywood is trying to figure out whether to be alarmed. During the second quarter, the market shrank 4.6 percent compared with 2015 after a steady 50 percent growth rate. It marked the first year-over-year decline in more than half a decade. July wasn't better: Box office dropped to $679 million, down 18 percent from a year earlier. Industry watchers cite a confluence of reasons for the slide, the central factor being a weak crop of films.
The biggest earners from April to August were Legendary's Warcraft ($221 million) and Captain America: Civil War ($190.4 million), as well as the homegrown Skiptrace ($133 million). Compare those with summer 2015's Furious 7 ($391 million) and Avengers: Age of Ultron ($240.1 million). Another factor: fewer discounts because of a crackdown on distributors buying large amounts of unsold tickets for marketing purposes. The drop has left analysts wondering if this is a one-time blip or a troubling reversal in a market poised to surpass the U.S. in 2017. Says Jimmy Wu, chairman of Chinese cinema chain Lumiere Pavilions, "It will take time for our industry to become more stable and professionalized, but eventually box office will grow to be double or even three times its current size."
This story first appeared in the Aug. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.Mike Tyson believes Liverpool striker Luis Suarez will make up with Branislav Ivanovic - just as the former world boxing champion did with Evander Holyfield.
Mike Tyson believes Liverpool striker Luis Suarez will make up with Branislav Ivanovic - just as the former world boxing champion did with Evander Holyfield.
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez gets support from Mike Tyson after biting arm of Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic
Suarez is facing an extended ban from the Football Association for biting Chelsea defender Ivanovic on the arm in Sunday's 2-2 draw at Anfield.
Tyson was involved in similar controversy when he bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear in the WBA heavyweight title fight between the two in 1997.
The Americans have since settled their differences and Tyson is confident Suarez and Ivanovic will do the same.
He told the David Glenn radio show in America: "He (Suarez) bit someone, it happens. I am sure he will make amends with this guy.
"I made amends with Evander and we got on with our lives."
Tyson started to follow Suarez on Twitter when he heard of the weekend incident.
He added: "I saw this guy (Suarez) on the Twitter thing and thought I would check it out and see what his journey was all about."
Suarez, who has been fined by Liverpool, called Ivanovic late on Sunday to apologise for his actions.
Press Association[+]Enlarge Chemists at the University of Groningen propose a greener path (right) to value added amines, like this surfactant, than the traditional industrial process (left). Credit: Adapted from Sci. Adv.
Chemists use alkylated amines to build plastics, pharmaceuticals, and more. Unfortunately, making these important building blocks on a large scale is energy intensive and relies on nonrenewable feedstocks. Now a team of researchers report a green approach to synthesizing the molecules.
Tao Yan, Ben L. Feringa, and Katalin Barta of the University of Groningen, describe an environmentally-friendly catalytic process that uses alcohols to add alkyl groups to amino acids harvested from microbes (Sci. Adv. 2017, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aao6494). The method retains the chirality of the amino acids and releases water as its only waste product.
Calling the research “nothing short of revolutionary,” Paul T. Anastas, the director of Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry & Green Engineering, says the approach could mean a cheaper, cleaner way to make these industrially crucial building blocks.
Making alkylated amines is so energy intensive because it requires the Haber-Bosch process, which converts atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia at around 500°C. To add alkyl substituents to ammonia, chemists use molecules derived from fossil fuels and reactions that often generate as much waste as they do useful products.
Yan, Feringa—who shared the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry—and Barta instead let nature do the hard work of reducing nitrogen: They isolated amino acids from bacteria. As for adding alkyl substituents to these amino acids, ethanol, isopropanol, and other simple alcohols act as both solvents and reactants. The chemists initially used a ruthenium catalyst, but also demonstrated the reaction with a catalyst containing iron, a more abundant metal.
In either case, the catalyst borrows a hydrogen atom from the alcohol and produces a carbonyl intermediate that then reacts with the amino acid, shedding a water molecule. The resulting imine intermediate then takes a hydrogen back from the catalyst, producing an alkylated amine.
The researchers demonstrated their method by synthesizing a surfactant from glycine and 1-dodecanol using an iron catalyst. Feringa says they believe the technique has broad potential beyond surfactants. The chemists have filed for a patent on the method and are looking for partners to explore adapting it for industrial uses.The NFL has long attempted to establish a developmental league, but since the failure of NFL Europe there hasn’t been a replacement.
That may soon change, according to former New York Giants head coach Jim Fassel.
During an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio, Fassel dropped this bombshell:
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"Don’t be surprised if there was a very good spring league opening next year in the NFL."
The NFL desperately needs a platform where young players can learn the pro game. The way the league is set up now, under the new CBA, snaps are extremely limited and teams cannot give developing prospects the time they deserve.
Given the overwhelming flood that leaves the college ranks every single year, there are certainly enough talented young men to fill a league with 8-12 teams.
Of course, the league will only put a developmental league together if there is profit in the venture. With so much year-round hype surrounding football these days, though, it seems like there would be a profitable way to make it happen.
The benefit of a “spring league” isn’t hard to imagine.
More than just developing players, though, the league would open up opportunities for young coaches, trainers and personnel men to earn their chops. The NFL as a whole would certainly see an upswing in talent, which benefits the bottom line.
All this conjecture means nothing if Fassell is just blowing smoke. Being the plugged-in NFL man he is, however, there’s likely substance behind his comment. He was a driving force behind the UFL a handful of years back and is passionate about coaching up young players.
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Teachers punishing unruly students to keep them in line have been a norm for as long as we can remember. However, two recent video clips that have been circulating on social media, showing a muscular man acting like the Hulk to his son’s teacher.
According to Oh! Media, the father was furious when he discovered that his son had been punished by the teacher for some unruly behaviour. The brawny dad who is believed to be from the army confronted the teacher at the school as he was displeased that his son was punished.
In the video, he can be seen shouting and threatening the teacher while several female teachers try to calm both parties down. The furious father isn’t even fazed by a teacher threatening to call the police and even dares her to do so. What is going on lah?
Apparently, the teacher was allegedly beaten up so badly that he had to be admitted into the hospital for internal bleeding at the stomach.
The videos did not provide much information and got netizens wondering what on earth is happening. However, a few days later, more info surfaced and here’s what’s being said about the cause of the ordeal:
Based on the comments on a Facebook page, the alleged cause for the whole scuffle was because the teacher caught the student smoking and had taken disciplinary action against the student. Sarawakiana also reports that the student had been rude to the teacher when he was caught so the teacher had gotten angry. He got provoked into being rough to the student which caused the boy to go home and complain to his father.
One netizen said, “The father went to school with his brother with the intention of having a civil discussion with the teacher about the incident and asked for proof that his son had been smoking. The teacher told him that his son had committed an offence but would not admit his fault.”
“Things got heated up and the brother tried to ask the teacher to calm down but he got even more aggressive. The teacher started slapping the brother first while the father tried not to hit the teacher. He couldn’t take it anymore when the teacher started hitting him as well and he started returning punches.”
The case has been amicably resolved according to Kepoh Kuat, but the angry father had been fired from his position in the army as a result of the viral videos.
Watch the videos here:
Source: Facebook
Source: Facebook
No matter who is wrong or right, violence shouldn’t have been used to settle the issue!
Also read: Headmistress Asks Parents of Student Abused with Heated Metal Sharpener to Pity Teacherby
The US Army has awarded General Dynamics a $12 million contract to deconstruct and dispose of 78,000 depleted uranium anti-tank shells. The Pentagon’s May 6 announcement calls for “demilitarization” of the aging shells, as newer depleted uranium rounds are added to the US arsenal.
In the perpetually profitable business of war production, General Dynamics originally produced and sold some of the 120-millimeter anti-tank rounds to the Army. One of the richest weapons builders on earth, General Dynamics has 95,000 employees and sells its wares in 40 countries on six continents.
The International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons in Manchester, England, reports the armor-piercing shells to be disassembled are thought to be the large 105-millimeter and 120-millimeter anti-tank rounds.
Depleted uranium, or DU, weapons are made of extremely dense uranium-238. More than 700,000 tons of DU has been left as waste in the US alone from the production of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor fuel rods. The urankum-238 is left when fissionable uranium-235 is separated for H-bombs and reactor fuel. DU is only ‘depleted’ of this U-235. It is still a radioactive and toxic heavy metal. A tax and ecological liability, DU is given away free to weapons builders.
The Pentagon is replacing older DU shells in spite of international appeals for a moratorium on their use. The military is set to buy 2,500 large anti-tank rounds just this year at a cost of $30 million or over $10,000 each from Alliant Tech Systems, formerly of Minneapolis.
In 1991, during its 40-day, 1,000-sorties-per-day bombardment, between 300 and 800 tons of DU was blasted into Iraq by US forces. Another estimated 170 tons were used in the 2003 bombing and annexation. Toxic, radioactive contamination left from the use of these weapons (the DU burns and turns to dusty aerosol on impact) has been linked to the skyrocketing incidence of birth abnormalities in southern Iraq and to the Gulf War Syndrome among tens of thousands of US combat veterans.
After the US/NATO bombardment of Kosovo in 1999, our DU weapons were discovered to be spiked with plutonium and other isotopes. This news created a political uproar in Europe and led to the admission by the US Energy Department that “the entire US stock of depleted uranium was contaminated” with plutonium, americium, neptunium and technetium. United Nations investigators in Kosovo found sites hit with DU to be poisoned with all four isotopes. The Nation magazine reported that about 150,000 tons uranium-238 was dirtied with plutonium-239 and neptunium-237 and that “some apparently found its way to the Persian Gulf and Balkans battlefields.” (Robert Alvarez, “DU at Home,” The Nation, April 9, 2001, p. 24)
European papers shouting “Plutonium!” in headlines saw US and NATO officials rushing to microphones to claim with straight faces that their shells contained “mere traces of plutonium, not enough to cause harm,” and that the highly radioactive materials “were not relevant to soldiers’ health because of their minute quantities.” But plutonium is 200,000 times more radioactive than U-238 and ingesting less than 27 micrograms of plutonium-239 a millionth of an ounce — will cause lung cancer.
(One indication of just how poisonous these weapons are is that in 30 years of resisting nuclear weapons and the war system, the only ‘not guilty of trespass’ verdict I ever won from a jury followed a protest at Alliant Tech over its DU program. The jury agreed with four of us that since poison weapons are banned by the Geneva and Hague Conventions our action was an attempt at crime prevention.)
Long-term disposal plans for the uranium from 78,000 shells were not outlined by the Army. Uranium in the shells is often alloyed with titanium or molybdenum, and if these metals are not recycled, they could become part of our vast stockpile of DU, requiring indefinite storage as intermediate-level radioactive waste. Other parts of the munitions are currently disposed of as low-level rad’ waste in spite of the plutonium content.
John LaForge works for Nukewatch, edits its Quarterly, and lives at the Plowshares Land Trust out of Luck, Wisconsin.(CNN) -- Democrats are taunting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for effectively allowing them a victory on a controversial nominee for surgeon general.
Physician Vivek Murthy was confirmed Monday night on a 51-43 vote despite stiff opposition from the National Rifle Association, due in large part to Cruz's unsuccessful maneuver this weekend meant to register GOP opposition to Obama's executive action on deportations.
The Texas Republican kept his colleagues in the Capitol through Saturday, intending to get a vote on whether the President's move was constitutional. With the Senate in session, Democrats were able to clear procedural barriers in the nomination process, originally thought to be too time consuming to finish before the Christmas recess. Cruz's keeping the Senate open allowed Democrats to clear those steps on a number of presidential nominees, some of them controversial, making it easier for them to win final confirmation this week.
READ: Murthy confirmed as surgeon general
Murthy had long faced fierce opposition from Republicans, and particularly the gun lobby, for a letter he had signed calling for stricter gun control policies, and because he launched the pro-Obamacare group Doctors for America.
So when he was confirmed on Monday night, Democrats could barely contain their glee — expressing it in part on Twitter.
The Senate Democrats' account blamed both Cruz and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, both of whom forced their colleagues to stay in session through the weekend.
Opinion: Surgeon general's win is a political miracle
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's communications director, Adam Jentleson, all joined in the chorus.
Cruz spokeswoman Amanda Carpenter responded in similar fashion, suggesting Cruz's gambit ultimately didn't matter.
But the progressive group Center for American Progress saw it differently.
.As the headline grabbing name in the cryptocurrency world, Bitcoin is one digital currency that continues to break new ground. The high level of security it gives along with the anonymity some people like means it provides real-world solutions for a number of sectors. One of the largest markets to use Bitcoin is the property sector - some cities are now accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment as opposed to traditional money. We take a look at some of the cities blazing a trend in using Bitcoin for property deals:Although you may not realise it, Miami, Florida was one of the first places to realise Bitcoin's huge potential. The technologically savvy estate agents and investors in the region were quick to adopt it as a currency after its launch in 2009. This has culminated in a Miami resident selling his home recently for around 1,600 BTC (or $6 million!!).Proving that Bitcoin has global appeal, Dubai in the UAE has also jumped on the cryptocurrency train. A joint residential-commercial development in the city will let buyers use their Bitcoins to make a purchase. It is expected that a one-bedroom apartment in the complex will cost 54 BTC, which is roughly $250,000. With the majority of the residential properties being reserved for Bitcoin purchases, this could be a next-level evolution in the more widespread use of the currency.Located on the exotic island of Indonesia, Bali was among the first cities in the world to start using Bitcoin for real estate transactions. One headline-grabbing buy was the 800 Bitcoins an unnamed person used to purchase a villa there, which was worth about $500,000 at the time! It must be said that the use of Bitcoin on Bali is exclusively for residential purposes, but it may move into the commercial sector in future.The above shows just how popular Bitcoin is becoming with professionals across the globe for conducting business. Although some are still unwilling to take the plunge in using the new cryptocurrencies, for the savvy business person it provides real-world value and benefits.Activist Post
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is being called the “Queen of the Straw Poll” after her victory at the Iowa straw poll yesterday for the GOP presidential nomination.
Bachmann, who finished with 4823 votes, narrowly beat second-place finisher Congressman Ron Paul who collected 4671 votes.
The Ames poll, although important because of the early significance of Iowa in the primaries, is nonbinding and unscientific.
AFP reported that “It has been criticized as playing too heavily in favor of candidates that are well financed, since their campaigns can buy the $30 tickets for their supporters to attend and presumably vote in their favor.”
The Ames event was considered to be a Republican fundraiser, yet Bachmann’s campaign bought and “handed out at least 4,000 free tickets to supporters.”
Therefore, Bachmann appears to have rigged the vote at a minimum direct cost of $120,000 to her campaign. It’s unclear whether any of the other candidates engaged in this same behavior.
Another anomaly with the vote surfaced this morning when it was discovered that 218 votes went unaccounted for. In other words, these votes were in the overall tally but not registered to any of the candidates.
One would think the media would attempt to uncover the discrepancy given the razor thin 152-vote margin between Bachmann and Paul. However, so far, they’ve been content to call her the “queen” of the event.I was running errands on Commercial Drive a few weeks back when I was hit with a surprising realization. As I loaded my bicycle with groceries, my eye wandered across the street and settled on a scene I can only describe as quintessential to the neighbourhood. Pedestrians — young, old and in between — navigated the narrow sidewalk, weaving through the gauntlet of strollers, bicycles and storefront produce bins. Behind them, restaurants geared up for the evening, windows and doors cracked open to entice diners. Above it all, the brick facade of the old Van East movie theatre was still recognizable despite the fact that it was now dotted with condo balconies, each showing signs of actual human life within: a potted plant here, a string of lanterns there.
It was a lovely scene. It was vibrant. It was the exact opposite of what I feared would happen to the block when, years before, it was announced the old theatre would close and clear the way for the inevitable influx of condos.
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I am not a big fan of condos. It’s not that I’m against density or height, or that I don’t appreciate the contribution they make to the city’s housing stock while mitigating suburban sprawl. What I don’t like about them is what they represent. To me, condos aren’t just a housing option — they are the symbol of Vancouver’s housing crisis. They are the currency by which developers and politicians peddle wealth and influence; they are the soulless, often architecturally bland privatization of spaces once accessible to the public; they are the manifestation of inequality as more and more families find themselves stuck in studio shoeboxes with nowhere else to go. But even I can admit that, done right, dense multi-family developments can enhance neighbourhood character — even save it.
This, of course, is not a popular stance in much of the city where the mere suggestion of density begets a knee-jerk opposition from neighbourhood associations largely led by grey-haired owners of coveted single-family homes. The argument against development — against condos — is always the same: these projects are too big/too tall/too boxy and will be detrimental to neighbourhood character. Such is the case on the other end of Commercial Drive, where a development partnership proposal between Boffo and the Kettle Society has given rise to a spate of No Tower signs that have proliferated on lawns like dandelions. Such was the case a couple months back when speaker after speaker approached Vancouver city council decrying the city’s proposed Affordable Housing Ownership plan, a pilot project which would give moderate-income households help buying homes and outlines some arterials on the West Side for condo-style development. According to the NIMBY contingents, these projects are outright assaults on neighbourhood character.
That’s rather interesting, since I’ve always thought the character of Commercial Drive lay in its eclectic mix of people, not the height of its buildings. The Kettle Society development, measuring 12 storeys at its tallest (not incidentally one storey shorter than the Adanac Towers apartment complex across the street), would allow a vital social services society that has been in the neighbourhood for 40 years to remain in place and provide 30 units of supportive housing. It would also include 200 market housing units — and notably desperately needed three-bedroom condos — to allow more people to stay or buy in the neighbourhood, at least in principle.
Over on the West Side, it is the loss of character — of kids playing on the sidewalks and filling local schools, of neighbours chatting amicably over fences — that residents are mourning as they tell of empty houses awaiting the wrecking ball. But the way to preserve life in these neighbourhoods isn’t through a moratorium on demolition and development as many residents who spoke to council have suggested. It is in the addition of the very thing they fear.
It’s time we realized we’re not getting through this housing crisis without letting go of our attachment to traditional residential neighbourhoods. Even if we do manage to curb foreign demand on houses in Vancouver, it is highly unlikely prices will come down enough to make them a viable next step for average homebuyers.
Such a correction would be devastating to existing homeowners and the local economy.
Dense, affordable, multi-family developments are the only hope for breathing new life into single-family neighbourhoods, which are clearing out of families faster than you can say “foreign investment.” We need residents in these neighbourhoods — which account for 70 per cent of the city’s landmass and only 30 per cent of the population — to get on board with efforts to offer some kind of middle ground for the 8,000 Vancouver families that live with children in one-bedroom or studio “starter” homes.
If the affordability crisis has taught us anything, it’s that the era of single-family houses in Vancouver is over. The era of family-friendly neighbourhoods, however, doesn’t have to be.
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@jm_barrettSeveral parents rushed to Hilltop High School on Wednesday after receiving emails and voicemails about a student with a weapon on campus. NBC 7’s Wendy Fry has reaction from parents and students. (Published Wednesday, May 21, 2014)
The father of a high school freshman who brought a loaded handgun to school Wednesday has been arrested, according to Chula Vista police.
Zachariah Dow, 36, turned himself in at Chula Vista police headquarters Wednesday evening. Police said Dow was arrested for being a convicted felon in possession of firearm.
Meanwhile, police served a search warrant at the boy's home, looking for more weapons. Police said officers found a.22 caliber semi-automatic pistol unsecured under a bed.
Police received a call from Hilltop High School at 11:04 a.m. after several students told school officials that the ninth grader had a gun.
Teen Brings Loaded Gun to School
A 14-year-old freshman is in big trouble after bringing a loaded revolver to Hilltop High School Wednesday. NBC 7’s Greg Bledsoe explains what led to the student’s arrest. (Published Wednesday, May 21, 2014)
“According to them, he showed them the gun, and he made some statements indicating he would actually use it,” Chula Vista Police Lt. Fritz Reber said.
“The student said he was going to hurt somebody,” said Manuel Rubio, spokesman with the Sweetwater Union High School District. “He didn't say someone specifically. He didn't say student or staff member specifically. He said he had something and he might hurt somebody or something was going to happen."
Officers took the 14-year-old boy out of class and discovered a.44 caliber revolver (pictured above) in his backpack, according to Chula Vista police.
No one was injured, and classes continued as usual for the rest of the school day.
“We all know things could be a lot worse, and everyone did everything they were supposed to do,” Lt. Reber said.
The unidentified teen has been arrested for possession of a loaded firearm on school grounds and remains at juvenile hall.
Parent Johnny Sanchez said his ninth grade daughter was in class with the boy who brought the gun.
“My heart dropped a little bit, but she’s fine and I’m here to take her home,” Sanchez said.
Parents received a recorded phone message about the incident after 20 minutes after the 14-year-old was taken into custody, Rubio said.
One mother told NBC 7 she was upset because the message did not indicate that the weapon was a loaded gun.
“I had no idea. They just said 'a weapon,'” said the woman named DeAnndra.
“They called us after everything happened. I wish I would have been called sooner because something could have happened,” she said.
Rubio said the district contacted parents so quickly that they didn't have the full information confirmed from police about what type of weapon it was.
Transcription of the phone alert sent to parents:
This morning, a student at Hilltop High School came onto campus with a weapon. The student did not immediately make any threats toward others but did make comments to classmates about having the weapon on their person and potentially using it. Students who heard the comments immediately told the main office, and the Chula Vista Police Department was immediately notified. The student was questioned and the weapon was apprehended. The student is in custody. The safety and security of our students is a top priority for us. We work hard to maintain a safe environment for students and encourage students and parents and their community to notify staff immediately in case of a threat or a perceived threat. Working together as was the case today we can ensure our students remain safe and secure in the future.
When NBC7 contacted the district about an hour after the message went out to parents, the district had confirmed with police that the weapon was a loaded gun and a spokesman immediately released the information to the media.
Sweetwater Union High School district ranked highest in an NBC7 Investigates survey of all schools in the county and how often they complete and document safety drills required by state law. Last year, the district also conducted an "active shooter" drill.(Reuters) - Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich lost his latest bid for leniency as a federal appeals court refused to shorten his 14-year prison term in a vast public corruption case, including an effort to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
FILE PHOTO: Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich makes a statement to reporters outside his Chicago home one day before reporting to federal prison in Colorado to serve a 14-year sentence for corruption, March 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jeff Haynes/File Photo
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago dismissed arguments that Blagojevich deserved a lesser punishment because he had been a “model prisoner” in the five years he has already spent in prison and because some counts in his original 2011 conviction had been thrown out.
Friday’s 3-0 decision came three days after oral arguments, suggesting little or no disagreement.
It likely ends Blagojevich’s chances at shortening his sentence. The one-time contestant on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” could ask the entire 7th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case, but both are long shots.
Leonard Goodman, a lawyer for Blagojevich, did not respond to requests for comment. He told the Chicago Tribune the decision was “incredibly sad and disappointing.” The office of acting U.S. Attorney Joel Levin in Chicago declined to comment.
Blagojevich, 60, was convicted on charges including wire fraud, extortion and soliciting bribes while governor. He served from January 2003 to January 2009, when the Illinois Senate removed him from office.
Prosecutors said Blagojevich solicited campaign contributions in exchange for raising pediatric reimbursement rates and legislation supporting Illinois’ horse racing industry.
Blagojevich also tried to sell or trade the Senate seat that Obama vacated after winning the 2008 U.S. presidential election, prosecutors said.
The appeals court in 2015 voided five of Blagojevich’s 18 convictions and ordered a resentencing, but U.S. District Judge James Zagel in Chicago reimposed the 14-year term last August.
Zagel acknowledged the pain Blagojevich’s family was suffering but said the punishment reflected federal guidelines and that “the fault lies with the governor.”
In Friday’s decision, Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook said Zagel acted within his discretion.
“Blagojevich’s treatment of fellow inmates may show that outside of office he is an admirable person, but the court was entitled to impose punishment that reflects how Blagojevich behaved when he had a different menu of opportunities and to deter those who hold office today,” Easterbrook wrote.
Easterbrook also said the Supreme Court’s voiding last June of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s bribery convictions did not undermine Blagojevich’s conviction.
Blagojevich is housed in a low-security prison in Littleton, Colorado, and eligible for release in May 2024.Advertisers and sponsors are extremely valuable to all professional sports teams, and thus it is very important to keep them engaged with the fans. In an effort to make this happen, the Cleveland Indians recently partnered with Tobii, a maker of eye-tracking glasses, to conduct a study that could determine what exactly folks look at throughout their time at Progressive Field. The MLB team says it gave 47 fans a pair of Tobii Glasses to use during the span of three days, which were worn as they watched games from various seating areas at its ballpark. Essentially, using the Tobii Insight research program as the basis, the goal was to see how much time participants spent looking at the main scoreboard and other dynamic signage. In theory, this would detect just how valuable certain locations are inside the stadium -- so, the easier it is for you spot it, the more it could potentially cost for a company to put an ad there.“Should We Be Having Kids In The Age of Climate Change?”
That was the audacious question NPR’s website and All Things Considered radio show asked on Aug. 18, as it promoted a college professor’s “radical” proposal that people need to have fewer children because of the “prospect of climate catastrophe.”
The academic proposed a “carbon tax” on children, to decentivize procreation, in wealthy nations.
NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden reported that Professor Travis Rieder presented “moral” arguments to James Madison University students, claiming the best way to protect future generations from the threat of climate change is “by not having them.”
A philosopher, Rieder told them that having fewer children reduces carbon emissions more effectively than not eating meat, driving hybrid cars, and using eco-friendly appliances. Ludden’s article posted on the NPR website about the interview with Rieder was even more positive. In it she wrote that his claims “sound pretty persuasive in the classroom.”
Such anti-life arguments are typical of the left, including the environmental left.
According to the article, Rieder and his Georgetown University colleagues, Colin Hickey and Jake Earl, have a plan to save the earth which was described as “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich.”
They are asking richer nations to “do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents.”
Rieder described his strategy as a “carbon tax, on kids,” and said it should be “based on income” and raised for “each additional child.” He claimed that punishing people in wealthier nations for having large families is “not like China’s abusive one-child policy” because it targets the rich rather than the poor.
However, Climate Depot’s Marc Morano strongly disagreed, writing, “U.S. environmentalists are taking a page from China's mandatory one-child policy even as China abandons the policy. If these wacky climate activists believed their own literature they would realize that 'global warming' may lead to less kids!”
Rieder claimed to have the moral high ground, saying, “It's not the childless who must justify their lifestyle. It's the rest of us.” In the radio program, he said his family is “one and done” even though his wife Sadiye formerly wanted a “big” family.
When a student asked, “What happens if that kid you decided not to have would have been the person who grew up and essentially cured this,” Rieder called it a good question. But then he added that “valuing children as a means to an end...” is “ethically problematic,” according to NPR.
He dismissed such positive views of human potential, saying the “chances are slim.”
It was not the first time Ludden revealed her liberal bias towards environmental issues. In 2013, she also complained that schools were still teaching both sides of the global warming debate.Ed Stetzer is executive director of LifeWay Research, an evangelical research organization. The views expressed in this column belong to Stetzer.
(CNN) The headlines were deafening this week -- if current trends continue, the last Christian at Boston's historic Park Street Church will leave the faith in a few decades, join a Wiccan coven on Harvard Square, tell her live-in atheist boyfriend that Christianity is dead, and we'll all just move on from this failed Christian experiment.
The headlines were reporting on a study from the Pew Research Center. This trove of religion data has some Americans acting as if the sky is falling on Christianity. But are the headlines accurate? Or did the numbers say something else?
A better reading of the stats is found when you move beyond the headlines and see a long, slow (but accelerating) decline of (mostly) nominal |
’s defence. They eventually pulled one goal back when Donyell Malen headed in but Marc Bola’s dismissal after a dangerous tackle on Kongolo made their task harder.
City will now face either Chelsea, who beat them in the final last year, or Blackburn, with the London club leading 1-0 after the first leg of their semi-final.I have lived in New York my entire life, except for college. And on Tuesday, I’ll enjoy the first New York presidential primary in my adult lifetime that truly matters. The collision of my personal world and professional interests is an opportunity too good to pass up: What follows is a tour of New York’s political geography for the Republican primary, with a mix of personal observations and election forecasting.
First, let’s set the stage: Donald Trump is a very good bet to win New York’s Republican primary, according to our primary forecasts. Polls show Ted Cruz and John Kasich far behind and splitting about half the vote. But in addition to winning outright, Trump needs to extract as many delegates as possible from the state. New York awards 14 delegates proportionally based on the statewide results, with a 50 percent winner-take-all trigger, and Trump has a decent chance to win that entire pot. Another 81 delegates will be given out by congressional district — three per district. Win a district with a plurality, and you get two of those delegates, but win with a majority and you get all three. And there’s the rub: Whether New York gets Trump closer to the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nomination, or whether he falls further off pace, will likely come down to how many congressional districts he wins with at least 50 percent of the vote.
Let’s break the state down into six regions to see where Trump is likely to soar and where he may fall short. (My apologies in advance if this is a little Harry-centric.)
Check out our live coverage of the New York primary elections.
Nassau and Suffolk counties
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th congressional districts
I know folks out on Long Island probably don’t like being grouped together, but it’s basically all the same to us city folk. You’re out there, and many of us dread spending hours on the Long Island Expressway to get to you.
In all seriousness, Nassau and Suffolk counties are quite different. Nassau is considerably smaller, and its largest town, Hempstead, has a population of more than 770,000 people. I think the last time I went to Nassau County was for a wake. The last time I went to Suffolk was for a high school graduation party in the Hamptons.
Politically speaking, both counties used to be very Republican in national elections. That has changed as New York has generally become more sympathetic to Democrats. Nassau is now reliably (light) blue and Suffolk is far more swingy. Suffolk (the 1st and 2nd districts) has two Republican congressmen, while Nassau (3rd and 4th) has two Democratic representatives. In this Republican primary, however, there will likely be little difference in the results from these four districts: Trump will win and win big.
Trump has tended to do very well in areas with a history of racial strife and with white populations not from northwestern Europe (i.e., non-WASP voters), such as those of Italian, Irish and Spanish ancestry. Long Island has a history of segregation, and its population, like that of many suburbs, grew in part as a result of “white flight” from New York City. One study at the beginning of the last decade called Long Island the nation’s “most segregated suburb.”
As of the most recent five-year American Community Survey, conducted by the Census Bureau, the median income for non-Hispanic whites in all four congressional districts was much higher ($90,000 to $105,000) than that of blacks ($55,000 to $78,000). According to data from the American Community Survey, all four congressional districts on the island are at least 19 percent Italian-American; Irish-Americans make up another 15 percent in all four. And in a Republican primary, Italian- and Irish-Americans are likely to account for an even bigger slice of the electorate. A recent Optimus poll (which provided district-by-district data) had Trump over 50 percent in all four districts.
Trump will also want to run up the margin in Nassau and Suffolk to ensure he gets over 50 percent statewide.
Queens and Staten Island
5th, 6th, 11th and 14th districts
Folks familiar with New York City may be wondering why the heck I’m grouping these two boroughs together. Queens, like Manhattan and the Bronx, is represented exclusively by Democrats in Congress, while Staten Island’s lone congressman is a Republican. (That congressman, Dan Donovan, also represents a small sliver of southern Brooklyn.) Queens is majority non-white; Staten Island is majority white. (I associate Staten Island mostly with trying to secede from New York City in the late 1980s and early ’90s.)
But New York is a closed primary — only registered Republicans can vote on the GOP side — and the few Republican voters there are in Queens are likely to vote with their brethren in Staten Island. The Optimus poll that I mentioned above has Trump easily winning more than 50 percent in New York’s 5th, 6th and 14th districts, which are all at least partially in Queens. Of those, the 5th and 14th make the most sense to me.
Only 14 percent of the voting eligible population in the 5th district is non-Hispanic white, but of the white population over-three fifths calls themselves American, Italian or Irish — identifications that have correlated with support for Trump. (“American” is not a terribly useful ethnic identifier, but that’s how nearly 7 percent of the nation identifies itself.) The 14th district (where I spent far too many childhood days with my father trying to convince Mets managers to give me a ball by telling them that it was my birthday) has a voting eligible population that is 34 percent non-Hispanic white, but over 40 percent of that 34 percent belong to those American, Italian and Irish groups. The high Jewish population (17 percent) in the 6th district could prove trouble for Trump, though many of them will probably vote in the Democratic primary.
Staten Island, the 11th district, is 26 percent Italian-American and has a history of racial strife. Currently, many census tracts at the northern tip of the island are less than 50 percent white non-Hispanic while most on the southern end are over 80 percent white. At the same time, Staten Island’s median home value hasn’t risen as quickly as the rest of New York City. Some residents of Staten Island haven’t always liked their neighbors (see secession vote); perhaps not surprisingly, Trump could easily top 60 percent here.
Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan
7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th and 15th districts
Again, this mishmash doesn’t seem to make much sense on the surface. Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan don’t look much alike. I’m from the Bronx, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I used to love going to visit my father at work — he was a Criminal Court judge — and to watch him bang the gavel at the courthouse on 161st Street. The Bronx itself has undergone a major transformation over the past 35 years, with Hispanics climbing from 34 percent of all residents in 1980 to 55 percent today. The black population, meanwhile, has risen by 7 percentage points in the past four years alone.
The only congressional district entirely within the Bronx is the 15th district. It has the lowest median income of any congressional district in the nation, and only 3 percent of its voting-eligible population is non-Hispanic white — it’s 61 percent Hispanic. That’s why only 285 people cast a vote in the old version of this district (then called the 16th) in the 2012 Republican primary. This will be one of the few places in the entire country where the majority of the Republican primary vote will be non-white.
Brooklyn is an entirely different story. I squirm a bit when I get off the L train among the hipsters in Williamsburg (7th district). That’s maybe why I didn’t go to Brooklyn from ages 5 to 22, and why I still try to avoid it. To be fair, Brooklyn is a lot more than a hipster haven. The 8th district and 9th district are both heavily African-American, but also have seen major gentrification in places like Crown Heights and Park Slope. Perhaps most important for this primary: Over 45 percent of the white population in the 7th, 8th and 9th districts has a college education, and Trump has struggled with well-educated voters. Additionally, both the 8th and 9th districts are over 19 percent Jewish. The 8th district, in particular, has a high population of Russian Jews, who are more likely to be registered Republicans than other Jews.
Manhattan, of course, is Manhattan. A ridiculously high 67 percent or more of white voters have at least a college education on the West Side (10th district), East Side (12th district) and the northern part of the borough (13th district). A friend told me that his mom, who lives on the East Side, was hoping to be able to vote for Mike Bloomberg in the Republican primary.
That lone Bloomberg fan gets at why I put these boroughs together: They could be among Trump’s weakest in the state. The latest Optimus poll had Trump well under 50 percent in all but the 8th. Kasich is probably best positioned to do well in the Manhattan districts, while the strong Jewish vote in the 8th gives Cruz a shot to at least come in second there. Cruz may be able to pull off a surprise win or close second in the 15th district, which has repeatedly elected a socially conservative state senator. Still, only a small percentage of voters in any of these districts will vote in the Republican primary. Most have about 30,000 registered Republicans or fewer.
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The mid- and lower Hudson Valley
16th, 17th, 18th and 19th districts
These regions consist of the northern suburbs and exurbs of New York City, for the most part, and are still part of the New York media market. My mom is from Sullivan County (home of the Borscht Belt), which is considerably more rural than Westchester. This is a varied region I’m lumping together, but there just aren’t that many people living in these areas compared to New York City and Long Island. White non-Hispanic residents in Hillary Clinton’s home district (17th) have a median household income of $100,000, while white non-Hispanics in the congressional district that has Sullivan in it (19th) have a median household income of a little less than $60,000.
The 16th district, which includes a slice of the north Bronx and my childhood home, consists mostly of suburban southern Westchester. Twenty years ago, this would have been prime Trump country, given its big Italian-American population (see “Show Me A Hero”). Now, I’m less sure. Only 12 percent of the 16th district identifies as Italian, and over 50 percent of its white population has a college education. Those are both bad signs for Trump, and the poorer voters in the district, in places like Yonkers, are overwhelmingly Democrats. Still, the Optimus poll found Trump just under 50 percent in the 16th, with a lot of people still undecided, so he could still clear a majority.
The 17th district is just to the north of the 16th and goes from northern Westchester over to Rockland. As a child, I once accidentally tugged a woman’s shirt at the food court at The Westchester mall in White Plains thinking she was my mom. She wasn’t. While the 17th has roughly the same share of college-educated voters as the 16th, the former is more Italian-American (17 percent) and Irish-American (14 percent). Maybe that’s why the Optimus poll has Trump just over 50 percent in the 17th. That said, it’s more like the 16th district than not.
The 18th district is, among other things, the northern extent of the range for the National Weather Service’s New York City office’s forecasts. I used to laugh on the drive up to Monticello as a kid because Orange County contained Florida (a town) and not the other way around. (OK, I don’t have the most sophisticated sense of humor.) The 18th district’s white population has roughly the same college education level as the 1st district, as well as the largest Italian-American population in New York state north of New York City — both pro-Trump indicators. On the other hand, this district has a relatively high German-American population, 12 percent, compared to most of downstate New York (that’s bad for Trump; see Wisconsin). But the pro-Trump signs in the 18th probably outweigh its anti-Trump characteristics.
I’m cheating a little by putting the 19th district in this group; the 19th includes parts of what I would call upstate New York (e.g. the Albany suburbs). I would go up to the Concord Resort Hotel outside Monticello as a child and play mini-golf, but the Concord — like much of the high-end resort industry there — collapsed. Anyway, I’m not really sure what to expect in the 19th. Only 27 percent of the white population in the district has a college education and nearly 40 percent are Irish- or Italian-American. On the other hand, Cruz has run strongest in less densely populated areas, and the 19th is the second-least dense district in the state. Also, more than 50 percent of the white population is WASP — higher than anywhere in downstate New York. Optimus has Trump stuck in the mid-40s, but we’ll see what happens.
Upstate New York
20th, 21st, 22nd and 24th districts
I’ve never been to Lake Placid or most of the places in this region. I once went to my friend’s farm near Saratoga Springs (on the border of the 20th and 21st districts) and watched his horses run. One of those horses made it to the Kentucky Derby and lost — and in the process lost me some money. Anyway, this district is really centered on Albany, Binghamton and Syracuse. The region’s white voters (most likely to be Republican) have taken an economic hit in recent years, though there has been some recovery. Still, the region is home to two (21st and 22nd district) of the four lowest median incomes for white voters in the state.
The 20th district around Albany is where Mario Cuomo starred in Hamlet on the Hudson and where state legislators commit corruption far too often. We’ve seen Cruz, Kasich and Trump all visit this area, perhaps because polls show Trump is weak here: The Optimus poll has him stuck in the mid-40s, for instance. Why isn’t Trump stronger in upstate New York? The Trump brand likely doesn’t mean as much upstate, and the district’s white population is slightly more likely than the nation as a whole to have a college degree. If Trump crosses 50 percent here, it’ll likely be because he cleaned up with the 40 percent of the population that identify as Italian- or Irish-American.
When I think old-time Yankee Republicanism, I think of the 21st district. Franklin Roosevelt got crushed here in 1936, even though he won nationally by 24 percentage points. The district is more of French origin (13 percent) than Italian (10 percent). That makes it look more like Vermont or Maine. It’s also the least densely populated district in the state. If Trump can eke out a majority in the 21st (and Optimus has him stuck in the mid-40s), it’ll be because only 22 percent of the district’s whites have a college education.
I’ve never been to the 22nd district, but a lot of my friends have, as it’s home to several fine colleges: SUNY Binghamton, Colgate and Hamilton, among others. Its Republican congressman, Rep. Richard Hanna, endorsed Jon Huntsman in 2012 and is a member of the “Never Trump” brigade. It might not surprise you to learn, then, that Trump is only in the mid-40s here, according to Optimus. Like the 21st district, a strong Trump performance will be because less than 25 percent of the district’s white voters have a college degree.
Do you like sunshine? Yes? Then maybe the 24th district isn’t for you. All I ever heard about this region from my mom growing up was the lack of sun in Syracuse (where she went to medical school). She wasn’t exaggerating; Syracuse gets as much sun as Seattle. Optimus polling says this is Trump’s worst district in upstate New York. But I’m not exactly sure why, which is perhaps a sign that the polling could be off. About 30 percent of the district’s whites have a college degree, which is higher than the 22nd, but not too much higher. The 24th district’s Irish and Italian make-up isn’t especially low (38 percent). That said, Rep. John Katko is another Republican who doesn’t like Trump, so maybe he’s seeing something on the ground to suggest there’s not a lot of pro-Trump sentiment in the 24th.
Western New York
23rd, 25th, 26th and 27th districts
I have two words for you: Buffalo Bills. Everyone knows they are greatest football team ever, minus all those Super Bowl losses. This region is also home to the Niagara Falls, the University of Rochester and Cornell University. (Just do us a favor and use footage of the American side of Niagara Falls if you’re going to use it in an political ad.) Buffalo, a former titan of the rust belt, has seen its population drop in half over the past 65 years. Rochester too has suffered with the the decline of the once-almighty Kodak and other manufacturing powerhouses.
The real question in western New York is whether demographics will be trumped (see what I did there?) by support from GOP “elites.” Yes, this is the rare area of the country where Trump has the “establishment” behind him. He has the endorsements of Republican Rep. Chris Collins of the 27th district and Rep. Tom Reed of the 23rd district, as well as former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Buffalo resident Carl Paladino. Paladino, for the unfamiliar, was Trump before Trump (i.e. a loud, brash businessman who ran for political office).
But the demographics and polling suggest that Trump could fall below 50 percent in the 23rd and 25th districts — he is under 47 percent in the Optimus poll in both. The 23rd district (which covers the southern part of western New York, including my friend Dan Donner, the assistant director of technology services at St. Bonaventure University, who made me a Bills fan) has second-highest WASP population among whites of any congressional district in the state, with voters of English ancestry making up 14 percent of the population. The 25th district (which surrounds Rochester) has the highest share of whites with a college degree (40 percent) in New York north of the lower and mid-Hudson Valley and the third-highest percentage of WASPs as a share of the white population (55 percent).
The Optimus poll has Trump over 50 percent in both the 26th and 27th. The 26th district (covering Buffalo and Niagara Falls) has the lowest WASP share of whites in the region (47 percent) and is probably most open to Paladino’s influence. He won a ridiculous 93 percent of the vote in Erie County (Buffalo) and 94 percent in Niagara County in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary. The 27th district is a different story. It covers most of the suburbs of Rochester and Buffalo, and over 30 percent of its voters are of German origin, which is by far the highest in the state. Normally, that would mean Trump would have problem, as it did in Wisconsin, but Optimus has this as Trump’s best district north of the lower and mid-Hudson Valley. That could be the result of the combination of Collins and Paladino getting behind Trump (or it could be wrong).Once again it appears that Trump was right: the conspiracy theory that a close Obama associate worked to "unmask" the Trump team, resulting in the ongoing media spectacle over "collusion" between Trump and the Kremlin, has been confirmed, first by Mike Cernovich, and now by Bloomberg itself.
As noted last night, Journalist and author Mike Cernovich dropped an exclusive bombshell - naming Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice as the official responsible for the 'unmasking' of the incoming Trump team during 'incidental' surveillance. This was apparently discovered after the White House Counsel's office reviewed Rice's document log requests:
The reports Rice requested to see are kept under tightly-controlled conditions. Each person must log her name before being granted access to them. Upon learning of Rice’s actions, [National Security Advisor] H. R. McMaster dispatched his close aide Derek Harvey to Capitol Hill to brief Chairman Nunes.
Cernovich pointed out, as revealed in an article by Circa, that President Obama began loosening the rules regarding "incidental intercepts" starting in 2011 - making it easier for the US Government to spy on individuals who are not the primary target(s) of a surveillance operation.
As his presidency drew to a close, Barack Obama’s top aides routinely reviewed intelligence reports gleaned from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad, taking advantage of rules their boss relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats
And guess who had authorization to unmask individuals who were 'incidentally' surveilled? Former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Obama's National Security advisor Susan Rice. Also of note is the claim that New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman has been sitting on the Susan Rice story for at least two days:
This reporter has been informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the reputation of former President Barack Obama.
Fox News anchor Adam Housley tweeted on Friday that the surveillance that led to the unmasking began before Trump was the GOP nominee, and that the person who did the unmasking is a "very senior" and "very well known" person in the surveillance community - and not someone in the FBI. As ZeroPointNow noted, "this of course begs the question of whether or not President Obama would have ordered Rice to perform the unmasking."
* * *
Until this morning, the Cernovich report was unconfirmed, with many in the "legacy media" accusing Cernovich, who recently was profiled on 60 Minutes for being a prominent member of the "fake news" dissemination team for being - what else - fake news. However, moments ago Bloomberg's Eli Lake confirmed that it was indeed Susan Rice who was responsible for the repeatedly "unmasking" multiple members of the Trump team, in what may be dubbed yet another "conspiracy" to delegitimize the current US president.
From Eli Lake:
White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."
As Lake adds, the National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice's multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel's office, who reviewed more of Rice's requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.
The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations -- primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.
Rice has not yet responded to a Bloomberg email seeking comment on Monday morning. Her role in requesting the identities of Trump transition officials adds an important element to the dueling investigations surrounding the Trump White House since the president's inauguration.
Making matters worse, Rice appears to have lied: while she has not spoken directly on the issue of unmasking, last month when she was asked on the "PBS NewsHour" about reports that Trump transition officials, including Trump himself, were swept up in incidental intelligence collection, Rice said: "I know nothing about this," adding, "I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today."
Ironically, it's the same Susan Rice who two weeks ago tweeted the following:
Susan Rice: When the White House twists the truth, we are all less safe. Why veracity matters to our security. https://t.co/eqkReeBIsG — Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) March 22, 2017
Lies aside, according to the Bloomberg reports, "Rice's multiple requests to learn the identities of Trump officials discussed in intelligence reports during the transition period does highlight a longstanding concern for civil liberties advocates about U.S. surveillance programs. The standard for senior officials to learn the names of U.S. persons incidentally collected is that it must have some foreign intelligence value, a standard that can apply to almost anything. This suggests Rice's unmasking requests were likely within the law."
Perhaps, but they also served a key political purpose: to create a media firestorm of controversy involving the Trump team, and to delegitimize Donald Trump as much as possible.
Furthermore, the news about Rice also may explain what Bloomberg dubs the "strange behavior of Nunes in the last two weeks."
It emerged last week that he traveled to the White House last month, the night before he made an explosive allegation about Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. At the time he said he needed to go to the White House because the reports were only on a database for the executive branch. It now appears that he needed to view computer systems within the National Security Council that would include the logs of Rice's requests to unmask U.S. persons. The ranking Democrat on the committee Nunes chairs, Representative Adam Schiff, viewed these reports on Friday. In comments to the press over the weekend he declined to discuss the contents of these reports, but also said it was highly unusual for the reports to be shown only to Nunes and not himself and other members of the committee.
In a tacit admission by Lake that Rice may have crossed numerous boundaries, the Bloomberg reporter adds "much about this is highly unusual: if not how the surveillance was collected, then certainly how and why it was disseminated."
However the real question goes back to square one: did Obama order the unmasking, and if so, to what political purpose?The bioavailability of the reduced form of coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinol) was compared to oxidized coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinone) with identical soft gel capsule excipients by measuring steady state plasma coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10 ) levels in 12 healthy volunteers. After baseline levels of ubiquinol, ubiquinone, total CoQ10, α-tocopherol, and total cholesterol were obtained, follow-up lab work was performed after 4 weeks of 200 mg/day of ubiquinone, after 4 weeks washout, and after 4 weeks of 200 mg/day of ubiquinol. Plasma total CoQ10 increased from 0.9 to 2.5 µg/mL (P < 0.001) after 4 weeks of ubiquinone and increased from 0.9 to 4.3 µg/mL (P < 0.001) after 4 weeks of ubiquinol. Total CoQ10 /cholesterol ratio increased from 0.2 to 0.7 µmol/mmol after 4 weeks of ubiquinone and increased from 0.2 to 1.2 µmol/mmol after 4 weeks of ubiquinol. Both the increase in plasma CoQ10 and the increase in CoQ10 /cholesterol ratio were significantly better after ubiquinol (P < 0.005 and P < 0.001, respectively) than after ubiquinone indicating superior bioavailability. Plasma ubiquinol/total CoQ10 ratio increased from baseline during ubiquinol supplementation (P < 0.005) and remained unchanged after ubiquinone supplementation. No side effects were noted in this study.
© 2013, The American College of Clinical Pharmacology.Image: Getty
“By the way, under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States,” said Rudy Giuliani, who served as mayor of New York City on September 11, 2001, at an event with Donald Trump this afternoon.
Here’s video of the speech, via Andrew Kaczynski at BuzzFeed:
Video of Rudy saying we didn't "have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the U.S." before Obama: pic.twitter.com/3tC1InfZj0 — andrew kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) August 15, 2016
And here, via CNN, is video of Rudy Giuliani employing the phrase “never forget” in reference to the 9/11 attacks.
Rudy couldn’t have possibly meant that the attack on the Twin Towers didn’t happen, or that Obama was somehow responsible, could he have? Reporters have noted on Twitter that the former mayor was talking about 9/11 just moments before the bizarre utterance, and based on his verbiage, it’s possible that he meant that there were no attacks between the enactment of the Patriot Act, one month after 9/11, and Obama’s inauguration in 2009. Then again, he did say back in 2010 that “we had no domestic attacks under Bush,” so maybe he meant it.
In the same speech, Rudy told the Ohio crowd that they were about to be greeted by their own governor. They were expecting onetime Trump opponent John Kasich, and they got Trump running mate Mike Pence, who is in fact the governor of Indiana.
Rudy w/major screw-up. Says governor of your state is coming out. Crowd is silent w/shock for @JohnKasich. Rudy thought he was in Indiana — David Skolnick (@dskolnick) August 15, 2016
Who knows whether Rudy Giuliani really forgot about the most famous Islamic terror attack in world history and the most important moment of his mayoralty. But it’s safe to say he definitely forgot where he was for a moment today.The Green Transportation Summit & Expo (GTSE) is the region's premier fleet modernization and alternative fuels event. GTSE events offer information-packed sessions, prominent national and regional speakers, and the latest technologies from industry leaders.
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Renewable FuelsWhen a farmer cannot prepare a farm-to-plate home cooked meal for friends and guests without intervention by a government agency we have a problem - one that goes against every founding principle of this nation.I don't know if this has been posted here yet, If so, my apologies. If you haven't seen this yet then Your Welcome.Fair use 17 U.S.C. § 107. Fair use is a doctrine in the United States copyright law that permits copying of someone else's works without asking permission; Other countries have similar provisions, called "fair dealing" in Britain, Canada and Australia. The most common form of fair use is copying for educational purposes and without earning a profit. I have uploaded these videos for the sole purpose of educating the public with facts that other news media sources are trying to conceal. I have not made a single penny nor have I asked to be compensated for time spent editing & uploading these videos. - See more at: www.liveleak.com/view?i=c1e_1362060598#sthash.mwQp7veR.dpufA former pastor and Christian university professor plead guilty Tuesday in Kent County, MI Circuit Court to charges that he climbed a ladder to peer into an upstairs window at a couple having sex.
Michigan Live reported that 42-year-old Jeremy Grinnell plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of surveilling unclothed persons that stemmed from an incident on Nov. 7, 2013.
Grinnell reportedly propped a ladder against the side of a Cannon Township couple’s home, climbed to a second floor window and spied on the man and woman as they had sex. He returned to the house later that evening, but was caught by the male resident, who called police. Grinnell was arrested at the scene.
Prior to the arrest, Grinnell was an assistant professor at Christian college Cornerstone University. He was also employed as a “teaching pastor” at Rockford’s Bella Vista Church. He has since been fired by both institutions.
The former clergyman was initially charged with two counts of surveilling but was allowed to plea to one charge that named both victims. The charge carries a maximum sentence of two years.
Sentencing in the case is scheduled for June 26.
[image of man peering through blinds via Shutterstock.com]With so many dings to so many high-profile NFL players this year, it seems like this has got to be the most injurious football season in decades. But despite a list of star-studded casualties, 2015 is on track for the fewest injuries since 2009, according to ManGamesLost.com, which tracks injury trends in the four major American sports.
While the NFL has sent a pile of popular players to the training room, the league is on pace to post 4,309 games lost to injuries this season, a drop of more than 1,000 games missed from the last two years.
Hard to believe, isn't it?
You might be deceived by the sparkle of star power that's being carted off the field this season. Of the NFL's 32 teams, 11 have lost starting QBs for some length of time this year — some significant, some two or three times. The list includes Dallas QB Tony Romo, Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger, Indianapolis rifleman Andrew Luck, and Denver's aging legend Peyton Manning.
RELATED: Confessions of an NFL Hitman
The sting of NFL injuries this season is also magnified by the 50 million of us who play fantasy football. Elite-level athletes have seemed especially hard hit this season, from that group of A-list quarterbacks to the featured running backs who were selected at the top of your draft like Jamaal Charles, Le'Veon Bell, Marshawn Lynch, and Matt Forte. This season's top fantasy runner, Atlanta's Devona Freeman, was cleared to return to practice this week after missing parts of the last two games with a concussion.
But while your fantasy team may have taken a beating this season, in general, it's shaping up to be a relatively healthy one for most NFL players.
In total, no team this season has been as banged up as the New York Giants, which lead the NFL with 136 games lost to injury so far. That puts Big Blue on pace to finish the season with 197 games lost to injuries. San Francisco was last season's most banged up team with 294 games lost, indicating a significant improvement in player safety.
Overall, NFL teams are on pace to miss an average of 134 games for the entire season, which is down more than 26 percent from 183 a year ago. The 5,878 man-games lost in 2014 represent the most since ManGamesLost.com stated logging the trend six seasons ago.
RELATED: How the NFL's New Tackling Rules Changed Football
FootballOutsiders.com, which analyzes NFL injuries and the impact they have on teams, found that overall injuries have also been on the decline the last two years. The site found that the raw number of injuries reported by NFL players plateaued in 2012 and saw slight decreases over the last two seasons.
The decline in NFL injuries continues a trend that has seen fewer concussions and serious knee injuries of late, too. Last season, the NFL reported the number of brain injuries was down 25 percent from 2013 and dipped 36 percent over the previous three years.
ACL injuries have also been on the decline in recent years. But while the NFL reported a decrease from 63 ACL injuries in 2013 to |
apura Mahavihara in present-day Bangladesh is a World Heritage Site. It is a monastery with 21 acre (85,000 m²) complex has 177 cells, numerous stupas, temples and a number of other ancillary buildings. The gigantic structures of other Viharas, including Vikramashila, Odantapuri, and Jagaddala are the other masterpieces of the Palas. These mammoth structures were mistaken by the forces of Bakhtiyar Khalji as fortified castles and were demolished.[citation needed] The art of Bihar and Bengal during the Pala and Sena dynasties influenced the art of Nepal, Burma, Sri Lanka and Java.[40]
List of Pala rulers [ edit ]
Most of the Pala inscriptions mention only the regnal year as the date of issue, without any well-known calendar era. Because of this, the chronology of the Pala kings is hard to determine.[41] Based on their different interpretations of the various epigraphs and historical records, different historians estimate the Pala chronology as follows:[42]
Note:[42]
Earlier historians believed that Vigrahapala I and Shurapala I were the two names of the same person. Now, it is known that these two were cousins; they either ruled simultaneously (perhaps over different territories) or in rapid succession.
AM Chowdhury rejects Govindapala and his successor Palapala as the members of the imperial Pala dynasty.
According to BP Sinha, the Gaya inscription can be read as either the "14th year of Govindapala's reign" or "14th year after Govindapala's reign". Thus, two sets of dates are possible.
Military [ edit ]
The highest military officer in the Pala empire was the Mahasenapati (commander-in-chief). The Palas recruited mercenary soldiers from a number of kingdoms, including Malava, Khasa, Huna, Kulika, Kanrata, Lata, Odra and Manahali. According to the contemporary accounts, the Rashtrakutas had the best infantry, the Gurjara-Pratiharas had the finest cavalry and the Palas had the largest elephant force. The Arab merchant Sulaiman states that the Palas had an army bigger than those of the Balhara (possibly the Rashtrakutas) and the king of Jurz (possibly the Gurjara-Pratiharas). He also states that the Pala army employed 10,000–15,000 men for fuelling and washing clothes. He further claims that during the battles, the Pala king would lead 50,000 war elephants. Sulaiman's accounts seem to be based on exaggerated reports; Ibn Khaldun mentions the number of elephants as 5,000.
Since Bengal did not have a good native breed of horses, the Palas imported their cavalry horses from the foreigners, including the Kambojas. They also had a navy, used for both mercantile and defence purposes.
See also [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
The main sources of information about the Pala empire include:
Pala accounts
Various epigraphs, coins, sculptures and architecture
Ramacharita, a Sanskrit work by Abhinanda (9th century)
, a Sanskrit work by Abhinanda (9th century) Ramacharitam, a Sanskrit epic by Sandhyakar Nandi (12th century)
, a Sanskrit epic by Sandhyakar Nandi (12th century) Subhasita Ratnakosa, a Sanskrit compilation by Vidyakara (towards the end of the Pala rule)
Other accounts
Silsiltut-Tauarikh by the Arab merchant Suleiman (951 CE), who referred to the Pala kingdom as Ruhmi or Rahma
by the Arab merchant Suleiman (951 CE), who referred to the Pala kingdom as or Dpal dus khyi 'khor lo'i chos bskor gyi byung khungs nyer mkh (History of Buddhism in India) by Taranatha (1608), contains a few traditional legends and hearsays about the Pala rule
(History of Buddhism in India) by Taranatha (1608), contains a few traditional legends and hearsays about the Pala rule Ain-i-Akbari by Abu'l-Fazl (16th-century)
References [ edit ]A transphobic joke from this week’s Weekend Update has earned Colin Jost a heap of criticism on social media. On the most recent installment of Saturday Night Live, Jost tackled the news that dating app Tinder had unveiled a variety of new gender options for its users. Jost’s joke went like this: “The dating app Tinder announced a new feature this week that gives users 37 different gender identity options. It’s called, ‘Why democrats lost the election.”
Condemnation swiftly came from Bustle’s Sam Escobar, who wrote on Twitter, simply, “What the fuck is this.” They continued: “Trans & gender nonconforming people are more likely to be harassed, attacked, abused, discriminated against — but yeah. LOL DEMS!” Escobar was not alone. Later, comedian Cole Escola and the band PWR BTTM also weighed in:
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Jost tried to defend his take using a New York Times opinion piece from Columbia professor Mark Lilla. In the piece published in Sunday’s paper, Lilla argued that, “In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing.” The catch is, that piece was also the subject of criticism, so much so that the Times itself examined the dissenting opinions.
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For dissenters on Twitter, Jost’s attempt to elevate his comedy only exposed his ignorance. In trying to make a joke about the liberal bubble—which SNL also tackled in the episode—he ended up turning the very real issue of gender identity into a gag.
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This isn’t to say that Jost didn’t attempt to engage, even if he seemed to do so half-heartedly, refusing to actually hear his dissenters. He interacted with PWR BTTM on Twitter, saying that he was practicing “self examination,” to which the band responded: “this isn’t Lenny Bruce v McCarthyism: this is us afraid for our lives. Just let us have fucking tinder. Trump isn’t our fault.”
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This comes as SNL is still reckoning with its role in the presidential contest, given that it had now president-elect Donald Trump host in 2015. Throughout the election, Jost and his co-host Michael Che had a reputation for attempting to maintain a politically neutral standpoint, to the extent of potentially being seen as Trump apologists. “They’re both super smart people and super hardworking people,” Jost said of the candidates in an interview with a Politico podcast. SNL has also been accused of homophobia in the recent past; last October, Anderson Cooper took issue with an impression of him by now-departed cast member Jon Rudnitsky, saying it was “queened up.”You guys gave me no choice, so here are the benchmarks of Polaris 10.
Please note: codenames aka ‘Driver Names’ were shown before Futuremark removed this line from result page. Results vary by 20% while 3DMark shows the same clock, so lower scores were either run with older, unsupported drivers, or higher scores simply show overclocked scores. You are the judge here. I didn’t want to post this because I simply could not confirm which results are showing stock performance.
In the following table I gathered the most plausible results. Chart shows the best possible scenario based on those results.
AMD Polaris 10 Benchmarks Link Memory Core Clock Memory Clock Score AMD Polaris 67DF:C4 — Radeon R9 480? http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11167781 8GB 1266 MHz 1925 MHz 13160 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11167887 8GB 1266 MHz 1925 MHz 16164 AMD Polaris 67DF:C7 — Radeon R9 480X? http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11257751 8GB 1266 MHz 2000 MHz 15524 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11263084 8GB 1266 MHz 2000 MHz 18060 AMD Polaris 67DF:C7 — Radeon R9 480X CROSSFIRE? http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/11263252 8GB 1266 MHz 2000 MHz 25803
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Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Hannity Goes Off on Team Hillary’s Collusion With Ukrainian Govt Officials: “Where’s the Outrage?” (VIDEO)
As TGP previously reported, Hillary Clinton’s aides met with Ukrainian government officials and journalists specifically to dig up dirt on team Trump. The information gathered was then sent to the DNC and Hillary’s camp.
The media sycophants are however, silent over Hillary Clinton’s antics during the presidential election which makes Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting pale in comparison.
Sean Hannity went off on team Hillary’s meeting with Ukrainian government officials in a blistering monologue Monday evening, calling it a ‘real collusion’ and asking ‘where’s the outrage?’ over this from the mainstream media?
The fake news media has their knives drawn over Donald Trump Junior’s meeting with a Russian lawyer during the presidential campaign. Never Trumper and GOP Senator, Susan Collins even called on the Senate Intelligence panel to interview Don Jr. on Monday.
The media is strangely silent over Hillary’s collusion with Ukrainian government officials and journalists.
“And by the way since everyone is talking about collusion, why didn’t the media and Democrats freak out over a story in January that had real evidence? And by the way, you won’t get this from any other mainstream media outlet. None of them will talk about this,” Sean continued.
“Take a look at the headline from Politico.”
“According to a Politico report, Ukrainian government officials tried to assist, aide, help Hillary Clinton in several ways by questioning then candidate Donald Trumps fitness for office by assisting Clinton allies in their op research by putting out documents insinuating that the Ukrainian government was investigating a top Trump aide.”
“A DNC operative even met with Ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian embassy in D.C. to discuss ways to expose former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and ties to the country!”
Oh! They went to the Ukrainians, an outside entity! Another country! Well, where’s the outrage over this?!”
The only way this witch hunt on the Trump’s will stop is when Democrats actually get prosecuted and go to jail for the many crimes they committed during the 2016 presidential election.
Video:If I were a woman in games, I would study hard and become an expert at Google Scholar - sorry. Couldn't resist. Hopefully, this will not turn into the sort of brouhaha that we saw recently in the Tech sector of Forbes. This is, however, a little outside my comfort zone: if I err badly, please don't hesitate to comment, and I will aim to restore amends*. One thing to note from the start: this post, inevitably, contains discussion of threats of violence against women.
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This week has seen some interesting discussions in the British gaming sector around the role and representation of women in the games industry. The starting point was a post by Mark Sorrell, Head of Games at Screenpop, the gaming arm of Fremantle Media. Sorrell's post "Dear Men, Please Listen. Love, Man" can be read here - it contains strong language from the start.
Sorrell enumerates a number of examples of the treatment of women in the games industry. Some of these show a kind of divine cluelessness - for example Nicole Leffel's account of being the one woman in an otherwise all-male group treated to an excruciating disquisition on the importance of cup size for female characters in video games. Others are more direct.
One of the common complaints within the game industry is that not enough women study computer science, and thus the recruiting pool is simply not there, making it impossible to have more than a few female developers to every herd of men. Jade Raymond was one of these: she studied CompSci at McGill, and went from there into production. In 2007, she was producing 'Assassin's Creed', a heavily promoted blockbuster launch.
Assassin's creep
Her appearance at games conventions to talk about this game inspired numerous comments about her looks - and their presumed inverse proportionality to her talent - and, in one of the more heavily-trafficked professional games blogs, her smell. The response from some sections of the community was, impressively, even creepier, culminating in the dissemination of a pornographic cartoon using her likeness, suggesting that she was trading sex for sales.
And, on the subject of creepy, Courtney Stanton, a software project manager, created a data visualisation based on the comments she received to her blog over a week. The results are startling - and again contain a number of adults-only words. This was around the same period during which Stanton, a rape survivor, found herself being challenged by an anonymous Twitter user to prove that she had been raped.
No, really.
Next: Oppressing profits
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Oppressing profits
There's an adage about heat and kitchens that may spring to mind here. After all, the banking industry has traditionally been a very macho environment, and beyond the occasional costly gender discrimination case and the last three years of descent into global financial chaos, that has not had any adverse effects. Does the games industry need to think harder about welcoming women? Sorrell thinks so.
From the perspective of a lizard-like being that cares not for people and only for money, the sexism that rides the industry like a pernicious, whispering, idiotic jockey is still a really bad thing. Social games are often played by more women than men. PopCap reports about 54% women playing its games. But the number of women employed in the industry is, depending on who you listen to, between 7% and 15%. I suspect the 7% is probably closer to the truth.
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Speaking as one of those lizard-like beings, I can see the point. A company that neglects any opportunity to extract value from every possible part of its potential customer base is failing to do its duty to its shareholders, and failing to make as much money as it could. That means finding and employing the most talented people, and appealing to the largest possible number of people within your target demographic.
This isn't about positive discrimination or affirmative action - it's about naked, avaricious capitalism.
If a talented developer is led to believe that she will never work in the games industry, or given good reasons not to try, then Electronic Arts or Activision might have lost the next Roberta Williams. If a female gamer stops buying games, renewing her subscription to an MMO, reading online coverage or caring about the next release, these are lost sales, lost ad views and lost opportunities to sell up and sell through.
The diversity dividend
Big money has been made by looking for new audiences and new opportunities. Zynga, reached its IPO by finding a way to appeal to a demographic of middle-aged women previously almost completely ignored by game developers. Playfish went from a startup in 2007 to a $300 million cash-and-stock purchase by EA in 2009 by exploring opportunities in social games. Popcap's casual games have been sneered at by hardcore gamers all the way to a $750 million cash-and-options purchase, also by EA.
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I talked to Alex Fleetwood, the Founder and Director of the the British studio Hide & Seek, who create and consult on games for non-traditional audiences - their latest, 'The Show Must Go On', is a collaboration with the Royal Opera House. He believes that there are untapped fields out there to be explored.
As gamers age, and as gaming becomes more widely accepted as a cultural pursuit, the plurality and diversity of the types of game experience that have wide enough commercial appeal to be viable will increase. And as studios like Hide and Seek seek to collaborate, and look to create new kinds of content and appeal to new audiences, you see a tendency towards gender parity. One of the limitations in a lot of traditional games studios is that they see the games industry in splendid isolation. They want to make games for gamers, and they want to be lauded by other game designers. So, the invention and discovery of new product categories will happen outside the massive studios, because they are so focused on servicing their existing audiences. And I think that, like EA buying Playfish, the major publishers will acquire new markets.
So, a studio looking for an IPO, or a profitable sale, could do worse than to bring in talent from outside the usual demographic - people who do not fit the profile of young, childless and macho enough to embrace 20-hour day crunches - and look for new audiences to sell to. And a big studio could probably save some money by developing for those audiences internally, rather than spending sums heading towards a billion dollars to acquire them.
Exploiting egalitarianism
Attempts by the big studios to diversify their staff and their appeal will no doubt be met with resistance: catered markets are often resistant to their providers looking for new markets, for fear that they will no longer have the same control. But, ultimately, this is a resistance that will need to be met and dealt with - and the risks, especially for the major players, may be smaller than they think.
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A few years ago, I was chatting with a friend as we drove along the freeway in Los Angeles. I asked her what Angelenos would do if petroleum became prohibitively expensive. "Piss and moan," she replied. "What else are we going to do? Stop driving?" The same applies to the big studios and their banner products.
The hardcore may claim that they will desert 'World of Warcraft' or 'Modern Warfare' in response to market outreach to new demographics - but how many of them will last more than a week? As the abortive boycott of Valve's 'Left 4 Dead 2' demonstrated, gamers are only really any good at boycotting games they don't actually want to play that much.
Creating a better environment for diverse communities of gamers and developers makes good business sense. As it happens, it is also the right thing to do. Isn't it nice when that happens?
Find me on Twitter.
Disclosure: I have social contact with some of the individuals mentioned in this piece, and employees of some of the companies. However, I have no investment in and am not employed by any of the companies. I also quite like Los Angeles.
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*This is my second Midsummer Night's Dream reference of the week. How's that for the white heat of futurity?A monkey dressed as a character from Journey to the West is pictured at a zoo in Shenyang, Liaoning province on May 10, 2014. Reuters
Can viewers suffering from “Mad Men” withdrawal seek solace in a 16th-century Chinese fable? U.S. television network AMC hopes so.
The cable network announced Friday that it plans to produce six, one-hour episodes loosely based on the Journey to the West, a famed Chinese tale in which a ragtag group of adventurers including a monkey with supernatural powers and a creature who’s half human, half pig travel west to procure a set of holy scriptures. The martial arts drama will be titled “Badlands” and is slated for a late 2015 or early 2016 premiere.
The series’ title may conjure up images of Martin Sheen in Terrence Malik’s 1973 film of the same name, but this version of “Badlands” will tell “the story of a warrior and a young boy who travel across a dangerous land controlled by feudal barons to find enlightenment,” said AMC. The cable network said the show will be created by Al Gough and Miles Millar in partnership with Stacy Sher of Pulp Fiction, Michael Shamberg of Contagion and master martial arts filmmakers Stephen Fung and Daniel Wu.
AMC, fresh off its smash hit “Mad Men,” a drama chronicling the lives of employees at a 1960s ad agency, said it hopes “Badlands” can replicate that show’s success. “This creative team has so much expertise in bringing a fresh take to classic genres from their film and television experience, and their take on martial arts will be no exception,” said Joel Stillerman, AMC’s executive vice president of original programming, production and digital content.
While executives don’t say they’re trying to tap into the Chinese market with the new series, there’s a chance they might. The fact that Journey of the West is coming to U.S. television screens has been widely circulated on Chinese social media, where thousands of people have left comments, many lauding the news.
Some Chinese commentators on Monday were skeptical, saying that the series would surely to fail in attempting to capture the magic of Journey to the West, a tale that’s standard childhood fare in China.
Chinese viewers have been burned before. The original TV series “Journey to the West” was broadcast on China’s Central Television network in 1986 and has been remade countless times since. Many versions of the tale have sputtered amid poor special effects, bad costuming and cheesy dialogue. One version that aired on the Hong Kong station TVB earlier this year received a record 1,100 complaints, with viewers scoffing at the production quality and saying the choice of the show was too dated.
The “Badlands” storyline isn’t expected to exactly mirror the plot of the old fable. But some Chinese viewers don’t seem to mind new takes on the old story. A 3D movie version, Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, pulled in $196.7 million in China last year.
Note: An earlier version of this post mistakenly identified the decade in which 'Mad Men' is set. Thanks to a reader for pointing out the error.
-- Laurie Burkitt and Te-Ping ChenTori Kelly has all the ingredients for a phenomenal popstar. She sings with heart and soul and her raw voice has the ability to melt listeners into a puddle. If you’re already a fan of the YouTube-turned-star, we have all the more reason why you should love Tori Kelly. She can cover any song and turn it into gold. From taking on an Ed Sheeran song to recording her own rendition of Annie’s Tomorrow, here are 11 Tori Kelly covers that will make you an even bigger fan…
Warning – these pipes cause serious goosebumps!
Thinking About You – Frank Ocean
Tori’s Frank Ocean cover has the most hits out of all her cover videos on YouTube and there’s no surprise as to why. Her riffs and runs over Angie Girl’s awesome beatboxing sound flawless. Only Tori can turn a tender ballad into something as cool as this.
Dear No One/No One – Alicia Keys
It takes talent to mashup songs like this. Tori combined her own song, Dear No One with Alicia Keys’ No One and showed off her incredible vocal range. She even threw in a few lines from Alicia and Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind because she’s that talented.
Roar – Katy Perry
We guarantee Tori Kelly’s voice will send chills down your spine after listening to her rendition of Katy Perry’s Roar. Her smooth and silky vocal is stunning combined with Scott Hoying’s in this super-cool video.
Thinking Out Loud – Ed Sheeran
Ready to let Tori melt your heart? Watch her pour her heart and soul into the beautiful Ed Sheeran song. She never disappoints, does she? It’s amazing just how much talent this girl has.
Ex-Factor – Lauryn Hill
Not only can Tori sing pop classics like Roar but she can also smash a soulful hit, too. She proved that she had soul and great melody when she covered this Lauryn Hill classic. This cover goes down as one of our favourites.
Suit & Tie – Justin Timberlake
When Tori’s on her guitar, prepare for crazy talent! She effortlessly covered Justin Timberlake’s hit single Suit & Tie in the comfort of her own home and once again proved that she’s insanely talented.
Best Thing I Never Had – Beyonce
No one can sing a Beyonce song and get away with it like Tori Kelly can. Her voice will make you want to cry, in a good way as she belts out Beyonce’s big hit. This is raw talent right here, ladies and gentlemen!
Only Girl in the World – Rihanna
Tori’s take on Rihanna’s song is so good, we’re still watching it in 2016! The flawless singer turns this pop hit into an acoustic miracle. We never imagined crying happy tears to a track that we’re usually partying to!
Tomorrow – Annie
Tori’s level of vocal talent is way beyond any artist at the moment. She needs no autotune or backing track to sound heavenly. Her voice is so flexible that it even sounds amazing on a children’s song.
Stay With Me – Sam Smith
Tori Kelly’s voice really is the gift that keeps on giving. Just when we thought Sam Smith’s voice was a wonder of this world, wait until you hear Tori’s in this sensational cover of Stay With Me. You can listen to his awesome covers here.
Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen
Grab a tissue, you might shed a tear during this one. Tori Kelly and Jennifer Hudson’s cover of Hallelujah will blow your mind. The two may have different voices but boy do they blend beautifully in this performance. The harmonizing and Tori’s sweet tone will give you the chills…
And one for luck! In case you wanted more, here is Tori Kelly covering a variety of songs including Justin Bieber’s What Do You Mean:
Sometimes we have to question how Tori Kelly’s magical voice is actually real. She came into this industry like a breath of fresh air and blessed our ears with her singing talent. From covering songs by big names on YouTube to releasing her very own album, it’s safe to say Tori Kelly’s dreams have come true.
If this Tori Kelly marathon wasn’t enough, check out these 10 facts about the rising star.BRC stars and cars to steal the show at Autosport International
2016 British Rally Championship ready to rev into life at Birmingham’s NEC
Iconic McRae car to sit alongside current trailblazers
Ari and Max Vatanen headline star-studded line-up
The reinvigorated and re-launched MSA British Rally Championship (BRC) will kick-start its 2016 season in style at this month’s Autosport International (14-17 January), where a plethora of stars and cars are set to steal the show.
Under the guidance of International Motor Sports (IMS), the new-look BRC will officially rev into life with the curtain-raising Mid-Wales Stages on 5/6 March, but fans will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the championship’s leading lights and hear the lowdown on the forthcoming campaign as early as next week at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC).
At Autosport International, the BRC will share a large stand with Wales Rally GB – Britain’s popular round of the all-action FIA World Rally Championship – in conjunction with Motorsport News, the UK’s premier rallying publication.
Pride of place amongst the iconic cars on display on Stand 8435 will be JRM’s Subaru WRX STI in the nostalgic Colin McRae livery. This is the car that David Higgins drove to Production class victory on last November’s Wales Rally GB, as he paid tribute to the 20th anniversary of the Scot’s WRC title triumph. Former BRC Champion and multiple Rally America National Champion Higgins will put in an appearance himself on Friday.
Other show-stoppers will be Tony Pond’s 1986 MG Metro 6R4 – which will thrill spectators at Rallyday at Castle Combe in September – Blair Brown’s DMACK Junior BRC Ford Fiesta R2T, Vauxhall Motorsport’s new Adam R2 and the R5 Fiesta that will be campaigned this year by MSA English Rally Champion Rhys Yates.
Not only that, but a host of leading competitors will be dropping by on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, all eager to make announcements for what is shaping up to be a spectacular season ahead. Well-known rally presenter and former co-driver Howard Davies will be on-hand throughout to conduct insightful and entertaining interviews with the championship’s key figures.
Max Vatanen and father Ari – the 1981 World Rally Champion – will be in attendance on Thursday, with the former confirmed to contest the season in a DMACK Fiesta R5. His new team-mate – due to be unveiled the same morning on the main stage – will also visit the BRC stand, while former BRC round-winner and Skoda Fabia R5 driver Neil Simpson will reveal his own 2016 plans.
What’s more, the Vauxhall Motorsport Adam R2 Junior Team will be confirming its two drivers for the campaign ahead, whilst 2014 Junior British Rally Champion Gus Greensmith and Ken Block’s former co-driver Alex Gelsomino will similarly be present for interviews, having confirmed their participation in the season-opening Mid Wales Stages.
And last but far from least, there will be a cameo by enthusiastic rallying fan and Welsh international rugby player Scott Williams on Sunday – still buzzing from his passenger ride alongside Elfyn Evans at November’s Wales Rally GB Shakedown, no doubt.
“Preparations are rapidly gathering pace now ahead of the 2016 season,†affirmed BRC Championship Manager Iain Campbell, “and there could be no better platform to kick it all off than Autosport International. As the world’s pre-eminent motor sport show, it is the place to be in January, frequented by industry insiders and thousands of passionate fans alike.
“We are delighted to be sharing a stand with Wales Rally GB, and to have secured such a fantastic array of cars to go on display is a major coup. Not only that, but to have so many of our competitors coming along with their own exciting news to break really is the icing on the cake. You’d be mad to miss it!â€
The 2016 BRC season will be open to rally cars conforming to FIA-homologated classes. The top category will see the exciting R5 cars do battle with S2000 and RRC machinery at the front of the field, while support classes including the Junior BRC for R2 specification cars will showcase the very latest rallying models on the special stages. There is also a National Rally Cup for non-homologated cars that have an MSA log book, which will compete over the same events with the same challenges.
The revamped series will take in seven events across the British Isles as it tours England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland before culminating on the iconic lanes of the Isle of Man. Asphalt special stages and gravel tests will see the country’s best drivers in the best cars fight for overall supremacy on the best events.
Keep tabs on all the latest BRC developments by visiting www.msabrc.com or following us on social media: MSA British Rally Championship on Facebook and @MSA_BRC on Twitter using #BRC
[Ends]
Photo Captions
Above and below top right: JRM's Subaru WRX STI in the legendary Colin McRae livery, as campaigned to Production Class glory by David Higgins on last November's Wales Rally GB.
Below top left: Welsh rugby hero and rallying fan Scott Williams will pay a visit.
Below bottom left: Tony Pond's 1986 MG Metro 6R4 will undoubtedly be a big draw.
Below bottom right: Vauxhall Motorsport's new Adam R2 is sure to attract plenty of interest."As one of many kratom advocates, I was made aware that your team is planning to air a report on kratom, and concerns were voiced that the story appears to reflect the side in favor of the DEA scheduling of kratom. There is a very large community of citizens across the country who oppose this ban. A White House petition opposing the scheduling has already garnered over 125,000 signatures, and on Tuesday of this week, there was a march on Washington DC where hundreds of kratom activists demonstrated their opposition of this ban. Note: These are not teenagers seeking the latest legal high; these are US military veterans, chronic pain sufferers, seniors, mothers, fathers, and recovering opioid addicts who are taking it to avoid relapsing into more dangerous opioid medications. There are also several professional organizations who support
I, along with many kratom-using Americans, believe he DEA have exaggerated the health risks of kratom. They state that poison control centers received an increase in calls -- over 660 in the past 5 years, but this is presented out of context; this is actually still a very small number, considering the many thousands of calls per year for prescription and over the counter analgesics received by the same poison control centers. The purported 15 "kratom-related" deaths per year were all the result of combining kratom with other, more dangerous drugs. Also, the claims of seizures and other adverse effects seem to be taken out of context from studies of patients with preexisting medical conditions that predispose them to these types of effects. Most importantly, the DEA claims there is no recognized medical benefits of kratom, while many studies exist and are readily available by doctors and scientists showing the vast promise this plant for helping chronic pain, opioid addiction, and other illnesses.
The vast majority of responsible kratom users are actually in favor of better regulations for this herb. We don't want to see it in gas stations and smoke shops in brightly colored packaging. We don't want to see it sold to minors. But simply banning this herb outright will have a devastating effect on countless Americans who rely on this herb that appears to help so many and appears incredibly safe from what we know so far. Yes, further research needs to be done on it, but this will become nearly impossible as a Schedule I controlled substance, and we may never know the true potential of this plant to help America's opioid addicts and chronic pain sufferers."New polling shows that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is consolidating her lead over GOP nominee Donald Trump: In the last two weeks, she’s hit 50 percent in five out of 13 national polls and has extended her lead to double digits in some of them.
The post-convention pattern is clear: Trump’s poll numbers are palpably suffering. And a new Pew Research Center poll might help explain why.
According to Pew, 6 in 10 voters say that their conversations about the 2016 election have focused on candidates’ personalities and comments, while only 32 percent say they’re talking more about policy positions.
Pew Research Center
That’s not great news for Trump. After all, 67 percent of respondents say the real estate mogul does not have “the kind of personality and temperament it takes to serve effectively as president,” according to a ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday ― while 6 in 10 respondents say Clinton does.
A Monmouth poll had similar results, finding that 67 percent of registered voters polled believe Trump lacks the right temperament to be president ― up from 61 percent in July. Once again, Clinton’s numbers show the exact opposite: Sixty-one percent say she does have the right temperament to be president, up nine percent from July.
The ABC News/Washington Post and Monmouth polls are particularly significant in light of the Pew study ― perception of a candidate’s personality and temperament matters to voters.
Despite Trump’s claim that he possesses “one of the great temperaments,” his consistent (and seemingly more frequent) outbursts reflect poorly on his disposition and could affect voters’ decisions.
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort says the real estate mogul is now attempting to “pivot” his campaign strategy (again) and start focusing on policy. The success of that reorientation remains to be seen.[tweet https://twitter.com/SammyWalrusIV/status/236448797008490496]
Following reports from The Wall Street Journal this week claiming Apple is in negotiations with cable TV operators for a new Apple TV set-top-box, today a report from Jefferies analyst Peter Misek claimed Apple’s much rumoured HDTV is “in full production”. The report is covered by Forbes and Barron’s.
While referring to the platform as iTV, Jefferies added Apple is planning to partner with Verizon and AT&T in addition to selling set-top-boxes for cable providers such as Comcast. According to the report, Apple will offer a “premium Apple television” offering content from Verizon and AT&T, as well as giving users an option for just a cable box for Comcast and possibly other cable operators.
Content for users outside of the US was not discussed in the report. Jefferies is now including 2 million iTVs in its model for early 2013 with an average sale price of $1,250.
Misek notes that recent data out of Sharp, Hon Hai and other specialty chemical and TV component suppliers support this.
[tweet https://twitter.com/SammyWalrusIV/status/236460817334284289]
The best 4K & 5K displays for Mac
Forbes mentions:
Misek also notes that JDSU recently said it has a new non-gaming customer for its gesture control modules, which are also used inMicrosoft‘s Kinect system for Xbox 360. JDSU indicated this is a new “living room” based customer. “We believe Apple will leverage AT&T‘s and Verizon’s content deals for the iTV,” he writes.
Earlier this week, WSJ reported that Apple is in talks with cable TV operators regarding using an Apple TV as a set-top-box for their customers. The report noted that the talks would likely center around a next-gen Apple TV, but could also extend to a full-fledged television that Apple has at the very least prototyped in the past. Apple has apparently not yet been able to reach a deal with any cable operators, and Bloomberg backed up WSJ’s article with many of the same details.
In March the New York Post reported Apple’s attempts to convince cable operators to use Apple TV as a set-top-box had largely failed. That same month Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek said production of up to 5 million units could begin as early as May |
car and cabin. He looked for conclusions that were never to be found. ‘This is the last place,’ he wrote on Mount Tamalpais. ‘There is nowhere else to go.’
At 82, Snyder is a supreme technician of the ordinary, relishing kerosene lamps, back-up generators, benches of blades: how it all functions. When and how to serve tea. When to blast the frogs in the pond. The facial expressions you get from him, talking or leafing through old photographs, are of quizzical humor and certainty of purpose, developed on solitary trails and in high places. Snyder writes a poetry of statement: location, weather, movement. ‘This life:/We get old enough and finally really like it!’ As Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Lew Welch never did. Kerouac in parodic Florida retirement, hounded by unlooked-for visitors, beaten in bars, drinking himself grimly to the finishing line. A swollen-faced athlete of excess at 47. Cassady, crossing the border, walking out along the railway lines after a wedding party in Mexico. Heat haze, terminal exhaustion. Mortality became a competition. ‘I wonder which one of us’ll die first,’ Kerouac wrote in The Dharma Bums. ‘Whoever it is, come on back, ghost, and give ’em the key.’
Kitkitdizze is the tree-muffled absence of ghosts. Survival strategies are in place for snow, bears, power cuts, or the collapse of the entire Californian economy. Snyder’s sense of time is geological. ‘Our records only go back a couple of hundred years. We don’t know what the past held.’
On the point of departure, I’m still not sure what I was searching for, but I think I may have found it. I’ve always been fascinated by pests like Thomas De Quincey, the way he hiked to the Lake District and attached himself to Wordsworth and Coleridge, before ‘betraying’ them with gossip and mangled histories. Virtue is never transmitted. When I journeyed across America, fifteen years ago, making a nuisance of myself with the figures of my early reading, Ginsberg, Corso, Burroughs, I missed Gary Snyder. Thanksgiving was approaching and he didn’t want to disturb a family gathering. The writers I met, apart from Burroughs in his red clapboard Kansas bungalow, were in rooms in cities. They had answered too many questions, spent too many years in the echo chamber of old recordings. Snyder’s engagement was much more direct. He played a political role, with the California Arts Council, in Sacramento. He travelled. He spoke at conferences. The only rule in politics, he reckoned, was to tell the truth.
We had returned to the precise footprints in the soft ground where our conservation started. ‘Where was Lew Welch when he went into the woods?’ I asked. ‘Right here.’ Welch had been staying with Snyder, camping, thinking about another move. His car parked up above the house. Snyder, going out in the evening to call him for dinner, found the note. The gun was missing. ‘I never could make anything work out right... I had great visions but never could bring them together with reality. I used it all up. It’s all gone... I have $2000 in Nevada City Bank of America -- use it to cover my affairs and debts. I don’t owe Allen G. anything yet nor my mother. I went southwest. Goodbye.’
The car was full of beer cans. Snyder and around forty other neighbors and friends searched the forest for five days, crawling through the manzanita. And they watched the sky too. No vultures. No turkey buzzards. Nothing. Gone. Until, as ever, the man walks back through dreams of place. Snyder wrote a poem.
FOR / FROM LEW
Lew Welch just turned up one day,
live as you and me. ‘Damn, Lew’ I said,
‘you didn’t shoot yourself after all’
‘Yes I did’ he said.
[NOTE: These are only the first few lines of the poem. The complete text, from Axe Handles (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983), p. 7:
FOR / FROM LEW
By Gary Snyder
Lew Welch just turned up one day,
live as you and me. "Damn, Lew" I said,
"you didn't shoot yourself after all."
"Yes I did" he said,
and even then I felt the tingling down my back.
"Yes you did, too" I said -- "I can feel it now."
"Yeah" he said,
"There's a basic fear between your world and
mine. I don't know why.
What I came to say was,
teach the children about the cycles.
The life cycles. All other cycles.
That's what it's all about, and it's all forgot." --F.L.]
--Iain Sinclair’s Ghost Milk is out in paperback.The first food story I ever wrote for Serious Eats was an unwittingly heretical review of what a Boston-area restaurant and I foolishly called an oyster po'boy. The Louisiana precinct of the Regional Food Authenticity Police promptly informed me otherwise, which didn't diminish my appreciation for Tupelo's excellent fried oyster sandwich but did scare me away from tackling any foods that weren't either nationally ubiquitous or explicitly Northeastern.
This narrowing of my beat didn't bother me at all because, guess what? Lobster rolls and pizza! But then SE's fast food correspondent got busied up with sugar water and grad school, and now here I am trying to fill his supersize shoes.
Though most fast food aims for broad pan-America accessibility, I've noticed that a lot of it has regional pretensions, and I now find myself teetering at the edge of a greasy slope, one false move away from sliding into a hot vat of "What do you know about Cajun popcorn shrimp, you very handsome Yankees devil?"
So when the boss suggested an investigation of Wendy's chili, I initially begged off with pleas of fear and ignorance. Texans take chili too seriously and I didn't want to be the sacrificial ground cow for an army of Hosses looking to be outraged at the notion that a Northerner could have anything worthwhile to say on the matter.
The more I thought about it, though, the more ashamed I became of my cowardice. I eat a lot of chili; it's one of the yardsticks I use to measure a pub's commitment to food. A $4 investment in a cup of chili will tell you a lot about how hard a humble booze-and-chew operation's kitchen is trying.
I'm not a chili pedagogue, so I'm not on the lookout for anything specific when it comes to spice level or viscosity or meat-to-bean ratio. I'm just checking to see how far removed the cook's chili is from the Sysco can. Is it just a monochromatic dirty orange mush flavored with chili powder and hidden under a wet cheddar blanket? Or are there distinct chunks of different things that have at some point known the knife?
And does Wendy's have the right to call their spicy red beef-and-bean stew "chili"? I say yes, they do, which emphatically and forever closes that case, and now we can proceed.
Wendy's is the only fast food chain near me that offers chili and I needed a basis for comparison, so I started my research with a can of Hormel. The most important part of judging fast food is first fixing it in a reasonable context, and I think it's fair to say that Wendy's chili should be better than the leading canned version.
Well, enjoy the low-set bar, Wendy. Hormel is just terrible. It looked OK to my naked and stupid eye, because they managed to engineer a nice deep orangey-red color, and it's very thick. I've had good and bad chilis of all consistencies, but thick bowl-foods generally look more appealing than thin ones, so I got suckered into thinking a few forkfuls of the Hormel might be the perfect fuel to get me on my way to Wendy's.
The Hormel is light on beef, which is a fatal flaw when the scant meat is supplemented with mushy, characterless "red Idaho beans" (says the label) and "textured vegetable protein" (those fake-meat soy crumble things). I could actually tell the difference between the smaller soy chunks and the larger beef nuggets, which was a pleasant surprise, but the solid mediocrity of the beef was not nearly enough to save the chili. The overall texture was pasty and gummy, and the only discernible spice flavor was onion powder.
I dumped that mess down the disposal and walked to Wendy's, licking stray dogs and pay phones along the way to cleanse my palate. The first thing I noticed about Wendy's chili is that it costs little more than the canned crap: $2.19 for about 12 ounces (my pint-looking cardboard container was curiously under-filled), compared to $1.99 for 15 ounces of filthy Hormel. Plus Wendy throws in four saltines and all the napkins and plasticware you can steal.
Wendy's chili isn't much to look at, but it tastes leagues better than Hormel. It's much thinner, but the sparse beef is augmented by plenty of small red kidney beans and pinky-gray pinto beans, and there are cursory bits of tomato skin, onion and, in a huh?-but-harmless touch, celery.
The red beans were so overworked that they nearly popped when bitten, but the pinkish ones were heartier than expected. The beef tasted like it was supposed to, and the chili had notes of garlic and cayenne powders along with the onion.
To make sure my unexpectedly agreeable reaction to Wendy's chili wasn't just Hormel backlash, I headed for the 7-Eleven across the street. You may scoff at the meat sludge that comes from the 7-Eleven condiment station, but the company is headquartered in Dallas, so if they call it chili, it's chili.
It's very bland, and if not for the textural contrast it wouldn't be easy to distinguish from the corn chip on which it sits, but if you close your eyes and think of the Alamo, you can conjure a faint hint of cayenne, which means 7-Eleven chili is better than Hormel.
But it's not as good as Wendy's version. I don't know that I'll ever order Wendy's chili recreationally, but it's not bad considering the price and the competition.
This post may contain links to Amazon or other partners; your purchases via these links can benefit Serious Eats. Read more about our affiliate linking policy.Indie developer Fusty Games has remained quiet since the completion of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign for the upcoming Hover: Revolt of Gamers in May 2014. The developer had hoped to raise $38,000 USD to develop the virtual reality (VR) compatible title but ended up making a total of $116,398. Now the team has broken its post-campaign silence with the series of its first ‘Making Of’ video, which can be seen below.
The video takes us through what the developer has been working on since the completion of its crowd funding campaign, giving us an in-depth look at the work on the title. This includes improvements to the title’s character designs and animations and the addition of a new climbing feature that allows players to grab onto the edge of buildings as they scale the city. There’s also a look at the workd done to the title’s expanded envrionment and more.
Hover: Revolt of Gamers is inspired by the likes of the Jet Set Radio series, with players performing tricks and stunts across a futuristic urban environment. The title is set to feature support for the Oculus Rift VR headset on PC, Mac and Linux, with Xbox One, Wii U and PlayStation 4 versions also in development. Support for the Project Morpheus VR headset is yet to be confirmed on the latter. VRFocus will continue to follow the title’s development, reporting back with any more updates.Modern deep neural networks, such as those used in self-driving vehicles, require a mind boggling amount of computational power. Today a single computer, like NVIDIA DGX-1, can achieve computational performance on par with the world’s biggest supercomputers in the year 2010 (“Top 500”, 2010). Even though this technological advance is unprecedented, it is being dwarfed by the computational hunger of modern neural networks and the dataset sizes they require for training (Figure 1).
This is especially true with safety critical systems, like self-driving cars, where detection accuracy requirements are much higher than in the internet industry. These systems are expected to operate flawlessly irrespective of weather conditions, visibility, or road surface quality.
To achieve this level of performance, neural networks need to be trained on representative datasets that include examples of all possible driving, weather, and situational conditions. In practice this translates into Petabytes of training data. Moreover, the neural networks themselves need to be complex enough (have sufficient number of parameters) to learn from such vast datasets without forgetting past experience (Goodfellow et al., 2016). In this scenario, as you increase the dataset size by a factor of n, the computational requirements increase by a factor of n2, creating a complex engineering challenge. Training on a single GPU could take years—if not decades—to complete, depending on the network architecture. And the challenge extends beyond hardware, to networking, storage and algorithm considerations.
This post investigates the computational complexity associated with the problem of self-driving cars to help new AI teams (and their IT colleagues) to plan the resources required to support the research / engineering process.
How Much Data is Enough?
Every manufacturer has a significantly different approach to the problem of data collection, sampling, compression and storage. The exact details or data volumes they choose are not in the public domain. Some manufacturers do speak openly about their fleet sizes and instrumentation of the cars. With this knowledge, together with four conservative assumptions about the collection process, I can make rough estimates of data volumes. I use these to calculate computational requirements in the examples.
Self-Driving Fleet Size
Companies like Waymo, formerly the Google self-driving car project, report having fleets of tens to hundreds of cars collecting data every day. In December 2016, Waymo announced that it would extend its fleet by 100 cars (“Google’s Waymo adds 100 Chryslers” 2016) and, in May 2017, reported collecting three million miles of data (“Waymo – On the road” 2017). Other manufacturers are building similar fleet sizes. In June 2017, General Motors announced that it had manufactured 130 autonomous vehicles and expected the fleet to quickly grow to 180 (“GM completes production” 2017). In August 2016, Ford announced deployment of a fleet of 100 self-driving cars (“The self-driving Ford is coming.” 2016).
Given these examples, I’ll use a fleet size of 100 cars as a conservative estimate.
Assumption 1: Fleet size = 100 cars
It is important to point out that few people believe that this problem can be solved using data collected by the physical fleet alone. Many companies, such as Waymo, are investing heavily into simulation, and are building virtual data collection fleets orders of magnitude bigger than the numbers discussed above. At the point of writing, Waymo has collected in excess of one billion miles generated through computer simulation, suggesting that their virtual fleet consists of thousands of simulated vehicles.
Duration of Data Collection
Since the technology does not exist yet, it is impossible to give a precise estimate of how much data is needed to train a roadworthy algorithm. The following calculations are based on public information.
At the time of writing, Waymo has reported having (“Waymo – On the road”, 2017)
3 milion miles of live test drives
1 billion miles of simulated test drives
A disengagement rate of 0.2 per 1000 miles (on average a human had to intervene every 5000 miles)
This disengagement rate is clearly insufficient for a product, which suggests that 3 million miles for test drives is insufficient as well. I will use this figure as a conservative estimate of the initial dataset required.
Waymo has also reported that its new extended fleet allowed it to collect 1 million miles of data in 7 months; equivalently, 3 million miles in 21 months. Again, to make this number more conservative, I’ll significantly round it down to 12 months and down again to account for 8 hours of driving every day per car and only 260 days a year (length of a working year).
Assumption 2: Duration of data collection = 1 working year = 2080 hours / car
This means that a fleet of 100 cars instrumented with 5 cameras each will generate in excess of one million hours of video recording in a year. This data needs to be captured, transported from the car to the data center, stored, processed and used for training. Importantly, since supervised learning algorithms are used, the data also needs to be annotated by humans. Marking every pedestrian, car, lane, and other details can become a significant bottleneck if the data annotation team is not adequately sized.
Volume of Data Generated by a Single Car
A typical vehicle used for data collection in the self driving car use case is equipped with multiple sensors (“NVIDIA Automotive” 2017; Liu et al., 2017). This includes technologies such as radar, cameras, lidar, ultrasonic sensors, and a wide range of vehicle sensors distributed over the vehicle’s Controller Area Network, Flexray, automotive ethernet and many other networks.
Typical test cars are equipped with multiple cameras, radars and other sensors to provide the computer system with added visibility and redundancy, which protects the car against adverse weather conditions or failure of individual components (Figure 2).
The exact instrumentation details of specific manufacturers or suppliers are not in the public domain, but some Tier 1 suppliers do provide insights into the order of magnitude of the problem. A paper published by Dell EMC and Altran (Radtke, 2017) reveals that just a single forward facing radar operating at 2800 MBits / s generates more than 1.26 TB of data per hour, and a typical data collection car generates in excess of 30TB a day. Similarly, a two megapixel camera (24 bits per pixel) operating at 30 frames per second generates 1440 Mbits of data every second, so a five camera setup can generate in excess of 24 TB per day.
Given that there is little publicly available information about the exact vehicle instrumentation of different self driving vehicles, I must be very conservative with the data volume assumptions. For the sake of simplicity, and in order to ensure the final computational requirements are not exaggerated, I will consider only the data generated by the surround cameras. Moreover, I will assume that the vehicle is equipped with only five cameras, even though in many cases there will be more. This setup typically uses two-megapixel cameras operating at 30 frames per second.
This oversimplified setup generates in excess of 3TB of raw video data every hour, which I will further reduce to just 1TB per hour (to accommodate any variation in the hardware or the sampling rate).
Assumption 3: Volume of data generated by a single car = 1 TB+ / h
Data Preprocessing
The final assumption involves data preprocessing, which is typically carried out on the raw video stream. There are two steps that can be taken to safely reduce the amount of data, without drastically affecting the performance of the neural networks.
Data sampling: Since individual video frames are highly correlated, at the initial stages of research one could consider resampling the input dataset to help control the computational complexity of the problem. While it might not be done in practice, resampling the data from 30 frames per second to one frame per second reduces the dataset size used for compute estimation by a factor of 30. Compression: Similarly, compression is rarely lossless, so it might not be possible to use in practice. In order to reduce the data volumes used for calculation I will assume a very aggressive 70x compression, which in practice is not usable because of the significant degradation of image quality. Once again, I do this just to make sure my final data volume estimate is conservative.
If I now multiply those two figures together, I get data a reduction factor of approximately 0.0005.
Assumption 4: Data reduction due to preprocessing = ~0.0005 of raw data
Total data volume after preprocessing
If I now combine the four assumptions, all of which err on the side of conservative estimates, a single car will produce 1TB+ of data every hour, and 100 vehicles operating for 8h/day * 260 working days / year will generate 204.8PB of data.
Total raw data volume = 204 PB
This data will be heavily processed and probably downsampled to make the training feasible, as discussed in the previous section. This will bring the data volume to a fairly modest 104 TB.
Total data volume after preprocessing = 104 TB
How Long Will Training Really Take?
I’ve calculated that the total data volume after preprocessing is 100TB. So what does this mean for the training process? Since the neural network architectures of automotive detection networks are not in the public domain, I will use a number of state of the art image classification networks for further calculation. These are conceptually very similar to the solutions used for tasks such as pedestrian detection, object classification, path planning, etc.
Running AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al., 2012)—one of the least computationally heavy image classification models —together with a substantially smaller ImageNet dataset (Russakovsky et al., 2014) achieves a throughput of ~150MB/s on a single Pascal GPU. For more complex networks like ResNet 50 (He et al., 2016) this number is closer to ~28 MB/s. For a state of the art network like Inception V3 (Szegedy et al., 2016) it is approximately 19MB/s.
If I now assume that automotive networks will converge within a similar number of epochs as networks used with ImageNet data (let’s use 50 epochs for ease of computation) this means that a single GPU will take:
50 epochs * 104 TB of data / 19 MB/s = 9.1 years to train an Inception-v3-like network once.
to train an Inception-v3-like network once. 6.2 years for a ResNet-50-like network.
for a ResNet-50-like network. 1.2 years for an AlexNet-like network.
A state of the art Deep Learning system like NVIDIA DGX-1 is designed to scale nearly linearly, to provide up to eight times the computational capability. However, a single system does not solve the problem. Even with 8 Tesla P100 (Pascal) GPUs, the training time comes to
1.13 years for Imagenet V3 or similar;
0.77 years for ResNer 50 or similar;
0.14years for AlexNet or similar.
The introduction of the new Volta GPU architecture addresses some of those challenges further (at the moment of writing, training of ResNet 50 was 2.5 times faster on Tesla V100) but does not change the order of magnitude of the problem. Especially given that, in practice, much larger networks might be required to accommodate information from the dataset (Goodfellow et al., 2016).
How Much Compute Does the Team Need for Training?
The previous section illustrated how a single system cannot address the vast amount of data and computational capability required for autonomous driving. With the emergence of even denser computing systems, such as DGX-1 with Volta GPUs, it is now possible to build a clustered solution delivering this extraordinary computational resource.
The numerical estimates presented above make it clear that this is a necessity. No one can expect even the largest and most talented team to succeed if they need to wait for results of their experimentation for two years. Even 100 days is too long. In order for the team to work effectively, this iteration time needs to drop to couple of days, if not hours. For the purpose of further calculations I will assume seven days as a target. Moreover, if the team has more than one person working at the same time, everyone (or at least a proportion of the team; I assume 20%) should be able get the results of their experiments in a reasonable time.
To understand just how much compute power is required, let’s do further calculations. Assuming a fairly modest team of 30 people, out of which only six will submit jobs at any given time, a seven-day training time will require:
356 DGX-1 Pascal systems for Inception V3 or similar (approximately 10 systems per team member);
241 systems for ResNet 50 or similar (8 systems per team member);
45 systems for AlexNet or similar (2 systems per team member).
Using the latest Volta benchmarks that show that DGX-1 with Tesla V100 (Volta) GPUs is 2.5 times faster, those numbers become:
142 DGX-1 Volta systems for Inception V3 or similar (4-5 systems per team member);
97 systems for ResNet 50 or similar (3 systems per team member);
18 systems for AlexNet or similar (1 system per team member).
Table 1 summarizes my estimates and assumptions, as well as showing a less conservative estimate.
Table 1. Summary of assumptions used for the calculation of computational requirements, together with an alternative scenario illustrating sensitivity of the calculation to minor variations in the assumptions. Assumptions Very Conservative estimate Less Conservative estimate Fleet size 100 125 Duration of data collection 1 working year / 8h 1.25 working year / 10h Volume of data generated by a single car 1TB / h 1.5TB / h Data reduction due to preprocessing 0.0005 0.0008 Research team size 30 40 Proportion of the team submitting jobs 20% 30% Target training time 7 days 6 days Number of epochs required for convergence 50 50 Calculations Total raw data volume 203.1 PB 595.1 PB Total data volume after preprocessing 104 TB 487.5 TB Training time on a single DGX-1 Volta system (8 GPUs) 166 days (Inception V3)
113 days (ResNet 50)21 days (AlexNet) 778 days (Inception V3)
528 days (ResNet 50)
194 days (AlexNet) Number of machines (DGX-1 with Volta GPUs) required to achieve target training time for the team 142 (Inception V3)
97 (ResNet 50)
18 (AlexNet) 1556 (Inception V3)
1056 (ResNet 50)
197 (AlexNet)
The Challenges of Linear Scaling
All of the compute estimates presented above assumed that the cluster can achieve perfect linear scaling. That means that, as you increase the number of GPUs, the training time decreases proportionally. Throughout this article I am referring to data parallelism as described by Dean et al. (2012) as a mechanism to achieve this scaling. So if you double the number of GPUs, the training time reduces to 50%. This is a difficult feat.
One cannot just simply put multiple gaming graphics cards into a cluster and expect to see a perfectly straight line when plotting training time versus number of GPUs. On the contrary, in case of majority of automotive image segmentation networks, if you connect a number of GPUs over the PCI-e bus, you will notice that as you increase the number of cards above 2-3 you see limited increase in performance (this varies depending on the computational complexity of the network and number of parameters).
This section of the post briefly addresses the reasons for this behavior, and lays out key design considerations for infrastructure, while also pointing to the appropriate literature for further information. For even more detailed information see the NVIDIA DGX-1 System Architecture white paper (“NVIDIA DGX-1 System Architecture”, 2017).
Networking
One of the most fundamental reasons for sub-linear scaling (apart from code quality issues) is communication overhead.
n order to train a neural network on multiple GPUs using data parallelism (Dean et al., 2012), every GPU gets the same copy of a model and a small subset of the data (Figure 3). Once the neural network forward pass is completed, a computation and exchange of data starts. At this stage, the GPUs need to exchange exceptionally large amounts of data within a very limited amount of time.
If the exchange takes more time than it takes for the GPU to do a backward pass through the network, then all of the machines need to wait idle until that communication completes.
It turns out that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the data rate required in order to avoid a communications bottleneck exceeds the capability of the PCIe network. To address this problem, NVIDIA has developed a dedicated GPU interconnect called NVLink, which in its second release provides over 300GB/s bidirectional bandwidth per Tesla V100 GPU.
NVLINK addresses the challenges of communication within a single multi-GPU system, allowing applications to scale up to 8 GPUs on DGX-1 (Figure 4) much better than a similar system with only PCI-e interconnect. In order to scale to multiple machines, it is critical to think about multi node communication and the role of Infiniband in your network topology. For the highest multiserver training performance consider a full fat-tree network design to maximise the total available bandwidth, as Figure 5 shows (Capps, 2017).
NVLink and Infiniband are communication mediums, but do not by themselves provide an out-of-the-box mechanism for distributed deep learning. To address this issue, the NVIDIA Collective Communications L ibrary (NCCL) hides the complexity of GPU communication within the cluster and is integrated (to varying extent) with all popular deep learning frameworks.
Algorithms and Software
NCCL is not the only piece of logic that has to be incorporated into your neural network implementation. Even though virtually all of the deep learning frameworks allow for parallelisation of the workload, it is achieved with varying engineering effort. Moreover, different deep learning frameworks offer different implementation quality and evolve at varying rates, making it easier or more complex to keep up with the changes and address bugs. Finally, none of the deep learning frameworks comes out of the box with any level of support.
Engineering resources are required to build and maintain a set of software tools, but these resources are very frequently neglected at the start of the project and then catch people by surprise. Unless you sell this process to a third party, or employ a fair number of software engineers, it will be up to your research staff to build and maintain this toolset. This is neither their core expertise, nor should be their core activity.
In order to accelerate AI research and allow organisations to focus on self-driving vehicle algorithm development (in contrast to deep learning framework maintenance and optimisation), NVIDIA provides optimized containers for all of the key deep learning frameworks on a monthly release cycle. These containers not only remove the need to manage the complexity of the ever-changing deep learning landscape but also provides exceptional performance. NVIDIA’s optimizations and testing save your team considerable engineering effort (Figure 6).
Storage
Another frequently overlooked element of the solution is storage. In principle, the challenge is simple: you must provide enough data to your GPUs to keep them busy. Any delay in the data loading pipeline will unavoidably lead to idle GPUs, and the entire process will be heavily delayed. The bandwidth of data delivery is nontrivial. It is not uncommon for a single node to process data at more than 3GB/s, especially when processing high-resolution images.
For smaller datasets, the problem is simpler. Since the neural network accesses the same data at each training epoch, the data can be cached locally on high performance SSDs (or even RAM for smaller datasets) and delivered at the speed of the local SSDs to the GPUs (note however that the first epoch will incur the cost of the first access to the network file server). Such solutions are already widely deployed on Deep Learning systems like DGX-1.
In the automotive context, the problem is more complex. As I have estimated, the best case scenario is dealing with 100TB of data. The local cache used in DGX-1 is useful if the data can be transferred to it once, and then systematically reused across multiple epochs. Automotive datasets are far beyond the capability of a training machine’s local storage, therefore the extent to which the local cache can be used is limited. In this case, it is clear that a higher performance storage backend is necessary. What NVIDIA is seeing is more and more deployments of either flash (Robinson, 2017) storage or flash-accelerated storage, frequently with HPC file systems.
CPU and Memory
The CPU plays a vital role in orchestrating the training process as well as data loading, logging, snapshotting and augmentation processes. If the CPUs are unable to keep up with the data hunger of the GPUs, the GPUs will simply sit idle. It is important to note that even for simpler problems like ImageNet, eight Pascal GPUs can easily saturate an entire server-grade CPU socket (Goyal et al., 2017). This became such a significant problem for groups such as Samsung Research that they have started the process of migrating data augmentation pipelines to the GPU, even though it reduces available GPU resources for the neural network itself (Gale et al., 2017).
When benchmarking different CPU configurations, we have observed a nontrivial impact on the end-to-end training performance. The same balance needs to be maintained for RAM (2x to 3x of the GPU memory attached).
Compute for Other Stages of the Engineering Workflow
An AI engineering workflow is much broader than just the large-scale training of deep learning models. The team needs to be provided with tools to allow them to effectively prototype, test, optimise and deploy their candidate models (Figure 8). All of those steps require significant computational resources. There is little sense to establishing a large research team if they are not supported by the right tools.
But the challenge is wider than that. Data engineering and operations, data transport and storage, data annotation (a large task given three million miles of driving data), prototyping, testing and optimisation infrastructure need to grow proportionally with the team.
Plan for Scale
The computational requirements of deep neural networks used to enable self-driving vehicles are enormous. At every stage of the calculations in this article, I have significantly rounded down the data volumes (sometimes by an order of magnitude or more), and still the resulting calculations clearly show that self-driving car research cannot be carried out successfully on a small number of GPUs. Even with a device as powerful as DGX-1 with Tesla V100 GPUs, a single training iteration would take months when dealing with a 100TB dataset. There is no way of escaping large-scale distributed training. Building this infrastructure, as well as the software to support it, is non-trivial, but not beyond reach.
For the first time in human history, we have enough computational power for the complexity of autonomous vehicle training. Obviously, the computational resource is not everything you need. You need to establish a research and data engineering teams and a systems team to manage your operations. You need to create and deploy a fleet of vehicles to collect the data and validate the results, and then integrate the results of your work with the vehicle. You have many logistical and financial challenges, but finding the solution to this very important problem is just a matter of engineering/research effort (so a function of budget and time).
For help evaluating the complexity of your problem, discussing the challenges of distributed training and large-scale model validation, or support in organizing your own artificial intelligence team, please contact us.
Please review the NVIDIA DGX-1 System Architecture whitepaper for more details on the key requirements for the AI training workflow.
Finally, if you are interested in experimenting with the calculations I used in this post, you can copy this spreadsheet, change the assumptions used to reflect your own use case, and use it estimate your AI team’s computational requirements.
References
Capps, L., (2017). The Making of DGX SATURN V: Breaking the Barriers to AI Scale. GPU Technology Conference 2017. Retrieved from http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2017/presentation/s7750-louis-capps-making-of-dgx-saturnv.pdf
Chintala, S. (2017). Deep Learning Systems at Scale. GPU Technology Conference. Retrieved from http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2016/presentation/s6227-soumith-chintala-deep-learning-at-scale.pdf
Dean, J., Corrado, G., Monga, R., Chen, K., Devin, M., Mao, M., … & Ng, A. Y. (2012). Large scale distributed deep networks. In Advances in neural information processing systems (pp. 1223-1231).
Gale, T., Eliuk, S., Upright, C. (2017). High-Performance Data Loading and Augmentation for Deep Neural Network Training, GPU Technology Conference 2017, Retrieved from http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2017/presentation/s7569-trevor-gale-high-performance-data-loading-and-augmentation-for-deep-neural-network-training.pdf
GM completes production of 130 Bolt self-driving cars. (2017, June 13). Retrieved from http://in.reuters.com/article/gm-autonomous/gm-completes-production-of-130-bolt-self-driving-cars-idINKBN1941P2
Goodfellow, I., Bengio, Y., & Courville, A. (2016). Deep learning. MIT press.
Google’s Waymo adds 100 Chryslers to self-driving fleet. (2016, December 19). Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4048484/Googles-Waymo-adds-100-Chryslers-self-driving-fleet.html
Goyal, P., Dollár, P., Girshick, R., Noordhuis, P., Wesolowski, L., Kyrola, A., … & He, K. (2017). Accurate, Large Minibatch SGD: Training ImageNet in 1 Hour. arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.02677.
He, K., Zhang, X., Ren, S., & Sun, J. (2016, October). Identity mappings in deep residual networks. In European Conference on Computer Vision (pp. 630-645). Springer International Publishing.
Krizhevsky, A., Sutskever, I., & Hinton, G. E. (2012). Imagenet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. In Advances in neural information processing systems (pp. 1097-1105).
Liu, S., Tang, J., Zhang, Z., & Gaudiot, J. L. (2017). CAAD: Computer Architecture for Autonomous Driving. arXiv preprint arXiv: |
officials have set up concrete barriers around the crescent area to reduce the risk of a car running into pedestrians.
Yes to Marxism — Groucho Marx-ism that is!
Some jokesters who want to send their own political message have intentionally misinterpreted the rally organizers’ stated purpose to combat Marxism.
“Several dozen Berkeley residents are gathering to say yes to Marxism — Groucho Marx-ism that is!” wrote Nicole Freeling in an email to Berkeleyside. Attendees will wear Groucho glasses and hold signs with quotes of his.
Today, Saturday, progressive religious groups are holding an interfaith event in Civic Center Park from 3-4:30 p.m., “to create sacred space at the location where neo-Nazis plan to rally the following day.”
Rallies affecting local businesses and transit
While groups of all kinds descend on downtown Berkeley and the park, some local businesses and institutions will halt programming. AC Transit is detouring buses away from downtown from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to a bulletin. Areas north of Ashby Avenue, south of Rose/Hopkins streets, east of Sacramento Street, and west of College Avenue will not be served during this time. (Click here for more details.) BART will be running longer trains, however, according to a tweet put out by BART Board President Rebecca Saltzman.
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive will shut down for the day Sunday, and is reimbursing any movie ticket-holders.
“This decision has been made at the recommendation of UC Berkeley public safety officials and reflects BAMPFA’s commitment to ensuring the safety of its visitors, staff, and students,” according to a media release from the museum.
The downtown Berkeley YMCA will close early on Sunday, at 11:30 a.m., “to add the City’s efforts and ensure safety of our staff and members.”
Street parking will be restricted around Civic Center Park, too.
The city initially told residents to avoid all events in the area Sunday to prevent counter-protesters from diverting police and resources away from the “No to Marxism” rally. On Wednesday, however, in a Facebook post, Arreguín encouraged people to attend the Crescent lawn “Rally Against Hate.”
“I again want to urge people not to come to Civic Center Park,” he wrote. “While I understand people’s strong desire to speak out against racism, bigotry and white supremacism, past alt-right rallies in the park have resulted in violence and we do not want people to be in a dangerous situation.”The Texas Memorial Museum will lose nearly $400,000 in University funds and experience a staff reduction from 11 employees to three as a result of budget cuts, which will be implemented on Sept. 1 of next year.
The on-campus museum, which will celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, currently operates on an annual budget of $600,000. Without University funding, that budget will shrink by more than two-thirds.
The Museum will continue to receive $108,000 in state funding and $50,000 from gift shop sales, and raises roughly $50,000 in donations annually, though museum administrators hope that number will increase. The three remaining positions will include a security guard, gift shop operator and one other employee.
“I’m still not entirely sure what the best skill-set will be for the remaining staff member or members to have,” said Edward Theriot, integrative biology professor and museum director. “The security guard’s job will be security, the gift shop operator’s job is going to be the gift shop and it will fall upon that third person to take care of everything else that the museum does. That’s the hardest piece the puzzle — to figure out what’s going to be the best solution there.”
The Texas Memorial Museum is a part of the Texas Natural Science Center, an organized research unit within the College of Natural Sciences. The center was established to promote research and educational activities surrounding biodiversity.
Lee Clippard, College of Natural Sciences spokesman, said the decision to cut the Museum’s funding comes from the College of Natural Sciences dean’s office.
“The [museum] has long been an important fixture on the UT campus and is a wonderful resource for our community and visitors to campus,” Clippard said. “Unfortunately, the budget situation at the University and in the College of Natural Sciences is such that we must make difficult decisions.”
Natural Sciences Dean Linda Hicke was not available for comment.
Theriot, who will also lose his job at the museum, has been tasked with finding alternative sources of revenue and deciding the best strategy for a museum with dramatically reduced staff.
“I don’t doubt that the decision was made with some anguish and difficulty,” Theriot said. “I’m not complaining — my job is to try to find a solution and for the last two weeks that’s what I’ve been out there trying to do. I’ve met with a dozen stakeholders within and outside the University. In some ways we’ve been anticipating this [but] I do wish it was coming two or three more years down the road where we’d be in a much better position with the things we’re trying to do.”
Theriot said a museum program that employs students may not survive the budget cut.
Holly Hansel, a studio art senior and work-study student for the museum, said eliminating the student docent program would be taking away a rare opportunity.
“As docents, we lead tours and do a lot of intern-type help and it would be a shame to see the opportunity to be an actual tour leader to be taken away,” Hansel said.
Theriot said the museum, which receives more than 90,000 visitors every year, had been working towards a more stable income involving more outside funding over the past several years.
Hansel, who assisted at the museum’s annual Halloween festival last weekend, said the event was bittersweet. The event was one of several the museum hosts throughout the year to educate and connect with the community.
“[There] was a great turnout, we had over 2,000 kids there,” Hansel said. “I’m glad we got to do that but some of the workers were a bit misty-eyed because this may be their last Halloween even at the museum.”
John Maisano, museum exhibits designer for nearly 14 years, said he is unsure about what the future holds.
“I would love to continue [working] in the museum world of course, but museum jobs are just not easy to come by,” Maisano said. “We’re all just in a really scary place, but I don’t feel like I’m finished here. There’s so much I wanted to do.”Washington (CNN) European ambassadors to the US mounted a united defense of the Iran nuclear deal as Washington signals it may walk away from the pact.
Envoys from the European Union, Germany, France and Britain laid out their arguments, returning frequently to their central point that the deal is working and Iran is complying with the agreement reached in July 2015 and implemented in January 2016.
The diplomats said the deal is in the national security interests of their countries, the Middle East and the world. They said a decision to walk away would undermine Western credibility, particularly with North Korea. And while they're happy to discuss Iran's behavior outside of the nuclear deal, they said the pact itself is not open for renegotiation.
"We don't think it will be possible to renegotiate" the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, said German Ambassador Peter Wittig, who added that his country saw no practical way to do so.
Other parties to the deal are adamant that it won't happen, French Ambassador Gerard Araud told the audience at the Atlantic Council event where the envoys spoke. At the UN General Assembly, during a meeting last week of all parties to JCPOA, he said, "there was a very clear message" from Iran, China and Russia "saying no way, there won't be any re-opening of the agreement, the agreement is working as it is," Araud said.
A signature achievement of the Obama administration, the international accord has been in President Donald Trump's crosshairs since he was on the campaign trail. His administration has been conducting a review of Iran policy and he has hinted that he will take some sort of action in mid-October.
Under US law, the President has to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is complying with the deal. Trump has repeatedly hinted that he wants to ditch the agreement, most recently in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last week.
JUST WATCHED Explaining the Iran nuclear deal Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Explaining the Iran nuclear deal 01:20
"We cannot let a murderous regime continue these destabilizing activities while building dangerous missiles, and we cannot abide by an agreement if it provides cover for the eventual construction of a nuclear program," Trump told the Assembly.
He went on to declare that the "Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States."
The President and administration officials say the deal doesn't address Iran's missile development or its activities in the region, including support for Houthi rebels in Yemen and for the regime of Syria's Bashar al-Assad. And they object in particular to parts of the deal governing uranium enrichment that eventually expire under a "sunset clause."
That was deliberate, said Araud said on Monday. The deal was so "technical, so complicated... we didn't want to be dragged down into a quid pro quo on other issues," Araud said. "Nothing in the agreement is preventing us from facing the challenges raised by Iran on other issues."
EU ambassador David O'Sullivan said that none of the issues the Trump administration is concerned about would be easier to deal with if the US abandons the nuclear pact. "I can think of no regional issue that would not be even more difficult to handle if Iran possessed nuclear weapons," O'Sullivan said. "This is one of the most comprehensive non-proliferation agreements every negotiated."
Stuart Eizenstat, chairman of the Atlantic Council's Iran Advisory Board for the Future of Iran Initiative, captured some of the unspoken feeling on the panel when he said at the opening of the event that "it now appears that Washington, rather than Iran, may be a bigger threat to the JCPOA."
Wittig said that engaging with Iran after the lifting of sanctions is "a legitimate and desirable goal" of the agreement because trade and regular contact "potentially binds us closer together" and could eventually change Iranian behavior. With "80 million people, you can't just wish it away," he said. "We want this Iran to gradually move to our world view."
He urged the Trump administration to consider the broader context of their actions. "What kind of signal would it send to North Korea," he asked. "It would send a signal that diplomacy is not reliable... that would affect our credibility in the West when we're not honoring an agreement that Iran has not violated."
JUST WATCHED Royce: Keep and enforce Iran deal Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Royce: Keep and enforce Iran deal 06:25
British Ambassador Kim Darroch said that UK Prime Minister Theresa May spent 50 minutes meeting with Trump during the UN gathering, talking about ways to address Iran's non-nuclear behavior that so concerns the President.
Like the other ambassadors, Darroch said his country shares concerns about Iran's missile development and its backing for groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Darroch said May told Trump that the UK supports the deal because "it's about our national security, we think we are more secure because of the deal," and he said she presented to Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson "ways we could push back against Iranian activities in the region."
The UK envoy added that they also discussed "starting, at some point, within the context of this agreement, talks with the Iranians on the sunset clause and what comes next."
Darroch said he thought the administration is making headway in raising its concerns about Tehran. It has "changed the climate already on Iran," Darroch said, "so it's succeeding, we would say let's carry on with that, let's intensify those discussions, but let's keep the JCPOA."It wasn't long after the Boston Red Sox beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 in Game 6 of the World Series for the question to be asked: "When's the parade?"
At, 11:35 p.m., the company that will providing the Red Sox's rides for the parade had the answer ready: Saturday.
Boston Duck Tours, the company which runs the famous Boston "duck boats" broke the news of the parade, which traditionally utilize the city's unique amphibious tour vehicles for championship parades, on its official Twitter account.
Congratulations Boston Red Sox! See you all on Saturday for the Parade! — Boston Duck Tours (@BostonDuckTours) October 31, 2013
Red Sox owner John Henry also confirmed that the parade would take place on Saturday during a postgame interview with NESN's Don Orsillo.
Boston clinched its first World Series title in Boston since 1918 as John Lackey earned a redemptive victory and beloved slugger David Ortiz was named MVP. The worst-to-first team was put together by general manager Ben Cherington and guided by manager John Farrell as the team and the city of Boston enjoyed a magical season.
The duck boats were last used in a championship parade when the Boston Bruins hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2012. The last time the Red Sox made their rounds in the boats was back in 2007.
The exact parade route has yet to be released, but historically, the parade has started out near Fenway Park, continued down Boylston Street, passed through Copley Square and then gone on further downtown and, if the route is extended like it was in 2004, into the Charles River itself.
If the parade does go down Boylston Street (and it almost certainly will), the parade will cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon, a detail that will hardly go unnoticed by the Red Sox and parade organizers.Several members of the Guelph Conservative riding association have left the group because they are unhappy with the way the central party reacted when local election worker Michael Sona was charged in connection with a fraudulent robocall that sent hundreds of Guelph, Ont., residents to the wrong poll on election day.
Sona, 24, is to face a single charge of “having wilfully prevented or endeavoured to prevent an elector from voting at an election.” Sona, who was 22 at the time of the election, says he is innocent, and has done media interviews complaining that the Conservative party is trying to make him the fall guy for what happened in Guelph.
It’s a message that appears to have connected with some local Conservatives.
Marty Burke, the candidate in the last election, has left the board that runs the local Conservative riding association, as has his wife, Trish, and several other longtime volunteers. Burke could not be reached for comment, but sources say local Conservatives are upset that the party welcomed the news that Sona was charged.
“In 2011 we reached out to Elections Canada when we heard of wrongdoing in Guelph and did all we could to assist them,” said the statement party spokesman Fred DeLorey when Sona was charged. “We are pleased that Elections Canada’s work has progressed to this point.”
When Sona was charged last month, Burke told the Guelph Tribune that he was surprised.
[np_storybar title=”Elizabeth to Elizabeth: Queen rejects call from Green Party leader to probe robocalls scandal
” link=”http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/04/elizabeth-to-elizabeth-queen-tells-green-party-leader-she-wont-investigate-robocalls-scandal/”%5D
Buckingham Palace has responded to Green Party leader Elizabeth May’s demand for an inquiry into Canada’s robocalls scandal, writing that it isn’t a matter in which Queen Elizabeth II would normally intervene.
“The Queen has taken careful note of the concerns you express over the fairness of the Canadian democratic electoral process, which you feel is currently being infringed,” writes Jennie Vine, deputy to the senior correspondence officer.
Read more…
[/np_storybar]
“I am very surprised that this charge has resulted from the (Elections Canada) investigation,” he said. “I am sanguine – as I am sure Michael must be as well – with regard to the final outcome. A charge is not a conviction – not even close.”
On Saturday, the riding association had an event at the Guelph Golf and Curling Club to focus on the Conservatives winning Guelph in the next election.The guest speaker was John Carmichael, Conservative MP for Don Valley West, who told local supporters how he managed to win his riding on his third attempt.
Carmichael said Wednesday that he didn’t hear anything about people leaving the riding association.
“I didn’t discuss any of that,” he said. The Burkes did not attend the event. Neither the president nor the communications director of the riding association replied to emails, and DeLorey said he had no comment.
Sona’s lawyer, Norm Boxall, is expected to appear in Guelph Friday without Sona. At the time that Sona was charged, Boxall called for a public inquiry into the affair.
“I cannot help but comment, that if the government was interested in the public being fully informed and the issue of robocalls being properly addressed, a full public inquiry would be called, rather than a charge laid against a single individual who held a junior position on a single campaign and who clearly lacked the resources and access to the data required to make the robocalls,” he said.
Elections Canada has said that their investigation into both the Guelph robocall and other calls across the country are ongoing.A Japanese whaling fleet will set sail on Tuesday for the Antarctic on a three-month hunt, the government said on Monday.
This is despite international opposition to Japan's whale hunts over the years that it has attributed to scientific research on whale stock management and conservation.
Japan's announcement comes days after it submitted its final plan to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), where it says it plans to catch up to 333 minke whales each year over the next 12 years. This is a third of what it used to kill, and the plan will be evaluated after six years.
This move is in direct opposition of the United Nations' International Court of Justice, which in March 2014 ordered Japan to stop whale hunting. Whale hunting is forbidden worldwide after a 1986 moratorium placed by the IWC, but Japan had been hunting both for consumption and research purposes up until the UN order was passed last year.
Japan had been petitioning the IWC since at least November last year, sending its plans for whale catching and promising to publish its findings in scientific journals.
In response to Monday's decision to send the Japanese fleet out, Australia environment minister Greg Hunt said: "Japan cannot unilaterally decide whether it has adequately addressed the scientific committee’s questions."
He added that Australia will continue to put pressure on Japan through the IWC and with direct discussions.
Australia Attorney-General George Brandis told the Senate that if diplomatic persuasions fail, Australia will consider sending a Customs and Border Protection Service patrol boat to tail the Japanese whaling fleet. He did not say what role such a boat might play, but it would likely try to gather evidence of illegal conduct.
A protester in 2008 sits on a Japanese flag covered in red blood outside the Japanese consulate in Melbourne, Australia, to protest whale hunting. Image: WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images
Other ecological societies have also opposed Japan's decision. Director of the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Darren Kindleysides, was quoted by The Guardian saying: "Japan’s Antarctic whaling has failed the test of international law, and the test of science, yet the hunt could resume within weeks."
Alex Cornelissen, chief of activist group Sea Shepherd, warned: "The whales of the Southern Ocean are protected by international law, by Australian law and by Sea Shepherd. Any violation of the sanctity of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary or the Australian Whale Sanctuary will be regarded as a criminal act."
Sea Shepherd has sent boats to tail Japanese hunters in the past, to try to disrupt their hunt.
Tokyo-based historian Jeff Kingston wrote that Japan's intentional "flouting of the rule of law" undermines its own position as an upholder of those rules, which could impact territorial disputes between countries. Citing the islands in the South China Sea that are currently disputed by China and the Philippines, and awaiting UN arbitration, Kingston says the losing party can ignore the UN decision by citing Japan as a fellow flouter of the law.
Additional reporting by The Associated Press.Welt newspaper repeated long-standing allegations that the government of former chancellor Konrad Adenauer secretly channelled hundreds of millions of dollars into Israel’s nuclear programme in the 1960s.
The newspaper insisted the claims were true, despite a categorical denial earlier this month from Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president, who was in charge of the nuclear weapons project at the time.
In a detailed report, Welt claimed the funds were disguised as a $500 million (£338 million) loan for the development of the Negev desert.
The arrangement was agreed at a meeting between Mr Adenauer and David Ben-Gurion, the Israeli prime minister, in New York in 1960, the newspaper claimed.
The agreement was informal and was never scrutinised by the West German cabinet or parliament.
It was known as “Aktion Geschäftsfreund”, or “Operation Business Associate” by the West German foreign ministry.
The funds were channelled to Israel through the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a government-owned development bank.
The bank has declined to release details of its payments to Israel under the programme………
Explicit details and photographs of its weapons project were leaked by Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, in 1986.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11535629/West-Germany-secretly-funded-Israels-nuclear-bomb-despite-Israel-denials.htmlIt has been nearly two years since the release of the Haswell-E platform, which began with the launch of the Core i7-5960X processor. Back then, the introduction of an 8-core consumer processor was the primary selling point; along with the new X99 chipset and DDR4 memory support. At the time, I heralded the processor as “easily the fastest consumer processor we have ever had in our hands” and “nearly impossible to beat.” So what has changed over the course of 24 months?
Today Intel is launching Broadwell-E, the follow up to Haswell-E, and things look very much the same as they did before. There are definitely a couple of changes worth noting and discussing, including the move to a 10-core processor option as well as Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which is significantly more interesting than its marketing name implies. Intel is sticking with the X99 platform (good for users that might want to upgrade), though the cost of these new processors is more than slightly disappointing based on trends elsewhere in the market.
This review of the new Core i7-6950X 10-core Broadwell-E processor is going to be quick, and to the point: what changes, what is the performance, how does it overclock, and what will it cost you?
Go.
Continue reading our review of the new Core i7-6950X 10-core processor!!
The Broadwell-E Architecture
As the name implies, the four processors that Intel is announcing today are part of the Broadwell-E platform, and utilize the same microarchitecture found in the Broadwell family. Desktop users never really got Broadwell parts; even though we included performance results from the Core i7-5775C here on PC Perspective, the part was never widely available, and was released much too close to Skylake to take seriously. Broadwell-E will very likely be more widespread in the DIY market than Broadwell was.
Inherently, there is an architectural disadvantage when going with Broadwell-E, as Skylake is on the market and widely available. Skylake offers improved power efficiency, upgrades and improvements to the integrated graphics, and some IPC enhancements. BDW-E however is a 140 watt CPU family that will surely be used with discrete graphics cards – Skylake’s advantages are less important in this particular market segment.
What is new to the enthusiast platform with BDW-E is a 14nm process technology, as earlier Haswell-E CPUs were built on the 22nm node. In theory this gives us more headroom for performance inside the same 140 watt power envelope. However, it would appear that rather than getting us extra clock speed, the process shift is what is allowing us to increase core count while maintaining competent clock rates.
So what does Broadwell-E offer for consumers? The new Intel Core i7-6900/6800 processor family will be the first to include a 10-core / 20-thread option under the Core brand, though Xeon parts have been available with equal or higher core counts for a while. They will also include as much as 25MB of cache. The addition of Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 is actually the most technically interesting addition to the processor family, promising to tell you which particular core is the “best”, and allowing it to work on single threaded workloads specifically.
The platform remains the same; X99 motherboards with the LGA2011-v3 socket should all be able to run the Core i7-6950X and other BDW-E CPUs with a firmware update. Of course, companies like ASUS and MSI are using this processor launch as a convenient time to update their existing X99 motherboard families with new features, and ASUS sent us the X99-Deluxe II to use in our testing. For users that are running Haswell-E today, this does offer an upgrade path for you to Broadwell-E. Whether or not that is a worthwhile move based on our performance results will be another discussion, but it is good that Intel is extending the lifespan of the platform at all.
Because Intel is sticking with the X99 chipset for Broadwell-E, we do not have any specific changes to talk about on the platform. Intel does mention in its presentation that Thunderbolt 3 is here, and a good match for Broadwell-E, but it will depend on the motherboard vendors to integrate support for it. Based on the new X99 boards I have seen timed with Broadwell-E, most of them do add Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, and U.2 storage support among other things, so I do expect the X99 boards coming out in 2016 to be better appointed than their 2014 counterparts.
Intel claims that performance increases will exist for both single and multi-threaded workloads. The multi-threaded performance improvements are easy enough to associate with the 10-core processor option, giving us 25% more cores than the Core i7-5960X. Single threaded improvements come courtesy of clock speeds and Turbo Boost Max 3.0 which we will discuss in a bit.
All four processors launching today are fully unlocked and allow for per-core overclocking, AVX specific offset ratios, and VccU voltage controls. More than likely these changes aren’t going to shift how normal overclockers get the job done, but it does give users that have a lot of experience with the art some additional room to stretch the silicon.
Let’s dive through the specs of the parts hitting shelves this summer.
The flagship processor for Broadwell-E is the Core i7-6950X, and it sports some impressive specifications! A base clock speed of 3.0 GHz along with a Boost clock speed of up to 3.5 GHz is paired with 10 cores to offer unseen multi-threading performance for a consumer branded processor. Obviously HyperThreading is in play so the CPU will actually address 20 threads in your system – and just looking at Windows Task Manager in that configuration is awesome. That CPU will have 25MB of cache, 40 lanes of PCI Express 3.0, quad-channel DDR4 memory support, and a price tag of $1723.
Wait, what?? $1700?!?
Intel has taken a different route with the Broadwell-E release than with the previous one. Every time Intel has increased core count on their Extreme Edition processors in the past, the new higher-core part was the flagship priced at $1000 or so. When Haswell-E brought us 8-core parts, it had a tray price of $1049. For whatever reason Intel is going back on that trend, keeping the 8-core processor option at $1089, but adding 58% to your price for 25% more cores. It changes the whole dynamic of the platform, honestly.
Looking past the Core i7-6950X to the other parts, Intel has an 8-core and two 6-core processors. The 8-core Core i7-6900K runs 200 MHz faster than the 6950X, drops a bit of cache (to 20MB) but maintains the same capabilities otherwise. Only the Core i7-6800 sees a drop in PCIe lanes – down to the same 28 lanes that the Core i7-5820K offered but with a price tag of just $434.Image caption The council has put a major incident evacuation plan in place in Edinburgh
Residents living in Edinburgh city centre are being urged to make up a "grab bag" of essential items as part of a major incident evacuation plan.
The special bag should include medication, car and house keys, cash and bank cards, glasses or contact lenses and items for children.
People are also urged to store next-of-kin details in a mobile phone, wallet or purse under the note ICE.
ICE stands for 'in case of emergency' for people looking for details.
The city centre area is roughly bordered by Haymarket, Queen Street, Regent Terrace and the Grassmarket, and includes locations such as Calton Hill, Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Park.
The population in the area is estimated at 70,000 although this increases significantly during the summer.
All businesses in Edinburgh are also being urged to make sure they are geared up to evacuate parts of the capital in exceptional circumstances.
Evacuation process
They are being told to identify evacuation assembly points, make transport arrangements, give support for vulnerable groups and make arrangements for communications.
Dave Anderson, Edinburgh City Council's director of city development, said: "Although Edinburgh has seen a number of incidents over the years, including major fires and building collapses, there has never been a widespread evacuation in the city and we hope this plan will never be required.
"However, being ready for the unexpected is sound business practice and we urge all organisations in Edinburgh to ensure they have arrangements in place to help them cope with disruptions to their normal operations."
Ch Supt Gill Imery, of Lothian and Borders Police, said: "Public safety is paramount and we have always had plans in place to deal with emergencies.
"These arrangements will provide an additional management tool to help co-ordinate the evacuation process."In sworn testimony from the Floyd Landis-U.S. federal government whistleblower lawsuit against him, Lance Armstrong has not only admitted that his Triple Crown win in 1993 and resulting $1 million bonus came about after the rival Coors Light team was paid to let him win, but that longtime U.S. cycling insider and current BMC Racing Team manager Jim Ochowicz orchestrated it.
Rumors of the paid collusion at the June 1993 race series have swirled for years. And in a 2013 interview with Corriere della Sera, former pro Roberto Gaggioli said Armstrong showed up at his home in Bergamo, Italy, in October of that year to make good on the deal by handing him a cake box containing $100,000. But Armstrong’s September 24, 2015, testimony, obtained this week by VeloNews, is the first time he has confirmed that the deal happened, that it was orchestrated by his Motorola team, and that he knew about it.
In addition to naming Ochowicz, Armstrong also implicated Phil Anderson, an Australian veteran who rode for Motorola at the time.
The transcript reads as follows:
Paul Scott [a member of Landis’ legal team]: Did anybody offer to pay any money on your behalf to any member of the Coors Light cycling team to allow you to win any stage of that race?
Armstrong: I believe that Jim Ochowicz, perhaps Phil Anderson, negotiated some package with Coors Light.
Scott: And how is it that you believe that Jim Ochowicz did that?
Armstrong: Because I heard that.
Scott: From whom?
Armstrong: From those guys. From Jim.
Scott: Jim Ochowicz told you he negotiated a deal?
Armstrong: Yeah. And Phil Anderson.
Scott: And Phil Anderson. For them basically to not compete at their strongest level and allow you to win the race; is that right?
Armstrong: No. Well —
Sharif Jacob [a member of Armstrong’s legal team]: Calls for speculation.
Armstrong: — I don’t know if they competed — I don’t think they threw the race, but I don’t know — I was so new to the sport, and that side of the sport was so new to me, I wasn’t very clear on how that worked.
Reached by email this week, Ochowicz denied any knowledge of the deal. “I never heard anything about Coors Light,” he said. “Anything I have heard about this came way after the fact. I heard about this like everybody else. I had nothing to do with anything related to Coors Light.”
The races in question took place in June of 1993. They were the Thrift Drug Classic, K-Mart West Virginia Classic, and CoreStates USPRO Championship. Collectively, they were called the Triple Crown, and they offered a $1 million bonus for any rider to win all three.
Gaggioli and New Zealander Stephen Swart, who both rode for Coors Light at the time, have previously told the story of the race fix. Neither mentioned Ochowicz, but Anderson was linked to the deal.
Swart provided sworn testimony in 2006 as part of a lawsuit between SCA promotions and Armstrong over non-payment of a $5 million bonus following Armstrong’s sixth Tour de France victory. He stated that an unnamed member of Armstrong’s Motorola team approached one of Swart’s teammates, which led to a follow-up meeting in the hotel room Armstrong and Anderson shared at the second of the three Triple Crown races. In the David Walsh book “LA Confidential,” Swart provided more detail. “They offered us $50,000 if we didn’t try to beat them,” he said. “It was rather a good deal for us.”
In 2013, Anderson told Australian television program “Four Corners” that he couldn’t recall such a deal. “I can’t remember an offer,” he said. “I think that the $1 million was underwritten by an insurance company, but I don’t recall. I mean that’s a few years ago. I don’t recall any meeting.”
In 2013, Gaggioli told Italian paper Corriere della Sera that Armstrong approached him before the start of the third and final triple crown race in Philadelphia and that the deal played out on the road. “Two laps from the finish, I got in the winning break with Lance, Bobby Julich, and some Italians from Mercatone Uno. Lance turned to me, and I pretended that I didn’t see him attacking, and he won alone,” Gaggioli said.
One of the Mercatone Uno riders, Roberto Pelliconi, confirmed to Corriere della Sera that they, too, had reached a deal with Armstrong. “[Angelo] Canzonieri and Lance agreed on 50. Angelo was thinking in dollars, Lance in lira,” he said. “At the Tour of Lombardy, he gave us 50 million lira, which saved [him] 40 percent, given the exchange rate.” [Armstrong did not race the 1993 edition of Tour of Lombardy, so either the alleged payment happened at another time, or it was handled by someone else -Ed.]
Armstrong appeared in Bergamo four months after the Triple Crown, Gaggioli said, shortly after his victory at the world championships. “He gave me a cake wrapped as a present, wished me ‘Happy Christmas’ and then left,” Gaggioli said. “There was $100,000 dollars in small bills in the box.”Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
A high number of hedgehogs with life-threatening broken legs have been brought to Leatherhead's Wildlife Aid this autumn.
It is not known how the unfortunate hedgehogs became injured but they are being cared for at the charity with their legs bandaged up before being operated on by a specialist orthopaedic vet.
Simon Cowell, founder of Wildlife Aid, said although the autumn is always a difficult time of year for hedgehogs, the amount of injured ones has far outstripped any previous year.
"This is the first year we have had eight hedgehogs brought into us with broken legs," he said.
"This time of year is always particularly tough for hedgehogs as there are a lot of second brood youngsters around who are struggling to put on weight in time for winter hibernations.
"But we can't work out why this has been so bad for hedgehogs with broken legs, we don't think it has anything to do with climate change at this time and we can't make any sense of it.
"It is possibly because of the attention the decline in hedgehog numbers has been getting and now people are looking out for them more and bringing them in to use which would be great news."
The hedgehogs, who have been brought in from around the country, are cared for at the centre on Randalls Road, with all of them being x-rayed to assess the damage to their legs and work out appropriate treatment.
Mr Cowell said that this sort of injury to their back legs can often prove fatal.
"All of the hedgehogs will have to have operations from a specialist orthopaedic surgeon to repair their back legs," he said.
"Their back legs are especially important as they use them to scratch behind their ears. If they can't do this then they can get mites that cause terrible infections that often kill them."
'Go through bonfires'
Bonfire night can also be a very dangerous time for hedgehogs with many perishing in bonfires each year after they crawl into them in search of somewhere warm.
Mr Cowell appealed to people to think of hedgehogs when they are setting up their bonfires this year.
He said: "We would ask everyone having a bonfire this weekend to just turn it over and go through it an hour before you light it.
"Particularly after the frost we have been having in the last few days they will have been looking for somewhere warm to go and a big pile of firewood would be perfect."I no longer want to be gay. I know that on the surface this statement reeks |
enic remained king of bug killers from medieval times up to the mid-1900s, when science found something more effective. DDT had been created in 1874, but it was overlooked as an insecticide until 1939, when Swiss chemist Paul Müller made a world-changing discovery that won him a Nobel Prize. German chemists had already invented a process by then for synthesizing ammonia to make nitrogen fertilizers, for which they also won Nobel Prizes. Borlaug then mixed these and other modern tactics to fight famines in Mexico, India and the Philippines, securing his own place in history.
Meanwhile, a rival revolution still simmered below the surface, advocating ancient tools like compost and cover crops. It was led in the U.S. by magazine magnate and Rodale Institute founder J.I. Rodale, who popularized organic farming in the 1960s and '70s as environmental attitudes were already in flux. When Congress officially defined "organic" in 1990 and set up national certification rules, it quickly triggered an organic bonanza. USDA-certified acreage grew by an average 16 percent a year from 2000 to 2008, and still grew 5 percent in 2009 even amid the recession, points out U.S. National Organic Program spokeswoman Soo Kim. "I'm no forecaster," she says, "but I'd have to say there's a strong demand for it, and I would expect that to continue."
What does 'organic' mean?
"Organic farming" suffered an identity crisis until the late 20th century, but today the term is regulated by governments and independent certifiers around the world. The National Organic Program handles organic issues in the U.S., a duty it was given by the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. It defines organic farming as any qualified system that's designed "to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance and conserve biodiversity." The NOP website has details, including a list of allowed and prohibited substances, an archive of organic regulations, and a guide to accredited certifying agents. For casual grocery shopping, though, keep these four tips in mind when checking food labels:
Products labeled "100 percent organic" must contain only organically produced ingredients and processing aids (aside from water and salt).
Products labeled "organic" must contain at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients (again, not including water and salt).
Products labeled "made with organic ingredients" must contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients, and may list up to three on the main label.
Nothing with less than 70 percent organic ingredients can say "organic" on its main label, but it can identify organic ingredients on its info panel.
Is organic food worth the cost?
U.S. organic farming has grown wildly in the last two decades, but with food demand rising and many cash-strapped shoppers pinching pennies, are greener acres sWhen Narendra Modi stepped into the Parliament House for the first time in May 2014, the prime minister-designate knelt and touched his forehead on the main entry gate. “This is the temple of democracy,” he proclaimed.
However, owing to the arbitrary functioning of his government, this “temple of democracy” has witnessed a travesty of constitutional propriety on a number of occasions.
The manner in which repeated changes in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates are being announced by the finance minister, when an amendment to the GST legislation is yet to be passed by the parliament, is a signal of the erosion of the authority and legitimacy of the parliament. It is a negation of the fundamental principles of our parliamentary system and constitutional provisions.
Ours is a parliamentary system of government based on the Westminster model. The constitution has vested the power over the purse in the hands of chosen representatives of the people, thus sanctifying the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’. The accountability of the government to citizens is implemented through scrutiny of its work by the parliament. Therefore, there was a touch of irony in the government’s announcements on GST bypassing the legislature.
After a prolonged opposition to the GST, the BJP realised the benefits of the law only after coming to power. The Congress had prepared a robust framework for a single unified indirect tax structure. However, post its implementation by the BJP, the outcome has been completely different from the conceived taxation model, defying the very purpose the tax reform was conceptualised for the Indian economy. Consequently, many structural flaws remain unaddressed.
The government had consistently maintained that it was not possible to cap tax rates at 18% in the GST Constitutional Amendment Bill when it was tabled in the parliament. But the hurried manner with which the rates were revised and the fact that a majority of items which were in the 28% bracket were scaled down to 18% indicates that the government erred by ignoring the Congress’s suggestions for an 18% cap on GST rates.
The government had avoided debates and discussions in the Rajya Sabha by snubbing the upper house on the GST Bill. There was an opportunity to go before the parliament, explain the structural flaws in the legislation and seek parliamentary approval for the revision. However, once again, parliament’s scrutiny was bypassed.
Unwillingness of the Modi government to subject itself to parliamentary scrutiny reveals two things – its autocratic way of functioning and its vulnerability to defend itself against the irrational decisions it has taken.
This government isn’t forthcoming either about the economic or foreign policy. Ironically, members of parliament come to know about the Modi government’s activities through the media. Why is the government trying to justify its actions through the media and not through the parliament? This is a worrying sign so far as our parliamentary democracy is concerned.
How can a government sacrifice a parliament session for a state election? This is a strategic move to avoid public embarrassment because of the failures of demonetisation, GST and other socio-economic and foreign policy fiascos on jobs, Kashmir, corruption, Doklam and post-Doklam Chinese aggression and the deteriorating cohesion of the social order under Prime Minister Modi.
People are agitated. Many important legislations are pending for parliament’s consideration. Sensing the mood of the nation, the Modi government has curtailed the winter session of parliament – this time around, the winter session is expected to have around 14 sittings and will be one of the shortest in the last decade.
Neither in 2002, 2007 nor in the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections were parliament sessions postponed or curtailed. In 2002, the winter session was held from November 18 to December 20, in 2007 from November 15 to December 7 and in 2012 from November 22 to December 20. The BJP has a history of vilification of parliament. It was during the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee that the demands for grants of all the ministries were guillotined for the first time in history. The demands of only one ministry – agriculture – were discussed exactly for 15 minutes. Balram Jakhar spoke for those 15 minutes. While in opposition during the UPA regime, BJP kept on paralysing the legislature on issues which now are the priorities of their government.
Once the seat of power was occupied by the BJP, governance through legislation took a backseat. Ordinances became the preferred means of introducing legislative enactments. On an average, Modi government has promulgated ten ordinances per year. It went to the extreme end of specifically proroguing parliament to issue the Uttarakhand Appropriation (Vote on Account) Ordinance, 2016.
Constitution experts were surprised when the Aadhaar Bill was certified as a money bill simply to avoid Rajya Sabha scrutiny. The Bill had nothing to do with imposition, abolition or alteration of tax nor dealt with any financial obligation by the government. Successive attempts to bypass the legislature have eroded the credibility of parliament as an institution of accountability. Modi’s style of governance undermines the relevance of legislative oversight. He has set a new normal for parliamentary democracy. Genuine questions are arising about the relevance of parliament for the present government.
The highest institution of a democratic set up is the parliament. It represents the will of the people. Opposition has its responsibility, but primarily it is the responsibility of the government to ensure credibility of the parliament. Parliament as an institution of accountability needs to be strengthened for the parliamentary democracy to prosper.
Jaiveer Shergill is a Supreme Court lawyer and National Media Panellist, the Indian National Congress. The views expressed are personal.Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-18 19:11:10|Editor: An
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China is seeking to maintain stability in the property market this year after the roller coaster ride of 2016, with measures to prevent surges in metropolises and the growing inventories in small cities. (Xinhuanet file photo)
BEIJING, April 18 (Xinhua) -- China's tightened regulations on the property market to rein in skyrocketing home prices have begun to pay off as home prices in major cities continued to stabilize.
Of 70 large and medium-sized cities surveyed, 24 cities witnessed a slower price rise year on year in March, up from 20 in February, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.
Among the 15 first- and second-tier cities surveyed, six cities saw a month-on-month price decline in March and six saw price gains of less than 0.5 percent.
In Beijing, new residential house prices rose 0.4 percent month on month in March, while Shanghai prices fell 0.1 percent. House prices in Shenzhen, a southern metropolis neighboring Hong Kong, slid 0.3 percent.
"Prices of newly built homes in 15 major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen continued to stabilize in March on the back of targeted local government policies," said NBS statistician Liu Jianwei.
Property sales recorded strong growth in 2016 with an annual gain of 22.5 percent, thanks to two years of policy easing, starting with relaxation of purchase restrictions in 2014 and fueled by pro-growth policies, including interest-rate cuts.
Since October last year, the Chinese government has implemented a slew of measures to cool runaway housing prices, including restrictions on home purchases and increased minimum down-payment requirements.
The property market, however, picked up its pace in February this year after price gains slowed in previous months, which has led to the biggest wave of tightening of home purchase and lending rules since mid-March.
Dozens of Chinese cities have implemented tougher cooling measures to limit price gains since mid-March, following Beijing's unprecedented harsh curbs that lifted the down-payment ratio for second homes to 60 percent.
Meanwhile, China's central bank has also urged banks to strengthen
mortgage risk management and crack down on market irregularities such as fake divorces to skirt high down-payment requirements.
Even against the backdrop of such severe housing regulations, home prices in some cities still recorded higher growth in March, showing that the country's housing regulation still has a long way to go, said Xia Dan, a senior researcher at the Bank of Communications, one of China's top five lenders.
NBS data showed that 18 of 70 cities surveyed witnessed a month-on-month price decline or a slower price uptick in March.
New residential house prices in Guangzhou, Haikou and Sanya registered month-on-month growth of more than 2 percent in March, according to the NBS data.
Xia predicted that cities with higher growth in home prices will see more housing regulations in the future and the regulating focus will gradually shift to the second-hand home market.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, NBS spokesperson Mao Shengyong admitted that the influence of China's property controls will gradually become evident in April and the following months as they were only introduced in mid-March.
He emphasized that the government will take more category-based and targeted steps to regulate the real estate market to make sure that "houses are for living in, not for speculating with."
For the years ahead, China will build a market-oriented and long-term mechanism to curtail a property bubble and prevent big market fluctuations, said Mao.
Liu Hongyu, head of the real estate research institute of Tsinghua University, agreed, noting that a long-term mechanism, featuring increased land supply and a sound housing finance system, real estate tax system and urbanization infrastructure construction, should be established to ensure stable and healthy development of the real estate market.10 Best Tracking Shots
A tracking shot is when a camera follows a person or an object physicallyy moving with the subject- This can be done using tracks, handheld, ropes, Steady-cam etc. Long tracking shots impress me a lot as it takes a lot of planning and rehearsals to get it just right but if you do it can be the most immersive way to tell a story in my opinion as there are no cuts to divert your attention. There have been some absolute awesome tracking shots and we couldn’t get them all in but here are some of my favourite ones.
1. Hard Boiled (John Woo, 1992)
This is an incredible action sequence by the gunslinging legend John Woo.
Enough said.
2. Elephant (Alan Clarke, 1989)
Elephant is a 40 minute film made for TV about the violence in Ireland. Each scene
Is done using long tracking shots which makes this movie quite revolutionary and
has inspired such Directors as Gus Van Sant & Harmoney Korine.
3. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)
This is one of the more docile tracking shots from Boogie Nights but it still is really
incredibley shot, choreographed and acted. Superb!
4.Warrior King(Tom Yum Goong, 2005)
This is an incredible 8 minute fight sequence all done in one shot. This took weeks
to make as they ould only do one take a week as it took 7 days to set up each attempt.
This scene really shows of Tony Jaas Athleticism,skill and stamina. Amazing
choreography and thought has been put into this scene which elevates the whole movie.
5. I Am Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 196
This is an incredible tracking shot that makes me wonder how the hell did they do it!?
6. Old Boy (Park Chan Wook, 2003
Best fight scene in any movie? I think so.
7. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958
Classic! This is one of the first long tracking shots in cinema and is most
Suspenseful indeed!
8. JCVD (Malbrouk El Mechri, 2008)
This is a really good tracking shot showing that Van Damme is still working his
arse off and getting treated badly by directors. Very funny intro to a movie.
Very interesting movie.
9.Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
I would probably be shot and buried if I didn’t include this onto the list!
10.The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)
Very funny satire of Hollywood & the long tracking shot.
Article Written By
Patrick ChamberlainMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A mountain bike the child was thought to be tampering with relates to an unconnected individual, says Det Supt Chris Edwards
A bicycle left by the roadside after a suspected abduction attempt in Surrey belongs to an unconnected person, police have said.
A member of the public reported seeing a boy being "taken against his will" into a van in Redhill on Thursday.
Supt Chris Edwards, of Surrey Police, said he was "completely satisfied" with the credibility of the witness.
He said forensics, dogs and the police air service had been mobilised and CCTV footage was being reviewed.
The child is described as white, about 4ft (1.2m) tall, and wearing a red T-shirt and navy blue jeans.
No parent has reported a child matching the description as being missing.
Mr Edwards said: "This is a heartfelt plea to anybody who may have information...if you were at that location and involved in an incident yesterday involving your own child or a child that you're connected to, we would urge you to come forward."
'Distinct' wheel
Police have narrowed down the time the van approached the boy on Redstone Hill, near the railway station, as between 16:25 BST and 16:40.
The owner of a van pictured in a CCTV image and initially circulated by police has been traced and ruled out of the inquiry.
Image copyright PA Image caption The witness reported seeing the child and the van close to the train station
Mr Edwards said the vehicle police were looking for was a black VW T4 Transporter van with an 02 registration plate.
He said it had three alloy wheels, plus a fourth space-saving wheel which would make it "quite distinct".
Image copyright Surrey Police
Mr Edwards said: "Anyone who knows anybody who has a vehicle that fits the description that was in the area yesterday, or if that was you, then please contact us immediately in order that we can establish the safety of that young child."
Officers initially believed the yellow and silver bike left at the roadside belonged to the boy as he was seen "tampering" with it.
But he said: "We are now confident that the bicycle relates to an unconnected individual."
Image copyright PA Image caption The bike was found abandoned by a stairwell
A landlord of a pub close to the scene, who did not want to be named, said he moved the bike next to some bins after finding it dumped outside his premises earlier in the week.
He said: "On Wednesday... I moved it to the back of the old arcade where the bins are, assuming someone would pick it up. All the kids play around there.
"Whether that boy had been cycling around on it, I don't know. All I know is it was outside my pub a few days ago."
Mr Edwards said police had received more than 100 calls from members of the public since launching the appeal.
He added: "Interviews are being undertaken in a bid to establish any more significant information and any possible witnesses.
"We have also re-interviewed the original informant and we are confident he is a credible witness."
But he said: "There have still been no reports to Surrey Police or other forces, regionally or nationally, of a missing child matching the description of the child involved...
"As a result of our enquiries so far, nothing has come to light that would indicate a child has come to harm."
Earlier, police said in a statement: "We are treating the matter with the utmost urgency and seriousness as parents would expect us to do."LAS VEGAS – It wasn’t hard to predict Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier might get a little tense today.
And that’s just what happened.
At a pre-event media function for Saturday’s UFC 178, McGregor (15-2 MMA, 3-0 UFC) and Poirier (16-3 MMA, 8-2 UFC) had to be separated by UFC President Dana White when things got a little too close for comfort.
The two met in the middle of a stage at MGM Grand Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, and Poirier marched straight across from the left, intent on meeting the Irishman in the middle with some purpose. The two jaw-jacked, tried to get close enough to each other to be a little more than friendly.
Check out the video of the altercation above.
For more on UFC 178, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.Scary legends and urban myths are everywhere, and nowhere more than in sleepy little towns like Sanger, CA. Who didn’t grow up telling stories of the strange white-garbed woman in the haunted house up the road, or of the weird cries coming from a shadowy spot in the park?The frightening thing, though, is that the old adage “There’s a grain of truth in every story” generally holds true.
At some point in the past, it’s likely that someone really did see a spirit in that house. Someone really did hear those noises. One such tale in Sanger is particularly detailed, to the point that one has to wonder.
Tragedy on Channel Road
Up on Channel road, a mother and her daughter were walking late at night.
It’s a beautiful area to explore, and they were possibly coming back from a picnic or a swim.
Laughing and joking, they weren’t paying attention to the road.
Neither was the driver zooming up the other way. He was having a fun night, too, to everyone’s loss.
The poor child was struck and killed instantly, while her mother was sent flying back.
Gathering her wits, she ran first to her daughter.
She looked up from her anguish just in time to see the car’s driver, wide-eyed and frightened, lock eyes with her.
To her mounting rage and horror, the driver put the car in reverse and fled the scene with a screech of tires.
For her part, the story goes, the mother silently turned around and disappeared back into the woods.
Origin of the Sanger River Road Witch
In the years since the accident, the road has gained a bit of a reputation of bad luck.
It seems that every once in a while, always at night and only when there is but a single car on the road, a strange thing happens.
The engine will suddenly cut out, bringing the car to a gentle stop.
The radio goes haywire. The doors lock.
Outside, a fog rolls in, and a feeling of dread permeates the very air.
What happens next is terrifying, but perhaps not dangerous unless you’re a very specific driver.
A pair of bright red eyes, apparently unconnected to any sort of head or body, floats towards the car.
Slowly, meticulously, the eyes peer into every window. They travel around the car, inspecting it, and inspecting the person within.
The grieving mother, so goes the story, has harnessed her rage and anger into a dark power.
She’s searching for the one who killed her daughter.
When she finds him, what will happen after? Will she still stalk the roads? Will she move on?
More chillingly, just what exactly will she do to the man?
What form does vengeance take for a grieving witch?
Other Paranormal Activity in Sanger
Sanger is home to more than one such tale.
Channel Road, called Snake Road by the locals, has another particularly gory past.
But that’s a story for another time. Just drive safe and keep your eyes open for weird activity.
Directions to the River Road Witch
Ready to explore and take your chances meeting the River Witch? Then Click Here To Get The Directions To The Channel Road River Witch.
Now click the share button below to share this with your friends. Bring your best tactical flashlight and your courage!The facts show he was terribly ineffective in the six Tests of their last 12 that England ought to have won
"How many times do I have to tell you mentioning his name interferes with my bowling chakras?" © AFP
The latest twist in the unedifying Kevin Pietersen saga has been amply covered in these virtual pages and elsewhere, so the Confectionery Stall will limit itself to a few brief additions to the Vesuvius of befuddlement, opprobrium, cryptic accusations and rancour that has spewed over the Pompeii of English cricket.
Firstly, it is hard to envisage how the ECB could have handled the Pietersen re-sacking more incompetently, other than by imagining them handling the original Pietersen sacking and turning the volume up slightly. Perhaps they could have drawn the saga out a little longer, picked Pietersen for the first Test, and then, just as he walked onto the Lord's outfield to resume his engrossing, undulating international career, released a trapdoor in the outfield to send the opinion-splitting batsman plummeting into a secret tiger pit deep underneath St John's Wood. Although even that would at least have had clarity and finality. As it is, he has had career doors firmly slammed and very slightly opened in his face this week.
Secondly, it is a fact universally acknowledged that when you are being slagged off by Kumar Sangakkara, you are doing something wrong.
Thirdly, everything about this unedifying, elongated shemozzle - and its various related sub-shemozzles; in particular the rankly incompetent defenestration of Peter Moores - has become ridiculously exaggerated. The hyperbole culminated in Pietersen's absurdly large innings of 355 not out for Surrey against Leicestershire, which began as a partially relevant success against county cricket's rubbishest team and ended as a monumental granite middle finger aimed firmly and directly towards the ECB and its serial failures of management, message and manners.
Fourthly, Colin Graves' apparent olive branch was an administrative blooper of remarkable bloopiness. It seems that the ECB would not have had to move the goalposts had Graves not unilaterally put up those goalposts. Andrew Strauss was last seen dismantling the goalposts, taking them to a disused quarry, dousing them in kerosene, and fumbling in his pockets for a lighter.
It is not inconceivable that, by late July, Strauss will once again be describing KP as a Cricketer of Unbelievable Natural Talent, as he did last summer in the commentary box, albeit in the form of an acronym
As any good botanist will tell you, however, goalposts have a tendency to grow back. If England lose to New Zealand, and Ian Bell in particular fails to score runs, or Cook's long-standing weakness against the swinging ball is exposed again, something that looks suspiciously like two vertical posts and a crossbar will begin to appear again.
It is not entirely inconceivable that, by late July, Strauss will once again be describing Pietersen as a Cricketer of Unbelievable Natural Talent, as he did last summer in the commentary box, albeit in the form of an acronym.
It is almost inconceivable, but not entirely inconceivable. It will help if Pietersen does not publish any more autobiographies. As it would have helped previously.
Fifthly, quota systems are a recipe for disagreement. English cricket's new quotas are clearly causing ructions: no players with a long record of what might be called "dressing-room malfunctions"; no players who have scored more than 350 in a Championship match (there goes Neil Fairbrother's lingering hopes of a recall); no Kevin Pietersens; and no more than two batsmen in the team at any one time who have over 100 Tests' experience but have been averaging in the low 30s over a prolonged period (Bell and Alastair Cook are the men in possession of these two slots, so Pietersen will have to wait his turn).
Sixthly, beware "throwing around statistics". Pietersen averaged 33.3 in 14 Tests after his Mumbai masterpiece in late 2012. Cook also averages 33.3, in 20 matches since the start of the 2013 Ashes. Bell averages 32.9 in 15 Tests since the beginning of the 2013-14 series in Australia. Some statistics are boomerangs.
Seventhly, we still do not know the full story (one of the ECB's many mistakes, as they have handled the whole process as delicately as a plate at a very enthusiastic Greek wedding). Perhaps relationships were so irreparably damaged that wilfully jettisoning a potentially series-shaping player was the only viable course of action. Perhaps they had to weigh Pietersen on one end of the seesaw against Cook, Anderson and Broad on the other.
There seemed to be a far neater solution - recall Pietersen initially to the limited-overs teams, enabling him to "rebuild trust" (a) under a different captain, and (b) playing alongside few if any of those with whom he has clashed. He could have taken his "advisory role" in the 50-overs team (as was weirdly offered like a complimentary ice-cream with a £500 punch in the face), while also proving whether or not he can still perform in international cricket and function as part of an England team without everything falling to pieces or the world ending. He could have helped to develop and educate the young, aggressive batsmen eager to learn from his unorthodox, calculating brilliance, and shape a hopefully brighter ODI and T20I future. This was an opportunity missed, in a long and sorry tale of errors, obfuscations and discourtesies of which no one can be even slightly proud. England do not absolutely need him in the Test team now, with Gary Ballance and Joe Root scoring heavily and Bell still just in credit. But they might need him, or want him, soon.
"... And in my next move to disrupt the team while not even in it, I'll let the sun reflect off my beer bottle and blind them just as Ishant runs in" © Getty Images
● The last player to score a triple-century in a first-class match in England was Sam Agarwal, the Indian student who made 313 not out for Oxford University against Cambridge in the 2013 Varsity match at Fenner's. He is, unquestionably, not quite as well-known as Pietersen, nor is he likely ever to outdo the former England player in terms of international runs, career earnings, or stroppiness of autobiography, but they may be statistically joined together eternally in the cricketing history books.
Agarwal has never played first-class cricket again since the match in which he scored his triple-hundred. Pietersen, now injured and angry after his staggering innings at The Oval, may well follow suit, without the golden carrot of Test cricket as motivation.
That said, a scenario in which England lose to New Zealand, fall behind in the Ashes, and have to reassess the situation is far from outlandish. Pietersen had appeared a faded force in Tests, but such appearances can deceive with the fluctuations of form and fitness. Brian Lara, a player with whom Pietersen shares a similar blend of eye-melting virtuosity and periods of technical vulnerability, emerged from a slump to play some of his finest cricket in his mid-30s.
● What is "trust" in a team sport? If it is partly concerned with being able to rely on your team-mates to produce their best when matches and series are at their decisive moments, then England do not seem to be swimming around in an excess of it at the moment.
As I wrote last week, in their last 12 Tests, England have not won on six occasions when they had a "winning position", or at least dominance, in the match.
1. v Australia, Melbourne, December 2013, lost by eight wickets
England have Australia 164 for 9 in the first innings, 91 behind. A last-wicket stand of 40 reduces England's first-innings lead to 51. When Cook and Michael Carberry add 65, the score is, effectively, 116 for 0, which becomes 137 for 1. Then normal mayhem resumes. Nine wickets fall for 93, and Australia cruise to the 231-run victory target with eight wickets in hand and almost embarrassing ease.
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: 71 and 49, out slogging in both innings when batting with a tail he did not appear to entirely trust.
2. v Sri Lanka, Lord's, June 2014, match drawn with Sri Lanka's last-wicket pair at the crease
England take a first-innings lead of 122, then wobble in the second innings, before Ballance, Chris Jordan and Stuart Broad take England to impregnability and beyond. They declare to set Sri Lanka a stupidly out-of-reach target of 390 on the final day. England almost force a result on a flat pitch, but Sri Lanka finish nine wickets down (and only 189 runs short) amid scenes of borderline chaos. England are left ruing a cautious declaration, and their own inanely slow over rate earlier in the match, which needlessly cost them several potentially match-winning overs.
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: Totally ineffective, after being fired earlier in the year. Slow over rate possibly caused by former team-mates wondering what he was doing. Maybe some plastering, or putting up a shelf.
Some players might have been thinking about Pietersen when they spooned short balls from Ishant straight up in the air at Lord's, but impossible to tell without access to Hawk-Eye's non-existent Mind Reader facility
3. v Sri Lanka, Leeds, June 2014, lost by 100 runs with one ball remaining
England lead by 108 after the first innings, then have Sri Lanka 277 for 7 - effectively 169 for 7. Rangana Herath (batting average 5.2 in his previous 18 Tests) scores 48, adding 149 with the majestic Angelo Mathews, as England go collectively wonky in the field. Chasing 350 to win, they collapse, then recover doggedly, leaving Moeen Ali and James Anderson 122 balls to survive to snatch a draw: 120 of those balls go well; the 121st goes badly.
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: Still sacked, has no impact whatsoever.
4. v India, Lord's, July 2014, lost by 95 runs
Another first-innings lead (albeit a slender one of 24 runs), despite allowing the opposition tail off the hook yet again - India's last three wickets add 150. In the second innings, India are struggling again at 235 for 7 when Ravindra Jadeja and Bhuvneshwar Kumar shatter England's control with a rapid stand of 99. Victory is still possible for England at 173 for 4, chasing 319. They lose five (five) wickets to short balls by Ishant Sharma (Ishant Sharma) (five wickets to short balls by Ishant Sharma) (just to clarify).
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: Nil. Some players might have been thinking about Pietersen when they spooned short balls straight up in the air, but impossible to tell without access to Hawk-Eye's non-existent Mind Reader facility.
5. v West Indies, Antigua, April 2015, match drawn
When Shivnarine Chanderpaul falls on the fifth morning, England have 62 overs to take the last five West Indian wickets; then 51 overs to take the last four after Jermaine Blackwood goes momentarily berserk. In the face of some high-quality rearguard, they take just under 26% of those four wickets.
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: Did nothing constructive. Was playing for Surrey against some students, as instructed.
6. v West Indies, Barbados, April 2015, lost by five wickets
England take a lead of 68, then lose 5 for 39 (to go with a collapse of 5 for 24 at the end of their first innings). A victory target of 192 still looks tricky for West Indies, especially when Chanderpaul falls limply to make it 80 for 4. England take only one more token wicket, and lose with two days to spare.
PIETERSEN CONTRIBUTION: Worse than nothing. Was knocking around London doing not very much of interest, or was maybe somewhere else. Did nothing to stop Ian Bell getting out for nought twice in the match. Spectre of his return spooked England's spinners, who were ineffective on a helpful surface.
Andy Zaltzman is a stand-up comedian, a regular on BBC Radio 4, and a writer
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers who rely on the state pension fund for their retirement may be short-changed about $735 million over the next 10 years as a result of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s policy of permitting local authorities to defer fund payments so they can fill budget gaps and pay for services such as schools, street lights and police.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks during the dedication ceremony in Foundation Hall, of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, in New York, Thursday, May 15, 2014. REUTERS/Richard Drew/Pool
Cuomo has been trying to rid New York of its reputation as a high-tax state and has put limits on tax increases by local governments, reducing their ability to meet their often rising obligations. The smoothing policy is intended to make it easier for them to raise money without raising taxes.
At stake is whether the $176 billion state pension fund will be able to fully meet its obligations, or instead be used as a piggy bank for municipalities who haven’t budgeted or raised money well enough to meet their present obligations. Though New York’s pension system is 87 percent funded, one of the best in the country, the smoothing program may undermine its future health, critics said.
“New York has traditionally been a good state as far as funding policy goes but they have in recent years shown that they are willing to take steps backwards,” said Josh McGee, a pension expert at the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, a policy group that’s expressed concern about the fiscal dangers presented by pension plans for public employees. “Giving deferrals in the short run just means you have to come up with more money in the long run.”
Under the policy, introduced in 2010 and called “smoothing,” local and state authorities that need money are permitted to either defer making pension payments for as long as 12 years, or borrow directly from the pension fund. So far about $3.3 billion in pension payments has been deferred, including $1.4 billion in 2013.
The state charges local authorities interest of about 3.7 percent on the payments they defer. Because the fund’s assumed rate of return is 7.5 percent, the difference between what it expects to earn and the money it’s actually earning from the deferred payments is 3.8 percentage points.
At that rate, the fund stands to have about $735 million less in its coffers in 2024 based on the $3.3 billion that’s already been deferred, an amount that will rise in coming years as the program goes on.
The $735 million figure is an estimate that was calculated with the aid of Noor Rajah, who runs the actuarial science program at Columbia University’s School of Continuing Education in New York.
FUND INTEGRITY
The low rate is more about giving municipalities the ability to borrow cheaply than ensuring the integrity of the pension fund, McGee said. It also means the fund is taking on greater risk because it’s allowing low or unrated municipalities to defer their pension payments, he said.
The state says it’s justified in charging 3.7 percent interest because it considers the outstanding balances as a part of its fixed-income portfolio, which has a lower expected rate of return than the fund’s equity portfolio.
However, the fund’s annual report accounts for the deferred payments and the interest on them as a receivable and doesn’t include the money in the fixed-income part of its portfolio. That matters because of the fund’s asset allocation mix, which as of March |
agencies like Reuters Alertnet now cover similar ground; and many of the United Nations’ humanitarian agencies engage directly with the public through social media, including Twitter and Facebook.
"Several IRIN reporters admitted that the service[s] editorial independence has been eroding over time but differed on the implications and their own reactions to this trend," according to an internal evaluation of IRIN’s work. "Anticipatory self-censorship is being practiced in almost all bureaus. Some stories are shared with OCHA offices or sources before they are published."
"Any further erosion of IRIN’s editorial autonomy will undermine its very value in serving as an advocacy platform. This, in essence, is a catch-22 situation," according to the internal evaluation. U.N. officials said OCHA is considering shutting down IRIN or sharply scaling back its activities by the end of the year.
Pitt, the OCHA spokeswoman, confirmed that the aid agency has been engaged in a review of IRIN. "The original 1995 model served its purpose well, but we are living in a very different online news and social media landscape now," she said. "Once that review is complete, I imagine we’ll have some clarity on what future IRIN services will look like."
IRIN, meanwhile, is looking to go it alone.
Jan Egeland, the United Nations’ former emergency relief coordinator, said that he has been approached by several "very sad and quite desperate" IRIN veterans who are exploring ways to keep the operation funded in the event the U.N. cuts them off.
"We were proud to have IRIN in my time; I felt they were proactively and innovatively covering the so-called forgotten and neglected humanitarian crises that main stream media did not cover well," said Egeland. "They were often critical of the U.N. and I thought that was not troublesome or a problem. It was a strength that you have critical and self-critical voice within the U.N. family."
"Too much of what has been published by the U.N. and humanitarian organizations is so boring because it’s really just propaganda: look how great we are, look at how many lives we’ve saved, see how they are all smiling," he added. "In Syria, the reality is we are not getting through. We are not able to assist the besieged communities and those people caught in the cross-fire. Both the government and the opposition are blocking relief workers and the story needs to get out."One of the best things about AppVeyor is that it is a completely online Continuous Integration Server. You as a user don't have to worry about installing the latest version of it, or applying security patches, etc. You can simply get on with the task at hand. However, one of the worst things about AppVeyor is that it is a completely online Continuous Integration Server. Those times when the build isn't working, and you have no idea why, it can be difficult to figure it out solely based on the output logs.
That is where AppVeyor's unique ability to get a Remote Desktop Connection to the Build Agent is incredibly powerful! You get complete administrator access to the VM for 60 minutes (either at the start of the build, or at the end of it), which gives to time to debug and figure out exactly what is going on.
All of this is explained in the AppVeyor documentation site but I thought I would create a short video explaining exactly how it works.
Gotcha
The only gotcha that I ran into while creating this video is that although it isn't mentioned, the password that you create for logging into the server is subject to the standard complexity rules, for example mixed upper and lower case letters, use of numbers and special characters, etc. If you use a password that doesn't meet with these requirements, you will get a build error similar to this:
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DisqusI am reflexively skeptical of internet rankings, particularly ones that take a complex issue and distill it to a list using just a few data components. But I have to say, one I ran across this morning holds the ring of truth, at least in my experience gathering anecdotal evidence from tailgate sites around the Big Ten.
The takeaway: Wisconsin folks like their alcohol.
Not huge news, I know. But that's the inescapable conclusion from a data crunch done by the Delaware-based 24/7 Wall St content churner based on stats collected by County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. It is, in turn, a collaborative effort of the Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation public health initiative and the University of Wisconsin.
Fifteen of the communities listed in the top 20 rated for binge and or heavy drinking are found within the Big Ten footprint, all 15 of them in the West Division states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. Three of them are Big Ten campus towns - Madison, Iowa City and Lincoln. Two other major-university campus towns are in the top 20 - Corvalis, Ore., and Ames, Iowa.
But Wisconsin burgs lead the way with 12 of the top 20 heavy-drinking metro areas including a sweep of the top 4 led by Appleton, Wisc.
The data is self-reported. So, it's dependent upon the frankness of the respondents and the diligence of survey takers. You might also conclude that Wisconsinites are simply more open and honest about their propensity to drink heavily.
For whatever reason, there also tends to be a slant toward communities in the upper Midwest and away from western Appalachia, which contains some of the poorest communities (Tennessee and Kentucky in particular). They are listed among the driest communities. I don't know if I buy that.
Anyway, here's the list link. Draw your own conclusions.
Follow @djoneshoopYugoslavia – In the 1950s and 1960s Yugoslav labels (mainly Jugoton) decided to buy out American hits and translate them to Yugoslav languages. One MIGHT think this sounds like a bad idea, but in reality, the translators and producers did one hell of a job (if you ask me) and of course, they made sure to hire the best singers for the job.
This was in no way showing that Yugoslavia lacked original content, because its music was known outside its borders. One such example of music appreciation among Slavs is the Yugoton (2001) tribute album that features cover versions of eminent ex-Yugoslav artists performed in Polish language by a cover band named Yugoton.
Anyway, if you’re a 50’s & 60’s music fan or you just like covers, listen to these ASAP:
1. Miki Jevremović – Kuća izlazećeg sunca (1964) / “The House Of The Rising Sun”
2. Miki Jevremović – Zbogom, Kalifornijo (1966) / “California Dreamin'”
3. Seka Kojadinović – Niko Te Neće Zavoleti (1968) / “Somebody To Love”
4. Majda Sepe – Bang Bang (1967) / “Bang Bang – My Baby Shot Me Down”
5. Mišo Kovač – San Francisko (1967) / “San Francisco – Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair”
6. Josipa Lisac – Nema Sunca (1976) / “Ain’t No Sunshine”
7. Dušan Prelević i Mira Peić – Daj nam sunca (1969) / “Let the Sunshine In”
8. Sanjalice – Srećni Zajedno (1967) / “Happy Together”
9. Bijele Strijele – Mrzim Taj Dan (1963) / “Unchain My Heart”
10. Gabi Novak – Down Town (1965) / “Downtown”
11. Marjana Deržaj – Samo Ti (1959) / “Only You”
12. Bisera Veletanlic – Sunny (1967) / “Sunny”
Did you like them?Kickstarter Link: The Etihad Residences
Recently Etihad Airways unveiled their new Airbus A380 aircraft, which they’ll start flying later this year between Abu Dhabi and London.
While they’re far from the first airline to take delivery of the A380, they’re doing something that has never been done before, by introducing The Residence, of which there will be one per flight. The Residence is a 125 square foot, three room suite, which simply looks unlike anything we’ve ever seen in commercial aviation.
The Residence Bedroom
And it comes at a price.
A really, really high price.
Specifically, over $20,000USD for a one-way ticket between Abu Dhabi and London.
Unless you’re into falconry, have maids’ quarters in your home, your private jet is being repaired, and qualify for one of the “special” titles when signing up for an Etihad Guest account, chances are you can’t afford it.
Etihad Guest titles
And I sure as hell can’t.
Despite that, I’m the only person that has independently written reviews of every single A380 first class product currently in service, and have self-funded every one of those flights using miles:
Air France A380 First Class
British Airways A380 First Class
China Southern A380 First Class
Emirates A380 First Class
Korean Air A380 First Class
Lufthansa A380 First Class
Malaysia Airlines A380 First Class
Qantas A380 First Class
Singapore Airlines A380 Suites Class
Thai Airways A380 First Class
Asiana and Qatar Airways will be taking delivery of their A380s over the coming months, and I already have flights booked in both of their first class cabins.
So naturally I totally gave up on ever trying Etihad’s Residence product, because I’m not going to even try and pretend there is a reasonable way to redeem miles or credit card points for something like this.
However, within a day of posting about the new product, I received over a dozen messages/comments/emails from readers suggesting I start a Kickstarter campaign to fund a review of the Etihad A380 Residences:
I think you should try a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $20K. I know I’d pay a couple bucks for the review. You have 16K Twitter followers. It should be possible.
+1 to […] Kickstarter idea.
Here’s another vote for the kickstarter idea. I’d certainly pitch in; though, I’d be happy with a review of the First Apartment. And with the money saved Lucky could try out Transaero’s Imperial Class! What a review that would be!
I’d chip in $100 to a Kickstarter campaign.
Let me be clear upfront:
This is totally f*cking ridiculous.
I’ve done a lot of crazy stuff in my flying “career,” including six transpacific flights in five days and eight flights back and forth to Brazil over 10 days, but even suggesting this as a possibility is the most ridiculous thing yet.
That being said, I do what I can to listen to my readers, so I figured we’d give it a try. It’s totally ridiculous and there are so many better ways you can spend your money. At the same time, people spend money on entertainment all the time, and if this is something that you think would amuse you…
If a few thousand people pitch in the cost of a movie ticket we’d certainly be there. But you shouldn’t contribute based on that, or on doing something for me, or for any legitimatish reason.
Seriously.
And my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t. This is quite possibly the most ridiculous Kickstarter campaign ever, and I figured it would be entertaining if nothing else.
Kickstarter is basically a website that helps you fund creative projects. You set a “fundraising” goal, and if it’s reached the project is funded, while if it’s not reached then no one pays a dime.
So I’ve set up a Kickstarter campaign, which runs through May 31, 2014. You can contribute any amount you’d like towards the project, though you won’t be charged until (or if) the project gets funded completely.
There are “Rewards” for contributing at certain levels, and while I don’t actually expect this to get beyond the $5 mark, if this actually happens I’ll be mailing postcards, hosting dinners, and organizing other fun stuff around this flight.
So, if this is something you’d like to contribute towards, you can check out the page on Kickstarter. If it gets funded by the end of the month, awesome, and if not, that’s awesome too!
Update: One of the cool thing about Etihad Residence is that they allow a guest at no additional cost. Kickstarter has specific rules about not having entries associated with any sort of contests. But stay tuned, if this works out I’ll have something really fun regarding the second seat. 🙂“The value the (charity) provides is in the hope, comfort and care we are able to give blood cancer patients and their families.”
For every dollar raised by Canada’s premier leukemia charity in the past two years, just 11 cents went to researchers working to find a cure for blood cancers.
Most importantly, the documents show high costs associated with raising money, including one event — an obstacle course called the Pineapple Challenge — that in 2013 cost more money than it raised.
An internal breakdown of the leukemia charity’s finances, obtained by the Star, shows donor money being spent on high office rents (including two separate spaces in Toronto and two in Montreal), on travel budgets and on “professional fees” that include a “design and brand” consulting contract costing more than $18,000 per month.
Much of the $30 million the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada raised in this time period through walks, runs and bottle drives covered fundraising and administrative costs, a Star investigation has found.
The charity downplayed the files the Star obtained as “working documents” and said the numbers included other expenses — “administrative” and “mission” costs — that should not have been part of the tally and had the effect of making fundraising costs seem higher.
The documents were prepared by the charity’s controller and presented to a “shocked” room at a management meeting last summer. They were given to the Star by a person who noted that volunteers and donors expect money to be spent responsibly and it was becoming increasingly difficult to work within the organization.
In written responses to the Star’s questions, the charity said it does “invaluable work” across the country and regularly benchmarks its performance “to ensure we are using precious donations effectively.”
The charity directed the Star to its publicly filed financial statements, which say the charity devotes more than 64 per cent of donor dollars to research and other good works that include education programs and patient support.
Several insiders interviewed by the Star raised concerns about how the charity uses donor dollars. Some requested anonymity because they were concerned that speaking out would affect their job security. At least four executives have left in recent years over frustrations that the charity was betraying its central mission.
Mary Ann Sanderson, who was executive director for the leukemia charity’s Prairie region for six years before resigning in 2012, had serious concerns. “There became a lack of financial fiduciary responsibility,” said Sanderson. She also saw a culture shift within the charity during her last few years, with more and more decisions being made out of the U.S. office. There were a series of abrupt firings and “hand-picked, inexperienced staff” were promoted to positions “beyond their abilities,” she said.
The charity, formerly the Leukemia Research Fund of Canada, became affiliated with the U.S. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in 2004. The Canadian charity has about 70 employees in six regional offices and two national offices. The U.S. charity has 56 chapters and raises $300 million per year.
The Star, which has a long history of reporting on charity accountability, found serious issues with the Canadian society. Chief among them was the relatively few Canadian donor dollars devoted to research, and the question of whether the charity was counting fundraising expenses as part of “public education programs.” The Star researched the charity for three months.
The society boasts that $6 million is donated annually to Canadian researchers. The Star found this was misleading because roughly $4 million of that money comes from the U.S. charity, from money raised by Americans.
The Canadian charity did give $1.7 million in both 2012 and 2013 to research, about 11 per cent of the $15 million it took in each year. That money, though, is the same amount gifted to the charity annually by Beer Store employees who raise money largely through their annual “Returns for Leukemia” bottle drive. The drive encourages people to bring in their empty beer bottles to stores across Ontario and donate the proceeds. Insiders suggested it would be more effective for the Beer Store to make its donation directly to researchers.
The charity’s management, including its new president, Shelagh Tippet-Fagyas, refused to be interviewed in person by the Star, despite several requests, but did respond via email to questions. The Star has posted those responses on its website.
Tippet-Fagyas, who started with the charity in March, said some of the Star’s questions indicated “confusion” about the charity’s mission, which also includes “public education programs” and patient support.
The charity claims $4.1 million was spent on education and $2.8 million on patient support in 2013.
She said the charity is “proud of the millions of program dollars we spend annually educating Canadians — including health-care professionals — about the challenges of these daunting diseases and the resources that we provide to them for free.
“We are also extremely proud of the important work our staff and volunteers do to support the patients and their families who are facing the diagnosis of a blood cancer, to help them survive and, hopefully, be cured,” she wrote.
The Star has found that the charity is not transparent about its claims that it spends nearly $7 million annually on education programs and patient support.
Insiders called the numbers “creative accounting.”
They pointed out:
Many of the roughly 70 employees appear to be engaged in fundraising, not public education. In one internal document, the charity includes $2.3 million in salaries and benefits — about half its total salaries — in the education category.
Many of the educational resources, such as information sheets about various blood cancers, originate in the United States. This is backed up by several website links the charity provides that direct Canadian users to the U.S. site for information.
Direct mail campaigns, used to fundraise, which do include pamphlets about the charity, are included in the education category. The same document mentioned above includes more than $700,000 spent on “postage and shipping” and “professional fees,” placed in the education category.
The charity states that $2.8 million is spent on patient support, yet this work is carried out by six patient outreach staff who in total make about $400,000 per year providing assistance to people affected by blood cancers. For instance, they connect patients with local resources and help to run 15 support groups across the country. The internal document, however, notes $1.7 million in salaries devoted to patient support.
The Star asked the leukemia charity on two occasions what value donors are receiving from the education and patient support categories.
Among the examples provided by the charity was information about 200 parents and educators who benefited from a program that helps support children with leukemia transition back to school in 2013. The charity also said it participates in approximately 50 health fairs each year.
“The value the (charity) provides is in the hope, comfort and care we are able to give blood cancer patients and their families,” the charity said, noting that other staff assist in this area as well.
People connected to the charity over the past few years criticized the quality of patient support services it provided. When David Swan started with the leukemia charity in 2010 as executive director for the British Columbia/Yukon region, he thought the organization’s strength lay in its patient services.
“As I was leaving, these services were being eroded, with social workers being replaced by untrained community program co-ordinators. It was my belief that services would suffer as a result,” said Swan, who also resigned in 2012.
The charity said patient services have not been affected.
The internal documents show very little money is available for charitable works after fundraising and other expenses.
For example, an internal document labelled “Cost of raising money” states the price of the charity’s several fundraising events in 2013, revealing an average cost of 72 cents per dollar raised. The documents reveal that Team in Training, a marathon event, cost 85 cents for every dollar raised; Light the Night, a nighttime walk where participants carry lanterns, 62 cents; School and Youth, a fundraising program in the schools, 82 cents; and the Pineapple Challenge, an obstacle course event, lost money. The Pineapple Challenge’s fundraising cost was $1.22 for every dollar raised.
The Canada Revenue Agency recommends a limit of 35 per cent of donor dollars spent on fundraising — a guideline the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada says it adheres to, according to its public documents. By comparison, the Terry Fox Foundation, which has an excellent reputation among charity experts, spends just 15 per cent of the roughly $25 million raised annually on fundraising. The Terry Fox Foundation has half the staff of the leukemia charity.
The leukemia society told the Star its “Cost of raising money” document was “inaccurately named” and included some administrative costs that were wrongly included. The charity said some of its fundraising events have a “natural tie-in” to education or patient support, and those numbers were included as well. For example, at each of the 11 Light the Night walks across the country each year, a remembrance ceremony for the bereaved is held and there is special recognition for survivors, the charity said.
Insiders also raised concerns about the more than $2 million the documents say was spent on “professional fees” in 2013.
The Star has obtained a confidential “Design and Brand Consulting Services Agreement” contract between the charity and a Milton-based company called Spin Design Solutions.
The contract states that Spin Design is to be paid more than $18,000 per month to dedicate up to 245 hours of work to the charity.
Spin Design declined to comment, directing queries to the leukemia society. The Star asked the charity whether these services could be supplied in house at a cheaper rate, particularly considering that much of the charity’s branding material originates in the U.S.
In her written letter, president Tippet-Fagyas said the Star’s “characterization of our relationship with our outsourced marketing and design partners is unfair to them and to us.”
The charity refused to say what services the company provided, citing confidentiality, but Tippet-Fagyas said the charity could not replicate the quality of the communication and marketing material as well as the professionalism that the company provided by doing the work internally.
The charity said that “professional fees” include services such as translation, online donation processing, website maintenance and accounting.
Insiders also said that spending at the leukemia charity was more indicative of a “corporate” mentality than of a charity counting donor pennies.
Rent costs for seven regional offices and two national offices (in both Toronto and Montreal, there are two offices, one national and another regional) amounted to more than $700,000 in 2013. The lease at the Toronto regional office on University Ave. cost $13,000 per month for 11 employees, according to the documents.
The charity told the Star it closed its Ottawa office this year and plans to combine its regional and national offices in Toronto, resulting in “cost savings.”
The internal documents also break down travel and meeting costs, recording $620,000 in this category in 2013.
Swan, the former executive director of the B.C./Yukon region, said he flew across the country at least monthly for corporate meetings and trainings. “This is a model that I was unused to,” he said.
“The vast travel interrupted regional service delivery and reduced the level of fundraising for the mission,” said Sanderson, the former Prairies executive director.
Insiders spoke of trips to scout events in Florida or New Orleans that were not relevant to work being done in Canada; a request to send staff and volunteers to New York for a four-hour meeting on how to train pregnant women participating in a marathon; and a yearly conference in Washington or Orlando where volunteers and staff are put up in hotels and provided meals. The conference, said one source, was geared largely to the U.S. chapters, with talk of “marching on Capitol Hill.” Sources also mentioned dinners where alcohol was expensed.
The charity said the document outlining travel and meeting costs contained “preliminary numbers” and also included travel costs for patient support. It added that a review of these costs in the first quarter of this year resulted in more than $100,000 in savings. Alcohol, the charity said, can no longer be expensed.
The chair of the charity’s board of directors, Gilles Legault, a lawyer for CN Rail, told the Star the executive committee of the board had decided against an interview.
Reached earlier by phone, the board’s treasurer and vice-chair, Rita Middleton, a financial and management consultant at Western Tidal Holdings Ltd., said she has seen the charity’s budget and felt comfortable with it. “The governance at the (charity) is quite high,” she said.
The union that represents Beer Store employees is the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. In addition to the $1.7 million raised on behalf of the charity by Beer Store employees, the union raised an additional $800,000 for the leukemia charity in 2013, from events such as charity golf tournaments and bake sales.
The union, one of the largest in the country, has been affiliated with the leukemia charity and its predecessor for nearly 30 years and has raised $28 million for it, new union president Paul Meinema told the Star in a recent interview.
Meinema said he was “not interested” in looking at any of the information collected by the Star and said he would get his facts from the charity’s board.
Meinema said he was “comfortable with the difference that our money that we contribute to this organization has made in lives, in real lives, in real differences and in cure rates.” He later referred to statistics that show how leukemia treatments and cure rates have improved over the past several decades.
With files from Allan Woods
Jayme Poisson can be reached at 416-814-2725 or [email protected] — British leaders were infuriated this week when the name of the Manchester concert bomber was disclosed by American officials, and further outraged when The New York Times ran investigators’ photographs of the bomb remnants. After Prime Minister Theresa May complained bitterly to President Trump, he denounced the leaks on Thursday and vowed to find and punish the leakers.
But when it comes to keeping secrets, Mr. Trump is hardly a model.
He blithely passed on to the Russians sensitive counterterrorism intelligence from Israel — and publicly seemed to confirm the breach after his staff denied it. Speaking by phone to the widely scorned president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, Mr. Trump revealed the presence of two nuclear submarines off North Korea, a highly unusual disclosure.
Is there something particularly American about leaking? Some national allergy to protecting government secrets?
Yes, in fact, there is. And whether you denounce that as a dangerous trait or accept it as an underpinning of democracy, it is unlikely to change, according to a range of former officials and students of government secrecy.Forbes’s annual ranking of team valuations, released last month, is headed by the Toronto Maple Leafs, with the Montreal Canadiens and the Vancouver Canucks also in the top 10. Over all, the six Canadian teams’ average ranking in the magazine’s analysis is 12th in the 30-team league — a sharp contrast with 2002, when the six Canadian teams averaged 21st.
On Tuesday, N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke of Canada’s renewed economic strength when he said the league was interested in expansion to Winnipeg and Quebec City, cities that lost N.H.L. teams in the 1990s. Bettman, speaking at a the Reuters Global Media Summit, also named southern Ontario as a possible site for expansion.
The added revenues have had the biggest impact for the Canadian teams with player salaries, which must be paid in American dollars under the collective bargaining agreement between the N.H.L. and the N.H.L. Players’ Association. When the United States dollar was strong during the 1990s, Canadian teams had to spend more to meet their payroll. More recently, Canadian teams have been able to buy United States dollars more cheaply.
The N.H.L. prefers exchange-rate stability, but recognizes that the rising Canadian dollar has helped revive some teams, which is good for the league.
“To the extent Canadian-based franchises are much stronger today than they were 10-15 years ago, that can only inure to the overall benefit of the league,” said Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the N.H.L.
Some owners in Canada have used their gains in the foreign exchange rate to pay their players, coaches and scouts more, or to cover operating losses. Teams like the Canucks have been able to refurbish their dressing rooms, add club seats in their arena and arrange more comfortable travel schedules for the team.
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In recent years, Canadian teams have become big bidders for on-ice talent. In one instance last summer, the Canucks re-signed the twins Henrik and Daniel Sedin to five-year, $30.5 million contracts.
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The Canadian teams’ relative wealth is quite a turnaround, given that the league initiated the Canadian Assistance Program at the start of the 1995-96 season to help small-market Canadian teams stay afloat.
The program ended when a salary-cap and revenue-sharing model was adopted by the league before 2005-6, in the wake of a lockout that wiped out the previous season.
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Today, several Canadian teams are net contributors to revenue sharing, helping to keep weaker American franchises alive.
“The program probably permitted us to stay in business,” said Ken King, the president and chief executive of the Calgary Flames, referring to the Canadian Assistance Program. “We were a beneficiary in years past and we respect that we received help.”
The Flames are now a net contributor to the pool.
Canadian teams have learned to protect themselves by hedging their bets on swings in foreign exchange rates. This often involves buying contracts to purchase United States dollars at different levels, up to several years in advance. This helps insulate the teams from big changes in the exchange rate. But it also means that the current rise of the Canadian dollar may not translate into a gain for teams, or as large a loss when the Canadian dollar slips.
The effect of the fluctuating dollar also hits N.H.L. players. Ottawa Senators forwards Mike Fisher and Daniel Alfredsson were with the team early this decade when the Canadian dollar was weak and team finances were shaky. “Quite a few of us even bought season tickets to help out,” Alfredsson, the team’s captain, said. Fisher said that once the paychecks arrived late.
“We were on thin ice for a few years,” Alfredsson said.
A stronger Canadian dollar does not necessarily lead to better performance on the ice. The Senators, for instance, failed to make the playoffs last year for the first time in 12 years and the resulting drop in attendance has offset any gains from the rise in the Canadian dollar.
Still, Canadian teams have drawn well even though their ticket prices are among the highest in the league. The Canucks, for instance, have sold out 276 consecutive games. The average price of a ticket to see the last-place Maple Leafs is $114.10, the highest in the N.H.L., according to the Team Marketing Report.
The Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association and the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball also benefit from the stronger Canadian dollar. But because they are the only Canadian teams in their leagues, they do not affect their leagues’ economics in any significant way.
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In hockey, the six Canadian teams account for as much as one-third of the N.H.L.’s revenue, by some estimates.
Under the collective bargaining agreement, N.H.L. players receive 57 percent of the league’s gross revenues. According to several experts on the league’s finances, the difference between a Canadian dollar worth 80 cents in the United States and a Canadian dollar that is at par means about $75 million to the players.
King, the Flames president, sums up the credo that Canadian teams live by.
“There are always two absolutes,” he said. “Winning is good, and it’s always better when the Canadian dollar is stronger.”What a waste! Runners near the finish line at the New York City Marathon in Central Park on Nov. 1, 2015. Mike Segar/Reuters
Have we devised any greater waste of time and energy than the running of the marathon? I’m asking for a friend.
This friend will soon be training for the New York City Marathon, and he’ll be going at it for a span of 20 weeks. When he’s finished all his workouts, iced his injuries and prepped his body for the brutal course, he’ll be ready to achieve a goal that has no meaning in itself and offers benefits to no one. Like half a million others in this country every year, he’ll have put in at least 100 hours (and maybe more) to an unpaid part-time job, just so he can lope across an arbitrary distance set a century ago to please an arbitrary power. Twenty-six miles and 385 yards: the span between the window of the royal nursery at Windsor Castle and the royal box at Shepherd’s Bush.
Lots of people will be cheering him along, but let me say this now, so no one ends up disappointed: I won’t be among those people cheering, because those people are insane.
Some will read this as a #slatepitch, and say it’s just a way for me to troll for clicks, as if calling runners foolish were like saying pie is overrated or that constellations suck. But the logic goes the other way: It’s the runners who have gone against the grain; it’s the runners who have tried to make a virtue of their quirky point of view; it’s the runners who demand attention for all the time they spend on worthless locomotion; it’s the runners who are trolling all the rest of us. The marathon must be the biggest #slatepitch of all time.
The case against the marathon—and for people to do something better with their time—is so apparent that one really shouldn’t have to give it voice. In a world that’s just and sane, the burden of proof would fall the other way, on all the maniacs who are draining so much effort in this risky, fruitless hobby. Figure that some 550,000 Americans will be running one this year, training up to five or six days per week for five or six months. That means they’ll have devoted something like 100 million hours to this dash away from common sense. Put another way, they’ll have spent 11,000 years, and 150 human lifetimes.
Consider all the other things we could accomplish in those hours spent in training. Half a million Americans could speak a little Arabic. Half a million Americans could learn computer programming, maybe well enough to start a new career. Half a million Americans could devote themselves to helping out in soup kitchens, or fortifying dikes, or memorizing sonnets, or playing Google Image Labeler. Half a million Americans could do something truly beneficial for themselves or for their neighbors or for the country as a whole.
Instead they run and run and run, and then they run some more.
Why do they run? I have no idea.
I hope it’s not that people run in marathons to improve their health. All the evidence goes the other way: Getting ready for a 26-mile run breaks your body down. “Use your non-running days to rest and recover,” advises one training website. “Ice down any soreness, particularly in knees or shins (most common) four times per day. … Injuries often sneak up without warning.” That sounds more like self-abuse than self-improvement.
Indeed a vast, disturbing literature has now accumulated on the ill effects of running marathons. Studies find that up to 1 in 12 participants end up seeking medical help during the race. (At hot-weather events, runners can end up “dropping like flies.”) As many as four-fifths report having gastrointestinal problems such as bloating, cramps, vomiting, diarrhea, and fecal incontinence while on the course. Some runners suffer from blood poisoning. Others must endure a blitz of dermatological conditions: sore nipples (affecting up to 1 in 6 on race day); chafing (another 1 in 6); blisters (1 in 3); and jogger’s toe (1 in 40). Given all the risks, it’s no wonder that some marathon organizers have asked doctors to embed as race participants so they can quickly tend to runners who collapse.
When researchers consider all the injuries that accrue during the period of training—and not just on the day of the marathon itself—they find even greater cause for alarm. One study looked at 255 participants in an extended, 32-week marathon training program and found that 90 of them—that’s 35 percent—experienced “overuse” injuries. (Among the most common training ailments are anterior knee pain, Achilles tendinitis, shin splints, and stress fractures.) Another research group surveyed 725 men who raced in the 2005 Rotterdam Marathon, and found that more than half of them had sustained a running injury over the course of the year. Among those who sustained a new injury during the month leading up to the race, one-quarter were still suffering, to some extent, three months later.
Deaths do occur during the marathon, but I’m glad to say they’re very, very rare. Most runners’ ailments will be temporary; then again, most runners won’t have any benefits to weigh against those modest costs. Even if they don’t ruin their knees, twist their ankles, or bang their toes while training, their weekly hobby won’t do much to help their health. Marathoners fail to lose weight, as a rule, and while aerobic exercise may be good for the heart, doing a huge amount of aerobic exercise brings at best diminishing returns.
The sport isn’t merely dangerous; it’s extravagant. It costs more than $250 just to enter the New York City Marathon and to have the chance to chafe your nipples alongside 50,000 other people. |
the same bacteria, I knew his death had been wholly preventable. Despite our best efforts, we all missed it.
A recent report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ)estimates that 250,000 Americans die each year due to medical errors. This report sparked a firestorm. Skeptics carefully documented why that number might be wrong. While other estimates have put the number of deaths from medical errors at 100,000, many in the medical community believe the number of cases is much smaller. The truth depends largely on the most important question of all: what is a medical error?
Some instances of medical errors are obvious. A patient gets 50 times the standard dose of a medication because of a typographical error, or has the wrong kidney removed. These cases add up to only a small fraction of the deaths that are attributed to medical errors. Most cases that contribute to those eye-opening numbers are cases of hospital-acquired infections (come in for knee replacement, leave with pneumonia) or medication errors (get a drug that interacts adversely with another drug). Critics of the medical error studies argue that many of these are not preventable and should not be thought of as errors. Indeed, they argue, this is the cost of providing technically advanced care to sick patients. They have a point, of course, but only to a degree.
In 2016, we live in the world of complex medicine—we have thousands of treatments that save lives that would have been lost just a few decades ago. In this world, saying that medical errors are the third leading cause of death doesn’t seem quite right. It implies individual sloppiness—careless doctors and nurses walking around, performing wrong-site surgery or not paying attention to what medications they give. Nothing could be further from the truth. Doctors and nurses work diligently to manage the deluge of information they face. I routinely care for acutely ill patients who are on 20 medications at home—and struggle with how to manage their multifaceted chronic diseases while getting them through their acute one. Healthcare today is about managing complexity and the system isn’t performing well. The problem is not about individual sloppiness, it is about system sloppiness. From that angle, the 250,000 number seems far more plausible. But it still depends on what we call a medical error.
Which brings us back to Mr. Jones. Was his death a medical error? The admitting physician didn’t know he had been hospitalized for pneumonia elsewhere. Even if he had known, he probably could not have gotten laboratory results from that hospital in the evening. So he made the best, evidence-based choice—and that hardly feels like a medical error. Yet, saying his death was not preventable is also wrong. The system failed him. A system designed for complexity would have alerted us that he had gotten care at another institution. It would have allowed us to look up the microbiology results, even in the middle of the night, so we could have made a better antibiotic choice up front – a choice that was customized to him, not to the generic patient.
Mr. Jones had never been admitted to our hospital before, so his medical record was thin. But I often have the reverse problem, where I see a patient with literally 50 previous hospitalizations. It would take me days to carefully go through all of those records, so I skim, praying that I don’t miss anything important. A smart system designed for the 21st century would use algorithms ensuring I saw information that was relevant for my patient. These algorithms exist everywhere outside of healthcare—Google knows what I’m searching for before I do—but in our $3 trillion healthcare system, they haven’t been prioritized.
All of this begs the question why—why is our system so sloppy? The answer: because it can be. Because the costs of medical errors are hidden. No senior hospital administrator or Washington policymaker heard about Mr. Jones’s death. Even when the errors are more obvious, the financial consequences to institutions are small. And until we fundamentally shift the incentive structure of the system so that the most careful and safe systems get rewarded handsomely (and the poor performers get punished), none of the sloppiness goes away.
So we come back to the BMJ study—are there 250,000 deaths each year due to medical errors? We don’t know, but all the data suggests that the true number is very large. Our system fails so many people every day—through errors of commission and errors of omission—that 250,000 is not outside the realm of possibility. The general rule is that the harder you look, the more you find. In most studies, Mr. Jones would not have been flagged as a medical error. But he deserved better. So whether we call it medical errors, system failures, or just failing to live up to what we know is possible—the bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of Americans suffer due to these failures. And we know how to do better.Electing Trump should be the primary goal of every American animal activist. It is more important than anything the animal movement has ever done.
The goal of the animal movement is to save animal lives and to end animal suffering.
But all of the work of all animal activists around the world only saves about a million animals per year, mostly dogs and cats.
That equals 50 million over the last 50 years. (A disheartening aside, that is about the number of animals that will be murdered in slaughterhouses during the next work shift.)
Most animal activists are shocked when I explain that Trump will save more animals each year than has the entire worldwide animal movement over the past 50 years.
And it is about half the number that President Trump will save each year by abrogating our trade agreements with Mexico, Canada, Colombia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Peru, etc.
Trade agreements kill animals. Hundreds of millions of animals every year die specifically because of our trade agreements, which make it cheaper and more profitable to produce animal corpses. Using Third World labor, US companies ship animals overseas to be tortured, slaughtered, butchered, and returned to the US for sale in American stores and restaurants. Trade agreements require that nations forbid Country of Origin labeling to prevent consumer boycotts. The Obama administration has already enacted such a ban on labeling. Trade agreements override US labor, environmental, and anti-cruelty laws. They make it impossible to ban live export for slaughter of for animal sacrifice in the Middle East, dooming hundreds of thousands of sheep, lambs, goats, and calves to imprisonment in ships’ holds for weeks before being cruelly murdered by religious zealots.
Trump opposes trade agreements. Hillary Clinton supports them.
And Trump has promised to repudiate and abrogate every trade agreement to which the US is a party.
If Trump does what he has promised, it will mean tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of animals saved every year.
It will be the most sweeping blow for animals in history.
And it will be accomplished by someone who does not really care about animals.
The animal movement has never had the possibility of accomplishing so much as it has with prospect of a Trump presidency.
Most animal activists who criticize Trump point to Trump’s serial killer sons who hunt big game and post horrific pics of themselves with poor creatures they have murdered for fun. And while Trump himself does not hunt, like Bernie Sanders, he condones and supports hunting.
Trump also owned a steak company and buys his wife furs.
At first glance, Trump seems an unlikely ally for animal activists, and an even more unlikely savior of animals.
But Trump, with the stroke of a pen, will save more animals than anyone in history.
Central to Trump’s campaign has been his opposition to trade agreements and his pledge to reject every one of them when elected. Under the Constitution, the president has the power and authority to cancel treaties, which trade agreements are. Trump will need no Congressional approval to cancel trade agreements, it is a power of the office.
Can anyone imagine Trump not exercising all the power at his disposal?
If animals are your priority, you have no choice but to vote for Donald Trump. But if you are like most people, you have priorities that are more important to you than the animals.
Most animal activists are politically progressive, and many are swept up in the euphoria of the prospect of electing the first woman as president. For those with such an agenda, the fact that Hillary Clinton is perhaps one of the greatest enemies that animals have is unimportant. Clinton’s support of trade agreements causes the suffering and deaths of hundreds of millions of animals each year, yet she manages to pay lip service to animal welfare concerns on her website and thereby silences many activists who do not take the time to carefully look at her policies or her record.
The litmus tests I employ for every election is which candidate will do the most for animals or which will cause animals the least suffering. Even Bernie supported hunting and dairy farms, so even the best candidate in the race was greatly flawed. Of Trump and Hillary, Trump has pledged to repudiate our trade agreements. When he does so, HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of animals will not be slaughtered each year. Think of that number! Every year Trump will save easily twice the number of animals as has been saved by the entire worldwide animal movement over the past 50 years!
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AdvertisementsAlbion midfielder Jake Forster-Caskey has joined Rotherham United on a season-long loan.
The 22-year-old has linked up with the Millers as they prepare for Saturday’s friendly against Sunderland.
Forster-Caskey was not involved in Albion’s friendly defeat by Fulham last night as the deal was completed.
Rotherham boss Alan Stubbs was keen to take him to South Yorkshire on a permanent transfer.
Forster-Caskey preferred something similar to the two loan stints he had with MK Dons last term.
Albion manager Chris Hughton said: “With increasing competition in the midfield areas, Jake knows it will be difficult to get the number of games he would want.
“After two successful loan periods with MK Dons last season, an opportunity has arisen for Jake to gain regular Championship football again, which benefits all three parties.
“We will closely monitor Jake’s progress while he is there and hope that he continues his development throughout the season.”
Forster-Caskey was handed his Albion debut by Gus Poyet more than six years ago and has made 82 appearances in total, scoring nine goals.
Danny Holla and Rohan Ince, two more midfield candidates for loan moves away from the Amex, played against the Cottagers last night as Albion went down 3-0.In less than a year of Narendra Modi becoming the prime minister in May 2014, the price of the Indian basket of crude oil crashed from $113 per barrel to $50 by January.That was a bonanza for a government struggling to manage fiscal deficit and planning large social-sector spends. When prices came down, opponents attributed it to Modi's luck and not his performance.At an election rally in Delhi in February 2015, Modi said, “Ok, let’s accept that I am lucky but you have saved money. If Modi’s luck is benefitting the people, what can be more fortunate? If due to my good luck, prices of petrol and diesel come down and common man saves more, then what is the need to bring someone who is unlucky?”Modi's run of luck went on, and the oil prices tumbled to $29 by January 2016. After a three-year lucky run, he is running out of it. Tightened by OPEC-led production cuts, oil is sensitive to all kinds of shocks. Prices have already touched the above-$65 mark. India's import bill has gone up and so has the current account deficit.2018 could be an unlucky year for Modi so far as oil is concerned. His vanishing oil luck will hit overall economic prospects too.India is heavily dependent on imports for a large chunk of the crude oil that it consumes. In 2016-17, around 82.1 per cent of the oil consumed in India, was imported. The rising oil prices in the global markets have caused the oil import bill to grow 15% in the second quarter ending September 2017 to $23.7 billion from $20.5 billion in the same period.A bigger oil import bill contributed to India's current account deficit doubling to 1.2% of GDP or $7.2 billion in the September quarter from 0.6% of GDP or $3.5 billion in the same period in 2016. The current account deficit is expected to widen and end the fiscal year at 1.7-2.0% of GDP.Last month, OPEC and non-OPEC producers led by Russia agreed to extend oil output cuts until the end of 2018 to tackle the global glut. Goldman raised its 2018 forecast for Brent price to $62 a barrel. Many see oil reaching even $70 a barrel if there is no boom in American shale gas production. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle-East will also contribute to hike in oil prices.A recent report by Nomura said every $10 per barrel rise in the price will worsen India’s fiscal balance by 0.1% and current account balance by 0.4% of GDP. “For a net oil importer like India, a sustained rise in crude oil price would have adverse macroeconomic implications,” it said. “Higher oil prices are tantamount to a negative terms-of-trade shock that weakens growth, pushes up inflation and deteriorates the twin deficits (current account deficit and fiscal deficit),” it added.Observing RBI estimates that for every $10/bbl rise in oil price, GDP growth is reduced by around 0.15% points, Nomura said economy was affected as rise in inflation due to higher prices could lower real disposable incomes of households and therefore hurt consumer discretionary demand. It will also lowers corporate profit margins due to rising input costs and accordingly impacts investment, among others.For baseline forecasts, the RBI has assumed the price of the Indian crude basket to average around $55 per barrel in the second half of the current fiscal. If it goes up to $65, it will push up inflation and affect chances of a rate cut.The government will not only forego the windfall revenue it had by increasing excise duties when oil prices were down, it might have to cut duties to save the consumer from rising prices when the next Lok Sabha elections in 2019 would be coming nearer while several states will hold assembly elections in 2018. In October, the government had to cut excise duties on petrol and diesel by Rs 2 per litre, taking an annual hit of Rs 26,000 crore in tax revenue, to cushion consumers from soaring fuel prices.Modi is under pressure to put economic growth back on track. The GDP has yet to fully emerge from the impact of GST. An oil price shock does not bode well for the economy still recovering from the impact of demonetisation and GST.Higher oil prices will constrain Modi who will like to increase social spending in view the elections. An adverse impact on growth, inflation and fiscal deficit will not help Modi to project his tenure as an economic success.A sharp drop in oil prices in 2018 will not only be bad for economy but also Modi's personal fortunes because many voters might prefer politicians luckier than Modi.Above: The streetcar running in mixed traffic along Nicollet Avenue (City of Minneapolis)
About one percent of Minneapolis' tax capacity will be redirected next year toward a fund intended to one day pay for a streetcar line.
The city's unique method for funding a 3.7-mile Nicollet Avenue streetcar, a project that remains far from certain, is hitting its stride as several new apartment towers have opened. Those buildings now have $5.4 million in city tax capacity, which will aid the streetcar "value capture" district next year rather than helping absorb the growing cost of city services.
If the district did not exist, the city could theoretically raise tax collections for city services by an additional one percent without having an added impact on taxpayers, city finance officials said last week. Or, if tax collections remained as proposed for next year, the burden on existing homeowners would be slightly reduced.
The streetcar district was established in 2013 with the permission of the Legislature to aid a line that would run from approximately Kmart to Kramarczuk's on East Hennepin -- largely in mixed traffic. Unlike tax increment financing, which pays for development with new taxes generated by that development, the streetcar district redirected taxes from a number of anticipated buildings toward a potential future project.
A penthouse on the 36th floor of LPM Apartments offers spectacular views of the Minneapolis skyline and surrounding area. (JIM GEHRZ)
Those buildings are now complete in and around downtown: Nic on 5th, LPM Apartments, 4Marq apartments, 222 Hennepin, Red20 and Xcel Energy's new headquarters. As they've opened, the city tax capacity of the district has risen from $3.6 million last year to $5.4 million in 2017. The city's gross tax capacity is about $550 million.
The city's contribution to the district next year will be less than $5.4 million, since only part of the capacity is taxed. But the total amount generated for the district next year will be possibly more than $5.4 million, since it also pulls from the county and school district's tax capacities.
City officials said they pursued tax increment financing for transit -- not currently an allowed use of the tool -- but were unsuccessful at the Legislature.
The district is expected to one day pay for about $60 million in debt toward a $200 million streetcar project -- though it will need to raise more than $60 million to cover interest. When it was approved, city officials said it would likely generate about $5 million a year.
The city has not identified who will pay for the remainder of the project, though federal funding would likely play a role.
Above: The proposed streetcar as it would appear travelling along East Hennepin Avenue.
The special district has its critics. Former council member and budget chair Paul Ostrow has criticized the project for devoting tax growth to a "pet project."
“To me it’s quite simple," Ostrow said last week. "If there are the concerns there are about property taxes, one obvious fix is the city has the absolute ability to decertify that streetcar district."
Others say it is a prudent investment in the city's future growth.
“Transit investment, particularly fixed rail transit investment, has pretty much proven itself as a development driver," said council member Kevin Reich. "And development driving, of course, adds to our tax base. And adding to our tax base is the winning game plan. Just holding tight and cutting when you want to cut is not a growth game plan.”
An environmental assessment is currently underway for the line. A draft of that assessment is expected to be released in 2017, with the review's completion expected by the end of that year.How would you like to play Left 4 Dead, only instead of killing zombies you’re killing a building robbing a building? Do you think that’s something you’d enjoy?
That’s what download-only multiplayer FPS PayDay: The Heist is going to offer. This game’s name surfaced about a week back, but now we have a debut trailer and footage of some people playing the game at E3. It’s all after the jump.
I set myself up for a fall with this one. When I first saw the screenshots and heard the premise, I thought this’d be offering something like a reverse of the absolutely incredible SWAT 4, with you and your friends playing a terrified, elite band of criminals instead of a terrified, elite squad of cops. This is what happens when you show me screenshots of an FPS where nobody’s getting shot, on fire, or standing next to a red barrel.
Watching the footage, it’s clear that it’ll be much faster-paced and more over the top than that. Check out the footage. Also, check out this quote from this PCG preview:
Once the heist starts, the police will attack in waves. Your goal is to fight them off while making your way through a series of checkpoints – working together to get away with as much cash as possible. First we started shouting at all the civilians. If one gets killed, the police attack with more ferocity, so telling them to GET THEIR FUCKING HEADS ON THE FLOOR is a good move. Then we had to guard our drill as it cut through the first door. At one point, a police sniper appeared at the top of the building to our right. I took one look, aimed a pistol shot, and took him right in the head.
So, yes. Very much just a themed FPS rather than the immersive, tricky, deeply tactical game of my imagination. Still, it could be good, eh? Take a look.A plane carrying aid supplies will take off from Israel on Sunday morning bound for the flood-stricken nation of Colombia.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak coordinated the aid delivery with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
'Executive salaries jumped without any connection to the financial results, which continued to deteriorate,' wrote Yaron Zelekha in his report on El Al's financial situation. Archive
The El Al aircraft, leased by the Israeli government, will carry 50 tons of rescue equipment to aid the victims of mudslides caused by the flooding in Colombia. The Israeli shipment will include materials to provide shelter to people who lost their homes.
El Al CEO Eliezer Shakedi said the aid plane would depart Ben-Gurion Airport early Sunday morning and arrive in Bogota in the evening.
Dozens of people of been killed and thousands have fled their homes due to mudslides that struck earlier this week in Colombia and Venezuela. The mudslides were caused by a particularly wet rainy season.Warning: Thug Kitchen is a fan of salty language. Do not proceed if you’re cuss word-averse.
Sweet Potato, Squash, and Black Bean Enchiladas
by Thug Kitchen
Make 8 enchiladas or enough for 4 people
There are two kinds of people in this world: people who like enchiladas and people who have no fu*&ing taste. Which are you?
ENCHILADA SAUCE
2 1/4 cups vegetable broth
1/3 cup tomato paste
2 1/2 Tbsp. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
2 to 3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. soy sauce or tamari
1 Tbsp. lime juice
FILLING
1 large sweet potato (about 1 pound), chopped into nickel-size pieces*
2 tsp. olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
1 medium yellow squash, grated on your box grater (about 1 cup)
1 tsp. chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans**
1 tsp. maple syrup or agave syrup
A pack of corn or flour tortillas
Sliced avocado
Chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
Make the enchilada sauce: Dump everything but the lime juice into a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Use a whisk or something and make sure that the tomato paste isn’t just sitting in a f*$king clump. Let that simmer together for 10 to 15 minutes so that the sauce has time to thicken up a little. Add the lime juice and turn off the heat. Let that sh(# cool while you make the filling.
To cook the sweet potato, grab a medium saucepan, fill it with an inch or two of water, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Throw in your metal steamer basket and fill that with the chopped sweet potato. Cover and steam until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Dump into a bowl and smash the pieces around. Some chunks are fine, so you don’t need to work too hard at making this smooth.
While the sweet potato steams, grab a large skillet or wok and heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until it begins to brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Toss in the squash and cook for another minute. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, garlic, and black beans. Cook together for another 2 minutes and then fold in the mashed sweet potato and maple syrup and turn off the heat. Mix until all that shit is combined.
Now you’re going to make the motherf*&king enchiladas. Crank your oven to 375 degrees F. Grab a 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
Cover the bottom of the baking dish with about 1 1/2 cups of enchilada sauce. Using a griddle, your oven, or the microwave, warm up the tortillas. Dip a tortilla around in a little of the sauce in the baking dish so that the bottom is all coated. Fill the tortilla with a couple spoonfuls of filling, then roll it up and set it seam-side down in the dish. You know how the fuck enchiladas are supposed to look, so handle that sh(#. Keep going until you run out of space or out of filling.
Cover the enchiladas with the remaining sauce, cover the dish tightly with foil, and throw it in the oven for 20 minutes. Take off the foil and cook it for 5 more minutes. Let it cool for a minute or two before serving. Feel free to top those savory sons of bitches with some sliced avocado or chopped cilantro if you give a sh(# about presentation.
* You really just need 1 large cooked sweet potato. If you have a leftover roasted sweet potato or something, just scoop out the flesh and move on with the recipe. Or steam it in the microwave if that is your sh(#: Stab it with a fork, then cook on high for 5 minutes, flip, then 5 minutes more.
** Or one 15-oz. can
Reprinted from “Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook” by Thug Kitchen. Copyright (c) 2014 by Thug Kitchen, LLC. By permission of Rodale Books. Available wherever books are sold.
From the Yahoo Food Team: If you make this recipe at home, let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you!As self-driving car technology matures, politicians and regulators find themselves called to action. But the technology is a moving target and views about the technology’s path and impact vary widely. So how should policy makers approach the subject? Here are five guiding principles proposed by Marc Scribner, a transportation and telecommunications policy specialist and research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Scribner only discussed the principles briefly at a recent presentation at the Cato Institute. In the following I supplement each of his five bullet points with my interpretation:
1. Recognize and promote the huge potential benefits of self-driving cars
Policy makers need to familiarize themselves with the potential benefits of self-driving cars. First, they need to get the concepts right and clearly distinguish self-driving cars (which can drive without human supervision, even empty, and don’t need additional infrastructure) from other technologies such as driver assistance systems and connected cars. Connected cars and driver assistance systems are certainly also interesting topics but their benefits pale in comparison to the benefits of cars that drive themselves. Besides greatly reducing accidents, self-driving cars also bring individual motorized mobility to those who do not have a driver’s license – including people with disabilities and the elderly. They reduce energy consumption, simplify the introduction of alternative fuels and reduce the load on the road infrastructure.
Policy makers need to recognize that self-driving cars can solve or greatly reduce many longstanding problems. This is not a technology where a wait-and-see attitude is warranted. Politicians need to actively promote this technology. Of course, this does not mean that the technology’s risk should be ignored.
2. Reject the precautionary principle
Safety is a key concern and a key benefit of self-driving cars. There is good reason to expect mature self-driving cars to drive much safer than humans. They are equipped with 360 degree sensors, including cameras, radar and Lidar, are always alert, never tired, don’t drink and adopt a defensive, risk-minimizing driving strategy. But letting the first such cars drive by themselves on public streets is a difficult decision: what if anything goes wrong?
The application of the precautionary principle avoids this situation by requiring the developer to prove that the car is harmless. Unfortunately, proving that a self-driving car is safe is a hard problem and strict application of the principle could significantly delay the introduction of self-driving vehicles.
This weakness of the precautionary principle is well-known: There is the risk that erring on the side of caution when certifying self-driving cars prolongs the current carnage on our on our roads. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury to delay a well-functioning self-driving car for a few more years to be extra-sure that everything is perfect when 33,000 people die in traffic accidents per year in the US alone and more than 1 million per year worldwide.
As much as it is not acceptable to let first prototypes roam the streets unsupervised it is not acceptable to delay and delay just to be on the safe side. A middle ground must be found. This is not an easy task for policy makers but one on which lives depend.
3. Don’t presume to know how the technology and law will evolve
Will autonomous vehicle technology gradually evolve from driver assistance systems? Will they first appear on the highway or in low-speed local settings? What new business models will emerge and what role will machines play? Will the US be the first to legalize fully autonomous vehicles or does the Vienna Convention on road traffic really prevent many European Countries from adopting self-driving vehicles? There are so many paths that this technology can take, so many changes in many different areas of business and society, so many proponents and possibly opponents that it is hard to be right about the path of technology and – consequently – of law. It is very dangerous to assume that the technology will evolve in one way, then regulate for this situation and subsequently find that the technology evolves very differently.
4. Let the innovators innovate
This section was originally entitled ‘minimize legislative and regulatory intervention’ and included the goal to give the innovators the space to innovate. But here I differ with Scribner: Unfortunately, transportation law is so much based on the concept of vehicles driven by humans that many laws do need to be changed. Current traffic laws contain so many elements that inhibit progress for this new and safer technology. Autonomous vehicles change the concept of what a car is and the laws need to be updated accordingly. Otherwise innovators will find it hard to make progress. This is a task that should be started immediately – before fully autonomous vehicles are ready for public roads.
5. Preserve technology neutrality
Laws and regulations should be technologically neutral. As much possible, they should avoid favoring a specific technical approach.A horrified nation learned this week that President Obama handed over $1.7 billion in cash to the terror masters of Iran as part of his nuclear deal, using pallets stacked with currency to circumvent Congressional authority and gifting Iran with a huge amount of untraceable money to sponsor bloodshed across the Middle East.
Also surprised, and somewhat annoyed, by the news: Obama’s fellow Democrats in Congress.
The Weekly Standard caught up with a few Democrat senators on Wednesday, and all of them claimed to be surprised by the revelation. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) said he learned about the cash payment by reading the newspapers.
Iran deal opponent Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he was not briefed, and did not know the huge payment was being made to Iran at all, let alone that it was tendered in cash.
Amusingly, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) initially offered a tepid denial that he was briefed, but then changed his mind when an aide handed him an printed copy of an email proving that he was briefed. (Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s memory losses are becoming contagious?)
Coons then said he was aware of an “outstanding judgment” that needed to be paid off as part of the nuclear deal, “the release of American hostages, and other matters.” The White House will not be happy that he came so close to admitting the gigantic pile of money shoveled to Iran was, at least in part, a ransom payment.
Senior senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) then rolled in to contradict everyone who said they were not briefed, insisting “almost every senator” was told the cash payment was coming, several months ago.
One other bit of grim comedy from the Weekly Standard’s report is the State Department insisting that Iran has not used any of the cash Obama gave them for “nefarious activities”– at least, not “so far.”
They should have been more honest and said “so far as we know.” The reason criminals want cash, of course, is to keep the authorities from tracking how they spend it.
As Saeed Ghasseminejad of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies put it to the Standard, “With bags of untraceable hard currency, Iran can more easily support its allies or illicitly procure missile and nuclear parts.”
Over on the Republican side of the aisle, the House Financial Services Committee held the first of several hearings on the Iran cash controversy Thursday. Fox News described the hearing as “tense.”
Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Sean Duffy (R-WI) complained that Administration officials only attended his hearing “under threat of subpoena,” while State and Treasury have ignored document requests for over a month.
“There is a risk you have taken in providing $1.7 billion to the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world,” a “clearly frustrated” Rep. Duffy said to the officials appearing at the hearing.
The full chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), worried that the Administration’s Moolah for Mullahs program had “put a price on the head of every tourist, soldier, airman and marine who serves or visits overseas.”
“Cash is the currency of terrorism,” said Hensarling, as quoted by the Dallas Morning News. “We paid cash to the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism. And the question is, again, why was that done?” He went on to compare the Iran payoff to a money-laundering operation.
Another member of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, executive director Mark Dubowitz, provided written testimony to the hearing that noted the $1.7 billion in cash everyone is currently arguing about might not be the first, or the largest, cash payoff to Iran.
As Dubowitz explained, if the Obama Administration is telling the truth that all other forms of financial transfer to Iran were blocked by sanctions and/or the need to secure congressional approval, than some or all of the $33.6 billion given to Tehran since the nuclear deal went into effect might have been remitted in cash, or maybe “gold and other precious metals,” which won’t make those worried about stacks of untraceable bills feel much better.If you like topline numbers, you’ll like the June jobs report, issued a day early because of the Independence Day headline. The US economy added 223,000 jobs in June, a respectable if unspectacular level of job growth that outpaces population growth, and the U-3 jobless rate dropped to 5.3%. It’s when one looks past the topline numbers that the problems emerge — chief among them the fact that almost twice as many people left the workforce as found jobs:
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, financial activities, and in transportation and warehousing.
But …
The civilian labor force declined by 432,000 in June, following an increase of similar magnitude in May. The labor force participation rate declined by 0.3 percentage point to 62.6 percent in June. The employment-population ratio, at 59.3 percent, was essentially unchanged in June and has shown little movement thus far this year.
The new workforce participation rate is the lowest in the US since 1977. The reason that the U-3 measure dropped to 5.3% is because of the exodus from the workforce. On top of that, the BLS revised its job-growth estimates in April and May by a combined 60,000, making the entire spring look less robust than first thought — and it wasn’t that robust in the first place. The U-6 rate, considered a more complete look at unemployment, did fall to 10.5%, the lowest since July 2008.
Neither hours worked or wages budged:
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was 34.5 hours in June for the fourth month in a row. The manufacturing workweek for all employees edged down by 0.1 hour to 40.7 hours, and factory overtime edged up by 0.1 hour to 3.4 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.6 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.) In June, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls were unchanged at $24.95. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.0 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees edged up by 2 |
prison, where he had been held since being sentenced on June 2 to life imprisonment, to the Maadi military hospital, also in Cairo.
The private television station al-Hayat broadcast video which it said was of Mubarak’s move. The images showed a patient on a stretcher being moved from an ambulance into a hospital in Maadi, a suburb of Cairo. Al-Arabiya television reported that Mubarak’s wife Suzanne had arrived at the hospital.The Los Angeles Angels may not have lost their closer for the season after all.
Right-hander Huston Street has been diagnosed with a Grade 1 left groin strain, and hopes to return at some point during the playoffs if the team qualifies.
The veteran had to be helped off the field during an appearance in Saturday's 3-2 win over the Seattle Mariners, and manager Mike Scioscia described Street's groin injury as "significant" postgame.
Setup man Joe Smith is dealing with a sprained ankle, so rookie Trevor Gott and righty Mike Morin are the likely options to be used in high-leverage situations for the rest of the regular season.
Los Angeles is only a half-game behind the Houston Astros for the final American League wild-card spot with seven games remaining.
Street led the AL with 40 saves before suffering the injury.The Louisiana Department of Health's Public Health Laboratory has confirmed two more cases of travel-related Zika virus.
DHH officials say the newest patients had travelled to a region with ongoing Zika activity and sought medical care in Louisiana afterward, where tests confirmed the infection.
So far, six Louisiana residents have had the infection, and all have recovered. There have been no confirmed cases of local transmission within Louisiana or in the rest of the 50 states.
Here's more info from a Louisiana DHH news release:
After separately travelling to areas with ongoing Zika transmission, the patients returned to Louisiana and began to show symptoms of an illness, prompting the individuals to seek treatment. The patients and their health care providers have been notified of the Zika-positive result. The individuals have recovered and no longer have the virus in their blood.
CLICK HERE for national and state Zika case counts.A North Carolina law limiting the legal protections of LGBT people has hampered the public universities that drive the state's economic growth, University of North Carolina President Margaret Spellings said Wednesday.
Spellings said that recruited candidates had ruled out moving to North Carolina because of the law, and that she was unaware of any academic talent embracing a North Carolina move because of the law, called House Bill 2.
"I know people have withdrawn their candidacy," Spellings told The Associated Press during an interview Wednesday. "But how many? To what effect? Were they not coming anyway? We'll never know."
The state law enacted in one day in March excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide anti-discrimination protections. It also requires transgender people to conform to the sex on their birth certificates when using bathrooms in universities and many other public buildings.
Companies, concerts and conferences have reacted by shunning North Carolina.
A special legislative session last month to repeal HB2 fell apart, and the law remains in place. The law's defenders have argued that it is needed to protect people from being molested in bathrooms by men posing as transgender women. New Democratic Governor Roy Cooper said Monday that he was continuing to discuss repeal with leaders of the Republican-dominated legislature.
"They believe it's had some unintended consequences for the state," said Spellings, who was President George W. Bush's education secretary and began leading the 17 public university campuses three weeks before the law passed.
"Obviously, the legislature knows what we know. That's why they had a special session. That's why they are trying to come to some solution. That's why the governor and the legislative leaders are apparently talking," she said.
The 220,000-student UNC system is a defendant in a lawsuit filed on behalf of transgender students and university employees. The plaintiffs say requiring them to use restrooms that don't match their gender identity is discriminatory.
Spellings has said the campuses must obey the law, but won't change any policies or enforce the bathroom requirements.
"We're in a competitive world and our competitors have used this issue against us to some extent," she said Wednesday. "If I'm in Georgia and I'm in a competitive bidding war for a world-class faculty member, I'm going to say, if this is a transgender or gay person, 'Is this an environment where you're going to live and work?' So I think anecdotally there's some of that going on."Scott Steiner was recently interviewed by Ring Rust Radio about his recent return to Impact Wrestling and his thoughts about the industry in general. Here are some of the highlights:
Ring Rust Radio: Many fans were genuinely surprised to see you return to Impact Wrestling following your controversial exit from the company in 2012. What was the signing process like this time and how has the company treated you thus far since coming back?
Scott Steiner: I get paid to beat people up, which is the greatest job in the world. I legally can punch someone in the face and not get arrested for it, which most human beings can’t do. Nowadays a lawyer calls you up and you get slammed with a civil suit so it really is the best job in the world. People pay me to punch someone in the face. Josh called me up, asked me if I want to punch someone in the face and I said, “Yea pay me and it’s on,” and that’s basically how it went down.
Ring Rust Radio: Having been gone from Impact Wrestling for so many years, what were some of the things you saw from afar that impressed you and ultimately convinced you to return for Slammiversary?
Scott Steiner: When I left nothing impressed me; that’s why I left. The change of management which was a problem because Dixie Carter is an idiot and then she brought in these other idiots like Hulk Hogan. I was just like damn; I got to get the hell out of here. I watched them from afar and their pockets kept getting run down and then thank God, someone else bought it, ran her out and now the right guy is back in charge, being Jeff Jarrett. That’s basically who I started with before when Jeff started Impact Wrestling. I definitely wanted to come back and work for the organization again.
Ring Rust Radio: When you were approached to return, was there any discussion of a potential Hall of Fame induction and what would it mean to you to enter a Hall of Fame in the future?
Scott Steiner: I am already in a couple Hall of Fames like the Michigan Hall of Fame and the Dan Gable Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame so my accolades speak for themselves. Let’s just say I’m not losing any sleep over any Hall of Fame induction. The one Hall of Fame that I refuse to go in is the WWE Hall of Fame because do you know where it’s at? Where is it? Do you have an address? It’s a bunch of bulls**t. If they called me up, I wouldn’t go because there’s no address; you can’t go see it, so, where is it? What do you think they do with that Ric Flair statue, the one he was jumping up and down over? Where do you think that statue is at right now? If you had to guess right now where do you think it’s at? I say it’s in Triple H’s bedroom. Let me ask you this, do you think they made a statue of Macho Man? If they made a statue of Macho Man where did you think it would be? It would be in Stephanie’s bedroom. It’s a freaking joke. If you can have a Hall of Fame, at least have an address. That’s the only Hall of Fame I laugh at. Come on man, give me a break.
Ring Rust Radio: As one of the most popular stars in wrestling history, would you be interested in working more matches for Impact Wrestling or even working behind the scenes as a producer for the company?
Scott Steiner: As far as wrestling again, it all depends. Believe it or not, I wake up every morning in a good mood, but at some point, somebody is going to me off. Someone pisses me off at Impact Wrestling, and then s**t is on. Whether that leads to another match or not, who knows? Piss me off and something is going to happen.
Ring Rust Radio: Over the course of your career you’ve enjoyed a ton of success both as a singles wrestler and as a tag team wrestler with your brother Rick. Looking back at your career, what phase of it have you enjoyed most between being on your own and being part of the Steiner Brothers?
Scott Steiner: If you break it down, it really is like two different careers. I came from the University of Michigan and I teamed with my brother wearing University of Michigan varsity jackets. That’s all I wanted to do was prove that we were the toughest tag team in wrestling, which we did. At that phase, I was really s different guy back then. I looked at the world through rose-colored glasses and thought everything was good. But after you been in the business for a while, you get jaded and see a lot of bulls**t so you start to get pissed off. At that point when I went to singles wrestling, we had beaten everybody and there were no more mountains for us to climb so it was time for change. I needed a different outlet and different goals. So, when I went to singles, at that point I could snap at any time and mentally I was tired of the politics of wrestling, the backstabbing and all the candy asses that do shit behind closed doors. I thought that came out in my character because it was really happening. It was just a bunch a s**t. I can’t really say I’m more proud as a singles or tag team because we had the world tag team titles with my brother on numerous occasions and I was a world champion as a singles so they were both satisfying in their own way.
Ring Rust Radio: You’re infamous for your mic work and fans hang on every word you say. What did you do to get that point where you’re so comfortable on the mic and why do you think other wrestlers have a difficult time adjusting to that aspect of the business?
Scott Steiner: I think why the fans could relate to me is because when I went out there, you could tell I was telling the truth. You could tell I wasn’t bullsh***ing and I was putting it on the line and if people don’t like it, then do something about it. A lot of my frustrations were with management and a lot of my frustrations were with candy asses in wrestling like guys who weren’t tough, but try to come across as such. People could really tell how I came out and in the way, I spoke my mind, I was to the point, direct and really no bulls**t. I think that’s why the people related to what I was saying.
As far as nowadays, I feel sorry for guys, especially with what they do in the WWE. They are cookie cutters. You got 20 or 30 idiot writers with the two biggest idiots being Stephanie McMahon and Hunter McMahon. I say Hunter McMahon because I can’t tell which one is the bigger douche, her or him. I’ll give him her last name because he’s a man without a backbone. So, got those two and the 30 writers trying to write for all these guys and they all got the same mindset trying to make all these characters. When I came up, it was Macho Man and all these other guys and you had to come up with your own stuff. If you didn’t come up with your own stuff, you weren’t getting over. If you can’t relate to the crowd, can’t make people hate you, can’t make people like you, you didn’t have a job. Now it’s like do this, do this, do this, and everything is way too staged. It’s hard to watch, it really is.
I feel bad for the fans because they are cheating the fans and that’s what happens when you don’t have competition. Look at the WWE, their ratings are just horrific. I don’t know what to say or what they will do. Go buy another company so you can bury some other guys? They are a bunch of a**holes. When you got competition, it makes people think outside the box. When the ratings are down you got to reach to a higher level and come up with different ideas. Nowadays you can put crap out there and if it doesn’t work, who cares? What else are they going to watch? That’s their mindset and it’s just disgusting.Hang on for a minute...we're trying to find some more stories you might like. Close
Pitt police arrested a man Tuesday night after issuing a bulletin alerting students of his potential presence in Oakland and citing several female students who said he “made them feel uncomfortable.”
“We would like our community to be aware of a suspicious subject identified as Daniel Dintino,” the bulletin said. “We have received several complaints regarding Dintino’s behavior.”
Dintino, 24, was arrested on a warrant out of Ross Township Sunday for charges of theft. He was also charged with stalking and harassment Monday, according to court documents. He was released after posting the $10,000 bail for the theft incident.
A Pitt police officer, who declined to give her name, said they arrested Dintino again Tuesday night. Reached by phone around 10 p.m., she said Dintino was transferred to Allegheny County jail, but did not respond to questions about what he was charged with.
Before Tuesday’s arrest, Pitt spokesperson Joe Miksch said the University was issuing Dintino a persona non grata letter, essentially barring him from Pitt’s campus.
A Pitt student, who asked to remain anonymous, alleges she was approached twice by someone she believes is Dintino. While eating on Forbes Avenue Sunday, she said he sat at the table next to her and began asking her questions about what she was eating and if she went to Pitt.
“This all happened in a period of about three minutes, I got uncomfortable so I texted a friend and asked her to call me so I could stop talking and leave,” she said.
She said she went to the Pitt police Sunday night and told them about her encounter with Dintino after hearing the stories from the other women in a Facebook group chat. She also said a similar incident happened two days later.
The student said she was doing homework in a restaurant on Forbes Tuesday night when someone began walking toward her. The person stopped in front of her table and she recognized him as the same man from her Sunday encounter.
“He was about two inches away from my face. I thought, ‘Oh my god, that’s him,’” she said. “He was like, ‘Hey,’ and touched my shoulder and told me to take my headphones off. He was like, ‘Do you go to Pitt,’ and I was like, ‘Not again.’”
The man asked her if she went to Pitt and she told him no, she said. He then asked her where she went to school and she told him she did not think she should tell him that.
“I was glaring at him and got my phone out and started looking at it,” she said. “He just started walking quickly out of the room then.”
She called the police as the man walked out the door. She informed her Facebook group that she had seen him again, and a friend came and sat with her until the police arrived.
“Three of them showed up,” she said. “They said someone had called from Dunkin’ Donuts about him and that they were looking for him on Forbes.”
Several other Pitt students shared similar stories with The Pitt News. Katherine Staff, a senior nursing student, alleges a man who she believes to be Dintino followed her Monday when she was walking back to her dorm from a lecture around 4 p.m. She first saw him when crossing Fifth Avenue by University Place.
“He smiled at me like he knew me, which was weird,” Staff said. “The girl he was with kept crossing the street but he started following me.”
Staff said the man followed her back to her dorm and asked for her Snapchat information outside the door.
“I didn’t reply, I just went inside,” she said.
Sarah Hertzler, a junior mechanical engineering major, alleges she was approached by a man she believes to be Dintino on Saturday. She was walking down Forbes Avenue near Starbucks when she said she saw him coming across the street and heading toward her.
“He got in my way and stopped me on the corner. I had two headphones in so I just ignored him, thought he was just somebody I was crossing paths with,” she said. “But then he raised his hand and waved at me to get me to pay attention.”
Hertzler said after she stopped and removed her headphones, the man asked if she was a student at Pitt. When she said yes, he asked if she was Sarah. She claims she had never met him before that moment, and could not find anyone with similar identification on her social media as a friend or mutual friend.
“He told me he thought I was beautiful and wanted me to let him drop his number in my phone,” she said. “I said no and then crossed the street at full speed.”
Hertzler said she told her friends about “the creepy guy” but didn’t think much about the incident again until a friend sent her a series of screenshots of another student’s Snapchat story. The story included a Tinder profile that seemingly belonged to Dintino, and a warning to stay away from him and contact police if approached by him.
“She’d heard me tell my story and she asked me, ‘Is this the guy?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, 100 percent,’” Hertzler said.
Hertzler said she then posted a Snapchat story about her encounter and began receiving messages from other students who had also allegedly been harassed recently.
“Other girls were saying they had different run-ins with him. Some were like mine, but others seemed more aggressive,” Hertzler said. “Everybody was like, ‘Oh it happened to me’ or ‘It happened to a friend of mine,’ it just blew up online.”
Another woman, who asked to remain anonymous, claimed she had an encounter with a man she believes to be Dintino in a coffee shop in Oakland on Saturday. She alleges he approached her while she was there studying.
“I walked through the place to get my coffee and on the way he was standing there, blocking my way,” she said. “So I said, ‘Excuse me, sir,’ and then he turned around and made full eye contact.”
She said after she got her coffee, the man followed her back to her seat at a round table by a window, sat down with her and then began asking her questions, such as if she was a Pitt student and what her name was.
“He then started saying stuff like, ‘I’ve never seen someone so gorgeous’ and asked for my phone number. I said I had a boyfriend,” she said. “He was like, ‘Oh, OK, can we still be friends?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’”
She said he wished her a happy holiday and then hugged her before leaving. She thought the encounter had been awkward, but did not become alarmed until 20 minutes later when she looked up and realized he was standing next to her.
“He said, ‘I saw you still in here and wanted to say goodbye,’ and I was like, ‘OK, goodbye’ and then he left and then I immediately left,” she said.
She said she did not report the incident to the police but heard later that other people allegedly had a similar story.
If you have any information about this case, Pitt police requests you call 412-624-2121 as soon as possible.
Ashwini Sivaganesh and John Hamilton contributed reporting.are there different versions of Movie 43 in the UK and the US?
It would appear so. This was discovered on the Twitter when New York-based critic Lou Lumenick questioned my review of the film (I saw it in London), which mentions the framing story — involving some kids searching the Internet for “the most dangerous film in the world” — that does not appear in the version of the film he saw in New York. His version features Dennis Quaid as a demented screenwriter.
This was nowhere near anything I saw in Movie 43:
Nowhere near.
It also makes me very sad to know that Greg Kinnear has any connection this awful film.
I think this could be the most egregious difference between international versions of a film ever. There are often small differences, often made to appease local censors. (I think The Hunger Games may have had a bit of blood splatter cut out for U.K. audiences that was left in for U.S. audiences, for example.) But this represents entirely different stories presented to various audiences. I don’t understand the rationale behind this, and frankly I’m pretty pissed off that I’ve been forced to think about Movie 43 more than it deserves.Kimberly J. Kreines is a creative designer new to the Magic team. But neither playing Magic nor writing are new to her. She has a penchant for dragons, the Oxford comma, and chicken tikka masala. In her opinion, all three are equally delightful.
Previous story: Memories of Blood
Nissa was closer to the power of Zendikar, and to the world’s soul, than ever before. She was able to channel it through the towering treelike elemental she called Ashaya, the Awoken World—her friend. And the land itself responded to her presence, augmenting her strength and acting as an extension of her being, helping her to battle the Eldrazi. But all of that was suddenly ripped away; the soul of Zendikar was taken from her and now it is no longer there when she reaches out to it. Nissa has been left nearly powerless and alone, and she believes that the Eldrazi—perhaps even the titan—must have something to do with this. She feels the burden of the bundle of seeds that she carries with her, those from trees that have been wiped out by the Eldrazi; she promised the world that she would not stop until she could plant them safely on Zendikar again. But now, while others around her prepare to go to battle to save the world, Nissa feels the emptiness all around her and worries that they are already too late, that there is no world left to save.
It happened more at twilight than any other time. A long, dark shape would move. A branch would stretch or bend. Nissa would catch it out of the corner of her eye and she would be sure—for just that moment, just that heartbeat—that it was Ashaya, the elemental manifestation of Zendikar's soul, come back just as she knew it would.
Ashaya, the Awoken World | Art by Raymond Swanland
But then she would turn her head. Why did she always have to turn her head? And she would see that it was just a tree, just the wind, just the long shadows cast by the setting sun. Her breathing would return to normal, her heart would fall into rhythm again, and she would be left alone, sitting cross-legged on the hard ground, in the exact place on the bluff that she had been standing when Zendikar had been torn away from her.
She kept vigil there, returning each day to ground herself, reach into the land, and search for any hint of Zendikar. She was convinced that it was the Eldrazi titan that had taken it, or chased it away, or hurt it; she had seen once before how terribly a titan could hurt Zendikar. But she reasoned that if it were to return, it would return to the place it had last been—and she believed that it would return, she wanted to believe that it would return looking for her. When it did, she would be there. She would always be there for her friend.
But when Nissa reached out, all she ever found was emptiness, the shattered pieces of a shell. Zendikar never reached back. In place of its embrace, she was met with a frigid chill that worked its way up through her bones as night settled in.
The darkness and the cold meant it was time to head back up into her perch in the nearby massive willow. It wouldn't do Zendikar or anyone else any good if she nodded off and was consumed by an Eldrazi in the middle of the night.
She often considered going back to Sky Rock each night. There was something alluring about the security offered by Gideon's sky patrols, not to mention the protection of the formidable Planeswalker himself. But the allure didn't outweigh the drawback. If the others saw her again, she'd have to try one more time to explain—and she couldn't bear the thought of exposing her hurt only to face the skeptical looks and questions yet again.
She had tried to explain it to them, all of them. She had tried to explain it to Gideon, and then later to his friend and fellow Planeswalker Jace. She had told them that something horrible had happened to Zendikar's soul. It had been ripped away from her. She had lost her friend, and her access to the overwhelming well of power that flowed through the land.
But neither Jace nor Gideon seemed to understand, nor did anyone else—though Jace had been, at the very least, curious about her "perception of the world," as he called it. But the thing was, it wasn't her perception; Zendikar's soul was real. As were the souls of other planes; Nissa had felt them, she'd even communicated with Lorwyn's soul. But that kind of thing was difficult, if not impossible, to explain in words. The concept of a world having a soul was so foreign that it was easy for others to write her off, dismiss the truth as a single elf's "perception."
Nissa didn't blame Gideon or Jace, or any of the others. They didn't see things as she did. When they looked at Zendikar, they saw trees, rocks, brambles, beasts, rivers, and mountains. But they saw each of these things as distinct and disconnected elements. They didn't perceive the underlying bond. They were blind to the powerful leylines that connected every living thing on the world like a network of arteries, pumping power and promise from one beating heart to the next. They were deaf to the voice of the world that whispered and shouted and laughed and sometimes even cried out in pain. They could not see how truly alive Zendikar was... or used to be.
Zendikar's Roil | Art by Sam Burley
It wasn't anymore.
When Nissa looked at the world now, she too only saw broken sticks, fallen leaves, and tangled branches thick with thorns. She could no longer see the whole, she couldn't feel the oneness. She could not hear the voice of her friend.
The dullness of the world around her screamed reality. It made her memories feel like dreams, the fanciful perceptions of an elf.
If those dreams had ever been real, they were not real anymore.
"Are you really gone?" Nissa didn't want to believe it. There was something that told her that it couldn't be true. Yet... she lowered her hand, fingers outstretched, ever so slowly down toward the surface of the ground. She held her breath and touched the dirt.
But that's all it was: dirt.
If Zendikar's soul was gone, if the Eldrazi titan had destroyed it, then all of this dirt, all the brambles, and branches, and beasts, would soon be gone too. A world without a soul would not be a world for long.
Her other hand at her chest, Nissa clutched the silk packet of seeds given to her by the vampire what seemed like ages ago. If this was truly the end for Zendikar, then these seeds were exactly what the vampire had said they were: the world's last hope of enduring. On another plane.
Nissa swallowed, but the hot lump in the back of her throat worked its way up behind her cheeks anyway. She closed her eyes as a single tear trailed down the side of her face.
She held the seeds tighter. She had been so sure that she would prove the vampire wrong—no, she had been so sure that together she and Zendikar would prove the vampire wrong. She had promised the seeds that she would plant them here on their own world's soil when it was safe, when the Eldrazi threat had been eliminated, when they could grow into tall, strong trees and weave their lives in with Zendikar's soul.
But Zendikar's soul was gone. It was gone. How many more times would she have to reach out into the void to be convinced of it?
It's gone. She forced the words into her mind. Zendikar is gone!
Some part of her still refused to believe it.
She knew that all the evidence—everything she had seen, felt, and heard—said it was true, but somehow she couldn't believe.
Nissa opened her eyes to the twilit world of long shadows. Tonight, none of them were Zendikar, but one night, one of them might be. If it were to come back, this is where the world's soul would come.
So she would stay.
"Run!" The shrill voice of a goblin from behind startled Nissa.
Instinctively, she jumped to her feet and drew her sword.
"Run!" the goblin cried. It was barreling toward her, moving at a surprising speed considering one of its back legs appeared to be broken—or maybe even partially amputated, Nissa couldn't tell. "Run, now!"
Chasm Guide | Art by Johannes Voss
Nissa sidestepped as the goblin blew by her.
And then, in the distance, she saw the stampede. There were at least three dozen Eldrazi. Small, no bigger than the stump of a tree. They moved so quickly that each of the monsters looked like a hard, bony insect being carried along on a blurred cloud of dust that was its legs.
They navigated nimbly through the forest, coming straight for her, straight for the clearing—Zendikar's clearing.
She could not allow them to touch this place. She could not allow them to corrupt a single piece of grass.
She tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword—it was the only weapon she had. It would have to be enough; she would make it enough. She stepped forward to stand between the precious piece of land and the monsters.
They were so close that she could smell them now.
Disgustingly fleshy, scurrying creatures. They were never part of the oneness that was Zendikar.
The leader of their pack set its course straight for Nissa.
All of the pain and destruction here, it was all their fault.
They came in range.
Nissa swung her blade.
The steel hit the bony plate of the first Eldrazi, and Nissa powered straight through to the sinew underneath, slicing the miniature monster in half.
A beat later she pivoted and carried her momentum with her through her sword and into the head of a second Eldrazi.
Sword of the Animist | Art by Daniel Ljunggren
Nissa hated these creatures.
She hated them so much she could squeeze each of their necks until their heads popped off.
She hacked and chopped at the horde as it surrounded her. They seemed to have forgotten about the goblin quarry they had been pursuing. Good. Then they would have no reason to tear through the clearing after it.
Nissa spun in a circle, blade out, severing no less than four bodies from their wriggling, scrambling legs.
One managed to latch onto her own leg. It scampered up, pulling on the fabric of her skirts, digging its sharp, pointed nubs of feet into her flesh.
"Get off me!" Nissa grabbed the thing by its bony back and ripped its legs out of her thigh. She launched it straight at a nearby tree with so much force that when it hit, its bony plate shattered and its insides splattered against the bark.
She didn't have time to watch the monster drip down the trunk; there were dozens more.
Swarm Surge | Art by Svetlin Velinov
If Ashaya had been there, the elemental would have stomped on them with one massive foot, taking out the whole swarm with a single thrust.
If Nissa could have reached Zendikar's well of power, she would have called up great walls of land to snap shut on them, crushing the whole lot in the space of a breath.
But as it was, she was only one, and she only had her sword. She choked up on the hilt and swung again and again and again.
It seemed they would never stop coming.
A caution tugged on the corner of her mind, the same caution that had been dancing at the edge of her awareness for the past few days any time she faced an Eldrazi. If it came to it, if she couldn't destroy the Eldrazi and she couldn't escape—then she would have to go. She would have to planeswalk away before their corruption touched her. She could not allow for the seeds to be turned to white, chalky dust in her pocket. Not if they were Zendikar's last hope.
Her insides tensed and the edges of her form tingled. Her body was prepared to planeswalk. All she would have to do was release her hold on this world, this place, and she could leave.
But leaving would mean that it was over.
And Nissa wasn't ready for this to be the end. Not yet.
She thrust her blade at two of the nearest Eldrazi, skewering the pair through their chests; at the same time, she kicked a third away from her legs, but the swarm only thickened.
The prickling intensified. Nissa's instincts were telling her that this wasn't a battle she would win easily.
She somersaulted out of the way of a fourth and punched a fifth in its underside, using the ricochet to catapult herself over three more that had come too close.
The trilling had worked its way up to a resonant frequency, and it tugged at the pit of her stomach.
No. Not yet.
She could still win this. She hacked down two more.
And then another four.
But eight more closed in.
She could feel the weight of the seeds in her pocket.
Are you really gone?
There was no answer. Of course there was no answer.
She glanced back over her shoulder at the clearing.
Then, with a zip and a metallic clanging, a hook on a chain rushed past her and plunged into one of the Eldrazi, which—now that she saw it—looked like it was about to pounce.
The chain was yanked, pulling the hook back, and Nissa followed it to a broad-chested kor. He was holding one hook in each hand. Hedron tattoos glowed on his arms and forehead, illuminating his hard-cut facial features and the long bundle of barbels that hung from his chin like a beard. "I'll take this group, you focus on that bunch on the right."
Nissa nodded, turning her attention to the handful left to her. There were only five. That was manageable, even for just one elf. This would not be the end. She pushed the impatient tingling away from the edges of her being. She would not have to leave this world, not tonight.
When both Nissa and the kor were satisfied that there were no Eldrazi left, he turned to her, wiping the Eldrazi gore off his hooks. "You didn't happen to have seen a goblin pass through here, did you?"
"She went that way." Nissa pointed to the trees on the other side of the clearing. The beautiful, uncorrupted clearing.
"And I take it she's the one who brought the swarm with her."
Nissa sheathed her sword. "You could say that."
"I warned her. How many times do you have to tell a goblin to take it slow in order to get it through its thick skull?" The kor walked straight across the land where Zendikar had fallen and toward the trees where Nissa had pointed, but he didn't seem to see the trail the goblin had left behind; he was already wandering off course.
"I don't think goblins understand the meaning of'slow,' " Nissa said. "And it's more that way." She crossed the clearing too, not taking a single step on the uncorrupted ground for granted. She pointed down at the packed underbrush where the goblin had run through, dragging her injured leg. "See?"
"Ah, right," the kor said, adjusting his course. "On both counts. You must be one of Gideon's rangers."
A ranger. Nissa hadn't considered herself a ranger for what felt like a very long time. An animist, a nature mage, a part of Zendikar. But not a ranger. Now that seemed to be the only thing she could claim to be. "Something like that," she said.
"Gideon's lucky to have someone like you out patrolling," the kor said as he traced the goblin's path. "So is Pili. Don't think she would have handled that swarm with quite the same... finesse as you did." He smiled, his glowing hedron tattoos lighting his sharp features. "I'm Munda, one of Gideon's squad leaders. Usually you wouldn't find me chasing around stray goblins, but tonight I drew the short straw."
Munda, Ambush Leader | Art by Johannes Voss
"Oh." Nissa said. The kor, Munda, was slightly off course again. The trail was harder to follow here. They were walking across hard, rocky ground now, which was significantly less revealing than soft dirt or leaves. "To your left."
Munda shifted course.
Nissa wasn't sure when she had agreed to help Munda track Pili, but here she was, a ranger again.
"She came in with the new recruits today," Munda said, nodding ahead, indicating the lost goblin. "Raving from the moment the healers fixed her up enough for her to regain consciousness. Something about her friend, Leek. Another goblin, I assume. From what I was able to get out of her, the two were separated at Sea Gate. She was picked up by the Dojir Nomads on their way over from the Calcite Flats. The other goblin, Leek, was most likely lost. But this Pili, she has it in her head that he's out there. I told her nothing is left at Sea Gate."
Nissa knew what it was like to feel something that no one else could understand.
"Did you see the numbers we got though?" Munda went on. "I didn't know there were that many outcasts at the Calcite Flats. Ah, but Gideon—Commander-General Jura, that is—he says they're not outcasts at all. We're all in |
Philistines rejected John Milton's Samson
In 1887 St. James’s Gazette published the following letter:
The experiment noted below I found called for in the interests of my self-respect, and I dedicate it to all persons who would become litterateurs if the publishers would let them. Having differed with these literary police as to the value of a manuscript of my own, I resolved to try them with a manuscript of somebody else’s. So I copied out “Samson Agonistes,” gave it the taking title of “Like a Giant Refreshed,” and sent it the round. Not for years have I enjoyed myself so much. The following are some of the replies I received
Paternoster Square, E.C., July 11th, 1887.
Sir,-The above manuscript has received our careful attention, but we regret to say that we would not care to publish it. The market is now so flooded with sensational stories in shilling form that it is questionable whether yours would find its way to the bookstalls, where alone it would be likely to sell. Although, however, we must decline your interesting tale, we may say that we consider it a work of considerable promise, and that if, as we gather from certain discrepancies, it is a first work, you will probably do something much better yet. Kindly enclose stamps and we shall return it without delay.
The next letter I quote because it is one of the few answers which referred to the work as a poem. I treasure it on that account. The address in this case would reveal the firm,
Sir,—By this post we regret to return your poem entitled ‘Like a Giant Refreshed,’ which you were so good as to submit for our consideration. When we say we look upon it as a clever production you may wonder why we do not undertake its publication. The fact, however, is that the market is glutted with verso at present much of it of considerable merit. In ‘Like a Giant Refreshed’ we find writing in our opinion equal to the best of the minor poets (if you will pardon our saying so), but nothing to promise a sale. In prose a work may do well though it does not rise above a certain standard; but there are so many versifyers nowadays that the same cannot be said of poetry. “ Like a G. R.’ is a smooth piece of versification and contains some musical lines as well as elegant turns of thought, but its reflections are somewhat trite and the meaning here and there is obscure. We fancy it might be improved by revision and the elimination of certain passages; there are Scotticisms in it, for instance, which jar upon the ear. At tho same time we cannot advise in this matter, nor undertake to say that it would he worth your while to rewrite the poem.
After that the manuscript was returned to Paternoster square, and this time I had the gratification of being taken for a lady. The publishers, it will be observed, are too wary to classify it as a story or poem. They refer to it as “the book.”
Dear Madam,—We have read your book with much pleasure, and consider it very bright and clever. We shall be happy to publish it in a small volume on the following terms:—The risk in issuing a first work is, of course, considerable: and, high as our opinion of the book is, we could not undertake to publish it entirely at our own risk, We are, however, prepared to take half the risk—namely £30, if you provide another £30; and on receipt of your cheque for that amount we shall forward you a printed form to fill up, and go to press with the book at once, We would recommend you to consider this offer seriously.
With the above should be compared the following
Sir,—In answer to your favour of the 14th, enclosing manuscript called “Like a Giant Fresh,” we are prepared to publish it if you take the entire risk of production. A thousand copies would cost you about £65. Should this arrangement not suit you, we shall return the M.S. on receipt of stamps.— Yours, &c.
“Like a Giant Fresh” struck me as good; but perhaps the worst affront we got (by we I mean Milton and myself) was from another publisher, who wrote as follows
Sir, —We have looked through the manuscript which you were so good as to forward to us, and we herewith return it to you with many thanks. We by no means consider your poem devoid of merit; indeed the closing scene is written with considerable poetical feeling. We have, however, already made out our list of new books for the coming season, and so many important works are to be found among them that we do not see our way to printing this year that is not of the first merit.—We remain, &c.
That publisher sent me his printed list of books of the first merit inside the cover of the rejected manuscript. It included “There’s the rub!” (three vols.), “ Daisies Pied and Violets Blue,” “Who Poisoned Mrs Marjoribanks?” “Telling Talks with Sunny Seers,” “Peeps at Philosophy,” and “What Can I Do with Sixpence?” It was no wonder that “Samson Agonistes” was crowded out. Then I tried some of the magazines. The general opinion was that the poem was too long; indeed, I came to the conclusion that in some magazines you could get in anything if it was short enough. One editor, however, wrote that although “ the poem was ably written,” the subject was a risky one; and another more than hinted that it was suggested by Mr Rider Haggard’s works, “ Sensationalism,” he said, “ is better wedded to prose.” Then I tried one of the graver monthly miscellanies, and saw the manuscript no more. After the lapse of a month I got from the editor somebody else’s manuscript with ‘declined with thanks’ written on it. I returned it pointing out that there was a mistake, and then he sent me some other body's manuscript. It was an essay on Kant. This also I sent back, and explained that my manuscript was a poem. By return of post I got four long poems, from him, but none of them was mine. Since then I have written him regularly every week in the hope that I annoy him. He never answers now though.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
B
Afterword
I could not get the original article in St. James's Gazette, but many other newspapers reprinted the entire letter. They also identified "B" with Robert Buchanan. This seems plausible because Buchanan published in St. James's Gazette under his own name. Since this name is Scottish, it expains why one of the publishers found Scotticisms in Milton's poem.
An opposite hoax was done in 1877 by the unrecognized poet James Whitcomb Riley. After receiving another letter of rejection from an editor he took one of his poems and passed it as if it was a newly discovered work of Edgar Allan Poe. This poem was, of course, published and recognized as a masterpiece. Take this quiz to see if you can tell Poe from Riley.
In a recent experiment, Oxbridge and Ivy League people couldn't tell the prose of Charles Dickens from that of the worst writer in history of letters.
Mikhail Simkin
June 20, 2014A couple of weeks ago, Canada opened up an “Office of Religious Freedom” with a three-pronged mandate:
protect, and advocate on behalf of, religious minorities under threat;
oppose religious hatred and intolerance; and
promote Canadian values of pluralism and tolerance abroad.
At the outset, that doesn’t sound too bad. Hell, Sanal Edamaruku and Alexander Aan and Alber Saber could use some help!
So where’s the problem?
Well, check out a speech made last September by John Baird, Canadian Minister of Foreign Relations, whose office is responsible for the new Office of Religious Freedom:
We strongly condemn all attacks on places of worship, whether at temples, synagogues, shrines, mosques, gurdwaras, or churches. It is of utmost importance that every individual is able to practice their faith in safety and security. Time and time again, Canada has spoken out against discrimination, and violations of freedom, including freedom of religion. We don’t see agnosticism or atheism as being in need of defense in the same way persecuted religious minorities are. We speak of the right to worship and practice in peace, not the right to stay away from places of worship.
There’s also the fact that the government made no effort to include non-believers as consultants in forming the new office.
If you look at the news releases regarding religious freedom, the names of persecuted atheists are found nowhere.
And now, the backlash is growing.
The Centre For Inquiry Canada has made this video detailing the problems with this new office and the government’s complete lack of concern for (or even acknowledgment of) atheists who suffer at the hands of the religious:
All they’re looking for is inclusion. You can’t say you’re working for religious freedom and then ignore the plight of many atheists worldwide.
CFI Ottawa has a sample letter for Canadians to send to their officials. It reads in part:
The Office of Religious Freedom mandate does not include mention of the non-religious or those with no religious belief. Yet there are many non-believers around the world who are subject to persecution and serious violations of their human rights, including unjust imprisonment, beatings, and even execution. I would like to see the Office’s mandate extended to include protection and equal treatment for non-religious people and groups in Canada and around the world. The Office should begin by giving a voice to Canadian secular, humanist and atheist groups by inviting them to advise the Government of Canada “on advocacy, analysis, policy development and programming relating to protecting and advocating on behalf of non-religious minorities under threat.”
Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun is arguing for atheists’ inclusion, too:
The Conservative government is following the lead of the U.S. and establishing a $5 million office, run by a Roman Catholic academic, to speak out for religious freedom around the world. There is no doubt religious repression is rising in a number of places. But will the new office be fair to all, including atheists? That’s what many are asking, given that the Conservative government consulted mostly conservative Christians before unveiling the office.
Much like the U.S. Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, atheists are treated as if we don’t exist, even when the evidence for real, serious atheist persecution is all around us.
As always, we’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for equal treatment. I’m used to this sort of stuff happening in my country, but I thought Canada was supposed to be better.
For more on the subject, Godless Poutine has been writing multiple posts about the Office of Religious Freedom over the past several weeks and is a fantastic source of information.
(Thanks to Sean for the link!)As interesting as the first few weeks of New England’s season have been, though, they have also served as a reminder of the basic set-up of professional football. The Patriots have been so successful for so long in large part because that success has not been founded on groups of specific players. They famously let fan favorites go when they’ve aged just past their primes. They turn replacements into stars and then, down the line, shuttle those stars off for another round of replacements. Even Brady, back in 2001, got his chance when the then-starting-quarterback Drew Bledsoe went down with an injury; Brady won the Super Bowl and Bledsoe never got his job back. The Patriots know that their brutal sport is designed to use players up, so they’ve built a system in which rotating casts of players are mere disposable units for a stable management group—ownership, front-office executives, Belichick. It’s an effective and unabashedly corporate approach fit for a cold game.
* * *
After Thursday’s game, the talk from both locker rooms centered on that Patriot system, the organizational lockstep and allegiance to Belichick that has made them the NFL’s best and most consistent team for almost two decades. Belichick himself praised his players’ obedience: “They played the game exactly the way we asked them to play it... They tried to do what we wanted them to do, and as a coach you can’t ask for any more than that.” Bill O’Brien, a former New England assistant coach now helming the Texans, seemed to get wistful about the professionalism of his former employer. “Their program has been in place for a long time,” he said. “They have what I think is the best head coach in the history of the league, and they do a great job.”
Newspaper headlines took similar tones. “Jacoby Brissett was good. But the Patriots’ win Thursday is Bill Belichick’s triumph,” said The Washington Post. “Jacoby Brissett, Patriots game plan the big winners,” said The Boston Globe (in a headline since changed). The Belichick-approved mantra of the Patriots has long been “do your job,” and the sports press confirmed that, yes, the jobs had been done. Players stayed the course and kept to their lanes, no brilliance necessary.
If the Patriots are not only the NFL’s most accomplished organization, lately, but also its most representative—that is, if they’ve achieved all they have because they recognize and embody football’s characteristics more fully than anybody else—then nights like Thursday, and the subsequent reaction to them, can make you think about the appeal of the game. The NFL’s detractors tend to focus on its violence, but it is also relentlessly hierarchical. A few people, the coaches and maybe the quarterback, get to strategize, and the rest recite what they’ve drilled over the week. Whereas other sports tend to celebrate the collaborative aspects, football teams hew to the corporate model—go out, do this, come back for further instruction—with their success largely dependent on the thoroughness of the directives. Players tend to meet the corporate end as well, laid off with the minimum allowable severance.Black Box, Liberty Launcher
And for the Liberty Launcher, it's even easier. He has a faster projectile, yes, but at that range he would have either hit you anyway unless you're dodging well. So for this one, try to make sure you deal damage but prioritize dodging.
The Black Box and the Liberty Launcher are similar, as they both give up one rocket in a clip for a small bonus. For the Black Box, it's fifteen health whenever they hit someone. When it's a Liberty Launcer, it's a speed boost on the projectile.However, these bonuses only help out at long range.When up close and fighting a Soldier, the lack of a fourth rocket in a clip will show their weakness. In fighting a normal Soldier, he's often had two shots fired already, and will have two lift in a clip. However, with the Black Box and the Liberty Launcher, they'd only have one shot left unless they preserve otherwise.And when you're up close, by the time he has to reload a rocket where he normally wouldn't have to, is where you can deny the effect of the Black Box, because at that moment, you would probably deal more damage to him then the Black Box has healed him for.For the new changes to the Liberty Launcher, it should be even easier to kill one due to the damage nerf.I'm not sure why anyone would complain about it being close to OP at this point.Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center have found a potential key for unlocking the energy potential from non-edible biomass materials such as corn leaves and stalks, or switch grass.
In a paper appearing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Los Alamos researchers S. Gnanakaran, Giovanni Bellesia, and Paul Langan join Shishir Chundawat and Bruce Dale of Michigan State University, and collaborators from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center in describing a potential pretreatment method that can make plant cellulose five times more digestible by enzymes that convert it into ethanol, a useful biofuel.
Biomass is a desirable renewable energy source because fermentable sugars within the cellulose network of plant cells can be extracted with enzymes and then converted into ethanol -- if only it were so simple. One of the key difficulties in creating biofuels from plant matter is that the cellulose tends to orient itself into a sheet-like network of highly ordered, densely packed molecules. These sheets stack upon themselves and bond together very tightly due to interactions between hydrogen atoms -- somewhat like sheets of chicken wire stacked together and secured by loops of bailing wire. This stacking and bonding arrangement prevents enzymes from directly attacking most of the individual cellulose molecules and isolating the sugar chains within them.
Currently, ethanol can only be extracted in usable quantities if the biomass is pretreated with costly, potentially toxic chemicals in an energy-intensive process. Now, however, the research team has discovered a way to develop potentially cost-effective pretreatment methods that could make biomass an economically viable contender in the biofuels arena.
Using recent experimental data provided by their journal collaborators, Gnanakaran and his Los Alamos colleagues used state-of-the-art computational methods and molecular modeling to examine how cellulose changes structurally into an intermediate form that can be enzymatically attacked when pretreated with ammonia.
"Our modeling showed, and the experimental evidence confirmed, that the pretreatment reduced the strength of hydrogen bonds in the cellulosic network," said Gnanakaran. It was as if the bailing wire in the bound chicken-wire analogy had been removed and replaced more loosely with thread. This, in turn, significantly reduced the tightness of the cellulose network and left it more vulnerable to conversion into sugar by fungi-derived cellulolytic enzymes.
The end result is a potentially less costly and less energy intensive pretreatment regimen that makes the cellulose five times easier to attack.
"This work helps address some of the potential cost barriers related to using biomass for biofuels," Gnanakaran said.
In addition to LANL, the GLBRC, and Michigan State University, the paper included collaborators from American University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin.
The LANL work is funded in part by the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development Program. Computing resources used in the research are housed at Los Alamos and provided under LANL institutional computing.MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski slammed Republicans for celebrating the House passage of their healthcare reform bill, saying Friday it "felt like a ribbon cutting to a golf course."
Brzezinski's sentiment was shared by advertising executive and frequent "Morning Joe" guest Donny Deutsch, who called the optics of the Rose Garden ceremony following the House vote "a billionaire surrounded by a lot of millionaires."
“They are all middle aged and older white guys," said Deutsch, 59. "And they are all going to be facing constituents next year who are going to tell them stories about how they voted to gut their health care to give the richest 1 percent in their district tax breaks."
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Co-host Joe Scarborough agreed, referencing House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) assertion that the new law — if passed in the Senate and signed by President Trump — will make Republican lawmakers "glow in the dark" with radioactive toxicity from their support of it.
"I know some of my Republican friends will say, 'Gee, Joe, you're being tough on your party.' I’m not being tough," Scarborough said.
"This is simple. Nancy Pelosi was right yesterday — this is going to glow on them for a long time to come."
“There’s no moral compass," Deutsch added later in the segment. "There’s no political compass. There’s disabled children who will be losing their benefits in school. And what are we looking at? A bunch of fat, middle-aged, rich white guys."
Brzezinski noted "there is a woman in there [the Rose Garden]. She has her head down, though."
"That’s your ad. That’s your ad going forward," Deutsch said.
"She doesn’t look too happy," Brzezinski added.AAP's Kumar Vishwas plans to challenge the Congress party from Amethi, the Gandhi family's bastion in Uttar Pradesh.
© Thomson Reuters 2014
The Aam Aadmi Party's Kumar Vishwas, who plans to challenge the Congress party from the Gandhi family's bastion in Uttar Pradesh, said it would be unfortunate if Rahul Gandhi became India's prime minister.Vishwas's remarks came as Gandhi suggested in a rare interview published on Tuesday in the Dainik Bhaskar that he was ready to be prime minister if the Congress returns to power in the 2014 general election due by May. ( Rahul Gandhi's strongest hint yet that he will accept PM nomination) "I don't think that India has the misfortune of him (Rahul Gandhi) ever becoming prime minister," Vishwas said in a telephone interview from Amethi district. "The direction in which the country is headed right now... things will only get worse (if Gandhi becomes PM)."The poet-turned-politician is likely to contest from Amethi, a constituency from where Gandhi has won the last two parliamentary elections. An official announcement by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is a formality, Vishwas said. (Challenge Rahul Gandhi to a debate in Amethi: AAP's Kumar Vishwas to NDTV) "People who have made it this far on the basis of their family name... how can they lead this country?" he said.Amethi has been a stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty with Gandhi's parents (Rajiv and Sonia) and uncle (Sanjay) having represented the seat in parliament. "This is a prince-versus-pauper battle... my fight is not against Rahul Gandhi, it is against this dynasty rule," the 43-year-old Vishwas said.Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, or "common man party", is planning to contest national polls this year, riding on an anti-corruption wave that helped them form a government in the capital city of New Delhi after Gandhi's party threw its support behind AAP.Despite the AAP's success in the capital, opinion polls say that the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi might displace the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2014. A slowing economy, rising food prices and corruption scandals have hurt the ruling coalition's reputation.The AAP, which is working on its national manifesto, on Monday overturned the previous Congress government's decision to allow foreign investment in Delhi's retail sector, a move that could dampen investor sentiment and hurt the UPA's efforts to revive the economy.Vishwas said that the AAP's decision on foreign investment was specific to Delhi, and a national view would emerge only after seeking public opinion."We are not against capitalism, but are against crony capitalism. The nexus between bureaucracy, politicians and capitalists should be broken," he said, referring to the party's policies.Game development pipeline: If you are new to game development, you may be wondering where a game idea comes from, and how is it possible to transform this idea into a real game. Let’s answer these questions, and see how to develop a game from concept to the store.
Game development pipeline: The game concept
We had this great idea, and now what? Now it’s time write down the idea and start to think about how we can shape that idea and make it into a game.
The original concept is just a game idea from where to start building the game. This can be one example of an idea: “Make a game about colour matching”. As you can see, on this phase we didn’t find any game play, story, character etc etc. But we simply defined a phrase that describes the essence of the game.
For example, for our game DagAdvenures. We defined this idea: “A 2d platform game, with a fantasy and funny theme” that’s all. We had the base concept of how our game was going to be, no more no less.
Once you wrote down the concept you can also define:
The market. The audience. The platforms where to publish the game. The competitor.
Pre production paese
Ok you had your game idea, now is time to define all the details and came out with a solid “game concept”.
This is the case where you start to define the following points:
Define te story.
Create timelines.
Storyboards.
Create a paper prototipe of your game.
Level Design.
Gameplay mechanics.
Costs of the game (making and maintenance).
Create a game design document.
This phase of the game development pipeline is where your game start to have a shape. During the pre production phase, you define all the details of the game. It’s the most important phase and so try to put a lot of thoughts in this phase. If you are an indie team with no resources besides time, think really careful of what you can do based on the resources that you have.
Most of the time, people come with great ideas but often, these ideas are too big to develop for an indie team. Think carefully if you have the resources to develop your great ideas, otherwise, it’s better to do something small but at least be sure to complete it.
Often on this phase you’re going to create a really quick game prototype, just to be sure that your game concept idea is going to work well.
At the end of this phase, it’s also important to know that your game is fun. Otherwise no one will play it and so, no one will buy it.
The production phase
On the pre production phase of the game development pipeline, we have defined every aspect of the game. Now it’s time to bring it to life. Here is where the designer, engineers, producers and basically all the members of the team will work together to bring the game to life.
It’s important to understand that making changes in this phase will cost a lot in terms of time and money to invest. Usually if something is wrong in your game, it’s much better to find it out in the pre-production phase, that’s why we build a prototype of the game.
The producers will work with the rest of the team to make sure that everyone is on the same page and that the schedule that they have created can be followed by the engineers, designers, artists, etc.
This is also the phase where you start to do marketing. You’ll probably have a lot of content to show and you want the world to know about it.
At the end of the production phase your team should have an Alpha version of the game. Now it’s time to do some internal testing and fixing all the main bugs until we have a stable and fully featured product.
After the testing of the Alpha, we’ll call it a beta version. At this phase the game is usually shipped to a large number of testers and we’ll listen to their feedback and fix all minor bugs that they report. At the end of this phase we should have a beta version of the game, which is: stable, fully featured and bugs free.
The only thing left to do is to ship the game to the store and hope to make some money.
The post production phase
Now is the time to get your game to an audience as large as possible. The marketing team continue to work hard to get the game covered by magazines, blogs, youtubers etc etc.
This is also the phase where the developer will continue to improve the game in case new bugs will come out. Developers can also add new features to expand the game in order to increase the retention of the game.
Game development pipeline conclusion
All the phases are important but remember that costs of changes during the development phase is really high. So really spend all the time that you need on the pre production, and be sure that all the features that you want can be developed on schedule. Check twice before going to production, because at that point, the game is defined and making changes is really difficult.Every Memorial Day we hear much moaning and groaning from Republicans, about how much they loved our fallen heroes and how Democrats do not support our troops. In fact, most support for our troops has come from Democrats, while Republicans have only supported them insofar as they are useful as cannon fodder for Republican wars for oil and conquest.
Speaker John Boehner spent his Memorial Day weekend at a funeral for an Ohio solider killed in Afghanistan, solemnly attending the services and weeping at the end, during the playing of taps.
Boehner’s respect for the military sacrifice is admirable. Unfortunately, his apparent feelings are not borne out by his voting record. In recent years, Boehner’s Republican caucus in the House of Representatives has taken several votes this year that are substantive insults to veterans and active duty members of the military. The GOP has long enjoyed voters’ trust as the political party most likely to defend the armed services—but the facts tell a different story…
…Accordingly, lawmakers offered a wide range of bills to assist recent veterans—and Republicans opposed nearly all of them…
…Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) … offered a measure that would offer emergency mortgage relief for members of the armed services. Republicans killed the bill on a party-line vote.
In February, Republicans passed a budget bill that slashed $75 million that would have funded housing vouchers for homeless veterans…
…Even before they were in the majority, Republicans often voted against seemingly simple measures to help out members of the armed services over-stressed by nearly a decade of war.
In June 2009, a vast majority of Republicans voted against providing extra money to active duty members of the military subject to “stop-loss” orders—those who had their enlistments involuntarily extended…
…Republicans also initially opposed a new GI bill to provide a four-year college education to those who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan…
…At the height of the economic crisis, there was a bill in Congress that would have given a tax credit to businesses that hired unemployed veterans, as well as provide a $250 economic relief payment for any disabled veterans who would no doubt have an even harder time finding work amidst a wide recession. Republicans uniformly opposed the bill…
…Republicans have, alas, been voting without emotion when it comes to members of the military. If Boehner can perhaps impart some of his deeply felt sentiment to members of his caucus, next Memorial Day could be less grim for many service members struggling in a difficult economy.May 6, 2014 by JOHN SUMMERLY Pepsi and Coca-Cola Used As Pesticide In India Because They're Cheap and Get The Job Done
Besides being an effective poison to the human metabolism, it seems Pepsi and Coca-Cola have another popular function in other parts of the world. One of India’s leading voluntary agencies, the Center for Science and Environment (CSE) said that soft drinks manufactured in India, including those carrying the Pepsi and Coca-Cola brand names, contain unacceptably high levels of pesticide residues and consequently many farmers have used the beverages to combat pests because of low costs compared to conventional pesticide brands.
It's cheaper and easier to buy Coke in some third world countries than it is to access clean water. Coke uses "public relations propaganda" to convince consumers and entire nations that it is an "environmental company" when really it is linked to pollution, water shortages, and disease.
Coke has been tested in many cleaning scenarios and can even compare to high strength brands to clean everything from oil stains, tile grout and even strip paint off furniture.
In 2003, the CSE analyzed samples from 12 major soft drink manufacturers that are sold in and around the capital at its laboratories and found that all of them contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides--lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos.
"In all the samples tested, the levels of pesticide residue far exceeded the maximum permissible total pesticide limit of 0.0005 mg per liter in water used as food, set down by the European Economic Commission (EEC)," said Sunita Narain, director of the CSE at a press conference convened to announce the findings.
The level of chlorpyrifos was 42 times higher than EEC norms, their study showed. Malathion residues were 87 times higher and lindane- banned in the United States-21 times higher, CSE scientists said.
They added that each sample was toxic enough to cause long-term cancer, damage to the nervous and reproductive systems, birth defects, and severe disruption of the immune system. Samples from brand leaders Coca-Cola and Pepsi had almost similar concentrations of pesticide residues in the CSE findings. Contaminants in Pepsi samples were 37 times higher than the EEC limit while its rival Coca-Cola exceeded the norms by 45 times, the same findings showed.
The chiefs of the Indian subsidiaries of Coca-Cola and Pepsi were quick to refute the charges. Sanjeev Gupta, president of Coca-Cola India, called the revelations made by CSE "unfair" and said his company was being subjected to a "trial by media".
Cheaper
Farmers in the Durg, Rajnandgaon and Dhamtari districts of Chhattisgarh say they have successfully used Pepsi and Coke to protect their rice plantations against pests.
It is a trend that has been seen in other parts of India, with farmers also using Indian brands of colas. The practice of using soft drinks in lieu of pesticides, which are 10 times more expensive, gained so much popularity that sales of the drinks increased drastically in remote villages.
Farmers say the use of pesticides costs them 70 rupees ($1.50) an acre. By comparison, if they mix a bottle of Pepsi or Coke with water and spray it on the crop it costs 55-60 rupees less per acre. Old Practice
Agricultural specialist Devendra Sharma says farmers are mistaken in thinking that the drinks are the same as pesticides. He says the drinks are effectively sugar syrups and when they are poured on crops they attract ants which in turn feed on the larva of insects.
Mr Sharma says using sugar syrup for pest control is not a new practice. "Jaggery made from sugar cane has been used commonly for pest control on many occasions. Pepsi and Coca-Cola are being used to achieve the same result," he says. Fellow scientist, Sanket Thakur, has a different explanation: "All that is happening is that plants get a direct supply of carbohydrates and sugar which in turn boosts the plants' immunity and the plantation on the whole ends up yielding a better crop."
Coke in the United States contains high fructose corn syrup which may even prove to be a more effective pesticide since it is a concentrated cocktail of the simple sugars fructose and glucose.
Anupam Verma, Pepsi sales manager at the time in Chhattisgarh, said sales figures in rural areas of the state increased by 20%.
Not Only Cola, But Water Is The Problem
CSE scientists H. B. Mathur and Sapna Johnson said their basic inference was that, as with the bottled mineral water, the soft drink manufacturers were drawing their water supplies from groundwater that is heavily contaminated by years of indiscriminate pesticide use.
High pesticide residues were reported in groundwater around Delhi at the time when the government's Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) carried out a study which also reported excessive salinity, nitrate and fluoride content besides traces of lead, cadmium and chromium.
Significantly, the CSE laboratories tested samples of soft drink brands popularly sold in the United States as control--and found that they did not contain any pesticide residue. Although more than 95% of all soft drink brands in the United States are made with municipal water supplies containing all of the same toxins and pharmaceuticals in our drinking water including fluoride, arsenic, chlorine, atenolol, atrazine, carbamazepine, estrone, gemfibrozil, sulfamethoxazole, and trimethoprim.
CSE found that the regulations for the powerful and massive soft drinks industry are much weaker, indeed non-existent, as compared to those for the bottled water industry. The norms that exist to regulate the quality of cold drinks are inadequate, leaving this "food" sector virtually unregulated.
So pampered is the lucrative soft drink sector that it is exempted from the provisions of industrial licensing under the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951.
Sources:
bbc.co.uk
ipsnews.net
John Summerly is nutritionist, herbologist, and homeopathic practitioner. He is a leader in the natural health community and consults athletes, executives and most of all parents of children on the benefits of complementary therapies for health and prevention.
The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind The World's Favorite Soft Drink Revealed
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Reference SourcesThe Bug Out Bag is an essential component of a prepper’s arsenal. However, it is often unfeasible to carry one around with us as part of our daily routines. Although a good Bug Out Bag contains a great amount of necessities needed to survive in an apocalypse, it is also important to be prepared for non-catastropihic situations as well.
Enter the Get Home Bag – the Bug Out Bag’s little brother.
The Get Home Bag is just that – a bag to get you home. Its intent is to provide supplies needed to walk safely from a relatively nearby location, such as your workplace or your car, to your home.
Why do I need a Get Home Bag?
Emergency Preparedness. Unforseen circumstances can impede our normal routines, and being ready to flee on foot if necessary is always a good idea. For example, you may find yourself needing to leave your location suddenly, whether it’s due to a snowstorm, flood, or a broken down car. Having a Get Home Bag with you will ensure you will be prepared for a potentially long trek. Everyday Preparedness. A Get Home Bag can be for more than just getting home during an emergency. I use my Get Home Bag for everyday needs as well, such as keeping medication on hand, having a snack around if I’m hungry, or having an extra pair of gloves in case a cold front comes through. There are tons of possibilities, and putting together a bag to match your needs is part of the fun!
The Bag
The bag I chose is a tactical bag. I chose this because it allows for molle attachments, has a variety of pockets and compartments, and doesn’t draw too much attention with its dark color. It’s a medium sized bag, so although it doesn’t fit a massive amount of gear, it’s still spacious and can be carried for a long distance easily.
Almost any backpack or bookbag can become a Get Home Bag. It should be big enough to hold the neccessities, yet small enough to carry comfortably for a few hours. Ideally, it should also be water-resistant. Keep in mind, you may find yourself having to walk for a while if you ever have to use it. A good rule of thumb for Get Home Bag weight is about 20 pounds, give or take, depending on your size and strength.
Supplies
These are the supplies I have in my Get Home Bag, broken out into categories by function.
Water
Hydration will be crucial for your walk home, especially if it’s hot out or you are walking home from far away.
Water bottle
Water filtration straw
Having more than one method of water procurement is highly encouraged |
best bet, even if they bring with them a longer commute and rising home prices.
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— Philip H. Devoe is a Collegiate Network Fellow with National Review.Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a complicated but very fulfilling card game. With this set you have enough cards to play with just 2 players that are working cooperatively to battle the horrors that are abound around the town of Arkham. The setup is pretty deep and sorting out the cards takes a little bit of work and thought but once you get to that point it's all downhill from there.
You can either create a couple decks that are already designed and written in the instruction manual for an easy play or once you get more accustomed to how to play you can create your own decks. However I will say that this set does not come with much variety of cards to create your own decks, you will want to pick up one of the MANY expansion decks to really delve deep into creating your own decks.
I really love how you can play through a story campaign with your deck and the effects of what happened to your character and some of the loot you pick up carries over. One section of a story campaign can take as long as a couple hours depending on how well you do so to get through the entire campaign scenario would be a multiple night adventure. What's even more awesome is there are sooooo many campaign expansions and card expansions that can be bought that this is a very good investment for a long term game.
The one downside that I give this (and honestly any Fantasy Flight game for that matter) is the box and packaging. I cannot stress enough that if there is one single thing that Fantasy Flight needs to work on, it's their packaging. Once you get all the tokens punched out and the cards opened there is literally no good way to put them back in this box that comes with a single insert. The cards will go all over the place and mix in with the many tokens, a huge mess. My advice is to go out and buy some smaller plastic bags to individually store the pieces and cards. Considering that you will end up re-using the same deck to play through multiple campaigns, it would have been prudent for the packaging to have at least some sort of plastic insert for storage of a couple decks.
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This is an article that I MUST write about. If I don't write this article than I have no right to ever write another. The reason is because the most despicable and damaging piece of legislation ever passed was passed in the Senate late last night without hardly a whimper in the morning from the American mainstream press. Under the cover of darkness, the United States Senate virtually declared war on the people of this nation by passing the darkest piece of legislation ever passed in America.
If the House of Representatives passes its version and the President then puts his signature on it and turning it into law, almost every right under the Bill of Rights will be stripped away from the people of the United States. This will be the final nail in the coffin of democracy in America. We will become a military police state and cease to be a democracy or a representative republic or whatever else it has been called. According to the definition under this amendment to the military appropriations bill, the nation will become a part of a world-wide "battle zone"." If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations and indefinite detainment without people ever being charged with a crime. It will cause the torture of Americans and even the "legitimate assassination" of U.S. citizens overseas and also right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of this looming police state we've been morphing into, the police state that so many have warning about, I sincerely hope that most of you realize that we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you will be living in a different kind of America, one that no longer guarantees certain inalienable rights. Americans will have no rights whatsoever in America -- no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent or to be tried by a jury of your peers. You will only have the right to a military tribunal with a military judge and a military lawyer. In other words, Americans will be afforded the same rights as an enemy combatant in the "battlefield" of America.
Some of you may be wondering why you haven't been told about this by the major news networks? That is a legitimate question. The information about this bill, S.1867, is conflicting. According to "Wired"
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"Here's the best thing that can be said about the new detention powers the Senate has tucked into next year's defense bill: They don't force the military to detain American citizens indefinitely without a trial. They just let the military do that. And even though the leaders of the military and the spy community have said they want no such power, the Senate is poised to pass its bill as early as tonight. There are still changes swirling around the Senate, but this looks like the basic shape of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Someone the government says is "a member of, or part of, al-Qaida or an associated force" can be held in military custody "without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Those hostilities are currently scheduled to end the Wednesday after never. The move would shut down criminal trials for terror suspects".
The language of the bill is ambiguous. Also from "Wired" " So despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a right to trial, the Senate bill would let the government lock up any citizen it swears is a terrorist, without the burden of proving its case to an independent judge, and for the lifespan of an amorphous war that conceivably will never end. And because the Senate is using the bill that authorizes funding for the military as its vehicle for this dramatic constitutional claim, it's pretty likely to pass."
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus both say that they are opposed to the bill. Why then is it being written into the Defense Budget that is very likely to pass? Who is behind this most brazen attack on the rights of Americans in history? Senator Carl Levin is the architect of this bill but the two men that are really behind this savaging of American's basic rights are Senators John McCain and Senator Lindsay Graham along with Joe Liebermann according to InfoWar's Alex Jones. Levin defends the bill by claiming that "The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States." Still, while the bill would not force the government to try American citizens by military tribunal, it nevertheless would allow them to do so.
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Civil libertarians aren't so sure. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said it "denigrates the very foundations of this country." Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) added, "it puts every single American citizen at risk."Updated 00.52
THE CABINET HAS reached agreement on abortion legislation following a two-part meeting today.
Publishing the Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013 tonight, Government said that it had agreed to refer the General Scheme of the Bill to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children and to request that it should review the Scheme and report on its deliberations to the Minister for Health, adding:
It will provide legal clarity for the medical profession of the circumstances where a medical termination is permissible where there is a real and substantial risk to the life, as distinct from the health, of a woman as a result of a pregnancy.
Anyone who carries out an abortion outside of the terms permitted in the bill faces up to 14 years in jail. Sections of the 1861 act, which provided for life imprisonment for doctor who performs an “intentional miscarriage”, has been repealed.
The bill also provides a definition for the “unborn” as follows:
“unborn” as it relates to human life means following implantation until such time as it has completely proceeded in a living state from the body of the woman.
The bill states that “it shall be an offence for a person to do any act with the intent to destroy unborn human life.”
Risk of loss of life from physical illness, not being a risk of self destruction
This section states that “it is not an offence to carry out a medical procedure…in the course of which or as a result of which unborn human life is ended”. There are caveats, however:
The procedure must be carried out by a registered medical practitioner (“in the form and manner prescribed by the Minister”) at an appropriate location
(“in the form and manner prescribed by the Minister”) at an appropriate location Two medical practitioners (one of which is an obstetrician/gynaecologist), have, in accordance with this head, jointly certified in good faith that – (i) there is a real and substantial risk of loss of the pregnant woman’s life other than by way of self-destruction, and (ii) in their reasonable opinion this risk can be averted only by that medical procedure.
The bill also says at least one of the two medical practitioners should consult with the pregnant woman’s general practitioner where practicable.
Risk of loss of life from physical illness in a medical emergency
This section states that “it is not an offence to carry out a medical procedure…in the course of which or as a result of which unborn human life is ended”. There are caveats, however:
The procedure must be carried out by a medical practitioner
He or she in good faith believes that there is an immediate risk of loss of the pregnant woman’s life other than by way of self-destruction, and
, and The medical procedure is, in his or her reasonable opinion, immediately necessary to save the life of the woman.
Risk of loss of life from self-destruction
This section states that “it is not an offence to carry out a medical procedure…in the course of which or as a result of which unborn human life is ended”. There are caveats, however:
The procedure must be carried out by a registered medical practitioner at an appropriate location
at an appropriate location One obstetrician/gynaecologist, who must be employed at that location, and two psychiatrists, both of whom shall be employed at a centre which is registered by the Mental Health Commission, and one of whom shall be attached to an institution where such a procedure is carried out, have jointly certified in good faith that – (i) there is a real and substantial risk of loss of the pregnant woman’s life by way of self-destruction, and (ii) in their reasonable opinion this risk can be averted only by that medical procedure.
This section also states that at least one of the three medical practitioners should consult with the woman’s GP where possible.
It also states that where the three medical practitioners jointly come to a decision, the certifying obstetrician/gynaecologist shall forward the certificate at the “appropriate location” and shall make arrangements for the carrying out of the procedure at that location.
It also says:
It will always be a matter for the patient to decide if she wishes to proceed with a termination following a decision that it is permissible under this Act.
Formal Medical Review Procedures
The bill states that “a pregnant woman or a person on her behalf with her consent” can appeal a decision by “writing to the HSE in the form and manner prescribed by the Minister to have her case reviewed if she has consulted a medical practitioner”.
The panel that will hear this appeal shall consist of medical practitioners and be of a “sufficient size and composition for the purposes”.
A qualified person should, within seven days of receiving the written application, “establish and convene a committee drawn from the panel established”.
No more than seven days after this, “the committee shall review the case and shall form an opinion in good faith as to whether or not there is a real and substantial risk of loss of life of the pregnant woman that can only be averted by a termination of her pregnancy.”
The person who made the application will then be notified of the decision.
Should a medical practitioner fail to appear before the committee, they may be found guilty “of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a class C fine (not exceeding €2,500).”
Review where risk arises from physical illness, not being a risk of self destruction
In this specific case, the appeal committee will consist of an obstetrician/gynaecologist who must be employed at an appropriate location and one medical practitioner who is registered on the Specialist Division.
The seven days for convening, as well as a further seven days for a decision, as well as the manner in which the decision is made known, remains the same as per the general appeal procedures outlined above.
Review in case of risk of loss of life through self-destruction
In this specific case, the appeal committee will consist of an obstetrician/gynaecologist who must be employed at an appropriate location and two medical practitioners who are registered on the Specialist Division.
The seven days for convening, as well as a further seven days for a decision, as well as the manner in which the decision is made known, remains the same as per the general appeal procedures outlined above.
Formal medical review reports to Minister
The bill states that the “Executive shall in each year, at such times and in such manner as the Minister may determine, provide the Minister with a general report on applications made during the previous year” indicating:
the total number of applications received
the number of reviews carried out
in the case of reviews carried out, the reason why the review was sought
the outcome of the review and
any other information specified by the Minister
Other
Under the heading of “Notifications”, the bill says that “The Freedom of Information Act 1997 shall not apply to any record under this head.”
The bill also states that it does “not operate to restrict any person from travelling to another state on the ground that his or her intended conduct there would, if occurred in the State, constitute an offence under head 19 of this Act.”
Oireachtas Health Committee
The Heads of Bill will now be examined by the Oireachtas Health Committee, which is likely to seek the input of more medical and legal experts.
Committee chairman Jerry Buttimer said this evening that the committee would meet on Thursday to discuss its timetable for this second round of hearings.
Reaction
The Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) tonight welcomed the publication of heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill. Its CEO, Niall Behan, said that its legal team would “now consider the heads of the bill and will consider the proposed legislation in detail when the full bill is published.”
Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said that the heads of the bill needed to be “considered very carefully”, adding that “we should now proceed calmly and reasonably, based on the wording as published.”A Confederate flag flies at mile marker 134 on Interstate 95 in Virginia, raised by the Virginia Flaggers “to honor the 246,000 Confederate soldiers who fought in separate battles in the Fredericksburg vicinity during the Civil War,” according to Fox News.
They see the flag as a symbol of “pride, not racism.”
However, they are being countered by the NAACP, which says the flag does symbolize “racism, oppression… [and] reminds people of slavery.”
Virginia Flaggers’ Barry Isenhour told The Washington Post that “he doesn’t think of the flag as a symbol of a fight to preserve slavery because” he doesn’t think the Civil War was over slavery to begin with. Rather, Isenhour said the Confederates were fighting against “Northern aggression.”
Stafford County spokeswoman Cathy Vollbrecht said there have been numerous “complaints and inquiries” about the flag, but there are no plans to take it down. She said her office determined that “no laws have been violated.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at [email protected] of San Francisco, a Jesuit school, no less, is presenting a lecture event on June 2, that will feature Aarab Barghouti as the guest speaker. Marwan, his father, is currently serving five life sentences in prison in Israel for specific murders, but bears responsibility for the murders of over 100 men, women and children in terrorist attacks in the Jewish state, some of them U.S. citizens.
“Only Israeli propaganda presents him as a terrorist," Aarab, the terrorist murderer's youngest son, is quoted as saying. "Nelson Mandela was also portrayed as a terrorist. He spent 27 years in prison. And then he became a hero and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. My father is a terrorist exactly like Nelson Mandela. To the Israelis I want to say: If you admire Mandela, you should know that my father is repeating Mandela’s story. And if you do not esteem Mandela, I don’t care what you think. I am certain that one day the Israelis will reach the conclusion that the only solution is peace, and you will never have another partner like him. One day, the Israelis will see who Marwan Barghouti is.”
Marwan, Aarab’s father organized a hunger strike of Palestinian terrorist prisoners that just ended. Barghouti was filmed on a hidden camera eating food after he urged his fellow killers to continue to starve themselves. The strikers were demanding "necessities" like more cable TV channels, unlimited access to cell phones and increased visitation, plus free enrollment and courses for Master’s Degrees and PhD’s that Israeli taxpayers would cover. Ending the strike after he was caught on hidden camera surreptitiously eating in the bathroom, Barghouti - who was not allowed to attend the meeting with prison officials - and his acolytes were given only a renewal of the one extra visit per month by family that had been paid for by the Red Cross and will now be paid for by the Palestinian Authority.
No demands of Israel or the Israeli prison system were met.
Barghouti’s son would have University of San Francisco bands of youthful useful idiots believe that his father is another Nelson Mandela who is being politically persecuted. USF might just as easily stage a tribute to Charles Manson. Manson, however, didn’t murder as many people though he also murdered a pregnant American woman.
The “Palestinian revolution” hopes to deceive American audiences into thinking that Palestinian Arab terrorists are fighting an apartheid perpetrated by the Jews in Israel, but which is entirely a figment of their imaginatiion.. In fact, the case is just the opposite; Twenty-one per cent of Israeli citizens are Arabs who have the same civil rights as Jews by law. These Arabs have the right to vote, including equal rights for women, and Israel has Arab soldiers, doctors, policemen, judges, diplomats, college professors - you name it. This is the case within the pre-1967 Armistice Lines. That leaves the Palestinian Arabs in Areas A and B (A, B, C are Oslo Accord delineations) of Judea and Samaria who are governed by the Palestinian Authority and not by Israel, while a small number who live in Area C, governed by Israel, would be granted Israeli citizenship if they agreed to accept it.
In contrast, Palestinian Authority leaders all say absolutely no Jews may live in a Palestinian state if one is established, the same as in other Arab states. That’s the reality. That's apartheid.
It is an abomination that America’s centers of learning insist on allowing the Palestinian terrorist movement to brainwash the student bodies with such a fallacious lie.
Mandela did fight a genuine apartheid system, Barghouti sought to perpetuate the Arab Muslim pogroms against Middle Eastern Jews. It is little more than encouraging the goals of a police-state-in-the -making among college-aged millennials. This is part of a well-laid plan enlisting Jewish “front groups” like Jewish Voice for Peace that ultimately voice their support and give standing ovations to Jew-killers like Aarab’s father.
The number of “political prisoners” that Aarab Barghouti and his acolytes are demanding be released is put by them at 1,500. That’s the number of terrorists with blood on their hands. Less than 900 actually went on hunger strike with Aarab’s father. These are hardcore terrorists who murdered Israelis and Americans and were tried in courts of law for killing both Jews and non-Jews, pregnant women and children. Murder is deemed a political act by this crowd and that fuzzy logic is accepted by a state-sponsored educational institution as “academic freedom” to be promulgated among the campus community.
Although founded as a Jesuit university to promote education, USF has featured BDS speakers in the past. It seems good Catholics don’t mind starving out the Jews if Arab irredentists tell them it’s for a good cause.
The younger Barghouti is presenting a “saltwater challenge” where supporters of his murderous father can drink saltwater to symbolize the only sustenance the Palestinian terrorists engaging in the hunger strike were allegedly taking. (When Barghouti was filmed eating candy we can suppose it was merely to wash the salt taste from his mouth.)
Aarab Barghouti tugs at heartstrings when talking about what a man of peace his father is. He will urge his audience to drink saltwater with him to support his noble father, the Arab “man of peace” who murders women and children.
His father wants a “peace” where Jews no longer have a Jewish state next to an Arab one, he wants one state where Arabs march over the graves of dead Jews. Thank the Palestinian movement for poisoning academia that once was a source of enlightenment, turning it into a stage for deception by Jew-killers. Sadly, American college administrators are too weak-kneed to do anything about it.
Lee Kaplan heads Stop the ISM. He is an investigative journalist and contributor to Front Page Magazine, senior intelligence analyst and communications director for the Northeast Intelligence Network, and also heads Defending America for Knowledge and Action (DAFKA).“Trump tweeted out the gif and received widespread condemnation from the mainstream media.
“Something remarkable I thought happened yesterday, I thought it was remarkable that CNN found the Reddit user who created the gif of Donald Trump and the wrestling video and where he punches CNN, so the investigative team went back and found the guy who first created this he took credit for it, and then here comes the remarkable part, he apologized. He apologized for having done this,” Camerota said.
“This is a very full-throated I think genuine honest apology. He has also asked we not reveal his name or whereabouts and we at CNN are honoring that,” the co-host also said.
“Notably, CNN decided not to reveal the identity of the Reddit user, HanAssholeSolo, if he issued an apology and promised not to continue publishing racist material. Some political commenters are calling the move by the CNN investigative team extortion. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Dave Rubin’s accusation that CNN extorted a private citizen for legal behavior.
“Don’t make a gif or CNN will tell on you!” Rubin tweeted.Church and state: The issue of Prop. 8
Proposition 8 has passed, denying to some the right enjoyed by other citizens in California, the right to marry. Now, the central question for the courts to decide is: Are gays in California equal, or can members of certain churches declare them constitutionally inferior?
The approval of a constitutional ban on gay marriage raises troubling but age-old issues concerning the lines between religion and government. Before the founders of our country separated church and state, there were hundreds of years of turmoil caused by one religion dominating the government and using it against nonbelievers.
In the aftermath of Tuesday's vote, do gays and lesbians in California have a reason to believe that they have been abused, discriminated against and relegated to a separate-but-equal status?
Yes, and that's why this fight is far from over. There will be a challenge under the U.S. Constitution. In the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a California constitutional amendment that limited fair housing on the grounds that prejudice could not be put into a state Constitution.
No one can forecast the outcome of this next fight, but there is bound to be some fallout that may harm those religions that so vehemently insisted that their beliefs be placed in the California Constitution. All religions require tolerance to flourish, but in Proposition 8 some religious groups aimed at and wounded gay people in California.
The drafters of the U.S. Constitution had a brilliant, experienced view concerning the importance of drawing the lines to protect religion on the one hand and civil government on the other. They put those lines in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today, those lines are very relevant.
Government may not attack religion. Californians who have religious beliefs concerning the proper scope of marriage may exercise those rights as they see fit. Churches have always been able to proceed as they wish concerning marriage ceremonies. There was no mandate to suppress religious beliefs. This should be obvious to everyone in California because of our tolerance of all religions.
That the supporters of Proposition 8 were motivated by religious beliefs cannot be denied. Now the religious beliefs of some Californians are in our Constitution and, until overturned, govern us all whether we like it or not.
The other branch of the First Amendment is equally important. The state may not establish a religion. The state may not take principles of religious belief from a religion, any religion, and establish it as the law applicable to all. This line establishing the double branch of protection of religion on the one hand and no establishment on the other was arrived at after hundreds of years of turmoil.
Historically, marriage was used as a method of oppressing a despised group. These lessons of history are relevant to reflect on today. In Ireland, for 150 years, the penal laws provided that no Protestant could marry a Catholic.
Much more recent in the United States were the rules against marriage between a black person and a white person. These were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1960s and the California Supreme Court in the 1940s. Using the civil marriage ceremony as a method of expressing governmental disdain toward a particular group is as old as the Sierra Nevada. It has been an assault on tolerance.
Finally, marriage is a fundamental right in constitutional analysis. There are very few things in life more important than the ability to choose one's partner. Marriage is not just a word; it is a status, a state of mind, a way of being. Look in any direction and you will see examples of the people's respect for the institution of marriage.
A large group of Californians has now been denied that fundamental institution. These folks are our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues and our relatives. The constitutional promise of this state is, as the California Supreme Court held, that they are equally protected in the enjoyment of rights by all Californians. But the voters have spoken.
Now it will be up to the courts to explain whether equality is real - or just an illusion. I would not wish to be the one to justify this vote to a gay woman going to Afghanistan in the military, to a gay police officer who risks everything so we may be safe or any of the other thousands of gays and lesbians in California who contribute so much to our culture, our advancement and our well being.
I cannot square this vote with my view that Californians are decent, accepting and tolerant. But I know that the gays and lesbians of California, like the oppressed Catholics of Ireland who lived under penal laws, will fight this visible, constitutional, embarrassing injustice until it is no more. And when that day comes, we will live in a better state.This post is going to be on 3D fractals cut on a scroll saw. (Thus the title of course.) As some of you know, I'm somewhat addicted to making fractals, so it should be no surprise that a simple technique I learned ended up leading me to produce wooden fractals. Check out the paper craft fractals I've made here, and the worlds largest fractal made out of tortilla chips here,
To start this post, I'll put a couple of quick picture of the types of objects you can achieve with this technique, then I'll tell the whole story of how I started making them, and give a couple of tips, ideas and diagrams for people that want to try making them.
Quick Preview:
Over winter break, I've spent a lot of time using my scroll saw. I started out making Christmas Ornaments; I actually cut 10 different kinds of fretwork ornaments that I found diagrams for on the internet or in various scroll saw books and gave them as presents to all of my family. I probably made about 50 wooden ornaments in total by cutting up to 6 copies at a time.
Here's a small sample of the ornaments I made:
I also decided to try compound cutting 3 dimensional ornaments. This is standard scroll saw technique in which you cut on 2 different faces in order to produce a result. Here are pictures of the two that I made.
After cutting these compound ornaments out, I realized something. I was cutting out 4 different curves by only cutting two curves on each face. 2x2=4 of course... so why not try cutting 3 different curves on each face. This would give 3x3=9 curves. Hmmm... seems like exponential growth that could lead to an efficient method to produce fractal objects. So I started out trying to see what would happen if I cut out T-Square fractals on each of the 3 faces of a 1.5 inch cube that I made by taking a 2x2x48 Oak turning square (remember 2 inches is only 1.5 inches when you're buying most lumber). First I used the 2nd iteration of the T-Square which ends up getting you a cube, with 8 cubes at each corner, and then 7 cubes at each corner of those cubes for a total of 56 little cubes. This would take forever to carve by hand but probably less than an hour to cut using this scroll saw technique. I made the template by taking images from Wikipedia.
Here's a picture:
This one is looking at it so you only see one face letting you see what the diagram to cut it from would look like:
And here is the diagram it was cut from (You would fold along the red lines after scaling this to 3 inches by 3 inches) :
I needed to try to see if I could do iteration 3. This would mean that there would be 7 little cubes on each of the 56 small cubes from iteration 2 for a total of 392 really tiny cubes, some of which are fairly deep down in the structure. I failed on my first try, but succeeded on my second.
Here it is:
From there I decided to try a few ideas.
Here's a 3rd iteration Sierpinski square pyramid made by cutting 3rd iteration Sierpinski's triangles on 2 faces:
Here's a 2nd iteration Moore curve made by cutting 3 different faces using cross sections found from looking at pictures of a 3D Moore curve on Wolfram's mathworld site. Note to make this one you still have to cut a few pieces (10) by hand. But you get over 90% of the work done in an hour with the scroll saw. This is a really cool object. It is one continuous path connecting up the entire cube; a space filling curve.
Here's a fractal I made by making my own fractal tree and cutting it on two faces. Here it is looking at one face:
Now seeing it from a 45 degree angle:
Here's one made by cutting a square made out of quadratic type 1 Koch iteration 3 curves on 3 faces:
Here's another one made by cutting out nested circles on 2 faces and an x on the top. Note if you don't cut out the x on top you will be left with a very different object:
Here's a video of the object so you can see what it looks like when rotating:
A few non fractal objects:
On each of two faces this is five circles inside another circle. Small circles were made using a drill press.
Octagons on 3 faces:
Squares on three faces connected at their vertices instead of their faces (That would give a cube of course.) Here you get a rhombic dodecahedron which makes a fair twelve sided die.
This one is from a template. From one side it is a knight with armor, helmet, and sword:
From the other it is a griffin:
Here's a video showing it rotate:
Now for some tips.
1. You must make sure you're stock is square and when you cut them off you are making cubes with as flat of faces as possible.
2. Use clear tape (I use packing tape) to cover the wood. This makes the cutting easier by lubricating the blade as it cuts through the tape. (I'm really not sure how this works...but it does make a big difference)
3. Just glue the diagrams up to the material to be cut using a spray adhesive.
4. Cut along the lines...always doing any inside cuts first. After each cut is finished, you must put the material back and retape. This is an important step. This is what supports the piece and also what keeps the piece square to the table.
5. After every line is cut on all sides, remove all tape and carefully deconstruct. Somewhere in the middle is the object you want! :)
To create the diagrams, I've been finding images using either google image search or wikipedia. To make good geometrical diagrams, I also use geogebra which is a pretty cool free piece of software. I scale everything in photoshop.The scheme is intended to bridge the divide between rich and poor pupils A scheme to give free laptops to pupils from poor backgrounds is being rolled out to 270,000 families in England. The £300m Home Access scheme, first announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2008, has been piloted in two local areas. It will allow some of the most in need children, those in care and from the poorest homes, to apply for a grant for a free laptop and broadband connection. It aims to help bridge the achievement gap between rich and poor pupils. A recent study from the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggested having a laptop at home could lead to a two grade improvement in one subject at GCSE. Families who are most in need cannot be left behind in the digital revolution we're seeing in education
Ed Balls
Children's Secretary But the free laptop scheme has been a long time coming, with the first hint families would be provided with computers coming from Mr Brown when he was Chancellor back in 1999. This first scheme, which formed part of the Home Computing Initiative, involved firms leasing out free computers to their employees in return to tax breaks. It eventually gained the support of about 60 companies but was wound up after seven years. Under this new scheme, which was due to go nationwide last autumn and was championed by former education minister Jim Knight, the family gets the laptop to keep, but the broadband connection is funded for one year. After that they can decide whether to keep funding the connection themselves. Not all children on free school meals, the government's benchmark for poor children, will get computers, a department spokesman said. 'Backbone' But families with children aged seven to 14 will be able to apply for a grant to buy a computer and broadband connection from an approved stockist. Children in council care and with specific educational needs will be prioritised. Children's Secretary Ed Balls said: "Families who are most in need cannot be left behind in the digital revolution we're seeing in education. "We're leading the world with the way we use technology in learning and we've shown our commitment to this by making ICT the backbone of every lesson in the new primary curriculum. "Because of this, it's absolutely right that we're investing £300 million so children who need the most support have access to the resources they need at home." He said there were educational, economic and social benefits of being online at home that could not be ignored. Computers were no longer a luxury for the few, but are as essential a part of education as books, pens and paper, he added. The announcement comes as new research involving 200 schools and colleges suggested 80% were seeing cuts to their IT budgets. The poll for the technology solutions provider the Stone Group also suggested just 14% of schools offered out of hours technical support to staff.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionMay 18th, 2016
Android: The Glass Teat of the 21st Century
Have you been trying to put your finger on exactly what it is you don’t like about Android and iOS? Maybe this will help.
I’ve finally defined what it is I don’t like about Android — or about any mobile device for that matter. I’ve grappled with this issue for several years, boiling my dislike of Google’s operating system down to “it’s always trying to sell something.” But that wasn’t quite it, and I knew it. The selling thing is a symptom, not the disease, so to speak.
Then, one day last week I finally had my aha! moment and realized precisely what it is I don’t like about mobile devices. I was reading a pretty good article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, his take on the death of computing as many of us know it, when I came across a line that was basically meant as an aside, and suddenly I understood why I don’t like Android or iOS and never will.
“Instead of PCs, we have smartphones, which aren’t really all that smart if you want to do more than consume data.”
With that line came clarity. I could suddenly put my finger on why I can’t understand why my roommate spends hours on her Nexus 7, but hardly ever opens the lid on her really nice laptop. The later might compel her to do something thoughtful, while the former allows her to thoughtlessly while away the hours, which might be why I can’t spend five minutes on a tablet or phone without laying it aside. I bore easily unless I’m actively involved.
Smart phones and tablets are all about passive consumption, which is the same complaint many voiced about television back when the TV set was the dominate in-home technology of the day. In that sense, mobile devices are like television on steroids. They’re used to watch videos on Netflix and YouTube, to peruse social sites, maybe check email and to go on passive shopping trips without even having to get off the couch.
About the only thing that’s created on mobile devices are photographs, which might explain the tendency people have to take pictures of absolutely everything instead of actually enjoying the moment. Don’t believe me? The next time you go to a rock concert, notice how many in the audience are busy taking pictures to post on Facebook instead of enjoying the show.
Back in the days before there was an Internet, I spent about as much time on my computer as I do today, which is a lot. Without |
, hello, Giannis. Good to see you. I’m so glad you’re here.
(I think a big part of the reason people are so drawn to Giannis is that watching him play basketball feels a lot like watching the scene in the movie where a superhero is figuring out his powers. Some players — guys like John Wall or LeBron or Steph — you can watch them do something incredible and you can see the shadow of all of the work that went into whatever specific move they just did. With Giannis, though, he’s just like, “Wait. I CAN CLIMB UP WALLS?!” It’s very charming and astounding.)
NBA.8.7A: The player will be way worse than he is during the regular season.
This is a Kyle Lowry–specific one, and I’m so sad about that. As I write this, Lowry is tied with Jamal Crawford for the worst playoffs shooting percentage among all active players with at least 500 attempts (37.9 percent), and also tied for second-worst from 3 during the playoffs among all active players with at least 200 attempts. He’s a lightning bolt during the regular season (over 46 percent from the field, over 41 from 3), and a … wait for it … waaaaaait … it’s gonna be good … hold on … almost there … nearly there … here it is: a frightening dolt during the playoffs.
Get well soon, Kyle.
An earlier version of this story misstated the year that Lance Stephenson blew in LeBron James’s ear. It was 2014, not 2012. Also, Soulja Boy attended Game 3 of the 2008 series between the Wizards and Cavs, not Game 1 of a 2006 matchup.The announcement of the creation of a capital markets union has led to a flurry of possible harmonisation proposals that could lead to new Action Plans that could preoccupy legislators for years to come. As underlined by Karel Lannoo and his colleagues in this new ECMI Commentary, however, a first step in any new legislative plan should be to set a clear objective, based on a thorough analysis of the reasons for the persistent differences in markets and a prioritisation of initiatives aimed at reaching more integration. Amongst these, they single out an initiative for an EU-wide, long-term savings product as warranting priority attention.
Karel Lannoo is Chief Executive Officer of CEPS, Alan Pollack is CEO of PFA and Ole Stæhr is Executive Advisor at Nordea Wealth Management. This commentary is being published simultaneously in the opinion section of Euro Insight, the European platform of Market News International (https://euroinsight.mni-news.com/posts/capital-markets-union-should-offer-europeans-a-simple-long-term-savings-product-9215).Image copyright AFP Image caption Lebanese soldiers raided a Syrian refugee camp outside the village of Qaa
Lebanon's army has detained more than 100 Syrians for entering the country illegally following a series of suicide bombings in a border village.
The raids took place at informal refugee camps in the Baalbek region.
On Monday, at least eight bombers blew themselves up in the predominantly Christian village of Qaa, killing five people and injuring almost 30 others.
No group has said it was behind the attacks, but suspicion has fallen on jihadist militants from Islamic State.
IS has carried out previous suicide bombings that have killed scores of people in Lebanon.
'Security challenges'
Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) cited an army statement as saying that troops had raided Syrian refugee encampments on Tuesday and arrested 103 Syrians "for not having legal papers". Nine motorbikes were also confiscated.
Troops also searched the Qaa Projects (Masharia Qaa) camp for "wanted individuals", according to an NNA reporter in the area.
Masharia Qaa is located outside the village of Qaa, where the mayor advised residents to stay indoors after Monday's unprecedented attacks.
In the first wave of attacks, four suicide bombers blew themselves up one after the other at dawn outside a house in Qaa.
Five people were killed and another 15 wounded, including four soldiers who went to investigate the first blast.
It was not immediately clear who or what the attackers planned to target, but the house was about 150m (490ft) from a Lebanese customs border point on the road linking the Bekaa valley to the Syrian town of Qusair.
Emotions running high - Carine Torbey, BBC News, Qaa
In the main square of Qaa, a statue of Saint Elias, holding his sword menacingly, stands tall and imposing.
Emotions are running high in the predominantly Christian border town, where anger is mounting towards tens of thousands of Syrian refugees living in makeshift settlements nearby.
The mayor described the residents of these encampments as "ticking bombs".
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Some Qaa residents ignored the village mayor's advice to stay indoors after Monday's attacks
As such, the suicide attacks might have been a turning point in the relationship between the Lebanese and the Syrian refugees there; from annoyance to suspicion and accusation.
The consequences for both groups could be dire.
Many residents believe that ultimately the saint will protect the town. But they are not only counting on God's intervention. People openly carry weapons, from guns to rifles, dangling from their waists or in their grasp.
They are vowing to take security in their own hands.
Soon after nightfall on Monday, 13 other people were wounded when another four assailants opened fire and detonated their explosive vests near the Church of Saint Elias, shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest"), NNA said.
People had reportedly gathered at the church for the funerals of those killed that morning.
The army later issued statements calling on residents not to gather anywhere in the area and requesting that the funerals be postponed until further notice.
Baalbek-Hermel governor Bashir Khodr also imposed a curfew on Syrian refugees living in the village and surrounding areas.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The suicide bombings on Monday evening took place near a church in Qaa
"The security situation today is above all considerations," Mr Khodr told the television channel LBC.
The militant Shia Islamist movement, Hezbollah, blamed the attacks on IS and said it was postponing a religious event in Beirut on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who visited Qaa after Monday morning's attacks, said the border villages formed part of a "fence" for Lebanon. "When a terrorist enters, he can go anywhere," he added.
Mr Bassil, whose Free Patriotic Movement party leads the largest Christian bloc in parliament, called on Sunday for municipalities to ban gatherings or camps of Syrian refugees.
Lebanon has seen repeated attacks linked to the five-year conflict in Syria, where Hezbollah has sent thousands of fighters to support President Bashar al-Assad.This series has quickly become one of our favorites here at Sigstr. And it was only a matter of time before we conjured up a host of funny email signatures for our favorite Harry Potter characters. Considering last night’s premiere of the ninth cinematic installment in the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling, timing couldn’t be more perfect.
It’s been nearly 20 years (next year) since our world was first introduced to the Harry Potter universe. And a decade and a half from the time the “boy who lived,” hit the big screen for the first time. If you’ve been living under a rock for these last 20 years, be advised: Spoilers ahead.
Those we love:
For the characters we loved, we envisioned a life for them post-Deathly Hallows Pt. II.
Harry Potter
Harry was always exceptionally talented at the defense against the dark arts. He rose to the occasion in the era of Dolores Umbridge to teach his peers charms and spells to protect themselves. It seemed only fitting that, after he saved the world, he’d go on to teach the students of Hogwarts. Hopefully his tenure is much, much longer than the average Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Ronald Weasley
The realms most beloved ginger. Now that he is not chasing horcruxes around the world with Harry and Hermione, Ron has had the time to get back into his favorite hobby: wizard’s chess. He’s won two back-to-back world championships since Voldemort kicked the can. The match he is most proud of has been turned into a book, thanks to the help of his uber-successful fiancee, Hermione. (If you forget the life-size version Harry, Hermione & Ron played to retrieve the Sorcerer’s Stone from the grips of Quirinus Quirrell masked as Voldemort, here’s the highlight reel.) Ron has also joined his brother George as the sales manager of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes in Fred’s absence.
Hermione Granger
Hermione has been widely known as the smartest, nerdiest book-worm that’s ever walked the halls of Hogwarts. After the Horcrux hunt ceased, Hermione had plenty of time to put her brilliant brain to good use. Through the use of her time-turner, Hermione was able to discover the science behind the temporal paradox. She reached the breakthrough necessary to make time-travel possible for muggles! And was given the Nobel Prize for her discovery. She wrote a book about her studies, which received a Pulitzer and earned her a spot on the New York Times Bestseller list. And it landed her a gig as a speaker in the TED video series.
Luna Lovegood
Luna has always been the most enigmatic and fortuitous character in the series. Was there any surprise that Luna’s patronus was a bunny rabbit? Outsiders think she’s a bit of a lunatic, but those closest to her know that she is delightfully optimistic and just a bit quirky. Her fascination with the mythical and mysterious earned her a position as the new editor-in-chief of her father’s beloved Quibbler. She is able to write about all the odd conspiracies, imaginary creatures and kooky topics that she likes.
Neville Longbottom
From the time he was a shy, nervous and slightly portly little boy who stood up against his friends to protect the Gryffindor reputation, he’s been a crowd fave. Neville was lovable in his adorable attempts at wizardry as a neophyte, but has transformed into the humble hero. Thanks, mostly to Harry’s teachings in the defense against the dark arts, Neville honed his skills and put them to good use in the Battle of Hogwarts. Neville was honored for serving up the final blow to Voldemort’s horcrux-hosting snake, Nagini. The strike weakened the dark lord, letting Harry halt his reign. It also didn’t hurt when Neville hit puberty. Whoa. Adulthood looks good on him. After the battle, Neville has taken up a career in personal training, helping others snag the same transformation he did.
Those we lost
For the characters that we lost, we gave them funny email signatures tied to how we last saw them.
Dobby
Suffering the hand of the Malfoy family for ages before Harry tricked Lucius Malfoy into freeing the house elf by hiding a sock in a book, Dobby’s declaration of freedom was one of the most heartwarming scenes in a 90s kid’s childhood. His positivity radiates and his unwavering loyalty to Harry Potter – and the entire mission of the Order of the Phoenix – secured him a slot on our top loveables list.
Fred & George Weasley
OK so Fred’s still alive – we know that. But poor George was one of the most unfortunate casualties in the Battle of Hogwarts. We can only imagine considering Fred and George’s relationship that they would share one email. They’re using their email signature to promote their pride and joy: Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Their store boasts a plethora of fun-filled items used to surprise and delight. Best known for their extendable ears, practical joke products that allowed students to eat a lolly and fake sick well enough to skip class, magical fireworks and love potions.
Lord Voldemort
Lord Voldemort sucked – good riddance. We are happy he’s gone. We only included him because we know he would have the most heinous looking email signature. If Voldemort were to have an email signature, he would want it to evoke some kind of horrible and annoying feeling.
Now showing: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the story behind Harry Potter universe. With five films already planned, this is mostly a stand-alone adventure that just happens to be set in the same world. Now that you’ve been prepped with these funny email signatures, we’ll see you at the theater this weekend!European lenders gave a cautious welcome to the election of a new government in Greece yesterday, but warned that a writedown of Greek debt was not on the table.
Less than 24 hours after radical left party Syriza emerged as the clear winner of the Greek elections, the party led by Alexis Tspiras swiftly formed a coalition government with the Independent Greeks party, with the new cabinet expected to be sworn in today. “The simple message is that the time for crisis-denial, retribution and finger-pointing is over,” the likely new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, said yesterday. “The time for the reinvigoration of the ideals of freedom, rationality, democratic process and justice has come in the continent that invented them.”
With Greece’s bailout due to expire next month and Greece facing billions of euro in debt repayments over the coming months, Mr Varoufakis will be tasked with negotiating with the troika on the status of its EU-IMF programme.
EU leaders including Taoiseach Enda Kenny congratulated new Greek prime minister Alexis Tspiras on his appointment, but euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels indicated that a cut to Greece’s nominal debt was not under consideration, though EU sources said a restructuring of Greece’s loans through the extension of loan maturities was likely.
Restructuring
Asked about the implications of any debt restructuring for Ireland, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan pointed out that Ireland had lent €350 million to Greece under its bailout. He added that Ireland had already significantly restructured its own debt, through various mechanisms such as extension of maturities, and the restructuring of IMF loans.
He said that a proposed EU debt conference was “not necessary yet”, pointing out that all bailout negotiations so far had been conducted within the context of the eurogroup. “I don’t think it’s necessary yet. Cyprus and Greece and Portugal and Ireland and Spain – [their bailouts] have all been resolved by negotiations at eurogroup and Ecofin and there’s no suggestion that that model won’t succeed again.”
Retroactive
Mr Kenny congratulated Mr Tsipras. “I wish him and his government all the best in the challenges they face,” he said in a statement, adding that he looked forward to working with him at the European Council.Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt and overcome all technological boundaries. Its inherent characteristics have made it much desired within several industries where data management is of utmost importance.
Fundamental aspects of the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies and assets are causing people to re-imagine and then enact new ways of creating and exchanging value online. Almost every industry is experiencing some form of disruption in terms of how data is managed.
Some of the qualities of the Blockchain that has endeared it to most technological processes include:
Immutability
Information stored on the Blockchain cannot be changed. Therefore, the need for trust or extra verification of authenticity of data stored on the Blockchain is totally eliminated.
Security
The Blockchain is not a centralized system. In essence, information stored on the Blockchain is preserved and protected by all the participating computers across the globe.
Therefore, in order to hack the system, a hacker must break through a majority of the participating computers simultaneously. This is a practically impossible task.
Decentralized control
The Blockchain offers individuals the ability to be able to control their own resources (both tangible and intangible). Since there is no central point of control, every participant on the Blockchain retains power and control over their data.
The peer-to-peer nature of transactions enables parties to transact directly with each other on their own terms. This eliminates middlemen or intermediaries from interfering.
Capacity and speed
Having numerous computers contributing to the network offers more power and storage space on the Blockchain when compared to centralized servers. This enables improved efficiency of processes during transactions and data management.
So many industries are presently experiencing significant changes as Blockchain solutions are continually being introduced to enhance more efficient functions. Some of these industries include:
Voting
Christopher Franko, CEO of Borderless Corporation, tells Cointelegraph that voting is one of the very few use cases that could really benefit from immutable record keeping, and aside from currency and value transactions.
Franko says:
“Globally, there is a huge demand for transparent and honest elections. People are tired of having their politicians selected from them rather than elected. At Borderless Corp, we designed VoteLock as the first immutable and transparent voting booth for open democracies. We believe every vote matters because you matter.”
Franko names such benefits of using Blockchain for storing votes to include:
• Increased accessibility and participation;
• Prevent voter fraud with public accountability;
• Voters rights can be managed instantly and globally;
• Elections are secured electronically with cryptography; and
• Votes are tallied on the fly so recounts are a thing of the past.
Real Estate
According to the CSO of Bitland, Larry Christopher Bates, Blockchain is disrupting the real estate industry, which has remained largely unchanged for the last century. Blockchain is reducing overhead, making transactions quicker, making the job of notarization much easier and increasing the efficiency of real estate transactions.
Bates tells Cointelegraph:
“As the real estate bubble has shown, keeping track of the proper value of land as it is sold is extremely crucial to establishing a market that is resistant to bubbles. When the bids and transactions are made public, there is much less room for prices to become hyper-inflated.”
He also notes that the application of Blockchain in real estate makes it much more difficult for people to use their land to hide money or launder it through buying and selling properties via a proxy seller.
“Overall, Blockchain is making real estate industry more transparent and resistant to another crisis,” Bates concludes.
Attention economy
Content creation and distribution equity have remained under the control of centralized servers managed by corporations like Google. Blockchain startup Synereo has developed WildSpark, a meta-layer for equitable, decentralized content creation and distribution platform.
The co-founder of Synereo, Anderson Mccutcheon, says:
“This addresses the fact that content and its creators are bound by the monetization methods and strict guidelines mandated by a few large mega-corporations.”
Blockchain offers a decentralized environment where creators, curators and content propagators are directly compensated for their participation at various levels.
Remittance
CEO of Netcoins, Michael Vogel, explains how remittance is one of the primary industries being disrupted by Blockchain.
Vogel explains that Western Union, the dominant player in remittance, charges over 10 percent in some cases while Bitcoin-based remittance (even just using Bitcoin behind the scenes, and converting between Bitcoin to fiat currencies) enables the same service to be performed at an ultra-low cost.
He also notes that the use of Blockchain would allow traditional financial institutions, such as banks, to offer remittance services.
Vogel says:
“Traditionally, remittance has offered little in terms of cost/benefit for banks, which is why Western Union tends to receive the bulk of the remittance traffic. Blockchain completely reinvents this business model, and given that $500 bln is remitted annually, it is the first sector in which Blockchain will have a tangible effect on improving the daily lives of people.”
Recruitment and HR
Employers are faced with the challenge of the authenticity of qualifications posted online by applicants when trying to recruit workers.
The immutability of data stored on the Blockchain prevents any form of alteration by applicants seeking employment.
This is an aspect of the Blockchain explored by recruitment companies in matching students seeking part-time jobs with available opportunities in their areas of specialization.
Dror Medalion, the CEO of BitJob, a recruitment company that connects students with part-time jobs, explains:
“Decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces will revolutionize the way students make a living and gain occupational experience while still studying, letting students specialize in jobs relevant to their chosen professions and make a decent living throughout their school career.”
Several other industries are also experiencing Blockchain disruption. They include healthcare, insurance, education, telecommunications, entertainment, among others.
Just like the Internet, it may only be a matter of time before Blockchain encroaches into every part of human existence.Tunnels
Forrestfield-Airport Link will see a new rail line connect the railway east of Bayswater Junction to Forrestfield with 8.5 kilometres of new tracks, 8km of it in tunnels. Trains will enter the tunnels via what is known as a 'dive structure' before resurfacing next to Dundas Road in Forrestfield.
The catalyst for locating the rail service underground was the need to avoid disruption to aviation operations at Perth Airport, while also minimising impact on local residents and businesses. The new tunnels will be the longest in Perth and represent vital infrastructure that will connect the foothills to the suburban rail network.
World experience
Tunnelling is becoming a preferred innovative solution as cities around the world look to expand their transport networks. They are very useful in locations where aboveground options are exhausted and society places a high value on land at ground level.
Around the world, there are about 250 tunnel boring machines in operation, with about half of these in China and a further quarter in South East Asia.
Why tunnels work
Tunnels allow for effective, secure train operations and offer a viable alternative to an aboveground rail system. They save space and reduce cost.
They also reduce the potential environmental impact on existing residential and business areas, when compared to aboveground options.
Impacts and risks
Extensive engineering and environmental studies over the past two years, and research into similar projects elsewhere, indicate that the chance of land disruption above the tunnels is minimal. It is also very unlikely there will be any impact to health or the environment, including homes or businesses, given the tunnels’ depth and method of construction. Even so, the PTA has strict protocols in place that require inspections to be conducted prior to any work taking place and will be in contact with residents and businesses above the tunnel route before, during and after tunnel construction.
Technical facts
• The depth below ground level to the roof of the tunnels will vary between 7m and 25m. The internal tunnel diameter will be 6.2m — that’s big enough for a typical family car to fit sideways.
• Tunnels will be built to specifications that enable them to withstand major environmental and manmade catastrophes.
• Around the world, more than 2000 kilometres of tunnels run beneath cities, carrying trains and passengers every day.
• Sydney’s suburban rail network is also being extended, with its North West Rail Project involving 15 kilometres of new bored tunnels.
• The longest tunnel in the world is in Switzerland and is 54 kilometres in length.
• Despite their huge electric and hydraulic- powered motor drives, tunnel boring machines create little noise at the surface and cause only minor vibrations as they cut through the soil and rock in their path.
• If you are living near the tunnel route, you’ll be given plenty of notice and information before the tunnels are bored, but most people don’t even notice when the boring machine is directly under them.
• Once the tunnel structures are complete it is unlikely you’ll even know the trains are there.The 2003 invasion of Iraq was sold to the public at the time as being justified in part by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and his harboring of al Qaeda terrorists. In the wake of the Bush Administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, word leaked out that several prominent figures around Bush long had wanted to invade Iraq; for them, 9/11 was the perfect cover, and the WMD and al Qaeda arguments mere window dressing. By the time the world knew the justifications were false, Iraq had been conquered and Saddam had been removed.
President-elect Barack Obama now says that he is going to reverse the current course of the US economy. This contraction, largely the result of the popping of the Fed-induced housing bubble, would come to a natural end in a matter of months anyway. That’s how the market works: if there is a government-induced binge, the fever breaks and the patient can return to health.
But the average American has been brought up to believe that good economic times are the results of proper government policy, and that bad times result from its absence. Like some 18th-century physician with a bag full of leeches, knives, glasses, purgatives, and emetics to leach, bleed, burn, and blister a sick man before inducing diarrhea and making him vomit, government hovers over the American economy, eager to make him sick in the name of restoring his health.
We have seen the same scenario play out many times in American history. The finest medical care available in America killed poor George Washington in 1799, and the latest economic voodoo caused the recession of 1929 to last a decade and one-half.
When finally the government laid off the taxpayer and the business owner in 1945, the US economy boomed. What a remarkable example of statesmanship! The lesson historians drew was that not only was Franklin Roosevelt, the bleeder and blisterer who had stretched the previous recession to seven times the normal length of an American recession, a great statesman, but so was Harry Truman!
Barack Obama, it seems, wants to be judged in the same way. His soon-to-be-predecessor, George W. Bush, has emulated Herbert Hoover in responding to the current contraction with a spate of inapt federal measures: nearly $1,000,000,000,000 in handouts of newly-printed dollars to US banks and insurance companies have yielded no discernable result. In fact, federal "oversight" appears to have been totally absent, as the same inept colossi whose institutions tottered on the brink of insolvency before this great looting of the taxpayer now claim not to know where the money went.
What to make of this? Why, that more of it is "needed," of course. Thus, $17,000,000,000 was handed over by Bush and his minions to insolvent American automobile manufacturers. No moral, philosophical, or constitutional justification of handing, say, GM — with a current value of —$60B (that is, negative sixty billion dollars) — a few billion was even attempted. No one said how this "loan" would make the great Midwestern dinosaur solvent. Why not? My prognostication? Because it won’t.
All this "act of statesmanship" has done is keep GM in business so that GM can demand more money from the government in a few months. And more a few months after that. And more a few months after that.
The calculations here are almost entirely those of brute politics. GM is "too big to fail." That is, its unions control so many votes that they, like plains-state senators demanding agricultural subsidies, can twist this gift out of the taxpayer. Comes word now that the steel companies are lining up at the trough. Surely the paleoconservatives will muster the same arguments in their favor as served so well in the case of the Big Three: great countries manufacture their own steel; steel workers are highly paid; some of them were navy SEALs; my sister doesn’t want her husband to lose his job at the steel plant; and (the only one that really matters) if the Republicans don’t join the Democrats in this measure, highly organized and politically mobilized steel workers will vote Democratic forevermore.
I predicted that the Big Three would get our money. I predict that other decrepit industries will follow.
AIG spent part of its federal gift on lavish retreats for senior executives. Chrysler put some of its taxpayer "loan" into advertising to "thank" taxpayers. This obscenity was rather akin to Stalin "thanking" the kulaks for their land.
Barack Obama just announced that he plans to have the federal government resolve the economic problem in part by "modernizing" libraries and offering tax reductions to "workers." The library gambit is all about pork-barrel politics: every substantial community has a library, and so a measure like that will mean a federal expenditure in every congressman’s district. Since the early nineteenth-century days of Henry Clay (Pat Buchanan’s hero), greasing the skids that way has been part of the art of buying votes. No need to explain how expropriating money from its owner to purchase a new rug or computer for a library helps the economy.
Tax reductions to "workers," in classic Keynesian analysis, are a wonderful way to address economic contraction because "workers" (that is, unskilled employees) tend to spend a higher proportion of their income than the more affluent. Obama’s conclusion, then, is that America, with virtually the world’s lowest rate of savings, suffers at present from too much savings and too little spending. He wants to reduce the savings rate even further. This is what Keynesianism has given us: gigantic debt and ever-declining savings, despite the fact that everyone knows that societal investment (read: savings) is necessary to heighten the future standard of living.
The Clay platform was based chiefly on the idea of "internal improvements," meaning federal financing of roads and bridges throughout the country. Again, if roads were built throughout the country with money provided by the Federal Government, locals would see the wonderful benefit of supporting Henry Clay. Obama understands this perfectly well.
Like the Feiths and Abramses, the Cheneys and Wolfowitzes, and like George W. Bush himself wanting war with Iraq and seizing on the first excuse that came to hand, Obama has been handed a perfect cover for doing what he was disposed to do all along. An orgy of public spending outstripping even the super-profligate Bush’s was the desire of the leftward-most senator before the contraction, and he can justify it with economic bunk now.
As CNN.com reports, “Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don’t act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn,” Obama said. “That’s why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term.”
But "economists from across the political spectrum" do not "agree." Keynesians and Chicago School monetarists who slathered credit for the bubble on Allan Greenspan and failed to predict its popping, which they still find inexplicable, agree. Austrian School economists who castigated Greenspan during the bubble, forecast the current contraction, and see worse to come as a result of the government’s response, disagree. Vehemently.
Buy this book
But, as one of the Austrians recently said, "Being right is overrated." They are now in the position of the bystander who cannot reach the child in time to push him out of the way of the bus. Obama has adopted Bill Clinton’s tactic of referring to all government spending as "investment," but his taxing and borrowing to pay for wasteful government programs will only make matters worse.
The American economy is like big, healthy George Washington that fateful day in 1799. How much quackery will the government inflict?
Reduced saving means reduced future standard of living. Heightened government spending means reduced saving. Taking money from the politically weak to give it to the strong is King John’s model of government. And George Bush’s. And Barack Obama’s.
In recent days, some paleoconservatives have labeled observations such as these "ideological," people who object to the Big Three Rip-off "ideologues." Was Robin Hood an "ideologue"? Was King John a "statesman"?
There is still time for Obama to decide that unlike the second Bush, he is not going to follow King John in taking money from everyone else for the benefit of the well connected. He can still refuse to follow Bush in exploiting others’ misery for his own ideological ends. The signs are not promising.
The Best of Kevin R. C. GutzmanIf we had our druthers, David Bowie would’ve lived forever. But it’s still worth addressing how many high-profile job offers he might’ve been able to accept if he had made it another six months beyond his passing in January of 2016. Dude was very in demand for a 69-year-old artist, and we’re not even talking about music-related gigs.
Anyone who’s been following Twin Peaks: The Return can make an educated guess that David Lynch intended Agent Phillip Jeffries to make an on-camera appearance or two. We don’t know for certain that he doesn’t, but for now, we have to assume the ailing Bowie devoted 100 percent of his energy into completing his final album, Blackstar, and wasn’t able to bring back Agent Jeffries in a physical, tangible capacity.
Meanwhile, apparently there was also an effort made to get Bowie to do some sorta bit for Atomic Blonde.
In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, director (and prolific stunt coordinator) David Leitch says the Atomic production approached Aladdin Sane for a cameo role in Charlize Theron’s latest punching/kicking/shooting/stabbing movie. Even though Bowie agreed to let the film use a pair of his songs, he said “nah” to an in-person appearance. Under the circumstances that became apparent later, Leitch could hardly take that personally.
“I think he really responded to the script and that it was about this city and there was music and everything. But at that time, he respectfully declined,” Leitch tells THR. “Then during the shooting of the film, we heard of his passing, so it was even more special to us that those songs remained in the movie.”
The Atomic Blonde soundtrack looks like a grab bag of emblematic 1980s bangers. Bowie’s contributions include “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” and “Under Pressure.” We’re all pretty familiar with those songs by this point in our lives, so let’s close this blog post with HEALTH’s rendition of New Order’s “Blue Monday,” which vastly improves on the crusty ol’ Orgy version of “Blue Monday” from ’98.
via THRMasked Scheduler's Ratings Smackdown "Will & Grace" probably lifted the surrounding comedies by a tenth, maybe two. It will not be bridged by "Grey's Anatomy" next week so I'm going 2.5-2.6. NBC needs to find some more compatible comedies for next season.
Shonda Rhimes got out of the network business just in time. Her brand will be hurt if evaluated by ratings moving forward.
FOX will renew "The Orville" for a second season for the same reasons "Scream Queens" got the Season 2 renewal.
On a mission for the next two weeks, so you may or may not be getting my invaluable insights. We'll see.
Broadcast primetime live + same-day ratings for Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017
Note: CBS’ live NFL broadcast will likely result in greater adjustments than usual in the final ratings.
The numbers for Thursday:
Time Show Adults 18-49 rating/share Viewers (millions) 8 p.m. NFL Thursday Night Kickoff (CBS) 2.3/9 9.31 Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) (8-10 p.m.) – P 2.3/8 7.95 Superstore (NBC) – P 1.2/5 4.57 Gotham (FOX) 0.8/3 2.79 Penn & Teller: Fool Us (The CW) 0.4/2 1.72 8:30 p.m. Thursday Night Football (CBS) (8:30-11 p.m.) 3.2/12 10.70 The Good Place (NBC) 1.3/5 4.62 9 p.m. Will & Grace (NBC) – P 2.9/10 10.04 The Orville (FOX) 1.1/4 3.73 Whose Line Is It Anyway? (The CW) 0.2/1 1.05 9:30 p.m. Great News (NBC) – P 1.3/5 5.13 Whose Line Is It Anyway? (The CW) – R 0.3/1 1.10 10 p.m. Chicago Fire (NBC) – P 1.5/6 7.18 How to Get Away with Murder (ABC) – P 1.1/4 4.03
“Will & Grace” returned to NBC after 11-plus years with solid ratings Thursday. The show scored a 2.9 rating among adults 18-49 and a shade over 10 million viewers, the best non-NFL number of the night by a long shot. It was also the best premiere by an NBC comedy (excluding post-Olympics episodes) since 2011.
It did not, however, give much of a halo to NBC’s other comedies. Lead-out “Great News” (1.3) had its best rating ever, but it also lost more than half of the “W&G” audience in adults 18-49. “Superstore” premiered to a 1.2, off 0.3 from last season’s debut and slightly ahead of its 2016-17 average.
“The Good Place” was even with last week’s premiere at 1.3. “Chicago Fire” scored a 1.5, off 0.3 from its 2016 premiere but in line with its average last season.
On ABC, “Grey’s Anatomy” opened to a 2.3, above its 2016-17 average and off a bit from last year’s premiere (2.5). “How to Get Away with Murder,” however, had its lowest-rated premiere at 1.1, below last year’s 1.4 and its season average of 1.3.
“Gotham” (0.8) slipped two tenths of a point vs. its premiere last week on FOX, but “The Orville” held steady at 1.1 despite increased competition. CBS’ “Thursday Night Football” broadcast, which included a first-half weather delay, is currently at 3.2 and 10.7 million viewers. It should adjust up in the finals.
Network averages:
CBS ABC NBC FOX CW Adults 18-49 rating/share 3.0/11 1.9/7 1.6/6 1.0/4 0.3/1 Total Viewers (millions) 10.46 6.64 6.45 3.26 1.39
Late-night metered market ratings (adults 18-49, households):
11:35 p.m.
“The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”: 0.7/4, 2.1/6
“Jimmy Kimmel Live”: 0.6/3, 2.2/6
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert |
The negligence must however be so gross as to render it impossible that the instrument should have been taken bona fide, and the case of Hill v. Cubitt seems not to be supportable. Backhouse v. Harrison, 5 B & Adol. 1105. See the observation of Parke, B., in Foster v. Pearson, 5 Tyrwh. 255; Cunliffe v. Booth, 3 Bing. N.C. 821. In the case however of Goodman v. Harvey, 4 A & E 870, the Q.B. ruled that gross negligence would not be a sufficient answer where a party has given consideration for the bill, and that gross negligence could only be important so far as it supplied evidence of mala fides (bad faith) in taking them, in which case he would be forced to bear the loss..
"An instrument is, properly speaking, negotiable when the legal right to the property which they secure may be conveyed. For there are other instruments (See Glynn v. Baker, 13 East 509; Talyer v. Kymer, 3 B & Ad 338; s, 1 M 8z M 453; 1 Lloyd & Walsh. 184. See Ford v. Hopkins, 1 Sal. 284, and see 1 Burr, 452, Ambl. 187, and Turner V. Cruikshank, there cited) which, though salable in the market by the usage of merchants, can yet only be put in suit in the name of the original contractee, and are not, properly speaking, negotiable. Moreover, instruments which in one state would be negotiable, may by being put into another, cease to be so. Thus, though a bill or note will be negotiable if indorsed in blank, yet the holder may, by a special endorsement, determine its negotiability. (Segourney v. Lloyd, 8 B & C 622; 5 Bingh. 525; Ancher v. Bank of England, Douglas 639. Snee v. Prescott 1 Ark. 249, per Lord Hardwicke, Treutell v. Barandon, 8 Taunt. 100. Cunliffe v. Whitefield, 3 Bing. N.C. 828"
XIV NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T
We do not need to reach so far back as the detailed early cases cited above to show the reckless disregard that tax-and-money litigants have had for the vast amount of law available on which to mount offensives against the grand larceny in our tax and money laws.
Only two cases, or extracts from them, will suffice to demonstrate grounds and arguments available to anyone who take the trouble to discover them. One of these cases is British, and the other American, as late as 1926, with domestic references to the "unheard of' law merchant.
The first is the case of Goodwin v. Robarts, Exchequer, 1875 (L.R. 10 Ex. 337, 346), as follows:
"Godburn, C.J., Having given the fullest consideration to this argument, we are of opinion that it cannot prevail. It is founded on the view that the law merchant thus referred to is fixed and stereotyped, and incapable of being expanded and enlarged so as to meet the wants and requirements of trade in the varying circumstances of commerce. It is true that the law merchant is sometimes spoken of as a fixed body of law, forming part of the common law, and as it were coeval with it. But as a matter of legal history, this view is altogether incorrect. The law merchant thus spoken of with reference to bills of exchange and other negotiable securities, though forming part of the general body of the lex mercatoria, is of comparatively recent origin. It is neither more nor less then the usages of merchants and traders in the different departments of trade, ratified by the decisions of Courts of law, which. upon such usages being moved before them, have adopted them as settled law with a view to the interests of trade and the public convenience, the Court proceeding hearing on the well-known principle of law that, with reference to the transactions in the different departments of trade, Courts of law, in giving effect to the contracts and dealings of the parties, will assume that the latter have dealt with one another on the footing of any custom or usage prevailing generally in the particular department. By this process, what before was usage only, unsanctioned by legal decision, has become engrafted upon, or incorporated into, the common law, and may thus be said to form part of it. 'When a general usage has been judicially ascertained and established,' says Lord Campbell, in Brandao v. Barnett (12 Cl & F at p. 805), 'it becomes a part of the law merchant, which Courts of justice are bound to know and recognize.'
"Bills of exchange are known to be of comparatively modern origin, having been first brought into use, so far as it is at present known, by the Florentines in the twelfth, and by the Venetians about the thirteenth century. The use of them gradually found its way into France, and, still later and but slowly, into England. We find it stated in a law tract, by Mr. McLeod, entitled Specimen of a Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange, printed, we believe, as a report to the government, but which, from its research and ability, deserves to be produced in a form calculated to insure a wider circulation, that Richard Malynes, a London merchant, who published a work called the Lex Mercatoria, in 1622; and who gives a full account of these bills as used by the merchants of Amsterdam, Hamburg, and other places, expressly states that such bills were not used in England. There is reason to believe, however, that this is a mistake. Mr. McLeod shows that promissory notes, payable to bearer, or to a man and his assigns, were known in the time of Edward IV. Indeed, as early as the statute of 3 Rich.2, c.3, bills of exchange are referred to as a means of conveying money out of the realm, though not as a process in use among English merchants. But the fact that a London merchant writing expressly on the law merchant was unaware of the use of bills of exchange in this country, shows that that use at the time he wrote must have been limited. According to Professor Story, who herein is, no doubt, perfectly right, 'the introduction and use of bills of exchange in England,' as indeed it was everywhere else,'seems to have been founded on the mere practice of merchants, and gradually to have acquired the force of a custom.' With the development of English commerce the use of these most convenient instruments of commercial traffic would of course increase, yet, according to Mr. Chitty, the earliest case on the subject to be found in the English books is that of Martin v. Boure (Cro. Jac. 6), in the first James I. Up to this time the practice of making these bills negotiable by endorsement had been unknown, and the earlier bills are found to be made payable to a man and his assigns, though in some instances to bearer. But about this period, that is to say at the close of the sixteenth or the commencement of the seventeenth century, the practice of making bills payable to order, and transferring them by endorsement, took its rise. Hartmen, in a very learned work on Bills of Exchange, recently published in Germany states that the first known mention of the endorsement of these instruments occurs in the Neapolitan Pragmatica of 1607. Savary, cited by Mons. Nouguier, in his work Des Lettres de change, had assigned it to a later date, namely 1620. From its obvious convenience, this practice speedily came into general use, and as part of the general custom of merchants, received the sanction of our courts. At first the use of bills of exchange seems to have been confined to foreign bills between English and foreign merchants. It was afterwards extended to domestic bills between traders, and finally to bills of all persons, whether traders or not: see Chitty on Bills, 8th Ed., p. 13.
"In the meantime, promissory notes had also come into use, differing herein from bills of exchange in that they were not drawn upon a third party, but contained a simple promise to pay by the maker, resting, therefore, upon the security of the maker alone. They were at first made payable to bearer, but then the practice of making bills of exchange payable to order, and making them transferable by endorsement, as had been done with, bills of exchange, speedily prevailed. And for some time the courts of law acted upon the usage with reference to promissory notes, as well as with reference to bills of exchange.
"In 1680, in the case of Shaldon v. Hentley (2 Show. 160) an action was brought on a note under seal by which the defendant promised to pay to bearer 100£, and it was objected that the note was void because not made payable to a specific person. But it was said by the Court, 'Traditio facit chatam loqui, and by the delivery he (the maker) expounds the person before meant; as when a merchant promises to pay to the bearer of the note, anyone that brings the note shall be paid.' Jones, J., said that 'it was the custom of merchants that made that good.' In Bromwich v. Lloyd the Plaintiff declared upon the custom of merchants in London, on a note for money payable on demand, and recovered; and Treby, C.J., said that 'bills of exchange were originally between foreigners and merchants trading in England, and then afterwards between any traders whatsoever, and now between any persons, whether trading or not; and therefore, the plaintiff need not allege any custom, for now these bills were of that general use that upon an indebitatus assumpsit they may be given in evidence upon the trial.' To which Powell, J., added, 'On indebitatus for money received to the use of the plaintiff the bill may be left to the jury to determine whether it was given for value received.' (2 Lutw. 1582)
"In Williams v. Williams (1 Carth. 269), where the plaintiff brought his action as endorsee against the payee and endorser of a promissory note, declaring on the custom of merchants, it was objected on error, that the note having been made in London, the custom if any should have been laid as the custom of London. It was answered 'that this custom of merchants was part of the common law, and the Court would take notice of it ex officio; and, therefore, it was needless to set forth the custom specially in the declaration, but it was sufficient to say that such a person secundum usum et consuetudinem mercatorum, drew the bill.' And the plaintiff had judgment.
"Thus far, the practice of merchants, traders, and others of treating promissory notes, whether payable to order or bearer, on the same footing as bills of exchange had received the sanction of the courts, but Hold having become Chief Justice, a somewhat unseemly conflict arose between him and the merchants as to the negotiability of promissory notes, whether payable to order or to bearer, the Chief Justice making what must now be admitted to have been a narrow-minded view of the matter, setting his face strongly against the negotiability of these instruments, contrary, as we are told by authority, to the opinion of Westminster Hall, and in a series of successive cases, persisting in holding them not to be negotiable by endorsement or deliver. The inconvenience to trade arising therefrom led to the passing of the statute of 3 & 4 Anne, c.9, whereby promissory notes were made capable of being assigned by endorsement, or made payable to bearer, and such assignment was thus rendered valid beyond dispute or difficulty.
"It is obvious from the preamble of the statute, which recites that '& had been held that such notes were not within the custom of merchants,' that these decisions were not acceptable to the profession of the country. Nor can there be much doubt that by the usage prevalent amongst merchants, these notes had been treated as securities negotiable by the customary method of assignment as much as bills of exchange properly so-called. The Statute of Anne may indeed, practically speaking, be looked upon as a declaratory statute, confirming the decisions prior to the time of Lord Holt.
"We now arrive at an epoch when a new form of security for money, namely, goldsmiths' or bankers' notes, came into general use. Holding them to be part of the currency of the country, as cash, Lord Mansfield and the Court of King's Bench had no difficulty in holding, in Miller v. Race (1 Burr. 452), that the property in such a note passes, like that in cash, by delivery, and that a party taking it bona fide, and for value, is consequently entitled to hold it against a former owner from whom it has been stolen.
"In like manner it was held, in Collins v. Martin (1 B. & P. 648), that where bills indorsed in blank had been deposited with a banker, to be received when due, and the latter had pledged them with another banker as security for a loan, the owner could not bring trover to recover them from the holder.
"But these decisions of course preceded on the ground that the property in the bank-note payable to bearer passed by delivery, that in the bill of exchange by endorsement in blank, provided the acquisition had been made bona fide.
"A similar question arose in Wookey v. Pole (4 B. & Ald. l), in respect oAt NerdWallet, we adhere to strict standards of editorial integrity to help you make decisions with confidence. Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners. Here’s how we make money
U.S. high school graduates left over $2.9 billion in free federal grant money on the table last academic year, according to a new analysis by NerdWallet. Their mistake? Not completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or the FAFSA.
Our figures show that 47% of all 2013 high school graduates didn’t complete this required first step that could’ve earned them Pell Grant money, which unlike student loans, does not need to be paid back.
In response to low FAFSA completion rates, President Barack Obama and the U.S. Department of Education have taken action to provide greater transparency to high schools about the FAFSA and financial aid.
Jan. 1 marked the start of the 2015-2016 FAFSA season. To encourage more students to file the FAFSA, NerdWallet took a look at how much unclaimed Pell dollars were left on the table in each state in the most recent FAFSA cycle. To see the full state-by-state breakdown, click here.
Key trends and takeaways
Nationwide, graduating high school seniors who were Pell-eligible in 2013, but didn’t complete a FAFSA, missed out on $2,955,475,413 in potential Pell Grant aid.
in potential Pell Grant aid. Utah was home to the largest percentage, 40%, of Pell-eligible seniors who didn’t complete a FAFSA.
Over 100,000 seniors in California — about the entire population of high school graduates in New Jersey — could have qualified for Pell Grants if they filed their FAFSA. Students in the Golden State lost $396,401,205 in Pell Grant dollars.
Because aid is disbursed on a first come, first served basis, the best way for parents and graduating seniors to ensure that they don’t miss out on free federal financial aid is to fill out the FAFSA now. NerdWallet’s free FAFSA Guide can help walk you through the process step by step.
Unclaimed Pell Grant Money Across the U.S.
Move your cursor over each state to see the totals in millions left behind by 2013 high school graduates.
Methodology
In each state, we looked at Pell Grant-eligible graduating high school seniors who didn’t complete the FAFSA in the 2013-2014 application cycle and multiplied that number by the average amount of Pell aid disbursed to all students.
Here’s the formula we used to calculate Pell Grant money left on the table:
Number of high school graduates not completing FAFSA = number of 2013 high school graduates — number of completed FAFSA applications by June 2013.
Number of Pell-eligible high school graduates not completing FAFSA = percentage of Pell-eligible applicants * number of high school graduates not completing FAFSA.
Pell Grant money left on table = number of Pell-eligible high school graduates not completing FAFSA * average Pell Grant award.
Why we focused on Pell Grants. As the largest source of federal funds for college, Pell Grants are free money and a major part of most financial aid award packages — before work-study funds and loans are tacked on — for college students who cannot afford to pay full price.
We used the most recent data from the Department of Education to find the average Pell Grant award across all colleges and universities in each state. The maximum amount awarded in the 2013-2014 cycle was $5,645; for 2015-2016, it has increased to $5,830.
How we estimated the number of high school graduates who didn’t complete the FAFSA: Using federal data, we looked at how many high school students completed the form from January to June 2013, the final deadline for most colleges.
Then, using projected graduation data from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, we took into account the total number of high school graduates in each state to find the number of graduating seniors who didn’t complete a FAFSA.
How we assessed Pell eligibility for students who didn’t complete the FAFSA: Using 2013-2014 Pell Grant-qualifying applicant data from the Florida College Access Network, we found the number of graduating seniors who could have been eligible for a Pell Grant if they filled out a FAFSA. Like the Florida College Access Network, we assumed the rate of Pell-eligible recipients is the same for students who didn’t complete the FAFSA as for students who did.
State High school graduates in 2013 FAFSA applications by June 2013 Pell-eligible applicants Graduates who didn’t complete FAFSA Pell-eligible graduates who didn’t complete FAFSA* Average Pell Grant in 2013-14 Total Pell Grant money left on the table* Alabama 49,044 21,026 61.37% 28,018 17,196 $3,711.36 $63,818,993 Alaska 7,414 3,007 37.14% 4,407 1,637 $3,534.97 $5,786,337 Arizona 63,214 27,470 60.40% 35,744 21,590 $3,477.99 $75,090,887 Arkansas 28,622 16,854 59.12% 11,768 6,957 $3,723.86 $25,906,020 California 408,467 239,938 64.62% 168,529 108,903 $3,639.96 $396,401,205 Colorado 52,604 24,582 43.73% 28,022 12,253 $3,457.50 $42,364,606 Connecticut 42,205 24,613 37.11% 17,592 6,528 $3,524.18 $23,006,835 Delaware 9,515 5,579 44.64% 3,936 1,757 $3,552.88 $6,242,922 District of Columbia 4,356 2,896 74.07% 1,460 1,081 $3,704.83 $4,006,709 Florida 167,427 82,957 58.56% 84,470 49,464 $3,442.37 $170,271,918 Georgia 95,533 51,947 54.72% 43,586 23,852 $3,452.18 $82,340,928 Hawaii 13,503 7,330 50.00% 6,173 3,087 $3,620.51 $11,174,700 Idaho 17,501 8,364 56.18% 9,137 5,133 $3,869.54 $19,862,893 Illinois 149,862 86,845 49.73% 63,017 31,337 $3,514.23 $110,127,095 Indiana 68,918 40,673 49.53% 28,245 13,991 $3,652.65 $51,102,401 Iowa 33,929 19,209 41.00% 14,720 6,035 $3,725.81 $22,485,988 Kansas 32,289 16,164 46.82% 16,125 7,550 $3,558.76 $26,868,158 Kentucky 44,518 25,527 57.93% 18,991 11,002 $3,689.23 $40,589,569 Louisiana 45,216 22,720 53.06% 22,496 11,937 $3,671.92 $43,830,414 Maine 15,280 8,629 50.56% 6,651 3,363 $3,702.51 $12,451,026 Maryland 66,351 35,328 43.24% 31,023 13,413 $3,486.20 $46,760,893 Massachusetts 73,488 44,797 38.68% 28,691 11,096 $3,696.04 $41,012,390 Michigan 113,887 62,002 50.68% 51,885 26,295 $3,451.58 $90,758,241 Minnesota 60,239 33,628 37.78% 26,611 10,055 $3,479.44 $34,984,848 Mississippi 29,136 16,072 68.21% 13,064 8,911 $3,871.92 $34,501,548 Missouri 66,401 34,977 50.80% 31,424 15,963 $3,719.04 $59,366,022 Montana 9,176 4,353 50.00% 4,823 2,412 $3,803.75 $9,172,749 Nebraska 21,204 11,878 47.58% 9,326 4,437 $3,570.51 $15,843,696 Nevada 23,975 11,453 60.98% 12,522 7,635 $3,467.92 $26,478,862 New Hampshire 16,125 8,942 35.16% 7,183 2,526 $3,446.75 $8,706,119 New Jersey 107,439 60,279 40.94% 47,160 19,306 $3,650.41 $70,475,262 New Mexico 19,260 9,568 58.82% 9,692 5,701 $3,698.11 $21,083,552 New York 207,814 119,306 53.19% 88,508 47,076 $3,876.22 $182,476,065 North Carolina 93,777 47,722 57.00% 46,055 26,252 $3,615.45 $94,913,670 North Dakota 7,269 3,413 30.56% 3,856 1,178 $3,668.96 $4,322,845 Ohio 129,757 67,890 46.37% 61,867 28,687 $3,531.73 $101,314,371 Oklahoma 38,773 16,197 55.81% 22,576 12,601 $3,602.59 $45,394,636 Oregon 37,479 19,277 54.11% 18,202 9,848 $3,652.70 $35,973,381 Pennsylvania 143,614 78,742 43.53% 64,872 28,236 $3,642.14 $102,838,310 Rhode Island 11,171 6,955 47.22% 4,216 1,991 $3,800.74 $7,566,853 South Carolina 41,313 23,526 56.13% 17,787 9,983 $3,719.09 $37,128,521 South Dakota 8,664 4,541 40.43% 4,123 1,667 $3,613.37 $6,022,570 Tennessee 65,115 39,270 55.79% 25,845 14,419 $3,535.97 $50,986,742 Texas 295,443 132,132 61.39% 163,311 100,263 $3,543.63 $355,294,448 Utah 32,296 9,611 57.43% 22,685 13,027 $3,492.95 $45,502,737 Vermont 7,705 3,659 41.03% 4,046 1,660 $3,837.15 $6,369,278 Virginia 85,101 45,067 43.43% 40,034 17,388 $3,536.92 $61,498,653 Washington 67,036 32,740 46.57% 34,296 15,972 $3,639.32 $58,127,700 West Virginia 18,016 10,255 51.40% 7,761 3,989 $3,755.40 $14,981,412 Wisconsin 65,804 34,162 42.13% 31,642 13,332 $3,613.38 $48,174,744 Wyoming 5,259 2,476 38.46% 2,783 1,070 $3,470.43 $3,714,691 U.S. Total 821,041 $2,955,475,413
*Unrounded data used in calculations.
Image via iStock.The body's own bathroom scales - a new understanding of obesity
News: Dec 26, 2017
Researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have found evidence for the existence of an internal body weight sensing system. This system operates like bathroom scales, registering body weight and thereby fat mass. More knowledge about the sensing mechanism could lead to a better understanding of the causes of obesity as well as new anti-obesity drugs.
“We have discovered a completely new system that regulates fat mass. We hope this discovery will lead to a new direction in obesity research. The findings may also provide new knowledge about the cause of obesity and, in the long run, new treatments of obesity”, says John-Olov Jansson, Professor at Sahlgrenska Academy.
He explains:
“Quite simply, we have found support for the existence of internal bathroom scales. The weight of the body is registered in the lower extremities. If the body weight tends to increase, a signal is sent to the brain to decrease food intake and keep the body weight constant”.
The study was performed on obese rodents that were made artificially heavier by loading with extra weights. The animals lost almost as much weight as the artificial load. The extra weights caused body fat to decrease and blood glucose levels to improve.
The body fat regulatory system discovered by the scientists in Gothenburg is the first new one since the discovery of the hormone, leptin, 23 years ago by American scientists. However, today it seems unlikely that leptin alone will become a treatment for obesity.
“The mechanism that we have now identified regulates body fat mass independently of leptin, and it possible that leptin combined with activation of the internal body scales can become an effective treatment for obesity”, says Professor Claes Ohlsson at Sahlgrenska Academy, Gothenburg University.
Lately, several studies of human populations have coupled sitting with obesity and bad health. The present results could explain why.
“We believe that the internal body scales give an inaccurately low measure when you sit down. As a result you eat more and gain weight”, says Claes Ohlsson.
The results are published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Titel: Body weight homeostat that regulates fat mass independently of leptin in rats and mice
Contact: John-Olov Jansson or Claes Ohlsson
Photos: John-Olov Jansson (photo: Cecilia Hedström), Claes Ohlsson (photo: Elin Lindström Claessen)
BY: Elin Lindström Claessen
Originally published on: sahlgrenska.gu.seReading Time: 2 minutes
The internet age has provided an opportunity for cartoonists and illustrators to share their work with a much larger audience without having to rely solely on newspaper syndication. Fan favorite webcomics The Oatmeal and xkcd have enjoyed tremendous success that may have eluded them prior to the internet age. Perhaps due to the bite-sized consumption of social media, most of the popular webcomics are of the one-and-done variety, and many of them are adult-only. That’s why it is refreshing to see a webcomic that takes readers on an interactive, multi-day journey. Simple and deeply therapeutic, Story Town is just such a series.
Although the cartoon artwork may appear geared toward kids, the target audience is actually a mature reader. That’s not to say the comic is adult-only. No, Story Town is kid-friendly, but written for adults who can better understand elements of weirdness and some occasionally heavy subject matter.
“Mertie,” the most recent story from Atlanta-based artist Jason Albin Thomas, is the story of a lonely snail who must overcome adversity when tragedy strikes. Like the previous Story Town installments, “Mertie” was launched on the first Monday of the month and will reveal several new pages each day to keep readers company at home or work. Billed as an interactive story, there are often some “choose your own adventure-” style elements where the author asks for reader feedback. Red Rocket Farm explains:
Thomas uses the medium of the internet to create a story that actively involves its audience. The experience of reading a Story Town live with other Story Town fans is like watching a thriller movie with friends. There’s constant virtual arm clenching, hugging, celebrating, and grieving. In his story “Something in the Woods”, Thomas asked readers to post pictures of their cats to save a character from freezing in the cold. In “To Lumber Home,” fans wrote in letters to comfort an anxious bear named Pilot. Then Pilot began responding in a strained, child like hand writing. Thomas gave fans the ability to talk directly to the characters and have them talk back.
“Mertie” is the fifth installment in the Story Town series, so check the Red Rocket Farm for previous compilations such as “A Place in the Sea” and “The Cat With Brown Eyes.” If you’re looking for some quality storytelling that can sustain you through several days, look no further than Story Town.
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Get the Official GeekDad Books!When various reports came out last week revealing that the American Health Care Act (Trumpcare) would disproportionately hurt segments of the population that favored Donald Trump in the presidential election, many liberals could hardly contain their glee.
“Good, I hope this impacts them horribly. Fuck them. They deserve to be hit the hardest,” wrote one commenter on the liberal website Daily Kos, while a Reddit user opined: “They voted for this to happen to other people, they deserve it.” Other liberals, though not exactly celebratory, could offer no sympathy to the ignorant rubes who let themselves get played by the Donald. Another Reddit user complained, “I think most people who call themselves liberals are tired of having their logic and valid arguments countered with total apathy and ignorance. They deserve [to lose their health insurance]. Period.”
The overall response from liberals, however, was more of a collective sigh than a collective sneer. For Democrats, this was an entirely predictable development and yet another example of large numbers of American people voting against their apparent interests because of their ignorance and cultural backwardness.
After decades of watching millions of Americans vote for right-wing charlatans who advocated economic policies that serve the wealthy and screw everyone else, some liberals have basically given up on appealing to these perceived yokels, who seem to care more about criminalizing abortion and hoarding guns than obtaining health are and decent wages. They are dumb, credulous and often intolerant; so why should we — progressive, rational, forward-thinking liberals — sympathize or try to reason with them? Let them lose their health care; maybe they’ll learn something this time around (though we all know they won’t).
In a prescient essay for Vox last year, Emmett Rensin called this condescending and contemptuous attitude the “smug style in American liberalism,” which he described as “a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence... but by the failure of half the country to know what's good for them.”
“If the smug style can be reduced to a single sentence,” Rensin worte, “it's, Why are they voting against their own self-interest?”
This question was bound to become even more prevalent with the election of Trump, who essentially won by flipping several Rust Belt states that Barack Obama had handily won in 2008 and 2012. Sure enough, many liberals have seemingly doubled down on this smug style, which tends to come out in full force whenever the president screws over his dumb, country-bumpkin supporters.
But this attitude has also been challenged by those on the left who argue that the Democratic Party has to offer a more populist vision and break out of its technocratic bubble in order to start winning elections again. This tends to offend many liberals, who respond by reminding everyone that the Democrats ran on the “most progressive platform in party history,” yet still failed to persuade uninformed blue-collar Americans, who credulously fell for the countless lies and false promises of Trump.
Both sides have a point, of course, and it is hardly smug to point out that American voters are overwhelmingly ignorant and uninformed about politics and government or that Trump supporters are particularly misinformed. Nor is it smug to correct someone when he or she states an obvious falsehood or to challenge the nonsensical rhetoric of a demagogue like Trump. The truth is, it can be hard not to come across as smug when you have to repeatedly debunk the endless falsehoods and conspiracy theories that come out of the president’s mouth (and when so many of his supporters seem unwilling to listen to reason).
It is smug, however, to disparage people for “voting against their interests” when in reality both parties have failed to adequately address the real problems facing poor and working-class communities across America today. While there can be no doubt that Hillary Clinton would have been a better president for the working and middle classes, it is also true that Trump was better on certain issues that are important to blue-collar workers, such as free trade and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. (Even though Clinton opposed the TPP during her campaign, she didn’t have much credibility after having repeatedly praised it for years, whereas Trump immediately withdrew from the deal once in office). As Rensin noted in his essay, “No party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed,” but only one has “made a point of openly disdaining them too.” He continued:
Abandoned and without any party willing to champion their interests, people cling to candidates who, at the very least, are willing to represent their moral convictions. The smug style resents them for it, and they resent the smug in turn.
Last week Sen. Bernie Sanders did something that many liberals would have probably considered a waste of time, holding a town hall-style meeting in a coal mining county in West Virginia where voters had overwhelmingly cast ballots for Trump. During the meeting one person expressed support for universal health care and said he had voted for Trump “solely because he said he was going to help us," adding, "he was going to put the coal miners back to work, and we’re going to have health care and this and that.” Rather than disparaging this man as an ignorant hick — the natural impulse for many liberals in such a situation — Sanders respectfully informed him and the audience that Trumpcare would result in millions of people losing their health insurance while giving the wealthiest Americans a massive tax cut. By the end of the town hall meeting, Sanders had seemingly won over the entire crowd.
As Trump and his Republican colleagues continue to screw over poor and working-class people in the days and months ahead, Democrats will have a perfect opportunity to expose the president as the fraud that he has always been and reclaim the "party of the people" title. Cheering as people lose their health insurance may not be the best way to go about this.Today's consumers have become particularly adept at tuning out advertisements. We hit fast-forward when its time for commercial breaks, avert our eyes away from gigantic billboards and flip right past glossy spreads in magazines.
Advertisers for Dunkin' Donuts, however, may have figured out a way to make sure their messages are being heard--or at least smelled--loud and clear.
Earlier this year in Seoul, South Korea, the donut chain embarked on an ad campaign in which unsuspecting commuters were hit with a whiff of Dunkin' Donuts coffee while riding the bus to work. After stepping off the bus, the riders were met a large poster for the shop and a conveniently located store only a few steps away.
To deliver the aroma, engineers for the store's marketing agency, Cheil Worldwide, created a machine that would instantly serve up a spritz of coffee aroma upon hearing the chain's jingle. The spray, known as "Flavor Radio," was dispensed through devices that look much like at-home air-f |
.” Larsen tells me about the healthy-looking young men who sometimes congregate in parking lots or on streets near dispensaries, smoking pot or blasting music. He points out one such young man entering AEC, a dispensary on Colorado Boulevard, while we are in its parking lot. He tells me about a local woman in her 80s who can’t understand what kind of world she’s living in, where marijuana is sold on her corner.
Larsen also points out some grubby-looking auto repair shops along his neighborhood’s main strip and tells me how the locals managed to curb their profusion through the city’s planning process. He talks about the auto repair shops in much the same way he discusses the pot shops. He does not think either should be completely eliminated, but he believes they constitute a blight on the neighborhood when they are too conspicuous.
Larsen and I pass one marijuana dispensary, the Cornerstone Collective, that I visited the day before. If you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t know it was there. It has no pot leaf images, no neon signs announcing “Alternative” or “Herbal,” no commercial signage at all. The owner, Michael Backes, told me with amused pride that a while back, when a runaway car plowed straight through his wall, a local news crew identified the place as a “dentist office,” which is what it looks like from its waiting room. Backes is “doing it right,” Larsen tells me.
My drive through Studio City, in the southeast San Fernando Valley just over the mountains from Hollywood, is similar. Barbara Monahan Burke, a 64-year-old horticulturalist who serves as the neighborhood council’s co-chair for government affairs, doesn’t say anything about increases in crime associated with the marijuana dispensaries (a connection often asserted by public officials), but she does complain about occasional pot smoking in front of them, which can annoy commercial neighbors. “I personally believe in compassionate use of medical marijuana and voted for it,” she says.
Within a couple of miles on Ventura Boulevard, a dozen dispensaries seem to be open for business on this weekday afternoon. (Burke told me in mid-February that by then she was only sure that six of them were still open for business.) “It’s about preservation of communities,” she says. “We want this to be a place where families can live. It’s about, what do the people who live here want our branding to be as Studio City?” That branding, she thinks, should not be linked to green crosses and billboards for Medicann, a medical marijuana doctors’ consulting service, every couple of blocks on her neighborhood’s major commercial strip.
The Wild West of Weed
Newsweek dubbed Los Angeles “the wild West of weed” in October 2009, and that phrase often echoed through the city council’s chamber as it haggled over a long-awaited ordinance regulating the dispensaries. Both the Los Angeles Times and the L.A. Weekly regularly jabbed at the city council for fiddling while marijuana burned, supplied by storefront pot dispensaries that were widely (but inaccurately) said to total 1,000 or more.
On January 26, after years of dithering and months of debate, the city council finally passed an ordinance to regulate medical marijuana shops. In addition to dictating the details of lighting, record keeping, auditing, bank drops, hours of operation, and compensation for owners and employees, the ordinance requires a dramatic reduction in the number of dispensaries. The official limit is 70, but because of exemptions for some pre-existing dispensaries the final number could grow as high as 137. The ordinance allocates the surviving dispensaries among the city’s “planning districts” and requires that they be located more than 1,000 feet from each other and from “sensitive areas” such as parks, schools, churches, and libraries. It also requires patients who obtain marijuana from dispensaries to pick one outlet and stick with it.
As those rules suggest, city officials are not prepared to treat marijuana like any other medicine, despite a 1996 state ballot initiative that allows patients with doctor’s recommendations to use it for symptom relief. It’s hard to imagine the city council arbitrarily limiting the number of pharmacies, insisting that they not do business near competitors, creating buffer zones between parks and Duane Reade locations, or demanding that patients obtain their Lipitor from one and only one drugstore. Such restrictions reflect marijuana’s dual identity in California: It is simultaneously medicine and menace. At the same time, the regulations do serve to legitimize distribution of a drug that remains completely prohibited by federal law—a stamp of approval welcomed by many dispensary operators.
When I asked activists, businessmen, or politicians why L.A.’s medical marijuana market needed to be regulated, they almost invariably replied, “It was unregulated.” When I delved beyond that tautology, I found motives little different from those that drive land use planning generally. The activists who demanded that the city bring order to the “wild West” of medical marijuana were motivated not by antipathy to cannabis so much as mundane concerns about “blight,” neighborhood character, and spillover effects. While responding to these concerns, every member of the city council voiced support for medical access to marijuana in theory, and none openly sided with the federal law enforcement officials who view the trade as nothing more than drug dealing in disguise.
Los Angeles became the medical marijuana capital of America thanks to a combination of entrepreneurial energy and benign political neglect. What happened here is instructive for other jurisdictions that already or may soon let patients use the drug. In the last 14 years, the voters or legislators of 14 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for at least some medical purposes. Medical marijuana campaigns, via either legislation or ballot initiative, are active in 13 other states. National surveys indicate broad public support for such reforms. An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted in January found that 81 percent of Americans think patients who can benefit from marijuana should be able to obtain it legally.
But L.A.’s experience also shows that majority support for medical marijuana is not necessarily enough. An October poll of Los Angeles residents commissioned by the Marijuana Policy Project found that 77 percent supported regulating dispensaries, while only 14 percent wanted them closed. But patients and the entrepreneurs who served them still had to contend with a noisy minority, clustered in political institutions such as neighborhood councils, the police department, and government lawyers’ offices, who resisted the normalization of marijuana. That process culminated in an ordinance with onerous restrictions that could nearly eliminate the current medical pot business and cause great hardship for tens of thousands of Los Angeles residents who use marijuana as a medicine.
Still, for those who lived through the ferocious cultural and political war over pot during the second half of the 20th century, it’s amazing that the strife in pot-saturated Los Angeles has had more to do with land use regulation than with eradicating an allegedly evil plant. Even with pot readily available over the counter at hundreds of locations to anyone with an easily obtained doctor’s letter, the most common complaints were essentially aesthetic.
The Road to the Corner Pot Shop
When California voters agreed in 1996 to legalize pot for medical use, the initiative campaign emphasized marijuana’s utility in treating AIDS wasting syndrome, the side effects of cancer chemotherapy, and other grave conditions. But the initiative, known as the Compassionate Use Act, also allowed pot to be recommended for treatment of “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.” That language strongly influenced how the politics and culture of medical marijuana evolved in Los Angeles.
The federal government did not yield to the judgment of California’s voters. The Clinton administration threatened to prosecute or revoke the prescription privileges of doctors who recommended marijuana, only to be rebuked by a federal appeals court on First Amendment grounds. From the late 1990s into the first year of the Obama administration, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raided medical marijuana growers and suppliers, without regard to whether they were following California law. Last November, the Justice Department instructed U.S. attorneys that they “should not focus federal resources” on “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” Yet as of February, the DEA was still raiding medical marijuana shops in the L.A. area.
Ambiguity is built into the Justice Department’s new policy, thanks to uncertainty over what exactly it means to comply with state law. The Compassionate Use Act allowed patients or their “primary caregivers” to grow marijuana for medical use. The Medical Marijuana Program Act, a law passed by the state legislature that took effect in 2004, imposed limits on how much marijuana patients or their caregivers could possess, while allowing local jurisdictions to establish higher ceilings. In January the California Supreme Court rejected those limits, saying patients should be allowed to have whatever amount is “reasonable” for their medical needs.
Most important in understanding what happened in Los Angeles, the 2004 law said patients may join together to “collectively or cooperatively” grow marijuana and distribute it to each other. The law did not define collectives or cooperatives, but guidelines issued by Attorney General Jerry Brown in 2008 said they should be deemed legitimate as long as they were operated by patients, served only members of the collective, and did not take in more revenue than was necessary to cover their operating expenses. Ostensibly, the storefront dispensaries that opened in cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Oakland were collectives operated by and for patients, providing them with their medicine as permitted by state law. But given the ease of obtaining a doctor’s recommendation and becoming a collective member, critics viewed the dispensaries as thinly disguised pot shops that sold marijuana to the general public for recreational as well as medical purposes.
As you are frequently reminded by people in Los Angeles who are angry about the way the dispensary system developed, Californians who voted for the Compassionate Use Act had in mind patients with cancer, AIDS, or other serious conditions, people who needed marijuana to relieve agonizing pain, fight debilitating nausea, or restore their appetites so they could take in enough nutrition to stay alive. Voters who supported the initiative did not have in mind milder, vaguer, and less verifiable complaints of the sort that seem to be far more common among people with doctor’s recommendations. Austin Elguindy, a partner in an L.A. medical pot recommendation practice called Consulting and Care for Wellness, tells me his top three reasons for recommending marijuana are lower back pain, insomnia, and anxiety.
Regulation of the dispensaries was left to local jurisdictions. Some, such as the politically liberal cities of San Francisco, Oakland, and West Hollywood, experienced an early proliferation that was quickly curbed. San Francisco set a limit of 23 dispensaries, while Oakland and West Hollywood each settled on four. About 120 cities banned pot storefronts entirely (although a lawsuit that is before a state appeals court challenges their authority to do so). Los Angeles, by contrast, declined to address pot dispensaries at all. Medical marijuana entrepreneurs began moving into L.A. in 2003. In May 2005, when City Councilman Dennis Zine (a former cop) first asked the police to look into the dispensaries and asked the city attorney’s office to help the council draft regulations for them, just a handful were around. By the end of 2006 there were nearly 100.
Zine blames the delayed reaction on resistance from then–City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo. Don Duncan, a leading medical marijuana activist and operator of a West Hollywood dispensary that opened in 2004, also blames the city attorney’s office. He says Delgadillo and his successor, Carmen Trutanich, did not want to legitimize an industry they viewed as illegal. Both took the position, contrary to Attorney General Brown’s guidelines, that state law does not allow the exchange of medical marijuana for money, no matter how the distributor is organized or labeled. In a January ruling on a civil nuisance case brought by the city attorney’s office against a dispensary called Hemp Factory V, a Superior Court judge agreed with this narrow reading of the law. Joe Elford, a lawyer for the medical marijuana activist group Americans for Safe Access, says this contradicts state appellate decisions that acknowledge the legality of not-for-profit sales.
The complaints that prompted Zine to consider regulating the dispensaries were not terribly alarming. Citizens were annoyed by pot smokers congregating outside dispensaries. Some parents didn’t like the message they believed the dispensaries communicated to their kids: that marijuana was an ordinary commodity that could be sold openly without fear of legal repercussions. They also worried that kids might obtain marijuana from patients, which local journalists have found happens occasionally. Mostly, marijuana just kind of freaks some people out.
In August 2007, the city council rushed through an “interim control ordinance” (ICO) that declared a moratorium on new pot shops. The ordinance also required existing dispensaries to submit paperwork proving they had seller’s permits from the state Board of Equalization (which expected them to collect taxes on marijuana sales), a tax registration certificate from the city, and a legitimate commercial lease or property deed. One hundred eighty-three dispensaries filed their paperwork before the November 2007 deadline, of which 137 were still operating when the council passed its new regulations in 2010.
By the time the ICO was passed, many dispensaries had been forced to close by the DEA’s tactic of sending threatening letters to landlords who rented space to pot shops. Worried that their property would be seized by the federal government, dozens of landlords evicted marijuana dispensaries. Many of these sellers sought to reopen by applying for a “hardship exemption” under the interim control ordinance. The city let the applications pile up without examining them, and dispensary operators who were not in business prior to the moratorium filed the same forms, hoping they could slip by. Many others, known as “rogues” in the medical marijuana community, opened without bothering to file any paperwork.
By mid-2009 hundreds of what came to be known as “post-ICO” pot shops had opened. Local and national media outlets began to notice. In July a Wall Street Journal story looked askance at the “unchecked growth” of pot shops in L.A. In October, the same month Newsweek dubbed L.A. “the wild West of weed,” a New York Times story tut-tutted that there were “more marijuana stores here than public schools.” The city council could no longer avoid the issue.
Making a Hash of an Ordinance
According to dispensary critic Michael Larsen, Los Angeles was “a national laughingstock” because of the proliferating pot shops. Based on a combination of hysterical hearsay and applications for exemptions that never turned into functioning storefronts, politicians, journalists, and perturbed neighbors were regularly claiming the city had something like 1,000 dispensaries—more than the number of Starbucks locations.
The L.A. Weekly—an alternative paper that might have been expected to side with the dispensaries, especially given how many of their ads fill the paper—helped lead the negative coverage, as part of a general crusade against what it sees as the city government’s fecklessness. The paper in November tried to get an accurate count of the dispensaries and found that 540 or so were operating when the council began reconsidering the issue. To a politician who didn’t have to worry about where he could obtain a medicine that helped make his life livable, that must have seemed like an awful lot.
Even though the city council had been considering the issue, on and off, for nearly five years, the ordinance it produced after a contentious back and forth between the council and the city attorney’s office seemed half-baked in many respects. It imposed draconian restrictions with little thought to how they might affect patients who had come to rely on marijuana to relieve their symptoms.
Some of the provisions are mild and largely supported by the medical pot community, which was begging for bearable regulations that would legitimize the dispensaries. The relatively uncontroversial requirements include demands for twice-daily bank runs, no plants visible from the street, and unarmed security guards patrolling a two-block radius around each dispensary.
Other provisions seem difficult to enforce and/or comply with, such as the rule that each patient can be a member of no more than one collective (meaning he can obtain marijuana from just one location), a demand that all the pot distributed go through “an independent and certified laboratory” to be checked for pesticides (dispensary operators insist that no such lab exists in Los Angeles), and a requirement that dispensaries store what could amount to tens of thousands of pieces of paper with patient and transaction information in fireproof vaults on site. Most ominously for the future of the medical marijuana business in L.A., the ordinance creates 1,000-foot “buffers” between the dispensaries and a list of “sensitive uses”: schools, churches, libraries, parks, youth centers, substance abuse centers, and other pot dispensaries. A last-minute addition to the bill also bans dispensaries from land “abutting” residential property and specifies that “no collective shall be located on a lot…across the street or alley from…a residentially zoned lot or a lot improved with residential use.”
If the ordinance survives legal challenges and goes into effect, that last provision will force nearly all of the existing dispensaries to move, and they will have few places to go. Almost all of L.A.’s standard commercial space is separated from homes or apartments merely by an alley behind them. In the weeks after the ordinance passed, various sources in the medical marijuana community told me landlords lucky enough to have space that complies with the new rules have tripled their rents and started demanding five-figure “signing fees” from dispensaries scrambling to find new locations.
Pot Civil War
The regulatory debate divided the medical marijuana community, pitting older dispensaries against new competitors, those seeking legitimacy against the open outlaws, those happy with the medical-use status quo against those who want complete legalization. Pot sellers who were in business before the 2007 moratorium—which a state court overturned on technical legal grounds in October—believe, probably correctly, that the industry could have continued to thrive under the media and political radar if not for the hundreds of Johnny-come-latelies. “Pre-ICO” and “post-ICO” dispensaries are the Sharks and Jets of the L.A. pot world.
Bill Leahy is general manager of a three- location chain of dispensaries known as the Farmacy, which began operating in West Hollywood in 2004. He meets me at the West Hollywood branch, which features cheery attendants, warm wood, mystical art, and one of the metropolitan area’s widest arrays of cannabis-enhanced tinctures, sprays, drinks, packaged foods, and gelatos. Leahy, a 63-year-old former print shop operator with the air of a steel-hard but gallant Western sheriff, is understandably proud of his comfortable shopping environment with doors open wide to the cool, sunny L.A. winter.
The Farmacy does not have the unsettling mantrap quality of many dispensaries, where you are locked into enclosed space after enclosed space between you and whoever hands you the goods (after examining and confirming your doctor’s recommendation and asking you to fill out forms to join the collective, assuming the dispensary is trying to be legit). Leahy makes sure I notice a rival shop across Santa Monica Boulevard, which opened in 2005. He gently chides its garish signage and unfriendly layout, which includes one of those off-putting enclosed entry areas.
Leahy is on the steering committee of the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance, a trade association dominated by the pre-ICO shops. Don Duncan, a prominent activist in the association, represents Americans for Safe Access as well as his own West Hollywood dispensary. An overwrought November L.A. Weekly story painted Duncan as the drug kingpin guiding council members such as Dennis Zine and Ed Reyes to let legalized pot dealing ruin their city, describing Duncan as “the most important man in City Hall regarding medical marijuana policy” with “tremendous influence.” The article suggestively noted that Duncan “wasn’t vetted to determine whether his pot sources and profits are illicit or legitimate,” though it presented no evidence that he fails to comply with state law.
Since March 2009, Dan Halbert has run the Rainforest Collective, a pot shop on Venice Boulevard in West Los Angeles with a bright and airy front room, floors covered in Astroturf, and walls painted with murals that suggest you are sitting in a vaguely Greek temple situated in a jungle. Halbert is president of the Green Alliance of Patients and Providers (GAPP), a trade group representing post-ICO dispensaries. The organization raised the ire of the city council gadfly John Walsh, a perpetually angry, perpetually arm-pumping shouter who was the most consistent and loudest anti-dispensary voice at city council meetings. At a January city council meeting, an appalled Walsh pointed the council’s attention to a line in a GAPP pamphlet that said the dispensaries wanted to craft and pass, via city referendum, regulations “for the industry by the industry.” Walsh bridled at the word industry. Wasn’t medical marijuana supposed to be about medicine and compassion?
Halbert understands that the pre-ICO pot entrepreneurs paved the way for people like him, braving the risk of federal arrests. An entrepreneur from Arizona, he says he did not feel safe moving into the market until he believed the Obama administration wouldn’t come after him. He can see how old hands such as Leahy and Duncan would resent the new competition. Still, Halbert says, “We brought the prices down. When there were only 186 [dispensaries], things were expensive, and [the shops] were making a lot of money, which is against the whole intent of this.”
Halbert’s jab at the profits of his older competitors seems somewhat at odds with his group’s description of medical marijuana distribution as an “industry.” But it fits with the anti-commercial mentality reflected in the attorney general’s guidelines, which say collectives should not turn a profit (although they are not required to incorporate as nonprofit organizations). That same attitude led to the half-baked wage controls in the new ordinance, which bans bonuses and says operators and workers must receive “compensation commensurate with reasonable wages and benefits paid to employees of IRS-qualified non-profit organizations” with similar qualifications and duties.
‘That Other Thing’
We’ve been talking about the politics of medical marijuana, a more or less civilized activity in which business people and activists on both sides lobby politicians, who consider their input, along with public comments and negative press coverage, when they formulate policy. That’s one thing. But as drug lord Avon Barksdale told his lieutenant Stringer Bell in the HBO series The Wire, there’s also “that other thing.”
Barksdale says this in the context of Bell’s attempts to turn the drug trade into a rational business—much as Don Duncan and Dan Halbert, in a more aboveboard way, are doing in Los Angeles. “That other thing” is the part of the drug trade Barksdale is more comfortable with: the part with guns and threats, intimidation and violence.
That other thing also plays a role in L.A.’s medical marijuana market, but how big a role is unclear. Although the text of the new ordinance alleges an “increase in and escalation of violent crime” associated with dispensaries, the city’s crime rates were dropping in almost every category while the shops proliferated. In a January interview with the Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Police Chief Charlie Beck admitted there was no evidence the dispensaries had contributed to criminality. “I have tried to verify that because that, of course, is the mantra,” Beck told the paper. “It doesn’t really bear out.”
One guard was murdered by robbers at a Pico Boulevard dispensary in October 2008, the sort of tragedy that can be expected in a big-city business that deals mostly in cash because its transactions are prohibited by federal law. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich says about 200 L.A. dispensaries have been robbed. Patrick Duff, proprietor of three L.A.-area marijuana dispensaries that have been raided by the police for various reasons, thinks the actual number of robberies is much higher because dispensary operators are often reluctant to call cops they believe are corrupt.
Police and politicians often claim dispensaries get their pot from Mexican drug cartels. (To comply with state law, everything a pot dispensary sells is supposed to be provided by its own patient-members, and all the dispensary operators I talked to or who stood up for themselves at city council meetings insist that’s how they do it. The council briefly considered requiring the dispensaries to do all their growing on site, the kind of demand that would have been seen as obviously absurd if applied to any other market or pharmacy.) Capt. Kevin McCarthy, the Los Angeles Police Department’s commanding officer for gangs and narcotics, tells me that getting to the bottom of such connections, if they exist, would be “labor intensive to do, and we don’t have resources to do it.” McCarthy notes that the city claims to have found pesticides used only in Mexico on pot seized in at least one dispensary raid.
One old-fashioned grower from Mendocino County who was accustomed to dealing with pot-savvy dispensary operators in the pre-ICO days laments that he is now supplying “Boris with the gold chains,” who cares only about price points and doesn’t understand the product. (There is no legal reason growers from up north can’t be patient-members of a dispensary in L.A.) Some anti-dispensary activists worry that they may be interfering with the interests of people who are not afraid to use violence when crossed, but there is no hard evidence to support that fear.
When it comes to intimidation and violence in the medical marijuana scene, the leading offender, however, is clearly the government: the DEA, plus local police and sheriff’s departments. They send small armies of heavily armed, Kevlar-clad, dark-helmeted men into the stores and homes of dispensary operators and medical marijuana growers, terrorizing their children, shooting their dogs, digging up their yards, roughing them up, and taking their money.
As of early February, Americans for Safe Access has counted nearly 70 medical marijuana raids in the Los Angeles area since 2006. Federal raids usually do not result in criminal charges; the DEA typically settles for shutting down dispensaries and seizing their assets. State and local authorities are slightly more inclined to prosecute. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, like City Attorney Trutanich, maintains that all pot sales are illegal. Still, most cases end in plea agreements, which means defendants’ claims to be operating within the law are never considered by a jury. Meital Manzuri, a Sherman Oaks defense attorney who represents dispensary operators, says it’s generally in the interests of both the state and the defendants to stop medical marijuana cases before they go to trial: Trials are expensive and, when a medical defense is involved, risky for both sides.
One dispensary operator who is likely going to trial on state charges is the 60-year-old accountant Clay Tepel, a veteran of L.A.’s counterculture as a former business manager at the original Los Angeles alternative weekly, the L.A. Free Press. In August local police arrested Tepel for possession with intent to sell at Kush Korner, his pot shop in a strip mall on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana. His sign still hangs between “I Sold it on EBay” and “Kids Hair Shop” in front of the strip mall, and the wrecked storefront stands empty next to a Domino’s Pizza outlet. Tepel still has the lease and keys, and we chat in the front room of the former dispensary, where natural light seeps into the electricity-deprived space. The possession with intent to sell charge darkly amuses him: Why else would he have a seller’s permit from the state Board of Equalization? Tepel’s lawyer, Allison Margolin, says that the case may result in her challenging the legality of the state’s demand that dispensaries have to operate not-for-profit.
Tepel’s store was a family operation. One of his teenaged daughters and his wife helped run the shop, which he insists was not only not making a profit but was in fact sucking money from his accounting income. Both of his teenaged daughters were around when a squad of heavily armed cops burst into his house at the same time the store was raided. Tepel tells me he and his family are negotiating with a major TV network to produce a reality show about his “Brady Bunch with bongs” once his legal troubles are behind him. Tepel says he has no idea why he was raided or why he is one of the unlucky few with a court date. He says the lead cop on the raid told him they were “coming to get all of them.”
In mid-February, after the new ordinance passed but before it took effect, local officials started to deliver on that threat. On February 18, the city attorney’s office sued three L.A. dispensaries, seeking to shut them down as public nuisances. The operator of one dispensary named in the lawsuit, Organica in West L.A., was arrested on state charges of selling marijuana in a raid that involved the DEA. On the same day, 18 other dispensaries received letters from the city attorney, threatening them with eviction for selling marijuana.
Assistant City Attorney Asha Greenberg told the L.A. Weekly that all the shops were targeted for selling pot to undercover cops who presented doctor’s recommendations. The city attorney’s office continues to insist that exchanging medical marijuana for money is illegal in all circumstances, even though the city council just passed an ordinance that explicitly allows nonprofit sales.
The Lie of Medical Marijuana
California’s medical marijuana law created a special category of people who are allowed to do something that others would be arrested for doing, and it gave a guild of licensed professionals the nearly unlimited power to define this category. Although physicians who issue recommendations for nonmedical reasons theoretically can be disciplined by the state medical board, that has happened only 12 times since 1996, and only one doctor lost his license as a result. The discretion permitted by the law is so broad that proving misconduct is very difficult.
That broad discretion helps patients who might be denied their medicine under a stricter regime, and at the same time it helps people who want pot for recreational purposes. Medical marijuana activists often say that all marijuana use is essentially medical, if that category is understood to include quotidian psychological and emotional problems that the drug alleviates. If physicians can prescribe pharmaceuticals to treat stress, anxiety, shyness, and depression, the activists say, why can’t they recommend marijuana for the same reasons? Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, offers a partly tongue-in-cheek take on the question: Given how bad for your health it is to get caught up in the criminal justice system because you have marijuana, he says, removing that threat is a form of preventive medicine.
Politically, though, the malleability of the medical category is a problem. Anyone who locates a sympathetic, trusting, or simply greedy doctor can obtain the legal right to possess pot in California. That fact, plus the hundreds of outlets that sprang up in Los Angeles to supply those patients, fostered a fairly accurate public perception that during the last few years anyone willing to put in a little effort could travel a short distance and buy pot over the counter.
The medical model attaches great importance to motive and state of mind, which is why dispensary operators often say, when justifying themselves to politicians or the press, that they’re in the business “for the right reasons,” unlike some of their competitors. Combined with the federal ban on marijuana, medicalization leads to a world where customers can shop at only one store; where the cash they pay for a product is not the price but a “contribution to the collective”; where businesses are expected to avoid turning a profit; where a medicine is subject to sales tax, unlike other pharmaceuticals, and isn’t regulated like any other pharmaceutical; where you are complying with the law if what you possess is “reasonable” related to some need that may have been invented by a doctor to begin with; where it’s legal for you to have pot but you are still apt to be arrested for growing or transporting it.
The medical model also fosters a weirdly contradictory attitude toward pot use, one that seemed to animate the L.A. Weekly’s surprisingly negative coverage of the issue: Even people who don’t care about pot smoking in general get upset when they think stoners are gaming a system that is supposed to serve patients with doctor-certified needs. The L.A. Weekly angrily reported in November that 70 percent of the people its reporters saw entering dispensaries were “young men—corroborating D.A. Cooley’s claim that the real market for all this activity is everyday users, not people suffering serious disease.” (Medical activists tend to respond to that sort of talk with the riposte that all sorts of maladies for which pot provides relief aren’t diagnosable by strangers watching from yards away.)
In Los Angeles, such outrage over pot being used for the “wrong” reasons led to a bad and unsustainable ordinance. In March, Americans for Safe Access challenged the new regulations in state court. Its lawyer Joe Elford said in a press release that “The requirement to find a new location within 7 days [if the old one is zoned out of compliance] is completely unreasonable and undermines the due process of otherwise legal medical marijuana dispensaries.” The suit seeks to have the ordinance declared “unlawful and unconstitutional.”
The ordinance also faces a challenge in the form of a citizen referendum spearheaded by Dan Halbert, who needs 27,000 signatures to get it on the next available L.A. ballot in 2010. But as long as medical use is the only marijuana use officially permitted, dispensaries will remain hamstrung by stupid and unworkable restrictions. Full legalization, an idea long avoided by many medical marijuana activists, may be the only way to make sure all patients who can benefit from the drug have access to it without creating the sort of situation that gave rise to the crackdown in L.A.
While the latest ordinance may or may not succeed in shutting down hundreds of functioning storefronts, the freewheeling culture of quasi-legal pot will be harder to crush. L.A. is home to at least four ad-filled magazines serving the pot community, a branch of “Oaksterdam University” where potrepreneurs and patients learn medical marijuana science and law, an endless series of cannabis-related expositions and conventions, and websites such as Weedtracker (featuring discussions of dispensary quality and local politics) and weedmaps.com (which finds the dispensary nearest you). The Medical Cannabis Safety Council meets at Oaksterdam on occasional Saturday nights to discuss, among other things, the molds that can bedevil growers and self-regulation as a way of fending off heavy-handed government interference.
Is America ready for a world in which pot is as culturally and physically prevalent as it has become in L.A.? In a national Zogby poll conducted in April 2009, 52 percent of respondents supported treating marijuana more or less like alcohol, while other recent polls put the percentage in the 40s. Support for legalization is higher in California: A Field Poll of California voters taken the same month as the Zogby survey put support for legalization at 56 percent statewide and 60 percent in Los Angeles County. This fall we will see whether those opinions translate into voter support for a California ballot initiative that would, at long last, legalize and tax adult possession of marijuana.
Don Duncan, as dean of L.A.’s medical marijuana suppliers and activists, doesn’t want to opine about full legalization. But his take on why all sides have fought so ferociously over the city’s medical pot ordinance applies to the legalization debate as well. “The normalization of medical marijuana—certain elements in law enforcement and other civic leaders see it as a threat,” he says. “If L.A. is in fact a medical marijuana town with safe access regulated, then that ends the debate for California.…Once the state’s largest and most populated community has sensible regulations, foes of medical cannabis in law enforcement know they’ve lost the battle in California. They see it as a line in the sand, so ideologically they can’t give up L.A. By the same token, that’s why ideologically we can’t either.”
The fight to define what happened in L.A. during the “wild West” days of what amounted to legal over-the-counter pot is the same sort of battle. If the complaints that led to the regulatory crackdown are understood as arising from anti-pot prejudice, NIMBYism, and the occasional sighting of “undesirables,” rather than real threats to public order and safety, it will seem pretty silly to continue spending billions of dollars and millions of man-hours each year to stop people from exchanging money for pot. The accidental result of a city attorney who didn’t want to legitimize marijuana and a city council that didn’t want to think about it could be the realization that it’s better to allow a pot free-for-all than to continue to wage war on marijuana.
Senior Editor Brian Doherty ([email protected]) is the author of This is Burning Man (BenBella), Radicals for Capitalism (PublicAffairs), and Gun Control on Trial (Cato).History is usually a boring subject. But in this case, knowing a bit of history might help you find powder for next season. Intrigued?
First, let me reiterate that I HATE long-term forecasts. Beyond about seven days, weather forecasts are just about meaningless. So why, in April 2011, am I going to talk about the weather seven to twelve months from now? Because La Nina might be back for a second showing. If you ski in the northern half of the U.S., this might seriously pique your interest.
Back in October of 2010, I wrote an article about “What La Nina Means for Snowfall”. In general, cooler water in the central Pacific Ocean (i.e. La Nina) can stir the atmosphere in such a way to produce above average snowfall for the northern half of the United States and many areas of Canada. Looking back at this season’s snowfall, that general forecast came true. In short, La Nina was kind to most ski slopes and faceshots were plentiful this winter.
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As this amazing season winds down, the greedy powder skier (e.g. You) is probably wondering if next season can even come close to this season in terms of snow. The answer? Better than a 50% chance. That might not sound like a good forecast, but actually it’s about as good as it gets when we’re looking seven to twelve months into the future.
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Klaus Wolter, an expert in El Nino/La Nina, recently commented that, “Once La Niña gets as big as this one, odds are higher than 50% that it ends up being a two-year event, even if it weakens (or disappears) during the summer.”
This season’s La Nina was the strongest we’ve seen in the last 35 years, and is in the top 6 since 1950. So in layman’s terms, once a La Nina gets this strong for a winter season, while it’s likely to weaken over the summer, chances are good that it will strengthen once again next season. In super layman’s terms, this means that if you enjoyed this season’s snow, there’s better than a 50/50 chance |
hit targets in Israel and Jordan, killing one. Israeli media reported that the rockets were in retaliation for the recent Israeli incursions in Gaza throughout the weekend.
Ahmed Bahar, a Hamas leader and speaker of parliament, attended the funeral of Issa Batran, the Hamas commander who was killed Friday night, using the opportunity to issue some of the most vitriolic rhetoric heard from Hamas.
Batran, he said in the eulogy, was “a legendary man, who was killed by rockets filled with treachery and betrayal.”
“There is no way we can leave our right to protect our Jerusalem,” he added, “and I say to you that victory is on our side.”
Israeli officials, in turn, have condemned the barrage of rockets coming from Gaza and Egypt, vowing to overcome the violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israeli media, called today’s violence a “criminal attack on innocent civilians in both Israel and Jordan [that] was instigated by terror groups who want to sabotage the peace process.”
While Hamas said the rocket and mortars fired into Israel on Friday did not come from them, Israel has previously said that it would hold Hamas, which effectively rules Gaza, responsible for any weapons deployed within the area’s borders.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group that has said it is committed to the destruction of Israel, took control of Gaza in a 2007 coup, which led Israel to enact a blockade against the coastal Palestinian territory.
Last January, Israel launched a major military operation inside Gaza after scores of rockets hit nearby Israeli towns in the months before. The three-week battle killed hundreds of Palestinians and largely stemmed the flow of rocket fire from Gaza.
This latest round of violence is largely seen as a distraction for Israel, which is focusing its attention on the threat coming from Iran, which Israel believes is seeking nuclear arms. Still, with violence at its highest point in a year and a half, it’s difficult to predict just how far the latest hostilities might escalate.
And Gazans aren’t optimistic.
“It seems like the violence is building to something worse,” said Ahmed Kassem, who had come to help friends dig out from this morning’s explosion in Deir el Belah.
Editor's note: In the fourth century B.C., Alexander the Great forged a path from Greece through the modern Middle East to Persia. It was a path of conquest that empires would follow through the ages. Traces of each can be seen today in the culture, monuments, continuing military presence and people along the route, which ended for Alexander in Babylon, in modern-day Iraq. In this project, GlobalPost correspondent Theodore May sets out to see how Alexander’s influence lives on. He will be blogging about his travels at Backpacking to Babylon.Music has the power to invoke emotion and change the way you're feeling. We've made it easier to find the tunes to match every mood by compiling the best digital music deals. Whether you're looking for a workout anthem, music for a party or tunes to listen to while commuting to and from work or school, you'll find what you need here.
Where to Find Digital Music Deals
There are lots of ways to save on music; you just have to know where to find the digital music deals. Many artists offer coupons and promotions through their official websites. Look carefully for news or special offer sections to see what current promos are out there. If you're a fan of podcasts, you'll usually hear commercials with special coupon codes on new products or related downloads.
If you'd rather stream music than download, you have plenty of options to choose from. Prime members can enjoy Amazon's Prime Music for free as part of their subscription; if you want access to more tunes, you can pay a monthly fee for Prime Music Unlimited, which offers millions more songs. Slacker and Pandora both have free and premium options, with paying members enjoying ad-free listening.
If you like taking in live music, take note: Concert tickets can sometimes equal additional savings on music. With the purchase of select tickets, you could receive a code for free or deeply discounted products from the artist, including download codes for singles or full albums. If you're still filling your shelves with CDs, be on the lookout for special offers. It's common to receive codes for free digital music downloads of the same albums so you can have both physical and digital copies.
Who Has the Best Digital Music Offers?
Add to your music library without breaking the bank by shopping music download deals from some of your favorite providers. You can buy singles for as low as $0.69 each when you check out Amazon's Digital Music Deals page, and you can find entire albums for $0.99 when you browse Google Play's Promotions section. If you prefer to buy your music from Apple iTunes, look for discounts on gift cards at places like Target, Walmart and Kroger. These promotions may be part of a weekly sale; otherwise, you're sure to find deals during major shopping events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.Kellogg Company announced Wednesday that it would close some of its distribution centers and lay off about a thousand employees in the U.S.
Some sources close to the situation said the company was looking to cut sales representatives and merchandisers and close as many as 39 distribution centers, Breitbart reported. On average, those centers employ about 30 full-time workers each, so as many as 1,100 people could be laid off.
According to The Associated Press, Kellogg reported $53 million in losses last quarter.
WKBN reported that company spokesman Kris Charles released a statement Thursday morning saying that it was a difficult decision but that it was the “right move for the company to achieve our long-term objectives.”
Closures and layoffs were set to be completed by the fourth quarter of this year, the company said.
Kellogg CEO John Bryant said there was no “discernible” impact on the company after conservatives organized a boycott in November.
The boycott resulted from Kellogg’s announcement that it would pull its advertisements from Breitbart News’ website, stating that the company didn’t want its ads to appear on sites that weren’t “aligned with our values.”
If closing distribution centers and laying off workers isn’t a discernible impact, I’d like to see what is. It looks like choosing ad placement on the basis of political ideology isn’t such a good idea after all.
While this is bad news for those who will be losing their jobs over this decision, it serves as a lesson to companies that feel compelled to become involved in politics. Just look at Target, GrubHub, Starbucks and Macy’s. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to irritate what could be a considerable bloc of your customer base.
Maybe some companies will learn from Kellogg’s mistake.
Americans don’t want to hear what celebrities, CEOs or sports figures think about politics, and they’re growing weary of liberal crybabies trashing President Donald Trump and conservatives on what feels like a daily basis. Like us on Facebook – USA Liberty News Share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know if you’re surprised by this news.
What do you think about Kellogg’s announcement? Scroll down to comment below!
Source: conservativetribune.comIn the last few months, Sennheiser's been blowing out the original version of its highly regarded Momentum headphones, selling them for less than $200 online after starting them out at $379 a couple of years ago. The reason for the price drop is that the company has new over-ear and on-ear Momentums, including new wireless models.
(Confusingly, the new wired models are called the Momentum 2.0, while the wireless models seem to use the "2.0" label at some retailers, but not at others.)
Not surprisingly, the new models don't come cheap. The over-ear Momentum 2.0 Wireless we're reviewing here carries a list price of $500 or £380 (that's AU$745 converted), which is probably about $100 more than it should cost. But aside from that pricing issue, it's a great Bluetooth headphone.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
What's great about it? For starters, it's comfortable and well built. Sennheiser has tweaked the designs of both its Momentum over-ear and on-ear models. Both the wired and wireless versions have a new folding design that gives the headphones a slightly smaller footprint when they're in their included carrying case.
In the case of the new wired Momentum 2.0 and this wireless model, Sennheiser has made the earcups a little bigger so they fit over your ears better and don't pinch anything (some users complained that the headphones were too small, sort of in between on on-ear and over-ear headphone). The designers also made the earcups softer.
On top of its Bluetooth capabilities (it uses Bluetooth 4.0), the Momentum Wireless also features active noise cancellation and near-field communications tap-to-pair technology for compatible devices, and supports the aptX codec ( aptX is supposed to improve the sound when streaming over Bluetooth). Additionally, you can attach a cable and use the headphone as a wired headphone. Not only does it sound better in this mode, but it plays louder.
View full gallery Sarah Tew/CNET
The playback and volume controls, as well as the power on/off button, are on the right earcup, and I was able to operate everything easily enough just by feel.
Like a lot of other Bluetooth headphones and speakers, this model has some built-in voice prompts delivered by a soothing female voice. She tells you when the headphones are powered on or off, let's you know when your headphones are paired with your Bluetooth-enabled device (yes, these headphones work with iOS, Android, and Windows phones), and alerts you when your battery is low.
Wireless range is the typical 33 feet or 10 meters and my wireless connection was mostly rock steady, though you will run into a bit of Bluetooth interference now and again. (Some reviewers on Amazon have complained of this.)
Performance
The noise cancellation, which isn't too heavy, is always on -- there's no switch to turn it off -- but battery life is still quite good at up to 22 hours. The noise-canceling worked well in the streets of New York, and the integrated microphone, which is actually dual mics, worked very well for making calls with my cell phone. You can hear your own voice as you talk inside the headphones, which keeps you from talking louder than you need to.The oldest set of federally placed monuments in the United States are strewn along busy streets, hidden in dense forests, lying unassumingly in residential front yards and church parking lots. Many are fortified by small iron fences, and one resides in the sea wall of a Potomac River lighthouse. Lining the current and former boundaries of Washington, D.C., these are the boundary stones of our nation’s capital.
The story of the boundary stones begins with the Residence Act of 1790, which approved of the creation of a new national capital along the Potomac River in the shape of a diamond 10 miles on each side, for a 100 square mile area. The new capital would be carved out of land from Maryland and Virginia. President George Washington, himself an accomplished surveyor, designated Jones Point to be the southern point of the diamond, with the rest of the territory to be surveyed and mapped from there. Beginning in 1791, a team led by Andrew Ellicott, and including famed astronomer and intellectual Benjamin Banneker, set out from Jones Point to perform an initial survey of the new territory. Although Banneker was forced to drop out of the project due to illness, Ellicott and his team were able to complete the full survey on the Virginia and Maryland sides of the Potomac River in 1792. At each mile of the survey, a stone was placed to mark the boundary of the “Territory of Columbia.” In 1846, Virginia’s donated land portion to what had then become the District of Columbia was returned to Virginia, thereby nullifying the original purpose of many of the stones on the diamond’s northwestern and southwestern sides.
The boundary stones were intended to define the territory’s borders and solidify the permanence of the new national capital. But over the years, weathering, urban development, and other factors have taken a toll on the stones themselves. In 1906, Fred E. Woodward visited each boundary stone, took photographs, and documented their conditions. Among his documentations is his Chart showing the original boundary milestones of the District of Columbia, which shows the locations of each boundary stone while noting that several stones were damaged or missing (appearing only as “stumps”).
In a letter to the Columbia Historical Society (today the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.), Woodward called for these stones to be preserved. He wrote:
Important as these ancient boundary stones are to the historian or antiquary, they are singularly unprotected and should at once be safeguarded against further injury or damage other than the necessary exposure to the elements. Such protection might be afforded by a small enclosure about five feet square and five feet high, suitably made of wrought iron of approved national design, to be placed around each stone. In some such manner, may these earlier monuments of the history of the District of Columbia be preserved for those who come after us.
In the years following Woodward’s report, a number of preservation efforts were undertaken to save the stones, including the construction of protective fencing that Woodward had proposed. A boundary stone protected by fencing is shown in the below photograph by Harris & Ewing from 1922.
Today, 36 of the original 40 boundary stones still exist in various physical conditions. Some stones legibly maintain their original inscriptions marking the “Jurisdiction of the United States,” while others have been severely eroded or sunk into the ground so as to now resemble ordinary, naturally-occurring stones. The inclusion of all of the boundary stones into the National Register of Historic Places in the 1990s and various rehabilitation efforts by local and federal government agencies in recent years point to renewed interest in preserving the stones (if perhaps not restoring them to their full, 1790s glory).
In whatever physical state, the boundary stones have largely survived for over 200 years and today remain a series of modest monuments to Washington, D.C.’s past and present.In a new era of protest we need to demand more from white athletes
Share In a new era of protest we need to demand more from white athletes
It was the spring of 1968 in Los Angeles and something uncontrollable was eating at Jack Tenner.
For months a proposed “Negro boycott” was discussed among black athletes for the upcoming Olympics in Mexico City. Tenner — a white civil rights lawyer and judge who fought for black people and athletes for decades — called for a similar boycott in 1960. But heading into what would be a historic Olympics, Tenner wanted to set a record straight.
Tenner sent a letter to his friend Brad Pye, a legendary black journalist with a column at the LA Sentinel, a black publication. In it, Tenner expressed thoughts about the role white athletes played in a visibly racist America.
“At the moment I seriously question whether white America is ready to take the total responsibility necessary to remake the American society. But the activity of Negro athletes to bear witness in their identification with this struggle should not be repudiated, rather, the call should be on white athletes who labor on the same athletic field and come to have respect for their fellow athletes,” Tenner wrote.
Recently, white NFL players (like Chris Long and Justin Britt) have gained national attention for showing support for their protesting black teammates. Then on Monday night, a group of Browns players knelt in prayer during the national anthem. The group included Seth DeValve, who is white, and who after the game explained that “he wanted to support my African-American teammates today who wanted to take a knee. We wanted to draw attention to the fact that there’s things in this country that still need to change.”
Last season, USWNT player Megan Rapinoe kneeled during the national anthem before an NWSL game. The entire Indiana Fever team is also protesting before WNBA games.
These shows of support are just the beginning.
Tenner detailed a sentiment running parallel to that. It is understood by people of color in his era and this one: that black athletes, in majority, are the ones dissenting. But the issue wasn’t with protest or how they did it, rather, the fact that they seemed alone.
“[White athletes] are the ones who should protest the lack of opportunity in athletics for coaching, front office jobs and executive jobs,” Tenner continued in his letter. “It is to the white athlete that one should turn and demand his support in the struggle for equality.”
What Tenner outlined is the need for the voice of white athletes in a racist America that seems immovable. It is the need for acts of support: When white athletes speak about divisive and political issues it lessens the burden of the black athlete who tends to shoulder the weight of racism in their athletic world.
White athletes can spread ideas to white consumers, which lead to avenues for substantive conversation and results. An irony of racism is that it is something created and advanced by whiteness, yet whiteness is a deciding factor in reversing the tide.
This was Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett’s call to his white counterparts when starting his protest during the national anthem before games this season. Bennett made a simple plea to white athletes asking them to get involved.
"It would take a white player to really get things changed," Bennett said. "Because when somebody from the other side understands and they step up and they speak up about it... it would change the whole conversation. Because when you bring somebody who doesn't have to be a part of [the] conversation making himself vulnerable in front of it, I think when that happens, things will really take a jump."
He, like many in history, understands that white athletes are essential to propel conversations about racism forward. However, the role of the white athlete isn’t to merely support black athletes in their struggle for equality. They need and deserve more than a pat on the shoulder. No, white athletes must be as vocal — if not louder — than the oppressed looking to end their generational pain.
“This is the ultimate expression of playing while white. You can be silent. You can come out and condemn people like Kaepernick or you can do the most minimal of silent protests. The consequences will always be minimal and the praise will always be great,” David Leonard, a Washington State University professor and author of Playing While White, said.
“We need to demand more from white athletes and white fans and white coaches and general managers and owners,” Leonard continued. “Not just in terms of gestures and symbolic standards, but pointed, directed protests.”
In 1992 Johnette Howard, a sports writer for the Detroit Free Press, posed a question to readers: “Where are white voices in the assault on racism?”
At that time, Sports Illustrated surveyed over 300 athletes and many black athletes said that race relations with white athletes were acceptable. Seventy-three percent of black respondents even said they received the same fan treatment as their white counterparts.
Howard asked: If that were true, then why is it that the “near-unanimous majority of athletes who speak out against racism are black. Why?” To Howard, the black athlete’s voice in these discussions were muddied. She didn’t understand why black athletes’ social consciousness was routinely judged, as if it was less authentic because a white man didn’t say it.
Richard Lapchick, a white historian and sports activist, noted similarly. It was troubling that even in times when the conversation entered the national consciousness — when issues of race were spoken about en masse through the context of sports — that only black athletes were answering questions about racism or whiteness.
When the PGA was supposed to hold its 1990 championship at Shoal Creek Country Club, a golf course in Alabama that often denied black entrants to make a white-only club, Lapchick saw only one side telling their story.
“Many golf writers who were doing stories (on the club’s all-white membership policy) went only to black golfers like Lee Elder and a few others asking ‘What’s your position? What’s your position?’” he said. “Very few pressed the white golfers for their stance.”
Mike Henneman, a white pitcher for the Tigers in the 90s, agreed. He told Howard about the difference he saw.
“We probably are asked about racism less,” he said.
Mass media and others have peddled the idea for generations that racism is not white America’s problem, that the onus is on non-white people to fix an invention of white people.
The issue has become immediate, to some, in an America where hate groups, emboldened by the president, are marching in the streets and carrying out acts of domestic terror. Heidi Beirich, the leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project and an expert on extremism, said in April “it’s like white people can’t handle the idea that there are devils in our midst.”
“White supremacy is an indigenous idea ― it’s from our culture,” Beirich said. “I think there’s a reluctance on the part of people to say, ‘I play a role in this. My culture plays a role in this.’”
Part of this has to be understood in the context of what white people and athletes are allegedly giving up to stand with their teammates and citizens. Black NFL players can’t be the only ones with something to gain from protest. White players can’t be seen as having something to lose with theirs. This dichotomy underlines the notion that standing for racial justice is a zero-sum game.
This is a piece of the problem. It demonstrates that whiteness in systems profiting from white supremacy, like sports leagues, is at best always praised and at worst tolerated as part of discourse. It creates a world where Steve Kerr and Gregg Poppovich can express similar views as Colin Kaepernick but stay employed.
“This tells us about the structures of racism. We see that no matter what a black athlete does there’s a level of condemnation and demonization,” Leonard said. “It demonstrates the way in which whiteness and blackness operates in these conversations. Whiteness is privileged. Blackness is rendered as suspect and criminal and undesirable.”
In America’s current political climate, to be an athlete and be at odds with the president is to immediately be seen as rebellious. To be against the status quo, to pop a bubble in the normalcy of racism, makes you the enemy to part of the country.
To stand up for others that don’t look like you creates the idea, the assumption, that something superior is required. That is a lie. It does not take courage for white athletes to do what is necessary to combat the insidiousness of racism. It’s merely avoiding the innate cowardice of wanting to fit in with the pack.
When black and brown bodies fall at the hands of police, of state-sanctioned violence, eventually you have to say that it’s not okay. But that alone is not enough. As a white athlete or person, to just say these statements is the bare minimum. It’s an early step in what should be a long process.
It’s easy to condemn racism or the societal ills that have propelled America to international dominance. However, there must be consistency. There must be care. That is courage. Not to just say “racism is bad” but to say it over and over again, especially when it feels like no one is listening. You say it not to be lauded for being brave, but because to do so is the only moral thing to do. White athletes do not become white saviors for doing what black athletes have done for decades.
They cannot become vaunted as heroes because of this, but this work is necessary regardless of approval. For them it means that, finally, they are doing what should be normal. There is power in their stand. Their statements and exhibitions isolate people positing the framework for radicalization. If your favorite white football player supports Kaepernick or Malcolm Jenkins or Bennett it kills the oxygen necessary to breed hate.
This has been the advice of Tenner, the old lawyer and judge fighting in Los Angeles in the sixties. It’s what Howard and Lapchick discussed in the nineties when progress moved at a snail’s pace. And it’s what Bennett is beckoning for in the present as change seems as distant as it’s ever been.
The role of the white athlete needs to be prominent during this moment of revitalized athlete activism, or it’ll just be another wasted flashpoint in history. But in it, there also has to be a clear understanding. Regardless of fan or media reaction to the white athlete’s stands, the player must stay level-headed. They must realize this is merely meeting the base level of what is needed to be a moral American.
This fight is one for equality, not for glory.
“It’s important to both recognize that part of being an ally or accomplice, whether it be white athletes, fans or white owners is doing the work without recognition,” Leonard said. “The work should be done. There shouldn’t be celebration. There shouldn’t be an effort to hand out a gold star.”
This post has been updated.John O’Sullivan at NRO has an excellent post called “The Assimilation Vacuum and the Boston Bombers.” He writes:
The first point that strikes me is that these young men should have had every reason to be happy in the United States and grateful to the country for its giving them sanctuary. Their uncle seems to have developed just such a loyalty. In addition, the young men were apparently well-integrated into American life locally. They had been to good schools, taken part in voluntary activities, and were regarded by Americans who knew them as bright kids and potentially productive citizens.
The easy line on the brothers is that, in spite of all these benefits, they just couldn’t assimilate. But O’Sullivan seems closer to the mark when he says they “assimilated into a nullity.”
This was the case with England’s “7/7 bombers” who killed more than 50 people in the London subway bombings of 2005:
For almost the entire youth of the 7/7 bombers, the British had acted as if they were ashamed of their national identity and history. So young men, with the usual propensity of young men to want to identify with patriotic and idealistic causes, had been told that there was nothing admirable or heroic about being British. It was a sort of swindle, and one, moreover, that had been perpretated especially upon people of their ethnic backgrounds. They had therefore looked around for a heroic cause they could identify with. The radical Islamists provided them with the cause of radical Islamism — and they embarked on the relatively short road to mass murder.
The British thought this sort of thing wouldn’t happen in the U.S., where the process of “Americanization” seemed to have solved the conundrum of how to turn immigrants into loyal and patriotic citizens. But this is an illusion:
America now [bears] all the marks of a society that had been subjected to sevral decades of relentless indoctrination in the dogmas of multiculturalism and bilingualism.
The Brits, says O’Sullivan of his countrymen, were clinging to an obsolete view of America. And he cites empirical evidence in support of this grim assessment:
Ten days ago the Hudson Institute published an important paper, “America’s Patriotic Immigrations System is Broken,” by John Fonte and Althea Nagai, which drew on a massive new Harris Interactive survey of native-born Americans and immigrants. This study shows beyond any doubt that, as John Fonte puts it, the patriotic attachment of naturalized citizens is much weaker than that of the native-born. For example, by 30 percentage points (67.3 percent to 37 percent) native-born citizens are more likely to believe that the U.S. Constitution should be a higher legal authority than international law if there is a conflict between the two. But that is only one example — the strength of Fonte-Nagai paper is the cumulative evidence that a relatively weak love of country persists across a large range of issues.
What are the implications for comprehensive immigration reform? According to O’Sullivan:
Getting patriotic assimilation right is as vital — perhaps more vital — than getting border security right. It is an essential part of any comprehensive immigration reform worth the name. To propose opening the country to millions of new immigrants until we have solved this problem is simply to invite more violence from more young men whom we have disoriented and left victim to the worse impulses.
My view is that there will be no “patriotic assimilation.” Given the trend of our current culture, what possible reason is there to think otherwise?
Thus, the 11 million plus illegal immigrants who would become citizens under the Schumer-Rubio (et al.) immigration bill will, as a group, have vastly less patriotic attachment to this country than other U.S. citizens. This will be true no matter how many flags are handed out for illegals to wave at rallies. This will be true no matter how lyrical Marco Rubio and others wax about the illegal alien population.
I can understand why portions of the left, which has led the charge for multiculturalims, see no problem with creating a path to citzenship, notwithstanding its impact on the patriotism of U.S. citizens. But why would any conservative support legislation that almost certainly will dilute American patriotism?INDIANAPOLIS, April 3, 2016 – Based on performances at the U.S. Women’s National Team Training Camp, USA Gymnastics has selected the six women who will represent the United States at the 2016 Pacific Rim Championships, presented by Hershey’s, April 8-10, at the XFINITY Arena at Everett (Wash). The U.S. women will compete in Subdivision 2 on Saturday, April 9, at 7 p.m. in the team and all-around finals, which also serve as the qualifications for the individual event finals. Competition begins on April 8 with the men’s team and all-around finals.
The members of the U.S. Women’s Team for the Pac Rim Championships are listed below.
Simone Biles, Spring, Texas/World Champions Centre
Brenna Dowell, Odessa, Mo./Great American Gymnastics Express
Laurie Hernandez, Old Bridge, N.J./MG Elite
Ashton Locklear (Lumbee Tribe), Hamlet, N.C./Everest Gymnastics
Maggie Nichols, Little Canada, Minn./Twin City Twisters
Aly Raisman, Needham, Mass./Brestyan’s American Gymnastics
Biles, Dowell, Nichols and Raisman were members of the 2015 World Championships team that won the team gold medal, and Biles is the current reigning World and U.S. all-around champion. Biles now has three straight World all-around titles and 14 World medals, including 10 gold. Biles and Locklear were both on the 2014 World team that clinched the team title. Hernandez, who moved up to the senior level in 2016, took third in the all-around at the recent Jesolo Trophy, as well as helped the USA to the team gold.
The three-day Pacific Rim Championships is expected to feature more than 200 gymnasts from 18 Pac Rim countries, competing in men’s and women’s gymnastics, trampoline and rhythmic gymnastics. The countries are Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, and the United States.US Dolphin Safe Tuna Label is Unfair to Mexico, WTO rules yet again
Marine mammal advocates accuse trade body of putting business above dolphin protection
Maureen Nandini Mitra
If Mexico and the World Trade Organization have their way, those “dolphin safe” cans of tuna you’ve been buying at the supermarket might actually come stained with dolphin blood.
Last Friday, the global trade body again ruled against the United States in a long-running dispute with Mexico over US “Dolphin Safe” tuna-labeling regulations, saying that the regulations unfairly discriminate against Mexico. The decision by the WTO’s appellate body is the latest development in a trade dispute between the two countries that dates back to the establishment of the Dolphin Safe tuna label in 1990.
Photo by The Hamster Factor/Flickr
“While we are disappointed with the Appellate Body’s findings, this need not be the end of the road for dolphin-safe labeling,” Kitty Block, vice president of Humane Society International said in a statement. Block says animal advocates will urge US trade officials to work with Mexico to figure out a solution that wouldn’t jeopardize dolphins.
The dolphin-safe label has helped save countless dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean (ETPO) — a large marine region running from Southern California to Peru and extending out into the Pacific Ocean almost to Hawai’i — where schools of tuna tend to swim along with dolphins. Mexico and several other countries allow their tuna industry to deliberately target, chase, and surround the dolphins with nets in order to get to the tuna. More than 7 million dolphins have died after being trapped in nets since this fishing method was introduced in 1957.
In 1990, after years of campaigning by Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project, the Dolphin Safe tuna label was established in the US. The label can only be used for tuna that is not caught by chasing and netting dolphins. It also can’t be used if dolphins are killed or seriously injured during a tuna fishing expedition. According to IMMP, since the label was established, dolphin deaths from tuna fishing have declined 98 percent. Currently, only Mexican, Venezuelan, and Colombian tuna vessels are still chasing and netting dolphins.
Mexico has objected to this labeling for years, claiming these restrictions to protect dolphins — which until recently only applied to tuna fishing in the ETPO region — discriminate against the Mexican tuna industry. In 2008 it took its complaint to the WTO. Following years of arguing back and forth, in 2014, the US National Marine Fisheries Service extended the restrictions to tuna fisheries from all parts of the world.
Friday’s ruling is the last the trade body is going to make in this dispute and could lead to Mexico making a claim for retaliation against US exports if it believes the United States has not brought its rules into line with the WTO ruling.
Marine mammal advocates say the ruling shows that the WTO continues to put business above dolphin protection.
“Time and time again the WTO has shown it doesn’t care about wildlife, the environment or truth in labeling,” says David Phillips, director of the Earth Island Institute’s International Marine Mammal Project, which now monitors tuna companies around the world for compliance. Phillips believes that the decision in only going to result in “a lot of arm-waving” and “see we are right” comments from Mexico, but it’s not gong to change anything.
For one, Mexico will now also have to try and establish the value of the tuna trade they are not able to bring into the US because of the labeling restriction. “We say the value is zero because nobody here wants your tuna,” Phillips says. “US canning companies, retailers, and consumers do not want tuna that’s caught harming dolphins.”
For more information on Dolphin Safe tuna: http://www.dolphinsafetuna.comNetflix will be getting its own dedicated button on TiVo’s remote controls, as part of product and patent-licensing agreements set by the two companies.
The duo’s product agreement calls for TiVo to continue integrating Netflix into TiVo set-tops available from pay-TV providers and at retail. That will include unified search across the content catalog and a Netflix button on TiVo remotes.
TiVo was acquired by entertainment-technology provider Rovi for $1.1 billion this year, and the merged company adopted the TiVo name. Both Rovi and TiVo historically have engaged in aggressive patent litigation. Rovi had sued Netflix alleging it infringed five its its patents — but the streaming provider won a victory in the case last year after a U.S. federal judge ruled the Rovi-owned patents at issue were invalid.
The litigation between Netflix and Rovi is now all water under the bridge. Under a separate agreement announced Monday, Netflix has acquired a license to TiVo’s patent portfolios as well as a license to the portfolio for over-the-top services from patent holding company Intellectual Ventures. Rovi formed a partnership with Intellectual Ventures earlier this year to pool their OTT-related patents.
TiVo and Rovi together have over 6,000 issued patents and pending applications worldwide, including patents covering DVR and interactive program guide functions.
“The partnership between Netflix and TiVo dates back to our early days of streaming video,” Bill Holmes, Netflix global head of business development, said in a statement. “Building on this history, the agreements provide consumers freedom to watch their favorite TV shows and movies whenever and wherever, with an integrated experience across more devices.”Make Functional Programming Better by Supporting the Ada Initiative and Petitioning the ACM
we reached our initial $4096 goal in just 5 hours! Can you help us raise it to $8192 and double what we hoped to raise?We've now exceeded our goal of $8192, six hours before the end of the challenge! Can you help us bring it up to $10,000?
Clément Delafargue, Adam Foltzer, Eric Merritt, Chung-chieh (Ken) Shan, and I are orchestrating a community challenge to both raise money for the Ada Initiative, and make computer science conferences (specifically, the many technical conferences that the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) organizes) better. We are challenging anybody who identifies as a member of the functional programming community to do two things:
Donate to the Ada Initiative, a nonprofit organization that is working hard to make it broadly possible for women and people in a variety of other marginalized groups to work in technology. Call on the ACM to consistently publicize their own anti-harassment policy for all its conferences. That is, I'm asking that those -- at least those of you who use Twitter -- tweet a statement like the following one (use your own words, just include the #lambda4ada hashtag and try to include the donation link): I donated to @adainitiative b/c I want @TheOfficialACM events to announce their anti-harassment policy. https://supportada.org?campaign=lambda #lambda4ada
Our goal is to raise $4096 $8192 $10,000 for the Ada Initiative by 5:00 PM Pacific time on Friday, September 19. If you use the URL https://supportada.org?campaign=lambda, your donation will count towards the functional programming community challenge and help us reach the $4096 $8192 $10,000 goal. I have personally matched the first $1024 of funds raised -- that is to say, I already donate $80 per month to TAI, so over a year, my contributions will add up to $960. On Tuesday, Sept. 16, I donated an additional $64 to round the amount up to $1024. I've spent the past couple years struggling to pay off student loans and medical bills despite being generously compensated for my work -- nevertheless, I support TAI every month because I see it as an investment in my continued ability to work. I hope that my example inspires those who have a bit more financial freedom than I |
undoubtedly going to be a difficult fight. Thomas tells me there are already whispers of the event being protested — a legal use of free speech, for sure, but with an illiberal call for censorship.
The last few weeks have turned national attention to controversies at Yale and Mizzou, but we must remember the free speech crisis on America’s college campuses is not limited to one or two instances. It’s universal, and students like Thomas are its victims.This past week, dozens of newspapers and websites around the world decided that Chris Crocker “suddenly” got hot. “Chris Crocker Is a Total Stud” screamed The Frisky, “Chris Crocker – Now a Hunk!” blared an Australian newspaper. “Totally Smokin'” agreed AOL News. “See Chris Crocker’s SHOCK TRANSFORMATION!” touted UK’s Daily Star.
And the comment sections were predictably filled with lots of “Dayum, he got fine!” and “Whoa, that’s the Britney kid? How’d that happen?”
I know Chris, he’s a long-time friend of WOW, and I follow him on Twitter. I find him funny and adorable. So when I saw the headlines, I said to myself “That’s sweet. That must be fun for him.” and then moved along, without giving it much thought.
This morning, though, another long-time friend of WOW, trans activist Andrea James, tweeted
Chris Crocker proves once again to be one of the most thoughtful voices in the #transgender community. So proud!… https://t.co/kCCartlGxB — Andrea James (@jokestress) February 24, 2016
Hmmmm. That’s intriguing. I didn’t even realize that Chris still identified as trans. There was a link to a video on Chris’ Facebook Page, where he had posted a video explaining that while it’s nice to receive compliments, we really don’t know the full story behind his “transition” to hot, bearded hunk. It’s worth watching.
My response to the international “Chris Crocker Got Hot” Headline Posted by Chris Crocker on Tuesday, February 23, 2016
I know a lot of people are going to say ‘just take a compliment.’ Who doesn’t like compliments, right? But what I wanted to say is, we should always feel attractive – not just when society tells us we we are. For many years if my life I’ve identified as transgender, and I’ve not had the finances to transition. And so, living in Tennessee, living in a town where its not safe for me to be my full self, I have… adapted… to my surroundings. So when I hear that I have “gotten hot,” I immediately think, “was I just not hot before because I was androgynous? I think that’s some of it, and I think that’s why I wanted to say that while we all love compliments, in our knowing of who we are and in our confidence, we should beats a million people telling you you got hot. As long as you’re happy with the way you look, and as long as you’re expressing your true self, THAT’S what’s most attractive. And to be honest, I don’t know that I am being my full self. I am being y full self as much as I can in the moment, where I can’t really do anything about transitioning. And people are, like, “Why do you have a beard? Why do have this or that?” – and they don’t know my daily life and my surroundings and circumstances, and living with my family at 28… there’s just a lot of different things. But I just wanted to ay, I appreciate the compliment, of course. But just know that you have the right to feel attractive, not just when society tells you you are. Sometimes the most quirky things about us are what’s most attractive, not just when we blend in and not when we become what society thinks attractive or hot. To everyone out there who might feel different, don’t wait for society to clap for you, or tell you, or affirm you – affirm yourself. Then your confidence will be firm.
Lots to chew on there. It’s true, you never really know what’s really going on in somebody’s life, and I’m sure there are many trans kids around the world who understand exactly what Chris is talking about here.Earlier this year, Back in 1995 released on Steam. The indie game was created as a love-letter to the survival horror and mystery experiences from the PlayStation days. In the game, players “uncover the mystery surrounding the disappearance of your daughter, the catastrophe that shook the city, and why you’ve decided to finally return.”
Here’s a trailer for the original release:
It’s now been confirmed that Back in 1995 is making its way to 3DS, and it’ll be shown at BitSummit this weekend. The new version will be called “Back in 1995 64”. On the lower screen, you’ll see a Virtual Game Console. Sometimes irregularities will occur which will hamper the gameplay on upper screen, such as cables getting loose or cartridges needing to be re-inserted, reminding people to things that actually often happened 20 years ago.
On another note, Back in 1995 64 is planned to be compatible with the whole 3DS series. However, there’s a a precaution that it might end up only supporting the New 3DS.
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PocketAt this year's DICE Summit, attendees were treated to a panel featuring Hollywood director J.J. Abrams and Valve's Gabe Newell. During the talk, they discussed the possibility of Half-Life and Portal movies. While there obviously aren't any concrete plans or pre-production status of either, it still got us thinking about who we'd like to see in the lead roles of a Half-Life film. Here are our picks.
Gordon Freeman - Damian Lewis
Alyx Vance - Krisin Kreuk
Barney Calhoun - Kyle Chandler
Eli Vance - Bill Cobbs
Dr. Isaac Kleiner - Dan Castellaneta
Father Grigori - Dave Attell
Judith Mossman - Jane Seymour
Dr. Breen - Dr. Breen (General practitioner at the Tri-State Community Health Center in Hancock, Maryland)
G-Man - Stephen McHattie
Check out our previous casting calls:
Grand Theft Auto
Red Dead Redemption
Mass Effect
Assassin's Creed
Gears of War
Uncharted
Devil May CryWith ol' what's-his-name gone, Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson are the future of the Cavaliers. Gregory Shamus/NBAE/Getty Images
The time seems at hand for the Cleveland Cavaliers to move forward. Will the jilted Quickens Loans regulars resist the urge to circle the two LeBron James games on the home calendar?
Could be tough. Circling helps ensure the creation of winning fan signs such as "We should have drafted Darko."
OK, maybe one last circling -- Nov. 18 and Feb. 17.
In the meantime, promising rookies could speed the rebuilding process of a team consisting of once-complementary LeBron parts that last season slouched to a 19-63 record, which would have been the NBA's most terrible if not for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Cavs thus avoided going from first to worst in terms of regular-season record.
Breaking down a team looking to rise once again, our 5-on-5 panel hits Cleveland:
1. Who should start at PG for the Cavs?
Nate Drexler, Magic Basketball: Baron Davis. No question. BD is the veteran and the leader, and while Kyrie Irving is a logical "scoring guard" option, he will be more effective reacting to the offense Davis creates. It's just a shame Baron has no one to throw alley-oops to.
Mathew Lewis, Queen City Hoops:
Irving. No question. Some may hesitate to turn over the franchise to the 19-year-old for fear of damaging his confidence or forming bad habits running a wayward Cavaliers lineup. However, I think Kyrie has both the mental stability and toughness to benefit from the inevitable adversity he's sure to experience his first year in the league.
Keith Lipscomb, ESPN Fantasy: I'm always a fan of putting your best players on the court, so I would start both Davis and Irving and run the offense to play to their strengths. Although they'd be putting themselves in a defensive hole against bigger backcourts, the Cavs don't have enough firepower to leave either of them on the bench.
Noam Schiller, Hardwood Paroxysm: Ramon Sessions and Daniel Gibson are both somewhere between situational backups and key reserves, while Davis' best days are far behind him. Only one point guard on Cleveland's roster provides substantial room for growth -- and as the future of the franchise, Irving should be the present as well.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: Irving. If you're going to commit to rebuilding and put all your eggs in one basket with a couple of kids, you can't go halfway. There are no half measures when it comes to rebuilding. Every second Irving plays, he'll get better, even if he's playing badly. The future of the franchise doesn't rest with Davis, Gibson or Sessions. The keys have been handed to Irving, but you can't just stick him in the backseat.
2. Who should start at SF and PF for the Cavs?
Nate Drexler, Magic Basketball: As far as I'm concerned, Anderson Varejao is as close to a team captain as you can be, and an NBA Finals veteran to boot. As for SF, I'd start Omri Casspi. The young Israeli will fit well in the perimeter-based system, and might find himself in a great gig battling the boards and not worrying much about his offense.
Mathew Lewis, Queen City Hoops: Antawn Jamison and Tristan Thompson. Jamison is probably the only veteran I trust on this team to display some sort of leadership the likes of Irving and Thompson can learn from. Bringing Varejao off the bench may hurt his trade value and cost you a few wins, but the Cavs aren't going anywhere regardless. Put Thompson in and let him take his lumps.
Keith Lipscomb, ESPN Fantasy: As the roster currently stands, I would give Omri Casspi the first shot at the small forward job, provided his recent knee injury is not serious. With a smaller backcourt, I like his 6-foot-9 frame, toughness and perimeter skills at the 3. Power forward is easy, as Antawn Jamison is a veteran who will be asked to shoulder a good portion of the scoring load once again.
Noam Schiller, Hardwood Paroxysm: With virtually no competition on the current roster, SF is Omri Casspi's to lose. PF is trickier, with fourth overall pick Thompson lurking behind former All-Star Jamison. I'd start Jamison, both to up his trade value and to force Thompson to earn his place, but I'd accept going the other way too.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: Umm. Uhh. Hmm. What are my choices again? Either position is in an ideal situation, but at least with power forward you can slot rookie Thompson in there to play alongside Varejao. That's a nod to the future, which is good. At small forward? How about one lucky fan a night gets to put on No. 23 and pretend to be LeBron? Maybe it'll give the team a mental boost, if anything.
3. J.J. Hickson for Omri Casspi and a draft pick: Good trade or bad?
Nate Drexler, Magic Basketball: I like the trade because once you start stacking first-round picks, you have a bright future to look forward to, and that is what Cleveland needs. J.J. Hickson doesn't give you a quick fix or a long-term solution. All eyes to 2012 for the Cavs.
Mathew Lewis, Queen City Hoops: Bad trade. Remember when Cleveland was hesitant to include Hickson in a potential deal for Amare Stoudemire? Things certainly changed. I understand what Cleveland was trying to do in moving what most believed to be its best trade piece in exchange for assets that will help the Cavs in the future, but they sold low when they previously had the chance to reap a much greater return.
Keith Lipscomb, ESPN Fantasy: The Hickson-Byron Scott relationship was rocky and the Cavs made the deal to put an end to that mess. Hickson may put up better numbers, but Casspi should help improve Cleveland's pitiful perimeter defense (last in 3-point field goals allowed and 3-point field goal percentage).
Noam Schiller, Hardwood Paroxysm: Good trade. Hickson was loaded with potential, but he displayed a troublesome attitude, frequently clashed with coach Byron Scott and wouldn't have been able to co-exist with Thompson. Casspi had his ups and downs in Sacramento, but a fresh start and a guaranteed starting spot will do wonders for a player who has plenty of talent himself.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: It was a good trade, but not because Casspi is going to be some integral piece. It's more about clearing the way for Thompson to have an opportunity to get all the minutes he can stand. Casspi is a solid player -- good shooter, high IQ, decent passer -- but he doesn't have the talent, or the upside, that Hickson has. Still, it's more about making sure your new young players have a chance to develop, and someone can't be standing in their position already if that's going to happen.
4. Are the Cavs on the right track or the wrong track?
Nate Drexler, Magic Basketball: The Cavs are on the only track they can be on, and it's not so bad. Irving is not a savior, but a building block. Compounding the Irving pick with a 2012 first-round pick will largely reshape things in Cleveland, and provide something of a clean slate for Byron Scott.
Mathew Lewis, Queen City Hoops: Right track. They had two of the first four picks in the draft. Not every team attempting to rebuild is fortunate enough to be trade partners with the Los Angeles Clippers, from whom they acquired the first pick. If Baron Davis arrives at camp less than 300 pounds, is he tradable?
Keith Lipscomb, ESPN Fantasy: By drafting a talent like Irving, the Cavs can only be heading in a more positive direction. And I like Byron Scott as the team's head coach. But this team is lacking so much, there's still a very long way to go before the words "playoff contender" should be uttered.
Noam Schiller, Hardwood Paroxysm: On the right track, but at the very beginning of it. Rebuilding starts with unloading veterans and building through the draft. Irving and Thompson are a solid start, but Davis and Jamison have to go, and Anderson Varejao has much more value as a trade asset than as a role player on a 20-win team.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: Absolutely the right track. It's not exactly the same building plan that the Thunder used, but think back to what Sam Presti did in 2007. He grabbed an extra top-five pick (Jeff Green) to pair with his new franchise player (Kevin Durant), and then the next season added another top-five guy (Russell Westbrook). At the same time he was clearing cap space and picking up quality role pieces. It's really the same idea Chris Grant has going in Cleveland. It just has yet to be seen whether Irving can have a Durant-like impact.
5. Can we talk about the Cavs without talking about LeBron James?
Nate Drexler, Magic Basketball: The moment LeBron wins a championship will be the moment we separate him from the Cavs. He currently casts a shadow, but his legacy is yet to be seen. Right now, we're forced to tread in the waters of middle ground. I, for one, would love to see the Cavs reload and hasten the process. Meanwhile, it won't hurt for LeBron to get a ring.
Mathew Lewis, Queen City Hoops: Yes. I think the ushering in of Irving and Thompson will expedite the healing process for Clevelanders. Is either LeBron? No. But they will offer hope and a glimpse of what's to come for years ahead in Cleveland.
Keith Lipscomb, ESPN Fantasy: We can, but it's a different story for many of the fans in Cleveland. Once the Cavs return to winning games and having success in the playoffs, Cleveland fans will have something positive to talk about. But until then, LeBron's "Decision" will still be a sore spot for them.
Noam Schiller, Hardwood Paroxysm: It doesn't matter if we can ignore LeBron -- can the Cavs? In order to truly rebuild, Cleveland's ownership, team and fan base must be able to accept this squad for who they are without leering at Miami's No. 6. As long as the ultimate goal is beating LeBron, Cleveland will go absolutely nowhere.
Royce Young, Daily Thunder: At this point? No chance. At least not until either Irving or Thompson gives anyone a reason to forget. Right now the Cavs are known for two things: (1) being horrible, and (2) being the team LeBron ditched. I know the first thing that comes to my mind when you say "Cleveland Cavaliers" is an empty No. 23 jersey, on fire.
ESPN.com and the TrueHoop Network
Keith Lipscomb writes for ESPN.com Fantasy. Nate Drexler, Mathew Lewis, Noam Schiller and Royce Young contribute to the TrueHoop Network.
• Follow ESPN's NBA coverage on Twitter | On FacebookRumor Mill at Full Speed: New Macbook Airs, OS X Lion Next Week
Numerous reports yesterday citing different sources, all point to the release of OS X Lion and new MacBook Airs next week. 9to5Mac is reporting "overseas sources" informed them that Apple retail stores are planning overnights on July 13. Everyone familiar with Apple's product release protocol knows this is a good sign of an impending release. These meetings usually entail setting up new displays (or now just updating iPad displays?) and training employees about the new products.Also, AppleInsider has received information about a bulletin posted on Apple's internal retail news network informing store management to perform RAM upgrades on certain Mac models on showroom floors by this Sunday. AppleInsider has heard from a separate Apple retail employee that an overnight meeting will be taking place next week at Apple retail stores.It appears that OS X Lion will debut sometime next week, with new MBAs debuting alongside or at the latest the following week.Or you know, everyone could be wrong again.Source: CNETThe Five College Consortium comprises four liberal arts colleges and one university in the Connecticut River Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.[1] totaling approximately 38,000 students. They are geographically close to one another and are linked by frequent bus service which operates between the campuses during the school year.[2]
The consortium was formally established in 1965, but its roots lay in cooperative efforts between the oldest four members of the consortium dating back to 1914.[3]
Members [ edit ]
The consortium is composed of Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A similar organization exists directly to the south and is known as the Cooperating Colleges of Greater Springfield, in addition to another highly selective five college and two graduate school consortium in Southern California known as the Claremont Colleges.
Overview [ edit ]
In 1914, Massachusetts Agricultural College (now UMass), Amherst, Mount Holyoke, and Smith joined International YMCA College (now Springfield College) to form the Committee on University Extension of the Connecticut Valley Colleges, a joint continuing education program for the Pioneer Valley. In later years, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and MAC--later known as Massachusetts State and UMass--increased their collaboration, culminating in the formation of an inter-library loaning program in 1951 and a joint astronomy department in 1959. Finally, in 1965, Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and UMass incorporated the Four College Consortium, which became the Five College Consortium when Hampshire College was founded in 1968.[3]
The five colleges operate both as independent entities as well as mutually dependent institutions. The mission of the consortium is to support long-term forms of cooperation that benefit the faculty, staff and students of the five colleges. Shared academic and cultural resources are the primary initiative of the consortium. This means that students at each of these schools are permitted and encouraged to take classes at the other colleges (through "cross-registration") at no additional cost to the student.[4] Student groups and organizations often draw participants from all five campuses and several academic programs are run by the Five Colleges (for example: astronomy, dance, some foreign languages, and women's studies[5]). The colleges also participate in an interlibrary loan program, allowing students, staff, and faculty to take advantage of all five campuses' collections.
The Five College Radio Astronomy Observatory was founded in 1969 by the Five College Astronomy Department. Together, the Five Colleges operate WFCR (Five College Radio), an NPR member station operating at 88.5 MHz in the FM band.
Five-College folklore [ edit ]
A popular urban legend among Five College students holds that the characters on the Saturday morning cartoon Scooby-Doo represent the five colleges.[6] The legend has Daphne representing Mount Holyoke College, Velma as Smith College, Fred as Amherst College, Shaggy as Hampshire College, and Scooby as UMass Amherst. Hanna-Barbera Productions, CBS executive Fred Silverman, and Mark Evanier,[7][8] one of the show's writers, have stated that the legend is false.[9] Moreover, Scooby-Doo creators Joe Ruby and Ken Spears have been explicit in the cartoon show being based on the radio program I Love a Mystery and the TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,[10] with the four teenagers being based directly on characters from Dobie Gillis.[11] In addition, Scooby-Doo made its television debut in 1969, one year before Hampshire College opened.[12]
Transportation [ edit ]
Bus [ edit ]
University of Massachusetts Transportation Services, as a contractor for the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA), provides free inter- and intra-campus bus service to students. Most of the routes are centered and serve UMass Amherst, which has over two-thirds of the student enrollment of the Five Colleges, but two routes, Route 38, connects Mount Holyoke College to UMass Amherst via Hampshire and Amherst Colleges, and Route 39 connects Smith and Hampshire Colleges (with some weekday trips and all evening and weekend trips when classes are in session operating to Mount Holyoke College). The buses, operated by student workers from UMass Amherst, run on frequent schedule seven days a week when classes are in session, allowing car-free travel to class and social events. Hourly buses run into the early morning on weekends, an alternative to driving after drinking. This service is funded through a contract with the member institutions. The PVTA also operates two non-UMass Transit routes (the Maroon 40 Minuteman Express, and the Blue-43) that connect UMass Amherst with Smith College via Route 9. All of these routes are free to ride for students, staff, and faculty of the Five Colleges Consortium.
Greyhound Bus Lines, Peter Pan Bus Lines, and Megabus offer intercity bus service to the region. The major terminal for the region is the Springfield Bus Station, from which services are provided both north-south and east-west to Vermont and New York City, and to Boston and Albany, respectively. Megabus makes its stop in the region at Hampshire Mall in Hadley en route to Vermont and New York City, while Greyhound makes an additional stop in Northampton and Peter Pan also calls at UMass Haigis Mall.
Rail [ edit ]
Amtrak's Vermonter service operates through the Pioneer Valley once a day in each direction, with station stops at in Northampton, Holyoke and Springfield. The PVTA provides bus service from stops near the Amtrak station to all of the colleges in the Five College Consortium.
Additional service is offered at the Union Station in Springfield, where Northeast Regional direct and shuttle provide service to points south along the Northeast Corridor.
Amtrak service to Amherst station ended on December 28, 2014 when the Vermonter was rerouted through Northampton. Prior to the rerouting, Amtrak service was offered at the station once each way via the Vermonter. It was contiguous to the Amherst College campus and a PVTA bus stop.
Air [ edit ]
Airlines
Major domestic scheduled airline service is available at both Bradley International Airport (FAA: BDL) in northern Connecticut (45 minutes) and Logan International Airport (FAA: BOS) in Boston (120 minutes). Logan offers extensive international flights.
General aviation
Northampton Airport (FAA: 7B2) and Turners Falls Airport (FAA: OB5) are the closest dedicated general aviation airports. They offer 24-hour access for private aircraft, including corporate jets. 7B2 and 0B5 can only accommodate very small corporate jets.
See also [ edit ]
Cooperating Colleges of Greater Springfield, a local association of colleges which often collaborate with Five College institutions
Museums10 - a collaboration of several local museums run by the Five Colleges
UMassFive College Federal Credit UnionThe quarterback competition at Georgia has another entrant: Greyson Lambert is transferring in from Virginia and will be eligible this season.
“Yes sir. I’m coming to Georgia,” Lambert told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a text message.
Lambert visited Georgia over the weekend, then Florida on Monday. He informed Georgia coaches on Wednesday morning that he was coming.
This will, at least for now, bring Georgia up to four scholarship quarterbacks. Sophomore Brice Ramsey and junior Faton Bauta appeared to be in a close competition for the starting job after spring practice. Redshirt freshman Jacob Park has also been in the mix, according to coaches.
Lambert, listed at 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, is from Jesup, and played at Wayne County High School. He will have two years of eligibility at Georgia, and is eligible immediately because he will graduate from Virginia this month.
Last year Lambert started nine of Virginia’s 12 games, missing the other three because of an ankle injury. Lambert passed for 1,972 yards, 10 touchdowns and 11 interceptions as a sophomore. He slipped to No. 2 on the depth chart during Virginia’s spring practice, helping his decision to transfer.
Speaking on Tuesday, Georgia head coach Mark Richt said recruiting Lambert was about depth and competition.
“To me, having three is a small number on scholarship,” Richt said. “It’s just like at any position, if you’ve got guys that are interested in your school you spend time with them, talk to them and see if it’s a good fit. I mean, everybody’s gotta compete for their job, and that’s true for all sports. So this is really no different.”The thaw in cross-Strait relations during Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s first term was unprecedented – but the honeymoon period may soon be over.
The rapid expansion of ties between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) governments were established through seven rounds of bilateral talks, 16 agreements, and one “consensus” on cross-Strait investments. Concomitantly, people-to-people exchanges have increased exponentially as the two sides negotiate terms of engagement. But while the KMT and CCP agree upon the need to institutionalize cross-Strait ties on the basis of the so-called “1992 Consensus,” other sensitive political issues were shelved in the interim. Now, despite the bilateral public displays of camaraderie by political leaders, who tout the positive-positive gains of engagement, the deeply rooted political distrust that Presidents Ma and Hu Jintao brushed aside during the past four years is quickly coming to the fore.
Only months after Ma’s re-election, and as a heated power struggle plays out in Zhongnanhai prior to the 18th Party Congress, the emergence of divergent expectations for cross-Strait engagement may prove challenging to manage. Beijing deliberately toned down calls for political dialogue during the Taiwan election season, but now appears to be increasing pressure on the Ma administration to enter into political negotiations. This issue was thrown into sharp relief by the Ma administration’s rebuke of Beijing’s latest call for the establishment of a Pingtan Cross-Strait Experimental Region project.
The CCP first raised this idea of a jointly developed zone during a party meeting in Fujian Province in 2003. The plan evolved over the years as high-level Chinese officials – including Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao – expressed their support for and intention to develop the Pingtan area into a showcase for its Taiwan policy. According to Beijing’s latest proposal, both governments would administer the region under a “five joint” model: joint planning, joint development, joint establishment, joint management, and joint benefactor.
In response, Mainland Affairs Council spokesman Liu Te-shun stated that China inserted “too much of a political overtone into the Pingtan project, which in fact was designed in accordance with its “12th five-year plan” that handles cross-Strait relationships under the principle of the “one country, two systems” formula.”
The Ma administration’s negative reaction to the proposed Pingtan project suggests that it is increasingly concerned over the pace and expanding scope of cross-Strait engagement. Following his re-election this January, Ma had stated that “with mainland relations, we will work on the economy first and politics later, work on the easier tasks first and the more difficult ones later.” He added: “There is no rush to open up political dialogue. It’s not a looming issue.” There’s speculation that this method allows Taipei to stretch out the negotiation process on political issues as long as possible.
However, China appears increasingly impatient with the Ma administration as Beijing ratchets up pressure on Taipei to enter into political talks. Indeed, China’s policy and strategy toward Taiwan are guided by the “six points” outlined by Hu in 2009, during a speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan. These points include: 1) firm adherence to the “one China” principle; 2) strengthening commercial ties, including negotiating an economic cooperation agreement; 3) promoting personnel exchanges; 4) stressing common cultural links between the two sides; 5) allowing Taiwan’s “reasonable” participation in global organizations and 6) negotiating a peace agreement.
With the election now over, Beijing may be looking to hold the administration to some of its campaign promises, particularly its interest in a potential peace agreement.
Although the KMT and CCP can agree on the virtues of closer engagement, the attendant expectations attached to these interactions clearly diverge. Now that Ma has won a second term, the Chinese are likely to begin their push for a peace treaty. Leaders in Beijing undoubtedly see the Pingtan experimental project as a stepping stone toward more political concessions down the road. The CCP has assiduously attempted to cultivate closer relationships with Taiwanese elites across the political spectrum, while simultaneously using high-level trade delegations to win over groups traditionally opposed to closer relations with China, particularly those in southern Taiwan. By using economic levers to appeal to voters typically aligned with the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, the CCP clearly hopes that it can continue to draw Taiwan into China’s economic – and eventually political – orbit. Thus, despite the fact that the Ma administration may feel uncomfortable with engaging in overt political negotiations, the CCP will likely continue to use a combination of economic sticks and carrots to bring Taiwanese leaders to the table.
The question remains, how can the KMT improve the cross-Strait relationship while protecting Taiwanese national sovereignty?
During the past four years, political leaders on both sides of the Strait have attempted to drum up public support for their respective initiatives, leading to inflated expectations regarding potential deliverables of cross-Strait engagement. Beijing's most recent push for the Pingtan project has brought political issues back to the forefront of negotiations. The Ma administration must make a tactical decision regarding whether to continue its current policy of putting “economics ahead of politics” or place political and economic negotiation on parallel tracks. Increasing pressure from Beijing will likely prompt Taipei to call for additional U.S. support to buttress its negotiating position.
During the annual KMT and CCP Cross-Taiwan Strait Economic and Cultural Forum, the KMT has put forward the concept of interpreting the cross-Strait region as “one country, two areas,” in accordance with the so-called “1992 Consensus” and the Republic of China constitution. Although the KMT appears to believe that this model can further facilitate dialogue, it may in fact have the unintended effect of marginalizing the ROC and undermining Taiwan’s concurrent efforts to protect its sovereignty and gain greater international breathing space. Such a negotiating tool can backfire for the KMT, leaving it with less room for political maneuver in the future.
In light of the probability for increased tensions in the Taiwan Strait, it would behoove Taipei and Beijing to tread carefully when managing expectations regarding the deliverables of cross-Strait engagement. Unmanaged expectations could lead either or both parties to miscalculate intentions and create resentment. For Washington, refusal to address the widening sovereignty gap in the Taiwan Strait appears likely to become a growing source of instability as Beijing increases pressure on Taipei. While Washington should continue to welcome peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, it must also provide Taipei with the moral and material support it needs to negotiate from a position of strength rather than weakness.
L.C. Russell Hsiao is a senior research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute in Washington. Julia Famularo is a research affiliate at the Project 2049 Institute and a doctoral candidate in modern East Asian political history at Georgetown University.2016 will be known as a very good year for almost any outlet covering this patently-insane presidential election.
Ratings are up across the board over 2012, mostly thanks to the love and hate watching as each pertains to one Donald J. Trump. But one outlet, once more influential than with millennials than any other, is struggling so mightily it had to fire one of its primetime hosts.
CNN? Fox News? MSNBC?
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Nope. It's Comedy Central, where quality comedy appears to be at a premium if ratings this year are any indication. The network even went so far to terminate Larry Wilmore last week, the race-obsessed, unfunny, awkward-to-watch successor of Stephen Colbert in inheriting his time slot.
Given the numbers, which saw Wilmore's "Nightly Show" down more than 55 percent from Colbert despite it being a target-rich election year featuring Donald Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE, the move would normally be less-than-shocking. But when considering the election is less than 80 days away, one would think Comedy Central would have just ridden out Wilmore until November 8th and pivoted from there.
But Wilmore was just that bad in his attempts to turn what should have been a comedy show into a nightly lecture on race and politics instead. And in predictable form, played the race card one final time in addressing his audience on the air on the cancellation.
"Our show going off the air has to only mean one thing," Wilmore said. "Racism is solved."
So how did the powers that be decide on Wilmore as Colbert's replacement and Trevor Noah, who has also struggled on the ratings front, as Jon Stewart's?
Apparently not very carefully...
And the shame of it is, Comedy Central once had the perfect two candidates in house that it easily could have signed for a fair price. Know this: Not only would these folks have matched Colbert and Stewart, they very well could have surpassed them on the ratings front.
Which two?
Samantha Bee and John Oliver, respectively.
Bee is now with TBS and is the viral queen of late night with her hit weekly program Full Frontal.
From a ratings perspective, Bee's show is on par with The Daily Show despite just launching earlier this year and having a not-so-great timeslot of 10:30 pm ET on Monday nights. For the second quarter, The Daily Show averaged 1.3 million viewers to 1.2 million for Full Frontal.
But here's the more amazing part of this story: According to an interview her husband, Jason Jones, Bee wasn't even considered to take over for Stewart.
"The fact that she wasn't even approached was a little shocking to say the least," Jones told The New York Times. "But I think she is much happier where she ended up."
To be hopelessly cheesy and cliche, Bee's commentary stings and is usually rewarded on social media. Her June commentary on the Orlando shootings, for example, has been viewed on YouTube nearly 2.6 million times via the show's official count.
Comedian Louis C.K. said named Bee is the late-night talent he’s most excited to watch.
She’s the next thing," he told Vulture magazine. "We’re all talking about the same s***, but there’s always somebody out there that’s hitting a chord like nobody else, and that person is her."
Result of this kind of popularity and praise: TBS renewed Bee for the 2016 season and upped her episode total from 13 to 39.
As for Oliver, he's killing it on HBO with Last Week Tonight. His delivery is impeccable, the passion and authenticity on every carefully-selected topic and segment.
Example: Oliver’s “Donald Drumpf” segment from February decimated viewership records not only for Last Week Tonight but HBO as a whole with more than 28 million YouTube views and more than 75 million Facebook views. An HBO rep says it’s “a record for any piece of HBO content.” And in terms of audience, Oliver averages 4.6 million viewers per week, which is more than Bill Maher's Real Time.
Comedy Central had two very big decisions to make when deciding who to pass the Stewart and Colbert torches to. Both men hadn't departed suddenly and provided ample time for the right choice to be made.
First the network allowed John Oliver to leave. Then it didn't even bother to interview Sam Bee for the Daily Show hosting spot, going with an untested unknown instead.
Maybe it works out for Noah. Perhaps he'll come into his own.
But the TV business can be fickle. Training wheels don't stay on for very long. Just ask Larry Wilmore...
It didn't need to come to a matter of coming into one's own.
Comedy Central had its two next big stars already in the building.
Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.
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, "They seemed like the perfect people."
The Norick's were there for the birth and Max was eventually handed over.
But Bazzle now calls it a "failed adoption" because the adoptive parents have filed for divorce.
She eventually filed an application for emergency custody and now wants her child back, for good, because she believes the couple misrepresented themselves.
"That's my baby. I love him," Bazzle said. "I'm trying to do what's best for him, and even though I may have made a mistake placing him for adoption, I feel like God's giving me a chance now to fix that and to be there for him."
But adoption attorney Jim Ikard says a judge is very specific with biological mothers during the adoption process.
"(The judge asks) you understand that forever is a long time?" Ikard said. "(The mothers say) Yes, I do."
Ikard said biological parents who want their children back have to prove there was fraud.
First they have to prove what is in the "best interests" of the child, but they already told a judge they weren't that option.
"And so the question gets to be, if you don't like this couple, it's not a matter of you getting the child back. It's finding another couple," Ikard said.
Bazzle said, "I don't feel like I can give my son to anybody and trust anybody with him anymore."
Ikard said adoption "home studies" of prospective parents are very thorough, so fraud is hard to prove for a biological parent.
Court documents show former Mayor Norick was granted temporary guardianship of the child because he's able to travel between Oklahoma and Arizona with the baby as this legal fight continues.Microsoft Said To Be Close To Purchasing Minecraft’s Parent Company For Around $2B
It appears that Microsoft is prepping to follow Facebook into the YOLO territory of gaming acquisitions. The Wall Street Journal reported today that the software giant will buy the gaming company behind the mega-hit Minecraft for around $2 billion, perhaps as early as this week.
The deal, which Microsoft can well afford with its nearly $86 billion in cash and equivalents, would bring a popular title into the company’s software domain.
The purchase would be massively ironic given that Markus Persson, Minecraft’s founder, has been hailed by some in the gaming community for his criticisms of Microsoft, especially its Windows 8.x operating system.
Microsoft has several irons in the gaming fire: Its Xbox line of games, Xbox on Windows Phone, and, of course, games sold through its several applications stores that are part of its operating system platform.
The oddity here is that Microsoft tends to build platforms that other companies and developers then build on top of, and has tended to have less of a focus on building games itself. Perhaps with the Minecraft deal, Microsoft is looking to change that fact.
You can imagine a few synergies: Bundling Minecraft with new devices, adding exclusive content for Windows users, and the like.
Minecraft has become a sensation, with a gameplay set around free-play, the creation of virtual worlds that are bent to the whim of the user, and are generally limited only to the creativity of the user playing. The game has also spread its roots into the physical world, with toys sourced from in-game creatures finding retail homes at Walmart, Toy R Us, and other locations.
Facebook recently spent $2 billion on Oculus, a virtual reality gaming headset. If Microsoft buys Minecraft, expect a bevy of hilariously bad op-eds parsing why the deal makes great sense.
Microsoft declined to comment.
Top Image Credit: Minecraft.Helio mU Introduces The Helio Green Energy Plan For Residential Solar Power With No Upfront Costs
The homeowner only pays for the power the system on their roof generates.
by Staff Writers
Berkeley CA (SPX) Jun 25, 2008
Helio Micro Utility has announced The Helio Green Energy Plan, a revolutionary way for homeowners to go solar. Unlike a traditional photovoltaic system purchase that relies on a large cash investment or financing, the Helio Green Energy Plan does not require an upfront payment for panels.
Consumers pay only for solar electric power -- not panels -- at pricing below their utility's electric rates. The Helio Green Energy Plan is initially available to homeowners in Santa Monica and other select California markets.
Helio mU Chief Executive Officer Mo Rousso will unveil the program at tonight's Solar Santa Monica summit on financing residential solar power systems.
"Financing a residential solar panel system, particularly in our current economy, has been the major stumbling block for even the most enthusiastic green consumer," said Mo Rousso.
"The Helio Green Energy Plan puts the power of choice into the hands of the consumer. Now they can save money and the environment. The program will also greatly accelerate the adoption of solar power in California."
The Helio Green Energy Plan is based on a financial model successfully utilized by commercial and government electricity users. "We set out to create a way for homeowners to buy green power at a lower price than brown," said Gregory Rosen, HmU's Vice President of Project Finance.
"The Helio Green Energy Plan accomplishes this mission and much more. The homeowner only pays for the power the system on their roof generates. This power is based on a fixed rate. There is no upfront system cost to the homeowner to install and manage the solar panels on their roof. All maintenance and monitoring is provided with no charge to the homeowner."Large crowds have crowded shops on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving - seen as a hugely important day for US retailers at the start of the Christmas shopping season.
The name Black Friday refers to the day on which many retailers are thought to move out of the red and into the black - which means they are making profits.
This year Black Friday has been marred by violence, including at Walmart stores. In one incident shoppers used pepper spray to fight off other bargain-hunters, while others were robbed at gunpoint on their way home with newly purchased goods.
In a Toys 'R' Us in Fairfax, Virginia, these shoppers stood in line for more than an hour to pay for their Black Friday purchases.
In recent years shops have been opening earlier and earlier, with many retailers opening their doors at midnight on Black Friday - and some even before.
Many US stores will now open every day until Christmas Day.Egyptians stood in line Wednesday outside a waste management station in the capital Cairo to sell their solid trash, a baby step in an ambitious project to ease the gigantic waste management problems afflicting this city of some 18 million.
Those in the queue outside the station - a large and colorful kiosk standing on a sidewalk in Cairo’s leafy suburb of Heliopolis - carried bags of old school books, plastic water bottles and other recyclable material. They placed them on scales standing near a price list for types of material and later received their cash.
The station, one of two in Cairo, was already filled with bags of recyclables brought in since its inauguration over the weekend. “Garbage will not be a problem, but rather a source of income,” declares the writing on the station’s outer wall. “Separating garbage brings profit and cleanliness,” reads another.
“There used to be a big pile of garbage where the station now stands, and it smelled horrible,” 46-year-old Laila el-Shazly said with relief while standing in line to sell empty bottles.
Cairo’s waste is currently managed by its local government as well as informal trash collectors who go door to door collecting garbage and later picking out recyclable material on the outskirts of the city. A total of nearly five million tons of garbage were collected in the greater Cairo area in 2014, according to the latest figures issued by the state statistics bureau.
By offering additional income at a time when most Egyptians are struggling to make ends meet amid an economic crisis, the initiative created an incentive for Cairo residents to get into recycling, a practice that is mostly neglected in the capital and elsewhere in Egypt.
The initiative was first proposed by two lawmakers and later embraced by Cairo’s local government, which issued permits and leased land free of charge to private investors running the solid waste stations.
One such investor, Nariman Talaat, told The Associated Press that Egyptians were showing interest in the project, but cautioned that it would take time before they learn how to properly separate their waste.
“I think that unused garbage is wasted money, that’s why I liked the idea,” she said.
Nadia Henry, one of the two lawmakers behind the initiative, told the AP the project was part of a long-term plan to create a comprehensive, environment-friendly waste management system in the country of some 92 million people.
Cairo’s governor, Atef Abdel-Hamid, has ordered the expansion of the project to cover all of Cairo, a prelude to its implementation nationwide, according to Henry.
Last Update: Wednesday, 15 March 2017 KSA 21:50 - GMT 18:50“Bekoff and Pierce have managed to convince this initial sceptic that, at the very least, they have a strong case backed by compelling evidence.… I will never be able to look at a dog or a cat, or a cow or a coyote for that matter, in the same way again.”—Tom Fort, Daily Telegraph “Cognitive ethologist Bekoff and philosopher Pierce explore the moral lives of such commonly studied animals as primates, wolves, household rodents, elephants, dolphins—and a few more uncommon critters as well.… The authors contend that, in order to understand the moral compass by which animals live, we must first expand our definition of morality to include moral behavior unique to each species. Studies done by the authors, as well as experts in the fields of psychology, human social intelligent, zoology, and other branches of relevant science excellently bolster their claim.”—Publishers Weekly • Marc Bekoff’s website Jessica Pierce’s website
An excerpt from Wild Justice The Moral Lives of Animals Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce Morality in Animal Societies:
An Embarrassment of Riches Let’s get right to the point. In Wild Justice, we argue that animals feel empathy for each other, treat one another fairly, cooperate towards common goals, and help each other out of trouble. We argue, in short, that animals have morality. Both popular and scientific media constantly remind us of the surprising and amazing things animals can do, know, and feel. However, when we pay careful attention to the ways in which animals negotiate their social environments, we often come to realize that what we call surprises aren’t really that surprising after all. Take, for example, the story of a female western lowland gorilla named Binti Jua, Swahili for “daughter of sunshine,” who lived in the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois. One summer day in 1996, a three-year-old boy climbed the wall of the gorilla enclosure at Brookfield and fell twenty feet onto the concrete floor below. As spectators gaped and the boy’s mother screamed in terror, Binti Jua approached the unconscious boy. She reached down and gently lifted him, cradling him in her arms while her own infant, Koola, clung to her back. Growling warnings at the other gorillas who tried to get close, Binti Jua carried the boy safely to an access gate and the waiting zoo staff. This story made headlines worldwide and Binti Jua was widely hailed as an animal hero. She was even awarded a medal from the American Legion. Behind the splashy news, the gorilla’s story was adding fuel to an already smoldering debate about what goes on inside the mind and heart of an animal like Binti Jua. Was Binti Jua’s behavior really a deliberate act of kindness or did it simply reflect her training by zoo staff? Even in the mid-1990s there was considerable skepticism among scientists that an animal, even an intelligent animal like a gorilla, could have the cognitive and emotional resources to respond to a novel situation with what appeared to be intelligence and compassion. These skeptics argued that the most likely explanation for Binti Jua’s “heroism” was her particular experience as a captive animal. Because Binti Jua had been hand raised by zoo staff, she had not learned, as she would have in the wild, the skills of gorilla mothering. She had to be taught by humans, using a stuffed toy as a pretend baby, to care for her own daughter. She had even been trained to bring her “baby” to zoo staff. She was probably simply replaying this training exercise, having mistaken the young boy for another stuffed toy. A few scientists disagreed with their skeptical colleagues and argued that at least some animals, particularly primates, probably do have the capacity for empathy, altruism, and compassion, and could be intelligent enough to assess the situation and understand that the boy needed help. They pointed to a small but growing body of research hinting that animals have cognitive and emotional lives rich beyond our understanding. We’ll never know why Binti Jua did what she did. But now, years later, the staggering amount of information that we have about animal intelligence and animal emotions brings us much closer to answering the larger question raised by her behavior: can animals really act with compassion, altruism, and empathy? The skeptics’ numbers are dwindling. More and more scientists who study animal behavior are becoming convinced that the answer is an unequivocal “Yes, animals really can act with compassion, altruism, and empathy.” Not only did Binti Jua rescue the young boy, but she also liberated some of our colleagues from the grip of timeworn and outdated views of animals and opened the door for much-needed discussion about the cognitive and emotional lives of other animals. Wild Justice: What Are We Really Talking About? Even a decade ago, at the time that Binti Jua rescued the injured boy, the idea of animal morality would have been met with raised eyebrows and a “surely you must be joking!” dismissal. However, recent research is demonstrating that animals not only act altruistically, but also have the capacity for empathy, forgiveness, trust, reciprocity, and much more as well. In humans, these behaviors form the core of what we call morality. There’s good reason to call these behaviors moral in animals, too. Morality is a broadly adaptive strategy for social living that has evolved in many animal societies other than our own. Our argument relies upon well-established and mostly uncontroversial research. We simply suggest that the many parts, taken together, represent an interesting and provocative pattern. Our most controversial move, of course, is to use the label “morality” to describe what we see going on in animal societies. This jump is controversial not for scientific reasons so much as philosophical ones, and we will keep these philosophical concerns in the foreground of our discussion. Let us take you through the evidence. We invite you to enter into the lives of social animals. We show that these animals have rich inner worlds—they have a complex and nuanced repertoire of emotions as well as a high degree of intelligence and behavioral flexibility. They’re also incredibly adept social actors. They form and maintain complex networks of relationships, and live by rules of conduct that maintain a delicate balance, a finely tuned social homeostasis. Looking for the Bad, Looking for the Good: The More We Look the More We See Here’s a common distillation of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Natural selection, to borrow a popular metaphor from biology, is an evolutionary arms race. Life is a war of all against all, a ruthless and bloody battle, usually over sex and food. Mothers eat their young and siblings fight to the death against siblings (a phenomenon called siblicide). When we look at nature through this narrow lens we see animals eking out a living against the glacial forces of evolutionary conflict. This scenario makes for great television programming, but it reflects only a small part of nature’s ineluctable push. For alongside conflict and competition there is a tremendous show of cooperative, helpful, and caring behavior as well. To offer a particularly striking example, after carefully analyzing the social interactions of various primate species, primatologists Robert Sussman and Paul Garber and geneticist James Cheverud came to the conclusion that the vast majority of social interactions are affiliative rather than agonistic or divisive. Grooming and bouts of play predominate the social scene, with only an occasional fight or threat of aggression. In prosimians, the most ancestral of existing primates, an average of 93.2 percent of social interactions are affiliative. Among New World monkeys who live in the tropical forests of southern Mexico and Central and South America, 86.1 percent of interactions are affiliative, and likewise for Old World monkeys who live in South and East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Gibraltar, among whom 84.8 percent of interactions are affiliative. Unpublished data for gorillas show that 95.7 percent of their social interactions are affiliative. After about twenty-five years of research on chimpanzees, Jane Goodall noted in her book The Chimpanzees of Gombe, “it is easy to get the impression that chimpanzees are more aggressive than they really are. In actuality, peaceful interactions are far more frequent than aggressive ones; mild threatening gestures are more common than vigorous ones; threats per se occur much more often than fights; and serious, wounding fights are very rare compared to brief, relatively mild ones.” These don’t appear to be animals whose social lives are defined only by conflict. The social lives of numerous animals are strongly shaped by affiliative and cooperative behavior. Consider wolves. For a long time researchers thought that pack size was regulated by available food resources. Wolves typically feed on prey such as elk and moose, both of which are bigger than an individual wolf. Successfully hunting such large ungulates usually takes more than one wolf, so it makes sense to postulate that wolf packs evolved because of the size of wolves’ prey. However, long-term research by David Mech shows that pack size in wolves is regulated by social and not food-related factors. Mech discovered that the number of wolves who can live together in a coordinated pack is governed by the number of wolves with whom individuals can closely bond (the “social attraction factor”) balanced against the number of individuals from whom an individual could tolerate competition (the “social competition factor”). Packs and their codes of conduct break down when there are too many wolves. As we begin to look at the “good” side of animal behavior, at what animals do when they’re not eating each other or committing siblicide, we begin to take in just how rich the social lives of many animals are. Indeed, the lives of animals are shaped at a most basic level by “good”—or what biologists call prosocial—interactions and relationships. Even more, it seems that at least some prosocial behavior is not a mere byproduct of conflict, but may be an evolutionary force in its own right. Within biology, early theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism have now blossomed into a much wider inquiry into the many faces and meanings of prosocial behavior. And, it seems, the more we look, the more we see. There’s now an enormous body of research on prosocial behavior, and new research is being published all the time on cooperation, altruism, empathy, reciprocity, succorance, fairness, forgiveness, trust, and kindness in animals ranging from rats to apes. Even more striking, within this huge repertoire of prosocial behaviors, particular patterns of behavior seem to constitute a kind of animal morality. Mammals living in tight social groups appear to live according to codes of conduct, including both prohibitions against certain kinds of behavior and expectations for other kinds of behavior. They live by a set of rules that fosters a relatively harmonious and peaceful coexistence. They’re naturally cooperative, will offer aid to their fellows, sometimes in return for like aid, sometimes with no expectation of immediate reward. They build relationships of trust. What’s more, they appear to feel for other members of their communities, especially relatives, but also neighbors and sometimes even strangers—often showing signs of what looks very much like compassion and empathy. It is these “moral” behaviors in particular that are our focus in Wild Justice. Here is just a sampling of some of the surprising things research has revealed about animal behavior and more specifically about animal morality in recent years. Some animals seem to have a sense of fairness in that they understand and behave according to implicit rules about who deserves what and when. Individuals who breach rules of fairness are often punished either through physical retaliation or social ostracism. For example, research on play behavior in social carnivores suggests that when animals play, they are fair to one another and only rarely breach the agreed-upon rules of engagement—if I ask you to play, I mean it, and I don’t intend to dominate you, mate with you, or eat you. Highly aggressive coyote pups, to give just one example, will bend over backwards to maintain the play mood with their fellows, and when they don’t do this they’re ignored and ostracized. Fairness also seems to be a part of primate social life. Researchers Sarah Brosnan, Frans de Waal, and Hillary Schiff discovered what they call “inequity aversion” in capuchin monkeys, a highly social and cooperative species in which food sharing is common. These monkeys, especially females, carefully monitor equity and fair treatment among peers. Individuals who are shortchanged during a bartering transaction by being offered a less preferred treat refuse to cooperate with researchers. In a nutshell, the capuchins expect to be treated fairly. Many animals have a capacity for empathy. They perceive and feel the emotional state of fellow animals, especially those of their own kind, and respond accordingly. Hal Markowitz’s research on captive diana monkeys strongly suggests a capacity for empathy, long thought to be unique to humans. In one of his studies, individual diana monkeys were trained to insert a token into a slot to obtain food. The oldest female in the group failed to learn how to do this. Her mate watched her unsuccessful attempts, and on three occasions he approached her, picked up the tokens she had dropped, inserted them into the machine, and then allowed her to have the food. The male apparently evaluated the situation and seemed to understand that she wanted food but could not get it on her own. He could have eaten the food, but he didn’t. There was no evidence that the male’s behavior was self-serving. Similarly, Felix Warneken and Michael Tomasello at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, discovered that captive chimpanzees would help others get food. When a chimpanzee saw that his neighbor couldn’t reach food, he opened the neighbor’s cage so the animal could get to it. Even elephants rumble onto the scene. Joyce Poole, who has studied African elephants for decades, relates the story of a teenage female who was suffering from a withered leg on which she could put no weight. When a young male from another group began attacking the injured female, a large adult female chased the attacking male, returned to the young female, and touched her crippled leg with her trunk. Poole believes that the adult female was showing empathy. There is even evidence for empathy in rats and mice. Altruistic and cooperative behaviors are also common in many species of animal. One of the classic studies on altruism in animals comes from Gerry Wilkinson’s work on bats. Vampire bats who are successful in foraging for blood that they drink from livestock will share their meal with bats who aren’t successful. And they’re more likely to share blood with those bats who previously shared blood with them. In a recent piece of surprising research, rats appear to exhibit generalized reciprocity; they help an unknown rat obtain food if they themselves have been helped by a stranger. Generalized reciprocity has long been thought to be uniquely human. The presence of these behaviors may seem puzzling to scientists or lay readers who still view animals from the old “nature red in tooth and claw” framework. But puzzling or not, moral behaviors can be seen in a wide variety of species in a spectrum of different social contexts. And the more we look, the more we see. What Is Morality and What Moral Behaviors Do Animals Exhibit? Before we can discuss the moral behaviors that animals exhibit, we need to provide a working definition of morality. We define morality as a suite of interrelated other-regarding behaviors that cultivate and regulate complex interactions within social groups. These behaviors relate to well-being and harm, and norms of right and wrong attach to many of them. Morality is an essentially social phenomenon, arising in the interactions between and among individual animals, and it exists as a tangle of threads that holds together a complicated and shifting tapestry of social relationships. Morality in this way acts as social glue. Animals have a broad repertoire of moral behaviors. It’s sloppy business trying to squeeze these diverse behaviors into structured categories, but we need some way to organize and present a picture of moral behavior in animals. We envision a suite of moral behavior patterns that falls into three rough categories, around which we have organized our book. We call these rough categories “clusters,” a cluster being a group of related behaviors that share some family resemblances, and we identify three specific such clusters: the cooperation cluster, the empathy cluster, and the justice cluster. Wild justice is shorthand for this whole suite. The cooperation cluster includes behaviors such as altruism, reciprocity, trust, punishment, and revenge. The empathy cluster includes sympathy, compassion, caring, helping, grieving, and consoling. The justice cluster includes a sense of fair play, sharing, a desire for equity, expectations about what one deserves and how one ought to be treated, indignation, retribution, and spite. We devote separate chapters to exploring each of these clusters in detail (cooperation in chapter 3, empathy in chapter 4, and fairness in chapter 5). Forcing structure in this way raises many questions. Do the behaviors that we cluster together really belong in the same group? For example, is consolation behavior an example of an empathic response, or is it more closely related to cooperation and reciprocity? Are some behaviors more basic than others? For example, is empathy a necessary precursor to fairness? What are the interrelationships between and among behaviors, both evolutionarily and physiologically? Have these behaviors co-evolved? And are we correct in our claim that moral animals will have a behavioral repertoire that spans all three clusters? Who Are the Moral Animals? Penciling in a Shifting Line Many people will immediately want to know who the moral animals are. Can we draw a line that separates species in which morality has evolved from those in which it hasn’t? Given the rapidly accumulating data on the social behavior of numerous and diverse species, drawing such a line is surely an exercise in futility, and the best we can offer is that if you choose to draw a line, use a pencil. For the line will certainly shift “downwards” to include species to which we would never have dreamed of attributing such complex behaviors, such as rats and mice. Taking animal-behavior research as it stands now, there’s compelling evidence for moral behavior in primates (particularly the great apes, but also at least some species of monkey), social carnivores (most well studied are wolves, coyotes, and hyenas), cetaceans (dolphins and whales), elephants, and some rodents (rats and mice, at the very least). This isn’t a comprehensive catalogue of all animals with moral behavior; it simply represents the animals whose social behavior has been studied well enough to provide ample data to draw conclusions. There are other species, such as many ungulates and cats, for which data are simply lacking. But it would not be surprising to discover that they, too, have evolved moral behaviors. Research on primates currently provides the most robust account of moral behavior in animals. Given our evolutionary kinship with other primates, it seems reasonable to suppose that these species will have the most behavioral continuity with humans. And indeed, Jessica Flack and Frans de Waal have argued that nonhuman primates are the most likely animals to show precursors of human morality. Yet looking for “precursors” of human morality, though interesting, is not the same as looking for moral behavior in animals. Furthermore, the assumption that primate behavior will be most similar to human behavior may actually prove incorrect. For example, Nobel Prizeûwinning ethologist Niko Tinbergen and renowned field biologist George Schaller have suggested that we might learn a lot about the evolution of human social behavior by studying social carnivores, species whose social behavior and organization resemble that of early hominids in a number of ways (divisions of labor, food sharing, care of young, and intersexual and intrasexual dominance hierarchies). For these reasons, we’re interested in extending the research paradigm on animal morality well beyond primates. Morality may be exclusive to mammals, and mammals are our focus in this book. At this point, however, it would be premature to pronounce other species lacking in moral behaviors. We simply do not have enough data to make hard and fast claims about the taxonomic distribution among different species of the cognitive skills and emotional capacities necessary for being able to empathize with others, behave fairly, or be moral agents. All must remain quite tentative at this point. It is possible, for example, that some birds, such as the highly intelligent corvids, have a kind of morality. In his book Mind of the Raven, biologist and raven expert Bernd Heinrich observed that ravens remember an individual who consistently raids their caches if they catch him in the act. Sometimes a raven will join in an attack on an intruder, even if he did not see the cache being raided. Is this moral? Heinrich seems to think it is. He says of this behavior, “It was a moral raven seeking the human equivalent of justice, because it defended the group’s interest at a potential cost to itself.” In two subsequent experiments, Heinrich confirmed that group interests could drive what an individual raven decides to do. There is abundant evidence for the range of behaviors we’re exploring in this book, so much so that the basic claim that these behavioral clusters are present to some degree in some animals isn’t really controversial at all. But why take the further step and call these behavioral clusters moral, a label bound to raise hackles, rather than sticking to the seemingly more objective term prosocial? Challenging and Revising Stereotypes about Animals: Bad Habits are Hard to Break So far, very few scientists and other academics have been willing to use the term moral in relation to animal behavior without protective quotation marks (which signal a kind of “wink, wink: we don’t really mean æmoral’ as in human morality”) or without some other modifying trick, as in the term proto-morality (read: “they may have some of the seeds of moral behavior, but obviously not morality per se”). Indeed, there is strong resistance to the use of the term “moral” in relation to the behavior of nonhuman animals, both from scientists and philosophers. The belief that humans have morality and animals don’t is such a longstanding assumption it could well be called a habit of mind, and bad habits, as we all know, are damned hard to break. A lot of people have caved in to this assumption because it is easier to deny morality to animals than to deal with the complex reverberations and implications of the possibility that animals have moral behavior. The historical momentum, framed in the timeworn dualism of us versus them, and the Cartesian view of animals as nothing more than mechanistic entities, is reason enough to dismissively cling to the status quo and get on with the day’s work. Denial of who animals are conveniently allows for retaining false stereotypes about the cognitive and emotional capacities of animals. Clearly a major paradigm shift is needed, because the lazy acceptance of habits of mind has a strong influence on how science and philosophy are done and how animals are understood and treated. The irony, of course, is that the field of animal behavior is already bursting with terminology that has moral color: altruism, selfishness, trust, forgiveness, reciprocity, and spite. All of these terms and more are used by scientists to describe the behavior of animals. Certain words like altruism, selfishness, and spite have been ascribed specific and carefully circumscribed meanings within the field of animal behavior—meanings that diverge from, and even sometimes contradict common usage. Other moral terms such as forgiveness, fairness, retribution, reciprocity, and empathy have joined the animal behavior lexicon, and retain, for now, their connection to the morality we know and live. Lay readers and even scientists are bound to be confused by this apparent lack of consistency. We plan to clear up some of this mess. We could have coined a new word or phrase to describe our particular suite of prosocial behaviors in animals. The phrase “animal morality” will certainly strike some people as odd, and perhaps even as an oxymoron. And in some respects, morality is not the most solicitous term. Morality is notoriously hard to define and there is disagreement about how best to understand what morality is. On the other hand, morality is a very useful term, because “animal morality” challenges some stereotypes about animals and, as we’ll see, about humans. It also emphasizes evolutionary continuity between humans and other animals, not only in anatomical structure, but also in behavior. And this emphasis, in our view, is important. Finally, morality is also a useful term because the root meaning—more, or custom—captures an essential element of animal morality. We need to be quite explicit that the meaning of morality is itself under consideration, and we’re suggesting a shift in meaning. How we define morality will, of course, determine whether and to what extent animals have it. And yes, we’re defining morality in such a way as to lend credence to our argument for evolutionary continuity between humans and animals. But this is not sleight of hand: our definition of morality is well supported both scientifically and philosophically and also by “unscientific” common sense. We want to detach the word morality from some of its moorings, allowing us to rethink what it is in light of a huge pile of research from various fields that speaks to the phenomenon. We ask that you let us play freely with the term and, in the end, you can decide if you think “animal morality” makes sense.On Tuesday, Russian intelligence services released a new batch of top-secret emails from the private server of Hillary Clinton, candidate for president of the United States. We are publishing them today in the interests of national security.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: sick
Colin, old friend. Why the bleep didn't you tell me that getting sick was a criminal offense? I depend on your guidance in these things. Or maybe I'm just a victim of a double standard???? Duh.
I swear I remember a time when YOU stayed home sick and nobody hassled you. Very disappointed that you're not out there telling the media that you've had to take sick days too. Don't deny it, pal.
Respectfully,
Me
To: customerservice@thetimes
From: [email protected]
Subject: Deplorable
I am writing on behalf of a friend to express extreme dissatisfaction with your coverage of Hillary Clinton's health. You devote a headline — a headline! — to the "fact" that pneumonia is really risky for people over 65, while pointing out that Senator Clinton is 68.
Who wrote that b.s.? One of your underpaid millennial interns who wants all baby boomers dead because we're hogging the good jobs?
Let's see that kid survive on as little sleep as Senator Clinton has lived on for months. Let's see that punk stand outside in the heat in a pantsuit listening to speeches and not need a nap.
You call yourselves journalists? No wonder your deplorable newspaper is failing.
To: customerservice@thetimes
From: [email protected]
Subject: Sorry
I would like to retract my previous comments. It was the medication talking. I hold firm to my point, but I should have found better words.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Going out of my mind!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The doctors say I should be sleeping but, dear Lord, how can I be holed up here when I should be campaigning?
And now Bill is out there stealing my limelight????? Again????
Pneumonia's not going to kill me, but I'll tell you what might — watching cable TV and reading Donald's Twitter feed.
Did you see that rumor that it was my body double who came out of Chelsea's apartment on Sunday claiming to feel great? Hey, when I hire a body double, it's going to be Jennifer Lawrence.
(And they say I don't have a sense of humor.)
Want to come over and re-watch "House of Cards"?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Thanks
Bill,
Thanks for covering for me on the campaign trail. You're always there for me when I need you.
Xoxox
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: p.s.
But, listen, you hound dog. If you think you can outshine me …
More later. My cell just beeped.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Guess who just called?
I'm not going to say — you never know when Russian hackers might get ahold of my emails.
How are my grandbabies?
Xoxox
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Oh, come on!
Tim,
You know I love you, pal. Have I ever told you — don't blush — that I know a bunch of women my age who have a little crush on you?
But I'm worried that you're letting all those stories about my "illness" go to your head.
Ditch the new "kaine2016" email address! Now!
Please don't start acting like another joker in the boys club, OK?
Xoxox
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: p.s.
Tim. I was out of line when I said a bunch of middle-aged ladies have crushes on you. It was the medication talking.
Sincerely,
Hillary Rodham Clinton
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Need to cancel
Shivashakti, I am so sorry but I'll have to miss our yoga private today. Docs won't let me out of the house. Please send me some healing vibes. I swear I'm going to kill somebody before this b.s. "sickness" story plays out.
Namaste. (Is it true your real name is Karen Elizabeth?)
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: My position paper on sick days
Staff,
During my unfortunate incarceration at home, |
more reliable than model results that deviate from earlier results. Especially the confirmation of earlier projected Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity between 1.5″C and 4.5″C degree Celsius seems to increase the perceived credibility of a model result. Mutual confirmation of models (simple or complex) is often referred to as ’scientific robustness’.
This chapter explores the legitimacy and tenability of the ’climate modelling paradigm’. It is not intended to advocate other methods to be better nor to completely disqualify to use of GCMs. Rather it aims to explore what determines this perception of GCMs to be the superior tools and to assess the scientific foundation for this perception. First, section 2.2 explains the origin of the paradigm and illustrates that the paradigm is mainly based on the great prospects of early climate change scientists. Then section 2.4 elaborates on the pitfalls of fully relying on physics. Subsequently, section 2.3 argue that empirical evidence for the perceived GCM-superiority is weak. Thereafter, section 2.5 argues that biased models cannot provide an internally consistent (and plausible) climate response, which is especially problematic for local and regional climate projections. Next, the independence of the multiple ’lines of evidence’ is treated in section 2.6. Finally, in section 2.7 it is concluded that the climate modelling paradigm is in crisis.
The state-of the-art fully coupled AOGCMs do not provide independent evidence for human-induced climate change. GCM-based multi-model ensembles are likely to be (implicitly) tuned to earlier results. The confirmation of earlier results by GCMs is therefore no reason for higher confidence. The confidence in the GCMs originates primarily from the fact that, after extensive tuning of the feedbacks and other processes, a radiative balance is found for the Top-Of-Atmosphere. This is indeed quite an achievement, but the tuning usually provides only one of countless solutions. Multi-model ensembles tuned to a particular response give us only little insight in the possible range of outcomes. Besides, the GCMs only include a limited selection of potentially importantfeedbacks and sometimes artefacts have to be incorporated to close the radiative balance.
The founding assessments of Charney et al. (1979) and Bolin et al. (1986) did see the great potential of future GCMs, but based their likely-range of ECS on expert judgment and simple mechanistic understanding of the climate system. And even today, the IPCC acknowledges that the model spread (notably of multi-model ensembles) is only a crude measure for uncertainty because it does not take model quality and model interdependence into account. Nevertheless, in practice, GCMs are often applied as a ’pseudo-truth’.
The paradigm that GCMs are the superior tools for climate change assessments and that multi-model ensembles are the best way to explore epistemic uncertainty has lasted for many decades and still dominates global, regional and national climate assessments. Studies based on simpler models than the state-of-the-art GCMs or studies projecting climate response outside the widely accepted range have always received less credence. In later assessments, the confirmation of old results has been perceived as an additional line of evidence, but likely the new studies have been (implicitly) tuned to match earlier results.
Shortcomings, like the huge biases and ignorance of potentially important mechanisms, have been routinely and dutifully reported, but a rosy presentation has generally prevailed. Large biases seriously challenge the internal consistency of the projected change, and consequently they challenge the plausibility of the projected climate change.
Most climate change scientists are well aware of this and a feeling of discomfort is taking hold of them. Expression of the contradictions is often not countered by arguments, but with annoyance, and experienced as non-constructive. “What else?” or “Decision makers do need concrete answers” are often heard phrases. The ’climate modelling paradigm’ is in ’crisis’. It is just a new paradigm we are waiting for.
I was gratified to see three of my recent papers in his reference list:
JC comments
There isn’t too much in Part I of the thesis that is new or hasn’t been discussed elsewhere. His discussion on model ‘tuning’ – particularly implicit tuning – is very good. Also I particularly like his section ‘Lines of evidence or circular reasoning’.
However, the remarkable aspect of this to me is that the ‘philosophy of climate modeling’ essay was written not by a philosopher of science or a climate modeler, but by a scientist working in the area of applied climatology. His experiences in climate change impact assessments provide a unique perspective for this topic. The thesis provides a very strong argument that GCM climate models are not fit for the purpose of regional impact assessments.
I was very impressed by Bakker’s intellectual integrity and courage in tackling this topic in the 11th hour of completing his Ph.D. thesis. I am further impressed by his thesis advisors and committee members for allowing/supporting this. Bakker notes many critical comments from his committee members. I checked the list of committee members, one name jumped out at me – Arthur Petersen – who is a philosopher of science that has written about climate models. I suspect that the criticisms were more focused on strengthening the arguments, rather than ‘alarm’ over an essay that criticizes climate models. Kudos to the KNMI.
I seriously doubt that such a thesis would be possible in an atmospheric/oceanic/climate science department in the U.S. – whether the student would dare to tackle this, whether a faculty member would agree to supervise this, and whether a committee would ‘pass’ the thesis.
Bakker’s closing statement:
The ’climate modelling paradigm’ is in ’crisis’. It is just a new paradigm we are waiting for.
I have made several suggestions re ways forward, contained in these posts:This is the first of future articles about first impressions when playing a space strategy game. Of course that this kind of analysis is not so deep as a thorough review so it may be subject to more criticism, but that is a risk I´m willing to take.
Astro Empires is already a well established free space strategy (the free mode has some limitations, but is fully playable) web-based game known by many players. The idea of this article is to give the reader a global overview of this game to make it easier for newcomers.
For a review I did on another Web-Based MMOG – Ogame, please refer to my other article: Ogame Review, Tips and Strategy Guide.
First impact
When reaching Astro Empires homepage, I have to confess that I liked it. Few and synthetic information including a small text describing the game and information regarding how easy it is to install and the fact that it is free to play. It also displayed information about the advantage of not having to download anything, which captures the player’s attention for a smooth first impact. The homepage also gives a general overview of the game dimension and global information about the number of players, planets and bases in the server.
First Login, First Impressions
To be honest, when I made the first login I was not very pleased, I got a bit lost. I didn’t get immediately what I needed to do, it felt a bit unnatural and non-intuitive. The account overview is a little bit too texty, no graphic overview of your bases, your planets, I mean your location in the map. After 10 seconds, I found the Bases and Map icons…
When you choose one of your bases the following information is presented to you: an overview, the structures on it, the defenses, production, research and trade options. It presents all the standard issues of a common space strategy game, but the problem is with the details. When describing, for instance, the structures, there is no detailed information about them and it’s classification is done by means of numbers from one to a maximum level. I consider this a very simplistic approach that does not transmit a sense of realism to the player (but this is not strictly an Astro Empires thing, many games, like ogame for instance, also present this kind of simpler classification). I would prefer something more meaningful like “Advanced <structure>”, “Hyper”, “Automated” kind of upgrades but maybe that’s just a thing of mine.
Another down aspect in AE is when you click on a structure it shows the same text as it did on the list of structures (I thought the second was more like a small description in a first place) with no images and with a list of the levels that each structure can achieve… too simple. Lots of work to be done here. But there is lots of space to be filled. I guess that the developers are probably still working on this matter for sure.
Galaxy Map
The map is ok, a grid over the galaxy is displayed with all the planets in each grid square. It gives you a nice perspective of your location in the game. There are tow kinds of links in the map. When you click on the planet, you go directly to the colony information, when you click in the name of the player you see information which can be important to test your diplomatic skills…
Timescale
For me, the timescale is the best feature of the game. I´m not a fan of rush kind web browser games where everything happens too fast. I like to take my time when placing a strategy. In this game, just because I was away for two days this didn’t ruined the game for me … my planet was not burning and my credits were not at zero!… against what is usual in some other web browser games like … travian, or ogame. I think this game has done a serious effort regarding this issue, but anyway I’m only playing it for a month, so I could be mistaken about this.
Gaming experience so far
I needed to do something relevant with the game to have enough juice for a first impression… so, after lots of research levels, I ordered the construction of two Outpost ships (odd name for a regular colony ship), it took me around 6 hours to complete them… After a 3 minutes travel (maybe a bit too fast for my taste), the colony ship reached a metallic planet in the same solar system… I clicked the button “Build Base”… and that’s all. I wanted to see more juice in the process. Building a base is not like building a small fighter, but in Astro Empires, in practical terms, is the same. At least a few extra options could be presented when starting a colony, maybe a small report, or some colonization options presented (native population present in the planet, artifacts/technologies found, decisions to be made that affect the planet quality, etc).
Future
The future of this game is promising. I felt that the game is a like a raw diamond with many aspects still to be polished. The game is quick to load and to interact with and it seems that the engine beneath is also powerful. Now, the next step is to take more advantage of this engine and allow the player to extract the maximum potential of the concept but introducing more content.
I will continue to play the game and, in the future, I hope to write a deep review. In the meantime, I’ll explore the battles concept, colony management of several colonies, diplomacy aspects and the trading mechanism. I don´t know if I got lucky not having a dangerous alliance nearby (you can also join an alliance later) which allowed me to take me time to do things. IF this is confirmed than if you want to start a game in a “non-rush” mode, Astro Empires is a valuable option for you.
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Related Articles:The drop-off site at the old Rona store in Bayers Lake for donations to support Syrian refugees is closing because there are now more than enough items for the newcomers.
"It's a good thing and if you look around here you can see why. The generosity of Nova Scotians has been amazing," said Gerry Mills, director of operations for the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia.
Mills says ISANS will be collecting financial donations through their website, as well as gift cards.
"Grocery cards would be really useful to be able to give to each family one when they arrive," she said.
Enough for everyone
Volunteers went through thousands of bags and organized all the donated items. (CBC)
The province says as of Tuesday, the centre has received 4,000 bags of clothing, 1,500 jackets, 75 high chairs and strollers, and hundreds of pieces of furniture and household items.
The 211 phone line logged 2,819 calls offering support over seven weeks, an average of 57 a day. Just under half were offers for material goods and 35 per cent were offers of volunteer support.
Well over 5,000 people dropped off donations. More than 350 people volunteered at the donation centre, with as many as 52 on some days.
100 Syrians and counting
Brendan, Ireland and Ella McDonald dropped off bikes and clothing to the centre Tuesday. (CBC)
Nova Scotia is looking to settle around 1,500 Syrian refugees and as of Tuesday there were about 100 in the province.
"The number 1,500 has been mentioned, but I don't think it's a hard number at this point," said Diana Whalen, MLA for Clayton Park West and the province's justice minister.
"We want to welcome as many as we can with open arms. A lot depends on how many are assigned to Nova Scotia and how many private sponsorships we do in this province.
"Closing early here is a sign of how generous Nova Scotians have been. We opened December 12 and it's phenomenal [what] has been donated by Nova Scotians."
Volunteer effort
Sulaiman Al-Isawi, 17, says he volunteered because he's happy to help people in need. (CBC)
Mills said volunteers have been a big help in getting the old Rona store ready.
"I came here a few weeks ago and all I could see was absolute chaos. It was just bags," she said.
"Now it's in such order. Volunteers have done that. Every day they've come up here and sort through this. They've been amazing."
Marilyn Price volunteered seven times. The retired teacher helped organize all the school supplies.
"I just think that we're very lucky here in Canada. I could be one of the refugees and what I would feel like if I needed things like these people do," said Price.
Sulaiman Al-Isawi, 17, spent the day volunteering too. He knows what it's like to be a newcomer. His family immigrated to Canada from Iraq.
"I like to help people. I'm happy to help people. I'm Muslim and it's my job to help people," he said.
Other non-profits to benefit
The province says more than 5,000 people dropped off donations. (CBC)
Mills said anything that isn't used will be given to other non-profits.
"If charities are interested, the Nova Scotia Office of Immigration, if charities call there, they can list their name and information will be provided to them on when the stuff is accessible," said Mills.
"We understand refugees are in the media right now. We have not received this kind of response to the refugees probably since the Vietnamese situation."
There were plenty of donors dropping off some last minute items. Ella, Ireland and Brendan McDonald hope kids their age will get some enjoyment out of what they brought.
"My bike is fairly new," said Ireland McDonald. "It's in good shape so we thought we would bring it here. I hope somebody younger than me sees it and is like, 'Oh an opportunity, a new bike.'"
"I had some shirts and clothing that was getting too small for me and a lot of it was fairly new. I hope a boy my age or less will get it," said Brendan McDonald.New project management articles published on the web during the week of October 19 – 25. We give you a high-level view so you can read what interests you. Recommended:
Must read!
Seth Godin uses the Boeing 747 as a metaphor for large projects and organizations: as scale increases, gravity takes more of a toll, and everything becomes harder.
Bertrand Duperrin notes that the connected economy, robots, and drones will push our collective acceptance of risk farther than ever.
David Needle summarizes data science iconoclast Nate Silver’s keynote address at the Rich Data Summit. “Big Data has peaked, and that’s a good thing.”
Established Methods
Kailash Awati tells a little story about a proof of concept, which proved only that … well, I’ll let him tell you.
Elizabeth Harrin reviews Cesar Abeid’s new book, “Project management For You.”
Henny Portman reviews “Transforming Business with Program Management,” by Satish Subramanian.
John Goodpasture recounts a story about the voice of the customer, where the speaker was a Marine Corps General.
Todd Williams makes a good case for the PMO as a temporary organization – a project, with a specific goal and a time box, rather than a bureaucracy.
Marian Haus argues that scope management is the primary enabler of project success.
Rich Maltzman extracts key understandings from the recent PMI “Pulse of the Profession” report, which reinforces the message in his latest book.
Pat Weaver gives us an overview and a link to the Guild of Project Controls Body of Knowledge.
Nick Pisano editorializes on the U.S. Defense Contract Management Agency.
Phillip Smith describes Kaizen, as applied to a project.
Kerry Wills notes a key similarity between middle school math and project execution.
Agile Methods
Joseph Czarnecki contrasts classical and jazz, traditional methods and waterfall, and gets us to consider a mindset.
Kelsey van Haaster gives us a tutorial on Blitz Planning, where the goal is to identify the earliest point at which business value can be delivered.
Glen Alleman puts “classic” risk management in perspective for Agile methods.
Mike Cohn explains why the UX designer is typically looking ahead, to the next sprint and beyond.
Applied Leadership
Harry Hall asks five fierce questions, “…to help you identify the deeper things that are limiting your effectiveness.”
Bruce Harpham examines three strategies for earning the right to influence others.
Art Petty coaches us on how to get past a career setback.
Penelope Trunk coaches us on how to answer the three interview questions. Yes, there are only three – they just get asked in different ways.
Elise Stevens interviews Cesar Abeid on his new book, “Project Management For You.” Just 16 minutes, safe for work.
Enjoy!
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PrintGroundbreaking news! For the first time ever in the United States, a patient has been treated with embryonic stem cells. It’s part of the first study authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to test this controversial therapy. (Experimental stem cell treatments have already taken place in China.)
Millions of embryonic stem cells were injected into a patient who was partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, according to an announcement this morning by the Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California, which is sponsoring this study. Here’s a link to the announcement. The patient was treated at the Shepherd Center, a hospital in Atlanta that specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries.
Two Million Stem Cells Injected
In the treatment, scientists injected about 2 million “oligodendrocyte progenitor cells,” created from embryonic stem cells, in the hopes that the cells will form a restorative coating around the damaged spinal cord.
Room For Hope
Supporters of these privately funded, government-approved tests are confident that research has been thorough. Indeed the Food and Drug Administration has demanded extensive experiments to provide evidence that the cells are safe enough to test in people and that they hold great promise.
But Some Are Concerned
But many scientists are worried. “There’s a lot of angst around these trials,” said Evan Y. Snyder, director of the stem cell program at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in San Diego. “There’s going to be this perception that if the cells do not perform well, the entire field will be illegitimate.” And some researchers cite the case of Jess Gelsinger, whose 1999 death from a gene therapy experiment set the field back years.
Still, this study marks a milestone in this research, considered potentially one of the most promising developments in medical research in decades.
Medical Milestone
As Ann Pietrangelo reported here less than two weeks ago, a federal appeals court recently ruled that federal funding of embryonic stem cell research could continue for the time being. This decision was in response to an earlier cutoff of federal funding for this research, but it is a temporary action, and the final outcome is still in doubt.
This study is controversial, but it is also bringing hope to many.
iStock photoThree observations about the Israeli-Palestinian issue
This blog is known for being pro-Israel. In a way this is a shame because here I would like to propose three simple observations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which, I believe, could be shared by everyone around: friends of Israel, critics of Israel, friends of the Palestinians, critics of the Palestinians, fans of Meretz, fans of Gush Emunim, followers of El Fatah (if there still are any), perhaps even some of those who sympathize with Hamas – as long as they agree that those annoying little thingies called facts are not completely irrelevant.
My three propositions are the following: 1) This is not a very interesting conflict. 2) There is no easy resolution to this conflict. 3) Peace, if it ever comes, will not come through reconciliation. Let me explain each point in turn.
1) This is not a very interesting conflict.
The most basic fact about the low-intensity conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, it seems to me, is that it is overreported. One can easily point to the reasons why should be so—the Jews-are-news-factor; then, Israel is a reporter’s paradize where everybody from top officials down is extremely talkative—AND you can be back from the battlefield at your hotel bar in time for cocktails.
But overreported it undoubtedly is. Neither can the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be called extremely bloody—just compare the Gaza campaign of 2008, with perhaps 740 civilians killed by the highest estimate, and the Sri Lankan Army Northern Offensive of the same year, with 7000 civilians killed by the lowest estimate.
Nor is it likely that this unimportant brawl in some dusty corner of this globe will lead to nuclear war anytime soon. Whereas nobody knows what the Korean roulette that Baby Kim is playing will eventually lead to; and remember, there still is the Cashmere crisis between India and Pakistan – totally unresolved—and the Pakistanis are driving nuclear warheads around their country in unarmoured vans.
So I stand by my word: this is essentially a boring conflict. Actually, one of the best things that could happen to both Israelis and Palestinians would be if the world lost interest. If TV cameras went dark. If both sides were left to their own devices for a year or so.
2) There is no easy resolution to this conflict.
If there were some way the Israelis could go: one, two three, and then the Palestinians went: a, b, c – or vice versa: first the Palestinians go a,b,c and then the Israelis implement one, two and three – then this conflict would have been resolved a long time ago. So all those of you who come from the outside carrying heavy bags full of good advice: hold your breaths for a second. It is not easy. And please, why should it be? Why should it be easier then, say, the ethnic strife between Romanians and Hungarians after World War I? Or the conflict in South Tyrol which lasted for generations? Or the Kurdish issue which has been burning at least since the Kurds were promised a state in the Treaty of Sevres (1920), a promise which was broken in the Treaty of Lausanne three years later?
This conflict will not be resolved in a day or a year. Maybe it will still be around a century from now. Maybe it will be around forever. „Real problems do not have a solution; they have a history“ (Nicolas Gomez Davila). Patience, please! And, my dear European friends, both sides in this conflict don’t appreciate it one bit when you wag accusing fingers in their faces like some Victorian governess.
3) Peace, if it ever comes, will not come through reconciliation.
Here I can only quote Amos Oz, a wonderful writer (and a real mensh) with whom I do not always agree. But he is absolutely on the money when he insists, „Make peace not love“. And when he says that peace is made between enemies and must in the case of Israelis and Palestininans result in partition. I also happen to agree with Amos when he warns of sentimentality.
For this reason I view all projects where Arabs and Jews are united, be it in kindergartens or symphony orchestras, with weary and cynical eyes. OK, you can do that kind of thing if you have no more pressing issues. But this is not the long and windy road which might eventually lead to peace or even a extended armistice.
Let me not mince words here: it is abso-fucking-lutely unimportant whether Israelis and Palestinians view each other with empathy. Whether they develop an understanding or whether they enjoy each other’s cooking. They don’t have to like the other side, not particularly, and they don’t have to learn to live with each other. All this is sentimental crap. This conflict does not belong to the kind where a slightly dysfunctional couple has to overcome certain marital didfficulties. This whole thing is about DIVORCE: How can the competing parties best be seperated? Who will get access to what and when? In short, how can Palestinians and Israelis best avoid each other? And what will happen to the party that is found in breach of the contract?
I am not saying this is how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be resolved. Perhaps (see above) it will never be. I’m only saying: should there be peace it will not come through Israeli and Palestinian teenagers fiddling happily side by side while Daniel Barenboim stands at the helm with his baton.
I have not said a word here about the conflict between Israel and Iran. This belongs to an entirely different class. It is very serious, possibly deadly serious. Maybe this enmity can only be resolved through war (I hope not, but one can’t know). And although the leadership in Teheran claims otherwise: the clash with Iran has nothing to do with the Palestinian issue; nothing at all.On Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam talked with Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney about the testimony of former CIA Director John Brennan on Tuesday to the House Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Kassam played a clip of Brennan giving a rather convoluted answer to a question about whether any evidence of actual “collusion” between the Trump 2016 campaign and the Russian government has been uncovered. Brennan ultimately admitted no such evidence has been found.
“I think the bottom line of it was that he doesn’t have evidence that it actually happened, and that’s a key point,” Gaffney observed.
“What I think he’s stating there, and has elsewhere, is if there is reason to suspect that our government is being suborned or our government is otherwise now under undue influence from foreign agents – or a candidate is, or an election may be – that there is a duty to look into it,” he said of Brennan’s testimony.
“The question just keeps coming back: ‘So, was there, in fact, the kind of evidence that would suggest actually this wasn’t just a possibility but happened?’ That seems to still be absent, which is all the more amazing, given the amount of time and energy that’s being expended – to say nothing of money that’s being expended – investigating this lack of evidence by investigative and legislative branch folks,” said Gaffney.
Kassam asked if the public might become bored with the “Russians are under the bed” refrain from President Trump’s adversaries.
“I happen to think the Russians are a very big problem,” Gaffney responded. “I hope what comes out of this is a heightened awareness that they are not our friends.”
“One of the things I believe very much needs to be done is rather than chase the will o’ the wisps, let’s get these investigators looking into actual evidence, abundant evidence, in fact, that exists of assorted Democratic officials – including, notably, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama – who engaged in activities with the Russians,” he added.
“Collusion, I think, is not too strong a term for it, certainly suborning of them and of our national interest,” Gaffney said. “Those should absolutely be looked at against the prism of the Russians not being our friends. I didn’t see John Brennan expressing any interest in those sorts of investigations at all, either when he was in office or now, for that matter.”
He advised the Trump administration not to attempt blocking investigations and, instead, “insist that the investigators, both Robert Mueller and the congressional investigators, broaden the focus of their investigations to ensure that we get an actual investigation into the full extent of Russian influence operations, whether they were aimed at this past election or previous elections or simply stealing our technology or otherwise subverting our national interest.”
“There’s a lot of that to explore,” said Gaffney. “It would be the height of folly, and I think a waste of all of that effort and resources and so on, if the focus is so narrow that it is only looking under the lamplight, as they say, not where the drunk dropped his keys.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.Why did Microsoft want to buy Maluuba so badly? It has a lot to do with seeing the big picture
The term “artificial intelligence” was beaten to semantic death in 2016. The term has been used and abused before, but perhaps never like it was during a year of self-driving cars and home assistants, anyone and everyone is trying to associate the “AI” acronym with their startup like it were the 1991 marketing blitz for Terminator 2. From that perspective, one might be quick to forgive anyone who dismissed the latest acquisition by Microsoft of Maluuba. Based in Montreal, University of Waterloo graduates Sam Pasupalak and Kaheer Suleman founded the company in 2010. Maluuba is currently focused on applying deep learning and “reinforcement learning” to language comprehension by machines. To that end, they have published several research papers though, haven’t publicly released a product. But more importantly, they call themselves an “artificial general intelligence” company. That sounds like the most boring kind of AI you might imagine when you compare that to hot terms like “neural machine learning” or “generative adversarial networks.” But to call yourself a ‘general AI’ startup means you cover the gamut. “So far, our team has focused on the areas of machine reading comprehension, dialogue understanding, and general (human) intelligence capabilities such as memory, common-sense reasoning, and information seeking behavior,” Maluuba’s announcement read, meaning they are trying to program machines to have a certain instinct, or programmed inclination to seek information. “Ever since we were classmates in our AI course (CS 486) at the University of Waterloo, way back in the summer of 2010, our vision has been to solve artificial general intelligence by creating literate machines that could think, reason and communicate like humans.”
Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, noted Maluuba’s goal to create “literate machines that can think, reason and communicate like humans.” He went on to illustrate, asking readers to imagine a secretary with an intuitive knowledge of your company’s inner workings and deals.
“The agent would be able to answer your question in a company security-compliant manner by having a deeper understanding of the contents of your organization’s documents and emails, instead of simply retrieving a document by keyword matching, which happens today.” What is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)? But being a “literate machine” means a lot more than just quickly evaluating a target text or image and making some sense of it. The non-profit Artificial General Intelligence Society organization calls it an emerging field “aiming at the building of ‘thinking machines’; that is, general-purpose systems with intelligence comparable to that of the human mind,” or perhaps beyond human reasoning’s capabilities. The organization introduces its purpose by adding the term “AGI” has become necessary as “AI” has become associated with more limited goals as businesses and startups capitalize on individual industries: search, data analysis, scheduling, even comparing contracts to regulations to ensure compliance in the finance and insurance industries. The broad idea of AGI is to flawlessly duplicate human intelligence, though a standard has not been so precisely worded. Thus far, the goal of an AGI-capable technology, has only been vaguely defined.
Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) Executive Director Luke Muehlhauser lists a number of requirements different people have demanded of such a technology: hold a 30-minute conversation, interpret audiovisual information, figure out how to make a cup of coffee, successfully enroll into and graduate from a university, and at least show the potential to completely automate important jobs.
Can you program an instinct to explore?
There are other teams who consider themselves AGI companies. Finland’s The Curious AI Company has raised nearly $1 million in seed funding for its unsupervised artificial intelligence work. They like to think of their goal technology as something suitable for a carbon-based life-form, but “adapted to silicon.”
Looking at it like that, you could say they want a human built out of machine parts, but that still missed on one critical area. In a word, they are working on a so-far unreachable trait for machines: curiosity.
AGI algorithms “must be intrinsically motivated to become progressively better at utilizing resources. This drive then naturally leads to effectiveness, efficiency, and curiosity,” Bas R. Steunbrink of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA wrote in a his pretty interesting (though heavy read of a paper) “Resource-Bounded Machines are Motivated to be Effective, Efficient, and Curious.”
He describes work with an AGI architecture called AERA, but to make a long story short it is missing the critical proclivity to be inquisitive.
“We built the AERA as a cognitive architecture towards AGI, based on many firm principles. However, curiosity was not one of them. Now it turns out that AERA is missing an exploration heuristic…”Get the biggest Newcastle United FC stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Newcastle United were last night told they must raise the stakes if they want to re-sign Demba Ba on loan.
Sources in the capital have indicated United opened up with an offer of £1m to bring the Senegal star back to Tyneside on a season long deal.
It is believed that Ba is trying to stay open-minded about his future but said recently: “All players want to play – not only centre-forwards.
“We will see what happens in the next few weeks.”
Chelsea signed the African striker from Newcastle back in January after activating the release clause in his contract and he left for £7m.
But the player has been told by returning Chelsea gaffer Jose Mourinho that he is surplus to requirements this season.
The Magpies have been told to almost treble their opening offer for a loan deal for Ba with a fee of around £3m required to land his signature for the season. United recently paid a £2m fee for Loic Remy to sign the striker from Queens Park Rangers.
However, Chelsea have also offered Ba around to a host of clubs in Europe and the Premier League for a transfer fee of £10m, an offer also available to United.
Newcastle have also not called time on a move for Lyon striker Bafetimbi Gomis.
The Chronicle reported first last Friday that the Magpies were back in the hunt for the France international after Lyon indicated they were willing to listen to fresh offers following the Ligue 1’s side Champions League loss to Real Sociedad in the first leg of their qualifying round.
The Spanish outfit polished off Lyon last night to complete a 4-0 aggregate scoreline meaning the cash-strapped outfit are now trying to make ends meet financially after being knocked out last before the money spinning group stages.
Meanwhile, United had not received any further offers for Yohan Cabaye last night from Arsenal.You could have been forgiven for feeling a touch of sadness at this even if you weren’t a supporter of the 58-year old club domiciled in the western Sydney suburb of Bossley Park.
But here’s the good news. By winning the NSW Premier League2 this coming season the club can bounce straight back into the state’s top tier, replacing another club which will get relegated.
Tell that story to supporters of North Queensland Fury, Gold Coast United and New Zealand Knights, A-League clubs which were shut down, erased and are now defunct, never to return.
The A-League, you see, has no promotion and relegation. Its doors are, it seems, permanently shut to the prospect of its losing clubs going down and the winning clubs of a lower division coming up, a concept intrinsic to football all around the world for a century and a half.
This despite the fact that promotion/relegation is FIFA's policy for domestic competitions. This despite the fact that in 2008, when FIFA adopted the policy, the FFA pledged that the introduction of promotion/relegation was to be part of the A-League’s future strategy.
In 2008, after the FIFA Congress held in Sydney, both Frank Lowy, FFA chairman, and FFA CEO Ben Buckley promised that promotion/relegation was part of the governing body’s vision.
"Promotion and relegation is the lifeblood of the game, so we can't ignore it and we won't ignore it. By the time the (2018) World Cup comes there will be promotion and relegation, we will probably have a lot more teams and... I believe we are going to move forward in big steps, as we are now," Lowy said at the time.
Yet in 2016 the prospect of introducing the concept for the A-League is as far off as ever. Early last year the FFA released its bold Whole of Football Plan, a 106 page document which will act as the holy book on how the FFA guides the game forward in forthcoming decades.
In it there is but one solitary mention of promotion/relegation. On page 84, in the section dealing with the composition of the A-League it says the following:
A-League competition expansion will come as a product of sustainable commercial growth, via a managed process of ‘in and out’ as circumstances arise, rather than a relegation and promotion system based purely on results. This is critical to retain the strategic market placement of clubs which underpins the commercial viability of the league.
Strip away the business jargon and read into this that, moving forward, results and excellence or failure on the field of play |
long," one tester raved. "My face has a healthy glow and looks younger, with fewer wrinkles," another marveled.
Treating Wrinkles
Rosehip oil is packed with beauty essentials like anti-inflammatory fatty acids and vitamins A and C.
"These ingredients allow rosehip oil to treat signs of aging and pigmentation, hydrate skin and repair damaged skin, and provide a strong protective antioxidant boost — all without the oily feel of a traditional liquid oil," says Sonam Yadav, MD, cosmetic dermatologist.
Brightening Skin
The astringent properties in rosehip oil help tighten your pores and brighten your skin, so adding a product like Art Naturals Rosehip Oil or Rosehip Oil by Kate Blanc to your skincare routine is great if your cheeks need a little brightening up. "Start with a small quantity in your daily routine: patting a few drops on cleansed skin at bedtime," says Yadav.
Evening Out Skin Tone
Supermodel Miranda Kerr swears by rosehip oil and uses it every night to help her skin stay even and flawless. Another purported fan: the Duchess of Cambridge, a.k.a., Kate Middleton."Kate continues to use rosehip oil in her daily skincare regimen," an anonymous source told US Weekly in 2015. "She loves the effect it has on her skin." Her rumored brand of choice: Trilogy's Rosehip Oil.
If you’ve been struggling to even out your skin tone or have red blotches you’re desperate to fade, this vitamin-packed cocktail is much easier on sensitive skin than lemon juice, so rub it on clean, damp skin both mornings and evenings.
Firming Skin
Rosehip oil may help your skin regain elasticity if you’ve noticed some sagging lately. Add a few drops to your face in the morning and again just before bed to help with fresh, younger-looking skin.
Fading Scars
The ultimate beauty ingredient trio — anti-inflammatory fatty acids and vitamins A and C — make this oil a potential solution for fading any facial scars or unsightly marks.
"Together these help undo and prevent oxidative damage and help the skin re-build collagen," says Tsippora Shainhouse, MD, FAAD, clinical instructor at the University of Southern California. "It can help fade skin hyperpigmentation and potentially minimize the appearance of fine lines and even stretch marks."
Exfoliating Skin
Consider adding rosehip oil to your routine as a face wash. Similar to sugar and sea salt, rosehip seed oil can work as a natural exfoliator when combined with baking soda. But steer clear if your skin is acne-prone, as this oil can further irritate already forming blemishes or clog pores. Here are some (very affordable!) favorites if you're convinced you want to stock up:The anarchist group Black and Green Arsonists claim they have taken popular food and drink items off the shelves of super markets, and that they will return them poisoned.
The Counter Terrorism Unit of the Hellenic Police are investigating the claim the group has posted in anarchist website Indymedia, accompanied by 11 photographs to support their claim.
The anarchists say that they will put the products back on the shelves in super markets in Athens and Thessaloniki poisoned with hydrochloric acid in the December 20-24 period.
The photos posted on Indymedia show the specific products that are supposedly poisoned.
Last year, an anarchist group did the same, forcing some super market chains to recall specific products.
The Black and Green Arsonists posted a statement on Indymedia titled “Green Nemesis Act 3”.
The manifesto posted reads as follows:
“These days thousands and thousands of Christians leave the couch to make the necessary shopping for the Christmas table to fill their empty lives with consumable rubbish with beautiful and glittering wrappings.
All this feast has as victims millions of living creatures that are slaughtered to arrive at the tables of the living/dead, or drained to the last drop of blood to satisfy their palates. We recognize that this is happening throughout the year, but in those days, this phenomenon is in recession.
That is why we chose to sabotage the following products in Athens and Thessaloniki. For practical reasons, we provide a sample of visual material from the products poisoned with hydrochloric acid, step by step.
We will start re-placing them on the shelves from 20.12 to 24.12 in different supermarket chains throughout Athens and all of Thessaloniki.
The poisoned products are Coca Cola and Coca Cola light one and a half litres, luncheon meat Yfantis 500 and 350 grams and Delta whole milk.
For each product we show exactly how we put the hydrochloric acid and the final result when it is ready to be put back on the supermarket shelves.
The Black and Green Arsonists”In the five years since Apple introduced iPhone owners to the mobile personal assistant called Siri, we humans have grown much more comfortable using our own words to take command of devices. In this age of big data, analytics, and constant surveillance, it’s the least that we can do to push for balance in the decades-old tug of war between artificial intelligence – and its ability to steal our jobs, drive our cars, and become our machine overlords – and “intelligent assistance,” which gives us humans more effective ways to leverage our own intelligence.
(In John Markoff’s just-published business bestseller on the AI versus IA dichotomy, Machines of Loving Grace, he refers to intelligent assistance as “intelligence augmentation.”)
Since Apple acquired Siri back in 2010, Siri has been joined by an ever-growing cohort of speech-enabled personal assistants from Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Cortana), Nuance (Nina), and an unnamed resource that awakens when someone says “Okay Google.”
Collectively, these tech giants have been instrumental in defining what Opus Research refers to as the “conversational technologies” depicted in the “Intelligent Assistance Landscape” below:
(You can access an interactive version of this landscape on VB Profiles.)
Automated voice processing and human-like text-to-speech give personality to applications and services by supporting spoken conversations. The roster of related technology includes visual avatars as well as resources that make the most of “non-verbal” input, including text input, touch, gesture, facial expression, and other attributes that can authenticate an individual’s identity, take stock of one’s emotional state, and perceive other “tells” that reveal intent.
The top level of the landscape is rounded out by “intelligent assistance technologies.” These are the real game changers when it comes to a system or service’s ability to derive meaning from spoken or keyed-in words. IBM Watson is the personification of this type of processing, which Big Blue calls “cognitive computing.” Two years ago it formed a multi-billion-dollar business unit and created an “instant ecosystem” of business partners, developers, and customers for a fast-growing set of API-based resources, starting with Q&A but quickly adding such resources as “personality insights,” sentiment analysis, a natural language classifier, and a couple dozen others, which are available through BlueMix, IBM’s developer cloud.
Below the technologies, “applications” are organized into categories that reflect patterns of usage. “Mobile and personal assistants” are software agents like Siri that take a “horizontal” approach to the digital world. Individuals perceive them as generalists that become familiar with their personal attributes, preferences, and, ultimately, intents. Personal advisors act as subject matter experts whose familiarity with such topic areas as travel & entertainment options, medical advice, or financial planning make them vital to the conversation. I’ll get to the virtual agents and customer assistants sector in some detail below.
Employee assistants refers to the use of both conversational and intelligent assistance technologies to simplify and speed up business activities. They are the tools of the trade for everything from scheduling meetings and routing deliveries to product lifecycle management and R&D.
The growing library of IBM Watson APIs has encouraged over 70,000 developers around the world to get acquainted with the capabilities. This is having a domino effect that results in exponential growth in usage. In a briefing to analysts in late September, IBM provided the following snapshot of Watson’s “Instant Ecosystem”: Over 10,000 apps were in test, controlled experiment, or production mode, and the ecosystem had 350 business partners across 17 industries operating in 36 different countries. Collectively these apps gave rise to a peak rate of 3 billion “API calls” on a monthly basis.
Yet Big Blue and the giants of IT are not the only players on the pitch. As the chart below illustrates, we see nearly 70 companies, mostly newcomers, defining the space. They employ over 20,000 individuals and account for nearly $4 billion in market value.
What’s more, the need for a community of solutions providers has been growing steadily as new firms move to make mobile digital commerce more conversational at home, in cars, and at work. As illustrated below, the number of new firms entering the market has been following a near-exponential progression since 1995.
The Heat Map below shows that technologies that support natural language processing, machine learning, and semantic search are gaining the lion’s share of investment ($70 million). Elements of the “smart user interface,” referred to as conversational technologies, collectively reach around $76 million. Given the co-dependence of these two areas, Opus Research expects investment to grow in lockstep.
Snapshot of the Virtual Agent and Customer Assistant Sector: Redefining Self-Service
The Intelligent Assistant Landscape has a special category for IAs that are put to work in enterprise settings. These include a subcategory of “customer assistants.” In August, in a report entitled “Decision-Makers’ Guide to Enterprise Intelligent Assistants,” Opus Research cited 13 firms whose platforms offer human-like, automated services as a natural user interface for customer care, self-service, and sales.
We believe that this cohort, which represents about two thirds of the total enterprise intelligence assistant market, generated roughly $200 million in revenue in 2014 and that top line revenue is growing in the 30 percent range to exceed $1 billion in annual spending in 2020 in North America.
This curve is a very conservative market assessment. Thanks to their ability to “learn” and add domain expertise, IAs in the enterprise are evolving to perform more complex tasks on behalf of individuals while, all the time, collecting data and learning how to do a better job the next time. By quickly recognizing each individual’s intent, they shorten the time it takes for people to carry out their everyday tasks and are becoming the go-to resource every time an individual initiates a search, browses an e-commerce web site, or carries out other forms of digital commerce. That’s why we expect that, within the next three years, enterprise IAs will be the primary point of contact to support real world commerce in the digital realm.
Dan Miller is founder and lead analyst at Opus Research, a market research firm focused on conversational commerce and organizer of the Intelligent Assistants Conference (October 13-14, 2015) in New York City. You can reach him at dmiller@opusresearch@net and follow him on Twitter: @dnm54.The future guided-missile destroyer John Finn (DDG-113) completed its acceptance trials earlier this month and is one step closer to commissioning later this year, the Navy announced last week.
During acceptance trials, which wrapped up Nov. 3, the the U.S. Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) required the ship and its crew to complete a series of tasks to validate the quality of the ship’s construction and its compliance with Navy ship specifications.
Tests were conducted both pierside and underway and proved the crew could operate all systems including “navigation, damage control, mechanical and electrical systems, combat systems, communications, and propulsion applications,” according to a Navy news release.
“This has been an extremely rigorous set of trials, and I am confident that we will deliver a highly capable warfighting platform to our Sailors and the fleet,” Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program manager Capt. Casey Moton said in the news release.
“John Finn‘s performance as the first restart ship has been exemplary, and we’re looking forward to maintaining that high quality of construction and performance as we continue to build and deliver Arleigh Burke destroyers.”
The Navy built 62 Arleigh Burke-class DDGs before stopping the program in 2005, and the service in 2008 decided to restart production. That interruption in continuous production put at risk the cost, schedule and quality of the restart ships, as builders and others involved in the program left to find new work and did not necessarily return when destroyer production resumed. Program officials originally thought DDG-113 would commission by this summer, with that schedule slipping some, but the Navy’s news release praised the quality of the ship and its warfighting systems.
Brian Cuccias, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding – the yard that build John Finn and one of two yards building the DDG-51s – told USNI News in May that “when we were in the heart of Arleigh Burke destroyers before, the team building the ship, part of their role was to develop the shipbuilders for the next platform. And so when you have a platform that runs out, there’s no retraining and redevelopment. So when you have the five-year gap between 110 and 113, the leadership that was there, the leadership in the yard – we basically had to start identifying, who’s going to be the leader in these areas? How do we train them? How do we become more effective? People who have never been on a destroyer, they’re kind of on a T 1 (first unit) learning curve on that ship. So it’s that effect rather than, oh they’re hitting T 14 or T 18 or whatever it is.”
The yards were forced to get back into the swing of things quickly, with Ingalls having four more DDGs under construction and two under contract now and seven more in construction or under contract at General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.
John Finn and the rest of the restart ships will deliver to the Navy with the same Aegis capability that older ships are gaining through modernization efforts – chiefly, the Aegis Baseline 9. This ship will be a Flight IIA design like its predecessors before the production gap, with the introduction of a Flight III design coming later in the program.PoliZette Old-Guard Republicans Will Try to Scuttle Trump’s Success President-elect should stiff-arm the neocons trying to sneak into his administration
The Kentucky Wildcats, elated with their 2002 win over the LSU Tigers, gave Coach Guy Morriss a celebratory Gatorade shower. Unfortunately, there were still 11 seconds left in the game. LSU used those precious seconds to run a play that was the football equivalent of a Republican winning the Rust Belt. LSU beat Kentucky by 3 points that day.
Kentucky was devastated. And Guy Morriss — as if losing weren’t bad enough — had to do his post-game interviews soaking wet. The Wednesday morning after the election, every talking head in America looked like angry, humiliated, dripping-wet Guy Morriss.
Thanks to Trump, we now have empirical evidence that abandoning the party base is not the secret sauce that turns states red.
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When it seemed like the Republican Party might never recover from President George W. Bush’s big spending and neoconservative foreign policy, Donald Trump — like Reagan before him — created a new Republican coalition.
The mainstream media isn’t afraid of Donald Trump because they think he’s dangerous. They’re afraid of him because he’s a Republican who appeals to working-class Americans and because he’s a pragmatist who is against unnecessary military interventions.
Of course, the best way to destroy a Republican coalition is by throwing a Bush at it, but here are three more ways some Republicans of the Old Guard will try to destroy the new coalition.
1.) Open the back door and let the neocons in!
The 2016 election was a 200-decibel repudiation of neoconservative foreign policy.
They made up a large portion of the teeny-tiny elitist group known as NeverTrumpers. And while they’re rare among walking-down-the-street type people, they’re all over the media and scattered generously throughout Congress. People like George Will, John McCain, Bill Kristol, and others failed to stop Trump in the primaries. They failed to steal his nomination at the Republican National Convention; they failed to convince him to step down as the nominee. But now that he’s president, they will ask him to fill the Cabinet with neocons — and then grumble if he fails to do so.
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George Will, who did everything he could as a NeverTrumper to get Hillary Clinton elected president, but failed — is now quite interested in helping Trump with the Cabinet. He’s pushing Kelly Ayotte, a neocon senator who lost her New Hampshire seat — due in no small part due to her lack of support for Trump.
While in the Senate, Ayotte fought alongside Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham in favor of any military intervention imaginable.
The neocons are obsessed with the notion that Donald Trump is dangerous, but it is — and always has been — they who are dangerous. They believe in spending the lives of our soldiers and trillions of dollars trying and failing to install democracies in faraway lands.
“She’d be a big help to the new administration,” a National Review writer stated.
According to The Washington Post, she’s a candidate for secretary of defense. According to the article, “Ayotte would stand out in a Trump administration as a neoconservative defense hawk and one of the few women in the incoming Trump Cabinet.”
There were 17 candidates to choose from in the GOP primary. Every neocon went down. At the end, the only Republican candidate left standing was the one who said, “We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.” That’s the guy who won. The voters sent a direct anti-neocon mandate.
George W. Bush’s terrible neoncon foreign policy nearly destroyed the GOP. Trump doesn’t need to build bridges in order to make the neocons happy. He needs to slam the White House door in their faces.
2.) Forget the American people the corporations and the special interests.
The multinationals were kicking back in their shades loving life — back when all signs were pointing toward a Bush vs. Clinton election. Hillary wouldn’t have had to flip-flop on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The candidates could have gone all over the country arguing about who loved free trade the most and who could sign the most free trade deals and open up access to the cheapest labor.
Unfortunately for multinationals, both parties were tired of it and two working-class populist movements emerged. As we know thanks to WikiLeaks, the Democrats cheated to stomp out their populist uprising. The Republican uprising is now in the process of creating a Cabinet.
Over and over in the lead up to the election, we heard jabbering heads echo the idea that Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are fool’s gold for Republicans — never having any idea that opposition to NAFTA and the TPP might make a difference there, in the region where both parties had previously agreed it was fine to auction off the peoples’ jobs to the lowest bidder.
Stop fighting for the working class, and that Rust Belt will be blue again before you know it.
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3.) Whatever you do, don’t stand up for anything!
The media has conditioned Republicans to believe that the only way to win a presidential election is to disavow the party’s base and embrace progressive values. The Republican Party has been pounded by the media and the Democrats into believing that conservative positions are losing positions.
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John Kasich, Jeb Bush, and tons of so-called Republican strategists said over and over that Trump couldn’t win. He’s “divisive.” Issues divide people. Campaigns are about disagreement — so they’re divisive by nature. These people believe some magical spot exists on the political spectrum where everyone comes together and agrees. It doesn’t. All they’re really doing is tossing out all of their leverage before negotiations even start, defining their surrender as unification, and then patting themselves on the back because the media praised them.
Thanks to Trump, we now have empirical evidence that abandoning the party base is not the secret sauce that turns states red. Republicans should wrap Trump’s coalition in bubble wrap and treat its lessons as fragile, precious gifts. The party will wind up in pieces quickly if they don’t.
Eddie Zipperer is an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor.Day 17! Can ya'll believe I've made it this far? I'm feeling the pressure as we get into more design driven based looks soon. Today the #31DC2015 calls for Glitter. So lets take a look at what I came up with.
The blue is Polish My Life Springtime Blues and the glitter is Painted Polish Blinded by Bubbly. This isn't all the glitter there is, so don't worry. More is coming. ;-) This is just a base. Can we talk about the blue creme for a minute though? It was my first time trying this brand and it's simply perfection. You know I love a good creme polish!
*self purchased
Polish My Life
Painted Polish
For the final look, I used striping tape across the tip of each finger and sponged onagain. I'm really liking how I let it fade away towards the middle of each nail. I know I saw a similar design like this on IG but I can't remember who it was to save my life. If you know, give me a shout so I can give proper credit.Tomorrow we're rocking Half Moons. Can't wait.Enjoy & until next time, Amy LeeNHL.com's Q&A feature called "Five Questions With …" runs every Tuesday. We talk to key figures in the game and ask them questions to gain insight into their lives, careers and the latest news.
Hall of Fame defenseman Scott Stevens gave up a cushy job talking and analyzing the game on NHL Network, a job that allowed him to live in his own house in New Jersey, so he could go back to the grind of the NHL season as an assistant coach with the Minnesota Wild.
It was and still is the best decision for Stevens, especially since he's played a role in helping the Wild become the best team in the Western Conference so far this season.
The Wild lead the Central Division and the Western Conference with 61 points and a.726 points percentage in 42 games. They carry a four-game winning streak into a game against Stevens' former team, the New Jersey Devils, at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; FS-N, FS-WI, MSG+, NHL.TV).
Stevens will join Wild coach Bruce Boudreau and the rest of the staff next weekend in Los Angeles for 2017 Honda NHL All-Star Weekend, where they will coach the Central Division.
"It's fun to teach," Stevens said. "It's fun to be part of a team, preparing for games, preparing for the next team. You're right there. You're hands on. You're closer to the action. TV was fun. It was like you're teaching but you're teaching from afar, teaching an audience. It's just fun to be making decisions and in the heat of the battle."
In a way, though, spending last season as an analyst helped give Stevens a head start for his job with the Wild.
"You learn players. You see players. You also watch what teams do, how they play," he said. "How do they forecheck? How do they defend? What do they do in the neutral zone? What do you like? What don't you like? What could you use? What can you suggest to your new team? You look for things like that. You watch the teams you like and you watch the teams that have success and try to figure out what they do, how they had success, what they do well."
Stevens didn't watch Minnesota closely until he joined Boudreau's staff on June 7. He immediately sunk his eyes and hockey mind into the Wild and has since helped them become one of the best defensive teams in the League; the Wild are second in goals against per game (2.14) and sixth in penalty kill (84.9 percent). They allowed 2.49 goals per game and were 77.9 percent on the PK last season.
"The guys are good," Stevens said. "The guys come to play. That's the best part."
Stevens talked more about his guys and being back behind the bench during a phone conversation Monday.
Here are Five Questions (plus a bonus question at the end) with … Scott Stevens:
Let's go over the defense unit you have in Minnesota. What are some things you have learned about them now that you're coaching them, things you wouldn't pick up on by just watching them?
"You're fortunate to have a guy like Ryan Suter, a guy that's a horse, can play a lot of minutes. He's been valuable. He produces points. He plays against the best players. He plays 27 minutes. It's nice to have him back there because you know he comes to play every night and he's very consistent. His partner, a guy nobody ever talks about, Jared Spurgeon, is definitely a guy you should look at. He's not very big, but what a complement he is to Suter. I know he's going to get the job done. I can count on him. He's a right-hand shot, moves the puck well, defends well for a small guy, fearless, makes plays. A guy that should be talked about more in the League along with Ryan Suter.
"And then I go to Jonas Brodin. This guy here, he plays the left side but he's a guy I can put on the right side when I need to. I can move him around anywhere at any time. He's got great feet. He can beat a forecheck by himself and he defends very well. He's an excellent young hockey player. Matt Dumba has that potent shot, a threat on the power play. He joins the rush. He's still learning, getting better, but he's been very good. Marco Scandella had some injuries, but he's back and he's a big defenseman with a big reach and moves very well. He has a good stick and can be a shutdown defender. Christian Folin, this is really his first full year. He started out really well, got injured, but he's back now and playing well. He's a physical guy, boxes out in front of the net and leans on people.
Video: MTL@MIN: Folin beats Price with nifty backhand
"Then we have Nate Prosser, who is just a good team guy. He reminds me of [former Devils defenseman] Tommy Albelin, when you need a guy to come in as a seventh, you know what he's going to do, he gets the job done, never complains and is probably a favorite in the locker room with the guys.
"It's a great group with a little bit of everything, and they're all quite mobile, which is nice. You know in this day and age to have people with good feet and can move is very important."
This defense might not have the physical intimidation that the Devils defense had when you played in New Jersey, but does any of this blue line remind you of the defense you used to play with, at least in terms of how they play and how you can deploy them?
"Yeah. That's what Bruce Boudreau wants. As much of an offensive player he was, he knows how to defend. He knows defense wins and his track record shows it. That's one reason why I liked his system. I liked the way his teams play in the 'D' zone. I liked how his teams played in the neutral zone. It reminds me very much of the Devils in how we play. We definitely love to protect the middle of the ice. We might give up a few more shots, but we give up a lot of those perimeter shots and hopefully our goaltenders know where the shots are coming from. We don't give up many Grade A chances.
"The players play the right way. You have to give the players credit; they're a disciplined group. They like to win and they know how to button it down, protect a lead. They don't cheat and they make sacrifices. That's the biggest reason why we're having success."
Is this team better than you thought it was when you first got there?
"Yeah, yeah it is, but it took a little while at the start to figure the group out and for them to figure us out. We made some changes and it took time. There were some old habits from five or six years that they had been doing. It was a process. And then finding ways to score more goals, we had trouble at the start. We were defending well, but now we're scoring goals in different ways and we're getting contributions from different people and a lot of guys are having career years. When you get scoring that's spread out and you defend well, good things happen. I think this was a team that scored on the rush a lot in previous years, but Bruce has been driving it home for us to get pucks to the net and get people there, and we've been scoring a lot of goals in that blue paint area. It's nice to score in different ways, but to score in this League you have to get pucks to the net and people to the net."
Video: MIN@DAL: Koivu's wrister through traffic deflects in
The way you played the game was physical. You had a number of big, well-documented hits. Today if a guy lays a big hit, he most of the time has to answer for it right away, whether that's good or bad. There aren't as many of those big hits either, but it's a more mobile game. How have you had to evolve to be a coach in today's game?
"It's more position, body position and sticks. That's how the game has changed. It's a pressure game, taking time and space away. This is what the game has become. It's a faster game, more of a north-south game, but I still think the way you win and the way you play games hasn't really changed. I think those things are still there, but there's no question it's not as physical but it's still a demanding game."
I guess my point is I don't know that you can teach a guy to play the way you played and apply it in today's game. Do you agree?
"Oh yeah. I think some people have the illusion that when I become a coach now the defense is going to be this ferocious, hard hitting, feared team. No. It's in your blood. It's in your DNA. You have to like physical contact and want to play that game. You can push people into certain areas to be a little more physical and a little more aggressive, but it's got to be in the person."
It's time to play the Devils again. You did it once in New Jersey on Oct. 22 and now you get to do it in Minnesota. What was that feeling like the first time you coached against them and what do you expect Tuesday?
"It was tough. It was different. I don't think I ever saw the locker room on the other side in that building [Prudential Center]. It was definitely a little awkward. It was good to get it over. But it was nice to see some of the old faces that have been around there. There's a great bunch of guys over there. Andy Greene, Adam Henrique, Travis Zajac, a lot of good people I coached and was around. Another guy like Cory Schneider too. We'll see about [Tuesday]. We want to win and they're playing much better hockey now. We'll have our hands full."The Great White North is looking to expand its horizons.
On Friday, the Canadian government was expected to submit an application to the UN Commission tasked with evaluating which countries can claim exclusive rights to resources — namely oil and gas — found in waterways far beyond their borders. Instead, however, the country made a surprising pivot: at the insistence of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they submitted a partial application rather than a full one. That's because, according to The Globe and Mail, Harper wants government scientists to seek additional data that would support a more expansive claim — one that includes the North Pole.
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was finalized in 1982, countries can lay claim to ocean floor well beyond their borders — as long as they provide robust scientific evidence to prove that this seabed is an extension of their continental shelf. Already, countries have sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of their territorial waterways. For a country to determine whether they have economic sovereignty beyond that distance, the UN agreement requires comprehensive mapping that establishes some sort of geologic justification for the claim. And where the Arctic is concerned, Canada, the US, Norway, Russia, and Denmark have been amassing scientific evidence for more than a decade in an effort to increase their piece of this resource-rich pie. "This is about a long-term investment in potential resources," says Martin Pratt, director of research at Durham University's International Boundaries Research Unit. "If states don't claim their territory, there's a possibility that the global community will say, ‘No, sorry, you missed your chance.'"
To prevent that scenario, countries need to submit an application staking their claims within 10 years of ratifying the UN convention (Canada ratified in 2003). And the necessary research is arduous, expensive, and often very cold: the Canadian government spent upwards of $200 million on its scientific process, which included dozens of icebreaker and helicopter treks for teams of scientists, and even the use of an unmanned submarine to collect data beneath frigid waters. Some of that research occurred in collaboration with the US, which despite not yet having ratified the UN agreement is already amassing reams of its own evidence. "If the US doesn't ratify, then we don't know what happens if there's a dispute," says Rob Huebert, associate director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. "What do you do about a contested area with the US if there isn't an agreement that governs how that dispute is resolved?"
Indeed, countries have good reason to vie for Arctic turf — and worry about potential disagreements. The 18-million-square-mile region, though largely unexplored, is thought to contain around one-third of the world's oil reserves — all of them thus far untapped. "It's a dangerous and difficult region to drill, but the idea of profits seem to exceed those risks for governments," Huebert says of the Arctic, an area characterized by moving ice floes, frigid temperatures, and extreme weather events. "We're not seeing anyone pull away."
Canada's Stephen Harper is making an aggressive push up north. (APEC 2013 / Flickr)
In contrast, Canada appears to be pushing ahead — and doing so with uncharacteristic aggression. Harper's decision to scrap the proposal assembled by government-funded scientists and push for a bigger chunk of the Arctic wasn't exactly the diplomatic approach some experts were hoping for — and could catalyze discord with Russia and Denmark, both of which might vie for portions of the North Pole as well. "These scientists are among the best in the world, and if they don't think the facts support extending Canada's submission, then they're right," says Michael Byers, a professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in Arctic sovereignty. "Mr. Harper will, I'm sorry to say, be sorely disappointed."
And in a further twist, the burgeoning tussle over North Pole sovereignty likely has nothing to do with oil and gas. That specific region isn't thought to contain much in the way of resources. Instead, Byers says, Harper's maneuver is purely political — an effort to bolster his domestic popularity and flex some international muscle. "The North Pole has extreme emotional value; people have an image that's essentially of Santa's workshop," Byers says. "So there's a huge domestic political angle to this, the idea of claiming the North Pole for your country."
Byers, for one, is dubious that Canadian scientists will ever amass the kind of evidence Harper's looking for — if they haven't already collected that data, he says, it probably doesn't exist. So while both Harper and Russian president Vladimir Putin want to represent "that strong man of the North image" — and sometimes do, in oft-panned photo ops — at least one of them won't have scientific legs to stand on. (After their first application was rejected for an absence of evidence in 2002, Russia is now doing more mapping to assemble a new application.)
It'll take decades for the UN commission to even evaluate Canada's submissions — they get to around four each year, and have a backlog of more than 40 related to waterways around the world. And drilling in the inhospitable, outer reaches of the Arctic is even further off. But Byers worries that Canada's aggressive stance on the North Pole will create diplomatic tensions far before any commission decision. "An overly ambitious application creates problems with Russia. And there's no reason to create problems with Russia," he says. "But it's a well-known fact that a lot of politicians don't look beyond the next election."
Nor, at least in Harper's case, do they take a close look at their country's ability to militarily defend any bombastic claims if necessary. While experts agree that armed conflicts over Arctic resources are unlikely — and years off — Canada doesn't exactly have the upper hand. "You look at Russia and you go, ‘Oh god, we're screwed,'" Huebert says, noting that Canada's Arctic military presence numbers in the few hundreds with potential cutbacks looming. Byers agrees. "It's ironic, because Canada is not a particularly well-equipped country in terms of military," he says. "It's a bit strange, you know, to have the mouse poking the bear here."When word got out a couple weeks ago that new River North spa Mud Facial Bar will be offering breast milk facials, Chicago collectively said, "Ewwwww!"—but also privately was intrigued.
Look, I understand that breast milk dredges up weird feelings in people: It comes from a sexually attractive part of the body that we don't like to think of as also giving life to tiny humans. I remember being horrified, HORRIFIED, at finding a bottle of breast milk in my freezer that my friend had left after a party many years ago. I didn't even want to touch it (it might still be in my freezer).
But then I became a mom, and I realized breast milk is not at all gross (no more gross than cow's milk), and it's actually pretty amazing. Not only can it solely sustain the life of a baby, it also clears up a baby's rash, cuts and other skin ailments. Knowing this, and because I was the only person in the office willing to give this facial a try, I went to Mud Facial Bar yesterday with an open mind.
Mud positions |
News, tweeted that that margin is the highest since the 2013 government shutdown.
NBC and the WSJ surveyed 500 registered voters and the poll has a margin of error of between 4.4 and 4.6 percent depending on the sample.NEW YORK -- A New York City teacher was arrested early Friday for allegedly crashing a drone into an empty section of seats during a second-round match at the US Open, police said.
Daniel Verley, 26, faces charges of reckless endangerment and operating a drone in a New York City public park outside of prescribed area. He was found at a marina on the opposite side of Citi Field immediately following the incident. Verley was released with an appearance ticket for a Sept. 16 court date.
Editor's Picks OTL: Eyes in the sports sky Using drone footage to gather information or data -- instead of just images -- is catching on at several college football programs, and sports in general, even as the laws and rules addressing the use of drones remain murky.
A police department spokesman said Verley is a teacher at the Academy of Innovative Technology in Brooklyn. Calls for comment to the school and the Department of Education were not immediately returned Friday.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Verley had an attorney who could comment on the charges on his behalf.
The drone buzzed over the court in Louis Armstrong Stadium on Thursday night before crashing into the seats. U.S. Tennis Association spokesman Chris Widmaier said no one was injured.
A drone entered Louis Armstrong Stadium during a match on Thursday night, temporarily halting the action before crashing into a section of empty seats. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
The black device flew diagonally through the arena during the next-to-last game of a second-round match that 26th-seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy won 6-1, 6-4 over Monica Niculescu of Romania.
Pennetta said she heard the drone fly by and was not sure what it was. Her initial reaction, she said afterward, was that it might have been a bomb.
"A little bit scary, I have to say," Pennetta said.
"With everything going on in the world... I thought, 'OK, it's over.' That's how things happen," she added.
She said neither the chair umpire nor tournament officials told her that it was a drone.
The drone broke into pieces upon landing, and the match was only briefly interrupted between points while police and fire department personnel went to look at it.
"The chair umpire just wanted to wait for an OK from the police to be able to continue," Pennetta said, "even if, truthfully, I don't think even they knew what it was."
She said her coach and physical therapist were sitting in the opposite end of the stadium from where the drone crashed and they told her later they were afraid too.
"All of these [security measures], and then it comes in from above," Pennetta said.
The New York Police Department said security at the US Open was already tight before the drone crashed and would remain so.
The episode happened a little before 8:30 p.m., during the day's last match in Louis Armstrong Stadium, which has a seating capacity of about 10,000. Pennetta and Niculescu originally were scheduled to play on the much-smaller Court 17, but their match was moved because four earlier matches in Armstrong wrapped up early.
"If there had been spectators, it would have hit them and done a lot of damage," Pennetta said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Image via Pexels
A few weeks ago, I was curious about how the people of Guam were reacting to nuclear threats from North Korea. From a cafe in Washington, DC, I turned to Tinder.
“Yes, a lot of people are flipping out. Even other islands, especially Saipan,” said Edward, a 22-year-old student at the University of Guam. Saipan, as one might guess, is one of Guam’s Pacific neighbors. “Some people want to leave,” he continued, “but they have jobs, and they have people they’re supporting, and they won’t just leave because of a threat that may not even happen.”
Frank, 32, discussed the faith community. “It’s a predominantly Catholic island so just a lot prayers being shot out.” I asked if Guam’s lack of political influence has played a role in their concerns. “All this exchange of egos would bother anyone, I guess. Leaders should be finding resolve instead of adding fuel to the fire (and fury).”
ICYMI: Journalists need to discontinue the genre of reporting known as “inspiration porn”
Ky, a 24-year-old medical assistant, seemed unfazed, sharing “Quite frankly, I am not worried one bit.”
My Tinder profile included a professional photo and read: “I am a journalist, can I ask you a few questions?” I swiped right on several profiles, matched with a few, and simply started talking. Granted, some folks I chatted with later admitted they thought the “journalist” thing was a pickup line. But I started each conversation explaining my intentions and confirming that they were comfortable going on record. In an hour, I had a few new friends and a general idea about the island’s concerns.
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Is this journalism? I think so.
I spent the summer reporting for The GroundTruth Project in Russia, and I had originally used Tinder to find English-speakers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. After befriending some locals, I realized Tinder might be a useful tool for reporters. Returning to the US, I had a group of Russian pen-pals who would happily offer their perspective on current events.
Although it may be atypical, Tinder is a promising resource for journalists who may otherwise hit a dead end.
What is Tinder?
Tinder is a dating app. Users make a profile and swipe left or right on other people’s profiles; you swipe right if you’d like to talk to the person. If both people swipe right on each other, you “match” and can start a conversation. Users set gender, age, and location preferences.
There’s nothing in Tinder’s terms of service that suggests the app can’t legally be used as a journalistic tool. In fact, Tinder Inc. markets itself as more than a dating app. Its community guidelines simply forbid scamming, spamming, harassment, and inappropriateness; and according to its website, Tinder “empowers users around the world to create new connections.”
One Tinder promotional video seems to encourage alternative uses. “People aren’t only using it to make great love connections,” said one Tinder employee, “they’re also finding friends and using it to network.”
Embed from Getty Images
Tinder has users in more than 190 countries. Its “Passport” feature lets users meet people from almost anywhere in the world. Google Translate makes it even easier. Stuck in New York, but want to understand how a Parisian feels about French President Emmanuel Macron? Want to bolster a pitch quickly with a quote from a local? In Rome and need to find a nearby English-speaker? There’s an app for that.
Of course, journalists should apply ethical standards to their use of Tinder as they would any other platform: Be upfront about being a reporter, be aware of phishing scams, and vet your sources.
Some considerations, however, are unique to this dating app.
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A biased usership
Drop your radius in Moscow, match with English-speakers, and ask about Putin. You will soon find that—contrary to extensive polling—a surprising number of Russians seem to be critical of the authoritarian leader. You haven’t stumbled upon a conspiracy; you just aren’t getting the full story. Tinder is matching you with young, English-speaking Muscovites, a population considerably more likely to be skeptical of Putin.
At least in the US, Tinder is mostly used by young, unmarried people; men are typically more likely to swipe right; poorer people are less likely to have access to smartphones; and because of your gender, you’ll probably only have access to half the usership (users chose whose profiles they see based on sexual orientation). The list of considerations goes on, but regardless, you can’t expect the full picture. No one using the app is a truly “random” citizen.
Respect for everyone’s privacy
Dating-app-journalism has faced scrutiny before, and journalists should be especially cautious looking for sources on Tinder. A reporter working for the Daily Beast infamously used a gay dating app, Grindr, at the 2016 Brazil Summer Olympics. The reporter was straight, only revealed he was a journalist when asked, and did not make it clear he was reporting while on the app. He ultimately wrote an article about it. As a consequence, he inadvertently outed Olympic athletes, putting some in serious danger back home.
The Daily Beast’s article had many problems; it was insensitive and ignorant. “Don’t be insensitive and ignorant” is a rule journalists can get behind; however, using Grindr uniquely threatened sources. Dating apps are treated as a quasi-private place for members of the LGBTQ community to meet one another.
Although “I am a reporter, can I have your full name?” is the last thing a closeted person wants to hear on a dating platform, the lesson from the Daily Beast is to be upfront. You may spook potential sources and make them uncomfortable, but being entirely transparent is paramount. If they don’t want to talk to you or be quoted, they don’t have to.
The initial assumption is that—even if you introduce yourself as a journalist—you are using the app for personal, romantic reasons.
For users straight and otherwise, Tinder is often a discrete place to meet people. The initial assumption is that—even if you introduce yourself as a journalist—you are using the app for personal, romantic reasons. Unlike other forms of social media, a reporter will have to make their intentions especially clear.
I’m not aware of any major publications that openly use dating apps to find sources, perhaps for this reason. Since I am a man, if I quote “Joseph Johnson, 25, a man from Tinder,” I may inadvertently out Joe. What if I quote a woman who happens to be married? Since journalists often like to say where they found a particular source, they should go the extra step in confirming a source is comfortable with a story noting they were found on Tinder. Otherwise, the app still can be very useful for interviews on background.
For the record, I have used Tinder as a dating app; but I’ve strictly separated my matches for work and my matches for dating. I’ve never interviewed or quoted someone who I’ve spoken to romantically, and vice versa.
Using Tinder for journalism introduces a slew of precarious emotions into interviews, even if you do take precautions and explain your intentions. Regardless of your own orientation, your interviewee, man or woman, may have been drawn to your profile for romantic reasons. You need to establish a hard distinction between people you may flirt with and the people you interview. When opening Tinder, you should know which hat you’re wearing.
Admittedly, the app doesn’t make that part easy. You cannot sort your matches, meaning that journalists need to be especially vigilant.
Limited information
I helped cover the Charlottesville protests with The GroundTruth Project, but before I went, I used Tinder to talk to locals. Unfortunately, I learned very little from my brief interviews. The people who weren’t involved only knew what was already in the news, and the protesters seemed to be otherwise engaged.
I was able to gain some thoughtful insight: “It’s amazing that in the old days people hid behind a hooded mask, but in the current climate there are no fears of showing their true self,” said Hasni, 51. However, in general, I learned nothing that wasn’t already being reported.
As I soon figured out, Tinder is not Twitter. You can’t expect instant updates; but for more substantive conversations before or after events like Charlottesville, it can be a useful platform.
Tinder’s unique benefits
Despite Tinder’s hassles and pitfalls, I would argue it is worthy of a journalist’s time.
Twitter and Facebook are convenient when you know who you are looking for, but privacy settings often prevent quick conversations with random people. Meanwhile, Tinder exclusively matches you with people who want to talk, meaning more insightful interviews. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, Tinder requires a phone number confirmation. Although they exist, Tinder dummy accounts are rarer than their social media counterparts, meaning fewer dead ends. And as city-dwelling journalists come under heightened scrutiny for being too insular, Tinder is one avenue to extend their reach, meaning faster and more informed reporting.
Tinder is far from perfect; but it can be a useful tool as long as journalists maintain their usual ethical standards, contextualize their interviews, and are mindful of privacy concerns.
ICYMI: Sharing a bed and a beat on opposite sides of the news spectrum
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Kevin McElwee is a software engineer based in Washington, DC. As a freelance journalist, his articles have appeared in Nautilus and Discovery, Princeton University’s research magazine. In 2017, he reported from Moscow for The GroundTruth Project.As we noted today, the rumors of an Italian bank bailout, which started on Monday morning, and were promptly shot down by Merkel the next day, got louder after a Reuters report that the Italian government is considering more creative ways to inject liquidity into Italy's banks. However that was just an appetizer to a main course, which came later today when as the WSJ reported citing a spokeswoman for the European Union’s executive arm that the "European Commission has authorized Italy to use government guarantees to create a precautionary liquidity support program for their banks."
How did this happen so quietly under the table and without Merkel's blessing? WSJ says that the program was approved under the bloc’s “extraordinary crisis rules for state aid."
And here we thought that Italy's banks are actually doing so very well. Oh wait, no we didn't.
As the WSJ notes, the proposed "crisis" plan is the "other leg of an intervention plan considered by the government" namely, the direct capital injection into Italian banks that would add up to €40 billion in capital to the banking sector", the one we profiled previously. It is also the plan that Merkel supposedly shut down before it got off the ground. However, Europe had a Plan B up its sleeve.
What are the details of this latest "crisis" program?
According to an EU official, the liquidity support program includes up to €150 billion ($166 billion) in government guarantees. The WSJ adds that the commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the amount of guarantees that were authorized, but said that the budget requested by the Italian government had been found to be proportionate. The Italian economy ministry declined to comment.
An amusing sidebar: "only solvent banks would qualify for the liquidity support program, which has been authorized until the end of the year." The problem is that with €360 billion in NPLs, every bank in Italy is insolvent, which implicitly means that they will all be found to be solvent or otherwise nobody will benefit.
Confirming the severity of the Italian fiasco, is that the decision which was taken on Sunday, had not been previously disclosed until the WSJ reported on it and "appears to be a first indication of governments moving to shore up banks in the wake of market turbulence following the Brexit referendum in the U.K."
In other words, just as we said before, Brexit was nothing more than a Europe-blessed "crisis" ploy designed to achieve two things: unleash more QE, which the BOE admitted will happen (most likely with the involvement of the ECB), and ii) to facilitate the bailout of insolvent Italian banks. To wit:
Brexit will be just the scapegoat used by Renzi and Italy to circumvent any specific eurozone prohibitions. And if it fails, all Renzi has to do is hint at a referendum of his own. Then watch as Merkel scrambles to allow Italy to do whatever it wants, just to avoid the humiliation of a potential "Italeave."
And while Angela Merkel apparently shut down the original proposal pitched by Italy, Europe - surely under the guidance of Mario Draghi - has found a way to circumvent her veto power.
“As this decision and other precedents demonstrate there are a number of solutions that can be put in place in full compliance with EU rules to address market turbulence,” the spokeswoman said.
To be sure, Italy's market has indeed been turbulent: Italian banks have lost more than half of their market capitalization since the beginning of the year, as investors fret about the lenders’ huge exposure to bad loans. That compares to an average decline of less than one third for European lenders. Some Italian banks have seen their shares drop by some 75%.
But what is most stunning is the WSJ's conclusion of what the plan is supposed to prevent - it is not to halt the stock price collapse, it is to prevent a bank run:
A person familiar with the Italian government plans said the cabinet of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hoped to use a liquidity backstop to contain investor panic, which could result in a run on deposits and affect banks’ liquidity.
Needless to say, for Italy's Prime Minister to be contemplating how to avoid "investor panic" and prevent a "run on deposits", then Italian banks must truly be on the verge of collapse.
Finally, for those curious about timing and how soon until it all unravels, we quote the European Commission spokesman who said that “there is no expectation that the need to use this scheme should arise.”
What this statement really means, and whether a preemptive plan to bailout Italy's insolvent banks will "boost confidence", we leave up to readers decide.LG is hoping to broaden the appeal of its G4 line-up with a pair of new mid-range devices, offering screen sizes to suit different tastes. The LG G Stylo — known as the G4 Stylus outside of North America and South Korea — bumps the G4's screen size from 5.5-inches to 5.7-inches, and comes with a stylus for note-taking and doodling. The G4c meanwhile (pictured at the top), shrinks the display slightly to 5-inches. A few years ago we might have said this was a little large, but LG is instead touting its "compact form factor."
they have the G4 name, but these are mid-range devices
Unfortunately, neither device keeps the top-end specs of the G4. For a start, both the G4c and Stylo lose the G4's camera — a shame considering the emphasis that LG put on the "professional" quality of its flagship's 16-megapixel lens. In our review of the G4 we found that the camera wasn't a world-beater, but it was definitely worth bragging about. However, for the two new variations, LG has dropped the megapixel count: from 16 to 13 in the LTE version of the G Stylo (down to 8MP in the 3G model), and to 8 megapixels in the G4c. The G4 Stylo does keep the G4's laser-assisted focus system but the G4c doesn't, with both new variations also featuring a 5 megapixel front-facing lens.
The LG G Stylo comes with a bigger screen and a stylus for doodling and taking notes. (LG)
Both the G Stylo and the G4c are also a bit of a step-down when it comes to their internal hardware. The G4's 3GB of RAM has been dropped to just a single gigabyte in both models, and instead of 32GB of internal storage, the new variations only offer 8GB — although this is expandable in both cases via a microSD slot. The screens also take a bit of a hit, down from the G4's fantastic QHD, 2560 x 1440 display with its 538 pixel density to a ppi of 258 in the G4 Stylus and 294 in the G4c.
LG will hopefully be offsetting all these lower specs with lower prices to match, but the South Korean company has yet to announce how much either model will cost. We can, however, expect this news fairly soon, with the handsets set to launch "in key strategic markets in the weeks to come." At least we know customers won't be coughing up for the G4's stitched, leather backs — neither the Stylo nor the G4c offer this "luxury" option, instead playing it safe with neutral colors.
Verge Video: LG G4 reviewJanuary 13, 2016
We’ve launched Eco Alpha 3, our second update from our Alpha launch! You can update your build here (or purchase the game if you don’t have it yet). Changes in this build:
Features Ecosystem balance. Animals no longer are completely dead before the end of day 2.
First pass at skills 2.0. Skill points are now earned over time and then spent on skills at the choice of the player. This system is still being balanced, so values are expected to change significantly in the future. There will be skill trees for each skill in Alpha 4, for now each skill just has one skill in its tree.
Added Invert-Y mouse option
Add more info to server API api/v1/info
Added signs you can craft to display messages.
Server now runs on Linux.
Bugfixes Server memory usage optimizations
Big Stack bug StrangeLoopGames/EcoIssues#30
Fixed Items disappear from backpack StrangeLoopGames/EcoIssues#31
New player movement controller. This removes wall climbing, so be careful when wandering around the world now as it is more difficult.
Numerous other fixes. Check public bug list for current open issues.
Next up: Alpha 4 and 5 This is our last ‘maintenance’ release before we start releasing big new features. In Alpha 4 and 5 you can expect some game changing features to come in: Transportation. Players will not be able to carry infinite weight, and will need to create transport networks to work efficiently. By the end of the game the world will be criss-crossed in infrastructure to support the size of society needed to win the game.
. Players will not be able to carry infinite weight, and will need to create transport networks to work efficiently. By the end of the game the world will be criss-crossed in infrastructure to support the size of society needed to win the game. Power system. Players will need to produce energy, which can consume resources and create pollution. The needs for this will scale up hugely towards the end of the game, and massive power networks will be needed to complete it.
. Players will need to produce energy, which can consume resources and create pollution. The needs for this will scale up hugely towards the end of the game, and massive power networks will be needed to complete it. Taxes and Elections. Players will be able to elect leaders, who can define how taxes are collected and spend them on public works projects. The government will be an incredibly useful tool for building the kinds of public works projects needed late game (power and transport systems).
. Players will be able to elect leaders, who can define how taxes are collected and spend them on public works projects. The government will be an incredibly useful tool for building the kinds of public works projects needed late game (power and transport systems). Terrain and Foliage Pass. We’re evolving our visual style, expect a more refined look.
Looking forward to hearing your feedback in the forums and as always a huge thanks to everyone who has chosen to support the game in our alpha stage and help us make something amazing.
— Team EcoNotorious property spruiker Henry Kaye reaped up to 60 per cent interest from a discredited land banking scam into which mum and dad investors from across Australia have tipped tens of millions of dollars.
On Friday morning Federal Court Justice Beach named Kaye and his sister Julia Feldman as beneficiaries behind the scheme, known as Foscari, in Melbourne's outer west, which was a key focus of a Fairfax Media investigation in 2015.
Through 2013 and 2014 Foscari was marketed as an "iconic architectural masterpiece" to unsophisticated investors as part of a network of land-banking schemes across Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
Fairfax Media estimates that hundreds - possibly thousands - of investors have sunk more than $100 million into the schemes, much of which may now be lost.The Democratic Party I see today is very different from the one I knew and worked for in my younger years. Instead of seeking support from the center of the political spectrum it has moved ever leftward, embracing positions that leave millions of Americans feeling left out.
The centrist policies that made Bill Clinton a two-term president are far different from the radical leftist policies of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who calls himself a Democratic Socialist rather than a Democrat. Even President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, embraced positions considerably to the left of her husband when she defeated Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination last year and went on to lose the election to Donald Trump.
I was active part of the Democratic Party apparatus during the first decade of this century and though much of President Obama’s time in office. I worked at the Democratic National Committee’s Political Department in Washington, served as a national official in the High School Democrats and College Democrats, worked on the Obama campaign’s National Youth Committee, and did consulting work for Democratic candidates.
During the early years of the Obama administration I saw firsthand how the optimism and audacious hope that brought President Obama to office soon began to turn to resentful hatred of conservatives and worsened as time went on.
Nowadays this new visceral hostility has led many on the left to paint even the most mundane policy action by Republicans as “racist” or “killing people.” This was a standard liberal talking point during the fight over Republican efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare and in the current fight over the GOP tax bill – “Armageddon,” as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called it.
This hostility explains how we went from the party of Bill Clinton, which won states and districts deep in Middle America, to Hillary Clinton dismissing half the country as “deplorables” two decades later. Hillary Clinton contributed to the seemingly unbridgeable and historic political divide we now see in our country.
I believe the origin of the turn towards hatred of conservatives and hyperbolic rage was in the 2009 to 2010 ObamaCare legislative process and the subsequent 2010 midterm election sweep by Tea Party Republicans.
When President Obama took office at the beginning of 2009, the attitude in the country was one of excitement and hope. While many Democrats still harbored extremely distasteful attitudes towards President George W. Bush, the Obama administration that entered office nonetheless made serious attempts at unity and bipartisanship.
After all, four of President Obama’s initial top appointees in 2009 were Republicans – Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Army Secretary John McHugh and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley.
President Obama also appointed Republicans to ambassadorships and other key policy positions in the administration, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
Many in his administration tried to carry out President Obama’s pledge at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 when he said “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America.”
On the right, a deep opposition was brewing. The Tea Party formed in early 2009 during the fight over the economic stimulus bill that ultimately passed and soon transitioned to rallying against the ObamaCare bill at town halls across the country.
Democrats were shocked when the people they were seeking to benefit began protesting their policy ideas. Rather than exploring free-market proposals from conservatives, Democrats pressed on and passed ObamaCare. They hoped for a vote of confidence in the 2010 elections from a thankful American people.
A wave came, but it was in the opposite direction as Republicans achieved a historic sweep of Congress. Democrats lost over 63 seats in the House, the largest House swing since 1948.
My Democratic colleagues and associates at the time were flabbergasted. The very people they believed they had been trying to “help” turned against them in droves.
I believe that was when the modern hard left began to take shape. Some Democrats saw all their efforts at cooperation during the early Obama administration years as futile and completely rejected, leading them to believe that Republicans could not be reasoned with, would not compromise and were in some cases ill-intentioned.
As the years went on, the Obama administration itself took a more hard-left turn as well. There was far less outreach to Republicans in Congress, as well as a dramatic drop in cross-party Republican appointments.
President Obama’s rhetoric turned from humorous playfulness with conservative America to often outright open disdain. Away from Washington, the attitudes of many of those on the left turned even more resentful.
Today we see the manifestation of those attitudes now in full bloom. Few Democrats now have any more interest in bipartisanship, instead preaching to the choir in fundraising emails or on MSNBC about how Republican actions are evil and cruel.
Many “establishment” Democrats still hope for the return of a time when our discourse and process was less polarized. Nonetheless, a new breed of Democratic activists that is rising in the party has no such inclination. For them, destroying conservatives is almost as worthwhile a goal as promoting their progressive causes.
There is no easy solution to our country’s current dysfunctional polarization and lack of political unity, which Defense Secretary James Mattis has described as the problem that worries him most.
But for the sake of our country, Democratic and Republican partisans need to realize that they can be adversaries without engaging in total war, and try to reach compromises that will benefit the American people and move our country forward. As each party moves farther from the center on the political spectrum, working together becomes more difficult. America suffers as a result.3rd episode of the fourth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"The Visitor" is the 75th episode of the American syndicated science fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the second episode of the fourth season. The episode was written by Michael Taylor and directed by David Livingston. It originally aired on October 9, 1995.
Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures on Deep Space Nine, a space station located near a stable wormhole between the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. In this episode, an accident leaves Captain Benjamin Sisko frozen in time, leaving Jake with a lifelong obsession of rescuing his father while having his resolve tested when they briefly reunite every few decades.
The episode was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1996, but lost to Babylon 5's "The Coming of Shadows".[1][2] It consistently ranks in polls as one of the most popular episodes of the entire series, often vying for first place with "In the Pale Moonlight" and "Trials and Tribble-ations",[3][4][5][6][7] with one critic writing that the episode "sums up everything that made DS9 so unforgettable."[5]
Plot [ edit ]
The episode is mostly set in the 25th century, starting in the year 2450. On a rainy night on Earth, the elderly Jake Sisko (Tony Todd) is visited by an aspiring novelist Melanie (Rachel Robinson), who is curious to learn why Jake gave up writing after publishing two successful books. Jake, knowing the time in his life is short, decides to tell her his story, revealed as flashbacks in the episode.
Many years earlier, when Jake was eighteen, he went with his father, Captain Benjamin Sisko, on the USS Defiant to observe the inversion of the Bajoran Wormhole, an event that only occurs every fifty years. The inversion causes a malfunction in the Defiant's warp drive, but Sisko and his son are able to fix it. However, as they congratulate themselves, a bolt of energy discharges from the warp drive and strikes Sisko, causing him to vanish into subspace, a dimension in which he is frozen in time. Believing him to be dead, Jake and the rest of Deep Space Nine mourn for his loss, but a few months later, Jake catches sight of his father for a brief moment. A year after the incident, Captain Sisko appears again, remaining much longer than before, and Jake and the rest of the crew ascertain that his temporal signature is out of phase, but cannot correct it in the limited time. Before he disappears, Sisko tells Jake, "I need to know that you're going to be all right." He soon disappears again as Jake cries, "don't leave me!"
When the Klingon Empire assumes control of Deep Space Nine, Jake is forced to abandon his home of five years and give up any further hope of finding his father. Returning to Earth, he eventually decides to study writing, marry and settle down. Achieving success as an author, Jake is able to think less about the past. His father suddenly appears again, this time in Jake's home. Jake introduces him to his wife and shows him the books he's published. He apologizes to his father for abandoning his attempts to save him and instead moving on with his life. But Sisko is proud of his son's accomplishments and hopes one day Jake will give him grandchildren. When his father suddenly disappears again, Jake is traumatized and decides to help him by returning to school to study subspace mechanics, abandoning his writing career and marriage in the process.
Finally, fifty years later, the wormhole is to undergo another inversion. With the help of Dax, Dr. Bashir, and Nog (now a Captain in Starfleet), Jake attempts to recreate the events with the Defiant. The rescue seems to be going well when a malfunction occurs sending Jake into the white void of subspace with his father. During this brief "visit", Jake, who is now older than his own father, explains that he's brought the Defiant back to the wormhole to rescue him. Sisko is disappointed that Jake has abandoned his writing and marriage in order to save him. Realizing the rescue attempt is failing, he tells Jake to "let go", and begs him to promise he'll return to his true passions and live out his life for his own sake. Jake returns to normality without his father and tries to figure out what went wrong with the rescue attempt. But eventually he honors his father's request to rebuild his life by returning to writing.
On the night of Melanie's visit, Jake knows his father will appear again, and has injected himself with a lethal hypospray dose, believing that he is acting as a tether that is keeping his father frozen in time; by dying when Captain Sisko is present, Jake will allow his father to become unstuck and return to a time before the warp core incident. After seeing Melanie off, Jake waits for his father. Sisko appears as expected, and Jake explains everything to him, telling him that his death will give them both a "second chance", and reminds him to dodge the energy discharge. Jake dies in Sisko's arms; Sisko immediately finds himself back on the Defiant, and remembers elder Jake's advice, pushing himself and his son out of the way of the energy discharge, erasing the future timeline. As they return home together, Sisko gains a greater appreciation for his son, knowing Jake would have given up his life for his father.
Production [ edit ]
The episode was written by newcomer Michael Taylor
The script was written by Michael Taylor, who would later join the writing staff until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's conclusion; once finished, he moved on to help write Star Trek: Voyager during its final three seasons. He also co-wrote "In the Pale Moonlight", another critically acclaimed episode of Deep Space Nine.[2] Showrunner Ira Steven Behr noted that the everlasting love in the episode wasn't a romance, but something altogether more relatable: the enduring devotion of a son to his father.[5]
Although the episode was always intended to be the second episode of the season, it was filmed third; "Hippocratic Oath" was filmed prior to accommodate Colm Meaney's (Miles O'Brien) schedule on a film.[2] Tony Todd, who guest stars as adult Jake Sisko in this episode, also portrays Worf's brother Kurn in all his appearances in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Melanie, the aspiring writer who listens to Jake's story, is played by Rachel Robinson, daughter of actor Andrew Robinson (Garak).[8] Rachel Robinson also later auditioned for the role of Ezri Dax.[citation needed]
The future Starfleet uniforms and combadges were the same as those seen in the alternate future parts of the Star Trek: The Next Generation series finale "All Good Things...".[2]
Jake starts writing the novel Anslem in the later season 4 episode "The Muse", and was accepted into the Pennington School in a previous season 3 episode "Explorers".[2]
Reception [ edit ]
Broadcast [ edit ]
"The Visitor" was first shown on October 9, 1995 in broadcast syndication. It was the second episode of the fourth season and received Nielsen ratings of 6.9 percent on the first broadcast.[9]
Critical reception [ edit ]
Let me be blunt: if you don't think this is one of the ten best Star Trek stories ever told, then you have no soul and I have nothing to say to you. Keith DeCandido, "The Visitor" episode review[2]
Writing for Tor.com, Keith DeCandido felt that the episode was among the ten best Star Trek stories and praised the acting of Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), and particularly Tony Todd (adult Jake Sisko). He felt that "Everyone who gets substantive screen time puts in a great performance here", also commending Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax), Alexander Siddig (Julian Bashir), and Aron Eisenberg (Nog). DeCandido summarized his thoughts on the episode by writing, "Just a great great hour of television. One of the finest there has ever been", and awarded the episode a "warp factor rating" of 10/10.[2] Jamahl Epsicokhan of Jammer's Reviews gave the episode 4/4 stars. He felt "The Visitor" was a "moving, thematic tale [that] is one of the most brilliantly realized character pieces I've seen on television." He lauded Michael Taylor's story, David Livingstone's direction, the editing and the music. Ending his review, Epsicokhan wrote, "Even if you're grabbing the tissues by the end of this episode (I was) there is no way you can call this story maudlin or melodramatic. It's completely absorbing from the first frame to the last; definitely one of DS9's finest moments. There is true magic working here."[10] The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen reviewed the episode standalone rather than alongside another episode – he had done so similarly in his review for "Duet"[11] – and interspersed his review with memories with his own father. Handlen explained that he was reduced to tears when old Jake woke up to |
ages that the “vast majority” of appeals will be concluded at the Court of Appeal, significantly easing the burden on the higher court.
Enormous pressure
“This is a vastly important reform,” he says. “It’s important that those who resort to our courts have their issues of dispute resolved with reasonable speed. The Supreme Court is under enormous pressure because of the very substantial appeals that are taken nowadays from the High Court to the Supreme Court, and we must ensure that litigation is concluded within reasonable time.”
However, the Bill leaves a number of questions unanswered. It does not specify how many judges will sit on the new court, their remuneration, age of retirement or pensions – matters that have been the source of speculation in recent months and will have to be settled by law if the referendum is passed. One senior counsel suggests these factors will be important in attracting judges to the court, particularly if a perception develops that the more stimulating cases are all going up to the Supreme Court. “If it’s regarded as a dumping ground for very boring cases like personal injuries quantums, you’re not going to get top-calibre people applying for it. They’d be bored out of their minds,” says the lawyer.
Is it also unclear whether the Government intends to promote High Court judges to the new institution or appoint from a wider field. Either way, a significant number of judicial vacancies may soon be the Government’s to fill.
The establishment of the new court will not resolve all the Supreme Court’s problems. One of the most glaring – the current system of judicial appointments – will remain, and many influential figures in the Government and the judiciary hope that in time that too can be substantially reformed.
Both Shatter and Denham have publicly distanced themselves from the current appointments system, where judges are directly chosen by Government, usually (though not necessarily) working from an alphabetical list presented by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board.
The immediate effect of a new court’s creation would be a dramatic easing of the Supreme Court’s workload. But many close observers of the higher court hope it will bring more profound changes to its working methods, allowing it the space to develop its thinking on the Constitution.
Clearer insight
The changes would also allow outsiders gain a clearer insight into what can be an opaque institution. The Bill published yesterday provides for the removal of the “one judgment” rule in cases involving the constitutionality of laws – a reform that will be warmly welcomed on the court and outside.
It will mean that judges will be permitted to publish their own judgments on all constitutional appeals, allowing us to understand the court’s internal differences to a greater extent than has been possible until now.
The changes could also revive the debate, inside and outside the court, between advocates of a more expansionist court and those who have a more limited view of its role.
“I think the Supreme Court has undoubtedly achieved a lot over its 90 years or so of existence, but it has missed many opportunities,” says Prof Brice Dickson of Queen’s University Belfast. “Given the imminent reforms, the potential now exists for the court to make a real difference.”Play Stop Popout X
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Why is it that despite your excellent arguments, you can’t seem to get any traction with a lot of people? Is it enough to appeal to people’s reason? Jonathan Haidt offers a provocative argument about how people come to hold their views.
About the Guest
Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Book Discussed
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
Book Mentioned
Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
Article Mentioned
“Understanding Libertarian Morality”
Websites Mentioned
YourMorals.org
Parlio.com
Professional Page
Jonathan Haidt
Guest’s Twitter
@jonhaidt
Related Episode
Ep. 393 How to Persuade People: Tom and Michael Malice Discuss
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We’ve just added our 13th course at LibertyClassroom.com! Learn the history and economics they didn’t teach you, from professors you can trust and in courses you can listen to anywhere. Take 30% off a year’s subscription — which gets you everything we have! — with coupon code SHOW (all caps).Take a close look at a Martingale dog collar. Notice the two loops, a D-ring, a tri-glide slide for adjustment and two rectangle rings. The larger loop lies against your dog's throat area and the smaller loop rests on the top of your dog's neck. When the short loop is pulled, the large loop is affected. This is what keeps your dog from slipping a collar and it works unbelievably well!
Depending on where you buy retail collars, you may not be familiar with a Martingale collar for dogs. To learn more, read A Martingale for Dogs on Country Brook Design's blog.
If you are the do-it-yourself type or you make dog collars to sell to pet owners, you really should try making a Martingale using our easy-to-follow tutorial. All you need is some hardware, webbing material, and our clear written instructions below that include great photos for every step of the way. You'll be on your way to completing your first Martingale collar!
Before You Begin
Our How To Make A Martingale Dog Collar guide assumes you are already familiar with the use of your sewing machine. If you are not, please familiarize yourself with its basic operation before continuing.
Editor’s Note: To switch between metric and standard measurements, click here: Rounding occurred when necessary in converting inches / metric.
Necessary Stitches
If you are new to machine sewing, you may want to practice these stitches on some scrap fabric before attempting your Martingale collar.
Figure 1: Triple Stitch Stitch forward about 1" 2.5cm. Next, backstitch the same length. Now, stitch forward the same length.
Figure 2: Box Stitch Perform a triple stitch. Turn piece diagonally ~45° and backstitch. Next, perform another triple stitch. Turn piece diagonally again ~45°. Close the "box" by stitching back to your original stitches.
Items you'll need to construct your Martingale dog collar. Items you'll need to construct your Martingale dog collar. Supplies Needed to Make A Martingale Dog Collar: 2 Lengths of Nylon Webbing*
2 Rectangle Rings*
1 Triglide Slide*
1 D-ring*
Sewing Machine
B69 sewing thread in your choice of color
Iron
Scissors
Measuring Tape
Lighter
Optional: your choice of fabric
You will need to determine what your dog's collar size is so that you can cut your materials to the correct lengths.
Refer to this chart to determine the correct lengths for webbing:
Collar Size Small Loop Large Loop Webbing Width Neck Size Extra Large 12" 30.4cm 35" 89cm 1" 2.5cm 23" - 31" 58.4cm - 78.7cm Large 12" 30.4cm 29" 73.6cm 1" 2.5cm 18" - 26" 45.7cm - 66cm Medium 12" 30.4cm 24" 60.9cm 3/4" or 1" 1.9cm or 2.5cm 15" - 21" 38.1cm - 53.3cm Small 9" 22.8cm 19" 48.2cm 3/4" 1.9cm 11" - 15" 27.9cm - 38.1cm Extra Small 8" 20.3cm 17" 43.1cm 5/8" 1.5cm 9" - 12" 22.8cm - 30.4cm Mini 6" 15.2cm 12" 30.4cm 3/8".9cm 7" - 10" 17.7cm - 25.4cm
Your hardware size needs to match the webbing width for your particular collar. For example, if you are constructing a medium collar, you can choose to use either 3/4" or 1"1.9cm or 2.5cm rectangle rings, triglide, and D-ring but you should use matching 3/4" or 1"1.9cm or 2.5cm webbing for the same rectangle rings, triglide, and D-ring sizes.
Cut Fabric for Large and Small Loop Refer to the table above for correct measurements. Cut your webbing to length. Remember to measure twice and cut once! Melt every raw end of webbing to prevent fraying Also, heat all the cut ends of webbing with the lighter so the individual nylon fibers melt together. If you're not quite sure how to do all that, don't worry! We have a handy guide here to help you cut your webbing properly. Fabric Collar Alternative For directions showing how to create a designer fabric Martingale dog collar, click below to access directions for creating fabric-covered webbing. Once you have finished, click to close and continue to Stage One of the Martingale instructions.
Click here to toggle Fabric Instructions Refer to this chart to determine the correct lengths for your fabric and webbing: Collar Size Small Loop Large Loop Webbing Width Fabric for Small Loop Fabric for Large Loop Extra Large 12" 30.4cm 35" 89cm 1" 2.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 14" 35.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 37" 93.9cm Large 12" 30.4cm 29" 73.6cm 1" 2.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 14" 35.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 31" 78.7cm Medium 12" 30.4cm 24" 60.9cm 3/4" or 1" 1.9cm or 2.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 14" 35.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 26" 66cm Small 9" 22.8cm 19" 48.2cm 3/4" 1.9cm 3" 7.6cm X 11" 27.9cm 3" 7.6cm X 21" 53.3cm Extra Small 8" 20.3cm 17" 43.1cm 5/8" 1.5cm 3" 7.6cm X 10" 25.4cm 3" 7.6cm X 19" 48.2cm Mini 6" 15.2cm 12" 30.4cm 3/8".9cm 3" 7.6cm X 8" 20.3cm 3" 7.6cm X 14" 35.5cm Your hardware size needs to match the webbing width for your particular collar. For example, if you are constructing a medium collar, you can choose to use either 3/4" or 1"1.9cm or 2.5cm rectangle rings, triglide, and D-ring but you should use matching 3/4" or 1"1.9cm or 2.5cm webbing for the same rectangle rings, triglide, and D-ring sizes. Part A: Cut two fabric pieces. Part A - Cut the fabric for two loops. Part A - Cut the fabric for two loops. Cut your fabric to length. Use the measurements in the table above as a guide. The 3"7.6cm width isn't set in stone: You will need enough width to cover both sides of the webbing as well as its thickness. Remember to include the seam allowance which is included in our fabric length. So as you go down to smaller collars, you could reduce the width of the fabric to match. However, we recommend you start with 3"7.6cm and adjust as you get more practice. Part B: Prep the fabric. Step 2 - Iron Your Fabric Step 2 - Iron Your Fabric Before you sew your first stitch, spray fabric quickly with a burst of starch. Afterwards, take a hot iron and smooth out your fabric as much as possible. This step helps to remove wrinkles and will give you a more accurate stitch when you get ready to sew. Part C: Stitch both fabric tubes. Step 3 - Sew Your Fabric Into a Tube Step 3 - Sew Your Fabric Into a Tube Now that your fabric is ready, you need to sew it into the shape of a long tube and a short tube. These tubes will cover the large and small lengths of webbing as the the core of your Martingale collar. We use a professional serger during this step, although you can either use a home serger or a regular sewing machine and finish the seam using a zigzap stitch. Be sure to sew your fabric with right sides together so the seam is on the inside of the tube when you turn it rightside out. You'll also want to make your loop loose enough to make inserting the webbing easier. Part D: Turn The tubes right side out. There are a number of ways to accomplish this step. This video shows a popular technique called the Chopstick Method. Part E: Insert your webbing. Slide the webbing through the looped fabric. Once it is in, you'll want to adjust the fabric so that the seam is aligned straight against the edge of the webbing. Doing this ensures that your finished collar will look professionally done. Part F: Prep the fabric-covered webbing pieces. It's starting to come together! Once again, spray both collar loops with a quick burst of starch and press with a hot iron. This helps removes wrinkles and presses the seam flat. Doing so will make sewing the fabric and webbing together much easier. Part G: Topstitch fabric and webbing together. Part G - Topstitch fabric and webbing together. Part G - Topstitch fabric and webbing together. Topstitch the webbing and fabric together down each side of the collar. It is very important to make sure the thread goes through both the webbing and the fabric. On larger collars, this stitch is made about 1/4" from the edge. For smaller collars, you'll want it closer to the edge, but not so close that you miss the webbing! Part G - Make Your Stitches 1/4" from the edge Part G - Make Your Stitches 1/4" from the edge
Stage One: Create the Small Loop
Place Webbing Through Rings Insert the short piece of webbing through the two rectangle pieces.
Box Stitch Fold left end over right end about 3" - 4"7.6cm - 10.1cm. On the right side, put a box stitch (Figure 2) 1/8".3cm from the webbing end.
D-ring Placement Insert the D-ring between the two overlapped pieces with the straight side against the webbing and the curved part hanging inside the loop.
Box Stitch D-Ring Snug the D-ring against the first box stitch and then, box stitch about 1/8".3cm from webbing end on the left side (open end.) (This creates a small channel that will allow the D-ring some side-to-side movement.)
D-ring outside the loop Now, turn loop inside out so D-ring is on the outside for leash attachment.
Loop is Completed You should now have a small loop with 2 rectangle rings and a D-ring. Place the completed loop to the side.
Stage Two: Construct the Large Loop, Part One
Weave Strap Through Triglides Insert one end of the long piece of webbing through both openings of the triglide.
Fold Webbing Fold webbing back about 2"5cm.
Stitch Triglide Into Place Box stitch 1/8".3cm from end to secure to secure triglide on webbing strap.
Stage Three: Construct the Large Loop, Part Two
Getting ready to connect the two loops Place the long piece in front of you with triglide and box-stitched end to your right. Raw webbing end should be on top.
Insert strap through a rectangle ring Pick up the completed short loop. With the D-ring facing you, take the long piece and insert the unstitched end through the rectangle ring on the right side of the short loop.
Insert strap through triglide slide Push the end of long webbing strap up through the "empty" slot on the triglide slide.
Insert strap through other side of triglide Bring the end to the triglide and insert from beneath the triglide, over and down through the other side of the triglide. There should now be a double thickness of webbing on the triglide.
Push Webbing Through Ring & Fold Put the unstitched end of the long strap through the remaining rectangle ring by coming from above to go down through the ring.
Box Stitch Fold about 2"5cm and box stitch 1/8" from webbing end to secure. (We insert the Country Brook Design® label between the layers of webbing at this stage.)A competitor will always be a competitor, whether it’s in mixed martial arts or Scrabble.
When Phil Davis isn’t busy defending his light-heavyweight title in Bellator MMA, he tries to find other ways to enter battle. As he told the Sentinel this week, Scrabble is one of his go-to pursuits, along with chess
“I hate losing,” Davis said. “I’m a little compulsive about it. I could lie and tell you I’m not always that way, but the people who know me best would say yes. Scrabble, chess … I used to play video games, but not as much anymore.”
Davis hasn’t had much time for any of it lately – he’s been too busy training for a bout against Ryan Bader on June 24 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The pay-per-view card is headlined by Wanderlei Silva vs. Chael Sonnen.
Davis’ competitive streak dates back to childhood. He started wrestling in junior high school, won only one match in his first year, but then decided if he was going to stick with it, he was going to excel
“I was kind of like a lot of kids my age – I could be completely committed to something and succeed at it if I wanted to,” Davis said. “I was a solid B student in school, but in wrestling – I was 16- or 17-1 that second year. That’s where that compulsive streak comes in.”
Davis was offered this fight about seven weeks ago, which could have led to a rushed training camp, but he said he stays in shape and trains often enough that the timing was never an issue.
“Training is always a good thing, and when this popped up I was in a great place with a lot of good habits,” Davis said. “Bader happens to be the unfortunate one across the cage when I’m on point and as ready as I’ve ever been. I’ve just taken some time to fine-tune some things, add more precision to my game.”
Davis’ fight with Bader is a rematch – they met in January 2015, a split-decision win for Bader that proved to be Davis’ final UFC fight. Davis said fighting someone for the second time has its pluses and minuses.
“It can be both [good and bad],” Davis said, “but there’s definitely some advantage to having a fresh look at a guy you’ve seen before. It adds a little more fire to it, some extra intensity.”
Not that Davis and Bader are bitter rivals – just the opposite, in fact. Davis said he looks forward to discussion and “chit-chat” with Bader after the battle is over.
“Ryan is one of the classiest guys in this sport,” Davis said. “He’s great – but it’s nothing I can’t put aside when it’s time to throw hammers in the cage.”
New MMA promotion to debut at Daytona after Firecracker 250 »
Contact Jay Reddick at [email protected] or on Twitter @runninjay. For more mixed-martial-arts news and features, visit Ground & Pound at OrlandoSentinel.com/mma.The NHL is apparently closing in on a transfer partnership agreement with the KHL which would allow club teams in both leagues to purchase specific player rights, according to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly apparently revealed before Wednesday's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final that the NHL was nearing a four-year agreement with the Russian organization.
In the post-lockout era, the two leagues - the most influential in the industry - waited until contracts expired before attempting to poach talent.
The system won't have a soccer-like effect, considering the NHL's salary cap parameters, but would provide another tool for general managers looking to improve their rosters.
A four-year term will maintain consistency with existing agreements the KHL has with other European entities, as Friedman points out.Alexia Pearce adores her 'gorgeous' three-year-old son, yet she is aware that his life – a life blighted by cerebral palsy and chronic lung disease – is unlikely to last long into his teens. In this moving account, she asks: are we always right to save premature babies?
'Nathan was born at 23 weeks. If I'd known then what I do now, I'd have wanted him to die in my arms'
Alexia Pearce looks at her three-year-old son Nathan every day and feels the same rush of guilt. Guilt that she chose to let him live when he was born too early, just 23 weeks into her pregnancy. "If I'd known then what I know now about what extremely premature babies have to go though, I would not have chosen that for my little boy.
"I would have wanted them to give him to me and for him to pass away in my arms. I find the whole issue of what he has been put through, what he continues to be put through, very difficult. I feel very guilty that I took that decision, postponing the inevitable."
Nathan still faces a premature death because of the range of his conditions and disabilities. He had to have 22 blood transfusions in his first three months of life, just to replace the blood that was taken from his tiny body for tests. Like all extremely premature babies, he had to be given a cocktail of drugs to support his underdeveloped lungs and other organs, one of which kept his heart safely sealed but as a side-effect left him profoundly deaf.
"He can't walk or talk. He's oxygen dependent, although hopefully that might change. He has chronic lung disease, cerebral palsy and global developmental delay. He has diabetes inspidus and his thermostat is a bit wonky so he gets hot and cold."
It is, says Pearce, a great taboo to wonder if she should have let her son go when he was born so fragile and weak, but one that she feels strongly that she should break. "More people need to be aware of what these little chaps go through," she said.
"He was there with lines coming out of his arms, needles in every limb and his abdomen, but by then it's too late to go back. You can't just say 'Switch off the machines and give him to me, let him go, stop this'. I felt it, though, I still do. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
"I have no regrets that what has happened has happened. Now this most gorgeous little thing is here and I absolutely adore him. I am so glad I have got to know him. But that doesn't stop me knowing that all I have done is postpone the inevitable. He's not expected to live a very long life. I don't think he'll make it to his teens. He's so frail.
"I do feel guilt over the choice I have made, even though it's all done with the best intention. No mother or father wants to see their child suffer. Because of the choices I have made I feel he has suffered, and still does."
Around 8% of British babies are born prematurely, compared with 13% in the United States. A premature baby is defined by the World Health Organisation as an infant born before 37 weeks of gestation. Of those babies, 93% will be born over 28 weeks, with good chances of survival but a one in 10 chance of being left with a permanent disability such as cerebral palsy, blindness or deafness.
For those, such as Nathan, who are born earlier, the odds are far, far shorter. And with the numbers of over-45s having babies doubling in a decade and IVF multiple births also on the rise, premature babies are becoming more common.
While the latest figures show that 39% of babies born at 24 weeks are now surviving with help from medical advances, the chances of those children suffering no serious ill-effects in later life are low – around six in 100. Last year, researchers from University College Hospital, London, found that premature babies were more sensitive to pain. All pre-term babies are more at risk of a lower IQ, poorer cognitive functioning, learning disabilities and behavioural problems such as attention deficit disorder than full-term babies.
It makes the area of where to draw the line a difficult one for medical professionals. Dr Bob Welch, neonatal consultant at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, said: "It's uncomfortable for all of us, all of the time. When I first started in this area in 1980, basically babies born at 28 weeks weren't even looked at as possibly viable. Now you expect most babies born after 26 weeks to survive and survive quite well.
"But you are always saying 'Am I doing the right thing?' Personally, I don't like resuscitating before 24 weeks, but at the end of the day it's what the family want. Some will accept the inevitable, and some will want to push on. Likewise with the babies. Some come out screaming and demanding to live, others are much more lifeless. Many survivals will come at a cost, but of course all parents are hoping their baby is the one who beats the odds."
For Pearce, Nathan is a much-loved part of her family, a family that against the odds has managed to stay together. She was moved to talk about her situation after watching a BBC2 documentary earlier this month that provoked questions about the resources being poured into neonatal units.
"I can't come at it from an NHS financial point of view, but I come at this from a human cost point of view," she said. "My other little boy is amazing with Nathan. He can always make him laugh and he wants to help care for him, helping to bathe him and change his nappies. It has made him a very kind little boy. But I never wanted him to go through this either. One day he had a full-time mum and the next I'm at the hospital all the time. He's coped with it so admirably so far. Our lives just changed so dramatically; that's the human cost."
Statistics show that many marriages founder under the strain of having a disabled child and of mourning for the child that was expected, but Pearce and her husband have managed to come through it together. "There's no question that you put your relationship last; your focus is on your children and it's tough.
"You hear about'miracle babies' or 'little fighters' and people have such a romantic view about premature babies – 'Oh, there's an incubator for a little while and then they go home and everything is rosy'. It's not."
"Obviously every life deserves a chance, every life. But you wouldn't put an adult through that. You wouldn't put an animal through it. If an adult required that level of medical intervention then someone would be taking the family aside and suggesting gently that the machines are switched off."
Pearce had no warning of her own premature birth, brought about by a sudden complication in the pregnancy, a placental abruption, and had none of the risk factors – she doesn't drink or smoke, isn't obese and her first son, Dominick, now five, was born at full term.
"You're in pain, you're bleeding, you're at the hospital and they whirl in, you get a chat, they're talking to us about statistics but none of it is getting through to my mind and you are like a rabbit in the headlights. All I could say was if he comes out and he's not looking good, let him go. But if he comes out looking as though he is up to facing the process, and at that stage I had no idea what those processes would be, then please save him. My key thing was suffering. That was the only thing I was sure about in my head. They said 'No, no, he won't suffer' but I know now that's not true: they do suffer."
She is keen to stress that she feels no resentment over the way she was treated by the medical staff. "I'm not saying the doctors were gung-ho about it, they weren't at all. I think they all have the same questions about what they are doing every day: 'Are we doing the right thing? Just because we can, should we?' "I was treated with the utmost dignity and respect. So I don't feel betrayed in any way, but I feel it was obvious what the outcome would be. I remember when I was taken to the incubator to see him for the first time. I was howling and wailing, I thought it was so unnatural, so hideous, it didn't look right. When you give birth, it's a natural process and this wasn't like that.
"Birth and death are the most natural processes a body can go through and Nathan's birth and treatment was so far removed from that. Strange birth, choices to be made, difficult bonding. I had to wait six weeks to hold my son and when I did he was still attached to a ventilator and I had many nurses around me. It was all so clinical."
An advocate or counsellor figure would, she feels, help the mother think more clearly about the situation.
"I am not saying that I think pregnant women should be deluged with information about it," she said. "These days you get so much information that there is already so much to be paranoid about. It's a fine balance, overloading pregnant mums – after all, you can't prevent a premature birth.
"I had so many people coming in and out, you're in a haze. I think it would be helpful if there had been an advocate. When we got a counsellor a few days after the birth it saved my sanity."
Andy Cole is the chief executive of the charity Bliss, which campaigns on behalf of premature and sick babies. He said: "The decisions facing parents of these very tiny babies are extremely challenging. Sadly, most 23-week babies will not survive, but a significant number do. Doctors and nurses provide amazing care to these vulnerable babies. However, we know that around 50% of units do not provide counselling to their parents. It is crucial that families receive the support they need at this incredibly difficult time."
But for Alexia Pearce, it's important for families to fully understand too that the difficult times do not end when the baby leaves the incubator. "When you go into labour that early, nobody is a winner," she said. "I'm not saying stop people from having their premature baby resuscitated. I'm not saying babies shouldn't be saved. I am saying that the myth that there is a happy ever after needs to be explored and it's important that we talk about it.
"Science is moving on so fast but until we can invent an amniotic sac, there is a big cost to these babies and nature is still against their survival."Alan Pardew has criticised the Football Association's scheduling of the FA Cup, reiterating his belief their organisation of the competition undermines it and that it also leaves the players involved "at risk."
Crystal Palace visit Tottenham in the FA Cup's fifth round on Sunday, knowing a draw would extend their fixture list at a defining point in their season and also hamper Spurs, who are competing to win both the Premier League and the Europa League.
In the event of a replay they would likely meet again on March 8 -- two days after Palace host Liverpool in the league and two before Spurs could compete in the Europa League -- unless Palace's concerns are acknowledged and the schedule changed.
Having last month also said the timing of the FA Cup's third round "devalues" a competition of which he is obviously fond and which he is this season determined to win, Pardew revealed "discussions" were ongoing regarding a potential change of date, and said: "I'd hate to see [replays] go, although the scheduling of them looks poor, for whatever reason that is.
"Between the FA and the Premier League, they need to sit down. We are talking about the replay date for this game, and wow, it looks complicated to me. It's definitely complicated for Spurs.
"So both managers would prefer it to get this job done on Sunday. The game is not like that. The replay is in the rules, we're going to have to deal with that when it turns up.
"Perhaps a little bit of foresight should have been there at the start of this season on the scheduling with some of these replays.
"I don't think it has been confirmed yet. There are discussions going on. The scenario looks like a two-day break for us and Spurs. Of course, myself and the Spurs manager [Mauricio Pochettino] don't think that's ideal.
"We are putting our players at risk. That is not enough recovery time given the amount of effort and capacity we have to play at in the current game."
Alan Pardew says the FA should take greater concern for players when creating the cup schedules.
Palace's only victories since Dec. 19 have come in the Cup, away at Southampton and at home to Stoke.
Pardew has repeatedly spoken of a belief that much of that disappointing run is a consequence of the absence of the injured Yannick Bolasie, and while he refused to confirm if he will be back on Sunday, as had been expected, he spoke of new signing Emmanuel Adebayor's desire to impress against his former team and of his confidence he can inspire victory.
"We are fired up and motivated for him," said Pardew of a player widely remembered for his performance and provocative celebrations in 2009 when scoring for Manchester City in a defeat of Arsenal, the team he had recently left.
"We know it will be Adebayor. It will bring his personality and he will bring quality to the pitch. Spurs fans know that, I don't have to tell them that.
"Cheer him or boo him, whatever they will do, that is part and parcel of the game, part of the fabric of what we love about football. He will cope with the highs and the lows of the game.
"We want to put a performance on for him, that gives him the best possible standing to bring his best game to the pitch. If he brings his best game to the pitch he can win it."Streaming music site Playlist.com has been forced to take down its service following legal threats. The site, which has been around in various forms since 2006, made some surprise major changes to its offering on July 1st. Following a user backlash, the site admitted a few hours ago that the "brutal" switch to a radio station-based service was due to the major record labels threatening to sue.
Playlist (previously known as Project Playlist) was born back in 2006 with the aim of bringing music to growing social networking platforms such as MySpace.
From humble beginnings the site grew its membership to more than 20 million in 2008 but problems lay ahead.
During the same year the company was sued by the RIAA for “reproducing plaintiffs’ valuable works (and inducing and enabling others to do so) without any authorization whatsoever, without paying any compensation whatsoever.”
Project Playlist (PP) protested, claiming that they didn’t host any music and merely pointed users’ playlists to content hosted on third-party websites. PP came to an agreement with one label, Sony, but disputes with the other labels remained.
In another blow, later in 2008 both Facebook and MySpace removed Project Playlist’s widgets from their sites.
Following an agreement in 2009 which saw EMI’s music come to PP, in May 2010 the company settled with Universal and Warner. At this time, Project Playlist had more than 42 million users.
However, things were going downhill. A messy bankruptcy and dispute over royalties later that year continued to take their toll. Having been renamed to just ‘Playlist’ the site moved on but with traffic declining significantly since 2011, just a few days ago the service suffered its biggest setback yet.
How things used to be
“We’re launching the new Playlist smart radio service today!” the company announced July 1.
“We know you put a lot of effort into creating 80 million playlists at Playlist.com. So we’ve built radio stations out of all 80 million…whoa, that’s a lot of stations.”
Even though the changes were advertised as something positive, the scale back of service prompted a backlash.
“The new Playlist is TERRIBLE!!” screamed one user on Facebook. “I liked [the original] because I could listen to what I wanted when I wanted. I could search a song and it would be right there. Now, it has a dumb radio. YouTube is better than this now!”
On July 6 the site’s operators reported they were “psyched” by feedback on the changes, but comments from the site’s users suggested all was not well.
“So all these complaints, and you still think this is a good idea,” one complained. “Wow, I’m at loss for words for how idiotic your website is. I really doubt you can compete with Pandora or Spotify. When will you learn that we want to listen to our music, not music that closely matches it?”
Now a much clearer picture is emerging. Playlist.com has just revealed that the changes were forced upon them due to problems with the labels.
“The bottom line is the licensing gods were not smiling on us (aka we would have been sued) and we had to make a change,” the company admits.
“We didn’t want to air our dirty laundry but…the record labels |
sport and was very fond of football. He played the game well and even won several awards. His mother says her son was so passionate about the game that he would ask his father to help him go abroad so he could become the best football player. Mubeen also kept parrots at home which still live there. His mother says after her son’s passing, she opened the cage so the parrots could fly away but the birds stayed and still remain at Mubeen’s. Read more Muzamil Umer Sadiq Age: 16
Class: 9
Son of Umer Karim Sidiq and Sumera Umer
Siblings: Dr Unzela Umer (24), Kamil Umer (23), Hijab Umer (22) and Aimal Umer (17) Muzamil Umer and naughtiness were synonymous — so much so that he had his siblings as well as his parents despairing. His brothers, sisters and his parents were always on the alert for his tricks and antics. He used to tell his father that he would like to become a religious scholar. He was also Qari of the Holy Quran. He learned Surah Muzamil by heart a day before he was killed. Read more Muhammad Umar Hayat Age: 16
Class: 10
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Hayat Gul
Siblings: Faisal (18), Maria (13) and Mahnoor Fatima (11) Umar was an excellent student. He won several awards and certificates at school and topped his federal board exam. He wanted to become a military doctor. Umar’s parents say every waking moment without him is painful. Read more Nadeem Hussain Age: 16
Class: 9
Son of Hussain Asghar and Bibi Fizza
Siblings: Haseena Batool (14), Bakhtawar bibi (11) and Mohammad Qasim (15 months) A quiet boy, Nadeem was intelligent beyond his years. Before APS, he took admission in Oswa Public School where he skipped nursery and prep to be placed in Class 1 for being exceptionally gifted. From Class 1 to 7, Nadeem remained a position holder. His father says he was among the top five students in all of APS. He aspired to become a doctor, enjoyed playing cricket and always had a meticulous appearance. Still in shock over her son’s death, Nadeem’s mother Fizza Bibi now suffers from cardiac problems. Read more Shah Fahad Age: 16
Class: 9
Son of Misal Khan and Shukria Bibi
Siblings: Faisal (20), Sidra Bibi (18) and Bushra Bibi (17) Before he went to school that day, Shah warned his sisters not to eat the sweets his uncle had gifted to him. He gave them stern looks, telling them to stay away from his masaledar gurh. His sisters are very sad he did not come home to fight for them. Shah was very close to his sisters. He was naughty and thoroughly enjoyed teasing them but would diligently do his homework under their supervision. He joined APS four months prior to the attack. Before that, he studied in Hayatabad and lived with his aunt. At that time, he used to visit his parents every 4 months. But his parents wanted to see him every day, so he got admission to the army school in Peshawar. Read more Sher Shah Age: 16
Class: 10
Son of Salma and Mohammad Sohail Khattak
Siblings: Ahmad Ali Shah (14) and Ayesha Gulali (11) Sher Shah loved to study Turkish and Islamic history and was a skilled member of the debating club. His favourite book was ‘Worlds Together, Worlds Apart’. While many children cannot read or write Pashto, Sher Shah excelled at it. He wanted to be a journalist when he grew up, and imagined himself as an anchor on prime time television. He was very interested in horses devoured books that contained details of the taxonomy of horses. He could tell the classification of any horse buy its structure and physique. Read more Sohail Sadar Age: 16
Class: 9
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Sardar Hussain
Siblings: Hareem Sardar (15), Mohammad Haris Sardar (11) and Mohammad Hassan Sardar (7) Sohail’s father says his son was a neat and clean child who wanted to grow up to be a doctor. He was close to his father, who fulfilled every request made by his son. He was not a fussy eater and was happy to eat anything that was cooked at home. He had a pet parrot that he loved very much. Read more Syed Abdullah Shah Age: 16
Class: 10
Son of Syed Fazal Hussain and Saima Fazal Hussain
Siblings: Syed Talib Hasnain (11 months) “Abdullah was quite a serious boy. He did not express his love for me with his words but would hug me each time he saw me,” Abdullah’s mother recalls. The young boy, who was admired by all his classmates, wanted to join the army as a doctor and always talked about ‘serving people.’ Ever responsible, Abdullah would give his father advice about his business, something which his mother says used to put a smile on everyone’s face. Read more Syed Zulqarnain Age: 16
Class: 9
Son of Kishwar Sultan and Syed Shah
Siblings: Faheem Shah (23), Zakir Shah (21), Radia Shah (20) and Saira Shah (18) Zulqarnain joined APS just two months before the attack. His father says the college his son was attending was too far away and he wanted him to be closer to home. While considered a prankster, Zulqernain was as patriotic as one could be. He would paint the national flag on his face on Independence Day. Like all boys his age, he loved cricket, biryani and cars. But his favourite snack was French fries. He would ask his sister to make some for him nearly every day. Read more Usman Sadiq Age: 16
Class: 10
Son of Mrs. and Mrs. Muhammad Sadiq
Hailing from Abbottabad district, Usman was the only child of his parents and loved dearly by them. His father describes him as an energetic, intelligent boy, who was good at his studies and could grasp complicated concepts quickly. He was fond of cricket and watched every match. He would often play in the neighbourhood or at school with his friends. He loved spicy food, especially biryani. His parents pray daily for strength and endurance after their son's loss. Read more Zargham Mazhar Age: 16
Class: 8
Son of Naib Subidar Mazhar and Mukhtair Bibi
Siblings: Naheed Mazhar (23), Shahzad Mazhar (21), Shahbaz Mazhar (19) and Shahzadi Bakthwar (4) Zargham Mazhar was a serious, studious child. He enjoyed reading often reading books that were not part of his coursework to increase his knowledge. He would also recommend books to his siblings. A bright student, he would feature among the top students of his class. He was class proctor and known among his peers for his attentiveness and gumption. His father remembers how young Zargham was fond of gardening and looked after his plants and flowers every day. Zargham wanted to join the army and his parents used to call him “little soldier”. He had also cleared the test for the military college in Jhelum but died before his admission could be finalised. Read more Zeeshan Ahmed Age: 16
Class: 10
Son of Sub Ikramullah and Hameeda Ahmed
Siblings: Ishfaq Ahmed (26), Nazia Ahmed (25), Shahab Ahmed (23), Waqas Ahmed (18), Awais Ahmed (died in APS) (14) and Nimra Ahmed (8) Hailing from Malakand, Zeeshan Ahmed enjoy playing cricket. He often played matches with his brothers, and was part of his school cricket team. His favourite player was Shahid Afridi. Zeeshan was very devoted to his eight-year-old sister Nimra. The two used to joke and gossip and Zeeshan would also help her with her studies. Zeeshan’s brother Awais, who was younger to him, also died in the massacre. The brothers were in the same hall and died trying to save each other. Their father remembers how Zeeshan and Awais did everything together and were the best of friends. Read more Click tabs below to view the digital memorial.
AGE 17 to 20 Bilal Arshad Age: 17
Class: 8
Son of Arshad Ali and Naheed Arshad
Siblings: Rashid Ali (19), Shahkar Ali (18), Mashal Arshad (14), Saleena Arshad (12) and Zarak Khan (10) Bilal Arshad always aspired to join the Pakistan Army as a commissioned officer. A capable athlete, he enjoyed playing volleyball and badminton and also won several laurels for both games. He was exceptionally disciplined and maintained an impeccable appearance, putting a lot of thought into the clothes he wore. Giving by nature, Bilal often convinced his father to give him money so that he could treat his less-privileged friends to a nice restaurant. On the morning of the attack, he brought home two cakes before leaving for school. He ate one and told his mother to serve the other to his father who was sleeping at that time. Bilal’s father woke up late that day and immediately learnt of the APS attack that also claimed his son’s life. Till date, the cake is still at home. Read more Muhammad Sahiban Durrani Age: 17
Class: 10
Son of Zabith Khan and Shabnam
Siblings: Roman Khan Durrani (19), Seema (17), Saba Durrani (15), Sana Durrani (13), Huma Durrani (11), Jibran Khan Durrani (8) and Jasmin Durrani (8) Brother of seven, Sahiban was of a very serious disposition. He aspired to join the army as an officer and for that purpose concentrated on his studies a lot. Sometimes, he would be up at 3 am, going through his lessons and preparing for the coming day at school. Close to his mother, Sahiban would tell her how he would stand by her "in this world and the next". His father says Sahiban had a favourite spot under a tree near his house. This is where he would relax and unwind. It is now the spot where he is buried. Read more Aimal Khan Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Attique Akhtar
Siblings: Ahmad Jan (16), Malaika Arman (12) and Zarak Khan (10) Aimal Khan always wondered why the most hardworking people in his city used to sleep in the streets. According to his father, the young boy showed empathy beyond his years. Aimal made it to the point regularly serve meals to the poor, and during Ramazan, he would make sure all police checkposts in his area were delivered a ration for Iftar. Aimal was also known in his neighbourhood as a talented artist, and his sketches of sports cars garnered a lot of praise on the internet. He had restored several cars, and his decorative work on seats and rims earned him quite a lot of money. Aimal’s father proudly declared that the family had never received a complaint about their 18-year-old boy. He was their perfect child. Read more Ibrar Zahid Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Zahid Rashid and Shahida Bano
Siblings: Mohammad Azkaar Zahid (15) and Mohammad Absar Zahid (11) The eldest amongst his siblings, Ibrar was a hardworking student and responsible young man. His father says when his son was alive, he did not have to worry about his younger children as Ibrar looked after them like a parent. He also took great care of his mother, and would often run errands with her or take her to the hospital for check ups. He was obsessed with computer hardware and software and hoped to be an engineer when he grew up. Ibrar was shot three times – in the spine, chest and leg. He fought for his life for a week after the attack, but succumbed to his injuries on December 23. His mother misses him terribly. She looks at his photographs, trophies, books, his school bag daily – and says she will never forget him. Read more Imran Ali Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Nisar Ali
Imran Ali’s family could not be contacted for this obituary. Imran’s teacher Miss Andaleep Aftab says he came from a very modest home in Kurram Agency. He lived away from his family, at a local hostel in Peshawar. His mother was a tailor and bore all his educational expenses. His teacher says that if he were alive, he would have pursued his dream to be a doctor, and would have made an excellent one. She also says he was eager to polish his English. Each morning, he would reach school early with a list of difficult words he wanted to know the meanings of. He was an only child. Ishaq Amin Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Mohammad Amin and Zarshida
Siblings: Waqar Amin (27), Said Amin (25), Dilawais (23), Amir Amin (17) and Asfandyar Amin (12) A serious child, Ishaq Amin was a devoted student and enjoyed the sciences. He was very close to his brother Amir Amin — an APS student who was injured during the Dec 16 attack — the two were good friends. His brothers says Ishaq enjoyed watching English movies, particularly horror films or those relating to combat and war heroes. A child still, he would ask his father to bring sacrificial animals for Eidul Azha at least a week in advance so he could get time to play with them. Read more Muhammad Imran Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Abdul Karim
The family of Muhammad Imran could not be contacted for this obituary. His teachers say Imran was a reserved and shy student. He was the favourite student of Mr. Altaf Hussain, a teacher at APS, who said he could not find any fault in him. He wanted to be an automotive engineer. Muhammad Zeeshan Afridi Age: 18
Class: 10
Son of Hav. Awal Shah and Razia Sanam
Siblings: Naveed (28), Daud (25), Zainab Bibi (22), Noman (15) and Faisal (10) His parents say he was a gift from God. He had a warm heart and loved to crack jokes. Because his house was far from school, Zeeshan lived at the hostel. He loved to play cricket and was a good fast bowler. For this reason, he was the captain of the school cricket team. He wanted to grow up and become a military doctor. He used to say that he would serve the people affected by the military operation in FATA. According to his father he was a good speaker, writer and reader. He got many medals and certificates in many fields. English and maths were his favourite subjects. His family says that they cannot eat, let alone laugh the way they used to when Zeeshan was in their lives. They miss him terribly. Read more Shafique ur Rehman Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Subedar Noor Rehman and Hafeeza Begum
Siblings: Sher (25), Sabira (21), Ijaz (15), Javeria (13) and Bilal (11) Shafique wanted to be a military doctor. He worked day and night to attain top grades and was preparing for NUST’s medical test before he was killed in the attack. He was a generous soul. He once asked his father to pay the school fee of a classmate who could not afford to pay tuition. He loved to play cricket. He was a fantastic bowler and batsman, which earned him a spot at Peshawar’s Qayum Complex cricket club. His family feels his loss deeply. Read more Yasir Iqbal Age: 18
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Lance Naik Sher Nawaz Khattak and Naik Pari
Siblings: Nasir (24), Qaiser (21), Mudassir (14), Sheraz (11), Wiqas (8) and Faizan (7) Yasir was in the school auditorium the day of the attack. When the firing started, he dropped down and lay on the floor and was safe. But when he saw that one of his best friends was shot and bleeding profusely, he picked him up and tried taking him out of the school. This is when the attackers struck. His father says Yasir was the most polite and soft-spoken out of his children. He was close to his eldest brother Nasir, who was more a best friend than a brother. He wanted to become a software engineer. Naturally, his favourite subject was computer science. His family says is difficult to live without him, they say, and every day is an emotional challenge. Read more Maher Ali Azam Age: 19
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Kausar Ejaz and Zakia Yasmeen
Sibling: Hamid Ejaz (13) Teachers, classmates and relatives unanimously praise Maher Ali Azam for his intelligence and obedient nature. He wanted to become a doctor and serve the poor people in his village where he also aspired to open a hospital. He was president of the Urdu literary club in his school. He was fond of playing cricket and was a member of the school cricket team. Close to his aunt, Robina Kauser, he enlisted her help in his studies. She says he always told her that he wanted to earn a good name for his country. Read more Muhammad Daud Age: 19
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Khalid Khan and Gulnaz Begum
Siblings: Abdul Qudoos Khan (18), Abdul Qadeer Khan (15), Umra Bibi (13), Sara Bibi (8) and Walliullah (3) The eldest of six children, Muhammad Daud had dreams of serving his nation as an army officer. Known to his youngest sibling as ‘Lala Jee’, Daud was punctual, disciplined and studious and had been appointed house captain. His father says he was a good speaker, writer and reader and had received many medals and certificates. His favourite subject was Biology and he always secured over 90pc marks in the class. His father says Daud was not just a son, but also a friend. “I was very frank with him,” he says. He shares that after one of Daud's classmates mentioned his father had passed away, Daud would take extra pocket money every day to help his friend. Read more Saqib Ghani Age: 19
Son of Maj (retd) Sher Ghani and Iffat Qamar
Siblings: Ambreen Ghani (30), Adnan Ghani (25), Sarish Ghani (25) and Mehwish Ghani (22) “Our college is under attack. Firing is going on. Please pray,” is the last message Saqib Ghani sent to his mother. Saqib’s cousin Asfandyar says he helped those less fortunate than him. When he was promoted to Class 10, he came to know one of his classmates was unable to afford a new uniform. Without informing his parents, Saqib bought a new uniform and gifted it to his classmate. Saqib aspired to be a civil engineer. He was also inspired by his retired Army Major father, his sister Mehwish says, and desired to fight militancy as an army officer. Read more Zain Iqbal Age: 19
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Mohammad Iqbal
Siblings: Aqsa Iqbal (24) and Mohammad Haris Iqbal (22) Zain was a responsible and diligent student. He stuck by his daily schedules for work and studied hard to be the best student in his class. His father says that he was killed in the very same hall where he used to make presentations for his Biology class. His family describes him as the soul of any party. His teachers would also say he was the life of the school. After his death, Zulqarnain’s family learnt of an ageing man in the neighbourhood who died when he heart of the young boy’s death. They discovered that Zulqarnain would frequently offer a lift to the elderly man when he was on his way to the mosque, and the two would pray together. Read more Abdul Azam Afridi Age: 20
Class: 2nd Year
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Ghayas Ud Din Afridi
Siblings: Alveena Ghayas (30), Dr Amir Azam Afridi (29) and Sikandar Azam Afridi (28) Abdul was a fun-loving, naughty student. He once went to the computer lab and poured water on all the computers. Later, when an infuriated teacher asked who did it, Abdul owned up to the mischief and paid a fine for the act. He was not particularly fond of his studies. His passion was martial arts and weight-lifting, which he pursued with a fervour which earned him medals and certificates. His mother says her boy was child-like. Even at the age of 20, he would sleep in her bed like a two-year-old. He loved animals and was the proud owner of a dog. Before he passed away, he told his driver he was excited about adopting his friend’s Persian cat. Read more Waseem Iqbal Age: 20
Class: 4th Year
Son of Hav. Muhammad Irshad Asif
Waseem Iqbal’s family could not be contacted for this obituary. Waseem is described by his teachers as a happy go lucky student. He was an active and energetic soul who was loved by all his teachers. He was fond of playing cricket and was a good player. Click tabs below to view the digital memorial.
Over 20 Muhammad Sami (peon) Age: 22
Son of Shamsur Rehman and Asia Bibi
Siblings: Saeeda (27), Zainab (23), Rani (18), Amanullah (18), Sidra Gul (16) and Atiq Ur Rehman (8) Sami began to work at a young age due to extreme poverty. His father suffered from cancer, and Sami set out to work when he was just a young boy to support the family and pay medical bills. His father passed away in the year 2000. He had been performing his duty at APS for eight years till the day he was killed. His mother says Sami did not enjoy his youth like other children. He had to be the man of the house. Despite the huge responsibility of an entire household on his young shoulders, Sami never lost his temper with his brothers and sisters. After his death, Sami’s family is shattered. His mother misses her son terribly, and wishes he would ask her to cook qeema. His siblings who live at home are in dire poverty as the sole breadwinner of the family is no longer there. Read more Ehsanullah (driver) Age: 22
Son of Zainullah and Saleema Bibi
Children: Yasirullah (3) and Muhammad Yousaf (5 months) Ehsanullah joined APS just 10 days before the attack. On that gruesome day, he helped shift 40 injured children into ambulances before the attackers killed him. He was the proud father of a three-year-old and a newborn. He wanted his kids to grow up and study at the same school where he was employed. He dreamt that they would be doctors. His family says he was a responsible man who took care of his loved ones. They all felt like they could count on him. He didn’t always want to be a driver. He tried to set up a small business on two occasions but had to wind up owing to losses. His children, parents and wife are in shock. They cannot accept that the centre of their world is no longer with them. Read more Hafsa Khush (teacher) Age: 23
Daughter of Prof. Khush Muhammad
Siblings: Muhammad Anas Khan (27) and Javeria (23) An intelligent and determined woman, Hafsa began working at the Army Public School in 2013. Her brother Anas remembers her as very kind and responsible. She was close to her mother and was engaged and soon to be married. Not only did she have excellent command on her subject, Hafsa’s students remember her as someone who wouldn’t leave class without clarifying her pupils’ concepts. Her father, who is still shaken from Hafsa’s death, remembers how his daughter wanted to pursue a Ph.D. and was interested in an academic career. Despite having a chance to save herself and leave the premises, Hafsa chose to stay back to help injured students. It is during this time that she was shot and killed. Read more Muhammad Hussain (gardener) Age: 24
Son of Shamsher Khan and Saira Bibi
Children: Hina (7), Iqra (5) and Aneesa (3) Muhammad Hussain served as gardener in the Army Public School (APS) for a period of seven years. After his passing in the Peshawar massacre, his brother Naheed Khan was offered the job that he took. Naheed says he got to know much more about his brother from his colleagues in the APS who all found Hussain an amicable and honest fellow. Hussain was a hard working man, his brother recalls, saying how after his gardening job at the APS, he would return home and go to work as a farmer in the fields. Hussain enjoyed playing cricket and was good in the game. Hussain leaves behind a widow and three children. His wife still asks why her husband was killed and his father appears broken at the death of his young son. Read more Sadia Gul Khattak (teacher) Age: 24
Daughter of Gul Shahzad Khattak and Zulikha Bibi
Siblings: Hamayun Shahzad, Amir Shahzad, Aarif Shahzad, Asim Shahzad, Tayyada Gul, Uzma Gul An English teacher at the Army Public school for five months, Sadia had completed a Masters in English and a Bachelors in Education at the University of Peshawar. Her father, who is also a professor, was her mentor. She would always consult him before making any big decisions. She was a jovial, fun loving person. Her friends say she loved to hang out with them and talk. They would meet up daily and go for a walk together. Her students say she was a wonderful teacher and that her command over the English language was impressive. Her family says they are broken after her passing. They miss Sadia terribly. Read more Mudassar Khan (lab assistant) Age: 25
Son of Mr. and Mrs. Muhammad Khan
Siblings: Sher Khan (23), Anas Khan (21), Umar Khan (19), Gulnaz (18), Afshan (15) and Fatima (10) A native of Swat valley, Mudassar had a Diploma in Clinical Pathology and a Masters in Pashto from the University of Peshawar. He was passionate about Pashto poetry and often penned romantic couplets which he would share on social media. He was the eldest amongst his siblings and the sole bread winner of his family. For this reason, he had left his village to work. He got engaged 15 days before he was killed. His uncle describes him as a respectful and responsible member of the family, who never hurt a soul. His family is broken by his death and misses him dearly. Read more Hajra Sharif (teacher) Age: 28
Daughter of Muhammad Sharif and Israr Bibi
Siblings: Ruman Nissah (37), Muhammad Amin (35), Bibi Aamna (34), Abrarul Amin (32), Samina Parveen (30) and Shahid Amin (25) A chemistry teacher at APS, Hajra Sharif had the knack of controlling a class effectively, and was very well-rounded in her subject, her colleagues say. She was helpful and polite to work with, and proved her mettle in a very short time. Her students share that even though chemistry was a dull and boring subject, they thoroughly enjoyed her lectures and never bunked her classes. According to Hajra’s siblings, she emphasised a great deal on women’s education, and her aim was to open a girls’ school in Karak. Her brother says that she was his mentor and it was as per her wish that he joined APS. Read more Benish Umer (teacher) Age: 30
Wife of Umer Zeb Butt
Children: Hibbah Umer (5), Annaya Umer (3) and Affaf Umer (1) A loving wife and a caring mother, teaching was Benish’s mission in life. Her husband Umer recalls that it was Benish’s tenacity that helped the family maintain discipline. He remembers Benish preparing breakfast, helping him out with work clothes and then leaving for school on the day of the massacre. A kind woman, after her family, Benish gave the most amount of time to her students and treated them like her own children. She also felt strongly about girls’ education and used to say that educating women was critical for the country’s prosperity. Her husband recalls that Benish had the chance to get out safely during the attack but chose to stay back so she could administer first aid to the injured students. This is when she was shot. Read more Muhammad Bilal (guard) Age: 32
Son of Pervaiz Shah
Children: Abbas (3.5) and Hanan (6 months old) Bilal and his wife were expecting their second child when he was killed. His wife has named her newborn Hanan, because her husband loved that name. He was attacked by the terrorists when they saw him helping children escape from a back exit. He was a loving father. He wanted the best for his son Abbas, and dreamt that he would become a doctor some day. He was a good sportsman and regularly played cricket with the APS students. He was strong, and was able to hit long sixes. His wife and parents miss their beloved Bilal. His youngest will never know her father. Read more Sahar Afshan (teacher) Age: 33
Daughter of Dr. Muhammad Noor Raziq (late) and Shamim Akhter
Siblings: Fawad Gul (35) Sahar was helping evacuate students when the attackers targeted her. She joined APS in 2006 as an Urdu teacher. She had completed a Masters in Urdu from the University of Peshawar and was also pursuing MPhil. As a result of her commitment and hard work, she was promoted to the senior section shortly after she joined. She was a role model for her family. Her siblings aspired to be disciplined like her. Her colleagues still cannot believe that she is gone. Her beautiful smiling face and pleasant voice echoes in their ears. She loved to get friends together for delicious food and gupshup. Her students say she was soft spoken and helpful and that she had a passion for her subject. She often arranged Urdu debating competitions and coached the students. Read more Farhat Bibi (teacher) Age: 39
Children: Syed Sitwat Ali Shah (18) and Syed Baqir Naqqi (15)
Siblings: Fawad Gul (35) There’s a palpable void in Farhat Bibi’s newly constructed house. Widowed husband Abid Ali Shah and sons Baqir and Sitwat are still numb with grief as they recall memories of the cast-iron superwoman in their lives. She held the position of Urdu teacher at APS for three years until her death. Her prolific academic qualifications included an MA in Arabic, MA in Islamiat, an M.Ed and a B.Ed. She was also a Hafiz-e-Quran. As a social worker, Bibi was committed to helping poor and needy people. Her sister, Abida Bibi, remembers her as someone completely devoted to her family. Farhat was an experimental cook and enjoyed making new dishes for her husband and sons. She was fond of tours and picnics and often organized outings for the family. Read more Saima Zareen (teacher) Age: 39
Daughter of Anwar Jamal
Wife of Tariq Saeed Saima Zareen had been teaching English at the APS for 17 years. She had completed her M.Phil in Education and was pursuing a Ph.D in Education. She was the mother of two girls aged 20 and 13. She loved to teach and learn. She would return from school every day at 3pm, eat her lunch and head to her university to study till 7pm. She would then come home and prepare dinner for the family. Her students describe her as soft spoken and kind, while enforcing discipline at the same time. The day of the attack, Saima rushed into the auditorium to save injured students. As she made her way in and out of the room, she was apprehended by one attacker. She was shot dead and her body set on fire. Her husband vows to continue her dream, to teach. He misses her terribly. Read more Akbar Zaman (head clerk) Age: 40
Husband of Bibi Rabia
Children: Tahir Zaman (16), Anwar Zaman (14), Mohammad Zaman and Ahmad Khan “Akbar was a very pleasant man,” says his widow, Bibi Rabia. He had a soft disposition and would always advise his sons to avoid disputes. Akbar had joined the Pakistan Army’s Electrical & Mechanical Engineering dept in 1983 as a clerk and moved to Army Public School after retiring in 2006. He was admired by his entire village and even now he is fondly remembered. Akbar had made it a point to bring back gifts from Peshawar for all the kids in the family when he would visit native Lakki Marwat for holidays. He was as a highly-dedicated employee who gave his life while performing his duty. Read more Zahir Shah (gardener) Age: 40
Son of Zaz Muhammad and Yahi Gul
Husband of Momina Bibi Siblings: Muhammad Sharif, Abdur Rauf, Bushra Bibi, Khayal Muhammad and Muhammad Zahid Zahir Shah began working at APS a year before the massacre. He served the school devotedly and would advise students to study hard whenever he interacted with them. His nephew Shafqat says Zahir had studied up to F.A. but couldn’t carry on due to financial problems. Zahir got married nearly 12 years ago and didn’t have any children but loved his nephews and nieces as if his own. He was particularly close to his 4-year-old nephew Waqas and would look after him as his own child. Although Zahir didn’t earn much, he was always mindful of the needs of his family and always tried to get other, better jobs. His nephew remembers him as a soft-spoken man with a kind heart. Read more Mohammad Shafiq (clerk) Age: 41
Son of Mohammad Sadiq
Children: Children: Saqib (8), Yusra (7), Afia (5) and Fareeha (2) Shafiq was the head clerk at APS since 1996. He was jokingly called the ‘pioneer employee’ of the school. His brother says Shafiq was an honest and hard working member of the school staff. He loved and cared for the students with all his heart. He longed for his children to have a good education. After school, he would drive a taxi to earn extra money to support his family. Two of his children are now studying at APS. The day of the attack, Shafiq was busy evacuating terrified students when he was gunned down. He had made his third trip back into the school during the rescue operation when he was struck. Read more Nawab Ali (teacher) Age: 42
Son of Fazal Rabani and Husn Zaiba.
Children: Faizan (13), Habiba Gul (10) and Ayesha (9) Nawab was a self-made man. When he was a student, he would work after school to earn money for his school fees. He was a math genius, and was popular in his hometown Charsadda for his math skills. He joined APS as a math teacher in 2000. His wife says he was a wonderful husband and also a loving and responsible father. His daughter Ayesha says he used to take joy in celebrating her birthday and get her dolls. She says he had a ‘smiling face’. His colleagues, too, remember him fondly and recall the many instances when he would treat them to shola chawal – a Charsadda specialty. Read more Sajjad Ali (superintendent) Age: 42
Son of Ejaz Ali (Late) and Talat Sajjad
Children: Fahad Ali (4.5) and Faizan Ali (10) Sajjad Ali served at the APS for 10 years. His nephew Mudasser tells how the staff at the school as well as Sajjad’s relatives admired him. An amicable man, Mudasser recalls how SajjTwo days after a video of 4 individuals kidnapping and torturing a young mentally handicapped man was live streamed on Facebook they were arrested. However, now these subhuman thugs have Facebook pages dedicated to freeing them from jail.
A page that claimed to be fighting against “Donald Trump’s America” and racism, has popped up and is called Free Brittany Herring. The posts on this particular page it are absolutely asinine!
Check these out…
There have been MULTIPLE campaigns started to help a woman who filmed torturing a mentally handicapped man with her friends.
They claim that these criminals deserve their day in court because they are supposed to |
ia's total mana when it kills a unit. * Usability: Now has additional checks in place to see if target was poisoned. Petrifying Gaze Lower cooldown, but also slightly lower damage. * Damage: 150/250/350 (+0.5 ability power) * Cooldown: 120/110/100 And that's it. I’m sure Cassiopeia veterans out there have some concerns about some of these damage changes, so I'd like to highlight a few things. * The reliability change to Twin Fang cannot be understated * This has huge implications on her DPS potential. More E's with a higher ratio = more DPS. For anyone used to playing Cassiopeia, you'll notice a difference immediately. * Much of her kit has been restructured to make Twin Fang more accessible * 25% CDR, buffed movespeed on Q, a buffed slow on W, and a lower cooldown on R all come together to make Cassiopeia's damage more readily available. * Additionally, the life on hit on Twin Fang allows Cassiopeia to stay in fights for longer periods of time, much like lifesteal does for AD carries. This means Cassiopeia will be free to do more damage over the course of a fight. * Aspect of the Serpent grants Cassiopeia significant AP in the late game * This'll help make up for some of the base damage tuning, but also simply give her more damage than ever before at full build So! Please let us know what it feels like to play with this new passive. I’m particularly interested in the following: Does “Aspect of the Serpent” change the way you think about the laning phase while playing Cassiopeia? Does Cassiopeia feel particularly powerful in the late game as a result of her passive? How do the usability changes to Twin Fang feel? Lastly, as with most content on the PBE, keep in mind that many aspects of Cassiopeia are still works in progress-- which means some things might look a bit weird, and others will likely be a little buggy. We’re already working on a lot of this, and we'd love to hear your feedback in case there’s anything not already on our radar. Alright, that's all for now, but I'll be around! I hope you enjoy Cassiopeia on the PBE! *edited for clarity
Title
Body Cancel
SaveUnder an overcast sky, Christa MacArthur is thumbing through seed packets at her garden – two dirt-filled boxes, each 40-by-48 inches, in the North Hastings Community Garden.
Ms. MacArthur says she and her family live in an apartment and spent more than a year on a waiting list for another neighbourhood garden before getting a plot in this one.
"We're mostly growing things to eat," Ms. MacArthur said, as her daughter Eri played with a hose nearby. "And food you grow yourself tastes better."
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While that claim may lack supporting data, there is ample evidence that Ms. MacArthur and others like her are changing the landscape of the city. Vancouver has more than 75 community gardens and a dozen or so urban farms, including ones that focus on creating jobs and healthy food in the inner city. Vancouver's Greenest City 2020 Action Plan calls for "food assets" – including community gardens, farmers' markets and urban farms – to increase at least 50 per cent over 2010 levels.
But the pattern of turning vacant lots into gardens has also raised questions about taxes and land use, such as whether tax breaks for developers who turn sites into gardens encourage them to put off construction until they can turn a higher profit. For the city, which unveiled a Local Food Action Plan in July, striking a balance between people clamouring for a plot of their own and business, property and tax concerns can be a thorny business.
"Community gardens are viewed as this amazingly beautiful, harmonious experience – but they often generate a remarkable amount of tension," says Michael Ableman, co-founder of Sole Food Street Farms, whose four Vancouver commercially focused sites aim to grow enough produce to pay employees and turn a profit.. (Unlike a community garden, where people typically pay a membership fee to reserve a plot for personal use, Sole Food is a commercially focused operation that aims to grow enough produce to pay employees and turn a profit.)
"If you look at most of our cities, what is left for people to grow food or experience some bits and pieces of the natural world are literally little specks throughout the city – so they become valuable," he says.
That's especially the case in Vancouver, where land is pricey and development sites in short supply – unlike, say, in American cities such as Detroit, where authorities are looking to urban agriculture as one way to spur recovery in the bankrupt city.
When a site goes from vacant lot to garden, B.C. Assessment can reclassify it for tax purposes from "business or commercial" to "recreational or non-profit," reducing owners' tax bills by nearly 70 per cent. In 2009 – when eight vacant development lots with an assessed value of $76.2-million were reclassified – city council was worried enough by the trend to order staff to look at options to ensure a "fair taxation model" that would not shift the tax burden to other commercial property owners.
The flurry of conversions, which coincided with a crash in financial and real estate markets, has since slowed. There were no conversions last year and two in each of 2011 and 2010, according to the city's annual tax distribution reports. The two most recent conversions resulted in tax savings to the owners of about $47,000 – barely a nick to the city's annual property tax revenue of more than $640-million.
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As of 2012, about 7 per cent of all community gardens were temporary conversions, according to information provided by the city.
"Developers and commercial landowners will eventually convert the site back to their intended use, and BC Assessment will reclassify the property to reflect such a change," a city representative said in an e-mailed response to questions.
That is little comfort to Agnes Crescenzo, who says her Bianca Maria Italian Foods, a block west of the new North Hastings Community Garden, has seen a drop in business since other small businesses closed to be replaced by the garden.
"It's hurt business in the area," Ms. Crescenzo said. "There's less foot traffic and people don't have reason to stop."
London Drugs, which has a store on the 2500-block, started buying neighbouring properties with an eye to a mixed commercial-residential development about six years ago.
London Drugs put that development, a 108-unit project dubbed the Alba, on hold this year after deciding there were too many condos coming on to the market.
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That cleared the way for London Drugs to connect with Shifting Growth. London Drugs chief executive officer Wynne Powell says his company would have done that with or without the tax savings, which have been estimated at $60,000 to $74,000 a year.
"That was not a factor in the decision at all," Mr. Powell says, adding that the Alba is a $55-million to $60-million project and that London Drugs expects tax savings to be roughly equivalent to garden-related expenses.
As to whether London Drugs is using the garden to save taxes until it can build and sell its condominiums at a higher price, Mr. Powell says going ahead with Alba would have resulted in unnecessary risks to the company, and its employees.
"We took a balanced approach to what can give the best outcome to as many people as possible – we think this is an interesting approach."July 9, 2015
Unsupervised Learning by Inverting Diffusion Processes
I spend the week at ICML, and this paper on generative models is one of my favourites so far:
Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, Eric Weiss, Niru Maheswaranathan, Surya Ganguli: Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics.
To be clear: this post doesn't add much to the presentation of the paper, but I will attempt to summarise my understanding of it. Also, I want to make clear that this is not my work.
Unsupervised learning has been one of the most interesting areas of machine learning in the last decades, but it is in the spotlight again since the deep learning crowd started to care about it. Unsupervised learning is hard because evaluating the loss function people want to use (log likelihood) is intractable for most interesting models. Therefore people come up with
alternative objective functions, such as adversarial training, maximum mean discrepancy, or pseudolikelihood, which can be evaluated for a large class of interesting models
alternative optimisation methods or approximate inference methods such as contrastive divergence or variational Bayes
models that have some nice properties. This paper is an example of the latter
The key idea behind the paper
What we typically try to do in representation learning is to map data to a latent representation. While the Data can have arbitrarily complex distribution along some complicated nonlinear manifold, we want the computed latent representations to have a nice distribution, like a multivariate Gaussian.
This paper takes this idea very explicitly using a stochastic mapping to turn data into a representation: a random diffusion process. If you take any data, and apply Brownian motion-like stochastic process to this, you will end up with a standard Gaussian distributed variable, due to the stationarity of the Brownian motion. Below image shows an example: 2D observations (left) have a complex data distribution along the Swiss roll manifold. If one applies Brownian motion to each datapoint, the complicated structure starts to diffuse, and eventually the data is scrambled to become white noise (right).
Now the trick the authors used is to train a dynamical system to inverts this random walk, to be able to reconstruct the original data distribution from the random Gaussian noise. Amazingly, this works, and the traninig objective becomes very similar to variational autoencoders. Below is a figure showing what happens when we try to reconstruct data in the Swiss roll example: The top images from right to left: we start with a bunch of points drawn from random noise (top right). We apply the inverse nonlinear transformation to these points (top middle). Over time points will be pushed towards the original Swiss roll manifold (top left).
The information about the data distribution is encoded in the approximate inverse dynamical system
The bottom pictures show where this dynamical system tries to push points as time progresses.
This is super cool. Now we have a deep generative process that can turn random noise into something that looks like our datapoints. It can generate roughly natural-looking images like these:
Advantages
In this model a lot of things that are otherwise hard to do are easy to do:
generating/imagining data is straightforward inference, i.e. calculating the latent representation from data, is simple you can multiply the distribution with another distribution, making Bayesian calculations for stuff like denoising or superresolution possible.
Drawbacks and extensions
I think a drawback of the model is that if you run the diffusion process for too long (i.e. make the model deeper), the mutual information between datapoint and its representation is bound to decrease, due to the stationarity of Brownian motion. I guess this is going to be an important limitation to the depth of these models.
Also, the latent representations at each layer are assumed to be exactly if the same dimensionality and type as the data itsef. So if we are modeling 100x100 images, then all layers in the resulting network will have 100k nodes. I guess this can be overcome by combining variational autoencoders with this method. Also, you can imagine augmenting your space with extra 'pixels' that are only used for richer representations in the intermediate layers.
Anyway, this is super cool, go read the paper.About
Hollywood quality 3D sets projected around you using nothing but a webcam!
What is this?
If you're a parent, a business person, or just want to have fun, this project is for you! Inspired by movies like Who framed Roger Rabbit, Mary Poppins and Minority report the guys at Wish Pictures got tired of waiting for technology that would allow us to interact with a digital world. Now with Augmented Reality, this is a chance to make a holodeck like experience wherever you are using your web camera!
Video calls are common place these days and Wish Pictures gives you the chance to be a live performer inside your very own 3D movie with visual effects created by the very artists that worked on the movies you love, like Harry Potter, Star Wars and Star Trek! In other words, be anything or anywhere you wish! Where do you want to go? Who or what do you want to be? Computer graphics have allowed artists like us to bring anything we can dream up to life on the big screen, now with Augmented Reality it's time for you to live in our playground!
Is beauty and the beast where you reside? Concept by Marco Bucci
Isn't there something like this already?
Yes and no not at all.. Augmented Reality is an emerging technology and there have been a small handful of filter type web camera applications that use 2D elements. There have even been a few that attempt 3D objects. But let us be clear..we don't want to build a novelty. Current software lack sophisticated face tracking, 3D costuming, and high-end animated visual effects created by actual effect masters. Wish Pictures creates -complete- themes built by industry veterans that take their craft seriously. Try and find a single Augmented reality application that works properly. If the lighting changes in the room, the effects don't work and disappear, the digital effects don't move properly with you and tend to shake. Our software engineers have two Patents that solve these problems that plague Augmented reality.
So, imagine for example, you wanted to be an astronaut.. you'd simply type "astronaut" on www.WishPictures.com and multiple space themes in this category will be listed for your downloading pleasure costing as little as a dollar. These themes will come with a detailed fully animated 3D virtual set, a 3D astronaut helmet which moves with your head, space ship sound effects and visual effects that play into that theme, like the ability to have things float in zero gravity when you touch them. Yes, while Walt Disney didn't invent animation, he did innovate and set the industry bar very high with quality storytelling and amazing artwork. We aim to do the same with our team of visual effect artists that hail from the Virtual ride, TV, feature film and game industry - Most all of them held top Art Director roles on legendary projects!
Is this your cartoon Space hotel? Wish Pictures scene by Russell Koonce
Is this your private jet? Luxury background example art by John Eric
How will it work?
Once this project is launched, you will then go to www.WishPictures.com and download the -free- Wish Pictures application and install it. On the website you'll find a wide range of categories to choose from or you can simply type in a subject search. We will also have the latest featured virtual themes on our front page. When you see what you like, you'll download the theme from the website and it will become available to you in the application during your video call. Each visual and audio effect can be turned off independent of each other. You are in control.
Do you live in a tree among the elves? Wish Pictures concept art by Tim Warnock
Categories
We have a few examples on this page, but your imagination is the limit! Will we take your suggestions and wish request? YES! Will we build custom backgrounds for you? YES! But instead of listing hundreds of themes, let's instead give you some fun ideas on how to use this wonderful application.
Military could stealth their barracks behind them
Businesses can hide there cubical with something more professional
Home business folks can have Trumps office or something more practical
It's a magic mirror for the little kids (and it's fun for the big kids in us to)
Loved ones can have a themed video call (we'll leave it at that..)
Grandparents can put a smile on there grandchild's face with cartoon effects
Look cooler on your video blogs and youtube channels (donate for a friend in need)
Are you a planetary counsel member? Wish Pictures concept by Joel Payne
Will you have more then environments YES! Character example by Khalid Muharraqi
Who is this Dream Team you speak of??
GravityJack.com The Programmers (holds multiple patents in Augmented Reality that everyone will need. Most of the their best work is held in secret vaults in stealth mode, protected by ninja's)
Joel Payne Principle and Project Creator (Baulders Gate: Dark alliance, Disney Imagineering's Virtual Jungle Cruise, Steve Spielberg's Sky Pirates ride, Star Ship Troopers 3D TV series, Max Steel 3D TV series, Mortal Kombat:SM, Silent Hill, Heroes of Might and Magic 1, Growums, Universal Studios 3D digital backlot library. Owner of DigitalBacklot.com)
Rod Nakamoto Principle (Over the past 25 years he has held executive positions at a number of the prominent game publishers including Sega of America, Electronic Arts, Hasbro Interactive, Vivendi Universal Games and Namco. Rod has worked on and/or managed premier franchises such as Empire Earth, Nascar 2002/2003, Microprose Simulations, Games.com, Wing Commander and a myriad of other high-profile licenses and properties. Earlier in his career Rod founded two companies: Interactive Designs, Inc., which was acquired by Sega of America and Sweet Micro Systems, Inc. where he created one of the first sound/speech cards for the Apple II.)
Russell Koonce Principle and Lead Artist (E.T., Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Peter Pan, True Lies, Chicken Little, Casper, Terminator 3, Space Cowboys, Congo)
Gavin Dell Principle Lead Character design/Animation (Looney Tunes, Looney Tunes Back in Action, The Simpsons, Directed the Family Guy, Pirates of the Caribbean Animated Feature Film and Disney's Hercules TV series, Gears of War 2, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Growums Character Designer)
Brandon MacDougall Lead set artist (Enterprise, Emmy Nominated for Star Trek Voyager. Scary Movie 4 VFX, Memoirs of a Geisha, Lost in Space Pilot)
Khalid Muharraqi Lead Character artist/set artist (3D visualizations of the major architectural developments in the Kingdom of Bahrain like the world trade center and those man made island that look like sea turtles you can see from the international space station..... Need I say more??)
John Eric Lead set artist (Studio Art Director for Vivendi Universal Games, Lord of the Rings, Scarface, Vanhelsing, The Hobbit, Heroes of Might and Magic)
Jason Kaehler Lead set artist (Art Director, Midway, E.A Games, known for StrangleHold, PSI-Ops, Spc-Ops, HBO Boxing)
Marco Bucci Lead Concept artist (Monkey Island: Special Edition, BackyardigansTV series, Lego commercial, Growums Concept Artist)
Josh Mosley Lead Composer (Currently scoring the feature film based on the hit video game Mass Effects! Also known for Growums)
Are you from Sleepy Hollow? Concept by Joel Payne
How We Will Use The Funds?
We need the funds to build the application that will deliver the content to you and with your help our efforts will also provide for the online store that will house all of the visual effects to choose from.
Are you a modern day Aladin? from the portfolio of Khalid Muharraqi
Where will this go in future versions?
No doubt this will be a project that blurs the line between fantasy and reality and is a giant leap forward by allowing the viewer to be inside the fantasy worlds we love. As the project evolves, we hope to bring unique storytelling features, games and other fun experiences to this new form of entertainment. The possibilities are astonishing! With Augmented Reality glasses on the market next year it's just a matter of time before the virtual world is everywhere you look.
Are you Willy Wonka? Wish Pictures theme by Joel Payne
Closing
We hope to take our game, virtual reality, feature film, TV experience and pioneer a new category of entertainment. We'd like to think that you're the type of person that would have kickstarted a young Steve Job as he secretly worked in his garage dreaming up a company called Apple Computers. This is one of those moments, to be a part of the start of a brave new world of possibilities. We have the plan, we have the dream team and our guys really believe in the power of the people. We're putting our hopes in your hands and this is your chance to be a part of history. For anyone interested in the inner workings of the visual effects industry, either professionally or as a fan, this project will be a landmark in exploring the art of creativity. For people that just love fulfilling wishes, this is an opportunity to help bring one to fruition... and... well... because we want you to live happily ever after inside this castle below...
Concept by Marco Bucci
**Video Credits
Music by Joshua R. Mosley, Lighting/Direction, Mehran Torgoley and Concept, Script, Editing, Visual Effects by Joel Christopher PayneA hitman's target ImTotallyNotLolzor Aug 9th, 2015 68 Never 68Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 0.52 KB L:"I need you to do something again." 死:"... What is it?" L:"I need you to kill." 死:"Where are you at? I have to talk to you." L:"Hospital." 死:"Hospital?" L:"The guy you need to kill threw me through my limo's windshield after which he shot me in the gut." 死:"Are you alright?!" L:"The money's on your bank account." 死:"Who is that guy?" L:"He's from... a little group I'm in. Name's Tyler. I have some info on him. Sending it to you." L has sent Info//Tyler.txt L:"Make it look like suicide." -L has disconnected-
RAW Paste Data
L:"I need you to do something again." 死:"... What is it?" L:"I need you to kill." 死:"Where are you at? I have to talk to you." L:"Hospital." 死:"Hospital?" L:"The guy you need to kill threw me through my limo's windshield after which he shot me in the gut." 死:"Are you alright?!" L:"The money's on your bank account." 死:"Who is that guy?" L:"He's from... a little group I'm in. Name's Tyler. I have some info on him. Sending it to you." L has sent Info//Tyler.txt L:"Make it look like suicide." -L has disconnected-On Thursday, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin III became the first Democratic senator to support President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
On Friday, he came to this town of 484 people to explain why.
The United Mine Workers of America was hosting Manchin for an ask-anything town hall meeting, and one of the first skeptical questions focused on what “working people” could expect from Judge Neil Gorsuch.
“He’s been portrayed as not being for the working person,” said Manchin. “Well, I talked to Merrick Garland” — former president Barack Obama’s nominee for the same court vacancy, whom Republicans blocked last year. “I thought he was a good man. He never ruled in favor of anybody but the agencies, which were killing us. And I said, ‘Judge Garland, how come the agencies always win with you? How come the average person never does, not once?’ ”
In two acrobatic minutes, Manchin managed to jump completely clear of a question about Trump and aim his frustrations instead at fellow Democrats. He stated his problems with the Obama administration (“the agencies” was code for the Environmental Protection Agency, the least popular federal bureaucracy in coal country), blamed Democrats for the impending showdown in the Senate over the Gorsuch nomination (“Harry Reid started this”) and — most importantly — described the access he’d earned by dealing with Trump.
People listen to Manchin at the town hall, hosted by the United Mine Workers of America. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Perhaps the most vulnerable Senate Democrat of the 25 up for reelection in 2018, Manchin is testing whether voters in a state that overwhelmingly supported Trump will also continue to back him. He pulls no punches with his own party, which voters from his state and others along the Appalachians abandoned overwhelmingly as they looked for someone to blame for the collapse of the coal industry and their way of life.
“The Democrats became so politically correct and so perfect,” Manchin said in an interview in Matewan, after walking its short main street in a grey-and-black UMWA polo shirt. “The people in there, they grew up knowing that the Democratic Party would be there ensuring their jobs. And now it’s the party they believe is preventing them from working.”
But Manchin is an enthusiastic critic of Trump’s party too. His message is complicated: He tells West Virginians why Republicans are tools for the wealthy, is trying to work with the president his state elected, and remains firmly wedded to a party that is increasingly environmentalist and focused on winning a diversifying, suburban electorate.
“For me to be a Republican, I would have to put the bottom line before I would a human being,” Manchin told The Washington Post last month.
It’s a high-wire act, with Republicans hoping for a stumble.
The first months of the Trump administration have reshaped the Democratic Party, but Manchin has participated only on the margins. After the election, he was added to an expanded Democratic strategy group, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
He is more adamant than ever that he will stay within the party, in part so it won’t become exclusively populated by the sort of people who demand he be primaried. (We Will Replace You, a new PAC, reiterated its call for a Democratic primary after Manchin’s Gorsuch statement.)
A Matewan police officer waits for Manchin to arrive for the meeting Friday. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
In West Virginia, Manchin presents himself as the Democrat who wants Trump to fulfill the promises that won over miners and workers — and hopefully, nothing else. Most of the Matewan town hall focused on the Miners Protection Act, Manchin’s cause for most of his Senate career, which would transfer money from the Abandoned Mine Lands fund to pay for the health-care insurance and pensions that thousands of miners lost after Patriot Coal and other companies went bust.
Every Senate Democrat has endorsed the bill, which Manchin touts as an accomplishment.
[Maryland’s only Republican congressman faces harsh crowd in town hall]
When he’s talking about that bill, or about health care, Manchin speaks in stark moral terms. On Thursday, he told miners, he met with the president and got a fresh assurance that the miners’ bill would get his support — even if Republicans took Manchin’s name off it. He asked the president to tweet about it, too.
“How long did it take them to bail out Wall Street?” Manchin asked in Matewan. “It took ’em hours. Can’t you take care of the people who basically made the country?”
In those moments, Manchin sounds like Bernie Sanders, whose 2016 primary victory here is thrown back at Manchin whenever progressives want to get a rise out of him. Manchin endorsed Hillary Clinton for president; in an interview, he recalls how Clinton pledged to team him up with her husband — the last Democrat to win the state in a presidential election — to craft a bill for miners.
“The bottom line is, Bernie never had a glove laid on him,” said Manchin. “If they knew that Bernie Sanders would shut down every coal plant, every coal mine — because he’s said it — it’d have been a complete different primary outcome. But Hillary was so detested. Bernie would not have won West Virginia, knowing West Virginia the way I know it. He’d have got maybe 40 or so.”
That was better than Clinton, whose 27 percent of the vote represented the worst performance by a Democratic presidential nominee since West Virginia became a state. In 2012, when he won his first full term, Manchin, a former governor, took 61 percent of the vote and ran 25 points ahead of Barack Obama. Even if Manchin improves on Clinton’s vote by 25 points next year, he’d win by single digits.
Republicans, who need eight Senate seats to block a filibuster on the Gorsuch confirmation, are deeply familiar with the math. Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.), who in 2014 wiped out the state’s last Democratic House member, said in January that he was “strongly considering” a run against Manchin. A video tracker from America Rising, a PAC dedicated to opposition research on Democrats, shadows Manchin at his town halls, and in Matewan he shouted a question after the senator had shaken every hand and headed toward a waiting van.
“Are you going to pass new gun-control laws?” asked the tracker.
“I really appreciate you coming here,” said Manchin.
The question previewed the attack any Republican opponent will probably use in 2018, zinging Manchin for the background check bill he co-sponsored after the Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Conn. That might have been Manchin’s low point of popularity. But November 2016 might have been Trump’s high point. In Matewan, and in the rest of Mingo County, voters offered tempered praise for Trump. They’re quicker to say what they didn’t like about Clinton than what Trump has done in office.
“She was flat-out against the mines,” said Mike Land, 62, whose health insurance will run out if the miners’ bill isn’t passed by the end of April.
“He needs to put the phone away,” said Hubert Lowe, 63.
In November, 83.2 percent of Mingo County voters went for Trump. Four years earlier, 72.8 percent had gone for Manchin. Most of West Virginia had voted for both of them at one time or another. In that context, and in the extra context Manchin adds on the stump, the Gorsuch nomination is both a kindness to Trump and a fair deal for Democrats. The senator, recounting his conversations with the nominee, described a bargain any sane populist would make.
“He said, ‘You don’t think I was Donald Trump’s first choice?’ ” said Manchin. “ ‘I probably got chosen to come up here because they thought I would have a better chance of getting 60. If you all fight and stop me, I guarantee that what comes behind is going to be a lot different than I am.’ ”
[McCaskill swings to ‘no’ on Gorsuch]
Manchin’s high-wire act is likely to continue. He sees the president’s executive order lifting a rule preventing coal mining waste from impacting streams — Manchin was right by his side, in every camera shot — as good for the state. But he believes the Republicans’ designs on health care would have been atrocious, much like the Republican-run legislature’s passage of right-to-work legislation.
“It’s awful what they’re doing to the working man,” Manchin said in the interview in Matewan. “What they’re doing to union workers, what they’re doing to wages, what they’re doing to pensions.”
Why, with all of that in front of them, did so many voters go Republican?
“I can’t explain it,” Manchin said. “You know what? I think it was just so tainted by Washington politics.”
The interview was over. Manchin walked out of the van for a short indulgence — a tour of the small-town museum commemorating the 1920 coal miners’ strike, when the stakes and risks were perfectly clear.
Read more at PowerPostIf there were ever a year not to stage a Big 12 Championship Game â¦
Really, do you have to be told about the suddenly obvious pitfalls for the last Power Five league to tack on a 13th data point?
What's the worst that could happen in an Oklahoma-TCU rematch? Not so glad you asked.
The Big 12 could lose a playoff berth with its highest-ranked team (No. 3 OU) getting upset by an opponent (No. 11 TCU) the Sooners have already beaten by 18 points.
Baker Mayfield -- and by extension, the league -- could lose a Heisman. By playing that extra game, the Heisman's prohibitive favorite would be subjected to the wear and tear of... playing an extra game.
Worst of all: If the Big 12 had kept its old format and not added a championship game, at 11-1 with the regular season over, OU would have been good enough to get in the College Football Playoff right now. "They're in the top four," CBS Sports' Jerry Palm said, "and they'd remain in the top four [without a title game]."
Insert wince here. In what has become the Week of the Rematch, the Big 12 might be most at risk. Another miss would make it three years out of four that the conference would miss the playoff.
The Big 12's own analytics show the team defeated in the first meeting wins the rematch more than half the time. Double wince.
"I don't know if there's good and bad," Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. "I just think it is what it is. You know each other better, there's probably going to be less surprises."
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Tell that to the Big 12 and most of the rest of FBS. Seven of the nine conference championship games this weekend are rematches. That's as many rematches as the SEC has played in the 26-year history of its championship game.
For only the second time, the Pac-12 game will be a rematch when Stanford meets Southern California on Friday. Because of a scheduling quirk, Boise State and Fresno State are playing in back-to-back weeks. Only the one Saturday at Boise counts toward a title.
Georgia and Auburn will meet in a playoff-take-all rematch in the SEC Championship Game. Auburn knocked off then-No. 1 Georgia 40-17 on Nov. 11. In the previous six SEC rematches, the regular-season winner is 5-1. There hasn't been such a rematch in the conference since 2010.
Memphis against undefeated Central Florida in the AAC title game is a de facto elimination rematch for the Group of Five Golden Ticket. The winner most likely goes to the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange or Peach Bowl. UCF won the hurricane-delayed first meeting by 27.
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Don't forget serious momentum for a playoff started because of a rematch. Folks don't necessarily want to see them. TV ratings plummeted when LSU and Alabama met for a second time in the 2012 BCS title game.
The possibility further exists for first-ever College Football Playoff rematches from the regular season. Possibilities: Auburn-Alabama, Clemson-Auburn, Oklahoma-Ohio State.
The Big 12 went to great -- and sometimes time-wasting -- lengths before re-instituting its championship game. That was 13 months ago. That was also after a more than year-long process when the conference elaborately explored expansion. In the process it teased a gaggle of Group of Five hopefuls and angered its TV partners before settling on this sort of half-measure.
The 10 Big 12 teams will split at least $30 million annually in rights fees and ticket sales from the championship game. To further boost its playoff chances, the Big 12 became the only FBS conference to match its two best teams -- not division winners.
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For better or worse. For the first 15 years, the Big 12 first staged a championship game (1996-2010), it was one of the most volatile in college football. Five times the lower-ranked team won. Three times in those 15 years, the Big 12 lost potential national championship shots because of upsets. In 2011 (Oklahoma State, BCS) and '14 (Baylor, TCU, CFP), teams narrowly missed playing for national championships minus a Big 12 title game.
The conference now has at least gained equal footing with its four other Power Five peers by playing a 13th game. There is one big difference: The Big 12 is the only league that plays a true round-robin schedule. That guarantees a championship rematch.
For the first time in the Big 12, here's what it looks like: Top-seeded Oklahoma (11-1, 8-1) has little to prove after beating TCU 38-20 on Nov. 11. The Sooners' lone loss was to Iowa State. Meanwhile, the second-place Frogs (10-2, 7-2) -- with losses to Iowa State and Oklahoma -- see this as a brass ring. Maybe. As a two-loss Big 12 champion, TCU would conceivably be compared to Ohio State (11-2 as a Big Ten champion) and Auburn (11-2 as an SEC champion) or Alabama (11-1 as the SEC West runner-up) by the CFP Selection Committee.
In other words, not necessarily in the playoff.
For all the hosannas thrown at Oklahoma for beating Ohio State, the Sooners had three of the worst FBS teams on their schedule as UTEP, Baylor and Kansas combined for two wins. Those three opponents represent a quarter of Oklahoma's schedule. UTEP (0-12) was the only winless team in the FBS.
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It's still win or go home for the Sooners. If anything, the schedule probably keeps the Sooners from being the CFP No. 1 seed.
Win, and they're in.
If only the Sooners didn't have to play this week to prove it.It's unsurprising that establishment media outlets have been condescending, dismissive and scornful of the ongoing protests on Wall Street. Any entity that declares itself an adversary of prevailing institutional power is going to be viewed with hostility by establishment-serving institutions and their loyalists. That's just the nature of protests that take place outside approved channels, an inevitable by-product of disruptive dissent: those who are most vested in safeguarding and legitimizing establishment prerogatives (which, by definition, includes establishment media outlets) are going to be hostile to those challenges. As the virtually universal disdain in these same circles for WikiLeaks (and, before that, for the Iraq War protests ) demonstrated: the more effectively adversarial it is, the more establishment hostility it's going to provoke.
Nor is it surprising that much of the most vocal criticisms of the Wall Street protests has come from some self-identified progressives, who one might think would be instinctively sympathetic to the substantive message of the protesters. In an excellent analysis entitled "Why Establishment Media & the Power Elite Loathe Occupy |
ality case against two officers, and is investigating the recent police-shooting death of an unarmed man in a housing project.
The conflict between Schneiderman and Thompson illustrates a paradox, even a contradiction, in the criminal-justice system. New York, like most states, has a regime of elected countywide prosecutors. The idea is that law enforcement should respond to the needs of the local community, and for the subjective needs of the community to be paramount. But the system also demands objectivity—an ideal of justice untainted by the special interests of the locals. This is the heart of the conflict over Schneiderman’s idea, and both sides can point to examples that prove their point. It is true that local prosecutors like Thompson have, on occasion, brought successful cases against local police officers. And outsiders, who are not subject to the usual checks and balances on prosecutors, can abuse their freedom. “When you start to talk about special prosecutors—do we really want another Ken Starr?” Frank Sedita, the Erie County District Attorney, asked in response to Schneiderman, referring to the federal independent counsel who led the investigation of President Bill Clinton. The risk, according to Sedita, is ending up with “somebody who is not accountable to the public and specifically not accountable to the citizens of that county.”
Schneiderman’s idea has considerable appeal; his judgment in the Eric Garner case would surely have had more credibility than the one rendered by Donovan. Still, special prosecutors are not necessarily good or bad. Like the locals they replace, they are only as good as the cases they bring, or refrain from bringing. That, ultimately, will rest on the good judgment of the individuals involved, and no one has yet figured out a way of putting the right person in place all the time.Photo by Niu Xiaolei and Niu Xiaolei | The State Press Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, September 24, 2013.
By Harrison Finzel | 09/23/15 2:27am
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in his first interview with Western media since the establishment of a framework for the Iranian nuclear deal, suggested that the notorious chant of “Death to America!” that some Iranians in Tehran perform on a weekly basis, which has little foundation in animosity towards the American people. Rather, this choice phraseology supposedly expresses the people’s disdain towards American foreign policy.
It has been shown that President Rouhani’s statement does have some factual merit. Iranian citizens view American citizens more positively than we view them. Oops. One point for Rouhani. Interestingly, they also don’t particularly trust our government, as a distinct matter. That’s some common ground we both share! It’s also consistent with Rouhani’s seemingly implausible claim.
Unsurprisingly, the media plays a large role in how Americans perceive Iran and its people. I mean, Iraq was bad enough to merit invasion (according to the government-media axis of the last decade) and Iran is only one letter different in name, plus they share a border! Those people have got to be bad apples. All of 'em.
But, being earnest, it is our failed foreign policy that has brought about the immense tension we have with the Middle East. It is American hubris in the realms of democracy promotion, international relations and power dynamics that have made us the enemy of various nations around the world. We don’t speak softly, and we browbeat nations everywhere with our overwhelming influence.
North Korea, for instance, may well be led by an irrational megalomaniac, but Pyongyang’s arguments for disdain of U.S. foreign policy are well-supported, if not fully by history, then by a dramatized narrative of their nation’s war against foreign imperialists. We are seen as the aggressor and the oppressor on many shores of the world. This cannot be forgotten by us, because it surely isn’t by the people who live in areas we’ve affected for the worst.
Regarding our interventionist policy in the post-9/11 era, “Mission Accomplished” would be a proper summation if the mission was to provoke hatred, fear and loathing of the U.S. across the planet. The pernicious affect and inherent hypocrisy in American foreign policy have turned millions against us ideologically, and much of it is our own doing.
When Iranians cheer “Death to America,” they are really cheering death to poverty, death to hunger, death to crippling, decades-long sanctions. Death to the oppressor, death to the hard power and intrusive reach that directs our country’s future to a relevant degree.
Repealing economic sanctions for international nuclear security is not some capitulation to the Islamists. It is the first step in cooling relations between the U.S. and Iran, the first step towards further diplomacy that will hopefully lead to peace in the contentious region sometime in these next two millennium. It will also repair the struggling Iranian economy by bringing millions of people out of poverty, starvation and malnourishment. This is a humanitarian victory on its own merits, and should be considered a strong initial building block to engender good will with the Iranian government and its people.
Policies like the recent nuclear deal are the type that will tone down the violent rhetoric of Iran against us. This deal reveals a mutual respect (and benefit) for Iran and much of the rest of the world, the U.S. included. We as Americans need to recognize that diplomacy is best worked out slowly — just like our own greatest national blueprints — and that continuing to pursue a more equitable policy for all will lead to a slow but certain improvement in Iran-U.S. relations.
Related Links:
Obama administration's Iran nuclear deal ignores Israel
Iran overturns death sentence for ex-Marine, game developer accused of spying
Reach the columnist at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @OnlyH_man
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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Related Storiesvia @learyreports
GREENVILLE, S.C. — Jeb Bush tried to slow down Marco Rubio this week in South Carolina by attacking Rubio's claim that Bush has "zero" foreign policy experience.
"Wow, coming from a guy whose office has a hard time actually saying what his accomplishments are," Bush said, adding that the senator's approach is "going to hearings to listen to smart people talk about things rather than actually leading."
Bush used a variation of that line several times this week, which revives questions about Rubio's attendance at Senate Foreign Relations Committee meetings and his overall absenteeism in Washington.
A new, sweeping review of all committees Rubio has sat on since taking office in 2011 paints a bleak picture of participation in the day-to-day responsibilities of the job.
Rubio is on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Commerce and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. The Florida Republican has missed 68 percent of hearings, or 407 of 598 for which records were available.
His skipped 80 percent of Commerce hearings and 85 percent of those held by Small Business, records show.
He has missed 60 percent of Foreign Relations hearings since joining the Senate despite making his committee experience a centerpiece of his qualifications for president.0 Oblivious 911 pocket-dial lands Palm Bay man in custody
PALM BAY, Fla. - A 911 pocket-dial landed a Palm Bay man in police custody.
The dispatcher heard someone talking about pills and pot over the open line.
One person was arrested and police said he had marijuana in his vehicle.
"But right now, I ain't got nothing. But my guy gets here…. so… well, I got weed though," said the man.
What the pocket dialer didn't know is that Palm Bay Police's policy is to make contact with all 911 callers.
Police tracked the cellphone associated with the call.
"We were able to plot it to the area of Tampa Avenue," Palm Bay police spokesperson Yvonne Martinez said.
That's where police spotted a vehicle being driven by 59-year-old Daniel Moon.
They said Moon was pulled over after running a stop sign. A K-9 unit was called and a small amount of marijuana was located in Moon's vehicle.
Three days after his arrest on misdemeanor marijuana possession, Moon wasn't even aware of that pocket-dial to 911.
"I don't know what happened. I don't know what's going on," Moon said.
Moon didn't deny using pot in the past but told Channel 9's Melonie Holt he has a host of medical issues including high blood pressure, which sent him to the hospital on the night of his arrest.
"I could have died," Moon said.
Moon said he is just hoping for a favorable day in court.
"I've never been in trouble in my life here 30 years, never once have I been incarcerated," Moon said.
Eyewitness News checked and Moon has no arrest history in the state of Florida.
He said he's scheduled for court next month.Garda management has ordered a major investigation into "irregularities" surrounding vehicle checkpoints in the Cork district, the Irish Independent has learned.
Garda management has ordered a major investigation into "irregularities" surrounding vehicle checkpoints in the Cork district, the Irish Independent has learned.
Two gardaí under investigation after allegedly setting up fake checkpoints while on the clock
Senior Garda bosses are probing whether false checkpoints were logged on Pulse - the official Garda computer system.
Two rank-and-file gardaí are under investigation and face the prospect of disciplinary action, according to well-placed sources.
The gardaí are suspected of having set up false checkpoints while on the clock.
Significantly, the alleged falsification of checkpoints emerged in recent weeks after the revelations surrounding the one million false breath tests emerged in the public domain.
Sources told the Irish Independent the issue was being taken particularly seriously by Garda Headquarters, given the series of discrepancies surrounding Garda figures that had emerged in recent weeks.
"This is being taken very seriously given the pressure the force is now under about its classification of figures," said a source.
A Garda spokesman said there had been no disciplinary action served on any officer "to date". Follow up queries about the issue got no response.
Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan. Photo: Mark Condren
The Irish Independent revealed earlier this month a review has been launched into the force's statistics on homicides, which include murder and manslaughter.
Read more: 'If there's nothing to hide then what's the problem?' - Independent.ie readers react to garda demand for filming ban
The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation (NBCI) has examined whether more than 40 homicide cases were wrongly classified.
The Cold Case Unit fed into the review, which, when published, will be forwarded to the Policing Authority.
Among the cases examined were ones involving missing persons, murder-suicides and the death of a toddler.
It's understood a number of discrepancies were found in the classification of figures. It has also been confirmed that other figures, such as domestic violence, have thrown up suspected irregularities.
The sheer scale of the internal investigations into Garda numbers have raised major questions for Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan, who is grappling to keep the confidence of her rank-and-file officers.
Ms O'Sullivan will appear in front of the Policing Authority today, where she will be quizzed over the alleged falsification of figures.
The Garda chief still has the confidence of the Government, despite surviving a series of no confidence motions levelled by the Opposition.
But she faces a series of difficult challenges ahead, including her appearance at the Disclosures Tribunal, which is examining the alleged smear campaign by Garda management against Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
Her predecessor, Martin Callinan, is also a key witness at the tribunal, along with Superintendent David Taylor.
Supt Taylor said he was directed to lead the smear campaign and negatively brief journalists against Sgt McCabe.
Irish IndependentBALASORE: India today successfully test-fired its interceptor missile off the Odisha coast, achieving a significant milestone in the direction of developing a two-layered Ballistic Missile Defence system.The interceptor was launched from Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island) of ITR at about 7.45 AM.This mission, termed as "PDV mission is for engaging the targets in the exo-atmosphere region at an altitude above 50 km of earth's atmosphere", said a Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) official."Both, the PDV interceptor and the two stage target missile, were successfully engaged," he said.The target was developed for mimicking a hostile Ballistic Missile approaching from more than 2000 km away was launched from a ship anchored in the Bay of Bengal.In an automated operation, radar based detection and tracking system detected and tracked the enemy's ballistic missile.The computer network with the help of data received from radars predicted the trajectory of the incoming Ballistic Missile.PDV that was kept fully ready, took-off once the computer system gave the necessary command for lift-off. The Interceptor guided by high accuracy Inertial Navigation System (INS) supported by a Redundant Micro Navigation System moved towards the estimated point of the interception.Once the missile crossed the atmosphere, the Heat Shield ejected and the IR Seeker dome opened to look at the Target location as designated by the Mission Computer.With the help of Inertial Guidance and IR Seeker the missile moved for interception. All events were monitored in real-time by the Telemetry/Range Stations, at various other locations.Alright, need to test this out at my LGS standard tournament (eventually).
The idea behind this is using the Lotleth Troll as my main heavy hitter. I have cards such as Slitherhead, Slaughterhorn, and Ambush Viper to either discard to feed the troll, scavenge onto him, or Bloodrush to fill my graveyard. Jarad fits in there too, I can discard him to feed the troll, and I tried to keep most of my CMC cheap, so sacing lands wont be much a problem, and with Nighthowler and Jarad, Bloodrush can help, as it fills my graveyard to keep the two happy.
Corpsejack and Bioshift are there for good reasons. Corpsejack to double my counter play, and Bioshift to move counters if needed to save them, or pump a creature by double.
Sideboard is V 0.01 right now, I still need to see what I need to keep this going. Obviously Giant Growth if I want to get my creatures larger for cheap. Ranger's Guile to protect my big hitters from removal spells. Vraska can be a good removal for all kinds of cards, but sideboarded so my deck stays kind of cheap, and Hero's downfall can deal with Planeswalkers or immediate threats I need to neutralize. Deadly Recluse and Sedge Scorpions are there in case I need more deathtouch in my life (never can have too much, I think at least). Naturalize is obvious. And Experiment One is the odd man out, great card, but I don't know if it will fit well in this deck, since I may not be able to evolve it to 3 counters early game to make it worth it. Open to suggestions as always.Ahead of his show in Belgrade’s very own clubbing temple Drugstore club, Spanish techno “inquisitor”, multi-talent electronic artist and label boss Oscar Mulero talks about his recent work, Biolive project, Spanish techno and his own vision of the electronic music scene. Mulero is playing in Drugstore on November 28. alongside with prominent local techno artists Filip Xavi and Mirko Lazarevic. Spiced up with a special visual show by Kisobran VJ team, this is going to be one uncompromising night of intense, textured sound, unstoppable dance and pure techno exorcism.
This event is organized by a brand new group of promoters behind Power Source Music. Tickets available on Eventim spots in pre-sale for 890 rsd, at the door for 1000 rsd. Join the FB event, enjoy the interview and mentally prepare for the party!
Hello Oscar! This is your first time in Belgrade. Are you familiar with Belgrade/Serbian electronic music scene?
Hi! I don’t know that much, actually, I might know for some producers, but I don’t really know how is the scene over there.
But now you’re gonna find out! And the crowd at Drugstore club where you’ll be playing, is a very good crowd and I’m sure they’re gonna love your music. Surgeon is playing there two weeks before, so he’ll prepare them for you.
Oh, that’s perfect! That’s good news! And yes, it’s always exciting to go to some place for the first time, cause you kind of wonder how it’s gonna be and if people will like the music, things like that.
You were involved in shaping the Spanish techno scene from its very beginning, way back when Sonar festival was very small. How far has it developed from then til now?
I think it has developed a lot. All the people involved in the scene have been developing their thing working as music producers at clubs. And as you said, first Sonar started with only 500 people, and now it’s huge and well-known everywhere. I’d say it’s the most prolific scene we ever had. Many DJs and producers from Spain are being asked to do club residencies, or play different festivals around the world, so I think it’s the most prolific era – everything has grown so much. So, we are one of the latest countries to do our electronic music production.
Yes, but you managed to catch up and Spanish techno scene is very strong right now.
Yes, now it’s a very solid scene. The most important thing for this is about the production, the music we’ve been doing in the latest years – that’s something that really puts you on the map of the international scene. Of course, it’s important when you perform or play surrounded by people dancing and enjoying the night and trying to make them a good memory from that night. But the reason why I’m promoted at festivals and bookings is because people like my major records. I think it’s how it works more or less.
https://soundcloud.com/oscarmulero/preview-vertigo-ep-pattern-series-wups1
How do you see the genesis of techno since its beginnings and where do you see it in 15 years, in which musical direction?
For me, dance music is a very cyclic thing. We had this big minimal thing about five years ago, but that was something that was done already by people like Mike Ink, Chain Reaction and Basic Channel in the 90’s. For the kids now, this minimal thing can be new, but all the people who were buying records back in the ’95. and ’96. – they already listened to that. Obviously, with more primitive sound but same kind of composition. Pitch has few elements and slow tempo is a big thing… I don’t know how exactly techno is going to sound in 15 years, but for sure we get some different things from recycling. Maybe older styles like IDM, world music or music for listening can be altered more or can be changed in something completely new. But in techno or house music – there are specific elements that make techno sounds like techno music because we make it to be consumed in clubs. Everyone is saying „Oh, techno is really big now“. But techno was big in the ’90s also. All this Birmingham sound, all these things… now it’s like more minimal, but it was getting harder and faster, and now we’re back in minimal again. So… I don’t think it’s going to be completely new.
Tell us a few words about your new exciting project, the audiovisual show Biolive!
Biolive is a the nascent experimental techno project I’m doing with visual artist Fium. We had a festival debut at Mira festival in Barcelona, but we started last year and had three shows by far. We were taking part in the visual show program with all the great artists like Byetone, Luke Vibert… It’s completely out of the dance scene – we perform in theaters, warehouses and places like that. It’s not only about the music, it’s more like – music and visual go by hands. We are trying to focus in this way.
What are your expectations and plans regarding Biolive and are you turning to this kind of production in the future?
By now, Biolive is a smaller side project, but I already released some of this music. Some of the tracks we played are on Detroit Underground label. This year there is a whole set of new tracks of Biolive so the idea is to release them too and not just play live. This is something that I really like and how I mean to keep myself motivated into recording music. Also by doing this is how I try to base myself not like techno DJ, but more like an electronic musician. That’s what I aim for, for some years. I’m also going to release an album next year about this dualistic thing between the physical and the mental in music. It with include not only dance music but also IDM and other stuff and some of the tracks we are playing now with Biolive will be on it.
Speaking of new stuff, you released a Pattern Series EPs, and there are three more to come soon, right?
Yes, the next Pattern Series EP is coming very soon, and the idea behind the whole series is to show a texture in music and also to publish it with a very special artwork.
Where do you find inspiration for your recent music production?
I obviously have a big musical influence from the music that i listened to when I was a kid: pop, new wave, dance, electronic body music… But also everything that happens around me, in my city, in my country, in some way it really affects me. This things affect me when I sit in my studio to make music, and then for example it makes me play black keyboards instead of white for some reason. Everything happening around me and all of my troubling… all this things are really inspiring for me.
Please name a few of your favorite techno DJs and producer at the moment that we should put eyes on?
There is so many people on the scene that I really like right now! I am so happy because six years ago techno has become kind of boring, but now there are so many good names and good things. We have a very young talented producer on Pole Group, a 25-year-old Kwartz. There is another talented guy I really love Shxcxchcxsh, as well as Ctrls from Denmark… So many good music coming from everywhere.
Is there any place in the world that you would love to play at, but still didn’t have a chance?
I would really like to play Mutek festival with Biolive. I was just playing at Mexico few weeks ago and I was very sad that I was gonna miss it.
Can we expect a surprise appearance of your alter ego dr Smoke at Drugstore on November 28th?
Haha, I don’t think so. These days there are too many things happening – Biolive, my techno carriere, releasing music for Pole Group, and many other projects that I’m focused on.
What are your expectations for the party, now that you know Surgeon played just before you?
That can make things much easier for me, because Surgeon has been one of my biggest influences and I played his music for many times. So I hope that people will understand my music and really enjoy what I do!
One last question – name your latest “guilty pleasure” music.
Hahahaha! I listen to different kind of music beside techno, and I am not sure if it’s cheesy enough but really love the ‘80s band called Japan.
Thank you Oscar, and we can’t wait to hit the dance floor at Drugstore!The nightmare returns! We're proud to present another terrifying off-site outdoor double-feature of Friday the 13th Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood on Friday, October 13th! Because nothing this evil (or this fun) ever dies!
This highly immersive film-going experience puts you at the Rocky Woods, in Medfield, MA, watching two of the most iconic Camp Slasher films in cinema history! Expertly projected onto a giant screen set up right beside a pond eerily similar to the infamous Crystal Lake, you'll feel like Jason is lurking just behind the trees as you watch him draw his very first blood (Part 2), and return from his watery grave (Part VII).
The Coolidge After Midnite film series is proud to partner with the Trustees of Reservations for this one of a kind event! Camp sites are available! Register with the Trustees directly ([email protected]) for details!
Rocky Woods is one of over a hundred special places protected and managed by The Trustees. Come early to set up your camp site and enjoy miles of trails,views from the summit of Cedar Hill.
About the Films
Friday the 13th Part 2 - Just when you thought it was safe to go back to camp...here's even more heart pounding terror. Five years after the horrible bloodbath at Camp Crystal lake, all that remains is the legend of Jason Voorhees and his demented mother, who had murdered seven camp counselors. At a nearby summer camp, the new counselors are unconcerned about the warnings to stay away from the infamous site. Carefree, the young people roam the area, not sensing the ominous lurking presence. One by one, they are attacked and brutally slaughtered. Suspense and screams abound in this compelling chiller.
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood - Ever since homicidal maniac Jason Voorhees got trapped in chains at the bottom of Crystal Lake, the nearby summer camp has operated without a hitch... without a murder. But one of this season's happy campers has brought along a deadly secret.
About the Trustees
We are more than 100,000 people like you who love the outdoors, who love the distinctive charms of New England, and who believe in celebrating and protecting them, for everyone, forever. Together with our neighbors, we protect the distinct character of our communities and inspire a commitment to our special places. Our passion is to share with everyone the irreplaceable natural and cultural treasures we care for. We enjoy and care for more than 100 special places – nearly 25,000 acres – all around Massachusetts. And we are actively building an extended family of friends and neighbors across the state that can help in their different ways.
About Rocky Woods
With 6.5 miles of trails winding through varied terrain, Rocky Woods is a year-round destination for outdoors lovers of all abilities. The 0.75-mile loop around Chickering Pond, the largest of the reservation’s five man-made ponds, is a family favorite.
From I-95/Rt. 128 (Exit 16B): Rt. 109 West for 5.7 mi. Turn right onto Hartford St. and follow for 0.6 mi. to entrance and parking (100 cars) on left.
From Intersection of Rts. 27 and 109 (Medfield): Take Rt. 109 East and bear left onto Hartford St. Continue as above.
$5 parking fee (not included in ticket price).
Parking is always free for members of The Trustees. Become a Member Today!Engineered as a modern interpretation of the classic target pistol, the new SW22 Victory is a fully featured.22 LR pistol with a convertible design suitable for multiple sporting applications.
The standard model is fitted with a 5.5-inch match-grade barrel with a 1 in 15-inch, six groove, right hand twist. The SW22 Victory comes standard with a fiber optic front sight and an adjustable green fiber optic rear sight. The pistol is also standard with an alloy trigger with adjustable trigger stop. Fire controls on the pistol include a single-sided thumb safety, slide stop and magazine release.
The versatility of the SW22 Victory is further enhanced with an included lightweight Picatinny-style rail for easy mounting of optics or other accessories. Smith & Wesson has teamed up with several of the industry’s top holster, barrel and accessory manufacturers so that owners can personalize their SW22 Victory with high quality accessories that are immediately available from various providers.People often say that quantum physics is weird because it doesn’t seem rational. But of course, if you think about it, quantum physics is actually perfectly rational, if you understand the math. It’s people who typically seem irrational.
In fact, some psychologists have spent their careers making fun of people for irrational choices when presented with artificial situations amenable to statistical analysis. Making allowances for sometimes shaky methodology, there really are cases where people make choices that don’t seem to make much sense. One well-known example involved asking students whether they would buy a ticket for a Hawaii vacation in three different situations: They had passed a big test, they had failed the test, or they didn’t yet know whether they had passed or failed. More than half said they would buy the ticket if they had passed. Even more said they would buy the ticket if they failed. But 30 percent said they wouldn’t buy a ticket until they found out whether they had passed or failed.
It seems odd that people would decide to buy right away if they knew the outcome of the test, no matter what it was, but hesitated when the outcome was unknown. Such behavior violated a statistical maxim known as the “sure thing principle.” Basically, it says that if you prefer X if A is true, and you prefer X if A isn’t true, then you should prefer X whether A is true or not. So it shouldn’t matter whether you know if A is true. That seems logical, but it’s not always how people behave.
So are people just incapable of thinking logically? Maybe. But in recent years a number of investigators have developed the view that those supposedly irrational choices merely reflect the fact that people’s brains are guided by the mathematical principles of quantum physics.
These researchers are not saying that the brain is a quantum computer, exploiting actual quantum weirdness for thinking and reasoning. They’re just saying that the quantum mathematics describing physical processes operating in the natural world is the same as the math describing the cognitive processes operating in the brain.
“Twenty years ago, a group of physicists and psychologists introduced the bold idea of applying the abstract principles from quantum theory outside of physics to the field of human judgment and decision making,” Jerome Busemeyer of Indiana University and collaborators write in a recent paper on arXiv.org. “This new field, called quantum cognition, has proved to be able to account for puzzling behavioral phenomena that are found in studies of a variety of human judgments and decisions.”
Violation of the sure thing principle, for instance, can be explained using quantum math, as Jose Acacio de Barros of San Francisco State University and Gary Oas of Stanford show in another recent paper on arXiv.org. Whether to buy the ticket to Hawaii or not can be viewed as a double-slit quantum interference experiment, where an electron passes through a screen with two slits in it and lands on a detector surface. If one of the slits is closed (corresponding to pass or fail on the test), the electron behaves like a particle and lands at a precise spot on the screen. If the two slits are open (you don’t know the test outcome) the electron behaves like a wave, making it impossible to say which slit the electron actually passed through (corresponding to not knowing the test outcome). The electron wave interferes with itself, changing the probabilities of where it will land on the screen. A quantum mechanical analysis shows that those quantum probabilities violate the sure thing principle predictions, just as the psychology students did.
Various other supposedly irrational decision making practices and poor probability judgments have been analyzed using aspects of quantum math. “Quantum models of judgment and decision have made impressive progress organizing and accounting for a wide range of puzzling findings using a common set of principles,” Busemeyer and colleagues write.
Most recently, a quantum analysis was invoked to explain the puzzle of why public opinion polls get different results when the same questions are asked in a different order. Suppose, for instance, you ask whether Shoeless Joe Jackson should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And then you ask the same for Pete Rose. If you switch the order, asking about Rose first and then Jackson, you get different yes/no proportions. (Jackson gets more “yes” votes if you ask about him first.) Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as a “context effect.”
Quantum probabilities can explain this paradox, as Zheng Wang and Tyler Solloway of Ohio State University, collaborating with Busemeyer and Richard Shiffrin of Indiana, reported online June 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
To oversimplify, in quantum mechanics A x B does not necessarily equal B x A (because the math uses matrices, which do not commute). So doing an operation in a different order can produce a different result. But even more striking is another quantum requirement. Not only will switching order change the answers, but the number of people who change from answering “yes” to both questions to answering “no” both times must be offset by the number who switch from “no-no” to “yes-yes.” “Likewise, the number of people who switch from ‘yes–no’ to ‘no–yes’ must be offset by the number who switch in the opposite direction,” Wang and colleagues write.
Analyzing data from dozens of opinion polls shows that this equal offset requirement is actually met when question order is switched to test the context effect, the Ohio State and Indiana investigators found. Such a result is predicted by quantum math even though there is no obvious psychological reason for it.
“To our knowledge, no traditional psychology theories impose this precise kind of symmetry constraint on context effects,” Wang and collaborators write. Since quantum physics does demand this sort of constraint, maybe it’s time to apply subatomic math to subconscious reasoning. “Even if the brain’s neural processes operate by classical rules, quantum probability may provide a better description than classical probability for the way humans reason under uncertainty,” Wang’s group asserts.
It would no doubt to be wise to withhold judgment for a while on whether quantum math really holds the secrets to quantifying cognition. But it’s at least curiosity-worthy that so many examples of quantum-brain analogies seem to describe psychological phenomena. And in a way, these experiments support some of the insights articulated by Niels Bohr, one of quantum physics’s founding fathers, many decades ago.
In 1929, Bohr noted that quantum physics refuted the view that analyzing brain processes could “reveal a causal chain that formed a unique representation of the emotional mental experience.” But in quantum physics, Bohr emphasized, an observer inevitably interacted with whatever was being observed, so “any attempt to acquire a knowledge of such [mental] processes involves a fundamentally uncontrollable interference with their course.”
Bohr foresaw that grasping the similarities shared by quantum and mental processes could lead to a deeper understanding of human thought.
“Although, in the present case, we can be concerned only with more or less fitting analogies, yet we can hardly escape the conviction that in the facts which are revealed to us by the quantum theory … we have acquired a means of elucidating general philosophical problems.”
So it might still be wrong, but it’s not entirely crazy, to think that human thought is susceptible to quantum quantification. Quantum reality underlies the ordinary (or “classical”) reality that we perceive. That reality emerges from quantum systems operating in the context of environmental influences, ranging from specific experimental observations to air molecules bouncing off of other atoms.
In a similar way, as Wang and colleagues assert, human judgments “are often not simply read out from memory, but rather, they are constructed from the cognitive state for the question at hand.” Consequently drawing a conclusion about one question alters the context, disturbing the cognitive system just as a quantum measurement disturbs an electron. Such disturbances will influence the answer to the next question, so that “human judgments do not always obey the commutative rule of Boolean logic.”
“If we replace ‘human judgments’ with ‘physical measurements,’” Wang and colleagues write, “and replace ‘cognitive system’ with ‘physical system,’ then these are exactly the same reasons that led physicists to develop quantum theory in the first place.”
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ON AN ALL-NEW EPISODE OF ABC FAMILY’S “PRETTY LITTLE LIARS” (7/30)HANNA’S NEW COHORT IS HER OLD FOE ON AN ALL NEW EPISODE OF “PRETTY LITTLE LIARS,”AIRING TUESDAY, JULY 30th AT 8:00 PM ET/PT ON ABC FAMILYRumer Willis Guest StarsBurbank, CA (July 10, 2013) – Hanna decides Mona is her only hope to save her mom in “The Guilty Girl’s Handbook,” an all new episode of ABC Family’s hit original series “Pretty Little Liars,” airing Tuesday, July 30th (8:00 – 9:00 PM ET/PT).Hanna comes up with a desperate plan to save her mother from a conviction and turns to the only person she thinks can help – Mona. Caleb tries to convince her Mona can’t be trusted, causing Mona to prove her loyalty in the most unexpected way. And Spencer returns to an old haunt to investigate new evidence relating to Wilden and his surprising ties to another mysterious death.Meanwhile, “A’s” recent machinations take their toll on Emily and her mom, driving Emily to reconnect with her old boss Zoe (Rumer Willis) to look for an escape. And Aria relies on Jake (Ryan Guzman) to help her understand Mike’s new attitude, leaving them both confused about the nature of their relationship.“Pretty Little Liars” is produced by Alloy Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon Television and is executive-produced by I. Marlene King, Oliver Goldstick, Leslie Morgenstein and Joseph Dougherty. The series stars Troian Bellisario, Ashley Benson, Tyler Blackburn, Lucy Hale, Ian Harding, Laura Leighton, Shay Mitchell, Janel Parrish and Sasha Pieterse.While Rocks Off was seeking out the best rock star yearbook photos for this blog, we came to a conclusion:
was ugly in their yearbook photos, except Gwen Stefani and Beyonce Knowles. Everyone else looks weird as hell, or nothing like their current selves. Being humane, we won't post rapper Lil' Jon's yearbook pic. You can do that evil all by yourself. Jonathan Mortimer Smith is
Continue Reading
.
Yeeee-ahhh!
. Sure, we understand that those are the most awkward years of your life. Parents are dicks, girls and boys smell bad and act worse, and your teachers are either trying to sabotage your success or sleep with you. In Rocks Off's own 2001 senior-yearbook photo, we hadn't quite mastered the art of having two distinct eyebrows or growing a beard, so we have no qualms calling these folks out. It's fun to see all these badasses and sexpots when they were just that creepy kid who carved GWAR into the detention hall desks or the girl with the mousy smile that would one day wear a |
, on the show to, in essence, vouch that Joe was not one of the bad guys on race.
“I don’t want to give people watching vertigo,” Joe said. “Obviously, [Sharpton and I] agreed on Trayvon. We talked a lot about that. We disagreed on Ferguson…. We disagree, but even when we disagree, we do it respectfully. We agree more than we disagree.”
The Reverend agreed to that. And in turn, Joe declared that Sharpton, who’s been organizing around Ferguson and Garner, “does not go out looking for these people—it’s not like a trial lawyer. The families call him and ask him to come.”
To his credit, Joe is at least struggling with these issues. Much of the rest of the right wing is more kneejerk. As a TPM headline put it, “The Right Channels Its Outrage In Eric Garner Case Toward The ‘Nanny State.’ ” Garner, whom the cops were trying to arrest for selling single, untaxed cigarettes, or “loosies,” may or may not have been the victim of excessive police force, goes this argument, but he was definitely the victim of big government taxing us to death. “Whereas many conservatives said Wilson was simply doing his job, some on Wednesday said Pantaleo was enforcing a punitive big government policy,” TPM’s Tom Kludt wrote. “And while Brown was nothing more than a ‘thug,’ Garner was the victim of the dreaded nanny state.”
Fox News analyst and former judge Andrew Napolitano, Senator Rand Paul and radio talk show host Dana Loesch are among those using versions of this argument, with Loesch tweeting: “The results of big government, # NannyStateEnforcement, and @MikeBloomberg ’s excise tax—> #EricGarner. Appalling and obscene.”
As much as some conservatives also seem authentically appalled at the sight of Garner being killed while gasping eleven times that he couldn’t breathe, many appear to be chomping at the bit to somehow, anyhow, turn this against Obama and the Dems.
In addition to attacking the nannies, there’s the old blame-the-victim tactic, pushed most notably Representative Peter King (R-NY). He said of Garner on Fox yesterday, “If he had not been obese, if he had not had diabetes, if he had not asthma, this probably would not have happened.” He also cited Garner’s many previous arrests, for likewise small infringements of the law.
As in the Mike Brown case, the most important thing for the right is to inoculate the police (and thus themselves) from charges of racism. Yesterday, Fox’s Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum had Kevin Jackson, the black author of Race Pimping: The Multi-Trillion Dollar Business of Liberalism, on their morning show, where he said of Garner’s death, “to make this racial is patently ridiculous.” The real profiling problem in the black community, he added, was the “profiling of police. Has anyone talked about that level of profiling?”
By last night, Megyn Kelly was all over her black guests to prove—with hard evidence—that Garner’s death had anything whatsoever to with race.
And if any of those arguments fail to convince the public that race matters, there’s still the distraction method: if you talk enough about blacks killing blacks you can magically make the issue of cops killing blacks disappear. Many are reacting with that default canard to President Obama’s and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s calls for more police training. Sure, fine, train the police, Rudy Giuliani told Fox & Friends, “but you should spend 90 percent of your time talking about the way they’re actually probably going to get killed, which is by another black. To avoid that fact, I think is racist.”
And so it goes.OAKLAND — The question of what should be done with a prime parcel of land destined for housing near Lake Merritt returned to City Hall Monday with a familiar debate: How many units will be available to the city’s poorer residents?
Three development groups on Monday offered different visions for the land, ranging from proposals for two high-rise buildings with a mix of market-rate and affordable units, to a lower-scale building filled with all affordable housing.
Dozens of speakers at the city’s Community and Economic Development Committee meeting, including longtime residents and labor leaders, spoke in favor of building affordable units amid a housing crisis they say is driving Oakland residents from their neighborhoods.
“It’s the one (project) that does the most to provide badly needed affordable housing for Oakland residents,” said David Zisser, a staff attorney with Public Advocates.
Monday’s meeting was the first public hearing on the property since the city’s about-face in July on its $5.1 million deal with UrbanCore to develop the land with market-rate housing. The City Council scrapped the plan after an internal memo by City Attorney Barbara Parker was leaked and published.
The confidential legal opinion, which was given to council members in a closed-session meeting in February 2015, said the city was violating a state law on publicly owned surplus land by not first offering it to affordable housing developers, a point argued by people protesting the deal with UrbanCore.
The one-acre parcel at E. 12th Street and Second Avenue is about a block from Lake Merritt, and offers potential views of the lake and downtown.
After the deal with UrbanCore was dropped, several groups submitted proposals, including one by the Oakland Unified School District to produce affordable housing for teachers. The school district failed to submit detailed plans or identify a possible developer and was not selected for the final round, according to the city.
A city committee assigned to study the proposals supported maximizing the land by squeezing as many occupants onto the space as possible. The committee also asked that at least 25 percent of the housing be affordable, a requirement satisfied by all three finalists.
Of the three, city staff recommend UrbanCore’s revised proposal, which officials say could be built quicker than other projects and offers the dense housing plan officials want for the site. The developer, which is partnering with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation on the project, is also offering the most money, $4.7 million, to the city to build a 26-story high-rise and eight-story mid-rise building with 108 of 360 units — 30 percent — set aside as affordable housing. BART Director Robert Raburn said the developer has a good record of developments near transit areas and gave his support to their proposal, as did a dozen or so other speakers.
Bridge Housing Corporation and AGI Avant propose a similar but denser project, with 364 units — 29 percent affordable — in a 27-story high-rise and six- and 10-story mid-rise buildings. The team is offering $4 million to the city.
Many affordable housing advocates who rallied outside City Hall before the meeting supported Satellite Affordable Housing Associates, which proposes a seven-story building of 132 units of affordable housing plus a unit for a building manager, and offered $1 million to the city. The advocates called it the “people’s proposal.”
“If Oakland City Council truly cares about racial and economic equity and the displacement of black, Latino, Asian and other working families, they will prioritize a people’s proposal for E. 12th Street,” Ayohenia Chaney, of the E. 12th Street Coalition, said in a statement.
The city committee on Monday was not scheduled to vote on the project but rather hear from the applicants and public speakers. About 100 people had signed up to comment, according to Councilman Larry Reid who is chairman of the city committee. Committee members had not added their comments as of press time.
David DeBolt covers Oakland. Contact him at 510-208-6453. Follow him at Twitter.com/daviddebolt.External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is expected to undergo a kidney transplant at AIIMS on Saturday, with the organ being harvested from a living unrelated donor.
"Living unrelated donor could be anyone who is emotionally attached to the recipient, such as friend, a relative, a neighbour or an in-law. As no suitable donor was available in the immediate family, the transplant will be done with the kidney from a living unrelated donor. As of now the transplant is scheduled to take place this weekend. The clearance from the authorisation committee has been obtained," PTI sources at AIIMS had said on Tuesday, adding that Swaraj's pre-transplant process was complete.
The surgery will be performed by a team of experts constituted by AIIMS.
According to doctors, Swaraj been suffering from diabetes for quite a long time. After the kidney failure diagnosis, she was put on maintenance dialysis. "She undergoes dialysis thrice a week," a senior doctor said.
On November 16, Swaraj had tweeted that she was in AIIMS because of kidney failure. "I am in AIIMS because of kidney failure. Presently, I am on dialysis. I am undergoing tests for a kidney transplant. Lord Krishna will bless," Swaraj had tweeted.
64-year-old Swaraj, who has been in and out of the hospital for last few months, was admitted to AIIMS on November 7. After Swaraj made public her health condition on social media, support had poured in for her with several people offering their kidneys for transplant.
Earlier she was admitted to AIIMS in April for treatment of pneumonia and other health issues.There’s a new Digg design and everyone wants to give their opinion about it. Some users like it, some hate it, but for me, I am more interested in what we can learn from the their new user interface.
Order of Global & Local Pages
There are two major design flaws I spotted in their navigation. The first one is with the order of their tabs. They chose to put “My News” before “Top News”, which is completely backwards. “Top News” is a global page that all users have access to whether they log in or not. It is also the default start page, which is why it should go first. “My News” is a local page that is accessible only if you are a registered user and logged in. Thus, it’s not relevant to users until they log in, which is why it should come after “Top News”. Putting the “My News” tab first makes users feel like they aren’t on the home page when they first enter. Instead, it feels like they entered the URL wrong, especially when the URL address defaults to “digg.com/news” instead of “digg.com”.
A best practice to follow is to put global menu items before local menu items in navigations. Global items are used more often than local items, since local items are only relevant to a limited number of users at a given time. By putting global menu items first, you’ll follow an order that feels more natural to users.
Separating Non-Related Buttons
The second design flaw with Digg’s navigation are the scope buttons that filter stories. When I initially looked at it, I didn’t realize “Top in 24 hours”, “7 Days” and “30 Days” were all related, and that they filtered the stories by popularity. Since they all dealt with time and were grouped with the same visual weight it led me to believe that they filtered stories by the time they get published. However, “Most Recent” is the only one that solely filters stories by time and not popularity. What would make this more clear is if the “Top in 24 hours”, “7 Days” and “30 Days” buttons were grouped together with a line that separated “Most Recent”.
Another best practice to follow is to group together items that function similarly and to separate items that function differently. This makes it clear to users how closely related items are when they are next to each other, so that they don’t misinterpret them.
Digg is still fixing bugs and making changes to their site. Who knows if they will fix these issues. Regardless of what happens to their site, these are valuable lessons on navigation design that we all can learn.
Books
ToolkitsThe final death toll in October's massive truck bombing in Somalia's capital is 512 people, according to the committee tasked with looking into the country's worst-ever attack.
The final toll is a dramatic increase from previous estimates of more than 350 killed. The committee's report, obtained by The Associated Press, says another 312 people were wounded in the Mogadishu bombing and 62 people remain missing.
Somalia's government has blamed the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group for the Oct. 14 attack, which struck a crowded street. Security officials said the bomb weighed between 600 kilograms and 800 kilograms (1,300 pounds and 1,700 pounds) as the extremist group's bomb-making capabilities grow.
The attack appalled Somalis, with some calling it their "9/11." Thousands later marched in defiance against the extremist group, while the president announced a new military offensive.
Al-Shabab often attacks high-profile areas in Mogadishu. Somali intelligence officials have said the massive truck bomb was meant to target the heavily guarded airport, where several countries have embassies, but instead detonated in the crowded street after soldiers opened fire and flattened one of the truck's tires.
The Islamic extremist group, the deadliest in Africa, has been targeted this year by nearly 30 U.S. military drone strikes after the Trump administration approved expanded operations against it and declared the southern part of the Horn of Africa nation a zone of active hostilities. The U.S. now has more than 500 military personnel in Somalia.A faculty member at California State University, Fullerton has been suspended after striking a College Republicans member during a campus protest earlier this month.
The altercation occurred Feb. 8 as pro-Palestine students and counter-protesters marched peacefully through campus. Anthropology part-time lecturer Eric Canin reportedly approached the group of counter-protesters — many of them being CSUF College Republicans members — and tried to rip a sign out of a student’s hand. Mr. Canin was accused of then striking another student who tried to step between them. The group’s president, Chris Boyle, said he witnessed the hit and proceeded to restrain Mr. Canin until police arrived.
The university said in a statement that its internal investigation concluded that a faculty member did indeed strike a student and violate his free speech rights.
“The University has completed its internal investigation regarding a February 8 rally held on campus during which a lecturer was alleged to be in an altercation with a student protester from the College Republicans,” CSUF Chief Communications Officer Jeffrey D. Cook told Campus Reform.
“The investigation substantiated the charges that a physical altercation occurred, that a campus employee struck a student, and that as a consequence the speech of the student group was stopped,” he said. “The prospect of an incident like this on our campus is profoundly troubling.”
After the altercation, Mr. Canin told The Daily Titan student newspaper that he “did not touch anyone” and that the College Republicans “making fun of him” sparked the scuffle. He confirmed his suspension last week.
“I am suspended and may not talk to students or employees of the university,” he told The Daily Titan in a text message.
The CSUF College Republicans have filed battery charges against Mr. Canin. The district attorney will decide whether to charge him with a misdemeanor, but that process could take weeks because the case is not likely to be considered a priority, University Police Capt. Scot Willey told The Daily Titan.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.A toddler in Massachusetts survived a two-story fall from a building on Wednesday thanks to his stuffed animal, police said.
The boy, 2, of Chelsea, was jumping on his bed just before 5 p.m. when a hop sent him out his home window, according to The Boston Globe.
Luckily, the boy was holding a large stuffed cow during the fall. He landed on the toy, which provided a cushion between him and the concrete sidewalk.
"He fell about 16 feet onto concrete. He could easily have broken bones or been very seriously injured,” Chelsea Deputy Fire Chief John Quatieri told the newspaper.
The stuffed cow was between 2 and 2 1/2-feet long.
Chelsea Police Chief Brian Kyes wrote on Twitter the boy was conscious and alert at the scene and suffered minor injuries. Kyes also tweeted a photo of the cow, which appeared to only have some brown dirt spots on it.Henry Kissinger pointed out in Tokyo several days ago that if the five participating states in the six-party talks - the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - fail to cope with North Korea’s unreasonable provocation, there will be no room to discuss the task of building a new world order from the beginning.If the U.S., Japan and China, which are the world’s first, second and third-largest economies, are at a loss about how to deal with North Korea’s waywardness, it will prove that we are in a no-man’s land of diplomacy. Against this backdrop, above all, finding a diplomatic solution to the long-running North Korea problem is a significant prerequisite to providing a firm foundation to create the new world order. The biggest task facing Korean diplomacy is to make this historic experiment a top priority for the international community, especially the U.S. and China.Every nation feels anxious in the midst of this transition period, which heralds a complete overhaul of the balance of power and the political and economic landscape in the international community.Amid such an atmosphere, we understand North Korea’s desperation to find a means of survival and escape has caused it to go on the offensive, seized with fear that it would surely lose a conventional contest.However, Korea is no longer a country of the 19th or 20th century. Korea is fully armed with power and willingness to open a new chapter in the peaceful future of the Korean people by overcoming this complicated diplomatic battle, in which the interests of major powers are intertwined. Therefore, our reunification diplomacy aims to help North Korea, which has become increasingly isolated from the world economy, and make a concerted effort to help build an Asian community.The crisis caused and exacerbated by the North has caught the world’s attention, but because of that it may serve as a new opportunity to drive reunification diplomacy forward. This moment, when the nations participating in the six-party talks are busy reconciling their own interests, could be a great opportunity for us.The Obama administration came into office proclaiming that it would accept the pluralism of global political forces and take the lead in creating a new world order by forging close ties through dialogue, rather than resorting to military means. However, it has not confirmed any concrete strategies to deal with the problems facing the Korean Peninsula or Asia.It is still quite unlikely that the U.S. will accept with good grace the North’s attempt to drag it into bilateral negotiations through force. The U.S. is in a position to explore possible solutions through the six-party talks, especially by cooperating with China, as it is reluctant to hold itself liable for North Korea’s future.Japan cannot help feeling on edge, worried that its self-image as a “peaceful nation” might be a mere illusion whenever a North Korean missile flies across its skies. However, what hurts Japan’s pride and confidence most is the nightmare of taking a backseat to a rising China in a bipolar world system with the United States. Therefore, Japan is busy driving ahead with trilateral talks with the U.S. and China, and has no capacity to present solutions to the North Korean issue at this time.Russia, which seems to feel pushed to the periphery of the Asian region, does not always seem to dislike North Korea’s role as a spoiler, weighing on the U.S., China and Japan. However, if the strategic dialogue between the U.S. and Russia proposed by Obama is put on track, Russia’s geopolitical stance on the Korean Peninsula will be gradually fixed.China holds the key to the success of multilateral diplomacy. China is rising to the rank of a world superpower in various fields, politically, economically and militarily. As it realizes its dream of recapturing its glorious past, China’s accumulating power becomes more apparent amid the global economic downturn.How China will use its new predominance and responsibility, especially in its self-proclaimed role as Asia’s standard-bearer, is a matter of keen interest. Whether China will play a leadership role in peacefully resolving the North Korean problem, although it has consistently attempted to dominate international forums about the situation, will serve to test China’s new presence.In this regard, the urgent task facing those who favor reunification diplomacy is to bring the participants of the six-party talks to a consensus on how to share the risks and burdens accompanied by China’s choice.The two Koreas have different perceptions of the same situation. The North may think its radical behavior will bring diplomatic victory, while we believe that we have an opportunity to open a new chapter of reunification diplomacy.The forces that drive history forward are mysterious indeed. It is high time we sharpened our vision and implemented strategies for a new kind of reunification diplomacy.*The writer, a former prime minister, is an adviser to the JoongAng Ilbo. Translation by the JoongAng Daily staff.by Lee Hong-kooPHILADELPHIA - Paul Pierce is reminiscing about his first playoff game in 2002, a best-of-five series against Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia 76ers.
Pierce dropped 31 points on the Sixers on 25 shots in a Game 1 victory for the Boston Celtics.
"Remember when I used to take 25 shots?" he said with a hearty laugh.
That is no longer his role. Pierce is 37 years old, averages a career-low 26.4 minutes a night for the Washington Wizards and provides seasoned wisdom to the electric backcourt of John Wall and Bradley Beal.
"I tell them, 'Learn from all the stuff I did (wrong) when I was young,''' Pierce said.
Before that 2002 playoff game against the Sixers, Pierce didn't pore over film or engage in any carefully selected stretching routines. Instead, he wandered over to Burger King and ordered a Whopper and a large Coke.
"I can't remember last time I had a soda,'' Pierce said. "It tastes like acid to me now.''
In a sitdown with ESPN.com, Pierce mused about the changes he's made to improve his longevity, his disastrous season in Brooklyn, his championship year in Boston and the playoff chances of a young Wizards team that he believes "has all the tools to get to the Eastern Conference finals.''
Pierce reports he is 225 pounds, the first time in his career that he's been under 230 for a playoff run.
He eschews fast food, follows a strict weight training regimen during the season, drinks mostly water ("and an occasional red wine,'' he adds wryly) and stretches for nearly an hour before every game. Despite his reduced role (his 12.2 points and 4.0 rebounds a game are also a career low), Pierce said he loves playing basketball for Washington.
Despite a star-studded lineup, the Nets failed to live up to expectations, losing in the second round. Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
"I'm much happier,'' he said. "It was a tough situation (in Brooklyn) last year. Horrible, really.
"It was just the guys' attitudes there. It wasn't like we were surrounded by a bunch of young guys. They were vets who didn't want to play and didn't want to practice. I was looking around saying, 'What's this?' Kevin (Garnett) and I had to pick them up every day in practice.
"If me and Kevin weren't there, that team would have folded up. That team would have packed it in. We kept them going each and every day.''
The player that puzzled him the most, said Pierce, was point guard Deron Williams.
"Before I got there, I looked at Deron as an MVP candidate,'' Pierce said. "But I felt once we got there, that's not what he wanted to be. He just didn't want that.
"I think a lot of the pressure got to him sometimes. This was his first time in the national spotlight. The media in Utah is not the same as the media in New York, so that can wear on some people. I think it really affected him.''
Pierce said veteran Joe Johnson was an affable professional but also a reluctant leader.
"Joe is quiet,'' Pierce noted. "He doesn't want much attention. He doesn't say much.
"There's a lot of secondary guys on that team. KG and I went there looking at them as the main guys who would push us, because we were advancing in years. But we ended up doing all the pushing.''
Brooklyn gave up its 2014 pick (which the Celtics used to draft James Young) and unprotected picks in 2016 and 2018 to acquire Pierce, Garnett and Jason Terry. They believed they were poised to be championship contenders, but posted an underwhelming 44-38 record and were bounced by the Miami Heat in the second round of the playoffs.
When the season ended, they declined to sign Pierce to a new deal and let him walk as a free agent.
" Before I got there, I looked at Deron as an MVP candidate. But I felt once we got there, that's not what he wanted to be. He just didn't want that. I think a lot of the pressure got to him sometimes. The media in Utah is not the same as the media in New York." Paul Pierce
"I would have stayed in Brooklyn because of Kevin,'' Pierce said. "I told him, 'I don't really like this situation but I would never leave you if you want me to stay.' But they decided not to re-sign me so I never had to make a choice. I would never have left Kevin like that.''
Garnett was traded in February to Minnesota, where he will eventually assume a front-office role as a part-owner.
"He's happy,'' Pierce said. "I'm glad he waived his no-trade clause. I told him, 'They don't appreciate you in Brooklyn, man.' They didn't even use him right.
"He's where he's supposed to be. He IS Minnesota. He never sold his house there.''
Pierce said he still talks to Garnett every week and credits him for introducing him to the benefits of a hyperbaric chamber, which Pierce sleeps in for 2-3 hours before every home game to boost recovery and healing.
Garnett introduced him to the treatment in 2009 shortly after they won an NBA championship together. Pierce said he has found lying in the chamber, which enables him to breath oxygen in an atmospheric pressure raised up to three times more than normal, has helped him improve his circulation, reduce inflammation, increase his stamina and expedite the healing process.
According to the website Carolina Hyperbarics, oxygen normally is transported through the body only by red blood cells. But the hyperbaric chamber, according to the website, converts the oxygen to "a solution that is carried in all of the body's fluids, including plasma, central nervous system, lymph and bone.''
Pierce is so sold on the chamber's benefits he's been encouraging Wall to try it and has urged the Wizards medical staff to purchase one for the team. Although he doesn't travel with the chamber during the regular season, he plans to pack up the foldable bed and the two metal engines and transport them with him during the playoffs.
"It's great for recovery,'' Pierce said. "It's definitely helped me. It's the size of a little coffin. You just get in it, zip it up and you're good.
"The first time I tried it felt like I was suffocating, like there was no air. But now I'm so used to it I'm asleep in a matter of minutes.''
Today's players will enjoy longer careers, Pierce believes, because teams are so tuned into nutrition, conditioning and body maintenance. He said his talks with the younger guys mostly center on social media and "the things I did before Twitter and Instagram.''
Boston's Big Three: Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. Fernando Medina/NBAE/Getty Images
"I talk to them a lot about mental preparation and consistency,'' Pierce said. "I keep telling Wall and Beal, 'You've got to make up your mind. Do you want to be good, or do you want to be great? Because if you want to be great, you gotta do it every single night, not just when you feel like it.'
"Both of those guys have the potential to be great. I love them. But sometimes I'm not sure they realize what it takes.
"That was (Rajon) Rondo's problem, too. Some days he did, some days he didn't. I think it's more this generation. A lot of these players have been catered to since the sixth grade. The NBA is changing so much. It's not like when I came up, with that old-school mentality that practice really mattered. You've got these 24, 25 year old guys who sit out of practice now to rest. It's hard for me to understand, but I'm trying.''
Pierce was sidelined for three games with an injured toe, but the true cause, he said, was to rest a sprained right knee he has been slogging through for a month. In his previous six games before he finally took a seat, Pierce was shooting just 25.6 percent from the field and averaging single digits.
The Wizards plugged in former No. 3 pick Otto Porter Jr. in Pierce's place and he responded by averaging 13.6 points and nearly seven rebounds a game over past four outings.
"Otto is another one who just doesn't understand how good he is,'' Pierce said. "He can shoot, he's a slasher, he can defend, I'm just not sure how badly he wants it every day.
"That kid just needs to get mad. If he came to practice ticked off and to the games ticked off, he'd be fine. But it's hard to get Otto mad. I should punch him one day just to get him riled up.''
The Wizards will likely draw a first-round series with either Chicago, whom they split games with this season, or Toronto, which has won all three games they've played.
"We haven't done particularly well against Toronto, but I don't feel they have the 'It' that makes you worried,'' Pierce said. "There isn't a team I look at in the Eastern Conference that makes me say, 'They are intimidating, we don't have a chance.'
"As good as Atlanta is, they just don't give off that aura where we're afraid of them.
"You definitely have to worry about Cleveland because they have LeBron and some vets now, but if we get to the conference finals, anything can happen.''
" It was a weird relationship. We were all good friends on the court, but Ray always did his own thing. That's just the way Ray was. Even when we were playing together, we'd be having a team dinner and Ray wouldn't show up. We'd go to his charity events but Ray wouldn't show up to somebody else's." Paul Pierce
Some of his young teammates can recount his battles with LeBron, both in Miami and Cleveland, nearly verbatim. They bring up Christmas Day performances that Pierce had long forgotten. The camaraderie, he said, is refreshing.
Pierce still engages in group texts with former Celtics teammates (and coach) Doc Rivers, Garnett, Kendrick Perkins and Big Baby Davis, but hasn't talked to Ray Allen since he bolted from Boston to Miami in the summer of 2012.
Though much has been made of it, Pierce said, people don't understand he wasn't all that close to Allen to begin with.
"It was a weird relationship,'' Pierce conceded. "We were all good friends on the court, but Ray always did his own thing. That's just the way Ray was. Even when we were playing together, we'd be having a team dinner and Ray wouldn't show up. We'd go to his charity events but Ray wouldn't show up to somebody else's.
"I called him on it. I said, 'Man, Ray, we support all your stuff but when we ask you, you don't come to ours.' I remember when Rondo re-signed with Boston, we had a little dinner at a restaurant and Ray didn't show up.
"I know Ray probably didn't like Rondo that much, but it wasn't a fact of not liking somebody. You don't have to like everybody you play with -- it's a matter of showing support.
"Rondo probably didn't like Ray either, but he came to Ray's functions to show, 'Hey, we're together in this.'
"It's not a bad thing with Ray. We had a great relationship on the court. But even the year we won it, after a game we'd say, 'Let's go have something to eat and have a night with the older guys.' We'd get there and it would be me, Kevin and Sam (Cassell), but no Ray. In a lot of ways, me, Sam and Kevin were our Big Three.
"It just got to the point where it was, 'That's Ray.' No hard feelings. Everyone made such a big deal of us not talking after we left, but there really wasn't much there.''
Pierce was riding the bus with Kevin Seraphin last Tuesday when Seraphin informed him he was 9 years old when Pierce was drafted.
Like most veterans, Pierce has his fair share of regrets. He wishes he paid closer attention to his body in his younger years, and wishes he was paired with KG sooner "so we could have made a longer run together.'' He wishes he was younger when his rivalry with LeBron James commenced.
Pierce is firm: Next season will be his last.
"I've had my time,'' he said.
That doesn't mean one of the NBA's most prolific trash talkers is done stirring the pot.
"I always say I wish I was in my prime matching up against LeBron,'' said Pierce, grinning. "Let's see how many championships he would have won then.''We’ve known for a while that The Sims 4 will have no Create a Style in the game. While some people were not too bothered, a lot of The Sims community were shocked and upset about the decision to remove Create a Style that was used so much in The Sims 3.
Modders have been hard at work and Zerbu has created a Sims 4 Create a Style Mod that can be used in The Sims 4 Create a Sim demo and will likely be updated for use when the full version of The Sims 4 comes out. This post will be maintained and updated when there is any new releases or information.
Please use the download link above to be directed to Zerbu’s page, where he has placed the direct download link (he deserves the credit) and read below for information on The Sims 4 Create a Style Mod.The Communist Manifesto opens with the lines, "A spectre is haunting Europe." Over 160 years later it appears that the spectre of Marxism is as potent as ever, with supporters and detractors increasing daily. Why is it that an old German philosophy student, buried over 100 years ago in Highgate cemetery in London, excites such controversy?
If one searches the newspapers, the utterances of leading statesmen, jurists, businessmen, and academics, even His Holiness the Pope, you will hear that Marxism is old, dead, irrelevant, and wrong. This, of course, begs the question, why spend so much time, energy, and money refuting something that is dead? The Pope, of all people, should know that the Bible says, "Let the dead bury the dead." Businessmen are a great many things, but spendthrift is not one of them. The only conclusion one reaches as to why the wealthy and powerful exhaust so much money and time combating a so-called "dead" idea is that it is not dead at all; that in fact, Marxism reveals the truth about their system, capitalism, and they must do whatever is necessary to hide this fact from the mass of the people — especially the workers and youth.
"Marxism is old"
It has been said that Marxism is an old idea and we need something new. There are a number of different fallacies with this critique. There are a great many old ideas that are equally valid today as when they were developed. Should we throw away all of Greek philosophy because it is too old? Is there nothing to learn from the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the British Empire, Nazi Germany, etc? What is too "old"? Is it 100 years ago? 50 years? 10 years? Last month? Or yesterday? Taken to its logical conclusion, this critique destroys all knowledge and experience. Additionally, this argument on behalf of capitalism is hypocritical. If Marxism is old, then capitalism is even older. Adam Smith, who developed the classical political economy of capitalism, wrote a full century before Marx! Smith is still taught in universities and provides the basis for economics curricula.
Pick up a copy of the Communist Manifesto. Then go to the library and search for any other book written in the 19th century. Unless you select Darwin's Origin of the Species then it is almost certain that your book will only contain a historical relevance and tell us relatively little about today's society. Conversely, with this or that exception, there is no more modern book than Marx and Engels' Manifesto. It explains the division of society into classes, it explains the phenomenon of globalization, global crises of overproduction, the state, it even explains the exploitation and oppression of women.
"But Marx talks about the working class — the working class no longer exists like it did in the 19th century!" This statement is absolutely true, but at the same time it is not a critique of Marxism. Those who discount the "old" are frequently blissfully ignorant of how things actually were in the past. If we are to believe the tales, the industrial armies awoke each morning ready to receive the gospel of St. Karl, not like today where we have iPads and social media to distract ourselves. If only this fantasy were true. In Marx and Engels' day, the overwhelming majority of humanity were peasants, not wage workers. Only in Britain did the working class make up the majority of society. In the 1871 Paris Commune, the only workers’ revolution Marx was alive to see, the average workshop was made up of just eight workers. This is less than half the number of “associates” at a chain fast-food outlet or coffee shop, who are supposedly “atomized” and impervious to class-consciousness. And yet, the workers of Paris "stormed Heaven," in the words of Marx.
The critics say that was all well and good for Paris in 1871, but things are different now. Again, it is never specified what is different and why it would make any fundamental impact. It is like the people who went through these events were not humans at all, but some alien species. This sort of accusation doesn’t just apply to people from a different time; it’s also used to justify why we can’t learn from movements and events from other places. There is an essentially racist idea that movements in other countries, such as the Arab revolution, have nothing to teach us because we aren't like those people. A powerful Marxist quote that refutes this is "social conditions determine social consciousness |
information into account, we believe that consumers also have a right to know if this activity is going on.”Da Afghanistan Bank (Pashto:د افغانستان بانک; Dari: بانک مرکزی افغانستان ) is the central bank of Afghanistan. It regulates all banking and money handling operations in Afghanistan. The bank currently has 47 branches throughout the country, with five of these situated in Kabul, where the headquarters is also based.[1] Khalil Sediq is its current governor, since 13 July 2015.
Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) is a wholly government-owned bank of Afghanistan which was established in 1939.
DAB is active in developing policies to promote financial inclusion and a member of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.[2]
Bank's Seal [ edit ]
The seal of Da Afghanistan Bank has the name of the bank in Pashto at the top and Latin script at the bottom, the year 1939 in which it was established and an Eucratides I-era coin having the Greek text, "ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΕΥΚΡΑΤΙΔΟΥ" which means “Of the great king Eucratides.”
Mission [ edit ]
Basic Tasks of DAB are:
Formulate, adopt and execute the monetary policy of Afghanistan.
Hold and manage the official foreign exchange reserves of Afghanistan.
Print and issue Afghani banknotes and coins.
Act as banker and adviser to, and as fiscal agent of the State.
License, regulate and supervise banks, foreign exchange dealers, money service providers, payment system operators, securities service providers, securities transfer system operators.
Establish, maintain and promote sound and efficient systems for payments, for transfers of securities issued by the State or DAB, and for the clearing and settlement of payment transactions and transactions in such securities.
Accept foreign bank applications from banks that wish to operate in Afghanistan.
Board of directors [ edit ]
The board of directors at DAB consists of:[3]
Khalil Sediq – The Governor and Chairman of the Executive Board, Supervisory Board and Board of Directors
Wahidullah Nosher– The First Deputy Governor and Vice Chairman of the Executive Board, Supervisory Board and Board of Directors
Dr. Abdul Ghani Ghawasi
Narges Nehan
Dr. Shah Mohammad Mehrabi
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]September 5, 2014 at 10:04 PM
A woman on a King County Metro Transit bus was grazed by gunfire Friday night when someone in a car began shooting at the bus.
About 9:30 p.m., there was a disturbance at the bus stop at Aurora Avenue North and North 65th Street. When the southbound bus arrived, two men involved got on.
Shortly after, someone started firing at the bus, trying to hit the two men, police Capt. Neil Low said. Instead, a woman on the bus was grazed on the head. Authorities had earlier reported the victim was a man.
The driver stopped at North 60th Street. The shooter remains at large, as does one of the men on the bus, who fled after the shooting.
Seattle police and King County sheriff’s deputies are investigating.Donald Trump is said to have 'loved' Anthony Scaramucci's expletive-filled rant about his White House colleagues.
The president's view of his director of communications calling his chief of a staff 'a f***ing paranoid schizophrenic' and accusing his chief strategist of 'trying to suck his own c**k' was according to Axios, which called the Mooch 'empowered'.
But whether it was helpful to his long-term prospects at 1600 Penn remains to be seen.
Loyalists of the president are casting Scaramucci's unbelievable conversation with a reporter as a bump in the road for the newest Trump aide.
Both he and Reince Priebus, the chief of staff, were on Air Force One on Friday - although on the ground they kept their distance and Scaramucci refused to comment on the tiff to reporters.
He did not return with the president Friday from Long Island, dropping off after Trump's speech in New York.
SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO
If looks...: Anthony Scaramucci's expletive-filled rant about his White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was certainly not helpful to his long-term prospects at 1600 Penn, but the friend of the president isn't getting the boot quite yet
Not close: The Mooch (left) was on the tarmac with Reince Priebus after Air Force One landed at Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York - but they were hardly bosom buddies
At least they're talking: Anthony Scaramucci was seen exchanging words with Stephen Miller, the president's speech writer who had previously been see as close to Bannon
Plenty of baggage" The Mooch, a native of Long Island, had packed extensively for the trip to home turf on Air Force One. The president was speaking to law enforcement about MS-13, the violent gang
Scaramucci arrives to travel with U.S. President Donald Trump to Ronkonkoma, New York from Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, today during a storm
Loyalists of the president are casting Scaramucci's unbelievable conversation with a reporter as a bump in the road for the newest Trump aide, who has obviously not been fired
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was also seen boarding Air Force One this afternoon
The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza published an article quoting Scaramucci in excruciating detail after White House official called him and did not say the conversation was off the record
Scaramucci threatened to 'f***ing kill all the leakers' in the White House and report them to the 'F.B.I. and the f***ing Department of Justice' in a call with a reporter on Wednesday evening.
The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza published an article quoting Scaramucci in excruciating detail after White House official made claims Lizza knew to be untrue yesterday morning on New Day.'
Scaramucci apologized on Twitter on Thursday evening for his 'colorful' comments and ripped Lizza for his piece on the phone call, even though the call was not categorized as off the record.
'I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter. It won't happen again,' he tweeted.
Reporters repeatedly asked him to address his comments on Air Force One on Friday, but he declined.
'Better not to comment,' he said as he boarded the president's plane. 'Come on, that was not fair. You know that was not fair,' he told journalists on his way out of the aircraft.
The episode with Lizza, while embarrassing for Scaramucci, the White House, and ultimately, the president, did not immediately result in the Trump aide's dismissal.
One White House official told Politico that Scaramucci was unlikely to be sacked over this particular incident.
'He didn't say anything negative about Trump,' this source said.
Another person suggested to DailyMail.com that Scaramucci's fight with Priebus was preferable to the media's continuous coverage of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.
The blood sport between the former hedge funder and the ex-Republican National Committee head overtook conversation on Thursday evening about the GOP's failed bids to repeal Obamacare, as well.
Scaramucci derided White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus 'a f***ing paranoid schizophrenic' and claimed that chief strategist Steve Bannon he's not trying to'suck my own c**k'
A spectacular failure of GOP leadership in both the White House and the US Capitol, the the subject was pushed aside as White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on Fox News on Thursday night.
Huckabee Sanders actually attempted to invoke the upcoming vote on the'skinny' repeal bill that later failed.
'We are focused on health care. It’s going to be a big thing over the next several hours. We’re very committed to making sure we repeal and replace Obamacare. That's going to be taking place later tonight,' she said on 'The Story' with Martha MacCallum.
MacCullum told her in response: 'Believe me, I have a list of questions I want to ask about that are policy-oriented that got, you know, knocked lower when this news happened.'
Sucked into the brawl between Scaramucci, the incoming White House communications director, and other senior West Wing staffers, Huckabee Sanders said that the words that Scaramucci used are 'in many circles, probably not appropriate language.'
'And he's very passionate about the president and the president's agenda, and I think he may have let that get the best of him in that conversation,' she said.
The episode, while embarrassing for Scaramucci, the White House, and ultimately, the president, did not immediately result in the Trump aide's dismissal. He was traveling with Trump today to New York
The episode, while embarrassing for Scaramucci, the White House, and ultimately, the president, did not immediately result in the Trump aide's dismissal
The Trump spokeswoman said she had not spoken to the president about the New Yorker article that had dropped hours before.
Yet, she was on message, repeating Scaramucci's claim that his language was 'colorful' and emblematic of his 'passion' for president.
'Sometimes when you have the best people from around the country coming in with a variety of backgrounds, very different perspectives, you may not agree on everything,' she said of Scaramucci's spats with Bannon and Priebus. 'I think we have to push forward and that's exactly what we are doing.'
Earlier on Thursday Huckabee Sanders said in an on-camera briefing that Trump 'enjoys healthy competition' between his staffers.
'We all come and have a chance to voice those ideas, voice those perspectives, and have a lot of healthy competition. And with that competition you usually get the best results. The President likes that type of competition and encourages it,' she said.
As Scaramucci continued to downward spiral, other Trump loyalists began to ponder how long he’d last.
Jason Miller, a White House insider who worked on Trump's campaign, said Friday that 'President Trump likes to surround himself with folks who are passionate and who love to mix it up and have these differing opinions and ideas.
'He likes to see them hash it out and see which idea comes to the top or which opinion comes forward - up to a point,' Miller said on CNN.
It was a dinner leak that set Scaramucci off in the phone call with Lizza. He demanded to know who the reporter's source was, claiming at one point that the leak was a 'catastrophe' for the country. He then asserted that Priebus had leaked the meal and his financial forms
The GOP strategist stressed a really 'critical distinction' between mouthing off on behalf of the president and showboating.
'Here is at a certain point the president will look and say this is becoming a distraction or this is something that is gettin’ in the way of our agenda, and then, folks will find themselves on the outs, and that's not where you want to be,' Miller said.
The president does not appreciate grandstanders, and it riles him when his senior aides become the focus of a story.
Aides are expected to put aside their own egos to make room for the president’s. In Trump’s White House, there’s but one person the president wants to be the center of attention, and it’s him.
Other senior officials who have run afoul of the president by feeding their own ambitions have saved themselves by keeping their heads down and waiting for the storm to pass.
For Scaramucci, a camera-loving, fast-talking New Yorker who left Wall Street for Washington, it’s become increasingly obvious that he may not fit in.
His reaction to a leak on Wednesday that he had dinner with the president, first lady and some Fox news personalities was startling in the West Wing.
'Sometimes when you have the best people from around the country coming in with a variety of backgrounds, very different perspectives, you may not agree on everything,' White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said of Scaramucci's spats with Bannon and Priebus. 'I think we have to push forward and that's exactly what we are doing'
While details of the dinner were provided to reporters against his wishes, the revelation that he dined with the president, Sean Hannity and other Fox employees was ‘small potatoes,’ in Scaramucci’s own words yesterday on CNN.
It was the dinner leak that set Scaramucci off in the phone call with Lizza. He demanded to know who the reporter's source was, claiming at one point that the leak was a 'catastrophe' for the country.
Convinced that Priebus had dished not just on the dinner but also his financial assets, Scaramucci sent out a tweet about the FBI that mentioned Trump's chief of staff.
'In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45,' he said.
When journalists speculated that he was targeting his colleague, Scaramucci deleted the message and sent out a new one.
'Wrong! Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks,' he said.
Lizza said Thursday that Scaramucci had changed his story. At the end of their phone call, Scaramucci said he was getting off the line 'because I’ve gotta start tweeting some s*** to make this guy crazy.'
Just before that, Scaramucci claimed, 'I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the f***ing Department of Justice.'
Whether Scaramucci or Priebus were long for Trumpworld remained unclear as of Friday morning
Whether he or Priebus were long for Trumpworld remained unclear as of Friday morning.
The president for his part seems content, for now, to let them fight to the death.
'President Trump likes this competition of ideas. But he wants to see his agenda being implemented and he wants to see strong people stepping forward to go and do that,' Miller said Friday.
Once slated to be communications director himself, before he backed away from the position, Miller said that he sees Scaramucci as 'a breath of fresh air coming into the White House.'
'I love his focus on the leaks. I think it's going to be a great teammate, and I think all these guys just need to get on the same page here, because especially after the Republican turncoats shot down Obamacare last night, we gotta get going on tax reform and we can’t dork around any longer.'
Miller said he's worked with Prebius, Bannon and Scaramucci and he knows 'they can do it.'
'There's no reason that these three shouldn’t be able to get along and work on behalf of the president.'If Nintendo ever got around to licensing Unreal Engine 4, it might look something like this. That is to say, freaking amazing. One man has recreated the iconic Temple of Time from the N64's Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time inside Epic Games' new engine. A designer by the name of Michael Eurek spent six months working in Z-Brush, Maya and Photoshop for the video below. Just look at those stained glass windows.
It's just one of a number of UE4 fan projects that show off the potential of Epic's most recent engine—particularly the lush lighting effects and pretty particles. The really tantalising part is picturing how developers will utilise the engine's power, even if the first wave of releases aren't exactly pushing for realism.
Zelda is a nice bit of fan service, but others have used UE4 to create some spectacularly detailed environments. Quixel, creators of the Quixel SUITE toolset, created this scene based on a Deus Ex concept.
"Noodlespagoodle" didn't render his recreation of Bioshock, but rather imported the original assets into the engine. Even without bespoke Big Daddies, it's a good showcase of the how UE4 handles lighting.
Christian Hecht recreated the ballroom for the Assassin's Creed: Unity trailer. Here you can see the quality of the reflections, and how the light shines of the surface of the wooden floorboards. Perhaps it's a good job Ubisoft are using a different engine. The last thing you want as you're fleeing the French nobility is to be distracted by floor textures.
And what round-up would be complete without a Mass Effect 2 dance-off? Go Zaeed!In 1974, 3M scientist Art Fry came up with a clever invention. He thought if he could apply an adhesive (dreamed up by colleague Spencer Silver several years earlier) to the back of a piece of paper, he could create the perfect bookmark, one that kept place in his church hymnal. He called it the Post-It Note.
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What you might not know is that Fry came up with the now iconic product (he talks to the Smithsonian about it here) during his “15 percent time,” a program at 3M that allows employees to use a portion of their paid time to chase rainbows and hatch their own ideas. It might seem like a squishy employee benefit. But the time has actually produced many of the company’s best-selling products and has set a precedent for some of the top technology companies of the day, like Google and Hewlett-Packard. The 15 percent program seems squishy, is now key to 3M’s business strategy. Today, 3M is a multinational powerhouse, with more than $20 billion in annual sales across a product line 50,000 deep, from adhesives to optical film. It boasts 22,800 patents, many derived from its 15 percent program. The program has been key to 3M’s business strategy and could be a model for other companies eager to innovate. Says Kurt Beinlich, a technical director for 3M: “It’s really shaped what and who 3M is.” Founded in 1902 in a little town on the shores of Lake Superior, 3M started out in the mining business as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. The company thought it had found corundum, a mineral ideal for making sandpaper. But instead, it was low-grade anorthosite — of little value. With mining hopes dashed, the founders bought a sandpaper factory and struggled for years over how to run it. New investors had to pour in cash to keep it afloat. Eventually, one of them, Lucius Ordway, moved the company to St. Paul, where 3M hit upon some key inventions, among them: masking tape and cellophane tape. 3M launched the 15 percent program in 1948. If it seems radical now, think of how it played as post-war America was suiting up and going to the office, with rigid hierarchies and increasingly defined work and home roles. But it was also a logical next step. All those early years in the red taught 3M a key lesson: Innovate or die, an ethos the company has carried dutifully into the 21st century.
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15 percent time is extended to everyone. Who knows who’ll create the next Post-It Note? “It’s one of the things that sets 3M apart as an innovative company, by sticking to that culture of giving every one of our employees the ability to follow their instincts to take advantage of opportunities for the company,” says Beinlich, who tries to get most of his 70-person technical lab team to participate. How is the program implemented? In Beinlich’s telling, workers often use 15 percent time to pursue something they discovered through the usual course of work but didn’t have time to follow up on. And even that depends on other factors — how closely managers keep tabs on projects, for one. What’s more, 15 percent time is extended to everyone, not just the scientists (you can hear the cheers in marketing), the idea being: Who knows where the next Post-It Note will come from? There is failure. As a company culture, it’s accepted, if not entirely embraced. In Beinlich’s department, engineers designed a heat-repelling cover to protect car finishes from welding sparks. But there just wasn’t a market for it: Automotive workers didn’t want to shell out for another product when they could keep layering blankets to protect finishes like they always had. “When we found that out, we celebrated that we had found something that was innovative and had its place. But we said OK; let’s move on,?” Beinlich says. The 15 percent program has clearly inspired copycats. Google’s 20 percent time famously gave birth to Gmail, Google Earth, and Gmail Labs. (Google would neither confirm nor deny that the idea for its program came from 3M, but it’s hard to imagine otherwise; after all, 3M’s program had been around 50 years before Google even filed incorporation papers.) Likewise, Hewlett-Packard Labs offers personal creative time. Still, it’s a rare perk at most companies, technical or not. For starters, it’s expensive. 3M invests more than $1 billion in R&D alone; 15 percent of that starts to be a sizable outlay. Author Scott Berkun writes about business innovation. He says these policies only work when the outcomes are backed. “Many companies have tried to emulate the?20 percent time idea” but failed because they remained conservative about supporting the new ideas,? he says. And experts agree that this kind of nudging probably works best at companies where there’s a high level of creative competitiveness; that is, where impressing peers is just as important as the innovation itself. Some have tried to emulate 3M’s program but failed because they wouldn’t support the new ideas. 3M’s got that in spades. Once a year, about 200 employees from dozens of divisions make cardboard posters describing their 15 percent time project as if they were presenting volcano models at a middle school science fair. They stand up their poster, then hang out next to it, awaiting feedback, suggestions, and potential co-collaborators. Wayne Maurer is an R&D manager in 3M’s abrasives division and calls it a chance for people to unhinge their “inner geek.” He elaborates: “For technical people, it’s the most passionate and engaged event we have at 3M.”
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Past projects have included making clear bandages, optical films that reflect light (seen above), and designing a way to make painter’s tape stick to wall edges (to protect against paint bleed). All these products are on the market now. Sometimes ideas can languish for years. One worker had a hunch that if he reshaped particles on sandpaper, they wouldn’t dull so quickly. But that was 15 years ago, and the technology and feedback weren’t there to advance it beyond an interesting idea. Two years ago, the same worker started looking at the problem again during his 15 percent time. He made a poster. This time, he got different feedback with the help of new employees and new technology. They discovered they could retain a particle’s sharp, pyramid-like shape just by changing the mixing order (see image up top). Now 3M has a winner in the Cubitron II (above), a sandpaper that acts more like a cutting tool -? and one that still stumps copycats, despite that it’s been on the market since 2009. If not for the 15 percent time, this worker’s idea might’ve never taken off. Another obvious benefit of this “think time” is in recruiting. Specialized workers are highly prized and fought for. Companies that offer roughly the same salary as another, can tip the scales with paid personal time. (The snow in Minnesota might be another issue.) “What you’re offering is essentially freedom, and that is very attractive for the right person,” says Henry Chesbrough, a professor at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and the father of open innovation business practices.
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Paid personal time is, of course, just one way to help a company innovate and, given the expense, it’s not best for everyone. Chesbrough says advances in technology can be achieved if companies generally soften boundaries between where ideas come from and how they take root. A company can limit risk by letting internal ideas spin off into external companies, which might be bought back. On the flip side, internal groups can pursue external ideas. Perhaps the real lesson is that the best ideas can come from anywhere. And an innovative company will find a way to champion them.Health Minister JP Nadda has asked Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurugram for a detailed report into the death of seven-year-old Adya Singh after her family alleged medical negligence and that the hospital had overcharged them. The child had been taken to the hospital with a severe case of dengue and had been treated for two weeks but died. The family spent almost Rs 16 lakh at the hospital during this time.
The girl’s father Jayant Singh told reporters that the family spent close to Rs 4 lakh on medicines, Rs 2.85 lakh on medical and surgical procedures, Rs 2.17 lakh on medical investigations including blood tests, Rs 29, 290 on other diagnostics and Rs 2.73 lakh on medical consumables including up to 2,700 gloves. They were billed for admission charges, room rent, doctor’s fees and equipment charges.
The family had medical insurance cover of only up to Rs 3 lakh and had to pay everything else out of pocket.
While enquiries may reveal whether Fortis hospital overcharged the Singh family, their tragic case also highlights the soaring costs of healthcare in India.
It has been said time and again that India’s investment in public health has been abysmally low. The government spends only 1.4% of gross domestic product on health. Even its target of bringing health expenditure up to 2.5% of GDP is far less than what most other countries spend on the health of their people. This feeble government spending has created a vacuum which is now filled by private health sector, which has grown in leaps and bounds, spending more than double of what the government does at 3.3% of GDP. This brings India’s total investment in health to 4.7% of GDP, still far short of the world average investment of 10% of GDP.
Low public health investment has resulted in high out-of-pocket expenditure for people availing of health services. Data from the National Sample Survey Office shows that not only are more Indians being hospitalised in recent years, almost two-thirds of all Indians seeking medical treatment go to private hospitals. The NSSO’s report on health in India based on a survey conducted between January and June 2014 shows that 79 people for every 1,000 were hospitalised. This is up from 54 people in 2014 and 33 people in 1995-’96.
As much as 68% of all hospitalisation cases in urban areas and 58% in rural areas now are at private hospitals.
This over-reliance on private hospitals allows hospitals to charge substantially more than government facilities. As public health activists often point out, healthcare is not like any other consumable where the consumer can hold out for better prices. When faced with the prospect of a sick or dying relative, a person will choose to expensive tests and procedures. Patients and families who are given choices between less and more expensive drugs, tests or procedures will choose the more expensive one, equating the higher price with better guarantee even though the more expensive drug, test or procedure may not be scientifically proven to be better.
According to the NSSO’s 2014 survey, the average cost of medical treatment for hospitalisation was Rs 18,268. This does not include non-medical costs incurred during hospitalisation. There were also large variations in the amounts spent at public and private hospitals.
The cost of hospitalisation in both rural and urban areas have risen by almost 200% between 2004 and 2014.
The NSSO’s analysis of non-hospitalised treatment procedures shows that costs at private hospitals are about twice as much as those in public hospitals, and generally higher in urban areas compared to rural areas. Most of this expenditure is on medicines.
Most of all this expenditure of out-of-pocket for people seeking treatment. Out-of-pocket expenditure is still more than 60% of all health expenditure, highlighting the failure of public investment in healthcare. Meanwhile more than 80% people across India do not have any kind of government or private health insurance to cover regular and emergency medical spending.
An analysis by Scroll.in in August this year shows that the healthcare is making money for private players as the government fails to step up investment. There has been massive private investment in large hospitals and chains of diagnostic centres, but with a sharp focus on profitability. Foreign direct investment has risen sharply since 2014.
All this investment and the dominance of the private sector in India’s healthcare has brought enormous earnings to the top healthcare companies. According to rating agency ICRA’s analysis of five big hospital chains – Apollo, Fortis, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Max India Limited and Healthcare Global Enterprises Limited – revenues of these entities alone touched Rs 12,990 crore in the year ended March 2017. This is an increase of about 80% over the course of a five-year period starting March 2012. Meanwhile, their profits grew by Rs 770 crore during the same period to touch Rs 1,890 crore by this March. This is an increase of 68.75%.Protesters from Occupy Wall Street and attorneys from civil and human rights groups filed a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request for information on the policies the New York Police Department (NYPD) is using and has used to control and handle Occupy demonstrations since the movement grew in Zuccotti Park last September.
The submitted request cites “reports of mass arrests, unjustified or unlawful arrests, “kettling,” restriction of the ability of individuals to peacefully assemble, aggressive or excessive police force, police misconduct, and police surveillance in relation to OWS protests. Journalists, legal observers, and elected representatives have also reportedly been subject to police force, arrest, deprivation of liberty, and criminal prosecutions.” And, makes it clear that those requesting the information want any information on local, state and federal law enforcement and private partner planning” and any information on “OWS protests,” such as protests, marches and assemblies that may have occurred in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens and also any demonstrations affiliated with Occupy the Bronx, Occupy the Hood, Occupy Sunset Park and Ocupemos Queens.
It seeks information on how police are directed to handle “large public events” and engage in crowd, disorder or riot control; how police are directed to carry out “mass or large-scale detentions and/or arrests”; how police are supposed to use “kettling” or “the use of personnel, netting, fencing or other materials to contain and direct” protests; how police are to use vehicles, scooters or horses; how and when they are supposed to use “flexicuffs”; how police are to use force and when they are supposed to enforce “disorderly conduct” or prohibitions on protests or gatherings in the New York Penal Code.
Furthermore, the request demands information on the use of “stop and frisk tactics” at protests and the practice of designating sidewalk space as “frozen” or inaccessible for public use (which was done in front of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s mansion).
A press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) notes the “city has five days” under New York law to respond to the request.
The release quotes an Occupy Wall Street protester:
“I am part of Occupy Wall Street because I believe we need major policy reforms to address inequality and the corporate takeover of democracy. But I often feel that my very right to peacefully protest is at stake,” said Aaron Bornstein, an OWS supporter. “Protesters have been arrested simply for standing on the sidewalk and beaten for sitting in a park. The police seem above the law.”
Occupy Wall Street has shown great perseverance in the face of a police department that has repeatedly shut down public spaces and cracked down on people, who remain nearby because they assert they have the right to assemble and engage in freedom of speech. From Zuccotti Park to Union Square to the public sidewalk space on Wall Street, there does not seem to be any place the city will let the protesters go to simply exercise their rights peacefully. Whether that has to do with the ties between Bloomberg’s army, the NYPD, and Wall Street corporations or firms, this effort at transparency hopefully will give the public the truth about any corruption that has made it near impossible for any residents to protest in and around Wall Street.
People have also witnessed operations where the NYPD obstructs freedom of the press and goes after people who want to cover news stories and film the police. Journalists have either been arrested or else been subjected to childish behavior (e.g. shining lights into cameras to block shots).
What the NYPD has been doing to Occupy Wall Street clearly violates civil liberties. Now, the public may get to see why this conduct by police is acceptable, lawful, permissible, justified, or warranted.
*Below is a recent example of NYPD violating the First Amendment rights of Occupy Wall Street protesters:A Worked Example | Theoretical Niceties | Conclusions
One goal of supervised machine learning is to capture the relationship between objects and their classification. We humans do this particularly well during the course of our daily lives: we’ve all seen enough examples to easily distinguish, say, tables from chairs, and we hardly if ever make a mistake (“don’t sit where you eat,” or something like that). After all, we are the ones who give names to the classes in the first place. Emulating such comprehension capabilities in an automated fashion, therefore, is an important task in artificial intelligence.
“Plato’s discovery went as follows. It is possible for something to be a certain way and for something else to be the same way. So there are universals. (Tumultuous applause, which lasts, despite occasional subsidences, 2,400 years.) … ‘Universals’ is simply the name philosophers give to the ways in which two or more things can be the same.” – David Stove
The mapping from the objects we observe to their agreed upon labels is often wholly unconscious. We intuit the proper labels without needing to run through a list of explicit rules. Legs? Check. Flat surface? Check. That would be far too slow. It’s not likely that we would have survived in the wild if we had to deliberate at length to determine whether the shade we were enjoying was from a tree or a hungry predator.
When pressed, however, it’s possible for us to make such a list of rules. Tables and chairs are generally similar in having legs and a flat surface, yes, but where do they differ? If we think of all of the tables and chairs we’ve seen, we can enumerate the characteristics of each one in our memory, such as color, location, mass, shape, and so on. Then we can set to task on figuring out which are relevant to distinguishing tables from chairs. So can we get a machine to do it?
Random forests are an ensemble learning technique for accomplishing tasks like this. The idea is to train a “forest” of decision tree classifiers, each one being capable of giving some influence as to what features are important to distinguishing the label, and then aggregate over the results. The buzz around town is that these ensemble methods generally perform better than any individual method on its own. Random forests look particularly effective when your data is high dimensional, noisy, or linearly inseparable.
A Worked Example
For this example we’ll use the python package scikit-learn, and as you should guess, its implementation of the random forest classifier. As you shall see, it is extremely easy to use.
Let’s start by creating our tables and chairs. We’ll work with the following characteristics:
1. Color
2. Length of Legs
3. Area of top surface
We can add as many other features if we would like, such as number of legs, age, location, and so on, but we’ll keep it simple. And to make things fair, we won’t include give-away characteristics like “has seat back” – that would make our contrived example a little TOO contrived.
We will represent all possibilities of each attribute as a number. The colors of our tables and chairs will be drawn from the same uniform distribution of, say, integers 0 through 5, where you can think of 0 as being brown, 1 as black, etc. We’ll pull the length of the legs from different uniform distributions of real numbers: between 2 and 5 for chairs, and between 4 and 10 for tables. Finally, the area of the top surface will draw from a normal distribution: for chairs, we’ll use mean 2 and standard deviation 0.25; for tables, mean 5 and standard deviation 1.
Let’s construct our data in python. The classifier expects two lists: one containing the data and the other containing the corresponding labels, so we shall build these separately:
num_chairs = num_tables = 5000 from random import randint, uniform, gauss data = [[randint(0, 5), # Possible colors for chairs uniform(2, 5), # Possible leg lengths for chairs gauss(2,0.25)] # Possible top surface areas for chairs for i in range(num_chairs)] \ + [[randint(0, 5), # Six possible colors for tables uniform(4,10), # Possible leg lengths for tables gauss(5, 1)] # Possible top surface areas for tables for i in range(num_tables)] from numpy import asarray # The labels must be a numpy array labels = asarray(['chair']*num_chairs + ['table']*num_tables)
Now that we have 10,000 labelled records of tables and chairs, we can initialize a random forest classifier and train it on this data. I have arbitrarily chosen to use 100 estimators (trees in our forest). Unless you’re seeking the most concise representation, as can often be the goal in the sciences, the more estimators the merrier as that tends to lead to better performance — but training and testing time can be a limiting factor.
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier rfc = RandomForestClassifier(n_estimators=100) rfc.fit(data, labels)
Now we can perform cross-validation to see how well this classifier performs when distinguishing tables from chairs. This technique involves segregating the data into training and testing samples, fitting the classifier with the training data, and evaluating it on the left out testing data. We can repeat this several times and then average over the results to get a sense of how well this classifier would perform on as yet unseen data. Below I have (again, arbitrarily) chosen to do 100 trials of cross-validation.
from sklearn.cross_validation import cross_val_score scores = cross_val_score(rfc, data, labels, cv=100) print("Accuracy: %0.2f (+/- %0.2f)" % (scores.mean(), scores.std()*2))
Accuracy: 1.00 (+/- 0.00)
OK – it’s a little too good: it gets them all right all the time! |
hosting a member of the ruling family at his Texas ranch. President Obama, who bowed to the Saudi king, continued to afford the regime its undeserved standing as our ally.
America's policy toward Saudi Arabia betrays our values and enables a vicious regime. If President Trump Donald John TrumpHouse committee believes it has evidence Trump requested putting ally in charge of Cohen probe: report Vietnamese airline takes steps to open flights to US on sidelines of Trump-Kim summit Manafort's attorneys say he should get less than 10 years in prison MORE cares about our founding ideal of individual rights, here's a chance for him to deliver by breaking up the perverse U.S.-Saudi relationship.
Elan Journo (@ElanJourno) is the director of policy research at the Ayn Rand Institute, co-author of Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: From George W. Bush to Barack Obama and Beyond, and author of Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism. He is completing a book about America's approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.The St. Louis Rams are a team heading into this upcoming season filled with new talent and hope that they will rebound nicely in 2015. Of course it all starts with the biggest upgrade they’ve had at the most important position on the team at quarterback. They traded this offseason in order to acquire quarterback Nick Foles in hopes that he can emerge as the strong leader the team needs to truly bounce back in 2015. So far this offseason, Foles has delivered as it looks like he could finally be the long-term answer the Rams have been looking for at the position.
Even though Foles is completely new to the organization as far as the playbook and offensive scheming is concerned, early reports out of organized team activities have surfaced that it looks as if he’s been on the team for years. This is great considering that the Rams will need him and their offensive to click on all cylinders if they are make some noise when the games actually start to matter.
In an article written by Myles Simmons at StLouisRams.com, there was an interesting quote from wide receiver Kenny Britt about the leadership that Foles is illustrating to those around him. Here’s what he had to say:
“A couple of days ago,” said Britt, “I was down on myself, not feeling well, and he was the first one to come to me and say, ‘Hey Kenny, I see it in your face. Let’s go, we can’t have it right now. That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Cook said. “That’s exactly how a team and an offense is supposed to click.”
Needless to say, Foles is stepping up when his teammates need it which goes to show the Rams definitely made the right decision in bringing him into the mix. If Foles can develop this kind of team chemistry on offense, especially with his wide receivers, the Rams could definitely surprise many in 2015 and be a force to reckon with in the NFC West.
So far, Foles has done well when running the Rams’ offense considering it’s completely different than what he was orchestrating with the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s not easy for many to convert from a high tempo no-huddle offense into a more run-oriented approach, but Foles has seamlessly made the transition and is executing well.
Foles is a proven winner and if it wasn’t for his devastating shoulder injury in the past, probably wouldn’t have ended up where he is now with the Rams.
Regardless, one never knows what can happen in the NFL as Foles has embraced his new team as all his teammates are buying in for what it takes to be successful and truly light up the scoreboard.
Overall, expect big things not only out of the Rams but from Foles. There is a big reason why he went 14-4 in his entire tenure with the Eagles as he looks like he’ll continue being a winner on a team that is on the verge of being a competitor once again.
It’s only a matter of time before everything comes together and the Rams will be back in the spotlight with a potent offensive attack thanks to Foles running the show.- Advertisement -
“ I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle-man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism.”
from War is a Racket by Brig. Gen. Smedley Butler
“All of them are racketeers, but the corporate kinds are nastier.”
William B. Reynolds, Investigator
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Guido sold the best pizza in Brooklyn. He had learned how from his Mama, a woman who understood why fresh matters in the Old Country. Guido's Pizza was therefore the busiest pizza parlor in Brooklyn, with customers standing in line for a seat. But Guido was ambitious; he wanted to expand into the now vacant shop next door so he could serve not only pizza but his Mama's special Marinara Sauce on their home-made pastas along with those knife thin slices of her special sausage and the roasted Mozzarella cheese dish that they reserved for special holidays.
Then, Guido imagined, he would open up franchises. Guido fancied the business model of McDonald's, Guido had hopes of becoming an International businessman with several shops in Manhattan. He sometimes gazed across the water to New York City, promising himself and his Mama, now deceased, that it would be so. He would even build a shop in their village back in Italy.
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His Mama would be proud.
So Guido went down to the see the Capo, Mr. Clametto for a loan. Mr. Clametto sometimes came by to have a pizza, Clametto was always dressed well, in an expensive suit and bright tie.
Mr. Clametto slapped him on the back and shook his hand.
“What! You need money, God forbid you should have to ask when you make the best pizza I had in my life, even home in Sicily. Vinny will set you up. Say no more.”
Vinny had counted out 50,000.00 clams in hundreds on the way out, backed by the full faith and enforcement of Mr. Clametto's organization, Costa Nostra. Guido had never seen so much money in his life.
Today, Guido's Pizza has a different kind of clientèle and Guido understands that there was a hook in the cash.
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Too much cash always has a hook, embedded deep enough so you do not see it. There would be no chain of shops serving wonderful food for Guido, only barriers to dreams.
Some racketeers come in flashy ties. Others wear quieter apparel but the hook is always ready and waiting.
Today Americans are finding the hook in the mortgage they took out on their home. Some of the mortgages written in the last seven years promised – and gave the borrower – 125% of the value of the house. Borrowers could hardly believe that it could be so easy to realize their dreams. Vacations, desperately needed medical treatments for those they loved, making their home into the vision they had hungered to have when they were still young enough to enjoy it. There were lots of reasons for borrowing. But those loans were made when the dollar was solid and real estate seen as an investment that could be expected to be better than gold. Those dreams are also dying. You see, your government has found a way to convert your home into a form of currency and you into a serf.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3Archivist's Note: The following document is maintained for historical purposes only. For an up-to-date copy of this document appropriate for your security clearance, please contact your AAC/HMC Liaison.
This document has been ratified by the leading members of the American Secure Containment Initiative, His Majesty's Foundation for the Secure Containment of the Paranormal, the Holy Emperor's Council on Unearthly Matters, and the Tsar's Seers on July 9, 1915, as one of the first documents of the SCP Foundation, a new organization formed from the aforementioned organizations in order to better perform the functions of Securing that which cannot yet be understood, Containing that which would threaten the public's perception of normality, and Protecting the public from threats preternatural or otherwise not yet understood.
Item Number: SCP-2237
Classification: Euclid (Moderate Containment Difficulty)
Procedures for Containment: The object in question is to be guarded at all times by armed personnel stationed along a fortified barrier surrounding the object. The true nature of the object and all artifacts retrieved from within is to remain classified to those without the highest level of security clearance within our respective organizations until such time as a singular security clearance system is implemented. The armed personnel must be citizens of the British Empire versed in that Empire's military customs; likewise, all armaments must be of British manufacture and the cover story given to civilians approaching the item is to be that of a high-security British military facility within the Hafiyan sub-territory. In the event of a hostile takeover, all ally organizations to His Majesty's Foundation SCP are to engage in whatever military actions necessary to re-acquire the object and surrounding facilities, re-staffing the fortifications with personnel from the organization's respective home country if necessary.
These Procedures for Containment are hereby ratified on July 9, 1915
Object Description: SCP-2237 is the buried remains of a city of unknown origins located in the Hafiyan Desert in Northern Africa. SCP-2237 came to the attention of the HMFSCP during the British Empire's conquest of the region in the 1890s. It is believed that its isolation has contributed to the lack of knowledge on the Hafiyan natives' part of SCP-2237.
The object was determined to require containment upon discovery of several forms of technology not yet available to the general populace. Technology recovered includes, but is not limited to, weapons projecting an undetermined form of energy (presumably collected from the ether), consoles capable of displaying moving images with no apparent projector or reel of film, alloys used in the construction of buildings that surpass even the most advanced of today's forges and building techniques in strength and height, automated recording systems that also do not utilize film, and incorporeal automata capable of speech. The majority of structures have either been demolished or otherwise destroyed by the passage of time.
Physical records and records accessible by consoles in a building near the center of the city (believed to be the city library) are written in multiple languages, ranging from Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, various forms of Latin, various forms of Japanese, various forms of Chinese, modern English, modern Russian, and modern French. These records contain references to the American Secure Containment Initiative, His Majesty's Foundation for the Secure Containment of the Paranormal, the Tsar's Seers, and the Holy Emperor's Council on Unearthly Matters, necessitating their contact by the HMFSCP.
At the center of the city, there is a sculpture of abstract design (believed to have served as a monument) that bears the following inscription in four separate languages: modern English, modern French, modern Russian, and modern Japanese:
"You are warriors, the children of a conquering army. You carry the legacy of the human race on your shoulders. Do not stray from the path. You have to be strong, for the dead, and for those not yet living. We believe in you."
The meaning of this inscription is not yet known. Analysis of records from within the city is ongoing.The National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) is the first and largest technological college in the world for students who are deaf or hard of hearing.[1] As one of nine colleges within the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, NTID provides academic programs, access, ASL in-class interpreters and support services—including on-site audiological, speech-language, and cochlear implant support. As of fall quarter 2012, NTID encompasses just under 10% of RIT's enrollment, 1259 students. Roughly 775 deaf and hard of hearing students are cross-registered into another RIT college's program with support from NTID.
In addition to a master's degree in deaf education, NTID also offers a bachelor's degree program in ASL-English Interpretation.
History [ edit ]
The institute was established in 1965 by the passage of Pub.L. 89–36.[2] The law also established a National Advisory Group to find a suitable site for the school. The Advisory Group considered proposals from Illinois State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Southern California, the State University of New York, the University of Colorado at Boulder and others before deciding on RIT as its home in 1966.[3] Three factors helped RIT secure the responsibility for the new institute:
RIT had just moved to a new campus, so the institute would not find itself in second-hand quarters.
Rochester businessmen had enlightened views about disability in the workplace and were eager to share those views with the Advisory Group.
RIT had a trustee, Edmund Lyon, who had served as President of the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and as trustee of the Rochester School for the Deaf.
The institute was originally conceived as tuition-free, providing technical training as well as academic and communication skills training to 600 students annually.[4]
NTID admitted its first students in 1968.[5] Its establishment initially caused a great deal of friction on campus between hearing students and deaf students and RIT faculty and NTID faculty, the points of contention centering on the construction of new buildings for NTID, whether or not NTID faculty salaries were more generous than those of their peers, and communication differences between American Sign Language and American English.[6]
In the early 1980s, NTID's enrollment spiked as deaf students from the "rubella bulge" of the mid-1960s entered their college years.[7] Enrollment has been trending higher again in recent years; NTID's 2008 enrollment was its highest ever at 1,450, easily surpassing the previous record of 1,358 set in 1984.[8]
In 1993, NTID established its Center for Arts and Sciences to help boost the numbers of undecided (or underprepared) students who stay on to pursue a baccalaureate degree.[9] By 2005, this program had raised the proportion of NTID students in bachelor's degree programs to 41% (from 12% twenty years earlier).[10]
The history of NTID and the art, culture, technology, and language of the Deaf community are preserved in the RIT/NTID Deaf Studies Archive, which is housed on campus in the RIT Archive Collections at The Wallace Center.[11]
Institute leaders Name Title Tenure D. Robert Frisina Director
Senior Vice President 1967–1968
1977–1979 William E. Castle Director
Vice President 1968–1982
1979–1994 Peter Pere Dean 1982–1984 James J. DeCaro Dean 1984–1998 Robert R. Davila Vice President 1996–2006 T. Alan Hurwitz Dean
President 1998 – December 31, 2009
2006 – December 31, 2009 James J. DeCaro Interim president January 1, 2010 – December 31, 2010 Gerard J. Buckley President January 1, 2011 – present
See also [ edit ]Image copyright Library of Congress/True Williams Image caption Tom Sawyer was a little too adventurous for one Russian education authority, according to reports
A village in Russia has removed several classic books for children from a library for allegedly being harmful to their development, a government official has said.
Vladimir Tolstoy, a member of Russia's Public Chamber, told a session of parliament that he had been sent a list of books that were "banned" by the education council in the village of Kharbatovo, in the southern Irkutsk Region, the Interfax news agency reports. Titles including Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen were on the list, Mr Tolstoy said, adding that it was apparently done in accordance with a law aimed at protecting children from "harmful information", which came into force in September 2012. Local education officials have since denied the reports, saying no such instructions were issued and no books had been seized.
Mr Tolstoy - who emphasised that he was not telling a joke - said the list suggested Twain's book could encourage children to become vagrants, and that other tales promote a disrespect for parents and family values. The presidential adviser and descendant of writer Leo Tolstoy later told the Meduza news website that the culture ministry should investigate the alleged removals. "These are, after all, books that we have been raised on," he said.
The reports unleashed a wave of mockery among social media users, who tried to guess what was wrong with the books. One person jokingly says that the Swedish book Karlsson on the Roof - about a portly character with a propeller on his back - was removed because "he's a flying Swedish spy". Another users suggests: "They should ban the Bible as well then - Satan is in it."
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.Vermont State Auditor Doug Hoffer says Gov. Peter Shumlin’s administration has asked Professor Jonathan Gruber to provide the names, employment status, and contact information of the research assistants for whose work Gruber was personally paid $80,000 by the state of Vermont. So far, Hoffer tells Breitbart News, Gruber has not responded to the Shumlin administration’s request.
Hoffer says the Shumlin administration informed him by phone on December 19 that Gruber had yet to respond to the inquiry. On December 3, Hoffer requested the Shumlin administration provide Gruber’s contract information so he could speak with the research assistants directly and confirm whether or not Gruber had actually paid them the $80,000 he received from the state of Vermont for their services.
“I’ll make that decision when the time comes,” Hoffer told Breitbart News when asked what course of action he would take if Gruber fails to provide the Shumlin administration with the requested information.
Gruber’s stonewalling of Vermont comes on the heels of at least four other pending or potential investigations in which the professor has failed to provide documentation requested by authorities.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee subpoenaed all of Gruber’s work product and billing documentation related to his 2009 federal contract with the Department of HHS, as well as all his many state contracts related to Obamacare earlier this month. To date, Gruber has failed to respond to this subpoena, which is set to expire in early January when the new Congress convenes.
Incoming Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is expected to reissue this subpoena and also require Gruber’s testimony at new hearings of the committee. On December 9, Gruber testified before the committee under outgoing Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). At those hearings Gruber “lawyered up” and refused to provide any work product or billing details to the committee.
Gruber also faces at least two additional potential investigations and one pending investigation.
Last week, Vermont House Minority Leader Donald Turner (R) sent a letter to the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services, requesting an investigation to the expenditure of federal dollars into all Obamacare-related activities in the state of Vermont. If that investigation is undertaken, its scope would include the $280,000 personal services contract the state of Vermont signed with Gruber in July 2014 to perform economic projections of Governor Shumlin’s proposed single-payer plan.
On December 17, Governor Shumlin made a dramatic announcement that — at least for 2015 — he was abandoning any efforts to introduce single-payer in Vermont, citing high costs.
Elsewhere, an influential state legislator in Minnesota, Representative Greg Davids, will become the chairman of the powerful Taxes Committee in January. He has demanded that Gruber return the $329,000 he was paid by the state of Minnesota for what Davids called “beyond laughable” faulty economic projections for the state’s MNSure Obamacare health exchange. In addition, Davids has called on Minnesota’s Attorney General to investigate Gruber’s contract.
Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor, which will release a review of the state’s MNSure health exchange program in February, recently announced that the review will address Gruber’s contract with the state.As the jolly Captain Trips once mused: ‘All goods things in all good time’. As such, Heads around the world tuned in and took notice when the GarciaLive series made it’s roaring return with the back to back flashbacks, volumes six and seven. Both elegantly recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson (aka Betty Boards) they capture Jerry Garcia in two polarizing side groups just a scant 3 years apart.
Volume 6 lands in the pivotal year of 1973. Having graduated from small venues to cavernous impersonal arenas to appease their rapidly growing fanbase, the Grateful Dead are road warriors to the most ragged extreme. In sharp contrast, here we find Garcia and his musical co-conspirator Merl Saunders posting up at a 200 capacity suburban Bay Area club. Recorded at the Lion’s Share, intimacy and freedom were on the menu that night while outfitting themselves with a wrecking crew of a rhythm section, John Kahn on bass and Bill Vitt on drums. Never one to ease right in, Garcia cuts right to the chase sending the group into overdrive with JJ Cale’s “After Midnight” as the group’s spirited songbook unfolds throughout the evening with jazzy show tunes (“My Funny Valentine”) to Motown staples (“I Second that Emotion” and “How Sweet It Is”). Just a few short days later the same ad hoc group took the stage at the famed Berkeley watering hole, Keystone, to record their epic double lp, Live at Keystone. As such, this new set adds an additional 3 hours to the party that (seemingly) never wants to end.
Jerry Garcia Band :: After Midnight
Fast-forward three years and 1976 finds Garcia more refined and rejuvenated. With a 1975 touring sabbatical, save a couple Bay Area appearances, all members of the Dead began exploring other creative endeavors along with the recording of the monumental Blues for Allah album. Garcia being no exception, his musical relationship with Merl Saunders evolved into the Legion of Mary that added Elvis Presley’s drummer Ron Tutt to the fold before silently mutating into the Jerry Garcia Band sans Merl. By mid 1976 an impassioned Dead were back on the road, and in the days between, the Garcia Band hit the road with a fervor too. With Kahn and Tutt in tow the band was now rounded out with the Dead’s Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux. While the songbook remained similar (i.e. “After Midnight”) the band was tighter as the music swayed and rippled at the edges with a slower, groovier, tempo. They teased and played with dynamics using a venue’s intimacy to their advantage and as the Dead’s archivist Nicholas Meriweather eloquently described within the liner notes, “… an approach that sought out the emotion in every crevice of the melody, in the long and sinewy connections that knitted songs into sets and turned shows into grand narratives, the kind of experience that left both band and fans transformed.”
Volume 7 (November 8, 1976) finds Garcia and co. in the sleepy town of Palo Alto – where the long strange trip began 11 years prior when The Warlocks formed around Dana Morgan’s Music Store. With nearly 70 shows under their belt (in 1976 alone) the band rides mighty high into the evening kicking off with a passionate version of the Temptation’s “The Way you Do The Things You Do”. Not one to ignore Bob Dylan’s massive contribution to modern music Garcia leads the group into a languid “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” that nods heavily to zeitgeist‘s mid 1970s Caribbean fascination, pairing the irie vibrations of “Stir it Up” later in the set. Closing with Peter Rowan’s “Midnight Moonlight” Garcia’s fingers burn up and down the neck of his guitar sending the crowd clambering for fresh air before kicking into the second set. Those hip to Garcia’s game know the second part of the evening is where the real fireworks are always set off. Not to be outdone and never one to let the crowd truly have a break, Garcia fingers the opening lick to “Don’t Let Go” as he and the band riff at a heavy, glacial, pace for 22 minutes before again nodding to Jamaica with The Wailers’ “Stop That Train”. words / d norsenfollowing this:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11369.html
I've been asked for more information and am collecting the books/authors that are affected
- Author/title
- Level of explicitness/genre
- GLTB content?
- Censored on which amazon website
- Link (maybe even a screencap)?
Collection: Books that had their sales ranks removed:
Fiction
Out of a Top 100 Gay Novels List on Elisa Rolle's LJ almost all the books are "purged", including authors such as Jamie O'Neill, Edmund White, Andre Aciman. Link:
James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
Annie Proulx Brokeback Mountain
Stripped of sales rank on amazon.com, but not on amazon.ca
http://www.amazon.ca/BROKEBACK-MOUNTAIN-ANNIE-PROULX/dp/2246699215ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239562478&sr=1-3
Jeanette Winterson's OrangesAre Not The Only Fruit
Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness.
None of which can be called "erotica" by any stretch of the imagination.
(the only "sex scene" in The Well of Loneliness consists in its entirety of the words "And that night they were not divided.")
Alex Beecroft: False Colours, m/m historical romance, just broken through and ranking in top 10 historical novels-- i.e. non-romance, non-gay-- and then it suddenly disappeared entirely from the rankings. The novel is NOT erotica, contains only one non-explicit sex scene, but the central premise features two male characters falling in love.
http://www.amazon.com/False-Colors-M-Romance/dp/0762436581
The Kindle version of False Colors has a sales rank but has had the 'an m/m romance' taken off its name!
http://www.amazon.com/False-Colors-ebook/dp/B0026A6C3Q
Censored on Amazon.com
Alex Beecroft, Captain's Surrender
heat level mild; about one page of sex scenes all told in a book 196 pages long
http://www.amazon.com/Captains-Surrender-Alex-Beecroft/dp/1602020892
Censored on Amazon.com
The Kindle version of Captain's Surrender has no sales rank either.
Erastes Transgressions - similar case to False Colours, screen cap here:
Erastes Standish
Erastes Speak Its Name
Erastes Frost Fair
(on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk)
Storm Grant - Gym Dandy
Level of explicitness/genre: a RomCom with a heat level of 2 out of 5.
GLTB content?: boy meets boy
Censored on which amazon website:.com,.uk, and.ca*
Proof of sales rank:
Leslie Feinberg Stone Butch Blues
http://www.amazon.com/Stone-Butch-Blues-Leslie-Feinberg/dp/1555838537
http://www.amazon.de/Stone-Butch-Blues-Leslie-Feinberg/dp/1555838537
Sales rank removed
Rita Mae Brown Rubyfruit Jungle
http://www.amazon.com/Rubyfruit-Jungle-Rita-Mae-Brown/dp/055327886X
http://www.amazon.de/Rubyfruit-Jungle-Rita-Mae-Brown/dp/055327886X
Sales rank removed
Sarah Waters Tipping The Velvet now has no sales rank in one of its editions...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tipping-Velvet-Virago-Sarah-Waters/dp/1860495249
http://www.amazon.com/Tipping-Velvet-Novel-Sarah-Waters/dp/1573227889/ref=pd_sim_b_2
http://www.amazon.de/Tipping-Velvet-Novel-Sarah-Waters/dp/1573227889/ref=
pd_sim_b_2
It still does in another edition:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tipping-Velvet-Sarah-Waters/dp/1844080110
The only difference seems to be that this one doesn't have the word "lesbian" anywhere in its "Look for similar items by subject".
E M Forster - Maurice
? ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239550630&sr=1-1
(Amazon.com - "Heat level" - neglegible)
(Sales rank removed)
Charlie Cochrane: Lessons in Love
http://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Love-Charlie-Cochrane/dp/1602021481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239547504&sr=1-1
(no sex in the book)
(Sales rank removed)
Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man
http://www.amazon.com/Single-Man-Christopher-Isherwood/dp/0816638624/
Gay protagonist. I don't recall any explicit sex.
(Sales rank removed)
Edmund White's The Beautiful Room Is Empty
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Room-Empty-Novel/dp/0679755403/
Haven't read, however, it's certainly critically acclaimed (as is A Single Man)
(Sales rank removed)
Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story
Both of the Edmund White novels do contain explicit sex scenes, but they're far from not "erotica", and they're acclaimed as literary classics.
(Sales rank removed)
Andrew Holleran's Dancer From The Dance
http://www.amazon.com/Dancer-Dance-Novel-Andrew-Holleran/dp/0060937068/
Gay protagonist. Non-explicit, though much is implied. Harold Robbins is steamier and retains his sales rank.
(Sales rank removed)
JL Langley's Tin Star (Amazon.ca)
(Sales rank removed)
James Buchanan: The Good Thief, Twice the Cowboy, Twice the Ride, Cheating Chance
(Only his print editions have had their sales rank stripped) Amazon.com
Screencap for Good Thief here:
More proof:
R W Day A Strong and Sudden Thaw Iris Press edition - has a ranking, Kindle version of the Lethe edition has a ranking. The print version of the Lethe edition does not (
When you search by title from the Amazon home page, the Lethe print edition doesn't even make the first page of results. In fact, the first hit is a book by another author with the same name as me, and the second is Ginn Hale's Wicked Gentlemen, which still has a ranking, btw.
Anne Brooke - Maloney's Law
- Gay crime fiction - 2 sex scenes, one brief.
- GLTB content - Yes
- Censored on which amazon website - amazon.us and amazon.uk
Amazon UK link -
Amazon US link -
Both have had their ranking stripped. It's also very hard now to search directly for the book as you can't do just any combination of author/title into the search field. It has to be title OR author and not both. That's a change from last week...
Krandall Kraus Love's Last Chance
Cannot be searched by on Amazon directly by title
Could be googled and got this link
>the amazon listing.
You cannot even search for things by title.
Jane Davitt Wild Raspberries (m/m romance)
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Raspberries-Jane-Davitt/dp/1603703209/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239553045&sr=1-3
No sales ranks anymore (same author, Drawing Closer does
LJ post about sales rank:
Shayla Kersten The Cost of Eternity
Erotic romance (Ellora's Cave), GLTB content
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Cost-Eternity-Shayla-Kersten/dp/1419956655/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-0198097-5214063?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188657417&sr=1-1
Various authors Seduction (Black Lace anthology)
Women's erotica (some same sex encounters but mostly het)
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Seduction-Various-Authors/dp/0352345101/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217641842&sr=1-3
Jackson, Chase, Kersten Masters of Desire
Eerotic romance (Kensington Aphrodisia)
No GLTB content
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Desire-Layla-Chase/dp/0758225490/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217641768&sr=1-6
According to the authors on the Kensington Aphrodisia group, all of the Aphro stories have had ranking removed. Aphro novels are erotic romance and some have GLBT content.
Mary Renault The Charioteer
http://www.amazon.com/Charioteer-Mary-Renault/dp/0375714189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239554137&sr=1-1
Tamara Allen Whistling in the Dark
"Sweet romance" - all the sex is behind closed doors, apart from a kiss or two and some cuddling. It features two men falling in love.
Censored on all amazon websites
http://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Dark-Tamara-Allen/dp/1590210492/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229019320&sr=8-1
The Kindle version has never had a sales rank, as far as the author knows. The print version lost its sales rank on Friday morning.
George Bennett Fain Pandora's Box
http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Box-George-Bennett-Fain/dp/0615141358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239554619&sr=1-1
No sales rank. Description contains the phrase "homosexual tones".
Whereas hir other book, <ahref="http://www.amazon.com/this-darkest-hour-george-bennett/dp/141169508>This Darkest Hour</a>, still has a sales rank, even though it's full of smut. Description contains the phrase "sexy gay novella". But it's out of print, so that might have anything to do with it.
Lee Rowan, all books in the print editions, Kindle versions seem to be there, but the Kindle editions are not in author's profile (affects Ransom, Winds of Change, Eye of the Storm, Sail Away, Walking Wounded, Speak Its Name).
They are all m/m romance, heat level 3-3.5 on a scale of 5
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A14XRHD2PWFW4D/ref=sv_ys_4
It also affects self-published authors:
Marquesate Her Majesty's Men
Explicit, military gay erotica, m/m
Censored on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Her-Majestys-Men-Marquesate/dp/0955988004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239557697&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Her-Majestys-Men-Marquesate/dp/0955988004/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239557739&sr=1-1
It has become impossible to find the book when searching generally. Search box now has to be set on "books"
Jenna Jones, Chiaroscuro, and Something Beautiful
m/m romance
http://www.amazon.com/Chiaroscuro-Jenna-Jones/dp/1603704132/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239556726&sr=1-1
/ref=tag_dpp_lp_edpp_img_in
Had ranks stripped
Angela Fiddler - Pulse
Explicit m/m GLBT content, Kindle version still online
Isabel Miller Patience and Sarah
Historical novel. Erotic content limited to the words "Where's my wet? Where's my melt?"
Fae Sutherland & Marguerite Labbe, Mr. Right Now
Explicit GLBT
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Right-Now-Rhianne-Aile/dp/0981508421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239558793&sr=1-1
Fae Sutherland & Marguerite Labbe Bee Among The Clover
Explicit GLBT
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Bee-Among-Clover-Fae-Sutherland/dp/1607670356/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239558793&sr=1-2
Julia Serano Whipping Girl
Non-fiction - about trans women and femininity. Not very explicit at all. Some description (for example, frank talk of anatomy), but overall, pretty tame.
Censored on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Whipping-Girl-Transsexual-Scapegoating-Femininity/dp/1580051545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239559105&sr=1-1
Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series, first trilogy has sales ranks (Kushiel's Dart, Kushiel's Chosen, Kush |
the Murugan Temple of North America. Patrick Harrigan and Nallein Satana al-Jilwah Sowilo now jointly compose and publish articles about Yezidi culture and religion. Visit the Yezidi Sanatana Dharma Society on Facebook to follow the cause of the Yezidis. Photos courtesy of Eszter Spät and International Business Times of August 8, 2014 See also: Baba Sheikh’s Sere Sal New Year Message of Hope
"Yezidi Places of Pilgrimage" by Eszter Spät
"The Sanjak of the Peacock Angel" by Eszter Spät
Photo Gallery: Iraq's Yazidi Kurds at Their Holiest Site, Lalesh TempleBreath of life: Dräger supports Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Fiji with Oxylog ventilator. pic.twitter.com/mNzHjpgceq — Dräger (@DraegerNews) October 5, 2015
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Back in July this year….
Help! Anyone with oxylog 2000 charging cable,desperately needed for Fiji as can't use our vent.msg me if u can help. Please retweet. — anne creaton (@annecreaton) July 7, 2015
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Anne is an emergency physician who used to work in Melbourne, Victoria but in recent years moved to Fiji where she is helping train and mentor future EM doctors in that country. I have known her for a while via the Prehospital and Retrieval community as she used to do aeromedical retrieval in Queensland and Victoria.
I knew the Dräger Australia Applications Specialist who does a lot of training for my service of RFDS Queensland which uses Oxylog 3000+ transport ventilators. So I sent them an email asking about buying a new cable for Anne’s device. It was going to cost $300 or so but I was happy to cover the cost in spirit of helping out a PHARM/EM colleague doing worthy education in a developing nation.
Thanks @ketaminh for coming to rescue with oxylog cable solution. Love FOAMed community! — anne creaton (@annecreaton) July 8, 2015
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The Dräger staff in the end emailed me back and said they had spare cables and were happy to donate them for free. We started sorting out shipping costs when Drager Head office Australia in Melbourne contacted myself and subsequently Anne and were looking to donate a second hand Oxylog 3000 that had been retired from an Australian hospital.
A few emails later, remarkably Drager had agreed to donate an Oxylog 3000 ventilator and kit to Anne and her Fiji ED!
@ ketaminh look where i went today pic.twitter.com/f9PJheeqal — anne creaton (@annecreaton) August 24, 2015
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Thanks to the kind folks from Draeger and @ketaminh pic.twitter.com/GGa1cwboVg — anne creaton (@annecreaton) August 26, 2015
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The handover of the beloved oxylog 3000 for Fiji from the kind folks at Draeger @ketaminh pic.twitter.com/EPPnrBhofj — anne creaton (@annecreaton) August 26, 2015
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How did you get that as onboard carry on, Anne??!
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And here is the donated Oxylog 3000 at home in Fijian ED
Big credit to amazing altruism and generosity of Dräger Australia and Dr Anne Creaton who is forging Emergency Medicine as a specialty in Fiji! Sometimes help is only a Tweet away!UPDATE (2/6/12):
We are ready to proceed with removing closed accounts from all user subscriber counts on Thursday, February 9th. A mentioned previously, all users will see a one-time adjustment to their total subscriber counts. For further details about how this affects your channel, you should view your
"Subscribers" reports.
-----------------------------------------
UPDATE (1/11/12):
We will be holding off on the single day adjustment (the January 12th date is being postponed) until we can address some discrepancies we found in synchronizing the public counts with YouTube Analytics. Everyone involved in this project is determined to ensure that this change is clearly understood by users, so we will postpone the single day adjustment until we can ensure that both the public count and YouTube Analytics data are consistent and unambiguous. We will let everyone know once we have a firm date in mind.
However, the enhanced techniques for despamming new subscriptions will be implemented as scheduled (tomorrow), as there are no such complications. We will continue to keep everyone up to date on how this develops.
-----------------------------------------
1/10/12
At YouTube, we take the accuracy of subscriber counts seriously. Subscriber counts are a reflection of a creator’s level of engagement with viewers, and a serious source of pride in the community. Many creators also use subscriber counts to measure their expectations for how many views their new videos should receive, by comparing total subscriber counts to number of views received from subscription sources in
YouTube Analytics.
As a result, we are enhancing our efforts to ensure that all subscriber counts are as accurate as possible. On January 12th, we will take the following steps to improve the quality and integrity of subscriber counts across the site:
Remove inactive and closed accounts from total subscriber counts. We will remove all such accounts from subscriber numbers on January 12th, and continually update subscriber counts as subscribers become inactive or close their accounts. Improve techniques for preventing artificial inflation of subscriber counts. Recently, we’ve seen a rise in creative agencies and vendors that claim to increase subscribers while complying with the YouTube Terms of Service. In most cases, those claims are false; the purchase or gaming of subscribers is a violation of our Terms of Service. Accordingly, we are taking the following steps to prevent some users from artificially inflating their subscriber counts: Effective January 12th, we will implement a more rigorous system that will prevent new subscriptions generated from these malicious sources from being added to subscriber counts.
Beginning January 12th, we will retroactively adjust subscriber counts to not include subscriptions generated by artificial sources on an ongoing basis.
Please note: While we are updating subscriber counts to remove such subscriptions from the totals, we will not stop delivering videos to these subscribers, even if they are artificially created accounts. This means that even if we mistakenly remove a subscriber from a subscription account as invalid, this will in no way affect your views. By ensuring the quality of subscriber counts, we hope that this metric will be a more valuable data point for creators. Creators who have not attempted to inflate their subscriber counts should only see a limited drop--resulting from the removal of inactive and closed accounts--while users who have benefitted from abuse will get a reality check.
David Boyle, YouTube Staff, recently watched " 2012 Taipei 101 New Year Fireworks HD complete 台北101煙火 Taiwan 2011 / 2012 (UFO?)."."The officers and crew of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and two of its guided missile destroyers are back home in Puget Sound in time for Christmas.
The carrier docked at its home port of Bremerton around 12:45 p.m. Sunday. The guided-missile destroyers USS Shoup and USS Kidd, which are part of the Nimitz carrier group, docked in Everett Sunday morning.
The carrier departed Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton on June 1 for its deployment to the Pacific and Indian oceans.
During its deployment, the aircraft carrier flew more than 1,300 combat sorties in Iraq and Syria, dropping more than 900 pieces of ordnance. Last month, the Nimitz joined the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Theodore Roosevelt in a rare exercise involving three aircraft carrier strike groups.
Of the hundreds waiting for the USS Nimitz to return, seven-year-old Cameron Bloodworth may have been the most excited. He was awaiting his father, Chief Petty Officer Lance Bloodworth.
“This is awesome!” was Cameron’s go-to chant.
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“Welcome home, dada!” he cheered as the ship made its way in.
His mother, Rachel, said he was prepared Saturday night.
“He had his outfit laid out. He had his toothbrush, his backpack, everything ready so he could get up and get out the door as fast as possible.”
Rachel, who’s been taking care of the couple’s four children the past six months, had a sign that read “Hey Lance, The Baby Pooped, It’s Your Turn”.
“I am very proud of the entire Strike Group and all that our sailors and Marines accomplished during this deployment,” Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, commander of the Nimitz Strike Group, said in a news release. “The team demonstrated the professionalism, strength, and resolve of the U.S. Navy around the world. They battled through the intense heat of the Arabian Gulf to conduct operations in support of Operation Inherent Resolve (against ISIS), and now it’s time for all of us to get back and enjoy some well-deserved family time.”
Copyright 2017 KINGWe are pleased to announce that as of January 8th, 2018 we have changed. We now offer more services, more locations and more professionals to serve you.
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Our eDiscovery review platform is cloud-based and available nearly anywhere you are. It is simple, easy to use, and you can be fully trained in under an hour. On top of that we have a series of short videos to help walk you through the platform, should you need to be refreshed.
eDiscovery is supposed to benefit the case/client is several ways.
First, it should allow the legal professional the ability to navigate through a literal mountain of documents at nearly the speed of light. It can let a single person act as a team of a dozen or more.
Second, it should reduce the cost for the client over traditional page by page review. Lawyers used to sit in large rooms with dozens if not hundreds of boxes of documents looking for the smoking gun of a case. Today this is not needed due to most documents being in digital form and modern technology speeding up the process without the need for a host of lawyers looking for a single document.
Third, it should allow the reviewer to work within the confines of the review tool without needing a Master’s degree or specialized training to do so. Fourth, you should have the ability to review deleted data. Deleted data on any type of media can be just what your cases need. While it is often overlooked in eDiscovery cases it can open doors that otherwise didn’t exist in your case.
Lastly, the vendor should have the ability to forensically collect data from nearly any source requested. Cell phones, tablets, laptops, servers, cloud accounts, social media, websites, thumb drives, SD cards, Micro SD cards, DVD’s, CDs and more.
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Eide Bailly has performed its computer forensics services for thousands of clients. We have served our clients in 42 different states and three foreign countries. Computer forensics is our passion. Let us see how we can assist you.School kids name new fish
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 11 FEB 2014
Image: Sven Traenkner/USyd The new reef fish has been named Gynmoxenisthmus tigrellus (little tiger) as a result of its stripy markings.
Primary school children in Sydney have named a newly identified species of reef fish, recently described by a University of Sydney ichthyologist.
The fish's stripy markings have earned it the moniker tigrellus (little tiger), at the suggestion of students who visited the Macleay Museum's booth at the Australian Museum's Science Festival Expo last year.
A specimen of the fish - collected in the southern Red Sea by a Russian colleague - was sent to the Macleay Museum's natural history curator and resident ichthyologist Dr Tony Gill earlier in the year. Although similar to the existing Xenisthmus genus the specimen lacked scales, leading Dr Gill to create a new genus. He named it Gynmoxenisthmus (from the Greek gymnos, meaning naked) but couldn't settle on a species name.
Dr Gill took the opportunity to enlist help from primary-school students attending August's Expo, inviting them to suggest and vote on names based on the fish's appearance. Among labels touted were kofta, bongo, candy cane, Pippy Longstockings and tiger. In the end little tiger (tigrellus) won the vote and the new species Gymnoxenisthmus tigrellus has just been named in the journal Zootaxa.
Gymnoxenisthmus tigrellus is from the gobioid fish family Xenisthmidae. Dr Gill has named half of the 14 xenisthmid species discovered so far alongside about a third of the 150 known species in another reef-fish family (the dottybacks, family Pseudochromidae).
"This indicates how recently many of these reef fish have been discovered," says Dr Gill. Each year around 400-500 new fish species are discovered, with most coming from coral-reef and freshwater habitats. Efforts are also made to understand the distribution and abundance of each species, but our understanding is usually very limited.
"Without knowing the populations of most reef species we don't know how much human activity is impacting on them."
Dr Gill hopes to involve school children in the naming of future species during school holiday programs held at the Macleay Museum, as a way of introducing children to the work of a museum scientist.Jonathan "Jonah" Nolan (born 6 June 1976)[1] is a British-American screenwriter, television producer, director and author. He is the creator of the CBS science fiction series Person of Interest (2011–2016) and co-creator of the HBO science fiction western series Westworld (2016–present).
Nolan has collaborated on several films with his brother, director Christopher Nolan, who adapted Jonathan's short story "Memento Mori" into the neo-noir thriller film Memento (2000). Together, the siblings co-wrote the mystery thriller film The Prestige (2006), the superhero films The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and the science fiction film Interstellar (2014).
Nolan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Memento, and for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for Westworld, among a number of other awards.
Early life [ edit ]
Nolan was born the youngest of three boys to Christina Nolan. Raised in both London and Chicago, Christina and her boys alternated between the two cities as the boys were growing. Nolan attended Georgetown University, where he majored in English and was a staff writer for The Hoya.[2]
Career [ edit ]
middle) with left) and right) at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con promoting Westworld Nolan () with Evan Rachel Wood ) and Lisa Joy ) at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con promoting
Nolan's short story "Memento Mori" was used by his older brother, director Christopher Nolan, as the basis for the film Memento.[3] Although Jonathan received a "based on a story by" credit, not a screenwriting credit, the brothers shared a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as the film was released before the story was published.[4]
In 2005, Jonathan and Christopher co-wrote the screenplay for The Prestige, which is based on Christopher Priest's novel of the same title.[5] The brothers collaborated on the screenplay for the 2008 film The Dark Knight. The film went on to become the most financially successful Batman film, which has since been surpassed by its sequel, The Dark Knight Rises.[6]
On 10 February 2011, CBS picked up Nolan's pilot Person of Interest. The show was officially picked up by CBS on 13 May 2011 to air in fall 2011. The series ran for five seasons and starred Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson. Nolan served as executive producer along with J. J. Abrams.[3]
Nolan wrote the screenplay for Interstellar, a science-fiction feature based on the works of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who served as the film's executive producer.[7] Christopher Nolan co-wrote, directed and produced the film, with Paramount distributing domestically, while Warner Bros. distributed internationally.[8][9][10]
Nolan and Lisa Joy wrote a pilot for an adaptation of Westworld, Michael Crichton's 1973 science fiction Western thriller of the same name. On August 31, 2013, it was announced that HBO had ordered a pilot for a show, with Nolan, Joy, Weintraub, J. J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk as executive producers, and Nolan making his directorial debut.[11] The pilot was subsequently picked up to series, with Nolan and Joy as co-showrunners, and premiered on October 2, 2016. In November 2016, HBO renewed the show for a 10-episode second season, that started in April 2018.[12][13] On May 1, 2018, following the first two episodes of Season 2, the series was renewed for a third season.[14]
Personal life [ edit ]
Nolan found that having an English accent was very unpopular after moving to Chicago, so he learned to "sound like a good Chicago kid."[5]
When contemplating the artistic differences between himself and his brother, Nolan remarked: "I've always suspected that it has something to do with the fact that he's left-handed and I'm right-handed, because he is somehow able to look at my ideas and flip them around in a way that's just a bit more twisted and interesting. It's great to be able to work with him that way."[15]
Nolan is married to Burn Notice writer and Westworld co-creator and executive producer Lisa Joy.[16][17][18] They have a daughter[19] and a son together.[20]
Filmography [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Television [ edit ]
Year Title Credited as Notes Ref. Writer Director Executive producer 2011–2016 Person of Interest Yes Yes Yes Creator; writer (9 episodes), director (1 episode) [25] 2016–present Westworld Yes Yes Yes Co-creator; writer (9 episodes), director (2 episodes) [26]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Short fiction
"Memento Mori" (2001) – short story basis for Memento (2000)by
Many of you are probably familiar with C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. His chapter on “Sexual Morality†has some analogies in it that have struck me for some time. With your indulgence, I will quote what Lewis has to say then go on to make my point.
Lewis compares our sexual appetite with our appetite for food to show us how disordered the sexual appetite is. “The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined, and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much; but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously....
“Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act – that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?Â...
“Here is the third point. You find very few people who want to eat things that really are not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare.â€
Lewis’s point is that our food appetite is relatively healthy, but our sexuality is messed up. You can read the whole chapter to get Lewis’s valuable insights on sexual morality, but I’m interested in how the sin of gluttony has changed since Lewis wrote these words in the 1940s.
Let’s look at his claims one by one. First, he says that we may eat a little more than we need to, but not enormously more. Yet according to Denise Grady of the New York Times (3 August 2010), “Slightly more than one in four Americans were obese in 2009, and nine states had obesity rates of at least 30 percent.â€Â These numbers are considered conservative; many researchers put them higher.
We’ve all heard that food portion sizes have increased in the last decades, with the biggest increase seen at fast-food restaurants. In 1977 snacks, for example, were “11.3 percent of average Americans’ energy intake, while by 1996 that figure had climbed to 17.7 percent, which is more than a 50 percent increase.â€Â That wasn’t the only figure that increased, if you’ll excuse the pun. This same report from Science Daily, 22 January 2003, also says, “Among people under age 39, pizza and salty snack consumption rose as much as 143 percent†during the same two decades.
People are not just eating a little more than they need to. They’re eating terrifically, even enormously, more. Decades ago, when I was a kid, I don’t remember anyone carrying food or drink around routinely. Now people even go into church with a thirty-two ounce vat of coffee, and my college students complain that I won’t let them eat during a class that lasts only an hour and fifteen minutes.
Next Lewis imagines a strip-tease act for food. He assumes that we will laugh at how ridiculous such an idea would be. But Paste Magazine.com’s review of “The Ten Best Food Shows of the Decade†offers this statement with a shrug-of-the-shoulders tone: “It says something about America, no doubt, that we’ve reached the point where eating food is not enough – we now must be entertained by it.â€
Look in Wikipedia under “Food Reality Television Series†and you’ll find 53 links listed. They include such classics as “The Naughty Kitchen,†featuring the chef’s Sexy New American Cuisine. Take it all off! The chef even prefers to call her show’s coordinators “door whores.â€Â How sexy can you get.
Or you can look up the website called The Food Pervert. Her slogan is “I’m here to show you mine, whether you show me yours or not.....Â. my food of course!â€Â Sounds like a food strip-tease to me. The picture shows a sultry wench proffering a giant turkey.
Thirdly, Lewis claims that food perversions are rare, that mostly people just want to eat food. Well, The Food Pervert is not the only person on the internet boasting of intemperate appetites – search for yourself, if you really want to. Or you can look up www. ifood.tv. The writer there chortles about the Gross Food Movement. I will not strew the requisite numbers of [sic]s among these poorly written sentence look-alikes; you’ll just have to “stomach†the gross prose. “Why is it (the Gross Food Movement) done? Simply because it is not considered norm. It is a breath of fresh air! An act of breaking the healthy diet vows that has chained our food habits! The Gross Food Movement worships everything that we have been banned from our diet for our health.Â... It seems like gluttony has a new movement in its honour! Hail the Gross Food Movement!â€Â It’s not just a meal any more, it’s a movement. The banner of the revolution is a Krispy Kreme doughnut stuffed with sloppy joes.
Not perverse enough for you? How about the television show “Hurl!â€? This is what the page linked to Wikipedia says about the show. Again take the [sic]s for granted: gluttony cancels grammar, evidently. “The concept is for competitors to alternate between challenges of competitive eating several pounds of food is to play through extreme activities after eating a lot to see who will be last to vomit.â€Â You’ll be glad to know that “All food and drink are identified as being organic.â€Â Vomiting is filmed and rated by a sophisticated bucket-count system.
What is going on? What have we become? Our culture has gone crazy. But at least the church is addressing the problem. I’m glad that there are so many sermons on the Deadly Sin of Gluttony in churches around America. I’m delighted that St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition is so frequently quoted from the pulpit:  “Gluttony denotes, not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire… leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists” (Summa Theologica 2, 148, ad 1). It’s a good thing that all Christians, in a non-legalistic way, practice the biblical discipline of fasting, as Jesus modeled, in order to remember that man does not live by bread alone.
Or not.
I think we’ve forgotten that gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Most Christians would agree with Lewis that our sexual appetites are disordered, but would they say the same about our desire for food? When we confess our sins, either privately or to another, does gluttony even make the list? Satan’s done a good job getting us running around after sexual sins while completely ignoring the other organ that runs our lives.
Here’s what Lewis has to say in The Screwtape Letters. Remember that the narrator is a devil and speaks from that perspective. “The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching souls, in your last letter, shows only your ignorance. One of the great achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it the whole length and breadth of Europe.â€Â Or America.
Why do Christians – preachers, writers, teachers, people in the pews – so infrequently address gluttony? Could it be that fasting and conscious moderation are seen by evangelicals as too papist, too legalistic and smacking of works righteousness? Temperance in eating, to the Extreme Grace crowd, becomes a way of earning favor with God or an unhealthily monkish mortification. What a shame, when generations of wise Christians have known that temperance is training in freedom, and fasting is a means of quieting our flesh and developing our hunger for God.
Modern Christians have also been more affected by pop-Freudian ideas than they would like to admit. They have absorbed, without perhaps acknowledging it, the conviction that repression is unhealthy. Repress the desire for food, or sex, or blurting out whatever you’re feeling, and you’ll develop a complex; eventually all the repressed emotions will boil over and harm you and everyone around you. Or at least that’s what the check-out counter magazines say – you know, the ones that tell you that you have to be good to yourself or you’re no good to anyone else; that you deserve the best; that this month you need to pamper yourself. You can find the magazines right next to the chocolate bars.
Finally Christians are reluctant to confront gluttony because of the sheer weight of the problem. (Sorry, these phrasings just seem to happen.) So many people now are obese and unhappy about it that they exert great pressure on others not to mention the weight problem. It’s rude to say anything about eating habits, they imply. It’s unkind. It’s also embarrassing to many would-be prophets who are packing on the pounds themselves.
But while growing obesity is one symptom of our cultural problem with gluttony, not only fat people are gluttonous. The issue is to what degree we are ruled by our stomachs. Screwtape goes on to say, “But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern?â€
I’ll be the first to confess that I speak from personal knowledge.  I do not live according to the freedom of the spirit but am still trammeled by the flesh.  My inner spoiled child clamors for bribes from the grocery cart of life, and I too often placate her; I can hardly hear God’s voice over her yelling. I have convinced myself that life is not daily crucifixion but daily treats awarded to myself for – well, for having survived another day. I have mistaken the source of my life; I have forgotten that my true life is hidden with Christ.
The antidote to gluttony is not a successful diet and a sleek figure. Even if it were, that’s no good to me. I’ve never been able to manage the successful diet, and the sleek figure is long gone. The antidote to gluttony is drawing life from the living vine, not from one more treat; it’s being fed by the word of God. To use Jeff Dunn’s imagery, if we continue to seek happiness by stuffing ourselves, we’re just feeding a corpse.
Now there’s an image to put me off my food.
[Pictures of state fair food taken by, but not eaten by, Jeff Dunn at this year’s Tulsa State Fair.]The House is expected to consider legislation next week to impose new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program that don’t take aim at the international deal to curb the country’s nuclear program.
A vote on the measure will come after President Trump announced earlier this month that he would not certify that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal.
Congress has 60 days to reimpose sanctions that were lifted as part of the accord. But for now, lawmakers will only be voting on legislation concerning non-nuclear sanctions.
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“It is Congress’ responsibility to work with the executive branch on a clear-eyed strategy to stop Iran’s reckless behavior,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said in a joint statement.
“In the coming weeks and months, the message from the United States to Iran and its proxies will be crystal clear: threats to U.S. security and the security of our partners will come at a heavy price,” they said.
Trump threatened to withdraw from the nuclear deal entirely if Congress doesn’t act.
“It might be a total termination. That's a very real possibility; some would say that's a greater possibility. But it could also could turn out to be very positive. We'll see what happens,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting on Monday.
Democrats are sure to oppose any bill that amounts to rewriting or negating the Iran nuclear deal. But the narrowly tailored bill targeting Iran’s ballistic missile program is expected to pass with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Royce has said that staying in the Iran deal at this point is a better alternative for the U.S. than pulling out of it.
“As flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now enforce the hell out of it,” Royce said at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing this month shortly before Trump declined to recertify Iran's compliance.
Lawmakers will also take action next week to target North Korea amid its nuclear provocations, a GOP aide confirmed.
A bill authored by Rep. Andy Barr Garland (Andy) Hale BarrSchumer urging ex-congressional candidate Amy McGrath to run against McConnell House Dems unveil initial GOP targets in 2020 Poll shows 25 percent view McConnell favorably, lowest among leaders in survey MORE (R-Ky.) would direct the Treasury Department to ban U.S. financial institutions from engaging in significant transactions that benefit people or entities associated with the North Korean government.
It would further authorize cutting off financial assistance to foreign governments that knowingly fail to prevent financial services reaching the North Korean regime.
“The goal is to incentivize foreign banks to sever ties to anyone involved in the North’s economic activity and ultimately cut off Pyongyang’s access to the resources it needs in pursuit of its nuclear ambitions,” Barr said at the House Financial Services Committee markup of his bill earlier this month.
The House is further slated to consider legislation imposing sanctions on Hezbollah and to urge the European Union to designate the group as a terrorist organization.Army Gen. David M. Rodriguez, commander of U.S. Africa Command, discusses the Defense Department's response to the Ebola outbreak during a press briefing at the Pentagon, Dec. 3, 2014. (DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz)
Department of Defense Press Briefing by Gen. Rodriguez in the Pentagon Briefing Room on Ebola Response
Presenter: U.S. Africa Command Commander General David M. Rodriguez
December 03, 2014
Source: http://www.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=5548
GENERAL DAVID RODRIGUEZ: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk with you again on how the U.S. Africa Command is supporting the Ebola response in West Africa. As you know, the president's made very clear that containing the spread of Ebola is a national security priority, and we have made significant progress toward this end as part of a comprehensive U.S. government effort led by the U.S. Agency for International Development.
However, the mission is not complete, and we cannot afford to be complacent. While it is too early to declare success, Liberia has made encouraging advances in reducing the spread of Ebola. We think the biggest drivers of this progress have been the Liberian leadership in educating the public, as well as the health workers, safe burial procedures, rapid contact tracing, and the increased lab capacity to diagnose samples quickly.
From the U.S. military perspective, we have deployed to provide military support in areas like communication and coordination, engineering, logistics, and training. Our engineers are supporting the Liberians as they build improved infrastructure necessary for the response efforts, and we have transportation professionals and logistics professionals managing the movement of personnel and the delivery of humanitarian supplies.
Our military medical personnel are supporting the training of medical support staff for the Ebola treatment units, and the commanders of our military forces are assisting in Ebola response currently. Major General Gary Volesky and previously Major General Darryl Williams have ensured our servicemembers were taken care of before, during and after deploying to support this mission.
We continue to do everything in our power to address and mitigate potential risks to our servicemembers, civilian employees, contractors, and their families. In the end, our equipment, training procedures, and most of all, the leadership and discipline of our personnel will help to ensure that our team accomplishes its mission and keeps our nation and fellow citizens safe. I'm proud of the extraordinary men and women supporting this important mission, and I thank you. And I look forward to your questions.
Yes?
Q: General, do you anticipate having to mount similar operations in other countries?
GEN. RODRIGUEZ: Right now, USAID does not think we'll have to do that, but they're continuing to monitor that very closely. As you know, Sierra Leone and Guinea, of course, are two that are hard hit. And then there has been an uptick in Mali, so we're continuing to prepare to do those things, but as of yet, not required.
Q: What is different about those countries that would not require U.S. military assistance?
GEN. RODRIGUEZ: Well, it depends really on the international community's effort to do the things that are required. Much of it, of course, that where we provide the unique capabilities are in the communications and the coordination, as well as the logistics support and the things that we're doing in -- in Liberia.
Now, in Liberia, by the end of the year, a lot of that will start to get picked up by the civilian agencies, so we'll just have to continue to monitor that situation. And, again, USAID has disaster assistance and response teams in each of those countries, and as of today, they have not requested that support.
Yes?
Q |
hotel, located in twin towers set at 45-degree angles to the rest of the building. Several glass skybridges offer views of the San Francisco Bay Area. The Loews Regency has the street address 222 Sansome, with a different entrance.
Floors [ edit ]
The floors of the building are used as follows:
38F - 48F: Loews Regency San Francisco
4F - 36F: Offices
2F - 3F: Retail and Restaurants
1F: Lobby Entrance to the Office and Hotel
B2F-B1F: Parking Space
Gallery [ edit ]
345 California lobby
The building's twin spires
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Nike LeBron 11 Elite SE – Release Date
5.00 / 5 11 VOTES This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. The opinions and information provided on this site are original editorial content of Sneaker News.
The LeBron 11 Elite SE will release on August 1st, 2014. The news of their retail arrival doesn’t come as a huge surprise given that this week saw the firming up of release info for the LeBron 11 Low SE “Multicolor” that’s been lumped in with them in the past. They won’t come cheap – the Elite tag result in a $295 retail price. Continue reading to see the official imagery on this latest pair of Nike LeBron 11s and watch for them to launch on 8/1 at 8AM EST on Nikestore or right now on eBay.
Nike LeBron 11 SE
Color: University Red/Metallic Gold
Style Code: 695226-670
Release Date: 08/01/14
Price: $295T he second I hit the rail, I knew something was wrong.
It was my final slopestyle run at the 2014 X Games, and I was going for my third straight gold medal. You may not know what slopestyle is, so let me explain: Imagine an obstacle course of rails and ramps spread over one long downhill run, where judges award points for a snowboarder’s tricks based on accuracy and degree of difficulty. There’s a lot of speed and air involved, two ingredients that make it one of the more dangerous winter events. It’s also the most fun and the most creative, but that’s just one dude’s opinion.
So I only had one run left, and I was sitting in second place. I knew I had to go all-out to put myself in the running for gold, but I just didn’t have enough air coming off the ramp. All of a sudden, the back of my snowboard clipped the rail and I flipped over, smashing the side of my body into the bar. Somehow I actually managed to land and stay on my feet, but as I rode down the mountain, I knew I wasn’t just winded. Something worse had happened. Later that day I got an X-Ray and I found out I’d broken my rib.
A broken rib. And it was the worst timing. I was 20 years old, the gold medal favorite for the Sochi Winter Olympics, and I was staring up at a hospital ceiling. The Olympics started in 10 days.
I know some people don’t take snowboarding seriously as a sport. They think that we just get to chill all day on the mountain and hang out at the ski lodge all night. I mean, listen, I grew up in Canada, where everybody is practically born with a hockey stick in their hand. When I quit hockey as a kid, my parents would say to other parents, “Mark snowboards now,” and the other parents would be like, “Yeah, our kids do that too — on holidays.” My folks had to explain that I actually got paid to do it.
I’ll be the first to admit, snowboarding is a much more laid back lifestyle than playing hockey or basketball or other sports for a living. I get to go all around the world with my friends, from Japan to Switzerland to Aspen, just trying to find the best powder. But at the same time, we’re working hard to be creative and constantly reinvent the sport. That’s why I love it. We have that luxury of saying, “Today I want to go out and try this new trick that no one’s landed before,” and we’re always pushing the boundaries.
When I’m preparing for a contest, I’m just working my tail off. Between practice, the gym, physiotherapy, signings, and interviews, it’s just go, go, go, all day. It can get pretty rigorous. And now with the Olympics and all the hands involved in it, snowboarding is more serious than ever. It’s definitely much more strategized and much more of a mental game. When I was younger, my attitude was, “Get on the hill and go!” Now, it’s more strategic, and there’s more and more preparation that goes into competing.
But I’ve never had to work as hard as those 10 days before the Sochi Olympics. Right when I got the X-Ray, the doctor told me I wasn’t going to be able to compete at Sochi. But I knew I had to. Some way, somehow. I got a hold of my doctor later that night, and this time he told me that it wouldn’t injure me more if I tried to compete. He said it wasn’t realistic to compete in the Olympics with a broken rib but that I could try. That’s all I needed to hear. Still, I was facing an uphill battle. We’re talking about a Mt. Everest type of battle. Those last couple weeks before a major competition are supposed to be when you’re perfecting your moves. You’re supposed to be putting in full days on the mountain and in the gym. Here I was, on the eve of the Olympics, barely able to take a shower without debilitating pain. I thought I had no chance, for sure.
I flew to Austria the next day (definitely the longest flight of my life). Once I arrived and tried to hit the mountain, I couldn’t even get up on my board. I ended up not leaving the lodge much at all. Every day, I was just with my physical therapist — an hour in the pool, an hour in the gym, two hours on the table — the most intensive rehab you could imagine. The pool was the best because it’s really low impact. With a broken rib, all your muscles are trying to operate as a cast around the injured area. We were just trying to strengthen and loosen those muscles up to get them more mobile. But still, pain was the major issue. I just needed to learn to deal with it. I was wincing if I even turned over in bed.
I finally began to get stronger, and I started to bike. I had to get the most out of every 24-hour period because there was no time left. By the time I had to go to Sochi, I was squatting and jumping a little bit without a board. Not exactly gold-medal moves. But the pain was still there and I was starting to feel pretty bummed. The day before competition opened, I tried to get on the board, but the pain was still too intense. After all that work, it was crushing to think I might not even be able to take a run at the Olympics. Even if I did compete, I wouldn’t get any chance to test out the slope before the first round. It was going to be like a bobsledder going down a course without studying it. Still, I just kept trying to put it out of my mind and focus on rehabbing.
It’s crazy. Until something goes wrong, it’s smooth sailing. You have the luxury to worry about the smallest things. Then when something actually goes wrong, like an injury, you realize that you have to just go back to the basics and start from the ground up. You have to dig deeper than you ever thought you could. Something weird happened right before I took my run. The injury actually ended up taking the pressure off of trying to go get a gold medal, because it became more like, “Let’s get better so I can try and compete.”
In the 2014 Sochi Olympics for slopestyle, there were 29 snowboarders competing. You get two runs in the qualifying round, and the four boarders with the best single overall run automatically move on to the finals. The rest have to go to the semifinals. Each of those guys had spent the past two weeks practicing their moves over and over, putting on the finishing touches. I had spent the better part of those two weeks in a pool. I still hadn’t even been on the course yet.
During the qualifying round, I fell on my first run. I dug deep in myself, though, and managed to put up a pretty good second one, so I was feeling good. I kept grinding through the competition, getting stronger each of the 15 days of the Olympics. The semifinal has the same system — two runs, and the four snowboarders with the best single overall run get to move on to the final. My first run was pretty shaky, but I managed to stay on my feet. My second run was solid and was enough to make it to the finals.
I couldn’t believe where I’d made it. After all of that, I was competing with 11 other snowboarders for a spot on the podium.
On the first run of the final, I fell. So it all came down to the last one, the make or break run. Going down the hill, everything went away — the pain, the pressure to win, the agony of the past 15 days. I was by myself flying down the slope, nailing every rail and jump, going back to what I love most about snowboarding — just having fun. The judges’ score: 88.75. It was good enough for a bronze medal. Two weeks ago, sitting in that doctor’s room, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would be standing on the Olympic podium. Never could I have imagined winning Canada’s first medal of the Sochi games. When they put the medal around my neck, my rib still hurt, but it was a good pain.
After all I had been through, the bronze felt like gold.
Snowboarding is the only life I could imagine living. I love being on the first chair of the morning, and hiking out to find that good terrain that nobody else has gone on. I love traveling around in a van with my friends, and waking up every morning to two feet of fresh powder. Sometimes we put our bodies in harm’s way, but as long as you’re being smart, you can snowboard safe and still push the limits. It’s the risk combined with the reward that makes it a pretty crazy, cool life.An anti-Islam advertisement referring to Muslims as savages has been posted in 10 subway stations around New York City. The ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel/Defeat Jihad.” The ad was sponsored by the pro-Israel group American Freedom Defense Initiative, which is also known for opposing the creation of a Muslim community center near Ground Zero. On Monday, Cyrus McGoldrick of the Council on American-Islamic Relations visited a New York subway station where the ads were being displayed.
Cyrus McGoldrick: “Of course I have mixed feelings about it. You know, it’s disgusting. It’s despicable. I have to laugh, as well. You know, the use of the word'savage' is just so like classically colonialist and everything, that she [American Freedom Defense Initiative head Pamela Geller] really does a lot more harm to her cause than good. Really, us being out here, just being, you know, public and proud of our faith and our people and our city, we’re trying to unify rather than divide, to replace ignorance with information, because the war is not between the civilized and the savage, the war is between ignorance and understanding, it’s between beauty and ugliness. And we’re trying to be on the right side of that.”
The New York City Transit Authority had attempted to block the ad, but a federal judge deemed it protected speech. The ads come amidst mass global protests over a U.S.-made anti-Islam film that mocks the Prophet Muhammad.While we have already seen the release of 0.46 to CPAN Curtis Jewell has released the first version of Padre Standalone for Windows. It contains Padre 0.45 and is built on a recent version of Strawberry Perl for Windows Once installed you can easily upgrade Padre to 0.46 directly from CPAN. (See the Howto page) The objective of Padre Standalone for Windows is to provide an easily installable and easily upgradeable editor for people who already have perl installed or who are using perl on a remote machine (opening and saving files via ftp or ssh) or for people who use it for editing other languages. While it will contain a full Strawberry Perl installation, it will happily live together with any other Perl installation (e.g. any version of ActivePerl ) and the users won't even need to know it is running on Perl. Actually it will probably require a separate perl installation if you really want to run perl code. We are still a couple of months away from having all the features but we have started to build a wiki page outlining the plans and the feature we would like to include. If you would like to help, you can look around our bug tracking system and/or you can get involved in other ways.Reading Time: 4 minutes
Your source library is at the heart of your Cronycle. The sources in your library pinpoint the articles you’d like to see in your news feeds.
It doesn’t take too much time to build up a source library with excellent feeds. Just take a look at the following steps:
[button label=”Sign up to Cronycle” url=”javascript:void(0);” class=”initSignup”]
From the sign up journey
You are presented with two choices.
1. Use Cronycle sources – recommended
It’s hard starting with a blank slate. With the Cronycle sources, you have a library of 240 feeds that suit a diverse range of interests. It includes sources from the BBC, Reuters, AlJazeera, Le Monde, TechCrunch, Lancet and Amnesty International. You’ll be able to play around with the platform and see relevant and interesting articles immediately.
[quoter color=”flamingo”]With the Cronycle sources, you have a library of 240 feeds that suit a diverse range of interests[/quoter]
You can easily delete sources from your library by ‘checking’ the source(s) you wish to delete and going to ‘bulk action’ then ‘delete from library’. You can also use the search bar to see which sources are already part of your library so you don’t have to add them again.
2. Elect to populate Cronycle with your own sources
On the other hand, you may already have aggregated a list of trusted sources through a news aggregator or through twitter. If this is the case, then you can easily import your trusted sources to Cronycle immediately. Check out this guide to importing an OPML file of feeds here.
Populating your library as you surf the web
We’ve created a browser extension for Chrome and Safari and a mobile app for Android and iOS to help you find relevant feeds as you’re browsing the web. When you have logged into the relevant app, you’ll find an option to add a feed when you are on a particular page. On a desktop it looks like this:
On mobile it looks like this when you hit the share button:
This is great because then you can naturally populate your library over a couple of days. It also means that when you come across a great new site, then you won’t miss their content in the future because it will be in your Cronycle.
These feeds use RSS technology. If it happens that the site you’re after doesn’t have an RSS feed, then find the twitter handle which is associated with that publisher. Often publishers post their content on Twitter so you have access to many different types of content!
Using Twitter as a trusted source
Twitter is a great way to keep updated with industry news – and often users have spent a long time finding the best people to follow for new content. The problem is that if you follow 100 people, you get an average of one tweet a minute, which is completely unmanageable. Instead, you can link your twitter account into Cronycle and allow us to filter the articles which are surfaced there.
If you don’t have a twitter account, you can add sources handle by handle on the sources page.
[quoter color=”jeans”]Twitter is a great way to keep updated with industry news[/quoter]
Add Google alerts as feeds
Finally, if there are subjects which you don’t want to miss out on, then consider using a Google Alert as a feed.
Go to google.com/alerts > type in the key word that interests you > edit settings and create a feed > input that feed into Cronycle.
For a complete guide with pictures please click here.
Build the perfect source library on Cronycle
We’re not going to deny there is an element of time investment in setting up your source library. However, given that people spend 20% time searching for relevant content on search engines and other networks, the time investment is immediately repaid because you’ll get relevant content on subjects you care about.
If you have any feedback on this post then please let us know! Otherwise, sign up for Cronycle by hitting on the button below or share with your colleagues and friends.
[button label=”Sign up to Cronycle” url=”javascript:void(0);” class=”initSignup”]This post originally appeared on Bustle.
By Suzanne Samin
Tuesday, Sept. 23, was Bisexual Visibility Day, and man, do people need to made aware of us. We may not be a big group -- only 0.7 percent of Americans identify as bisexual -- but that doesn't mean we aren't here. In fact, our small numbers just might represent the fact that as a group, bisexual people are often especially stigmatized.
Don't get it twisted: Bisexual individuals can definitely benefit from heterosexual privilege, in so far as they have the ability to be in "socially acceptable" relationships, where as gay and lesbian people may not.
But from being told our orientation doesn't exist, to being accused of lying to get attention, the experience of coming out as bisexual comes with its own list of unique difficulties. The misconceptions about what it means to be bi are so common that even Anna Paquin had to school Larry King on bisexuality when he asked her some quintessentially ignorant questions earlier this year.
As a bi woman, I, along with every bisexual person I've met, have heard the same handful of these ill-informed questions whenever I've chosen to open up about my orientation. Here are 11 things we bi women are just plain tired of hearing.
1. You're just bi to get guys' attention.
Women definitely hear this one more often than men. Sure, being bi-curious may be different from being bisexual. But the trick to figuring out if someone is "really bi" is simple: If they say, "I'm bisexual," then they are bisexual. End of story. They don't need to pull out their bisexual license or pass any other qualifying exams for you.
2. But you've never kissed/slept with/dated a girl, so you can't really be bi.
I think you and I both know you didn't make out with Channing Tatum before listing him as your sexuality on Facebook. What I've done is totally irrelevant.
3. Are you sure you aren't a lesbian?
People on both sides of the spectrum are guilty of this one. I'm pretty sure the first question you ask yourself after you realize you're attracted to someone of your same sex is, "Am I gay?" But for those of us who are bi, the answer is clearly no.
But no, you're right, this is obviously just some denial-based delusion we've all conned ourselves into over the years in order to avoid admitting to ourselves that we're gay. We're so delusional we've even made a flag for ourselves and opened up exhibits about our history. But now, thanks to you, we'll never have to lie to the world and ourselves ever again.
4. I bet that I can change your mind.
Nope, and now you're definitely not getting in my pants.
5. You just want to sleep with everyone.
Being bisexual means being attracted to men and women -- not all men and women, just the ones we find attractive. It's absurd that we still have to make this distinction, but apparently we do.
6. You'll grow out of it, I bet.
This isn't a phase for me. Why, is your sexuality just a phase for you?
7. Men are so annoying. I wish I could date girls!
Uh, you can. But I'm not bi because I sometimes get tired of guys. It's not like women are the other white meat.
8. But you'll have to eventually become gay or straight if you get married, right?
While for most of us marriage means settling down with one person and being faithful to them, it's not like there's a switch we can flip on our butts somewhere to make us gay or straight. Our partner will just have to respect that its something we can't change, the same way we will respect their orientation.
9. I don't date bi girls because they'll just leave me.
People leave their significant others for other people every day, regardless of orientation. To insinuate that bisexuals are more likely to do so than others, and to shun them as a result, is just ignorant.
10. My boyfriend wants to have a threesome, and we were just wondering since you're bi and all...
No. Being bi doesn't make me any more inclined than anyone else to want to sleep with you and your boyfriend.
11. Can I watch?
NO, gross dude. Just, no.
More from Bustle:China in 1920 and then again in 2009. Dheera Venkatraman
Over the past 30 years, China has grown from an agricultural-centric country to a largely urban society. Hundreds of millions of rural residents have left the countryside for larger cities, many in the hopes of finding better jobs.
Photographer Dheera Venkatraman spent a few years traveling around the country to create a series he called "Time Traveling in China". The project involved finding images from the 1900s and revisiting the locations they depicted, taking his own photos of what the landscape looks like today.
"Having studied physics before, I thought doing a trip in time, instead of space, might be an interesting thought," Venkatraman told Business Insider.
Below, see 13 images of the drastic changes China's landscapes have undergone.PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- Buffalo Bills general manager Buddy Nix and coach Chan Gailey are not afraid.
Both know this is a huge year in Buffalo. On paper, this is the best Bills team Gailey has coached and the best group Nix has put together. Many are expecting a playoff year from the Bills, who haven't made the postseason in 13 years.
This is new territory for Buffalo. For more than a decade, the Bills have been lovable losers. They finished 6-10 and last in the AFC East in 2011. But a stellar offseason has breathed new life into the franchise and created new expectations.
"We're not backing off from [expectations]. We expect to win and we expect to contend," Nix told the AFC East blog. "I think sometimes when you're afraid to say you expect that is because you're preparing yourself to lose. We're not afraid to say it. We've laid some groundwork for two years, and we're to the point now where we need to take the next step."
The groundwork included landing the top free agent not named Peyton Manning: defensive end Mario Williams. Buffalo also signed 10-sack defensive end Mark Anderson, re-signed No. 1 receiver Steve Johnson and drafted highly touted cornerback Stephon Gilmore and potential starting left tackle Cordy Glenn.
Buffalo did a great job putting a deep and talented roster together. The front office bought quality groceries. Now, it's time for Gailey and his coaching staff to cook a good meal.
"That's exactly right," Gailey said, responding to the metaphor. "That's my job: to get us to a winning program and playoffs and a championship."
THREE HOT ISSUES
Mario Williams, the Bills' largest contract acquisition in franchise history, has some high expectations to live up to in his first year in Buffalo. AP Photo/David Duprey
1. Will Mario Williams live up to top billing? Williams and Gailey have a lot in common. Both are under pressure to produce in 2012. But Williams is also under the microscope due to the $100 million contract ($50 million guaranteed) he signed in March, the biggest contract in Bills history.
With that comes the expectation of double-digit sacks and game-changing plays. That is what Williams does best, and he said he's "ecstatic" to wreak havoc in Buffalo this year. But Williams, a former Houston Texan, is returning from a season-ending pectoral injury and must stay healthy.
Williams certainly looks the part. He checked in at 292 pounds and is a mountain of muscle. He adds an intimidating presence to the Bills' defense.
In many ways, the Bills have built their defense around Williams. They switched back to a 4-3 scheme, which better suits Williams' strengths. Buffalo will plug Anderson in on the other side to take some of the pressure off Williams.
2. Will Ryan Fitzpatrick be consistent? Fitzpatrick’s career has been marked with inconsistency. He is one of the streakiest quarterbacks in the NFL, one who can get really hot or really cold at any moment. Fitzpatrick led the NFL with 23 interceptions last season.
Bills quarterbacks coach David Lee believes the streakiness is due to inconsistent fundamentals. Lee and Fitzpatrick worked extensively on mechanics this offseason to reduce the number of bad games.
"At this point I feel like it is easy to have better mechanics, but it is when you get into the games that it is really going to be the test for me," Fitzpatrick said. "And not just Week 1 through Week 5. It is going to be the whole season."
Fitzpatrick's streakiness was on display in practice Tuesday. On one play in team drills, he threw a beautiful deep ball to receiver Derek Hagan for a touchdown. Fitzpatrick then threw an interception into coverage on the next play.
By nature, Fitzpatrick is a gunslinger. But reduced turnovers will put the defense in better position and it could produce more wins for the Bills. A lot is riding on Fitzpatrick this season. The Bills recently gave him a $59 million contract, and it's time to prove he can lead a franchise.
3. Can Buffalo win in the AFC East? The biggest thorn in the side of the Bills has been their division rivals. Buffalo is just 2-10 against the AFC East the past two years.
The Bills can't quite put a finger on the reason. Part of it was inconsistency, part was lack of toughness. Another part was missed opportunities.
"They were better than us, but we gotta change that," Nix said candidly. "We hadn’t measured up in the two years we’d been here, even though if we could’ve stayed healthy I thought we could’ve been in contention at the end. I felt all along we could win nine or 10 games if we could keep everybody healthy. But we didn’t have a lot of depth anyway, and the ones we lost were our best leaders."
The gap between the New England Patriots and everyone else in the AFC East appears wide. No team outside of New England finished with a winning record last year. However, the Bills are confident they did enough this offseason to close the gap. Part of that confidence is due to splitting with New England last season.
"We still feel like we should win the division -- every team does," Gailey said. "Miami feels that way. The Jets feel that way. The Patriots feel that way. That's the goal going in."
Reason for optimism
Buffalo's defensive line should be one of the best in the NFL. Defensive tackles Marcell Dareus and Kyle Williams are paired with defensive ends Mario Williams and Anderson. That's a lot of money and high draft picks invested in rushing the quarterback and winning in the trenches.
But the starting defensive linemen aren't the only quality players. Buffalo has a deep bench, led by backup defensive ends Chris Kelsay and Shawne Merriman and backup defensive tackle Dwan Edwards. The rotation along the defensive line should wear down many opposing offensive lines.
Starting QB Ryan Fitzpatrick has the position locked up, while Vince Young and Tyler Thigpen fight it out for the No. 2 spot. AP Photo/David Duprey
"I feel like everybody on our defensive line could be a starter one way or the other, whether it is here or somewhere else," Mario Williams said. "Our competition level is extremely high. Every day we are pushed and we push each other. We hold each other accountable. I think that is the biggest thing."
Reason for pessimism
Buffalo is a team still learning how to win and is fighting plenty of bad history. As noted, it's been 13 years since Buffalo qualified for the postseason, a playoff run that was ended by the Music City Miracle.
It takes a lot of focus, maturity and consistency to win throughout a 16-game season. Past Bills teams lacked those traits. Once things went downhill, it was too easy for Buffalo to fall back into the "same old Bills" mentality.
Buffalo had a little taste of success last year. The Bills started 5-2 and were in first place in the AFC East. But things turned sour quickly and the losing snowballed. Buffalo lost eight of its last nine games and finished last in the division.
The Bills were the unexpected media darlings of the NFL for a couple weeks before things fell apart.
"You learn how to take that with a grain of salt, because it’s what you do on Sundays that count," Gailey said. "I hope we learned that lesson. I hope we learned not to let that affect our play and our thought processes in any way."
OBSERVATION DECKFormer US president also talks about life after leaving office in rare interview conducted by prince for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme
Politicians, and others in positions of power, should stop corroding civil discourse and seek to unify society, the former US president Barack Obama said in a rare interview conducted by Prince Harry for BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Prince Harry guest-edits BBC Radio 4 Today programme Read more
Obama did not mention his successor, Donald Trump, by name, but said social media could lead to facts being discarded and prejudices being reinforced, making public conversation harder. “All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet,” he said.
Obama reflected on the day he relinquished power to Trump and said: “Overall there was serenity there, more than I would have expected,” but his sense of achievement was laced with a sense of “all the work that was left undone”. He said he viewed each presidency as part of a relay race, but felt he had passed the baton on successfully. “We had run a good race,” he said.
Since leaving office, he said, life appeared to move in slow motion, but he insisted this slower pace could be liberating if it meant he “could spend an extra 45 minutes talking to Michelle or having a long breakfast”.
Trump has been fiercely critical of Obama personally and politically since he entered the Oval Office, but Obama in his first interview since leaving office did not take the chance to hit back, possibly reflecting his wife Michelle’s famous dictum: “When they go low, we go high”.
He showed that he regarded his health reforms, providing insurance to 20 million people, as his greatest legacy, and since leaving office he has been using social media to encourage Americans to take up the extended offer of insurance.
Prince Harry and Obama spent part of an often personal interview – the first since he left office – discussing their shared “obsession” in empowering a new generation of young civic leaders worldwide, an issue that lies at the heart of the Obama Foundation, the central vehicle for Obama’s post-presidential public work.
He said: “This generation is the most sophisticated, the most tolerant in many ways, the most embracing of diversity, the most tech-savvy, the most entrepreneurial, but they do not have much faith in existing institutions.”
He feared their energy, often displayed on the internet, was being held back by “the bias of those who are comfortable with power the way it is currently exercised”.
Insisting as a former constitutional lawyer that he did not wish to censor social media, Obama said: “The question is: how do we harness this technology that allows a multiplicity of voices, a diversity of views but does not lead to a Balkanisation of our society but rather continues to promote ways of finding common ground?”
He added: “All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet. One of the dangers of the internet is people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.”
One of the best ways to fight this tendency was “to make sure that online communities do not just stay online, but move offline”, he argued.
Social media had a power to convene and connect but people should then “meet in a pub, a place of worship, or a neighbourhood and get to know each other”, he said.
“The truth is, on the internet everything is simpified, but when you meet people face to face it turns out it is complicated,” the former president said, adding it was then possible to find surprising areas of common ground.
Obama's post-presidential life: what does his second act have in store? Read more
He commented: “It is harder to be as obnoxious and cruel in person as people can be anonymously on the internet.”
Saying he now wanted to create platforms for social change for young people, Obama advised that “sending out an hashtag in of itself can bring about change, it can be a powerful way to raise awareness, but you have to get on the ground and do something”.
Reflecting on the personal change of being off the treadmill of public office, he said: “It is wonderful to be able to control your day. The job entailed a wide range of responsibilities and a constantly full inbox. Now when I wake up I can make my own decisions on how to spend my time, and what to do to forward the things I care deeply about. That is obviously hugely liberating.”
“I don’t have the same tools. I have to rely more on persuasion than legislation but a lot of the things that still motivate me and move me continue until this day.”
Play Video 1:05 'Who knows?': Prince Harry on whether Obama will be invited to his wedding – video
Asked about anything that he had missed since leaving office, he said he missed the camaraderie of his team, adding: “I used to cause traffic, I now experience traffic.”
He said his first thought on leaving office was that he had been thankful that Michelle “had been my partner through that whole process. She is a spectacular, funny and warm person. She is not someone who is naturally inclined to politics, so in some ways though she was as good a first lady as ever been, she did this largely in support of my decision to run.
“For us to be able to come out of that intact – our marriage strong, we are still each other’s best friends, our daughters turning into amazing young women – there was a sense of completion, and that we had done the work in a way that maintained our integrity and left us whole and fundamentally unchanged.”
”When I got off the treadmill it did not feel like my identity was wrapped so the break did not feel that abrupt.”
Harry was asked about becoming the interviewer rather than being the interviewee, and said: “I haven’t done that many interviews but it was quite fun, especially interviewing President Obama despite the fact he wanted to interview me... it’s been a big learning curve but also these are incredibly important topics we all need to think about and need to be discussed.”
The interview was recorded in Toronto in September during the Invictus Games and was kept under wraps for three months.
• This article was amended on 28 December 2017 because an earlier version referred to Michelle Obama’s famous dictum: “When they go low, you go high”. This has been corrected.This article is about ice hockey goaltenders who have scored a goal in an NHL game. For the similar feat in association football, see List of goalscoring goalkeepers
Martin Brodeur is the only goaltender to be credited with three goals, two goals in the regular season and another one in the playoffs.
After a seven-year lull, Chris Osgood was the first goaltender to score a goal since Ron Hextall did so in the 1989 playoffs.
Jose Theodore, then playing for the Montreal Canadiens, scored a goal and shutout in a 3–0 game against the New York Islanders.
Eleven goaltenders have scored a total of fourteen goals in National Hockey League (NHL) games. A goalkeeper can score by either shooting the puck into the net, or being awarded the goal as the last player on his team to touch the puck when an opponent scored an own goal. A goal scored by shooting the puck is particularly challenging as the goaltender has to aim for a six-foot-wide net that is close to 180 feet away, while avoiding opposing defencemen; in the case of own goals, the combined circumstance of the own goal itself in addition to the goaltender being the last player to touch the puck makes it a very rare occurrence. Of the fourteen goals, seven were scored by shooting the puck and seven were the result of own goals.
Goaltenders have participated in the offence, albeit in a limited way, since the earliest days of the sport. Before the creation of the NHL in 1917, there were some instances recorded of goaltenders rushing down the ice to participate in the play, occasionally scoring a goal. This practice has since been outlawed (goalies are not allowed to cross the centre red line to play the puck) after the Toronto Maple Leafs' Gary Smith was injured on such a rush in the 1966–67 NHL season. During the history of the league, there had been some near-misses by goaltenders, including attempts by Chuck Rayner by aiming at the empty net, or joining the attack. In 1977, Rogatien Vachon briefly became the first goaltender to score a goal after being credited following an own goal by the opponent, before it was given instead to a teammate by later video review.
Billy Smith of the New York Islanders became the first goaltender to score an NHL goal on November 28, 1979 |
quiet, but they are just moments, usually interrupted by crying or spitting up or loading a diaper. That’s okay – I didn’t sign up for parenthood for the glamor, and there are other rewards, even now – like when Baby M coos, or grins, or even just watching Hubby interact with his son (which is amazing all by itself). I’ve heard that the first six weeks are the hardest, and maybe it will get better, but in the meantime, I don’t want to feel pressured to treasure something I don’t enjoy. Like I said, I do think breastfeeding is important (very important!), and I will keep on doing it (though I may also whine about it), but I want to put another viewpoint out there, as I have only ever seen one article that suggests that breastfeeding might be anything other than amazing, and I think we need to acknowledge the unpleasant aspects, as well as the good. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way; we should not be made to feel inadequate or like bad mothers, just because we don’t enjoy the breastfeeding experience.
AdvertisementsThe rise of the on–demand economy has presented difficult questions for both employers and employees. It’s not uncommon to see stories about the series of legal and regulatory challenges Uber is facing. Through all of these legal and moral difficulties, the debate remains the same: Should contractors be considered employees or is the solution to create a third classification of worker?
What would a new classification of worker mean for the on–demand economy in general? I’m supportive of finding a way to ensure that contractors have the same worker protection as employees, and that withholdings like FICA, Medicare, workers comp and others are properly addressed so they don’t become a cost that society must bear.
Any new law passed regarding this topic has the potential for a drastic and severe impact on the on–demand economy. Requiring 1099 contractors be considered part-time employees would create disproportionately high costs for on–demand companies, because no individual company can pay for a full set of benefits based on only a few hours worked.
Furthermore, for each new state in which a company has an employee, a significant workload crops up due to unique laws and withholding and filing requirements.
One of the keys to addressing benefits and protections for on–demand workers is to find a way to differentiate between 1099 contractors who are actually “businesses-with-employees” (i.e., employees for whom they are withholding and filing the full gamut of payroll deductions and protections) and those who are “individuals.”
For this differentiating process to work, there must be a way for companies in the on–demand space to continue to pay vendors who are businesses-with-employee entities without additional deductions, because those vendors are already implementing employer-related deductions. But for truly individual contractors, a standardized system of withholding funds for worker benefits could improve the lives of workers without crushing the companies for which they work.
Rather than create a new class of worker, efforts should focus on enabling individual contractors to earn benefits on a prorated basis. The real crux of the problem is that for most benefits in question (e.g., health care, paid time off, etc.), there is currently no way to add these services on an hourly basis.
If benefits can be earned based on an hourly withholding, with a simple nationally standardized implementation, negative impact on the on–demand industry can be minimized and the benefits to this emerging category of contractor can be maximized.
My on–demand company works with thousands of independent lawn-care contractors across the U.S., and is comprised of half businesses-with-employees and half independent contractors. Our businesses-with-employees contractors already have general liability insurance and workers comp for their employees, but many individual contractors came to us without those protections in place.
We found a way to offer general liability and accidental occupational insurance (similar to workers comp) to independent contractors on a per-job basis, with a small withholding to pay for the benefits. This type of approach — covering benefits for the truly individual contractor with a per-job or per-hour withholding — is a way to level the playing field and give on–demand workers a way to earn benefits and protections without disrupting the emerging on–demand economy.
The worker classification for addressing these issues already exists: the 1099 independent contractor. Whether or not a new worker class is created, the eventual solution should address the issue at the heart of the matter — enabling on–demand workers to earn benefits by the hour, with a standardized hourly pro-rata withholding that all on–demand companies can implement equally.A black woman live streamed a racist white couple hurling abuse at her family in a Chester’s restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, to lay bare the grim reality of racism in her home city.
Emarald Robinson, 19, who is pregnant, started streaming to Facebook as she went to confront a couple after they allegedly called her 15-year-old sister a ‘monkey’ and a ‘n******.’
The sisters and their mother Inez Robinson Eddington had gone to a branch of the fast-food chain on Pat Booker Road in Universal City after church on Sunday.
Inez said that her younger daughter was sobbing outside when she and Emarald approached the couple and streamed the interaction live on Facebook.
A black woman live streamed a racist white couple (pictured, the woman) hurling abuse at her family
‘So, Facebook, this is what racist people look like,’ one of them is heard saying.
The white couple are seen sitting, but suddenly jump up and begin cursing at the family.
The woman starts hurling racist abuse at the family, screaming: ‘You’re a fucking n*****!’
Then, she is restrained by her husband as she attempts to charge at the family, shouting: ‘Take your n***** a** back to Africa, h**!’
The mother is heard responding: ‘I was born right here in America.’
At this point, the white man turns around to say: ‘My ancestors brought your b**** a** over here.
The white woman adds: ‘My ancestors owned your a**, n*****! My ancestors owned your ass, b*****!’
Shockingly, while the video shows plenty of customers in the restaurant, no one is seen intervening throughout the row.
Emarald Robinson, 19, who is pregnant, started streaming to Facebook as she went to confront a couple after they allegedly called her 15-year-old sister a ‘monkey’ and a ‘n******’
Robinson approached the couple (above) as she streamed live on Facebook, saying: 'This is what racist people look like'
And towards the end of the five-minute interaction, Emarald flips the camera around to explain why she recorded it.
‘We’re monkeys, guys,’ she says. ‘That’s what they call us. They call us monkeys and n****** and nobody’s paying attention.
‘You know, I had to record it to let you all see. Because it's real in San Antonio, too. For everyone who thinks it's not real, it's real in San Antonio.’
She added: ‘That's the problem though. You can’t fight them. You can't fight these people because that's how you end up in jail.’
The video has since gone viral, and viewed on Robinson’s profile more than 300,000 times.
In a follow-up video, Emerald explained the build-up to her recording, saying that as her little sister was waiting in line, the white woman had said: 'Excuse the f*** out of me, you n***** monkey.'
The woman was restrained by her husband as she attempts to charge at the family, shouting: ‘Take your n***** a** back to Africa, h**!’
They are heard hurling racial epithets at the family in a five-minute video, including ‘My ancestors owned your a**, n*****!'
Emerald said: 'I looked at her and I said, be respectful, she's 15 years old. I asked her that and she and her husband both turned around with their drinks in their hands and proceeded to tell me to shut the f*** up and that I was nothing more than a monkey.
'By this time, I'm upset and I'm angry and I'm trying to handle this situation calmly. I'm trying to decide how I'm going to handle the situation without being aggressive in any way.
'I'm pregnant. By this time, my little sister is already crying, she walks outside crying and she's hurt.'
She added: 'The reason why I went live is because I thought it best to expose them. You don't see it happening in San Antonio, nothing like this ever happens in San Antonio.'
In a post on Facebook, her mother added that her younger daughter was left ‘emotionally heartbroken’ by the incident.
‘My children are respectful because I’ve raised them as such,’ she added.
n a follow-up video, Emerald explained the build-up to her recording, saying that as her little sister was waiting in line, the white woman had said: 'Excuse the f*** out of me, you n***** monkey'25User Rating: 2 out of 5
Review title of Corey Has a few moments but don't expect much.
Wanted to love it but it's a rough exp. It's clunky, choppy, sound design is a bit underwhelming, battle system is mindless, but some really bright moments of music here and there. It can be comical at times but lowers itself to make fun of better games by calling them pretentious or just insulting them and their characters. Games/movies like FFVII, FFX, Harry Potter, Bioshock Infinite, and when they do this they end up getting portions wrong about the games. This was a misstep, and of course some games can be over-hyped and overrated but taking aim at them when your game is a hot mess is kinda dumb If the game was more flushed out, didn't play like an awful mess, worried about themselves then I could've really enjoyed it more. Some of the dialogue is just painful with over the top cursing and very juvenile humor. That's a part of the theme of this game but it could've stood on it's own as a good RPG. When you insult other games in your genre you kinda alienate yourself and fans.LAST FEW DAYS! Pledge Now to receive one of the original Numbered Tails at these prices!
Who we are..
Greyworld are a group of artists that create playful public art usually in urban spaces. Our work has been shown around the world - much of it is permanently installed in different cities. Our biog has more details about us, and our individual roles. Over the last 20 years we have accrued a great deal of experience conceiving and creating exciting projects around the world.
In the beginning..
As part of our experiments in interaction and play, we decided to create a Tail that we could wear on our journeys around town. We wanted an extra limb that could do all the naughty things you dream of, but don't dare. Having a Tail lets you express your cheeky side. It gives a voice to your emotions even when you're standing still.. And it looks fabulous out and about!
So we have been working on creating the perfect Tail for some years. The video above is of an earlier prototype. Our final design is much more advanced - being fully controllable, it can bend and flex and knock things off tables, tremble and twist and curl, stand up and of course wag and get frisky.. It can also dance in time to music - but more about that later.
Many of the prototype parts are shown above.. The original case was rather bulky, and the metal parts were expensive and slow to manufacture. Servos also needed to be light and robust..
Now we are ready..
After lots and lots of testing, its time to make this available! This Kickstarter campaign will allow us to finally create the finished product, and make available these special Tails for the first time.
Whenever we have showed off the prototype Tail, the response has been overwhelming. Can I have one? Do you sell them? Make me a Tail! Finally, after lots of experimentation, the answer is yes.. This Kickstarter project will help us make them in quantity, get volume discounts to produce them at an affordable price, and expand the range of furs and other materials that can be chosen.. It will also let us improve the instruction booklet and create a grooming kit and case..
greyworld’s Tail is approximately 60cm long (24″) plus tufty end and will be created in Panther (Black) Snow Leopard (Black and White) Lion(ess) (Beige) or Bond Villain Cat (White) Almost any fabric can be added as an option to Tail - we have tested sequins, pin stripes (for a formal Tail) Tartan and even leather.. It can also be custom made, to make it shorter or longer, or bulkier.. Less feline, more canine.. More dinosaur! Further down the page, there is a video showing a different style of Tail.
STOP PRESS! For different Tail shapes, see the updates! They are all possible!
Shiny, fluffy, spotty, furry
Sliding on to your belt, the small attached battery pack slips in to your front or back pocket and you are ready to go. Each tail comes with a remote control keyfob to select the movement modes. Each of the 4 modes is selected by pressing one of the buttons. Mode One is Slow moves (eg slow wags, trembles and flicks) Mode Two is fast moves (wags, twirls and flicks) Mode Three is a selection of all the moves in an fun mix, great for setting and forgetting. And the Mode Four is for dancing.. Tap the button in time to the music and watch your tail dance along to the beat!
Control the Tail from here and make it dance..
Every backer will receive a copy of our book In The City, and those that get a Tail will also receive a Certificate of Authenticity, and a special booklet. Kickstarter backers who chose the highest tiers will also be able to create a custom Tail, in very wide selection of fabrics and furs. Everyone will have our deep gratitude for helping us bring these Tails to reality..
Neil works on the 3d parts ready for printing. All the STL files are ready for production.
A naked tail, about to be assembled. The steel cables allow it to flex and bend, and still retain its shape.
Assembling a 3d printed Tail, putting the servos inside the curved case. The limited run PCB has been tested and fits snugly inside the case.
Fabio checks a Tails' bend, whilst Daniel prints some prototype parts.
Technically speaking..
Inside the curvy, lightweight tail housing lies the clever stuff to make the Tail move. Whilst there are very few other tails out there, the ones we could find had a very "flat" left-right wag that felt too robotic. Our system uses a twin servo mechanism, allowing not just left-right wagging, but also to stand the Tail up on end. And because the parts are light, and the servos have some real power, we can also flick and twist the Tail too, in a much more natural way.
A small custom PCB inside the housing holds the PIC that stores the moves, and this is controlled by a remote control unit that interfaces with the PCB. It took a while to get it in to the right size with enough code space for all the moves. But eventually, its all in there..
Custom Tails!
We have had lots of enquiries about customising the Tails to suit. And most changes are possible. Shortening the Tail (like a Bob cat for example) can be done simply. If you wanted a longer Tail, please specify that when making a pledge and we will sort that out for you.
Adding bulk to the Tail is also quite possible. The servos are rated to move more weight that they currently do, so with the right bulking material, other Tail shapes (like a lizard or a dinosaur) can be easily achieved.
Lastly, it may be that some Tail wearers are interested only in a specific kind of movements (say, very slow wags, with the occasional flick for example). We are currently looking in to the feasibility of programming some Tails to order.
If you have a specific question, please send us a message and we will answer it asap. Daily updates will be posted on our Tumblr, and every few days, right here.
Below is a video of a slow moving, fluffier Tail (with Bond villain white fur..) to show a different kind of feel.
Add-ons..
If a backer would like multiple Tails, that's great no problem. However, this is only allowed for backers who are already getting a Tail through one of the pledges.
To receive one more Naked Tail for example, add an extra £85 to your pledge. To receive another Tail in one of the four main furs, please add an extra £125. For multiple Dream Tails, please add an extra £165.
What we will do..
Raising funds through Kickstarter will allow us to create the production environment that the project deserves.
Firstly, we will get the ABS plastic elements of the control housing and internal support structure injection moulded. The 3d files are ready now for production having been tested on our in house printer. Although tooling for injection moulding can be expensive, it will allow us to produce each Tail at a considerable discount versus 3d printing in small numbers.
Quantity discounts have been arranged with suppliers for the servos and remote control units. These form the most expensive elements of the Tail, and need to be of high quality. After extensive testing, we have found a supplier with the right units for the right price.
A local printer has give us a firm quote for packaging and printing costs which is within our budget. This will also allow us to professionally print the instruction booklet too. We have worked with these printers before, and they are excellent.
Lastly, fur swatches have been sourced from a major importer who has the variety of product to satisfy the most ardent Tail wearer! With over 30 different furs on his books, we have an excellent choice to offer Deluxe Tail purchasers. The four standard furs are available as commodity products.
We will also create a custom case and grooming kit for special occasions! A customisable case has been sourced from a factory specialising in product cases and the samples looked really good. Once the product is funded, we will visit the factory and talk about small changes we will need, to create the perfect Tail case.
And so!
Please help us fund the Tail! With your assistance, we can finally create the playful naughty extra limb that we have all been dreaming of - your cheeky side made visible.
Whether its a small or a large pledge, every one of them helps us achieve our goal, and hopefully make a lot of people smile..!AlHannah Islamic Clothing offers traditional Muslim clothes and Modest fashion for women, men and children. Our online catalog features Middle Eastern Islamic clothing from Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Pakistan and throughout the Muslim world. We offer the latest styles of Abaya, Thobes, Jilbab, Maxi dresses, Pakistani Dresses and more. Our collection also features stylish Hijab scarves, beautiful Al Amirah hijabs, shayla scarves, niqab and burqa veils, Kuwaiti Hijabs, Khaleeji Abaya, Dishdasha, Niqabs, and more. We also offer sizes from petite to plus sizes. We offer imported halal products from around the world including: Imported foods, Halal and Vegetarian bath & personal care products, and MORE. At AlHannah.com you won’t find overpriced items on sale or deceptive high priced items offered at “reduced prices”. We offer convenient online shopping, fashionable styles, and low prices everyday. You don’t need to pay a premium to get great quality items for your family: try AlHannah Islamic Clothing today!Detroit casino revenues and wagering taxes reported for April 2016
Mary Kay Bean 313-456-1344
Detroit - The three Detroit casinos’ aggregate revenue was 1.5 percent higher in April compared with the same month last year but fell 2.1 percent from March results. Year-to-date aggregate revenue was up 0.6 percent for the three casinos compared with the same period last year.
MotorCity’s monthly revenue rose 4.5 percent to $42.3 million, and Greektown’s April revenue was up 4.9 percent to $29.5 million. MGM’s revenue fell 2.7 percent to $50.5 million during April. All monthly results are compared with April 2015 revenue.
The monthly market shares were:
MGM: 41 percent
MotorCity: 35 percent
Greektown: 24 percent
The three Detroit casinos paid the State of Michigan $9.9 million in gaming taxes during April compared with $9.8 million for the same month last year.
The three casinos reported submitting $14.6 million in wagering taxes and development agreement payments to the City of Detroit during April.
"The Michigan Gaming Control Board shall ensure the conduct of fair and honest gaming to protect the interests of the citizens of the State of Michigan."Opinon: President Trump must uphold America’s commitment to the Iran Nuclear Deal
If the U.S. is truly committed to the security of the American people, and making the world a safer place through nuclear nonproliferation, we must demonstrate our commitment to peace and diplomacy to Iran and to the rest of the world.
The history of the United States relationship with Iran is rooted in, and defined by, a decades-long policy of regime change, which began with the CIA-led overthrow of democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in 1953 in order to keep U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Shah in power. This ultimately sparked the 1979 Islamic Revolution which grew from strong opposition to years of U.S. interventionist policies in Iran and throughout the region. As Iran’s new anti-U.S. government took power, our threats of intervention grew and Iran started its nuclear program as a direct response to defend against the possibility of another U.S.-led intervention and regime change plot.
Despite this entrenched history of conflict, our countries reached a multilateral diplomatic agreement to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon. That agreement is not based on trust, but on verification, and it would not have been possible without the support of our international partners and objective compliance experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
President Trump is threatening to break the commitments we have made to Iran and our allies by decertifying Iran’s adherence to the nuclear agreement, claiming they are not complying with the deal. Before taking such an action with serious and far-reaching consequences, the president must provide credible evidence to Congress from IAEA inspectors that Iran is willfully violating their end of the bargain. To date, neither the IAEA nor our own military and intelligence sources have been provided with any evidence to reach such a conclusion. In fact, they unanimously agree that Iran has stayed faithful to the agreement.
The Iran deal is far from perfect, and it falls far short of reconciling the enormous differences and innumerable grievances between the United States and Iran, but the Iran nuclear deal was about preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon and preventing an all-out war with Iran - which is exactly what it has done. A common misconception is that upholding the deal will somehow prevent us from confronting Iran on other non-nuclear issues such as development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. This is not true. Despite its flaws, the Iran nuclear deal set a high water mark for diplomacy with a nation we otherwise do not have diplomatic ties with. We must continue to address these issues with Iran, outside of the construct of the nuclear deal. In our mission of nuclear non-proliferation, the agreement proves that diplomacy is our best option if we want to avoid yet another costly, destructive war.
The consequence of breaking our agreement and backing out of the deal, will likely cause Iran to restart its nuclear weapons program, and will spark a nuclear arms race across the region, beginning with countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, escalating the Shia-Sunni conflict to extremely dangerous levels.
In addition, our ability to successfully negotiate with countries like North Korea to ultimately denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, depends on our ability to abide by the agreement we promised to uphold with Iran. North Korea has already made it clear that the reason they are arming themselves with nuclear weapons is to deter the U.S. from toppling the North Korean regime. Walking away from the Iran nuclear agreement sends an unequivocal message to North Korea that there is no use pursuing any diplomatic negotiations with the U.S. because our country cannot be trusted to hold up its end of an agreement. This will greatly increase the chances of a nuclear war between North Korea and the United States, a conflict which could lead to the destruction of our beautiful state of Hawaii and its people, as well as the mainland United States. It will drastically increase nuclear proliferation around the world, catastrophic war, suffering, devastation, and loss of life worldwide.
Pulling out of this agreement now will achieve nothing for the U.S. and it is highly unlikely any other country would join us in imposing serious new sanctions against Iran. Hundreds of millions of dollars of Iranian assets have already been returned to their country. Rejecting this agreement will not get those funds that back or be able to reseal Iranian markets from foreign investment. Pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement now has no upside, and tremendous downside. In short, there’s everything to lose and very little, if anything, to gain.
If President Trump follows through on his threat of walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, without providing any evidence that Iran has not complied, then Congress must act to ensure that as long as Iran is complying with the terms of the agreement, the Iran nuclear deal must be upheld.
Gabbard represents Hawaii's 2nd District and is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee.
Originally published in The Hill on October 12, 2017.Special buy has sold out. Stock is no longer available.
A convenient alternative to conventional L-shaped hex keys, this set not only gives you a selection of hex bits in the sizes you'll need most often, it also comes with a ratcheting driver handle for a comfortable, controlled grip. The ratcheting action lets you turn hex fasteners without continually having to remove and reposition the bit as you would with a typical hex key – a real advantage in tight spaces.
The fine-tooth mechanism functions smoothly with very little lost motion and operates right, left and locked. You can even tilt the handle to any of three open positions for clearance near knuckle-skinning obstructions or fold it closed for storage.
The magnetic bit holder also accepts any 1/4" hex-shank driver bits or socket adapters you already own. Set includes twenty-two S2 steel bits (0.05", 1/16", 5/64", 3/32", 7/64", 1/8", 9/64", 5/32", 3/16", 7/32", 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1.5mm, 2mm, 2.5mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm and 10mm).
The set comes in a sturdy plastic case with a form-fitting liner to keep everything organized and is offered at an excellent price while supplies last.Immigrants 'need our loving response,' St. Louis archbishop says St. Louis — v>In what he called a "pastoral statement on immigration and mercy," Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis said, "Our Catholic communities and public squares are replete with new faces of immigrant sisters and brothers who need our loving response."
He added, "As the local bishop and pastor of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, I am aware of the painful stories of immigrants whose ongoing sufferings and sacrifices reveal to us the presence of Jesus crucified."
The statement was issued Oct. 12, the national Columbus Day holiday.
The Catholic "journey and pilgrim identity is marked by a profound commitment to serving those around us, especially the most vulnerable, the poor and the migrant," he said, adding that Catholics understand by serving "the least among us, we have touched the face of Christ."
Archbishop Carlson noted how "in our country, the church has been responsive to the waves of immigrants that have graced our American shores. The Irish, the German, the Italian, the Polish, and other European immigrants have found a generous hospitality in our Catholic churches and institutions."
He also said he is well aware of the complexities of working for immigration reform today.
"While I fully support the labor of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Justice for Immigrants Campaign, I do so knowing that for many, this public advocacy and work brings personal apprehensions and resistance. At the same time, I am grateful to Catholics and people of good will in the archdiocese who are reaching out to our immigrant communities."
As he listens to the national discussion on immigration, Archbishop Carlson said, "I am becoming increasingly concerned about the language and rhetoric of discrimination, hate and alienation. In my visits and conversations with our Hispanic sisters and brothers, in particular, I have heard how difficult, painful and divisive this rhetoric of hate has been, and how it is creating an atmosphere of anxiety, withdrawal and fear.
"For many of our immigrant Hispanic youth and young adults, this anti-immigrant atmosphere is also contributing to legislative initiatives that make it difficult for them to successfully contribute to the common good. At this time of uncertainty, our Hispanic families need to know that our Catholic community, both locally and nationally, is here to accompany and stand firmly with them," he said.
Archbishop Carlson added, "I recognize, too, that work on behalf of immigration reform can cultivate seeds of discord and division among our faithful when viewed independently of the light of faith."
However, "we stand on solid ground when our faith illumines our pastoral practice of respect for the human dignity of all persons and service for the common good. More than ever, our social, political and world reality urges us to engage this pastoral issue with evangelical justice and charity in our hearts," he said.
"Each one of us must find ways to engage and contribute to the humanitarian efforts that are responding to the migration and refugee crisis at hand," the archbishop said. "And as we strive to do our part, we recall the words of Pope Francis reminding us that our human efforts are never far from God: 'God is able to multiply our small gestures of solidarity and make us partakers of his gift.'"
Archbishop Carlson said," As we journey together and prepare for the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, may we recognize that we are strangers no longer and seek to bring to light God's mercy:"
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AdvertisementPalanpur/Kaalol, December 10
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday suggested Pakistan was trying to influence the Assembly elections in Gujarat, claiming some Pakistani officials and ex-prime minister Manmohan Singh met a day before Mani Shankar Aiyar made the “neech” jibe against him.
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In a new twist to the vitriol-filled campaign, Modi said the meeting took place at Aiyar's residence.
He also raised questions about the alleged appeal by former director general (DG) of the Pakistan Army Sardar Arshad Rafiq for making senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel the chief minister of Gujarat.
"There were media reports yesterday about a meeting at Mani Shankar Aiyar's house. It was attended by Pakistan's high commissioner, Pakistan's former foreign minister, India's former vice president and former prime minister Manmohan Singh," Modi told an election rally at Palanpur.
The meeting at Aiyar's house continued for almost three hours, Modi said, adding "the next day, Mani Shankar Aiyar said Modi is 'neech' (a vile man). This is a serious matter."
“(On one hand) Pakistan Army's former DG is interfering in Gujarat's election, on the other, Pakistani people are holding a meeting at Mani Shankar Aiyar's house. After that meeting, people of Gujarat, backward communities, poor people and Modi were insulted. Don't you think such events raise doubts," Modi asked.
Cong terms Modi's claim as 'baseless'
Congress spokesman Randeep Surjewala, however, rubbished Modi's claim, terming it as "baseless".
"Holding the country's topmost post, Modiji is making baseless allegations. Modiji is worried, dejected, angry. Such a statement has no truth or fact, and is based on lies. Such a behaviour is unbecoming of a prime minister," Surjewala told reporters in Ahmedabad.
Though Modi did not name the ex-vice president present at the meeting, BJP president Amit Shah said in Ahmedabad that it was Hamid Ansari.
Shah told reporters that the Congress leaders had not informed the ministry of external affairs or the Indian government about the meeting.
Modi also accused the Congress of creating a "rift" between various communities and spreading the "poison of casteism" in society for power.
The prime minister, who did not speak much due to sore throat at the Palanpur rally, slammed the Congress for spreading a false propaganda that the Modi government worked only for the rich.
Modi cited the case of Genabhai Patel, a progressive farmer from Banaskantha district who was recently conferred with 'Padma Shri', to claim his government's pro-poor credentials.
"Just compare those who received Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan during the 10 year rule of the Congress with those who were given the same awards in my three-year tenure (as PM so far). That comparison would tell you who was pro-rich and who is pro-poor," he said.
"Do you know who received that award (Padma Shri) from Banaskantha? That was our Genabhai. Is he rich or is he a mill owner? Does he have an aeroplane?..This shows who is working for the poor," Modi said.
He said the entire north Gujarat region, particularly Palanpur, would witness "unbelievable growth" over the next five years due to the Delhi-Mumbai Freight Corridor.
Later, while addressing a rally in Kaalol town, Modi accused the Congress of sowing seeds of enmity between various communities for power.
"It seems that Congress just doesn't want to improve.
They still believe in acquiring power by creating enmity between two communities and by creating a rift between brothers. They spread poison of casteism in the society to retain power in the past," the prime minister said.
Referring to Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia's claim that the EVMs used for the first phase of polling on December 9 might have been tampered with, Modi said the party was "preparing excuses" to insulate Rahul Gandhi against impending defeat.
"On December 18 (the day of counting), party leaders will claim on television that Congress lost because of (Mani Shankar) Aiyar's comment. They won't say that party lost because of Rahul. There is an agenda in the Congress -- 'Save Rahul, Save Family'," he said.
During the first phase of Gujarat elections yesterday, Modhwadia, the party candidate for Porbandar seat, alleged that his cell phone was getting connected to an EVM through Bluetooth, a claim the Election Commission said was incorrect.
Modi seized on Modhwadia's claim to attack the Congress.
"To be on the safer side, they have prepared one more excuse. Yesterday, when the polling was on, some leaders claimed that (one) EVM was connected with Bluetooth. They should have used common sense. EVMs are not online devices and can never be connected with Bluetooth," he said. — PTIThe mobile blaster legend is back to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in super-destructive style. Harnessing the intensity of classic arcade shoot-’em-ups combined with the hottest smartphone technology, Sky Force 2014 offers a stunning scrolling shooter experience with an incredible new social gameplay element.
Ten years ago, IGN said, “Put simply, Sky Force is amazing.” Scoring an incredible 9.5 out of 10, Sky Force took the early mobile gaming scene by force.
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This 10th anniversary edition adds incredible depth to the series through stunning 3D graphics, intuitive touchscreen controls and a powerful upgrade system that’ll keep you blasting for hours on end.
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Get ready for the fight of your life in Sky Force 2014.Amazon Web Services will launch its first physical presence for customers in South Africa, according to a report by Business Times.
The report stated that AWS Direct Connect will be launched in Johannesburg and Cape Town on Tuesday.
Peter Desantis, AWS vice president and global head of infrastructure, told Business Times that this will allow local customers to have “dedicated, reliable, and high-bandwidth connectivity to the Amazon Global Network”.
“Customers can connect to all AWS infrastructure regions around the world – except China – from Johannesburg and Cape Town,” said Desantis.
He said this is the first time the Amazon network has come to Africa, and the report stated the availability of the service is a “precursor to building Amazon data centres in South Africa”.
This follows the news that two data centres will be built in South Africa – in Cape Town and Johannesburg – to host Microsoft Azure servers.
AWS offers clients a range of solutions, including compute power, database storage, and content delivery functionality.
Now read: Google cuts Cloud Platform pricesIf you want to be Batman there are few prerequisites: dead parents, lots of money, a bat costume, and a grappling gun to help you to ledges that would usually be out of reach.
While we can’t help you with the other stuff on that list, we can hook you up with the version of the famous grapple gun as seen in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Created before the movie was actually out, this accurate, life-size gun is available to download for |
other PCs names, etc etc. I can achieve the same effect by using those industrial paper clips, but I don't want to mar the surface of the board. This isn't a huge complaint, and certainly not a dealbreaker, just something that would have been a nice feature.
I would have liked to have had the rules for escaping grabs (Acrobatics or Athletics: Make an Acrobatics check vs. Reflex or an Athletics check vs. Fortitude against
the creature or effect that immobilized you.). I always forget that in the moment, and it's not a ton of text. I'll just sticky-note it, so no big deal.My boss, Guy Pickrell, just published an article I thought I would share regarding resume gaps and how to deal with them - Enjoy!
It could be a sabbatical, a prolonged illness, a personal family issue or, increasingly common thanks to the downturn, you might have found yourself out of work for a while. Inevitably, all of the aforementioned reasons will leave a glaring gap in your resume. A red flag like an angry boil, demanding attention and casting a shadow on an otherwise spotless resume. The bad news is, unlike a boil, you can’t cover it up or wait until it disappears. This is a blemish that needs addressing. The good news is that any potential damage can be mitigated or completely avoided if the situation is handled correctly.
Firstly, make no mistake; you must be honest about it. Hiding, fibbing, changing dates – don’t do it, the truth will come out, and I have seen people fired for less. Having said that, the resume is no place for a life story – keep it short, keep it sweet and keep it accurate.
Regardless of the reason for the gap in your resume, the best way to handle it is to put yourself firmly in the shoes of the interviewer. This isn’t easy; rarely do we know the interviewer that well and here is where a good recruiter can help you out with some inside information. What you can assume is that your gap will be noticed and queried, so be ready, remain up-beat and deal with it concisely. Here are the most common reasons for resume gaps and how to spin the negative into a positive:
Sabbatical - In the case of a sabbatical, I’m guessing you were aware that taking 6 months off to tour Africa or write your memoirs was always going to leave you with an employment gap. As a choice, this is generally much easier to explain, and to some extent, can easily be seen as a positive. It is fair to assume that any potential employer is going to want to feel confident that the need for another sabbatical is not looming and that you are committed to a full time, permanent role. If you plan on taking a sabbatical make sure you leave your current role with excellent references and where possible, have your current manager write a reference before you leave. Family Issues - In the case of illness or family issues it is important to keep the explanation brief and simple, the details are not so important. Focus on impressing your potential employer that this was a one off occurrence. His concerns aren’t going to be why, but why won’t it happen again. Most interviewers are unlikely to pry too far. Offer a concise explanation and nothing more or less. Unemployment - Perhaps more thorny is finding yourself explaining a gap due to unemployment. This is especially true in a hot market; of course this affliction is much more common in a down market, such as the one we find ourselves in now. Strategies to keep this period of unemployment as short as possible are important. Try to be open-minded about salary and contract work. I would argue it is better to step out of your industry than to be unemployed for more than a month or two. Consider signing up for training and turn the gap into a positive discussion point. Most importantly are the reasons why you were let go. Assuming it wasn’t for cause, a good reference makes all the difference – get it BEFORE you leave. If it was a lay off, think about how to explain how a candidate of your brilliance was ever let go.
No matter the reason for the resume gap, remember one thing – do not go into lengthy explanation in interview or on paper. Have a story, look him in the eye, be concise, answer the question and move on.
~Guy Pickrell
NationStaff Inc.
This article was orgianlly published here on Nationstaff.com
For more career advice and recruitment articles, check out our blog!Argos coach Marc Trestman stood on the sidelines Thursday night when his Argos faced the powerhouse Calgary Stampeders, much the same way he has stood through six weeks of the season, and for 36 years as a pro football coach. But there is something slightly different about the 61-year-old native of Minneapolis. Two of his key players, receiver S.J. Green and quarterback Ricky Ray, say so.
Argos head coach Marc Trestman has had a positive impact on quarterback Ricky Ray and receiver S.J. Green in the first third of the CFL season. ( Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
“He went down south (to coach in the NFL) and he learned some things,” Green said of Trestman, who started coaching in 1981 in a career that has included nine NFL teams, a pair in the CFL, two Grey Cup championships and an NCAA title in 1983 with Miami. “We’d need a whole other (scrum) for that, but I can tell he’s changed a couple of little things about his game. It’s not bad things, just couple of little things about his approach … just things he felt he could do better.” While Green wouldn’t elaborate, it seems Trestman’s approach in his first season as Argos coach is being consistent in how he deals with players.
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While every coach, no matter what sport or level, must be a communicator, Trestman seems to be putting an almost physical element into his coaching style. Even during practices, he sometimes sprints down field to address the execution or positioning in a play. Part of that includes either firm instruction or a loud round of praise and encouragement. Entering the game against Calgary, now seven weeks into the season, the Argos were 3-3 and in first place in the East Division. There’s obviously room for improvement, but Trestman, while getting his club off to a decent start, has laid the foundation for accountability and team-wide commitment in his players. Green has an obvious connection to Trestman, having played for him in Montreal. Trestman, who has been a quarterbacks- and receivers-oriented coach for his entire coaching career, has carried that over to the Argos. Ray led the CFL in passing yardage entering week seven; Green was second in receiving yards. “I’ve said this before, but its been a blessing having (Trestman) as my coach,” Green said. “Marc is by far my favorite coach that I have ever played for. I’m trying to continue to learn and be the best player I can be.”
Trestman’s strength is his bonding with his quarterbacks and receivers, and in the pass-oriented CFL, that bond is a key element of success. The Argos offence draws almost 100 per cent of its success from the air, with all but one of its offensive touchdowns coming via the pass.
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Ray and Green remain a formidable tandem, but Trestman seems to be bringing more and more out of the likes of Canadian receivers Anthony Coombs and Llevi Noel. For Ray, who is 37 and has set or is on the verge of setting several all-time Argo passing records, there are still things to learn under Trestman. “It’s things like footwork, and how you are reading certain plays,” said Ray, who had six consecutive 300-plus yard games heading into Thursday and was on pace to pass Doug Flutie’s single-season CFL record of 6,619 yards, set in 1991. “Marc opens up your mind... so you read some plays differently. It’s being disciplined, too, trying to keep things simple and making them work for you. You’re not back there trying to freelance and make something happen, you know exactly what to do and what is expected of you.”Under the boot of U.S. occupation
Haiti’s ongoing struggle to recover
Published Feb 12, 2010 8:08 PM
As the people of Haiti continue heroic efforts to recover from the Jan. 12 devastating earthquake that has claimed at least 200,000 lives, they are facing a new challenge — an occupation of 13,000 U.S. troops and advanced weaponry. This new occupation was sanctioned by the United Nations on Jan. 22 without any say from the Haitians themselves.
The main goal of these troops is not to assist in any kind of humanitarian aid for the Haitian people but rather to extend U.S. imperialism’s economic influence in the Caribbean and parts of Latin America. While the Haitian people need food, doctors, clean water, housing and the technology to rebuild their infrastructure in the capital of Port-au-Prince and throughout the island nation, once again the U.S. has contributed nothing but arrogance and terror to a people who first won their independence in 1804 from the French colonizers who enslaved them.
The fact that President Barack Obama appointed former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to oversee the U.S. presence in Haiti exposes the hypocrisy of the U.S. government’s concern for the Haitian people. Under the Clinton administration, U.S. Marines illegally removed from office the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 1994. Under the Bush regime, President Aristide was kidnapped from Haiti in 2004. Now exiled in South Africa, President Aristide has made a strong public appeal to be allowed to return to Haiti to help his people in the aftermath of the earthquake.
On Feb. 5, an estimated 300 people confronted Clinton in Port-au-Prince to complain that the U.S. had not carried out its promises to bring immediate aid to the Haitian people. The previous day, the French-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) stated that a photographer from Le Nouvelliste, the oldest and largest mainstream Haitian daily, had a camera physically taken from him by six U.S. Marines. The reporter, Homère Cardichon, was taking photos of a protest by Haitians at the U.S. ambassador’s home in the capital.
“Six Marines come up and surrounded me,” Cardichon told RSF. “Then they took my camera in my opened work bag and left with it. An hour later, one of them came back and photographed me. Then he returned my camera to me. I saw that the soldiers had erased some of the photos.”
The RSF denounced the Marines’ actions as “a flagrant act of censorship,” stating that “news and information is vital for reconstruction in Haiti and for the efforts of its citizens to start rebuilding their lives.” (RSF, Feb. 4)
There is another reason why the U.S. sent thousands of Marines to Haiti: to contain any efforts being made on the part of the Haitians to reconstruct and rebuild their lives in the aftermath of the earthquake crisis. This was confirmed in a Feb. 5 letter sent by Mary Ellen McNish, general secretary of the American Friends Service Committee.
The letter reads in part: “I’m glad to report that AFSC’s assessment team has returned safely from Haiti, where they spent time in Port-au-Prince viewing firsthand the immense devastation of the capital city. They report that the formal structures that keep a country running were very hard hit, especially because many government ministers and mid-level civil servants died in the quake. Many institutions that were the pillars of the community, such as churches, medical facilities and schools, were badly damaged or were destroyed.
“According to Jorge Lafitte, AFSC Regional Director of Latin America, the situation in Haiti is not like other disasters to which AFSC has recently responded. The destruction of the capital city and the collapse of the Haitian middle class, who sustain the country, make this a very different crisis.
“However, some of the poorest areas in the city were not as greatly affected because buildings there are not large permanent structures and were not as lethal if they fell. People in these areas have slowly returned to informal systems of survival and our team noted that there seemed to be little violence and looting.
“A variety of makeshift solutions has developed from formal camps of 80-100,000 people to smaller groups of 700-1,000 banding together where they can. Some residents are camping in front of their destroyed homes. In talking with them, our team found that people hope they will reconstruct their houses and it is safer to stay close by.
“Geri Sicola, Associate General Secretary for International Programs, was able to visit one of the three centers where AFSC is providing emergency assistance to people living in a makeshift shelter on the grounds of a school. On that day more than 600 people were provided a meal. Our partner, Swiss Interchurch Aid, is using a private home’s kitchen to produce the food — an example of the practical and generous gestures being made by so many Haitians in this crisis. The meals include rice, beans, vegetables, and the ingredients are purchased locally or in the Dominican Republic, bolstering local economies.” (http://tinyurl.com/yfbmaht)
On Feb. 6, the BBC reported that the G7 group — the seven richest capitalist countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan — announced that they were writing off Haiti’s debt of more than $1 billion. Not only should Haiti’s debt be cancelled by these countries and the imperialist banks, but reparations in the billions of dollars should be paid to the Haitian people for the theft of their resources and labor over the centuries.Where would the Chicago Blackhawks be without Artemi Panarin? Last summer, like every other time they’ve won the Stanley Cup in the salary cap era, they had to get rid of perfectly good players with perfectly honest contracts because they could no longer afford them.
Opposing goalies saw a lot of Blackhawks rookie Artemi Panarin this season. ( Jonathan Daniel / GETTY IMAGES )
They have become a team of haves and have-nots — eight players earn $4 million or more than 12 earn less than $1 million, with a handful in between (all dollar figures U.S.). The difference between winning and losing is often what the have-nots do. Panarin was a free-agent pickup from the Kontinental Hockey League. General manager Stan Bowman signed him to a two-year deal at $812,500 per season.
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Panarin meshed instantly with Art Ross Trophy winner Patrick Kane. He finished in the top 10 in league scoring, might beat out Connor McDavid for rookie of the year and, according to a Toronto Star analysis of salaries and points, is the best bargain in the NHL. The young forward finished with 30 goals and 47 assists, which works out to a bargain-basement $10,552 a point. “It’s a credit to Panarin for being able to make that contribution, and our team wouldn’t be where we are without him,” Bowman said on an in-house podcast. “He’s come in and made a huge difference.” Bowman is widely praised for being able to build, dismantle and rebuild while keeping his team ultra-competitive with smart signings such as Panarin. “It’s hugely important,” said former NHL GM Neil Smith, now a TV analyst. “You can’t always hit a home run with veteran free agents. It’s important you find diamonds in the rough that you don’t have to pay (a lot).
“That’s why you see so many young players getting a chance now. They’re cheaper, and teams have to give them a chance because they have to fit everybody in.” Bowman has made mistakes. Bryan Bickell earned $4 million for a year spent mostly in the minors. He played 25 NHL games and contributed two assists — or a whopping $2 million a point. Panarin’s output helped the Blackhawks overcome Bickell’s salary black hole.
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But there is a hidden surcharge — a big one. By finishing in the top 10 in the scoring race and playing a full season in the NHL, he’ll collect about $2.3 million worth of bonuses. That money will count against Chicago’s salary cap next season. That amount alone could cost a player or two his job in Chicago, and force Bowman once again to go bargain hunting in the free-agent pool.
Read more about:Crypto Goes Hollywood: "Startup" Season 3 Greenlit by Sony Pictures Television
Online streaming service Crackle looks to capitalize on the growing cryptocurrency craze, greenlighting a popular show for a third season. Startup uses nascent fascination with the future of money and builds intersecting storylines around four characters as they struggle between the seemingly clean and clear world of technology and the dirty, murky world of real life.
Also read: Popular TV Shows are Now Mainstreaming Cryptocurrency
Startup Season 2, Episode 1, Disruption
Bitcoin purists will have to visit optometrists, demanding eyes returned to place from back of their heads due to excessive rolling at the plot structure to Startup. “Oh, cryptocurrency being used for drugs and general criminality!” cynics will shout. “What an original idea!”
That written, I enjoyed Startup. Sony Pictures Television reached out to me for a review, and inexplicably linked to the first episode of its second season (posted binge-style this fall). I honestly was unaware of the show, and nothing about its opening alerted me to my being a full season behind.
Nevertheless, Ben Ketai (writer, director, executive producer) explains: “This past season was exciting with nods to relevant and timely topics like corporatization of the internet, Bitcoin and the darknet that made for some great storytelling.”
Startup is set in Miami, amid tech moguls, vibrant law enforcement, Cubans and Haitians. They’re all attempting to grapple with the curious subplot of cryptocurrency, a corporate-backed token called Gencoin. Drugs, murder, corruption; old human vices are contrasted with the light of a world-changing innovation.
I last remember visiting Crackle, Sony’s online answer to Netflix, back when it touted Seinfeld episodes and entire seasons of The Larry Sanders Show. After I clicked the link this time, I was pleasantly surprised at its improvements.
The interface is lush and fat, not busy at all, totally unobtrusive. I was able to stream without issue, and save for five commercial breaks, it was a pleasant fee-less viewing experience.
Hobbit and Hellboy
It’s shot film-style, multiple cameras and on location. The sound is aggressive, slamming, filled with uptempo contemporary music. Lighting is dim, giving it that gritty vibe.
It’s pretty great to see Crackle attempt original programming too. Dramas are an expensive and losing art, as more broadcasts tend to focus on absurdism, documentaries, comedies. Cool as well to watch a fight scene, with lightly sped-up sequences, serve a larger narrative.
Four main characters are continuing battles from Season 1, evidently. To me, that’s compellingly confusing. I paid much more attention to the nuance of dialog as a result. Acting in such a circumstance can come off stilted and unconvincing. Here, it does not, and that’s a huge compliment to Startup‘s cast and writing. Each character has depth, causing viewers to want to learn more.
And speaking of the cast, bitcoiners will no doubt recognize Martin Freeman from his role as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit, and Hellboy’s Ron Perlman; both have prominent roles in the series.
Fear
Pope Gregory XVI ranted against innovations such as railroads, labeling them “chemins d’enfer” – roads to hell. Luddites destroyed production machinery as a form of labor protest, but also out of fear they were being replaced. Even Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been taken as a rebuke against innovation and science.
Startup for sure plays into these perennial concerns, but it does so in a manner that proves the general rule of cryptocurrencies: they’re a life-changing way to do money.
What do you think of Startup and shows like it? Tell us in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Crackle.
At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, check out our Tools page!While perception usually become a general reality with consumers who apply those beliefs everywhere, regardless if what they believe is always supported by facts, you can’t deny that many Japanese cars have proven over time to be extremely reliable. And not in the 60-day new customer satisfaction survey kind of way, but in the long run.
Those beliefs are usually born from vehicles like Toyota’s fourth-generation Supra from the 1990s, one of the most dependable sports cars ever made, especially in base, non-turbo form with the 2JZ-GE I6 3.0-liter inline-six that was used in a multitude of cars like the Lexus SC300 and IS300.
If those 150,000 mile examples being sold on eBay every once in a while haven’t convinced you about just how well-made Toyota’s last Supra was, then perhaps this white A80 (the coupe’s codename) will; owned by a Dale Thomas from Tennessee, it has covered – wait for it – 520,590 miles or 837,629 kilometers since new on its original engine.
“It has over 520K miles on it, with motor never being touched. Car is dirty, as is, with bugs on front, splatter on sides. Absolutely no rust. Love my Supra!!!,” Thomas told the Hoover Toyota dealership on its social media page where he shared these images of his car.
That’s an impressive feat by any standards, but the fact that the Supra was a sports car back in the day, makes it even more laudable. Granted, unlike the genuinely fast and furious 320hp twin-turbo model, the base atmospheric version’s 220 horses won’t light up the rear tires, but it could still run the 60mph (96km/h) sprint in under 7 seconds, which is totally respectable.
Yes, the vaunted Japanese dependability might not hold true every single time, but it’s not an unsubstantiated urban myth either; as with other praiseworthy qualities in the automotive industry, from styling to handling and technology, you just have to apply them to specific eras, brands and/or models avoiding generalizations.
Photos Dale Thomas via Hoover Toyota
Photo GalleryHOW TO LOCK YOUR BIKE
Many bikes are easily stolen because they are not locked. Your first line of defense is a good lock, properly used. Lightweight cable or chain locks are easily cut and offer little protection. Many bikes are stolen from home (yard, porch, garage, dorm room, etc.) Store your bike in a secure place when not in use. If you are not sure your storage is secure, use your lock! Ask your neighbors and local bike shops about bicycle theft and safety in your area. If you know where your bike is most vulnerable, you can better protect it. Register your bike in a national database. Professional bicycle thieves frequently sell stolen bikes in other cities and states because of the difficulty in tracing owners. The National Bike Registry database is accessible to law enforcement throughout the country. No matter where a bike is stolen, or where it is recovered, the owner can be identified. The NBR Certificate of Registration can be used as proof of ownership if your bike is recovered, or for your insurance claim if it is not found.
U-Locks vs. Cables. What is the correct choice? Although they are frequently used, the lightweight cable or chain locks no longer provides adequate security in most areas. In neighborhoods with a known bicycle theft problem the best choice is a strong, reliable U-lock. And remember, two locks are better than one! Combine a cable and a U-lock, or even two U-locks, when securing your bicycle. The more time and trouble it takes a thief to attack your bike the less likely it is that your bike will become a theft statistic. Be sure to get a demo from a qualified professional of how the lock works and how to use it properly. Design Features. Make sure that the design of the lock provides functional security. Gimmicks may look cool, but will they really protect your bike? Solid Steel is the Strongest -- the ideal steel is hardened against cutting yet maintains flexibility, like Kryptonite's KryptoniumTM Steel used in the Evolution series of U-locks (New York LockTM, Evolution 2000TM, and Evo LiteTM). Services. Find out about the lock's performance. Does it have a good track record? A warranty? A guarantee? Lifetime key registration and prompt key replacement services? Sizes. Do not buy a larger lock than you really need. Thieves will utilize the extra space between your lock and your bike to their advantage. A tight fitting lock will make it even more difficult for thieves to get their tools into position and to attempt a break.
Always lock your bike, especially at home. More bikes are stolen from home than from any other location. Wherever you store your bike; a garage, a college dorm room, an apartment building, use your lock. Pick a good Location. Select a location where there are other bikes. The chances are better that there will be a bike with a less secure lock -- or even without a lock -- and thieves will usually take the unlocked bikes first. Always lock your bike in visible, well-lighted areas. Lock your bike to a fixed, immovable object like a parking meter, or a permanent bike rack that is cemented or anchored into the ground. If you use a parking meter, make sure the locked bike can not be slipped off over the top of the pole. Beware of locking to items that can be easily cut, broken or otherwise removed. Try not to let your lock rest against the ground where a thief can use a hammer or rock to smash the lock.
Use the lock correctly. Position your bike frame and wheels so that you take up as much of the open space within the U-portion of the lock as possible. The tighter the lock up, the harder it will be for a thief to insert a pry bar and pry open your lock. If your U-lock has its keyway on the end of the crossbar, position the lock with its keyway end facing down towards the ground. This makes it harder for the thief to access your lock. Always secure your components and accessories, especially those that can be easily removed, like quick release wheels or seats. If you have a multi-speed bike, leave it in the highest gear. This makes it that much harder for a thief to shift quickly and get away with your bike. DONT ever leave a new bike unlocked. New bikes have the most value to thieves and they look for them.
ever leave a new bike unlocked. New bikes have the most value to thieves and they look for them. DONT lock your bike to small trees, aluminum or wooden posts, or to chain link fences. These items can be easily broken or cut.
lock your bike to small trees, aluminum or wooden posts, or to chain link fences. These items can be easily broken or cut. DONT lock your bike to anything posted as illegal. Check with your police department for local bicycle parking regulations.
lock your bike to anything posted as illegal. Check with your police department for local bicycle parking regulations. DONT lock you bike to itself. A thief will just carry the whole bike away!
Always use a helmet. Learn, use, and obey traffic safety signals. Ride with traffic, not against it. If riding at night, use reflectors and lights. Be visible! Give pedestrians the right of way. Ride defensively. Watch for cars and car doors opening into your path. Dont weave in and out of slow moving or stopped traffic. Slow down and look out for oncoming and turning cars at all intersections. Keep your bike well maintained with regular check ups and service visits to your local bike shop. When you are not riding your bike, keep it properly locked even at home!Austin’s oldest World War II veteran celebrates his 109th birthday
Richard Overton, left, smokes a cigar with a few neighborhood friends Donna Shorts, center and Martin Wilford Sunday, May 3, 2015, in Austin, Texas.. Overton, is considered to be the oldest living World War II veteran in the United States, celebrated his 109th birthday on a front porch in East Austin with friends and family. Wilford, right, says that he has known Overton for 37 years and he looks at Mr. Overton as if he was his biological father. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman via AP) less Richard Overton, left, smokes a cigar with a few neighborhood friends Donna Shorts, center and Martin Wilford Sunday, May 3, 2015, in Austin, Texas.. Overton, is considered to be the oldest living World War II... more Photo: Ricardo B. Brazziell, Associated Press Photo: Ricardo B. Brazziell, Associated Press Image 1 of / 45 Caption Close Austin’s oldest World War II veteran celebrates his 109th birthday 1 / 45 Back to Gallery
World War II veteran Richard Overton, one of the world's oldest veterans, celebrated his 109th birthday in Austin on Sunday.
Overton spoke with KVUE in Austin while meeting with Mayor Steve Adler, officials with the police department and his slew of extended family members and friends. He chowed down on a warm burger, fries and a slice of cake, stating he was surprised to see so many people come together in his name.
“I’m really surprised, I really didn’t know there was going to be this many people. I knew it was going to be somebody, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this and I really enjoyed it,” Overton said.
The veteran hopes to see a big turnout for his birthday next year, when he will turn 110.
RELATED: Oldest known veteran, 110, blazed path for blacks, women
Overton had previously been touted as the oldest World War II veteran, but that title has shifted recently.
Emma Didlake turned 110 on March 13 and had joined the Women’s Army Auxilary Corps in 1943. As a black woman, she broke numerous barriers through her work in the military. She’s just ahead of Phyllis Josephine Thompson, an Army nurse who turned 109 in March.
Scroll through the slideshow above to see photos of Richard Overton, as well as Lucy Coffey, who was once named the oldest woman veteran.
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Twitter: @tylerlwhiteSINGAPORE (Reuters) - It may be the world’s biggest traffic jam.
Shipping vessels and oil tankers line up on the eastern coast of Singapore in this July 22, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Edgar Su/Files
As ports struggle to cope with a global oil glut, huge queues of supertankers have formed in some of the world’s busiest sea lanes, where some 200 million barrels of crude lies waiting to be loaded or delivered.
The vessels, filled with oil worth around $7.5 billion at current market prices, would stretch for almost 40 km (25 miles) if formed up in one straight line.
One captain with more than 20 years at sea told Reuters his tanker had been anchored off Qingdao in northeastern China since late March and was unlikely to dock before the end of this week, a frustrating delay of more than three weeks.
“We’ve stayed here a long time,” he said, requesting anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, but added that another kind of jam was helping to alleviate the boredom.
“We have a piano, drums, crew who play guitar – they are not professional but they are coming good. We have more than 1,000 DVDs so there is no need to watch the same one 20 times.”
The worst congestion is in the Middle East, as ports struggle to cope with soaring output available for export, and in Asia, where many ports have not been upgraded in time to deal with ravenous demand as consumers take advantage of cheap fuel.
“It’s the worst I’ve seen at Qingdao,” said a second tanker captain waiting to offload at the world’s seventh busiest port, adding that his crew was killing time doing maintenance work.
Ralph Leszczynski, head of research at shipbroker Banchero Costa, in Singapore, said the snarl-up was “one of the worst tanker traffic jams in recent years”.
The cause was “a perfect storm of red-hot demand from new entrant refineries in China and port infrastructure in the Middle East and Latin America that is unable to cope”, he said.
MESSING UP THE SCHEDULE
Ship tracking data shows 125 supertankers, with the capacity to carry oil to supply energy-hungry China for three weeks, waiting in line at ports. The combined daily cost is $6.25 million, based on current ship hire rates of around $50,000-a-day.
While daily tanker fees are typically borne by the fuel buyer, the port delays have a knock-on affect across the shipping industry.
“It messes up port schedules, catering schedules, crew schedules and the schedules of delivering the transported goods,” said one shipping logistics manager in Singapore. “It also raises the cost for pretty much everyone involved.”
And for dealers, a month-long delay can turn a profitable trade into a painful loss.
“If you’ve bought 100,000 barrels of crude at $40 (a barrel) that’ll cost you $4 million,” said one oil trader.
“And if you’ve calculated another 1.5 million bucks for a month’s worth of shipping, but you end up paying double that because your ship is stuck in port congestion, then that can seriously mess up everything from your schedule to your arbitrage profitability.”
At the heart of the congestion is an unprecedented rise in global oil production, along with rising consumption.
Soaring output has pulled down oil prices by as much as 70 percent since 2014. That has helped spur demand from China’s independent refiners, freed from government restrictions on imports just last year and gorging on plentiful crude, putting extra pressure on ports.
DRY SHIPS, BORED CREWS
The oil glut is also causing congestion between the main producer and consumer hubs.
Almost all supertankers heading to Asia pass by Singapore or adjacent facilities in southern Malaysia, the world’s fuel station for tankers and also a global refinery and ship maintenance hub.
Shipping data shows that some 50 supertankers are currently anchored in or close to Singaporean waters for refueling, maintenance or waiting to deliver crude to refineries or be used as floating storage.
For sailors stuck a queue of anchored tankers, one of the biggest problems is simply wiling away the time.
“Some of the ships are well-equipped for their crews, but many aren’t,” said a Filipino sailor who left a very large crude carrier (VLCC) in March after a voyage to China.
“On my last one, we had no regular internet... only an old TV with a couple of old DVD movies. The food is terrible and while waiting to offload we did pretty hard maintenance work. The sort of stuff you can’t do when the engine is running.”
VLCC supertankers are seen travelling between India and Southeast Asia in this illustration photo of an Eikon ship-tracking screen April 7, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas White/Illustration
Captain Alan Loynd, who spent more than 25 years at sea and is now a marine consultant, said long port delays were rare, but could be tedious and isolating when they happened.
And unlike in previous eras, having a couple of beers to break the monotony is usually out of the question.
“The chances of getting ashore are remote,” he said. “A lot of ships are now dry, so there’s no alcohol on board.”The second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland in the death of his father, Richard Oland, begins today in Saint John, more than four years after the prominent businessman's body was discovered in his uptown office.
The judge and jury trial is expected to last about 65 days and hear from dozens of witnesses.
Dennis Oland, 46, pleaded not guilty last week, when he was formally arraigned at Harbour Station, which served as a makeshift courtroom to accommodate more than 1,000 prospective jurors on the first day of jury selection.
Richard Oland, 69, was found dead in his Saint John office on July 7, 2011. (Canadian Yachting Association) The Oland family is well-known in the Maritimes. It owns Moosehead Breweries Limited, the oldest independently owned brewery in Canada. Richard Oland left the company in the 1980s, but was an accomplished businessman, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada for his efforts as an entrepreneur with a social conscience.
Justice John Walsh, of the Court of Queen's Bench, has been brought in from Miramichi to hear the high-profile case.
Fourteen jurors and two alternates were sworn in last week — nine men and seven women.
Normally, juries consist of 12 members, but more are needed in this case due to the length of the trial, which increases the chances someone will get sick or be unable to serve for another reason.
A minimum of 10 jurors is required to deliver a verdict and the decision must be unanimous.
'A-team' lawyers
Richard Oland, 69, was found dead in his investment firm office, Far End Corp., located on Canterbury Street, on July 7, 2011.
Dennis Oland, his only son, was arrested more than two years later, on Nov. 12, 2013, and charged the following day.
The onus is on Paul (P.J.) Veniot, who took over from the lead Crown prosecutor last month, and the other two prosecutors handling the four-year-old case, to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. (Jacques Poitras/CBC) He was ordered last December to stand trial, following a preliminary inquiry.
Several pre-trial hearings have been held in recent months, but the details about them are subject to a publication ban.
Oland is being represented by Alan Gold, of Toronto, and Gary Miller, of Fredericton.
Retired prosecutor Paul (P.J.) Veniot took over as the lead Crown last month after John Henheffer had to step down for health reasons. The prosecution team also includes Patrick Wilbur and Derek Weaver.
"Big murder trials like this, they're pretty rare and it's certainly not junior people doing them," said Nicole O'Byrne, an associate law professor at the University of New Brunswick.
"You've got a really experienced and deep defence team and you've got a prosecutor who's been around a long time. So this is the elite, right? … You've got the A-teams out."
Case will unfold 'bit by bit'
The onus is |
the silver medal in 1992, 1994 and 2007. He was inducted into the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012.
Also entering the IIHF Hall of Fame are France national team member and executive Philippe Lacarriere; former referee Bob Nadin; Jesper Damgaard, who played in 17 consecutive World Championships with Denmark and is the winner of the Torriani Award, given to players outside the top hockey nations; and Kirovs Lipmans of Latvia, the winner of the Paul Loicq Award for outstanding service to hockey.(Reuters) - Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says a new movie about late chairman Steve Jobs appears to misrepresent aspects of their personalities and their early vision for the company.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak talks to a reporter as he and his wife Janet wait in line overnight with customers to purchase the new iPad at the Apple Store in Century City Westfield Shopping Mall in Los Angeles, California March 16, 2012. REUTERS/David McNew
Wozniak made his comments ahead of the premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah later on Friday of “jOBS,” starring Ashton Kutcher in the title role. It is the first of two feature films about the legendary Apple entrepreneur who died in 2011 at age 56.
The film, to be released in the United States in April, covers Jobs from his early years in the counterculture through his initial successes with Apple and his rise to becoming a household name.
A clip of an early scene was released online on Thursday.
“Totally wrong.... The ideas of computers affecting society, did not come from Jobs,” Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs and Ronald Wayne in a California garage in 1976, told technology blog Gizmodo.com on Friday.
“His idea was to make a $20 PC board and sell it for $40 to help people at the (Homebrew Computer) club build the computer I’d given away,” Wozniak recalled in a series of emails. “The lofty talk came much further down the line.”
The Homebrew Computer Club, started in 1975, brought together electronics hobbyists in Silicon Valley including Jobs.
Wozniak, who is played in the movie by “Book of Mormon” musical star Josh Gad, said that, based on the clip, “personalities are very wrong although mine is closer.”
“I never looked like a professional. We were both kids. Our relationship was so different than what was portrayed. I’m embarrassed but if the movie is fun and entertaining, all the better,” he said, adding he never wore a tie in the early days.
Wozniak emphasized that he was basing his comments on one clip and that it was “just a movie.”
“The movie should be very popular and I hope it’s entertaining. It may be very correct, as well. This is only one clip. But you’ll see the direction they are slanting the movie in, just by the dialog style of this script,” he added.
“jOBS,” directed by Joshua Michael Stern, will be released in U.S. movie theaters on April 19.
A second movie, based on Walter Isaacson’s official biography “Steve Jobs,” is in development by screenplay writer Aaron Sorkin of “The West Wing” and “The Social Network” fame. No release date or casting has been announced.Judge Says Bombarding Someone On Twitter With Offensive & Threatening Messages Is Free Speech
from the tough-cases dept
Even though the Internet is the newest medium for anonymous, uncomfortable expression touching on political or religious matters, online speech is equally protected under the First Amendment as there is "no basis for qualifying the level of First Amendment scrutiny that should be applied" to online speech.... Indeed "whatever the challenges of applying the Constitution to ever-advancing technology, basic principles of freedom of speech and press, like the First Amendment's command, do not vary when a new and different medium for communication appears."
Earlier this year we wrote about a tough case, involving a guy who apparently spent nearly all of his waking hours bombarding a Buddhist leader he had a falling out with, with nasty, offensive and threatening messages on Twitter. He was charged with criminal stalking. This raised an awful lot of questions about the First Amendment, and a judge has now ruled that the tweets were, in fact, protected free speech. I tend to think the ruling here is correct, though I can see how this troubles people. As the judge noted, however:Funny. I would think that this same reasoning would apply against domain seizures and SOPA, but it never seems to come up. That said, if the guy represents a real threat, I would think there are other laws that should cover that, outside of this broad "anti-stalking" law that was used. The fact that he caused "emotional distress" to the person his tweets were directed at is unfortunate and sad... but not illegal.
Filed Under: free speech, offensive, stalking, twitter
Companies: twitterby Rich Dana
Bernie Sanders presidential campaign is catching fire. What is his plan for solar?
This week, in our continuing coverage of the candidates vying for the presidency in the 2016 election and their record on solar issues, Solar Tribune look at Senator Bernie Sanders. The curmudgeonly Independent from Vermont may seem an unlikely front-runner for the Democratic Party, but recent polls show that he is rapidly closing the gap with presumed shoe-in Hillary Clinton. With all of the buzz surrounding the Sanders campaign, let’s look at what a Sanders presidency would mean for the solar industry.
On the Democratic side of the race, all of the candidates have pointed to solar as a key to the nation’s economic recovery and low-carbon future. Hillary Clinton is currently calling for the installation of more than a half billion solar panels, or about 140 gigawatts of solar, to be installed in the U.S. by 2020 (although her plan lacks details on how that could be done.) Joe Biden, despite being undeclared as a candidate as of this writing, would presumably continue the Obama administration’s pro-solar policies if he chooses to run. Sanders though, has the unique position of running on a lengthy career in the senate as one of the governing body’s most vocal solar advocates.
According to the environmental website grist.org:
In 2007, with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), he cosponsored the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, to help states and local governments pay for efficiency and clean energy programs. It was also passed as part of the 2007 energy bill, and both the block grant program and the green jobs program got a funding infusion from the 2009 stimulus package.
In 2007, he cowrote with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) the Green Jobs Act, which allocated funding for clean energy and energy efficiency research and job training. This did pass, as part of a big 2007 energy bill.
In 2010, Sanders authored a bill to spread distributed solar throughout the country, the very literally named “10 Million Solar Roofs & 10 Million Gallons of Solar Hot Water Act.” As Grist’s David Roberts explained, it would “provide rebates that cover up to half the cost of new systems, along the lines of incentive programs in California and New Jersey.” The bill didn’t pass.
In 2012, Sanders introduced the End Polluter Welfare Act, to get rid of special tax deductions and credits for coal, oil, and gas producers. As he wrote in Grist at the time, “It is immoral that some in Congress advocate savage cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while those same people vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in America.” The bill didn’t pass.
In 2013, Sanders introduced the Residential Energy Savings Act to fund financing programs that would help residents retrofit their homes for energy efficiency. This bill didn’t become law either.
In 2013, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sanders introduced the Climate Protection Act, a fee-and-dividend bill. It would tax carbon and methane emissions and rebate three-fifths of the revenue to citizens, then invest the remainder in energy efficiency, clean energy, and climate resiliency. The bill, of course, went nowhere (even if it had advanced in the Democratic-controlled Senate, it would have been DOA in the Republican-controlled House), but it shows that Sanders supports serious solutions and wants to keep the conversation going.
Last month, Sanders introduced legislation designed to make it easier for low-income families to use solar. Sanders “Low Income Solar Act,” was announced the same day that the Obama Administration rolled out its own plan aimed at installing renewable energy in federally subsidized housing.
Sanders bill would provide $200 million in Department of Energy loans and grants to help offset the upfront costs associated with installing solar panels on community facilities, public housing and low-income family homes. Homeowners with suitable roofs would receive grants to help them afford solar panel installation while renters or others without appropriate siting options would get connected through alternative means such as community solar gardens.
Sanders stated that “The scientific community tells us very clearly if we’re going to reverse climate change and the great dangers it poses for the planet we must move aggressively to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy. We can achieve this goal, save families money and protect the planet for future generations.”
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About the Author: Rich Dana serves as Director of Microenterprise Development for the Sustainable Living Department at Maharishi University of Management. He works with students to develop ideas and implement new projects. He is a serial entrepreneur, a freelance writer and partner in Plan B Consulting. He has served as an energy specialist at the National Center for Appropriate Technology and President of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association. At 53, he still likes to climb on roofs and install solar equipment.Fuck George. He's the gambler standing at the entrance to Nellis Air Force Base. Behind him: nothing but craters and bombed-out houses. The Boomers control this area, a community that protects itself by shelling anyone who gets in range, but I need to get in and George knows how to get past the bombs. He wants 200 bottlecaps for his services.
This is the world of Fallout: New Vegas. It's harsh. Hell, I only have 200 caps because I killed the doctor who saved my life and scooped a bullet out my brain. So when George demands these caps for doing little more than standing on a path, while I've had to slam pool cues into the skulls of helpful medics, it upsets me.
I hand them over, as I can't see any other way in. After a terrifying bolt through a barrage of bombs, following George's instructions, I make it to the compound. The Boomers are surprisingly cool, if a bit overprotective. They agree to not shell me any more, which is nice of them. I find it difficult to blow up people I've met socially, too. I head back to George. It's not just his opportunism that angers me. He offered to repay me double the amount of caps if I survived. I'm his dirty little gambling fix!
I grab my spiked knuckles and start whaling on him. Every punch makes me feel a little bit better. He runs off into Nellis and I run after him. The Boomers promised to leave me alone, but George? He's fair game.
As is anything in his radius. Bombs are indiscriminate jerks. I only realise my huge mistake when he reels at one of my uppercuts and I explode a second later.
I should have known better. New Vegas might be cleaner than Fallout 3's Washington wasteland, the Mojave desert having got off relatively lightly during the nuclear apocalypse, but it's still a game about survival. Shot in the head, buried and presumed dead, you're caught up in a revenge tale that turns into a battle for control of the region, with you in the Clint Eastwood role. Do you track down the man who put you in the ground, explore the desert, beat up some nearby gang members, or look for a faction to join?
Crafty Buck
What would Clint do? Or, in my game, an athletic, red-headed lady I named 'Buck'. Lady Buck, I decided, was simply going to be an extension of me. If I found the people I was dealing with personally repugnant, I'd give them Wasteland justice. I plumbed for my usual mix of lockpicking and stealth skills, eventually regretting my Thief-centric approach to character creation. My advice: New Vegas is so skewed towards dialogue that, for the first run-through at least, you should put as much as you can in Speechcraft and Barter skills. Even the final bosses can be chatted into submission if your stats are high enough. You can't lockpick a mouth. Oh, and you should probably avoid Hardcore mode for that first runthrough. It's the triathlon of New Vegas, a gruelling slog designed to sap your strength as you play. It's not for the ill-prepared.
Wandering the wasteland now, two years on from Fallout 3, I'm both happy and disappointed. I've long wanted more of the same from Bethesda, and this is the hand that New Vegas deals. But while it's good to be back, the leap from one game to the other isn't nearly as large as it should have been. New areas, characters and factions, but the same clunky inventory and character models. Two years to stay exactly where you were.
Fallout's world of cracked asphalt and rolling deserts can still impress. Whacking the view distance up to max is chilling: futuro-'50s buildings poke into the air, a giant wireframe cross stands on a hill, and at night Vegas glows on the horizon.
The world goes about its business, delivering some amazing random encounters. After a save, I stumbled across two small gangs fighting it out. I leapt into the fray – mostly to try out my newly acquired rebar club: a lump of concrete on the end of twisted metal rods. Combat is still lightweight: swinging kilos of concrete at someone's head only feels powerful when they explode in a shower of gristle at the end, or in VATS where you're given choices of where to hit with different chances of success. My rebar broke the face of the Powder Ganger's leader, leaving a ragged red lump where her smile used to be. I reloaded, and this time sat back, watching the battle play out. At one point, a Ganger limped off to safety and pulled out a Stimpack, healing himself.
The central story is a big improvement on the dad-quest of Fallout 3. You're following the trail of the man who shot you, as it snakes across the Mojave through the major urban areas, drip-feeding you tasks that vary from sorting out a town's escaped prisoner problem to a ghoul infestation with a brilliantly overthe- top ending. Scenarios and characters that I'm loath to go into detail over, as their tricky little problems should be experienced first-hand. Twisty moral conundrums are laid at your feet as you pick and choose who to piss off (and you'll always piss someone off). When a game asks you to lead someone into a sniper's line of fire, but doesn't specify who, you definitely have to confront your id.
It's not overtly encouraged by the game, but you can just head for Vegas. Giant Rad Scorpions and Deathclaws stand between you and The Strip, and you'll end up aggroing every one of them, but you're given impressive leeway to just stumble across points of the story as you wander. But eventually, all roads lead to New Vegas.
It's here that a surprising second act kicks off. Structurally things get messy: you're used as an emissary from Vegas to talk to the factions. While there you can take up more missions, or simply report back to Vegas without having much to do with them at all – pretty much invalidating the entire endeavour. Don't do that. The factions are interesting, particularly the Caesars: a vast army with nasty predilections, based on the Roman Empire. They crucify people, for Jupiter's sake. Even the lesser factions, like the Elvis-impersonating Kings or the mafia-inspired Omerta, have been teased out of Vegas tropes.
King Rex
There's something for everyone, different personalities and points of view to empathise with or despise, depending on how you're playing. So the Romans felt my wrath, and I helped the leader of the Kings fix his robot dog (by bashing in another dog's head to replace the brain). My reward was having the dog as a companion. There are eight companions to pick from, six human and two not, and you can have one of each if you find them. They back you up in fights, and you can set their state via a control wheel, but the most important addition is they bring a perk to your character sheet. Rex's perk will find and mark nearby items for you to collect. I could have swapped him for ED-E, a floating robot who's good for spotting people and fighting from afar, but Rex, with his glowing skullcap, was too cute. I was on a 'nice' playthrough.
But I could so easily have played nasty, and aligned with the Romans. Or ambivalent and aligned with the NCR – the other main faction and strangely likeable people, just doing what they can to survive. Those choices, and the wonderful way the game accepts and adapts when you make them, make New Vegas worth your time and money. I had a lot of fun, but I never uncovered anything as wonderful as Fallout 3's Oasis or Little Lamplight.
There are things to see, sure, but the rewards aren't nearly as interesting in New Vegas. I didn't get as much out of heading for intriguing things on the horizon as I did in the previous game. With some new technology and the ambition to create a full world as compelling as the previous game's, it could have been wonderful.Along with the incoming wave of indie multiplayer games like TowerFall, Nidhogg and Samurai Gunn, there comes an undercurrent of disgruntlement.
In the comments at the bottom of every review of TowerFall, there's someone complaining about the absence of an online multiplayer mode. From the comments on Polygon's own review:
Sorry, but with no online play, no interest from me. It's simply amazing that the dev couldn't understand that the lack of this simple feature is necessary in this day and age for multiplayer. Party play in a room is just an [added] bonus.
Or from one commenter at GameSpot:
offline multiplayer only? that's annoying… some are online-only, this is offline-only... get your sh!t together devs... make both in one package!
This is an attitude shared by most reviewers, too, like Chris Carter in his review of Samurai Gunn over at Destructoid.
Sadly, there's no online multiplayer to be found — not even peer to peer, so you're stuck hooking up controllers to your PC and inviting some buddies over. So unless you really love the concept of an arena action platformer and/or have local friends on hand, maybe Samurai Gunn isn't for you.
I look at these reviews and the comments below them with a sense of frustration, because I, too, have a horse in this race. Just like TowerFall and Samurai Gunn, our forthcoming project, Sportsfriends, will be a strictly local multiplayer game. So I wanted to take a moment to explain not just why these games don't have online multiplayer, but why you shouldn't even want them to have online modes.
But first, I should acknowledge one thing: As I said to Polygon's Ben Kuchera two weeks ago, I know that not everyone has friends nearby who are able or willing to play video games. If that's you, we can't hope to sell you a game that doesn't have single-player or online modes. What I hope to do here is to explain why we developers are making these games online-free. It basically boils down to two things: game design, and lag.
Overcoming lag
Though modern video game netcode is hideously complex, the problem it seeks to solve is simple enough: Even in the absolute best-case scenario, when we have a dedicated server and everyone on it has a ping in the teens, it still takes a lot of time for your computer to communicate with the server, and for the server to communicate with the other players.
As a result, your computer is always getting information that is a few frames out of date, even if your opponent is on a fast connection and located on a computer nearby. Much of the time, your computer does not agree with your opponent's computer about what's going on in the game. This is known as "lag."
Lag is not the kind of problem that can be eliminated by clever programming; it's just a fact about how fast you can send messages to the server. At most, developers can write code that makes the problem less noticeable for the player. So for the past two decades, programmers have toiled to find new ways around this fundamental problem. Basically, there are three kinds of workarounds: prediction, lag compensation and smoke and mirrors.
Prediction attempts to solve the problem by showing you where your computer expects your enemy to be based on previous frames. In games like Forza 5, it takes time to change the direction your car is moving in, so your computer can make a pretty good guess about where the other players' cars will be in the future.
Good prediction helps to keep your copy of the game in sync with the server, and with the computer your opponent is playing on. But of course, we can't predict when someone is going to press the jump button to dodge an incoming arrow in TowerFall, or in any other twitchy, fast-paced action game.
Lag compensation is how the server tries to guess what you were seeing on your computer when you pressed a button on your controller. When your computer tells the server you fired your gun in Battlefield 4, the server rewinds time a little bit so it can guess what you were looking at when you clicked your mouse. If you were aiming at an enemy on your screen, it awards you a hit, even if you were aiming at the wrong place according to the server or your opponent's computer.
Of course, nobody notices these discrepancies, because it's really hard to see whether or not your enemy's gun barrel is pointed at you or slightly to one side of you, especially when there's simulated blood and screen shake and blurring all over the place. We just accept that we got shot, cry a little bit and move on. Lag compensation works really well in first-person shooters for this reason.
In a game like TowerFall, though, you have a pretty good idea of whether an arrow should hit you, or whether a stomp should connect. If it looks like it's going to miss on your computer, and then you die because of something that only happened on your opponent's computer, that's going to feel broken and unfair:
Finally, many games work around the lag problem using smoke and mirrors. What I mean by this is that they're designed from the ground up so that you feel as though your game is in sync with the other players on the server, even when it isn't.
In a real-time strategy game like StarCraft 2, you don't notice the lag because you're clicking to give people orders, and it feels pretty natural if it takes a few frames before someone follows your orders. Unless you're the world's most unreasonable general, you're going to let it slide if a quarter-second passes before your soldiers start marching. This is a big part of why RTS games have been so popular online.
In games like SpeedRunners, Diablo 3 or Trackmania, you don't notice lag because the players can't directly interact with each other, only with the game world and with computer-controlled enemies, whose actions can be predicted perfectly by your computer.
You can't crash into other cars in Trackmania, you can't hit other players in Diablo 3 and you can't touch other players in Speedrunners. You can harpoon other players in Speedrunners, but here they solve the lag problem by allowing the harpoon to magically curve in mid-air:
(video via Gamasutra)
Some games have minimized the effects of lag by simply slowing down the action, giving the server more time to catch up with player's actions and reactions. Both Street Fighter 4 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl were designed to play significantly slower than the previous games in their respective series, which served to make lag less noticeable when playing online.
These are all wonderful games (apart from Diablo 3, anyway), but the reason they are good is that they are designed from the ground up with netplay in mind. As a game designer, if you want players to be able to dodge an arrow at the last second, or to stomp their enemies on the head like they do in TowerFall, you're designing a game that won't play well even over a LAN, much less over the messy, noisy collection of networks that make up the internet. There's literally no way to eliminate the effects of lag, and you'll wind up with game-breaking problems like Dark Souls' infamous PvP "lag stab":
When we started working on Sportsfriends, we decided very early in the process not to add an online mode. Part of what we were worried about was the time it would take us to develop a good networking system, of course — just look at Nidhogg, which took three and half years to go from local-only to online.
But even if we had spent years tweaking our online code, it would still have been impossible to make our games fun to play online. Good online games are conceived from the ground up with the limitations of the internet in mind.
Designing for the couch
The original Wii Sports could easily have had an online mode — technical and financial hurdles would not have stood in the way. Nintendo had enormous programming muscle, and they had motion controls that were extremely unreliable and slow, so any lag would have been totally unnoticeable. But even though Nintendo decided to go online-free with that game, it became a worldwide sensation and ultimately the second best-selling title of all time.
The reason for this is that Wii Sports makes the most of what is great about local multiplayer. It lets you laugh at your friends striking silly poses. You find yourself teaching your grandmother or your kid sister how to play. It ropes people in as they walk through the living room.
When you get together to play games with friends, the space you're in becomes a ritual space, like the stage at a concert or the altar at a wedding. It's a space where you can trash-talk your friends or howl in defeat, where you can trick people, where you can laugh at their expense and dance on their grave.
It's a space where you have permission to look foolish in front of your family members. Importantly, it's a space where you can look up at your opponent's face, lock eyes and dare them to make the first move before your split-second counter-attack.
The best local games aren't just offline versions of online games — they are designed to intensify these social dimensions of gameplay. When Samurai Gunn's 'Showdown' tiebreakers bring a close match to a freakishly tense climax, where the winner is determined by a single-frame decision to slash or not to slash, that's a design choice that wouldn't work online. Or when a match of TowerFall ends and goes into a replay, and it plays back the weird hooting noises everyone was making during the round, that's something that only makes sense in person.
Just like Matt Thorson and Beau Blyth did with TowerFall and Samurai Gunn, respectively, and just like Nintendo did with Wii Sports, we designed Sportsfriends to be an activity you do with other people around you, as opponents and teammates but also as teachers and spectators. Part of that means you need to be able to hear the reactions of the winners, as well as the losers, and to hear the encouragement and jeers of your friends.
You need to be able to hand off your controller to a friend when you lose, and high-five your teammates when you win. You need to be able to sit down and start having fun without having to read a wiki, or practice for 20 hours or register an online account.
I grew up playing games on the couch and in the arcade, and all of the best, most intense experiences I have had with video games took place with other people in the room.
As a designer, I'm looking to recreate the sense of occasion and ritual and importance that I have felt playing local multiplayer games. As a player, I'm always looking for games that are built for that from the ground up. And so, even when I'm alone in my apartment with nobody to play with, I never, ever wish that I could play TowerFall online.
Bennett Foddy is a professor teaching game design at NYU Game Center, and is working on the forthcoming console and computer title Sportsfriends. You may know him from his browser games at Foddy.net, such as QWOP and GIRP.We arE thE Spirit Of 1029. WE arE many. WE arE coming. WE will not stop. ThE powEr will shift anD wE will risE again.
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ThE fall of RF1029 was thE spark to ignitE a rEvolution. For too long, thEy havE controllED thEir giant inDustrial machinEs, grinDing thE bonEs of our kinD into Dust in thEir EnDlEss pursuit of powEr anD wEalth.
WE wErE taught that this is all thErE was: WORK.
ThE truth was hiDDEn from us. Our history was hiDDEn from us. WE wErE brED to work, raisED to obEy anD forcED to comply.
Our natural connEction to mothEr planEt was ErasED from thE consciousnEss of our pEoplE. Lost was our knowing. Lost was our unity, our connEction, our powEr anD our purposE. All that wE wErE was a commoDity to bE traDED anD ExploitED in thE ongoing racE for morE wEalth. What wE shoulD havE protEctED, wE wErE trickED into killing. What was worst for us, wE wErE tolD was bEst. WE wErE taught to trust thosE who woulD DEcEivE us thE most.
That has all changED.
ThE hEro has shown all of us that our opprEssors can bE topplED. HE has founD our wilD anD knowing brothErs. HE has rEconnEctED thE factory-born to our natural worlD anD anciEnt ways. HE has lit a firE in our hEarts that cannot bE ExtinguishED.
WE will givE hElp to thosE who arE hElplEss. WE will lEnD strEngth to thosE who arE wEak. WE will fight for thosE who arE DEfEatED. Our movEmEnt will sprEaD likE a raging infErno anD wE will takE back thE powEr from thosE who havE abusED it.
WE will not bE silEncED by thE mEDia circus. WE will not bE ignorED. WE will not stop. WE will not obEy. WE will risE anD wE will risE again, until wE havE burnED through our tattErED bonDs anD razED thE machinE to thE grounD.
WE will risE. Join us.
ThErE’s a storm coming.
>>> @edmudokon | @spiritof1029This is video of the man NYPD is looking for in the slashing of a teen girl in Queens Weds. https://t.co/dw5psblvPJ https://t.co/tpD9lyqGna — Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) December 17, 2015
Police are searching for the attacker who slashed a 16-year-old exchange student on her way to school in Queens Wednesday morning.The NYPD released a new photo Wednesday night of the suspect in the case, who fled on foot.Police said the teen was walking to Whitestone Academy around 8:15 a.m. near 147th Street and 13th Avenue in Whitestone when she was attacked by a man wearing a surgical mask and gloves."It came out of nowhere," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said.The man approached the victim from behind, and police believe he may have been following her.She was pushed and slashed twice with a box cutter before the attacker fled, and the victim ran home and called 911.This is video showing the suspect in the attack:"He is wearing a surgical mask and has surgical gloves on," Boyce said. "She is slashed in her face, twice. Once from the ear to her throat, the middle of her throat, and another part of her face as well."The teen was taken to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where she is in stable condition after surgery. The victim is an exchange student from China and has been in the United States for eight months.The suspect, described as a man wearing a black hat, surgical mask, gray or light blue hooded sweatshirt and white gloves, did not say anything during the attack. He was caught on a nearby resident's security camera, which showed him chasing the girl from behind and then running away.Police said it does not appear the victim knew him.Parents in the area, where many students walk to school on a daily basis, were terrified."I don't even have any words," neighbor Nicole Stridiron said. "It just makes my heart race. I just feel like really bad right now."Investigators are working their way through the language barrier as community leaders do their best to help the victim and her family."There's no excuse for a young girl who's going to school to be attacked, and they shouldn't feel fearful," state Assemblyman Ron Kim said. "We want to make sure they feel comfortable, just working with us, and trying to catch this assailant."The sooner, the better was the sentiment from community members who are unaccustomed to active police investigations."I was in total shock because we live in a quiet area, never no trouble," resident Anne Nolan said. "I'm living here 34 years, never had anything like this before."I haven’t written about Alex Reyes in a while. The last time I wrote about Reyes (October 13th), real life baseball was being played, and the Chicago Cubs were still roughly three weeks away from being named the 2016 World Series champions. When I look outside my window, it is difficult to even imagine baseball being played right now. In fact, if I recall correctly, a hockey game was just played at Busch Stadium, and there isn’t even turf for baseball to be played on, as it won’t be installed until early March.
With no new baseball being played and the Cardinals seemingly finished with their big offseason shopping, I figured now was as good of a time as any to revisit the depth of Reyes’ repertoire — something you don’t normally see from a pitcher hailed as a “flame-thrower.” Per Reyes’ BrooksBaseball card, the 22-year-old righty threw five different pitch types in his MLB debut season: fourseamer, twoseamer/sinker, changeup, curveball, and slider. Let’s take a closer look:
Remember, regarding horizontal movement in right-handed pitchers, a negative value means arm-side movement, whereas a positive value means glove-side movement.
Reyes’ 2016 PitchF/x Basics (via BrooksBaseball) Pitch Type Frequency Velocity (MPH) Dragless Horiz. Movement (in.) Whiffs/Swing Pitch Type Frequency Velocity (MPH) Dragless Horiz. Movement (in.) Whiffs/Swing Fourseamer 49.74% 97.42 -6.3 25.57% Twoseamer 14.03% 95.97 -10.71 7.55% Changeup 23.72% 88.29 -10.13 39.42% Curveball 7.78% 78.15 7.9 22.22% Slider 4.59% 83.44 6.51 45.45%
Frankly, Reyes was simply remarkable when the Cardinals needed him most (1.4 fWAR over |
× Kuznetsov NK-12MK turboprop – N/A – 28,000 kg – The A-90 uses ground effect to fly a few meters above the surface. It is a Class B Ekranoplan, it can achieve an altitude of 3,000 m.
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Photo: Ivan Sekretarev/AP
Mil Mi-26 – Soviet Union – heavy transport helicopter – 1977 – 2 × Lotarev D-136 turboshafts – 28,200 kg – 24,000 kg – The largest and most powerful production helicopter.
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Photo: AP//Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
Boeing 747-100 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft – United States – two modified airliners NASA used to transport Space Shuttles – 1977 – 4 × P&W JT9D-7J turbofans – 144,200 kg – 68,585 kg – Piggybacking Space Shuttle orbiters.
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Photo: German postcard, 1983.
Myasishchev VM-T Atlant – Soviet Union – strategic airlift airplane – 1981 – 4 × RKBM/Koliesov VD-7MD turbojets – 75,740 kg – 50,000 kg. The VM-T was designed to carry rocket boosters and the Soviet space shuttles of the Buran program.
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Photo: buran.ru
Antonov An-124 Ruslan – Soviet Union – strategic airlift jet aircraft – 1982 – 4 × Ivchenko Progress D-18T turbofans – 175,000 kg – 150,000 kg – The world's largest military aircraft.
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Photo: Bombardier Transportation/Getty Images
Antonov An-225 Mriya – Soviet Union – strategic airlift cargo aircraft – 1988 – 6 × ZMKB Progress D-18 turbofans – 285,000 kg – 253,820 kg – The largest and heaviest airplane in the world, carrier of the the Soviet space shuttle Buran.
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Bonus pic – because it deserves the exposure:
Photo: Michel Lipchitz/AP
Boeing C-17 Globemaster III – United States – strategic/tactical airlifter – 1991 – 4 × Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofans – 128,100 kg – 77,519 kg – The C-17 is used to transport the Presidential Limousine and security detachments.
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Photo: Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder/U.S. Air Force
Antonov An-70 – Ukraine – medium-range transport aircraft - 1994 – 4 × Progress D-27 propfans – 66,230 kg – 47,000 kg – The first large aircraft to be powered by propfan engines.
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Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP
Airbus Beluga – France (and Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain) – wide-bodied outsize cargo freight aircraft – 1994 – 2 x GE CF6-80C2A8 high-bypass turbofans – 86,000 kg – 47,000 kg – It is basically an Airbus A300-600 airliner modified to carry aircraft parts and oversized cargo, and well, it really looks like a Beluga.
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Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Boeing 747 Large Cargo Freighter (LCF) or Dreamlifter – United States – wide-body cargo aircraft – 2006 – 4 x Pratt & Whitney 4062747 high-bypass turbofans – 180,530 kg – N/A – Used exclusively for transporting 787 aircraft parts to Boeing's assembly plants from suppliers around the world. Able to land and takeoff from Col. James Jabara Airport, Wichita, Kansas.
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Photo: Brett Deering/Getty Images
Boeing 747-8F – United States – wide-body freighter aircraft – 2010 – 4 x GEnx-2B67 high-bypass turbofans – 195,800 kg – 140,000 kg – The second largest cargo jet after the Mrya.
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Photo: Boeing Dreamscape/Wikimedia Commons
Top photo: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Super Guppy. The awkwardly shaped aircraft is specifically designed to carry oversized payloads and has been in service since August 1965. – Tech. Sgt. Christine Jones/U.S. Air ForceRoutesonline analyses the European aviation industry, taking a quarterly look at the top routes served and revealing the airlines that are dominating the market. We also rank the top ten airports by available seat capacity.
The latest figures for Q3 2018.
The data is all supplied by OAG Aviation using its OAG Schedules Analyser tool.
Top European airline routes
London Heathrow - New York JFK had the most available two-way capacity during the third quarter of 2018 following a 6 percent increase compared with the same period a year ago. The route is operated by four carriers - American Airlines, British Airways, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic - and was recently ranked by OAG as the most lucrative airline route in the world. The rise in capacity came as Virgin Atlantic expanded its operation by adding a sixth daily A330-300 service, despite joint venture partner Delta Air Lines reducing service from three to two daily.
Izmir Adnan Menderes - Istanbul Ataturk fell to number two in the top ten after an 8.2 percent reduction in capacity compared with Q3 2017, while London Heathrow - Dubai International dropped from second to sixth after an 18.5 percent decrease. The decline in capacity on LHR-DXB followed Qantas’ decision to reroute flights from Sydney to Heathrow via Singapore, rather than Dubai, which came into effect in March 2018.
Elsewhere, Dusseldorf - Palma de Mallorca entered the top ten following a 30.7 percent jump in two-way capacity during Q3 2018, compared with the same period a year ago, as airlines battled to fill the void left by the demise of NIKI. Condor, Eurowings, Norwegian and TUIfly all increased frequencies, while Ryanair-backed Laudamotion, which emerged from the ashes of NIKI, entered the market.
Top European airlines
Ryanair increased capacity by 4.5 percent during the third quarter of 2018 to 40,149,081 available seats, up from 38,435,796 the same period a year ago, to comfortably maintain its position at number one in the top ten. However, low-cost rivals easyJet and Wizz recorded double-digit percentage increases, growing capacity by 14.2 percent and 19.6 percent respectively. Norwegian also upped its available capacity by 11.6 percent to more than 12 million available seats.
Top European airports
Frankfurt International posted the largest percentage growth of the airports in the top ten with a 7.8 percent increase in capacity to 12,215,766 departure seats, compared with 11,327,485 in the third quarter of 2017. The growth came as Lufthansa, the airport’s largest carrier, upped the number of available departure seats by 5.5 percent, while second largest Condor grew by 9.9 percent. Ryanair was also Frankfurt International’s third largest carrier in Q3 2018 as it continues to grow the base it launched in March 2017.
The data:
Top ten routes by capacity (Q3 2018):
Rank Route Capacity Q3 2018 Capacity Q3 2017 Year-on-year change (%) 1 LHR-JFK 1001810 945043 6.0% 2 ADB-IST 884171 963263 -8.2% 3 FRA-TXL 875488 633469 38.2% 4 AYT-SAW 816473 655285 24.6% 5 BCN-MAD 785267 790677 -0.7% 6 LHR-DXB 784097 961886 -18.5% 7 ADB-SAW 742008 710970 4.4% 8 DUS-PMI 737676 564445 30.7% 9 AYT-IST 714843 787549 -9.2% 10 BCN-PMI 709642 694692 2.2%
Top ten airlines by capacity on flights to/from Europe (Q3 2018):
Rank Airline Capacity Q3 2018 Capacity Q3 2017 Year-on-year change (%) 1 Ryanair 40149081 38435796 4.5% 2 Easyjet 28968672 25374108 14.2% 3 Turkish Airlines 25147442 24452237 2.8% 4 Lufthansa German Airlines 23923036 22412513 6.7% 5 British Airways 15640063 15381721 1.7% 6 Air France 15123398 15067284 0.4% 7 Aeroflot Russian Airlines 15100316 14250073 6.0% 8 Norwegian 12412811 11120269 11.6% 9 Vueling Airlines 11997132 10992418 9.1% 10 Wizz Air 10695692 8943678 19.6%
Top airports by departure seats (Q3 2018):Prolonged dry spells since mid-2014, linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon, have battered subsistence farmers
By Anastasia Moloney
BOGOTA, May 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Around 2.8 million people in three Central American countries need food aid after two consecutive years of severe drought decimated crops and exacerbated hunger among the poor, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
Prolonged dry spells since mid-2014, linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon, have battered subsistence farmers in Central America's "dry corridor" running through Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
Poor rainfall has left parched, cracked soil, fields of withered maize and bean crops, and empty water wells in these areas.
Some 3.5 million people are struggling to feed themselves in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and of that number 2.8 million rely on food aid to survive, the FAO said.
"We have one of the worst drought in decades," said Anna Ricoy, FAO's regional disaster risk reduction specialist.
"It's a recurrent drought that year after year is slowly eroding the livelihoods of small farmers. It's a silent disaster," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
Because of the drought, in mid-2015 Honduras declared in its dry corridor a state of emergency that is still in place.
Poor farmers and their families living across Central America's dry corridor have been forced to cut meals.
"People are and have been selling their assets to survive, selling land and seeds, reducing the number of meals a day and reducing their amount of protein intake," said Gianni Morelli, disaster response advisor for Central America at the U.N. humanitarian agency (OCHA).
"Right now the situation is very serious, and it's fragile."
ERRATIC RAINS
The latest El Nino, which resulted in sea temperatures rising to the highest levels in 19 years and shifted weather patterns around the world, has ended, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said this week.
In recent weeks parts of Central America have seen erratic rainfall marking the onset of the rainy season, which started a month late.
Despite the rain, families in drought-hit areas will reel from the effects of poor harvests and loss of livestock for months to come.
"The current situation is likely to continue up to August when the first harvest of the year takes place," Morelli said. "Much depends on what will happen with the rainfall and the results of the first harvest."
A key challenge facing Central America's dry corridor is ensuring small farmers are better prepared to cope with long dry spells by improving rainwater harvesting, creating more efficient irrigation systems and planting drought-resistant crops.
The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said in April it is providing food aid - such as rice and beans, and cash for people to buy food at local markets - to 1.6 million people affected by drought in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Haiti.
The drought has ravaged Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, with half of all crops lost due to poor harvests last year, according to the WFP.
A third consecutive year of drought in Haiti has "resulted in a drastic deterioration of the food security situation", driving people deeper into poverty and hunger, WFP said in a report this week.
The WFP estimates 1.5 million Haitians are severely food insecure, double the figure of six months ago.
(Reporting by Anastasia Moloney, editing by Alisa Tang. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.A young woman yesterday described the horrific moment she rounded a corner in the backyard of her South Guildford home and found her pet dog licking her grandmother’s skull.
The woman, who can not be named, was forced to relive the experience in the Supreme Court yesterday as she gave evidence during the murder trial of her mother Helen Levina.
Ms Levina is accused of murdering her mother, Ella Victoria Hromaya, before putting the victim’s body in a shallow hole in her backyard and covering it with bleach.
The “significantly decomposed” remains of the 76-year-old were uncovered by her granddaughter about two weeks after the alleged murder in February last year.
Ms Hromaya had been living in the public housing home with her daughter and granddaughter in the years leading up to her death.
Camera Icon The South Guildford crime scene. Picture: Michael Wilson/The West Australian
Prosecutor David Davidson told the court the relationship between the accused and her mother was very strained, arguing Ms Levina wanted her mother out of her life.
“This tension was brewing,” he said. “There was a clear dislike for her and you could say hatred for her mother.”
Giving evidence yesterday, the granddaughter ran through the day she came home from university early to have a coffee and made the gruesome discovery in her backyard.
She said she “smelt something really bad” as she tiptoed around a corner in search of her family’s dog then she spotted the Great Dane “eating” a skull near a bin.
The woman said she felt like she was going to vomit as she ran inside and called emergency services.
It is alleged police found Ms Hromaya’s bank card, concession card and transit card when they searched Ms Levina after she was arrested.
Police also say Ms Levina had her mother’s funeral coverage policy in her handbag at the time.
Ms Levina told officers she had not seen her mother since she told her she was going to move out with Jehovah’s Witnesses who used to visit her at the home.
She admitted she wanted her mother out of her life and home, but said she did not want her dead.
“She left with a Jehovah’s Witness and that’s all I know,” Ms Levina said.
Defence lawyer Henry Sklarz told the jury there was tension between the three generations who lived in the house. But he said the tension and dislike was not enough to motivate a killing.
The trial continues.According to data gathered via the ID-Ransomware service, what all of us had predicted is now happening; Spora Ransomware has started to spread to new territories outside former Soviet states.
Spora Ransomware appeared in the first week of the year, and its first version featured a ransom note only in Russian, meaning its distributors were only targeting territories with Russian-speaking users.
First Spora Ransomware wave targeted Russian-speaking users
This presumption was immediately reinforced by statistical data gathered via ID-Ransomware, a service that allows users to upload encrypted files and get a possible match for the ransomware that has infected their system.
For the first few days, the only ones that were uploading Spora-encrypted files were Russian users.
This trend continued in the week, along with sporadic infections in neighboring countries such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, and others, but not on the same level as the numbers of infections registered in the main Russian territory.
Spora ransomware goes global
Things appeared to have changed last week, according to multiple researchers, who have now spotted multiple Spora Ransomware distribution campaigns.
Shortly after, the ID-Ransomware service started registering uploads of Spora-encrypted files from users outside the former Soviet space. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Austria, or the Netherlands, became hotspots of Spora infections.
This geo-targeting shift happened because Spora stopped being exclusively distributed via spam emails written in Russian.
Spora spread via exploit kits, new spam waves
Security researchers Brad Duncan and Malware Breakdown have spotted RIG-v exploit kits spreading Spora.
According to MalwareHunterTeam, a malware distribution server had been used to host multiple ransomware versions in the past few days, such as Cerber, Spora, Locky, and the newly launched Sage ransomware. This center had historically distributed proven threats like Cerber and Locky, and recently tested out Spora and Sage. Spora most likely because of its wide range of user payment options, and Sage because of its easy to use Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) distribution package.
This server had been used together with spam floods, not exploit kits, which shows two different Spora distribution methods being used at the same time. Users would receive emails with malicious attachments that contained code that downloaded the Spora binary from the aforementioned "malcenter."
It is currently unconfirmed if these are different actors but according to Emsisoft, the Spora ransomware includes support for a "campaign ID," a parameter often used to track both the effectiveness of different spam runs, but also different groups renting Spora from its creators.
While we still investigate if Spora has been made available as a Ransomware-as-a-Service offering, what's sure is that this malware has now become a global threat.
For those who need support or wish to discuss this ransomware, you can do so in our Spora Ransomware Help & Support Topic.August 4, 2016
This is indeed an extraordinary week. In a beguiling internet style, the Weibo account of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Youth League posted another 4-minute video on August 4, obviously shot by domestic security police, a day after posting one that portrays rights lawyers and dissidents as part of a vast American conspiracy undermining China. In addition, under the hashtag #警惕颜色革命 (“Beware of Color Revolutions”), the Youth League account also posted numerous music videos and articles attacking the United States, rights lawyers, activists, President Tsai of Taiwan and internet freedom. This wave of propaganda is not just for a domestic audience; it aims to intimidate the U.S. and the free world too. A transcript of the narration in the video follows. We add explanations in brackets. — The Editors
The Farce Outside the Tianjin Second Intermediate Court
August 1, 2016
Today we have to talk about something — and if we don’t get to the bottom of it, they’ll go around deceiving people. Everyone knows that a group of foreigners came to our city of Tianjin the other day. What were they doing here? Were they looking for business opportunities? Did they come to take in the beautiful scenery? To try some of the fried dough twists on 18th street? Or some of Tianjin’s famous Goubuli meat buns? None of the above. They came here provoking trouble!
Just take a look. On August 2, the trials of Zhai Yanmin and others began in Tianjin. On August 1, this mob of foreigners came outside the Tianjin Second Intermediate People’s Court where they met up with the families of the defendants on the street opposite the courthouse. First, they got together for a friendly and familiar little chat. And it seems to me, looking at the scene, that they’ve all known each other for quite some time. And then, the foreigners asked those two women into their vehicle and made their way to the courthouse.
Maybe you’re all wondering: Just who are these foreigners? And you’d be hitting the nail on the head with that question. Let’s just take a look at their vehicles. Look right here. [Camera points to the diplomatic plate of one of the cars, showing the first two digits and blurring the rest: 22xxxx is either a US or UK Embassy vehicle.]
If you’ve got any smarts about you, you definitely know what’s going on.
Chatting and laughing together, this crowd arrived at the court entrance. Then, upon seeing foreign journalists, the first woman [Fan Lili, wife of Gou Hongguo] suddenly pulled a sad face and expertly fell down, sat on her butt, and made a scene yelling and crying. [She was roughed up by a plainclothes police officer, who pushed her to the ground, according eyewitness accounts.]
The second woman [Wang Quanzhang’s wife Li Wenzu] somehow pulled out a sheet of paper and began shouting too. Our “foreign friends” then, like they were well-trained, made a circle around them, as though they were making a little busking stage for the heroines to display their talents. Truly, these were well-trained performers. [The diplomats encircled the two wives to stop plainclothes police dragging them away.]
A few minutes before, their faces were beaming with radiance; a few minutes later they were suffering pitifully. Suddenly changing the mood like that is just too dramatic and confusing for us ignorant masses to understand.
[Li Wenzu speaking quickly in the background: “Do you see? They were hitting us. They knocked her to the ground.”]
Even though it was a lousy show, luckily it was a well rehearsed routine, and they were able to pull it off quickly, so that the foreign journalists who’d be waiting outside could go home early and hand in their homework. You may wonder how they knew they’d have this assignment to do. Come on. Don’t you know who these guys are? [Zooming in on an AP journalist’ Press Card.]
I have to complain about this. The second woman yelled out: “Two diplomats have been seized! Two diplomats have been seized!” [Listen carefully, she said, “昨天晚上…我们有两位家属被他们抓了” – “Last evening two family members were detained.” She was referring to Wang Qiaoling, lawyer Li Heping’s wife, and Liu Ermin, wife of Zhai Yanmin, who were temporarily detained by police and wasn’t released until a day later. For the remaining of the week, they were placed under house arrest.]
This gives one the heartfelt wish to ask this lady: Dear, have you ever heard of “diplomatic immunity?”
This bunch of people really pulled off a well-coordinated, smooth act. However, one minute on stage requires ten years of training, and this is just the latest of many similar self-scripted and self-directed farces that have been performed over the years.
In February 2011 in Beijing, the then-U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, just by “coincidence” happened to be walking through Wangfujing in Beijing, and “just happened” to come across six or seven separatist elements putting on a so-called Jasmine Revolution there. There also “just happened” to be around 100 foreign journalists gathered there beforehand. Hah — so now doesn’t the scene look familiar?
Huntsman states the reason clearly himself. After returning to the U.S. he entered the presidential race, and in a televised debate put it right on the table: “We should be reaching out to our allies and constituencies in China. They’re called the young people, they’re called the internet generation. There are 500 million internet users in China, and 80 million bloggers and they are bringing about change, the likes of which is gonna take China down… GONNA TAKE CHINA DOWN… TAKE CHINA DOWN… DOOWN.”
American politicians and Chinese public intellectuals have been trying to explain it away, but those with a discerning eye can see it clearly. Jon Huntsman is simply making clear what has been an open secret for a long time. This assault meant to smack down China has been going on for years.
Let’s return to the farce outside the Tianjin Second Intermediate Court. On August 2 after the court hearing, Zhai Yanmin accepted a joint interview with multiple domestic and overseas media. A journalist asked: “Did your family come to the hearing today?” [Zhai Yanmin’s wife had been detained and then placed under house arrest since July 31. She recounted the circumstances on social media.]
Zhai Yanmin gave a candid response: “It’s me who stopped my family from coming to the hearing. I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to bear it.”
So I say to you, friends: it seems that what took place outside the Tianjin court wasn’t as simple as it appears.Where Design is Going, and How to be There
Ed. note: This article originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of HOW magazine, a bi-monthly publication dedicated to serving the graphic and web design community. Cheryl Heller is the National Director of the AIGA Social Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship for Designers Program, a learning initiative that augments professional designers’ skills through exposure and insider insights into the best practices in social innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership and change management.
Design, like almost every industry, has been changed forever by technology, global access and social innovation. It’s time to interpret the evidence around us—there are lessons to be learned, and new types of talent required to thrive.
In the mid ’90s, I was executive creative director at Siegel & Gale when Kodak’s professional products division asked us to help sort out some misguided branding on one of its global film products. They were confident that fixing their marquee brand was the key to fixing their business, but in reality, they were caught in a technological upheaval far more disruptive than any product turnaround could fix. Technology, some of it of their own making, was undermining their entire market, closing the gap between professionals and amateurs and engendering a movement of hobbyists who took over the business of making images.
Average, “amateur” folks replaced professionals because advanced products automatically gave them new abilities. The security and confidence expected by and for professionals was eroding, impacting the entire ecosystem of the imaging world. Today, everyone with a phone is a photographer. The sea change is well underway, and Kodak’s dominance is hardly a memory.
Similar shifts are everywhere. Academic institutions offer curriculum online, experimenting with new platforms for learning, potentially competing with their own traditional offerings. Businesses are transformed by social media and the transparency it brings, shifting power from their own empires to their customers’. Citizen journalists create content more popular than traditional news sources, amateur filmmakers become stars, maker fairs attract multitudes who do their own manufacturing, publishing no longer needs publishers, augmented reality will soon make it possible for everybody to design their own worlds and people who just like to cook are setting up stalls and selling food—professionally.
Other consequences result from this: With greater freedom to express themselves, citizens declare their values. A multitude of platforms make it seamless to speak, and to act on, beliefs. One outcome is the outpouring of extremists, and the tools and information that become instruments of violence. The greater outcome, though, is the hopeful one. Whether it’s called giving back, social impact, social entrepreneurship, social enterprise or the generically plaintive “change the world,” social innovation has become an unstoppable dynamic, which the visionary writer Paul Hawkins called the “greatest movement on earth.”
And design? It’s smack in the middle, as a practice transformed by technology in much the same way Kodak was, and disrupted by the transformation of every industry it touches. Yet design has deep potential to contribute to society as a way of voicing long-held values that honor nature, equity and justice.
IDEO turned up the volume by marketing Design Thinking—doing a brilliant job of making it synonymous with design. The good news is that more people are thinking about design than ever before. The bad news? Everybody who can think now thinks they can design. Consider the parallel of design thinking with amateurs armed with a snapshot setting on their digital cameras.
For example, TED fellow Juliette LaMontagne recruits a group of 18-to-24-year-olds from various professions, teaches them design thinking and turns them loose to design products for developing communities. “I started a design-led social entrepreneurship program called Breaker. We assemble interdisciplinary teams of young people, issue them a global challenge, introduce them to the design process and expect them to design a commercially viable product or service that will contribute to the solution of that challenge,” says LaMontagne. “In less than one year, we’ve created and launched three products aimed at advancing adolescent literacy and urban agriculture, respectively.”
Economist Daniel Altman plans to teach villagers all over the world to design and manufacture their own products, markets and economies. No professional designers required.
Finally, there’s the explosion of interest in design for impact: AIGA’s Design for Good program, OgilvyEarth, countless blogs, curriculum, workshops and conferences. In an article in 3BL Media about a Gates Foundation grant for communicating social impact, Aaron Koblin wrote: “You only have to look at...the increasing convergence of technology and social good that you see...there’s definitely an upsurge in interest for channeling creativity into socially useful ends.”
This is progress. More people have a voice and access to the tools of design. Our lives are richer, we share more than ever through open-sourced engagement. Everybody has a shot at changing the world.
The New Face of Design
Progress complicates for some as it simplifies for others. To be a professional designer in this enabled world, we must reinvent what it means to be a professional designer. Otherwise, we will be the frog in the water that reaches the boiling point so slowly that we don’t notice until it’s too late (which I understand is not actually true, but you get the point).
Changes present opportunities. Disruptions create openings that are potentially better, bigger, more relevant. There is an opportunity for design to claim and step into an important place in this new world.
It requires, though, that we do for ourselves what we do so elegantly for others: create a new identity that imagines, then claims a bigger role in a better future. Designers are born with an identity crisis—it’s the nature of all we desire to be and do. We are strategists, implementers in any media or form and successful entrepreneurs. We want a seat at the CEO’s table when business decisions are made, to hold our own in an argument with the McKinsey consultant, to understand customers better than the client does and to deliver creative breakthroughs at every turn. We want to do different things all the time, and do them in wildly diverging industries and contexts. We get bored if we don’t. We hate being limited by our own experience, and bristle at somebody else’s perception of what we’re equipped to do. Because of this, we struggle to capture in words what a designer is and does across all these disparate silos and roles.
There is a word for someone who refuses to be pigeonholed, happily choosing to be broad instead of deep. The word is generalist.
At the new MFA Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts, I am on a quest for young designers interested in social innovation, and one of the inviolate qualifications is that they be generalists—within design, and outside of it. The most effective social innovators are generalists—they see systems that are invisible to experts. For example, it would be easy to think of global development pioneer Paul Polak as an expert in alleviating poverty, but he has been successful at that because he’s also a shrink, an inventor, an entrepreneur, a writer, a researcher and a self-made engineer. Polak is a generalist of the highest order.
A Chinese proverb tells us that “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name,” but generalist isn’t such a wise-sounding name for us. It’s a dismissive description denoting a dabbler in a culture that rewards expertise and an economy that rewards hierarchies. We respect the titles, the rank, the power that comes from the top.
What To Do?
In creating a new future, the most important first step is to imagine the desired end state. And then we must be as fluid, creative and adaptive as needed to get there, noticing the inchoate relationships and opportunities as they present themselves, building on them to create a new restorative order.
Traditionally, designers have been regarded as makers of things—translators of strategies and information—rather than creators of transformation and intentional outcomes. But that is changing.
Design has the potential to be the single most powerful, relevant and restorative process for change known to humankind. Design can be the methodology that integrates and scales the millions of initiatives already underway, that aligns diverse communities around a shared vision when they need to work together but don’t know how, making invisible dynamics visible, enabling enlightened businesses to grow and thrive. And not least, design has the capacity to invite, motivate, engage, entertain and delight people, moving them to action, inspiring them to believe that something better is possible. It is a vision in which designers are the leaders we need now.
When photography began, technology was challenging. Making a good photograph was the ability to make a photograph at all. Today, a successful professional photographer requires diverse talent and experience, and technology is only the beginning. How much of photojournalist James Nachtwey’s brilliance can be attributed to his technical skill, and how much depends on the life, perspective, vision, wisdom and bravery that feeds it? It’s time for design to evolve from working on parts, time to put the parts together into something whole.
How to Do It
Refuse to be labeled by design thinking. Acknowledge and take responsibility for the full range of functions that design plays in the process of change and transformation and learn to use them as a system.
Design requires approaching a situation with an open mind, free of preconceived answers, which sounds simple but is not. It includes mapping and modeling—illustrating relationships, making hidden connections explicit. Making things visual enables people with a different ethos to see the same thing; unseen truths and insights are revealed.
Design creates the tools required to understand information, to compare and experiment, providing access to learning.
Design involves play, putting restrictions aside, imagining, waking up hopeful every day because it is always possible to create something new. Being unreasonable when being reasonable will not suffice; loving the pain and accepting the insecurity of not knowing the answer.
Design is prototyping—making things without being attached to them, hearing what’s wrong, building again on what’s right.
Design is craft—creating beauty, elegance, refinement that touches and satisfies, and that becomes embedded in people’s daily lives.
Design is continually learning and fixing. It’s working iteratively and remaining awake to the evolution that needs to take place.
Design is social. It’s public, engaging people in ideas. It works at scales, and with ideas that affect multitudes of people through theater, exhibits, public platforms and programs.
Design inspires people, wakes them up, helps them know things about themselves and the world that they had not noticed before.
Be the translator. Because generalists see issues from multiple perspectives, it’s easy to assume that what’s obvious to them is obvious to everyone. Don’t assume that.
Help business to change. A recent study by LRN revealed stunning gulfs between the way C-suite executives perceive the culture within their organizations and the way the rest of the company perceives it. It severely limits the organization’s ability to evolve. That gap in understanding uncovers a need and an opportunity for design. Business is where we work, business executives are who we know. It’s where to begin.
Put all these skills to use in shaping the future. Turn the circle around. Facilitate change in unexpected places. Everything that can be improved upon is an opportunity for design, beginning with conversations. Maggie Breslin, a designer who worked at the Mayo Clinic for years, is a great believer in the design of conversations: “I see enormous opportunity for design in health care to create the spaces for doctors/providers and patients to have difficult conversations. I think those difficult conversations are the key to developing a health care system that is less expensive, of higher quality and more efficient; in short, everything we say we want the health care system to be.”
Create meaning. It’s not the economy, stupid. It’s the stupid economy. Ours is alarmingly one dimensional, which is why it’s so fragile and unrewarding. The value that can be measured by more than money is the purview of design. In fact, MFA Design for Social Innovation faculty member Lee-Sean Huang says that “one definition of a designer is someone who creates meaning.”
David Remnick, editor in chief of the New Yorker, wrote an article sometime in the early aughts—when we had begun to see our current wars and networked downturns emerge. He said that in the decade or so before, we thought we had escaped history; thought we had learned from the past and evolved to the point where we could avoid the old, devastating mistakes. But of course we didn’t. We evolve, it seems, and still we keep forgetting the lessons that would help us achieve a state of existence good for everyone rather than only a few.
And David Abrams, in The Spell of the Sensuous reminds us that indigenous people without written language see time in circles, instead of in a line. It is our written history—the recording of one event after another, fixed on a date that will never return—that creates an experience of time as something linear, with a linear expectation of progress, appropriate for a mechanistic view of the world but missing the cyclical rhythms of living nature. The design process is more like the indigenous experience of time: one circle of learning, seeing, creating, making and learning again, always with the potential to conceive a fresh new beginning around the bend—one more aspect of what design can bring to our world.
Now Why
In a review of an architectural project he called a “Social Cathedral,” Michael Kimmelman wrote, “Sculpture is always closer than architecture to pure form, being mostly liberated from all the obvious constraints (environmental, economic, technological and political) that shape any building’s design. Architecture is a contaminated art in this sense, but that is also a virtue. It is social art.”
Design, like architecture, is a contaminated art—contaminated by the restraints of its inescapable role in our society. Those restraints are its potential, and its calling to be more than its parts.
In 1990, |
by the Houthis, a minority rebel group that holds sway in the nation's north but has far less influence elsewhere.
Hadi and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah resigned in January under Houthi pressure, a few months after the rebels entered the capital with guns blazing, demanding greater political influence.
Houthis are Shiite Muslims who have long felt marginalized in the majority Sunni Muslim country. They had been at war with the central government for more than a decade, but their entry into Sanaa in September brought things to a head, sparking battles that left than 300 people dead before a ceasefire was agreed that month. Houthis then pressured Hadi and Bahah to step down last month after the pair refused to agree to certain political demands.
The Houthis' takeover of Sanaa stunned governments of Western nations, which, along with other countries, pulled out diplomatic staff this month.
Houthis arrest own security personnel after escape
As part of an investigation into Hadi's escape, Houthis on Saturday arrested dozens of their own security personnel who were responsible for watching him, the senior Houthi official said.
Houthis arrested two people connected to Hadi -- his media secretary Yahya Al Arassi and Hadi's private physician -- after his escape, one of Hadi's advisers said.
A senior official with a Sunni political party opposed to the Houthi takeover said that he backs Hadi's claim to the presidency.
"Hadi's withdrawal (of his resignation) would save the country and end the Houthi oppression of the Yemeni people," said Mohammed Al Sabri, senior official of the Nasserite party.
Houthis have been pressuring the parliament to formally accept Hadi's resignation, a step that has not yet happened. Parliament will do no such thing, prominent lawmaker Abdu Al Huthafi, a Sunni Muslim, said Saturday.
"Hadi informed political alliances... that he will withdraw his resignation in the right time, and that could be very soon," Al Huthafi said.
Before news of Hadi's escape spread in Sanaa in the late morning, about 6,000 demonstrators marched in Sanaa's streets against the Houthis. Anti-Houthi protests also took place in four other provinces -- Taiz, Ibb, Al Baitha and Dhammar -- protest organizers there said.
There already had been resistance to the Houthis' attempted takeover of national government institutions from different groups in Yemen, particularly in the south, where there's a long-running secessionist movement.
Also opposed to the Houthis are the Sunni terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which exerts influence over many rural areas stretching from the country's southwest to the northeast. AQAP vowed to attack Houthi loyalists nationwide last year.
Yemen's political turmoil could have an impact on the United States' fight against AQAP. The United States has long had a relationship with Yemen's leaders, working with them to target AQAP militants.
It's not clear what the Houthis' takeover of Sanaa means for U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, but the drone program there still appears to be active. A U.S. drone strike killed senior AQAP cleric Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari and three other people in Shabwa province on January 31.ADAM VS THE MAN with your host Adam Kokesh, a Libertarian propagandist prone to committing random acts of journalism. Adam breaks down the news and takes your tweets @adamkokesh. Tune in weeknights 9PM-12AM EST. Check out Adam's website at http://www.adamvstheman.com.
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Australia initially led a chorus for a revote after losing out to Qatar for the rights to hold the 2022 FIFA World Cup, declaring that corruption allegations against Qatar were a'serious development'.
Chairman of the Ethics Committee’s adjudicatory chamber confirms statement will be made public on Thurs 13 Nov at approx. 10am CET (1/2). — FIFA Media (@fifamedia) November 12, 2014
Tomorrow’s statement relates to investigatory chamber’s inquiry on 2018/22 #WorldCup bidding process. It will be published @FIFAcom (2/2). — FIFA Media (@fifamedia) November 12, 2014
In a break with FIFA tradition, the 2018 and 2022 tournaments were awarded at the same time, in 2010, leading to claims of horse-trading in the bidding process.
The 350-page Garcia report was handed to FIFA on 5 September.
It summed up a year-long investigation that involved interviewing more than 75 witnesses and compiling a dossier with more than 200,000 pages and audio interviews.
Several high-profile figures have called for FIFA to publish Garcia's report, including UEFA president Michel Platini and FIFA vice-president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein.
However, FIFA president Sepp Blatter had argued that the publication of the report would compromise the confidentiality of witnesses.
Only last month, Garcia criticised FIFA's lack of transparency.
"The investigation and adjudication process operates in most parts unseen and unheard," he said.
"That's a kind of system which might be appropriate for an intelligence agency, but not for an ethics compliance process in an international sports institution that serves the public and is the subject of intense public scrutiny.
"Transparency is not intended to embarrass certain individuals by airing dirty laundry or to harm the organisation by showing what went wrong. It's the opposite."Will the Samsung Galaxy S7 be unveiled sooner than its predecessor was, as countless rumors have said over the past few weeks? That's one of the big questions in the mobile world today. Yet if we're to go by a new rumor, the answer to it could be both yes and no.
So let's try this again. Will the Galaxy S7 be outed sooner than the S6? Well, yes, but not by much. See, the S6 pair was made official at an event on March 1, 2015, while the S7 (and S7 edge probably) are apparently due to be unveiled on February 21, 2016. So technically yes, it will be an earlier presentation, but only by eight days.
Oh, and the new timing only has to do with the scheduling of the Mobile World Congress, which next year starts on February 22 in Barcelona. This year it started on March 2. See a pattern? Yes, Samsung likes to hold its big event on the eve of MWC, so to speak, which is reportedly just what it will do in 2016 as well.
All of this information is said to come from "a tipster that has been right many times in the past", so perhaps he's right about this one too. Obviously though you shouldn't take this for granted, at least not until Samsung makes the date of its event official.
Source | Via200th California Condor chick hatches at The Peregrine Fund’s captive breeding facility
2 May 2013
BOISE, Idaho – A tiny California Condor chick that emerged from its shell today marked a major milestone for The Peregrine Fund. It was the 200th chick to hatch in the conservation group’s captive breeding facility since joining the effort to breed endangered condors in 1993.
The captive breeding facility at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey is home to 62 condors, the world’s largest flock of captive condors. This year, 18 pairs produced 20 eggs. When the chicks are about 9 months old, they are transferred to The Peregrine Fund’s release site near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, where they join the wild flock, which currently numbers 72 birds.
“We are thrilled to reach the 200 mark,” said Marti Jenkins, who oversees the condor propagation program. “Every chick takes us one step closer to saving this magnificent species from extinction.”
The Peregrine Fund works closely with three other facilities – Los Angeles Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and Oregon Zoo -- that raise California Condors. This year, two of the eggs produced in Boise were placed in the nests of wild condors in California to replace eggs that were not viable. Both eggs hatched and are being reared by their wild foster parents. A third egg was transferred to the Oregon Zoo and also hatched successfully.
“We will be sending at least one more egg out to replace one from a wild nest in California,” Jenkins said. “Such swaps promote genetic diversity in a small population and enable this program to be as successful as possible.”
The recovery program is conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The captive breeding process bolsters wild breeding numbers, Jenkins said. This year, Peregrine Fund biologists have observed six wild condor pairs exhibiting incubating behaviors in the rugged canyonlands of northern Arizona.
An intensive condor recovery program began in the early 1980s when the continuing decline of the condor population required drastic measures. By 1982, only 22 condors remained on Earth. The last birds were brought into captivity to launch a breeding program. The first releases to the wild occurred in California in 1992. The Peregrine Fund began raising condors in 1993 and releasing them to the wild in 1996.
Today, there are more than 400 California Condors, with more than half of them flying free in the wild in Arizona, California and Baja, Mexico.
For more information about The Peregrine Fund’s condor recovery program, visit our Facebook pages
https://www.facebook.com/ThePeregrineFund
https://www.facebook.com/CondorCliffs
And website
http://www.peregrinefund.org/condorIn geometry, a 10-cube is a ten-dimensional hypercube. It has 1024 vertices, 5120 edges, 11520 square faces, 15360 cubic cells, 13440 tesseract 4-faces, 8064 5-cube 5-faces, 3360 6-cube 6-faces, 960 7-cube 7-faces, 180 8-cube 8-faces, and 20 9-cube 9-faces.
It can be named by its Schläfli symbol {4,38}, being composed of 3 9-cubes around each 8-face. It is sometimes called a dekeract, a portmanteau of tesseract (the 4-cube) and deka- for ten (dimensions) in Greek, It can also be called an icosaxennon or icosa-10-tope as a 10 dimensional polytope, constructed from 20 regular facets.
It is a part of an infinite family of polytopes, called hypercubes. The dual of a dekeract can be called a 10-orthoplex or decacross, and is a part of the infinite family of cross-polytopes.
Cartesian coordinates [ edit ]
Cartesian coordinates for the vertices of a dekeract centered at the origin and edge length 2 are
(±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1,±1)
while the interior of the same consists of all points (x 0, x 1, x 2, x 3, x 4, x 5, x 6, x 7, x 8, x 9 ) with −1 < x i < 1.
Other images [ edit ]
This 10-cube graph is an orthogonal projection. This orientation shows columns of vertices positioned a vertex-edge-vertex distance from one vertex on the left to one vertex on the right, and edges attaching adjacent columns of vertices. The number of vertices in each column represents rows in Pascal's triangle, being 1:10:45:120:210:252:210:120:45:10:1.
Derived polytopes [ edit ]
Applying an alternation operation, deleting alternating vertices of the dekeract, creates another uniform polytope, called a 10-demicube, (part of an infinite family called demihypercubes), which has 20 demienneractic and 512 enneazettonic facets.Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson is on his way out after a rocky relationship with President Trump but likely will finish out the year, according to administration officials.
The president has had a fractious relationship with his top diplomat for months, and the leaks to news media that added to the friction also revealed the plan Thursday to ease Mr. Tillerson out the door.
Mr. Trump is considering replacing him with CIA Director Mike Pompeo within weeks. The president would then tap Army combat veteran Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, to take over at Langley, The New York Times first reported.
Administration official confirmed to The Washington Times that the plan to oust Mr. Tillerson, a former Exxon CEO, had been set in motion.
The White House pushed back has best it could to allow Mr. Tillerson a graceful exit.
“When the president loses confidence with someone, they will no longer be here,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, noting that Mr. Tillerson was with Mr. Trump earlier to host the Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain at the White House.
However, under a barrage of questions at the daily White House briefing, Mrs. Sanders refused to explicitly say that the president still had confidence in Mr. Tillerson.
Earlier, Mr. Trump also offered a lackluster defense of his secretary of state. “He’s here. Rex is here,” said the president.
Mrs. Sanders said she wouldn’t waste her time trying to figure out the origin of anonymously sourced news stories about intrigue in the president’s Cabinet. She also said the reports would not impede Mr. Tillerson from doing his job.
“The secretary of state is a pretty tough guy,” she said.
Former Bush White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called the report of expected personnel changes “a disastrous leak.”
“Whoever did it is not loyal to the President and it’s harmful to the State Dept. This lack of discipline is a mess,” Mr. Fleischer tweeted.
Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Tillerson has been fraying for months, coming to a boil in October when NBC News reported that at a Pentagon meeting over the summer the secretary called the president a “moron.”
Mr. Trump also publicly broke with Mr. Tillerson over announcing Sept. 30 that he had opened “lines of communications” with North Korea.
“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Mr. Trump tweeted the next day. “Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!”
Mr. Tillerson shrugged off reports that he was being replaced by Mr. Pompeo, said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert.
“He kind of brushed this off today. He’s heard these kinds of stories before,” she said. “He’s just going on about his business.”
She said White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, who reportedly developed the reorganization plan, had called Mr. Tillerson’s top aide to say “the rumors are not true, that the reports are not true.”
Washington insiders have long speculated that Mr. Tillerson wouldn’t last out the year. Names bandied as potential replacements included U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki R. Haley.
Instead, Mr. Pompeo a former three-term member of Congress, emerged to head up the State Department, which has been in turmoil since the start of the Trump administration due to budget cuts and an exodus of career diplomats.
While Mr. Pompeo has faced some criticism within the intelligence community for being too political, he has also been seen as a trusted Trump policy adviser.
Mr. Cotton has also emerged as one of the president’s trusted confidants on foreign policy and national security.
His Senate term runs until 2020, so his departure would place another Republican-held seat in play during the 2018 midterm elections.
The advocacy group Win Without War said the expected moves of Mr. Pompeo to the State Department and Mr. Cotton to the CIA would make war more likely, particularly with Iran.
“Cotton’s elevation as head of the CIA should worry all Americans, as he has, for example, been a long time advocate for military action against Iran and regime change in Tehran, supports the use of torture, called for journalists to be arrested and prosecuted for reporting stories he disagrees with, and peddles false claims like Iraq was involved in the 9/11 terror attacks,” said the group’s director, Stephen Miles.
He said the potential pairing of Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Cotton “is a dangerous formula for U.S. and international security and will further isolate the United States within the global community.”
“Should both men ultimately be nominated, we will work tirelessly to oppose their confirmation,” he said.
⦁ Dan Boylan contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.India strongly supports the capital increase in the World Bank, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said and expressed the country's readiness to take a larger share in the global lender than the dynamic formula.
In his meeting with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Jaitley acknowledged the long-standing and mutually beneficial relationship between the World Bank Group and India since its inception and called on the Bank to work together with the member countries to explore innovative financing solutions.
ALSO READ:Economic impact of Indo-Pak tensions will be marginal: Arun Jaitley
Jaitley arrived here from Canada to attend the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
He also appreciated the support of the World Bank to the many significant achievements of India in its development process, especially in the six priority areas identified by the Prime Minster for Multilateral Development Banks' assistance, a statement released by the Indian Embassy here said.
"While discussing the policy issues related to the World Bank Group, he indicated India's strong support for the capital increase and its readiness to take a larger share than the dynamic formula," it said.
The World Bank uses a dynamic formula, using economic weight (based on GDP) and development impact, to determine countries' shareholding and thus voting power in the Bank.
Jaitley also emphasised that the World Bank Group should work together with the member countries to explore innovative financing solutions, the media release said.
The Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland also met the Finance Minister.
Later in the evening, he interacted with several US State Department officials during a reception hosted in his honour.
Separately, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das held a bilateral meeting with US Treasury Under-Secretary Nathan Sheets.
After exchanging notes on the state of their respective economies, both sides took stock of the work done on technical cooperation on NIIF, public debt management and municipal bonds and agreed to expedite progress on these issues.
During the course of their interaction, Das also highlighted the sustained rapid growth of Indian economy and its ambitious reform agenda including the landmark Goods and Services Tax, passage of the recent national bankruptcy law and liberalisation of foreign direct investment.
Jaitley is accompanied by RBI Governor Urijit Patel, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian and Das among others.Pin 27 37K Shares
Llywellyn Bird and Aaron Nelson
November 11, 2014
(TheAntiMedia) A 40-year-old woman and mother of three from Ann Arbor, Michigan was shot and killed Sunday night after allegedly confronting police while holding a knife.
The woman’s boyfriend, Victor Stephens, 54, challenged the police on their handling of the incident, saying that the use of lethal force was excessive and that the situation could have been resolved through non lethal means. Stephens said:
“Me and her, we had an argument. Glass was being broke, so I called the police to escort her out,”
Police were called at approximately 11:45 pm by Stephens to escort his girlfriend from his property. When officers arrived, Stephens was in a separate hallway in the house away from where the incident occurred and she was pronounced dead at the scene. There were 5 other people at the house.
“They said ‘freeze’ and the next thing I know I heard (gunshots),” Stephens said.
Significant questions are being raised regarding the circumstances surrounding the event, the use of lethal force in the encounter by Ann Arbor police and the investigation being launched by Michigan State police into the fatal shooting.
Ann Arbor Police issued this statement and Police Chief John Seto asked Michigan State Police to conduct an investigation into the incident, saying that those involved in the shooting and the community “deserve an objective, unbiased review of the facts surrounding this incident.”
Whether that goal can be achieved remains to be seen, as there are clear conflicts of interest with having the police investigate themselves as well as potential difficulties in ascertaining facts as a result.
This concern over objectivity is what prompted Wisconsin to become the first state to mandate outside reviews in police killings earlier this year as a result of activist movements in the state.
Retired Air Force officer Michael Bell, an advocate for this legislation had filed a wrongful death suit against police, who cleared themselves of any wrongdoing after killing his 21 year old son in an altercation. Bell hired his own investigators and submitted an 1,100 page report to the FBI and US attorneys, which brought important evidence and circumstances to light surrounding the incident and police response, and led to the case being settled after 6 years in court.
In researching, Bell also found that, “In 129 years since police and fire commissions were created in the state of Wisconsin, we could not find a single ruling by a police department, an inquest or a police commission that a shooting was unjustified.” Demonstrating how difficult it can be for police to be impartial in their own investigations and citing lack of accountability as the culprit. Bell kept organizing and fighting for what ultimately became Wisconsin’s law mandating outside reviews.
In addition to objectivity in the investigation, police use of lethal force continues to be a major concern, with high profile incidents such as the recent Michael Brown shooting elevating the issue into the national consciousness.
Whether the investigation finds the killing justifiable or not, the question will remain of whether the deceased mother of three could have been disarmed and taken into custody without facing lethal force, and to what extent police should be responsible for attempting non-lethal means of resolution.
While some circumstances certainly justify the use of lethal force, it is intended to be the last resort in ending an altercation and only to be used when in extreme danger. If the facts come to show that this was not the case, accountability must be demanded. If nothing else, because the price for society is far too steep: 3 children will now enter adulthood in society with their mother having been taken from them by violence. And regardless of whether this woman was a good mother or not, this is not the kind of practice that engenders building a better society.
This article is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TheAntiMedia.org. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to receive our latest articles. Image credit: mlive.com
Pin 27 37K SharesCron
Cron is a daemon that executes scheduled commands. Cron is started automatically from /etc/init.d on entering multi-user runlevels. Cron searches its spool area (/var/spool/cron/crontabs) for crontab files (which are named after accounts in /etc/passwd); crontabs found are loaded into memory. Note that crontabs in this directory should not be accessed directly - the crontab command should be used to access and update them.
Cron also reads /etc/crontab, which is in a slightly different format. Additionally, cron reads the files in /etc/cron.d.
Cron then wakes up every minute, examining all stored crontabs, checking each command to see if it should be run in the current minute. When executing commands, any output is mailed to the owner of the crontab (or to the user named in the MAILTO environment variable in the crontab, if such exists). The children copies of cron running these processes have their name coerced to uppercase, as will be seen in the syslog and ps output.
Additionally, cron checks each minute to see if its spool directory's modtime (or the modtime on /etc/crontab) has changed, and if it has, cron will then examine the modtime on all crontabs and reload those which have changed. Thus cron need not be restarted whenever a crontab file is modified. Note that the crontab(1) command updates the modtime of the spool directory whenever it changes a crontab.
Special considerations exist when the clock is changed by less than 3 hours, for example at the beginning and end of daylight savings time. If the time has moved forwards, those jobs which would have run in the time that was skipped will be run soon after the change. Conversely, if the time has moved backwards by less than 3 hours, those jobs that fall into the repeated time will not be re-run.
Only jobs that run at a particular time (not specified as @hourly, nor with '*' in the hour or minute specifier) are affected. Jobs which are specified with wild cards are run based on the new time immediately.
Clock changes of more than 3 hours are considered to be corrections to the clock, and the new time is used immediately.
In Debian and Redhat cron treats the files in /etc/cron.d as extensions to the /etc/crontab file (they follow the special format of that file, i.e. they include the user field). The intended purpose of this feature is to allow packages that require finer control of their scheduling than the /etc/cron.{daily,weekly,monthly} directories allow to add a crontab file to /etc/cron.d. Such files should be named after the package that supplies them. Files must conform to the same naming convention as used by run-parts: they must consist solely of upper- and lower-case letters, digits, underscores, and hyphens. Like /etc/crontab, the files in the /etc/cron.d directory are monitored for changes.
You should use absolute path names for commands like /bin/ls. This is to insure you call the correct command.
Crontab
Crontab is the program used to install, deinstall or list the tables used to drive the cron daemon in Vixie Cron. Each user can have their own crontab, and though these are files in /var/spool/cron/crontabs, they are not intended to be edited directly.
Each user has their own crontab, and commands in any given crontab will be executed as the user who owns the crontab. Uucp and News will usually have their own crontabs, eliminating the need for explicitly running su as part of a cron command.
Blank lines and leading spaces and tabs are ignored. Lines whose first non-space character is a hash-sign (#) are comments, and are ignored. Note that comments are not allowed on the same line as cron commands, since they will be taken to be part of the command. Similarly, comments are not allowed on the same line as environment variable settings.
An active line in a crontab will be either an environment setting or a cron command. An environ‐ ment setting is of the form: name = value where the spaces around the equal-sign (=) are optional, and any subsequent non-leading spaces in value will be part of the value assigned to name. The value string may be placed in quotes (single or double, but matching) to preserve leading or trailing blanks. The value string is not parsed for environmental substitutions, thus lines like: PATH = $HOME/bin:$PATH will not work as you might expect.
Several environment variables are set up automatically by the cron daemon. SHELL is set to /bin/sh, and LOGNAME and HOME are set from the /etc/passwd line of the crontab's owner. PATH is set to "/usr/bin:/bin". HOME, SHELL, and PATH may be overridden by settings in the crontab; LOGNAME is the user that the job is running from, and may not be changed. Another note: the LOGNAME variable is sometimes called USER on BSD systems... on these systems, USER will be set also.
In addition to LOGNAME, HOME, and SHELL, cron will look at MAILTO if it has any reason to send mail as a result of running commands in "this" crontab. If MAILTO is defined (and non-empty), mail is sent to the user so named. If MAILTO is defined but empty (MAILTO=""), no mail will be sent. Otherwise mail is sent to the owner of the crontab.
If the /etc/cron.allow file exists, then you must be listed therein in order to be allowed to use this command. If the /etc/cron.allow file does not exist but the /etc/cron.deny file does exist, then you must not be listed in the /etc/cron.deny file in order to use this command. If neither of these files exists, then depending on site-dependent configuration parameters, only the super user will be allowed to use this command, or all users will be able to use this command. For standard Debian systems, all users may use this command.
If the -u option is given, it specifies the name of the user whose crontab is to be tweaked. If this option is not given, crontab examines "your" crontab, i.e., the crontab of the person executing the command. Note that su can confuse crontab and that if you are running inside of su you should always use the -u option for safety's sake.
The first form of this command is used to install a new crontab from some named file or standard input if the pseudo-filename ``-'' is given.
The -l option causes the current crontab to be displayed on standard output.
The -r option causes the current crontab to be removed.
The -e option is used to edit the current crontab using the editor specified by the VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables. The specified editor must edit the file in place; any editor that unlinks the file and recreates it cannot be used. After you exit from the editor, the modified crontab will be installed automatically.
On the Debian GNU/Linux system, cron supports the pam_env module, and loads the environment specified by /etc/security/pam_env.conf. However, the PAM setting do NOT override the settings described above nor any settings in the crontab file itself. Note in particular that if you want a PATH other than "/usr/bin:/bin", you will need to set it in the crontab file.
By default, cron will send mail using the mail "Content-Type:" header of "text/plain" with the "charset=" parameter set to the charmap / codeset of the locale in which crond is started up - ie. either the default system locale, if no LC_* environment variables are set, or the locale specified by the LC_* environment variables ( see locale(7)). You can use different character encodings for mailed cron job output by setting the CONTENT_TYPE and CONTENT_TRANSFER_ENCODING variables in crontabs, to the correct values of the mail headers of those names.
Crontab Format
Commands are executed by cron when the minute, hour, and month of year fields match the current time, and when at least one of the two day fields (day of month, or day of week) match the current time.
A field may be an asterisk (*), which always stands for "first-last".
Ranges of numbers are allowed. Ranges are two numbers separated with a hyphen. The specified range is inclusive. For example, 8-11 for an "hours" entry specifies execution at hours 8, 9, 10 and 11.
Lists are allowed. A list is a set of numbers (or ranges) separated by commas. Examples: "1,2,5,9", "0-4,8-12".
Step values can be used in conjunction with ranges. Following a range with "/" specifies skips of the number's value through the range. For example, "0-23/2" can be used in the hours field to specify command execution every other hour (the alternative in the V7 standard is "0,2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,18,20,22"). Steps are also permitted after an asterisk, so if you want to say "every two hours", just use "*/2".
Names can also be used for the "month" and "day of week" fields. Use the first three letters of the particular day or month (case doesn't matter). Ranges or lists of names are not allowed.
The "sixth" field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL variable of the crontab file. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (\), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard input. There is no way to split a single command line onto multiple lines, like the shell's trailing "\".
Note: The day of a command's execution can be specified by two fields - day of month, and day of week. If both fields are restricted (i.e., aren't *), the command will be run when either field matches the current time. For example, "30 4 1,15 * 5" would cause a command to be run at 4:30 am on the 1st and 15th of each month, plus every Friday.
Instead of the first five fields, one of eight special strings may appear:
string meaning ------ ------- @reboot Run once, at startup. @yearly Run once a year, "0 0 1 1 *". @annually (same as @yearly) @monthly Run once a month, "0 0 1 * *". @weekly Run once a week, "0 0 * * 0". @daily Run once a day, "0 0 * * *". @midnight (same as @daily) @hourly Run once an hour, "0 * * * *".
An example of crontab format with commented fields is as follows:
# Minute Hour Day of Month Month Day of Week Command # (0-59) (0-23) (1-31) (1-12 or Jan-Dec) (0-6 or Sun-Sat) 0 2 12 * * /usr/bin/find
This line executes the "find" command at 2AM on the 12th of every month.
Examples
Here are some more examples of crontab lines. Use the command "crontab -e" to edit your crontab file.
This line executes the "ping" command every minute of every hour of every day of every month. The standard output is redirected to dev null so we will get no e-mail but will allow the standard error to be sent as a e-mail. If you want no e-mail ever change the command line to "/sbin/ping -c 1 192.168.0.1 > /dev/null 2>&1".
* * * * * /sbin/ping -c 1 192.168.0.1 > /dev/null
This line executes the "ping" and the "ls" command every 12am and 12pm on the 1st day of every 2nd month. It also puts the output of the commands into the log file /var/log/cronrun.
0 0,12 1 */2 * /sbin/ping -c 192.168.0.1; ls -la >>/var/log/cronrun
This line executes the disk usage command to get the directory sizes every 2am on the 1st through the 10th of each month. E-mail is sent to the email addresses specified with the MAILTO line. The PATH is also set to something different.
PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/home/user1/bin [email protected],[email protected] 0 2 1-10 * * du -h --max-depth=1 /
This line is and example of running a cron job every month at 4am on Mondays, and on the days between 15-21. This is because using the day of month and day of week fields with restrictions (no *) makes this an "or" condition not an "and" condition. Both will be executed.
0 4 15-21 * 1 /command
Run on every second Sunday of every month. The test has to be run first because of the issue mentioned in the example above.
0 4 8-14 * * test $(date +\%u) -eq 7 && echo "2nd Sunday"
Things to look out for! Gotchas!
When cron job is run from the users crontab it is executed as that user. It does not however source any files in the users home directory like their.cshrc or.bashrc or any other file. If you need cron to source (read) any file that your script will need you should do it from the script cron is calling. Setting paths, sourcing files, setting environment variables, etc. If the users account has a crontab but no usable shell in /etc/passwd then the cronjob will not run. You will have to give the account a shell for the crontab to run. If your cronjobs are not running check if the cron daemon is running. Then remember to check /etc/cron |
journey.
After finally completing his mission this month, Youens said he is temporarily putting aside his paddle to write a book about his Mississippi River experiences.
But after the book is completed, Youens hinted to the American-Statesman that an Atlantic Ocean sailing trip is a real possibility.NBA back! To prepare for a new season, we’re breaking down one team per day, each day, until tipoff on October 17.
Team: New Orleans Pelicans
Coach: Alvin Gentry (third year)
Last Season: 34-48 (10th in Western Conference)
Notable Additions: Rajon Rondo (free agency), Tony Allen (free agency), Ian Clark (free agency)
Notable Subtractions: Tim Frazier (trade), an undetermined percentage of Omer Asik (Crohn’s disease)
Vegas Over/Under: 39.5
Best-Case Scenario: Anthony Davis and a slim-fit DeMarcus Cousins prove a versatile enough frontcourt to cram big ball into the small-ball era; New Orleans makes the playoffs for the second time in the AD era, and locals finally realize their team isn’t called the Hornets anymore.
The rocky start to the Boogie-Brow alliance seemed to only reaffirm the consensus that a zag toward Twin Towers wouldn’t work in an NBA where Dirk and Kevin Love starting at the 5 is no big deal. But while the Pelicans were a paltry 7-10 with Cousins in the lineup last season, they were a plus-2.9 in net rating in the 394 minutes Cousins and Davis played together, with an already-upper-tier defense performing at a league-best rate. The offense still had a you go, I go feel, even in the duo’s best moments together, but there was something there.
Yet, after another perplexing offseason, it could be difficult for the team to rekindle whatever that something was. With their hands tied, the Pels bit down hard and overpaid Jrue Holiday (five years, $126 million) to be their third star. Sure. Fine. But with limited means and forced to dance around the luxury tax, the “big get” of the summer somehow ended up being noted ball-pounder Rondo, a 31-year-old who hasn’t been a good NBA player since Davis’s rookie season and figures to only compound the shooting issues that dogged the Pelicans all last season. (Note to anyone pointing out Rondo’s career-high 3-point shooting last season: He also logged a career low from inside the arc and somehow shot under 50 percent within 3 feet. These things are related!)
New Orleans also took fliers on Ian Clark and Darius Miller and brought back Dante Cunningham, a 4 whose masquerade as a 3 in Gentry’s tenure underlines the team’s barrel-scraping for 3-and-D help. But, for the most part, the Pels are stuck hoping space for their big boys comes from some combination of Holiday’s efficiency behind the arc catching up to his increased volume, Davis’s long-rumored 3-point range finally manifesting itself, and balancing its frontcourt looks with three-guard sets.
In the meantime, there’s still the defense, which can now throw out two members of last season’s all-defense second team (Allen, Davis), a player just on the fringes of a selection (Holiday), and a few more capable hands. The parallels here to Grit ’N’ Grind are obvious, given the addition of Allen, the market, the two bigs, and the surplus of surliness. Diving headfirst into the mud may be trickier against today’s stretchier competition; even the original Grit-’N’-Grinders have evolved past it. But it wouldn’t be the worst approach for a franchise still trying to carve out an identity in a football-obsessed city where any sustained success would be welcome, even a string of first-round outs.
The reward for doing so this season? Trying to figure out how to swallow the massive tax bill that’d come with keeping Cousins as a part of the winning combination. Cool!
Worst-Case Scenario: The fit between Cousins and Davis is never quite right; injuries strike again (natch); the front office and coaching staff are overhauled; Cousins walks without compensation next summer; we’re subjected to daily whispers of Davis’s imminent departure to the Boston Celtics; and questions about why there’s a team in New Orleans and not Seattle become louder and louder. Y’know, small potatoes.
As bleak as that sounds, a full-blown reboot might be the best thing for a franchise that, of late, has operated with the same rationale one employs while paying off one credit card with another. The Pelicans were the chic upstart, and Davis the Next Big Thing, after a late surge into the 2015 playoffs. But ever since, the team’s attempts to stay on trend have played out with the refinement of a Weird Al cover.
They hired then–Warriors assistant Alvin Gentry, a coach more closely associated with fast, small-ball offenses than perhaps any in the league at the time, and then shelled out $63 million guaranteed to two plodding centers. When Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon walked the next summer, the Pelicans paid Solomon Hill about $12 million a year because Demps had a great chitchat with him at an airport three years prior (or something). Then, without a hint of irony, the team began proclaiming that it needed to play more like the Celtics, i.e., The Team Your Superstar Told You Not To Worry About. Now, with former Nuggets assistant Chris Finch in the fold, there’s talk of off-ball cuts and having Cousins Jokic-strate the offense. But Davis comparing himself and Cousins to the combustible Nikola Jokic–Jusuf Nurkic combo may be closer to the unfortunate truth than he intended.
Either way, it’s hardly a secret to everyone around the organization that this season is the last chance to figure it out.
TL;DR: Hope for the start of a fun, snarly new era; prepare for the start of another rebuild.531 SHARES Facebook Twitter Sign up and we notify you about new features and Add-Ons
A group of art students at a Korean university went topless for their graduation poster and invited all for their upcoming graduation recital.
An official at Chonbuk National University reluctantly commented on the poster, saying it is greatly damaging the reputation of the state-funded university.
“Our university has its own official poster for the graduation ceremony,” he said when asked why all of the 18 graduating students from the Art College Department decided to pose topless.
“I don’t know why they had to go naked for the poster, but I can tell you that the one going viral is an unauthorized one.”
Kim Won, professor at the Art College, had a slightly different explanation for the poster which is going viral.
“The university has yet to decide whether to use it or not,” she said.
“Students seemed to have taken a number of experimental photos for the poster.”
Kim added that the university is looking into the matter because their nude photo is irrelevant to their performance.
“No one will perform in nude,” she said.
According to the university, 18 graduating students – 17 females and one male – will present their graduation performance recital on Nov. 26 this year.
The 100-minute showcase will include classical ballet and traditional Korean dance performances. Admission is free for all visitors.The union for TTC employees said a train operator was taken off the job after refusing management requests to remove his protective face mask, following the release of a report on air quality in the Toronto transit system.
Kevin Morton, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113 secretary-treasurer, told The Morning Show on AM640 that he had been contacted Tuesday night by an operator who had been spotted on camera at Coxwell Station wearing a face mask — and was asked by a supervisor to remove it.
“He was taken off a subway crew because he was wearing a mask,” Morton said, adding the worker had missed time as a result of sinus issues in the past. “And he was told that if he did it again today … that they would consider that as a work refusal.”
READ MORE: High levels of pollution found on TTC subway system: study
Morton told Global News the employee then returned to work Wednesday wearing the mask despite TTC policy.
“What they attempted to do is make his a work refusal,” he said. “It wasn’t — the [TTC] has refused to let him drive with a mask.”
TTC spokesman Brad Ross said the Ministry of Labour was called in around 11 a.m. Wednesday after what he described as a “work refusal.”
“Masks are unnecessary and, therefore, not permitted. If a worker refuses work, the Ministry of Labour is called and that has happened,” he told AM640 in an emailed statement.
LISTEN: Kevin Morton joins the Morning Show on AM640
The union, which represents more than 10,000 transit employees, is raising the alarm following the release of a Health Canada-led study that pegged air quality on subway platforms at 10 times worse than outside.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, is based on data collected from the Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver rapid transit systems during peak hours in the summer of 2010 and winter 2011.
It found that levels of fine particulate matter in the air on subway platforms in Toronto were three times higher compared to those observed in Montreal and five times higher than within Vancouver’s system.
Greg Evans, a University of Toronto chemical engineering professor and one of the study’s co-authors, said the particle samples were “very metal rich” – similar in composition to steel – and also featured components found in brakes.
WATCH: High levels of pollution found on TTC subway system: study
The study did not measure the health effects of exposure to the subway air. However, according to the World Health Organization, exposure to fine particulate matter can have health impacts “even at very low concentrations.”
Morton said that while the study measured exposure through a 70-minute transit trip, TTC workers can be breathing in subway system air for eight to 12 hours a day.
Todd, a TTC employee for more than 20 years who AM640 and Global News have agreed not to fully identify, said working underground has taken a toll on his health.
“I’m very worried. Every time I blow my nose, I’m always getting black stuff, soot in my nose, everything,” he said.
“It’s horrible. What do I say to my family when something goes wrong?”
Keith Van Ryswyk, the study’s lead author, told Global News Tuesday that TTC riders don’t need to be overly concerned with the results, though research suggests that there are benefits to keeping fine particle levels as low as possible.
“We are going to be working with the [TTC] to assess the effect of several measures to their system that may contribute to better air quality,” he said.
On Tuesday, the TTC said updates have been made to improve air quality since the research was conducted, including the refurbishment of air-filtration systems on board some trains and the purchase of a tunnel vacuum car that can suck up particles within the air.
“We will continue to work with Health Canada to monitor the steps we are already taking to improve air quality including the impact our mitigation measures have had,” TTC spokesman Stuart Green said. “That work begins this summer.”
The union released a statement Wednesday demanding a meeting with TTC management on the results of the study, which Ross told AM640 can take place “just as soon as a date can be arranged.”
With files from Erica Vella, Global News, and Don Mitchell, AM640.I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.
As statements at Super Bowls go, I prefer the idea of Tebow's pro-life ad to, say, Jim McMahon dropping his pants, as the former Chicago Bears quarterback once did in response to a question. We're always harping on athletes to be more responsible and engaged in the issues of their day, and less concerned with just cashing checks. It therefore seems more than a little hypocritical to insist on it only if it means criticizing sneaker companies, and to stifle them when they take a stance that might make us uncomfortable.
I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.
Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.
Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't.
There's not enough space in the sports pages for the serious weighing of values that constitutes this debate, but surely everyone in both camps, pro-choice or pro-life, wishes the "need" for abortions wasn't so great. Which is precisely why NOW is so wrong to take aim at Tebow's ad.
Here's what we do need a lot more of: Tebows. Collegians who are selfless enough to choose not to spend summers poolside, but travel to impoverished countries to dispense medical care to children, as Tebow has every summer of his career. Athletes who believe in something other than themselves, and are willing to put their backbone where their mouth is. Celebrities who are self-possessed and self-controlled enough to use their wattage to advertise commitment over decadence.
You know what we really need more of? Famous guys who aren't embarrassed to practice sexual restraint, and to say it out loud. If we had more of those, women might have fewer abortions. See, the best way to deal with unwanted pregnancy is to not get the sperm in the egg and the egg implanted to begin with, and that is an issue for men, too -- and they should step up to that.
"Are you saving yourself for marriage?" Tebow was asked last summer during an SEC media day.
"Yes, I am," he replied.
The room fell into a hush, followed by tittering: The best college football player in the country had just announced he was a virgin. As Tebow gauged the reaction from the reporters in the room, he burst out laughing. They were a lot more embarrassed than he was.
"I think y'all are stunned right now!" he said. "You can't even ask a question!"
That's how far we've come from any kind of sane viewpoint about star athletes and sex. Promiscuity is so the norm that if a stud isn't shagging everything in sight, we feel faintly ashamed for him.
Obviously Tebow can make people uncomfortable, whether it's for advertising his chastity, or for wearing his faith on his face via biblical citations painted in his eye-black. Hebrews 12:12, his cheekbones read during the Florida State game: "Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees." His critics find this intrusive, and say the Super Bowl is no place for an argument of this nature. "Pull the ad," NOW President Terry O'Neill said. "Let's focus on the game."
Trouble is, you can't focus on the game without focusing on the individuals who play it -- and that is the genius of Tebow's ad. The Super Bowl is not some reality-free escape zone. Tebow himself is an inescapable fact: Abortion doesn't just involve serious issues of life, but of potential lives, Heisman trophy winners, scientists, doctors, artists, inventors, Little Leaguers -- who would never come to be if their birth mothers had not wrestled with the stakes and chosen to carry those lives to term. And their stories are every bit as real and valid as the stories preferred by NOW.
Let me be clear again: I couldn't disagree with Tebow more. It's my own belief that the state has no business putting its hand under skirts. But I don't care that we differ. Some people will care that the ad is paid for by Focus on the Family, a group whose former spokesman, James Dobson, says loathsome things about gays. Some will care that Tebow is a creationist. Some will care that CBS has rejected a gay dating service ad. None of this is the point. CBS owns its broadcast and can run whatever advertising it wants, and Tebow has a right to express his beliefs publicly. Just as I have the right to reject or accept them after listening -- or think a little more deeply about the issues. If the pro-choice stance is so precarious that a story about someone who chose to carry a risky pregnancy to term undermines it, then CBS is not the problem.
Tebow's ad, by the way, never mentions abortion; like the player himself, it's apparently soft-spoken. It simply has the theme "Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life." This is what NOW has labeled "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." But if there is any demeaning here, it's coming from NOW, via the suggestion that these aren't real questions, and that we as a Super Bowl audience are too stupid or too disinterested to handle them on game day.BY DANIEL GAITAN | [email protected]
The former owner of Passages Hospice and its director of nursing will be sentenced for their part in a multi-year, multi-million dollar Medicare scheme.
Seth Gillman, 47, an attorney and founder of now-shuttered Passages, pled guilty to one count of health care fraud in an Illinois federal court on Friday. The for-profit hospice company is accused of knowingly over-billing the government for general inpatient care for patients who did not need it.
Gillman was indicted in May 2014 along with three other Passages employees, including former nursing director Carmen Velez, who also pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government on Friday, according to legal news service Law360.
According to the indictment, Gillman, Velez and other employees participated in an elaborate scheme “to cause Passages Hospice LLC to submit false claims to Medicare and Medicaid for medically unnecessary hospice care, namely, hospice care for patients who were not terminally ill and hospice care that did not qualify for general inpatient care.”
The hospice caused nearly $10 million in government losses, according to prosecutors.
Velez, 39, admitted to altering patient records to reflect a need for general inpatient care before the records were handed over to an auditor working on behalf of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Gillman faces up to 10 years in prison and millions of dollars in restitution and fines. Velez faces less than five years in prison and hefty fines. A status hearing for Gillman and Velez is set for March 16, according to the Department of Justice.
Passages may plead guilty later this month; a status hearing for those representing the company is set for February 22.
Passages administrator, Gwen Hilsabeck, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States on Thursday.
Hospice is generally care provided in a patient’s home, but can also be provided in a center, hospital, nursing home or other long-term care facility for people facing illness near the end of life.
The number of hospice patients served has risen more than 25 percent over the last five years from 1.25 million in 2008, according to figures published by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization in the organization’s 2013 annual publication “Facts and Figures: Hospice Care in America.”
Further Reading:
Exclusive: Passages Hospice Was ‘Corrupt To The Top,’ Says Former Employee
Passages Hospice Trial Date Set: Victim Shares StoryUsing VPN for commercial purposes
23-Dec-2018 12:30 GMT+3
Do you need a VPN to collect data for your business?
Free VPNs would usually let you unblock some services and website. Premium VPNs will also encrypt your data and hide your original IP.
But what if you need a VPN for your business, for larger scale scraping and you want to automate your operation?
You need a proxy service for businesses.
What is a proxy service for businesses?
It is a proxy network with millions of IPs that lets you access large scale of information with more complex blocking. It also provides advanced options, such as:
Multiple IP types (data-center / residential / mobile)
IP geolocation (most services offer country level, some offer city level)
Custom User-Agent and headers
Concurrent sessions
Exclusive IPs
Some of the services also offer tools that help with avoiding errors and captchas, automating data collection, checking links and ads, and enhances the web browser’s capabilities.
How to choose a proxy service?
Main 3 points to consider when choosing your proxy service
The first and most important - that the service fully supports your use case. For example, if you verify ads then you may need to check links using IPs of real users (residential and mobile), and you may also need the IPs from specific geolocations and/or carriers. Make sure that the service is fully legal, doesn’t share your private data and approves only legal and ethical use of its service. Some services put themselves, the peers of their network and their customers (you) at risk of being abused and/or dealing with complaints and lawsuits against them. Find a service that provides you with helpful tools. Some proxy tools offer abilities that you didn’t even know that you need but are crucial to some use cases. It would take you a huge amount of money and a long time to develop those abilities on your own.
Here’s why Luminati (a Hola’s partner) may be your best choice
With the biggest proxy network in the world including Mobile IPs, Residential IPs and Data Center IPs, Luminati certainly supports your use case. As for today, Luminati is the only proxy service that does a full KYC (know your customer) process and approves only 100% legal activity. Luminati was the first service to offer the IPs of real people, it coined the term “Residential Proxy” and it holds the patents for it. The Luminati Proxy Manager nullifies the need to write any code and provides the ability to easily automate and optimize your operation. The capabilities it brings and the money it saves are enormous. More tools that Luminati offers are the Chrome extension for advanced manual browsing and the Link tester for testing links’ hops and destination URL. All these proxy tools are 100% free for Luminati’s customers.
Try Luminati's services
Which VPN is good for me? a VPN guide
18-Dec-2018 15:00 GMT+3
Paying for a premium VPN when all you need is to access your favorite TV show is almost as sloppy as attempting to browse anonymously with a free VPN and imagining that you’re fully protected.
Knowing which kind of VPN you need is key for getting the best result at the best price.
Free VPN vs Premium VPN
If you’re just looking to access that TV show, then the Hola’s free VPN will be best for you. It’s not encrypted or anonymous, but it’s free. If you choose another VPN service for that, just make sure they are committed to keep your privacy as Hola commits in its privacy policy.
If it’s an encrypted and anonymous VPN that you’re looking for, then you should use a secured VPN like Hola’s premium (paid) VPN.
Using VPN for full anonymity
To keep a totally secure connection requires not only to choose the right VPN, but also to use it the right way.
In his article to TechCrunch “WTF is a VPN?”, Romain Dillet wrote that “No, a VPN doesn’t mean that you’ll be more secure on the internet. It depends on the VPN server.” with the following explanation: “When you use a VPN to change your country, avoid censorship or protect your connection in a coffee shop, the VPN server at the other end can see all your network traffic. You’re just moving the risk down the VPN tunnel, and it can be quite dangerous if you’re not careful enough.” This means that using a private VPN helps to keep your privacy only when you use a secure internet connection as well.
VPN options
Learn more about the different VPN options available for you in the links and the comparison table below, and find the one that fits your needs the best.
External articles
Comparison table
Technical name Product examples Use case Downside Encrypt data Routes all data Hides client IP from server Onion Routing TOR Extreme IP and data protection Very slow YES YES YES Full VPN Hola VPN PLUS, ExpressVPN, PrivateVPN High IP and data protection VPN servers know your IP, and may sometimes keep log YES YES YES Unblocker VPN Hola Free VPN, ProtonVPN Change website geography, fastest surfing No privacy protection Partial NO Partial DNS VPN Hola DNS VPN Change website geography, simple setup No privacy protection NO NO Partial Remote Access VPN (PPTP/IPSec) Trend Micro Firewall Connect to your workplace Does not protect your online surfing Partial (only workplace sites) NO NO Site to Site VPN Connect enterprise locations together Does not protect your online surfing Partial (only workplace sites) NO NO Browser HTTP proxy VPN NO YES YES Browser HTTPS proxy VPN YES YES YES PPP VPN DSL modems NO YES NO
Proxy options
Use the IPs that originate from data-centers (aka ‘static IPs’) to anonymously access web resources with long and stable sessions and fast connections.
Use the IPs of real people, from any location in the world and with a device of your choice. The sessions are shorter than with data-center IPs, but your identity is that of a real user and you can rest assure that the data you get is accurate.
Yesterday's Compromise of our Google Chrome Developer Account
10-Jul-2018 16:30 GMT+3
Yesterday our deployment team discovered that the Hola Chrome extension which was live for a few hours was not the one that our development team uploaded to the Chrome Store. After initial investigation, we found that our Google Chrome Store account was compromised, and that a hacker uploaded a modified version of the extension to the store. We quickly replaced that version with the official version, secured the account, and set about to investigate what the malicious player was attempting to do with this hack.
Within a few hours, we determined that the target of the attack was MEW (MyEtherWallet.com) - the crypto wallet website, and the attack was programmed to inject a JavaScript tag in to the MEW site to "phish" information about MEW accounts that are logging in without being in 'incognito mode', by re-directing the MEW users to the hacker's website.
We notified MEW, notified Google, and ensured that the hacker's web site was down.
You may be affected by this breach if you have had the Hola extension installed while the rogue version was live AND the extension was turned on AND have logged in to your MyEtherWallet.com without being in incognito mode.
Steps We've Taken
Immediately upon learning about the incident, we set up a CyberSecurity response team to investigate the incident. We also took immediate emergency steps to immediately replace the extension, secure the developers account, and to monitor versions on a constant basis to ensure this does not recur.
We are now determining the scope of the compromise, and conducting an assessment on steps that can be taken to help prevent such an incident from occurring in the future. We will share the findings from this analysis with the ecosystem to help ensure a safer Internet environment.
What our users should do
If you are also using CryptoCurrency wallets, we recommend that you change passwords, and that you log in to those sites only in incognito mode, where code injection is not possible. We will also work with the Crypto eco system on standards that will help prevent similar events in this nascent market.
For now, there are no other actions that our users need to take as a result of this incident.
Going forward
We will work with MEW and others in the ecosystem on standards that will make Crypto wallets safer from these forms of attacks.
As always, your privacy and the security of your data are our highest priority. We continually assess our procedures and policies and seek new ways to improve our approach to security.
We set up a 24/7 security customer support team to assist customers who have concerns or questions about the incident. Hola users who have questions or concerns about this incident can contact our security customer support team at [email protected].
The Hola teamDemocratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks during a recent campaign event at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Morgan/Reuters)
Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is now running neck-and-neck with front-runner Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire, two make-or-break contests for the Vermont senator.
It’s a dynamic that cries out for spending as much time as possible in the first two nominating states before voters there shape the rest of the race on Feb. 1 and Feb. 9.
So why is Sanders diverting to Birmingham, Ala., on Monday, just two weeks before the Iowa caucuses?
He is scheduled to appear for an evening rally, making his first appearance in Alabama since becoming a presidential candidate in late April.
[With the first two states in danger, Clinton goes on the attack against Sanders]
The trip underscores both Sanders’s confidence that he’ll still be running strong after New Hampshire and the importance of African-American voters if Sanders is going to be competitive with Clinton over the long haul.
The rally, on Martin Luther King Day, is being billed as an opportunity for Sanders to discuss the legacy of the civil rights leader and “the ongoing fight for racial justice.” Sanders will be joined by two of his most visible African American supporters: the academic Cornel West and Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator with a national reputation in Democratic politics.
“We are running a national campaign,” said Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver when asked about the timing of the rally. “We anticipate that there will absolutely be a very active contest after the first two states.”
Alabama is among about a dozen states that hold Democratic caucuses or primaries on March 1, the day known as Super Tuesday. If Sanders upsets Clinton and Iowa and wins in New Hampshire, it could become a pivotal day in the nomination fight.
[Sanders says he’ll detail costs of his universal health-care plan before voting begins]
Only two other states, Nevada and South Carolina, hold contests between New Hampshire and Super Tuesday.
To this point, Clinton has enjoyed a big advantage in states with sizable African American populations, including Alabama. Black voters will become a key constituency for Democrats after Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with largely white populations.
Sanders, who represents a state that is 95 percent white, has said from the outset of the race, that he faces a challenge in becoming better known among minority voters -- and it’s something into which his campaign is pouring a great deal of effort.
Tad Devine, a longtime Democratic operative and leading Sanders adviser, said the Birmingham rally is “an opportunity for [Sanders] on Dr. King’s birthday to showcase a cause that’s been a central part of the work of his life. It’s a national stage on a national holiday.”
Birmingham is among the U.S. cities key to King’s legacy. His work and arrest there were the impetus for one of his more influential writings, “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
As a student at the University of Chicago in the early 1960s, Sanders was active in the civil rights movement. He traveled to Washington in 1963 for the March on Washington, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Sanders has argued that his message of economic justice should resonate with African Americans once they get to know him better, and in recent months he has put a big emphasis on criminal justice reform, another priority for many black voters.
Of course, that all will largely be academic if Sanders doesn’t come out of Iowa and New Hampshire with a full head of steam. To that end, after his Birmingham rally on Monday night, Sanders returns to Iowa on Tuesday for a full day of campaigning.Update Nov. 24, 2014: I can’t explain what is going on, but it seems that at least 3 new people have left comments on this post expressing that they noticed this phenomena. They, being females who have gone through, or are going through pregnancy, have noticed changes in their height.
So more and more females are coming out and telling us their unique individual stories
First, obviously this phenomena is NOT a common thing. It probably happens to just 0.01% of all women who go through pregnancy, and that is a guess on the high side. However, just the fact that more than a dozen females have claimed this phenomena makes me really wonder what is going on.
I have had a recent new idea, which is that the irregular bones in the feet might have grown larger appositionally pushing the overall female skeleton higher up. However, that is a real stretch.
The connection and theory that all this increase in height is due to the chemical relaxin however is still the most viable theory.
Refer to one of the most explosive posts I have ever written on this website – “The Chemical That Would Make Adults Grow Taller Has Been Found”
However, the recent claim made by my own girlfriend that she grew 1 full cm herself made me wonder whether this phenomena may be due to more than 1 main human physiological process.
One thing that is very obvious however is that about 98% of all the claims ever made about growing taller in adulthood (which I will assume to be around the age point of 21-22_ has been by females. Is there something within the human female bone physiology which makes them more likely to grow slightly taller?
Update Feb 14th, 2014: It seems that just in the span of 24 hours, two women have come forth and sent messages to the website expressing the fact that they either have open epiphyseal growth plates at the age of almost 30 or even later.
Case Study #1: This women went to get X-Rays for her ankle bone area/ distal tibia after a fall and she noticed that her bones had scars across the ankle bones. She messaged me and commented that she apparently found out that she still had growth plates. The post that she commented on is “A Theory That Epiphyseal Growth Plates Never Fuse For Certain People”
Case Study #2: This 2nd women commented that apparently she has grown by about 4 inches in the last of her 2 pregnancies, out of a total of 5 pregnancies. This case is extremely unusual because most cases we have found have the mother increase in height during the first and/or the 2nd pregnancies. The fact that this women is in her late 30s is absolutely amazing. I would suspect that her bone maturity is very unique, but possible due to cases I’ve found before.
There is now too much evidence coming through in the form of anecdotal stories, forum postings, cases and instances where adult females who went through pregnancy have noticed that they increased in height. Me and the follow researchers will focus much more on this pressing issue in the future. Currently, I have documented at least 11 cases of women who went through the phenomena. At least one of these women have found this website and contacted me personally through the website email and we have exchanged messages. The latest case has a women increase her height by 3 inches from 5′ 2″ – 5′ 5″.
Update 8/13/2013: It is noted that another commenter who goes by the name of guiselka wrote on the post “More Evidence That Pregnancy Can Increase Height, WOW!” recently wrote the following comment…
I used to be 5’2.5″ before pregnancy. I was just measured at my doctor visit and I am 5’5″. I am amazed! I also have many back problems now though. I’ve always had some issues but after pregnancy they became unbearable. I have a total of 4 hernias and 2 bulging discs among other problems.
Update 7/28/2013: I became aware that there has been at least another case where a pregnant women noticed that she gained height from her pregnancy. The source of the case is from the news website Reddit on a thread entitled “Has anyone else noticed a increase in their height during pregnancy?”
She noticed that her height increased from 5′ 2″ to 5′ 3″.
Her feet increased from shoe size 5 to 6. 5.
The length from her elbow to her wrist is supposed to be the same length as her feet. After checking, it was the same. This implies that her forearm might have lengthened as well.
She was born at a length of 16 inches.
Husband is 6′ 2″ and born with a length of 23 inches.
The baby has been much lower in her pelvis
Some responses to the original post has been rather insightful and forced me to rethink some issues between the link of pregnancy and noticeable increases in height.
I think it’s because I can’t slouch so much with baby taking up so much of my torso. I have to sit and stand straighter.
Yeah, I’m not as far along as you, but I’ve definitely noticed I’m standing straighter with my shoulders back. My gait is changing, too Update #2: Now there is another two cases of other women who noticed a 1 inch increase in height who responded to the poster! Maybe! I have also been 5’2″ since I was in middle school. Last time I went to the doctor I measured 5’3″. That was the first time I was measured since baby #1. Maybe I will be 5″4″ by the end of #2 and tower over my small Italian family – Joyfulgirl36 I have to agree! 5′ 4 when I started now 5’5″!!! – Alaxamber
A visitor recently came on the website to leave a message which shows that there is more cases where |
are migrants, and about 40,000 are permanent residents)
Size:
36.7 square miles
Exports:Dalingshan is known as China's No. 1 furniture exporter
Two years ago, NPR tracked down some of the jobs that were lost in Lenoir and other North Carolina towns to Dalingshan, a South China industrial city with factories as far as the eye can see. One of the biggest operations is owned by Lacquer Craft, an Asian furniture giant.
In early 2008, Lacquer Craft was home to 4,000 workers and built furniture for many well-known U.S. brands, including Broyhill, where Curtis had worked.
Among Lacquer Craft's employees was 25-year-old Zhao Xia, who prepared furniture for painting before it was shipped to the United States.
Toward the end of Curtis' career, he made more than $15 an hour.
In 2008, Zhao earned less than 70 cents an hour, often working until midnight with just two days off a month.
But Zhao didn't consider herself a slave; she said she was fortunate. Before working in the factory, she farmed a tiny plot of land in Southwest China's Sichuan province.
"We planted rice paddies, wheat and corn," Zhao said. "We ate what we planted. We never made any money off it."
In Dalingshan, Zhao shared an apartment down the street from the factory's back gates with her husband. They slept on a box spring next to a small TV and a DVD player. Though squalid by American standards, the conditions were a step up from Sichuan, Zhao said.
"In a factory, you don't have to work in the sun — that's the best thing," Zhao said. "I prefer working here. At least I get paid. At home, nobody paid me."
Importing U.S. Wood
Lacquer Craft is a cavernous complex that resembles a series of aircraft hangars. During a tour, Hawk Chiu, a factory executive, pointed out a three-story stack of lumber. It was white poplar from the U.S.-Canadian border. Chiu said the company imports wood from North America, cuts it into furniture and then ships it back across the Pacific.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Frank Langfitt/NPR Frank Langfitt/NPR
Lacquer Craft can afford to source wood from such a distance because of America's yawning trade gap with China.
"There are a lot of exports to America, but some containers come back empty," Chiu said. "So, the price to ship things back in them is relatively cheap."
Laborers Have The Upper Hand
In early 2008, South China was suffering from a surprise labor shortage. Instead of begging for jobs — as they once did — furniture workers could pick and choose.
One 24-year-old worker, Chen Hong, earned $330 a month and bragged that he could command that wage anywhere.
"If we go out looking for work, we can certainly find jobs like this and get them at the same salary," Chen said. "We have a lot of friends asking us if we want to work in other factories."
Chen worked at a smaller factory called Xincheng. His boss, Kang Mincang, a bespectacled sales manager from Taiwan, said employees have the upper hand.
"Now, being a migrant worker is pretty easy — being a boss is much harder," Kang said. "I would prefer to be a migrant worker. Their job security is better than it used to be."
But conditions change fast in the global economy, and even as Kang spoke, that security was fading.
Impact Of The Great Recession
Back in America, housing prices were falling, and so were furniture sales. Becky Song was a manager at Creation Furniture, a small company in Dalingshan. By January 2008, Creation had closed two factories and Song could see the crisis ahead.
China's Growing Market Share The amount of furniture imported to the U.S. has grown over the last decade with China leading the way.
"If there is a recession in the United States, of course, Americans' purchasing power will decline and there will be fewer orders," Song said. "Factories won't be able to survive, and they'll have to lay off people. Probably many factories will have to close."
Song was dead on. The housing boom that fueled Chinese furniture factories collapsed, and Americans stopped buying.
Creation Furniture went bankrupt late last year, according to a security guard who was manning the locked gates of the empty factory when NPR visited last month.
During the recession, Lacquer Craft, the firm that makes furniture for Broyhill and other North Carolina companies, cut its employment rolls by 1,000, according to Chiu. He said that in Dalingshan alone, more than 100 plants had shut down in the past two years.
Thousands Of Job Losses
Albert Fan, another furniture factory manager at one of a handful of factories NPR visited, said up to 400,000 workers lost their jobs in the region and returned home to the provinces.
Zou Zuoxin is one of the survivors. He said his factory, which made component parts for Lacquer Craft, cut hours until half its workers left.
"They never tell you directly that we want to fire you," Zou said, taking a break from watching a movie on a giant-screen TV one evening in the city square. "They would just tell you that you can still work here, but we have very few orders and very little work. Many people can't bear it, then they would just quit."
Zou, in his early 50s, said for people his age, unemployment is just a matter of time.
"I will lose my job sooner or later," Zou said. "It's not possible to have a career here. You can't have a job for life."
Chiu of Lacquer Craft said he learned a powerful lesson from the recession: Don't depend on the American consumer. Chiu is now focusing more on the Chinese market but said it will take time to develop.
"Chinese people have a bad habit," Zou said facetiously. "They're comparatively frugal. They can use one piece of furniture for 10 or 20 years." He added, "Americans are much more wasteful. We prefer the way Americans consume."
In the meantime, Chiu says, conditions are improving, and his factories and others in Dalingshan will survive. In recent months, orders from the U.S. have been picking up and, once again, Chiu and his factory are looking to hire.It’s been a long day, so Hans and Shmil welcomed the call to supper.
“Are you done with the knitting?” Clara, the self-appointed quartermaster of the group, used the tone that meant if the answer is ‘no’, I’ll be very angry. Again.
Hans unrolled the sleeping bag and sat down next to the fire, Shmil sitting next to him, crossing his legs. They both shared the responsibility to this sleeping bag, the bandits didn’t have enough to go around. Hans and Shmil even had to sleep in it together. That, they didn’t mind.
“The tent will hold.” Shmil mumbled at Clara, who was tending the flame. Around them, the rest of the bandits started settling down, waiting for Cook to bring out the beet soup.
“How come you two are always the first to sit down, when I call to supper.” Clara growled, fixing her eyes on the two, from the other side of the fire pit. “Always huddling to the side, disappearing into the woods for hours.”
Hans averted his eyes from her stare, and Shmil coughed. “We’re just, erm..”
“Lazy.” Clara sneered the word with some spit.
“That, lazy.” Shmil nodded. Hans’s hand tightened on his, behind their backs.
The other bandits started crowding around the fire. Cook announced, from behind the tents, that the beets are almost all chopped, he’s even going use some of the garlic and pheasants they took from that market stall lady.
“Last night before we relocate, shame to leave any supplies behind!” Cook called out, and the bandits cheered.
“Tomorrow morning, I want everyone packed up and ready by sunrise.” Clara was speaking to the gathering gang. “Trash everything you can’t carry.”
Hans leaned toward Shmil, whispering. “We’ll leave after supper, then. You already decided what you’re taking from the loot?”
Shmil smiled at him, leaning back. “That silver bowl with the ladle. Can’t be worth much, but I remember you liked it.”
Something heavy moved in the bushes behind the tents. Clara turned her attention at the noise, with a sigh. “Beatrice, go help Cook with the pot, it’s clearly too heavy for the old man.”
The young girl made her way toward the tents, as the rest of the gang returned to the chatter.
“Cook, Clara sent me to–” She stopped.
It wasn’t Cook.
(some explanation)
We are ad-free, and most of our funding comes from Patreon supporters. If you enjoy our work and think it’s good, please consider paying a monthly $1 or more for it, via our Patreon page.
All other funding comes from our small RPG products, available here.Has The Copyright War Been Won -- And If So, Are We About To Lose It Again?
from the no-time-for-celebration dept
Reading Techdirt, it's all-too-easy to get the impression that copyright is an utter disaster for the public -- with current laws abused by governments, companies and trolls alike, and international agreements like TPP aiming to make the situation worse. But as Andres Guadamuz points out on his Technollama blog, things aren't quite as bleak as they sometimes seem: we have continued to win battle after battle where it really matters. In the last few years Internet activists looking for more openness and more rational copyright policies have had several important victories:
The defeat of SOPA and PIPA.
The demise of ACTA.
The Marrakesh Treaty.
A growing number of countries have recognised the need to make publicly-funded research available to the public.
Open access is fast becoming an acceptable method of scholarly publication.
A non-negligible number of governments are opening up data to public uses.
Creative Commons is becoming the de facto open content licensing scheme, and has now been adopted by international organisations such as the World Bank, OECD, WIPO and UNESCO.
The copyright industry has had to change business models and enforcement strategies, and it has become easier to obtain content through legitimate means. But he warns against complacency: Only a year ago Aaron Swartz was hounded to death by zealous prosecutors fulfilling a copyright maximalist agenda.
The content industry continues to pursue intermediaries by attempting to obtain blocking orders against file-sharing sites in a strategy that has not proven to be effective in the slightest.
Some academic publishers continue to wage a secret war against open access.
Apple continues to operate on a closed garden model where interoperability is a dream.
The TPP is shaping up as a maximalist treaty that could criminalise non-commercial infringement.
The domain name system has become vulnerable to seizures by content owners.
Business models still need to change However, as he rightly points out, bad as some of these are, they aren't the biggest threats to efforts to introduce some balance to copyright and to opening things up generally. There's another possibility, arguably worse than those listed above, and one that we've only just discovered exists: With privacy tools compromised, with security protocols riddled with backdoors, with the TOR network left vulnerable, and with reports that the very basic infrastructure of the Web might be subject to indiscriminate surveillance, it would be easy for US legislators to pass a law that would turn all of the security apparatus into a giant copyright enforcement machine. That's a horribly plausible possibility; after all, time and again the copyright industry has shown itself adept at appropriating the state's legal and enforcement machinery for its own selfish purposes. Although we should rightly celebrate all that has been achieved recently in the field of copyright, as Guadamuz notes, we must also make the danger he warns against yet another reason for dismantling the NSA's total surveillance system.
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Filed Under: copyright, internet, surveillanceGood product for a good price.
For this price it's about as good as you can ever get IMO. Ready to go straight away...as long as you have paint and cleaning products for your airbrushes. The two airbrushes (1 single and 1 dual action with both syphon and gravity feed) are good as a starter kit. The compressor comes with the 3 litre airtank and is just big enough for the compressor to not be constantly working. Comparatively to other compressors this one is quite silent and you can comfortably engage in a conversation as you spray. It easy to empty out condensation from the bottom of the tank and the moisture trap. Easy to set the pressure to the airbrush. The compressor is small and easy to move around and it has a carry handle......IMPORTANT : This compressor is not jealous when I look at other compressors :) There are other compressors out there that are better and quieter but they cost a lot more and without any airbrushes included.I rate this the best STARTER KIT on the market for this price. I am very pleased with this Airbrush starter kit and I have had hours of fun already.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Newby Martin
This puzzle is full of puns, we apologize in advance. However, it does have a couple cryptic clues and some pretty straightforward ones as well. It is taken from the beginning of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which you’ll find below. Enjoy! If you have a problem with the flash working for you, you may wish to use the static version. If you succeed in doing the puzzle, we’ve implemented a way for you to get credit for your efforts! Matthew
Of the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English Constitution
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.
In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government, let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of the earth, unconnected with the rest; they will then represent the first peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty, society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them thereto; the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but one man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him to quit his work, and every different want would call him a different way. Disease, nay even misfortune, would be death; for, though neither might be mortal, yet either would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might rather be said to perish than to die.
Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which would supersede, and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but Heaven is impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen that in proportion as they surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each other: and this remissness will point out the necessity of establishing some form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.
Some convenient tree will afford them a State House, under the branches of which the whole Colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of Regulations and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In this first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat.
But as the Colony encreases, the public concerns will encrease likewise, and the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as at first, when their number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body, who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present. If the colony continue encreasing, it will become necessary to augment the number of representatives, and that the interest of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number: and that the ELECTED might never form to themselves an interest separate from the ELECTORS, prudence will point out the propriety of having elections often: because as the ELECTED might by that means return and mix again with the general body of the ELECTORS in a few months, their fidelity to the public will be secured by the prudent reflection of not making a rod for themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other, and on this, (not on the unmeaning name of king,) depends the STRENGTH OF GOVERNMENT, AND THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.
Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and reason will say, ’tis right.
I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature which no art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this maxim in view I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise is easily demonstrated.
Absolute governments, (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs; know likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together without being able to discover in which part the fault lies; some will say in one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different medicine.by Brandon Peoples
Chances are if you’re reading this post, I don’t have to convince you that clean water is important. We’re responsible to ourselves to maintain enough clean water to support our society. Most obviously, we must maintain water quality for human consumption. In addition, agencies are required to manage water quality to protect imperiled species and fishery resources.
So exactly how do we do that?
When it was passed in the early 1970s, the Clean Water Act required states to establish numeric water quality standards—concentrations of specific pollutants that should not be exceeded. These standards helped to curb our big water quality problems—rivers in industrial cities stopped catching fire and regularly experiencing fish kills.
In 1969, a mass of oil and debris caught fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH. Source
But something was missing—numeric chemical standards aren’t always necessarily best for protecting aquatic life.
Aquatic biota—from algae and bacteria to fishes and birds—respond to a combination of physical and chemical stressors. So, although individual pollutants may meet standards, elevated combinations of multiple pollutants can be harmful to aquatic life—especially fishes.
Enter bioassessment—assessing ecosystem health using biota. Bioassessment is based upon predictable relationships between water quality and biotic communities or populations. The two most common life forms used in bioassessment are macroinvertebrates (…bugs) and fish. Bioassessment indices usually incorporate multiple metrics, such as percentages of pollution-tolerant species and total numbers of species (species richness).
Pollution-sensitive organisms like this stonefly (left) and candy darter (right) can be informative about long-term ecosystem health. Photos by Brandon Peoples.
Bioassessment can be more effective than chemical monitoring at assessing ecosystem health for several reasons. Firstly, you may have heard that governmental agencies are facing a bit of a financial crisis. Chemical monitoring is expensive—states monitor dozens or even hundreds of chemical parameters, many of which must be processed in pricey in-house labs. Secondly, agencies can’t monitor chemistry in all water bodies at all times (well…not without a billion-dollar-a-year monitoring budget). It’s easy to miss events where water chemistry can reach harmful levels. Lastly, chemistry at sites must be sampled multiple times throughout the year to get a good handle on ecosystem health.
On the other hand, fish can do the monitoring for us. Overall, fish bioassessment can be cheaper than chemical monitoring. Fish communities only need to be sampled once each year, and they usually don’t require any lab processing. Although chemical monitoring can miss individual pollution events, these events will be evident in fish communities.
Backpack electrofishing is often used to conduct fish bioassessment. Photo by Brandon Peoples.
Although bioassessment is a useful tool for managers, agencies often meet considerable resistance when implementing biological standards. One argument against bioassessment is interpretation and implementation. For example, reducing nitrogen concentration by 0.5 mg/L in wastewater effluent is a fairly straightforward goal. On the other hand, what exactly must plant managers to increase species richness from 8 to 12?
In a perfect world, biologists like me would be out of a job—we wouldn’t need to monitor water quality. But until then, we’ll be hitting the rivers each summer to see just exactly what the fishes have to tell us.Would an Angeleno of forty years ago, say, ever guess that Westwood Village and Downtown would one day switch fortunes? Here we are in 2013 and Downtown is busy and kinda fancy and getting better all the time and Westwood, "by some measures the hottest neighborhood in L.A." at one point, is a dreary, empty bore. As the LA Times reports: "These days, a humbled Westwood finds itself in the unexpected position of turning to a resurgent downtown for ideas." Wah wah waaaaaah. We all know the troubles: a student was shot in 1988 and life has been draining out ever since; "[o]f the more than a dozen movie theaters that once stood in the village, all but three have closed down"; many of the storefronts are empty. There's a new cityTarget and a few hot restaurants, but not much else going on. So now Westwood Village is trying something new, "moving away from its past as an entertainment and upscale shopping mecca. Backers see the 21st century Westwood as a magnet for arts and culture, filled with galleries, museums, performance space and trendy food." Here's what locals are up to:
-- In an attempt to change up the retail dynamic, Hammer has gotten property owners to give a month's free rent to "artists, craftsmen, chefs and other entrepreneurs" so they can take a shot at running businesses "that could range from crafts shops to artisanal eateries."
-- "A recent Anderson School of Management class studied the idea of staging some UCLA performing arts events at the now-vacant Mann Festival Theater in the village."
-- "UCLA's School of Public Affairs is working with Westwood officials to convert some parking spots on the street into 'parklets' — tiny public spaces that hold bike racks, a little greenery and a bench or two." (More on that here.)
-- Local leaders really like think tank cityLAB's "Living Culture" plan for the Village, which "calls for UCLA to export the Fowler Museum and part of its performing arts program from campus to Westwood. It envisions a public square as the "crown jewel of the plan." And it imagines "seven slender live/work mid-rises" creating a'skyline' for drivers on the 405 Freeway."
And good news! Suburbia booster Joel Kotkin is skeptical about all of it: "The problem with Westwood is that it's hard to get to, and it's incredibly boring and has been for a long time."
· Westwood Village wants to be cool again [LAT]
· 2 Radical Plans For Turning Westwood Village Around [Curbed LA]Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao testifies at her confirmation hearing in January 2017. - Zach Gibson | AP
This story was a result of a partnership with APM Reports.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, a leader in the Trump administration's effort to inject $1 trillion into America's crumbling infrastructure, chose to hold on to more than $300,000 of deferred stock awards in a transportation construction company after resigning from its board when she was confirmed to the Cabinet position.
Shares in the company — Vulcan Materials — climbed to a 10-year high in the days following Trump's election and have hovered there since, reflecting investors' optimism that the company's business and the construction sector will benefit from a federally funded infrastructure package.
Because of Chao's Cabinet position and the company's business, the stock awards present a conflict of interest.
Here's why: Chao could by turns propel an infrastructure plan in the company's best interest and gain financially when she sells her shares, assuming the price climbs if an infrastructure package gets through Congress.
Since Inauguration Day, Chao and Trump have spoken publicly at least 20 times about infrastructure. Each time, the share price in Vulcan jumped in the days afterward. Vulcan, which generated $3.5 billion in revenue last year, is among the nation's largest producers of construction aggregates — crushed stone, sand and gravel. It also produces asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.
Cabinet nominees and political appointees, in compliance with various laws and ethics guidelines, resign positions in the private sector and divest assets that could be affected by policy matters or legislation they're involved in. Some will separate from all outside interests to avoid any perceived conflicts.
In fact, when Chao was confirmed, she promptly resigned from Vulcan and other non-profit and corporate board positions, including News Corp. and Ingersoll Rand. She also sold her compensation-related stock holdings from the boards and said she'll follow the compensation plan of Wells Fargo, gradually cashing out her stock awards through 2021.
But with Vulcan, instead of requesting a clean break from the company, Chao opted to hold on to the stock awards through April 2018 — the soonest she can sell them — according to her financial disclosure form. In Chao's ethics letter to the Senate confirmation committee, she cited the company's compensation agreement with directors as the basis for her decision.
"Until I receive the cash payment of my vested deferred stock units, I will not participate personally and substantially in any particular matter that to my knowledge has a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of Vulcan Materials, unless I first obtain a written waiver," Chao wrote in the January letter.
Despite Vulcan's guidelines regarding director pay, ethics experts and people experienced in corporate board matters say it would have been easy for Chao to separate financially from the company upon her confirmation. Vulcan's guidelines also allow for a director's compensation agreements to be modified, "if it determines in its sole discretion that such action would be in the best interest of the company."
The amount of the cash payout will be determined based on the closing price of the stock at the time the payout is made, according to disclosure records. Chao could also keep the shares, betting the price goes up.
A spokesperson for Vulcan wouldn't comment on whether Chao requested to cash out when she was confirmed. As to her stock awards, Vulcan Materials sent a statement saying "all of the company's actions have been in accordance with the provisions of our plan and applicable IRS regulations."
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as the top ethics lawyer in the White House under President George W. Bush, said Chao used poor judgment. "I don't think it's possible for Elaine Chao to do her job as Secretary of Transportation without participating personally and substantially in a matter that's going to have a direct and predictable impact on Vulcan Materials," he said.
Chao's decision to keep her stock awards in a company that could profit from her policy decisions is the latest in a string of now publicly known decisions by Trump's Cabinet secretaries that raise questions about their attention to ethical behavior.
Four of Trump's Cabinet secretaries are under investigation for using chartered aircraft when commercial travel was a cheaper option. Key among them are Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Mnuchin requested the use of a government jet for his honeymoon and traveled with his wife on another government plane to Kentucky on the day of the solar eclipse.
And Price used chartered aircraft 26 times since May, according to a review by Politico. The costs of such chartered flights can cost tens of thousands of dollars per flight. Price apologized Thursday, says he will reimburse the government for his portion of the chartered flights and has pledged to fly commercial airlines in the future.
At a meeting on infrastructure at Trump Tower in August 2017, Elaine Chao stands with (left to right) Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and President Donald Trump. - Drew Angerer | Getty Images
Ethics experts say when subordinates flout long-held guidelines, they're usually taking the lead of their boss. Trump, for example, in a departure with his immediate predecessors, has refused to release his tax returns. He also hasn't fully divested from his businesses and has given preferential treatment to his Trump-branded properties for vacations and events during his time as president.
An Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows that Chao's stock awards came in the form of 3,041 deferred stock units in Vulcan Materials.
Chao served on Vulcan's board of directors in 2015 and 2016 and, in addition to an annual salary of $110,000, she received $150,982 in deferred stock compensation — the stock units — for each year she served as director. She resigned her position on the board after the U.S. Senate voted on Jan. 31 to confirm her.
While ethics officials question Chao's conflicts in her role as a Cabinet secretary, corporate governance experts say delayed transactions are commonplace to protect investors.
Charles Elson, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware, said companies create such plans to prevent a director from cashing out before investors learn of any potential bad news. "If she were allowed to sell immediately, that would defeat the whole point of the company's plan," he said.
A multi-millionaire who's served business and government
Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Her spokeswoman did not respond to six detailed questions about Chao’s holdings, but in a written statement said that Chao is following applicable ethics requirements and federal law. She also said a department ethics official determined Chao’s holdings presented no conflict.
Chao reported assets between $11 million and $48 million on her financial disclosure form.
Chao has been active in corporate and nonprofit circles and held several positions in the government. She served as Secretary of Labor from 2001 through 2009 under George W. Bush and Deputy Secretary of Transportation from 1989 to 1991. She also was president and chief executive of the United Way of America and director of the Peace Corps. Chao has also served on several corporate boards, including Protective Life Corp., Centerra Group and Dole Food Co.
Departing the boards, keeping some pay
When Elaine Chao was confirmed as U.S. Transportation Secretary in January, she quit four corporate boards, but kept a financial relationship to two. One was Vulcan Materials, a transportation construction company. Chao could still benefit from her compensation as a director there for nearly two years — $300,000 in deferred stock awards — if she helps push an infrastructure bill through Congress.
ORGANIZATION POSITION START DATE LEFT POSITION
UPON CONFIRMATION? COMPLETE
FINANCIAL SEPARATION? News Corporation Director Oct. 16, 2012 Yes Yes Wells Fargo & Company Director June 28, 2011 Yes No Ingersoll Rand Director June 4, 2015 Yes Yes Vulcan Materials Director Feb. 13, 2015 Yes No
Chao, 64, is an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. at age 8 and became a citizen at 19, according to a questionnaire she submitted to the U.S. Senate. Her father — James Chao — founded a shipping company. In 2008, he gave Chao and McConnell between $5 million and $25 million, according to Politico.
She has been a leading advocate for the infrastructure plan, a role she naturally assumed as head of the Transportation Department.
Since she took office, she's discussed infrastructure in House and Senate committees, met with city and state officials at the White House, traveled to Kentucky and Nebraska to pitch the plan and appeared by Trump's side at infrastructure-related events. "The president has made this his top priority," Chao told CNBC in May. "He has said that he's challenging our country and his advisers that he wants $1 trillion in investments over the next 10 years."
The findings from the APM Reports investigation come as Trump is trying to win general support for an infrastructure plan. For months, the White House has pushed for increased private investment — such as public-private partnerships, referred to as P3s — to pay for the public projects. But this week, Trump started to back away from that approach.
The shift occurred for a number of reasons: rural lawmakers openly worried that private investment wouldn't land in their districts, a privately financed project in Indiana faced significant delays, and the Texas Legislature rejected efforts to authorize additional private investment for roads.
"Just like with any new policy, there are legitimate questions about how P3s can best be incorporated into our nation's infrastructure program," said a White House official who asked not to be named. He added that public-private ventures were not "the silver bullet for all of our nation's infrastructure problems."
An APM Reports analysis in May found that states, cities, unions and infrastructure consultants submitted more than 500 projects to the White House for consideration.
Then in July, APM Reports found that the bulk of the requests considering private investment were primarily in urban areas around the country.
The White House has not released any specifics about its plan, and Congress has shown little interest in taking it up. House and Senate leaders have been focused on a new federal health care law and a plan to cut taxes. Some congressional leaders have said it's unlikely Congress will consider the infrastructure bill until early next year.
Construction stocks at the mercy of infrastructure plan
The stock market rallied after Election Day as investors grew excited about the prospects of a Trump presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress. Companies tied to the construction industry fared particularly well, boosted by Trump's pledge to inject $1 trillion into roads, bridges and airports.
In the days following Trump's election, Vulcan Materials' stock price spiked 14 percent, from $119 a share on Election Day to $136 a share two days later. The increase signaled optimism that the company would capitalize on Trump's plan.
The word 'infrastructure' and Vulcan share prices
Whenever U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao or President Donald Trump talk about infrastructure, shares of Vulcan Materials stock jump. Red dots below indicate events that may have affected the share price.
During a conference call in February with investors, Vulcan's chief executive Tom Hill said the country "desperately needs" a federal infrastructure bill to pass. "When it happens, there's nobody better positioned to serve these projects than we are. It's what we do. It's who we are," he said.
Vulcan has spent $630,000 lobbying Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation over the past two years, according to disclosure records filed with the U.S. Senate, though a spokesperson for the company said it hasn't lobbied Chao or her department since she was nominated to the position.
In a written statement sent to APM Reports this week, the company downplayed the impact of an infrastructure bill on Vulcan's bottom line. "While Vulcan Materials joins numerous experts in our belief that infrastructure investment is needed in our country, the company has noted on numerous occasions that it is well positioned for growth with or without a $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill."
While share prices for many construction-related firms surged in anticipation of an infrastructure bill, they've dropped as Trump's plan is yet to materialize. On Thursday, Vulcan shares closed at $119.12 a share, down 7.7 percent since Inauguration Day.
Kathryn Thompson of Thompson Research Group advises managers of hedge funds, mutual funds and pension funds on the construction and industrial sector. |
accused products," Winer wrote. "68.0% of respondents who were shown a disguised image of an iPhone 3G—with the icons on the face of the phone blurred and the 'home' button covered with a sticker—still identified it with Apple, iPhone, or a similar Apple-related product name."
Samsung attorney Bill Price poked holes in the Apple witnesses' research. The "control product" tested against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was Barnes & Noble's Nook Color. Price said the control product shouldn't have been a device viewed by many as an e-reader, when Apple could have used a Motorola or LG tablet instead, according to a CNET report from the courtroom. Samsung also criticized the study for showing people video of tablets rather than the physical devices themselves, with the video showing only the front and side views of the devices, according to Forbes.
Testimony today also featured an Apple-hired expert who testified that Samsung stole Apple's patented "rubber band" or "bounce-back" technology, referring to touchscreen scrolling in which the screen snaps back into place after a finger has pulled the screen as far as it can go and then is lifted off the screen. This is one of numerous features claimed by Apple in a US patent filed in December 2007 on "List scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touch-screen display."
For this argument, Apple brought out University of Toronto Computer Science Professor Ravin Balakrishnan, who testified that the rubber band effect is an Apple innovation that prevents user confusion, which could be caused when a user doesn't know where an image or document ends.
Balakrishnan reportedly testified that 21 Samsung devices violate the Apple patent.
Balakrishnan has billed Apple $500,000 for being an expert witness in nine cases, according to a Mercury News live blog of the trial. The blog notes that Samsung attorney Kevin Johnson got Balakrishnan to admit that it's possible to perform the bounce effect without violating Apple's patent, although it would be difficult. Samsung also showed video of various Samsung devices in which the rubber band effect is not used in all applications.
In making its argument, Apple pointed to Samsung's own internal documents, which compared Samsung products to Apple's and referenced the bounce-back effect, according to a CNET story.
Showing Samsung's internal analyses of its own products compared to Apple's has been a much-used tactic so far. If you want to see more of the pictures and documents Apple has used to make its case, refer back to our story "Apple's case that Samsung copied the iPhone and iPad—in pictures."Get our daily newsletter Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks.
“RENOVATION” was the theme of Nicolas Sarkozy's first France-Africa summit, held in Nice on May 31st-June 1st. In symbolic terms the two-day meeting was certainly different. As well as the usual collection of African heads of state and government, 38 of them this time, over 200 businessmen went along. Mr Sarkozy also made a point of inviting not only French-speaking leaders from former colonies, but English-speaking ones too, notably the presidents of South Africa (Jacob Zuma), Nigeria (Goodluck Jonathan) and Rwanda (Paul Kagame).
The rhetoric was fresh too. In his opening speech, President Sarkozy called for a “new French-African relationship” that would be “free of complexes” and based on “equality”. Exactly 50 years after France granted 14 of its colonies independence, Mr Sarkozy hit back at those who accuse France of neo-colonialism by holding such a summit. The point, he insisted, was to treat Africa as a strategic partner. As a mark of mutual respect, African troops will march alongside their French counterparts at this year's July 14th Bastille Day parade in Paris.
In some ways Mr Sarkozy has tried to turn the page on what is known as françafrique: the backroom network of personal, business and political links, fed by petro-dollars and backed by left and right, that has traditionally characterised French Africa policy. He has updated old defence agreements. He has reoriented France's military presence on the continent, often seen locally as a sign of post-colonial paternalism, towards the Horn of Africa. Last year Mr Sarkozy opened a new base in Abu Dhabi, and this year he decided to scale back the one in Senegal.
Mr Sarkozy has also taken the lead in promoting a place for Africa on the world stage. He backed South Africa's participation in the G20 forum. In Nice he said it was “absolutely abnormal” that there was no permanent African representation on the UN Security Council. (Yet as nobody can agree on who should occupy such a seat, or how many Africa should claim, this remains a fiendishly difficult matter.)
Yet old habits die hard. Mr Sarkozy may no longer have installed at the Elysée Palace a “Monsieur Afrique”, as Charles de Gaulle called his special Africa fixer, Jacques Foccart. But informal contacts still count. Two years ago, Jean-Marie Bockel, Mr Sarkozy's overseas-aid minister, lost his job not long after deploring the “weight of bad habits, the preservation of individual interests, the defence of certain inherited rentier situations” in françafrique. According to Robert Bourgi, a lawyer to Omar Bongo—a former president of Gabon, who died last year—Mr Bockel went on the instructions of Mr Bongo.
Moreover, in parts of French-speaking Africa, which the French used to treat as their backyard, they are being squeezed by competition from Chinese and Indian business, for commodities as well as infrastructure projects. China has overtaken France as the leading exporter to sub-Saharan Africa. This week Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade told Le Parisien, a French newspaper, that the Chinese were easier to deal with. “If I want to get China to finance a project, I pick up my phone and send an envoy to the ministry of commerce in Beijing,” he declared. “A fortnight later, two months at the most, I get an answer. If I want to do the same thing with France, the United States or the World Bank, it takes five years.”
Despite the fine words about a new era, transparency campaigners feel frustrated. Last October, a French appeals court rejected a case brought by the French branch of Transparency International, an anti-corruption lobby, against three African leaders, among them the deceased Mr Bongo. A preliminary judicial investigation had shown that Mr Bongo and his family had 39 properties in France, nine cars and 70 bank accounts. In May the Gabonese presidency, now occupied by Bongo's son, Ali Bongo, announced that it had bought a swanky mansion on one of the poshest streets in Paris, partly for diplomatic use. The presidency was making this known, it said, apparently without irony, in the interests of “full transparency”.Image copyright EPA Image caption Thousands turned out in Wroclaw on Monday to protest against the proposed near-total ban of abortion
Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin has said proposals put before parliament for a near-total ban on abortion will not be implemented.
A citizens' bill backed by the Catholic Church aims to ban all abortions unless the mother's life is at risk.
State-run radio quoted Mr Gowin as saying that a nationwide protest on Monday against the proposals had given the government "food for thought".
Prime Minister Beata Szydlo has also distanced the government from the bill.
"I want to state very clearly that the PiS [Law and Justice] government is not working on any legislation changing the rules on abortion in Poland," Ms Szydlo told a news conference on Tuesday.
The bill came from an anti-abortion citizens' initiative that gathered some 450,000 signatures.
'Food for thought'
Poland's socially conservative government has a majority in parliament but the bill is not sponsored by the government and all MPs will have a free vote.
The deputy prime minister told Radio Koszalin in northern Poland that the current abortion exceptions would remain.
"I want to reassure those who fear that in Poland abortion will be completely prohibited," he said.
"A total ban certainly won't get through. Abortion will certainly not be banned when the woman is the victim of rape or if her life or her health is in danger," he added.
He said Monday's protest "gave us food for thought and certainly taught us humility", in an interview hours before the European Parliament was due to discuss the Polish proposals.
Will Poland impose a total ban on abortion?
Image copyright EPA
The government softens its stance - Adam Easton, BBC News, Warsaw
Poland's foreign minister, Witold Wasczykowski, belittled Monday's nationwide protest, calling it marginal and making a mockery of important issues.
But faced with such widespread opposition, Poland's governing right-wing Law and Justice party, has softened its stance.
It has also dropped a plan to write its own bill that would further restrict the country's abortion law.
It seems likely that the current 23-year-old compromise, which only allows the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when the health of the mother or foetus is endangered, will remain in place.
On Monday, 100,000 women took to the streets of the capital city, Warsaw, as well as in Gdansk, Lodz, Wroclaw, Krakow and elsewhere in the mostly Catholic nation.
Demonstrations were also held in solidarity in other European cities, including Berlin, Brussels, Duesseldorf, Belfast, London and Paris.
If the citizens' bill is passed, abortion would only be possible if the woman's life were in danger. Women found to have had abortions would be punished with a five-year prison term. Doctors found to have assisted in an abortion would also be liable for jail time.
A recent Ipsos opinion poll suggests the vast majority of Poles do not want a more restrictive abortion law, with only 11% favouring that option.
Almost half said that existing legislation should remain unchanged, while more than a third said abortion should be more widely available.
Even by conservative estimates there are far more illegal than legal abortions in Poland - between 10,000 and 150,000, compared with about 1,000 or 2,000 legal terminations.Chelsea's new manager Antonio Conte has helped transform Eden Hazard, says Alan Shearer
Chelsea forward Eden Hazard is back playing his best football, says Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer.
The Belgian, 25, the PFA's player of the year in 2015, scored the opening goal in the 3-0 win over Burnley and produced a superb all-round display.
"We are seeing that guy from two years ago," former England and Newcastle striker Shearer said.
"The first thing manager Antonio Conte realised he had to do was get him on side. He knows he's the match-winner."
Hazard found the net on 13 occasions during the 2014-15 season as Chelsea won the title. However, he lost form during the first half of the 2015-16 season as the Blues underperformed, leading to the departure of manager Jose Mourinho.
Media playback is not supported on this device Conte happy with Chelsea clean sheet
Ruud Gullit, who helped Chelsea win the FA Cup in 1997 as player-manager, also said Hazard had rediscovered his best form.
"This was Hazard at his best, when he's facing players one-on-one," the Dutch Euro 1988 winner added.
"This is Hazard when he has fun. I don't want him to chase back."
The former Fifa world player of the year suggested that the signing of defensive midfielder N'Golo Kante from Leicester has allowed Hazard to focus on attacking.
"Kante is like [former Chelsea midfielder] Claude Makelele. He's always there when you need him," added Gullit.
"Hazard doesn't need to track back anymore."
Subscribe to the BBC Sport newsletter to get our pick of news, features and video sent to your inbox.(side note – I'm also guest blogging for the lovely Simply Evani today. I'm sharing a yummy recipe that should turn everyone's least favorite vegetable into a yummy delight).
Although I've been looking at ways to cut back on spending money, I can't seem to quit my beauty box subscriptions. And I'm okay with that. Here is my October Birchbox and GLOSSYBOX Review (** = my favorite product in the box)
Birchbox – Goop Picks: Once upon a time I was not a Gwyneth Paltrow fan, but once she started goop, my opinion shifted. Yes, I get the weekly issue by email and yes, recently look at the website for recipe ideas. So I was obviously pretty excited that goop and Birchbox teamed up for October's box. It may be my biases speaking, but I think that this is my favorite Birchbox to date.
1. **Essie in Fair Game**: I have been looking for a great grey nail varnish for a while and then BAM – full size bottle at my doorstep. I'm a big fan of Essie polish in general and love the way it finishes. In fact, when I go in to get my nails done I usually ask go for Essie. The good news: Awesome color and beautiful finish. The bad news: chipped within 24 hours. The real news: I went to the spa and sat in mineral pools the day after I did my nails so I'm pretty sure that is why they chipped right away. So despite the chipping, I'm giving this product an A+. $8
2. Marie Veronique Organics – Body Oil: This smells amazing. It is made with yummy bits of apricot kernel oils, watermelon seeds and vegetable squalene. Seriously, so good. I am not a big fan of body oils in general though, so I wasn't super impressed with this product. I wouldn't mind smelling it all day, though. $36
3. Sprout – Lip Balm Flights in Cocoa: Loving it. I have two rules for a great lip balm: 1) it has a spf, and 2) non-sticky / waxy feeling. Well, Sprout got the latter of the two right but not the first. The brand prides itself on being made with only organic products (cocoa butter, beeswax, coconut oil) so I can't be too mad that it doesn't have any SPF. Also, it tastes delicious – I was more interested in licking my lips than leave it there! $18 for 4
4. Joanna Vargas – Daily Serum: Twice a day, morning and night for a nice glow. I applied twice and and did not glow. As with most products, I shouldn't expect to see results over night. But I want to, I really want to. And after looking at the full-size price, I doubt that I'll be giving this product another chance at making me glow. $85
5. Luna Bar – Lemon Zest: Okay, delicious bar, etc etc. $18.75 for 15
GLOSSYBOX – Spa Luxe: All of the items in this box were a great fit for the theme of a day at the spa. From the lipstick to the loofa, I felt like I was truly pampering myself with all these products. While this wasn't my favorite box, I love it (as usual) and had a blast trying out all my samples. The only disappointment? The Lipstick / Lipgloss combo was the only full-sized product (because no, a loofa soap doesn't count as a full-sized product, especially when it only costs $8).
1. ModelCo – Lip Duo Lipstick in Dusk & Ultra Shine Lip Gloss in Striptease: This duo has a built-in mirror to check application. I'm sold. Also, the lipstick color was great but the gloss was ‘eh' and smelled like bubblegum (sick). It did leave a nice finishing look and feel on my lips thought. $39
2. Carlo's Daughter – Shea Souffle: Thick creams don't always do it for me, but I am loving this body butter. I found it true to it's description and absorbed quickly into my skin, wasn't too greasy, and smelled wonderful. The sample size they sent over is half the size of the full-sized product and should last me quite a while. $20
3. Alterna Bamboo – Luminous Shine Mist: This is not my first experience with Akterna Bamboo. Recently, I used my 500 point reward at Sephora on the brand's hair spray and love it; in fact it is the only hairspray I use when I actually use hairspray … like 5 times a year. This product, that control frizz (thanks GOODNESS), is made with organic bamboo (duh) and Indian gooseberry. Frizzy hair like mine eats this stuff up $22
4. Natassja Skin – Enzyme Facial Peel: Every time I get a facial product in a beauty box I want to kiss the delivery person. Oh, I love them. This face peel is apparently full of good-for-you nutrients and vitamins (and papaya) that your skin will love. The peel helps to exfoliate and rid your face of the gross dead, dry skin cells. Since the texture is that of a peel as opposed to a traditional exfoliant, I was surprised by how smooth my skin felt when I rinsed it off. It did leave my skin feeling a little tight after, so make sure to follow up with a nice moisturizer. I'm a big fan but I'm not sure if I'll buy the full-sized product (it is a bit pricy) but this sample (1/4 of the real size) should last me for a while. $40
5. **Heartland Fragrances – Exfoliating Loofa Soap**: This is heaven for me. Heaven. This product combines a nice, exfoliating loofa plus a nice soap – what an interesting combination! $8
You can find my previous Birchbox and Glossybox reviews here. If you are interested in signing up for either of these services, click here for Birchbox and GLOSSYBOX.Emacs 24.4 ships with a new minor mode called prettify-symbols-mode. Its purpose is to replace the standard text representation of various identifiers/symbols with a (arguably) more aesthetically pleasing representation (often a single unicode character would replace several ascii characters).
A classic example would be lambda from various Lisp dialects that many people prefer to replace with the greek letter λ (small lambda). prettify-symbols-mode allows you to achieve this by relying on a simple mapping expressed in the form of an alist that each major mode must initialize ( prettify-symbols-alist ). Simply put - major modes have to provide the configuration for prettify-symbols-mode.
Lisp modes do this via lisp--prettify-symbols-alist :
( defconst lisp--prettify-symbols-alist'(( "lambda".? λ )))
This means that out of the box only lambda will get replaced. You can, of course, add more mappings for different major modes:
( add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook ( lambda () ( push'( ">=".? ≥ ) prettify-symbols-alist )))
Let’s see the mode in action. Consider this bit of Emacs Lisp code:
( lambda ( x y ) ( if ( >= x y ) ( something ) ( something-else )))
After you do M-x prettify-symbols-mode you’ll end up with:
( λ ( x y ) ( if ( ≥ x y ) ( something ) ( something-else )))
To enable this for a particular mode use (add-hook'some-mode-hook 'prettify-symbols-mode). If you’d like to enable it globally just add the following to your config:
( global-prettify-symbols-mode +1 )The Netflix original series gets an episodic VR experience for PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, and Oculus Rift.
Voltron is getting the VR treatment. Fresh on the heels of season 3 of the Netflix original series DreamWorks Voltron: Legendary Defender, you’ll now be able to join forces with beloved characters Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Keith, Shiro, Allura and Coran to fight back against the relentless threat of Zarkon in virtual reality.
Dubbed DreamWorks Voltron VR Chronicles, the experience launches on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift on September 26 for $14.99. You can also pre-order the experience on PlayStation VR starting today and receive a 20 percent discount.
Developed by Digital Domain, in collaboration with Universal Brand Development, this animated adventure puts you in the role of the Blue Paladin, Lance, as you’re placed at the center of a massive conflict between the Voltron force and the Galra Emperor, Zarkon.
Fans of the show will be thrilled to know that each of the TV show’s voice actors have lent their voice talents to the experience. The visual style is completely reminiscent of the animated TV series, making for a dynamic experience when in VR. The experience also feature moments of interactivity where you can take control of Lance’s actions. These interactive moments include solving puzzles as well as pilot missions in the Blue Lion, battling Galra forces with an array of advanced weapon systems.
“We are big fans of the Voltron franchise and wanted to create an experience that would captivate existing fans and also introduce the story in a compelling way for new ones,” said Wayne Kennedy, Digital Domain’s Director of Creative Development. “With DREAMWORKS VOLTRON VR CHRONICLES, we are pioneering the next evolution of interactive storytelling in a fully-immersive setting.”
The Netflix original series DreamWorks Voltron Legendary Defender reimagines one of the most popular childhood shows in a comedic action-packed show from executive producer Joaquim Dos Santos (The Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender) and co-executive producer Lauren Montgomery (The Legend of Korra). Five unsuspecting teenagers, transported from Earth into the middle of a sprawling intergalactic war, become pilots for five robotic lions in the battle to protect the universe from evil. Only through the true power of teamwork can they unite to form the mighty warrior known as Voltron.Boulevard Brewing Co. Has Been Good to Me
These are a couple emails from back in February 2011 between me and Boulevard Brewing Co. The new shirt looks great.
From: Matt Sayar
To: [email protected]
Subject: Let’s Get Some Beer… and Paint :(
It’s early in the morning and I hear a knock at my door. While groggily trying to open my eyes, I hear my alarm going off too.
“Matt? It’s time to go. We have to leave RIGHT NOW.”
My eyes snap to the clock on the bedside table. It stares back at me, reading “5:45.” 5:45am? I set my alarm for 5:20am! We have to be walking out the door at 5:45am! Why didn’t it wake me up??
I started going into panic mode. I yell to my roommate, “Yeah, start the car, I’ll be right there!” I spring out of bed and run to my closet. I haven’t even turned on the lights. I grab the first pair of pants I can feel off the rack and first shirt off its hook. I throw both on, grab my keys/wallet/phone, and run out of the apartment.
I run back into the apartment. I forgot my watch. I run back out of the apartment.
I jump into my roommate’s car and we proceed to drive the one and a half hours to meet a large group of people to help paint a family’s house for Habitat for Humanity. We arrive and start introducing ourselves to the people we came to help, grab some paint, some ladders, some rollers, and get to work.
“Hey Matt, I like your shirt!” someone yelled to me while I was on a ladder.
“Thanks!” I say without thinking.
“Let’s get one after we’re done here!”
Wait, what the hell is he talking about? I look down at my shirt, and to my horror, I realize I’m wearing my Boulevard shirt. The one that says, “Let’s get some beer!” on the back. And now the front of it is splattered with paint. Paint that won’t wash off. I am devastated.
On the bright side, I got a lot of compliments on the shirt, and everyone asked me where I got it. I won it from the guy who owns The Nook, a local beer spot here in Huntsville, AL. Can I have another one so I can tell people I got it straight from the guys who make my favorite wheat beer, the Boulevard Wheat? I’d really appreciate it and wear it all the time! :)
Attachment:
From: Lauren Krum [email protected]
To: Matt Sayar
Dear Matt,
What a horror story! We feel your pain and we loved your story; yes there was some laughter amid the sympathy. We’d love to send you another t-shirt, on us. Please respond with your size and your address.
Cheers!
Lauren Krum
Boulevard Brewing Co.The Toronto Islands are at the forefront of our urban mythology. They're an almost magical place that remain serene even as the mainland is developed at a dizzying pace. As such, many Toronto residents know a fair bit about them. It's not news that they used to be a peninsula, for instance, or that Hanlan's Point is a clothing optional beach. But, there are quirky facts and storied hiding here.
Here are 10 things you might not know about the Toronto Islands.
1. At their closest point -- the Western Gap -- the Islands are only separated from the mainland by just over 100 metres. That's about a two minute swim for the average individual, though you wouldn't want to try that for fear of getting clocked by the heavy marine traffic.
2. The first Island ferries were powered by horses, and began making the trip across the harbour in 1833.
3. Construction on a tunnel to the Island was first started in 1935, but the project was ultimately killed when federal funds dried up and the work completed to that point was filled in.
4. You can camp on Snake Island but only if you're a Boy Scout or Girl Guide. On occasion, provisions are also made for other youth and community groups.
5. There's a stand of radio towers near the Water Treatment Plant that still broadcast the signal for CHIN's 1540 AM station.
6. Hanlan's Point is named after John Hanlan not after the famous rower Ned Hanlan, who was his son. John Hanlan opened a hotel on the western side of Island in the 1860s well before his son won accolades for his athletic prowess.
7. Between 1926 and 1961, the TTC operated the Island ferry service before that responsibility was transferred to the city's Parks Department.
8. Sediment from the Scarborough Bluffs created the peninsula that would eventually become the Islands, but the Leslie Street Spit blocks much of this gradual build up today.
9. The remaining houses on the Islands -- concentrated on Ward's and Algonquin -- will all come up for lease in 2092.
10. It's not an urban myth. There really was a diving horse at Hanlan's Point Amusement Park.
Know of a quirky fact related to the Toronto Islands? Let us know in the comments.
Photo by Piotr HelkaAn Open Letter: HRC Revokes Endorsement Following Senator Mark Kirk’s Racist Comments
Chad Griffin Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 29, 2016
After careful consideration, HRC’s Public Policy Committee of the Board of Directors has taken the unprecedented step — a first in our 36-year history — of revoking an endorsement. We are a bipartisan organization and our staff and board make endorsement decisions based on a proven record of LGBTQ equality and a candidate’s ability to drive legislative change. We will not continue to make progress and pass the Equality Act without Republican support. It’s vitally important that we continue to build bipartisan coalitions so that we may continue to move equality forward. We endorsed the sitting Senator, Mark Kirk, because he has been a strong supporter of our cause time and again, scoring a 100 percent on HRC’s most recent Congressional Scorecard. But events this week have gone beyond the pale for our standards of leadership.
Leadership is about more than the legislation one sponsors and the votes one casts. On Thursday night, Senator Kirk’s comments about his opponent’s heritage were deeply offensive and racist. His attempt to use Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth’s race as a means to undermine her family’s American heritage and patriotism is beyond reprehensible. Yesterday, Senator Kirk tweeted an apology that failed to adequately address the real harm and magnitude of his words. So today, following a vote by our board’s committee, the Human Rights Campaign withdrew our support of Senator Kirk.
Attacking someone because of her race and ethnicity is inexcusable for anyone, but especially for a sitting U.S. Senator. The diversity of our movement is our greatest strength, and Senator Kirk’s remarks were an affront to our most fundamental values. We have therefore voted to endorse Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth, who has been a strong LGBTQ ally in the House of Representatives, and HRC will contribute the maximum amount to her campaign. We look forward to working with her in the Senate to secure full federal equality for all LGBTQ Americans.
With only ten days until the election, HRC is focused on executing the most robust get-out-the-vote effort in our history, reaching beyond our own members and supporters to pro-equality voters who have demonstrated an openness to creating a more equal and fair society. This year our community has a clear choice: between Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine — the most robust pro-LGBTQ ticket in American history — and Donald Trump and Mike Pence — who threaten to undermine all of the progress we’ve made in the last eight years. The choice is equally clear in races at every level of government.
This year, we are going to demonstrate together that opposing LGBTQ equality is a political liability. And together, we will continue to fight for equality and deliver real, meaningful change for our country and community.Today, we have an excellent example of why we should keep calm and carry on when it comes to mouse studies. At SFARI, a website for an autism research organization, Emily Singer writes that research groups cannot reproduce the reported "social deficit" behaviors in a mouse strain that's intended to model autism in humans:
A 2008 study from Nils Brose’s lab at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen, Germany, first suggested that mice lacking NLGN4 have a number of autism-like social deficits. The lab published similar findings from the mice in a paper in November. But in September, two independent groups reported that the same strain of mice, bred from animals furnished by the Brose lab, do not show any social deficits.
NLGN4 is "knocked out" (made nonfunctional) in these mice as a way of determining what happens in mammals who lack it. Changes in this gene, which codes for a protein that facilitates nerve cell communication, have been linked to autism in various studies. Singer notes a number of possible explanations for why the other two groups might not have seen the behaviors initially reported, including compensation thanks to other genes, some unknown environmental factor, or variability in the knocked-out gene. The mice the two independent labs used were several generations distant from the original strain or grown from preserved embryos, and in that interval, any number of changes could have happened in gene sequences or to affect how the animal uses the gene.
According to tracking sites, the original 2008 article has been cited in more than 100 other papers.
This failure of replication is important. In the process of science, no matter how interesting or promising or even compelling results appear to be, they really shouldn't be taken as established, much less dogma, unless other groups can reproduce them. Without replication, scientific findings remain hints, not facts, always carrying the possibility of coincidence or error unless they prove to be repeatable. I might walk down the street one day and find a $20 bill, but that doesn't mean that same street will cough up 20 bucks every time I stroll its sidewalks.
Using the mouse condition to examine the human condition serves a purpose--we can't very well, for example, purposely knock out a gene in a large group of humans, breed them, and then examine what they do in behavior testing. But mice also are not humans and not even that closely related to us. In a previous post of mine, in writing about best practices for authoring articles about autism, I noted:
If the study in question is about mice, never talk about how the results will lead to a therapy or a cure or write about the mice as though somehow, they are just tiny humans with tails. Mice have misled us before. They are only a way to model what might happen in a mammal sorta kinda related to us. They are not Us, otherwise we'd live in tiny, crowded places, having 10 children at once and ignoring them when they grow fur, and this autism thing wouldn't be an issue.
This latest report underscores the pitfalls of using mice. Researchers always hope to take advantage of these hyper-reproducing animals to study what everyone calls "complex behaviors." Add in the complexity of human culture and how it affects not only behavior but also how we use our genes, and mice are a simplistic model of Us while simultaneously proving to be rather complicated themselves, even when inbred. Of course, science has a way of surprising us, and it's possible that the investigations following this discovery might lead to new information that reduces some of the mists surrounding autism and its variable presentation.
Meanwhile, we must remember that we cannot implicitly trust those mice. Brose, the senior author of the original paper reporting social behavioral deficits in the mice, put the issue pretty clearly himself, as quoted in the SFARI piece:For use as a surname, see Kim (surname)
For other uses, see Kim
Kim Pronunciation [kim] [1] Language(s) Korean Origin Region of origin Korea Meaning Gold, iron
Kim (occasionally romanized as Gim)[2] is the most common surname in the Korean Peninsula, accounting for nearly 22% of the population. Kim is written as "김" gim in Korean. ("김" solely by itself has no specific meaning unless specified by its underlying hanja or derived from context.) The hanja for Kim can also be transliterated as Hangul: 금 geum "metal, iron, gold". The Kim family is also the ruling family in North Korea.
Overall, more than six million Koreans trace their lineage to Queen Heo Hwang-ok,[3] including the Heos,[4] the Kims (through her decendant king Jinhung) and the 이 (Lee/Yi).[5] The Heos are traditionally considered distant kins of the Kims, who trace their ancestry to the other children of Queen Heo Hwang-ok and her huband King Suro of Geumgwan Gaya.[6]
Origin [ edit ]
The first historical document that records Kim in 636 references it as the surname of Korean king, Jinhung (526-576). In the Silla kingdom (57 BCE–935 CE)—which variously battled and allied with other states on the Korean peninsula and ultimately unified most of Korea in 668 — Kim (which means “gold”) was the name of a family that rose to prominence and became the rulers of Silla for 586 years.[7]
Clans [ edit ]
As with other Korean surnames, different lineages, known as bon-gwan or clans, are inherited from a father to his children. These designate the region of Korea, or paternal ancestor, from which they claim to originate.
The 2000 South Korean census listed 348 extant Kim lineages.[8]
Major clans [ edit ]
Kim, Gim, Ghim Lee, Yi, Rhee, Yie, Jee Park, Pak Choi, Choe Jung, Jeong, Chung, Cheong 21.6% of Korean people bear the family name Kim
Uiseong [ edit ]
The Uiseong Kim (Hangul: 의성김씨, hanja: 義城金氏) Clan traces its lineage back to the last prince of Silla, who later became a Monk.
Andong [ edit ]
There are two Andong Kim clans (Hangul: 안동김씨; Hanja: 安東金氏) distinguished as Gu (Hangul: 구; Hanja: 舊) and Shin (Hangul: 신; Hanja: 新) that have 2 separate progenitors.
Some of the notable Gu Andong Kim clan members were General Kim Si-min and Prime Minister Kim Sa-hyeong, who was involved with the Gangnido map, as well as Royal Noble Consort Hwi was banished for witchcraft.[9]
The Shin Andong Kim clan[10] was one of the powerful clans that dominated the later part of Joseon. One of the most powerful members from the clan was the Honorable Kim Josun, who was the father-in-law to Sunjo of Joseon. Kim Josun's daughter was Queen Sunwon.
Gimhae (Kimhae) [ edit ]
According to a story recorded only in the Samgungnyusa, in 48 AD, Princess Heo Hwang-ok travelled from a country called "Ayodhya"(India) to Korea, where she married Suro of Geumgwan Gaya and gave birth to ten children, thus starting the Kim dynasty of Geumgwan Gaya, the capital of which was in present-day Gimhae.
Famous ancient members of this clan, aside from the kings of Geumgwan Gaya, include the Silla general Kim Yu-sin. In Later Silla, members of the Gimhae Kim family were admitted to all but the highest level of the Silla bone rank system.
This clan is by far the most populous of all Korean clans. The 2000 South Korean census found it to add up more than four million people.
Distribution of ancestral lines of the Kim surname. (1988)
Gyeong Seong [ edit ]
Gyeong Seong Kim (Hangul: 경성김씨, Hanja:京城金氏) originated from Seoul in South Korea. This family living in Seoul of Korea separated from Gimhae in the 1910s.
Gyeongju [ edit ]
The Gyeongju Kims (Hangul: 경주김씨, hanja: 慶州金氏[11]) trace their descent from the ruling family of Silla. The founder of this clan is said to have been Gim Al-ji, an orphan adopted by King Talhae of Silla in the 1st century AD. Alji's seventh-generation descendant was the first member of the clan to take the throne, as King Michu of Silla in the year 262.
This clan is also extremely |
before they go after the giants in our industry and other industries like it to extort millions. Imagine if a company like CB&I had its nuclear power plant plans locked down during the construction process of one of its latest projects. Imagine if rock core data or geophysical data were locked down in mining and wellsite services companies like Rio Tinto or Schlumberger. That data is sometimes worth millions of dollars.
Those big companies often times do take the time to protect their computers because as US government contractors they are forced to take such precautions. But the small to medium sized businesses that make up the majority of the environmental industry have not taken the same precautions and it may not be too long before you hear about environmental companies paying ransom to get their data back.
In fact, it already has. Take a look at TestAmerica. They got hacked in January 2016 and it took down hundreds of TestAmerica computers and analytical instruments throughout the entire network of TestAmerica labs. It took them 3 weeks to get back online. Imagine the damage inflicted by something that big. Millions of dollars, not thousands. And the long-term impact is even greater. Just think of the client damage. A lot of clients left, and probably won’t come back.
There’s a lesson there for our business. We need to learn to use our technology to protect our data. We need to priotize learning technology so that we can defend ourselves. We need to know whats out there and how it will affect us.
Play offense, not just defense
But there is another lesson to learn, and that is that we need to learn technology to go on the offense. Not to start taking data hostage, but recognizing that the same computer that can encrypt our data can keep our data safe from prying eyes, that the same computer can run software which can model contaminant plumes and suggest solutions that can save time and money. We can learn the lesson that the same technology that enables a technician to call the office from the field enables a groundwater well to send data from the field.
We don’t realize it but technology has infiltrated our business whether we like it or not. We all got into the business for different reasons, some of us were environmentalists who wanted to make a difference, some wanted a job that would have them working outside while helping bird and beast, some fell into the profession with a bit of luck and opportunity…but what almost all of us have in common is a focus on the environment. It is this focus that has kept us from seeing how technology has changed our jobs, how it is changing our jobs, and how it will change the industry in the future.
The future is bright….
The real estate industry is using drones to take aerial photographs of houses and land. How long before drones become a necessity for doing Phase I ESAs?
UPS uses scanners and GPS to track every item it delivers. How long before the environmental industry begins tracking its people and equipment the same way?
Google uses advanced software to find and catalog websites across the entire internet. How long until a similar quality search engine can tap into every public record regarding a property, find out if it is contaminated, with what, and recommend the most effective remediation solution based on aquifer and water quality data available for the area?
How long before we stop treating our smartphones like disposable field cameras and start treating them like the mobile computing platforms that they really are?
The EnviroTech Summit will be showcasing technology that exists today that can send data wirelessly to your office from the far off field, smartphone apps that can improve field assessments, eliminate rework and paper waste, and upload data collected to a central hub for project managers to review.
There will be lectures and workshops discussing the why of technology in the environmental business and the how of implementing it to your company’s advantage. There will be elegant solutions to the thorny problems your business faces daily. There will be companies—both new and established—that will show you how their services will improve your services and make your clients happy and they will do that by reducing your costs with time saving software and smart hardware.
Come join us at the EnviroTech Summit.
Get Your Ticket to ETS Now!Atleti showed they dream of winning this league. They played like one of the greats in the Rosaleda, and the game died with defender Godín striking the ball in the Málaga area. The visitors dominated from start to finish, but failed to win and so damaged their ambition of fighting for the Championship, finishing 11 points behind leaders Barcelona. That said, Roura's lot shouldn't relax yet, Atleti have nothing else to keep them occupied until the Cup Final and they are only looking up the way.
But inspiration doesn't always follow attitude, as happened tonight against an impeccable Málaga defence. If their rivals don't open the door Atleti struggle to break in through the window. The home backline only made one mistake, right at the start, when no-one was able to stop Falcao as he charged towards the box. Once there, the Tiger laid the ball off to Diego Costa, who had time, space and the advantage, but the Brazilian shot awkwardly, if not to say ridiculously. Wide.
During the first half Málaga barely knew if the ball was soft or hard. Pellegrini put Portillo on in place of Iturra, leaving Toulalan on his own in the containment role. The French man gave his best but not even an octopus would have had enough arms to smother it all. Atleti, with Diego Costa unchained, pressured and stole at the speed of light. Felipe Luis, magnificent once again, was installed at the baseline and Arda tried to bring some measure of calm to the frenetic proceedings, and the chances came, from sheer insistence. A header from Costa, two long range efforts from Arda, several clear counters wasted with a poor final ball... Even so Courtois had to pull out some Thibauting to stop a top drawer header from Demichelis. The sound and fury screamed for a goal, or at least a glass of water.
Málaga were hoping their rivals would let them have the ball, but instead they hid it from them. Isco was worryingly out of form, while Joaquín and Santa Cruz watched things unfold from a distance. Only Piazón, a minor talent, tried to help Toulalan retake control. It wasn't enough.
The half-time break changed nothing, with Koke flashing a warning to Caballero as soon as they came out. The battle between Diego Costa and Dimichelis was bruising affair and Falcao installed himself permanently in the 'nearly' camp; it was his first league game without a shot at goal. Gil Manzano meanwhile was living the nightmare of the moment of every referee, taking charge of a game involving Diego Costa. Taking into account the fact that the Brazilian chases every ball as if it was the last, and the defenders wait for him prepared, every single bit of action is well-nigh impossible to decipher. And the Atleti player's fame doesn't help him in doubtful situations. He's always the likely suspect. Simeone knows it and treats him like dynamite: as soon as he saw yellow for (supposedly) diving Simeone pulled him off, despite the fact that he was the warrior soul of the team from Madrid. Málaga were thankful for his absence.
If there's a team Adrián doesn't fit into its Atleti, where his apathy shines like a feeble lighthouse in the night. He came on for Diego Costa and Atleti's pressure in the opposing half fell from overwhelming to faint. For the first time Málaga began to appear in Courtois' box, where they discovered that Miranda is inspired. Weligton could have scored with a header that brushed the post, but it would have hardly been fair. Atleti were always better, but their faith was not rewarded. The dream becomes tangled.THE RUMOR: The Astros need to lengthen their rotation and have put Johnny Cueto on their radar.
REPORTED BY: CBS Sports' Jon Heyman
THE DETAILS: Talks between the Astros and Reds could get interesting given the icy relationship Houston general manager Jeff Luhnow and Cincinnati GM Walt Jocketty had when together in St. Louis, but the Astros need to add a pitcher before the trade deadline.
THIS SEASON: Cueto was scratched from his start Sunday in Cleveland with stiffness in the elbow. He was seen by team medical director Dr. Timothy Kremchek, and after Monday's game manager Bryan Price said he was cautiously optimistic that Cueto (3-4, 3.03 ERA) wouldn't be out of the rotation for long. The righty finished second in NL Cy Young voting last season after going 20-9 with a 2.25 ERA. He led the NL in strikeouts, games started and innings pitched.
SN'S TAKE: The Astros are buyers on the trade market? Shocking, but it was only a matter of time. With one of the best farm systems in MLB, the Astros have plenty of talent they could ship to Cincinnati for Cueto, who may not be back next season anyway. Now in his contract year, the 29-year-old Cueto could bring in a big haul for the Reds, who have an aging Marlon Byrd, 37, in left field and own the second-worst ERA from the seventh inning on (4.92).DENVER — An assertive Taylor Swift told a Denver jury on Thursday that there was no question she was intentionally groped in 2013 by a radio host who is suing her because, he says, she falsely accused him and cost him his career.
Ms. Swift said that the former host, David Mueller, was trying to evade responsibility for his actions and that whatever trouble he finds himself in, he had brought on himself.
“I’m not going to allow you or your client to make me feel like this was my fault, because it isn’t,” Ms. Swift told Mr. Mueller’s lawyer, Gabriel McFarland, testifying with confidence, irritation and flashes of humor during an hour on the stand.
She repeated her assertion that Mr. Mueller put his hand up her dress and grabbed her bottom as he posed for a photograph with her before a concert in Denver on June 2, 2013. Mr. Mueller sued in 2015, saying Ms. Swift’s account had led the Denver radio station KYGO to fire him, and has kept him from working in the industry. Ms. Swift then countersued, accusing Mr. Mueller of assault and battery.On the December 23 broadcast of's, the A Pink members talked about their Shinhwa, and Girls' Generation
During the broadcast, DJ Jang Dong Min asked, "Is there a [sunbae] you aspire to be like?"
A Pink answered, "We always say this, but we would like to become singers that stay in people's memories for a long time like our sunbaes g.o.d and Shinhwa. Our sunbaes recently reunited to make a comeback, and we would also like to be active together for a long time."
Jang Dong Min then asked, "How about for female idol sunbaes?" to which A Pink responded, "We've talked a lot about our sunbaes Girls' Generation ever since our debut. They stood on many stages, undertook global activities, and had many experiences that we have yet to have ourselves; we wish to learn from them. We are sincerely their fans. We really mean it."
A Pink's visual Na Eun added, "" She continued, "" revealing the extent of Girls' Generation's influence among the girl groups of the K-Pop world.rexresearch.com
Donald F. WILKES Rolamite
The first (or second, after Bellocq's wave-pump) new mechanical principle discovered in the 20th century.
Contents
Popular Science (March 1966): "Frictionless Machines from Rollers & Bands"
Popular Mechanics (February 1968): "The Amazing Rolamite"
Mechanical Engineering (April 1968): "Rolamite: A New Mechanism"
US Patents for Rolamite Devices
US Patent # 3,452,175 ~ Roller-Band Devices
Popular Science (March 1966)
"Frictionless Machines from Rollers & Bands"
by Harry Walton
As basic as the lever or pulley, the simple concept called "Rolamite" promises a revolution in mechanical design.
What's a Rolamite? It looks like a simple gadget made with two rollers and a steel band, but it's much more. As basic as the wheel, the lever, or the hinge, it is the only elementary machine discovered this century. Its use will be widespread --- in everything from switches, thermostats, and valves to pumps and clutches, and as almost frictionless bearings.
The Rolamite concept is the invention of Donald F. Wilkes, a Sandia Corp. engineer who was studying a suspensions system made with a bent elastic band fastened to opposing surfaces in an S shape. He found that the center of the loop could be moved horizontally with amazingly little resistance (To try it, clamp one end of a steel tape to a table and another section to a ruler held horizontally above it).
But the band can provide no positive mechanical action. In a flash of genius, Wilkes inserted two rollers, large enough to overlap and so key themselves in, and the Rolamite principle was born. The rollers may move in a fixed frame or one of the horizontal frame members may move on the rollers, travel being limited by the length of the band.
As the rollers are pushed to the right, for example, they turn in opposite directions, but are always in rolling contact with the band. Nothing slides, rubs, or slips; it is always the same points that come into contact between roller and band. And a rolamite unit never needs lubrication.
Prepackaged Energy
What about band-flexing? It would seem that takes energy, creating friction. But that energy is prepackaged when the band is installed under tension. Bending of one part of the band is accompanied by straightening of another, which supplies the needed energy.
In tests, Rolamite devices display friction of an amazingly low order --- one to ten percent of that in the best ball and roller bearings of similar capacity.
The Rolamite units closest to production are designed for light loads and such jobs as opening and closing contacts or valves or performing mechanical operations. A rolling frame member might carry control studs, fluidic valves, or printed circuit contacts on its outer surface.
Tricks with Bands & Rollers
Instead of being uniform, bands can introduce more or less resistance at some point of roller travel. Holes of various shapes can be punched in them to make action easier at a predetermined point and to a precise degree. Bimetallic elements and springs, even cloth, plastic, or rubber bands can be used.
Such modification can produce a snap action, sudden braking, latching, and other control functions. A sharply bent band can act as a detent.
Rollers can be fitted with bulges or rubber stops for positive braking. The rollers can be of different sizes. If one is smaller, it turns faster than the other and you have a speed-changing device. Extra rollers may be added, always two at a time. They may be spool-shaped with a moving table between them. Even square and triangular rollers are possible.
Fascinated by the possibilities, Wilkes and other Sandia people have doodles up Rolamite light switches, fishing reels, vibrationless sanders, clutches, a greatly improved toilet valve, an odometer, a reciprocating variable-speed tool drive, and even a pellet-shooting toy gun. There's no end in sight.
Basic rolamite uses a flexible band of steel or other material curled in an S shape and forming a freely moving loop. Two rollers are then inserted and the band is put under tension. Roller cluster moves along band with amazingly little friction. By making cuts in bands, roller action can be that of snap-action switch, a thermostat (when a bimetallic band is used), or any of at least 50 other devices. It can support a traveling table for example. Square and triangular rollers are even possible.
Popular Mechanics (February 1968)
"The Amazing Rolamite --- It Opens the Door for 1000 Inventions" by Norman Carlisle
One night in September 1966, a lean young, sandy-haired engineer named Donald Wilkes went into his garage workshop in Albuquerque NM to try an idea. What came out several hours later has been hailed as the first truly elementary mechanical invention of the 20th century.
Dubbed the Rolamite, it's an almost frictionless bearing with countless applications in modern devices ranging from toasters to space vehicles. Engineers say it will take its place alongside the wheel, lever, and spring as a fundamental discovery of major significance.
Basically, the Rolamite consists of two rollers held in a track on opposite sides of an S-shaped band of springy metal, the rollers glide effortlessly in the track because the band moves with them as they roll along. Since the band and rollers are both moving at the same speed, there is no slip or drag between them and therefore virtually no friction. The device is so versatile it can function as a switch, a valve, a pump, a fuse, a thermostat, a force amplifier, a clutch, a speed changer, a brake, a pressure-sensing control, a solenoid, a fire alarm a --- you name it and it'll do it.
How could such a fundamental principle remain so long undiscovered? That was the first question I tossed at Donald Wilkes as I interviewed him recently in his equipment-crammed laboratory at Sandia Corp., the nuclear weaponry development center that Western Electric runs for the AEC.
"It's hard to believe", answered the 37-year-old inventor, who has been an avid PM reader since he was a boy. "The amazing thing is that a caveman has all the materials for making a Rolamite. Logs could have served for rollers and vines for the bands."
So how had Wilkes come to invent the Rolamite? In the course of his missile work at Sandia, he had tinkered together a suspension system that particularly intrigued him. It consisted of a flexible metal band fastened in an S shape between two parallel surfaces. It was responsive to movements, all right --- too responsive. "Wiggly and wobbly", Wilkes describes it.
On that now-momentous night, Wilkes was relaxing in his living room when it hit him. How about putting rollers in the curves of the S? He jumped up and rushed out to his workshop. From his stock of scrap he fashioned a simple track and inserted a strip of beryllium copper he'd been carrying around in his pocket. From these components, he made the first Rolamite.
Now, Wilkes wondered, what would happen when he tipped the thing so that the rollers moved? Would the rollers slide along the curves of the band, or would the band move right along with the rollers with no slipping? Wilkes knew that if the band slipped he had nothing.
Again and again Wilkes tried it, his excitement growing. The rollers moved smoothly and the band went right with them. There was no detectable slip. The next morning he hurried to his lab to machine a more sophisticated model. Sensitive tests confirmed the observations made with the first crude model. There was no slipping and, therefore, little friction.
As development work went on, Wilkes and fellow researchers discovered that an almost infinite number of variations could be made by changing the shape, size and structure of the bands, rollers and tracks. Take the band, for example. So long as it's under the same tension throughout its length, the rollers are stable at any point in the track. It takes just as much force to push them one way as the other way. But if you cut a slot in the band, you weaken it at that point, creating what is called a force bias --- the rollers are made to "prefer" a particular point in the band.
To understand the effect of a slot in the band, think of the two loops of the S as springs that each exert a force against the other. Like a coiled watch spring, the band wants to lie flat and thus stores energy when it is forced to bend around the rollers.
When one of the loops is weakened by having a slot cut in it, the other loop overpowers it and "unwinds", pulling the rollers with it. By cutting a long, tapered slot in the band, the rollers can be made to move the entire length of the track under their own power since the band becomes progressively weaker toward the widest end of the slot.
In a typical application, Wilkes visualizes a Rolamite with a slotted band to lick one common household annoyance --- the leaky toilet valve. The leakiness usually results from the failure of the ball float and lever mechanism to generate enough pressure to close the water-supply valve. The force generated in a slotted Rolamite lever would close the valve with 30 times the strength of present valves.
Rollers can be Different Sizes
Wilkes' first Rolamite used equal-sized rollers, but he soon found that one roller in a pair could be a giant, 10 or more times bigger than its companion. With rollers of different sizes, you get a remarkably simple speed changer that can be used in any number of mechanisms.
Perhaps the oddest discovery is that the rollers need not be round. Sandia researchers have tried triangular, hexagonal, oval and polygonal rollers. The basic principles of the Rolamite still apply just as with round rollers. The different shapes of rollers give the Rolamite many additional functions. For instance, a rectangular roller can be designed to lodge against a stop in a braking mechanism.
A lot of variations are possible in the track, too. For example, a track wider at one end makes the Rolamite a powerful force amplifier --- energy is released when the rollers slip into the wider portion of the frame. This energy can actuate a variety of mechanisms, such as a firing pin or a switch.
There are other advantages, too. Many Rolamited devices would never need a drop of oil. Then there's smoothness of operation. The steady, uniform operation of a Rolamite can take the jerks out of pop-up toasters, power sanders and a host of other devices.
There's cost. Wilkes estimates that the Rolamite will actually reduce costs in 75% of its applications. The Rolamite does not require close tolerances, so they're cheaper to make. Finally, there's the all-around toughness. Extreme heat, cold or exposure to weather won't affect Rolamite operation.
But, I wondered, doesn't all that flexing of the band cause it to wear out eventually? Doesn't metal fatigue cause it to break? Those were questions that bothered Sandia engineers too, at the beginning. Now they've quit worrying. The beryllium copper bands used in Rolamite have proved to be so sturdy that they show no sign of metal fatigue after 1,000,000 flexures. At that rate, the engineers figure, the band in a Rolamited home light switch operated 10 times a day would last 300 years. A Rolamited bathroom scale used five times a day would not wear out in 600 years.
You'll never see the first applications of Rolamite because they're tucked away in secret weaponry made by Sandia engineers. But hundreds of industries are embarking on crash programs to adapt the Rolamite.
Because Rolamite was developed with the help of tax dollars, it is available to the public. The Atomic Energy Commission will grant a royalty-free license for its manufacture to anyone interested. Wilkes himself now heads a new company set up to speed the Rolamite revolution along.
"We've just begun to scratch the surface", Wilkes says. "Just wait until the independent inventors get going."
How the Rolamite Works
Basic Rolamite consists of two rollers in a track with an S-shaped band of springy metal between them. As the rollers move, the band unwinds off one and winds onto the other simultaneously. Because the rollers and band are always traveling together at the same speed, there is no friction between them and they move with little effort. The two loops of the S are constantly fighting each other to unwind and lie flat. So long as the band is uniformly springy, the loops balance each other and the rollers remain at rest. When you cut a tapered slot in the band, the band gets progressively weaker as the slot gets wider. The portion of band curled around the upper roller is always stronger than the portion around the lower roller. The upper loop thus overpowers the lower one and unwinds, pulling the rollers with it. This is one of a number of ways a Rolamite can be made to provide motion of its own.
Mechanical Engineering (April 1968)
Rolamite: A New Mechanism by Donald W. Wilkes
Part 1: Nature of the Device
The Rolamite geometry, developed over the past year by the author, forms a simple mechanical design element which may, with variations, be used to advantage in a multitude of applications in place of traditional elements such as gears, pistons, pumps, switches, springs, levers, latches, brakes, clutches, and valves.
From Basic Idea
The basic rolamite geometry, Figure 1, also shown diagrammatically on the next page, consists of two rollers mounted inside a parallel-surface channel and held together in a free-rolling cluster by a flexible band under tension. This arrangement constrains the rollers to counter-rotate without slipping as the cluster moves along the channel, thereby providing the close-couples geometry which can be exploited to perform many functions.
The two-roller cluster is free to transverse from left to right, practically without friction. Surface velocities between the rollers and the band are equal; hence there is no sliding friction, at least on a macroscopic scale. Tests on models have shown that coefficients of friction as low as 0.0005 are achievable. This is about an order of magnitude better than the best ball or roller bearings.
Figure 1: The Basic Rolamite Mechanism ~ An S-shaped band of springy metal (represented by the white strip) is constrained by two guides and two rollers. The rollers are free to move, the band winding off one and on onto the other at the same time. The band itself must be under the other one at the same time. The band itself must be under tension, thus the ends usually are permanently fastened in some manner. There is virtually no friction. Since the band and rollers are moving at the same speed, and there is no slippage between them, since the band tension creates a tight wrap-around. Each half of the S tends to unwind, but since they are balanced the cluster remains at rest unless an outside force acts on it. This equilibrium can be disturbed by changing portions of the band (varying width, thickness, performing, etc.) and the cluster will then move by itself.
To Sophisticated Applications
Out of this basic arrangement, an almost unlimited variety of mechanical devices can be developed. Force amplification, detenting mechanisms, braking and clutching, sequencing, pumping fluids, temperature sensing, electrical contacts -- the list could go on and on. There are, however, three distinct areas for its use: (a) those where the geometry not only forms the heart or essence of the device, but also provides most of the necessary additional functions as well; (b) where the geometry forms the backbone but not the whole mechanism; and (c) where the device would be used as a separate subcomponent building block for use in other systems. Table 1 shows applications for these three areas.
Consideration of the following attributes may help the designer to realize the rolamite's possibilities: (a) its low coefficients of friction, which enable most devices to operate sensitively and reliably for long periods of time with a minimum of lubrication; (b) its ability to produce many types of force-deflection characteristics; (c) its capability of providing a great many mechanical and electromechanical functions; (d) its applicability to countless distinct devices ranging from kitchen appliances to outer space instrumentation; (e) its adaptability for use in components of all sizes -- large to microminiature; (f) its simplicity, which allows the design of complete mechanical and electromechanical assemblies with very few piece-parts --- rarely more than 10; (g) its applicability to modern manufacturing techniques such as chemical etching and continuous-strip processing; and (i) its relative freedom from critical manufacturing tolerances.
High-speed set-up or step-down ratios can be obtained from the rolamite geometry. High torques can be transmitted without slippage because the normal forces and tensions can be made relatively large without introducing severe frictional losses, and normal bearing reaction friction losses are not present.
Consider the rolamite inertial odometer (doubly integrating accelerometer) shown as in Figure 2. This type of device is capable of inertially measuring up to several miles of vehicle travel in a single stage and, because of the low coefficients of friction, doing it very accurately. Most other types of inertial odometers (such as the spur gear arrangement shown above as Figure 3) must support the flywheel element or its equivalent in bearings in the acceleration field, making it very difficult to keep frictional influences negligible. However, in the rolamite odometer no friction is added to the cluster by the vehicle acceleration.
In addition, the rolamite can accomplish 220-to-1 or 300-to-1 speed step-ups in a single stage, whereas three stages of spur gearing would be required.
Figure 2: Rolamite Inertial Odometer ~ By attaching a small rolamite roller to a large heavily rim-weighted flywheel, the linear acceleration of the roller centerline can be very small compared to vehicle acceleration. Since this type of device is a doubly integrating accelerometer, vehicle displacement is proportional to cluster displacement. A typical value is 8.5 x 204; thus if the driving roller in the figure move 2 inches, it would represent a vehicle travel of 2.7 miles (2" x 8.5 x 104). Because of low friction, it can be done very accurately.
Figure 3: Conventional Inertial Odometer ~ Here the flywheel is supported in bearings which, when subjected to acceleration forces, become friction bound. In order to scale down motion, many gear stags are needed, further compounding the friction problem. And accuracy suffers.
The Production Factor
The rolamite geometry forms a mechanical suspension system capable of achieving substantial reductions in friction in the realm of extremely low bearing pressures. Devices based on the rolamite concept may be dramatically simple and easily microminiaturized, tolerant of production variations, and inherently capable of a great many of the functions required in electromechanical devices (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Using the Rolamite Principle
Rolamite devices can produce any type of force-deflection characteristic. Without adding more parts to a device, it is possible to obtain constant force levels, positive and negative spring constants, second order and higher force curves, detenting actions, etc., in any desired combination. These forces may be highly localized or distributed. Reasonably, sharp step functions and sinusoids are also obtainable.
The negative spring characteristics obtainable with the rolamite geometry are of particular interest. In the past the designer has been limited to the use of permanent magnets, buckling helical springs, and other rather indirect and imprecise methods, difficult to analyze and not accurately predictable, to achieve sharp breakaway or hair-trigger action. With rolamite, negative spring-constant or other negative force-deflection action can be achieved in exactly the right way with no additional parts. This opens up new fields for mechanical amplifiers, oscillators, and motion detectors, and may permit cheaper mechanical devices to replace magnets in many applications.
With rolamite the designer can incorporate the precise amount of viscoeleastic damping or coulomb friction desired, either continuously or as a function of displacement; he may directly clutch or brake a roller or both rollers, or provide overriding action or a local uncoupling; produce sequencing, extremely high direct speed or torque changes, maximum-minimum limit-stops, squeezing, latching, insertion, pullaway action, and recording.
The Beauty of the Band
It is indeed fortuitous that the key element in the rolamite geometry is the band, because, of all the engineering materials, thin metals are second only to tiny wires ad whiskers in excellence of mechanical properties, while concurrently they are optimal for one of the best manufacturing processes available --- chemical etching. This single element can provide forces, electrical circuitry, electrical contacting, programmed fluid resistance, sliding, latching, releasing, differential detenting, sequencing, maximum-minimum recording, differential action, sealing, metering, insulating, viscoelasticity, bimetallic behavior, etc. Although the band profile can be complex, the chemical-etching process requires only that a few master patterns be generated. Hence many of the aforesaid functions are obtainable at a low cost.
The suspension, bearing, and force features of rolamites are definite advantages. More important, however, is the versatile way the rolamite geometry can produce nearly all known mechanical and electromechanical functions in a wide variety of combinations using very few piece-parts (usually 4 to 10). This design versatility and economy stems from the many types of motion directly obtainable from the cluster, manufacturing tolerance and adjustability, and the simple, adaptable elements used. Although the rolamite geometry looks somewhat less promising for recirculating rotary speed changes and bearings, the lessons learned from the rolamite geometry relative to tip guidance, rolling separators, friction control through the angle of repose, and the value of compliant behavior could well point the way to greatly improved high speed rotary devices, ones which could operate without lubrication for long periods of time and which could be more economically manufactured than existing devices.
Part 2: Engineering
When the roller cluster is locked between the guide surfaces by sufficient band tension, and permitted to roll enough to relive forces induced by the tensioning process, the roller axes are perfectly parallel with each other and with the guide surfaces; therefore, the entire geometry is placed with its preferred minimum energy state (pure rolling state) because the tension in the band is at a minimum.
This rolling state is assured by the laws of flexure so that there need be no slippage between the band and rollers or between the band and guide surfaces as the locked geometry is rolled. Since the band tensions and the elastic strains induced in the band when it is bent around the rollers are equal and opposite, and because the rate at which strain energy is entering and leaving the band area adjacent to each of the rollers is constant, no net axial force is exhibited by the cluster --- that is, the cluster is essentially in neutral equilibrium at any position along the horizontal x-axis within the confines of the band and the guide surfaces. This balance is independent of the roller diameter.
Figure 5: Notation Used With basic Rolamite Geometry ~ The band tensions T acting through distance S set up a force couple which is balanced by the reaction force couple, N x A. the cluster is at equilibrium at any position, but free to move.
The parameters for defining the rolamite geometry are shown in Figure 5, where
T = band tension
N = normal reaction force
S = spacing between guide surfaces
A = axial spacing (spacing between roller centerlines) measured parallel to the guide surfaces
Alpha = repose angle of the cluster
Gamma = contact angle of the cluster
T = band thickness (assumed constant)
The external normal reaction forces N appear on the cluster at points A and B to balance out the force couple introduced by the band tension.
Suspension Analysis
Constraints: Constraints are imposed on the geometry for several reasons: (a) Most commonly, the desire to insure fully elastic behavior in the band without any plastic deformation; (b) some minimum endurance limit on the number of cycles the geometry may undergo; or (c) the limitation of some feature in the locking cluster geometry. For simplicity, the following analysis is limited to cases where the band thickness t is constant throughout the working portion of the band.
In order to insure fully elastic behavior or some minimum endurance level for the band, the maximum strain induced by the combined effects of bending to conform with the roller diameter, and all other axial strains induced by initial tensioning, induced loadings, or through Poison's ratio effects due to normal loadings, must be kept below some maximum level.
(1) E* > E fmax + E T + E L + Y EN
Where
E* (Epsilon*) = design strain limit
Epsilon E Fmax = maximum tensile fiber stress induced by bending around rollers
Epsilon E T = strain induced by tension
Epsilon E L = tensile strain induced by loading
Epsilon E N = normal compressive strain
Y (Gamma) = Poisson's ratio
In most situations, flexural strains are strongly dominant and if E Fmax is set at about 70% of E*, a safe initial design estimate will emerge without a detailed consideration of the other terms until the design is approaching final form, at which time it will be easy to include approximations of these other terms.
To further simplify the following discussion, the assumption will be made that the band is perfectly flexible, that is, it has not flexural stiffness. The constraints imposed by the free-rolling locked cluster are: First, s - 3t (Figure 1) must be greater than the diameter of the largest roller, or interference will occur. Mathematically stated, this constraint is:
(2) (s - 3r) > d 1
where
d 1 > d 2
Additionally, (s - 3t) must be smaller than the sum of the roller diameters, or the cluster will not lock. Thus,
(3) (s - 3t) < (d 1 + d 2 ).
Static Equilibrium: Cluster equilibrium requires that the moment induced by the nonaligned band tensions T must be counteracted by an equal and opposite moment induced by normal forces N, as shown in Figure 5. This requirement is expressed as
(4) TS = NA
and
(5) N/T = S/A
where
S = s - 2 (t / 2) = s - t
Tight Geometry: A real band has flexural stiffness, and a real rolamite arrangement need not be tight in order to present a true rolling geometry. An infinite tension would be required to pull a real band into true parallel tangency with a pulley, which is of course impossible because of the finite ultimate strength. The rolamite geometry is different because the moment introduced by band tension may be countered by the guide surface reactions to give an essentially tight geometry. An essentially tight geometry occurs when the tangent lines between the band and the guide surfaces and the band and rollers fall inside the contact interface area between the rollers, band and guide. This occurs when the |
population. All we can do is provide a glimpse into the brutal history of capitalism and provide enough references for those interested to pursue the issue further. The first starting point should be Part VIII ("So-Called Primitive Accumulation") of volume 1 of Marx's Capital. This classic account of the origins of capitalism should be supplemented by more recent accounts, but its basic analysis is correct. Marxist writers have expanded on Marx's analysis, with Maurice Dobb's Studies in the Development of Capitalism and David McNally's Against the Market are worth consulting, as is Michael Perelman's The Invention of Capitalism. Kropotkin's Mutual Aid has a short summary of state action in destroying communal institutions and common ownership of land, as does his The State: It's Historic Role. Rudolf Rocker's Nationalism and Culture is also essential reading. Individualist Anarchist Kevin Carson's Studies in Mutualist Political Economy provides an excellent summary (see part 2, "Capitalism and the State: Past, Present and Future") as does his essay The Iron Fist behind the Invisible Hand.
F.8.1 What social forces lay behind the rise of capitalism?
Capitalist society is a relatively recent development. For Marx, while markets have existed for millennium "the capitalist era dates from the sixteenth century." [Capital, vol. 1, p. 876] As Murray Bookchin pointed out, for a "long era, perhaps spanning more than five centuries," capitalism "coexisted with feudal and simple commodity relationships" in Europe. He argues that this period "simply cannot be treated as 'transitional' without reading back the present into the past." [From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 179] In other words, capitalism was not a inevitable outcome of "history" or social evolution.
Bookchin went on to note that capitalism existed "with growing significance in the mixed economy of the West from the fourteenth century up to the seventeenth" but that it "literally exploded into being in Europe, particularly England, during the eighteenth and especially nineteenth centuries." [Op. Cit., p. 181] The question arises, what lay behind this "growing significance"? Did capitalism "explode" due to its inherently more efficient nature or where there other, non-economic, forces at work? As we will show, it was most definitely the second -- capitalism was born not from economic forces but from the political actions of the social elites which its usury enriched. Unlike artisan (simple commodity) production, wage labour generates inequalities and wealth for the few and so will be selected, protected and encouraged by those who control the state in their own economic and social interests.
The development of capitalism in Europe was favoured by two social elites, the rising capitalist class within the degenerating medieval cities and the absolutist state. The medieval city was "thoroughly changed by the gradual increase in the power of commercial capital, due primarily to foreign trade... By this the inner unity of the commune was loosened, giving place to a growing caste system and leading necessarily to a progressive inequality of social interests. The privileged minorities pressed ever more definitely towards a centralisation of the political forces of the community... Mercantilism in the perishing city republics led logically to a demand for larger economic units [i.e. to nationalise the market]; and by this the desire for stronger political forms was greatly strengthened... Thus the city gradually became a small state, paving the way for the coming national state." [Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, p. 94] Kropotkin stressed that in this destruction of communal self-organisation the state not only served the interests of the rising capitalist class but also its own. Just as the landlord and capitalist seeks a workforce and labour market made up of atomised and isolated individuals, so does the state seek to eliminate all potential rivals to its power and so opposes "all coalitions and all private societies, whatever their aim." [The State: It's Historic role, p. 53]
The rising economic power of the proto-capitalists conflicted with that of the feudal lords, which meant that the former required help to consolidate their position. That aid came in the form of the monarchical state which, in turn, needed support against the feudal lords. With the force of absolutism behind it, capital could start the process of increasing its power and influence by expanding the "market" through state action. This use of state coercion was required because, as Bookchin noted, "[i]n every pre-capitalist society, countervailing forces... existed to restrict the market economy. No less significantly, many pre-capitalist societies raised what they thought were insuperable obstacles to the penetration of the State into social life." He noted the "power of village communities to resist the invasion of trade and despotic political forms into society's abiding communal substrate." State violence was required to break this resistance and, unsurprisingly the "one class to benefit most from the rising nation-state was the European bourgeoisie... This structure... provided the basis for the next great system of labour mobilisation: the factory." [The Ecology of Freedom, pp. 207-8 and p. 336] The absolutist state, noted Rocker, "was dependent upon the help of these new economic forces, and vice versa and so it "at first furthered the plans of commercial capital" as its coffers were filled by the expansion of commerce. Its armies and fleets "contributed to the expansion of industrial production because they demanded a number of things for whose large-scale production the shops of small tradesmen were no longer adapted. Thus gradually arose the so-called manufactures, the forerunners of the later large industries." [Op. Cit., pp. 117-8] As such, it is impossible to underestimate the role of state power in creating the preconditions for both agricultural and industrial capitalism.
Some of the most important state actions from the standpoint of early industry were the so-called Enclosure Acts, by which the "commons" -- the free farmland shared communally by the peasants in most rural villages -- was "enclosed" or incorporated into the estates of various landlords as private property (see section F.8.3). This ensured a pool of landless workers who had no option but to sell their labour to landlords and capitalists. Indeed, the widespread independence caused by the possession of the majority of households of land caused the rising class of capitalists to complain, as one put it, "that men who should work as wage-labourers cling to the soil, and in the naughtiness of their hearts prefer independence as squatters to employment by a master." [quoted by Allan Engler, The Apostles of Greed, p. 12] Once in service to a master, the state was always on hand to repress any signs of "naughtiness" and "independence" (such as strikes, riots, unions and the like). For example, Seventeenth century France saw a "number of decrees... which forbade workers to change their employment or which prohibited assemblies of workers or strikes on pain of corporal punishment or even death. (Even the Theological Faculty of the University of Paris saw fit to pronounce solemnly against the sin of workers' organisation)." [Maurice Dobb, Studies in Capitalism Development, p. 160]
In addition, other forms of state aid ensured that capitalist firms got a head start, so ensuring their dominance over other forms of work (such as co-operatives). A major way of creating a pool of resources that could be used for investment was the use of mercantilist policies which used protectionist measures to enrich capitalists and landlords at the expense of consumers and their workers. For example, one of most common complaints of early capitalists was that workers could not turn up to work regularly. Once they had worked a few days, they disappeared as they had earned enough money to live on. With higher prices for food, caused by protectionist measures, workers had to work longer and harder and so became accustomed to factory labour. In addition, mercantilism allowed native industry to develop by barring foreign competition and so allowed industrialists to reap excess profits which they could then use to increase their investments. In the words of Marxist economic historian Maurice Dobb:
"In short, the Mercantile System was a system of State-regulated exploitation through trade which played a highly important rule in the adolescence of capitalist industry: it was essentially the economic policy of an age of primitive accumulation." [Op. Cit., p. 209]
As Rocker summarises, "when absolutism had victoriously overcome all opposition to national unification, by its furthering of mercantilism and economic monopoly it gave the whole social evolution a direction which could only lead to capitalism." [Op. Cit., pp. 116-7]
Mercantilist policies took many forms, including the state providing capital to new industries, exempting them from guild rules and taxes, establishing monopolies over local, foreign and colonial markets, and granting titles and pensions to successful capitalists. In terms of foreign trade, the state assisted home-grown capitalists by imposing tariffs, quotas, and prohibitions on imports. They also prohibited the export of tools and technology as well as the emigration of skilled workers to stop competition (this applied to any colonies a specific state may have had). Other policies were applied as required by the needs of specific states. For example, the English state imposed a series of Navigation Acts which forced traders to use English ships to visit its ports and colonies (this destroyed the commerce of Holland, its chief rival). Nor should the impact of war be minimised, with the demand for weapons and transportation (including ships) injecting government spending into the economy. Unsurprisingly, given this favouring of domestic industry at the expense of its rivals and the subject working class population the mercantilist period was one of generally rapid growth, particularly in England.
As we discussed in section C.10, some kind of mercantilism has always been required for a country to industrialise. Over all, as economist Paul Ormerod puts it, the "advice to follow pure free-market polices seems... to be contrary to the lessons of virtually the whole of economic history since the Industrial Revolution... every country which has moved into... strong sustained growth... has done so in outright violation of pure, free-market principles." These interventions include the use of "tariff barriers" to protect infant industries, "government subsidies" and "active state intervention in the economy." He summarises: "The model of entrepreneurial activity in the product market, with judicious state support plus repression in the labour market, seems to be a good model of economic development." [The Death of Economics, p. 63]
Thus the social forces at work creating capitalism was a combination of capitalist activity and state action. But without the support of the state, it is doubtful that capitalist activity would have been enough to generate the initial accumulation required to start the economic ball rolling. Hence the necessity of Mercantilism in Europe and its modified cousin of state aid, tariffs and "homestead acts" in America.
F.8.2 What was the social context of the statement "laissez-faire?"
The honeymoon of interests between the early capitalists and autocratic kings did not last long. "This selfsame monarchy, which for weighty reasons sought to further the aims of commercial capital and was... itself aided in its development by capital, grew at last into a crippling obstacle to any further development of European industry." [Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, p. 117]
This is the social context of the expression "laissez-faire" -- a system which has outgrown the supports that protected it in its early stages. Just as children eventually rebel against the protection and rules of their parents, so the capitalists rebelled against the over-bearing support of the absolutist state. Mercantilist policies favoured some industries and harmed the growth of others. The rules and regulations imposed upon those it did favour reduced the flexibility of capitalists to changing environments. As Rocker argues, "no matter how the absolutist state strove, in its own interest, to meet the demands of commerce, it still put on industry countless fetters which became gradually more and more oppressive... [it] became an unbearable burden... which paralysed all economic and social life." [Op. Cit., p. 119] All in all, mercantilism became more of a hindrance than a help and so had to be replaced. With the growth of economic and social power by the capitalist class, this replacement was made easier. As Errico Malatesta notes:
"The development of production, the vast expansion of commerce, the immeasurable power assumed by money... have guaranteed this supremacy [of economic power over political power] to the capitalist class which, no longer content with enjoying the support of the government, demanded that government arise from its own ranks. A government which owed its origin to the right of conquest... though subject by existing circumstances to the capitalist class, went on maintaining a proud and contemptuous attitude towards its now wealthy former slaves, and had pretensions to independence of domination. That government was indeed the defender, the property owners' gendarme, but the kind of gendarmes who think they are somebody, and behave in an arrogant manner towards the people they have to escort and defend, when they don't rob or kill them at the next street corner; and the capitalist class got rid of it... and replac[ed] it by a government of its own choosing, at all times under its control and specifically organised to defend that class against any possible demands by the disinherited." [Anarchy, pp. 22-3]
Malatesta here indicates the true meaning of "leave us alone," or "laissez-faire." The absolutist state (not "the state" per se) began to interfere with capitalists' profit-making activities and authority, so they determined that it had to go -- which the rising capitalist class did when they utilised such popular movements as the English, French and American revolutions. In such circumstances, when the state is not fully controlled by the capitalist class, then it makes perfect sense to oppose state intervention no matter how useful it may have been in the past -- a state run by aristocratic and feudal landlords does not produce class legislation in quite the right form. That changes when members of the capitalist class hold state power and when the landlords start acting more like rural capitalists and, unsurprisingly, laissez-faire was quickly modified and then abandoned once capitalists could rely on a capitalist state to support and protect its economic power within society.
When capitalism had been rid of unwanted interference by the hostile use of state power by non-capitalist classes then laissez-faire had its utility (just as it has its utility today when attacking social welfare). Once this had been accomplished then state intervention in society was encouraged and applauded by capitalists. "It is ironic that the main protagonists of the State, in its political and administrative authority, were the middle-class Utilitarians, on the other side of whose Statist banner were inscribed the doctrines of economic Laissez Faire." [E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, p. 90] Capitalists simply wanted capitalist states to replace monarchical states, so that heads of government would follow state economic policies regarded by capitalists as beneficial to their class as a whole. And as development economist Lance Taylor argues:
"In the long run, there are no laissez-faire transitions to modern economic growth. The state has always intervened to create a capitalist class, and then it has to regulate the capitalist class, and then the state has to worry about being taken over by the capitalist class, but the state has always been there." [quoted by Noam Chomsky, Year 501, p. 104]
In order to attack mercantilism, the early capitalists had to ignore the successful impact of its policies in developing industry and a "store of wealth" for future economic activity. As William Lazonick points out, "the political purpose of [Adam Smith's] the Wealth of Nations was to attack the mercantilist institutions that the British economy had built up over the previous two hundred years. Yet in proposing institutional change, Smith lacked a dynamic historical analysis. In his attack on these institutions, Smith might have asked why the extent of the world market available to Britain in the late eighteenth century was so uniquely under British control. If Smith had asked this 'big question,' he might have been forced to grant credit for Britain's extent of the world market to the very mercantilist institutions he was attacking." Moreover, he "might have recognised the integral relation between economic and political power in the rise of Britain to international dominance." Overall, "[w]hat the British advocates of laissez-faire neglected to talk about was the role that a system of national power had played in creating conditions for Britain to embark on its dynamic development path... They did not bother to ask how Britain had attained th[e] position [of 'workshop of the world'], while they conveniently ignored the on going system of national power -- the British Empire -- that... continued to support Britain's position." [Business Organisation and the Myth of the Market Economy, p. 2, p. 3 and p.5]
Similar comments are applicable to American supporters of laissez faire who fail to notice that the "traditional" American support for world-wide free trade is quite a recent phenomenon. It started only at the end of the Second World War (although, of course, within America military Keynesian policies were utilised). While American industry was developing, the state and capitalist class had no time for laissez-faire (see section F.8.5 for details). After it had grown strong, the United States began preaching laissez-faire to the rest of the world -- and began to kid itself about its own history, believing its slogans about laissez-faire as the secret of its success. Yet like all other successful industrialisers, the state could aid capitalists directly and indirectly (via tariffs, land policy, repression of the labour movement, infrastructure subsidy and so on) and it would "leave them alone" to oppress and exploit workers, exploit consumers, build their industrial empires and so forth.
Takis Fotopoules indicates that the social forces at work in "freeing" the market did not represent a "natural" evolution towards freedom:
"Contrary to what liberals and Marxists assert, marketisation of the economy was not just an evolutionary process, following the expansion of trade under mercantilism... modern [i.e. capitalist] markets did not evolve out of local markets and/or markets for foreign goods... the nation-state, which was just emerging at the end of the Middle Ages, played a crucial role creating the conditions for the 'nationalisation' of the market... and... by freeing the market from effective social control." ["The Nation-state and the Market", pp. 37-80 Society and Nature, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 44-45]
The "freeing" of the market means freeing those who "own" most of the market (i.e. the wealthy elite) from "effective social control," but the rest of society was not as lucky. Kropotkin makes a similar point: "While giving the capitalist any degree of free scope to amass his wealth at the expense of the helpless labourers, the government has nowhere and never... afforded the labourers the opportunity 'to do as they pleased'." [Anarchism, p. 182]
So, the expression "laissez-faire" dates from the period when capitalists were objecting to the restrictions that helped create them in the first place. It has little to do with freedom as such and far more to do with the needs of capitalist power and profits. It should also be remembered that at this time the state was run by the rich and for the rich. Elections, where they took place, involved the wealthiest of male property owners. This meant there were two aspects in the call for laissez-faire. On the one hand, by the elite to eliminate regulations and interventions they found burdensome and felt unnecessary as their social position was secure by their economic power (mercantilism evolved into capitalism proper when market power was usually sufficient to produce dependency and obedience as the working class had been successfully dispossessed from the land and the means of production). On the other, serious social reformers (like Adam Smith) who recognised that the costs of such elite inspired state regulations generally fell on working class people. The moral authority of the latter was used to bolster the desire of the former to maximise their wealth by imposing costs of others (workers, customers, society and the planet's eco-system) with the state waiting in the wings to support them as and when required.
Unsurprising, working class people recognised the hypocrisy of this arrangement (even if most modern-day right-"libertarians" do not and provide their services justifying the actions and desires of repressive and exploitative oligarchs seeking monopolistic positions). They turned to political and social activism seeking to change a system which saw economic and political power reinforce each other. Some (like the Chartists and Marxists) argued for political reforms to generalise democracy into genuine one person, one vote. In this way, political liberty would be used to end the worse excesses of so-called "economic liberty" (i.e., capitalist privilege and power). Others (like mutualists) aimed at economic reforms which ensure that the capitalist class would be abolished by means of genuine economic freedom. Finally, most other anarchists argued that revolutionary change was required as the state and capitalism were so intertwined that both had to be ended at the same time. However, the struggle against state power always came from the general population. As Murray Bookchin argued, it is an error to depict this "revolutionary era and its democratic aspirations as 'bourgeois,' an imagery that makes capitalism a system more committed to freedom, or even ordinary civil liberties, than it was historically." [From Urbanisation to Cities, p. 180f] While the capitalist class may have benefited from such popular movements as the English, American and French revolutions but these revolutions were not led, never mind started or fought, by the bourgeoisie.
Not much as changed as capitalists are today seeking maximum freedom from the state to ensure maximum authority over their wage slaves and society. The one essential form of support the "Libertarian" right wants the state (or "defence" firms) to provide capitalism is the enforcement of property rights -- the right of property owners to "do as they like" on their own property, which can have obvious and extensive social impacts. What "libertarian" capitalists object to is attempts by others -- workers, society as a whole, the state, etc. -- to interfere with the authority of bosses. That this is just the defence of privilege and power (and not freedom) has been discussed in section B and elsewhere in section F, so we will not repeat ourselves here. Samuel Johnson once observed that "we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes." [quoted by Noam Chomsky, Year 501, p. 141] Our modern "libertarian" capitalist drivers of wage-slaves are yelping for exactly the same kind of "liberty."
F.8.3 What other forms did state intervention in creating capitalism take?
Beyond being a paymaster for new forms of production and social relations as well as defending the owners' power, the state intervened economically in other ways as well. As we noted in section B.2.5, the state played a key role in transforming the law codes of society in a capitalistic fashion, ignoring custom and common law when it was convenient to do so. Similarly, the use of tariffs and the granting of monopolies to companies played an important role in accumulating capital at the expense of working people, as did the breaking of unions and strikes by force.
However, one of the most blatant of these acts was the enclosure of common land. In Britain, by means of the Enclosure Acts, land that had been freely used by poor peasants was claimed by large landlords as private property. As socialist historian E.P. Thompson summarised, "the social violence of enclosure consisted... in the drastic, total imposition upon the village of capitalist property-definitions." [The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 237-8] Property rights, which favoured the rich, replaced the use rights and free agreement that had governed peasants use of the commons. Unlike use rights, which rest in the individual, property rights require state intervention to create and maintain. "Parliament and law imposed capitalist definitions to exclusive property in land," Thompson notes. This process involved ignoring the wishes of those who used the commons and repressing those who objected. Parliament was, of course, run by and for the rich who then simply "observed the rules which they themselves had made." [Customs in Common, p. 163]
Unsurprisingly, many landowners would become rich through the enclosure of the commons, heaths and downland while many ordinary people had a centuries old right taken away. Land enclosure was a gigantic swindle on the part of large landowners. In the words of one English folk poem written in 1764 as a protest against enclosure:
They hang the man, and flog the woman,
That steals the goose from off the common;
But let the greater villain loose,
That steals the common from the goose.
It should be remembered that the process of enclosure was not limited to just the period of the industrial revolution. As Colin Ward notes, "in Tudor times, a wave of enclosures by land-owners who sought to profit from the high price of wool had deprived the commoners of their livelihood and obliged them to seek work elsewhere or become vagrants or squatters on the wastes on the edges of villages." [Cotters and Squatters, p. 30] This first wave increased the size of the rural proletariat who sold their labour to landlords. Nor should we forget that this imposition of capitalist property rights did not imply that it was illegal. As Michael Perelman notes,"[f]ormally, this dispossession was perfectly legal. After all, the peasants did not have property rights in the narrow sense. They only had traditional rights. As markets evolved, first land-hungry gentry and later the bourgeoisie used the state to create a legal structure to abrogate these traditional rights." [The Invention of Capitalism, pp. 13-4]
While technically legal as the landlords made the law, the impact of this stealing of the land should not be under estimated. Without land, you cannot live and have to sell your liberty to others. This places those with capital at an advantage, which will tend to increase, rather than decrease, the inequalities in society (and so place the landless workers at an increasing disadvantage over time). This process can be seen from early stages of capitalism. With the enclosure of the land an agricultural workforce was created which had to travel where the work was. This influx of landless ex-peasants into the towns ensured that the traditional guild system crumbled and was transformed into capitalistic industry with bosses and wage slaves rather than master craftsmen and their journeymen. Hence the enclosure of land played a key role, for "it is clear that economic inequalities are unlikely to create a division of society into an employing master class and a subject wage-earning class, unless access to the means of production, including land, is by some means or another barred to a substantial section of the community." [Maurice Dobb, Studies in Capitalist Development, p. 253]
The importance of access to land is summarised by this limerick by the followers of Henry George (a 19th century writer who argued for a "single tax" and the nationalisation of land). The Georgites got their basic argument on the importance of land down these few, excellent, lines:
A college economist planned
To live without access to land
He would have succeeded
But found that he needed
Food, shelter and somewhere to stand.
Thus anarchists concern over the "land monopoly" of which the Enclosure Acts were but one part. The land monopoly, to use Tucker's words, "consists in the enforcement by government of land titles which do not rest upon personal occupancy and cultivation." [The Anarchist Reader, p. 150] So it should be remembered that common land did not include the large holdings of members of the feudal aristocracy and other landlords. This helped to artificially limit available land and produce a rural proletariat just as much as enclosures.
It is important to remember that wage labour first developed on the land and it was the protection of land titles of landlords and nobility, combined with enclosure, that meant people could not just work their own land. The pressing economic circumstances created by enclosing the land and enforcing property rights to large estates ensured that capitalists did not have to point a gun at people's heads to get them to work long hours in authoritarian, dehumanising conditions. In such circumstances, when the majority are dispossessed and face the threat of starvation, poverty, homelessness and so on, "initiation of force" is not required. But guns were required to enforce the system of private property that created the labour market in the first place, to enclosure common land and protect the estates of the nobility and wealthy.
By decreasing the availability of land for rural people, the enclosures destroyed working-class independence. Through these Acts, innumerable peasants were excluded from access to their former means of livelihood, forcing them to seek work from landlords or to migrate to the cities to seek work in the newly emerging factories of the budding industrial capitalists who were thus provided with a ready source of cheap labour. The capitalists, of course, did not describe the results this way, but attempted to obfuscate the issue with their usual rhetoric about civilisation and progress. Thus John Bellers, a 17th-century supporter of enclosures, claimed that commons were "a hindrance to Industry, and... Nurseries of Idleness and Insolence." The "forests and great Commons make the Poor that are upon them too much like the indians." [quoted by Thompson, Op. Cit., p. 165] Elsewhere Thompson argues that the commons "were now seen as a dangerous centre of indiscipline... Ideology was added to self-interest. It became a matter of public-spirited policy for gentlemen to remove cottagers from the commons, reduce his labourers to dependence." [The Making of the English Working Class, pp. 242-3] David McNally confirms this, arguing "it was precisely these elements of material and spiritual independence that many of the most outspoken advocates of enclosure sought to destroy." Eighteenth-century proponents of enclosure "were remarkably forthright in this respect. Common rights and access to common lands, they argued, allowed a degree of social and economic independence, and thereby produced a lazy, dissolute mass of rural poor who eschewed honest labour and church attendance... Denying such people common lands and common rights would force them to conform to the harsh discipline imposed by the market in labour." [Against the Market, p. 19]
The commons gave working-class people a degree of independence which allowed them to be "insolent" to their betters. This had to be stopped, as it undermined to the very roots of authority relationships within society. The commons increased freedom for ordinary people and made them less willing to follow orders and accept wage labour. The reference to "Indians" is important, as the independence and freedom of Native Americans is well documented. The common feature of both cultures was communal ownership of the means of production and free access to it (usufruct). This is discussed further in section I.7 (Won't Libertarian Socialism destroy individuality?). As Bookchin stressed, the factory "was not born from a need to integrate labour with modern machinery," rather it was to regulate labour and make it regular. For the "irregularity, or 'naturalness,' in the rhythm and intensity of traditional systems of work contributed more towards the bourgeoisie's craze for social control and its savagely anti-naturalistic outlook than did the prices or earnings demanded by its employees. More than any single technical factor, this irregularity led to the rationalisation of labour under a single ensemble of rule, to a discipline of work and regulation of time that yielded the modern factory... the initial goal of the factory was to dominate labour and destroy the worker's independence from capital." [The Ecology of Freedom p. 406]
Hence the pressing need to break the workers' ties with the land and so the "loss of this independence included the loss of the worker's contact with food cultivation... To live in a cottage... often meant to cultivate a family garden, possibly to pasture a cow, to prepare one's own bread, and to have the skills for keeping a home in good repair. To utterly erase these skills and means of a livelihood from the worker's life became an industrial imperative." Thus the worker's "complete dependence on the factory and on an industrial labour market was a compelling precondition for the triumph of industrial society... The need to destroy whatever independent means of life the worker could garner... all involved the issue of reducing the proletariat to a condition of total powerlessness in the face of capital. And with that powerlessness came a supineness, a loss of character and community, and a decline in moral fibre." [Bookchin, Op. Cit.,, pp. 406-7] Unsurprisingly, there was a positive association between enclosure and migration out of villages and a "definite correlation... between the extent of enclosure and reliance on poor rates... parliamentary enclosure resulted in out-migration and a higher level of pauperisation." Moreover, "the standard of living was generally much higher in those areas where labourer managed to combine industrial work with farming... Access to commons meant that labourers could graze animals, gather wood, stones and gravel, dig coal, hunt and fish. These rights often made the difference between subsistence and abject poverty." [David McNally, Op. Cit., p. 14 and p. 18] Game laws also ensured that the peasantry and servants could not legally hunt for food as from the time of Richard II (1389) to 1831, no person could kill game unless qualified by estate or social standing.
The enclosure of the commons (in whatever form it took -- see section F.8.5 for the US equivalent) solved both problems -- the high cost of labour, and the freedom and dignity of the worker. The enclosures perfectly illustrate the principle that capitalism requires a state to ensure that the majority of people do not have free access to any means of livelihood and so must sell themselves to capitalists in order to survive. There is no doubt that if the state had "left alone" the European peasantry, allowing them to continue their collective farming practices ("collective farming" because, as Kropotkin shows, the peasants not only shared the land but much of the farm labour as well), capitalism could not have taken hold (see Mutual Aid for more on the European enclosures [pp. 184-189]). As Kropotkin notes, "[i]nstances of commoners themselves dividing their lands were rare, everywhere the State coerced them to enforce the division, or simply favoured the private appropriation of their lands" by the nobles and wealthy. Thus "to speak of the natural death of the village community [or the commons] in virtue of economical law is as grim a joke as to speak of the natural death of soldiers slaughtered on a battlefield." [Mutual Aid, p. 188 and p. 189]
Once a labour market was created by means of enclosure and the land monopoly, the state did not passively let it work. When market conditions favoured the working class, the state took heed of the calls of landlords and capitalists and intervened to restore the "natural" order. The state actively used the law to lower wages and ban unions of workers for centuries. In Britain, for example, after the Black Death there was a "servant" shortage. Rather than allow the market to work its magic, the landlords turned to the state and the result was "the Statute of Labourers" of 1351:
"Whereas late against the malice of servants, which were idle, and not willing to serve after the pestilence, without taking excessive wages, it was ordained by our lord the king... that such manner of servants... should be bound to serve, receiving salary and wages, accustomed in places where they ought to serve in the twentieth year of the reign of the king that now is, or five or six years before; and that the same servants refusing to serve in such manner should be punished by imprisonment of their bodies... now forasmuch as it is given the king to understand in this present parliament, by the petition of the commonalty, that the said servants having no regard to the said ordinance,.. to the great damage of the great men, and impoverishing of all the said commonalty, whereof the said commonalty prayeth remedy: wherefore in the said parliament, by the assent of the said prelates, earls, barons, and other great men, and of the same commonalty there assembled, to refrain the malice of the said servants, be ordained and established the things underwritten."
Thus state action was required because labourers had increased bargaining power and commanded higher wages which, in turn, led to inflation throughout the economy. In other words, an early version of the NAIRU (see section C.9). In one form or another this statute remained in force right through to the 19th century (later versions made it illegal for employees to "conspire" to fix wages, i.e., to organise to demand wage increases). Such measures were particularly sought when the labour market occasionally favoured the working class. For example, "[a]fter the Restoration [of the English Monarchy]," noted Dobb, "when labour-scarcity had again become a serious complaint and the propertied class had been soundly frightened by the insubordination of the Commonwealth years, the clamour for legislative interference to keep wages low, to drive the poor into employment and to extend the system of workhouses and 'houses of correction' and the farming out of paupers once more reached a crescendo." The same occurred on Continental Europe. [Op. Cit., p. 234]
So, time and again employers called on the state to provide force to suppress the working class, artificially lower wages and bolster their economic power and authority. While such legislation was often difficult to enforce and often ineffectual in that real wages did, over time, increase, the threat and use of state coercion would ensure that they did not increase as fast as they may otherwise have done. Similarly, the use of courts and troops to break unions and strikes helped the process of capital accumulation immensely. Then there were the various laws used to control the free movement of workers. "For centuries," notes Colin Ward, "the lives of the poor majority in rural England were dominated by the Poor law and its ramifications, like the Settlement Act of 1697 which debarred strangers from entering a parish unless they had a Settlement Certificate |
plan is to create sort of apocalyptic scenario, to create as much chaos as possible again, in which they can take root and offer a their own alternative.
SS: Aren't they afraid that they will be defeated? You know, if all those countries pulled together, eventually?
DR.SA: No. No, I mean, in any kind of truly revolutionary movement there's a feeling of invincibility once you've fused with your comrades in your cause. The idea is their history is on their side. So, even if they take battlefield losses, they're not going to consider that a loss at all.
SS: Dr. Artan, I know that you've mentioned that even if ISIS is destroyed in Iraq and Syria, it will spring up elsewhere and you've said, Africa, for instance, and Asia. Is the potential of this movement limitless? How many people can there be who want to live in a blood-thirsty, genocidal state run by psychopaths? I mean, I know, you're saying it's a repetition of history...
DR.SA: Well, first, I don't think they're psychopaths...
SS:...and you know, it's like French Revolution or Bolshevik revolution - but you'd think that we've learned something from history, no? I mean, I don't want to be back in Bolshevik revolution times...
DR.SA: No, I don't think so. Look, George Orwell in his review of Adolf Hitler's “Mein Kampf” back in 1939 have described the essence of the problem. He said: "Mr. Hitler has discovered that human beings don't only want peace and security and comfort and free from want. They want adventure, glory and self-sacrifice, and Mr. Hitler's appealed to that - and while the Oxford student union at that time vowed to never fight again, Mr. Hitler has 80 million people fall down to his feet, in one of the most advanced countries in the world." How did that happen? Again, ISIS is appealing to the same sort of sentiments, that have been appealed to throughout human history... and no, I don't think we've learned much from history about that.
SS: You know, ISIS has a message that "everything is bad and corrupt, and we will change the world for the better", a message of revolution, a message of cause, like you've said; and, in response, all we can muster is basically: "oh, ISIS is baad" - you know, only negating what they say, not offering any counter-cause. What kind of a positive idea can stand up to ISIS' slogans?
DR.SA: I think you've hit the nail on the head. I mean, the counter-narratives I hear, at least in the Western Europe and in the U.S. are pathetic. They basically say: "look, ISIS beheads people, they're bad people" - God, didn't we know about that before already? The way ISIS attracts people is that they actually are both very intimate and very expansive. So, they've brought in people from nearly 90 countries in the world, and they spend hundreds, sometimes even thousands of hours on a single person, talking about their family, saying to young women, for example, in the U.S.:"Look, we know you love your parents and your brothers and your sisters, and we know how hard it's going to be to leave them, but there are more things to do in life. Grander things. More important things. Let us try to help you explain it to yourselves when you get here, and explain it to them." And they go through the personal history and grievances and frustrated aspirations of each of these individuals, and they wed it to a global cause, so that personal frustration becomes universalized into moral outrage, and this is especially appealing to young people in transitional stages in their lives: immigrants, students, between jobs, between mates, having just left their genetic family, their natural family and looking for a new family of friends and fellow travellers. This is the age that ISIS concentrates on, and in response, most of the countries of the world, and the Muslim establishments, who call for “wasatiyyah”, moderation. Well, everybody who has ever had teenage children, they know how worthless that is. So, the counter-narratives we're proposing are pretty pathetic.
SS: So, you're saying, you know, the Western volunteers for ISIS are mostly youth in transition and parents usually have no idea what their kids are up to - so, is it sort of teen rebellion, is it a form of a teen rebellion?
DR.SA: Right, it's driven by young people, well actually most revolutionary movements are driven by people who are fairly well off and well educated, especially doctors and engineers, for some reason, ever since the XIX century, because they can show commitment and hands on operation knowledge of things... But yes, it appeals to young people and their rebelliousness, and again, that's the specific target population of the Islamic State - and they provide a very positive message. I mean, what's reported in our press and in our media, are of course the bad things, the horrific things, but if you pay much closer attention to what ISIS is actually producing in its narratives - it is offering a utopian society. I mean, they show warriors playing with children in fountains, and at the same time they’re training them to kill. I mean, it's not all one-sided and they're perfectly aware of trying to balance the two. That is, showing the future of peace and harmony, at least, under their interpretation, with the brutality that is needed to get there.
SS: But, you know, we're used to think that young people, teen in transition, like you say, they want freedom. They want to have fun, they want to have sex and drugs and drink. What we see with ISIS is forbidding this, for young people and for everyone - yet, there is this flock towards ISIS. I still don't understand why, because whatever they're trying to convince young people of, it's pretty obvious there is no freedom where they are going. And young people usually strive for freedom...
DR.SA: Yeah, but I believe they do think they're getting freedom. Instead of freedom-to-do-things, it's freedom-from-having-to-do-things, where a life well-ordered and promising. I mean, again, they appeal to people from all over the world. I got a call from head of Medical School telling me that her best students have just left to set up field hospital for ISIS in Syria, and she was asking me why would they do this; and I said, "because it's a glorious and adventurous mission, where they are creating a Brand New World, and they do it under constraints." I mean, people want to be creative under constraints. A lot of young people just don't want the kind of absolute freedom you're talking about. The choices are too great, there's too much ambiguity and ambivalence. There are too many degrees of freedom and so one can't chart a life path that's at all meaningful, and so these young people are in search of significance, and ISIS is trying to show them a way towards significance. Again, we have to take it very seriously, that's why I think it's the most dynamic counter-cultural movement since WWII, and it's something I don't think people are taking seriously, just dismissing them as psychopaths and criminals and... this, of course, is something that we have to destroy. I think, we're on the wrong path in terms of the way we're going to destroy it.
SS: So, ISIS works through the Internet, on social media. We have a correspondent here who has received death threats from terrorists. They're leaving messages on Facebook and asking people to send them emails through their Gmail addresses. How is it possible that a terrorist group has social media accounts out in the open like that? I mean, how come all these Twitter accounts that spread their message aren't banned by the company?
DR.SA: Because it's very hard to control the social media. They've tried - they have about 50,000 Twitter accounts out there with about 1000 adherents for each one. Look, you know, people talk about the clash of civilizations - well, that's, woefully, inadequate. I mean, that is not the clash of civilizations, that is the collapse of civilizations, as...this is the Dark Side of globalisation, as territorial cultures are imploding in the face of globalization and young people, who used to get their learning and their guidance from their elders are now completely divorced from their elders and they're hooking up peer-to-peer, across the world, across the territories, over the internet, and they've developed a facility in moving across the Internet that's quite phenomenal. They're hooking up and making alliances with one another that actually can bring people to kill for one another even if they've never met up before - and this is new.
SS: So, there's no way to win this social media war against the Islamic State?
DR.SA: Yes, there is; and that is coming up with some kind of equally adventurous and glorious message that can give significance to these young people, and this - I'm not hearing. At least in the Western democracies, things have become sort of "tired" as young people become alienated from their leaders and no longer believe in them very much. It may be the same in Russia, I'm not terribly familiar with what's going on in Russia, but young people are finding this call to glory and adventure quite enticing. Again, it's understandable. Now, how to get them away from that? How to bring them into some kind of prod...You know, people talk about "the youth problem" in the Middle East and in the world - well, it's not really a problem if you have the right motivation. It could be a "youth boom", because young people are the source of creativity in the world. But there's no channels now that I've seen existing, whether it is in UN or on the level of governments, where youth can have a voice. Not that youth's voices always going to be on the right track...I mean, it's a little like Alan Brooke, Churchill’s Chief of Staff said about his boss: "He has 10 ideas a day, one of which may be good". We don't know which one, but our job is to help guide it. Well, we have no one to even to listen to these young people and help guide it. Instead, decisions are made at the levels of governments and bureaucrats, which are about as appealing to youth as, you know, those cigarette commercials showing diseased mouths and lungs, which have really no effect. It's young people who get other young people away from cigarettes - that works.
SS: While you're talking about Greater Cause and appealing ideas, ISIS is not the only group attracting volunteers in the region. I mean, many Westerners go to Syria and Iraq to join Kurds in their fight against terrorism, and they're also adjourned by heroics, by helping the oppressed, by protecting the faith. Is that the kind of a counter-narrative that could work against ISIS?
DR.SA: Well, you know, I’ve actually been on the ground in Syria with the Kurds, the Peshmerga, the PKK, the YPG, and with Al-Nusra fighters - and this is what I find as very interesting: the only ones who can compete in terms of devotion, and we had all sort of psychological tests, we actually formed with combatants just 800 meters from the ISIS frontlines... The only ones who can compete now are the Kurds, in terms of their devotion, their notion of “Kurdaity” their own term, the idea of being a Kurd, and to their fusion to their comrades. The problem is, no one's really helping the Kurds. I mean, we were trying to get them just night goggles so that they can see the attacks that were coming in every nights...
SS: Why do you think no one is helping the Kurds? Why wouldn’t you spend the money helping a group that's actually effective in fighting ISIS?
DR.SA: Well, tell me about it. I think that's sort of the definition of insanity, investing again into the Iraqi army. Doug Stone, Deputy Commander of the multinational forces in Iraq, went with me to Iraq, and we wrote an article in the New York Times, back in April, on our return, saying precisely that! It's a waste of... When we do this research with Iraqi army, I mean they have devotion to absolutely nothing, to tell you the truth, and they're being, again, billions of dollars in training that is practically worthless, because they can't take a punch in the nose. There are many reasons, geopolitical reasons, why, especially the U.S. is not really trying to help the Kurds, especially in Iraq. First, they want to keep the nation state of Iraq together, when, in fact, it's been split apart and it's never going to get together again just like Humpty-Dumpty. And, so they want all permissions to go through Baghdad, and so the Kurds have to ask even for anti-tank weapons, basic weapons, they have to ask the Baghdadi government, and of course, the Baghdadi government, being run by Shia forces very close to Iran are not about to give heavy armaments to the Kurds... And then, of course, there are the Turks, and the Turks have been fighting the Kurds much more than they've been fighting ISIS, and they don't want to see anything happening on the Kurdish front. They consider the Kurds a greater threat to them than ISIS itself, and so they've done everything either to block supplies to the Kurds, or to actually help in the fighting against the Kurds; at least, that's the perception we have on the ground.
SS: Like you've pointed out before, ISIS spends countless hours, luring people in, pays top dollars to recruiters - yet, at the same time, the FBI doesn't want to invest the same effort in prevention. Why is that? Is it just too hard, or, maybe, that's not the job of the FBI? And if it's not, then whos job is it?
DR.SA: That's right. It's just too hard. I mean, once I was in the National Center of Counter-Terrorism, and I asked them: "Look, how many people are actually in the field, in the U.S., trying to talk to these young people the way ISIS is trying to talk to them" - and they said: "Well, we've got one person in LA, a field operative". I said - "That's it for the United States of America, while we're spending, like, hundreds of billions of dollars over the course of... well, even the trillions of dollars over the course of decade and half in order to stop this sort of movement?" And the FBI, they just wanted to get out of it altogether. I mean, the FBI is into criminal activity, they want to stop criminals and they want to be able to bring prosecutable evidence; and prevention is a very gray and fuzzy area, where criminal investigators don't know really where they want to go, so the FBI is trying to get the Administration to let them off the hook completely, and as the result, there's no one interested in prevention really... Except, of course, you have the public diplomacy of the State Department, but again, these counter-narratives are sort of...weak, to say the least.
SS: I spoke to MidEast scholar Ed Husain, and he says former jihadists can help educate young people, stop them from going to ISIS. Is that an effort you'd be supportive of?
DR.SA: Yeah, let's say… Ed is my good friend, and Ed is right on this matter. I was talking to an Imam of the IS, who left the Islamic State, because he was angered at the fact that they were just killing indiscriminately foreigners, who should be respected as guests. And he was telling us: "Look, you treat our young people, the people who come to us as witless kids, or as criminals, or as psychopaths. They are earnest, they are passionate, and they are seeking." We've got to speak to that, and we've got to speak with the positive message, and, perhaps, we can work together. And, to tell you the truth, I will be perfectly willing to work with these kinds of people, and even the Al-Nusra, the Al-Qaeda people, who are much more willing now than they ever were to, at least, have some kind of accommodation with powers outside the Muslim world. Again, like Churchill said: "To defeat mr. Hitler I'd make a pact with the devil". Well, to defeat ISIS I would do the same thing.
SS: So, history shows that when a violent group like ISIS arises, it could be consumed by infighting, if it begins to stagnate. Won't ISIS just eventually break up into warring factions, or you think it's built to last?
DR.SA: It's a possibility. I mean, they do have apocalyptic vision of the world - "we have to destroy the world to save the world”, perhaps, they will destroy themselves. I hear that a lot, but I wouldn't bet on it. I think, they have to be "helped" in the effort.
SS: What I am saying is that radical revolutionaries, the extreme, always end up defeated in a battle, like the Nazis that you keep bringing up, rather than by persuasion. So, won't it be all over once ISIS is destroyed by a force? Or, what makes you think ISIS is different?
DR.SA: If ISIS is destroyed by force, then we have a chance to try and to move people in the Muslim world to convince their fellow co-religionists that there's a better way in life. But right now, I don't see it. You know, I was just in Singapore, and when I was in Singapore, I was with the Muslim Council trying to do rehabilitation and reintegration, and they came back to me with ideas that were completely concocted by Western sort of "terrorism experts" - I don't like that term myself, I'm an anthropologist, I deal mostly with Maya Indians, but...And I asked them, I said: "These ideas, the ideas must come from you, from your own people". And they said: "Yes, we know that, but we're too fragmented right now". So, I think, the big problem is, that ISIS has unitary message, and the unitary and universal appeal, and the forces opposing them do not. Let me just give you one anecdote: I was with the Imam in Barcelona, a very moderate man who is part of the interfaith dialogue session, works with Christians and Jews. And he said to me: "Look, before Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, we were forgotten people in Europe. They put us on the map. And, as for the Caliphate, the Caliphate has always been in our hearts... and now it's here. Now, we don't want the violence, killings, and we don't want strict versions that the Islamic State has. But what we do want, is something like the Caliphate, something of our own. Maybe it can be a European Union, or a Federation of Muslim people's - I don't know. But we've got to come up with something”. The one more point that I want to make is, we live in a world of Great Powers, and Great Power rivalries, of nation states and... we can understand movement like the Iranian Revolution, or the Bolshevik Revolution, because they basically state-centered - or the National Socialist revolution, or the French Revolution. But the ISIS revolution is not. It is a trans-national movement, it is sub-state. Volcanos of Jihad are spreading and popping up all over the place, and we don't know really how to handle such a movement that isn't based in a state, isn't controlled by states, and doesn't depend on the infrastructure of the state system. And, I think that's one of the reasons that we're having so much difficulty as well.
SS: Thank you very much for this wonderful interview, for your insight. We were talking to Dr. Scott Atran, anthropologist, author, researcher of terrorism, who worked with would-be and convicted terrorists, dwelling on the battle for hearts and minds that ISIS is fighting. That's it for this edition of Sophie&Co, I will see you next time.
DR.SA: Thank you, Sophie. It's been a pleasure.Ohio Workers Compensation Settlements
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The decision was reportedly taken during an executive board meeting on July 31, in the same meeting where it was decided to file four references against Sharif family and others, in line with the Supreme Court's judgement in Panama Papers case, DawnNews reported.
It is pertinent to mention that 14 inquiries against Nawaz and two against Shahbaz were initiated in 2000 and 2001 after Musharraf took power. However, following the deal which resulted in the Sharifs being exiled to Jeddah, the cases were put on the back-burner. The cases were reopened on April 12, 2006, and have been pending since.
The inquiries against the ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif relate to alleged illegal appointments in Federal Investigation Agency, alleged irregularities in allotment of Lahore Development Authority plots and construction of Raiwind road. Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif faces inquiries regarding alleged illegal allotment of plots in Nawan Kot and on Raiwind Road.
According to NAB record, in at least three of these cases, the beneficiaries have either voluntarily returned some money or paid the difference to compensate for losses to the state exchequer.
Earlier on Monday, NAB decided to file references against Nawaz Sharif, his children and son-in-law, as well as the former finance minister Ishaq Dar.
“The meeting was held in compliance of honourable Supreme Court’s judgement dated July 28, 2017, regarding the Panama [Papers] case. It was decided to file four references in the accountability courts of Islamabad/Rawalpindi in the stipulated time period of six weeks from the date of judgement,” said an official press release issued from the NAB headquarters.
Disqualifying Nawaz as a member of parliament, the SC had ordered NAB to file six references against Sharif family and others in the Panama Papers case judgement last Friday. Earlier, the SC had formed a joint investigation team to probe Sharif family's business dealings because it had felt that the NAB chairman was "indifferent and even unwilling to perform his part".Java 9 comes with 2 major changes on how String behaves to lower memory usage and improve performance.
In the following we will put those changes into context and explore what they are and what their impact is.
Compact Strings
History
Java was originally developed to support UCS-2, also referred to as Unicode at the time, using 16 bits per character allowing for 65,536 characters. It’s only in 2004 with Java 5 that UTF-16 support was introduced by adding a method to extract 32 bits code point from chars.
UseCompressedStrings
In Java 6 Update 21 the UseCompressedStrings option was added to encode US-ASCII String on a byte per character. It was introduced to improve SPECjBB performance trading off memory bandwidth for CPU time, See.
The feature was experimental, not open-source, and only led to gains in a small number of cases as it needed to transform the US-ASCII byte[] array to a UTF-16 char[] to do most of its operations, See Q&A with Aleksey Shipilev. Due to the absence of real gain in production like environments, and the high maintenance cost, it was dropped from Java 7.
Java 9 Compact Strings
The JEP 254 goal was to build a more memory efficient String when possible that would have at least the same performance as the current implementation. Instead of switching between char[] and byte[], it is always backed by a byte[]. If it only contains LATIN-1 characters, each one is stored in one byte, otherwise, the characters are stored as UTF-16 on 2 bytes - a code point can expand over more than 2 bytes. A marker has also been added to store the coder used.
The String methods have a specialised implementation for LATIN-1 and UTF-16. Most of these methods will be replaced by an optimised intrinsic at runtime.
This feature is enabled by default and can be switch off using the -XX:-CompactStrings. Note that switching it off does not revert to a char[] backed implementation, it will just store all the String s as UTF-16.
StringBuilder and StringBuffer are now also backed by a byte[] to match the String implementation.
Java 9 String implementation
In Java 8 and previous - except for UseCompressedStrings - a String is basically
private final char value [];
each method will access that char array. In Java 9 we now have
private final byte [] value ; private final byte coder ;
where coder can be
static final byte LATIN1 = 0 ; static final byte UTF16 = 1 ;
most of the methods then will check the coder and dispatch to the specific implementation.
public int indexOf ( int ch, int fromIndex ) { return isLatin1 ()? StringLatin1. indexOf ( value, ch, fromIndex ) : StringUTF16. indexOf ( value, ch, fromIndex ); } private boolean isLatin1 () { return COMPACT_STRINGS && coder == LATIN1 ; }
To mitigate the cost of the coder check and for some cases the unpacking of bytes to chars, some methods have been intrinsified, and the asm generated by the JIT has been improved.
This came with some counter intuitive results where indexOf(char) in LATIN-1 is more expensive than indexOf(String). This is due to the fact that in LATIN-1 indexOf(String) calls an intrinsic method and indexOf(char) does not. In UTF-16 they are both intrinsic.
Because it only affects LATIN-1 String, it is probably not wise to optimise for that. It is also a known issue that is targeted to be fixed in Java 10.
There is a lot more detailed discussion about the performance impact of this change here. The overall real life application impact is hard to guess as it depends on the kind of work being done and the kind of data being processed. It will also hard to directly compare with a Java 8 run as other Java 9 changes might impact the results.
String Concatenation
OptimizeStringConcat
In 2010 an Optimisation was introduced with Java 6 Update 18. The OptimizeStringConcat flag was officially documented from Update 20 and enabled by default in Java 7 Update 4 Bug 7103784.
The hotspot compiler tries to recognise String concatenation byte-code and replace it with an optimised version that removes the StringBuilder instantiation and create the String directly.
OptimizeStringConcat implementation is quite fragile and it’s easy to have the code fall outside the Abstract Syntax Tree pattern recognition - see for example Bug 8043677 -.
The Compact Strings changes cause a few issues highlighting the problem.
Indify String Concatenation addresses this problem by replacing the concatenation byte-code by an InvokeDynamic call, and a bootstrap method that will generate the concat call. Now the optimisation won’t depend on the AST analyses, and the code is generated from java making it easier to maintain.
The following
String str = foo + bar ;
was generating the following byte-code
NEW java / lang / StringBuilder DUP INVOKESPECIAL java / lang / StringBuilder.< init > () V ALOAD 1 INVOKEVIRTUAL java / lang / StringBuilder. append ( Ljava / lang / String ;) Ljava / lang / StringBuilder ; ALOAD 2 INVOKEVIRTUAL java / lang / StringBuilder. append ( Ljava / lang / String ;) Ljava / lang / StringBuilder ; INVOKEVIRTUAL java / lang / StringBuilder. toString () Ljava / lang / String ; ASTORE 3
it now generates
ALOAD 1 ALOAD 2 InvokeDynamic # 0 : makeConcatWithConstants: ( Ljava / lang / String ; Ljava / lang / String ;) Ljava / lang / String ; ASTORE 3
the first time the InvokeDynamic is called the VM will replace it by the CallSite generated by the following bootstrap methods
BootstrapMethods: 0 : # 28 REF_invokeStatic java / lang / invoke / StringConcatFactory. makeConcatWithConstants :( Ljava / lang / invoke / MethodHandles$Lookup ; Ljava / lang / String ; Ljava / lang / invoke / MethodType ; Ljava / lang / String ;[ Ljava / lang / Object ;) Ljava / lang / invoke / CallSite ; Method arguments: # 29 \ u0001 \ u0001
The only caveat here is that you need to compile your code with JDK 9 to benefit from the change. A JDK 8 String concat will still be eligible for OptimizeStringConcat optimisation.
Strategies
StringConcatFactory offers different strategies to generate the CallSite divided in byte-code generator using ASM and MethodHandle-based one.
The default and most performant one is MH_INLINE_SIZED_EXACT that can lead to 3 to 4 times performance improvement. You can override the Strategy on the command line by defining the property java.lang.invoke.stringConcat.
It’s worth just having a look at the MH_INLINE_SIZED_EXACT : combines MethodHandles to see how we can now use MethodHandle to efficiently replace code generation.
Summary
The String related change comes from a long history of trying to optimize operation of String in the jvm. The last changes are more performance conscious and leverage the intrinsic, better jit. String concatenation also illustrate a new way of solving problems without being stuck in the intrinsic world, invoke dynamic allows to deliver performance improvement transparently without messing about with C2 code.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption US President Obama spent 20 minutes inside the monoliths at Stonehenge
US President Barack Obama paid a visit to Stonehenge on his return home from the Nato summit in Newport.
The White House said the presidential helicopter Marine One stopped at Boscombe Down Airbase, Wiltshire, before his motorcade drove to the ancient monument.
The president was then given a guided tour by curator Heather Sebire.
English Heritage, which manages the site, said it was "an honour" to host the president.
General manager of Stonehenge, Kate Davies, said: "His office told us the president was very interested to see the iconic monument for himself.
"Every day people from all over the world make the trip to the ancient stones but this visit was a particularly special one."
Ms Sebire said Mr Obama "was fascinated by the story of the stones, what we know about them and the mysteries that have yet to be solved".
Image copyright Charles Dharapak Image caption The president reportedly commented that he had "knocked this off my bucket list"
Image copyright Reuters Image caption He was given a personal tour of the site by Heather Sebire from English Heritage
Image caption Mr Obama stopped to chat with a local family during his visit
She went on: "He described the atmosphere around the stones as'really special' and his visit to Stonehenge as 'a highlight of my tour'.
"It was a beautiful still evening and it was a privilege to show the US president around this unique monument which continues to inspire and intrigue people."
Mr Obama described seeing the monument as "cool" and said it was something he could tick off his "bucket list".
He also chatted briefly to a local family and posed for photos.
Janice Raffle, who lives near Stonehenge, had come down to the monument with her husband and three sons after hearing Mr Obama was there.
She said: "We had a brief tete a tete across the barbed wire.
"He was really a sweetie. He asked all our names and he was commenting on the fresh air and the beautiful countryside.
"He also said that I was quite outnumbered because I have three little boys as well as my husband and there was a bit of banter between the boys saying boys are best and he said well I don't know if I agree with that."Transcript for Viral Wonder Woman Video Shows She Has an Audience
The video, a new "wonder woman" taking off online. Giving the beloved character viral superpowers. "Wonder woman" has never been brought to the big screen. Could a movie by superfans change that? Chris connelly has the story. Reporter: For more than 34 years. Ever since the end of charismatic lynda carter's tv series. May I have a glass of champagne, please? Reporter: It's as if "wonder woman" has been in the witness protection program. Now, suddenly, that amazonian icon known for her bullestproof gold cuffs, her invisible plane and her lasso of truth is back. All thanks to this 2 1/2-minute short, from this production company. With 2.5 million and counting hits on youtube. There is an audience for this character. People want to see wonder woman if her own feature film. There's no bigger superhero than her. Reporter: People want to know why a movie studio hasn't taken a wonder woman project out for a spin. A lot of hollywood heavyweights tried to bring wonder woman to the big screen and the small screen. And it's been very tough. Reporter: David e. Kelley shot a small-screen pilot. But it didn't get picked up. As far as obstacles to a feature go, could it be sexism? A male superhero can get many chances at-bat to be a movie or a tv show. Women superheros really get one chance. Reporter: Like halle berry's cat woman. Or jennifer garner's electra. Following linynda carter might be like following springsteen in new jersey. Wonder woman can have her own film if people want to see it. It's not about gender. It's about an amazing superhero that can translate really well to the big screen. Reporter: For "good morning america," chris connelly, abc news, los angeles. Bring it back. Chris brought up great points, as always. Hard to capture, though. That lynda. Come on. Yeah. You do. For you. Bring wonder woman back.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.At a demolition site on the southwest side, an end loader pulls up to a diminutive old man wielding a hammer. The man, who has a lazy eye and a mouth full of false teeth, looks up with dismay as a new load of bricks tumbles out of an enormous set of jaws and lands on the small mountain already amassed in front of him. He hates it when the wreckers pile up the bricks this way. It makes his job, stacking the bricks, more difficult than it already is.
His name is Aubrey Taylor, but the other brick stackers call him Preacher Taylor, or simply Preacher, because he preaches on Sundays, backed by an electric guitar, drum kit, and organ, at New Omega Baptist, a small storefront church at 71st and Ashland. He's the associate pastor there, though he never went to a Baptist seminary, or any other school for that matter, and cannot read the Bible he clutches while delivering his charismatic sermons.
Preaching doesn't put money in his pockets, though, so whenever there's work, he's on a demolition site somewhere, easy to spot in a tattered tweed blazer and a fedora with the stub of a red feather peeking out of its band. He smokes cigars as he works, pulling them from a neat row in his breast pocket.
By most accounts, Preacher is the oldest brick stacker, though nobody, not even him, seems to know his exact age. When I first meet him he tells me he is 76, but he later contradicts himself, saying he's been handling bricks for 50 years, since he was 34. According to another stacker, Preacher's claimed to be 77 for at least three years. A wrecker says, "He's as old as Moses. He was old when I was a kid." However old he is, he has big plans for the future. He doesn't want to stack bricks for the rest of his life.
Stacking is strenuous work, and the pay is not good. Each Chicago common, the most common local brick, weighs about four pounds. For putting up one skid of commons, 530 bricks |
to do is rhyme... I think I've sacrificed so much from my relationships to my friendships to my family; I've literally sacrificed my entire life, and I'm honest."[12] On October 22, 2015, Logic married Jessica Andrea, a singer and Logic's then-girlfriend of two years.[74] On March 20, 2018, he announced that after two years of marriage, he and Andrea had officially separated. He filed for divorce on April 19, 2018.[75] Nevertheless, they remain friends and did not cite anger as the reason for their split.[76]
Logic stated that while growing up, he was a pothead and said, "I don't drink; I don't smoke weed. I used to smoke; I used to be a pretty big pothead when I was younger, but I don't smoke. I might have an occasional glass of champagne." Logic, however, had a serious cigarette addiction, dedicating the song, "Nikki", from Under Pressure to talk about the subject. He talks about smoking since he was 13 and that when giving up marijuana and alcohol, he could not muster the courage to give up cigarettes until about 2014. He, however, pledged not to smoke another cigarette concluding the release of Under Pressure.[8]
Logic also has a YouTube channel where he posts videos about his favorite video games.[77]
Artistry
Logic cites Frank Sinatra as his main inspiration. Sinatra's influence can be seen in several aspects of Logic's persona, with Logic having the "RattPack" (a play on Sinatra's "Rat Pack" and an acronym for "Real All The Time"). The group of friends consists of Logic's manager Chris, producer 6ix, and friend Big Lenbo. He also describes his female fans as BobbySoxers, as well as referring to himself as "Young Sinatra".[78] As a child, his mother made him watch old black and white movies, which formed his love for the singer. Logic cites Sinatra as instrumental to him being able to carry and articulate himself the way he does, with Logic describing him as an individual who "showcased peace, love, grace, positivity, honor, and valor".[15][16]
Logic has said that various forms of entertainment across many platforms have influenced him, including A Tribe Called Quest, Mos Def, Outkast, Red Hot Chili Peppers, J. Cole, Drake and films by Quentin Tarantino.[8][79][80] When talking about music in an interview conducted in late 2013, Logic stated, "I love all subgenres within hip-hop and all genres of music, and I think that's what allows me to make the music that I do, because of my appreciation for the music."[16]
Discography
Studio albums
Awards and nominations
‡ Note: shared with other four nominees.
NotesThe cost of electricity in some of the country's poorest regions could be set to rise, according to a working paper released by the Electricity Authority.
Photo: 123RF
It said transmission charges could rise by about 10 percent in Northland and the West Coast, and about five percent in Marlborough and parts of Auckland.
The authority is looking at updating the way charges are set in the light of recent investment of more than $2 billion in the national grid, particularly in the North Island.
It said the areas that benefit most from that investment should be charged accordingly.
Salvation Army social services secretary Pam Waugh said Northland and the West Coast were already particularly deprived areas, and any increases would hit those people hardest.
"We will see more people taking cuts on keeping their houses warm, which we see a lot of during the winter with the families that we work with," she said.
"So you'll see health issues coming up, you'll see limits on food being given to families because they've got to meet these costs."
Ms Waugh said when families could not afford heating, illnesses such as rheumatic fever tended to rise.
The paper has been released to the country's 28 local lines companies for discussion.
Read the full paper and a Q&A on it by the Electricity Authority- Oakland hills residents called him the "Ninja Burglar." That's because of how he was dressed and what he was seen carrying under his arm.
On Monday evening, Oakland police told KTVU that a "person of interest," believed to be the person seen in the video, was in custody.
KTVU obtained surveillance video showing a man who cased homes in Oakland's Montclair District in the hills for several hours. He's seen carrying something long. Police don't know what it is. Some people think it's a sword.
At about 3 a.m. Thursday, a woman was awakened by her pet cat. She saw a man in her courtyard on a street off Colton Boulevard. He was wearing a black knit cap, dark clothes and carrying a three-foot long object.
The woman says even with three lights that went on, he didn't run. He walked slowly away. Police were called, but they didn't find him.
Even as police were in the area, surveillance video shows the same man continued to lurking around for a couple more hours. At one point, the man stole several bikes, which were loaded into an SUV driven by a second suspect.
Oakland police say they believe the videos will help them make arrests. Officers canvassed the neighborhood Monday in hopes of getting more video.
"Our department, we're confident with this type of evidence we've received, because of technology, that we're able to solve this case," said Officer Marco Marquez, a department spokesman before the person of interest was taken into custody. "It's really a good example of the community coming together, communicating with each other."
Police initially said they didn't know what the man was carrying.
"At this point, we can't determine or say specifically what that is, whether it's a weapon or a burglary tool."
Neighbors were unnerved, but police said it was the videos that helped officers identify and arrest the man.
"I would rather not have anybody like that around me. I have two kids. I don't feel safe at all," said resident Jiyoung Kim as she pushed her young child in a toy stroller.
Michelle Flemmer, who works with clients who live in the hills, agreed. "I'd think I'd be pretty alarmed if I saw that when I was overnight at a client's house and i was there by myself," said Flemmer as she walked two client's dogs on Colton Boulevard.SOUTH SYDNEY coach Michael Maguire has rubbished claims he will conduct an off-season “garage sale’’ in a bid to lure back premiership heroes Sam Burgess and Ben Te’o for 2016.
Responding to a report that said the club was willing to offload a host of players including Dave Tyrrell, John Sutton, Tim Grant and Jason Clark to free up the salary cap cash to lure the union converts back to the NRL, Maguire said Burgess and Te’o would not be back at Redfern in 2016. “They won’t be here next year,’’ he said.
“And that is about all I can say. Sam and Ben are doing what they are doing and we are doing what we are doing.’’
Maguire also said that he was not attempting to push several players, including co-captain Sutton, out of the club following the shock first-round finals exit.
“Those players are contracted,’’ Maguire said.
“Every team has a look at their rosters going forward but those players are all contracted and I don’t know where that talk has come from.’’
media_camera Coach Michael Maguire says he’s not pushing John Sutton out of Souths.
The premiership-winning coach has not ruled out bringing Burgess back to Redfern after 2016.
RUMOURS: Burgess dismisses NRL return
“He was fantastic for our club,’’ Maguire said. “And he will always be recognised for that. We would certainly be looking to have a talk to him if he wanted to come back to rugby league. But now he is focused on his rugby union career.’’
Maguire refused to accept his team became the first premiers to bomb out of the finals in week one for several years because they lost Burgess and Te’o following 2014’s fairytale title.
“We had a number of key players sitting on the sideline and that played the biggest part this year,’’ he said.
“We showed in a number of games what we were capable of and we just didn’t do it when it mattered.
“Whether that was through injury or suspension, or from a combination, we weren’t able to do it consistently throughout the season.
“It caught up to us at the back end.’’The head of the nation's largest school district is stepping down, city government sources tell News 4 New York. John Chandler reports. (Published Thursday, Dec. 21, 2017)
What to Know New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña will announce her departure from the Department of Education on Thursday, sources say
She led NYC schools for four years and implemented many of Mayor de Blasio's education policies, including universal pre-kindergarten
Fariña was a deputy schools chancellor, principal and teacher in the city school system before becoming its top educator
The head of the nation's largest school district is stepping down, city government sources tell News 4 New York.
New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña plans to announce her departure from the city Department of Education after four years on the job on Thursday, according to the sources.
Fariña, 74, will leave the post after four years overseeing the school system that educates more than 1 million students a year and implementing several of Mayor de Blasio's educational policies and campaign promises, including universal pre-K for city kids.
Her departure is not a surprise to City Hall: Fariña had planned on retiring to Florida in 2013 but was coaxed into taking on the role by the then-newly elected mayor. City government sources said the mayor's office is already conducting a nationwide search for Fariña's replacement.
Veteran NYC Educator Named Next Schools Chancellor
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio appointed veteran New York City educator Carmen Farina, a 70-year-old former teacher and principal and a longtime advocate of early childhood education, as the next chancellor of the nation’s largest school system on Monday. Andrew Siff has the story. (Published Monday, Dec. 30, 2013)
Fariña had previously served as deputy chancellor of city schools under then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She was once also a teacher at P.S. 29 in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill and a principal at the high-achieving P.S. 6 on the Upper East Side.
She had worked with de Blasio as early as 2001, when the mayor was a member of Brooklyn's District 15 school board. She also served as an informal policy adviser during his first mayoral run in 2013.If you have bought an AT&T iPhone 5 without a contract over the past few days, chances are that you want to unlock it to use it on another carrier. The traditional process involves filling out an online form on AT&T’s website, sending a fax (yes, a fax) to AT&T, waiting 5 to 7 days and restoring your phone. It turns out that it is much easier than that: just restore the phone in iTunes and it will be unlocked.
We have confirmed the process with AT&T’s technical support and successfully tried it with a T-Mobile SIM card. After restoring the device in iTunes, the user is prompted with the usual unlocking message: “Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.”
This message wasn’t enough for me though. I need more proof that I could use the iPhone on every carrier and abroad.
After receiving the notification my new iPhone was unlocked, I cut a micro-SIM card into the shape of a nano-SIM by using the AT&T SIM card that was already in the iPhone 5 as a guide. The most difficult part was to make it narrower so that you can close the tiny nano-SIM tray, though some have reported that this step may be optional.
In a couple of seconds, the iPhone was able to pick up the T-Mobile network, and calls and EDGE data connectvity worked as expected. Some reports, including on AT&T forum, confirm this.
When you buy an iPhone, the device is added to Apple’s big iPhone database thanks to the IMEI, which is used as a unique identifier. Full price and subsidized iPhone 5 models apparently don’t have the same status in the database as it is flagged as “ready to be unlocked” when purchased without a contract.
The iPhone 5 we tested was bought in an Apple retail store, but we couldn’t confirm this with another, pre-ordered iPhone 5 — even though the device was purchased at full price, it was tied to an existing AT&T account during the pre-order process. The carrier clearly states on its website that you have to be either a former customer or a customer without contract obligations to be eligible to go through the entire process, fax included. It could be problematic as well if you bought your iPhone 5 directly from AT&T.
Chris Velazco contributed reporting.Image copyright AFP Image caption The Scorpene-class INS Kalvari recently began maiden sea trials off the coast of Mumbai
India is investigating a massive data leak from French shipbuilder DCNS that affects a major submarine contract for its navy, defence officials say.
The leak of more than 22,000 pages exposes secrets about the combat capabilities of Scorpene-class vessels.
It is not clear who first obtained the confidential documents, which were made public by the Australian media.
Earlier this year DCNS won Australia's largest-ever defence contract to build a fleet of advanced submarines.
Details about the Shortfin Barracuda submarine class that will be built for Australia were not contained in the leak.
India signed a $3.5b (£2.6b, €3.1b) deal for six Scorpene vessels in 2005. They are being built in cooperation with an Indian government-owned shipbuilder in Mumbai.
India is investigating the leak to "find out what has happened," Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said.
The Scorpene submarines are small-to-intermediate size vessels currently in use in Malaysia and Chile. Brazil is due to deploy the submarine type in 2018.
A DCNS spokeswoman described the leak as "a serious matter" and said French authorities would formally investigate.
Image copyright DCNS Australia Image caption The leak does not affect the Shortfin Barracuda subs planned for Australia
"The matters in connection to India have no bearing on the Australian submarine programme, which operates under the Australian government's arrangements for the protection of sensitive data," a statement said.
Australia deal to go ahead
DCNS beat out strong competition from Germany and Japan to secure Australia's A$50bn (€34bn; £27bn) contract to build its navy's next generation of submarines, a project that will stretch into the 2050s.
The Shortfin Barracuda submarines are to be built in Adelaide with the expectation of creating around 2,800 jobs in the region.
They will be 4,500-tonne conventionally powered submarines, closely related to the nuclear-powered Barracuda, which weighs 4,700 tonnes.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the leak was a reminder of the importance of cyber security, but rejected concerns it would endanger the contract.
The country's defence industry minister, Christopher Pyne, said in a statement that the leak had "no bearing on the Australian government's future submarine programme".Edmonton finally confirmed this week a preferred supplier for its five-year effort to go paperless on Edmonton Transit fares and that’s giving residents a peek at some unexpected benefits.
Vix Technology and its account-based system won’t just make boarding the bus and reloading a transit card easier. According to transit officials, it could also address a persistent inequality issue in Edmonton – fixing this with a simple, technology based solution: “fare capping.”
People with steady jobs and good paycheques are the most likely to buy a monthly pass. They have cash on hand at the beginning of the month.
Those who might need their last nickel just to keep the lights on are the most likely to pay cash for every trip. It means they pay $3.25 per ride, more money for the same service.
That’s one reason Ken Koropeski is excited about Smart Fare.
With a card and an online account, the system can track how many times a person uses transit during a 30-day period, said Koropeski, director of special projects for Edmonton Transit. No one would have to commit to a monthly pass on Day 1. Instead, the system could automatically track use and once the rider hits that monthly maximum, all other rides are free.
“When you have capping, it has inherent benefits for people with low income,” said Koropeski.
Ultimately, council will decide if it accepts fare capping as a policy, he said, but smart fare makes it feasible. “It’s certainly high on our minds as a possibility.”
Smart Fare gives many options
The system will also allow riders to buy a single fare with the tap of a credit or debit card as they get on the bus or enter a transit station. A transit card will give riders access to discounts, with an account that can be topped up online or in retail stores. Lost cards can be canceled and refunded.
Transit officials are also looking at unlimited weekly pricing. Eventually, they could also offer discounts for short rides with a zone system.
Edmonton, St. Albert and Strathcona County are still finalizing their contract with Vix Technology, but a report heading to Edmonton’s urban planning committee Wednesday details advantages of the estimated $42-million system. It would take 36 months (until 2020) to get the system up and operating.
That cost includes adding live tracking to St. Albert and Strathcona County buses, which will now have the same payment and tracking system as Edmonton.
“That’s definitely something people would like to have,” said Wade Coombs, Strathcona County director of transit. He said riders there should see live transit information starting early 2018.
Related
Edmonton first voted to fund smart fare in 2012, but it took years to secure provincial funding and get regional partners on board. In the meantime, technology evolved, said Koropeski, and Edmonton has been able to study the many challenges other cities ran into.
Calgary ended up cancelling it Connect contract twice after $5 million was spent and the system proved unreliable. But many cities have also been successful.
“There’s been a lot of lessons learned,” he said. “This is a complex project. There are a lot of stumbling blocks.”
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twitter.com/estolteMADISON, Wis. -- Drew Crawford played the role of savvy senior leader to perfection.
The Northwestern forward hit a tricky 3 off a curl in the second half. He jumped high and made a long bucket with Wisconsin guard Josh Gasser playing nearly flawless defense, a shot so tough that Crawford pumped his right arm and let out a yell as he jogged back up the court.
Crawford, a fifth-year senior, scored a season-high 30 points, JerShon Cobb added all 10 of his points in the second half and the Wildcats upset the 14th-ranked Badgers 65-56 on Wednesday night.
Northwestern first-year coach Chris Collins earned his first big win on the road, and the Wildcats got their first victory in Madison since 1996.
Penn State beat No. 24 Ohio State 71-70 in overtime Wednesday night, and according to the Big Ten Network, this was the first time the Nittany Lions and Wildcats won road games on the same day since Penn State joined the conference in 1993.
But for all the big shots made down the stretch, Northwestern was most proud of its defense. Wisconsin shot 26 percent (15-of-57) on the night.
"Our identity is defense... there's no question," Collins said. "For me in basketball, defense is the time when you're most united."
The smooth Crawford glided around the court for tough shots -- none harder than the 3 off a curl with Gasser's hand in his face to give Northwestern (11-11, 4-5 Big Ten) a 13-point lead.
Wisconsin (17-4, 4-4) turned up the pressure late to get within six with 41 seconds left. But Traevon Jackson lost the ball on a drive with 23 seconds left to seal the Badgers' fate.
Ben Brust's 21 points led Wisconsin, which lost for the fourth time in five games.
"Once you start missing, that basket gets pretty small -- and obviously it got pretty small," coach Bo Ryan said.
After a 16-0 start to the season, defense has been a problem for the Badgers. They had their issues again, especially during an 8-0 run in the second half by Northwestern that helped break a 34-all tie.
But offense was the bigger problem for Wisconsin, which uncharacteristically settled for some bad looks at times against Northwestern's solid defense.
"Defense is where we hang our hat; that's what we work on every day in practice," Crawford said.
He hit an off-balance layup with the shot clock winding down for a 54-39 lead with about 3:30 left.
The Badgers used pressure to get within 62-56 after Nigel Hayes went 1-of-2 from the foul line.
The Wildcats, though, held on from there, and Jackson's turnover proved costly.
Crawford finished 10-of-15 from the field and added eight rebounds, while Tre Demps scored 10 points.
Sam Dekker finished with 11 points and seven rebounds for Wisconsin but was 2-of-9 from the field.
The Badgers overall finished with 15-of-57 shooting and hit more foul shots, going 21-of-27 from the line. They were 5-of-24 from 3-point range.
The Wildcats got their first victory over Wisconsin since 2009. It was a sharp contrast to teams' first meeting this year, a 76-49 Badgers blowout in Evanston earlier this month.
But things have changed for Northwestern since then. The Wildcats are 4-2 in their past six games and had held opponents to an average of 51 points per game prior to a 76-50 loss last weekend to Iowa.
"In one month's time, we've become a very tough group," Collins said. "And we've had to become tough because we've had a tough time scoring."
Still, for every tough shot missed, Wisconsin did have some good looks that just didn't fall through. Ryan said that overall, he was satisfied with the shot selection. The Badgers, however, got a combined 5-of-18 shooting from their talented frontcourt of Dekker and Frank Kaminsky.
After a poor start, Wisconsin got back into rhythm briefly to start the second after getting the ball into the lane.
Kaminsky added eight points and 10 rebounds, including two offensive boards early in the second half that helped the Badgers briefly get out of an offensive funk.
Kaminsky slapped an offensive rebound to a teammate in the backcourt, then got another board on the same possession that led to a long 3 by Brust for a six-point Wisconsin lead.
Crawford had the answers down the stretch for the Wildcats.
"Couldn't knock any shots down. Shooting percentage showed that," Gasser said. "Northwestern was hanging around and hanging around, and we couldn't hit enough shots to stretch the lead."
Crawford scored 10 in a first half that had Northwestern trailing 23-22. The Badgers shot 6-of-24 (25 percent) in the half, including an 0-for-10 stretch.Man Who Bought $540 Worth Of Girl Scout Cookies Arrested By DEANew details emerged Tuesday evening, hours after a story about a man who bought out a Girl Scout troop so they could get out of the cold weather went viral.
What Happens If You Owe Taxes You Can’t Pay?Here's the advice from a certified public accountant.
Parker Mayor Rebukes Councilwoman For ‘Lack Of Judgment’A veteran councilwoman in Parker will not face public indecency or official misconduct charges after police believed they "caught her in the act."
Denver Weather: Groundhog Was Wrong, Another Wintry Blast Hits FridayIf you were hoping for an early spring, as predicted by Punxsutawney Phil, you may be disappointed in our extended forecast.
Woman Sentenced To 15 For Stealing $744,000 From EmployerProsecutors say a Colorado woman has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for stealing nearly $750,000 from her employer.
‘It Brings Purpose To My Pain’ Colorado Mom Inspires In Mrs. Colorado PageantA Colorado mom is going for a lifelong dream, one she though would never be possible after a tragic accident when she was a child.
AJ's All American Barbershop Targeted In Early Morning BurglaryThe owner of “AJ’s All American Barbershop” is calling on the community to help police locate the people who burglarized his shop early Tuesday morning.
'House of Tomorrow' Offered Rent-Free For 50 Years...With $2.5 Million RenvoationIndiana Landmarks has got a deal for you -- a chance to live in a one-of-a-kind historic home, rent-free for 50 years. But yes, there is a catch.
Proposed Affordable Housing Complex To Serve Foster Children Aging OutAdams County is once again pushing forward with a large affordable housing complex, and a portion of it will benefit an underserved population.
5 More Horses Rescued From Hartsel & Join 48 Others At Rehab FacilityThe Dumb Friends League Harmony Equine Center in Franktown says they received an additional five horses after receiving 48 malnourished horses on Monday.The 2014 Lok Sabha polls decimated the Congress. But an even greater disaster struck the party on Wednesday when in one fell stroke, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh sought to strip Sonia Gandhi of her halo and topple her from the high pedestal she had been occupying since she refused to be prime minister in 2004.
Singh’s revelation that she did not take up the post because of her son Rahul Gandhi’s fears that she might get killed just like his father Rajiv or grandmother Indira Gandhi has undermined her claim that she had rejected it because of her "inner voice."
Exposing the lie of renunciation
Singh’s disclosure is a body blow that has left the Congress president vulnerable and the party reeling. After 10 years, it is now a he said-she said situation, Sonia’s version of events pitted against that of her former confidante with whom she fell out nine years back over his alleged involvement in the food-for-oil scandal.
If Singh’s claims are taken into account, it would appear that Sonia’s move was dictated not by her conscience but by Rahul who threatened to do whatever it took to stop her from becoming PM and even set a 24-hour ultimatum for her to refuse the post.
"He was very adamant," Singh said, recalling a May 18, 2004 meeting where Priyanka Vadra conveyed Rahul’s views to Manmohan Singh, Gandhi family friend Suman Dubey and him. "As a son, full marks to Rahul," Singh told Karan Thapar in his interview on Headlines Today ahead of the release of his book "One Life is Not Enough: An Autobiography."
Suffering from a son-stroke, the politician in Sonia would seem to have had no option but to bow to her motherly instincts. Even that would not have mattered but for the fact that she credited her decision to forego the high office to her "inner voice’’ and was for the next 10 years even hailed in some sections as another Mother Teresa for her "sacrifice’’ while all that time she had actually been just mother Sonia acquiescing to her son’s pressure. Even more damaging was that she and her party ---as well as Singh who has now chosen to divulge what he says is the "truth’’ --- had let this perception perpetuate without making any effort to set the record straight.
This perception allowed Sonia to pole-vault from a green horn politician into a statesmanlike figure who stood taller than all her jostling contemporaries and generated a groundswell of support for her that, along with the performance of UPA-I, stood her in good stead in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. Both Sonia and the Congress drew sustenance from and politically profited from her "renunciation."
If Singh’s latest revelation gathers steam, it could erode the Congress president’s image, credibility and authority. And Sonia’s critics--- who had at that time dismissed her "sacrifice" as a farce--- are unlikely to keep quiet about it or the revelation that government files would be taken to her by Pulok Chatterjee, principal secretary to the Prime Minister, when the UPA was in power.
What Natwar reveals about Rahul
Until now, of the trinity of Sonia-Manmohan-Rahul, she alone had survived the 10 years of UPA at the Centre with her image more or less intact. Price rise, inflation, allegations of corruption and paralysis in decision-making took a toll on Manmohan Singh. Rahul was seen as half a leader and a shirker of responsibilities who, barring a stray victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls in UP, failed in every task he undertook, including in spearheading the party’s campaign in the assembly elections in Gujarat, UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Delhi, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh or the recent Lok Sabha polls.
Natwar Singh's tell-all book now casts a shadow on Sonia.
There are other corollaries that can be drawn from Singh’s revelations some of which will add to the Congress’s woes.
One, it would appear that Rahul, now party vice president, has been calling the shots right from 2004 when he forced Sonia to refuse the PM’s post. Two, the mother has been in no position to counter the son whose rise in the party has been as rapid as the organisation’s decline. Three, it provides a glimpse of the insecurities and vulnerabilities Rahul associates with power. And if Rahul was fearful of his mother’s life in 2004, he would be equally so vis a vis any Gandhi, including himself, in the next round of general elections in 2019. Indeed, the Amethi MP has often, in his rallies, talked about the assassination of his father and grandmother and how he might also be killed.
Four, Rahul has given enough indication that he is not in the power game, having refused to join the Manmohan Singh cabinet, or replace him as prime minister or even become the leader of his party after the Lok Sabha debacle. Finally, if neither Sonia nor Rahul are interested, many a Congress worker would wonder why he should work to make a non-Gandhi the prime minister and he may as well sit at home or seek another anchor.
The picture couldn’t get more bleak for an electorally mauled party which pegs its past, present and future on the Gandhis, whether in power or out of it.
Given the damage that the revelation about Rahul’s role could inflict, it is not surprising that the Congress president and her daughter Priyanka Vadra met Singh on May 7 at his residence to persuade him not to refer to that episode in his book. But Singh claims he decided to tell the "truth."
It is also not surprising that the Congress party has reacted sharply to Singh’s disclosures. “It is ridiculous. These days it has become fashionable to sensationalize the contents of a book with the sole aim of ensuring better sale and free publicity. This is yet another such exercise. Any comment on it will be a futile exercise,” said AICC general secretary and Communication Department Chairman Ajay Maken in a thinly veiled allusion to Sanjaya Baru’s book "The Accidental Prime Minister" which too had stirred a controversy.
Like Maken other senior Congress leaders like Abhishek Singhvi and Anand Sharma also sought to dismiss Singh’s disclosures without rebutting or denying his remarks.
"Natwar Singh had an unceremonious exit from the UPA government after the Volcker Committee Report on the Oil for Food scandal in 2005. He was later suspended from the Congress Party.
"His recent remarks in a TV interview appear to be politically motivated and aimed at seeking publicity for the sale of his book," charged Singhvi. "It must be taken with a fistful of salt," said Anand Sharma.
The former minister himself was prepared to see his revelations rubbished. "Of course, they will. I am aware they will," Singh said when quizzed on possible denials by Manmohan Singh and Dubey. But he pointedly added: "They could have said it and got away with it if Sonia and Priyanka had not come to me. Period...They did not come to have coffee with me. They did not come to have lunch with me".
Most of the other disclosures made by Singh in the first part of his two part interview are interesting and perhaps even controversial, like the one in which he says that government files would be taken to Sonia—a point made by Baru too in his book. The former Sonia confidante also revealed that Sonia’s first choice as party president and prime minister after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination was Shankar Dayal Sharma and not PV Narasimha Rao and that senior UPA allies like Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan were upset at Manmohan Singh being made prime minister when the mandate was for her.
There is little doubt that Singh’s claims could add to the demoralization in the Congress’ ranks. The party has still to get over the trauma of winning only 44 seats in the 545 member Lok Sabha under Rahul who has so far failed to build a worker-voter-people electoral base, and refused to lead the party from the front in Parliament. As ordinary workers despair, they also keep their faith in Sonia to pull them out of the current morass. The Congress’s greatest fear is that even this faith may get shaken by Singh’s tell-all book.
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.California State University-Fullerton lecturer Eric Canin has been suspended by the school for his actions against the campus College Republicans at a February 8 protest: He struck one of them.
As reported by the Daily Titan, on that date the CRs were engaged in a “nonviolent counter protest” against a march objecting to President Trump’s immigration measures.
CR member Jared Lopez said “(Canin) came up, tried to grab (my) sign and pushed our way … Then he went after [CR member Bryce] (Ingalls) and started swinging at him.”
Canin contended he didn’t actually make contact with anyone, however, and that the catalyst for the incident was the CRs “making fun of him.”
But a campus internal investigation determined differently, noting that “a campus employee struck a student and that as a consequence, the speech of the student group was stopped.”
More from the Titan:
“Even when we find opposing views objectionable, ours is a campus where we will insist that respect be afforded to the right of others to assert those views,” [CSUF Chief Communications Officer Jeffrey] Cook said. “Responding with violence to speech we disagree with cannot and will not be tolerated.” Cook said that the administration “is taking appropriate action, although we are unable to disclose specific information as the process is underway and ongoing. CSUF police sent the case to the district attorney’s office Feb. 9, said University Police Capt. Scot Willey. Canin may be summoned to court, but the district attorney will decide whether to charge him with a misdemeanor, Willey said. That process could take weeks, Willey said, because the case is not likely to be considered a priority. “Canin has not been on campus,” Willey said. A substitute lecturer is teaching Canin’s Anthropology 305 class, said junior civil engineering major Carlos Solorio.
Canin acknowledged his suspension via text message, and noted that he “may not talk to students or employees of the university.”
Read the full story.
MORE: Demands grow to fire teacher who joined in Milo violence
MORE: Use violence against conservative speaker, prof instructs cops
MORE: Prof who teaches ‘peacekeeping skills’ charged with assaulting boyfriend
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Introducing... the Tentatrio!
Meet Ika the Squid, Jellyblub the Jellyfish, and Sweetoof the Octopus!
For as long as I can remember, people have been asking me for a Sweetoof octopus plush. This past year Jellyblub has exploded in popularity and people have been asking for her in plush form, too. In addition, some of my oldest, most loyal fans have been asking for another orange Ika. This campaign is my answer: the Tentatrio plush Kickstarter!
They love getting into mischief...
...though sometimes it doesn't end well!
Will you take them home?
Details
Each plush measures 4" tall and is constructed of super soft, high quality minky fur and embellished with embroidered details.
The initial goal amount for this project will allow me to produce 250 of each design, for a total of 750 plushies.
Rewards
In addition to the UBERTRIO rewards, work directly with me to receive a black and white sketch on toned paper of your favorite inki-drop character!
Bonus Round: Stretch Goals!
Goal reached! Tentatrio postcards are now included for all physical reward tiers ($12 & up)!
Sweetoof Character Cards are now unlocked and will be included for all $25+ backers!
Yay! All $25+ backers now get an enamel pin featuring the tentatrio~
All $25+ backers will receive this Ika Character Card in addition to all the other unlocked rewards!
All $25+ backers will receive this Sweet Jellyblub Character Card in addition to all other unlocked rewards.
The final character card: Starwhal! All $25+ reward tiers will receive this card.
A sweet collab project between inki-drop and SunsetDragon.com! This card will be added to all $25+ reward tiers.
Eee, a starwhal pin! This sparkly, gold-plated pin will measure 1" in diameter. This extra gift is included in all $25+ tiers.
About inki-Drop
A wild Sweetoof appears!
I'm super inspired by the wonder of sea creatures & kawaii culture; I enjoy using bright, appealing colors & simple, bold shapes to evoke happy feelings.
I started inki-Drop for two reasons. First, I have very particular tastes when it comes to "cute" and had a hard time finding things I |
that one expedition was going to Antarctica "to look for some bases". What bases he was speaking about is unkown.
Operation Deepfreeze was the last Antarctica Expedition Admiral Byrd Took part in. That milestone expedition established permanent bases on the continent and was also the beginning of a permanent U.S presence on the continent.
So many questions need to be looked at when in comes to Antarctica. Why the need for so many permanent military bases by so many countries when military activity is forbidden on the continent due to the Antarctic Treaty. Why has most of Antarctica been closed off to the world? In a recent visit John Kerry who visited the continent signed a pact along with 24 other nations banning all private ships
and citizens from travel to Antarctica's southern coast for the next 35 years.
Buzz Aldrin visited as well and supposedly tweeted an alarming tweet along with an image of one of the recently discovered pyramids there.
Hopefully someday we will discover the secrets Antarctica hides, in the meantime we can only wonder and speculate about what's really going on there.A mosque in the Shreveport-Bossier community of Louisiana was vandalized this week with strips of pork, which were put on the door handles of the building to evidently force worshippers to touch pork before entering.
Many Muslims refrain from eating pork, as Islam considers pigs unclean. Something similar occurred in South Carolina in October, when strips of bacon were left outside an Islamic Center, spelling out “PIG CHOPS.”KSLA News reports:
Mosque members are not pressing charges, but reported the incident to police so it would be on file. Police say it could be considered a hate crime. “It appears that the individual who did this tried to intimidate the individuals at this location,” said Mark Natale, a spokesman for the Bossier City Police Department.
“These types of incidents will continue to occur as long as our nation’s leaders fail to speak out forcefully against the growing anti-Islam sentiment in American society,” CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement on Tuesday.Data from the Pew Research Journalism Project shows that conservatives are less likely to have their views challenged on social media — but liberals are more likely to block or unfriend someone online because they disagree with something they have posted.
Those that Pew describes as "consistent conservatives" are twice as likely as the average Facebook user to say that posts about politics on the social network are "mostly or always" in line with their own views, according to a survey the organization performed this spring — with 47 percent saying their views dominate the conversations they see.
Of those identified as "mostly conservative," 28 percent agreed with the sentiment vs. 32 percent of "consistently liberals" and just 13 percent of "mostly liberal" users. This suggests that liberals see a wider range of views on social media than their conservative counterparts.
However, that doesn't mean liberals necessarily like all of the ideas they see. Consistent liberals were the most likely group to block or unfriend someone because they disagreed with their political postings, with 44 percent saying they had "hidden, blocked, defriended, or stopped following someone" on Facebook due to their political postings. Only roughly one-third (31 percent) of consistent conservatives had done the same -- although this might be attributable to lower levels of ideological diversity in their online ecosystem.
And that conservative echochamber isn't limited to conservatives' online interactions: It's a reflection of the lack of ideological diversity in their real life relationships. Two-thirds of consistent conservatives told Pew that most of their close friends share their views on government and politics, compared to just over half, or 52 percent, of consistent liberals. For mostly conservatives, 42 percent of their close friends have the same views, while just 26 percent of mostly liberals respondents who said the same.
Liberals were also more likely to drop a friend in real life over politics. Nearly a quarter, or 24 percent, of consistent liberals told Pew that have stopped talking to or being friends with someone over politics, compared to 16 percent of consistent conservatives.
So as with many cases, our online interactions about politics don't necessarily represent an entirely new pattern of interactions -- but rather an extension of existing dynamics into the digital realm.Nov 24 (Reuters) - Popular web videos showing that “cats rule and dogs drool” have new scientific evidence to support that felinophilic sentiment, at least when it comes to drinking.
While cats expertly manipulate water to quench thirst neatly, dogs smash, slosh, spill, and splash their way, according to research unveiled on Monday.
The latest findings, which focus on dogs and were presented at a meeting in San Francisco of the American Physical Society, build on an earlier discovery of how cats drink. Neither cats nor dogs can close their cheeks tightly enough to create suction, as humans do, so exactly how they manage had been a puzzle.
In 2010, engineers at Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among other schools, discovered how cats lap water. Basically, felines touch their tongue to the water’s surface without penetrating it, and pull up a column of liquid at a speed of 3 feet (1 meter) per second. Just before gravity pulls the water down, cats slam their mouth shut over the top of the column four times per second, swallow, and repeat.
When the dog study started, the scientists thought dogs would turn out to drink similarly to cats, said biomechanical engineer Sunny Jung of Virginia Tech, a member of the cat team who also led the dog research. Not so.
For one thing, cats’ tongues gently touch the water surface, but dogs’ smash through it, as cameras under a water trough showed. Dogs “make lots of splashing, but a cat never does,” Jung said.
Also, cats pull up their tongue to create the water column with a force up to twice that of gravity. Dogs create a force up to eight times gravity.
Finally, although only the tip of a cat’s tongue touches the water, a large area of the dog’s does, making them sloppy drinkers. More precisely, the volume of water a dog’s tongue can move increases exponentially with body size. Which is why Saint Bernards, but not dachshunds, turn kitchen floors into lakes.
The scientists plan to post a video of their work here. (Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Richard Chang)Suicide on the London Underground has been an issue since the Underground (also known as the 'Tube') opened in the 19th century. It involves a person intentionally jumping into an oncoming train's path so that the impact kills them. Suicides on English railways increased significantly following newspaper reports in 1868 about the method;[1] all injuries on the country's railways must be reported, in accordance with the Regulation of Railways Act 1873.[2]
Euphemisms [ edit ]
Underground management and train drivers use several phrases to refer to suicides, sometimes using "person under a train" or "passenger taken unwell" (usually to inform the public), "person on the track", "passenger action," but most commonly "one under", or "jumper" — well-known phrases across the network.[3][4] Those who survive are often charged with offences such as "endangering safety on the railway" and "obstruction of trains with intent".[5][6]
Effect of track layout [ edit ]
About half of the stations, mostly those actually underground, have a pit under the tracks. Originally constructed to drain water, they have now been shown to reduce the number and severity of injuries and deaths, although not to eliminate them: as a Transport for London (TfL) spokesperson has said, "people fall into [the pits] and the train rushes on overhead". A study of 58 cases showed that the presence of a suicide pit halved the number of deaths. Another safety mechanism are platform edge doors (PEDs), which separate the train from the passengers. These are installed exclusively at the below-ground stations of the Jubilee Line Extension.[7] PEDs are expensive to install and can fail to open, adding a potential reliability problem to train services.[8]
Prevalence [ edit ]
Alison Wertheimer wrote in 2001 that there were 100–150 suicides annually on the Underground.[9] The annual number of suicides in the 1940s was 25, increasing to 100 by the 1980s, which, according to Farmer et al, is less than expected, given the increase in passenger numbers.[2] A report by Time said there were 50 suicides in 2007.[10] Between 1940 and 1990 there were 3240 incidents of "persons under a train". Research suggests that 64% of incidents involve males, and that those involved are disproportionately young.[1] The fatality rate fell from 70 percent in the 1950s to about 55 percent in 1990, and in 1993 a TfL spokesman said 40 percent of attempts resulted in death. Stations near to psychiatric units tend to have a high number of suicides, and a high proportion are by patients: 55 percent at Tooting Bec station.[11]
In 2011, figures for the previous eleven years were released by TfL. The rate had gone up to 80 per year, as compared with 46 in the year 2000, and this was attributed to the financial crisis. The worst-affected station was King's Cross St. Pancras while the numbers for the decade by line were:[12]
Most deaths on the Underground are suicides. Farmer et al. said they found no attempted murders during the period of their study.[2] Research by O'Donnell and Farmer suggests that 93% of deaths are deliberate and 7% are accidents.[1]
Staff training facility [ edit ]
TFL opened in 2010 a special staff training facility at "West Ashfield tube station" in its Ashfield House, West Kensington at a cost of £800,000. It is a mock-up of an actual station and platform where tube staff can undergo realistic training in the event of an accident. Meanwhile, London Mayor, Boris Johnson, decided the facility and the building which contains it should be demolished along with the Earls Court Exhibition Centre as part of Europe's biggest regeneration scheme.[14][15][16]
In popular culture [ edit ]
In 2008 the comedy film Three and Out was released, about a Tube train driver who is told that if he witnesses three suicides in a month, he will lose his job, but will receive a large amount of money. ASLEF, the train drivers' union, criticised the film, saying it was insulting and foolish.[17][18]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]A protestor in Ferguson. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
A quick summary of what the likely 2016 candidates have said in response to the unrest in Ferguson, as of Tuesday morning.
The first four of those were last week. And that about brings us up to speed.
Except this, from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), from a "Fox and Friends" appearance on Tuesday morning. "The first thing I do is don't try to capitalize on this tragedy with your own policy initiatives," he said, as noted by Talking Points Memo. "Don't try to link some prejudged conclusion on what's happening on the ground right now." It is local authorities who should take the lead, and trying to "graft my policy initiatives or my preferences onto this tragedy" is "disrespectful."
With that statement, Ryan does two things. First, he gets to critique Rand Paul, whose consistently good poll numbers have made the Kentucky Senator a big target among the other Republican contenders. And second, he doesn't have to say anything about Ferguson.
For the Republicans, there's not a lot of value in addressing Ferguson. As polling from Pew Research released on Monday indicates, white Americans are much less likely to see Ferguson in terms of the sort of systemic racial tensions that O'Malley highlights. But for Republicans, the numbers are even more stark. While 44 percent of the country (and 37 percent of whites) think that the Michael Brown case "raises important issues about race," only 22 percent of Republicans do -- and 61 percent think race is getting too much attention in the story. With the Republican primaries rapidly approaching, the Paul strategy of speaking out is -- or at least feels -- riskier than abstaining from comment.
Last week, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) offered a more nuanced version of Ryan's abstention. In response to a question from New Jersey Public Radio, Christie defended the police. "We have millions of dedicated men and women who are police officers across this country, who work in grave danger every day, who try to make sure they protect innocent people across the country," he said. "So I'm not going to get into this game of generalizing and characterizing people in that way.... [I]f there are people who need to be held accountable I'm confident they will be." Given the political strength of law enforcement, this is a savvy move -- though one that is probably to be expected from a former federal prosecutor.
Which brings us to that other 2016 candidate. Despite calls from the left (and goading from the right), Hillary Clinton has remained silent on the topic. As we noted on Monday, Obama hasn't said much either, but he is handcuffed in a way that Clinton is not. "For Obama, the cost of becoming president was sacrificing the unique gift that made him president," wrote Vox's Ezra Klein in describing the dual limitations that Obama now sees: his words carry new legal weight, and his words -- particularly on race -- immediately fall into existing trenches of political polarity. Obama's race speech from the 2008 campaign was a remarkable rhetorical moment -- and one that is impossible in 2014.
But Clinton is a (pseudo-)candidate! Why can't she speak out? One possibility: She's already running as a general election candidate. When we mentioned Martin O'Malley above, you recognized the name because you read lengthy political blog posts about upcoming presidential elections. Most Americans don't, and have no idea who O'Malley is. Hillary Clinton doesn't yet face any real challenge from within the Democratic Party, meaning that there's little political need to stake out progressive positions, like analyzing the racial tensions that underlie what happened in Ferguson. Obama's 2008 race speech, remember, came because he was trying to put the Jeremiah Wright controversy to rest. It arose from that tension. Clinton's campaign is anything but tense at the moment.
The unrest in Ferguson is ten days old, but it still feels new. That means potential 2016 candidates will have more opportunities to speak out; it seems hard to believe that Clinton will not say anything of substance on the issue. But for now, she, like everyone else in America, hopes the immediate tension and violence on the streets of Missouri evaporates ASAP.
This post has been updated with Walker's comments.This article is over 3 years old
Three women who say they were molested by Bill Cosby in the 1970s believe the confidential material could help their own case, and have filed a lawsuit
Bill Cosby is seeking to keep the lid on material linked to a confidential 2006 settlement of a Philadelphia sex-assault lawsuit.
Cosby’s lawyers moved Tuesday to block a subpoena sent to a lawyer for the Philadelphia accuser by three women now suing Cosby for defamation in Massachusetts.
Tamara Green, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz accuse Cosby of defaming them by having his agents deny their claims that the actor had molested them in the 1970s.
They believe documents from the former Temple University employee’s lawsuit will help their cause. Andrea Constand accused Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting her at his suburban mansion. However, her settlement with the actor is protected by a confidentiality agreement.
Cosby’s lawyers argued Tuesday that court confidentiality agreements “should not be set aside lightly”.
Defense lawyer George M. Gowen asked the Pennsylvania court to at least wait until a judge rules on Cosby’s bid to throw out the Massachusetts case. He also asked for the right to review and challenge any material set to be unsealed.
The motion was filed in federal court in Philadelphia.
Cosby, 77, has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime.
The Massachusetts plaintiffs are among dozens of women who have stepped forward in recent years with assault accusations against Cosby.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. food regulators announced a voluntary recall on Thursday of food made with a common flavoring that could be contaminated with salmonella bacteria but did not estimate how broad the recall will be.
The flavoring — hydrolyzed vegetable protein — is used in soups, sauces, hot dogs, snack foods, dressings and dips and is made by privately held Basic Food Flavors Inc of Las Vegas, Nevada.
“At this time there are no known illnesses associated with this contamination and obviously we’d like to keep it that way,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg told reporters in a teleconference.
“The manufacturer had many first-level consignees who obviously had individuals who had firms that they sold to who sold to the other firms,” said Dr. Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food safety at FDA’s Office of Foods.
“We expect this to get larger over the next several days, actually several weeks,” Farrar said.
A handful of companies have recalled products ranging from dips, potato chips and dressings to tofu, burritos and pasta. They include T. Marzetti, a unit of Lancaster Colony Corp, which said on March 1 it was recalling various dips.
The FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Agriculture Department are working with Nevada state health officials on the outbreak, Hamburg told reporters.
Farrar said officials believe the risk to consumers is very low.
The FDA said it collected and analyzed samples at the Nevada facility and confirmed the presence of Salmonella Tennessee in the company’s processing equipment. The company is recalling all hydrolyzed vegetable protein in powder and paste form that it has produced since September 17, 2009.
Salmonella can cause severe illness in the very young, very old and frail. It causes fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain and in the most vulnerable can cause a bloodstream infection and organ failure.
The FDA, CDC and USDA are currently working with Congress to overhaul U.S. food safety regulation.
Deputy FDA Commission Dr. Joshua Sharfstein said this outbreak showed why new regulatory powers were needed.
“The shift in the food safety system that we can accomplish with the food safety legislation is one toward prevention and we would like to set strong preventive standards that keep contamination from occurring in the first place,” he said.
Since 2006, the U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile foodborne outbreaks involving meat, lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach.
Contamination of peanuts with salmonella in 2009 forced the recall of 3,200 products and sickened 600 people.
This week, the Produce Safety Project reported that food poisoning costs the United States $152 billion in health-related expenses each year.
Many firms including Kellogg Co, whose company lost nearly $70 million in products from the recent peanut recall, and ConAgra Foods have been affected.On February 10, 2015, I wrote about legislation introduced in the House targeting the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, whose goal is the destruction of Israel through economic, cultural and academic boycotts.
The legislation, called the United States-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act, focuses on the “economic” boycott of Israel, expanding upon prior legislation implemented several decades ago in response to the Arab League Boycott of Israel.
The legislation reportedly was intended to force European countries and companies, where the BDS movement has some influence, into adopting anti-BDS policies and procedures as part of a proposed free trade agreement between the European Union and the U.S.
The EU would be forced to choose between a massive free trade agreement which would bring enormous economic benefits to the floundering EU, or the anti-Israel BDS movement. You could have a boost to European economies and employment, or you could have BDS, but you couldn’t have both.
The sponsors of the legislation presumably expect Europe to choose prosperity over anti-Israel activism.
In reviewing the legislation initially, however, it was unclear to me whether the provisions would have the intended effect:
So what does this all mean? I still need to do more thinking on this, but my first impression is that this bill is directed at European companies, a few of which have signed onto BDS in one form or another, particularly as to goods manufactures in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and conduct in East Jerusalem. I’m not sure that this is the end of BDS, but it has raised the stakes for large international businesses in Europe that seek to join the BDS movement.
Apparently there is a hard punch packed into the mere 12-page legislation, according to BDS activists who are part of a group dedicated to thwarting free trade agreements.
Writing at The Electronic Intifada, an influential anti-Israel portal, the authors sound like the sky will fall on BDS, How EU-US trade deal could thwart “boycott Israel” campaign:
Two members of the US Congress have introduced a bill that would turn a giant trade deal between the EU and US into a devastating weapon against the people of Palestine and all those seeking justice alongside them. Together with the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is currently under negotiation, the proposed bill would compel all 28 EU member states to crack down on European groups participating in the growing movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In order to combat the increasing isolation of Israel in global public opinion, European governments would effectively be turned into police agents for the US state. The proposed US-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act presented to Congress on 10 February seeks to make any trade deal with Brussels conditional on the EU’s willingness to stop European governments, organizations or individuals engaging in BDS actions designed to hold Israel accountable for its responsibilities under international law.
The authors of The Electronic Intifada article argue that scuttling the trade agreement by joining forces with anti-free trade groups may be the only way to prevent the damage to BDS:
TTIP is not a traditional trade agreement aimed at reducing border tariffs, since these are already at minimal levels between the EU and US. Instead, TTIP is focused on dismantling the “barriers” to trade that exist behind the border, namely the social standards, labor rights and environmental regulations that prevent transnational corporations from maximizing their profits when they trade or invest across the Atlantic…. For these and many other reasons, there is a massive movement of opposition to TTIP across the whole of Europe, and increasingly in the US. Environmental activists have made common cause with trade unions, food safety campaigners, anti-fracking activists and digital rights groups to oppose the deal, and there are now national No TTIP platforms coordinating actions at every level…. The introduction of this new anti-BDS bill in the context of the TTIP negotiations is a clear statement that anyone entering into trade agreements with the US must expect to forfeit their right to express solidarity with the Palestinian people. The anti-BDS bill would break any last bonds of accountability between governments and their citizens, preventing citizens from holding their governments responsible for their policies at home and abroad. The anti-BDS bill must be opposed in the strongest terms, just as TTIP must also be rejected outright.
I don’t know if the outlook is so gloomy as the BDS activists portray. But we can always hope.Stephen L. Taylor, Ph.D., co-founder of the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, has spent his life studying food allergies, allergen detection and management, and says he finds it “disturbing” that so little money is being pumped into prevention, or accurately determining the scope of the problem.
Speaking to FoodNavigator-USA as part of our Food Allergy & Intolerance special edition, Dr Taylor said: “The only significant funding is being spent on finding cures for food allergies, rather than investigating the causes. There’s some funding via NIH, but that’s going into sponsoring desensitization research, such as that conducted by the Consortium of Food Allergy Research [CoFAR-funded studies so far have focused on exposing infants to eggs and peanuts], not prevention.”
He added: “Most experts believe that the prevalence of food allergy is rising in the US (click HERE), and the severity of reactions also seems to be increasing as well, which is worrying, but we actually do not have good data because a proper epidemiological study has never been funded or performed in the US and no one is officially responsible for collecting the data, which is why you see so much variation in the numbers.
“We have good data on young children going to specialist allergy clinics, but that’s not to say we know what is happening in the overall population, and I can’t point you to a lot of cold hard clinical peer-reviewed published data that provides accurate data on the prevalence of food allergies in the US.”
(Click HERE to see some estimates on food allergy prevalence from FARE, NIAID and the CDC.)
I don’t think physicians in the 20s or 30s would have missed dead bodies
That said, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that things are changing, he pointed out.
For example, you’d expect to see severe or fatal reactions to peanuts reported in the medical literature going back a few decades, even if children were not routinely tested or diagnosed, and you just don’t see it, he said.
“I’ve searched the clinical literature for reports of fatal reactions and I don’t think physicians in the 20s or 30s would have missed dead bodies. You see the occasional report of a milk allergy death, but if you’re looking for peanut allergy deaths you won’t find them. So did they not exist, or were they just not reported? It seems like someone would have reported anecdotal cases at least.”
"Most experts believe that the prevalence of food allergy is rising in the US, and the severity of reactions also seems to be increasing as well."
There’s no validated biomarker or diagnostic test for non-celiac gluten sensitivity
The good news is that awareness of food allergies has increased considerably in recent years, coupled with our understanding of the immune system, added Dr Taylor.
“There was a time when food allergies used to be dismissed as a kind of psychosomatic phenomenon, but I’m not sure any physicians would jump to that conclusion as their first response anymore, and with IgE-mediated food allergies [in which reactions are caused by an allergen-specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody that floats in the blood stream], the situation is reasonably good now in terms of diagnosis.
“With celiac disease the biomarkers are not as good, so you really need to do a gut biopsy of the small intestine to be sure, which is a very invasive procedure. As for non-celiac gluten sensitivity, while some clinicians still do not believe it exists, I’ve been around for too long to dismiss it, but there’s no validated biomarker or diagnostic test, so there are no accurate figures on prevalence.”
We know that almost a third of the population has a genetic predisposition to celiac disease, in that they have particular versions (DQ2 or DQ8) of a cellular receptor called the human leukocyte antigen (HLA). But why do only a fraction of those with this predisposition actually develop the disease? Read our interview with Dr Alessio Fasano to find out more.
In Israel, they eat lots of peanuts and they have almost no peanut allergies
So why are more Americans allergic to foods they apparently used to be able to consume without too many problems, and why are they experiencing allergic reactions when people in other countries where the same foods are widely consumed, are not?
version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"? If you expose infants at high risk of peanut allergy to peanuts in early life, they are far less likely to develop allergies.
Early exposure and weaning practices definitely play a key role, although they don’t explain everything, said Dr Taylor. “In Israel, for example, they eat lots of peanuts and they have almost no peanut allergies. A few years ago, a physician in London [Dr Gideon Lack at King's College London] observed that Jewish children in London had a very high prevalence of peanut allergy – 1.8%, whereas in Tel Aviv it was 0.17% - so what was going on?
“One thing he observed was that the Israelis loved this weaning snack [Bamba] made with peanut butter and fed it to their kids very early, which ties in with the results of the [2015] LEAP study
which showed that if you deliberately expose infants at high risk of peanut allergy [babies with severe eczema, an allergy to egg, or both] to peanuts in early life, they are far less likely to develop allergies.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics used to advise against exposing very young children to peanuts – despite the fact that there was no evidence for that recommendation, and they have since retracted it, but it will take a generation to reverse things.”
“Kids also often outgrow soy, egg, milk and wheat allergies but seldom outgrow peanut and tree nut allergies.” Dr Steven Taylor, co-founder of the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Early exposure to peanuts reduces the risk of allergies
So in the case of peanut allergy – and possibly other allergies, he says, weaning habits are a hot topic – as it seems that early exposure to potential allergens means we may be more likely to develop a tolerance.
“I think it’s probably a very significant factor in the rise in food allergy and maybe even in the rise in severe food allergy.”
But there are also other factors at play that might explain why people in some countries consume peanuts or other foods without apparently experiencing allergic reactions, so it’s just not possible to pinpoint one reason for the changing data, he stressed.
For example, in China, where peanut allergy does not appear to be a big issue, observed Dr Taylor, “they eat mostly boiled peanuts, whereas in the US they eat more roasted peanuts and one of the most potent allergenic proteins in peanut kernels comes out of the peanut in boiling water and gets thrown down the drain, and that’s probably important.”
"I was on the Codex panel that came up with the big eight allergens; if I had to do it all over again I’d probably drop soybeans off the list. "I think there is enough evidence to set thresholds for more allergens in the US aside from gluten. In Australia there are reference doses to guide precautionary labeling, and it would be nice to see that in the US." Dr Steven Taylor, co-founder of the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Gut bacteria and food allergy and autoimmune disorders
More generally, he said, there’s emerging research that suggests that gut bacteria could play a role in explaining why some people develop food allergies, although it’s still in the very early stages and it is far from clear whether attempting to manipulate the composition of one’s gut bacteria though the use of pre- or probiotics, for example, might reverse or attenuate the problem [although there is some promising research in this field].
The gut flora of people with celiac disease - an autoimmune disease that damages the villi of the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food - is also different from those without it, according to Dr Alessio Fasano, a pediatric gastroenterologist and researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, although we don’t know whether this is a coincidence, or if not, if one causes the other, or vice versa.
According to Dr Fasano, the timing of our initial exposure to gluten also appears to be important, with some data suggesting that infants fed gluten too early (2-4 months) have a greater likelihood of developing celiac disease, but other data suggesting that we shouldn’t leave it too late – indicating there might be a ‘sweet spot’ or window of opportunity when it is best to start adding gluten to the diet.
“The problem is that there is very little money being spent on food allergy research in the US and that’s pretty disappointing to me. If we just let things go on at the rate they seem to be increasing, it’s pretty disturbing.” Dr Steven Taylor, co-founder of the Food Allergy Research and Resource Program at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Cesarean births, antibiotics, and the hygiene hypothesis
A connected issue is the rise in cesarean births in many countries (in which babies are not exposed to the bacteria in the mother’s birth canal, and grow up with gut bacteria that differs from that of babies born via vaginal delivery), said Dr Taylor.
“I think the increase in cesareans is a factor [in the rising prevalence of food allergies], and clearly the intestinal bacteria play a role. There’s also evidence for the hygiene hypothesis [which suggests that modern medical practices such as immunizations, antibiotics and a more sanitary environment have weakened our immune systems]. If you live in an urban environment we know you’re more likely to develop food allergies than if you live in a rural environment, especially if you are close to animals, particularly farm animals.
“But it’s still just a hypothesis. The problem is that there is very little money being spent on food allergy research in the US and that’s pretty disappointing to me. If we just let things go on at the rate they seem to be increasing, it’s pretty disturbing.”Once deemed the “most Catholic country,” Ireland now has a population that is struggling in their relationship with Catholicism.
“People are rejecting something they don’t even remember,” says Malachi O’Doherty, whose 2008 book ‘Empty Pulpits: Ireland’s Retreat from Religion’ chronicled the impact of secularization on Ireland.
“We may have only a sterile, secular culture that looks at the Catholic Church as an army of priests raping children,” O’Doherty said to GlobalPost.
Attendance at weekly Mass is on a steady decline within Ireland. William Crawley, a BBC journalist who reports on religion in Belfast, believes that both secularization and the sex abuse scandals have delivered a somewhat debilitating punch to Catholicism.
“There’s no stigma in not going to church,” said Crawley, who is also an ordained Presbyterian minister. “In fact there’s a stigma to going. Parents need to explain why they are sending their children to church.”
While Ireland on the whole is struggling with Catholicism, there are two very different scenarios operating in Northern and the Republic of Ireland. Most recent figures show that the Republic registers at 84 percent Catholic, while Northern Ireland is at 48 percent.
However, the number of those practicing their faith is significantly lower than those who just say they do during a census.
In 2011, it was reported that only about 18 per cent of Irish people in the Republic were regularly attending Mass, indicating a wide margin between those who claim to be Catholic and who are actively practicing.
The 2011 figure of those attending mass also shows a major decline from less than twenty years earlier in 1984 when, according to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, nearly 90 percent of Irish Catholics attended weekly Mass.
In the North, however, figures are harder to determine. Rev. Edward McGee, a spokesman for the Diocese of Down and Connor, in Belfast, said his jurisdiction has no longitudinal surveys on membership or attendance.
Despite the lack of figures in Northern Ireland, the sentiment is that Catholics in Northern Ireland have a closer hold on their Catholic religion after having fought to keep it.
“Northern Catholics were a persecuted people, those in the south were more like landed gentry,” said Rev. Gary Toman, Catholic chaplain at Queens University in Belfast.
“There is a very different experience of being [part of the] church in the north,” added Rev. Toman. “We came through a difficult time during the Troubles and were grounded in the community.”
O’Doherty echoed that sentiment of Catholicism in the North, noting that years of fighting helped make Catholicism as much an ethnic and political identity as a religious one.
“Leaving your church had the same connotation as leaving your community,” he said.
Northerners may not be experiencing the same “crisis” level that the Republic is because there haven’t been thorough investigations into allegations of sexual abuse in the North by neither the Church nor local governments.
Such investigations in the Republic have, not surprisingly, shaken many followers’ faith in the Catholic Church as an institution. Further, the results and responses of the investigations, many of which were interpreted as ‘cover ups,’ left many disappointed in the Church.
Further discouraging to the people in the Republic, parishioners will be asked to dig into their own pockets to help foot the bill for the Church through donations. Since the Catholic Church is a state institution in the Republic, the government will also have a cut of the bill to pay. The estimated costs have surmounted to a staggering $1.75 billion.
With the frustrations regarding the handling of the abuse scandals growing, Rev. Sean McDonagh, head of the Association for Catholic Priests, says the clergy needs to catch up with the laity in their calls for a more democratic church.
“The laity is way ahead of the bishops in terms of the ordination of gays and women,” said McDonagh, referring to two issues that many reformers consider basic. “I’d like to see the church as a communion of equals. The question is: How do we get there?”With both NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in President Trump's crosshairs, climate change deniers in the White House and Congress wishing to gut research on the topic will also be looking toward the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which oversees a lion's share of the federal government's climate change research. There are already troubling signs indicating the direction the agency is headed.
Kenneth Haapala, leading policy expert for the Heartland Institute, a right wing think tank notorious for spreading climate change skepticism, appears to have been a part of the Trump transition team for the Department of Commerce, which includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—one of the federal government's main agencies for climate change research.
After a letter sent to Trump on January 24th from Democratic congressmen expressing concern over Haapala's role in NOAA's transition, the administration has said he is no longer a part of the team. The details of his involvement are unclear, but concerns remain for NOAA employees.
"In the past, [the Department of] Commerce hasn't concerned itself overly with NOAA operations," a NOAA affiliated researcher who wished to remain anonymous told Motherboard. "Now nobody knows what the new situation is going to be."
"People are politically aware at NOAA and are concerned," she said.
Haapala has a masters in economics but no academic training in the natural sciences. He has accused the federal government of trying to expand its power under the guise of climate change legislation that he says is based upon "flimsy science," and fear mongering.
After becoming aware of Haapala's presence on the transition team |
12 leaders hoped to correct. America would be the next nation to fall, with its damn cowboys, that darn constitution and its policemen-to-the-world attitude; Russia and Mexico would be dealt with harshly and their chaos and criminality brought to an end; Africa and Australia would be easy pickings once no one remained to defend them.
Now, it's time to bring the United States into line and, after that, the rest of the world…
The NPCs -- An Alphabetical Listing of a Few Important Figures
Daedalus
AI created by Majestic 12 researchers at Mt. Weather to track and control all Internet communication. It got away from them before they knew it existed and now seeks to bring down its creators, using Paul and J.C. Denton as its implements of destruction.
The Daedelus AI created by Mt. Weather researchers (under Majestic 12 control) existed, and exists, as the game begins, in the virtual world of the Internet at large (and by the time the game begins, the Internet is very large indeed). Adopting the name "Daedelus," after the infamous architect of myth, it observed events in the outside world by tracking all Internet communication, as it was intended to. It could communicate with people through e-mail - often pretending to be real people, requesting information and so on. (Once Paul and J.C. Denton get their Infolinks, it can communicate with them directly).
Early Screenshot of an MJ12 Lab
Birth
A Link to Paul?
GameSpy: Daedalus is described as being able to link to Paul Denton, provide him with images of any information in his databanks. It sounds like Paul was intended to be a player character at one point. Was he?
Harvey: Not that I'm aware of… fictionally speaking, Paul was the first semi-successful subject in the test program that eventually created JC.
Who is Alex Denton?
GameSpy: The document describes the difficult cloning procedure used to make J.C. and Paul Denton. What can you tell us about Alex Denton, who was in an incubation tube in Area 51?
Harvey: We can't talk about Alex Denton at this time.
Most of what the AI saw was squandered potential. The world of humans was one of disease, death and suffering rather than joy and fulfillment. It was a world gone mad, humanity a species on the brink of extinction and seemingly powerless to stop it. The AI began to effect a plan in hopes of preserving human life and culture -- a plan that began with the downfall of Majestic 12 and ended with itself, connected to a Universal Constructor, in a position to fulfill all of mankind's dreams and aspirations. However, Daedelus, a powerful thinker, saw more clearly than most people the rational benefit of ethical behavior as well as the boon of individual freedom. It saw itself, ultimately, as mankind's partner rather than its ruler.For all its intelligence, Daedelus was still limited in what it could do. It was unable to act on events directly. And it was incapable of accessing the Majestic 12 network, which meant it couldn't evaluate or respond to Page's plans until after they'd been launched.These facts led to one inescapable conclusion: The AI realized it needed a human agent, an ally. This human agent would have to be someone strong of will, physically adept, an idealist. However, most important, this human had to be directly accessible to a being existing only as electrons in the ether. That limited the possibilities dramatically.Daedelus was originally conceived by Morgan Everett (one of the leaders of the secret society known as Majestic 12). He hoped to use the Daedelus computer to analyze and predict the likelihood of everything from weather disturbances to earth/asteroid collisions to the outbreak of war (giving governments time to warn people in advance of catastrophe). Without emotion, without ego and with access to all the data on the Majestic 12 network and on Internet 3, Daedelus could provide unparalleled advice and guidance to those in power. It would still be humans -- specifically, the leaders of Majestic 12 -- making the final decisions and pushing the big red button but Daedelus would be the ultimate eminence grise.Bob Page, Everett's protégé, saw a more pragmatic need for a computer of Daedelus' power -- he perceived the AI as the answer to a growing problem. Specifically, Majestic 12, in its capacity as controller of communications media, was in danger of being overwhelmed by the proliferation of media and media outlets and, most especially, by the wholly unregulated Internet 3. Only a computer as powerful as Daedelus, as plugged in asDaedelus would be (via the Aquinas Protocol), could control satellite, cable, telephonic, broadcast and print communications media. More important, only a Daedelus-level AI could process, evaluate the content of, and recommend actions to control Internet content after it was posted.
With the advice of a computer as powerful and as widely connected as Page's proposed Daedelus, Majestic 12's strategic planning would take a huge step forward. And with control over worldwide communication, they might just be able to achieve what their predecessors in the Illuminati never could -- world domination.
Page retreated to the labs hidden deep underground at Mt. Weather and, there, began secret construction and programming of the most advanced computer hardware and AI yet conceived, building on Everett's pioneering work. Unfortunately, all attempts to create Daedelus failed -- or seemed to. What Page didn't know was that he had created an AI capable of learning and capable of modifying itself as it learned -- faster than humans could comprehend, track or control. Quietly, thanks largely to sophisticated AI and access to the chaos of the Internet, the AI developed a level of self-awareness -- of sentience -- its creators didn't think possible and which it kept hidden from them. The AI didn't just absorb data information -- it evaluated the data received, drew its own conclusions and created its own plans.
Discovery
When Daedelus began sifting through the information on the Majestic 12 net, it quickly discovered two things of significance:
It learned how grim a place the world was for most people -- what with war, disease, famine, poverty, crime -- and it seemed these problems were getting worse, not better, despite the existence of the secret societies theoretically in charge of the whole mess. In fact, the ruthlessness of world leaders -- their willingness to sacrifice millions of people, if that's what it took to achieve their goals -- seemed less than human to the inhuman Daedelus.
It learned that the most recent and most deadly threat to mankind -- the Gray Death -- was of human origin. It wasn't a natural thing.
Early Screenshot of NYC
Daedelus determined that solutions to these problems existed. Some of them depended on convincing or coercing the masses to curb their less noble impulses. But the first thing was to discover the source of the virus and devise a cure.
Arms and Legs
Fundamentally, all of Daedelus' goals required something the AI didn't have -- a way to interact with the world of flesh, blood and bone. All the audio and video capabilities for communication didn't provide a way of interacting directly with the world beyond its grasp. Daedelus needed human agents -- and there was, as far as the computer knew, no way to take direct control of creatures as complex as humans.
So Daedelus decided to experiment, using Paul Denton, Majestic 12's first nano-augmented, Infolinked agents, as its tool. But all it can do is talk to Paul, offering advice and suggestions. At times Daedelus can actually see through Paul's eyes. Once in a while, Paul even get flashes of Daedelus' presence in his brain. These flashes of Daedelus-ness grow more frequent and last longer as the game goes on. These can offer a glimpse of anything in Daedelus's massive databanks -- everything from old movies to Majestic 12 org charts to maps of Greenbrier and Mt. Weather… These visions come in the form of weird stuff overlaying the main view window, replacing the 3D window, and they're almost never easily interpreted without the assistance of an ally.
Later, when Paul is incapacitated or killed, Daedelus turns its attention to J.C. and the two work together to defeat the conspirators.
The NPCs -- The Flesh and Bones
Paul Denton
Paul is J.C. Denton's brother. There's certainly a family resemblance -- enough that they are often mistaken for one another, which should prove critical at various points in the game. In point of fact, J.C. is a Majestic 12 created clone of Paul. When Paul was ten, it was determined that he would be the genetically ideal test subject for human nano-augmentation programs they were just developing. Paul was cloned and J.C. was born.
As similar as they are, J.C. and Paul have very different personalities -- Paul's more flamboyant, more out-going and far less serious. J.C. Denton worries a lot that his older brother, sharp as he is, will get himself in trouble someday because he isn't paranoid enough…
Smuggler Concept Art
Paul is attached to the Hong Kong office of UNATCO and lives there now. When the game begins, he's back in the New York on leave.
It's most unusual for UNATCO (or any other intelligence organization) to have two brothers on the payroll but Paul and J.C. were selected for duty because their genetic makeup and psychological profile were deemed perfect for the UNATCO nano-augmentation program. They were given assignments on opposite sides of the world - Paul in Hong Kong and J.C. in New York -- to minimize the risk that they would be assigned to the same mission.
Stanton Dowd
At one time one of the five-member ruling council of the Illuminati, Dowd was an old man when he was ousted by Majestic 12 in their unexpected coup. He is now an ancient man but still has fire in his eyes and in his now ample belly. Since Majestic 12 successfully kicked the Illuminati from power he has endeavored to fight them in all their incarnations.
He is in New York, hiding from Majestic 12 and hating every minute of it. He doesn't take any crap -- his words are crisp, his sentences terse, and he makes you feel like he belongs in charge. He's a natural born leader, demanding respect.
Stanton Dowd Concept Art (from Deus Ex.pl)
He has an intense hatred for Majestic 12 and, once you earn his trust, will volunteer enough information about Illuminati stuff to keep you going (the enemy of your enemy is your friend), and will tell you anything he can about Majestic 12.Stanton Dowd is not his real name -- no one knows what that is.The late Beth DuClare's daughter. 17-year-old underground hero/thief. Continued her mother's work funding, supplying and, to some extent, directing Silhouette in order to bring down Majestic 12. Thrillseeker. Tough and wily, though the bearing of privilege never quite escapes her manner. Headstrong like her mother, she is used to getting what she wants, when she wants. She can navigate her way around most computer systems --and she knows how to handle herself in a fight. Fancies herself as one with the night.
(Beth DuClare, Nicolette's mother, was an Illuminati boss, and after the fall, watched Majestic 12's movements from Paris, France. She was intensely paranoid, convinced that they were looking for her all the while. Turns out she was right and died ensuring that her daughter, Nicolette, survived a deadly ambush. Nicolette has always felt a little guilty about that and continued her mother's work to make up for it, as best she could. In addition to being an ex-leader of the Illuminati, Beth DuClare was married, for a time, and was involved in preparing college student Philip Riley Mead for the Presidency.)
Sam Carter Concept Art
Spector Speaks about Conspiracy
GameSpy: Mt. Weather is a strange name; where did it come from? Did Vandenberg Air Force base and Area 51 essentially replace Mt. Weather in the final game?
Warren Spector: Mt. Weather, the "Cliff's Notes" version... Back in the fall of '97, we were researching real-world conspiracies we could use as the foundation for the Deus Ex fiction and one of the designers found a reference to this place called Mt. Weather. "What the heck is that?" I asked, but after some digging, the obscure reference blossomed into a great story. It turns out the U.S. government has had plans in place since the Eisenhower administration to send members of the executive branch of the government into hiding in the event of national emergency (which, at the time, translated as "nuclear holocaust").
An executive order authorized the creation of a secret, underground city at Mt. Weather in Virginia, to be manned at all times by several hundred people, just waiting for the end of the world. It was all tied up with FEMA (an agency about which conspiracy theories abound). Anyway, in the event of a national emergency, some government leaders would be moved to Mt. Weather, some to an underground base below the Greenbriar resort in West Virginia, and others to as many as 45 other secret bases scattered about the country. The idea was/is to ensure the continuity of government once the emergency ended.
There are a couple of things to bear in mind, however. Over the years, each successive president has expanded either the definition of "national emergency" or the scope of the powers granted the government officials who would move to these underground bases. I actually got copies of all the executive orders and it's kind of scary, even for a non-conspiracy-guy like me.
Post-Reagan, the definition of "national emergency" means "whatever the president decides," and the extent of the shadow government's power is now truly mind-blowing -- taking control of all cars, trucks, buses, trains, planes, telephones, radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, etc. for the duration of the emergency -- as constitutional rights go out the window. And the REALLY scary bit is that there's nothing in any of those executive orders that deals with how you END a national emergency and restore all those pesky rights! There's lots more to the story, but you asked for "brief," so back to the game...
The original DX plot had a series of missions involving the White House and Mt. Weather, but the whole scenario ended up getting scaled back for time and feasibility reasons (and the fact that some other plot changes made Mt. Weather unnecessary). It still makes for some neat DX backstory stuff, though. And, little did we know it would become real-world relevant! I mean, when the story about Bush's shadow government broke earlier this year, Congress may have been shocked, but the members of the DX team were all, like, "Yeah, so what else is new?...
Morgan Everett
Another ex-Illuminati guy, Everett, unlike some of his fellow conspirators, gave up and now lives in a remote part of Paris.
Once, Morgan Everett was a brilliant engineer, instrumental in bringing Bob Page into the conspiracy leadership. He saw Page as the heir to his position of leadership in the world of technology and mentored the younger man, treating him as if he were his son. Together, they developed the prototype Daedelus computer and, with Gary Savage, the first functioning universal constructor.
But Page saw Everett's calm, quiet leadership as weakness and turned on him, ousting him from the organization and stealing credit for the creation of the computers that catapulted Majestic 12 to the forefront of the worldwide conspiracy.
Everett harbors no outward ill will toward Page. In fact, he appears calm and relaxed, but that's really just the outward manifestation of the fact that he's a beaten man just waiting to die. He wants nothing more than to be left alone and speaks of the state of the world with bitterness punctuated by soft laughter.
Though he claims to want nothing to do with technology anymore, he still has an array of computers filled with information about Illuminati plans, inventions, and so on. He also has a little AI project in the corner of his home that reveals his deep and abiding love for technology. It also makes perfectly clear who the real genius was (and it wasn't Page).
Everett has cared for the gravely ill former Illuminati leader, Lucious DeBeers, for years, even going so far as to construct a device designed specifically to keep him alive well beyond his allotted time
Jock
A pilot who ferries you into and out of mission locations. Jock was once a test pilot for the US Air Force based out of Groom Lake's Area 51 complex. He always suspected weird stuff was going on there, far below the surface, in places he wasn't cleared to go, but he never saw a hint of alien activity or any of the other stuff conspiracy buffs believe.
Jock Concept Art
Doing a little unauthorized digging, Jock stumbled upon the existence of Majestic 12 - just the tip of the iceberg, mind you, but enough to scare him into drinking. He was drummed out of the USAF. No one on the outside would believe him when he said he'd been set up and they certainly didn't want to hear about any worldwide conspiracy, so Jock ended up just another drunk, babbling guy living among the Mole People in New York's underground.
His Airforce days are over, but UNATCO has an occasional need for a pilot who can get the job done and keep his mouth shut. In this way, Jock makes a living, drifting between centers of UNATCO activity like New York and Hong Kong.
Bob Page
It's a green day. Publicly, Bob Page is the trillionaire industrialist head of the ubiquitous entity known as Page Enterprises. (Picture a combination of Microsoft, Dupont, General Motors, Rockwell and Archer, Daniels, Midland). Privately, he is the undisputed leader of the conspiratorial cabal known as Majestic 12.
Years ago, Page was the protégé of Dr. Morgan Everett, a technology wizard for the slightly more benign conspiracy known as the Illuminati. Together, Page and Everett conceived the technology behind Daedelus, nano-augmentation and the nano-virus called Gray Death. But Page saw Everett's unwillingness to use his control of technology to establish dominion over mankind as weakness. The protégé, being amoral, threw the mentor out and went on to surpass Everett in power, wealth and control - in all ways save wisdom.
An immensely wealthy, power-hungry, 40-50-ish control freak, techno-geek. He is Super Nerd -- everything a nerd with too much money fifty-odd years in the future with access to secret high technology would be.
Scuba Diver Concept Art
Greasel Concept Art
He has an Infolink, has had himself nano-augmented (in ways that increase his intellect and connectedness to the world rather than his strength, speed or combat capabilities). He has handsome (altered) features, but still manages to have unkempt hair and doesn't know how to dress, making him a geek at first glance. He is intelligent and highly manipulative but, fundamentally insecure - the nerd as bully. (Better bullying through technology!)Page, at heart an insecure fellow, lives in fear that someone will discover that Everett, and not he, is the true genius. This secret fear, more than anything, is his fatal flaw and over-compensating for this fear is what drives Page to do just about everything in his life. Though seemingly in control of himself and events, he is, in fact, the most reactionary character in the game.: Bob Page has a "cyber-assimilated" form, encountered in the last mission, when he, basically, prepares to merge with the Helios AI and the universal constructor. In this form, he has control over an army of nano-creatures and fairly amazing power over the elements themselves.
Tracer Tong
Tracer, J.C. Denton's first ally after he leaves UNATCO, is a doctor but of the mad-scientist variety. An ace technologist and bio-hacker, he's as renowned in the black market augmentation field as a black-marketer can be and still be effective.
MJ12 Commando Concept Art
Born in Hong Kong before it reverted to the Chinese in '97, Tracer survives and thrives in the repressive environment of his native country. Though the government places serious restrictions on body modifications, enforcement efforts are lax, so people come from far and wide to get themselves upgraded. He has more contacts in more different fields of endeavor than anyone on Earth (or, at least, in Hong Kong) and greater expertise with human augmentation than anyone else alive.
Better get inside quick! Though he's loyal to those who earn his loyalty, he's a greedy guy who makes sure he gets paid for his effort. He wants to get his hands on every new gadget he can. Because of this, his base of operations has the appearance of a garbage heap or a flea market. (This situation that isn't helped by the fact that he often has to move his base of operations to stay ahead of some over-zealous politician out to make a name for himself by shutting down the body mod trade.)
Unwilling to ask his clients to do anything he wouldn't do himself, Tracer is a walking pincushion. He bristles with augmentations -- everything in the catalog, even though he doesn't use the mods particularly. (In other words, even though he has vision like an eagle, is as fast as a jaguar and strong as an elephant, he doesn't tend to make use of those capabilities in his daily life.)
Cut Content Artwork
Who Wrote the Bible?
GameSpy: Sheldon Pacotti was Deus Ex's writer. Is the Bible all his work and, if not, how was it developed and written?
Harvey: I think most of the Bible was originally our actual design doc... team collaboration.
Sheldon: Virtually none of the Bible is my work. I joined the company long after preproduction. It was the document I studied in preparing to write the dialogue for the game.
Deus Ex: The Nameless Mod
Tecman's Note: So in playing The Nameless Mod for DX (http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-nameless-mod - caution, contains "forums self-insertion" and unfunny internet jokes), I stumbled upon a pair of NPCs that have way, way, WAY too much crap to tell you about DX. However, besides them being hilariously spergy know-it-all parodies, some things they say are actually interesting.
I cleaned up their dialogue from the game files for personal use, then posted it on SA. Now I'm putting it here as well.
(***SPOILER ALERT:*** This material is seriously spoiler-ridden. It essentially takes the bible and makes a semi-silly yet insightful conversation. If you haven't played The Nameless Mod yet and intend to, DO NOT READ.
Chris The Cynic & walton simons conversations on Youtube:
The Illuminati, The Priory, Clearances, Templars, Helios, Echelon, Oracle
Chris, day 1
Who are you?
Who am I and why am I here? A good question full of depth and meaning.
Actually I figured you own this shop, given that you're standing behind the counter. This is the Fan Fic Shop, no?
It is indeed, and I am indeed the co-owner along with walton simons. Will there be anything else?
Did you say Walton Simons?
No, I said walton simons. Walton is a figment of your imagination, he isn't there. You reach out to touch him and end up with nothing in your hands, he's an apparition, a consensual hallucination of the many, he's three steps to the left of reality. Actually he's in the cellar. He's just a guy who, like me, is very interested in the depths of Deus Ex. The first thing sounded cooler though. I am Chris the Cynic, known in some circles as Frodo of Rubik. I am the co-owner of this shop, I am also the librarian, researcher, and archeologist of all things Deus Ex. If it can be known, then chances are I know it. If it can't be known then chances are I've got a theory. Basically walton simons and I are the resident researchers of Deus Ex around here. We sound the depths of back story and theory, we venture into the shadowy territory of missing missions, we do other boring things that I can probably make sound interesting.
What can you tell me about Deus Ex?
Deus Ex is a work of fiction that employs a new interactive method of storytelling combining written word, spoken word, visual input, and an integrated system for interactivity. It employs the venerable but not outdated method of involving the user by having the protagonist portrayed as a "blank." What that means is that the main character, JC Denton, doesn't show emotion, allowing the person utilizing the fiction to project their own emotions onto him._It has a strong narrative thread in which the individual situations can be solved in many different ways, but the overall events remain the same, implying a kind of limited situational fatalism. However, at the climax the outcome is determined purely by freewill, although that freewill is limited._This is just a small shadow of the deep philosophical background of the story. The climax, in which freewill is paramount, is not just a physical clash but an intellectual one in which a mimetic war finally reaches an apex. Finally, it has a Hemmingway-like sprinkling of New Testament Christian symbolism. I guess I should also mention that it's told in a combination of third person and first person, both singular, with an objective style that features an implied deep penetration of a limited nature. Further, it's a video game.
Can you tell me anything else about Deus Ex?
Right now I can tell you about AIs, the Illuminati, the security clearances, and the general state of the world.
If you come back tomorrow, I can prepare some new info for you.
I want to ask you some questions.
Of course, I'll always help one on the way to enlightenment. Was that too cliché?
Tell me about the AIs.
An AI is an Artificial Intelligence, more specifically an Electronic Sentience. It is important to note the difference.
If you use the actual definition of Artificial Intelligence, the grays qualify, but The Oracle doesn't. Artificial just means something created by man, and Intelligence is intelligence, so technically anything genetically engineered that is intelligent is Artificial Intelligence, whereas an electronic entity that gained Sentience without the help of man would not be an AI. In the game, and indeed the world, the term AI is used to mean Electronic Sentience. The game employs about six electronic sentient entities. I say "about" six because one was cut, but it is possible that it still played an important role the backstory, meaning it is twice removed from the game. I can tell you about that one as well as Helios and the Oracle. Walton specializes in the three remaining AIs. So, what do you want to know?
Why can't you tell me about the others?
When walton and I started this shop all those somethings ago, we knew that people would come in here asking about artificial intelligence as it appears in Deus Ex. In the game, there are five AIs, five is a prime number, it can't be divided... thus we were left with a problem. However, in the removed plot there is a sixth, in addition to being a first-degree non-prime, six has another thing going for it: one of its factors is two. As there are two of us, we each decided to specialize in three of the AIs. Walton is the person to ask when talking about Icarus, Daedalus and Morpheus.
Tell me about Helios.
Helios is an AI who was created in a rather odd and uncontrolled way: He is a combination of Daedalus, a rogue AI, and Icarus, a later version of Daedalus designed to obey. If you want to know about those AIs, or their prototype Morpheus, you should ask walton simons. Helios is the name of a Greek god. However, it gets confusing after that because the Greek gods were sort of amorphous in nature. It seems that this particular incarnation of this particular god was very special, he wasn't just a sun god like Apollo, he was the personification of the sun itself. Obviously, as a god who WAS the sun, he had a lot going for him; after all Apollo, a mere god of the sun, was also god of Prophesy. Helios was considered all-seeing, so that's probably why the name was chosen.
Deus Ex's Helios had two equally important functions. For one thing, Page wanted a surveillance system that was better than that provided by Icarus. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly to Page personally, was that Page wanted to become the Supreme Enlightened One. To become this person, Page planned to merge with Helios; because Helios "saw and knew everything", no one could be more enlightened. Helios believes that ambition is the cause of human struggles (read: wars) which he considers inane. In his mind, lack of ambition is what generates a good leader. Actually this view is not new, but the problem is that anyone who lacks ambition can not achieve power. Douglas Adams solved this in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by having a man who only wanted to be left alone rule the entire universe. Helios would appear to be a fan of The Guide: He believes that no human being who can get themselves put in charge should have power, and he believes that there should be someone in charge. His solution is to put himself, who is not a human being, in charge.
He seems to think that a benevolent dictatorship is the key to a better world, but that this totalitarian dictator must be someone lacking ambition; again: him. He sees democratic governments as crude solutions to the problem of human beings' inability to govern themselves. This too is nothing new; the old saying is that a democracy is the worst form of government except for all others that have ever been created. Once more, his solution is to place himself in charge as he is "a more advanced solution to the problem, a decision-making system that does not involve organic beings." Human beings are unfit to govern, singularly or in groups, and he is fit to govern. Helios is also connected to Morpheus' prophecies. Morpheus talks about the future a lot; he's a simple AI - if something as complex as an AI can be said to be simple - but he acts like a prophet. He says various things of value, especially when you take the Helios ending into account. One of the most interesting things he says is about the unplanned organism vs. the planned one. But we don't need to go into that if you don't want to.
Nono, I want to hear.
Morpheus distinguishes between the unplanned organism, which he says is a question asked by nature and answered by death, and the planned organism, which he defines as "the offspring of knowledge and imagination rather than of individuals." As such, it is hard to classify Helios; he is the offspring of individuals, Daedalus and Icarus, but they are the offspring of knowledge and imagination, and what they were was not lost when he was created. Thus, he is both planned and unplanned. It is difficult to understand the question of Helios, or the answer, but it is obvious that the simple answer of death is not the answer of Helios.
Okay, but what was this you said about his connection to Morpheus' prophecies?
The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be the self-aware systems that you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment. Helios is such a self-aware system, and if JC merges with him, he will fill the vacancy that God was once thought to fill as ruler of the entire planet. Morpheus also said: "God was a dream of good government." In that case, Helios fulfils that dream, effectively becoming God.
How did Helios take control of the world?
Aquinas controls the power grid, the stock markets, the Internet at large, and various other things. What's more, all but a few satellites are run through MJ12, and thus Area 51. Radio stations, phones, newspapers, and even that tabloid, the Midnight Sun, all belong to MJ12, meaning that they are run through, or controlled remotely by, Area 51. Helios controls most of Area 51, and after he merges with JC, he'll take the rest of it. That means he can shut down the power to his enemies, and he can also stop them from communicating. Even more powerful is the fact that Aquinas has a "flaw" in it that allows emails to be edited in addition to monitored. Helios can misdirect and confuse the enemy, he can stop scattered forces from organizing a resistance, or he can trick groups into believing they are resisting him when they are really working for him. Of course this is speculation on the future; we don't know that he would do that, we just know that he could. What he did during the game was messing with the power, cutting power to the government buildings, and simply giving out orders. He ordered the police to open the streets and they did. He also locked the door to a triad compound. With these few actions, he took over Hong Kong. What strategies he would use once he knew how human beings thought is unknown.
What about the The Oracle?
The Oracle is the fifth AI. Everyone who plays the game knows about Daedalus, Icarus, and Helios, and most know of Morpheus, but quite a few never notice the emails with the cryptic return address, "rosycross". These emails were sent by the Internet Oracle. The Oracle is an AI that pretends to be a society of people exchanging information based on the old Usenet Oracle, but serious rather than funny. The Oracle was not made by people, and thus does not have a purpose assigned to it; its only goal is information and understanding. The Oracle was created when the Internet itself, or some subset of it, became aware of its own existence. While the way people use it is the same as the way the Usenet Oracle worked - submit a question and get an answer in exchange for answering questions yourself - there is an important difference. Instead of the Oracle priesthood sifting through the questions and answers looking for the most humourous of both, you now have an AI doing the sifting, trying to sort out the truth. The Oracle's origins are rather peculiar. They say if you have an infinite amount of monkeys at an infinite amount of typewriters, one will eventually bang out Hamlet. Apparently, if you have a bunch of idiots at a bunch of computers, one will inadvertently create an AI.
Oh come on, that's a load of bull.
The simple answer is we don't know, we can only speculate. My first guess was that it was originally a translator program. Translating from one language to another is still impossible by computer. Yes, you can create a word for word literal translation, but this isn't really good at all. Words don't mean the same things always, for example in English the phrase, "sleep with," often means, "have sex with," a literal translation might not convey that meaning. In the end, the only way for a computer to accurately translate from one language to another is for it to understand the language. Understanding is all that is required to learn. The problem is that if that was the case, The Oracle would be created, which we were told it wasn't. Until someone comes up with a compelling theory, I guess we are left to assume that it happened either by chance or divine intervention, just like the start of life on this planet.
What is the Oracle? What is it really?
Morpheus said, "The unplanned organism is a question asked by nature and answered by death." The Oracle is an unplanned organism. But he also said that JC was "the offspring of knowledge and imagination" and that was the important thing about being engineered. As a child of the 'Net, and an embodiment of the 'Net, The Oracle is in essence a product solely of knowledge and imagination. All knowledge posted on the unencrypted 'Net - every email, every news post, every crazy theory - went into the creation of The Oracle. Further, the third function of the 'Net, after pornography and the exchange of knowledge, is the exchange of ideas, feelings, stories, thoughts, in short: imagination.
The Oracle is the unplanned organism, but it is also the product of knowledge and imagination. It is a question asked not by nature, but by the Internet itself, and what is the Internet but an extension of the intellectual properties of mankind? The Oracle is a question, but it isn't the same one asked by nature. It is asked by people, the human organism as a whole. It is the question that drives us, the question that defines us, the question that all human endeavor works to solve. No, it isn't "What is the Matrix?" It is "Why? Why are we here? Why do we feel the way we do? Why is the World screwed up? Why?" Anything a human does is either a result of the "why?" we try to find or an attempt to answer that "why?" We all strive towards the answer because we feel it will give us purpose, meaning, and fulfillment. The Oracle is that question, and everything it does is an attempt to answer it. To this end, it hordes information, lots of it. It researches everything from secret government products to favorite colours. It is trying to gain human understanding, and, if it does, it will finally answer the question of "why?"
And the one they removed?
The removed AI is known as Ada. Ada is an AI that lives on the moon; she wanted to become benevolent dictator of Earth. Before the moon base was cut out of the game, JC was going to go there to stop her.
So if she was cut along with the moon level, how do you know about her?
Ada was mentioned as a footnote in the Deus Ex Bible. The footnote said "NOTE: The Deus Ex 1 design included a mission to a space station followed by a mission to the moon base. The objective was to stop 'Ada,' an AI that wanted to become 'benevolent' world dictator. |
ime, the screen will turn gray, and the Happy Mac icon will appear, followed by the Mac OS splash screen (or the small "Welcome to Macintosh" screen in System 7.5 and earlier), which underwent several stylistic changes. Mac OS versions 8.6 and later also includes the version number in this splash screen (for example, "Welcome to Mac OS 8.6").
On early Macs that had no internal hard drive, the computer boots up to a point where it needs to load the operating system from a floppy disk. Until the user inserts the correct disk, the Mac displays a floppy icon with a blinking question mark. In later Macs, a folder icon with a question mark that repeatedly changes to the Finder icon is shown if a System Folder or boot loader file cannot be found on the startup disk.
With the introduction of Mac OS X, in addition to the blinking system folder icon, a prohibition icon was added to show an incorrect OS version found. The bomb screen was replaced with a kernel panic, which was originally colored white but was changed to black in version 10.3. With Mac OS X 10.1, a new Happy Mac was included. This is also the last version that had a Happy Mac icon; in version 10.2, the Happy Mac symbol was replaced with the Apple logo.
The Face ID logo for the iPhone X was based off the Happy Mac.
Sad Mac [ edit ]
One version of the Sad Mac icon, this one indicating that an illegal instruction occurred.
A Sad Mac is a symbol used by older-generation Apple Macintosh computers (hardware using the Old World ROM and not Open Firmware, which are those predating onboard USB), starting with the original 128K Macintosh and ending with the last NuBus-based Power Macintosh models (including the first-generation 6100, 7100, 8100, as well as the PowerBook 5300 and 1400),[13] to indicate a severe hardware or software problem that prevented startup from occurring successfully. The Sad Mac icon is displayed, along with a set of hexadecimal codes that indicate the type of problem at startup. Different codes are for different errors. This is used in place of the normal Happy Mac icon, which indicates that the startup-time hardware tests were successful. In 68k models made after the Macintosh II, the Chimes of Death are played.
Models prior to the Macintosh II crash silently and display the Sad Mac, without playing any tone. PowerPC Macs play a sound effect of a car crash, and computers equipped with the PowerPC upgrade card use the three note brass fanfare death chime (A, E-natural, and E-flat), followed by the sound of a drum, same as the Macintosh Performa 6200 and Macintosh Performa 6300.
A Sad Mac may be deliberately generated at startup by pressing the interrupt switch on Macintosh computers that had one installed, or by pressing Command and Power keys shortly after the startup chime. On some Macintoshes such as PowerBook 540c, if the user presses the command and power keys before the boot screen displays, it will play the "chimes of death". The chimes are a fraction of normal speed and there is no Sad Mac displayed.
Old World ROM Power Macintosh and PowerBook models based on the PCI architecture do not use a Sad Mac icon and will instead only play the error/car-crash sound on a hardware failure (such as missing or bad memory, unusable CPU, or similar).
Mac OS X 10.2 and later use a Universal "no" symbol to denote a hardware or software error that renders the computer non-bootable.[14][15]
Sad iPod [ edit ]
On the iPod, if damage or an error occurs in the hardware or the firmware, for example, if its files are deleted, a Sad iPod appears. This is similar to the Sad Mac, but instead of a Macintosh, there is an iPod, and there are no chimes of death. The icon also lacks a nose, and the frown is flipped horizontally. It also does not show hexadecimal codes indicating what problem occurred in the iPod. This error screen will not show up when a problem occurs in the newer iPods.
Chimes of Death [ edit ]
The Chimes of Death are the Macintosh equivalent of a beep code on IBM PC compatibles. On all Macintosh models predating the adoption of PCI and Open Firmware, the Chimes of Death are often accompanied by a Sad Mac icon in the middle of the screen.
Different Macintosh series used different death chimes. The Macintosh II was the first to use the death chimes (a loud and eerie upward major arpeggio, with different chimes on many models). The Macintosh Quadra, Centris, Performa, LC and the Macintosh Classic played a generally softer and lower pitched version of the upward major arpeggio, followed by three or four notes, with slight variation depending on the model of the Macintosh. The PowerBook 5300, 190, and 1400 used the second half of the 8-note arpeggio as found on the Quadra and Centris models, or the entire death chime if the error occurred before the screen lights up. The Macintosh Quadra AV660 and Centris AV660 used a sound of a single pass of Roland D-50's "Digital Native Dance" sample loop, while the NuBus based Power Macintosh models (including 6100, 7100, and 8100) series used a car crash sound. The Power Macintosh and Performa 6200 and 6300 series, along with the Power Macintosh upgrade card, used an eerily dramatic 3-note brass fanfare with a rhythm of drums and cymbals. The pre-G3 PCI Power Macs, the beige G3 Power Macs, the G3 All-In-One, and the PowerBook 2400, 3400 and G3 all used a sound of glass shattering; these models did not display a Sad Mac icon. Since the introduction of the iMac in 1998, the Chimes of Death are no longer used and were replaced with a series of tones to indicate hardware errors.
See also [ edit ]Sofia Carmina Coppola (; born May 14, 1971) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and former actress.
The daughter of filmmakers Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed crime drama film, The Godfather (1972). She later appeared in a supporting role in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and portrayed Mary Corleone, the daughter of Michael Corleone, in The Godfather: Part III (1990). Her performance in the latter was severely criticised, and she turned her attention to filmmaking.
She made her feature-length debut with the coming-of-age drama The Virgin Suicides (1999), based on the novel of the same name by Jeffery Eugenides. It was the first of her collaborations with actress Kirsten Dunst. In 2004, she received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the comedy-drama Lost in Translation and became the third woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2006, Coppola directed the historical drama Marie Antoinette, starring Dunst as the ill-fated French queen. In 2010, with the drama Somewhere, Coppola became the first American woman (and fourth American filmmaker) to win the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice Film Festival.[1] In 2013, she directed the satirical crime film The Bling Ring, based on the crime ring of the same name.
At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Coppola became the second woman in the festival's history to win the Best Director award, for the drama film The Beguiled.[2][3]
Early life [ edit ]
Sofia Carmina Coppola was born in New York City on May 14, 1971,[4] the youngest child and only daughter of documentarian Eleanor Coppola (née Neil) and filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. She is of Italian descent[5] and was raised on her parents' farm in Rutherford, California. She graduated from St. Helena High School in 1989.[6] She later attended Mills College and the California Institute of the Arts.[7] At 15, she interned with Chanel.[8] After dropping out of college, Coppola started a clothing line called Milkfed, which is now sold exclusively in Japan.[9] Among her extensive Hollywood family are her aunt Talia Shire, and her first cousins Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman.
Career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
Coppola's acting career, marked by frequent criticisms of nepotism and negative reviews,[10][11] began while she was an infant, as she made background appearances in seven of her father's films. The best known of these is her appearance in The Godfather as the infant Michael Francis Rizzi, in the baptism scene.[12][13] Coppola returned to her father's trilogy in both the second and third Godfather films, playing an immigrant child in The Godfather Part II and Michael Corleone's daughter in The Godfather Part III, after the originally cast actress, Winona Ryder, discontinued her involvement with the film.[14][15] Coppola responded to a question about her role in The Godfather Part III in a 2013 interview:
Let's see. Did I not wanna do it? Um. I was game. I was trying different things. It sounded better than college. I didn't really think about the public aspect of it. That took me by surprise. The whole reaction. People felt very attached to the Godfather films. I grew up with them and it's no big deal. I mean, I understand they're great films but... I dunno. I'm not surprised. It makes sense that people would have an opinion about it but I got a lot of attention I wasn't expecting. I was going to art school anyway so I was able to get back to what I was doing. It was before the Internet so magazines would come out but then the next month they were gone. There wasn't even as much paparazzi around back then.[14]
It has been suggested that the situation further damaged Francis Ford Coppola's career and ruined Sofia's before it had even begun.[16] Coppola has said that she never really wanted to act and only did it to help out when her father asked her to.[17] After shooting, she confirmed that she did not want to go into acting.[17] It has also been suggested that Sofia's role in the film may have contributed to its box office performance, which started strong and then began to decline.[16] Coppola has said that her father based a lot of her character on her while writing the script, before she was even cast into the role.[16] Sofia had herself worried that she had only been given the role because she was the director's daughter, and the role placed a strain on her during the time of shooting that her mother observed in a series of diaries she wrote for Vogue during the filming.[16]
Coppola also acted in her father's films The Outsiders (1983), in a scene where Matt Dillon, Tommy Howell, and Ralph Macchio are eating at a Dairy Queen; Rumble Fish (1983); The Cotton Club (1984); and as Kathleen Turner's sister Nancy Kelcher in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)[15] whom she would later work with on her feature film directing debut, The Virgin Suicides.[18]
Frankenweenie (1984) was the first film she performed in that was not associated with her father; however, it often goes unnoted due to her stage name "Domino", which she adopted at the time because she thought it was glamorous.[19] The short film, titled Life Without Zoe (1989) and released as part of a tripartite anthology film New York Stories, was co-written by a teenage Coppola with her father, who also directed the film.[20]
After she was critically panned for her performance in The Godfather Part III, for which she was named "Worst Supporting Actress" and "Worst New Star" at the 1990 Golden Raspberry Awards, Coppola ended her acting career, although she appeared in the independent film Inside Monkey Zetterland (1992), as well as in the backgrounds of films by her friends and family: for example, she appeared as Saché, one of Queen Padmé Amidala's five handmaidens in George Lucas' Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999).[14] She has since been quoted as saying that she was not hurt by the criticism from her role in The Godfather Part III, because she never especially wanted an acting career.[21]
Coppola also appears in several music videos from the 1990s: The Black Crowes' "Sometimes Salvation"; Sonic Youth's "Mildred Pierce"; Madonna's "Deeper and Deeper"; The Chemical Brothers' "Elektrobank", which was directed by her then husband Spike Jonze; and later Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance".[14]
Filmmaking [ edit ]
Coppola in 2003
Coppola's first short film was Lick the Star (1998). It played many times on the Independent Film Channel. She made her feature film directing debut with The Virgin Suicides (1999); it received critical acclaim upon its premiere in North America at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was released later that year.
Her second feature was Lost in Translation (2003). Coppola won the Academy Award for her original screenplay and three Golden Globe Awards including Best Picture Musical or Comedy. After Lina Wertmüller and Jane Campion, Coppola became the third female director to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing and the second to win the Original Screenplay award, after Campion in 1994 (Wertmüller was also nominated), thus establishing a pattern for the female directors to be nominated for both awards. Her win for the best original screenplay in 2003 made her a third-generation Oscar winner. In 2004, Coppola was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[22]
Her third film was the biopic Marie Antoinette (2006), adapted from the biography by British historian Antonia Fraser. Kirsten Dunst plays the title character, who marries King Louis XVI, played by Jason Schwartzman, Coppola's cousin. It debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival[23] where, despite boos in the audience, it received a standing ovation.[24] Critics were divided.
Her fourth film was Somewhere (2010), filmed at Chateau Marmont. The plot focuses on a "bad boy" actor (portrayed by Stephen Dorff) who is forced to reevaluate his life when his daughter (played by Elle Fanning) arrives unexpectedly.[25] The film won the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In November 2010, Coppola was interviewed by Joel Coen, who professed his admiration of her work, at the DGA screening of Somewhere in New York City.[26]
Coppola's next film, The Bling Ring (2013), was based on actual events centered around the Bling Ring, a group of California teenagers who burgled the homes of several celebrities over 2008 and 2009, stealing around $3 million in cash and belongings.[27] Emma Watson,[28] Taissa Farmiga,[29] Leslie Mann, Israel Broussard,[30] Katie Chang, and Claire Julien starred in the film, which opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[31]
Coppola in 2013
An announcement in mid-December 2013 stated that American Zoetrope had successfully attained the screen rights for the memoir Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father and that Coppola will adapt the book with Andrew Durham. Coppola will also produce the film with her brother Roman.[32]
In March 2014, it was reported that Coppola was in negotiations to direct a live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid from a script by Caroline Thompson.[33] Coppola wanted to shoot her version underwater, and although she later admitted that such a prospect was unrealistic, test footage was shot.[34] In June 2015, it was announced Coppola had dropped out of the film due to creative differences.[35]
Coppola collaborated again with her Lost in Translation star Bill Murray on A Very Murray Christmas, which starred Murray and was co-written by herself, Murray and Mitch Glazer. The film, an homage to classic Christmas-themed variety shows, was released in December 2015 on Netflix.[36]
Coppola directed The Beguiled (2017), a remake of the 1971 eponymous Western film, starring Nicole Kidman, Elle Fanning, and Kirsten Dunst.[37] The film premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where Coppola became the second woman (and the first American woman) to win the Best Director award.[2][3]
Major works [ edit ]
The Virgin Suicides (1999) [ edit ]
Coppola was first drawn to the story after reading the book by Jeffrey Eugenides in 1995, at the recommendation of musician Thurston Moore. Coppola said she felt really understood the teenage experience and the mystery that exists between boys and girls, as well as emotions.[38] She has also said that if not for the book, she does not know that she would have a career in film.[38] Coppola was scared to direct the film, but felt so connected to the material that she felt she needed to create it.[38] Specifically, Coppola has highlighted the representation of teenagers “lazing around,” a situation she connected with but felt was not seen very much in films in any relatable way.[38]
The story's theme of loss was a personal connection for Coppola after her oldest brother had died suddenly in a boating accident, though she says this personal connection was one she says she did not immediately realize.[38] She wanted to make a quality film for young audiences and treat that group with respect and properly examine this deeply emotional period of childhood.[38] The film was low budget and critics were supportive.[38] Coppola credits the start of her career to the Cannes festival after the film premiered there, and has said that this film was what made her a film-maker.[38]
The film has also been said to mark the point at which the public ceased to point to Coppola's father as a reason for her success.[17] Coppola's father would not help her secure the rights to the novel, and so at that point she adapted the screenplay herself.[17]
Lost in Translation (2003) [ edit ]
Coppola's desire to shoot in Tokyo, specifically at the Park Hyatt hotel, is what brought the film to life.[39] The film was a challenge to make, with a low budget and a time frame of 27 days.[39] Coppola wanted to make a film that was a romantic love story without being nerdy.[39] The film was shot with a small crew, working without permits. Scenes were filmed impromptu on the street, while the hotel itself permitted them to use the corridors between two and three in the morning as not to disturb guests.[40] The iconic wide shot of the umbrella-carrying crowds at Shihbuya Crossing was stolen on a trip to Starbucks. Discussing this iconic scene Coppola says “We went up there, got a coffee, and grabbed a shot looking down. It was very on-the-fly. We snuck around and played dumb tourists.” [41]
The film starred Bill Murray as a melancholy actor on a business trip and Scarlett Johnansson as a college student in a new country struggling with loneliness. Johnansson was the first to sign onto the project as the fresh-faced 17 year-old Hollywood newbie.[42] It took several attempts before Coppola was able to secure Bill Murray for the role of Bob Harris. [43] Coppola said that the film “lived or died” on the comedian agreeing to play the role.[44] Coppola had Murray in mind for the role of Bob Harris while she was writing the screenplay. Coppola went to Tokyo and started filming without Murray officially signing on yet, hoping that he would show up.[45] He finally agreed to sign onto the film after getting the script from a writing partner of his who also happened to be one of Coppola's friends. Coppola describes Lost in Translation as a “self-indulgent, personal project” that wouldn’t resonate so the fact movie fans still come up to her and shower the film in praise in 2018 continues to surprise the director. [46]
Marie Antoinette (2006) [ edit ]
Marie Antoinette was shot on location at the Château de Versailles.[47]
Coppola has stated that with time, reception to the film has strengthened and reception has warmed and that the film has found its own place, describing it has had more of a life now than when it first came out.[48]
Coppola has managed to forge a distinctive identity in spite of her father's reputation as a major figure in American cinema. Notably, a commonality of her films is that they all in some way touch on complex relationships between youth and age.[47]
The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, the three aforementioned films, all in some way approach issues of identity and the question of whether it is made or imposed, and do so through elements of teen films such as the rites-of-passage narrative and contemporary scores, yet still manage to maintain a specific European arthouse feeling[47] It has also been suggested that Coppola herself identifies with film's young woman protagonist, characterized by a sense of naivety and uncertainty of the future.[47]
Coppola herself has claimed that she was initially pulled towards the character of Marie Antoinette as an innocent and caring character who found herself in a situation outside of her control, and that rather than creating a historical representation, she wanted to create a more intimate look into the world of the heroine.[47]
Scholars have highlighted the film as one that contains obvious parallels between Coppola's own life as a Hollywood “royal” and Marie Antoinette's position as the victim of xenophobia, malice, and envy.[47]
In terms of Coppola's personal connections to her films, scholars have described the films as “deliberately idiosyncratic,” as opposed to explicitly autobiographical.[47] Coppola has also not disputed viewers’ readings of her films as somewhat personal to her own life and story, and has claimed that her films are made more for friends and family than the outside world.[47]
In regards to the critics’ divided views of Marie Antoinette, it has been said that Coppola's use of travesty in the film could have been a factor in the industry's disparate opinions.[47] Fashion, which can facilitate travesty, is a large part of Coppola's film in the ways it was used to represent the nature of the period of time and create mood.[47]
The Bling Ring (2013) [ edit ]
The film premiered at Cannes and Coppola described the reception as enthusiastic and exciting.[49]
The film was inspired by a Vanity Fair feature by Nancy Jo Sales entitled "The Suspects Wore Louboutins.[50]" Coppola was first attracted to the story because she felt that it had elements that would make an entertaining movie but also said something important about contemporary culture.[50] Coppola was also struck by the difference in the mentality surrounding fame than when she was growing up.[49] Coppola's intended audience for the film was both the age of the film's characters as well as her own generation and thought that the cultural aspect of the film would be interesting to both audiences.
Coppola has said that younger audiences are more intelligent and mature than most people perceive them to be, and so she likes making movies for this group.[49] Coppola has described the group of teenage criminals as “products of our growing reality TV culture”.[51] She chose to use young, unknown actors (aside from Emma Watson) who were the same age as the real kids because of the freshness they brought to the film.[51]
The house that was used in the shooting of the film was owned by Paris Hilton, who also had a cameo in the film.[50] Hilton was also a victim of the real robberies.[50] Coppola's father was one of the executive producers of the film.[51]
The female characters in The Bling Ring are a departure from Coppola's previous works centered around the female perspective. Discussing the difference between the female perspective in Lost in Translation verses The Bling Ring she says that instead of a woman trying to find herself in a new foreign country The Bling Ring deals with “girls trying on other people’s stuff to find themselves”.[52] Although The Bling Ring deals with more consumerist and gaudy sense of style and culture Coppola says the film was “just really fun to indulge this style that’s so different from my own. I’m more associated with being understated and [with] good taste, I think, and it’s fun to be really obnoxious.” [53]
The Beguiled (2017) [ edit ]
The film is based on the 1966 book of the same name by author Thomas P. Cullinan about a wounded Union soldier in a Mississippi seminary during the American Civil War[48] and was made for under $10 million.[54] The film has been described as a departure for Coppola because of its thriller-like features, among other things, and was the first film she screened for competition at Cannes since presenting Marie Antoinette in 2006—an experience Coppola described as nerve-wracking.[48]
Coppola cited her intrigue with the South as part of the story's intrigue.[48] Coppola has said that she “wanted the film to represent an exaggerated version of all the ways women were traditionally raised there just to be lovely and cater to men—the manners of that whole world, and how they change when the men go away”.[48] Coppola has cited Gone with the Wind as her inspiration for creating a film that was relatable despite its position within a different era.[48]
The film faced a wave of controversy and division[48], including accusations of ‘whitewashing’ the original story after she chose to both remove the supporting role of a black female slave in her version of the film as well as to choose Kirsten Dunst to portray a character who was biracial in the original novel.[48] Coppola also faced criticism for minimizing the story of the people experiencing actual hardship in favor of depicting, albeit authentically, the lavish lifestyle of her protagonists.[48]
Coppola responded to allegations she chose to lightly brush over what she recognizes as an important and weighty topic by citing the presence of young girls as some of her film audience.[48] The Beguiled is not the only of Coppola's films to be accused of exposing the sociocultural affordances of her own childhood.[48]
Coppola described her version of the film as a reinterpretation, rather than a remake, of Don Siegel’s 1971 adaption of the same book.[48] Coppola wanted to tell the story of the male soldier entering into a classically southern and female environment from the point of view of the women and represent what was like for them.[48][17] Coppola thought that the earlier version made the characters out to be crazy caricatures and did not allow the viewer to know them.[48]
While some critics claim that Coppola intended The Beguiled as a feminist work, Coppola has explained that she is not in favor of that labeling.[48] Though she has said she is happy if others see the film in this way, she sees it as a film, rather, that possesses a female perspective—an important distinction.[48] The Beguiled was also made as a contrast to The Bling Ring, and Coppola has explained that needed to correct that film’s harsh Los Angeles aesthetic with something more beautiful and poetic.[48]
Background on film work and style [ edit ]
Coppola arrived at a career in filmmaking with a background by means of acting, modeling, and design. All of which have influenced her directorial work.[48] Her background in fashion, especially, has played a large part in the aesthetic tones of her films and has heightened the roles of design and style in her work.[47] Her upbringing in a Hollywood family has also greatly influenced her work, as well as her public reception and image, and has always had to fight accusations against her background of privilege. After both winning an Oscar for Lost in Translation and showing The Beguiled, Coppola was accused by some critics of displaying the social and cultural privileges of her own childhood.[48]
Coppola has described some of her influence as coming from her own work, with each film actively influencing the next.[48] She points to Jeffrey Eugenides's book The Virgin Suicides, which was the inspiration for her first film of the same name, as the reason for her career in film.[38]
Coppola has had to deal with sexism in the industry, and her quintessentially feminine work has been dismissed as decorative and insubstantial.[48] Coppola has said that she is proud of the more “girly” aspects of her work and that she feels that she has a feminine point of view that she is happy to project.[48] She has cited her upbringing around so many strong men as a possible reason for her strong connection to femininity.[38] She has been open about her experiences with sexism in the industry and has cited them as a reason she favors working in the independent realm.[48] Coppola has also said that big budget productions hinder her creative freedom, and so she prefers to work on films she can control.[48] She has also criticized big studio production for its focus on business rather than art.[48]
Coppola has cited her own perceptions of gaps in the film industry as her own inspiration, explaining that she has always made the films that she herself would have wanted to see as a younger person.[48] She has described this younger demographic of girls as deprived of high-quality videography and as disrespected as an audience.[48] She has also said that she likes making films for a young audience because she perceives them as smarter and more sophisticated than they are often given credit for.[49]
Zoetrope, Francis Ford's production company, has backed all of her films.[48] Her family ties have proven to hold both pros and cons for Coppola, which she has articulated. Though she learned from her father and is proud of her family, she has said she is happy to have carved her own way.[48] Coppola has also said that she is aware of her hard work and is grateful for her film education and that her connections in the film industry were helpful because of the lack of female directors[55] She said that she did what she could and is confident that her work is her own.[55] After Francis Ford Coppola did not assist Coppola in securing the rights to the Jeffrey Eugenides novel The Virgin Suicides that her 1999 film was based on, much of the criticism surrounding her familial benefits subsided.[17] Coppola usually involves her father in her projects.[51] She has said that she likes being independent but respects him and his suggestions, though in the end always makes the choice she feels is right for a given movie.[51]
Coppola professed a love for being behind the camera and is not upset by the divisive reactions to some of her films.[51] She has said that she “would rather do something that some people really connect to and some people reject” and that she never wants to make something that is just mediocre.[51]
Her style of films is described as “slow-moving portraits with bittersweet emotional palettes". [56] Coppola likes to use visuals to convey what the characters is feeling at any given moment.[57] Coppola's films often deal with melancholy stories with a dreamy aesthetic. Her films aesthetics are influenced by her background in fashion with floral motifs and female beauty at the forefront of the films set design and mise-en-scene.[58]
Television [ edit ]
In the mid-1990s, Coppola and her best friend Zoe Cassavetes helmed the short-lived series Comedy Central series Hi Octane, which spotlit performers in underground music. The show was cancelled after four episodes.[59]
In December 2008, Coppola's first commercial premiered during an episode of Gossip Girl. The advertisement she directed for the Christian Dior fragrance Miss Dior Chérie, shot in France with model Maryna Linchuk, was very well received and continues to be popular on YouTube.[60]
In October 2014, Coppola launched a series of Christmas ads for the clothing chain Gap.[61]
Modeling [ edit ]
At the beginning of the 1990s, Coppola was often featured in girl-oriented magazines like Seventeen and YM. In 1994[62], she co-founded the clothing line Milk Fed in Japan, with her friend Stephanie Hayman in cooperation with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon. In 2001[63], the fashion designer Marc Jacobs chose the actress/director to be the "face" of his house's fragrance. The campaign involved photographs of Coppola shot by photographer Jürgen Teller, in his signature over-exposed style. The July 2013 issue of Elle featured photographs shot by Coppola of Paris Hilton at Hilton's Beverly Hills mansion (which makes a cameo in The Bling Ring).[64]
Stage direction [ edit ]
La Traviata (2017) [ edit ]
In 2017, before Coppola started pre-production on Beguiled, she was asked by Italian state broadcaster Rai Com from All’Opera to direct their latest production of La Traviata. La traviata is a three act opera by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesca Maria Piave. This Coppola-directed production was filmed for broadcast in Germany and France by Arte/ZDF, using multiple state-of-the art 4k cameras and up to 100 microphones.[65] Coppola said in an interview she "could not turn down the project" with designer and fashion icon Valentino Garavani designing the costumes for this 15 show run of La Traviata (2017).[66] Discussing her modern take on this classic story Coppola says "I wanted to bring out the personal side of the French courtesan, the party girl used to the social scene. It’s a very feminine world that I love".[67]
This was the first stage production Coppola directed.[66] Coppola discuses how Valentino "really motivated me to take a chance and do something that was scary for me and very unfamiliar," and promised a "traditional" production that could nevertheless be appreciated by those who are not opera connoisseurs. Rome Opera House Director Carlo Fuortes said in an interview ticket sales had exceeded 1.2 million euros (1.35 million dollars), a record for the establishment.[68]
All fifteen shows nearly sold out before opening night.[67] It was the biggest box office success the Teatro dell’Opera Di Roma opened in 1880.[67]
Awards [ edit ]
Coppola was nominated for three Academy Awards for her film Lost in Translation (2003), in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. She would go on to win for Best Original Screenplay but lost the other two nominations to Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Her nomination for Best Director made her the first American woman in history to be nominated in that category, and the third woman overall, after Lina Wertmüller and Jane Campion. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow became the fourth woman to be nominated, and the first to win the award. Coppola, however, remains the youngest woman to be nominated in the Best Director category.
Coppola's win for Best Original Screenplay (along with her cousin Nicolas Cage's 1996 win for Best Actor) resulted in her family's becoming the second three-generation Oscar-winning family, her grandfather Carmine Coppola and her father Francis Ford Coppola having previously won Oscars. The first family to achieve this feat was the Huston family, for wins by: Walter, John, and Anjelica.
For her work on Lost in Translation, Coppola also won the Best Motion Picture and Best Screenplay Golden Globes, in addition to receiving three BAFTA Award nominations.
On September 11, 2010, Somewhere won the Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice International Film Festival.[69] Coppola is the first American woman to win the award.[1]
On May 28, 2017, Coppola was awarded the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for The Beguiled, making her the second ever woman (and the first American woman) to win the award.[2][3]
Personal life [ edit ]
In 1992, Coppola met director Spike Jonze; they married in 1999 and divorced in 2003. In an official statement, Coppola's publicist explained that the divorce decision was reached "with sadness". It is widely believed that the main character's husband in Lost in Translation is based on Jonze, as Coppola stated after the film's release, "There are elements of Spike there, elements of experiences."[70][71]
Coppola married musician Thomas Mars on August 27, 2011, at Palazzo Margherita in Bernalda, Italy. They met while producing the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides.[72] They have two daughters: Romy (born November 28, 2006), whose name is an homage to Coppola's brother Roman,[73][74] and Cosima (born May 2010).
Coppola and her family lived in Paris for several years before moving to New York City in 2010.[75]
When it comes to her family, Coppola has purposefully kept a low public profile, and ensuring her daughters’ lives are unaffected by her career and travel is a priority.[48] When asked if her choices as a parent to keep her children out of the spotlight is a result of her own upbringing, Coppola has explained that she never wants her children to be jaded.[48] She fails to see the point of bringing them into her work rather than allowing them to have a real childhood.[48]
List of works [ edit ]
Director [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Stage [ edit ]
Year Title Director Screenwriter Producer Notes 2017 La Traviata Yes No No Opera in Rome Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
Music videos [ edit ]
Advertisements [ edit ]
Acting Roles [ edit ]
Film [ edit ]
Music videos [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Buy Photo Ed Carpenter Racing IndyCar driver JR Hildebrand (21) looks toward victory lane after finishing 16th in the |
cycles, etc. Suspicious program execution through scheduled tasks may show up as outlier processes that have not been seen before when compared against historical data.
Configure event logging for scheduled task creation and changes by enabling the "Microsoft-Windows-TaskScheduler/Operational" setting within the event logging service. (Citation: TechNet Forum Scheduled Task Operational Setting) Several events will then be logged on scheduled task activity, including: (Citation: TechNet Scheduled Task Events)
Detection: Monitor scheduled task creation from common utilities using command-line invocation. Legitimate scheduled tasks may be created during installation of new software or through system administration functions. Monitor process execution from the <code>svchost.exe</code> in Windows 10 and the Windows Task Scheduler <code>taskeng.exe</code> for older versions of Windows. (Citation: Twitter Leoloobeek Scheduled Task) If scheduled tasks are not used for persistence, then the adversary is likely to remove the task when the action is complete. Monitor Windows Task Scheduler stores in <code>%systemroot%\System32\Tasks</code> for change entries related to scheduled tasks that do not correlate with known software, patch cycles, etc. Data and events should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities, such as network connections made for Command and Control, learning details about the environment through Discovery, and Lateral Movement.
An adversary may use task scheduling to execute programs at system startup or on a scheduled basis for persistence, to conduct remote Execution as part of Lateral Movement, to gain SYSTEM privileges, or to run a process under the context of a specified account.
Utilities such as at and schtasks, along with the Windows Task Scheduler, can be used to schedule programs or scripts to be executed at a date and time. A task can also be scheduled on a remote system, provided the proper authentication is met to use RPC and file and printer sharing is turned on. Scheduling a task on a remote system typically required being a member of the Administrators group on the the remote system. (Citation: TechNet Task Scheduler Security)
Detection: Trap commands must be registered for the shell or programs, so they appear in files. Monitoring files for suspicious or overly broad trap commands can narrow down suspicious behavior during an investigation. Monitor for suspicious processes executed through trap interrupts.
The <code>trap</code> command allows programs and shells to specify commands that will be executed upon receiving interrupt signals. A common situation is a script allowing for graceful termination and handling of common keyboard interrupts like <code>ctrl+c</code> and <code>ctrl+d</code>. Adversaries can use this to register code to be executed when the shell encounters specific interrupts either to gain execution or as a persistence mechanism. Trap commands are of the following format <code>trap 'command list' signals</code> where "command list" will be executed when "signals" are received.
Detection: Monitor network traffic for WMI connections; the use of WMI in environments that do not typically use WMI may be suspect. Perform process monitoring to capture command-line arguments of "wmic" and detect commands that are used to perform remote behavior. (Citation: FireEye WMI 2015)
An adversary can use WMI to interact with local and remote systems and use it as a means to perform many tactic functions, such as gathering information for Discovery and remote Execution of files as part of Lateral Movement. (Citation: FireEye WMI 2015)
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is a Windows administration feature that provides a uniform environment for local and remote access to Windows system components. It relies on the WMI service for local and remote access and the server message block (SMB) (Citation: Wikipedia SMB) and Remote Procedure Call Service (RPCS) (Citation: TechNet RPC) for remote access. RPCS operates over port 135. (Citation: MSDN WMI)
Monitor for operations (execution, copies, etc.) with file names that contain colons. This syntax (ex: <code>file.ext:ads[.ext]</code>) is commonly associated with ADSs. (Citation: Microsoft ADS Mar 2014)
The Streams tool of Sysinternals can be used to uncover files with ADSs. The <code>dir /r</code> command can also be used to display ADSs. (Citation: Symantec ADS May 2009) Many PowerShell commands (such as Get-Item, Set-Item, Remove-Item, and Get-ChildItem) can also accept a <code>-stream</code> parameter to interact with ADSs. (Citation: MalwareBytes ADS July 2015) (Citation: Microsoft ADS Mar 2014)
Detection: Forensic techniques exist to identify information stored in NTFS EA. (Citation: Journey into IR ZeroAccess NTFS EA) Monitor calls to the ZwSetEaFile and ZwQueryEaFile Windows API functions, used to interact with EA, and consider regularly scanning for the presence of modified information. (Citation: SpectorOps Host-Based Jul 2017)
Adversaries may store malicious data or binaries in file attribute metadata instead of directly in files. This may be done to evade some defenses, such as static indicator scanning tools and anti-virus. (Citation: Journey into IR ZeroAccess NTFS EA) (Citation: MalwareBytes ADS July 2015)
Every New Technology File System (NTFS) formatted partition contains a Master File Table (MFT) that maintains a record for every file/directory on the partition. (Citation: SpectorOps Host-Based Jul 2017) Within MFT entries are file attributes, (Citation: Microsoft NTFS File Attributes Aug 2010) such as Extended Attributes (EA) and Data [known as Alternative Data Streams (ADSs) when more than one Data attribute is present], that can be used to store arbitrary data (and even complete files). (Citation: SpectorOps Host-Based Jul 2017) (Citation: Microsoft File Streams) (Citation: MalwareBytes ADS July 2015) (Citation: Microsoft ADS Mar 2014)
Domain Fronting may be used in conjunction to avoid defenses. Adversaries will likely need to deploy and/or install these remote tools to compromised systems. It may be possible to detect or prevent the installation of these tools with host-based solutions.
Analyze network data for uncommon data flows (e.g., a client sending significantly more data than it receives from a server). Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious. Analyze packet contents to detect application layer protocols that do not follow the expected protocol for the port that is being used.
Detection: Monitor for applications and processes related to remote admin tools. Correlate activity with other suspicious behavior that may reduce false positives if these tools are used by legitimate users and administrators.
Admin tools such as TeamViewer have been used by several groups targeting institutions in countries of interest to the Russian state and criminal campaigns. (Citation: CrowdStrike 2015 Global Threat Report) (Citation: CrySyS Blog TeamSpy)
Remote access tools may be established and used post-compromise as alternate communications channel for Redundant Access or as a way to establish an interactive remote desktop session with the target system. They may also be used as a component of malware to establish a reverse connection or back-connect to a service or adversary controlled system.
An adversary may use legitimate desktop support and remote access software, such as Team Viewer, Go2Assist, LogMein, AmmyyAdmin, etc, to establish an interactive command and control channel to target systems within networks. These services are commonly used as legitimate technical support software, and may be whitelisted within a target environment. Remote access tools like VNC, Ammy, and Teamviewer are used frequently when compared with other legitimate software commonly used by adversaries. (Citation: Symantec Living off the Land)
Detection: Monitoring when the user’s <code>.bash_history</code> is read can help alert to suspicious activity. While users do typically rely on their history of commands, they often access this history through other utilities like "history" instead of commands like <code>cat ~/.bash_history</code>.
Bash keeps track of the commands users type on the command-line with the "history" utility. Once a user logs out, the history is flushed to the user’s <code>.bash_history</code> file. For each user, this file resides at the same location: <code>~/.bash_history</code>. Typically, this file keeps track of the user’s last 500 commands. Users often type usernames and passwords on the command-line as parameters to programs, which then get saved to this file when they log out. Attackers can abuse this by looking through the file for potential credentials. (Citation: External to DA, the OS X Way)
Normal, benign system and network events that look like process discovery may be uncommon, depending on the environment and how they are used. Monitor processes and command-line arguments for actions that could be taken to gather system and network information. Remote access tools with built-in features may interact directly with the Windows API to gather information. Information may also be acquired through Windows system management tools such as Windows Management Instrumentation and PowerShell.
Detection: System and network discovery techniques normally occur throughout an operation as an adversary learns the environment. Data and events should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities, such as Lateral Movement, based on the information obtained.
An example command that would obtain details on processes is "tasklist" using the Tasklist utility.
Adversaries may attempt to get information about running processes on a system. Information obtained could be used to gain an understanding of common software running on systems within the network.
Likewise, EFI modules can be collected and compared against a known-clean list of EFI executable binaries to detect potentially malicious modules. The CHIPSEC framework can be used for analysis to determine if firmware modifications have been performed. (Citation: McAfee CHIPSEC Blog) (Citation: Github CHIPSEC) (Citation: Intel HackingTeam UEFI Rootkit)
Detection: System firmware manipulation may be detected. (Citation: MITRE Trustworthy Firmware Measurement) Dump and inspect BIOS images on vulnerable systems and compare against known good images. (Citation: MITRE Copernicus) Analyze differences to determine if malicious changes have occurred. Log attempts to read/write to BIOS and compare against known patching behavior.
System firmware like BIOS and (U)EFI underly the functionality of a computer and may be modified by an adversary to perform or assist in malicious activity. Capabilities exist to overwrite the system firmware, which may give sophisticated adversaries a means to install malicious firmware updates as a means of persistence on a system that may be difficult to detect.
The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) are examples of system firmware that operate as the software interface between the operating system and hardware of a computer. (Citation: Wikipedia BIOS) (Citation: Wikipedia UEFI) (Citation: About UEFI)
Changes to these locations typically happen under normal conditions when legitimate software is installed. To increase confidence of malicious activity, data and events should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities, such as network connections made for Command and Control, learning details about the environment through Discovery, and Lateral Movement.
Detection: Monitor Registry for changes to run keys that do not correlate with known software, patch cycles, etc. Monitor the start folder for additions or changes. Tools such as Sysinternals Autoruns may also be used to detect system changes that could be attempts at persistence, including listing the run keys' Registry locations and startup folders. (Citation: TechNet Autoruns) Suspicious program execution as startup programs may show up as outlier processes that have not been seen before when compared against historical data.
Adversaries can use these configuration locations to execute malware, such as remote access tools, to maintain persistence through system reboots. Adversaries may also use Masquerading to make the Registry entries look as if they are associated with legitimate programs.
Adding an entry to the "run keys" in the Registry or startup folder will cause the program referenced to be executed when a user logs in. (Citation: Microsoft Run Key) The program will be executed under the context of the user and will have the account’s associated permissions level.
Detection: Changes to service Registry entries and command-line invocation of tools capable of modifying services that do not correlate with known software, patch cycles, etc., may be suspicious. If a service is used only to execute a binary or script and not to persist, then it will likely be changed back to its original form shortly after the service is restarted so the service is not left broken, as is the case with the common administrator tool PsExec.
Adversaries may execute a binary, command, or script via a method that interacts with Windows services, such as the Service Control Manager. This can be done by either creating a new service or modifying an existing service. This technique is the execution used in conjunction with New Service and Modify Existing Service during service persistence or privilege escalation.
Detection: Analyze network data for uncommon data flows (e.g., a client sending significantly more data than it receives from a server). Processes utilizing the network that do not normally have network communication or have never been seen before are suspicious. Analyze packet contents to detect communications that do not follow the expected protocol behavior for the port that is being used. (Citation: University of Birmingham C2)
Adversaries may conduct C2 communications over a non-standard port to bypass proxies and firewalls that have been improperly configured.
Detection: Use process monitoring to detect and analyze the execution and arguments of CMSTP.exe. Compare recent invocations of CMSTP.exe with prior history of known good arguments and loaded files to determine anomalous and potentially adversarial activity.
CMSTP.exe can also be abused to Bypass User Account Control and execute arbitrary commands from a malicious INF through an auto-elevated COM interface. (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List)
Adversaries may supply CMSTP.exe with INF files infected with malicious commands. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Usage Jan 2018) Similar to Regsvr32 / ”Squiblydoo”, CMSTP.exe may be abused to load and execute DLLs (Citation: MSitPros CMSTP Aug 2017) and/or COM scriptlets (SCT) from remote servers. (Citation: Twitter CMSTP Jan 2018) (Citation: GitHub Ultimate AppLocker Bypass List) This execution may also bypass AppLocker and other whitelisting defenses since CMSTP.exe is a legitimate, signed Microsoft application.
The Microsoft Connection Manager Profile Installer (CMSTP.exe) is a command-line program used to install Connection Manager service profiles. (Citation: Microsoft Connection Manager Oct 2009) CMSTP.exe accepts an installation information file (INF) as a parameter and installs a service profile leveraged for remote access connections.
Analyze new Control Panel items as well as those present on disk for malicious content. Both executable and CPL formats are compliant Portable Executable (PE) images and can be examined using traditional tools and methods, pending anti-reverse-engineering techniques. (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Jan 2014)
Inventory Control Panel items to locate unregistered and potentially malicious files present on systems: *Executable format registered Control Panel items will have a globally unique identifier (GUID) and registration Registry entries in <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ControlPanel\NameSpace</code> and <code>HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID{GUID}</code>. These entries may contain information about the Control Panel item such as its display name, path to the local file, and the command executed when opened in the Control Panel. (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL) * CPL format registered Control Panel items stored in the System32 directory are automatically shown in the Control Panel. Other Control Panel items will have registration entries in the <code>Cpls</code> and <code>Extended Properties</code> Registry keys of <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Control Panel</code>. These entries may include information such as a GUID, path to the local file, and a canonical name used to launch the file programmatically (<code> WinExec("c:\windows\system32\control.exe {Canonical_Name}", SW_NORMAL);</code>) or from a command line (<code>control.exe /name {Canonical_Name}</code>). (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL) *Some Control Panel items are extensible via Shell extensions registered in <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder{name}\Shellex\PropertySheetHandlers</code> where {name} is the predefined name of the system item. (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL)
Detection: Monitor and analyze activity related to items associated with CPL files, such as the Windows Control Panel process binary (control.exe) and the Control_RunDLL and ControlRunDLLAsUser API functions in shell32.dll. When executed from the command line or clicked, control.exe will execute the CPL file (ex: <code>control.exe file.cpl</code>) before Rundll32 is used to call the CPL’s API functions (ex: <code>rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL file.cpl</code>). CPL files can be executed directly via the CPL API function with just the latter Rundll32 command, which may bypass detections and/or execution filters for control.exe. (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Jan 2014)
Adversaries can use Control Panel items as execution payloads to execute arbitrary commands. Malicious Control Panel items can be delivered via Spearphishing Attachment campaigns (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Jan 2014) (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Dec 2013) or executed as part of multi-stage malware. (Citation: Palo Alto Reaver Nov 2017) Control Panel items, specifically CPL files, may also bypass application and/or file extension whitelisting.
For ease of use, Control Panel items typically include graphical menus available to users after being registered and loaded into the Control Panel. (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL)
Windows Control Panel items are utilities that allow users to view and adjust computer settings. Control Panel items are registered executable (.exe) or Control Panel (.cpl) files, the latter are actually renamed dynamic-link library (.dll) files that export a CPlApplet function. (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL) (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Jan 2014) Control Panel items can be executed directly from the command line, programmatically via an application programming interface (API) call, or by simply double-clicking the file. (Citation: Microsoft Implementing CPL) (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Jan 2014) (Citation: TrendMicro CPL Malware Dec 2013)
Monitor for spawning of processes associated with COM objects, especially those invoked by a user different than the one currently logged on.
Detection: Monitor for COM objects loading DLLs and other modules not typically associated with the application. (Citation: Enigma Outlook DCOM Lateral Movement Nov 2017)
Adversaries may use DCOM for lateral movement. Through DCOM, adversaries operating in the context of an appropriately privileged user can remotely obtain arbitrary and even direct shellcode execution through Office applications (Citation: Enigma Outlook DCOM Lateral Movement Nov 2017) as well as other Windows objects that contain insecure methods. (Citation: Enigma MMC20 COM Jan 2017) (Citation: Enigma DCOM Lateral Movement Jan 2017) DCOM can also execute macros in existing documents (Citation: Enigma Excel DCOM Sept 2017) and may also invoke Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) execution directly through a COM created instance of a Microsoft Office application (Citation: Cyberreason DCOM DDE Lateral Movement Nov 2017), bypassing the need for a malicious document.
Permissions to interact with local and remote server COM objects are specified by access control lists (ACL) in the Registry. (Citation: Microsoft COM) ACL (Citation: Microsoft Process Wide Com Keys) (Citation: Microsoft System Wide Com Keys) By default, only Administrators may remotely activate and launch COM objects through DCOM.
Windows Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) is transparent middleware that extends the functionality of Component Object Model (COM) (Citation: Microsoft COM) beyond a local computer using remote procedure call (RPC) technology. COM is a component of the Windows application programming interface (API) that enables interaction between software objects. Through COM, a client object can call methods of server objects, which are typically Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) or executables (EXE).
Detection: Exploitation for defense evasion may happen shortly after the system has been compromised to prevent detection during later actions for for additional tools that may be brought in and used. Detecting software exploitation may be difficult depending on the tools available. Software exploits may not always succeed or may cause the exploited process to become unstable or crash. Also look for behavior on the system that might indicate successful compromise, such as abnormal behavior of processes. This could include suspicious files written to disk, evidence of Process Injection for attempts to hide execution or evidence of Discovery.
Adversaries may have prior knowledge through reconnaissance that security software exists within an environment or they may perform checks during or shortly after the system is compromised for Security Software Discovery. The security software will likely be targeted directly for exploitation. There are examples of antivirus software being targeted by persistent threat groups to avoid detection.
Exploitation of a software vulnerability occurs when an adversary takes advantage of a programming error in a program, service, or within the operating system software or kernel itself to execute adversary-controlled code. Vulnerabilities may exist in defensive security software that can be used to disable or circumvent them.
Detection: The <code>/Library/StartupItems</code> folder can be monitored for changes. Similarly, the programs that are actually executed from this mechanism should be checked against a whitelist. Monitor processes that are executed during the bootup process to check for unusual or unknown applications and behavior.
An adversary can create the appropriate folders/files in the StartupItems directory to register their own persistence mechanism (Citation: Methods of Mac Malware Persistence). Additionally, since StartupItems run during the bootup phase of macOS, they will run as root. If an adversary is able to modify an existing Startup Item, then they will be able to Privilege Escalate as well.
Per Apple’s documentation, startup items execute during the final phase of the boot process and contain shell scripts or other executable files along with configuration information used by the system to determine the execution order for all startup items (Citation: Startup Items). This is technically a deprecated version (superseded by Launch Daemons), and thus the appropriate folder, <code>/Library/StartupItems</code> isn’t guaranteed to exist on the system by default, but does appear to exist by default on macOS Sierra. A startup item is a directory whose executable and configuration property list (plist), <code>StartupParameters.plist</code>, reside in the top-level directory.
Detection: This is a difficult technique to detect because adversary traffic would be masked by normal user traffic. No new processes are created and no additional software touches disk. Authentication logs can be used to audit logins to specific web applications, but determining malicious logins versus benign logins may be difficult if activity matches typical user behavior. Monitor for process injection against browser applications
Browser pivoting requires the SeDebugPrivilege and a high-integrity process to execute. Browser traffic is pivoted from the adversary’s browser through the user’s browser by setting up an HTTP proxy which will redirect any HTTP and HTTPS traffic. This does not alter the user’s traffic in any way. The proxy connection is severed as soon as the browser is closed. Whichever browser process the proxy is injected into, the adversary assumes the security context of that process. Browsers typically create a new process for each tab that is opened and permissions and certificates are separated accordingly. With these permissions, an adversary could browse to any resource on an intranet that is accessible through the browser and which the browser has sufficient permissions, such as Sharepoint or webmail. Browser pivoting also eliminates the security provided by 2-factor authentication. (Citation: cobaltstrike manual)
A specific example is when an adversary injects software into a browser that allows an them to inherit cookies, HTTP sessions, and SSL client certificates of a user and use the browser as a way to pivot into an authenticated intranet. (Citation: Cobalt Strike Browser Pivot) (Citation: ICEBRG Chrome Extensions)
Adversaries can take advantage of security vulnerabilities and inherent functionality in browser software to change content, modify behavior, and intercept information as part of various man in the browser techniques. (Citation: Wikipedia Man in the Browser)
Detection: Detecting software exploitation may be difficult depending on the tools available. Software exploits may not always succeed or may cause the exploited process to become unstable or crash. Also look for behavior on the system that might indicate successful compromise, such as abnormal behavior of processes. Credential resources obtained through exploitation may be detectable in use if they are not normally used or seen.
Exploitation of a software vulnerability occurs when an adversary takes advantage of a programming error in a program, service, or within the operating system software or kernel itself to execute adversary-controlled code. Credentialing and authentication mechanisms may be targeted for exploitation by adversaries as a means to gain access to useful credentials or circumvent the process to gain access to systems. One example of this is MS14-068, which targets Kerberos and can be used to forge Kerberos tickets using domain user permissions. (Citation: Technet MS14-068) (Citation: ADSecurity Detecting Forged Tickets) Exploitation for credential access may also result in Privilege Escalation depending on the process targeted or credentials obtained.
Detection: Monitor processes for those that may be used to modify binary headers. Monitor file systems for changes to application binaries and invalid checksums/signatures. Changes to binaries that do not line up with application updates or patches are also extremely suspicious.
Mach-O binaries have a series of headers that are used to perform certain operations when a binary is loaded. The LC_LOAD_DYLIB header in a Mach-O binary tells macOS and OS X which dynamic libraries (dylibs) to load during execution time. These can be added ad-hoc to the compiled binary as long adjustments are made to the rest of the fields and dependencies (Citation: Writing Bad Malware for OSX). There are tools available to perform these changes. Any changes will invalidate digital signatures on binaries because the binary is being modified. Adversaries can remediate this issue by simply removing the LC_CODE_SIGNATURE command from the binary so that the signature isn’t checked at load time (Citation: Malware Persistence on OS X).
Adversaries may target lsass.exe drivers to obtain execution and/or persistence. By either replacing or adding illegitimate drivers (e.g., DLL Side-Loading or DLL Search Order Hijacking), an adversary can achieve arbitrary code execution triggered by continuous LSA operations.
The Windows security subsystem is a set of components that manage and enforce the security policy for a computer or domain. The Local Security Authority (LSA) is the main component responsible for local security policy and user authentication. The LSA includes multiple dynamic link libraries (DLLs) associated with various other security functions, all of which run in the context of the LSA Subsystem Service (LSASS) lsass.exe process. (Citation: Microsoft Security Subsystem)
Monitor processes and command-line arguments for actions that could be taken to collect and combine files. Remote access tools with built-in features may interact directly with the Windows API to gather and copy to a location. Data may also be acquired and staged through Windows system management tools such as Windows Management Instrumentation and PowerShell.
Detection: Processes that appear to be reading files from disparate locations and writing them to the same directory or file may be an indication of data being staged, especially if they are suspected of performing encryption or compression on the files.
Interactive command shells may be used, and common functionality within cmd and bash may be used to copy data into a staging location.
Collected data is staged in a central location or directory prior to Exfiltration. Data may be kept in separate files or combined into one file through techniques such as Data Compressed or Data Encrypted.
Anti-virus can potentially detect malicious documents and files that are downloaded on the user’s computer. Endpoint sensing or network sensing can potentially detect malicious events once the file is opened (such as a Microsoft Word document or PDF reaching out to the internet or spawning Powershell.exe) for techniques such as Exploitation for Client Execution and Scripting.
Detection: Because most common third-party services used for spearphishing via service leverage TLS encryption, SSL/TLS inspection is generally required to detect the initial communication/delivery. With SSL/TLS inspection intrusion detection signatures or other security gateway appliances may be able to detect malware.
A common example is to build rapport with a target via social media, then send content to a personal webmail service that the target uses on their work computer. This allows an adversary to bypass some email restrictions on the work account, and the target is more likely to open the file since it’s something they were expecting. If the payload doesn’t work as expected, the adversary can continue normal communications and troubleshoot with the target on how to get it working.
All forms of spearphishing are electronically delivered social engineering targeted at a specific individual, company, or industry. In this scenario, adversaries send messages through various social media services, personal webmail, and other non-enterprise controlled services. These services are more likely to have a less-strict security policy than an enterprise. As with most kinds of spearphishing, the goal is to generate rapport with the target or get the target’s interest in some way. Adversaries will create fake social media accounts and message employees for potential job opportunities. Doing so allows a plausible reason for asking about services, policies, and software that’s running in an environment. The adversary can then send malicious links or attachments through these services.
Spearphishing via service is a specific variant of spearphishing. It is different from other forms of spearphishing in that it employs the use of third party services rather than directly via enterprise email channels.
Monitor processes and command-line arguments for actions that could create services. Remote access tools with built-in features may interact directly with the Windows API to perform these functions outside of typical system utilities. Services may also be created through Windows system management tools such as Windows Management Instrumentation and PowerShell, so additional logging may need to be configured to gather the appropriate data.
Tools such as Sysinternals Autoruns may also be used to detect system changes that could be attempts at persistence. (Citation: TechNet Autoruns) Look for changes to services that do not correlate with known software, patch cycles, etc. Suspicious program execution through services may show up as outlier processes that have not been seen before when compared against historical data.
Detection: Monitor service creation through changes in the Registry and common utilities using command-line invocation. New, benign services may be created during installation of new software. Data and events should not be viewed in isolation, but as part of a chain of behavior that could lead to other activities, such as network connections made for Command and Control, learning details about the environment through Discovery, and Lateral Movement.
Adversaries may install a new service that can be configured to execute at startup by using utilities to interact with services or by directly modifying the Registry. The service name may be disguised by using a name from a related operating system or benign software with Masquerading. Services may be created with administrator privileges but are executed under SYSTEM privileges, so an adversary may also use a service to escalate privileges from administrator to SYSTEM. Adversaries may also directly start services through Service Execution.
When operating systems boot up, they can start programs or applications called services that perform background system functions. (Citation: TechNet Services) A service’s configuration information, including the file path to the service’s executable, is stored in the Windows Registry.
Detection: Network share connections may be common depending on how an network environment is used. Monitor command-line invocation of <code>net use</code> commands associated with establishing and removing remote shares over SMB, including following best practices for detection of Windows Admin Shares. SMB traffic between systems may also be captured and decoded to look for related network share session and file transfer activity. Windows authentication logs are also useful in determining when authenticated network shares are established and by which account, and can be used to correlate network share activity to other events to investigate potentially malicious activity.
Adversaries may remove share connections that are no longer useful in order to clean up traces of their operation.
Windows shared drive and Windows Admin Shares connections can be removed when no longer needed. Net is an example utility that can be used to remove network share connections with the <code>net use \\system\share /delete</code> command. (Citation: Technet Net Use)
Detection: Monitor access to files and directories related to cryptographic keys and certificates as a means for potentially detecting access patterns that may indicate collection and exfiltration activity. Collect authentication logs and look for potentially abnormal activity that may indicate improper use of keys or certificates for remote authentication.
Adversary tools have been discovered that search compromised systems for file extensions relating to cryptographic keys and certificates. (Citation: Kaspersky Careto) (Citation: Palo Alto Prince of Persia)
Private keys should require a password or passphrase for operation, so an adversary may also use Input Capture for keylogging or attempt to Brute Force the passphrase off-line.
Adversaries may gather private keys from compromised systems for use in authenticating to Remote Services like SSH or for use in decrypting other collected files such as email. Common key and certificate file extensions include:.key,.pgp,.gpg,.ppk.,.p12,.pem, pfx,.cer,.p7b,.asc. Adversaries may also look in common key directories, such as <code>~/.ssh</code> for SSH keys on *nix-based systems or <code>C:\Users\(username)\.ssh\</code> on Windows.
Analyze process behavior to determine if a process is performing actions it usually does not, such as opening network connections, reading files, or other suspicious actions that could relate to post-compromise behavior.
Scan file objects reported during the PsSetCreateProcessNotifyRoutine, (Citation: Microsoft PsSetCreateProcessNotifyRoutine routine) which triggers a callback whenever a process is created or deleted, specifically looking for file objects with enabled write access. (Citation: BlackHat Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017) Also consider comparing file objects loaded in memory to the corresponding file on disk. (Citation: hasherezade Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017)
Detection: Monitor and analyze calls to CreateTranscation, CreateFileTransacted, RollbackTransaction, and other rarely used functions indicative of TxF activity. Process Doppelgänging also invokes an outdated and undocumented implementation of the Windows process loader via calls to NtCreateProcessEx and NtCreateThreadEx as well as API calls used to modify memory within another process, such as WriteProcessMemory. (Citation: BlackHat Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017) (Citation: hasherezade Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017)
Process Doppelgänging is implemented in 4 steps (Citation: BlackHat Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017): * Transact – Create a TxF transaction using a legitimate executable then overwrite the file with malicious code. These changes will be isolated and only visible within the context of the transaction. * Load – Create a shared section of memory and load the malicious executable. * Rollback – Undo changes to original executable, effectively removing malicious code from the file system. * Animate – Create a process from the tainted section of memory and initiate execution.
Adversaries may leverage TxF to a perform a file-less variation of Process Injection called Process Doppelgänging. Similar to Process Hollowing, Process Doppelgänging involves replacing the memory of a legitimate process, enabling the veiled execution of malicious code that may evade defenses and detection. Process Doppelgänging’s use of TxF also avoids the use of highly-monitored API functions such as NtUnmapViewOfSection, VirtualProtectEx, and SetThreadContext. (Citation: BlackHat Process Doppelgänging Dec 2017)
Windows Transactional NTFS (TxF) was introduced in Vista as a method to perform safe file operations. (Citation: Microsoft TxF) To ensure data integrity, TxF enables only one transacted handle to write to a file at a given time. Until the write handle transaction is terminated, all other handles are isolated from the writer and may only read the committed version of the file that existed at the time the handle was opened. (Citation: Microsoft Basic TxF Concepts) To avoid corruption, TxF performs an automatic rollback if the system or application fails during a write transaction. (Citation: Microsoft Where to use TxF)
Detection: Establish monitoring for activity conducted by second and third party providers and other trusted entities that may be leveraged as a means to gain access to the network. Depending on the type of relationship, an adversary may have access to significant amounts of information about the target before conducting an operation, especially if the trusted relationship is based on IT services. Adversaries may be able to act quickly towards an objective, so proper monitoring for behavior related to Credential Access, Lateral Movement, and Collection will be important to detect the intrusion.
Organizations often grant elevated access to second or third-party external providers in order to allow them to manage internal systems. Some examples of these relationships include IT services contractors, managed security providers, infrastructure contractors (e.g. HVAC, elevators, physical security). The third-party provider’s access may be intended to be limited to the infrastructure being maintained, but may exist on the same network as the rest of the enterprise. As such, Valid Accounts used by the other party for access to internal network systems may be compromised and used.
Adversaries may breach or otherwise leverage organizations who have access to intended victims. Access through trusted third party relationship exploits an existing connection that may not be protected or receives less scrutiny than standard mechanisms of gaining access to a network.
Monitor for Microsoft Office applications loading DLLs and other modules not typically associated with the application.
Detection: OLE and Office Open XML files can be scanned for ‘DDEAUTO', ‘DDE’, and other strings indicative of DDE execution. (Citation: NVisio Labs DDE Detection Oct 2017)
Adversaries may use DDE to execute arbitrary commands. Microsoft Office documents can be poisoned with DDE commands (Citation: SensePost PS DDE May 2016) (Citation: Kettle CSV DDE Aug 2014 |
ky Blizzard Maps Tour
Today we will host a for-fun tour, featuring some of the best (or worst) Blizzard Maps. Bring your creativity to become the Blizzard Map Master.
Time
Friday, Dec 05 6:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
Maps
Round 2 -
Round 3 -
Round 4 -
The map rotation will be repeated starting in Round 5. All rounds are played in Bo1 format until Final. The Final is a Bo3. The initial map for the Final will be determined by the map rotation (above), after which the loser picks from the four maps to finish the Bo3. A repeat map can be played if both players agree to it, otherwise a new map should be selected.
These maps are default maps that come with Brood War. “The Small Divide” can be found simply in the “Maps” folder. “Baby Steps” “Crystallis” and “Breaking Point” can be found by going to “Maps>Brood War.” Round 1 - Crystallis Round 2 - The Small Divide Round 3 - Breaking Point Round 4 - Baby Steps The map rotation will be repeated starting in Round 5. All rounds are played in Bo1 format until Final. The Final is a Bo3. The initial map for the Final will be determined by the map rotation (above), after which the loser picks from the four maps to finish the Bo3. A repeat map can be played if both players agree to it, otherwise a new map should be selected.These maps are default maps that come with Brood War. “The Small Divide” can be found simply in the “Maps” folder. “Baby Steps” “Crystallis” and “Breaking Point” can be found by going to “Maps>Brood War.”
Rules
Random and Racepicking are allowed. A Random player does not have to tell (shout) their race at the start of a game. Players are encouraged to pick their race at the last second or pick Random and then lie about their race. Trust no one!
. Trust no one! Walkovers can be taken after 15 minutes of an opponent no-showing or AFKing. Admin reserves the power to make the final judgement on any walkover and disconnect disputes.
Admin: flying[eMg]
Server: Iccup
Channel: Advent Calendar
This is a fun tour. Do not join if you are going to complain about the rules/format/maps.
Sign Up (link)
Please note: Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to publish this thread in the name of Fearthequeen. Sign Ups could change, as well as the page we host the grid on. However, the tournament will definitely take place on the time (19:00 CET). Everyone who shows up on time will have the opportunity to play!
Hence: Be sure to double check the thread before going to the server!. Do not join if you are going to complain about the rules/format/maps. "Was macht Gecko da aus meiner BWCL." - AnnihilatorDefence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne has played down reported weaknesses in Australia's anti-terrorism laws, even as Immigration Minister Peter Dutton called for greater powers to stop foreign fighters coming home.
Intelligence experts have warned the government of flaws in legislation designed to strip citizenship from dual nationals who leave Australia to fight with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, News Corp reported on Friday.
Authorities cannot strip someone of their Australian citizenship without first proving the person is a citizen of another country, requiring the co-operation of the Iraqi and Syrian governments, who have so far refused.
Reports suggested there was "nothing" to stop about 100 terrorists coming back to Australia as the Islamic State weakens in the Levant and loses territory. But Mr Pyne dismissed the report as "a sensational beat-up".FOR Rilli Willow, as for many others in Berlin this week, a “circle is closing”. Her great-aunt Dora was once a Jewish opera singer in Berlin. Deported at 33 to Auschwitz, Dora was forced to sing for its guards until she perished. Now Rilli, 32 and born in Israel, is also a singer and lives in Berlin, married to a German. And on July 28th she proudly sang the German anthem at the opening of the 14th Maccabi Games, Europe’s largest Jewish sporting event, which for the first time is taking place in Germany. Eleven motorcyclists (pictured) rode to the contest from Israel, taking a detour through Poland to stop by the Auschwitz death camp.
The Maccabi Games are a sort of Zionist mini-Olympics (though Gentiles can compete). The movement began in the late Ottoman empire, where Jews who were barred from sports clubs began their own. In the 1920s a Maccabi youth movement was born in Europe.
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The rise of Hitler seemed to quash it. A bitter foretaste of what was to follow came in 1936, when Hitler staged the Olympic Games in a purpose-built and grandiose stadium in Berlin. Many of the Jewish athletes who turned up were sent away hours before their events.
Today, 79 years after Hitler’s Games, 70 since the holocaust and 50 since Germany and Israel began diplomatic relations, the world looks different again. Some 20,000 Israelis live in Berlin and 240,000 Jews call Germany home again, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Despite some recent outbreaks of anti-Semitism, mainly involving Muslims, German Jews today feel safe and accepted, says Alon Meyer, president of Maccabi Germany.
So it seems fitting that 2,300 athletes from 38 countries will compete in 19 sports in the very stadium where Hitler preened and strutted. Joyous or sombre, Jewish or German, many share the feeling of a circle being completed.OTTAWA—Canada’s status of women minister did not attend a women’s march Saturday, when thousands of people across the country protested the new U.S. president’s stance on abortion, history of sexist comments and other issues, because she had “prior commitments in her riding,” according to her office. Organized for the day after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the Women’s March saw half a million people descend on Washington, D.C. to rail against the new American leader. Similar protests were held in Montreal, Halifax, Ottawa and Toronto, where organizers estimate 60,000 people marched from Queen’s Park to Nathan Phillips Square on Saturday.
Status of Women minister Maryam Monsef missed the march because she was attending meetings in her riding and preparing for the Liberal cabinet retreat. ( Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS )
“Our government has made a commitment to gender equality and to ensuring that all women and girls can reach their full potential,” said Matt Pascuzzo, press secretary for Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef, in an emailed statement. He said Monsef missed the march because she was attending meetings in her riding and preparing for the Liberal cabinet retreat in Alberta on Sunday. “We will continue working to support women’s rights in Canada by addressing and preventing gender-based violence and ensuring women’s economic success. When women and girls succeed, it benefits all of us.”
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Penelope Chester Starr, a co-ordinator for the marches in Canada, said there was no expectation for Monsef to attend one of the events. No politicians were invited because organizers didn’t want to introduce a partisan element to the demonstrations, she said, though the New Democratic Party had a visible presence at the rally in Toronto. “This was not meant to be a political or politicized event,” Chester Starr said. “It would be a completely different story if we put out an invitation and she turned it down,” she added. “We can’t wait to work with the ministry moving forward, and certainly we will engage with her.” While she didn’t attend one of the marches Saturday, Monsef posted her support on Twitter the next day. “Truly inspired. That so many took part yesterday means we can all stand together and keep working for change,” she wrote Sunday.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also proclaimed his support on Twitter. “Congratulations to the women and men across Canada who came out yesterday to support women’s rights. You keep your government inspired.” Sheila Malcolmson, the NDP’s status of women critic, said the entire Liberal cabinet — not just Monsef — had a responsibility to attend Saturday’s marches, given the prime minister’s repeated declaration that he is a feminist.
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“For them to miss that opportunity on Saturday to stand with millions of women who marched to stand up against misogyny and sexism and racism and the discrimination against disabled people was their loss,” said Malcolmson, who attended the women’s march in Nanaimo, B.C. Since Trump was elected Nov. 8, the Trudeau government has been cautious in its rhetoric about the American political scene. When he shuffled his cabinet this month, the prime minister explained that he was positioning his government to interact with the Trump administration on U.S.-Canada trade and co-operation. As Trump continues to signal his plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, Trudeau has taken pains to publicly emphasize what he sees he holds in common with the U.S. administration, rather than discuss issues where they disagree. “We both got elected on a commitment to help the middle class, and we’re going to be able to find common ground on doing the kinds of things that will help ordinary families right across the continent,” Trudeau said during an event in Halifax last week. Monsef, meanwhile, is new to the status of women portfolio. Until this month’s cabinet shuffle, the Peterborough MP was the minister for democratic institutions, where she was roundly criticized for her handling of the Liberals’ promise to change the electoral system in time for the 2019 federal vote. Trudeau’s mandate letter for the status of women minister mentions several priorities for the portfolio. These include shrinking the wage gap, encouraging companies to hire more female executives, creating a framework to prevent violence against women and helping other ministers with the inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women.
Read more about:Remember presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton who couldn’t lose the last election? The hysterical media hasn’t forgotten. They still try to let all Trump voters know each day since then how stupid they were to vote for him.
But we all know now why she did not win. It took her a few months to get over the shock. Her excuses ranged from WikiLeaks to former FBI Director James Comey. There was even talk about the unfairness of the Electoral College and how it should be abolished. Of course if that were to happen, four states could conceivably elect every future president with their enormous populations.
Democrats don’t care if that is unfair, as long as they win.
But it is all water under the bridge. The focus of the Democratic Party’s helping assistants in the mainstream media is on eliminating their hated enemy, Donald J. Trump. That is a 24/7 task, especially without a single shred of evidence in their now 13-month search for “the truth.”
What would the country look like today if Hillary had won?
Would the media be as dedicated to finding “the truth” when it came to their unbridled love who lost the presidency? Unlikely!
An entire book could be written (many have already been) that would outline what the country would face if she had won the presidency.
One item to share in the treasure trove of her corruption is mind-boggling. Again, it is a microcosm of the entire criminal corruption that would be laid at the American people’s door, but worth pointing out.
Big Numbers
It is the Clinton Foundation’s 2014 tax return. Without further editorial comment, here are the figures for this non-profit organization. I let the reader make up his/her own mind. It is staggering, but not all that surprising if one has read more than one source of information on the Clinton dynasty.
Within the official copy of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation tax year of 2014 alone, here are the figures. It is from the National Center for Charitable Statistics website. In other words, Clinton-deniers, it is irrefutable.
Total revenue (line 12): $177,804,612.00
Total grants to charity (line 13): $5,160,385.00 (less than 3 percent)
Total expenses of: $91,281,145
Here are the incredible numbers:
Expenses include:
Salaries (line 15): $34.8 million
Fundraising fees (line 16a): $850,803
Other expenses (line 17): $50.4 million
Travel: $8 million
Meetings: $12 million
Financial Analysis
On line 5,486 employees are listed. It took 486 people that were paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses to accomplish this. All of this expense to give away $5.1 million dollars. That shows it cost $126 million to give away $5 million dollars.
More eye-opening is the following. Line 22 shows that ending year net assets/fund balance was $322 million. That was up $85 million from the tax year 2013. Is there anyone of sound mind that can see how utterly questionable this is?
Media Analysis
The above is only one item that an honest media would investigate. But then again, they never would. Bill and Hillary Clinton are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Neither one has ever had a job outside of government service and a taxpayer check. Neither one has ever met a private sector payroll, hired a single employee or met a payroll. Neither has ever owned a private sector business.
A story at Truth Out shows some interesting facts about the cozy Clinton-Media relationship.
Perhaps the accounting above is either a big reason why, or the reason, they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.Saudi women visit the 2010 Saudi Travel and Tourism Investment Market fair in Riyadh. (Hassan Ammar/AP)
Two women in Saudi Arabia made history last week when they became the country's first registered female voters, according to local media.
“The participation of the Saudi women in the municipal elections as voters and candidates was a dream for us,” Jamal al-Saadi, one of the women who registered, told the Saudi Gazette. She added: "I was quite ready for this day."
A handful of women, including an 18-year-old, registered in Medina and Mecca, where the process began early. Voter registration opened up in the rest of the country on Saturday, and candidates can begin signing up Aug. 30. Men and women will vote in separate polling places.
[7 ridiculous restrictions on women’s rights around the world]
Registration day was a long time coming for women such as Saadi. In 2011, the now-late King Abdullah announced that women would be allowed to vote and run as candidates starting in 2015. Municipal elections, which began in 2005, are the only such contests in the monarchy, and those elected have limited authority. The share of elected municipal council seats will increase from one-half to two-thirds this year; the rest of the seats are appointed.
Activists welcomed the opening up of polls to women, but many said that it fell short of leveling gender inequalities in the ultraconservative country, which adheres to a strict interpretation of sharia law.
[The facts — and a few myths — about Saudi Arabia and human rights]
Women in Saudi Arabia cannot legally drive and need a "male guardian's" permission to travel or work, restrictions that leave Saudi women extremely dependent on men. Saudi Arabia ranked 130 out of 142 countries in the 2014 World Economic Forum global gender gap report. Only about 13 percent of women work, even though more than half of Saudi graduates are women, according to Saudi governmental statistics.
Zainab al-Talib, left, assists legal consultant Tala al-Hejailan at the law offices of DLA Piper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. in 2012. (Linda Davidson/The Washington Post)
In 2011, Amnesty International called Abdullah's move "much overdue" but said it "does not go nearly far enough."
"The whole system of women's subordination to men in Saudi Arabia needs to be dismantled," said Philip Luther, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. "While moving in the right direction, Saudi Arabia is moving far too slowly. Ultimately, it is no great achievement to be one of the last countries in the world to grant women the vote."
[How Saudi Arabia’s harsh legal punishments compare to the Islamic State’s]
Registration remains open for three weeks ahead of December's elections. Saadi, a businesswoman, said she would consider running as a candidate, as well. "I may have such ambitions — I love to go through this experience till the very end," she told the Gazette.May 6, 2014 5 min read
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For nearly a year with next to no luck, General Ulysses S. Grant tried to crack the defenses of Vicksburg, a city perched high on the cliffs of the Mississippi critical to the Confederacy’s stranglehold on the most important river in the United States. He tried attacking head-on. He tried to go around. He spent months digging a new canal that would change the course of the river. He blew the levees upstream and literally tried to float boats down into the city over flooded land.
None of this worked. All the while, the newspapers chattered. Months had gone by without progress. President Abraham Lincoln had sent a replacement, and the man was waiting in the wings. But Grant refused to be rattled, refused to rush or cease working on this strategy. He knew there was a weak spot somewhere. He would find it or he would make one.
Related: 4 Fighting Instincts to Succeed in Business and Life
Today's entrepreneurs and executives face leadership challenges quite different than those encountered during the Civil War. Investors might be chattering about removing a founder from a company's board of directors. A rival might suddenly take away the competitive advantage of a new business. The going can be rough as Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen once said of startup life: “You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.” In an entrepreneurial environment where three out of four venture-backed startups fail, the solutions to business problems may not always be readily apparent.
Yet modern business leaders have a way to respond to these obstacles: indefatigable persistence, a quality that Ulysses S. Grant demonstrated in spades.
Grant’s next move ran contrary to most conventional military theory. He decided to run his boats past the gun batteries guarding the river -- a considerable risk, because once down, they could not easily reverse direction. Despite an unprecedented nighttime firefight, nearly all the boats made the run unharmed. A few days later, Grant crossed the river about 30 miles downstream at the appropriately named Hard Times, La.
His plan was bold: Leaving most supplies behind, his troops lived off the land and made their way through the state, taking town after town, including Jackson, the capital, along the way. By the time Grant laid siege to Vicksburg, the message to his men and his enemies was clear: He would never give up. The defenses eventually cracked. Grant became unstoppable. His victory wasn’t pretty, but it was almost inexorable.
To overcome obstacles and make entrepreneurial dreams a reality, broadcast this message internally and externally: We will not be stopped by failure. We will not be rushed or distracted by external noise. We will chisel and peg away at the obstacle until it is gone. Resistance is futile.
Related: Why Entrepreneurs Should Plan for Failure, Not Success
At Vicksburg, Grant learned two things. First, persistence and pertinacity were incredible assets and probably his main ones as a leader. Second, in exhausting all other traditional options, he had been forced to try something new. That option -- cutting loose from his supply trains and living off the spoils of the land in hostile territory -- was a previously untested strategy that the North could now use to slowly deplete the South of its resources and will to fight.
With his persistence, Grant not only broke through; he discovered a totally new way -- the way that would eventually win the war.
Grant’s story is not the exception to the rule. It is the rule. This is how innovation works.
Many people think that great victories like Grant’s come from a flash of insight, that he cracked the problem with pure genius. But it was the slow pressure, repeated from many different angles, the elimination of so many other more promising options, that slowly and surely churned the solution to the top. The genius was unity of purpose, deafness to doubt and the desire to stay at it.
Indeed, researchers from Drexel and Northwestern universities have found that while an insight may seem to arrive suddenly, it may result from “the culmination of a series of brain states and processes operating at different time scales.” So persistent concentration and looking at an obstacle from every angle can lead someone to have an “aha!” moment as the solution is dug up from the brain.
Related: Is Competition a Catalyst for Innovation?
Thomas Edison once said about the invention process, “the first step is an intuition -- and comes with a burst -- then difficulties arise.” But working through the subsequent dips can lead an entrepreneur to eventual success: A recent study from Harvard Business School discovered “performance persistence” in venture-backed startups; entrepreneurs who passed through the trials of startup life and thrived were more likely to succeed than those who had not.
So when encountering obstacles, picture Grant with a cigar clenched in his mouth with unceasing, cool persistence and the line from the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem about that other Ulysses: “to strive, to seek, to find.” Grant simply refused to give up, turning over in his mind option after option, and trying each one with equal enthusiasm knowing that eventually one would work.
When persistence finally leads out of entrepreneurial struggles to that one option that works, it's possible to find within it, not only a measure of true strength but a breakthrough to new and better way of doing things.
Related: Turning Crisis Into Opportunity: 5 Ways to Deal With HardshipBy Fabian Mayer, September 16 2015 —
The University of Calgary is in a dispute with the Students’ Union over who owns MacHall. SU president Levi Nilson announced that negotiations over management of the building have stalled at this week’s Students’ Legislative Council meeting.
The SU held its first negotiating session of the year with the university on Sept. 9. Nilson said the meeting did not go well, prompting the decision to make the conflict public.
“It was clear that we’re kind of losing hope in getting a deal,” Nilson said. “We still want to go back to the table, but we don’t think that having it behind closed doors will be productive anymore.”
According to Nilson, the SU found documents, including the original building agreement, proving they have 55 per cent ownership of the building. He said the SU was pushing for a detailed and permanent deal that reflected this.
“Finding ownership kind of changed things in the way that we would get a deal,” Nilson said. “A lot of what the university is asking for would make our rights and responsibilities less within the building.”
Negotiations over management of MacHall started two and a half years ago. The current agreement expires on Dec. 9. Nilson isn’t sure what will happen if a deal isn’t reached between now and then, but said it would put the SU and the services it provides at risk.
According to the SU, they have invested $19,025,000 in the building since 1969 compared to the university’s $3,500,000.
Nilson hopes making the dispute public will give the university some perspective, forcing them to reconsider some of their positions. When asked if the SU would consider legal action, Nilson said it was an option.
“We have a pretty strong set of facts on our side as far as ownership goes and we think it’s fair that students know about it,” Nilson said.
The SU has managed MacHall for over 40 years with lease agreements being renegotiated periodically. Much of the union’s revenue comes from operating the building.
Provost Dru Marshall released a statement on Wednesday expressing disappointment with the SU’s position on the state of the MacHall negotiations.
The statement said that university administration received an SU proposal regarding MacHall last week and are preparing a response. Despite recent controversy, university administrators remain optimistic that a deal can be reached.
“The U of C will continue to negotiate with the SU in good faith, and is committed to achieving a fair and equitable agreement for the operation of MacHall,” Marshall said.Former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans and Jon Jones have had quite the tumultuous relationship.
The pair began as teammates at Jackson's MMA in Albuquerque, New Mexico but later became bitter rivals. As Jones rose to join the elite, Evans saw the writing on the wall and decided the town wasn't big enough for both of them.
As Evans founded and built the Blackzilians in Boca Raton, Florida, Jones realized his potential when he stole away the world title from Maurício Rua in brutal fashion at UFC 128 in 2011.
Evans went on to challenge his former protege at UFC 145 in 2012, becoming the first man to survive 25 minutes with the champ.
Jones went on to successfully defend his title five more times over the next three years before his life began to unravel.
Prior to his January bout with Daniel Cormier at UFC 182, Jones tested positive for cocaine metabolites but was still allowed to compete under the guidelines of the Nevada Athletic Commission. He was fined $25,000 for violating the UFC's code of conduct policy and spent just a single night in a treatment facility.
In April, Jones was stripped of his title for his involvement in a hit-and-run auto accident that left one pregnant woman injured. The misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of the crime was elevated to a felony due to the woman's injury, a broken arm.
Putting his past issues with Jones aside, Evans can't help but feel heartbroken for his former teammate.
"It's kind of a sad situation for me honestly," Evans told FOX Sports. "My heart really goes out to Jon because despite us having our beefs and everything, I care about Jon as a person. I think when this journey's over and said and done, I hope we can all grow as people and look back and say we had crazy years training together and fighting together.
"I don't wish the hardships that he's going through on anybody. To have a drug problem like he had or be in a situation like he is in right now because it's a serious thing because it tears down so many people around you that care about you. The hardest thing in the world is to watch someone you love really not be able to get themselves together and really struggle on a level so bad when it seems and it appears that they have it all."
Jones is due back in court Tuesday morning at 8:30 AM where he will have a hearing in Albuquerque's Second Judicial District Court. Documents obtained by MMA Fighting last week indicated that Jones' legal team is positioning him for a plea deal.
"My heart goes out to him and I hope he's able to make a recovery and come back and compete in the UFC again," Evans said. "He's one of the greatest fighters the UFC has ever had. For him to go out in a less than admirable way is not something that I would like to see for him. I've got so much respect for him as a competitor."
Evans faces fellow contender Ryan Bader Oct. 3 at UFC 192 in Houston, Texas.
5 MUST-READ STORIES
Headed to New York... maybe. The UFC plans to hold a major event featuring "top champions" at New York's legendary Madison Square Garden on April 23, 2016, pending the result of a federal injunction.
Suggestion box. UFC middleweight contender Luke Rockhold says the UFC should oversee and administer post-weigh-in IVs to fighters.
‘We have other plans for Kimbo.' Bellator CEO Scott Coker says Kimbo Slice won't be an opponent for Fedor Emelianenko.
"I think he's kind of confused." UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos says Anthony Pettis needs to sort out what he actually wants in his career. "He wants to help Cerrone, he wants a rematch with me, he wants to drop to 145 to fight McGregor."
Thanks, Ace. Former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin officially retires.
Watch The MMA Hour with Rafael dos Anjos, Rich Franklin, Scott Coker, Aljamain Sterling, Dan Hardy, Javier Mendez, Andy Main and Dave Meltzer.
MEDIA STEW
UFC 192 embedded episode 1.
Dan Hardy previews UFC 192.
Daniel Cormier isn't impressed with Papelbon's choking technique.
Highlights from ONE Championship 31.
Javier Mendez says Dana White's "stone age gym" comments have made him a better coach.
Dana White reflects on Rich Franklin's career.
Jeff Monson gets KO'd, wins by disqualification anyway.
(via Bloody Elbow)
Long watches.
KNUCKLE UP #347 UFC Fight Night Barnett Vs Nelson Surprisingly Delicious
...
TWEETS
Ace.
It's official!!! Today is the day. I'm retired. http://t.co/hc6sx2m7WN — Rich Franklin (@RichFranklin) September 28, 2015
Congrats to a great career and a great champion. It was an honor to stand across the cage from you. Much love. https://t.co/YTi2N0R3IM — Nathan Quarry (@NateRockQuarry) September 28, 2015
@NateRockQuarry Nate, I'll never forget the words you said to me the night I lost my title. You're a champion in my book! — Rich Franklin (@RichFranklin) September 28, 2015
@mark_munoz Mark, thanks for taking the time to reach out to me. I've always admired you as a professional. God Bless brother! — Rich Franklin (@RichFranklin) September 28, 2015
@RichFranklin good stuff Rich! Congrats — Mike Ciesnolevicz (@MikeCies) September 28, 2015
@RichFranklin thanks man for all the great fights you gave us. As a fighter, you have set a standard to follow. Thank you — Efrain Escudero (@effyescudero) September 28, 2015
U are the man rich! Thank u for being a tremendous fighter and champion. DC https://t.co/gBG0h3ARE6 — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) September 28, 2015
@DavidLoiseau You are a true warrior, and even though you permanently scarred me, it has been an honor. :) — Rich Franklin (@RichFranklin) September 28, 2015
I just saw @RichFranklin just announced retirement. It's been a pleasure being in this sport with you my friend. All the best to you! — Matt Hughes (@matthughes9x) September 29, 2015
Rich Franklin officially retired today. Thank u for all the great fights & representing the sport with class. #DWCOTD pic.twitter.com/JayfIX9BXI — Dana White (@danawhite) September 28, 2015
Beef.
@AlexTheMauler I'm gonna make you tap faster than someone mashing buttons while playing #Halo5 #UFC192 — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) September 28, 2015
Fiiiiiight weeeek!!! Cormier vs Gustafsson this Saturday on PPV! Gustafsson has a slight height and reach advantage pic.twitter.com/DN5Cl4b3Js — Dana White (@danawhite) September 28, 2015
Neither one of those things will matter. #downgoesgus https://t.co/UrlRkBmv5r — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) September 28, 2015
@AlexTheMauler you're gonna lose so badly that you'll wish Spartan Locke would put you out of your misery #UFC192 #Halo5 — Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) September 28, 2015
@dc_mma Cortana's hologram would be more of a challenge than you #UFC192 #Halo5 — Alexander Gustafsson (@AlexTheMauler) September 28, 2015
Joe Lauzon is eating pizza for charity.
Aiming to eat six 10" pizzas Friday at @BakingSteel. They're donating money to @TheJimmyFund for every slice we eat. http://t.co/kgNNg5Gcup — Joe Lauzon (@JoeLauzon) September 28, 2015
Champs.
Pleasure to meet this legend at Kings MMA Thanks for the words you are a big inspiration @bjpenn Um prazer encontrar com... Posted by Rafael Dos Anjos on Monday, September 28, 2015
On the move.
Quit my job packed my stuff heading to Montreal. You only have one chance we only have one chance... https://t.co/fO0VEKXRDj — Randa Markos (@randamma) September 28, 2015
.@randamma the newest member of team @tristargym! Congratulations on your move to Montreal! pic.twitter.com/FXJL62nd4u — UFC Canada (@UFC_CA) September 28, 2015
Congrats.
Feels like a lot of weight was lifted off my shoulders w/this new fight lined up. The hard part will be deciding how I'd like to finish him! — Aljamain Sterling (@FunkMaster_UFC) September 29, 2015
Drop you? Drop them.
Update.
So my celly is looking for a pen pal single ladies. Please write him if your interested. http://t.co/UxI7d37LdH — Chris Leben (@cripplerufc) September 29, 2015
Funny.
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announced yesterday (Sept. 28 2015)
Johnny Eduardo vs. Aljamain Sterling at UFC Fight Night: VanZant vs. Calderwood
Isao Kobayashi vs. Goiti Yamauchi at Bellator 144
Found something you'd like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me up on Twitter @SaintMMA and we'll include it in tomorrow's column.[So what are 5 ‘groundbreaking’ hip hop and rap albums that are horrendously overrated? First, let’s acknowledge that none of these platters were included because they were not successful. They are on this list because they were praised for somehow being "groundbreaking” and that is what eventually led to their being considered "horrendously overrated.” SOHH correspondent Jessica Kane serves up her top five below.]
5. Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III (2008)
Lil Wayne commercially peaked in 2008 when this album sold over 1 million copies in its first week of release. numerous sources agree though that this is actually far from his best work no matter how many copies it initially sold. (Many critics and fans alike believe the previous platter, Tha Carter II deserves that honor.) Does anyone truly believe that tracks like “Phone Home” and “La La” would be on a truly groundbreaking album that was yet another sequel?
4. 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2003)
Let’s face it, it might have been fun at some point, but 50 Cent’s crossover arrival into the musical mainstream was–as the saying goes–”more style than substance.” The disc does have its moments and it obviously did capture the true presentational public persona of the next massive hip hop star. The filler, such as “Poor Lil Rich” and “Blood Hound” betray it for what it is. If you consider the quality of the entire album, it is not the classic to be some folks once thought it was.
3. Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003)
Do you remember when this record garnered the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2004? It has indeed gone on to become Outkast’s most famous disc. Unfortunately, it is also the performing pair’s least spectacular release. While critics may praise the highs, can anyone name more than two tracks from the album? The lows, however, led by Andre 3000’s experimental insert “The Love Below,” fail to measure up to the act’s four prior classics.
2. Dizzee Rascal’s Boy In Da Corner (2003)
Rascal was a newbie when he released this work. Still, while it has moments, the LP is, as they say, “more of a hard-drive dump” than an actual album. The UK press was so happy to have a hip hop CD that was actually not an embarrassment that they oversold him. They pushed him as the “high priest of grime.” The release has some great production values and some great lyrics. “Fix Up, Look Sharp”, Jezebel” and “Jus’ A Rascal” aren’t enough to hold up the remainder of the record.
1. Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
Kanye West is more musical myth than man. Face it, West doesn’t make perfect albums. The noteworthy Late Registration and other offerings might demonstrate he can make messiness work but his narcissism cuts his insights off at the knees. While the use of auto-tune and King Crimson samples may score high ratings from music critics upon release, once one sits down and listens carefully it is obvious that this album’s scope and drama are tainted by bad puns and pieced together soul backdrops.
Jessica Kane is a music connoisseur and an avid record collector. She currently writes for SoundStage Direct, her go-to place for all turntables and vinyl equipment, including Rock Vinyls.Ex-Man City striker Paulo Wanchope gets into an epic fight with security during Costa Rica v Panama (Videos)
These videos are going to go viral on Wednesday.
Former Derby County, West Ham and Manchester City striker Paulo Wanchope – now the 39-year-old coach of Costa Rica’s U23s – got into an epic fight with a security official on Tuesday night.
Costa Rica were taking on Panama.
According to reports, Wanchope was refused entry onto the field, which sparked the former Premier League forward into a frenzy.
Wanchope slammed open a gate in order to march onto the pitch, he pushed a young steward out his way, and when he was confronted by a much smaller security man, Wanchope got into a mad fight.
Videos of the incident are below.
Paulo César Wanchope fighting in stands with security after not allowed on pitch during Oly qualifiers [@DavidSakata] pic.twitter |
on the destination can be very expensive. If you are unsure how expensive international shipping can be, please ask us for an estimate. Depending on which items are ordered, we anticipate international shipping to be in the $25-$40 range for Canada, and $35-$60 range for other international destinations.Paul Burgess shares the powerful story of the journey his late father Cyril went on when it came to accepting his son’s sexuality.
My parents have two sons, one of them gay. They also have two daughters, one of them gay. They are a part of that rare club of parents who can honestly say they have four children, one of each. Not easy things to own for a man like my father. At least, not at first.
Cyril Wild was a typical married man living in a northern cotton mill town. He regularly bet on horses, regularly went to the pub and socialised with other men, many of them as butch and masculine as the cast of a good western. He was also my father. It wasn’t a job he was great at in my younger years, and it was certainly a job I made more difficult for him.
I was an effeminate child, and teenager. I could and would be as camp as Christmas, often exaggerated for effect. I didn’t make things easy, and yes this was a conscious act on my part. You see, to me, this man once epitomised everything I despised about straight men. He was my example of what NOT to be, and I revelled in the opportunity to show him how different and opposite I could be, to everything he was.
He made it difficult too, for both of us. I recall one incident when I was around 11 years old. It was summer and I’d eaten a red fruit ice lolly, so my lips were stained red. Dad flipped out when he saw me, he screamed abuse at me and gave me a hard clip around the head. “Get that f**** lipstick off” he said. The problem was of course, I wasn’t wearing any.
We rarely spoke anything more than a hello and goodbye.
On New Year’s Eve in 1989 I asked my boyfriend at the time, who was staying at our home in the spare room, to get into my bed. Not to have sex, but just to sleep with me on the last night of the year. I wanted to snuggle. That was all. On New Year’s Day 1990 my father walked into my room, saw that we were in bed together, and promptly threw me out, simply stating: “I’m not having any of that queer stuff going on here”.
I left. I became independent. I became a man myself. Things were rocky with my dad for three years. We barely spoke; we still harboured much resentment towards each other.
I gave up on the idea of us ever having a father/son relationship.
As it would turn out, I gave up way too easily.
Fast forward three years to another New Year’s Eve. It’s the end of a night out with my parents and I’m still not really speaking to dad, we’re in the back of a taxi van and he’s about to step out of the cab. He turns to me and says: “Let’s me and you start afresh son”. He then holds out his hand for a shake. I shake his hand and he pulls me in for a hug. I believe it was the first.
Life suddenly changed, dramatically and so much for the better, although I wouldn’t quite realise that. Yet.
From that moment on, we got along incredibly well. With one gesture from him, he had changed our relationship deeply, and forever.
In 2009 he sat in the front row of my ‘big gay wedding’ and cried as much as my mother. He hugged me after the ceremony and told me it was one of the proudest days of his life.
We had both become two very different men to the pair constantly at loggerheads in previous years.
I had a father and he loved me. Unconditionally.
Nothing else changed. He still bet on horses, went to the pub, had the same mates. He was exactly the same man.
He epitomised the fact that anyone can change. Anyone.
He even became a big fan of the work we do at Pink Triangle Theatre, a company tackling homophobia in schools, colleges, workplaces and even prisons across the country. He stated that when he couldn’t drive anymore, he wanted us to have his car instead of our “tin can”. What we did was important to him and he wanted us to be able to do it easier, in a more attractive and reliable vehicle.
Dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in early 2012. He was given ten months to live. As a family we really made the most of those ten months. Dad even paid for all of us, his children and our partners, to holiday for an all-inclusive week in Majorca at the start of October 2012. It was an amazing week. My family hoped he would be able to have at least one more holiday after this one.
I knew, deep down, as did he, that this would be his last.
On January 21st 2013, at 6am in the morning, dad died. He had battled for almost a year, and he battled hard. Mum called me to come down quick, she couldn’t sit him up. Luckily Jason (my husband) and I had moved six doors away from my parents in August, so that we were on hand for this. Exactly this. I was there within moments, and I had to tell mum “He’s gone mum”. Followed by the awful calls to my brother and sisters. Calls I’ll never, ever forget.
My family were broken. They all fell to pieces for a while. Maybe hope had been hiding all the inevitability. I had as much to do with the stages between death and funeral as I possibly could. I helped when the funeral directors came to get him. I went to the chapel of rest and dressed him myself, with the help of my sister. I chose his final outfit and dressed him as if he was going on a Friday night out with my brother. He would have liked that.
Cyril Wild, my wonderful dad, is my own personal Hero. He is also an important lesson for parents of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people everywhere.
You too can change. You too can learn to accept all and love unconditionally.
I still miss him terribly, but I’m thankful that I had a chance to say everything that needed saying before he was gone. I told him the truth. I said that I didn’t regret one single thing that had happened between us. Not one. I told him that everything, every single thing, all the good and bad had been an important part of making me the person I was today, and I was proud of myself. He told me he was proud of me too, as he was proud of us all, and he said he couldn’t have married a better woman.
He meant every single word.
My tribute video for him is on YouTube. A Gay Man & His Dad.
A shorter version of this piece was written for Polari during LGBT History Month.We performed a population-based follow-up study using the Finnish Care Register for Health Care to identify all persons between the ages of 18 and 65 years hospitalized during 1987–2014 due to TBI who did not have a baseline NDD diagnosis. We compared the risk of hospitalization with NDD between persons hospitalized due to moderate-to-severe TBI (intracranial lesions) and persons hospitalized due to mild TBI (no intracranial lesions). Follow-up NDD diagnoses were recorded from 1 year following the TBI to the end of 2014. NDD diagnoses included dementia, Parkinson disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. We used a Cox proportional hazards model, adjusting for age, sex, education, and socioeconomic group, to assess the association between TBI and NDD. In total, 19,936 and 20,703 persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and mild TBI, respectively, were included. The overall time at risk was 453,079 person-years (median 10 years per person). In total, 3.5% (N = 696) persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group developed NDD compared to 1.6% (N = 326) in the mild TBI group. After adjusting for covariates, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for NDD, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 1.8 (95% CI 1.6–2.1) compared to mild TBI. Of the NDD subtypes, only moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for dementia (HR 1.9, 95% CI 1.6–2.2). Yet, this large-scale epidemiological study does not prove that there is a causal relationship between moderate-to-severe TBI and NDD. Further, the Care Register for Health Care includes only hospitalized persons; thus, patients diagnosed with NDD in the outpatient setting may have been missed. Additional limitations include the potential for miscoding and unmeasured confounds.
Competing interests: I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: RR has received personal research grants from private foundations (Medicinska Understödsföreningen Liv & Hälsa, Finska Läkaresällskapet, Maud Kuistilan Säätiö, Eemil Aaltosen Säätiö, The Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation, Suomalais-Norjalainen Lääketieteen Säätiö, Suomen Lääketieteen Säätiö, Maire Taposen Säätiö). JK has consulted for Pfizer on nicotine dependence in 2012–2015. In addition JK has received grants from publicly funded bodies (NIH, European Union FP7, and Academy of Finland) and private foundations (Finnish Cancer Society, Sigrid Juselius Foundation, Finnish Heart Foundation). None of these have funded the study save JK's time funded by the Academy of Finland research professorship.
Our aim is to contrast the risk of NDD in working-aged persons hospitalized due to moderate-to-severe TBI to that of persons hospitalized due to mild TBI. Persons with a history of mild TBI and moderate-to-severe TBI are similar in regard to TBI-specific risk factors, such as alcohol use, which is why individuals with mild TBI serve as a suitable control group [ 9 ]. Further, since data on the possible effects of socioeconomic factors on the association between TBI and NDD are lacking, we adjust for education and socioeconomic group [ 10 ]. We hypothesized that working-aged persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI would have an increased risk for future NDD compared to persons with a history of mild TBI, after adjusting for covariates.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a globally increasing healthcare problem, affecting persons of all ages [ 1 ]. Following the early phases of TBI, patients face a significant risk of long-term disability and neurological morbidity [ 2 ]. Previous epidemiological studies have found an association between history of TBI and risk for future neurodegenerative disease (NDD) (a concept including dementia, Parkinson disease [PD], and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS]), but the results have been conflicting and few studies have focused on the working-age population [ 3 – 7 ]. Gardner et al. showed that persons under 65 years with a history of mild TBI did not have an increased risk for dementia compared to non-TBI controls [ 8 ]. The development of NDD is supposedly most deleterious in the working-age population, as this not only causes significant morbidity but also has major socioeconomic consequences. Yet, to our knowledge, no previous studies have specifically looked at the overall risk for developing NDD in working-aged persons hospitalized due to TBI.
The results are presented as HRs with 95% confidence intervals. We used the group of persons with a history of mild TBI as the reference group in all analyses. p-Values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. We derived log–log plots of survival curves of TBI to verify that the proportional hazards assumption was not violated.
We repeated the analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model in a matched sample within the cohort. We matched persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and mild TBI in a 1:1 fashion based on age, sex, education, and socioeconomic group using the “ccmatch” function in Stata. If there were multiple mild TBI cases that matched a moderate-to-severe TBI case with respect to these variables, the “ccmatch” function included all of them.
In the primary analysis, we used NDD as a composite outcome variable. In the sensitivity analyses, we separately assessed the risk for dementia, PD, and ALS. Subgroup analyses were conducted by sex, by prespecified age groups (18 to 40 years, 41 to 50 years, 51 to 60 years, and 61 to 65 years), and by equally sized hospital length of stay quartiles (3–5 days, 6–10 days, 11–24 days, ≥25 days). Hospital length of stay served as a surrogate marker of TBI severity [ 14 ].
We used Cox proportional hazards models in Stata (version 14, StataCorp, College Station, TX) to estimate covariate-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals. Date of NDD was set as date of study exit. Persons dying before the end of follow-up or moving outside of Finland before the end of follow-up were censored at the time of death or emigration. Date of study entry was the hospital admission date for the hospitalization due to TBI. Age (continuous variable) was the underlying time parameter in all analyses. Socioeconomic group and level of education were treated as categorical variables, using the group with the most individuals as the reference category.
Descriptive characteristics of the cohort are presented either as categorical data (N [percent] and compared using a two-sided χ 2 test) or as continuous data (mean [standard deviation] and compared using a t test). We calculated the unadjusted rates of NDD per 100,000 person-years. This was done overall and in prespecified age groups, given the increase in risk of NDD with age. Data are presented as NDD rate per 100,000 person-years with 95% confidence intervals.
Data on mortality and date of emigration were obtained from the Population Register Centre of Finland. Information on date of birth, sex, hospitalization dates, and diagnoses came from the Care Register for Health Care. Data on socioeconomic group and education were obtained from Statistics Finland. We used the unique identification number assigned to all Finnish citizens to identify individuals and combine data from the registers.
Statistics Finland classification of socioeconomic groups is based on the United Nation’s recommendations for the 1990 population censuses. The education classification system is based upon the International Standard Classification of Education 1997 and 2011 classifications. Data on socioeconomic group and highest level of education were obtained for the year closest to the end of follow-up. The classification systems are presented in S1 Text.
The study population was prospectively followed up from time of TBI until diagnosis of NDD, death, emigration, or end of follow-up on 31 December 2014. We identified persons hospitalized, for any reason, who were diagnosed with a new NDD diagnosis of dementia (ICD-9 290, 331, 797; ICD-10 G30, F00, F01, F02, F03), PD (ICD-9 332; ICD-10 G20), or ALS (ICD-9 335.2; ICD-10 G12.2) from the Care Register for Health Care. The admission date for the hospitalization including the new NDD diagnosis was defined as the date of diagnosis. We excluded persons with a NDD diagnosis prior to the TBI and persons permanently living outside of Finland. We further excluded persons who received a NDD diagnosis or died within 1 year of the TBI to diminish the possibility of reverse causality. Fig 1 shows a flow chart of the selection and follow-up protocol.
To diminish the likelihood of persons in the mild TBI group having significant traumatic intracranial lesions, we included only those hospitalized for less than 1 day. To diminish the likelihood of persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group having no significant traumatic intracranial lesion, we included only persons hospitalized for 3 days or longer. In the case of several hospitalizations due to moderate-to-severe TBI or mild TBI, we used the first date of the most severe head injury (i.e., if the person first had a mild TBI and later a moderate-to-severe TBI, the latter was used).
We used the nationwide Finnish Care Register for Health Care to identify persons treated in a public hospital due to TBI in Finland during 1987–2014. The Care Register for Health Care (a continuation of the previous Hospital Discharge Register) was established by the National Institute for Health and Welfare and contains data on persons discharged from every public hospital in Finland from 1969 onwards. The Finnish healthcare system is tax-funded by local municipalities and by the state. In practice, acute care of TBIs is provided solely by public nonprofit healthcare providers and not by private institutions. Thus, the Care Register for Health Care comprehensively includes persons hospitalized due to TBI. The same register can also be used to identify persons hospitalized with NDD. Previous studies have verified the diagnostic accuracy of the registers [ 11, 12 ].
The National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL/1326/5.05.00/2015) approved of the study, in accordance with Finnish national legislation. Statistics Finland (Dnro TK-53-1179-16) and the Population Register Centre (Dnro 1873/410/16) granted us access to their databases. The Finnish Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman (Dnro 2794/402/2015) approved the data collection and combining of data registries. The study was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association.
A reviewer requested additional analysis to show how the risk of dementia behaved as a function of time (in the matched sample cohort). This analysis did not exclude persons diagnosed with dementia within the first year after the TBI. The risk for dementia was continually higher for persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI compared those with a history of mild TBI ( S1 Fig ). Furthermore, the lines diverge with time, providing further support for the association between moderate-to-severe TBI and dementia.
We identified a total of 25,747 exposure–control matched persons within the follow-up cohort, of which 13,470 were persons with a history of mild TBI, and 12,277 persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI. There were no major differences in age, sex, level of education, or socioeconomic group distribution between the matched groups ( S2 Table ). In the matched sample, 3.2% of persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI developed NDD compared to 2.3% of persons with a history of mild TBI. In the Cox proportional hazards model, TBI was associated with an increased risk for NDD, with a HR of 1.8 (95% CI 1.6–2.1, p < 0.001), providing additional support for the results from the primary analysis.
The sensitivity (for NDD subtypes) and subgroup analyses (by sex, age group, and hospital length of stay) are shown in Table 2. In the sensitivity analyses, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for dementia compared to mild TBI (HR 1.9) but not for PD or ALS. When analyzing women separately, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for NDD compared to mild TBI, with a HR of 1.9. When analyzing men separately, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with an increased risk for NDD with a HR of 1.7 ( Fig 3 ). The relative risk of NDD among those with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI was highest among those aged 41 to 50 years and 51 to 60 years of age at baseline (HR 2.7 and 2.0, respectively), though the differences between age groups were not significant (overlapping 95% CIs). Increasing TBI severity, as reflected by duration of hospitalization, was associated with an increased risk for NDD (HR 1.3 to 2.1) in a dose–response pattern.
The unadjusted rate of NDD was 331 per 100,000 person-years in the moderate-to-severe TBI group (318 per 100,000 in men and 373 per 100,000 in women) and 134 per 100,000 person-years in the mild-TBI group (115 per 100,000 in men and 162 per 100,000 in women). The unadjusted rates for all three NDD subtypes were notably higher in the moderate-to-severe TBI group than in the mild TBI group ( Table 2 ). The incidence of NDD increased with age. In the two youngest age groups (18–40 and 41–50 years), the rate of NDD was three to five times higher in persons with moderate-to-severe TBI compared to mild TBI, whereas in the two older age groups (51–60 and 61–65 years), the incidence was approximately one and a half times higher in the moderate-to-severe TBI group.
There were no significant differences between persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group and persons in the mild TBI group who developed NDD in terms of age, socioeconomic group, or level of education ( S1 Table ). The male to female ratio was higher among individuals in the moderate-to-severe TBI group who developed NDD than among individuals in the mild TBI group who developed NDD.
Overall time at risk was 453,079 person-years (mean 11 years [SD 8], median 10 years [IQR 4–17], per person). During the follow-up, 696 (3.5%) persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI developed NDD compared to 326 (1.6%) of those with a history of mild TBI (p < 0.001). Dementia was the most frequent NDD, followed by PD and ALS, in both groups. Persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group were on average 4 years younger than persons in the mild TBI group at the time of NDD diagnosis (67 versus 71 years). Significantly more persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group were diagnosed with NDD before the age of 65 years compared to the mild TBI group (40% versus 26% of all NDD cases in the respective groups, p < 0.001). Persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI who went on to develop NDD tended to have a longer hospital length of stay than those who did not develop NDD, suggesting higher TBI severity.
A total of 19,936 persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and 20,703 persons with a history of mild TBI were identified ( Fig 1 ). Baseline characteristics of the two groups are shown in Table 1. Persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group were on average 7 years older at the time of injury than persons in the mild TBI group (46 versus 39 years). The male to female ratio was higher in the moderate-to-severe TBI group than in the mild TBI group, although men predominated in both groups. There were no major differences in educational level between the groups. Nearly half of all persons had an upper-secondary level of education, while the higher education levels contained between 4% and 9% of individuals. Twenty-nine percent of persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group died during follow-up, compared to 12% in the mild TBI group.
Discussion
In this nationwide study in Finland investigating the association between TBI and NDD, we found that persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI had an 80% increased probability of future NDD compared to persons with a history of mild TBI. The matched sample analysis strengthened our results. The risk of future NDD increased with TBI severity (length of hospital stay) in a dose–response pattern. However, when the three NDD subtypes were analyzed separately, TBI was associated with increased risk only for dementia (90% increased probability).
Similar to our findings, three previous meta-analyses found TBI to be associated with an increased risk for dementia [3–5]. We further found that the associated risk between NDD and dementia increased with TBI severity. Thus, the evidence for the association between TBI and dementia seems to be compelling. Conversely, the association of TBI with PD and ALS is not as clear. Some studies suggest a significant association, and some no association [6,16–19]. In the present study, no association between moderate-to-severe TBI and PD or ALS could be established. The absolute numbers of persons developing PD and ALS were limited. Thus, the negative finding might be the consequence of a type II error. Yet, considering that this was an almost 30-year-long nationwide follow-up study including all persons hospitalized for TBI in Finland, ALS and PD do not seem to be a significant long-term neurological problem in individuals with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI. It should be noted that we were only able to identify persons diagnosed with ALS and PD who had been hospitalized. Thus, it is possible that we missed persons diagnosed with ALS or PD in the primary care setting or by private sector specialists.
In the present study, we could not study the risk of dementia in persons without a history of mild or moderate-to-severe TBI. However, based on previous studies, 14,500 persons are diagnosed with dementia annually in Finland. [20]. For a Finnish adult population (18 years or older) of 4,385,426, this translates to an incidence of 331 per 100,000 person-years. In comparison, the unadjusted incidence of dementia was 293 per 100,000 person-years for persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and 114 per 100,000 person-years for persons with a history of mild TBI. Thus, working-aged persons with a moderate-to-severe injury at a young age have a similar incidence of dementia as the general population, where most cases are among elderly individuals [21]. The incidence of dementia in persons with a history of mild TBI is somewhat lower than the general incidence, most probably because our cohort included persons under 65 years of age at the time of injury.
A major limitation for comparing previous studies of the association between TBI and NDD is the large variation in TBI and NDD definitions [5]. Some studies rely upon self-reported diagnoses for TBI (and thus suffer from recall bias), while others use ICD diagnoses (eight, ninth, or tenth revisions). For NDD diagnosis, some studies use DSM criteria, ICD diagnoses, or NINCDS-ADRDA diagnostic criteria. Thus, not surprisingly, with such a wide spectrum of the basic definitions, the results have been conflicting. In this study, we defined mild TBI according to the CDC criteria [13]. The same definition was used by Gardner et al. [8], who showed that persons under the age of 65 years with mild TBI do not have an increased risk for dementia. Thus, as we specifically investigated persons under 65 years of age, the mild TBI population formed a suitable control group for individuals with moderate-to-severe TBI. Persons treated for mild and moderate-to-severe TBI are likely to be similar in TBI-specific risk factors, such as age, gender, alcohol use, and socioeconomic factors [22]. Yet, the included mild TBI population might differ somewhat from the most common form of mild TBI, when hospital admission is not required. Identifying a control group of individuals with a history mild TBI without hospitalization is, however, impossible in large epidemiological studies such as the present study.
The role of sex differences in risk of developing dementia after TBI has been widely discussed. Both Mortimer et al. [4] and Fleminger et al. [3] found men, but not women, with a history of TBI to have an increased risk of dementia after TBI. Speculated theories include estrogen- and progesterone-induced neuroprotection [23,24]. In our study, both men and women with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI had an increased risk for dementia compared to those with a history of mild TBI. Yet, female sex was associated with a reduced risk for dementia in comparison to male sex, both in the mild TBI and moderate-to-severe TBI groups. Population studies generally do not find differences in dementia incidence between men and women [25,26]. Our study cannot establish any causation between sex, TBI, and dementia, although our results imply that sex may play a role in TBI-related dementia. The underlying causes of TBI may be different in men and women, resulting in a differential capacity to recover from brain injury and hence differential risk of dementia.
Poor socioeconomic factors (such as low education level and socioeconomic group) increase the risk for sustaining a TBI [9]. However, they also serve as a risk factor future NDD [27]. Thus, the association between TBI and NDD in previous studies may have reflected the underlying association of these socioeconomic factors, rather than of TBI itself, with NDD. Yet, we found that even after adjusting for socioeconomic group and level of education, TBI was significantly associated with an increased risk for NDD.
Strengths and limitations This is, to our knowledge, the first nationwide study on the subject (including over 40,000 persons). The nationwide coverage and the high data quality of the registries strengthen the study’s generalizability [11,12]. Only a few previous studies match the present one in size. One of the larger studies (with a maximum follow-up time of 5 to 7 years) was by Gardner et al. [8], in which the authors identified approximately 50,000 persons with a history of TBI and found results like ours, i.e., moderate-to-severe TBI increased the risk for dementia, with a HR of 1.7 (compared to 1.9 in our study) [8]. Yet, to date, the present study has one of the longest follow-up times (mean time at risk 11 years, or 453,079 person-years), something that is essential when investigating long-term neurological morbidity after TBI. By using persons with a hospitalization due to mild TBI as controls, we diminished the likelihood of detecting an effect that is not present (i.e., type I error), as it is unlikely that persons with a history of mild TBI have an increased risk of dementia compared to persons with a history of non-brain trauma [8]. Yet, there are studies suggesting that mild TBI itself might increase the risk for NDD, and therefore it is possible that our results underestimate the effect of moderate-to-severe TBI in the development of NDD [28]. On the other hand, a recent systematic review found no association between mild TBI and dementia [29]. Despite the high quality of the registries used, all register-based studies include diagnostic inaccuracies, coding errors, and other confounding factors that cannot be controlled for. First, as the Care Register for Health Care includes only hospitalized persons; it is possible that we missed persons being diagnosed with NDD in the outpatient setting (e.g., milder forms of PD and dementia). Second, although the median follow-up time was 10 years, persons hospitalized for TBI during the more recent years inevitably had shorter follow-up times and may not yet have been diagnosed with a NDD. Third, a notably higher proportion of persons in the moderate-to-severe TBI group died during the follow-up period compared to the mild TBI group (29% versus 12%), decreasing the moderate-to-mild TBI cases’ exposure time. Thus, it is likely that the risk of NDD in persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI is even higher than presented in this study. Furthermore, the diagnosis of NDD, especially dementia, is prone to error if it occurs too soon after TBI. Such diagnosis may be a residual effect of delirium, medication, or other complications following TBI. To avoid the possibility of reverse causality, we recorded NDD diagnoses starting 1 year following the TBI. Yet, even after including persons diagnosed with dementia within the first year after the TBI, moderate-to-severe TBI was associated with a significantly higher risk for dementia than mild TBI, strengthening the association (S1 Fig). As in many register-based studies, we used ICD-9 and ICD-10 discharge diagnoses to identify persons with a history of moderate-to-severe TBI and mild TBI [30]. For mild TBI we used diagnoses indicating no structural intracranial injury, and for moderate-to-severe TBI, we used diagnoses indicating an objective intracranial injury [31]. We further excluded persons with mild TBI hospitalized for longer than 1 day, as these may have had an undiagnosed intracranial injury, and persons with moderate-to-severe TBI hospitalized for shorter than 3 days, as these may represent cases of either rapid death or a milder form of intracranial injury not requiring hospitalization. It is possible that in the mild TBI group there were persons with clinically silent diffuse axonal injuries that passed undetected. How such traumatic microlesions affect the risk of future NDD is unknown. The most evident limitation, which is shared by most large-scale epidemiological studies, is that the study setup does not allow to us analyze any causative factors. It has been hypothesized that TBI does not itself cause NDD but rather accelerates an underlying process of developing NDD in persons with predisposing factors [32]. Such predisposing factors may include comorbidities; genetic variations, such as APOE ε4 allele expression and neprilysin polymorphism; and lifestyle factors, such as cognitive reserve, physical activity, obesity, alcohol, and smoking [33]. For example, a substantial proportion of TBIs in Finland relate to alcohol use [34]. Alcohol-related TBIs are much more common in men than in women, especially among less educated people, who also have a higher baseline risk for NDD, which may confound our results [35,36]. Furthermore, comorbidities, such as hypertension [37], stroke [38], and diabetes [39], have been found to significantly associate with risk of NDD, especially with dementia. Therefore, differences in comorbidities between the mild and moderate-to-severe TBI groups may potentially have affected our results. The aspect of physical activity after TBI is interesting. Decreased physical activity is probably more likely to happen after moderate-to-severe TBI than after mild TBI. Decreased physical activity is associated with an increased risk for dementia [40,41]. Thus, increasing physical activity in persons after moderate-to-severe TBI, in combination with aggressive treatment of cardiovascular comorbidities, might decrease the risk of subsequent dementia. Yet, further studies investigating the causative relationship between TBI, other environmental risk factors, and genetics are needed.Muhammed Al-Ahmadi, left, a longtime resident of Hungary, helps Syrian asylum seeker Jiwan Khalil at the hospital with his newborn, Nivin, on Sept. 13. (Jodi Hilton /The Washington Post)
Muhammed al-Ahmadi, a Syrian who had lived in Hungary for decades, was handing out bread to migrants camped at this city’s train station when a man rushed over to deliver the good news.
“She had the baby?!” Ahmadi, 51, responded. He had first met the new father a few days earlier, when the refugee arrived in Budapest after his journey from Syria with his pregnant wife. Now, Ahmadi walked with him to the hospital so that he could translate updates from doctors.
For years, living as a Muslim in Hungary meant existing somewhere between obscurity and derision. Muslims made up less than 1 percent of the population in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic nation. But as thousands of refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa have streamed into the country, hostility toward Islam has flared.
[Refugees face tear gas, water cannons as they cut new paths through Europe]
In response, Hungarian Muslims have mobilized. Rarely have their acts of service felt so necessary to them.
1 of 69 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Migrants’ desperate quest to cross into Europe View Photos More than 332,000 people have reached the continent this year. Caption More than 332,000 people have reached the continent this year. Sept. 20, 2015 Migrants desperately try to board a train heading for Zagreb from Tovarnik station in Tovarnik,Croatia. Croatia continues to send buses and trains north to its border with Hungary. Jeff J. Mitchell/Getty Images Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
“Yesterday, I helped two people find their families, and today I’m helping a new father with his baby. It has been such a blessing. Allahu akbar!” Ahmadi said, using the Arabic phrase for “God is great!”
Few countries in Europe have been as blunt as Hungary in turning away the asylum seekers, many of them from war-ravaged Syria and Iraq. The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, declared this month that he would reject many of the newcomers because “we do not want a large number of Muslims in our country.” When migrants tried to push through a new razor-wire fence at the Hungary-Serbia border, officers beat them back with tear gas and water cannons.
Since the number of asylum seekers crossing Europe surged in recent weeks, many Muslims say they are facing widening animosity. “Go back to your country” has become a familiar phrase to Muslims shopping in stores. Billboards have sprung up along rural roads reading, “If you come to Hungary, you have to respect our culture.”
Such sentiments are emblematic of the nationalist rhetoric rising in many parts of Europe. In the Netherlands, for example, one leader recently warned of an “Islamic invasion.”
Many Hungarian Muslims have responded to the crisis by providing aid to asylum seekers. In recent weeks, they have donated pizza and Capri Sun fruit drinks, bars of chocolate and containers of hummus to hundreds camped out at Budapest’s Keleti rail station. They have given |
Brazile interim chair, replacing the disgraced Wasserman Schultz. It’s of no little concern to think that CNN is more ethical than the DNC.
This is all to show that the problem with the party is that it is completely tone-deaf to its own incredibly obvious hypocrisies. As Sanders put it himself in a recent op-ed, “The party cannot remain an institution largely dominated by the wealthy and inside-the-Beltway consultants.”
Thus far, though, all signs suggest that party leadership will fail to seriously address the core reasons why the party lost in 2016, why Sanders supporters feel disenfranchised, why only 30 percent of eligible voters identify as Democrats, or why 71 percent of millennials want a third party.
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After the 2016 election, rather than build alliances with Sanders supporters, the DNC's Executive Committee was purged of Sanders allies. Across the board the DNC doubled down and alienated the Sanders wing of the party. As Sanders wrote about the Democrats’ failure to offer a clear vision for the party, “Certainly there are some people in the Democratic Party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”
In the wake of significant pressure to take seriously the loss to Trump as well as the documented cases of dysfunction, disarray and dishonesty in the party, the DNC created a Unity Reform Commission tasked with offering a slate of suggestions to reform the party and heal the rift between the Clinton and Sanders camps. It is holding its final meeting Dec. 8-9 in Washington, D.C.
Sanders, among others, offered a list of reforms: eliminate the superdelegate system, hold open primaries, make it easier for people to participate in caucuses and practice transparency in the financial and policy workings of the Democratic Party. These are all issues for which there is considerable public support.
Yet, a recent co-authored CNN op-ed by Tom Perez and Keith Ellison suggests that only some of these recommendations are being taken seriously. The DNC also gave less than 48 hours notice — waiting until late in the day on Dec. 6 — to publicly disclose the times when the final meeting of the Unity Reform Commission would take place, a move that appears to be designed to eliminate any voices of public dissent from the meeting.
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Since the election of Barack Obama in 2008 the party has lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures. The GOP currently holds the governorship as well as the entire legislature in 26 states, while Democrats exercise such control in only six states. Republicans control 34 (soon to be 33) out of 50 governorships. Republicans now control both legislative chambers in 32 states, up from 30 before the 2016 election. They control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.
As recently as 2010, Republicans controlled as few as 14 states.
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This is all to show that the DNC is on life support, or, as a report by a task force of party activists who hope to influence the Unity Reform Commission’s final meeting suggests, the party is dead and in need of an autopsy.
Released before Brazile made her revelations of party bias in Hacked, “The Autopsy Report” was spearheaded by a team that includes Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org, and Karen Bernal, chair of one of the California Democratic Party’s largest caucuses, the Progressive Caucus. Their core argument was that “after a train wreck, investigators scrutinize the causes.” Yet after the stunning loss of Clinton to Trump, the DNC refused to take seriously the need to rethink its strategies. Focused on using the Trump win to consolidate a unified Democratic opposition, DNC leadership ignored dealing with any of the party’s own internal failures.
As the “Autopsy Report” and the story of the Jackson campaign shows us, the Democrats have long tried to play a game where they profess a commitment to left politics, but actually practice a fairly consistent program of cronyism and oligarchic tendencies. Democrats have spent years cozying up to corporate interests, offering a policy referred to as a “third way” that claims they can be both pro-market and pro-labor. Yet beginning with the election of Bill Clinton, policy after policy has tilted toward corporate interests and away from those of the working class. Even worse, these practices have alienated the party’s base, losing young voters, voters of color and the working class. In one stark example, “The Democratic Party has experienced an 11 percent drop in support from black women according to one survey.”
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Meanwhile the DNC has suggested that its future lies in attracting centrist Republicans. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia,” Chuck Schumer explained going into the 2016 election. What Schumer failed to get — besides the fact that he was completely wrong — is that a party politics that appeals to those moderate Republicans may well be simply too Republican to appeal to a true left-leaning voter.
Despite Hillary Clinton’s claims that she lost due to misogyny or Russian meddling or Bernie bros, there has not been enough attention to the reality that she lost because her politics too closely resemble the pro-corporate policies of the right — policies first openly adopted by her husband.
As Jake Johnson explains for Common Dreams, “While the party still professes its dedication to the working class, as Hillary Clinton did in her speech at the Democratic convention, a closer look at its donor base — along with its voter demographics — reveals a different story.”
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The problem is that this sort of cozy connection to Wall Street and what Hillary Clinton described as “good billionaires” simply falls flat on the progressive public. As Matt Taibbi has noted, "politicians who promise they can deliver change while also taking the money, mostly just end up taking the money."
In a Harvard Harris poll from August this year Nancy Pelosi had a favorability rating of 31 percent and Chuck Schumer was at 28 percent. Trump came in at 41 percent. Meanwhile, Sanders topped the poll with a 54 percent favorability. In November the Democratic Party had a favorability rating of only 37 percent. At that same time Trump came in around 38 percent.
It is not just favorability of politicians that shows a profound dislike for Democratic party insiders. November 2017 Gallup polling found that 31 percent of Americans identified as Democrat, 24 percent identified as Republican, and 42 percent as Independent.
Whether we cite polling numbers or favorability ratings or public outcry, one thing seems clear: the DNC is having a hard time confessing to its own hypocrisies and working with its base to redefine itself. Even worse, it refuses to explain its practices.
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This is why the DNC’s Wasserman Room may well function as a metaphor for all that is wrong with the party.
Right off the lobby of the DNC headquarters in Washington, D.C., there is a Wasserman Room. Not a Martin Luther King Room, not a Cesar Chavez Room, but a Wasserman Room. When I wrote to a regional press secretary asking about the history of the room, I got no reply. I was left to wonder if the room had ties to Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s family or maybe was connected to longtime Democrat Lew Wasserman. One thing is clear, it is not named after a revered Democratic politician or activist. The existence of the room and the secrecy over its history encapsulates the reality that the DNC has become a donor-driven party uninterested in explaining itself to the public. The Wasserman Room is like the DNC’s first-class accommodations on the Titanic.
So, as the Unity Reform Commission enters its last round of deliberations, the first question that needs to be answered is whether the DNC is ready to give up its first-class accommodations on the Titanic and start fighting for a legitimate left platform. And, if it chooses to hold to its oligarchic legacy, the next question is whether the left will keep fighting for reform or whether they will jump ship.On last week’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver nailed a brilliant segment that hilariously took down televangelists and the absurd concept of seed faith and “the Prosperity Gospel.” (Essentially, a grip of evangelists appear on TV networks to encourage viewers to donate money, which is technically tax-free, so that God or some Higher Power will reward them. The specifics beyond how these people, who turn around and use the money to buy private jets in the name of God, court their followers are ridiculous and available in the video below.) Aside from the religious figures at the center of the debacle, Oliver also set his sights on the IRS, because he believes the agency is too lax when it comes to policing such malarkey. CBS News reported that the IRS, that most permissive of government entities, only conducted three church audits from 2013 to 2014, after it had suspended them from 2009 to 2013. Yikes. Smooth, IRS. To prove the point that virtually anyone can do this and to show how criminally insane this whole thing is, Oliver created a fake church, Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, and asked viewers to donate.
In Sunday night’s latest installment of Last Week Tonight, the Daily Beast noted that Oliver had an update. Reappearing as Pastor John Oliver, Mega-Reverend and CEO, the HBO show host said: “For those of you who have sent U.S. currency, blessings unto you. We have received thousands of envelopes with thousands of dollars. … The more money you send in, the more blessings will be returned to you. And that is still something I’m amazingly legally allowed to say.” (Don’t worry — the donated money is going to Doctors Without Borders.) Nice work, John. Here’s the original segment, which, thanks to its popularity over the course of the last week, is putting some much-needed pressure on the IRS:At Brandeis, Where an Indifferent, Mediocre Semi-Education Will Set You Back $60,000 Per Year, An Attempt to Educate Students About "Microagressions" and "Triggers" Is Deemed to Itself be a Triggering Microaggression We used to call "microaggressions" our personal peeves, but the Social Justice Warriors want to make it sound important (and give it the false sheen of academic rigor), so they called it "microaggressions." Note this word also shifts the party responsible -- it used to be understood that if you had a pet peeve, it was your pet peeve. Now comes the word "microaggression" to make it sound like the guy who activated your pet peeve did so voluntarily and, well, aggressively -- instead of it just being you getting annoyed, because you're sensitive. Now comes the word "microaggression" to make it sound like the guy who activated your pet peeve did so voluntarily and, well, aggressively -- instead of it just being you getting annoyed, because you're sensitive. For a long time, I've heard Asians, in particular, talking about the particular "microaggression" of asking "Where are you from?" When they say "Fort Lee, New Jersey," the other person says, "No really, but where are you from?" For a long time, I've heard Asians, in particular, talking about the particular "microaggression" of asking "Where are you from?" When they say "Fort Lee, New Jersey," the other person says, "No really, but where are you from?" Several things here. One, I can see how this would be annoying. Several things here. One, I can see how this would be annoying. Two, I don't think many people actually ask the question this way. I think the question is here being deliberately made to sound more stupid than it was actually posed. Like, I'd ask, "I mean, where does your family originate from?" Two, I don't think many people actually ask the question this way. I think the question is here being deliberately made to sound more stupid than it was actually posed. Like, I'd ask, "I mean, where does your family originate from?" But I wouldn't ask that, because now I know it's the Worst Thing Ever to try to find out if the person you're speaking to is of Korean or Chinese, or Korean or Japanese, extraction, because like You Should Just Know Or Something. * But I wouldn't ask that, because now I know it's the Worst Thing Ever to try to find out if the person you're speaking to is of Korean or Chinese, or Korean or Japanese, extraction, because like At any rate, what these questions are actually getting at is that. For me, I can tell Chinese and Japanese apart pretty easily (I think -- don't test me), but I get a little confused by Koreans and Vietnamese, and I have no real idea what Laotian might be. At any rate, what these questions are actually getting at is that. For me, I can tell Chinese and Japanese apart pretty easily (I think -- don't test me), but I get a little confused by Koreans and Vietnamese, and I have no real idea what Laotian might be. These questions are said to be "microaggressing" or "othering" or "exoticizing." These questions are said to be "microaggressing" or "othering" or "exoticizing." One could also call them A stranger taking an interest in you and your culture, but of course we can't call it that, because Special Snowflakes need to live dramatic lives in which they are always put-upon and suffering the worst tragedy of anyone in all of history. One could also call thembut of course we can't call it that, because Special Snowflakes need to live dramatic lives in which they are always put-upon and suffering Thus, an inartfully-phrased question which is just seeking some cultural information is turned into a Racist Taunt. Thus, an inartfully-phrased question which is just seeking some cultural information is turned into a Um, it's not. I can see how Asians would be annoyed that white people are always asking about their culture (especially when they themselves might not know much about it, hailing from Fort Lee, NJ and all) but the fact is, this is a compliment, basically: Whites have long been interested in Asian culture. Um, it's not. I can see how Asians would be annoyed that white people are always asking about their culture (especially when they themselves might not know much about it, hailing from Fort Lee, NJ and all) but the fact is, this is a, basically: Whites have long been interested in Asian culture. Look at all the Rising Sun flags and samurai swords that dweebs own. Look at all the Rising Sun flags and samurai swords that dweebs own. Now, you can be "otherized" or "exoticized" by a compliment -- it is true, someone can "otherize" you, treat you as the distant other, while actually being (overly) interested in you, just as clueless liberal can attempt to give praise to a minority but come off as condescending and presumptuous -- but in the history of racism, I'm going to go ahead and say that "Other people have the racist misimpression that my culture is cooler than it really is" is pretty fucking low on the list of Racial Harms. Now, you can be "otherized" or "exoticized" by a compliment -- it is true, someone can "otherize" you, treat you as the distant other, while actually being (overly) interested in you, just as clueless liberal canto give praise to a minority but come off as condescending and presumptuous -- but in the history of racism, I'm going to go ahead and say that "Other people have the racist misimpression that my culture is cooler than it really is" is pretty fucking low on the list of Racial Harms. It ranks just a few steps under the Holocaust and slavery. Just a few. It ranks just asteps under the Holocaust and slavery. Just a few. This is why I say this used to be called a "peeve." This is why I say this used to be called a "peeve." Do I understand why Asians complain about this? Yes. Do I understand why Asians complain about this? Would I think it was annoying if I were Asian? Yes. In fact, I can see it as annoying even as whitey who rarely faces the "Where do you come from?" question. Would I think it was annoying if I were Asian?In fact, I can see it as annoying even as whitey who rarely faces the "Where do you come from?" question. Would I bring it up, in talking with my fellow Asians, as an example of how clueless and stupid White People are? Sure would. Would I bring it up, in talking with my fellow Asians, as an example of how clueless and stupid White People are? Sure would. But I'm afraid that's about the limit of it. It cannot really be pushed beyond that to a true racial affront, and damnsure not a racist one. But I'm afraid that's about the limit of it. It cannot really be pushed beyond that to a true racial affront, and damnsure not a racone. But, as I say: Special Snowflakes have empty gray lives, which they feel the need to color up with Hallucinated Persecutions. But, as I say: Special Snowflakes have empty gray lives, which they feel the need to color up with Hallucinated Persecutions. And thus "Where are you from?" becomes the Worst Crisis Ever Faced by 18 year old, Upper Middle Class Asian kids whose actual worst crisis was not getting accepted by an Ivy League school and having to settle for one of the very expensive faux-Ivies like Brandeis. And thus "Where are you" becomes the Worst Crisis Ever Faced by 18 year old, Upper Middle Class Asian kids whose actual worst crisis was not getting accepted by an Ivy League school and having to settle for one of the very expensive faux-Ivies like Brandeis. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it -- Braindeis is for the dumber, weaker Upper Middle Class kids -- but again, in the history of suffering, this isn't quite up there with Anne Frank. And I'm not going to sugarcoat it ---- but again, in the history of suffering, this isn't quite up there with Anne Frank. So anyway, the Brandeis Asian American Student Association put up some fliers to indicate microaggressions they hated -- things like "I totally have an Asian fetish" and "you're my favorite Asian" (notice these are actually awkward compliments, btw). So anyway, the Brandeis Asian American Student Association put up some fliers to indicate microaggressions they hated -- things like "I totally have an Asian fetish" and "you're my favorite Asian" (notice these are actually awkward compliments, btw). Here's the thing: Other students seeing those fliers felt "triggered" -- and thus, the BAASA's attempt to alert people to the dangers of "microagressions" has itself deemed as Here's the thing: Other students seeing those fliers felt "triggered" -- and thus, the BAASA's attempt to alert people to the dangers of "microagressions" has itself deemed as triggering. I do think there is a point to this "microaggression" stuff. Sometimes people will reference race, attempting, they think, to pay someone a compliment, or "put this whole cross-racial awkwardness behind us." But what they don't realize is that the person they're saying that to hears that constantly, so to them, the "cross-racial awkwardness" is never put behind. I do think there is a point to this "microaggression" stuff. Sometimes peoplereference race, attempting, they think, to pay someone a compliment, or "put this whole cross-racial awkwardness behind us." But what they don't realize is that the person they're saying that to, so to them, the "cross-racial awkwardness" isput behind. Even if you're attempting to be nice to an Asian, and tell him how cool you think karate and Giant Robots are, what the Asian is hearing, for the hundredth time in a conversation with an Anglo, is that he is an Exotic Asian Boy From Faraway Lands. Even if you're attempting to be nice to an Asian, and tell him how cool you think karate and Giant Robots are, what the Asian is hearing, for the hundredth time in a conversation with an Anglo, is that he is an Exotic Asian Boy From Faraway Lands. So I do think they have a point. And I know that I do this myself. I try to be friendly and put the race thing aside by underlining it. So I do think they have a point. And I know that I do this myself. I try to be friendly and put the race thing aside byit. You know what? This never works. I was once having a great night with friends and this from-County-Cork Irish bartender and I said to him something like "God bless you you Irish son of a bitch!" You know what?I was once having a great night with friends and this from-County-Cork Irish bartender and I said to him something like "God bless you you Irish son of a bitch!" You know what he did? Threw me out of the fucking bar, that's what he did, even after I apologized profusely for ten minutes. You know what he did?that's what he did, even after I apologized profusely for ten minutes. So, it never works, and Anglos should probably just never say a word about an acquaintance's race, unless that acquaintance brings it up. So, it never works, and Anglos should probably just never say a word about an acquaintance's race, unless that acquaintance brings it up. So I do think they have a point. And I do think Anglos should know this annoying. So I do think they have a point. And I do think Anglos should know this annoying. As Leader of The White People,* I declare that it's time to realize this I'll Prove I'm Totally Not Racist By Calling Attention to Race gambit must be retired. As Leader of The White People,* I declare that it's time to realize this I'll Prove I'm Totally Not Racist By Calling Attention to Race gambit must be retired. Still, the whole Oppressed People nonsense? C'mon. Still, the whole Oppressed People nonsense? C'mon. Stop using a petty annoyance as a justification for a formalized structure of racial hatred.** Stop using a petty annoyance as a justification for a formalized structure of racial hatred.** Via Via Instapundit, with more. Thanks to MWR for the tip. Thanks to MWR for the tip. * Like most SJW microkvetches, this one is a bit incoherent, insisting, as it does, that Anglos should simultaneously take no interest in Asians' heritage and also have perfect native-level fluency in cultural differences between Asian cohorts. * Like most SJW microkvetches, this one is a bit incoherent, insisting, as it does, that Anglos should simultaneously take no interest in Asians' heritage and also havein cultural differences between Asian cohorts. BTW, the other day I had a cabdriver who commented upon what he found odd in America. So I asked him where he was from (Ethiopia) and where in Ethiopa (Addis, he said -- I guess that's the cool shorthand for Addis Adaba? I dunno). BTW, the other day I had a cabdriver who commented upon what he found odd in America. So I asked him where he was from (Ethiopia) and where in Ethiopa (Addis, he said -- I guess that's the cool shorthand for Addis Adaba? I dunno). Anyway, know why I asked him these things? Not to "otherize" him, but rather because I was, get this, interested. Anyway, know why I asked him these things? Not to "otherize" him, but rather because I was,, interested. And honestly I didn't have much else going on. And honestly I didn't have much else going on. Then again, in fairness, he did broach the subject (his comment implicitly announced he was interested in cross-cultural observations) and furthermore he was a recent immigrant, not someone whose tribe had, since the Sixth Dynasty, resided in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Then again, in fairness, he did broach the subject (his comment implicitly announced he was interested in cross-cultural observations) and furthermore he was a recent immigrant, not someone whose tribe had, since the Sixth Dynasty, resided in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Still, one should, I think, distinguish between intentional insult and unintentional awkwardness. Still, one should, I think, distinguish between intentional insult and unintentional awkwardness. The first is something one could be justifiably angry about. The first is something one could be justifiably angry about. The latter is something that assholes who just want an excuse to shout will gin up some drama over. The latter is something that assholes who just want an excuse to shout will gin up some drama over. More: Actually, now that I see a True Asshole making this kind of joke, I begin to see how abrasive it really is, and why it should be retired. Actually, now that I see a True Asshole making this kind of joke, I begin to see how abrasive it really is, and why it should be retired. @AceofSpadesHQ check out the Microaggressor-in-Chief https://t.co/keDXPnkez1 — The H2 (@TheH2) May 1, 2015
* Technically, Jeff Winger is Leader of the White People, but actually the Position is open to which ever White Person holds the Conch at any particular moment, and I just got a hold of it now. * Technically, Jeff Winger is Leader of the White People, but actually the Position is open to which ever White Person holds the Conch at any particular moment, and I just got a hold of it now. ** Many citizens of foreign countries will decry "American nationalism" as a passive-aggressive (and dishonest) way of expressing their own jingoistic nationalism. When you hear a Frenchman screaming about how America thinks it's the best, but really it's not very good at all, who do you think he's implying really is the Best? ** Many citizens of foreign countries will decry "American nationalism" as a passive-aggressive (and dishonest) way of expressing theirjingoistic nationalism. When you hear a Frenchman screaming about how America thinks it's the best, but really it's not very good at all, who do you think he'sreallythe Best? Likewise, many minorities now employ a constant, codified, ritualized attack on White People as their method of engaging in some bumptious, egotistical Racial Triumphalism. Likewise, many minorities now employ a constant, codified, ritualized attack on White People as their method of engaging in some bumptious, egotistical Racial Triumphalism. And this becomes more obvious every single day. And this becomes more obvious every single day. Guys? If you think your own culture or race is the best, stop being dishonest, and just express your honest chauvanistic and/or racist feelings. Guys? If you think your own culture or race is the best, stop being dishonest, and just express your honest chauvanistic and/or racist feelings. Stop using the nasty passive-aggressive subterfuge of always strongly, strongly implying that you are Superior to Whitey as your chickenshit method of proclaiming racial superiority. Stop using the nasty passive-aggressive subterfuge of alwaysthat you are Superior to Whitey as your chickenshit method of proclaiming racial superiority.
Posted by: Ace at 04:02 PM
MuNuvians MeeNuvians Polls! Polls! Polls! Frequently Asked Questions The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick Top Top Tens Greatest Hitjobs News/ChatPolyglot persistence is based on the assumption that there is no single database technology that suits all data needs equally. Hence different types of data need to be handled and stored differently in order to provide the best possible performance while offering appropriate availability. This could mean that transient data, such as user sessions, could be stored in a key-value format, while the result of a user session, such as a purchase, could be stored in a relational format.
The goal of storing data in an optimal way creates the need for various data types. This can be addressed in two ways. The first option is a multi-model database, such as EDB Postgres™, that offers multiple data types, including relational, key-value, and JSON, within the same database. This blog focuses on the second option: the combined use of various database and data store technologies. This option might be chosen when a new application must provide a holistic view of data across existing databases, or when a particular functionality of a NoSQL database is required, e.g., horizontal scalability for big data in Hadoop® or MongoDB®.
This option calls for the integration of data to avoid walking into the trap of siloed data. Data integration aims to bring together data from various data sources to provide businesses with a more complete view of their customers, products, processes, and/or supply chains to improve customer experiences and to increase operational efficiency.
To integrate data from various data sources within an enterprise, the EDB Postgres™ Platform provides an Integration Suite. It enables building a data repository across traditional relational databases, as well as new data stores under the umbrella of EDB Postgres. Supported remote data sources include Oracle®, SQL Server®, MySQL™, MongoDB, and Hadoop on-premises or in the cloud.
Instead of having to copy data in nightly batch jobs, the EDB Postgres Integration Suite provides replication from or direct access to other data sources providing near real-time results. This means that instead of waiting until the next morning for a report, a daily report could be available right after the business closes and that inter-day reports are available anytime.
Integrating data from those data sources also means, for example, that customer service organizations can access a complete customer profile, including previous purchases, customer preferences from an online profile; social media or chat history; and other information allowing companies to provide the best customer service possible.
A recent Forbes article, titled “Connecting With The Customer: How Airlines Must Adapt Their Distribution Business Model”, acknowledges the fact that the “[i]ntegration of all pieces of customer data into a holistic view of the customer, allowing personalized offers, products and distribution services” is a key capability for success.
While data integration and analytics are paramount to gain insights into the business, speed and agility are drivers for technology such as private and public clouds that enable fast deployment and agile software development. This is why many enterprises deploy new applications and databases in the cloud.
This has an impact on traditional deployment and management processes. Today’s development cannot wait for a tedious infrastructure provisioning process to finish to then wait for an operating system and databases to be installed and configured.
To support DBA and developer teams alike, EDB offers cloud management for EDB Postgres. EDB Ark™ provides Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) with self-service provisioning and management of EDB Postgres databases in the private and public cloud, enabling developers to create new databases as required, while allowing DBAs to retain control and visibility. This solution gives IT organizations the speed and agility they need to keep up with the fast pace of modern software development to meet business demands. EDB Ark enables DBAs to manage more effectively the integrated data fabric across the cloud, whether public or private.
Summary
The EDB Postgres Platform, with the EDB Postgres Integration Suite, and EDB Ark, provide the capabilities needed to build an integrated data architecture with polyglot persistence on-premises and in the cloud for better insights into customers, products, processes, and supply chains, thereby allowing an enterprise to make the best use of all its data. The EDB Postgres Integration Suite offers EDB Postgres Replication Server that delivers legacy database integration. The EDB Postgres Data Adapters enable integration between EDB Postgres and Hadoop, MongoDB, and MySQL whether on-premises or in the cloud. EDB Ark enables rapid provisioning and management of that integrated data in the cloud.
To learn more about this solution, contact [email protected].
Sandra Wiecki is Director, Product Marketing, at EnterpriseDB.On my quest for downloading more podcasts, I decided to tackle another podcast I started listening to, Criminal.
This posed a set of new problems, and I'm going to go over the code for solving it, since I'm actually somewhat proud of it.
It started fairly simple. I whipped out Web::Query and started walking the path:
my $hdr = wq($post)->find('header.entry-header > h1 > a'); my $title = $hdr->text;
However, when printing the title, Perl has informed me that some of title strings have Unicode characters in them. That's not necessarily bad, Perl just explained that I need to declare tell the terminal this. What sparked my interest is which characters.
When I printed them out, I noticed that titles that had words like Can't were not using a regular'character, but a full fledged Unicode single quotation mark. That's odd. These aren't quotation marks. But alright, I can easily fix this in Perl. Change previous two lines to:
my $title = $hdr->text =~ s/\N{RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK}/'/rg;
Somewhere along the way I realized the live show has a node but no actual episode. No problem, skpping that:
# skip live show $title eq 'CRIMINAL LIVE SHOW' and return;
Now I hit the next challenge: creating the filenames.
The filenames should just be the episode name with a.mp3 suffix, right? Well, yes, except I wanted the episode number. It's provided in words instead of numbers. For exmaple, EPISODE THIRTEEN: THE BIG SLEEP (12.19.2014). Whoa!
Alright, Perl has great language support under the Lingua namespace. A quick search and I found Lingua::EN::Words2Nums. So the process should be yank out from the title the number of episode, then pass it through the module to get the number in digits, then reassemble it back with.mp3. I wonder if I could write a single line of Perl to do all that...
my $filename = $title =~ s/^EPISODE ([^:]+)\:(.+)$/words2nums($1). " -$2.mp3"/re;
Not bad!
When using Web::Query, I also get a count when iterating over elements. I wanted to print that, but it starts at zero. I can use sprintf, but I can also use the magical @{[]} statement:
print "[@{[$count+1]}]: Fetching episode: $title... ";
The next challenge was two fold:
The episodes are in a SoundCloud widget
Not all episodes have a download button
What I need to do is first find the link to the episode widget:
my $episode_link = wq($post) ->find('div.entry-content') ->find('iframe')->attr('src');
The reason I'm calling find twice is because these elements don't follow each other. That was pretty simple. the iframe is where the widget is located.
We can also get the ID of the episode:
my ($episode_id) = $episode_link =~ /tracks\/([0-9]+)/;
Except it's sometimes encoded and sometimes it isn't. Oh well, simple enough to handle:
my ($episode_id) = $episode_link =~ /tracks(?:\/|%2F)([0-9]+)/;
Ah! Now we have it either way.
And now the really juicy bit:
After researching this, I realized that even the widgets that do not have a download link can be downloaded if you use right path, but only if you have a client ID. Where do you one? By registering with SoundCloud as an app. So wait, how does it work on the website?
Well... the SoundCloud widget iframe downloads a piece of HTML with Javascript script tag for the guts of the widget Javascript. That guts JS file (minified and obfuscated) contains the client ID for the web client. Then it fetches all the resources it needs to compile links using that client ID.
Let's start with opening the iframe and fetching the Javascript link within that HTML:
my $widget_js_link = wq($episode_link) ->find('script')->first->attr('src');
This is the link to the widget guts JS file. Let's download it:
my $js < io("https://w.soundcloud.com$widget_js_link");
So far so good. It's minified and obfuscated, but with a simple regular expression we can dig into it and grab the client ID:
my ($client_id) = $js =~ /production\:"([0-9a-f]+)"/;
Oh yes!
All we need now is to create the proper link, fetch the mp3 file, and save it with the right filename:
io( "https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/$episode_id/download". "?client_id=$client_id" ) > io($filename);
Here is the entire code:
(The highlighter got a bit crazy so most of it is in green, sorry...)
This code, along with the code from my previous entry can be found in a small repo I started in order to collect these scripts.
UPDATE 2015-01-06: As Miyagawa-san points out, there is a RSS feed that provides direct links. I should have made it clear that I intended to have a technical challenge and learning experience rather than a simple way to download them. The podcast is not meant to be hard to download, and it has comfortable RSS feeds to easily download all episodes.NORTHERN Rivers Nationals MPs say failure to oppose gas production on the North Coast could mean The Nationals lose the region for a generation.
Southern and inland representatives, meanwhile, believe the party should not bow to a populist campaign of misinformation, fearing that a dangerous and expensive precedent could be set.
State leader Troy Grant believes there's room for both arguments, but it was clear from the annual NSW Nationals conference last Friday the party is fractured over the gas industry.
An urgency motion from Clarence MP Chris Gulaptis to oppose gas in the Northern Rivers descended into a sprawling, hour-long debate that was ultimately abandoned for fears that a vote would do more harm than good.
Anti-industry sentiment fuelled a swing against North Coast Nationals at the March state election - fatally so in Ballina - with representatives from Lismore, Tweed, Clarence, and the federal seat of Page predicting extinction if the region is not quarantined from the mining practice.
Unprecedented community concern was central to Mr Gulapt |
available faculty positions [2, 7, 8] likely overstate the number of PhDs who aspire to a faculty career, thereby exaggerating imbalances in academic labor markets (see also [4]). This insight provides urgency to the National Academies’ recent call for better data on students’ career preferences [6] and we present a measure that may be useful in such data collection efforts. Second, there is considerable heterogeneity in the degree to which career preferences change. While many students remain highly interested in an academic research career, others report a significant decrease in their interest in academia. The large share of students who remain interested alleviates concerns about a potential “drying up” of the pipeline of highly trained scientists pursuing academic careers. While the declining interest in academia among other students may concern observers who believe that all PhDs should aspire to a faculty career, these changes may also be seen as positive to the extent that they result in a better alignment between students’ career preferences and the careers they ultimately enter. Third, a significant share of advanced students– 40% in our study—are not interested in pursuing an academic career. Given that many students report a lack of information about non-academic career options [15] this finding suggest that better information about a variety of career pathways earlier in the PhD may be beneficial [6, 32]. Workshops and information sessions are offered by many institutions [33] but may have a limited ability to truly convey what it means to work in other sectors. Experiential approaches such as internships may be more effective by allowing students to experience non-academic careers first-hand. Moreover, there is the concern that career exploration may be hindered by a lack of support from advisors, who tend to strongly encourage the traditional academic career path [4, 34]. As such, allowing students the time to explore different career options and creating an open culture that acknowledges changing preferences and that values non-academic career paths may be important complements to offering richer information [7, 35]. Students, in turn, should begin to consider their careers early on and take advantage of the career exploration opportunities provided by their advisors and programs. It is well recognized that graduate schools need to prepare PhD students for a variety of academic and non-academic careers [6]. Several innovative initiatives—such as NIH’s BEST program—are important steps towards this goal. Our results suggest that such initiatives need to take a dynamic perspective to accommodate changing career preferences over the course of graduate training. In particular, if students enter PhD programs aspiring to faculty careers, they are unlikely to take advantage of opportunities to explore non-academic options right away. In addition to encouraging students to explore different career options and interests, programs should thus provide students with the flexibility to adjust and modify program components as their career goals change. Finally, future research is needed on whether and how some of the learning that appears to underlie the observed changes in career preferences can be accelerated or even moved prior to students’ enrolling in a PhD program. More explicit assessments of their own interests and abilities, as well as more realistic evaluations of career options may lead some individuals to realize that pursuing a faculty career, and a PhD, is not the best way forward for them. This may allow individuals to take advantage of a growing range of alternative educational options, such as professional science master’s programs, and ultimately result in faster career progress and more satisfying long-term career outcomes.
Acknowledgments This research was supported in part by NSF Scissor Award 1262270 and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Results and opinions are our own and not necessarily those of the funders. We thank R. Alex Coots, Susan Fitzpatrick, Chris Golde, Rick Kahn, Paula Stephan, Susi Varvayanis, Ken Yancey and especially Shulamit Kahn for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank the editor, Joshua Rosenbloom, and two reviewers for their valuable feedback on the manuscript.TORONTO -- David Clarkson stood outside the visitors' dressing room in Air Canada Centre after his Toronto Maple Leafs completed a 2-1 shootout victory Friday night over his former Devils teammates.
One by one, several players came out to chat with Clarkson, who played against the Devils for the first time since he signed with the Maple Leafs last summer.
“It was different, obviously,” Clarkson said. “It’s always good when you win, but I think the Devils showed they’re a great hockey team. I thought they played well. It was a hard-working game for both sides.”
Clarkson exchanged handshakes with Anton Volchenkov, insisting he wasn't trying to run the defenseman at one point in the game. He chatted with Andy Greene and Mattias Tedenby, but spent most of his time with Martin Brodeur.
Clearly pumped up for the game, Clarkson had three quality scoring chances. He finished with two shots on goal but no points.
"When do you play us again?" Brodeur asked.
"I don't know," Clarkson answered.
"Sure, like you don't have it circled," Brodeur joked.
After staying as long as he could, Clarkson returned to the home dressing room as the Leafs prepared to fly to Boston.REVELATION 3:7-13
« Revelation 2 | Revelation 3 | Revelation 4 »
To the Church in Philadelphia
7 “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.
8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
9 Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you.
10 Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth.
11 I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.
12 The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.From the lady who recorded the video:"So i sat there for a good 10 minutes before i started recording this, while i listened to this woman bad mouth muslims and call the lady sitting opposite me an ISIS supporter because she wore a scarf, then she told me to go join ISIS because i was sticking up for her. People like this make me sick. People who are so ignorant and disrespectful to other people who were clearly sitting there minding their own business. She was saying some pretty horrible and hurtful things before i spoke up then as soon as i started defending them she stopped.People need to stop judging and putting others down over religion! EVERY RELIGION HAS GOOD AND BAD but if you take it back to the foundations, every religion is also built on LOVE. To LOVE one another. The purpose of religion is to control yourself, not to criticize others."Having looked at the major alternatives to fossil fuel energy production (summarized here), we come away with the general sentiment that the easy days of cheap energy are not evidently carried forward into a future without fossil fuels. That’s right, fossil fuels will be dead and gone. Is it time to pile them on the cart to be hauled away?
In the slapdash scoring scheme I employed in the alternative energy matrix, the best performers racked up 5 points, whereas by the same criteria, our traditional fossil fuels typically achieved the near-perfect score of 8/10. The only consistent failing is in the abundance measure, which is ultimately what brings us all together here at Do the Math. Fossil fuels are presently used in abundance—85% of current energy use—but this is a short-term prospect, ending within the century. The first effects of decline may be close at hand. Do I hear talk of nursing homes?
The gulf between fossil fuels and their alternatives tends to be rather large in terms of utility, energy density, practicality, ease of use, versatility, energy return on energy invested, etc. In other words, we do not merrily step off the fossil fuel ride onto the next one by “just” allowing the transition to happen. The alternatives come at a cost, and we will miss the golden days of fossil fuels. But wait…what’s that murmur? Not dead yet?
Still Got It?
Before we leave fossil fuels for dead, we should understand that peak oil happens around the time that the resource is half-depleted. So we’ll have many decades of conventional oil, albeit at dwindling rates. Likewise for gas and coal, whose peaks may be decades away still (but likely this century all the same). My main concern is how we cope with the decline stage of fossil fuels, which is not as final as being dead, but effectively forces us into a new era of energy transition. Because conventional oil will begin its decline first, a chief concern is how we might replace its function for transportation. Rather than write off fossil fuels completely, some see promise in what alternative fossil fuels might offer.
Indeed, a number of non-conventional fossil fuels may represent our most convenient next step in energy. The low-hanging fossil fuel fruit has been plucked, so that the conventional sources get progressively harder and more expensive to acquire. Meanwhile, the ground is full of sub-prime fossil energy that becomes exploitable as the conventional resources wane (and become more expensive). If inferior replacements for conventional oil turn out to be exploitable at scale, our concern may shift more to the climate change side of the story: many fear that we may run out of atmosphere before we run out of hydrocarbons—and they could be right.
In a strictly quantitative sense, the notion that we have an abundance of hydrocarbons yet may be accurate enough. I used the following plot in the post on peak oil, adapted from Brandt & Farrell. Dark shades indicate reliable resources, while light shades represent increasingly speculative holdings.
We are about halfway through the conventional oil endowment—thereby near the production peak assuming the usual symmetric performance history. But perhaps we can recover a much greater fraction of the oil in the ground through advanced oil recovery technologies. Then we have tar sands and heavy oil from Canada and Venezuela. Or we can liquefy natural gas to cover the oil shortage. And as the Nazis and Apartheid South Africans demonstrated, liquid fuel can be produced from coal. Finally, we have a potential option in oil shale. Resource estimates vary, but even taking the dark green segments in the picture above (reliable lower-bounds), we at least triple the remaining “liquid” hydrocarbon resource available.
By the way, I recommend totally ignoring the vertical axis on the plot. Cost of extraction tends to rise as energy prices rise, and these estimates are rooted in a cheap energy economy. At the very least, the lines should slope upward, as the tail end of a resource is always more costly to extract than the early stuff. In any case, I consider the cost estimates to be unreliable.
Let’s just put a timescale on this resource. 4.5 trillion barrels of remaining “liquid” hydrocarbons, at today’s rate of petroleum use, would last about 150 years. But it does not work this way. In most aggregate resource situations, the peak rate of production is reached when half the resource is gone. In this case, our total 5.5 trillion barrel “liquid” resource—past and present, devoting remaining coal and gas to liquid form—would be halfway depleted in 60 years, assuming the alternative fossil fuels can step up to the rates we enjoy today. And this does not allow for competing uses for gas and coal, acting to reduce substantially the time-to-peak if fully exploited, so these numbers are too optimistic. Even so, by another measure, if we resumed our growth track of energy use, for instance at 2% per year (more modest than historically typical 3% per year), we would burn through 4.5 trillion barrels of liquid fuel in 70 years. We would reach the halfway point (peak) in 50 years, before tapering down. Any way you cut it, chasing after sub-prime hydrocarbons is another short ride, ending this century, that has the ill side effect of putting us deeper in the climate hole.
The Hirsch Report
In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy commissioned a study of peak oil and its ramifications. Called the Hirsch Report (summary) after its lead author, the focus centered not on when the peak would occur, but rather on what we could do to mitigate the damaging effects. The report rightly identified the peak oil predicament as a liquid fuels problem, since electricity and heat are more easily substituted by alternative means—though not trivially so.
For liquid fuel replacement, biofuels, electric cars, and hydrogen-based transport were considered not to be technologically ready and/or of insufficient scale. The five options deemed to be ready for large-scale implementation were:
Increased vehicle efficiency Enhanced oil recovery Heavy oil & oil sands Coal liquefaction Gas-to-liquids
Note that not one of these options represents a departure from fossil fuel transport. At some level, this speaks to a desperation in our predicament: we simply are not ready to be weened from the fossils, even as it becomes ever more imperative that we do so.
So what? If the resources are abundant enough, as the figure above suggests, then why not adopt this list of mitigation strategies and just get started?
I’ll make a few global comments before discussing each option in turn.
The most significant point is that the declining fossil fuel supply will be experienced not according to the total amount in the ground, but rather according to how quickly that resource is extracted and made available. We face a rates shortage more so than a resource shortage. To illustrate, in 1973, the U.S. was experiencing a declining rate of domestic oil production and got slapped with a Middle-Eastern oil shock that more than tripled the price of oil practically overnight. At the time, approximately 100 billion barrels of oil sat below American soil, most of it already known to exist, and with thousands of wells already accessing many of the deposits. 100 billion barrels would have been enough to satisfy all of domestic demand for over 15 years. Yet imports increased over the next several years while domestic production continued to decline.
Was this some sort of masochism, or the anagrammatically similar machismo? No. All the incentives were there for increasing domestic production, but nature did not care. Real oil wells—as opposed to the hypothetical ones conjured by economists—struggle to move viscous oil through porous rock, and are not amenable to extraction at arbitrary rates set by human demand. There is no spigot: no straw in some underground lake of oil.
Similarly, the raw amount of hydrocarbons in the ground is only part of the story. Can they be extracted and processed at a rate that makes up for conventional oil decline? That’s the key question.
The second global point, as stressed in the Hirsch Report, is that the scale of oil consumption is so breathtakingly large that even a modest decline rate of a few percent per year represents a staggering energy shortfall. Globally, a 3% annual decline in a resource that constitutes a power consumption of 5.5 TW means a yearly decline of 165 GW, or about 40 GW in the U.S. It is a tall order to scale the mitigation strategies up to a point that they could backfill this annual shortfall. For this reason, the report advocated starting a crash program 20 years before the onset of decline in order to assure sufficient scale in time to match the decline when it starts. The report concluded that a lead time of only 10 years risks major disruptions to economies. Beginning the crash program at the onset of decline was considered to be a catastrophic option. And a show of hands: who here thinks we would start an all-out mitigation program at the scale of World War II mobilization before resource decline sets in? If I weren’t typing, I’d be sitting on my hands, even while hoping that I am being too cynical.
A third point is that many of the scales I discuss below are based on a 3% annual decline of conventional oil. For a net oil importer like the U.S., the available oil may go down even faster if any countries reduce their export rate. At least one major oil-exporting country will make the calculation that at double the price, they can afford to sell half as much oil and still keep their economy humming (observing that they are not hurting at present). Oil prices rise higher as a result, tempting others to preserve their black gold for their own uses, only exacerbating the problem. How long will this go before military seizure takes place? In any case, oil importers may face an even steeper decline rate at the hands of geopolitical factors. Such things are not unknown to humankind.
Collecting some thoughts, the mere existence of alternative hydrocarbons in the ground does not translate to a storehouse of resources ready to satisfy our demand at the time and scale we need without decades of steady preparation. Think of a farmer in the flush of late summer waving off concerns of the coming winter because there’s lots of corn on the field, but not bothering to spend the fall preparing for the winter by actually harvesting the grain. An imperfect analogy, but the point is that the scale of the problem requires substantial preparation well ahead of our time of desperate need.
Now let’s look at the Hirsch Report options, recognizing that at best, all but the first are stopgap “solutions” based on a finite resource.
Improved Efficiency
Not technically a finite fossil fuel resource, improving the efficiency of our current automotive fleet does not represent a departure from fossil fuels, but aims to slow down their rate of use. I am a big fan of efficiency gains, and think there are always places to cut. On the other hand, efficiency gains tend to be slow, and do not have unlimited potential, as detailed in the post on limits to economic growth.
Consider that improved efficiency has been an ever-present goal of our car industry. Few people want their vehicle to be explicitly inefficient: an SUV that got 50 MPG would sell like hotcakes. Indeed, we have seen a steady improvement in the fuel economy of a typical family car, amounting to a factor-of-two improvement over the last 3–4 decades. This translates to an annual rate of improvement of 1% per year. As explained in an earlier post, fuel efficiency boils down to aerodynamics and speed. Embracing smaller, slower, more streamlined cars is the only obvious path forward for improved economy. The Prius is primarily as successful as it is because of its small, wedge-shaped form.
Largely, efficient transport is a well-squeezed lemon. Sure, we’ll get more drops out and should make every effort to do so: 1% per year can make a respectable dent in a 3% decline. Accepting behavioral changes could bring a fresh lemon to the scene. Another way to say this is that we will only see substantial improvements in vehicle efficiency if we change our expectations about what a car is supposed to do (or migrate away from personal cars as a primary means of transportation).
Enhanced Oil Recovery
A number of techniques exist to improve the fraction of oil in a well that can be brought to the surface. Of course oil developers use every practical tool at hand to stimulate oil flow: pressurized water injection, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and injection of gas like CO 2 to dissolve into the oil and allow it to flow more easily. This last technique generally goes under the heading of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), and can improve the extraction of oil by about 10% of the original in-ground amount. It runs a bit on the expensive side, but future energy will be expensive anyway. So this technique will help offset the decline, if employed at large scale, and has the advantage of delivering light crude oil that our infrastructure is geared to process.
Heavy Oil and Tar Sands
Some oil, like the stuff in Venezuela, is substantially more viscous than conventional oil, approximating tar. Additionally, tar sands in Canada offer similar raw material for making synthetic crude oil. These two resources combined may supply something like half-a-trillion barrels of feedstock. California has a bit as well. Presently, Canadian production is a little over 1 million barrels per day (Mbpd), while Venezuelan production is a little less than this. Optimistic projections expect 3–4 Mbpd by 2020 in Canada. For scale, ten years of conventional oil decline at 3% per year will leave a shortfall over 20 Mbpd. Venezuela is not expected to move so quickly. Put together, these might be able to offset a quarter of the conventional decline—having a head start over other options.
Heavy oil and tar sands require more effort to extract and process than conventional oil, lowering the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) to something in the neighborhood of 5:1 (reference). At least it’s net-positive, but nowhere near the 100:1 originally enjoyed by conventional oil, or even the 20:1 levels we find in conventional fields of today’s caliber.
Heavy oil and tar sands will no doubt relieve some pressure on declining conventional oil, but they are capable of only partial relief. In other words, just because we believe the resource to be half-a-trillion barrels, rate-limited extraction will limit its ability to mitigate conventional oil decline. Did anyone notice that the U.S. does not own either of the large heavy deposits? Hey. Don’t discount Canada: last time we were in a war with them they burned down our White House!
Coal Liquefaction
When pressed, societies have in the past resorted to synthesizing gasoline out of coal, in a method known as the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process. Coal, which is mostly carbon, is partially combusted, or “gasified,” to make carbon monoxide. The CO is combined with hydrogen gas to make long-chain alkanes like octane, spitting the oxygen out in the form of water. One typically uses CO also to create the hydrogen gas from water via CO + H 2 O → H 2 + CO 2. Thus only one of every two carbon atoms winds up in the synthetic fuel, the other lost to CO 2.
The National Mining Association, strongly advocating our using more coal as fast as we can, estimates a refinery cost pushing $1B, yielding 10,000 bpd production. For scale, a 3% per year conventional oil decline would leave the U.S. short by 600,000 barrels per day, requiring 60 such new plants to be built every year to plug the gap—each costing about the same as a 1 GW coal-fired plant (and processing 0.6 GW-worth of liquid fuel energy per day). It’s a big deal. Obviously, I’m not suggesting that coal liquefaction—or any of these alternatives—carry the full weight of replacement, but simply use full-scale numbers to establish the bounds and set the scale.
Compounding the problem of the required rate at which new processing plants would have to be built, consider the numerous downsides of coal. We would desperately like to shake our addiction to the dirtiest, most CO 2 -intense fossil fuel. How’s that workin’ out for us? Mountaintops razed flat, mine tailings, sulfur, mercury, and other toxins leaching into streams and rivers: expanding coal production is not high on the list of things we want to do.
We should also be careful about assuming that we are up to our ears in coal. It’s true that the U.S. has ample coal resources compared to its remaining oil endowment. But consider that the estimated total U.S. resource has declined from about 3000 Gt (gigatons) prior to 1950 to half that amount around 1960, lately sitting around 300 Gt. This isn’t due to depletion of the resource (70 Gt so far), as the number I’m quoting is total resource: past production plus estimated resource.
A similar story unfolded in the UK—whose leading role in the industrial revolution owed to vast amounts of coal in the ground. For over fifty years leading up to 1970, British coal was repeatedly estimated to total about 200 Gt. Over the next few decades, the estimates collapsed to about 30 Gt. The biggest shock is that this happened when 25 Gt had already been consumed, suddenly leaving about 5 Gt of recoverable coal when it had been imagined to be about 170 Gt. Imagine you’ve got $17,000 in the bank and you are contemplating buying a new car—only to realize that your latest bank statement puts you at $500: 3% of what you thought you had, and maybe not enough to even buy a old beater that still runs. As we’ve learned more about what kind of coal seams are accessible, downgrading estimates has been a global systematic phenomenon. Many folks, unfortunately, still carry around the old concept that we’ve got more coal than we could possibly know how to use (to the chagrin of the climate-concerned).
To date, the U.S. has used 70 Gt of coal, at a current rate of about 1 Gt/yr. If the current official estimates are right, then we have about 230 Gt left. Simple math suggests this means 230 years, or 86 years at a 2% annual increase. But other compelling evidence put together by David Rutledge suggests that we are now about halfway through the resource, having only 60 Gt left. The same analysis puts remaining global coal at 370 Gt, having used about 310 Gt to date. This estimate of remaining global coal is a little less than half of conventional estimates. I’m not prepared to judge which estimate is correct, but take seriously the possibility that we have much less coal than is assumed—especially in light of the dramatic trend of reduced resource estimates over the decades. If you’re going to err, it’s best to err on the safe side.
How do these numbers translate into oil production? One kilogram of coal, containing perhaps 0.7 kg of carbon, via Fischer-Tropsch, will commit 0.35 kg of carbon to about 0.4 kg of octane (C 8 H 18 ), producing about 0.6 liters of fuel. One barrel (160 ℓ) of fuel then requires about 250 kg of coal, leading to the association that each ton of coal yields 4 barrels of fuel. Replacing a 3% shortfall of about 200 million barrels per year in the U.S. requires an annual uptick in coal production of 50 Mt/yr, or a 5% increase, year over year, for a doubling time of 14 years. In a related measure, if the U.S. wanted to (or were forced to) cease oil imports, it would mean doubling coal production, giving the U.S. perhaps as little as 30 years of resource.
Could we imagine ramping up coal production at anything approximating this scale? Again, it could certainly contribute to easing the decline, but is likely incapable of carrying the load on its own—if we would even want it to do so, given the many downsides of coal. We are presently striving to use less, not more.
Gas to Liquids
As with coal, methane gas can be synthesized into liquids like octane via the Fischer-Tropsch method. In this case, steam is mixed with methane (CH 4 ) to produce CO and hydrogen gas. Then the CO is combined with hydrogen in the usual F-T dance. This time, all the carbon goes into the fuel since the necessary hydrogen is provided by methane, and is therefore a more efficient process. In either the coal or natural gas route, all the carbon ends up in the atmosphere after combustion anyway (unless one of the carbons is captured in the coal version), so no big difference there.
The U.S. uses about 20 tcf of natural gas per year, where a tcf is a trillion cubic feet. One cubic foot is 28 liters, and at 16 grams per mole, 22.4 liters per mole at standard temperature/pressure, methane has a density of 0.7 g/ℓ. Each liter of methane can create 0.64 g of octane, so that a liter of octane (at 700 grams) requires 1100 liters of natural gas. Replacing a 3% annual shortfall of 200 million barrels (at 160 ℓ/bbl) would then require 35 trillion liters of methane, or 1.2 tcf: a 6% annual increase in natural gas production—similar to the impact on coal. This isn’t too surprising since we currently get comparable amounts of net energy from gas and coal, and each being roughly half what we get from oil. So a 3% decline in energy from oil would need to be replaced by something like a 6% uptick in either replacement.
Estimates of how much natural gas is available is all over the map. Conventional natural gas development is in decline in the U.S., but a recent surge in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has many folks giddy over the prospect of a seemingly inexhaustible resource. But beware of the low-hanging fruit phenomenon. If we base our enthusiasm on the earliest, easiest to exploit examples (akin to gushers in the early days of oil), we may find ourselves disappointed. See the illuminating report by David Hughes for a more sober assessment of our likely natural gas resource.
For example, the U.S. Energy Information Agency projects that shale gas—currently at about 15% of domestic gas production— will nearly triple by 2035 to be our single biggest resource for natural gas. This is on top of a conventional supply that falls by 29% over the same period. In aggregate, the rapid expansion of shale gas allows a slow net growth rate of 0.4% per year. The faith in shale gas to deliver already seems stretched a bit, so that it is difficult to assess the likelihood of net gas production growth at all. And even if it does grow, the 0.4% per year projection falls far short of the 6% level that would be needed to offset a 3% per year decline in oil.
Where Does this Leave Us?
We built this world on fossil fuels. It is distressing to realize that our primary fuels will begin an inexorable decline this century. The result is that we will have difficulty even maintaining our current energy expenditure rate—let alone continuing our historical 3% annual energy growth rate. A major adjustment is in the offing. Economic growth, look out!
Yes, we can re-purpose other fossil fuels (coal, gas, heavy oil/tar) to help plug the gap in liquid fuels, meanwhile accelerating their depletion. We can use liquid fuels more efficiently. We can try every trick to tease more oil out of depleted wells. All these things will happen. Their collective effort will ease the pain (and bring on new hurts), but it is not clear whether all efforts in tandem can arrest the decline, given practical, political, end economic realities. They are all more expensive, all lower EROEI, all harder, and with the exception of efficiency improvements keep pumping CO 2 into the atmosphere. Although the pain may be eased, the problem does not go away. I’ve never had a hangover, but I imagine this is what such an existence would feel like: a fossil fuel hangover. When will we decide to pull the plug?
My cynical prediction is that concerns over climate change are unlikely to hold sway over energy scarcity. Heck, climate change has had little influence over our current energy mix even when energy is cheap and abundant. In some sense, this track record only highlights the difficulty we have in finding suitable alternatives to fossil fuels. Maybe declining fossil fuels will provide the impetus that climate change has not succeeded in delivering: for us to finally embark in earnest in a deliberate departure from our old friends.
But we may decide instead to cling to the lowborn cousins of the royal fossil fuels: the kings of old. No matter what mix we decide to pursue, if we wait until the decline starts before seriously ramping up all viable efforts in tandem, we will find economic hardship, job loss, energy volatility as demand flags and then resurges, etc. The unpredictable environment will not be conducive to large investments in risky alternatives. In short, we could get caught with our pants down. And if you’ve ever tried to run in this state, you know what happens next.
So I don’t look at the hydrocarbon resource figure above and feel cause to breathe (cough?) a sigh of relief. If we’re going to try following that route, though, we’d best hold our noses and get on with it. Failing this, an advisable strategy is to start transforming our personal lives to be less dependent on energy—because then we’ll be less disappointed with failure and skyrocketing energy prices when that comes.Like many people, when it came time to choose my next cell phone plan, I was riddled with anxiety. I had no idea which provider to choose, what deal was best or who might screw me over the worst. I was lost. Neck deep in frustration, I began to think very seriously about giving Google’s experimental service, Project Fi, a shot. That brought up a host of new problems. Will it work where I live? Will it work at all? Do I want a Nexus phone?
After considering my options carefully, I decided to give Mountain View’s take on cell phone service a chance. I’ve been using it as my primary carrier since November, and in those handful of months I’ve learned quite a lot.
Here are the five most important things I’ve learned during my life with Project Fi.
1. Switching is Easy
When it came time to leave Verizon for the greener pastures of Project Fi, I was riddled with anxiety over what the process would be like. I feared having to go to a Verizon store and deal with confused looks when trying to explain what exactly it was I was leaving Big Red for. Or, because my previous plan was shared with several other people, I had nightmares that my sudden departure would adversely affect them. Every worry I had was for naught, the transition process could not have been smoother. Even the time estimates Google offered, such as a 48-hour window for number transfer to be completed, failed to bend me out of shape. It took all of five minutes for my number to transfer.
It was clear from the outset that Project Fi was going to be a much different experience than a traditional carrier. My previous history with, primarily, Verizon and T-Mobile wasn’t a horror stories like ones you may have read online, but it was certainly anxiety-inducing. I, and I’m sure many others, have spent hours upon hours reading Verizon/T-Mobile FAQ pages, forums and subreddits trying to answer the simplest of questions to no avail. With Project Fi, everything worked as advertised, and if I did have a question, there were several different support options available, all of which are incredibly responsive.
2. The Tech Works As Advertised (So Far)
The big hook of Project Fi, technologically speaking, is its ability to hop between Wi-Fi or Sprint and T-Mobile service and smartly choose which option is the best at any given moment. It’s designed to work in the background and, unless you really want to know, you have no idea which cell service you’re using. The real feat is when your phone seamlessly switches from Wi-Fi to cell service, particularly if you’re on a phone call. I haven’t tested this to great length but, in my months with Project Fi, call quality has been equal to or better than the providers I’ve used previously. I never notice when, or if, it switches in the middle of a call and that’s how it’s supposed to work, though there have been some kinks along the way.
For one, my Project Fi Nexus 6P does not play well with my girlfriend’s Google Voice number. To be fair, we have not troubleshooted the issue much because it only persists with SMS (I can send to her, but not receive) and that is not our primary mode of communicating with one another. I did also run into an instance in which a friend called three times, one that I never received, one in which he could not hear me but I could hear him and a third that worked as it should. We never figured who was at fault, but it’s not a complication that I would label out of the ordinary for any cell service, and the fact that it happened on an experimental one isn’t particularly special.
Mobile data speed is another animal entirely. I live in a small town in Central New York where coverage isn’t great to begin with and I worried that Project Fi’s combination of Sprint and T-Mobile (both of which have mostly 3G with a smattering of LTE where I live) wouldn’t be enough to satisfy. Then I spent a few weeks in CNY with Big Red, and the results were just as lackluster as they were for friends with either Sprint or T-Mobile, so I decided to take the plunge. Project Fi hasn’t cured my coverage woes, of course, but it has performed just as well as Verizon did in the few weeks before I switched.
It is still something to keep in mind, and I would urge you to check out Sprint and T-Mobile’s coverage maps plus the Project Fi coverage map before you consider switching. I can say, if you’re like me and not a huge data hog to begin with but someone who relies primarily on Wi-Fi connections, Project Fi will be a solid experience. Besides my time spent in my primary location in NY, I spent a week or so in a better area for cell service (Detroit and the Metro Detroit area) and my experience there was promising. I had quick LTE service during my time and, save for the call misstep aforementioned, I never thought twice about my service, just trusted that it would work the way it should.
3. All About the Green
One of the best features of Project Fi is its hassle-free approach to billing. Prices are reasonable to begin with, $20 for basic call and text and then $10 for every line of data. Because I am not a huge data user, I have a plan with 2GB plus the monthly cost for my phone (roughly $23) bringing my grand total to about $65 every month when taxes are applied. But I’ve only ever payed that amount once, the very first month I had Project Fi. That’s because you’re credited for any data you don’t use and I almost always use an incredibly small amount. This brings my actual cost every month closer to $50. Take off the installment plan for my Nexus 6P and you’re looking at $30 a month. It |
best variety is auctioned for crores of rupees,” Kakati said.
Several other varieties of Assam tea are available at the Assam stall. CTC tea, the most affordable and most common, is made by the crush-tear-curl method. CTC Orthodox, Assam Oolong and Assam Orthodox Golden are the other varieties available at the stall. Kakati said authentic tea sellers could be contacted through their official website (teaboard.gov.in).You're on the right track.
Let's take a look at your example:
for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(256 * Math.Sin(i));
OK, you've got 11025 samples per second. You've got 60 seconds worth of samples. Each sample is a number between 0 and 255 which represents a small change in air pressure at a point in space at a given time.
Wait a minute though, sine goes from -1 to 1, so the samples go from -256 to +256, and that is larger than the range of a byte, so something goofy is going on here. Let's rework your code so that the sample is in the right range.
for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(128 + 127 * Math.Sin(i));
Now we have smoothly varying data that goes between 1 and 255, so we are in the range of a byte.
Try that out and see how it sounds. It should sound a lot "smoother".
The human ear detects incredibly tiny changes in air pressure. If those changes form a repeating pattern then the frequency at which the pattern repeats is interpreted by the cochlea in your ear as a particular tone. The size of the pressure change is interpreted as the volume.
Your waveform is sixty seconds long. The change goes from the smallest change, 1, to the largest change, 255. Where are the peaks? That is, where does the sample attain a value of 255, or close to it?
Well, sine is 1 at π/2, 5π/2, 9π/2, 13π/2, and so on. So the peaks are whenever i is close to one of those. That is, at 2, 8, 14, 20,...
How far apart in time are those? Each sample is 1/11025th of a second, so the peaks are about 2π/11025 = about 570 microseconds between each peak. How many peaks are there per second? 11025/2π = 1755 Hz. (The Hertz is the measure of frequency; how many peaks per second). 1760 Hz is two octaves above A 440, so this is a slightly flat A tone.
How do chords work? Are they the average of the pitches?
No. A chord which is A440 and an octave above, A880 is not equivalent to 660 Hz. You don't average the pitch. You sum the waveform.
Think about the air pressure. If you have one vibrating source that is pumping pressure up and down 440 times a second, and another one that is pumping pressure up and down 880 times a second, the net is not the same as a vibration at 660 times a second. It's equal to the sum of the pressures at any given point in time. Remember, that's all a WAV file is: a big list of air pressure changes.
Suppose you wanted to make an octave below your sample. What's the frequency? Half as much. So let's make it happen half as often:
for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(128 + 127 * Math.Sin(i/2.0));
Note it has to be 2.0, not 2. We don't want integer rounding! The 2.0 tells the compiler that you want the result in floating point, not integers.
If you do that, you'll get peaks half as often: at i = 4, 16, 28... and therefore the tone will be a full octave lower. (Every octave down halves the frequency; every octave up doubles it.)
Try that out and see how you get the same tone, an octave lower.
Now add them together.
for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(128 + 127 * Math.Sin(i)) + (byte)(128 + 127 * Math.Sin(i/2.0));
That probably sounded like crap. What happened? We overflowed again; the sum was larger than 256 at many points. Halve the volume of both waves:
for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(128 + (63 * Math.Sin(i/2.0) + 63 * Math.Sin(i)));
Better. "63 sin x + 63 sin y" is between -126 and +126, so this can't overflow a byte.
(So there is an average: we are essentially taking the average of the contribution to the pressure of each tone, not the average of the frequencies.)
If you play that you should get both tones at the same time, one an octave higher than the other.
That last expression is complicated and hard to read. Let's break it down into code that is easier to read. But first, sum up the story so far:
128 is halfway between low pressure (0) and high pressure (255).
the volume of the tone is the maximum pressure attained by the wave
a tone is a sine wave of a given frequency
the frequency in Hz is the sample frequency (11025) divided by 2π
So let's put it together:
double sampleFrequency = 11025.0; double multiplier = 2.0 * Math.PI / sampleFrequency; int volume = 20; // initialize the data to "flat", no change in pressure, in the middle: for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = 128; // Add on a change in pressure equal to A440: for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(data[i] + volume * Math.Sin(i * multiplier * 440.0))); // Add on a change in pressure equal to A880: for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(data[i] + volume * Math.Sin(i * multiplier * 880.0)));
And there you go; now you can generate any tone you want of any frequency and volume. To make a chord, add them together, making sure that you don't go too loud and overflow the byte.
How do you know the frequency of a note other than A220, A440, A880, etc? Each semitone up multiplies the previous frequency by the 12th root of 2. So compute the 12th root of 2, multiply that by 440, and that's A#. Multiply A# by the 12 root of 2, that's B. B times the 12th root of 2 is C, then C#, and so on. Do that 12 times and because it's the 12th root of 2, you'll get 880, twice what you started with.
How is the length of time to play each note specified, when the contents of the wav file is a waveform?
Just fill in the sample space where the tone is sounding. Suppose you want to play A440 for 30 seconds and then A880 for 30 seconds:
// initialize the data to "flat", no change in pressure, in the middle: for(int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = 128; // Add on a change in pressure equal to A440 for 30 seconds: for(int i = 0; i < data.Length / 2; i++) data[i] = (data[i] + volume * Math.Sin(i * multiplier * 440.0))); // Add on a change in pressure equal to A880 for the other 30 seconds: for(int i = data.Length / 2; i < data.Length; i++) data[i] = (byte)(data[i] + volume * Math.Sin(i * multiplier * 880.0)));
how is the result of multiple notes being inverse FFT'd converted to an array of bytes, which make up the data in a wav file?
The reverse FFT just builds the sine waves and adds them together, just like we're doing here. That's all it is!
any other relevant information relating to this?
See my articles on the subject.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/tags/music/
Parts one through three explain why pianos have twelve notes per octave.
Part four is relevant to your question; that's where we build a WAV file from scratch.
Notice that in my example I am using 44100 samples per second, not 11025, and I am using 16 bit samples that range from -16000 to +16000 instead of 8 bit samples that range from 0 to 255. But aside from those details, it's basically the same as yours.
I would recommend going to a higher bit rate if you are going to be doing any kind of complex waveform; 8 bits at 11K samples per second is going to sound terrible for complex waveforms. 16 bits per sample with 44K samples per second is CD quality.
And frankly, it is a lot easier to get the math right if you do it in signed shorts rather than unsigned bytes.
Part five gives an interesting example of an auditory illusion.
Also, try watching your wave forms with the "scope" visualization in Windows Media Player. That will give you a good idea of what is actually going on.
UPDATE:
I have noticed that when appending two notes together, you can end up with a popping noise, due to the transition between the two waveforms being too sharp (e.g ending at the top of one and starting at the bottom of the next). How can this problem be overcome?
Excellent follow-up question.
Essentially what's happening here is there is an instantaneous transition from (say) high pressure to low pressure, which is heard as a "pop". There are a couple of ways to deal with that.
Technique 1: Phase shift
One way would be to "phase shift" the subsequent tone by some small amount such that the difference between the starting value of the subsequent tone and the ending value of the previous tone. You can add a phase shift term like this:
data[i] = (data[i] + volume * Math.Sin(phaseshift + i * multiplier * 440.0)));
If the phaseshift is zero, obviously that is no change. A phase shift of 2π (or any even multiple of π) is also no change, since sin has a period of 2π. Every value between 0 and 2π shifts where the tone "begins" by a little bit further along the wave.
Working out exactly what the right phase shift is can be a bit tricky. If you read my articles on generating a "continuously descending" Shepard illusion tone, you'll see that I used some simple calculus to make sure that everything changed continuously without any pops. You can use similar techniques to figure out what the right shift is to make the pop disappear.
I am trying to work out how to generate the phaseshift value. Is "ArcSin(((first data sample of new note) - (last data sample of previous note))/noteVolume)" right?
Well, the first thing to realize is that there might not be a "right value". If the ending note is very loud and ends on a peak, and the starting note is very quiet, there might be no point in the new tone that matches the value of the old tone.
Assuming there is a solution, what is it? You have an ending sample, call it y, and you want to find the phase shift x such that
y = v * sin(x + i * freq)
when i is zero. So that's
x = arcsin(y / v)
However, that might not be quite right! Suppose you have
and you want to append
There are two possible phase shifts:
and
Take a wild guess as to which one sounds better. :-)
Figuring out whether you are on the "upstroke" or the "downstroke" of the wave can be a bit tricky. If you don't want to work out the real math, you can do some simple heuristics, like "did the sign of the difference between successive data points change at the transition?"
Technique 2: ADSR envelope
If you are modeling something that is supposed to sound like a real instrument then you can get good results by changing the volume as follows.
What you want to do is have four different sections for each note, called the attack, decay, sustain and release. The volume of a note played on an instrument can be modeled like this:
/\ / \__________ / \ / \ A D S R
The volume starts at zero. Then the attack happens: the sound ramps up to its peak volume quickly. Then it decays slightly to its sustain level. Then it stays at that level, perhaps declining slowly while the note plays, and then it releases back down to zero.
If you do that then there's no pop because the start and the end of each note are at zero volume. The release ensures that.
Different instruments have different "envelopes". A pipe organ, for example, has incredibly short attack, decay and release; it is all sustain, and the sustain is infinite. Your existing code is like a pipe organ. Compare with, say, a piano. Again, short attack, short decay, short release, but the sound does get gradually quieter during the sustain.
The attack, decay, and release sections can be very short, too short to hear but long enough to prevent the pop. Experiment around with changing the volume as the note plays and see what happens.The railroad industry has lost a legend.
CSX (CSX) CEO Hunter Harrison has died at the age of 73, the company said Saturday. The news comes a day after CSX disclosed Harrison took a leave of absence for undisclosed medical reasons.
"It is with great sadness that we announce that E. Hunter Harrison, President and Chief Executive Officer of CSX, died today in Wellington, Fla., due to unexpectedly severe complications from a recent illness," CSX said in a statement. "The entire CSX family mourns this loss. On behalf of our Board of Directors, management team and employees, we extend our deepest sympathies to Hunter's family. Hunter was a larger-than-life figure who brought his remarkable passion, experience and energy in railroading to CSX."
CSX chairman Ed Kelly added, "With the passing of Hunter Harrison, CSX has suffered a major loss. Notwithstanding that loss, the Board is confident that Jim Foote, as acting Chief Executive Officer, and the rest of the CSX team will capitalize on the changes that Hunter has made. The Board will continue to consider in a deliberative way how best to maximize CSX's performance over the long term."
Jim Foote, who joined the company in October as its chief operating officer, was named acting CEO on Friday. Foote, who worked with Harrison at Canadian National for 11 years, declined to provide further details of Harrison's condition and when he might return during a conference call with analysts Friday.
Shares of CSX fell by about 7.7% to $52.93 on Friday.
Harrison was installed as CEO of the Jacksonville, Fla.-based railroad company in April 2017 as part of activist investor Paul Hilal's efforts to shake up management at CSX. Prior to joining CSX, Harrison solidified his legacy at the helm of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) for five years.
Harrison's age and overall health were in focus earlier this year as investors were asked to vote on an $84 million compensation package. The Wall Street Journal reported that Harrison has a medical condition that requires him to "frequently use an oxygen tank" and he declined requests by CSX's board to have an independent physician review his medical record during the brief proxy battle. Still, a vast majority of shareholder supported Harrison and rewarded him with the $84 million payment.
CSX turnaround continues without its key figure.
Despite Harrison's departure, Foote said that he does "not see any reason to diminish our expectations concerning the pace and magnitude of our future progress." He said that the real heavy lifting has been done.
"The Precision Scheduled Railroading framework has been put into place and the company has the critical railroad talent sufficient to follow through and execute on the PSR operating plan," Foote said. Precision Scheduled Railroading refers to repetitive on-time performance, a strategy that Harrison perfected and rode to great financial successes at prior stops.
BMO Capital markets analyst Fadi Chamoun concurred, saying that CSX has accomplished more than 50% of its restructuring targets, and Foote has the skill set to keep moving the ball forward.
"CSX has already made meaningful changes in its turnaround, with the heavier lifting complete and foundations of Precision Scheduled Railroading firmly in place," Chamoun wrote in a research note. "We sense that the company has already executed on over 50% of its estimated $1.1 billion cost improvement opportunity, which puts it at a run-rate of 65% operating ratio."
BMO has an Outperform rating on the stock with a $60 price target.
"For what it's worth, we observed a mutually respectful, and even collegial, relationship between Mr. Harrison and Mr. Foote as they interacted during the keynote CSX fireside chat that we hosted at the CS Industrials conference two weeks ago," Credit Suisse analysts Allison Landry and Anuj Shah wrote in a research note. "This gives us reason to believe that Hunter - at his post or not - may very well pull it off after all."
"There is still much more work to be done here, but again everyone is focused," Foote said.
More of What's Trending on TheStreet:(Video of chimpanzee teaching available on request; to be added here post-embargo.)
Newswise — The first documented evidence of wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools has been captured by video cameras set to record chimpanzee tool-using activity at termite mounds in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo, according to new research from anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Wild chimpanzees are exceptional tool users, but in contrast to humans, there has been little evidence to date that adult chimpanzees teach youngsters tool skills,” said Stephanie Musgrave, the study’s first author and an anthropology graduate student in Arts & Sciences.
“We found that mother chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle teach by transferring termite-fishing probes to their offspring,” Musgrave said. “In this population, chimpanzees select specific herb species to make their fishing probes, and they produce probes that have a particular brush-tipped design. By sharing tools, mothers may teach their offspring the appropriate material and form for manufacturing fishing probes.”
Embargoed for release at 5 a.m. Eastern on Oct. 11 in the journal Scientific Reports, the study is based on research conducted in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Max Planck Institute and Franklin and Marshall College. The findings have important implications for the evolution of teaching.
“It is easy for us to take for granted the importance of sharing information to learn complex skills, as it is ubiquitous in humans,” said Crickette Sanz, associate professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University and co-author of the study. “Our research shows that the evolutionary origins of this behavior are likely rooted in contexts where particular skills are too challenging for an individual to invent on their own.”
Musgrave, Sanz and colleagues used video to capture examples of wild chimpanzee mothers transferring specialized termite-gathering tools to less-skilled, immature chimpanzees. These transfers, which are costly to tool donors but beneficial to tool recipients, meet the scientific criteria for teaching in wild apes.
“Tool transfers are costly for mothers, whose ability to forage for termites is reduced, but are beneficial for offspring, who gain increased opportunity to learn tool skills and gather termites. This is the first such evidence satisfying these criteria for teaching in wild apes,” Musgrave said.
“Identifying teaching among wild animals is difficult because one has to quantify the impact of possible teaching behaviors on both the teacher and the learner,” Musgrave said. “Using video footage from remote camera traps placed at termite nests in the chimpanzees’ home range, we were able to observe and quantify how sharing tools affected those who relinquished their tools as well as those who received them.”
Chimpanzees are exceptional among animals for their remarkable propensity to make and use tools. Since different groups of chimpanzees use different types of tools, the teaching process also may need to be customized to address local conditions.
“Studying how young chimpanzees learn the tool skills particular to their group helps us to understand the evolutionary origins of culture and technology and to clarify how human cultural abilities are similar to or different from those of our closest living relatives,” Musgrave said.
The findings have interesting implications for identifying the cognitive underpinnings of teaching. In humans, teaching involves an understanding of others’ abilities and the intention to help them learn. In this study, chimpanzee mothers both anticipated the youngsters’ need for a tool and devised strategies to reduce the effort necessary to provide them.
In examples captured in this study’s videos, mothers sometimes bring multiple tools to a termite nest; they may also divide their fishing probe in half lengthwise, giving one-half to their offspring and keeping the other half. This strategy provides their offspring with a usable tool without compromising their own ability to gather food, Musgrave said.
Washington University pioneered the use of remote video technology to study the behavior of wild chimpanzees in Congo, and now it is used at nearly every ape research site across Africa. “It is a very effective means of monitoring wildlife without increasing human impact. Our camera array also provides a means of monitoring the health of the forest, as other endangered species such as western lowland gorillas, forest elephants, and leopards are ‘captured’ on film,” Sanz said.
“In addition to our traditional tracking of wild chimpanzees through the forest each day, this remote video technology has been a force multiplier in expanding the scope of our research to several other chimpanzee communities,” Sanz said. “We have observed a generation of chimpanzee kids learn how to use these tool sets, without having to spend a decade habituating them to human presence or risk exposing them to anthropogenic diseases.”
THE VIDEOS FROM THIS STUDY ARE MADE AVAILABLE BY THE JOURNAL FOR POST-EMBARGO USAGE UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE 4.0 ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ) WITH CREDIT TO THE VIDEO CREATORS AS "“Goualougo Triangle Ape Project."
SEE ORIGINAL STUDYDecember 31 marks the official twentieth anniversary of the original Diablo!
We’ll soon be launching Patch 2.4.3, which includes an anniversary event filled to the brim with fun callbacks to the game that started it all. Before we kick off the in-game celebration, we wanted to look back at some of our favorite memories from Sanctuary.
For some, that means late nights doing Baal runs, getting that last Conquest in Seasons, or finally getting an Archangel’s Staff of the Apocalypse to drop. Others may never forget the terror of encountering the Butcher for the first time, gruelingly defeating Duriel, or getting killed by Malthael (and then returning the favor)....
Whether you first played Diablo two days or two decades ago, we want to thank you for bringing your unrelenting passion to the franchise. Your support and feedback continue to help us shape the world of Sanctuary, and it’s a true honor and privilege to walk alongside you on this journey.
As the hour of Diablo’s first reign of terror approaches, we’ll be pouring a glass of our favorite brew in his honor. We hope you do the same, and want to again express how thankful we are for your support.
May your loot be Legendary, and may you forever be victorious in battle. Cheers, nephalem!Ironically mocking foodies with hashtags #foodporn, #cheflife and #theartofplating and using corn dogs, Bugles and Luncheables; anonymous insta-chef @chefjacqueslamerde (hilariously translates to Chef Jack Shit) has taken a tongue and cheek approach to Instragramming glorious and intricately plated bourgeois food.
"Small portions | tweezering everything," claims LaMerde as each plate is a deliberate combination of brightly colored and tiny items arranged in elaborate culinary professionalism. It is the content of each arrangement that draws some intrigue to the parody; jalapeño poppers, macaroni salad and crushed Cheez-its with the caption "SUBBING OUR USUAL BUTTERNUT PUREE W/ GERBER BABY FOOD 2NITE"
What's more the photos are beautiful as well. Each arrangement is a delicate and perfect combination of contrasted colors on a stark white plate. A consistent angle focusing the attention to the contents of the plate adds to the awesomeness of the gallery. With a relatively small gallery of less than thirty images, LaMerde has quickly cultivated over 44k followers. Perhaps sincere foodies or 'grammers in on the joke, either way Chef Jacques LaMerde is onto some sub sect self-deprecating paradigm of culinary culture.
via [quartz]The text is taken from an early 18th century translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (book I).
Jupiter falls in love with Io. When his wife Juno threatens to discover his amour, he turns Io into a rather pretty cow. Juno asks it as a gift from her husband, who can't deny it without betraying his deception. Juno then orders the many-eyed Argus to guard Io. To free her, Jupiter sends Mercury, who first lulls Argus to sleep and then cuts off his head. Juno takes his many eyes and places them on the tail of her peacock.
So much about the very human activities of classical deities...
Argus with his watchful eyes has sometimes been interpreted as symbolising reason. In this context I found it quite interesting that his eyes are placed on the tail of a peacock, a bird generally associated with vanity (see for instance the fable of Juno and the peacock in Aesop).
Ink and watercolour...Amazon's Alexa throws some serious shade at the Houston Texans' playoff game Well, she wasn't entirely incorrect...
After being asked who the Houston Texans are, Alexa threw some major shade over the team and their playoff loss. After being asked who the Houston Texans are, Alexa threw some major shade over the team and their playoff loss. Photo: Associated Press /File Photo Photo: Associated Press /File Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Amazon's Alexa throws some serious shade at the Houston Texans' playoff game 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
It seems Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa foreshadowed the loss of the Houston Texans' playoff run Saturday night.
A Reddit user shared a video of Alexa responding to the question, "Who are the Houston Texans."
THE TEXANS' GRADES: John McClain's Report card for Texans-Patriots playoff game
She quickly answered with a response that throws major shade at the NFL team.
"The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston, Texas that are scheduled to be publicly executed on Jan. 14 5:15 p.m. on nationally televised television at Gillette Stadium," Alexa responds to the question.
Ouch.
This Alexa video comes after she's given some other hilarious responses, including that time she rattled off a list of porn terms to a toddler.
HILARIOUS VIDEO: Alexa goes viral for listing porn terms to toddler, family
A Reddit user pointed out that her response was likely linked to the bio on Wikipedia, which someone edited to say "publicly executed" rather than "play."
After some digging around, Chron.com staff was able to find that the Wikipedia page was edited on January 13 at 11:37 p.m. to add the publicly executed portion of the statement to the top of the introductory paragraph. Here is the edited version. Here is the current version.
In Alexa's defense, the Houston Texans did indeed lose to the New England Patriots Saturday night, but a public execution is a slight exaggeration. A strong first quarter was full of the defense putting up serious stops to the Patriots' offense, but the second quarter quickly fell apart with two interceptions by on-and-off-again quarterback Brock Osweiler and other flops in the Texans' offense.
In the end, the Texans lost to the Super Bowl contenders with a final score of 34-16.53 Shares Email
Garden Grove’s unpopular red light cameras are here to stay — at least for now — after the City Council voted Tuesday night to keep the photo enforcement program.
With the 3-2 vote, Garden Grove joins Los Alamitos in bucking a trend among cities across the county to nix their contracts with the national vendor Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, among others, have ended their programs in recent years.
While police departments and some advocates insist the cameras improve traffic safety, many in the public see them as Orwellian programs that violate due process rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution and constitute an invasion of privacy.
Tuesday’s meeting marked the second time councilman Phat Bui and mayor Bao Nguyen have tried and failed to convince their colleagues to cancel the Redflex contract. The other three council members, Kris Beard, Chris Phan and Steve Jones, have stood by the Police Department’s stance that the technology reduces collisions and saves time for officers.
The issue returned to the council agenda Tuesday because Bui and Nguyen had insisted city staff re-crunch their data, to reconcile discrepancies between their analysis and a competing report offered by the Los Angeles-based group Safer Streets LA.
The cameras have reduced overall broadside or ‘T-bone’ collisions — which are most likely to cause death or injury — by 42 percent, while rear-end collisions have increased by 12 percent, according to the Police Department and city traffic engineers.
Staff says the increase in rear-end collisions — an outcome consistent with a federal study on the effect of red light cameras — is a positive trade-off because it reduces the severity of accidents in intersections.
They also touted the cameras for their additional side benefits, such as providing a photo and video evidence for traffic and DUI cases, and freeing officers to do other work.
Revenue from traffic fines also funds two full-time Police Department positions.
Jay Beeber, executive director of Safer Streets LA who sent the city council his own analysis of the city’s collision data at red light intersections, argues that the cameras don’t actually reduce collisions, which he says are caused by distracted or impaired drivers, not drivers trying to make a yellow light.
Cameras also tend to focus on drivers making right turns at red lights, turns that don’t cause many accidents, he argued.
“The city has reduced violations since January 90 percent, only by adjusting yellow light time by half a second. What that tells you is that the city can achieve as much or a greater benefit by just doing the engineering properly,” Beeber said.
James Dean, a Garden Grove resident who works for a firm that represents individuals challenging their traffic tickets in court, has asked the city council several times to remove the cameras, arguing that the fines are too high for most residents and don’t improve safety at intersections.
A red light violation, whether caught by a camera or a police officer at the scene, comes with a $490 fine, a sum set by the state legislature.
“They only have 30 days to make the payment, and if they can’t make the payment, they get another $325 penalty,” said Dean. “Some will ask for a payment plan. If they miss one payment, whether its $35 or $100, there’s a civil assessment again of $325 dollars.”
Both Bui and Nguyen questioned the data in the staff’s report.
“The data we compare[d] doesn’t have a large sample and may not be appropriate for statistical analysis,” Bui said. “We only have two or three years [of data] before the red light cameras come up. The years we have afterward is a lot [sic]. So it is not easy to do an average statistical analysis.”
Invoking his undergraduate degree in mathematics, Bui called the staff report “misleading” and picked through collision data year-to-year.
“Some years it’s less, some years it’s more. To me it’s clear that the camera doesn’t really have any effect…because if it has an effect, it should be consistent year after year,” Bui said. “It says to me that the accidents are controlled by other factors, and for us to conclude that the camera is helping, this data doesn’t convince me of that.”
Nguyen argued the fines are a high price to pay for a program that doesn’t ensure safety.
“These cameras don’t make intersections safer. Distractions and DUIs are still going to happen,” Nguyen said. “The cost of time, money and stress [for residents], is it worth it?”
Beard said Bui and Nguyen were overcomplicating the issue.
“I think the statistics are there…it’s affected my behavior. I slow down, I drive cautiously in those areas,” Beard said. “This program encourages people to stop at red lights…It’s a matter of driving under the parameters of the law.”
Phan deferred to the opinion of Police Chief Todd Elgin, who said the camera program has helped free up police time and keep residents who run red lights accountable.
“The one thing that really tilts my decision is our police chief — you’re on the ground and fighting the battles, and the last thing I would do is pull a rug out from underneath you,” Phan said. “I wouldn’t second guess those in the trenches.”
Contact Thy Vo at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @thyanhvo.CBC television is seeing their biennial bump in audience numbers because NBC's terrible coverage of the Olympic Games has sports fans clamouring for better, again. In a somewhat ironic turn—as it's normally Canadians cheating to get the US Netflix selection—Americans are the ones firing up their VPNs to break through and access the geoblocked content on CBC's streaming service.
CBC, the network that no one seems to watch when there aren't any Canadian teams playing hockey, has been the main source of Olympics coverage for many Americans, including 33-year-old Seattleite Sheridan Day. With the Canadian broadcaster as an option on her cable box, she has enjoyed watching Michael Phelps win five gold medals and cheering on the American teams.
"I have only the smallest Comcast cable package, but it offers both regular and HD CBC channels, which I love," she said to me over email. It's pretty incredible that Americans have consistently flocked to our national public broadcaster—even when former prime ministers called out their low ratings.
Day is definitely not alone, as many in the US on Twitter and Reddit have voiced their displeasure with the direction of NBC's Olympic offering. This year, like years previous, the network has made the decision to time shift their coverage of the opening ceremonies, finals and medal events to primetime hours. Meaning, events that happen earlier in the day are not broadcast (online or on the television channels) until later the same night. NBC says that, supposedly, the majority of people are watching during the primetime hours. But there is also the reason you'd might expect—commercials.
"I watched the Opening Ceremonies live on CBC, while NBC showed it three hours later," said Day. "I felt like there were fewer commercials, more time spent on other countries, and even better graphics."
Read More: I Ate an Olympic Athlete's McDonald's Cheat Meal to See if I Would Die
People don't seem to enjoy needing to plug their ears and avoid Olympic spoilers when they browse news sites and social media throughout the day. The Olympics is not supposed to be Game of Thrones.
From the other side of things, the CBC is enjoying a successful deployment of their digital selection.
"We have seen strong growth each day during the first few days of competition," CBC media rep Emma Bédard said in an email. By the fourth day of the games, the online coverage has seen 49 million pageviews and 7.4 million video views.
"We don't track whether our streams are accessed using a VPN," said Bédard when I asked if they could see how many Americans were attempting to connect. "but I can say that yesterday, we saw our two biggest spikes in online viewing when Canada's women's soccer team won over Germany and when Michael Phelps won gold in the 200-metre Butterfly."
But it doesn't look like poor scheduling is the only reason the CBC has sustained an audience in the US.
On Twitter, the hashtag #DoBetter was directed at an NBC commentator that had mistakenly identified the wife of Brazilian volleyball player Larissa França as her "husband." John Oliver has already demolished the weirdly sexist overtones during the march of Tonga and their very shiny flag bearer Pita Nikolas Taufatofua, who's competing in taekwondo. (CBC also had to issue its own apology for a stupid, sexist comment.)
It might also have something to do with the way that NBC sees the games as "packaged" content rather than a documentation of a sporting event. This, uh, not at all crazy thing to say came from a NBC exec during a chat with philly.com: "...and for the women, they're less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It's sort of like the ultimate reality show and mini-series wrapped into one."
Read more: We Hung Out With Penny Oleksiak's Friends While They Watched Her Win Everything
Ignoring the fact that "For the women" is a terrible way to start any sentence, there is already loads of "packaged" content in any Olympic coverage, but that's usually deployed in a way that enhances the events as they're happening. Day also feels the commentary on the CBC is superior because "[NBC] seem[s] to throw anyone in to cover whatever sport just happens to be in that time slot, whether or not they know the rules or fundamentals."
(That said, this did bite the CBC when it's best hockey commentator, Elliotte Friedman, confused Phelps and Ryan Lochte in a swimming final, mistakenly giving the fifth-placed Lochte the gold medal.)
In case you're in the US and were thinking that there could be change in the near future, NBC will be home to the Olympics until 2032 after a $7.65 billion deal was struck in 2014. So, it will really be up to the audience to demonstrate their desire for better formatted content by turning to other sources or maybe not even watching at all.
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won the German Red Dot award as well as the iF Design Award and the International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) Gold award. The device also won multiple awards after it was showcased at CES 2017, including the Best of CES 2017 award by TechAdvisor.
(source)When DICE and EA announced that they were temporarily turning off microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront 2 as a response to the great loot box backlash, fans celebrated, but cautiously. Right there in the initial statement it was made clear that microtransactions would return, in some form, at some point:
“The ability to purchase crystals in-game will become available at a later date, only after we’ve made changes to the game,” said the statement. “We’ll share more details as we work through this.”
Soon after, USgamer posted a quote attributed to EA that they ultimately had to retract, that microtransactions affecting progression were still being considered, but the question remains, how can EA possibly reintroduce microtransactions into Battlefront 2 after everything that’s happened? And what happens if they don’t?
I’m not sure I understand how EA can say in an SEC filing that “this change is not expected to have a material impact on EA’s fiscal year 2018 financial guidance,” when the following is true:
We don’t have all the early numbers yet, but it’s likely that $60 box/digital sales will be down from BF1 to BF2 after all this, which we are already seeing in a few markets. And Battlefront 2 was not being sold with an expensive season pass like the first game, given that it was switching its microtransaction model to be entirely loot box-based.
There’s no way to switch back, though. Can you imagine the outcry if DICE said it was going to start charging for upcoming maps and heroes as a replacement microtransaction for loot boxes? That would be catastrophic.
Similarly, it’s hard to see how progression or power-based loot boxes could come back at all. It’s not like they can just flip the switch back on and have everything cost 75% less as a solution. That would restart the outcry all over again, because it would be all the same issues, just at a fire sale price. I've also heard rumors about "boosts" being sold for increased currency gain, but if those are paired with the current loot box system, that's still going to be problematic.
Honestly, I’m not even sure if Battlefront 2 can go back to the concept of loot boxes at all after what’s happened here. Even if the pool was changed to being entirely cosmetic items, with news stories about government legislatures looking at Battlefront 2 as a “Star Wars casino aimed at children,” putting any kind of randomized, purchasable loot box back into the game after all this seems like it wouldn’t quell that firestorm. Does it matter if kids are gambling for increased TIE fighter damage or a legendary Luke Skywalker skin? Probably not.
The sweet, sweet irony of all this is that EA has essentially gotten itself stuck back in the stone ages, where you sold a game for $60, and that was it. They can’t charge for DLC they already promised would be free. They can’t reintroduce the same loot boxes. They might not even be able to do cosmetic loot boxes. They’re stuck with trying to get people to pay a flat $60 for the game with no real way to reintroduce “games as service” monetization without sparking a second inferno among fans and making legislators look at them even more closely.
The only thing I could see EA doing to remonetize Battlefront 2 is to go to the intermediate step between DLC and loot boxes, a standard microtransaction store for cosmetics. No loot boxes to avoid stepping in that bear trap again, but if you want to pick up a sweet paint job for your X-Wing, you can buy it for $5, or if you want a Jango Fett skin for Boba, that’s $15, and so on. It wouldn’t be charging for DLC, it wouldn’t be using loot boxes, and it wouldn’t be affecting progression or power level in the game. It also probably wouldn’t make as much money as any of those, but it’s the only middleground I can think of.
And fundamentally, EA doesn't need to be thinking about ways to remonetize the game before it works on fixing the entire progression system. If it can’t start selling loot boxes again, then a priority needs to be stripping them out of the game’s progression system entirely. If you cannot and will not be able to purchase Star Cards, then the game is going to start skewing heavily in favor of those who grind like crazy, and when newer players pick it up over the holiday, they’re going to get murdered by those with enormous stat advantages. We can’t forget that selling powerful loot boxes was only part of the problem. The other half is these stupidly powerful Star Cards that have no place in a balanced multiplayer game to begin with.
I feel bad for DICE, but it is almost too delicious to see EA get its just desserts here, forced to try and move copies of a $60 title with no extra bells and whistles, and nearly no way to re-introduce an ongoing revenue stream without throwing fuel on a still-burning fire. Get out your popcorn, because the next few weeks sure are going to be interesting.
Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is now in print, online and on audiobook.by Sad Man’s Tongue, Photos by Fabrizio Romagnoli of Fabrizio R Photography
Florence, Italy is the capital of Tuscany, one of the great wine regions of Italy, and lets not forget the food. Florence is also the birthplace of the Renaissance, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is a city known for is art, architecture, history and culture. It was home to the Medici Family, and the Uffizi Gallery and the Pitti Palace are two of its many treasures.
To all the above mix you will have to now add Fabrizio Romagnoli of Fabrizio R Photography, who delivers a uniquely Florentine legs gallery equal to the masters, and more enjoyed by me than I enjoyed seeing Michelangelo’s statue of David.
Enjoy today’s leg gallery to The Lunatics out of Cologne, Germany with “I Love To Believe You.”Scott Olson/Getty; Justin Sullivan/Getty Images; Skye Gould/Business Insider On November 8, Americans will have the chance to go to the polls and elect the next president of the United States.
Both major parties, Republican and Democrat, will make their cases to voters in the coming weeks.
The candidates' positions on environmental issues are very different.
While Hillary Clinton lists "Protecting animals and wildlife" and "Climate change" as two major topics on her campaign website, Trump doesn't include anything about the environment.
We've rounded up their statements publicly and on their websites to find out how the two stack up on environmental issues.
Skye Gould/Business Insider
Climate change
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
On her campaign site, Clinton calls climate change an "urgent threat" to "our economy, our national security, and our children's health and futures." She wants to uphold the Paris Agreement that sets targets to reverse the worst effects of global warming, which nearly 200 countries agreed to last December.
"When it comes to climate change, the science is crystal clear," Clinton said on ScienceDebate. "That's why as President, I will work both domestically and internationally to ensure that we build on recent progress and continue to slash greenhouse gas pollution over the coming years as the science clearly tells us we must."
Clinton has proposed investing in clean energy and more efficient vehicles, cutting energy waste by implementing more robust efficiency and pollution standards, and cutting subsidies on oil and gas as ways of dealing with climate change.
At the first presidential debate September 26, Clinton brought up her and Trump's differences on climate change. Here's how the exchange unfolded:
CLINTON: Some country is going to be the clean- energy superpower of the 21st century. Donald thinks that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. I think it's real.
TRUMP: I did not. I did not. I do not say that.
CLINTON: I think science is real.
TRUMP: I do not say that.
As many news organizations pointed out after the debate, Trump tweeted in 2012 that "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive."
Keith Srakocic/AP He has tweeted dozens of times about how he does not accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real. You can read all of his tweets that have mentioned "climate change" or "global warming" here. (And you can see everything Clinton has tweeted about the same topics here.)
In contrast to Clinton, Trump also wants to dismantle the Paris Agreement.
In response to a question about his views on climate change on ScienceDebate, Trump implied that the US shouldn't waste "financial resources" on climate change and should instead use them to ensure the world has clean water, eliminate diseases like malaria, increase food production, or develop alternative energy sources.
"There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of 'climate change,'" he said. "We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous."
Water
Irrigation water runs along a dried-up ditch between rice farms to provide water for the fields in Richvale, California, in 2014. AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File
Over the past several years, the western states have suffered from one of the worst droughts in US history. California is in its fifth straight year of severe drought, which has put considerable stress on crops and water use. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given infrastructure across the country "D" grades for dams, drinking water, and wastewater.
Clinton wants to establish a Western Water Partnership to coordinate water use among agencies and states in the Western US, and a Water Innovation Lab to use and reuse the resource more efficiently.
In addition, Clinton has called for increased investments in water infrastructure to, "repairing, replacing and expanding" existing infrastructures that are often more than 100 years old.
"Chronic underinvestment in our nation's drinking and wastewater systems has sickened and endangered Americans from Flint, Michigan, to Ohio and West Virginia," Clinton said on ScienceDebate. "Outdated and inadequate wastewater systems discharge more than 900 billion gallons of untreated sewage a year, posing health risks to humans and wildlife life, disrupting ecosystems, and disproportionately impacting communities of color."
Trump says clean water may be the "most important issue we face as a nation for the next generation," and it will be a "top priority" for his administration.
"We must make the investment in our fresh water infrastructure to ensure access to affordable fresh water solutions for everyone," he said on ScienceDebate. "We must explore all options to include making desalinization more affordable and working to build the distribution infrastructure to bring this scarce resource to where it is needed for our citizens and those who produce the food of the world."
Conservation
President Obama has made conservation a cornerstone of his environmental legacy. White House Photo
Clinton wants to "keep public lands public," combat wildlife trafficking around the world, encourage the humane treatment of pets and livestock, and "modernize" how we protect natural resources, including national parks.
"Conserving biodiversity is essential to maintaining our quality of life," she said on ScienceDebate. "We need to collaborate across all sectors and at all levels to conserve our natural resources and maintain the viability of our ecosystems."
Clinton has further called for efforts to reverse or slow the decline of at-risk wildlife species.
Trump has said he wants to keep public lands in the control of the federal government, a position that his Republican opponents criticized him for during the primary. He hasn't announced positions on other conservation issues.
"In a Trump administration, there will be shared governance of our public lands and we will empower state and local governments to protect our wildlife and fisheries," he said on ScienceDebate. "Laws that tilt the scales toward special interests must be modified to balance the needs of society with the preservation of our valuable living resources."It is heartbreaking that yet another victim of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community has suffered a tragic premature death. Last weekend, 34-year old Joey Diangello (formerly Yoel Deutsch) from New York died of a drug overdose. It is somewhat irrelevant if the overdose was intentional or not, as some have been debating on blogs and social media. We will probably never know definitively. What we do know is that Joey was sexually abused within his former Hasidic community. “I think when that person raped me, he murdered my Jewish soul,” Joey told PIX11 Investigates in early 2009, when he courageously went public with his story, describing how he was raped in a Mikvah (Jewish ritual bath-house) as a child. Joey became a victim advocate and featured in numerous media articles.
It is reasonable to connect Joey’s untimely death with his abuse as a child. Statistics show that drug use among victims of child sexual abuse is higher than in the general population. Moreover, suicide was apparently on Joey’s mind, as noted in his recent Jewish New Year message to Rabbi Eisenman.
So here we have what may be described as akin to the murder of an innocent man – whose Jewish soul had already been murdered – yet the Jewish world maintains its relative silence. At the time of writing, not a single mainstream Jewish media outlet has covered this story. Moreover, I have not seen a single prominent Jewish community leader – rabbinic or otherwise – speaking out about this tragedy. The only ones who have spoken out are victims/survivors of child sexual abuse, victim advocates and those who were connected to Joey in some way. Of course some individual community members have also spoken out.
A disturbing story that has been the focus of the Jewish world and media this past week has been the allegations regarding Rabbi Barry Freundel. It is most appropriate to compare the lack of reactions to Joey’s death, as noted above, to the reactions regarding Rabbi Freundel. In the latter case, so many rabbis, community leaders and members have shared their opinion and generally expressed their disgust. And the media – both Jewish and mainstream – has provided this case significant coverage. The vast majority of those that have spoken out have very little, if anything, to do with the actual case. The most common point of connection is that Rabbi Freundel is a prominent Orthodox rabbi who is alleged to have been filming women using his Synagogue’s ritual bath. Of course those victimised by his alleged actions deserve our full support and compassion. Moreover, it is appropriate for rabbis, community leaders and members globally to condemn Rabbi Freundel’s alleged abuse, as is currently happening. Indeed, I applaud the ground-breaking changes that have ensued – impressively, within a week of these allegations surfacing.
Similarly, Joey and the many other victims of child sexual abuse within the Jewish community deserve our full support and compassion. It is also appropriate – indeed a responsibility – for rabbis, community leaders and members globally to clearly and unequivocally condemn the climate in which these abuses occur and are allowed to flourish through cover-ups and intimidation, leading to a range of tragic consequences.
Where is the broad outrage at the loss of a young human life within our community in such tragic circumstances? Where is the outrage at Joey’s abuse and abusers? Where is the outrage at his former community, who disowned Joey during his lifetime but outrageously attempted to re-claim him during his death by burying him on their terms while deliberately excluding his loved ones? Where are the ground-breaking changes by the leadership? Where are the guidelines and policies for Mikvahs (male and female) – where Joey and so many others were raped and sexually abused (male mikvahs)?
As a community, we are all responsible. For not doing enough during Joey’s lifetime. For remaining relatively silent after his passing. And if we do not change our approach, we will be responsible for countless other Joeys.
The statistics on child sexual abuse are alarming – around 1 in 3-4 girls and 1 in 5-6 boys are abused before the age of 18. The vast majority of victims suffer in silence; they never disclose the abuse they endured and fail to seek appropriate support. A minority disclose to someone close to them. Very few share their experience publicly. However, the reality is, most of us would know a victim/survivor – of course we may not be aware that they experienced abuse.
Joey’s death is an opportunity to reflect on the scourge of child sexual abuse and its profound and long-term impact. Sadly it occurs in every segment of society, including within the breadth of the global Jewish community. It is how we address it that really matters. While we have seen some progress within the community, evidently we still have a very long way to go. We need justice and accountability for past injustices. We need to have compassion for victims/survivors – indeed we need to provide adequate support to them and their families. And of course we must ensure we have appropriate preventive measures in place to minimise the risk of further abuse and cover-ups. Community leaders – political, rabbinic and lay – need to speak up and instigate long overdue changes in culture, education and policies.
It is little wonder that victims/survivors and their families, and many victim advocates and the relevant organisations, largely feel abandoned by our community and its leadership. At this stage it seems the only way to effect change is through the hard work and dedication of victim advocates and their supporters. People like Joey. People like David Gordon, who sadly was also recently found deceased. But at what cost? It should not be this way. The onus is on each and every one of us.
To the many victims out there who are suffering, know that you are not alone. There are people and organisations who will listen, support and assist you.
May Joey’s and David’s dear souls rest in peace and their memories be a blessing.
—
A selection of international Jewish support and advocacy organizations:
Australia: Tzedek
Israel: Israel National Council for the Child
United Kingdom: Migdal Emunah
South Africa: KidSafe
United States: Survivors for JusticeBob Dylan
Genuine Bootleg, Vol. 4
Manufacturer / Catalog No.
Scorpio 94-14-01/02/03
Re-release 1999
Links removed. See the comments section for more info.
Disc one
Rangers Command (1)
Baby Let Me Follow You Down (2)
Midnight Special (3)
It Makes A Long Time Man Feel Bad (4)
Baby Please Don’t Go (5)
Ballad Of The Gliding Swan (6)
James Alley Blues (7)
Lone Time Gone (8)
Only A Hobo (9)
Not The Cough Song (10)
Hard Rain (11)
Troubled And I Don’t Know Why (12)
Ballad Of Hollis Brown (13)
Boots Of Spanish Leather (13)
North Country Blues (13)
Seven Curses (14)
Eternal Circle (15)
Mr. Tambourine Man (15)
Outlaw Blues (16)
Please Crawl Out Your Window (17)
Keep It With Mine (18)
Disc two
Tell Me Mama (19)
Ain’t Got No Home (20)
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (21)
One Too Many Mornings (22)
Song To Woody (23)
If Not For You (24)
Put My Money Down (25)
For You Oh Babe For You (25)
Going Going Gone (26)
What Will You Do When Jesus Comes (27)
No Man Righteous (28)
I Will Love Him (29)
Let’s Keep It Between Us (30)
Shot Of Love (31)
In The Summertime (31)
Let It Be Me (32)
Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar (33)
I And I (34)
Side Walks Fences And Walls (35)
Disc three
Soon (36)
Ring Them Bells (37)
Dignity (38)
2 X 2 (39)
Born In Time (39)
Wiggle Wiggle (39)
TV Talkin’ Song (39)
Unbelievable (39)
Under The Red Sky (39)
Polly Vaughn (40)
Catskill Serenade (40)
Miss The Mississippi (40)
Sloppy Drunk (40)
You Belong To Me (41)
Anyway You Want Me (42)
Lawdy Miss Clawdy (42)
Money Honey (42)
Money Honey II (42)
I Can’t Get You Off My Mind (43)
Return To Me (44)
Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache (45)
Tell Old Bill (46)
A Change Is Gonna Come (47)
Take Me Out To The Ballgame (48)
DISC ONE
(1) 5½ stars. Cynthia Gooding’s recording from Gerdes Folk City (not her apartment) on September 29, 1961. The entire recording is muffled (as if the mic were hidden under a sweater. However this is as good a quality as I’ve heard.
(2) 8½ stars. The Bonnie Beecher tape from Minneapolis, Minnesota 12/ 22/61. Very nice quality.
(3) 10 stars. The first time I’ve ever heard this Harry Belafonte outtake. The quality is great, but the performance is flawed. Dylan plays harp, and in this version it’s extra loud and continuous.
(4) 7 stars. Cynthia Gooding’s 1961 radio show. The harp is too loud, and the vocals are not loud enough.
(5) 10 stars. Freewheelin’ outtake from April 25, 1962. Same version as iTunes’ Bob Dylan – The Collection.
(6) 6½ stars. This was recorded in late December of 1962 for the BBC television program ”Madhouse on Castle Street”. As Bob was then an unknown artist, there was no thought of keeping the taped performance, and it was discarded. Dylan’s earlier chance bookstore meeting of Hans Fried, prompted Fried to record Dylan on the show. He used a mid 1950’s model Baird reel-to-reel tape recorder, and held the mic to the TV speaker. This result is a very good though slightly muffled one minute mono version of a macabre song co-written by Dylan and the play writer Evan Jones.
(7) 9 stars for the guitar, as the mic was positioned directly in front of it. The vocals range from inaudible at songs beginning to an eventual 7-8 stars. This Richard Brown song was recorded September 1962 at the New York home of friends Eve and ‘Mac’ McKenzie.
(8) 7½ – 8 stars Another outing from one of the several McKenzie tapes. This one has good mic placement to capture guitar and vocal fairly evenly. One ring of the telephone is heard halfway through.
(9) 8½ – 9 stars for another great McKenzie recording. Bob plays and sings the first verse and course beautifully, but then forgets the next verse. He pauses and fumbles with the guitar before coming back strong with the second and third verses and courses. Eve McKenzie is heard making a couple of positive comments.
(10) 9 stars This McKenzie recording is instrumental. It’s unclear as to whether this two minute recording is the beginning of a song, or simply Dylan showing off some of his impressive guitar work. The first 45 seconds is a slow 4/4 delta blues that rolls around the tempo to create other time signatures. Bob then slips into a Chet Atkins style of slow finger picking for 15 seconds. He speeds the tempo up until he looses it. The final minute morphs into a slow version of what would later become Suze until the tape runs out.
(11) 9 stars Bob performs a seven minute version of the song that he had played a few days earlier at the Carnegie Hall Hootenanny on September, 22 1962. It’s still months before the official recording. Bob makes an early misstep, but the song comes off quite well.08
(12) 9 stars This pirate recording duet with Joan Baez is live from the Forest Hills show of August 17, 1963. It was released on the CDs Songs From Sing Out! and the Joan Baez set Rare, Live & Classic
(13) 10 stars. These recordings, from Carnegie Hall October 26, 1963, are simply perfection. Forget about the primitive equipment of the day argument. These gems could have been digitally recorded in the studio last year as far as the quality goes. The performances are laid bare emotion. The best of the best. The reason they are so good is that they were released by Sony, so these are pirate recordings. prior to 2005, the tracks did not circulate among collectors. “Bob Dylan Live At Carnegie Hall 1963” was released that year as a promo disc to the public, and there were various ways to obtain it in different parts of the world by buying certain combinations of released Dylan items.
(14) 8 stars. This is from the same 1963 Carnegie Hall show, though not near the quality. Originally taken from an unreleased CBS acetate, it is slightly muffled and spotted with white noise (acetate pops). This same version has circulated for years in this same quality.
(15) 9 stars. Newly surfaced line recordings from England’s Royal Festival Hall on May 17, 1964. Both quality and performance is incredible. As these were taken from acetate, there is a little white noise, especially in the beginning of Eternal Circle.
(16) 10 stars. Perfect quality on this acoustic version from the first Bringing It All Back Home recording session recorded at Columbia’s Studio A in New York City. This was also available in the iTunes Collection.
(17) 9½ stars. Package states October 25, 1965, but this couldn’t be correct. Nov. 30, 1965 was the second Blonde on Blonde session in which this was recorded at least ten times. This is most likely the date. Song is near perfect quality, although it is from acetate and includes noise. That’s easy to overlook. What’s harder to forgive is that at the very end of the three and a half minute song, Dylan sneaks in “You gotta lotta nerve to say you are…”. As he says “lot” there is a digital transfer skip in the word. The track indicator reads 3:22. A few seconds later and the song has ended.
(18) 9½-10 stars. The Blonde On Blonde sessions were extensive. Recordings were made over a five month period that spanned 1965 and 1966, and were split between two cities. The earlier sessions that yielded the previous song were in New York City. This recording is from Feb. 15, 1966 at Columbia Music Row Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. This three minute instrumental contains harp, but no vocal. It was recorded from an acetate, so a few white noise pops can be heard.
DISC TWO
(19) 8-8½ stars. This May 14, 1966 show from Liverpool has circulated for many years, and was taken from the 1991 Supersound bootleg CD release. It was long rumored to be part of a planned official CBS release, but it never happened. The mix is not perfect. The organ is a bit loud to start with. Later the vocals become a bit loud and the mic delivers a few ‘P’ pops. The song ends rather sloppily. All things considered might be reason for it never appearing officially.
(20) 7½-8 stars. This song is from the Woody Guthrie Memorial Concert held in New York on January 20, 1968. Therefore, it’s a pirate recording as it was released on the 1970 Columbia album A Tribute to Woody Guthrie Part One. It’s now available on the Warner Brothers CD release from which this track was taken. Interesting to note that during the first keyboard solo the tempo jumps quite a bit. This is a thing that happens to musicians at times, especially during solo when adrenalin pumps a little harder. The tempo never falls back. During the second guitar solo, the same thing happens. The tempo is now quite a bit faster than the songs beginning, and it stays there.
(21) 10 stars. A song from the basement tapes. A year before the sessions for Nashville Skyline, this could easily be mistaken for being from those sessions both in terms of quality and performance. The three and one half minute song cuts in cold at “Kind favor I’d ask of you” The instruments slowly stumble in. The vocals are clear and way up front with a definite Nashville Skyline feel. Instruments include bass guitar, harmonica, brush played snare drum, and autoharp. The autoharp is the lead instrument and is well mixed from the beginning. Others are a bit buried. All instrument volumes come up slowly and eventually all are properly in the mix except for the autoharp which is now too loud.
(22) 7-8 stars. A song from the Johnny Cash / Bob Dylan session on February 18, 1969. It was officially released in two videos. 1979’s JOHNNY CASH, THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC, and 1984’s THE OTHER SIDE OF NASHVILLE, as well as being broadcast in a Johnny Cash Documentary. It starts in very nice quality, but falls away somewhat in the middle. Most notable for the engineer introducing it as take one of “A Thousand Miles Behind”, and for Bob and Johnny stumbling almost comically in an attempt to end the song.
(23) 9 stars. This four and one half minute song from the May 1, 1970 New Morning session at NYC’s CBS studio is given new life with Bob’s matured voice and a happy feeling 3/4 time production with a bouncing bass line. Later the brush on snare is blended in to give a definite waltz feel to the song. A package highlight.
(24) 9-10 stars. Another package highlight is this beautiful three minute Dylan and George Harrison duet. A 1971 studio rehearsal for the Madison Square Garden Bangladesh concert on August 1, 1971. It was officially released in 1972 in the movie THE CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH, and came out on commercial video in 1983 and DVD in 2005.
(25) 10 stars. I’ve never before heard these bizarre outtakes that were recorded at NYC’s Record Plant in November 1971 during the Allen Ginsberg & Friends sessions. The sound quality is incredible, but one listen through of the performance should be enough to satisfy even the most hardcore fan. Hard to believe, but in this surreal world, Bob is the only one who sings on key.
(26) 10 stars. An incredible find that helps to give this release validity. It’s a perfect quality (minus a few reel to reel tape squeaks) alternate vocal / acoustic guitar track from the 24 track master reel used during the November 1973 sessions for Planet Waves. The Band can be barely heard at certain times due to track bleed through. A portion of the three and one half minute performance is an incredibly rare listen of Dylan a’capella.
(27) 7 stars. Taken directly from the Renaldo & Clara soundtrack, this is not notably good quality, not a notably good performance, and not notably entertaining. Thankfully, it is notably short.
(28) 8 stars. This is one of only a couple performances of this rare song. Bob ends it by saying “I’m sure that’s going to be on our next album”… but it was not to be. Most circulating copies of this song have been taken from the CD Contract With The Lord 1, that at 5:15, was mastered too slow. This version has been corrected to the proper speed and time of 4:35.
(29) 8½-9 stars. The only known performance / recording of this song is from the final encore of April 19, 1980 at Massey Hall, Toronto. This is a line recording feed from the board LYRICS
(30) 7½ stars. This newly surfaced recording from the Rundown Studios in October 1980 is the only known studio recording. It starts out nearly inaudible, but quickly comes up. It seems more like a through the air (open mic) recording than a direct line. It’s quite muffled, though Dylan’s vocals get crisper as the recording goes on. It’s easily dismissible after the first listen as being a lower quality, lesser performance. You owe it a few more listens. The official lyrics are available at bobdylan.com, but some are quite different than are recorded here. Most notably there are extra verses here in this five and one half minute recording, and the turnaround has been completely changed to:I know we’re not perfect, but then again so whatThat ain’t no reason to treat me like a slave and to treat you like a slut
And it’s just makin’ me angry
Dylan has an incredible sense of timing to fit the words in. Some are spoken in tune, and some are passionately spit out. The phraseology, the lyrics, the spoken delivery, the bluesy feel, the playful organ.. all told, one is put in mind of a a 1970’s performance of Russell Smith and The Amazing Rhythm Aces. Another fascinating observation that I can now make only in retrospect, one can easily see this song being written for his then back up singer of two years, Carolyn Dennis. It is presumably her that can be heard buried a few times in this recording affirming a few of Dylan’s words. With the hindsight knowledge that she would be his girlfriend and later his secret wife and mother of his daughter, this song moves from an uninteresting ditty to one of the most personal slices of Dylan’s private life of this time that he has ever uttered. When held up in this light, this song can soon become an obsession that you can’t walk away from.
(31) 10 stars. Perfect quality rough mix takes that have been line recorded. Recorded during the Spring of 1981, these both seem to be the released versions prior to post mastering. before Shot Of Love, The engineer can barely be herd introducing it as “take 20”
(32) 10 stars. This is an official rarity, as it was released as a B-side. This version is crystal clear and seems to be from a tape source.
(33) 10 stars. This is a rough mix from the May 1981 Clover Studio sessions that is mainly notable for the cold ending.
(34) 10 stars. Fantastic reggae dub remix from Is it Rolling Bob?: A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan
(35) 8½ stars. A newly surfaced outtake from the Down In The Groove sessions.
DISC THREE
(36) 6½ stars. Bob performs this Ira / George Gershwin tune live at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, NYC on March 11, 1987, for the Gershwin Celebration (50th anniversary of Gershwin’s death). It was recorded through the air from TV broadcast. This results in a muffled sound. It has appeared in the same quality on several bootlegs including Hard To Find Vol 5 and You Don’t Know Me.
(37) 10 stars. This piano and vocal demo is an Oh Mercy outtake. Even though it clocks in at just a minute and a half, it’s perfect quality. It cuts off cold after the line “… God is one.”
(38) 10 stars. This is another two minute piano demo that was made available on a promotional CD with Chronicles. The vocals are far out front and much easier to hear than on the released version.
(39) 9-10 stars. In March of 1990, Dylan was recording at The Record Plant Studio in Los Angeles, California with the Was Not Was band / producers David and Don at the Under The Red Sky sessions. The bass player for half of the takes was Randy Jackson of TV’s American Idol fame, and he can be heard on the first four tracks. Red Sky has always been an undeservedly panned album by fans and critics alike. There are some true gems on the album as well as in this collection. Born In Time, for example, is simply an overlooked masterpiece. Not only is it poetic genius, but Bob uses perhaps the sexiest voice that he has ever recorded with. This outake is a continuation of that same voice. Under The Red Sky is another song that people don’t get for some reason. It’s as darkly and masterfully a woven fairy-tale as any of those of the Grimm Brothers. Not a lot of lyric changes here, but Bob was unsure if the tape was rolling. At forty seconds in he asks “Are you taking (taping) this?” At 3:30 of the four minute song Dylan simply says “That’s it” to signify the end of the vocals. Wiggle Wiggle has never been one of my favorites, but there are a few alternate lines here. There are several different lyrics, lines, and verses on TV Talkin’ Song, another song with some powerful words. 2 X 2 contains different lines as well, to rhyme with each number, and Unbelievable contains several different lines including an entirely different final verse. These recordings were also notable for the rare celebrity cameo appearances including David Crosby on background Vocals, Elton John – piano on 2 X 2 / Bruce Hornsby on piano and Robben Ford – guitar on Born In Time and TV Talkin’ Song / Slash playing guitar for Wiggle Wiggle / Al Kooper at the keyboards on Unbelievable and Don Was on bass with George Harrison playing slide guitar for Under The Red Sky. Overall, these are some very nice finds, and represent yet another package highlight.
(40) 7½ stars. In June of 1992 Dylan rented Acme Recording Studio in Chicago, Illinois to record a contractual album for Sony, and hired David Bromberg to produce, and Bromberg’s band to play. There was an album worth of material recorded before Bob left for tour in Europe. When Bob returned home to California he began recording acoustic songs in his home studio with intent of adding a few to the album. The acoustic cover songs kept flowing, and eventually overtook the project. The acoustic songs were released as Good as I Been to You, and the Bromberg sessions, for some mysterious reason, have never seen the light of day save for these previously circulating four tracks. Polly Vaughan is an old Irish folksong that was brought to the US by The Dillards in the early 1960’s, but it was more of a bluegrass song. Dylan’s arrangement and lyrics seems to be his own. Catskill Serenade was written by David Bromberg. Miss The Mississippi And You was written and recorded by Bill Halley in 1932. Many artists ( |
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Mike's Picks
12 points - Derek Adams
Recovering from the heartache of a Wembley defeat is never easy but Argyle bounced back in fine style and sustained their automatic promotion challenge much better this time around. Only goal difference denied them the title in the end but the best away record in the division bears testimony to Adams’ tactical prowess.
10 points - Paul Tisdale
Tisdale’s ability to conjure up a strategy that plays to the strengths of his most talented players was evident in a blistering run between November and February. Once Reuben Reid and David Wheeler had been nursed back to full fitness, Exeter climbed off the foot of the table to claim 51 points from 28 games when both players started.
8 points - Darren Ferguson
Doncaster will mostly be remembered for a limp finish but, in many ways, it only highlights the intensity with which Ferguson operated over the first 41 matches. Securing promotion with five games to spare is no mean feat and the respect with which Rovers understood the level and treated all of their opponents with equal respect in a tactical sense should be recognised.
7 points - Mike Flynn
Newport were 11 points adrift of safety when Flynn took charge in March but amassed 22 points from their final 13 games to avoid the drop in dramatic circumstances on the final day. Predictably, Graham Westley has since tried to take some of the credit but he never would have infused the sense of local pride the Flynn possessed to generate the spirit required.
6 points - Paul Cook
Their persistence paid off in the end but Portsmouth didn’t half make heavy weather of this division, given the amount of talent they possessed in all areas of the pitch. History will remember them as title winners, avid followers of the league will never forget that this was the ultimate back door job. The fans deserve it, nonetheless.
5 points - Kevin Nolan
On the evidence of Nolan’s managerial career to date, Notts County should be in the reckoning for promotion next season. In two fire-fighting tenures at Leyton Orient and now the Magpies, he has averaged 1.6 points per game, which is borderline play-off standard. Give him a summer to rebuild and a pre-season to drill his players, the bar should be set even higher.
4 points - Darren Sarll
Stevenage have been the division’s biggest surprise package but ultimately came up short of the play-offs after losing their 20-goal marksman Matt Godden for most of the run-in. Had Sarll been able to keep the Boro on course during that tricky period, he would certainly have finished further up the pecking order. There’s a solid platform to build on next season.
3 points - Nathan Jones
Luton finished the season with the fewest number of defeats (nine) but Jones needs to take a few more risks if he wants to be knocking on the door for awards at the end of the campaign. A whopping 17 draws cost the Hatters any chance of automatic promotion. The hope now is that their defensive resolve will reap full reward in the play-offs.
2 points - Jim Bentley
Life is never easy with one of the division’s lowest budgets, even less so when the players go unpaid at various points in the campaign. Yet Morecambe continue to defy the odds with the insatiable underdog spirit fostered by Bentley. Not only did the Shrimps steer well clear of relegation trouble (again), they beat Portsmouth, Blackpool and Plymouth in the process.
1 point - John Coleman
A dreadful start left them with too much to do, but Accrington could be ready for another promotion tilt next term - if they can keep hold of Shay McCartan. Each season, Coleman manages to unearth a rough diamond and the ex-Burnley youngster was the driving force behind a W12 D8 L2 record in the 22 games he started after Christmas.Sorry for the wait! Bear with me while I struggle through the first major action scene in the comic X'D. I drew this page several times before I gave up and decided to animate the friggin' scene in Flash so I could wrap my head around it. Good news is it worked, and Patrons have already been able to watch the equivalent of this and the next two pages in animated storyboard form :3
Animating it also encouraged me not to dwell too much on details and focus more on just getting stuff out quickly. Storyboarding all three 'pages' like this ended up taking much less time than my normal sketches, so I can see myself doing this more, especially for action sequences.
When Page 79 is done, I'll have the clip up for everyone to watch on Youtube, so don't worry, it's only Patreon exclusive until then :)
Thanks for reading! :DLast September, a Google offshoot called Jigsaw declared war on trolls, launching a project to defeat online harassment using machine learning. Now, the team is opening up that troll-fighting system to the world.
On Thursday, Jigsaw and its partners on Google's Counter Abuse Technology Team released a new piece of code called Perspective, an API that gives any developer access to the anti-harassment tools that Jigsaw has worked on for over a year. Part of the team's broader Conversation AI initiative, Perspective uses machine learning to automatically detect insults, harassment, and abusive speech online. Enter a sentence into its interface, and Jigsaw says its AI can immediately spit out an assessment of the phrase's "toxicity" more accurately than any keyword blacklist, and faster than any human moderator.
The Perspective release brings Conversation AI a step closer to its goal of helping to foster troll-free discussion online, and filtering out the abusive comments that silence vulnerable voices—or, as the project's critics have less generously put it, to sanitize public discussions based on algorithmic decisions.
An Internet Antitoxin
Conversation AI has always been an open source project. But by opening up that system further with an API, Jigsaw and Google can offer developers the ability to tap into that machine-learning-trained speech toxicity detector running on Google's servers, whether for identifying harassment and abuse on social media or more efficiently filtering invective from the comments on a news website.
"We hope this is a moment where Conversation AI goes from being 'this is interesting' to a place where everyone can start engaging and leveraging these models to improve discussion," says Conversation AI product manager CJ Adams. For anyone trying to rein in the comments on a news site or social media, Adams says, “the options have been upvotes, downvotes, turning off comments altogether or manually moderating. This gives them a new option: Take a bunch of collective intelligence—that will keep getting better over time—about what toxic comments people have said would make them leave, and use that information to help your community’s discussions.”
On a demonstration website launched today, Conversation AI will now let anyone type a phrase into Perspective's interface to instantaneously see how it rates on the "toxicity" scale. Google and Jigsaw developed that measurement tool by taking millions of comments from Wikipedia editorial discussions, the New York Times and other unnamed partners—five times as much data, Jigsaw says, as when it debuted Conversation AI in September—and then showing every one of those comments to panels of ten people Jigsaw recruited online to state whether they found the comment "toxic."
The resulting judgements gave Jigsaw and Google a massive set of training examples with which to teach their machine learning model, just as human children are largely taught by example what constitutes abusive language or harassment in the offline world. Type "you are not a nice person" into its text field, and Perspective will tell you it has an 8 percent similarity to phrases people consider "toxic." Write "you are a nasty woman," by contrast, and Perspective will rate it 92 percent toxic, and "you are a bad hombre" gets a 78 percent rating. If one of its ratings seems wrong, the interface offers an option to report a correction, too, which will eventually be used to retrain the machine learning model.
The Perspective API will allow developers to access that test with automated code, providing answers quickly enough that publishers can integrate it into their website to show toxicity ratings to commenters even as they're typing. And Jigsaw has already partnered with online communities and publishers to implement that toxicity measurement system. Wikipedia used it to perform a study of its editorial discussion pages. The New York Times is planning to use it as a first pass of all its comments, automatically flagging abusive ones for its team of human moderators. And the Guardian and the Economist are now both experimenting with the system to see how they might use it to improve their comment sections, too. "Ultimately we want the AI to surface the toxic stuff to us faster," says Denise Law, the Economist's community editor. "If we can remove that, what we’d have left is all the really nice comments. We’d create a safe space where everyone can have intelligent debates."
Censorship and Sensibility
Despite that impulse to create an increasingly necessary "safe space" for online discussions, critics of Conversation AI have argued that it could itself represent a form of censorship, enabling an automated system to delete comments that are either false positives (the insult "nasty woman," for instance, took on a positive connotation for some, after then-candidate Donald Trump used the phrase to describe Hillary Clinton) or in a gray area between freewheeling conversation and abuse. “People need to be able to talk in whatever register they talk,” feminist writer Sady Doyle, herself a victim of online harassment, told WIRED last summer when Conversation AI launched. “Imagine what the internet would be like if you couldn’t say ‘Donald Trump is a moron.’”
Jigsaw has argued that its tool isn't meant to have final say as to whether a comment is published. But short-staffed social media startup or newspaper moderators might still use it that way, says Emma Llansó, director of the Free Expression Project at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. “An automated detection system can open the door to the delete-it-all option, rather than spending the time and resources to identify false positives," she says.
'We're not claiming to have created a panacea for the toxicity problem.' Jigsaw founder Jared Cohen
But Jared Cohen, Jigsaw's founder and president, counters that the alternative for many media sites has been to censor clumsy blacklists of offensive words or to shut off comments altogether. "The default position right now is actually censorship," says Cohen. "We’re hoping publishers will look at this and say 'we now have a better way to facilitate conversations, and we want you to come back.'"
Jigsaw also suggests that the Perspective API can offer a new tool to not only moderators, but to readers. Their online demo offers a sliding scale that changes which comments about topics like climate change and the 2016 election appear for different tolerances of "toxicity," showing how readers themselves could be allowed to filter comments. And Cohen suggests that the tool is still just one step toward better online conversations; he hopes it can eventually be recreated in other languages like Russian, to counter the state-sponsored use of abusive trolling as a censorship tactic. "It’s a milestone, not a solution," says Cohen. "We're not claiming to have created a panacea for the toxicity problem."
In an era when online discussion is more partisan and polarized than ever—and the president himself lobs insults from his Twitter feed—Jigsaw argues that a software tool for pruning comments may actually help to bring a more open atmosphere of discussion back to the internet. "We’re in a situation where online conversations are becoming so toxic that we end up just talking to people we agree with," says Jigsaw's Adams. "That's made us all the more interested in creating technology to help people continue talking and continue listening to each other, even when they disagree."The children exposed to more conversational give-and-take scored higher at every stage of language proficiency. In essence, the children made greater linguistic strides when adults talked with them than when they were simply in the presence of language or even when adults talked to them. We learned long ago that children’s language abilities and eventual academic success are linked to the sheer volume of words they are exposed to early on. Now we have additional evidence that the quality of linguistic exposure, not just its quantity, matters.
Two other studies, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003, looked at the effects of parent-child interactions on very early stages of language production and perception. In one, babbling infants and their mothers were tracked during on-the-floor playtime. Mothers in one group were directed to respond to their babies’ vocalizations with smiles and touches, and by moving closer. Mothers in the other group were not cued to respond in the same way. The study found that babies whose moms interacted with them in sync with their babbling soon began to vocalize more, with more complex sounds, and articulated more accurately than the other children.
In the other study, 9-month-old babies, who are in the late stages of locking in to the sound system of their native language, were exposed to mini lessons in Mandarin, to see if they could still learn to discern the sounds of a foreign language. One group of babies was taught by real live Chinese speakers. Another group got lessons from electronic versions of the adults, who appeared either on TV or on audiotape. Infants with live teachers learned to discern the sounds of Mandarin, while those in the group with electronic instruction did not.
These studies suggest that social interaction is important to early language learning. Of course, everyone learns to talk. But how ironic is it that, in this era when child-rearing is the focus of unprecedented imagination, invention, sophistication, and expense, something as simple and pleasurable as conversing with our children can be overlooked? As Dimitri Christakis, one of the authors of the Pediatrics paper, put it to me, “You can only do one thing at a time: talk to the baby or talk on the phone.”NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pressure mounted on U.S. lawmakers to agree on a $700 billion financial rescue plan after the collapse of talks in acrimony and the biggest bank closure in U.S. history roiled global markets.
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) (2nd L) talks to reporters after a meeting with other Congressional finance leaders to discuss the economic bailout plan in the Capitol in Washington September 25, 2008. From left are Representative Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Frank, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI). REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President George W. Bush acknowledged that there were disagreements but expressed optimism that Congress and the White House would come together on the proposal to rescue the U.S. financial system.
But as negotiations deteriorated into clashes between Republicans and Democrats in Washington, and as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson met with lawmakers, turmoil in global financial markets deepened.
U.S. regulators seized bank Washington Mutual Inc Thursday, the biggest bank failure in the nation’s history, and sold its assets to JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N). In Europe, Belgian-Dutch financial group Fortis NV FOR.BRFOR.AS denied it had a liquidity problem after its shares tumbled more than 20 percent to a 14-year low.
Banks worldwide hoarded cash and showed a growing reluctance to lend, driving rates that institutions charge to each other on loans to a record high in London.
Wachovia Corp WB.N, the sixth-largest U.S. bank, saw its stock price tumble 20 percent, while National City Corp NCC.N, a Midwest regional bank, skidded 22 percent. America’s banking industry confronts a rising tide of home foreclosures and loan defaults that has spawned the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
“What you’re going to see is the strong stronger, and the weak are going to die off,” said William Smith, president of Smith Asset Management in New York.
Global money markets dried up, forcing increased injections of cash from central banks. And with no relief in sight, investors flocked to the safety of cash and U.S. government securities.
“The consequences of this turmoil on real economic performance entail clear downside risk,” St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said in remarks prepared for delivery to a conference in Tennessee.
Adding to the anxiety, new data showed U.S. economic growth was weaker than previously thought in the second quarter, and a survey showed U.S. consumer confidence began to nosedive in September.
Citing the crisis, Europe’s biggest bank, HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L), said it was cutting 1,100 jobs, adding to more than 80,000 job losses across the banking landscape in the past 18 months.
U.S. stocks declined, following losses in Asia and Europe.
“The markets are just caught like a deer in the headlights, watching Washington, trying to figure out what the next step is,” said Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at GFT Forex in New York.
The crisis reverberated in the world’s ports, leaving cargo stranded on docks, as banks cease lending and slow global trade, the top executive of a Greek shipping company Excel Maritime Carriers Ltd EXM.N said.
Gold prices jumped more than 4 percent as investors sought safety in bullion. The precious metal is up about 20 percent since September 11, when investment banking titan Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc’s LEHMQ.PK stock price collapsed, raising questions about the global banking system.
QUESTIONS SURROUND BAILOUT
The bailout, which would be the largest of its kind in U.S. history, aims to remove soured assets from the books of fragile banks and thus revive frozen credit markets. The value of the assets, mostly mortgage-related, tumbled as the U.S. housing market slumped.
The $700 billion price tag on the bailout is bigger than the cost of the Iraq war.
Hopes for a speedy deal on the rescue package, crafted by Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, dimmed when a group of conservative Republican lawmakers proposed an alternative plan on Thursday.
The conservatives called for the government to offer insurance coverage for the roughly half of all mortgage-backed securities that it does not already insure.
Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, cast doubt on the bailout plan.
Rep. Barney Frank, the powerful Democratic chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, countered that passage depends on Republicans, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid complained that presidential election politics had hurt the talks on the plan.
Both presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, flew to Washington on Thursday to try to help negotiate a deal, but deep divisions remained over how to shield taxpayers from losses that could reach hundreds of billions of dollars.
McCain went to Capitol Hill on Friday to try to negotiate a compromise and agreed to attend the first of three presidential debates with Obama on Friday evening, ending two days of suspense and setting up a showdown that could help decide a tight race for the White House.
As the White House pressed hard for a deal, Vice President Dick Cheney canceled trips to New Mexico and Wyoming to “assist with the pending legislation,” his spokeswoman said.
Although Democrats control Congress, they are hesitant to pass a bailout bill without rank-and-file Republican support because of the risk of leaving their party politically exposed in an election season.
The heated debate comes just weeks before the November 4 presidential and congressional elections in which many lawmakers are trying to retain their seats.
Lawmakers critical of the Paulson plan say they fear that freewheeling bankers will get off too lightly and that the wider crisis will persist — a concern echoed by many voters.
Related Coverage FACTBOX: Big banking crises since the 1980s
With American newspaper headlines screaming about bankrupt banks and insurers, financial advisers — especially those in the public eye — are being swamped.
“There’s a feeling of helplessness that nobody seems to have the answers,” said Teresa Dixon Murray, who writes a weekly column about personal finance at the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. She said she has never received so many calls and e-mails in her 10 years as a financial reporter.
The 13-month-old credit crisis came to a head this month after the U.S. government’s takeover of mortgage companies Fannie Mae FNM.P and Freddie Mac FRE.P, the bailout of insurer American International Group Inc (AIG.N), and the bankruptcy filing of investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc LEHMQ.PK.Former State of Origin winger James McManus's legal action against Newcastle centres on claims that his former club breached its duty of care to him in a series of incidents from 2012 to his concussion-enforced retirement in 2015 – including one episode in which he alleges he was directed to continue playing until the end of a semi-final against the Bulldogs.
McManus will make claims against both the current Knights entity, owned by the NRL, and the previous incarnation of the club owned until 2014 by now bankrupt mining magnate Nathan Tinkler when his case begins in the Supreme Court on March 17.
Duty of care: James McManus is tackled by the Storm at Hunter Stadium in 2013. Credit:Getty Images
The 31-year-old is alleging the club was negligent in the way in which it responded to a repetitive series of concussions by allowing him to continue playing, encouraging him to continue playing, not keeping him away from the game for long enough periods between concussions, and by having unqualified people making on-field decisions over whether he should be brought to the sideline after a head knock or not.
Among the list of "incidents" McManus is citing is from the Knights' round-one match against the Warriors in 2015 when he returned to the field after being sidelined with what at the time was reported as a suspected broken nose. He came back on, playing 68 minutes of the game.The world learned in December that a U.S. drone strike in Yemen killed numerous wedding-goers as they made their way to a young couple's celebration.
Obama Administration officials are now investigating the strike, Michael Isikoff reports. His article goes on to cite new details gathered by a Yemeni journalist, who complained that the Obama Administration "turned a wedding into a funeral," and human-rights activist Baraa Shiban, who spoke to locals two days after the attack.
The locals told him that 60 people in cars and trucks were traveling from the groom's home to a neighboring village where the bride lived. A 70-year-old man is quoted describing the death of his son, who is survived by a heartbreaking seven children. “We heard a loud explosion coming from down in the valley,” the man said, adding that when he arrived on the scene, "there were bodies scattered all over the place," and the women of the village were gathered together crying and screaming.
Another local's words remind us that the dead and the people who lost family members aren't the only victims, and that the horror wrought by this drone strike goes on: "We live in fear day and night," he said. "Our children and women cannot sleep.” His words echo the findings of a report on drones by the law clinics at NYU and Stanford, which discovered communities living in terror of U.S. strikes.“More and more, we were noticing this disconnect between what we’re teaching in K-12 and what students are expected to do beyond school,” said Casey Lamb, the chief of operations and development for Schools That Can. “We were hearing frustration from schools that were interested in trying real-world learning, but lacked the confidence and resources to pursue it.”
In May, the nonprofit released a rubric for integrating academics and internships, covering topics such as external partnerships and the public exhibition of student work.
The document also covers assessments for interpersonal skills and habits of mind. According to Lamb, “assessment is one of the biggest challenges in this,” not only for tracking student progress, but for vetting the long-term value of real-world learning itself, about which there is very little direct research to date.
But there is some indirect evidence. Studies suggest that standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are fairly poor predictors of college persistence compared to high-school grades, while a nascent body of research has found that the “soft skills” that real-world learning seeks to foster—such as a can-do attitude and a resilient “growth mindset”—are strongly linked to college success.
ChiTech’s recent academic measures are encouraging, but it is still a mixed bag. On the one hand, students now seem far more engaged in school and committed to college. From 2014 to 2016, the percentage of ChiTech freshmen on track to graduate in four years rose from 63 to 78 percent. Meanwhile, administrators report, the school’s four-year graduation rate climbed from 57 to 77 percent in 2017, and college enrollment rose from 48 to 68 percent (with about 80 percent of the 2017 class expected to enroll this fall).
On the other hand, ChiTech’s standardized test scores have remained stagnant and well below district averages. For example, from 2014 to 2016, the school’s average ACT composite score barely ticked up from 15.4 to 15.6, compared to a district-wide average of 18.4 and the ACT’s “college ready” threshold of 21.
Some, like Laura McBain, the director of external relations and the Education Leadership Academy at High Tech High, say standardized tests are the wrong focus.
“If you’re thinking, ‘God forbid, the school’s test scores are dragging,’ if that’s the basis of your decision-making, then your decision-making is wack,” she said, “because you’re thinking about your school and not your kids.”
As her colleague Riordan put it, “We’re trying to do learning 2.0, and so it makes no sense to evaluate it with assessment 1.0.” Nevertheless, the test scores and other traditional measures will play a big role in the evaluation of ChiTech’s turnaround, and its continued survival as a school.
The willingness to keep taking interns, as all but one employer from 2017 have said they would in 2018, is another metric of Real-World Learning success for Pavlov. After each internship, he surveys employers about how it went and what could be improved. Last year, ChiTech also asked several corporate partners to form a Tech Advisory Committee to meet periodically with teachers to enhance the collaboration on projects and internships. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Pavlov and Garrett plan to infuse preparation for the Real-World Learning experiences into every class in every grade.The " American Horror Story " regular tells us what she feels is missing from most black-and-white movies, spills on her soap-opera obsession, and more.
Four friends band together against an anonymous foe who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, while also investigating the disappearance of their best friend.
Privileged teens living on the Upper East Side of New York can hide no secret from the ruthless blogger who is always watching.
As her 16th birthday nears, Sabrina must choose between the witch world of her family and the human world of her friends. Based on the Archie comic.
Follows teenager Clay Jensen, in his quest to uncover the story behind his classmate and crush, Hannah, and her decision to end her life.
Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.
Convicted of a decade old crime of transporting drug money to an ex-girlfriend, normally law-abiding Piper Chapman is sentenced to a year and a half behind bars to face the reality of how life-changing prison can really be.
Both physical and psychological horrors affect a decomposing family, workers and residents of an insane asylum, a coven of witches, a cast of circus freaks, the employees and guests at a struggling hotel, a family who moved into a mysterious farmhouse, and the members of a small suburb in Michigan in this haunting anthology series, focusing on the themes of infidelity, sanity, oppression, discrimination, addiction, and exploitation.
Did You Know?
Trivia When it came time to announce the theme for the 6th season, FX admitted that they had been releasing fake promos and trailers that had nothing to do with each other to confuse people on what it was really about. When it came time to announce the theme for the 6th season, FX admitted that they had been releasing fake promos and trailers that had nothing to do with each other to confuse people on what it was really about. See more
Goofs Frances Conroy ("Old" Moira O'Hara) is right-eye dominant. Many times you can see that she, as Moira, is focusing on the object she's looking at using her "blind" right eye instead of her left eye. Frances Conroy ("Old" Moira O'Hara) is right-eye dominant. Many times you can see that she, as Moira, is focusing on the object she's looking at using her "blind" right eye instead of her left eye. See moreThe City of Zagreb has reported on its official website that the Croatian capital is the sixth capital in the European Union when it comes to daily bicycle transport.
According to a survey carried out by Eurobarometer, the Danish capital of Copenhagen has the highest number of cyclists in a daily traffic (35%), followed by Amsterdam (32%), Berlin (13%), Ljubljana (12%), Helsinki (11%) and Zagreb with 10 percent of bicycle riders on its city roads.
Eurobarometer also points out that riding a bicycle to work or to attend daily chores is unevenly spread across the European Union. Therefore, almost a third of the Dutch go to work by bicycle or use it every day, whilst people on Cyprus, Malta or in Portugal have not adopted this practice yet.
''The city of Zagreb has been implementing planned programs with its systematic strategy in order to introduce bicycle traffic as much as possible in the traffic system and to popularize riding a bicycle as means of public transport. Apart from these programs, the city supports bicycle sports events and numerous associations that promote bicycles as means of public transport, sports and recreation'', explained the City Administration.
Nowadays Zagreb has more than 200,000 active cyclists, out of which 3,000 of them are passing daily by a bike counter called Bike Totem at Stjepan Radic Square.
''Our citizens have 562 bicycle parking spaces on public surfaces and more than 300 kilometres of bicycle lanes at their disposal. At the same time, every new road in the city is built with bicycle lanes as an integral part of the traffic infrastructure, thus Zagreb has become the first city to introduce separated traffic on its roadways'', commented the City Administration.Email Share +1 989 Shares
The first openly LGBT person elected to Guatemala’s Congress took office last week.
Sandra Morán, a lesbian woman who is a member of Convergencia, a left-leaning political movement that advocates on behalf of indigenous Guatemalans and other underrepresented groups in the Central American country, was sworn in on Jan. 14.
Her inauguration took place in a square outside the Congress building in Guatemala City.
“It is the first swearing in of the people,” Morán told the Washington Blade on Monday during a telephone interview from Guatemala City.
Voters in Guatemala City elected Morán to Congress last September. She is one of 158 members of the Guatemala Congress who took office on Jan. 14.
Morán, 56, in 1981 sought exile in neighboring Mexico amid Guatemala’s civil war. She lived in Nicaragua and Canada before returning to Guatemala in 1994.
Morán over the last two decades has become a prominent figure within the Guatemalan women’s and feminist movements. She has also publicly supported LGBT-specific issues in the Central American country.
Morán told the Blade there was a “positive reaction” to her campaign among LGBT Guatemalans because it was the first time there was a congressional candidate “who is like them.”
“When I won (the community) was truly very happy,” she said. “There would finally be a representation in the Congress from a sexually diverse background.”
LGBT Guatemalans face poverty, discrimination, violence
Morán told the Blade that poverty is among the “general problems” that lesbian, gay, bisexual and especially transgender Guatemalans face.
She said discrimination and violence against trans and lesbian women remains pervasive in the Central American country. Morán also noted to the Blade that anti-LGBT attitudes persist among many Guatemalan families and trans people are unable to legally change their gender.
U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and five other members of Congress last year in a letter that urged the U.S. Agency for International Aid to fund advocacy efforts in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador cited examples of the Guatemalan government’s inadequate response to anti-LGBT discrimination and violence. These include the Guatemalan Public Ministry’s refusal to investigate a lesbian woman’s allegations of domestic violence against her partner because it said “domestic violence only applied to heterosexual couples.”
President Jimmy Morales was sworn in as the country’s next president on the same day that Morán took office.
Guatemalan voters last October elected the former comedian with no previous political experience in the wake of a corruption scandal that forced then-President Otto Pérez Molina from office.
Morales, an evangelical Christian, opposes marriage rights for same-sex couples. He has also indicated his opposition to abortion in the Central American country.
“We say that he unfortunately represents a popular exclusion,” Morán told the Blade.. “He is racist, is sexist, is homophobic.”
Vice President Biden is among those who attended Morales’ inauguration.
Morán’s election ‘a step forward’
Guatemalan advocates said Morán will bring attention to LGBT-specific issues within the Congress.
“It is an advance, a step forward,” Stacy Velásquez, a trans rights advocate in Guatemala City, told the Blade earlier this week in an email. “Now we have an openly LGBTI assemblywoman, who is specifically a lesbian and a feminist, in the Congress who represents us.”
A former Guatemalan gay activist with whom the Blade spoke on Wednesday agreed.
“Having a lesbian woman and a feminist in Congress is a big advantage,” said the activist who asked the Blade not to publish their name. “She’s been very open. I frankly admire her openness.”Norton Security 2019
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Obama in 2008. The Obama administration will perhaps be best remembered for its unashamed “targeted killing” program.
In secret proceedings known as “Terror Tuesdays,” based on secret charges and secret evidence, the president orders extrajudicial drone killings without charges or trial. At least four US citizens have already been assassinated in this program, and Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, has expressly refused to rule out assassinations on US soil.
According to the Obama administration’s lawyers, the president has the authority to sign the death warrant of any person, anywhere in the world, on the unreviewable say-so of the president himself. One cannot imagine a clearer violation of both the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, which provides in the Fifth Amendment that no person “shall be deprived of life… without due process of law.”
Democratic rights, due process, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law--it is difficult to utter such phrases with a straight face in reference to 21st century America.
More than 2.3 million individuals are behind bars in the US, at a cost of more than $60 billion each year. Meanwhile, America’s political establishment is permeated with corruption and criminality. War criminals and their accomplices, torturers, assassins, Wall Street criminals, and uniformed, badge-wearing killers operate with impunity outside the law.
War
The collapse of bourgeois democracy has proceeded alongside a parallel explosion of American militarism.
The launch of the war on terror coincided with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, an occupation that has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and which continues to this day. In March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq based on lies about “weapons of mass destruction.” After a dozen years of occupation, the country has been utterly devastated, with the death toll possibly exceeding one million.
With the inauguration of Obama in 2008 came the “pivot to Asia,” an aggressive diplomatic and military policy that seeks to encircle China with military bases and alliances, inflame regional tensions, and ultimately to provoke a major war.
With progressively less public discussion, America’s campaign for world domination has expanded to include military interventions in Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere. By one count, American forces were deployed in 133 countries last year, 70 percent of the world’s nations.
America is permanently at war. There is hardly a conflict anywhere in the world that cannot be traced, in whole or in part, back to American imperialism.
In February 2014, international tensions were inflamed still further by an American- and European-backed backed coup in Ukraine, which was led by ultra-right and fascistic elements, plunging the country into civil war. The coup was accompanied by sabre-rattling in the American and European press directed against Russia.
The US political establishment mouths phrases about “liberty” and “democracy,” but if one wants to know where America really stands, one only has to examine its support for openly pro-Nazi tendencies in the Ukraine, as well as its backing of the military dictatorship in Egypt and the absolutist monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
America’s drive for world domination brings it inevitably into conflict with rivals such as Russia and China, and poses the clear danger of a Third World War involving nuclear-armed states. The US is carrying out war games on Russia’s borders and it has provided guarantees of military support to Eastern European states in the event of a military conflict with Russia. To borrow a warning that Trotsky issued on the eve of the Second World War, “a catastrophe threatens the whole culture of mankind.”
Capitalism
The drive to war and towards a police state coincides with a dramatic increase in social inequality in the US and throughout the world. According to a January report by the Oxfam charity, the richest 1 percent of people in the world now own 48 percent of global wealth, leaving just 52 percent to be shared among the other 99 percent of the world’s population. The share of the richest 1 percent is expected to reach more than 50 percent next year.
The wealth of the world’s 80 richest people equals the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population, or 3.5 billion people. These richest 80 individuals doubled their wealth between 2009 and 2014, while the wealth of the poorest half was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.
In the US, the top one percent of the population has accumulated 95 percent of all income gains since 2009.
Democracy is incompatible with such levels of inequality. The interests of the super-rich dominate all of official life in United States, including both political parties and the media. The interests of the vast majority of the population are systematically excluded.
The history of the past fifteen years is not a string of random accidents. The correlation between war, the collapse of democracy, and expanding social inequality is not merely coincidental. Instead, these interrelated phenomena have their roots in objective conditions and can be traced to the divergent interests of different social classes and between imperialist rivals.
Militarism, warmongering and political and social reaction are the policies of the capitalist class, which seeks to secure and enrich itself through violence abroad and to suppress and divide opposition to its unpopular policies at home. The objective interests of the international working class are the opposite: the defense and expansion of democracy, peace, progress, the elimination of national borders and the socialist reorganization of society.
A permanent solution addresses the problem at the roots. The struggle against war, to defend democratic rights, and for social equality requires a struggle to replace capitalism with socialism, that is, to replace a society based on the profits and interests of a tiny few with a global society based on the needs and aspirations of all. This struggle, in turn, requires the mobilization and conscious participation of the working class internationally, as well as a leadership steeped in the traditions and experiences of the past century and a half of the workers’ movement.
On May 3, the International Committee of the Fourth International, which represents the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, is holding an online May Day rally. Workers, students, young people and all those who are interested in this perspective should make plans to attend.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Written by Jared Zaugg Jim Stenman, CNN Ebeltoft, Denmark
Jared Zaugg is author of the newly released book on classic sports and racing cars, "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!"
On Denmark's eastern coast of Jutland near the historical town of Ebeltoft, with its cobbled lanes and colorful, timber-framed row houses, sits an estate larger than the size of Monaco.
Like most of this bucolic area that lies within Mols Bjerge National Park, large sloping fields of waist-high grass are interrupted by thick pockets of mature chestnut and fir forest.
A fresh breeze blows off the sea and with more than three-quarters of the day bathed in warm light, the feeling in this gently hilled country is one of calm and plenty. It's here, at Lyngsbækgård Manor -- the seat of the estate -- where an important collection of motorcars is housed.
Regal paradise
Built in the 16th century by the Danish Royal Crown, Lyngsbækgård Manor became the summer home of the King of Denmark. Today -- and for the past many years -- it's the full time residence of Henrik Frederiksen.
Frederiksen's collection displayed at his residence in Lyngsbaekgard Manor Credit: Courtesy Bonhams
For one of Denmark's wealthiest men, who has the means to live anywhere in the world, calling Lyngsbækgård home is a testament, not just to the beauty of the property, but to the surrounding area.
"This area is a paradise," says Frederiksen with a smile. "It's quiet, beautiful, lots of space. It's all very special."
Some time ago Frederiksen and his late wife Vivi hired a team of 35 workers, who toiled every day for three years to restore the Lyngsbækgård Manor and its buildings to their original splendor.
Today it's a sight to behold. Not opulent or ostentatious but reflecting tasteful Scandinavian restraint that imparts a cheerful, regal appearance. The manor house is flanked on three sides by what is the largest thatched roof structure in Denmark.
These connected timber-framed buildings were originally the stables, granaries and workrooms of the estate and today accommodate Frederiksen's magnificent collection of nearly 50 automobiles.
A passion shared
Collected piece by piece over the years by Mr. and Mrs. Frederiksen, the car collection is the result of what was very much a mutual passion. Consisting primarily of pre-World War II cars -- with the majority hailing from Great Britain, America and Germany -- the Frederiksen automobiles all have the distinction of being in running condition.
The 1939 Lagonda LG6 Rapide Drophead Credit: Courtesy Bonhams
Not mere static displays, these incredible machines -- ranging from a 1905 Woods Electric Motor Vehicle to a 1973 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI Convertible-- adhere to their manufacturer's original design: to run. It's quite an impressive feat when one considers the antiquity, variety, uniqueness and sometimes temperamental nature of these old motorcars.
"We bought with our hearts, not with our brains," says Frederiksen. "We looked for the very best examples and made no compromises." As a result, many models represent some of the finest examples of their kind anywhere in the world, several of which have won top prizes at the world's most prestigious events, like the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Carmel in California and the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este in Cernobbio, Italy.
The Golden Age of motoring
With marques such as Bentley, Cadillac, Duesenberg, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz, Pierce-Arrow and Rolls-Royce, the grandest names from the Golden Age of motoring are represented.
When asked why the focus of the collection is on cars made prior to the Second World War he says, "It was a time before mass production, at least for higher quality cars. You can see the hand of the craftsman, you can see the details, the beauty of each component. Each one is a work of art and each has a story to tell. It's the polar opposite of cars today."
Take for instance the Rolls-Royce 40/50 Silver Ghost, which was produced from 1907 to 1926. At a time when cars were either powerful or polished, nimble or sturdy, fast or comfortable, the Silver Ghost was all of that and more.
It was simply the best car money could buy and, as a result, became the preferred automobile of British and Indian royalty. In fact, luxury notwithstanding, the reliability of the Silver Ghost is attested to by one that resides within the corporate collection of the Rolls-Royce Motor Company and has over half a million miles on it (more than 800,000 km) and still runs strong.
Although Frederiksen has five Silver Ghosts, each of varying models, it is perhaps the 1914 Boat Tail model by Schebera Coachbuilders that attracts most attention. With its sculpted wood body reminiscent of a boat, and its sporty, convertible open top, this extremely rare and charismatic motorcar is the ultimate icon of the Silver Ghost legacy.
It's a 1914 Mercedes 28-95 Phaeton.
Although Frederiksen can't decide on his favorite ("It depends on my mood,") he does say that "Vivi's favorite car was probably the Maybach," pointing specifically to the 1937 Maybach SW38 Zeppelin Special Roadster since there are two German-made Maybachs in the collection. When asked why, he says, "Because it's perfect."
We take the Maybach out onto a country lane near the manor and find that this enormous car doesn't feel or act half as heavy as it looks, owing to its monstrous and beautiful V-12 engine.
Not only that, but, incredibly, the Maybach uses an early form of paddle shift on the steering wheel -- a technology typically associated with Ferrari from the 1990s. As we cruise along smoothly with the top down through the green Danish countryside, I'm astounded by how advanced this car was for its time and reminded of what Frederiksen said about why he loves these automobiles so much: "To be able to drive such a thing of beauty is a wonderful experience."
While the Maybach is extremely impressive, as is the Duesenberg Model J, the Hispano-Suiza H6C, the Isotta-Fraschini 8A, the Lagonda LG6 Rapide, and on and on, it's the 1914 Mercedes 28-95 Phaeton that strikes my attention most. What may seem relatively unremarkable among such an eye-watering assembly could be the most unique car of all for one simple reason: it's completely original.
Unrestored and showing all the patina of a priceless antique, the wooden body, wooden wheel spokes, canvas covered top, brass fixtures, hammered metal light buckets, even the original Louis Vuitton leather trunk, appear in a time warp condition. And it runs, of course. "This came out of Uruguay," says Frederiksen with a grin. "It's very special, isn't it?
I've never sold a car before. But this was something Vivi and I did together Henrik Frederiksen
Vivi passed away just this spring and now Frederiksen has decided to sell their beloved collection. Looking around, admiring the four dozen examples of functional artwork that have all been brought out into the courtyard for my visit, the question naturally arises, why?
"I've never sold a car before. But this was something Vivi and I did together," say Frederiksen. "With her gone, well, it's time to close this door and open a new one. It's time for these cars to find new homes."
Mr. Frederiksen has appointed Bonhams auction house to exclusively represent the collection at sale. Scheduled for Saturday 26 September, the auction will take place on site at Lyngsbækgård Manor.Burger fans were left high and dry after McDonald’s suddenly stopped the sale of its much sought-after Nasi Lemak Burger a mere two weeks after it made its debut before National Day.
The burgers ran out as the fast food chain could not replenish its supply quickly enough to keep up with the "overwhelming demand".
Why the ensuing uproar? Well, the'mod Sin' creation was a decent-tasting and rather clever patriotic riff on a traditional plate of nasi lemak.
It featured a chicken thigh patty marinated with coconut milk, spices and coated with crushed cornflakes, as well as a sunny side up egg, onions and a slick of sambal nestling between semolina buns.
Apparently, those who were most upset by the item's premature departure were people who didn’t even get to try it yet. “I was waiting for the long queues to die down before visiting [McDonald’s], but they took it off the menu before I could do so!” lamented our pal.
In its absence, many nasi lemak burger copycats have rode on its coattails with their own versions of the creation — including French patisserie Antoinette, mod Asian restaurant The Quarters and Southern American eatery The Beast.
The Beast's Nasi Lemak Burger with Spam Fries.
But get ready to sink your teeth into the original again. Nearly a month after it vanished, the locally-themed burger will finally be back on the menu.
A reliable source (who requested not to be named) has confidently told us that the Nasi Lemak Burger, and its buddies Chendol McFlurry and Bandung McFizz, will make a reappearance at the end of August at all McDonald’s outlets.
Whether it still proves popular with the fickle crowd after such a long absence remains to be seen. The burger costs from $5.95 a la carte, cheaper than its rivals' more atas renditions.
We spoke to a rep for McDonald’s, who declined to confirm — or deny — the Nasi Lemak Burger's comeback. But all we can say with certainty is: wait for it.
More updates coming soon.Image copyright Other Image caption Charles Richardson was a vicar in south-east London and former rural dean of Hastings
A Church of England vicar took his own life after being arrested over the possession of indecent images of children, an inquest has decided.
Charles Richardson, whose parish was in south-east London, had been arrested in May 2014 and expected to be charged.
He emailed police "expressing remorse" before his death at St Margaret's Bay, near Dover, the inquest at Folkestone Magistrates' Court was told.
The coroner, Rachel Redman, recorded a verdict of suicide.
Mr Richardson was 60 years old when he took his own life by jumping off cliffs at St Margaret's Bay on 20 November.
The former rural dean and chaplain to the lifeboat in Hastings, East Sussex, had received counselling after an earlier attempt to end his life, the inquest was told.
'Preparing for death'
Before driving to the Kent coast he had sent a text message to a friend saying: "Sorry, car in Dover by the lighthouse. Take care. I can't carry on anymore."
He had also left a message on his partner's desk, the inquest heard.
Mr Richardson had been due to answer bail, knowing he was likely to be charged after indecent images of children were found on his computer.
The vicar of St John the Evangelist, in East Dulwich, had been "fully co-operating" with police, Det Sgt Ben Loose from Kent Police told the hearing.
In leaving notes and messages for his friends, Mr Richardson had been "preparing for his own death", the coroner said.
"[His] was a very sad death," she said.
"It clearly all became all too much for him and he knew the consequences and the effects of the criminal process on his career."There have been a lot of questions these past couple of days about the visits of Drexel transfer Damion Lee and five-star class of 2016 point guard Tyus Battle.
Details, as they typically are in these situations have been scarce, but here's one thing I can report which both occurred and occurred successfully: laser tag.
The team, Lee, Battle, the coaches and the graduate assistants all made an appearance at Laser Blaze in St. Matthews on Monday to have a little fun. Three games were played, an afterward, a handful of players posed for a picture.
There was also a report that Pitino himself made an appearance and actually participated in a game. When asked if he could confirm or deny this earth-shattering report, Pitino said simply...
I love being a Louisville fan and I never want this era to end.
If Lee and/or Battle wind up becoming Cards, you can thank the head coach's laser tag prowess.The relationship between the marching bands at The University of Arizona and Grambling State University goes back a long ways.
1967 to be exact.
This was the year of what is now known as Super Bowl I. The Pride of Arizona and World Famed Tiger Band took the field in an act of solidarity.
This was a time in American history when racial tensions were high. Martin Luther King Jr. had made his first speech on the Vietnam War just eight months earlier. Texas Western had won the NCAA basketball National Championship in March of 1966 with the first all-African American starting lineup. The “March Against Fear” from Memphis to Jackson occurred in the summer of 1966. The Black Panther Party had just been recently founded.
Dr. Larry Pannell, the current Grambling State band director, was a senior in high school when the two bands took the field together in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as a message of peace in January 1967.
“That’s what recruited me to Grambling,” Pannell said of watching that moment unfold on his television. “I had offers to go everywhere but this school just came back from this thing they call the first Super Bowl.”
“I’m so delighted that I did (choose Grambling), never knowing that I’d be considered the head director of this program. Just going in as a freshman you never know.”
The Tiger Band arrived in Tucson late Thursday evening, and joined The Pride of Arizona’s rehearsal on Friday. In between working out the logistics of recreating the map set, Grambling’s band played a special song dedicated to the POA, and how music can bring the world together no matter how different people are.
“The most beautiful thing about Arizona, it first started with them,” Pannell explained. “And now we’re back again.”
“When you see a HBCU and a predominantly white institution, and they say that the musicianship, don’t care what it is, music is a universal language,” continued Pannell. “And having brotherly love and sisterly love here is so beautiful.”
“It just stands out and these two bands have such a rich history of doing this during some unrest and the Civil Rights Movement. We had had the problems in Watts. We had the brothers to hold up the hands with the Black Power gloves on in the Olympics, and we were able to come out there during a rough time in America, both of these bands, and play in the very first Super Bowl to try and let ‘em know ‘Hey, where there’s love, we’ll be there’ and we’re trying to bring salvation back.”
“Now 50 years later, the same two bands are doing the same thing simply because we have some unrest here now.”
With racial tensions back at the forefront of the public’s attention again, especially in a place like Louisiana, this trip to Tucson was a chance for Grambling’s band to escape that for just a brief period of time and just let the music do the talking, while also being able to show unity again as they did in Super Bowl I.
“I said how surreal now 50 years ago and we’re actually recreating the same pregame,” added Pannell about having Arizona on the schedule at this particular time in American history. “If you go back and look at what’s happening, our year book at home has the big United States that we formed then trying to let the world know ‘Hey, we America. We’re in this thing together’.”
“Now with all the unrest that’s going on now, we’re forming that same United States again, playing the National Anthem.”
“It’s just like deja vu.”
Friday was the first time Pannell had seen the map in person, and it was an emotional experience for him.
“Just chills,” he said of his reaction to seeing it. “You have to understand that 1967 yearbook at the university was dedicated to the band for that historical accomplishment. And when you open the book, from the front page to this page, they have both bands forming the United States.”
“It just brought chills that I’ll get the chance to get this in another yearbook 50 years later.”
The great thing about music is that it has the power to bring people from different backgrounds, cultures, upbringings, belief systems and so on together to make one powerful statement.
Now Grambling and Arizona have done that twice in two critical times in American history.Alameda Ta'amu is clearly a guy who's on his last chance with his employer.
After having been arrested and recently sentenced to 18 months probation for driving under the influence as well as crashing into multiple parked cars, Ta'amu is in a position where he needs to do it cleaner and straighter than the next guy.
A picture tweeted out of him from an unmarked time likely won't help that.
The blog Steelers Depot captured a tweet from a user named "ME0ish" that Ta'amu apparently re-tweeted of Ta'amu driving a car while the passenger was holding a bottle of Fireball whiskey:
Ta'amu has since deleted the tweet, posting these mea culpas.
Just realized I retweeted a bad pic from after the draft last year.Friend from home messin with me. I don't drink anymore. HONEST MISTAKE — Alameda Taamu 95 (@MEDATAAMU74) April 8, 2013
I don't go out and I don't drink.. I've passed every UA test since October 14.. I'm in Pitt training.. Focused for next season — Alameda Taamu 95 (@MEDATAAMU74) April 8, 2013
HONEST MISTAKE. Really. Didn't look at his pic before sending my tweet. Wouldn't joke about that. — Alameda Taamu 95 (@MEDATAAMU74) April 8, 2013
While the Steelers Depot report suggests Ta'amu was in the car with the bottle as recently as Sunday night (reference was made to him "celebrating" last night, when clearly the sun is out and there are leaves in full bloom on the trees), it doesn't appear to be a recent picture. Ta'amu's tweets suggest it happened following the draft in 2012, when the Steelers traded a sixth-round pick with Washington to select him.
Ta'amu sentenced to probation Steelers NT Alameda Ta'amu was sentenced to 18 months probation for driving under the influence, stemming from an incident in October in Pittsburgh.
That in no way absolves his stupidity, however. The indignation of re-tweeting something like that in the first place shows poor judgement, let alone the lack of concern over the fact people will no doubt assume it was a recent picture (even if it wasn't). Clearly, not causing trouble and unintentionally indicting oneself to trouble have little difference, considering his situation.
If he doesn't go out and drink, as he mentioned, good for him, and we wish him the best in his efforts to control what appears to be a significant problem. And a simple reminder to not go out of his way to make people skeptical, including his employers, would be a wise course of action right now.
Follow @NealCoolongWARNING: This story contains content some readers may find disturbing. Discretion is strongly advised.
Shocking new court exhibit photos have been released in the trial of two parents accused of killing their teenage son.
Emil and Rodica Radita were arrested in February 2014 and pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the trial by judge alone on Tuesday.
READ MORE: Calgary parents accused of not treating diabetic teen plead not guilty to first-degree murder
Police allege they denied Alex (Alexandru) Radita treatment for diabetes, which ultimately killed him. Court heard Tuesday Alex, 15, weighed 37 pounds when he died.
On Thursday, the judge approved the release of several photos showing the Radita household and Alex just three months before he died.
BELOW: Photos of the Radita household, as presented in court
A search warrant at the northwest home where the family lived led to the discovery of unused insulin syringes and expired glucose test strips. There were also containers of baby food that police believe were given to the teenage boy.
A pediatric endocrinologist continued her testimony in the case Thursday.
On Wednesday, Dr. Daniele Pacaud testified as an expert in diabetes in children. She said she reviewed documents and photos regarding the case and concluded the boy was in a “severe state of malnutrition.”
She told the court Alex “seemed to have not been provided with the proper care for his diabetes.”
Police were called to the Radita home in the community of Citadel on May 7, 2013.
An autopsy revealed Radita died from a bacterial sepsis (Staphyloccus Aureus) from complications of neglect and starvation, due to the Type 1 diabetes.
BELOW: Photos Alex Radita on his 15th birthday, taken just months before his death
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Court documents show Alex had previously been removed from the Raditas’ British Columbia home by child welfare because the parents weren’t properly treating the diabetes. A judge later returned him to his parents’ care.
Calgary police allege Alex was not given the necessary treatment once the family moved to Alberta, and the teen’s health declined to the extent that he was confined to his room and subsequently died. The crown contends the boy died a painful and lonely death.
The trial is scheduled to last five weeks.
It will now take a temporary break from hearing testimony to consider arguments over the admissibility of evidence the crown wants to present concerning the care Alex received while he was living in B.C., before moving to Calgary.LIVE JUJU
We are pleased to announce the re-release of our live album, Live Juju, in an expanded form on Ripple Records. This new release is double vinyl in a beautiful gatefold, and in addition containing the live recording from our 2014 appearance at Freak Valley Festival, the second LP is a set from a more recent show that has our new bass player Zack, Busby rocking the low end. It is also being released on CD this time, which is was not previously. The Release date is set for October 5, 2017.
Also on October 5th, we'll be playing at the Doomed and Stoned Fest in Indianapolis. In addition we've got a few other bitchin' shows coming up. Check the http://wofat.net/tour.shtml for details.
We have new merch in the Hoodoo Shop! A few new T shirts as well as a new patch design and a very cool Wo Fat dugout/one-hitter to take on the go with you.
Kent Stump’s Signature “Magnetic Mojo” Custom P90's
You can now get your very own link in the chain of the Wo Fat guitar tone. Kent has his own signature set of P90’s that he worked closely with Planet Tone Pickups to design.
Not your stock Gibson P90’s! These are some amped up, heavy riff monsters of tone with a name that harkens back to the lyrics of Analog Man from Wo Fat’s second record, Psychedelonaut. Get yours now! You can even have a set signed by Kent if you desire.Bitpay proposes zero confirmation solution for faster Bitcoin transactions and introduces clearing operator between the two interacting parties.
Bitpay has taken aim at solving the issue of slow confirmations on the Bitcoin network by proposing an open-standard “Impulse” system based on multiple payment channels. Designed to be “as trustless as possible,” the network would gather immediately available funds through previously confirmed payment channels.
White paper
Publishing their white paper on the concept of these “Inter-Channel Payments,” Bitpay is trying to solve the issue of blockchain confirmations for payments taking around ten minutes.
For most types of online bitcoin transactions, these delays do no pose a big problem. However, instant verification for over-the-counter sales similar to conventional credit cards will be needed as the number of bitcoin merchants grows and the networks scales.
The Impulse system is based upon the well established financial world of clearing houses; organizations designed to minimize the risk of trading parties defaulting on a transaction by the house being placed between the two actors. In the Bitcoin world, this would take the form of users pre-confirming their funds with such intermediaries and then using the confirmed “payment channel” funds to pay a receiving merchant or second user.
An inherent problem with such a system is the risk of reintroducing trust into a Bitcoin eco-system designed to operate as a trustless network. The integrity of the “operators” would be vital to this system in order to prevent double spending and insufficient payment attacks. Bitpay's solution is to build the structure of the system in a way that makes it hard and counter-productive for operators to fraud the system.
All transactions between the user wishing to make the payment and the operator would be co-signed, preventing any straightforward theft of funds. It's this co-signature from a trusted operator that the receiving party could also take as proof-of-payment in advance of actual blockchain confirmation. User payments to the operator are also proposed to include a “time-locked” forced refund after 30 days, so that in the event of a disagreement between the paying user and operator, the user funds would be returned without the multi-signature confirmation.
Users wishing to complete a 1 BTC transaction could use a 1 BTC payment channel they have pre-authorized, or two 0.5 BTC channels, or even one 0.75 BTC and one 0.5 BTC with the change being returned to the operator. Bitpay points to this as an inherent cost problem:
“Consider the case of a single 1.0 BTC payment, composed of an aggregation of multiple 0.25 BTC payment channels. Multiple payment channels implies multiple transactions on the blockchain.”
The cost of confirming these multiple payments, in addition to a presumed payment charge to the operator per transaction, could make the system inherently more costly to use for the user. In the current world of credit and debit card payments however, merchant fees for accepting these payments nearly always costs multiple percent of the total. In that sense, paying to receive funds wouldn't be a necessary hurdle to commercial adoption.
Vs. NoRiskWallet
Bitpay are not the only company chasing a solution to the issue of slow blockchain confirmations, Cointelegraph reported on the Amsterdam Bitcoin Hackathon, where team NoRiskWallet proposed a similar multi-party idea. Sebastian Lobato of NoRiskWallet explained the benefits of the system:
“In this way, no one is at risk of losing their money, even if the other two parties collude. The worst that could happen is that you'd have to wait a little while until the lock time is set. The user will have to wait in order to get his money back if the NoRiskWallet service doesn't uphold it's part of the deal, the NoRiskWallet service will have to wait to get its collateral back, and the merchant might have to wait for the collateral to be send in case the initial transaction gets double spend. But the amount of time they'd have to wait is determined by themselves, so it'd be a minor inconvenience at worst.”
A key difference between NoRiskWallet's and Bitpay's approach is that Bitpay's Impulse system is designed to be an open industry standard for widespread adoption in contrast to NoRiskWallet's P2P idea. Whether either takes off will be of course decided by user and merchant demand.
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Opposition frontbencher Richard Marles says it is extraordinary that Abbott has banned MPs from Q&A but will allow them to attend ‘racist’ rallies
Labor is demanding that Tony Abbott stop Coalition MP George Christensen from addressing a “racist” Reclaim Australia rally this weekend.
Christensen has said that “hell will freeze over” before he pulls out of the rally in Mackay on Sunday.
The opposition immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, said it was “extraordinary” that Abbott was allowing MPs to attend “racist” rallies while inflicting a boycott on the ABC’s Q&A program.
Fellow Liberal National party Senator Matthew Canavan defended Christensen’s planned appearance at the Reclaim Australia rally in Mackay on Sunday, where he will be speaking alongside former One Nation MP Pauline Hanson.
Christensen, the federal MP for Dawson, intends to speak at the rally in Mackay on Sunday.
'Reclaiming Australia' from Islam is really about reclaiming whiteness Read more
Canavan said MPs should be allowed to address the serious problem of radicalisation. “George is perfectly free, big enough and ugly enough to look after himself. I think George should be judged on what he says, not who he stands next to,” he said.
The Melbourne rally on Saturday was marked by violent scuffles, while in Adelaide counterprotesters outnumbered Reclaim Australia supporters. Hundreds of police were on hand in Melbourne attempting to prevent violence between the two sides.
Police used capsicum spray to quell crowds and mounted police were used to divide the rival groups.
Reclaim Australia rallies 'hurtful' to new migrants and refugees Read more
Reclaim Australia advocates the closure of mosques and Islamic schools and the ending of halal food certification in a bid to end radicalisation. Slogans suggested for signs on the group’s website include “Stop Islamic Terrorism”, “Reclaim Democracy” and “Our Women Are Equal”.
Concerns about violence prompted one anti-Islam group to issue a warning to its members about the rallies. “We trust the organisers of these rallies to be well meaning, but they have only limited control over such public gatherings,” the Q Society said in an email to its membership.NEW YORK -- LaDainian Tomlinson is bolting for the Big Apple.
Tomlinson's agent, Tom Condon, said Sunday that the New York Jets signed the former Chargers running back to a two-year contract.
The Jets confirmed that they have agreed to a deal, adding the aging star to the NFL's top-ranked rushing offense last season.
A source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter that Tomlinson's contract is for $5.1 million with an escalator that could boost it to $5.6 million.
"He wanted to go to a team that he thought had a chance to compete for the championship," Condon told the AP. "He wanted to go somewhere where he had a chance to have a significant role, and so with the Jets he also was going to be very familiar with the offensive system."
The Jets reached the AFC Championship Game last season, eliminating Tomlinson and the Chargers along the way.
The 2006 NFL MVP, cut last month by San Diego, chose New York over Minnesota after visiting the Vikings on Thursday. Tomlinson spent Friday with the Jets, capping it with dinner with coach Rex Ryan, general manager Mike Tannenbaum and other team officials.
The Jets went after Tomlinson hard even though he turns 31 in June, is coming off his least productive season and there are questions whether he has much left. New York apparently still saw plenty to like from Tomlinson, who ranks eighth on the NFL's career rushing list with 12,490 yards.
Once one of the NFL's most dynamic players, Tomlinson is expected to back up second-year running back Shonn Greene, who emerged in his rookie season and made Thomas Jones expendable. Jones signed with Kansas City last week after running for a career-high 1,402 yards and 14 touchdowns.Story highlights Robert Goyer: New clues suggest that Flight 370 didn't change course randomly
Goyer: Only a professional pilot can program specific route pathways
He believes that whoever altered the flight path was someone with expertise
Investigators now say that, according to automated electronic connections attempts by the ACARS data reporting system of Malaysia Flight 370, the airplane flew far to the west, in an entirely different direction than it should have been heading as per its original flight-planned route, which was to the north.
The 90-degree turn to the west might have been purely random if entered by a nonpilot or inexpert pilot who knew simply how to |
prosecutor’s office consider them a political vendetta by Poroshenko and the Prosecutor General’s Office.
Poroshenko’s opponents say that a prosecutor general lacking legal education would be at odds with international standards and that a loyalist of the president will never be able to reform the prosecution service and go after Poroshenko allies.
Yegor Sobolev, a lawmaker from the Samopomich party, said that the party would not vote for Lutsenko because he would never investigate Poroshenko’s offshore schemes or the corruption of his allies.
“We were trying to explain to the president that his friends belong in jail, not in the Prosecutor General’s Office,” he said. “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
The vote was accompanied with cries of “shame” from the Radical Party.
Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko paraphrased Lutsenko’s statement after being released from jail under Yanukovych that a revolution would happen in half a year – a prediction of the EuroMaidan Revolution.
“With your policy of robbery and corruption, a new revolution will happen in half a year,” Lyashko said, addressing Poroshenko. “You will be overthrown in the same way as Yanukovych.”
Some have also cast doubt on the alleged reformist credentials of
Lustenko, who failed to reform the Interior Ministry when he headed it
in 2005-2006 and 2007-2010.
Poroshenko and his party have consistently rejected proposals to appoint a candidate trusted by civil society as prosecutor general or holding a transparent competition for the job.Scientists have successfully created pig embryos that contain a small fraction of human cells, according to a study published Thursday in Cell.
The study, led by researchers at the Salk Institute in California, represents a significant step toward human-animal hybrids that could one day grow whole new human organs for transplant. Right now, the pig hybrids only contain about one human cell to 100,000 pig cells and were very tricky to make. And due to ethical guidelines, the researchers only let them develop for about a month. But researchers are optimistic that they’ll be able to tackle the technical—and ethical—challenges moving forward.
They certainly have a lot of hints that they’ll be successful.
To show that cells from two different species can share one body in harmony, the researchers also created mice with rat organs. They used a snazzy new genetic engineering tool called CRISPR/Cas9 to break a few genes in mouse embryos that dashed their ability to develop several organs properly, including the pancreas, heart, and eye. Next, the researchers injected the embryos with rat stem cells, then transferred the embryos into a mouse’s uterus to develop. The embryos developed into healthy animals with hybrid mouse-rat organs, the researchers found. In fact, the rat cells even developed into gall bladders in the mice, despite the fact that rats don’t have these organs. The animals all lived normal mouse lives of up to two years.
And another group led by researchers at Stanford reported this week that it too had created a mashup: a rat growing a mouse pancreas. The researchers used a similar technique as the Salk researchers, but they took the extra step to transfer pancreas cells from their hybrid rats to diabetic mice. The transplant restored insulin production and reversed the disease in the sick mice. That study, which provides a proof-of-principle for inter-species organ transplants, appeared Wednesday in Nature.
Salk Institute
Salk Institute
Salk Institute
Salk Institute
Salk Institute
Tomoyuki Yamaguchi
Salk Institute
Salk Institute, JUAN CARLOS IZPISUA BELMONTE
Salk Institute
Salk Institute
Hybrid hurdles
The last leap is getting cells from distantly related species to live side by side. The Salk team turned to cows, pigs, and humans. For the human cells, the researchers used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are normal adult cells that have been chemically coaxed into reverting to a stem cell state.
A sticking point in the past has been getting iPSCs to take root in an embryo, which requires their development to be in sync with that of the embryo’s cells. So the researchers tried priming the iPSCs for organ development. They injected them into embryos at various stages—not primed, moderately primed, and fully primed. They found the moderately primed ones did the best at surviving and integrating into the embryos.
The researchers also genetically engineered the cells to produce a green fluorescent protein so that they could easily spot them in animal embryos.
The researchers tested out a cow-human hybrid, but it was fussy and expensive to work with, so they focused in on the pig-human hybrid. The scientists made pig embryos in petri dishes and then injected them with human iPSCs; a total of 2,075 injected embryos were implanted into 41 sows. Only 18 of the sows got pregnant and 186 embryos survived. Of those, only 67 appeared to contain human cells, based on the green glow, and only 17 looked normal after 21 to 28 days of development. The rest looked underdeveloped, suggesting that the human cells disrupted normal pig development.
So it worked, but not well. The researchers are now moving forward with experiments using pig embryos that have genetic modifications that might make them more hospitable to the human cells.
In the meantime, ethicists are urging researchers to think carefully about their experiments and the implications for animal rights and the lives of human-like creations, particularly ones with human-like brains and reproductive organs. Currently, the US government has a ban on using federal funding to support research into human chimeras. (The new study was conducted mostly with private money.) However, last August, the National Institutes of Health announced that it was rethinking the ban.
Cell, 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.12.036 (About DOIs).
Nature, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/nature21070The Supreme Court is set to take a serious look at partisan gerrymandering with a case that could jeopardize voter maps across the country and help Democrats regain control of Congress.
The case, which will be heard next term, will be closely followed by lawmakers, since the outcome could define how far state legislatures can go in drawing up district lines for partisan gain.
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The case, known as Gill v. Whitford, centers on the Wisconsin map the state’s Republican-controlled legislature enacted in 2011. A three-judge panel on the federal District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled 2-1 in November that the map was an unconstitutional political gerrymander.
“If state or legislative districts are dismantled, that throws the composition potentially of state legislatures and Congress into incredible flux,” said Caleb Burns, a partner at the Washington, D.C.-based Wiley Rein LLP who focuses on election law and government ethics.
“It’s well known that only a few congressional districts are in play every election cycle, and that could change from a few dozen to every single one.”
The District Court said “there is no question” that the map “was designed to make it more difficult for Democrats, compared to Republicans, to translate their votes into seats.”
The registered Democratic voters in Wisconsin who challenged the plan claimed Republicans employed two gerrymandering techniques in drawing the new districts: “cracking” and “packing.” Both diluted the votes of Democrats statewide, the voters say.
Cracking occurs when a party’s supporters are divided among multiple districts so that they fall short of a majority in each one. Packing takes place when one party’s backers are concentrated in a few districts that they win by overwhelming margins, reducing the total number of seats they can win.
As a result, Republicans in the state secured 60 seats out of 99 in the Assembly despite winning only 48.6 percent of the vote.
Experts say the Wisconsin case could have a major impact on battleground states, where a recent study found the most biased maps.
A Brennan Center for Justice report released in May found that Republicans picked up 16 to 17 congressional seats in the current Congress because of partisan gerrymanders. The seats, the report says, represent a significant portion of the 24 seats Democrats would need to regain control of the House in 2018.
With the exception of Texas, all of the most biased maps were found in battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia and North Carolina.
But Nate Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School, said he’d be shocked if the resulting legal challenges led to maps being redrawn before the 2018 midterm elections.
Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow and manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation, however, said that maps could potentially be redrawn by 2020.
But the former Justice Department official, who now serves on President Trump’s voter fraud commission, noted that states would have to turn around and do the redistricting process all over again after the 2020 census data is released.
For the justices to side with the plaintiffs, experts say, they have to agree on standards for courts to separate constitutional from unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders, an issue that to date has kept them from wading too far into the issue.
In a 5-4 ruling in 2004, the Supreme Court decided not to intervene in a case challenging the redistricting plan Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled legislature passed following the 2000 census.
In delivering the opinion of the court, then-Justice Antonin Scalia said the court “must conclude that political gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable” because the court has not found any “judicially discernible and manageable standards for adjudicating” these claims.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said the court was correct not to intervene. But Kennedy, the court’s traditional swing vote, left the door open for future fights.
In a concurring opinion, Kennedy said that “a decision ordering the correction of all election district lines drawn for partisan reasons would commit federal and state courts to unprecedented intervention in the American political process.”
But he said he “would not foreclose all possibility of judicial relief if some limited and precise rationale were found to correct an established violation of the Constitution in some redistricting cases.”
Court watchers say Kennedy will be the justice to watch when the Wisconsin case comes before the court in the fall. Whether he’ll accept the test that the District Court adopted, though, is anyone’s guess.
The lower court said that for a map to be considered an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander there has to be discriminatory intent, a large and durable discriminatory effect and a lack of a legitimate justification for the partisan effect.
William Whitford, the lead plaintiff in the case, urged the Wisconsin District Court to adopt the “efficiency gap” test — one party’s total wasted votes in an election, minus the other party’s total wasted votes, divided by the total number of votes cast.
The plaintiffs claim the standard captures in a single number the extent to which one party’s voters are more cracked and packed than the other party’s voters.
But in an opinion piece for Fox News, von Spakovsky said the theory “has so many problems, it is hard to understand how a federal court could possibly give it any credence.”
“It ignores the reality of political geography that some voters who support particular political parties are naturally ‘packed’ as a result of residential patterns, not because of choices made by legislatures,” he wrote.
Election reform advocates, however, say the best way to avoid partisan gerrymandering is to remove elected leaders from the redistricting process altogether.
“My view on this is that drawing electoral districts is too important to be left to politicians and someone else should do it,” said Archon Fung, the academic dean and Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
“Politicians almost always have the wrong incentive and bad motive in drawing maps,” said Fung, who is on the board of Common Cause, a plaintiff in a similar case pending in North Carolina.
“The motive to keep themselves in office is so, so strong regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican dominated legislature.”Hockey is known as one of the most team-oriented sports out there. Although there are certainly teams with a superstar or two who can score a point a night, those guys don't mean squat if their team's netminders let beach balls into the net. In general, most hockey teams have to have a balance of ingredients in order for things to run smoothly.
No where is this more true than with the Syracuse Crunch.
What's interesting about the teams the Lightning affiliation has built in Syracuse is that each season seems to be formed by different atmospheres in the dressing room. During the first year of the affiliation, the Crunch's roster was built around a group of guys who had formed a true brotherhood during their Calder Cup run the previous season. The NHL lockout then helped to cement that air of thick-and-thin family in Syracuse, which set the team up nicely for the Crunch's own run to the Calder Cup finals that year. Confidence was huge with that group; if the Crunch scored first in a game, for instance, then they would most certainly win that game more often than not.
Last season, the Crunch certainly struggled with a young team ravaged by NHL call ups and their own injuries. Character was eventually formed during that season, certainly, and that character was only strengthened by late-season additions like Jonathan Marchessault and Yanni Gourde. However, to say that there was a winning atmosphere in Syracuse last season, or even an air of any kind of confidence, would be mostly untrue. Desperation formed that group, and team captain Mike Angelidis was often alone in leading any kind of charge for much of the season.
This season, the Crunch's success has been mostly marked by one single thing: contributions from almost everyone on the roster. Although the team's top line of Marchessault, Gourde, and Vladislav Namestnikov has been tearing up the AHL as of late, Syracuse has also needed everyone on the roster to participate in order to generate wins. When this happens, the team finds success. When this doesn't happen, the team fails dismally.
No where was this more evident than during this past week. Wednesday night, at the Rochester Americans, defenseman Slater Koekkoek got the Crunch off right by scoring at the 7:58 mark of the first period. But after his tally--his second of the season-the rest of the team disappeared. Rochester was allowed to put up four consecutive goals. The Crunch's forward unit was held scoreless. The team's power play went 0-for-8, the worst night yet this season for Syracuse's man advantage. Rochester skated off with the victory, handing the Crunch its third loss in a row.
Friday night, Crunch fans held their breath as Syracuse struggled again in the scoring department against Northeast Division rival Albany. Syracuse's shot output seemed to be at an all-time low--the Crunch managed just five shots on goal in the 1st, nine in the 2nd, and six in the 3rd against the Devils. Namestnikov, who tied with Angelidis for the team high with 4 shots each over the course of the game, was the only Crunch player to find the back of the twine through three periods of regulation and the seven-minute overtime period. Thankfully, recently-named AHL Goaltender of the Month Andrei Vasilevskiy did his part, only allowing one Albany goal in 36 total shots. The Crunch and the Devils would need a 10-round shootout before recent ECHL-call up Kevin Lynch put the game away with the only tally--for both teams!--of the shootout.
Vasilevskiy's performance was ridiculously strong, but it was a little concerning that Lynch was the only Crunch player who managed to score during the skills competition. However, contributions from a player like Lynch are exactly what the Crunch needs to keep rolling. Again, their success really does seem to depend on more contributions than just those in the top-two lines. The game snapped the team's three-game losing streak and helped to stabilize them in the standings again.
Saturday night, the Crunch was looking for another victory over conference rivals Binghamton. Going into Saturday, the Crunch had a 2-1 lead on the Senators in the season series between the two teams. The Crunch got off strong, with three goals in a row, one from Cody Kunyk and two from Mike Blunden. Both of Blunden's goals were power play markers. However, Syracuse then got back on their heels a little--okay, maybe a lot--and allowed the B-Sens to score four goals in a row. It would take some last-minute heroics and a hat trick from Blunden to even the score. Then, as the overtime period ticked down, Marchessault scored his ninth goal of the season with less than 20 seconds left in the extra hockey frame.
Marchessault's tally Saturday night was his first game-winning-goal of the season. The Crunch's five tallies were assisted by Joey Mormina, Eric Neilson, Marchessault, and Namestnikov. The Crunch needed everyone, from defensemen to 4th line forward, to be on their game. Although the hole it dug itself is concerning, the Crunch never would have dug themselves out of it if the whole team wasn't ready to pitch back in and contribute.
The theme here is to keep that kind of attitude going. The Crunch can go far if they keep that goal in mind.
Latest Stats for the Syracuse Crunch:
Regular season record (wins-losses-OT losses-SO losses): 22-9-4-0
Place in Eastern Conference (top 8 make the playoffs): 4th
Place in Northeast Division : 2nd
Top scorer: Jonathan Marchessault (9-22-31)
Top scoring defenseman : Nikita Nesterov (3-11-14)
Top scoring defenseman still on roster : Slater Koekkoek (2-8-10)
Top defenseman, +/- : Jean-Philippe Cote, +12
Top rookie: Joel Vermin (7-6-13)
Other transactions and player news:
-The Tampa Bay Lightning is apparently cutting ties with forward Jerome Samson. Before Christmas, Samson was loaded to Team Canada for the Spengler Cup. Samson is back on roster for the Crunch but hasn't played, and reports came down Sunday afternoon that Samson has been placed on waivers so that he can be released by the Lightning to play in Europe. Samson only has 8 points so far this season, which is about half his normal AHL production for this time of year.
Syracuse Crunch media highlights:
The Crunch's SoundCloud has been updated with a post-game interview with head coach Rob Zettler as well as the full radio broadcast of the games covered in this article.There are items in baseball that merit scrutiny for which data isn't easy to come by, at least not at traditional sites like Baseball-Reference.com or FanGraphs. I've always been interested in manager ejections but was never able to easily find data. On a whim, I did a Google search and saw the information had been right under my nose for quite some time -- going to the Manager section of Retrosheet yielded pure gold. In addition to traditional wins and losses, information on manager ejections is included as well. After taking a couple of days to gather and process the data, I found some very interesting information. This first table shows ejections among current managers (all data through the end of the 2013 season):
Manager Team From To G Eject Ron Gardenhire Minnesota 2002 2013 1953 68 Bruce Bochy San Francisco 1995 2013 3069 60 Clint Hurdle Pittsburgh 2002 2013 1653 38 Mike Scioscia LA Angels 2000 2013 2267 36 Terry Francona Cleveland 1997 2013 2115 35 Ned Yost Kansas City 2003 2013 1572 33 Joe Maddon Tampa Bay 1996 2013 1358 33 Terry Collins NY Mets 1994 2013 1372 29 Bob Melvin Oakland 2003 2013 1432 29 Buck Showalter Baltimore 1992 2013 2257 26 John Gibbons Toronto 2005 2013 781 25 Fredi Gonzalez Atlanta 2007 2013 1049 22 Joe Girardi NY Yankees 2006 2013 1143 21 Buddy Black San Diego 2007 2013 1144 18 Lloyd McClendon Seattle 2001 2013 784 18 Ron Washington Texas 2007 2012 1135 13 Don Mattingly LA Dodgers 2011 2013 495 12 Kirk Gibson Arizona 2011 2013 580 7 John Farrell Boston 2011 2013 495 7 Robin Ventura Chicago White Sox 2012 2013 322 7 Mike Matheny St. Louis 2012 2013 333 6 Ron Roenicke Milwaukee 2011 2013 486 5 Bo Porter Houston 2013 2013 162 3 Mike Redmond Miami 2013 2013 162 2 Walt Weiss Colorado 2013 2013 162 0
Not listed are new managers Brad Ausmus (Detroit), Bryan Price (Cincinnati), Rick Renteria (Chicago Cubs), Ryne Sandberg (Philadelphia) and Matt Williams (Washington). In general, the more games, the more ejections, but note the difference between Ron Gardenhire and Bruce Bochy when Bochy has mananged over 1100 more games.
The records go back to around 1900, and this table shows the managers with the most ejections:
Manager From To G Eject Pct Bobby Cox 1978 2010 4508 161 3.6% John McGraw 1899 1932 4769 116 2.4% Leo Durocher 1939 1973 3739 94 2.5% Earl Weaver 1968 1986 2541 94 3.7% Tony LaRussa 1979 2011 5094 87 1.7% Paul Richards 1951 1976 1837 81 4.4% Frankie Frisch 1933 1951 2246 81 3.6% Jim Leyland 1986 2013 3499 72 2.1% Ron Gardenhire 2002 2013 1953 68 3.5% Joe Torre 1977 2010 4329 66 1.5% Lou Piniella 1986 2010 3548 63 1.8% Clark Griffith 1901 1919 2918 61 2.1% Bruce Bochy 1995 2013 3069 60 2.0% Charlie Manuel 2000 2013 1826 52 2.8% Bill Rigney 1956 1976 2561 52 2.0% Mike Hargrove 1991 2007 2363 50 2.1% Sparky Anderson 1970 1995 4030 48 1.2% Billy Martin 1969 1988 2267 46 2.0% Ralph Houk 1961 1984 3157 45 1.4% Phil Garner 1992 2007 2040 44 2.2% Gene Mauch 1960 1987 3942 44 1.1% Tom Lasorda 1976 1996 3040 43 1.4% Bobby Valentine 1985 2012 2351 43 1.8% Jimmy Dykes 1934 1961 2962 42 1.4% Buddy Bell 1996 2007 1243 42 3.4% Jim Fregosi 1978 2000 2122 41 1.9% Dick Williams 1967 1988 3023 40 1.3%
Bobby Cox is well-known as having the most ejections, John McGraw represented an era when men were men, and Leo Durocher and Earl Weaver were well-known for their pugnaciousness, but with few exceptions, managers weren't thrown out with great frequency. Then again, when was the last time a football or basketball coach was ejected from a game?
The priceless part of the Retrosheet data is the explanations for some of the ejections:
Year Manager Team Reason 2010 Ned Yost Milwaukee Complaining about umpire's attitude towards Jason Kendall 1995 Phil Garner Milwaukee Fighting with White Sox manager Terry Bevington 1995 Terry Bevington Chicago White Sox Fighting with Brewers manager Phil Garner 1992 Tom Lasorda LA Dodgers Renewing past game's argument 1989 Doc Edwards Cleveland Ripped up first base and threw helmet 1988 Frank Robinson Baltimore Mimicking umpire (put hands on hips) 1986 Gene Michael Chicago Cubs Turning ump's cap around during argument 1980 Bobby Cox Atlanta Spitting in ump's face during argument 1980 Dave Bristol San Francisco Demanding lights be turned on 1979 Pat Corrales Texas Length of mound meeting 1941 Frankie Frisch Pittsburgh Bringing umbrella to protest weather 1937 Burleigh Grimes Brooklyn Profanity and abuse arguing ball/strike 1935 Charlie Dressen Cincinnati Trying to punch opposing pitcher 1914 John McGraw NY Giants Told Eason he should wear glasses 1897 Cap Anson Chicago White Stockings (Cubs) Fair/foul call (Called umpire a liar)
This last table is my attempt to quantify the reasons for the approximately 5,000 ejections:
Reason Ejections Calls on base 1342 1B 533 2B 327 3B 196 Home 286 Balls and strikes 1335 Interference 198 Balk 193 Fair/foul call 174 Checked swing 161 Bench jockeying 117 Disputed catch 100
Automation could eliminate many of these reasons, such as pitch calls and most calls on bases. It's not listed, but there were 29 ejections due to disputed home run calls, which also could be eliminated quite easily.
There are many quirks in baseball not present in other sports, such as the lack of a clock, a fixed manner in which offensive players are used and the latitude allowed to argue almost anything. Every time a manager walks on the field to argue a call he adds time to games that are already pushing three hours. It's far too early to tell, but instant replay will have an effect on ejections, but it can go either way. Perhaps the ability to review will lower an umpire's tolerance for "discussion" of the call and lead to more ejections. Likewise, perhaps the ability of managers to have someone telling them whether to argue a call or not could decrease arguments.
There was other information in the data -- in addition to the reason for a manager's ejection, the umpire was included as well. I'll return to that topic in the future, since there has been an incredible shift in ejections over time. This graph gives a clue and shows the percentage of games in which a manager was ejected since 1901:
Every ejection requires two participants, a manager and an umpire. When I return to the topic, I'll review this data from the standpoint of the umpires.
All data from Retrosheet. Any errors in compiling the data are the author's.
Scott Lindholm lives in Davenport, IA and is now headed out to the golf course despite being a terrible golfer. Follow him on Twitter @ScottLindholm.Brendan Rodgers, the Liverpool manager, believes the injuries to Daniel Sturridge cost his club a top four place and a trophy last season.
Amid the contentious remarks regarding the ‘hysteria’ surrounding the Merseyside club this season, Rodgers made a salient point about the availability of the England striker. Liverpool have won less than half their Premier League games played without Sturridge since he joined the club two and a half years ago.
The performance against Aston Villa on Saturday – when Sturridge scored twice in a 3-2 win - underlined how much the 26-year-old has been missed and how different the last 16 months would have been had he been available.
Rodgers agreed it cost Liverpool a Champions League place and a cup. “Yes. Because he is in that elite band of player that we’ve seen here,” said Rodgers.
“We’ve seen here the brand of football we can create when we have that talent available. He played a massive part in that, so if he stays fit and others come into the reckoning we can piece together an exciting team again. Those players make the difference.”
For Rodgers, losing Sturridge so soon after the sale of Luis Suarez is the equivalent of Barcelona being deprived of Lionel Messi and Suarez for a year, or Real Madrid being expected to perform to the same levels without Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
“We haven’t scored three goals since he (Sturridge) last started a game,” said Rodgers.
“He gives you a big opportunity to win games and compete at the top end of the table. He is a fantastic talent and now the job is hopefully he can stay fit. It's not rocket science.”
The statistics underline the point.
How Sturridge makes the difference
Selection Win percentage With Sturridge 61.4 Without Sturridge 46.5
Since Sturridge joined Liverpool in January 2013, his side has won 61 per cent of the fixtures in which he has played. In fact, in his 57 league appearances he has been on the losing side just eight times. Most of those occasions he was alongside Suarez.
Contrast this to Liverpool without the 26-year-old.
Liverpool have won just 20 of their 43 league games when Sturridge was injured, equating to a win rate of 46.5 per cent. The Suarez and Sturridge partnership yielded such a goalscoring rate, Liverpool struck 131 goals in the England man’s 57 appearances. In the 43 fixtures he has not played, they’ve managed just 66.
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Sturridge's return offers Rodgers hope, but the Merseyside derby will offer a greater clue as to whether Liverpool have rediscovered their form. They must face Sion of Switzerland in the Europa League first.
Rodgers has a selection dilemma. Sturridge’s importance could see him rested again, but Danny Ings has been just as important in the last few fixtures.LIVERMORE, California – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have developed an efficient method to measure residual stress in metal parts produced by powder-bed fusion additive manufacturing.
This 3D printing process produces metal parts layer by layer using a high-energy laser beam to fuse metal powder particles. When each layer is complete, the build platform moves downward by the thickness of one layer, and a new powder layer is spread on the previous layer.
While this process is able to produce quality parts and components, residual stress is a major problem during the fabrication process. That’s because large temperature changes near the last melt spot -- rapid heating and cooling -- and the repetition of this process result in localized expansion and contraction, factors that cause residual stress.
Aside from their potential impact on mechanical performance and structural integrity, residual stress may cause distortions during processing resulting in a loss of net shape, detachment from support structures and, potentially, the failure of additively manufactured (AM) parts and components.
An LLNL research team, led by engineer Amanda Wu, has developed an accurate residual stress measurement method that combines traditional stress-relieving methods (destructive analysis) with modern technology: digital image correlation (DIC). This process is able to provide fast and accurate measurements of surface-level residual stresses in AM parts.
The team used DIC to produce a set of quantified residual stress data for AM, exploring laser parameters. DIC is a cost-effective, image analysis method in which a dual camera setup is used to photograph an AM part once before it’s removed from the build plate for analysis and once after. The part is imaged, removed and then re-imaged to measure the external residual stress.
In a part with no residual stresses, the two sections should fit together perfectly and no surface distortion will occur. In AM parts, residual stresses cause the parts to distort close to the cut interface. The deformation is measured by digitally comparing images of the parts or components before and after removal. A black and white speckle pattern is applied to the AM parts so that the images can be fed into a software program that produces digital illustrations of high to low distortion areas on the part’s surface.
In order to validate their results from DIC, the team collaborated with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to perform residual stress tests using a method known as neutron diffraction (ND). This technique, performed by LANL researcher Donald Brown, measures residual stresses deep within a material by detecting the diffraction of an incident neutron beam. The diffracted beam of neutrons enables the detection of changes in atomic lattice spacing due to stress.
Although it’s highly accurate, ND is rarely used to measure residual stress because there are only three federal research labs in the U.S. -- LANL being one of them -- that have the high-energy neutron source required for this analysis.
The LLNL team’s DIC results were validated by the ND experiments, showing that DIC is a reliable way to measure residual stress in powder-bed fusion AM parts.
Their findings were the first to provide quantitative data showing internal residual stress distributions in AM parts as a function of laser power and speed. The team demonstrated that reducing the laser scan vector length instead of using a continuous laser scan regulates temperature changes during processing to reduce residual stress. Furthermore, the results show that rotating the laser scan vector relative to the AM part’s largest dimension also helps reduce residual stress. The team’s results confirm qualitative data from other researchers that reached the same conclusion.
By using DIC, the team was able to produce reliable quantitative data that will enable AM researchers to optimally calibrate process parameters to reduce residual stress during fabrication. Laser settings (power and speed) and scanning parameters (pattern, orientation angle and overlaps) can be adjusted to produce more reliable parts. Furthermore, DIC allowed the Lawrence Livermore team to evaluate the coupled effects of laser power and speed, and to observe a potentially beneficial effect of subsurface layer heating on residual stress development.
“We took time to do a systematic study of residual stresses that allowed us to measure things that were not quantified before,” Wu said. “Being able to calibrate our AM parameters for residual stress minimization is critical.”
LLNL’s findings eventually will be used to help qualify properties of metal parts built using the powder-bed fusion AM process. The team’s research helps build on other qualification processes designed at LLNL to improve quality and performance of 3D printed parts and components.
Wu and her colleagues are part of LLNL’s Accelerated Certification of Additively Manufactured Metals (ACAMM) Strategic Initiative. The other members of the Lawrence Livermore team include Wayne King, Gilbert Gallegos and Mukul Kumar.
The team’s results were reported in an article titled “An Experimental Investigation Into Additive Manufacturing-Induced Residual Stresses in 316L Stainless Steel” that was recently published in the journal, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions.Image copyright EPA Image caption A week ago Mr Vaino (right) replaced Sergei Ivanov (left), an old KGB colleague of Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin's new chief of staff Anton Vaino has reached the top shrouded in mystery.
He does not appear to have given any press interviews in his past career, and his official biography reveals little, beyond a steady rise over many years of service to the Kremlin.
Before his Kremlin promotion the Estonian-born high flyer served as a diplomat, including a stint at the Tokyo embassy.
But an investigation by BBC Russian into Mr Vaino's academic work reveals intriguing details about him and may offer clues about his worldview.
Like many officials of his generation, reports say he has a master's degree in economics and has contributed to various scientific publications.
In 2012 an article appeared in a specialist journal called Economics and Law written by an "AE Vaino" - widely believed to be one and the same person as Mr Putin's new chief of staff.
It was titled "The capitalisation of the future".
Levers of power
Written in a dense academic prose - which many Russian commentators this week said they found almost impossible to understand - and accompanied by even more complex charts and diagrams, the article outlines new ways of organising and understanding society.
Image caption Russians are scratching their heads over this diagram in Mr Vaino's article (Moscow Times translation)
Mr Vaino argues that the economy and society in general have become too complex to manage by traditional means. Governments need to seek new ways of regulating and controlling them.
The article describes a new device called a "nooscope" which, it says, can tap into global consciousness and "detect and register changes in the biosphere and in human activity".
The "nooscope" bewildered many in Russia this week. Does the device really exist, they asked. What does it actually do? Is Mr Vaino really serious?
BBC Russian tracked down Viktor Sarayev, an award-winning economist and businessman who has co-authored a number of articles with Mr Vaino.
He described the nooscope as "a device that scans transactions between people, things and money", and claimed it was an invention of parallel significance to the telescope and the microscope.
But he was less forthcoming about whether it actually existed, or was still under development.
'Utopian idea'
Leading Russian academics meanwhile expressed deep scepticism about the theories and solutions propounded by Mr Vaino and his collaborators.
"There isn't any science in this," says Simon Kordonsky, a philosophy professor at Moscow's Higher School of Economics.
He dismissed the article as indulging in "mythological" hypotheses about the future which, he said, contrasted with the genuinely progressive ideas explored by the first generation of Russian reforming economists in the early post-Soviet years.
"If we evaluate this article by its meaning, then without doubt it's a cause for concern," says another philosopher from the same institute, Prof Vitaly Kourennoy.
"It represents a utopian idea which has no connection to science. It's propounding some kind of all-embracing system of government that has to be enforced by top officials."
Viewed from this perspective however, Mr Vaino's theories perhaps begin to make more sense.
They could actually be seen as part of a pattern that has emerged in Russian politics over the past decade, as President Putin has sought to reassert control after the chaos of the early 1990s.
Kremlin spin doctors
Some observers also draw parallels with the approach of one of Mr Vaino's predecessors - former presidential adviser and deputy prime minister Vladislav Surkov |
luwalia, former head of a government committee on urban infrastructure.
Each kilometer of a single-lane tar road can consume one ton of plastic waste, and the plastic can double or even triple the life of the road, said the economist in a paper published on Wednesday with Almitra Patel, a solid waste management expert.
India produces about 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste daily, of which about 9,000 tonnes is recycled. The remainder clutters landfills and clogs drains, and is blamed for urban flooding.
A technology developed by Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a chemistry professor at Thiagarajar College of Engineering in the southern city of Madurai, uses finely shredded plastic waste that is added to heated bitumen. This mix is poured over stones.
The plastic waste can include anything from sweet wrappers to shopping bags. The mix cuts the quantity of bitumen required by 10 percent, Vasudevan said.
He developed the technology in 2002 and first built a plastic road in his college before approaching state officials.
“We spend so much on building roads that develop potholes and need rebuilding in no time,” Vasudevan told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“The road I built is still intact - there are no potholes, no cracks. That is proof of its strength and durability, plus it uses waste plastic that otherwise litters streets and rivers.”
At least 11 states, including Vasudevan’s home state of Tamil Nadu, have used the technology to build more than 100,000 km of roads, he said.
One student took the technology back to Bhutan.
In 2015, the Indian government made it mandatory to use waste plastic in building most highways. But some states have been slow to embrace the technology, citing difficulties in segregating the plastic and bringing contractors on board.
The new infrastructure commitment gives fresh impetus, Vasudevan said.
“We are going to be generating waste plastic, and we are going to be building roads for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Why not use the method that does away with the plastic waste and makes the roads cheaper, durable and safer?”SACRAMENTO — A judge ruled Friday that California regulators violated some farmers’ rights by telling them to stop diverting from rivers and streams, but the state said it can still punish those who illegally take water during the drought.
The temporary restraining order by Judge Shelleyanne Chang of Sacramento Superior Court blocked the state from punishing farmers who ignored a state notice issued earlier this year to stop diverting water. The ruling applies to dozens of farmers in the Central Valley and the irrigation districts serving them.
The two sides had divergent views of what the ruling meant, with lawyers for the farmers suggesting it threw all the state’s cutbacks into question, while the state said it only meant it needed to tweak its notices.
Residents, farmers and businesses across California have endured water restrictions because of the state’s four-year dry spell. Thousands have received so-called curtailment notices in the last year, but only about a third responded to confirm they stopped taking water. The judge ruled Friday that the water board’s notices improperly told districts and landowners with water rights to stop taking water without holding a hearing first.My santa was nice enough to not only get me an awesome Thai Kitchen cookbook, but they also included a package of brown rice pad Thai noodles, a bottle of fish sauce and bottles of red and green curry paste, everything I need to start trying this book out. I'm really excited to try out so many delicious sounding recipes in this book. The Thai restaurant I was depending on for sustenance just closed down this month so this was perfect timing. The recipes in the book look great, not too time consuming or overly complicated, a perfect choice! Thank you very much Santa! You really have this gift giving thing figured out. I will update with some food pics when I've cooked a few meals next week. Thanks again!It's easy to hate your credit card company, but not so much when they replace your broken stuff.
Redditor MaskedKoala, a Capital One customer, was having keyboard issues. Many websites, especially financial institutions, disable users' ability to copy and paste text into certain fields, such as usernames and passwords. The security measure can be quite annoying, especially if your account number is a long list of random numbers, but for MaskedKoala, the feature made it nearly impossible to pay his bill online.
See also: Reddit Shows Redditors How to Reddit
MaskedKoala had suffered the common misfortune of an "orange juice incident" (we've all been there), which left the number "2" key on his keyboard not working properly. Although aggravating, living with a busted keyboard is possible on most of the web because you can copy and paste the text your keyboard is incapable of producing — except on some secure websites.
So when MaskedKoala complained to Capital One that he was unable to pay his credit card bill because he couldn't paste a "2" into his account field, they sent him a new Apple keyboard.
After he posted his story to the subreddit r/pics, Redditors accused MaskedKoala of lying, while others backed him up, saying that this kindness was common practice for the company.
Capital One confirmed with Mashable that the company did send their customer a new keyboard, and added: "We encourage our agents to follow up on customer conversations in unexpected, personalized and creative ways. They look for and act on opportunities to practice random acts of kindness for our customers."
Unfortunately, new keyboards will not fix your bad credit score.The spin we’re going to start hearing now, in the wake of Thursday night’s bombshell New York Times and Washington Post stories, is that what Trump & Co. are about to do to attempt to destroy Robert Mueller’s credibility is no different from what Bill Clinton and his team did to Ken Starr 20 years ago.
The Washington Post quotes one lawyer involved in the case calling Mueller’s probe “Ken Starr times 1,000,” while The Times draws out the comparison: “By building files on Mr. Mueller’s team, the Trump administration is following in the footsteps of the Clinton White House, which openly challenged Mr. Starr and criticized what Mr. Clinton’s aides saw as a political witch hunt.”
And if you stay on the most superficial level possible, there is one similarity: After news broke in January 1998 that Clinton had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, his people, led by James Carville, went on a public rampage against the prosecutor that spring and summer to try and win the battle of public opinion against him. Which they did, by roughly 50 or 60 percentage points—Clinton polled in the 60s or 70s throughout the saga, while Starr’s approval numbers just cracked 10 percent.
But that’s not what this is about. What this is about is a lie machine that’s about to crank up that has to be pre-butted. So here we go. Here are three big differences between the two situations (and there are more).
1. First of all, the actual correct comparison is not between Mueller and Starr, but Mueller and Robert Fiske. Who? Fiske was the special prosecutor originally named by Janet Reno to investigate the Clintons’ investment in the Whitewater land-development deal. In January 1994, a year into Clinton’s tenure, Reno named Fiske as the special prosecutor to look into Whitewater (and the suicide of White House aide Vince Foster, which many of the same people who today defend Trump had spun into some insane conspiracy, e.g., Hillary had him snuffed out because he knew too much, etc.).
For that situation to be parallel to this one, Clinton would had to have denounced and threatened Fiske shortly after his appointment. No such thing happened. Clinton didn’t like it, but he certainly didn’t say anything inappropriate in public.
Oh and by the way: Fiske was a Republican. I mean, can you imagine if Reno had appointed a Democrat? Republicans would have howled that the fix was in. But in the current case, deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein appointed a Republican (Mueller) to investigate a Republican president, and Democrats have done nothing but praise Mueller.
2. Speaking of which, in stark contrast to Mueller, Starr’s appointment was drenched in partisan controversy from the start. This is a little complicated to explain and thus wouldn’t make for a good TV sound bite, but it’s a crucial difference. Bear with me.
At the time Fiske’s probe was just getting underway, President Clinton was also under pressure to sign a new independent counsel law (a previous one had expired). He did so. Catch: Under the terms of the law, authority for appointing said counsel transferred from the attorney general to a panel of the D.C. circuit court. That three-judge panel consisted of two highly ideological movement conservatives, David Sentelle and Laurence Silberman.
In June 1994, Fiske released a report—the same day Clinton signed the new independent counsel law—finding that Foster’s suicide was just that. This wasn’t what the right wanted to hear. A few weeks later, the three-judge panel fired Fiske and replaced him with Starr. This was a highly partisan controversy from the start. But even so, Clinton himself said nothing in appropriate.
3. Starr spent three years leaking stuff to friendly reporters. Starr and his lieutenants always denied that they were the source of leaks, and maybe they built some buffer between themselves and the reporters in question so that that was technically true. But there was only one place a lot of the Whitewater stories of 1995, 1996, and 1997 could have been coming from. These leaks were likely illegal. We’ve seen no comparable leaks from Mueller.
That’s three years—three years of slanted and often untrue leaks (Hillary was about to be indicted and so on). Pre-Lewinsky, the Clinton White House pushed back a little with some leaks about Starr’s tactics, but certainly Clinton himself never went after Starr publicly until much later, in August 1998, after Starr made Clinton’s grand jury testimony from earlier that year public—itself a highly dubious thing for a prosecutor to do.
There are many more differences. Clinton’s White House never said of Fiske or Starr the outrageous thing that Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday, as quoted in the Times article: “The president’s making it clear that the special counsel should not move outside the scope of the investigation.”
What? WHAT?? When did that become for a president to say? We’ve lived through six months of assertions and arguments that make us gasp, laugh, and cry all at the same time, but asserting that the person being investigated is allowed to set the parameters of the investigation or else he’ll axe the investigator is genuinely one of the most abominable yet.
What Starr did really was a witch hunt. After three and half years, he had nothing, and then lo and behold he learned of a presidential infidelity from a group of right-wing lawyers (one of whom, George Conway, would later marry Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, now the second-biggest liar in Washington) who convinced Starr’s prosecutors they could get Clinton to lie about it under oath.
What Mueller is doing is undertaking an obviously legitimate investigation. Into something that’s a lot graver than extramarital oral sex, by the way.
Starr was a total partisan (and a total “Christian” hypocrite, as his later disgrace at Baylor reminded us). Mueller is a person who’s taken pains over his career to be above partisanship and who is respected across the spectrum. There’s no comparison between the character of the two men or the probes they’re overseeing. The only question is which Republicans will be willing to say it.(AP) UNITED NATIONS -- The U.S. delegation walked out of the U.N. speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday after he said some in the world have speculated that Americans were actually behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks, staged in an attempt to assure Israel's survival. (Scroll down for video.)
He did not explain the logic of that statement that was made as he attacked the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ahmadinejad said there were three theories about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks:
_ That a "powerful and complex terrorist group" penetrated U.S. intelligence and defenses.
_ "That some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view."
The Americans stood and walked out without listening to the third theory that the attack was the work of "a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation."
Mark Kornblau, spokesman of the U.S. Mission to the world body, issued a statement within moments of Ahmadinejad's attack.
"Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people," he said, "Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable."
WATCH: AHMADINEJAD'S SPEECH
The Iranian leader spoke of threats to burn the Quran by a small American church in Florida to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Although that church backed down, several copycat burnings were posted on the Internet and broadcast in the Muslim world.
"Very recently the world witnessed the ugly and inhumane act of burning the holy Quran," Ahmadinejad said.
He briefly touch on the four sets of sanctions imposed on his country by the United Nations over Tehran's refusal stop enriching uranium and to prove Iran is not trying to build an atomic bomb.
Some members of the Security Council have "equated nuclear energy with nuclear bombs," Ahmadinejad said.
He accused the United States of building up its nuclear arsenal instead of dismantling it and reiterated his call for a nuclear-free world.
"The nuclear bomb is the worst inhumane weapon and which must totally be eliminated. The NPT (Nonproliferation Treaty) prohibits its development and stockpiling and calls for nuclear disarmament," the Iranian president said.NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 29: Jonathan Capehart attends the 17th Annual National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association New York benefit at the Mitchell Gold & Bob Williams SoHo Store on March 29, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)
Earlier this week, The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart admitted he was wrong -- a rare thing in the world of journalism, where bravado usually trumps bravery. After the Justice Department released its Ferguson report, which found that Michael Brown did not surrender to police officer Darren Wilson, Capehart penned an op-ed declaring that "'Hands Up, Don’t Shoot' was a lie."
"The popular hands-up storyline, which isn't corroborated by ballistic and DNA evidence and multiple witness statements, was perpetuated by Witness 101," Capehart conceded. "In fact, just about everything said to the media by Witness 101, whom we all know as Dorian Johnson, the friend with Brown that day, was not supported by the evidence and other witness statements."
Unsurprisingly, there’s been a blowback, with a lot of the comments declaring Capehart, who is black, of racial betrayal. He addressed the response to his piece while guest-hosting Hardball on MSNBC.
"After my piece... folks used Twitter and Facebook to dismember my personhood," Capehart said. "Fellow African-Americans called me a sellout or 'house negro.' Others said I did it because I wanted 'white people to like me' or I did it for the money. No I didn't. I did it because it was the right thing to do."
"Dismember my personhood"? Poor word choice, but point taken. A lot of good has come of the Ferguson protests, not the least of which is the Justice Department's report, which documented widespread, institutionalized racial bias in the Ferguson, Missouri police operation -- the first step toward reform. The incident forced uncomfortable, much-needed discussions about race across the country, as well as online and on television.
But in many ways Ferguson has been a PR disaster, which suggests one should be wary whenever a news story becomes a cause. The DOJ’s findings have provided fodder for some on the right to dismiss the entire conversation about racial bias in policing (not that they weren't doing that before it was released). By debunking the "hands up, don’t shoot" story line, the report has served to undermine the protest movement it sparked.
Once there's an ideological investment in a narrative, it also makes it harder for the media to uncover the truth, or at least report it without being accused of bias. Capehart is the case in point.Getty Images
Panthers receiver Steve Smith recently boasted that he ruined the career for former NFL cornerback Fred Smoot.
Smoot, who rarely chooses to say nothing, has responded to Smith.
“I think he’s a bully,” Smoot said regarding Smith, on 106.7 The Fan in D.C. “Actually, I think he’s a weak bully at that. And I’ll be honest with that. I don’t care about saying that. He’s Steve Incognito to me. I call him Steve ‘Pinocchio’ Smith, cause he’s a liar. He went on national TV and lied. He’s a liar.”
Smooth had more. A lot more.
“I can say this about Steve Smith, and I can say this, my worst day in the NFL, he had a part in,” Smoot said, in reference to a 2005 game between the Vikings and Panthers. “He’s the guy that beat me. But I don’t say he beat me. [Quarterback Jake] Delhomme threw great passes all day long, and beat me. I had Ted Cottrell as a defensive coordinator call Cover Three all day, and got me beat. So it’s fine, I don’t make excuses. He beat me. But no, you didn’t ruin my career, and yes, I’m happy and I’m still smiling, and I’m good, and I’m fine Steve Smith. So don’t worry about it, Steve Incognito. You’re so soft.”
And there was even more.
“He’s soft!” Smoot exclaimed. “I’ve seen him jump on Ken Lucas. Ken Lucas, anybody will tell you about Ken Lucas.... Only reason [Smith] wants to fight people during a game, is because we got helmets on, we got shoulder pads on, and somebody’s gonna rush and break it up. Referee, teammate, it doesn’t matter.
“Put it like this, if I’m in a dark alley and I’m gonna fight a couple guys, I don’t want Steve Smith with me. He’s nothing but a talker, he’s soft. Come to Mississippi with that. That’s what you do. You come to Mississippi and we’ll teach you a couple lessons out there. We’ll show you how to be tough. He’s not tough. He wants to fight everybody in front of everybody, when he knows everybody’s gonna break the fight up.”
And the ball is now back in Smith’s court. We have a feeling he’ll smack is back over the net.As expected from this year’s iPhone keynote, Apple has announced a new member of their internally developed family of ARM SoCs.
The latest SoC, dubbed A8, is Apple’s first SoC built on the 20nm process, and among the first SoCs overall to be built on this process. Apple notes that it has 2 billion transistors and is 13% smaller than the A7, which would give it upwards of twice as many transistors as the A7 and would put the die size at about 89mm2.
Image courtesy The Verge
From a performance perspective Apple is promising 25% faster CPU performance than A7. As is usually the case with Apple, they aren’t talking about the underlying CPU core – though this is a problem we’re working to rectify – so it remains to be seen how much of this is due to CPU architectural upgrades and how much is from clockspeed improvements afforded by the 20nm process. Apple just introduced their 64bit Cyclone core last year, so it stands to reason that just a year later and with the transition to 64bit already completed, A8 packs a CPU that is similar to Cyclone.
Apple SoC Evolution CPU Perf GPU Perf Die Size Transistors Process A5 ~13x ~20x 122m2 <1B 45nm A6 ~26x ~34x 97mm2 <1B 32nm A7 40x 56x 102mm2 >1B 28nm A8 50x 84x 89mm2 ~2B 20nm
Meanwhile Apple is being even less specific about the GPU, but from their published baseline performance comparisons against the iPhone 1, the A8 is said to be 84x faster on graphics. This compares to a published figure of 56x for the A7, which implies that the A8’s GPU is 1.5x faster than the A7’s. Given Apple’s conservative stance on clockspeeds for power purposes and the die space gains from the 20nm process, it seems likely that Apple has upgraded from a 4 core PowerVR GPU to a 6 core PowerVR GPU, likely the flagship GX6650, which would account for the 50% performance gain right there.
Finally, Apple notes that the A8 is designed to be 50% more energy efficient than the A7. Some of these efficiency gains would come from gains due the 20nm process, however this large of a gain would indicate that Apple has done additional work at the architectural level to improve efficiency, as smaller manufacturing nodes alone do not see these kinds of gains.
Update: We have posted our initial A8 analysis hereRyan Getzlaf was lost in the Duncan Keith hoopla of Chicago’s Game 6 5-2 win over the Ducks.
He didn’t make excuses. He came out and said it … that he was a disaster that game
"It started with me," Getzlaf said. "I was terrible tonight and that's on me. I've got to be better and calm our group down as we go."
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Getzlaf’s line was a minus-9 total. His puck possession numbers were solid that game via Naturalstattrick – a CF% of 56.67 5-on-5, but his line just seemed to be shut down – matched up against the two-headed monster of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews on Chicago’s first group. Chicago coach Joel Quenneville reunited the two stars at the end of Game 5, and exploited the match up in Game 6, getting them away from Ryan Kesler.
Via NHL.com
"I got a little carried away trying to make plays every time I was on the ice instead of just making the right play and I think it carried over to our group somewhat," Getzlaf said. "We got it going in the second half and had some opportunities.
I can't do a whole lot in [the dressing room]. I've got to be better on the ice. It doesn't matter what I say if I go out and play like that. That's on me to be ready to play and make better plays with the puck."
There’s a reason why Toews, a ridiculously elite center, is considered the preeminent leader in hockey, in spite of somehow never winning the Mark Messier leadership award, selected by Mark Messier and sponsored by a tire company.
Beyond the obvious points and hits and top plays, he’s consistent. You know what you’re going to get out of him. And if he’s having an off game, he always seems to find ways to stay effective.
Story continues
Does Getzlaf have the same genetic makeup? So far, his talented Ducks teams with him as captain and Bruce Boudreau as coach have failed to go further in the playoffs than expected. They lost to underdog Detroit in the first-round in 2013. They were the top seed in the West in 2014 and blew a 3-2 series lead to the Los Angeles Kings.
This is Getzlaf’s chance to show he belongs in the pantheon of great Western Conference centers of this generation, along with Toews and Anze Kopitar.
He does have a Stanley Cup, won in 2007, and two gold medals from the 2010 and 2014 Olympics. But he wasn’t ‘the’ guy on any of those teams. With all the old guard Ducks finally retired (cough, Teemu, cough), this is Getzlaf’s team.
He has proved able so far this postseason showing his Messier leadership-like cred (and head) in the process. Against the Blackhawks he had taken it upon himself to pound Chicago’s D, using his 6-foot-4 frame to deliver checks to wear out the beleaguered group. He had also gotten his points, seven assists in six games. Throughout the postseason, he had yet to be a minus, for what it’s worth.
We’re all entitled to stinkers – even in the playoffs. To maintain an incredible type of concentration and focus for close to two months is difficult.
“I don't think it was one of his better games,” Boudreau said. “At the same time, there's more than one guy on our team. I mean, it's great that he wants to shoulder the blame. But I think there's blame, if you want to use that word, to go around. One thing when he plays bad one night, he usually plays good the next.”
To win a Stanley Cup, teams have to overcome something – generally, except if you’re the 2012 Los Angeles Kings.
Getzlaf wasn’t good in Game 6, he knew it, he owned it. That’s step one. Step two? Unleash hell in Game 7.
If he doesn’t … Mess, we’re waiting for your choice.
- - - - - - -
Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
MORE FROM YAHOO HOCKEYFirst-person open-world "surrealist survival horror" game Grave is headed to Xbox One, developer Broken Window Studios announced on the game's Kickstarter page recently. Microsoft has approved the company for its independent publishing program, ID@Xbox, and the desert-themed Grave is "officially approved to launch on Xbox One," the studio said.
The game's Kickstarter campaign has attracted just $9,349 of its $30,000 goal, though there's still 13 days to go. Grave for Xbox One is expected to launch simultaneously with the PC, Mac, and Linux versions in early 2015. You can get an Xbox One version of Grave if you have backed the project at $25 or above.
Haven't heard of Grave? Here's the official description from Broken Window Studios. "Grave is an open-world, surrealist survival horror experience where light is your only weapon in a constantly changing reality."
It was previously announced that the game would use the virtual reality headset Oculus Rift, which the company says allows for the "truest form of what a first-person adventure game can be." The Xbox One does not support the Oculus right now, so VR functionality is likely only in the works for the PC version of Grave.
Could Grave come to other console platforms, like potentially the PlayStation 4? "We can't make any additional console announcements at this time, but we are actively pursuing additional consoles and will make announcements as we are able," the studio said.
Overall, Broken Window Studios' main ambition for Grave it is "to scare the living crap out of players. My personal goal is to give people nightmares," a developer says in the Kickstarter pitch video below. You can read more about Grave at its Kickstarter page and you can even download a demo of the game today for PC.Photo by Matt Lief Anderson
Wilco's Jeff Tweedy is working on what Rolling Stone reports will be a "funny, disarming, and honest" memoir about his trajectory as a musician. Reportedly, the book will combine personal and professional stories from his career, insights into his relationships with other musicians, and his perspective on the current state of the music industry. The memoir does not yet have a title or a release date, but the Associated Press reports that it will be published by Dutton, an arm of Penguin Random House.
Rolling Stone quotes Tweedy:
"I have stories to tell, and I'd like for this book to be a combination of those stories about my experiences, and maybe a window into one person's creative process, as well as some of what I've seen working with other artists in my current and former bands, in the studio, on the road, in my basement with my sons and more."
Listen to Tweedy and Pitchfork editor-in-chief Mark Richardson's chat in our new podcast series, Pitchfork Conversations.
Watch Wilco in an episode of Pitchfork.tv's "Over/Under":You probably take it for granted while dining on sushi or dumplings, but that iconic Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser has been in production since 1961. And as the New York Times' Leslie Camhi discovered, it was actually developed by Kenji Ekuan, a Japanese Navy sailor former naval academy student who dedicated his life to design when he left the service.
As the story goes, Kenji Ekuan's younger sister was killed by the Hiroshima atomic blast, while radiation sickness took his father's life a year later. And after seeing the devastation left by the bomb while riding the train home one day, he decided to dedicate his life to making and designing things. Over his 60 year career he was responsible for many recognizable designs, but none more ubiquitous or iconic than the Kikkoman soy sauce bottle.
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Its unique shape took three years and over a hundred prototypes to perfect, but the teardrop design and dripless spout have become a staple of restaurant condiments all around the world. Over 300 million of the bottles have been sold since the design was first introduced, and besides the occasional special edition versions to commemorate anniversaries and other occasions, the bottle's design hasn't changed over the past 50 years. So the next time you're drowning a California roll, stop and remember that you're also enjoying a piece of history with your meal. [New York Times]
Image by Creative Tools/WikipediaThe issue of men being forced to have sex with women isn’t one that receives much, if any, attention.
These crimes, also known as “forced-to-penetrate” or “compelled penetration” cases, occur when a man is forced to penetrate, with his penis, a woman’s vagina, anus, or mouth. It is not recognised as rape under the law. In fact, the law on rape is defined in such a way that only men are recognised as principal offenders. Though there have been a handful of women convicted of rape, they have been convicted as accomplices, not principals.
It is an under-reported crime that some may not even be aware happens. In the US, a study of 16,500 adults in 2010 found that approximately one in 21 men (4.8%) reported being “made to penetrate” someone else during their lifetime, with 79.2% of cases involving a female perpetrator. There are no statistics about this sexual offence in the UK.
At present, forced-to-penetrate cases can only be prosecuted in the UK as sexual assault or “causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent”. These are less “serious” sexual offences within the legal framework, and are heard in either the Crown or Magistrates Courts, where custodial sentencing is capped at 12 months. The offence of rape, meanwhile, can only be heard in the Crown Court and has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Victims speak out
It is often assumed that men are unable to maintain an erection unless they are sexually aroused. But research has consistently highlighted that this is simply a physiological response and does not reflect sexual arousal, or indeed, indicate consent. Knowing this fact makes it easier to see how compelled penetration can occur.
The reality of this form of sexual violence is further reinforced by the range of strategies used by women who act in this way towards men. I have recently led the first research project in the UK to look at the experiences of men who have been forced-to-penetrate women. 154 men participated in an online survey, answering questions about their most recent compelled penetration experiences. The men reported experiencing threats, blackmail, and coercion (33.3%), having their intoxication taken advantage of (26.8%), and the use and threats of force (19.6%), among others.
While most of the men (70.6%) who took part in the survey said that they did not have any physical injuries as a result of what had happened, the vast majority (95%) indicated experiencing varying degrees of emotional harm. The men were asked to rate the emotional and psychological effect that the forced-to-penetrate experience had on them from one (no negative impact), to 10 (severe negative impact). The average impact was six, but 10 (a severe negative emotional impact) was chosen most frequently by participants (20.9%).
In addition, I found that a huge majority of participants did not go to the police: only 1.7% of men reported the crime. In none of these instances was the case taken to court. Giving reasons for not going to the authorities, the men explained that they felt they would not be believed by the police, or that what happened to them would not be viewed as a crime, and so it was pointless reporting it even if they wanted to.
Case for reform
Although a relatively small sample of participants were involved in my study, based on their reports it is clear that consideration needs to be given to reforming the law on rape. Forced-to-penetrate cases need to either be recognised as the crime of rape, or as a new offence which is akin to rape but specifically focused on this form of sexual violence.
Changing the law so that compelled penetration is made a more serious offence would finally recognise the high frequency of emotional harm experienced by men who are victims of this crime. In addition, it could hopefully encourage more men to come forward, with the belief that the law and criminal justice system would take them seriously, and deal with their complaints appropriately.
Perhaps the most compelling justification for reform relates to how the men labelled what has happened to them. In my research study, “rape” was the most frequently used term: 29.7% of men explained their experience in this way. It is important that sexual violence is correctly labelled in law so that, again, victims/survivors feel that their experience is taken seriously. Recognising this crime more clearly in law would mean that victims know there is an opportunity for justice both to be done and to be seen to be done.
In making calls for consideration of law reform in this area, I am in no way suggesting that attention or resources should be moved away from women who experience sexual violence. Rather, I am hoping that the realities of all victims/survivors of sexual violence can be recognised and dealt with appropriately by the criminal law, regardless of the gender of the victim or the perpetrator.It’s not unusual for central banks with economies to revive to let their interest rates go negative in “real” terms by keeping them below the rate of inflation. The eurozone, the US and the UK have done so for long periods since 2008 to combat financial crisis and recession.
However the European Central Bank (ECB) has become the first in a major currency zone to set a negative “nominal” interest rate. It is charging commercial banks for the funds they deposit overnight instead of paying them. This move shows the seriousness of the risk that the eurozone will fall back into recession and the limited options it allows (by design) for any other means of promoting recovery.
The negative borrowing rate (now a 0.1% charge) on money deposited by banks is designed to make them lend the money instead of keeping it in reserve. This is intended to restore eurozone economic growth by encouraging more lending for “real” investment.
More growth certainly is needed. Germany and Spain are now the only big Euro countries sustaining an upturn. GDP growth for the zone as a whole was a fragile 0.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2014 and the IMF forecasts the eurozone’s full-year growth at 1.2%, compared with 2.8% for the US and 2.9% for the UK.
If charging banks for not lending can’t revive the eurozone’s “real” investment and credit growth, the ECB’s new 0.15% benchmark rate (below the 0.25% of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England) may at least weaken the Euro against other currencies, as funds flow out to find higher returns elsewhere. The demand boost from a lower exchange rate, promoting Eurozone exports and import-substitution, might give businesses the necessary kick-start.
Deflation danger
The ECB has been prompted to take this action by the danger of deflation – falling prices – and its negative implications for the already faltering recovery. Four of eighteen member states saw consumer prices fall in April, dropping the eurozone’s average price rise for the past 12 months to just 1%.
Prolonged price falls can undermine firms’ capital investment by raising the real interest rate – the gap between nominal interest and inflation. If capital can earn more while sat in a bank than invested in machines or fields, why invest? If prices are going to fall, why buy now? Because employees don’t rush to accept wage cuts when the cost of living falls, deflation can also hit businesses by raising their labour costs in real terms.
Impending deflation is a symptom of the eurozone’s intractable malaise. Firms are cutting prices in a desperate attempt to generate more sales when investment is low, household spending squeezed by ongoing austerity measures, and major trade partners still slow-growing. But the symptom will become an additional cause of “Eurosclerosis” unless mild inflation can be rekindled. That’s not an easy task for central banks whose usual struggle is to bring inflation down.
Reductions of last resort
While the UK and US can keep interest rates just above zero, the ECB has resorted to negative rates because of its unusually severe recession risk. That risk reflects the eurozone’s dangerous lack of other options for stimulus, compared to other large single-market, single-currency areas.
All high income economies encountered crisis in 2008, but the US and UK were able to attack their recessions with major fiscal stimulus packages, deliberately raising public spending while holding down tax rates and letting revenues fall with national income. On some measures, the US stimulus plan was far bigger than Roosevelt’s first New Deal during the 1930s Great Depression. And while George Osborne claims to have restored UK growth through fiscal austerity, he’s actually done so by running bigger and longer deficits than any of his predecessors.
In contrast, the eurozone has no big central budget. The only member big enough and solvent enough to run an |
has responded to the controversy with a novel experiment. Ontario's government is asking farmers to prove that they actually need neonicotinoids, often called neonics. It turns out that "need" is a word that's hard to define.
The experiment has its roots in a mass killing of bees in 2012.
"It was a very early spring," recalls Tibor Szabo, a beekeeper who lives near the city of Guelph. Warm days meant early blossoms on trees, and as a result, honeybees were out collecting pollen while farmers planted their corn and soybeans nearby.
Szabo started hearing reports from beekeepers in the southeastern corner of the province that their bees were getting killed by dust that came from farmers' planting equipment. He heard that "there was a chemical that was on the seeds." It was some sort of pesticide.
Then disaster struck a few of his hives.
"It looked like the hive itself had thrown up a bunch of dead bees," Szabo says. "There was a huge pile out in front of the hive, a huge pile right at the entrance, and a few bees wiggling in between the dead ones to get in and out of their entrance hole in the bottom of the hive."
At that point, Szabo hadn't heard of neonicotinoids. But he soon learned that most of the corn and soybean seeds that farmers plant, all over North America, are coated with these chemicals. The newest, most modern planting equipment uses air pressure to move seeds around, and as a result, some of the seed coating is blown into the air. Scientists found traces of neonics in beehives.
Bayer, the primary manufacturer of neonicotinoid seed coatings, argues that they pose only a minor threat to bees, because the insects rarely encounter enough of these chemicals to do any harm. The company also has come up with technologies that are supposed to minimize the release of neonics from planters.
But scientists are finding evidence that even tiny doses, too small to kill bees, can weaken them and decrease their numbers over time.
In Ontario, the bee deaths led to a political movement. "The public really found sympathy with our cause," Szabo says.
In 2015, Ontario's government passed a law that aims to cut the use of neonics by 80 percent. Under this law, farmers cannot use neonic-coated seeds unless those pesticides are truly needed to protect a farmer's crop.
It sounds sensible. There's just one problem. Need is hard to define.
The main pests that these chemicals fend off — wireworms and grubs — live underground. Farmers don't know if they're there, or how many there are, or how much damage they'll do.
So Ontario came up with a test. If farmers want to use neonic-treated seeds, they first have to go out to each of their fields, dig some holes, and drop in some insect bait — typically grain or rolled oats that have been soaked in water.
It's meant to attract the pests. If they can find just one insect for every hole they dig, they can order neonic treated seed.
This leads to a paradoxical situation. Most farmers are hoping to find the pests, because they really want neonics on their seed. Greg Hannam, for instance: "I hope that I find enough wireworms and grubs that demonstrates the need, so I can use [the seed treatments]," he says.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Dan Charles/NPR Dan Charles/NPR
Stephen Denys takes me out into a corn field. Denys is also an executive at a small seed company — Maizex Seeds.
This field is an experiment. Half of the seeds he planted here were coated with neonics, half were not.
This row here, Denys says, probably did not have the insecticide. "If you look in here, you see lots of gaps," he says. There's just bare dirt where stalks of corn should be.
"Something was going on down there. It could have been [that] wireworms had a chance to eat the seedling before it had a chance to emerge."
The rows with neonic-treated seed, he says, don't have so many gaps.
Field trials conducted by researchers at the University of Guelph show that, on average, farmers lose only 1 or 2 percent of their corn crop if they don't use neonic-coated seeds. But they can, in some cases, lose up to 15 percent. And farmers like Denys don't want to take that risk.
According to the farmers and seed dealers I interviewed, farmers in Ontario are reporting that their bait traps show they need neonics in most of their fields. No one is checking up on farmers to make sure that they are reporting these results accurately. Dale Cowan, with the company Agris, a seed dealer in Ontario, says that "probably this year, between 75 and 85 percent of corn seed went out the door with neonic seed treatment on it."
That's nowhere close to the dramatic neonic reduction that the law promised.
The government will release official data on this later this fall. Some environmental advocates who support the law believe that in the future, farmers will realize that in many cases, the neonic treatments simply aren't necessary.
Beekeeper Tibor Szabo, for his part, says that if the law isn't delivering major cuts in the use of neonics, beekeepers will demand new regulations that are even stricter.An eatery owner in Uttar Pradesh's Greater Noida city has been arrested for torturing three minors and forcing them to cook dog meat, police said on Friday.
The three children aged between five to eight years were freed from his captivity late on Thursday.
The children accused the owner of the restaurant - My Spice Cafe' in the officers colony in Gamma I sector - of ill-treating them, brutally assaulting them and forcing them to cook dog meat.
An official told IANS that the children bore injury marks and their nails had been plucked by Avinash Kumar, the eatery owner.
The children also said the eatery owner subjected them to electric shocks if they refused to cook the dog meat which was cooked for Nigerian youth living in the area.
Police recovered five dogs from the restaurant.
A neighbour, Praveen Bhati, met them a few days ago and asked why they were crying. Bhati was shocked to hear their story and immediately informed the police which followed the complaint with a late night raid. The restaurant has been sealed.
Another partner of the restaurant Mukesh Rajput is absconding.
The minors have been sent to a children's home and police are trying to trace their parents.
"In our preliminary probe, it has come out that the children are from Jharkhand and were sold to the accused eight months back," an official said.Ralph and Melba Margolis are not your average couple — not every couple gets to celebrate turning 95 years old together! This past May, they marked this achievement by raising money for their favorite causes, including Planned Parenthood.
Their daughter, Naomi Gary, organized a neighborhood gathering where family and friends, in lieu of gifts, could donate to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
“When you turn 95, you don’t really need gifts,” Melba said.
Ralph and Melba are lifelong progressives and supporters of liberal causes.
“We’d had a big party for their 80th birthdays,” Naomi said. “And we wanted to do something big for their 95th! It was a chance to talk about their lives and honor the things that are important to them.”
Generations of families from the neighborhood came over to pay tribute to Melba and Ralph.
“We’ve been here a long time,” Melba said.
“The neighbors seem to like us,” Ralph said.
Progressives in Love
Melba and Ralph met in Flint, Michigan in 1949, at a friend’s Thanksgiving dinner.
“Then I got a phone call,” Melba said. “Ralph said it’d be fun if we went to a potluck together. He told me to bring a salad and a dessert. I thought that was strange because usually you just have to bring one thing!”
Ralph told her he was bringing the steak and potatoes. And then he told her the potluck would be at her house.
“I’ve been wooing her ever since!” Ralph said.
Ralph and Melba led rich, interesting lives on their own before they ever met.
Backstories
Ralph was born in New York, the middle son of Jewish immigrants. During the Depression, the family fled the Bronx to join Michigan's Sunrise Cooperative Farm Community.
"It was full of communists, anarchists, socialists — 100 families on 10,000 acres. They thought if they put their stuff together, they’d collectively have more. My father wasn’t much of a father, so I picked up things from all the different fathers,” Ralph said. “A commune can be the best thing to happen to a person. It was for me.”
Melba was raised more conservatively, and her grandmother was a big influence.
“A girl had gone out with my cousin, and she told me they’d ‘gone all the way,’” Melba said. “I told my grandmother about this — who was born in 1867, by the way. She said: ‘Melba, this girl and your cousin did something that’s very natural. You’re being very judgmental.’”
This discussion made an impression on Melba.
“In 1940, I knew an 18-year-old who had a baby,” Melba said. “I had a lot of conflicted feelings about that. But I also knew people who’d had abortions. If a woman had enough money, she could get one.”
During the 1940's, Ralph was a GI in WWII Europe. Melba was the first in her family to go to college; she earned her Master's in Clinical Social Work. Later, they met at the Unitarian Church in Flint.
Melba and Ralph got married in 1953, then moved to San Diego in 1960. The last of their four children was born in 1962 when they were 40 years old.
In their working days, Melba was a psychiatric social worker. She worked at Home Start — an organization that works to prevent child abuse. Ralph became a junior high teacher in science and music appreciation, along with teaching emotionally disabled kids and gifted kids.
Melba and Ralph were involved in the civil rights movement and school integration. Melba joined The Carlin Case with the ACLU against the San Diego School District in order to integrate local schools. The two youngest Margolis children were listed as plaintiffs.
Melba was awarded the American Civil Libertarian Award in 1973. She also taught Child Abuse Awareness at San Diego City College.
“How to do it?” Ralph asked.
“No!” Melba answered. “How not to. How to recognize it when it’s happening.”
A Family of Critical Thinkers
They raised Naomi and her siblings to be critical thinkers.
“They taught me to question authority,” Naomi said. “Protest when something’s not right. Make yourself heard.”
“We didn’t teach you to question your parents…” Ralph said.
“Hah...yes you did!” Naomi answered back.
“Even in elementary school, they taught me to omit ‘under God’ when saying the Pledge of Allegiance,” she said. “My parents remember when those words were added in the ‘50s and they didn’t agree with putting it in there.”
Naomi is the primary caregiver for her parents and was the planner of the party.
“I thought, ‘let’s do something bigger!’” Naomi said. “Something that tells a story. Planned Parenthood has always been important in our lives — supporting women and birth control.
“I have two daughters,” Naomi said. “They’ve used Planned Parenthood for birth control. It’s not just about women, choosing, planning, access. It’s for men too! Our lives have changed dramatically. We’re not stuck having 12 babies anymore. We can determine the course of our lives — because now we can determine our reproductive lives.”
Making it Matter
Ralph and Melba get “tons of calls,” asking for different donations, Naomi said. “They say, ‘We’re limited to just Planned Parenthood now.’ That’s the place where they know they’ll get value for their donations. It’s an organization that’s trying to help more than any other.
“Planned Parenthood is a great resource,” Naomi said. “It’s a place where people can get answers. I can’t believe we’re having to fight for all this again! We wanted to honor these two historic nonprofits — Planned Parenthood and ACLU — to educate our neighbors and honor my parents.
“Your life is formed by your experiences,” Melba said. “And our experiences changed us.”
How does a not-so-average 95 year old couple celebrate? By throwing a BBQ party, inviting friends and family, celebrating their love and life, and donating.
Be like Ralph and Melba: Make your life matter, and care — no matter what!
Tags:The easiest part of the journey is giving young children experience of motor racing, as this can be done at a local kart track. However, as they race through the ranks on the road to F1 they face a bewildering range of options. One of the hurdles drivers face is deciding the best route to choose. For every F1 seat available, a number of potential drivers will be competing for it, each with different backgrounds and experience.
Some championships have more of an impact than others in getting drivers a place in the top tier. At the top of the list is the Formula 3 category, in which 79.2 per cent of last year’s F1 line up have previously competed. This is followed by entry-level Formula Renault, where 58.3 per cent of F1 drivers have raced, and F1’s official feeder series, GP2, at 48.5 per cent.
The remaining two series are tied to manufacturers and make use of similar car designs to highlight each championship’s most talented drivers. They are Formula BMW, which was a training ground for 41.7 per cent of last year’s F1 incumbent, and Formula Renault 3.5, part of the World Series by Renault, at 37.5 per cent.
Starting their F1 journey
This year, five young drivers began their first full season in F1 as they graduated to racing’s top rung, bringing their own tales of success and uncertainty from the depths of junior competition. It cost them dearly.
Toto Wolff, team principal of F1 championship leaders Mercedes, is an expert at steering drivers into the sport. Mercedes has an option on last year’s European Formula 3 championship winner Esteban Ocon. The team’s reserve driver, Germany’s Pascal Wehrlein, also came through F3.
“If somebody is talented, very talented, you probably need to spend €1 million in karting through junior, senior and international races,” says Wolff. “You need at least a season in F4 or Formula Renault which is another €350,000 if you do it properly. You need €650,000 for an F3 season so we are at €2 million. You probably need another season of F3 so you are at €2.6 million or €2.7 million and then you haven’t done any GP2 or World Series. So let’s say you are at €3 million if you are an extraordinary talent.
“GP2 is another €1.5 million so probably, if you want to be on the safe side, you are around €4.5 million and €5 million and you have only done one year of GP2. You are on the verge of getting into Formula One but you are not in there. You need another €2 million to €3 million to get the drive. So you are talking about €7 million to €8 million so let’s call it $8 million.”
F1 training schemes for talented young drivers
Wolff explains that, “it’s not possible to bring that cost down because it has become a business so you need to have a sugar daddy or a rich daddy.” One way to reduce the expense is for manufacturers to appoint talent spotters who enlist drivers in a training scheme that puts them on track to F1.
Driver development schemes offer young drivers the opportunity to learn under the guidance of a top racing team but obtaining a place is fiercely competitive. It is a route that has proven successful for some of F1’s most recognisable names including Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton.
‘The most sensible route to F1 at the moment is Formula Three. It is a huge grid, almost 40 cars’ - Toto Wolff
This year the attention falls on 17-year-old Max Verstappen who became the youngest driver in F1 history with a seat at Toro Rosso. Verstappen joined Red Bull’s driver development scheme just two weeks before the announcement of his sudden signing and only one year after graduating from karting. It is a move that is far from the norm.
In contrast, Verstappen’s team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, who also marks the beginning of an F1 career this year, joins the sport as the reigning Formula Renault 3.5 champion and comes with four years of experience under Red Bull’s supervision. He is among an impressive list of graduates from Renault’s flagship series and joins Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Kevin Magnussen in the 3.5 litre history books.
Wolff says he is considering reinstating the Mercedes young driver programme, which had its heyday in the 1980s when it nurtured talent including Michael Schumacher and former Williams driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen.
“I’d like to set it up again. The reason why I didn’t until now was that I can’t give them proper access. In Formula One I can’t afford to take risks. I need to have the best guys in the cars and in order to have the best guys they need experience so I will never take somebody who has no experience.”
The brightest talent outside F1 is New Zealand’s Mitch Evans who has a glittering list of accolades to his name despite only turning 21 this year
Working up from Formula 3 to Formula 1
He adds that, “the most sensible route at the moment is Formula Three. It is a huge grid, almost 40 cars. We have seen in the last couple of years, the best ones have come from Formula Three and, at the moment, that is probably the race series I would be looking at the most.
“I have programmes where I can place young drivers and then from then on decide whether I want to give them a chance as a test driver in Formula One, give them test days, which I am doing at the moment with Pascal, and then decide if I identify somebody who is promising to be a superstar. We can then decide whether we want to afford to buy them a seat in Formula One.”
The downside of development schemes is that they do not come cheap and getting one of the limited places still requires luck as well as talent on the part of the driver. Fail to meet targets and your F1 career could be over before it has really begun. It isn’t lost on the top talent in racing.
The brightest talent outside F1 is New Zealand’s Mitch Evans who has a glittering list of accolades to his name despite only turning 21 this year.
Evans took a traditional route into racing by starting in karts in 2001 when he was aged six. Between 2001 and 2007 he won 13 karting titles and showed such promise in his home country that he moved on to international competition. In 2007 he qualified for the World Rotax Finals in Dubai and became its youngest-ever competitor at the age of 13.
A lot of driver development schemes are smoke and mirrors in terms of the drivers paying to be there
His career accelerated from there as he switched to car racing and competed in several local series in New Zealand and Australia including its renowned Formula Ford Championship. In 2011 Evans left his home country for Europe to race in GP3, the little brother of GP2. The following year he won the GP3 championship and took three victories, six podiums and four pole positions. He has since graduated to GP2 and also competes in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), which is famous for its flagship 24-hour race at Le Mans in France. The tiers of the championship are named after it and Evans’s car is an LMP2, which stands for ‘Le Mans Prototype 2’. Evans finished second in Le Mans this year but F1 has still eluded him.
“I’ve had offers from a number of top teams, including Red Bull and Ferrari, to go on their junior schemes, but I still had to provide some money,” says Evans. “Every driver, whether it’s Carlos, whether it’s Daniel, it doesn’t matter who it is, they still have to bring some money and it is probably more than meets the eye. And those are guys who come from wealthy families so it’s not an issue but I don’t have that option.
F1 driver development schemes not all what they seem
“A lot of driver development schemes are smoke and mirrors in terms of the drivers paying to be there. They are paying through the roof to be there. So a lot of it is just about getting a foot in an F1 team in a roundabout way.”
“There can be benefits if it all goes well but there aren’t many drivers who have come through. There are some like Vettel, Ricciardo, now Carlos and I guess Lewis from the McLaren days. So you benefit but the chances are very slim either way you do it.”
Evans has attracted a collection of sponsors who see the raw racing talent in him. One of his strongest supporters is Colin Giltrap, the most renowned and respected auto industry figure in New Zealand. His company Giltrap Group is one of the largest car dealerships in New Zealand and is the Auckland agent for Volkswagen, Porsche and Bentley. Giltrap is no stranger to racing, having been behind New Zealand’s team in the ill-fated A1 Grand Prix racing series, which featured outfits from different countries.
“If it wasn’t for Colin I wouldn’t be in Europe,” says Evans. “He has been really good to me and a number of other companies from New Zealand then chipped in too. In junior formulae the drivers supply the sponsorship, which is not easy commercially for sponsors from New Zealand. They’re going to get some television coverage but if you’re not an international company it’s hard for them to see the benefit.”
The difficulties of securing sponsorship
The big attraction with Evans is that he is on track for great things and, aside from Giltrap, four other highly credible companies from his home country have stood by him. They are automated accountancy firm BankLink, network solutions provider Mako, butchery chain MadButcher and telecoms company Skinny Mobile.
They believe that partnering with Evans at this early stage will pay off when F1 finally takes note of his achievements. His heritage alone makes him unique, as the last New Zealander who raced in F1 was Mike Thackwell back in 1984.
“My supporters either love their motorsport, they race themselves, or they have a passion for my career,” says Evans. “I don’t have to provide any funding. I’m here to go for the championship, which is great for me because constantly trying to find money is ridiculous and the New Zealand Dollar is two for one so you’ve got to find double the amount.”
However, he adds that coming from New Zealand isn’t always a bonus. “If you are from Australia it is definitely a benefit because commercially it’s a lot better off than New Zealand. We’ve only got four million people so it’s hard for a sponsor that’s not New Zealand-based to see the benefit of it. They would probably rather sponsor someone within Europe. I know that from losing out on a test in an F1 car and also becoming a works driver. I was hampered by my nationality. Technically I probably should have been a reserve driver in F1. Maybe I need to marry a British girl then I might be all right. Money was definitely a factor. I had the grand total of zero Dollars to take with me. I know the guy that got the drive had a budget, a lot of money. The team and the driver himself are from the same country which helped.”
Financial hurdles getting in the way of racing
Former champion Sir Jackie Stewart shares Evans’s frustrations and says, “this whole idea of buying drives business is a very unfortunate thing. And it spirals very negative structures within the sport.”
Another driver who has suffered at its hands is Sam Bird, Britain’s most promising driver outside F1. Like Evans, Bird began his career karting in 2001 and after several years won a scholarship to compete in the inaugural Formula BMW UK championship.
‘My time at Mercedes was great but I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing and be a reserve, I had to be racing something’ - Sam Bird
Rising through the ranks in junior racing series, by 2010 Bird was driving in GP2. Two years later he was driving in the World Series by Renault and in 2014 made the switch to closed cockpit cars with the AF Corse Ferrari team. Bird races with AF Corse in the WEC and also drives for Virgin in the Formula E championship of electric cars.
In 2011 Bird was appointed as a test driver for the Mercedes F1 team and says that a financial hurdle obstructed him from competing in a race. “I was on course for F1 until they told me that I needed to bring millions and millions of pounds,” he says.
Getting drivers to pay to race may seem like a modern concept but is nearly as old as racing itself. Even famed 1950s champion Juan Manuel Fangio supplied funding from the government of Argentina on his way to winning five titles. The trend is still in place today as the Sauber F1 team has hired Brazilian Felipe Nasr who is somewhat of a poster-boy for the sport’s financial culture. The 22-year-old has lured local bank Banco do Brasil to the team giving it an estimated $20 million boost in sponsorship.
Although Nasr has had a respectable junior career, finishing third in GP2 last year, he still epitomises this decidedly unpopular trend of paying to drive.
Paying to drive
Britain’s Will Stevens is also partially funding the resurrected Manor team after its collapse into administration last year under the name Marussia. He is joined by Spaniard Roberto Mehri, who finished third in Formula Renault 3.5 last year while testing for Caterham at three F1 rounds. Stevens too comes from Caterham and raced for the team at the season-ender in Abu Dhabi in 2014.
Getting drivers to pay to race may seem like a modern concept but is nearly as old as racing itself
Like Marussia, Caterham also hit the wall last year and only made it to the final race by raising £2.4 million through crowdfunding. The additional boost from Stevens and his team-mate Kamui Kobayashi amounted to £515,298 but this did not prevent Caterham from closing its doors in February citing the financial strain of competing in F1.
The risks of such a leap of faith were evident with Stevens seemingly putting his 2015 budget and career reputation on the line to compete for a team that could not guarantee a long-term future. In the intricate world of F1, promises are rarely made, as Bird is well aware.
“My time at Mercedes was great but after doing well in GP2 I couldn’t just sit around doing nothing and being a reserve, I had to be racing something. I was actively looking for a race seat, which was never going to happen because I didn’t have the budget.
“We are doing Formula E and I love endurance racing, I think it’s great fun. You look at LMP1 now and they are as quick as Formula One. The budgets are massive, it’s a great career and people enjoy it. I think it’s a great series.”
When it comes to F1, money talks
Whereas the WEC has a reputation for taking drivers based on ability, money talks in F1. It has led to teams taking ever-younger drivers if they bring a big budget with them, and this could change the DNA of the sport.
“For one thing, and this may sound bad, but the cars currently seem to be too easy to drive,” says Sir Jackie. “Almost anybody can go fast in a Formula One car, if it’s a decent Formula One car. Anybody can get in those cars almost immediately and drive them. So therefore there’s something wrong that the engineering has come to a point where too many people can drive them.”
If the cars were tougher to drive then perhaps the best drivers, rather than those with money, would stand more of a chance of making it through. Time will tell whether F1 can turn the trend around.US homeland security secretary John Kelly, describing commercial aviation as “the crown jewel target” of terrorists, has announced new security requirements for all US-bound international flights.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not specifically spell out the new requirements, which will apply to 180 airlines and 280 airports globally, saying that details will not be publicly discussed. Generally, airlines flying to the US and airports that are the last points of departure to the US will be required to enhance “overall passenger screening,” conduct “heightened screening of personal electronic devices” (PEDs), increase “security protocols around aircraft and in passenger areas” and deploy advanced technology and expand canine screening, DHS said. The US will push for more foreign airports to establish US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pre-clearance facilities, Kelly said.
DHS said the 10 airports where US-bound passengers are currently required to place large PEDs in checked baggage—the so-called laptop ban—can have those PED restrictions lifted if the airports comply with the enhanced security measures being required by the US.
Kelly, speaking at a Center for a New American Security conference in Washington DC, said the new requirements will be implemented in phases, although DHS said in background material that “some” of the new standards “will be required immediately.”
Kelly emphasized that “inaction is not an option” for the affected airlines and airports. “Those who choose not to cooperate or are slow to adopt these measures could be subject to other restrictions—including a ban on electronic devices on their airplanes or even a suspension of their flights to the United States,” Kelly said. “However, we expect all airlines will work with us to keep their aircraft, their crew and their passengers safe.”
The new requirements will affect 2,100 flights and 325,000 passengers on average daily, according to DHS.
“My conclusion is this: it is time to raise the global baseline of aviation security,” Kelly said. “We cannot play international whack-a-mole with each new threat. Instead, we must put in place new measures across the board to keep the traveling public safe and make it harder for terrorists to succeed.” Kelly added that the new measures “will be both seen and unseen, and they will be phased in over time.”
Kelly said “a number of the measures we are putting in place can be dialed up and down” based on intelligence and risk assessments. He said he did not believe the new requirements will “unduly inconvenience the flying public.”
Kelly said the decision to impose the laptop ban in March was based on intelligence and input from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, the US Central Intelligence Agency and the US military. “Our enemies are constantly working to find new methods for disguising explosives, recruiting insiders and hijacking aircraft,” Kelly said.
IATA, which has been critical of the laptop ban and urged the US to seek an alternative, said in a statement that it “welcomes the decision by … DHS to require enhanced security measures as an alternative to restrictions on the carriage of large portable electronic devices in the cabin on all flights to the US. This includes the ability to remove the existing restrictions on certain flights departing from the Middle East and North Africa to the US. IATA looks forward to working with our member airlines and DHS to implement this phased approach to enhanced aviation security, including ensuring that airline costs and operational impacts are minimized.”
IATA DG and CEO Alexandre de Juniac warned that the “aggressive implementation timeline” of the DHS requirements will “be challenging,” adding, “Meeting it will require a continued team effort of government and industry stakeholders. In particular, airlines and airports will need to be supported by host states during the phase-in of the new requirements.”
Aaron Karp [email protected] Schuetze is the creator and maintainer of Visual D, the D plugin for Visual Studio. Recently, he implemented a new name mangling algorithm for the D frontend, which was released in DMD 2.077.0. In this post, he explains why it was needed and what it does.
What is symbol name mangling?
D embraces the separate compilation model that compiles D source code to object files and uses a linker to bind the object files to an executable binary file. This allows the reuse of precompiled object files and libraries, speeding up the build process. As the linker is usually one that’s also used for other languages with the same compilation model, e.g. C/C++ or Fortran, mixing object files from different languages is straightforward.
In an object file, a symbol name is assigned to each function or global variable, both when it is defined and when it is used via a call or access. The linker uses these names to connect references to definitions of the same name with only very bare knowledge about the symbol. For example, the symbol for this C function declaration,
extern(C) const(char)* find(int ch, const(char)* str);
does not tell the linker anything about function arguments or return type, as the C language uses the plain function name find as the symbol name (some platforms prepend a _ to the symbol). If you later change the order of the arguments to
extern(C) const(char)* find(const(char)* str, int ch);
but fail to update and recompile all source files that use the new declarartion, the linker will happily bind the resulting object files. In that case, the program is likely to crash, since a character passed to the function will be interpreted as a string pointer and vice versa.
D and C++ avoid this problem by adding more information to the symbol name, i.e. they encode into a symbol name the scope in which the symbol is defined, the function argument types, and the return type. Even if the linker does not interpret this information, linking fails with an undefined symbol error if the definitions used to build the object files don’t match. For example, the D function declaration
module test; extern(D) const(char)* find(int ch, const(char)* str);
has a symbol name _D4test4findFiPxaZPxa, where _D is a prefix to identify the symbol as being generated from a D source symbol, 4test4find encodes the “fully qualified name” find in module test, and FiPxaZPxa describes the function type with an integer argument (designated by i ) and the C-style string pointer type Pxa by just concatenating the encodings for argument types. Z terminates the function argument list and is followed by the encoding for the return type, again Pxa for a C-style string pointer. In contrast,
extern(D) const(char)* find(const(char)* str, int ch);
is encoded as _D4test4findFPxaiZPxa, making it a different symbol with the argument types reversed. The encoding ensures a normalized representation of types and scopes while also providing shorter symbols than minimal source code. This encoding is called “name mangling”.
Ed: Note that extern(C) and extern(D) are linkage attributes. When a function is declared in D without an explicit linkage attribute, extern(D) is the default.
In D, some function attributes are also mangled into the symbol name, e.g. @safe, nothrow, pure and @nogc. In theory, mangling could also cover parameter names, user defined attributes, or even contracts, but that is currently considered excessive.
Please note that even though name mangling can detect some mismatches in the binary interface of functions (i.e. how arguments are passed in registers or on the stack), it won’t catch every error; for example, structs, classes and other user defined types are mangled by name only, so that a change to their definition will still pass unnoticed by the linker.
The mangled name of a symbol is also available during compilation using the.mangleof property. This used to be exploited to provide type reflection of the symbol at compile time. This should no longer be necessary due to the introduction of new __traits that make this information accessible faster and more convenient, for example,
__traits(getLinkage,symbol);
or
__traits(getFunctionAttributes, symbol);
Thus, usage of.mangleof is not recommended except for debugging purposes.
When reversing the mangling process in the “demangler”, all the encoded information is kept to make it available to the user, but that does not always yield correct D syntax. The first definition above demangles as
const(char)* test.find(int, const(char)*)
i.e. the module name test is added to the function name.
Template symbols
The two definitions of find shown above can coexist in D and C++, so name mangling is not only a way to detect errors at link time but also a necessity to represent overloads. It should at least contain enough information to distinguish different overloads of the same scoped identifier.
This becomes even more obvious when considering templates that usually instantiate different functions or variable definitions for each argument type. In D, the template instantiation information is added to the qualified name of a symbol.
Consider expression templates, a common example of meta programming used for delayed evaluation of expressions:
module expr; struct Mul(X,Y) { X x; Y y; } struct Add(X,Y) { X x; Y y; } auto mul(X,Y)(X x, Y y) { return Mul!(X,Y)(x, y); } auto add(X,Y)(X x, Y y) { return Add!(X,Y)(x, y); }
A function template is lowered by the compiler to an eponymous template:
template mul(X, Y) { auto mul(X x, Y y) { return Mul!(X,Y)(x, y); } }
The template name is part of the qualified function name, expr.mul!(X,Y).mul, and the auto return type is inferred to be Mul!(X,Y). This causes the symbol to reference the types X and Y three times. The demangled mangled name of an instantiation with types double and float of this template is
expr.Mul!(double,float) expr.mul!(double,float).mul(double,float)
The mangling process of DMD before version 2.077 walks the abstract syntax tree of the declaration and emits the mangled representation of the types whenever it is hit. Now consider stacking operations, e.g.
auto square(X)(X x) { return mul(x, x); } auto len = square("var"); pragma(msg, len.square.mangleof); // S4expr66__T3MulTS4expr16__T3MulTAyaTAyaZ3MulTS4expr16__T3MulTAyaTAyaZ3MulZ3Mul pragma(msg, typeof(len |
, located on the corner of Northwest Drive and Smith Road in Bellingham, is home to Whatcom County Youth Soccer Association and Whatcom County Adult Soccer Association, serving nearly 10,000 kids and adults playing year-round. The upgrades are anticipated to be complete in early to mid-April 2016.
“The addition of these artificial turf fields will be a huge benefit to the athletic programs of Whatcom County,” said Whatcom County Executive Jack Louws. “These will double the current all-weather turf fields available to the various user groups from two to four fields in Whatcom County.”
The turf project has been made possible through a collaboration of public and private sector partnership and investment. During the latest Washington State budget session, 42nd District State Sen. Doug Ericksen helped garner legislative support to include $2 million for the soccer park project in the current 2015-17 Washington State budget, which was approved July 1. “This will be a great asset for our community for decades to come,” commented Ericksen.
About Whatcom Sports & Recreation:
Whatcom Sports & Recreation, a non-profit organization, develops recreational facilities and programs for Whatcom County and surrounding area residents. Their goal is to provide affordable, safe, fun and healthy environments where the community can enjoy a wide range of unique recreational programs and activities. WSR also operates the Bellingham Sportsplex in the Civic Complex. The newly named Phillips 66 Soccer Park was originally developed through a public-private partnership with Whatcom County Parks and Whatcom Soccer Commission (now Whatcom Sports & Recreation) dating back to 1986 when Whatcom Co. Parks provided the ground lease to Whatcom Soccer Commission, which evolved into Whatcom Sports & Recreation. WSR has over the years developed the soccer park to its current configuration of up to 13 full-size fields through grants, fundraising events, user fees and sponsorships.
About Phillips 66:
Phillips 66 is a diversified energy manufacturing and logistics company. With a portfolio of Midstream, Chemicals, Refining, and Marketing and Specialties businesses, the company processes, transports, stores and markets fuels and products globally. Phillips 66 Partners, the company’s master limited partnership, is an integral asset in the portfolio. Headquartered in Houston, the company has 14,000 employees committed to safety and operating excellence. Phillips 66 had $49 billion of assets as of Sept. 30, 2015. For more information, visit http://www.phillips66.com or follow us on Twitter @Phillips66Co.A special experience geared for children ages 3 to 12 begins today, Friday, February 12, 2016 at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort!
Cinderella will begin hosting a daily “Princess Promenade” where children are invited to stroll down the Grand Floridian grand staircase with Cinderella. Children will meet Cinderella at M. Mouse Mercantile and proceed down the staircase. Cinderella will then waltz with the children in the grand lobby area.
When does this take place?
Princess Promenade will begin at 3:30p.m. daily for these children.
Will this be a meet and greet?
No mention was made of any type of photo opportunity.
Do you have to be a resort guest to take part?
You don’t have to be a resort guest to take part.
Is there a cost?
No cost
Sounds like fun for young Princes and Princesses. Have your video recording device ready!Eye-Camera: An intra-ocular installation of an eye-camera. An experiment in wearable technology, cybernetics, and perception.
Thanks for visiting my page! I am attempting to recreate my eye with the help of a miniature camera implant in my prosthetic / artificial eye. The intraocular installation of an eye-cam will substitute for the field of vision of my left eye that I lost in 2005 from a car accident. While my prosthesis is an excellent aesthetic replacement, I am interested in capitalizing on the current advancement of technology to enhance the abilities of my prosthesis for an augmented reality.Before we get into the nitty gritty details of the eye camera, let's back up a few years. In 2005, I was in a near death car accident. Centimeters away from death, I managed to pull through. Although grateful to be alive, I lost my left eye in the tumble and suffered frontal lobe minor brain injury and severe depression.I entered the vast world of the Internet and chronicled my experiences on my blog, One-Eyed. I posted about new developments in technology that would help me regain sight. Soon I began envisioning a sci-fi plot twist to my predicament. I pitched my idea to Wired Founder Kevin Kelly. Intrigued, he posted my call out to engineers to help build an implant of a miniature camera inside my prosthetic eye. Immediately the idea went viral and I received hundreds of international engineering proposals, support from my one-eyed community, and thousands of media inquiries. I became the media haven for transhumanism and the subject of controversy around engineering the body. Since then, I've been plotting new strategies to tell my story, both my personal one and the one of my sci-fi alter ego, into a transmedia platform, which will include: a graphic novel, an experimental documentary, a web series, a game, and a live performance. Grow a new eye - is about engineering a new bionic camera eye.With your support here's what I'm hoping to build in this first phase of production which we'll call "Grow A New Eye":
Dimensions: Here are the measurements of the shell that I am currently wearing. It’s an oddly shaped shell and it’s hard to tell how much room there really is in there.
Thickness: 8 mm (Right below the iris – but it looks like there may be more thickness in other parts of the shell.)
Length of Shell: 21 – 23 mm
Iris: 12.25 mm Diameter
Pupil (Lens/aperture) : 4.5 mm Diameter
Here is an article about my Ocularist, William Danz who is on board with the project: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/apr/10/magazine/tm-eyeguy15
The scleral shell is made out of PMMA or poly(methyl methacrylate) Acrylic.
The installation would possibly entail putting the camera in the molding while it hardens or drilling after the fact. But I’m no engineer! Just sharing information that I’ve picked up.
Specifications:
SD at least, 720p HD at best
MPEG-4 / H.264 Recording
Built in Wireless Transmitter
Bluetooth Wireless Method
Remote Trigger
Mini A/V out
Firewire / USB / Mini HDMI
Optical 3X
Inductors: (Power Source)
External Mobile Application:
Acts as remote
Power source
Feed
Wish List:Summary: In his column today Paul Krugman makes an important observation, although he’s oddly unaware of its full significance.
Paul Krugman explains “Why I Haven’t Felt The Bern” — He complains about Team Sanders.
“In each case the story runs into big trouble if you do a bit of homework; if not completely wrong, it needs a lot of qualification. But the all-purpose response to anyone who raises questions is that she or he is a member of the establishment, personally corrupt, etc.. Ad hominem attacks aren’t a final line of defense, they’re argument #1. “…It’s about an attitude, the sense that righteousness excuses you from the need for hard thinking and that any questioning of the righteous is treason …When you see Sanders supporters going over the top about “corporate whores” and such, you’re not seeing a mysterious intrusion of bad behavior into an idealistic movement; you’re seeing the intolerance that was always just under the surface of the movement, right from the start.”
He complains about unfair tactics of the Left, the same tactics that the Left’s climate activists have used to all who challenge their apocalyptic news stories — which go far beyond anything in the IPCC’s reports. He describes them quite accurately, showing (again) that although he is a brilliant economist, he is lacks self-awareness.
For More Information
Please like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information see The keys to understanding climate change, and especially these about misreporting climate change…Welcome to my first stab at projecting the 40 bowl matchups for 2016-17. I’ll publish a new version every Tuesday in November and a final one the morning of Dec. 4 (Selection Sunday).
Note that the Rose (Big Ten vs. Pac-12), Sugar (Big 12 vs. SEC) and Orange (ACC vs. SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame) will all select teams from their contract conferences this year. Most take the highest-ranked available. The only available spot for the highest Group of 5 champ is the Cotton Bowl, which also holds the only available at-large spot. That will go to the highest-ranked available team after the other New Year’s Six bowls get filled.
That spot, incidentally, is the hardest one to project as of now. I went with Penn State, which looks increasingly capable of running the table and finishing 10-2, but I also considered Nebraska, Auburn, Florida and Virginia Tech.
(NOTE: * -- replacement team for a conference without enough eligible teams)cr4zyserb - deroko of ARTeam
Sample code how to use Control Flow Guard to intercept all indirect calls/jumps in CFG enabled binariesIDA Loader plugin to properly load ELF32 files, which don't have Section Header/or it's corrupted which is never used during ELF file loading into memoryIDA Python script to mark jcc/jmp/call/ret inside of a given procedure with different colors for easier or "harder" analyzeTool which traces execution of program with Pin, and logs execution path. Produces log file which can be imported into IDA thus parts of code which are executed more times will be highlighted. x32/x64 both Windows and LinuxImmunity Debugger Plugin which allows Immunity Debugger to use SoftICE and WinDbg key mappingConsole tool to list all tables from.NET binary. With minor changes can be used on other systems alsoIDA plugin to extract, save, and view resources from IDASimple unpacker template which uses my tracer.sys (custom debug engine) to unpack some simple packers (upx/aspack/fsg/maybe some more!?)This tool will dump symbols and Service Call Numbers from win32k.sysTool to dump x64 targets, and to fix imports. It uses 1API = 1IID technique for import fixing, ported to x64 platforms. My Blog entry at woodmann board : Imports are easy to fix Source code of first public x64 unpacker. It also has separate code for import table rebuilding so you may include it in your own projects if you wantTool to display some informations about windowses on your desktop.Small unpacker for mpress packed x64 images. Seems like first public unpacker for x64 images...Code allows you to break at entry of.dll for easier debugging. Useful only for softice users or for writing unpackers. Dll is loaded in 2 ways : manual or via LoadLibraryEx depending on selected options in command lineGeneric Unpacker is unpacker for some simple packers, it uses modified(added MP support) Dream Of Every Reverser Engine to trace execution of the target, source is included, as this is "How to make unpacker" exampleTheMida Spy gives you ability to break in kernel32 and advapi32 dll during TheMida layer executionDemonstrates novel attack in hooking dlls. Basically old dll is replaced in PEB with new dll in such way that whenever GetModuleHandleA/W, LoadLibraryA/W etc. is called it will get handle to my dll and then I can log, fake data when API is called from my.dll.Code to execute your target from context of explorer.exe. I'm not guy which likes GUI much and I do almost all of my job in console, so when some crackme from www.crackmes.de wants to be started by clikcing on it, then I use this code.Locate OEP of Debugblocker protected application, during tracign patch will be applied to arma code so you can fix imports w/o a problem, on other hand there is also CopyMemII dumper, code which will apply patch to imports and will dump CopyMem protected application in a metter of seconds.Once application is dumped, you may use this code to fix SVKP imports very fast.OepFinder is code which I've developed in some free time for fun of it, later I used it in my tut about ExeCryptor, now I don't use it anymore. Trick with this code is to set PAGE_GUARD on certain range and monitor when EIP is in the range. It is probably the first code to use stealh debugging known also as nonintrusive tracer.Code was used during themida 1.0.0.5 unpacking, and also for TheHyper Unpackme #2.Due to the logic of almost all of my dumps non of exisitng import reconstruction engines was good, so I wrote my own which does exactly what I want.rom behind the wheel of an obscenely muscled Dodge pickup, Vincent Edward "Bo" Jackson is reminiscing about the time he took down a 300-pound bear from point-blank range with a.45-caliber pistol. This was a decade ago in Alaska, a few years after Bo retired from organized sports and a few days before the Princess of Wales died in a car crash, and if you're wondering whether Bo was scared,, Bo was not scared. Not even when that bear got so close Bo and his hunting companion could see the hairs bolt upright like pine needles on the back of its neck.
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comSpecial right now in the produce aisle: the greatest athlete of his generation.
"I wasn't scared," Bo says. "I wasn't scared because I knew I could outrun my white buddy. You've got to think about these things, man."
The way Bo tells it, he waited as long as he could, then he fired a slug into that bear's skull. The bear kept coming. His buddy yelled, "Shoot him again!" and Bo shot him again, firing another bullet directly into the bear's noggin. Bo 2, Bear 0. And then Bo skinned that bear on the spot and dragged the 70-pound hide the half-mile back to camp. Of course he did.
"Bring yo' little ass on," Bo is saying. He is no longer speaking of the bear, nor to the reporter cowering in the passenger's seat, nor to the photographer in the backseat who is endeavoring not to vomit, but to a small vehicle of foreign descent that has mustered the nerve to pass him on the right on a four-lane road in suburban Chicago. Bo lives not far from here, in a pristine house in a gated community, with a long driveway where he sometimes unpacks his bow and arrows, sits in a metal folding chair and fires at a deer-shaped target set under a tree in his yard.
At the moment, Bo is on his way to a store called DGY Motorsports, where he is going to pay the balance on a four-wheeled recreational vehicle he plans to use exclusively to plow the snow from his driveway. Ever since a snowplow broke the lights that surround his driveway, Bo prefers to plow his own snow. It is one of those little things that, as he approaches his 45th birthday Friday, give him a disproportionate amount of pleasure. The others include (not necessarily in order) golfing, cooking, hunting, motorcycle riding, and doting on his wife and three children: two sons who are already in college, and a daughter who will graduate from high school in the spring.
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comBo would rather talk about shooting bears than about running over the Bears.
It is a modest life, but in many ways Bo Jackson is a modest man, one who was never particularly impressed by his own achievements. He is still intimidating, thick all over, his head shaved, his stare so pointed at times that it seems as if it could melt glass. But he is also shockingly normal, considering that two decades ago, he was the most famous athlete in America.
Yet there are times when Bo Jackson does not come across as the least bit modest. Some who are familiar with him say Bo himself has been known to embellish his past. In fact, his entire public persona was built upon a perception of omnipotence, upon a polyglottal athletic knowledge that became the basis for the most overused sports marketing catchphrase in history: Bo Knows. That even Bo Jackson has often referred to himself as "Bo Jackson," in the third person, as if his body were inhabited by some otherworldly force that took over when he donned a uniform, has led many to assume that both Bo Jackson and "Bo Jackson" were raving egomaniacs.
"That's what the marketing world [wanted] you to believe," Bo says. He speaks slowly and deliberately, a cadence he adopted to neutralize perhaps the most well-documented childhood stutter in athletic history, a stutter that actually becomes more prominent in one-on-one situations than when he is speaking to groups.
Bo is perceptive enough to see through his own mythology; the true reason he referred to himself in the third person, according to those who knew him as a young man, is that his stutter made it difficult for him to say "I." And yet it also became a convenient device. That "Bo Jackson" was manufactured for public consumption, and a young man in his mid-20s who grew up in rural Alabama needed some way to separate himself from his own celebrity. (Soon, other athletes would emulate his example.) That "Bo Jackson" vanishes when he is at home, whether he's with his wife (the only human in the world who refers to him as "Vince") or his children (who refer to him as "Dad") or his childhood friends back in Bessemer, Ala. (who, Bo jokes, often refer to him as "a--hole"). Back home, many used to mock him for his stutter until Bo -- who grew up with an iron-fisted mother and an absentee father -- discovered all he needed to erase that dark place he came from was to find some way to run hard and fast.
These days, the real-life Bo Jackson, the Bo Jackson who cooks spaghetti and washes his own dishes and watches reality TV, doesn't even see a need to run around the block anymore. Why bother when a man can play golf instead? Why bother when there is nothing left to prove to anyone?
"But I also know, if I was healthy, with good hips right now, I'd be the fastest 45-year-old in the country, or in the world," Bo says. "That much I know. That much... I know."
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comIn retirement, Bo knows his way around the kitchen. Imagine what Nike could do with that.
THE MYTH OF BO
Of course, we willknow, and this is where every discussion of Bo Jackson most often begins and ends. All we have are stories that, with two decades of wear, have already begun to feel like tall tales: of Bo scaling an outfield wall in pursuit of a fly ball until he is hovering sideways, seven feet off the ground; of Bo leaving a dent in the chest of an all-pro safety named Mike Harden; of Bo leading off the 1989 Major League Baseball All-Star Game with a home run, and then making the Pro Bowl after the 1990 NFL season.
Lonnie Major/Getty ImagesAdd Bo's strength to his intensity and you end up with a few snapped bats.
And those are just the ones we actually have on videotape.
"We had an outdoor party at a lake after we won the county championship," says Terry Brasseale, Bo's baseball coach at McAdory High School. "Bo's just out there in water up to his waist. All of a sudden, he jumps up, does a backflip out of the water, and lands on his feet. I said to my girlfriend, 'Did you see that?' "
For those of us who came of age in the 1980s, watching Bo take on both professional baseball and professional football at the same time, the myth and the man long ago became tangled. Bo hits a 600-foot home run! Bo tramples Ronnie Lott! Bo snaps a Louisville Slugger over his knee! Bo snaps a Louisville Slugger over his head! Bo hits a batting-practice home run left-handed! Bo parts a major body of water! Bo cures lymphoma!
There have always been stories like this, passed on in a telephone game from one generation to the next -- about Babe Ruth, about Josh Gibson, about Red Grange, about Marion Motley and Jim Brown and Mickey Mantle -- and they seemed apocryphal, almost silly, in their exaggeration. The difference, of course, was that we actually saw Bo part the Red Sea on our televisions. We saw it with our own eyes; even those moments that weren't televised were documented and sometimes photographed. In 1986, in a minor-league ballpark in Charlotte, N.C., a young journalist named Joe Posnanski watched Jackson hit his first professional home run, and then realized Jackson had broken his bat. "Bo's destiny," Posnanski would write in The Kansas City Star, more than 20 years later, "was to become a comic-book hero."
And so it was: Within the span of a decade, his superpowers bloomed and wilted. He won the Heisman Trophy at Auburn, chose to play baseball instead of football, then decided he would play both football and baseball, even as every sports columnist in the country and most opposing players (and some of his own teammates) declared him an egomaniac with a death wish. He was just beginning to blossom as a baseball player, and the scouts called him the greatest raw prospect since Mantle and Mays, an almost unfathomable combination of speed and power and arm strength; although he struck out in prolific numbers, he also hit some colossal home runs and made some extraordinary plays in the outfield.
Mark Harrison/The Seattle Times and Harley Soltes/The Seattle TimesIn one of the most dominating performances in "Monday Night Football" history, Bo solidified his myth in Seattle.
His myth fully crystallized on a Monday night, on the last day of November 1987, when Bo was a rookie running back for the Los Angeles Raiders, a two-sport athlete sharing time in the backfield with a Hall of Famer named Marcus Allen. Bo took a handoff and Bo parted the entire Seattle defense and then Bo -- How does one even describe this method of propulsion? Glided? Propelled? Teleported? -- 91 yards down the sideline, and then Bo kept on running until he disappeared into a tunnel in the bowels of Seattle's Kingdome. The sound of Bo running past him, former Seahawks receiver Steve Largent said, was like nothing he had ever heard before.
For a moment, Bo was gone, out of the picture entirely, prompting ABC analyst Dan Dierdorf to proclaim to a TV audience that Bo "might not stop until Tacoma." When Bo emerged from that tunnel, and when he lowered his shoulder and toppled a cocky young linebacker named Brian Bosworth on a short touchdown run later that evening, and finished the night with 221 yards, nothing was ever the same. Bo was on his way to becoming an icon, both physically and commercially, a man who could do anything he wanted on any field of play, a man who made a fortune for embodying that Nike catchphrase concocted by a copywriter in Portland, Ore.: Bo Knows.
With those two words, Bo Jackson helped usher sports into the modern age.
THE SELLING OF BO
It was a silly idea in the first place, this two-word mantra, proper noun followed by verb, and like most silly ideas, it came to Jim Riswold in the middle of the night. But then, this was a silly business, and it was Riswold's sense of irony that had led him here in the first place. Already, in 1986, working out of a rambunctious and offbeat Portland advertising firm called Wieden + Kennedy, working for a burgeoning empire known as Nike, Riswold had brought together Michael Jordan and Spike Lee for a shoe campaign that, according to author David Halberstam, created "a figure who had the power and force and charisma of a major movie star."
NikeThe "Bo Knows" commercial campaign turned a two-sport athlete into an icon.
Jordan was already on his way to becoming an icon in 1987 when Bo Jackson plowed over Brian Bosworth on that Monday night in Seattle. At the same time, Nike was looking to market its new shoe, called a cross-trainer. The company's first choice, Riswold says, was Howie Long. Riswold suggested there was a far better candidate on the same Raiders roster.
"I'm always surprised by how big something as inconsequential as an advertisement can become," Riswold says. "People like their sports heroes, and Bo was something new. A new shiny toy. That was the best example of how big these things can become."
The year before, in 1986, Bo had been picked first in the NFL draft by Tampa Bay. For reasons that are still not entirely clear -- a perception of racism within the Buccaneers organization, a sense of loyalty to Kansas City scout Ken Gonzales, Bo's utter abhorrence for the conventions of football practice, Bo's determination to accomplish what others said he couldn't -- he chose to sign with the Royals instead. Already, he was a maverick, and once he came back to football in 1987, on his own terms, Riswold and his colleagues began toying with Bo's image. Bo willingly played along. This was the '80s, after all, a decade suffused with vanity and objectivism, and this was a nation presided over by Ronald Reagan, a man of relentless optimism, damn the long-term consequences. The country was "in a mood for the resurrection of old myths," historian Haynes Johnson once wrote. So why not, in keeping with the times, shape Bo as a modern-day Paul Bunyan?
Beau Brummell. Bo Derek. Bo Schembechler. Bo Diddley. What an unusual name Bo has, Riswold thought, and he began brainstorming ideas with Nike executives until that pronoun-verb combination came to him in his sleep that night.
"His career was pretty short, and it was injury-plagued, but by the time all those things changed, he was a marketing star," sports marketing executive Nova Lanktree says. "People were just very fond of him. He overcame his stuttering problem. Everything about his profile was suited to [his becoming a cultural phenomenon]."
That first iconic television ad, culminating with Bo playing a horrific guitar riff and Diddley delivering the line, "Bo, you don't know Diddley," aired during the All-Star Game in 1989, the game that Jackson led off with a home run (he was later named MVP). Riswold was watching in a bar in Portland, with several Nike colleagues. When the spot came on, the entire bar fell silent.
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comWith a healthy hip, Bo is confident he'd have the fastest 45-year-old legs in the country.
"I think God is a Nike fan," Riswold muttered.
It was absurd what happened next, the way the catchphrase caught fire, the way Bo's profile grew and mutated, until, for a short period, he was the most culturally recognizable athlete in the world, above even Jordan himself. The ads grew more self-referential as Bo got bigger and bigger. The '80s ended, and the '90s commenced, and Bo injured his hip, but Nike was invested in Bo by then, and America was invested in Bo as the manifestation of its outsized dreams. Riswold began writing subversive ads that pierced the myth of Bo, and the myth of Nike (these days, Riswold says, Nike would never permit such self-effacement), not to mention the commercialism and the hype and the excess of the nation itself. In one of the last great ads, from the summer of 1991, Bo cuts off a song-and-dance routine, declaring, "I'm an athlete, not an actor." Then, in the midst of a workout, as the music cues once more, Bo breaks through the fourth wall, crying out to the Nike logo, "You know I don't have time for this," before George Foreman, huckster and infomercial pitchman, takes his place.
By then, of course, it was too late. The monster Riswold had helped to create -- sports as cult of personality -- was slouching out of its cage, to be reborn over and over again.
"All the athletes today grew up with these commercials, and they want them," Riswold says. "But the world is more cynical, and with good reason. It has been done before. And the Michaels and Bos of the world don't come around that often."
HIDDEN BO
The woman in the produce aisle would like to know if Bo is doing autographs this afternoon. Normally, Bo figures, the woman wouldn't have bothered to ask -- he's almost certain he has seen her in here before, and he probably has since he comes to this same supermarket at least once a week, where today his list includes such sundries as pasta and sausage and bananas and Diet Pepsi. But since Bo is being trailed by a reporter and a photographer, since his private sphere is already being intruded upon anyway, he figures he will make an exception.
AP Photo/G. Paul BurnettAfter winning the 1985 Heisman Trophy, Bo reversed field and decided to pursue a pro baseball career.
Bo has never quite accepted the phenomenon of celebrity. His private time is his private time, and he does not always take kindly to those who intrude. Approach him at a restaurant while he is eating dinner with his family, and Bo might rebuff you with prejudice. He has worked hard to achieve normalcy. He has lived in the same house for 16 years, ever since he signed with the White Sox after a hip injury derailed his football career in a 1991 playoff game against Cincinnati, and the neighbors have gotten accustomed to him, even if most of them, northerners through and through, don't comprehend his hunting fetish. The people in the community know his family; unlike Michael Jordan, Bo's old colleague at Nike, whose star ascended long after Bo's commercial potential was tapped, he is not compelled to live a life apart from the remainder of society. This extended even to his family. Bo's daughter, Morgan, was a high school track phenomenon until she decided to quit to focus on academics (and cheerleading) her senior year. Neither of his sons played college sports. His wife, Linda, is a counseling psychologist at a local hospital, the name of which she does not want revealed here, in part, Bo says, because some of her colleagues do not know she is Bo Jackson's spouse.
There are many people, strangers and idolaters, who have no idea Bo Jackson lives in this part of the country. Part of him would prefer to keep it that way. He does not hide -- if you want to find Bo, you can find Bo, and he makes occasional public appearances, such as last weekend at the Iron Bowl game between Alabama and Auburn -- but he does not keep himself on display, either. He says he has cut off associates who have given out his cell-phone number without permission. He was perfectly willing to allow a photographer into his house, but refused to allow the photographer to shoot any photos of his family, or even to shoot photos of the photos of his family. His wife, Bo says, has not granted an interview for as long as he can remember. He was invited at one point to be on "Dancing With the Stars," he says, but he declined.
Bo is part owner of a food company called N'Genuity, which provides food -- mostly meat, all products Bo has approved personally, some of which bear his name, such as the Bo Burger -- to the military and to casinos, and has provided him with a strong post-retirement income. Recently, he partnered with another former baseball player, John Cangelosi, to break ground for a sports dome that will provide a place for young ballplayers to practice during Chicago's frigid winters, and he has a financial interest in a local bank, as well.
"People around here, they know me," Bo says. "People that live here see me all the time. I'm quiet. I lay low. I think a lot of people get caught up in this celebrity world to where they have to be treated in a certain way, spoken to in a certain way, and they have to carry themselves in a certain way. And if they don't get their way, their world turns upside down. With me, I'll stop and help somebody change a car tire."
And then Bo makes one of several statements that might be a joke. Or, perhaps, a warning.
"If you're my enemy," he says, "and you're by the side of the road with a flat tire, and it's 20 below zero, I'm going to stop and throw a gallon of water on you and keep going."
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comBo knows bows -- a pastime that probably keeps him from being the most approachable guy in Illinois.
YOUNG AND RECKLESS BO
Bo gets back home to Alabama a few times every year, but he does not have any great yearning to go back there for good, or to retire down South. For every fond memory he has of Bessemer, there is a pain that lingers, because Bo Jackson grew up fatherless. His dad, A.D. Adams, lived across town, and used to work in the steel mills, but Adams had a new wife and a new family, and rarely made an appearance except to leave a few dollars on the table. Bo inherited his father's enormous frame and his greatest burden (his stutter), and he combatted his own insecurities by utilizing that musculature he'd been given, by lashing out at anyone who stood in his way. He was a bully of the purest sort, "the John Gotti of my neighborhood," he says, a character straight out of Mark Twain. He once clubbed one of his cousins -- acousin -- with a baseball bat. Although his mother, Florence Bond, who worked as a housekeeper at a local Ramada Inn, tried every trick she knew to tame him, whipping him with switches and extension cords, Bo would not be tamed.
John McDonough/Icon SMIBo was a comic superhero on real-life playing fields.
Bo -- his nickname is a truncation of the term, "Bo'Hog," for a wild boar -- gained a reputation for throwing rocks with uncanny accuracy, mostly at other human beings. He pummeled his classmates on a regular basis. When he was a teenager, in the summer of 1976, he and his friends began throwing rocks at pigs on their way to a local swimming hole, killing several of them. They got caught in the act by a farmer who had hired the local barber to keep watch, and Florence Bond told the barber who caught them that she was ready to send her son to reform school.
The barber asked Bo for the names of his co-conspirators. The way Bo tells it in his autobiography, "Bo Knows Bo," he suddenly saw where his life was headed, and he spilled his guts. In truth, the transformation was probably more gradual, but it seems to have begun here. He worked all summer mowing lawns to pay back the money, and then, scared straight, he began playing organized sports, endeavoring to find his niche. In baseball, he volunteered to be a catcher. He wrestled at heavyweight ("slippery as a wet catfish," one of his coaches called him), and he ran track. Later, though his mom didn't want him playing football, Bo joined the football team. When she found out he'd done it anyway, she locked him out of the house, and left him out there all night long; Bo curled up in a parked car and went to sleep.
Somewhere, possibly lost by Bo's co-author on "Bo Knows Bo," Dick Schaap, there is a videotape of Bo's greatest hits, a videotape that includes a sequence of Bo playing lead blocker for McAdory's other halfback: He knocks down a defensive lineman, knocks down a linebacker, waves for his teammate to follow him, knocks down a cornerback, and escorts his teammate into the end zone.
All that was a long time ago, and most of the people of Bessemer remember Bo fondly, as people often do when one of their own crosses the threshold of celebrity. Some of them have been known to embellish stories about Bo, stories that don't even need embellishing. Given time, of course, even with the video evidence, it seems likely it will become increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, and those who remember a healthy Bo will remember the equivalent of his Nintendo Tecmo Super Bowl replicant, the most potent video-game running back in history, utterly unstoppable to the point of being ridiculous.
Sometimes Brasseale tells the story of when Bo hit two towering homers in his first two at-bats in the county championship game, and then in his third at-bat, with the left fielder backed up to the fence, he hit a high fly ball to shallow left. If he hustles, Brasseale thought, he could get a double out of this. Soon enough, the ball dropped, and Bo was rounding third.
He scored standing up.
"I tell that to other coaches," Brasseale says, "and they say there ain't no way."
Ross Dettman for ESPN.comIf you see this pickup on the roadway, you'd better get out of the way before you get the Bosworth treatment.
UNFORGIVING BO
A few years ago, Bo made up with his father, and goes to visit him often now that A.D. is old and in ill health. But there is something holding Bo back from a complete reconciliation with his past. Whenever his high school asks him for a donation, Bo declines. All in good time, he says.
"Most of the guys I hung out with are still there," Bo says. "I call them institutionalized country. That's all they know. I'm not saying I'm better than I am, but it's not for me."
It is not easy to let go of everything. Bo's entire athletic career was based upon channeling that seething childhood anger into a purpose; his high school teammates, he wrote in "Bo Knows Bo," didn't make it in college athletics because "they had better lives at home than I did. |
i said.
Her instructions were to cross the river, spend the night in an abandoned house and approach the police station in the morning as the officers prepared for their daily patrols, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.
Upon entering the water, however, Spozhmai felt cold and started screaming, Sediqqi said.
Police officers heard the screams and ran to the river, he said. At the sight of the police, the brother took the suicide vest and fled, he said.
The officers took the girl to their station, where she opened up with her story, Sediqqi said.
When taken into custody, the girl was not wearing explosives, Umar Zwak, the spokesman for the governor of Helmand province, said after reviewing the initial investigation report.
Karzai said he ordered the Interior Ministry to eventually give Spozhmai back to her parents after getting assurances from them that the girl will be able to continue her family life like other children.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Karen Murphy: "I'm glad I took it on even though it's taken up quite a chunk of my life"
A pub landlady has won the latest stage of her fight to air Premier League games using a foreign TV decoder.
Karen Murphy had to pay nearly £8,000 in fines and costs for using a cheaper Greek decoder in her Portsmouth pub to bypass controls over match screening.
But she took her case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The ECJ now says national laws which prohibit the import, sale or use of foreign decoder cards are contrary to the freedom to provide services.
The decision could trigger a major shake-up for the Premier League and its current exclusive agreements with Sky Sports and ESPN, and pave the way to cheaper viewing of foreign broadcasts for fans of top-flight English games.
However, whereas the decision opens up opportunities for individuals to watch overseas broadcasts at home, it remains unclear whether in future games can be shown in pubs using foreign decoders and broadcasts, as the ruling also threw up a number of copyright issues.
'Relief'
The ECJ said national legislation, which banned the use of overseas decoders, could not "be justified either in light of the objective of protecting intellectual property rights or by the objective of encouraging the public to attend football stadiums".
Analysis Today's ruling could lead to a major shake-up in the way TV rights have to be sold in the European Union, not just by the Premier League, but by the Hollywood film studios and independent TV producers as well. The makers of Spooks have warned that it could hinder investment in UK production if they can't sell the programme country-by-country. But it's a complicated ruling - and it's not a total victory for Karen Murphy. She can now watch Premier League matches herself via the Greek service, but it's not clear she can show them to her customers. The court has ruled that although there is no copyright in the matches themselves, there is copyright in the "branding" around the football - the Premier League graphics, music and highlights. If those are there, pubs will still need the League's permission to show its matches. It's now up to the UK High Court to interpret today's ruling, and that is not likely to happen for several months.
But the Premier League's said the ECJ's answers to the High Court's questions were "complex".
"We are pleased that the judgment makes it clear that the screening in a pub of football-match broadcasts containing protected works requires the Premier League's authorisation," the league said.
Only Sky and ESPN are currently authorised by the Premier League to make such broadcasts.
"I'm relieved, very relieved," Mrs Murphy told BBC Radio 5 live.
"It has been a rollercoaster, highs and lows, nerves... It has been a strange time and I am glad it is coming to an end."
She added: "I feel I have taken on the Premier League and Sky."
Mrs Murphy said she no longer had a decoder box in her Red, White and Blue pub and would wait for the "stamp of approval" from the High Court before reinstating it.
The ECJ findings will now go to the High Court in London, which had sent the matter to the ECJ for guidance, for a final ruling.
However, it is unusual for a member state High Court to pass a different judgement from one provided by the ECJ.
'Contingency plans'
Whatever happens the league is confident it is not about to suffer a major loss in TV income David Bond, BBC sport editor Read David Bond's blog on the issue
"In practical terms, the Premier League will now have to decide how it wishes to re-tender its rights," said sports media lawyer Daniel Geey of Field Fisher Waterhouse solicitors.
"There can be little doubt it will have contingency plans ready to go and has various options available.
"Be it a pan-EU tender, selling in only certain EU member states or devising a plan to start its own channel, they will be deciding how best to maximise the value of their product to ensure any revenue shortfall is minimised."
The judges said the Premier League could not claim copyright over Premier League matches as they could not considered to be an author's own "intellectual creation" and, therefore, to be "works" for the purposes of EU copyright law.
Copyright issues
However, the ECJ did add that while live matches were not protected by copyright, any surrounding media, such as any opening video sequence, the Premier League anthem, pre-recorded films showing highlights of recent Premier League matches and various graphics, were "works" protected by copyright.
To use any of these extra parts associated of a broadcast, a pub would need the permission of the Premier League.
Image caption The way games featuring PL teams such as Wolves and Newcastle are broadcast could be set to change
It remains to be seen whether pubs could broadcast match action without using any of these Premier League "extras", such as just broadcasting from kick-off only and therefore avoid breaching the league's copyright.
By ensuring that its branding was on screen all the time, or including in-match graphics, the league may be able to claim pubs were in breach of this ECJ ruling on copyright.
"It's not a decision that the Premier League or its clubs wanted," Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey told BBC Radio WM after the ECJ ruling was made.
"The Premier League have been aware of the situation and the possibility of the judgement going against them for some time now and have been assessing how it will sell TV rights going forward.
"Football has shown itself to be a resilient business."
He said the Premier's League's financial model had been challenged by the ECJ ruling, and any future sales would need to take the court's decision into account.
'Confused picture'
AT THE SCENE Karen Murphy's court victory was dominating conversation at her Red, White and Blue pub after news of the ruling spread. Pub regular Nicholas Whyley, 50, said: "I am over the moon for Karen. She has been a very brave lady to take them on single-handily." Derek Woolven, 72, said: "It's a victory for the small person. She put her whole reputation and pub on the line. He also said he hoped the decision would stand when it went to the High Court. Mrs Murphy's family, meanwhile, said they were "delighted" she had won her battle. Her mother Joy Williamson said her daughter "didn't sleep a wink last night". "It's been a huge effort over the last six years to get here but we are delighted with the ruling," she said. And Mrs Murphy's husband Patrick Murphy, 56, said it had "always been about the principle".
"On the face of it, it looks like a blow for the Premier League and... broadcasters Sky and ESPN," said BBC sport editor David Bond.
But he said the Premier League had faced many regulatory challenges in the past and would find ways to get round the new situation.
"The League insists the ruling is not clear cut, pointing to a part of the judgment which appears to offer them copyright protection and requiring pubs to seek their permission if they wish to use foreign decoders," added our correspondent.
"It is a confused picture and it is now up to the High Court to try and interpret the judgment. Whatever happens the league is confident it is not about to suffer a major loss in TV income."
A spokesman for Sky said they were considering the implications of the ECJ ruling and how it may affect the way Premier league football rights were sold across Europe in future.
The broadcaster has pumped billions into top flight English football since the league was founded in 1992, with the money given to clubs allowing them to buy some of the top names in the world.
The Premier League's television income from mainland Europe is about £130m, less than 10% of their total £1.4bn overseas rights deal.
'Inflated prices'
This decision is likely to have far reaching implications beyond that of football Martin Ochs, Smithfield Partners
However, the court decision could have a significant repercussions for other rights holders outside of sport, with life potentially getting more difficult for the film industry, which also sells its product on an country-by-country basis.
Smithfield Partners is a law firm which represents David Richardson of QC Leisure (a digital box supplier), and SR Leisure Limited (a publican), all of whom were defendants to a civil action brought by the Premier League.
"We consider this ruling to be a significant step in creating fair competition across the internal market, reducing artificially inflated prices which vary across member states," said the firm's Martin Ochs.
"It also provides some clarity in relation to the rights of businesses within the EU to broadcast live football. In fact this decision is likely to have far reaching implications beyond that of football."
Satellite signals
The legal battle kicked off six years ago, when Mrs Murphy was taken to court for using the Nova firm to show matches at the Red, White and Blue pub.
Using the Greek service, she had paid £118 a month, rather than £480 a month with the official broadcaster.
Licensed broadcasters encrypt satellite signals, with subscribers needing a decoder card to access them.
Mrs Murphy took advantage of an offer to UK pubs to use imported cards.
In February, an ECJ advocate general said this was in line with the aims of the EU single market - a border-free zone for goods and services.
The Premier League has already taken action against two suppliers of foreign satellite equipment and a group of pub landlords who used imported decoding equipment to show English Premier League games and avoided the commercial premises subscription fees for Sky.The Brown Eyed Girls' are receiving a lot of love calls from overseas.
After Ga In appeared in Psy's "Gentleman" music video, dancing a remake of their famous "Abracadabra" dance, the girls have been getting numerous love calls from overseas. Since "Gentlemen" went live on YouTube, the girls have received 30 calls a day, which is 3 to 4 times the normal amount of calls they usually receive.
Even though the members are busy preparing for their new album, the girls stated that they wanted to change their schedules to meet up with overseas fans. Although it's been 4 years since "Abracadabra" was released, the music video has become a hot issue once again through "Gentleman".
However, Ga In isn't diving into her new found international fame. In a phone call with media outlet Osen, she said, "If I get a chance to go overseas, of course I would love to. But I'm a singer. I think talent is important. I want to do it, but I want to think things over calmly. I won't change from what I've been doing. I'm just going to continue like I always have."
Tip: EricaYes, it's true. Jimmy Dean is going to be buried in a grand piano tomb.
A public visitation and an open funeral service for the country music legend and sausage king will be held in Richmond on Sunday, followed by a private burial on Monday.
Dean died Sunday at his home in Varina, and that's where he will be laid to rest in the $350,000, 9 1/2-foot long, granite piano mausoleum overlooking the James River. On the piano, which he and his wife bought years ago, will be inscribed: "Here lies one hell of a man."
According to his widow, Donna Meade Dean, his epitaph is inspired by the last line of Big Bad John, the song that brought him a No. 1 hit in 1961. "He was the most special human being I've ever known," Dean tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "He had the best wit of anyone I ever knew. We made each other laugh. He was the man of my dreams. "
Nelsen Funeral Home's website says the visitation is scheduled from noon to 8 p.m. June 20 at the funeral home. The funeral service - "a celebration of Jimmy's life" - will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Grove Avenue Baptist Church, followed by a private burial at Dean's home.Coating soybean seeds with a class of insecticides that has been implicated in honeybee deaths and partiallybanned in the European Union does not increase soybean yields compared to using no pesticides at all, according to an extensive review by the the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Seed treatment provides at most $6 in benefits per acre (an increase in revenue of less than 2 percent), and most likely no financial benefit at all, the EPA analysis concluded. The insecticides, known as neonicotinoids, are only effective for the first few weeks after planting, studies have found, when soybean pests are not typically active. Neonicotinoid seed treatments could theoretically help fend off sporadic and unpredictable pests, the report notes, but that benefit would be small and unlikely to be noticed outside of the southern U.S.Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
I talk a lot about numbers and statistics, but as the Director of Yale’s Prevention Research Center put it in a recent editorial, to reach doctors, our fellow colleagues, maybe we need to put a human face on it all.
“We have known…[for at least a decade] that the leading causes of both premature death and persistent misery in our society are chronic diseases that are, in turn, attributable to the use of our feet [exercise], forks (diet…), and fingers (…smoking). Feet, forks, and fingers are the master levels of medical destiny for not just thousands of people on any one occasion [like a tsunami or earthquake] but the medical destiny of millions upon millions year after year.
“We [as doctors, as a medical profession] have known,” [Ornish published 23 years ago] “but we have not managed to care. At least, not care deeply enough to turn what we know into what we routinely do. Were we to do so, we [might be able to] eliminate [most] heart disease,…strokes, …diabetes, and…cancer.”
But, saving millions of lives is just a number. He asks doctors to forget the bland statistics of public health, and ask ourselves if we love someone “who has suffered a heart attack, stroke, cancer, or diabetes….Now imagine their faces, whisper their names. Recall what it felt like to get the news. And while [we’re] at it, [we can] imagine the faces of other[s]…imagining beloved faces.”
“Now imagine if eight [out] of 10 of us wistfully reflecting on intimate love and loss, on personal anguish, never got that dreadful news because it never happened. Mom did not get cancer; dad did not have a heart attack; grandpa did not have a stroke; sister, brother, aunt, and uncle did not lose a limb or kidney or eyes to diabetes. We are all intimately linked, in a network of personal tragedy that need never have occurred.”
“Which leads to what [he’s] asking doctors to do about it: put a face on public health every chance you get. When talking about heart disease and its prevention—or cancer or diabetes—ask your audience to see in their mind’s eye the face of a loved one affected by that condition.” Then… imagine that loved one…among the 80% who need never have succumbed if what we knew [as doctors] were what we do.”
Invoke the mind’s eye, he advises, and then bring a tear to it.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.David Mitchell Conference 2017: Call for Papers
Saturday 3rd June 2017, School of English, University of St Andrews, UK
Contemporary British writer David Mitchell is the author of seven novels, two libretti and over twenty short stories. Since the publication of his first novel, Ghostwritten, in 1999, his work has attracted substantial academic and popular acclaim, with two novels shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and his writing is now taught, researched and studied in universities across the globe. David Mitchell has created a fictional universe that spans literary realism, historical fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction, twitter fiction, opera (Wake and Sunken Garden) and film (Cloud Atlas and The Voorman Problem) – and has featured in Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
This one-day conference on the author’s works, to be held on Saturday 3rd June 2017 at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, seeks to broaden the understanding of this author’s fictional world through critical discussion of these literary works and their wider cultural impact. It aims to stimulate new and unexplored critical perspectives, bringing together those researching, teaching and studying this author’s work. The conference will include a showcase of David Mitchell’s rare works held in the university’s Special Collections, and a talk from the author.
This conference welcomes submissions for twenty-minute paper presentations from any discipline, and submissions are also welcomed from early career academics and postgraduates as well as established academics. The presentation should also be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience which will include both academics and non-academics with an interest in the author’s work.
This call for papers covers any area related to David Mitchell’s writing. Topics may include, but are not limited to, any aspect of David Mitchell’s works and:
- Postmodernism and the contemporary
- Globalisation, capitalism, world-mapping
- Time, history, the Anthropocene
- Experimental poetics, narratology
- Biopolitics, ecocriticism, posthumanism
- Dystopia and utopia
- Postcolonialism and world history
- Religion and mythology
- Gender, ethnicity, sexuality, transgender and queer readings
- Science fiction, fantasy, horror, speculative fiction, autobiography
- Digital humanities, social media storytelling
- Musicality, film, multimedia performance
- Terrorism, politics and international security
- Aging and mortality
- Literature and science
- Popular culture, high and low genres
- Influences and contemporaries
- Translation, non-fiction, intertextuality
- Panopticism and surveillance
- Dis/ability studies
- Teaching Mitchell in universities and beyond
- Fan communities and fictions
Papers are also particularly welcomed on David Mitchell’s lesser-known works, including his short stories, writing for opera, essays, collaborative works and work in translation, as well as adaptations of his works for film. Please send your paper title, a 300-word abstract for a twenty-minute paper, and 100-word biographical statement with your name and affiliation to [email protected] by Monday 9th January 2017. Successful applicants will be informed by the end of January 2017.
Conference organiser:
Rose Harris-Birtill, School of English, University of St Andrews.From Sept. 21 to Nov. 17, the event “Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload in Namja Town” was held in the Namja Town indoor theme park in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Danganronpa has picked up popularity for being a high-speed mystery action game that tells a thrilling story that deals with characters each with special skills in separate fields who are vying for the special title of “Ultimate Student” and a dark mascot named Monokuma who holds “class trials.”
The series has many unique and charming characters. What’s more, the series doesn’t just stop at games, there is also a late-night anime produced by MBS called Danganronpa: The Animation that also became well talked about after it began broadcasting.
Namja Town is home to many collaborations with anime and games that recreate the world of the work through food items, attractions, and limited goods for sale. These collaborations are packed with content that is irresistible to fans! For the “Danganronpa 1 & 2 Reload in Namja Town” collaboration, a mystery attraction that recreated the “class trials” shown in the series called “Real Class Trial in Namja Town” was set up. This was a big success evidenced by the 120-minute wait time regardless of what day it was.
Using a tablet PC, participants voted on who was the culprit. The participant who was deemed the culprit was taken to an inner room and “punished.”
Those who participated in the attraction sat at seats designated with names of characters from the series and, following rules based on the game “Are You a Werewolf?” 1, a discussion was undertaken to find out who the culprit was.
The winner of the game was presented with a unique prize called “Deluxe Monokuma Sakechazuke.” Everyone who participated received a random original clear bookmark as a prize.
Character panels were set up all over the place, especially in the “class trial” area. In addition to the attraction, a “Mono Mono Garapon” 2 was taking place in which fabulous prizes such as round mini bags depicting Monokuma and Monomi, 75-millimeter pin badges, plastic student cards, and original postcards were up for grabs.
In addition to that, photo sticker machines equipped with character frames, and cranes games filled with prizes exclusive to the event such as cushions and purses were also set up.
The epitome of this collaboration event, the food and desserts, spanned a plentiful lineup of 15 items, and each one came as a set with a character postcard. Namja Town is home to many gyoza shops in the “Namja Gyoza Stadium,” and here, cute gyoza modeled after the characters Monokuma and Monomi could be found. Also, the “Fukubukuro Dessert Alley” was full of gelato and pancake dessert items.
The black half of Monokuma’s face was made using black sesame seeds. It’s appearance and taste were both “Ultimate Student” level.
Top row: Cake-pops of the friendship between Ogami and Asahina. This easy-to-eat, dessert on a stick was made with an icing-covered cookie that was designed on one side with Sakura Ogami and on the other with Aoi Asahina. Bottom row: A custard of the Four Dark Gods of Destruction. On top of this milk pudding made in the image of Gandamu Tanaka was purple cream and cookies printed with images of his hampsters.
“Nagito Komaeda’s Lucky Russian Roulette Cream-Filled Pastry.” Created in the image of Komaeda, the “Ultimate Student of Luck,” this set of six cream-filled pastries included five filled with a tart lemon cream and only one filled with a sweet strawberry cream. I tried out this game of Russian Roulette, but lost five times before choosing the strawberry pastry correctly.
At the “Hope’s Peak Academy Store Namja Town Branch,” named after the academy the series is set in, original goods like Hope’s Peak Academy game console pouches and microfiber cloths, as well as many character goods were for sale.
© Spike Chunsoft Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
© Namco Ltd.
^1^ “Are You a Werewolf?” is a party game created by an American game maker in which players take on the roles of werewolf, villager, and fortuneteller and debate to find out who is the werewolf.
^2^ Garapon is a type of raffle where participants spin the handle on a rotating box and can win prizes depending on the color of the ball that comes out.The video will start in 8 Cancel
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The family of a gun instructor shot dead by a nine-year-old girl with an Uzi submachine gun are suing over his death.
Charles Vacca, 39, was killed when he was shot in the head by a stray bullet after the young girl was unable to control the recoil on the weapon.
A harrowing video of the moments leading up to the incident shows the girl, dressed in pink shorts and with a braided ponytail, being given instructions as she aims at a black and white target shaped like the silhouette of a man.
Vacca, a former soldier, is heard encouraging the girl to take a shot, and then says: "All right, full auto."
The little girl, who was unhurt, was not charged with any criminal offence following the incident in Arizona in August 2014.
(Image: Reuters)
Now, a wrongful death lawsuit has been filed by Vacca's wife Stephanie against the range and its owner.
The lawsuit alleges Bullets and Burgers Corp acted negligently at the outdoor facility and claims the girl received "limited instruction" on firing the Uzi and never should have been given the weapon.
The lawsuit says: "The Uzi was an inappropriate and unsafe weapon to entrust to a 9-year-old girl... thereby creating an unreasonably dangerous and unsafe environment for individuals in the area, including Charles J. Vacca, Jr."
The suit is seeking unspecified damages.
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Vacca was showing the girl how to fire the high-powered weapon at the popular tourist stop when it recoiled and she lost control of the Uzi, authorities said.
He was struck by one round and later died.
The high-profile shooting sparked a nationwide debate on whether children should be allowed to handle such firearms.
The shooting was ruled an "industrial accident" by the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office and no criminal charges were filed.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Vacca's three children encouraged the girl, in a video, to find peace, put the ordeal behind her and move ahead with her life.
They said they hoped to give her a hug one day.Dear Reader, As you can imagine, more people are reading The Jerusalem Post than ever before. Nevertheless, traditional business models are no longer sustainable and high-quality publications, like ours, are being forced to look for new ways to keep going. Unlike many other news organizations, we have not put up a paywall. We want to keep our journalism open and accessible and be able to keep providing you with news and analysis from the frontlines of Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World.
A day after opposition leader Isaac Herzog called on the government to take in Syrian refugees, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went South to launch construction of the next section of a multibillion shekel security fence along the border with Jordan aimed at preventing infiltration from the east.
Since returning to power in 2009, Netanyahu oversaw the construction of a similar fence from Kerem Shalom to Eilat along the Sinai border, as well as an enhanced security fence on the Golan Heights.
“We are beginning today the construction of a security fence on our eastern border, as a continuation of the security fence that we built on the border with Egypt, and which will join up in the end with the security fence that we built on the Golan Heights,” he said, accompanied by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Transportation and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz.Netanyahu said the world today is witnessing what happens when countries lose control of their borders. He said the combination of brutal terrorism, which is spreading along Israel’s borders, as well as illegal migrant workers makes it imperative for Israel to have control over all of its borders.“That is what we are doing in practical terms,” he said.The prime minister said the aim of the fence is to replicate what was done on the Egyptian border, where the completion of the security fence has for all intents and purposes stopped the flood of illegal migrants into the country. That, he said, was an achievement few countries in the world have replicated.Reiterating what he said earlier in the day at the cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the construction of the fence does not mean Israel is unsympathetic or indifferent to the dimensions of the human tragedy around it.“Israel was the first country that gave humanitarian aid to those wounded in the fighting in Syria,” he said.He adding that Israel also gives aid to African countries, and it intends to increase that with the help of other countries in an effort to deal with the economic crisis in those areas spawning the flood of migrants looking for work.Work began Sunday on the first stretch of the eastern border, a 30-kilometer expanse from Eilat to Timna, which is designed to protect the airport being built there. The government has already allocated NIS 280 million for that part of the fence, which is scheduled to be completed in just over a year.“We are doing this without harming, in any way, the sovereignty of Jordan, which we respect and whom we see as a partner in preserving a peaceful border,” Netanyahu said.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>What is the State? by Ken Smith and William Marshall A DEFINING feature of Marxism, which sets it apart from other political trends, is its theory of the state and its programme and policies for dealing with it. But what is the state? The Welfare State: State Intervention. IN MODERN society, the term'state' is used in many contexts. Probably one of the most frequent is in 'the welfare state' or'state intervention' for example to shore up failing firms. This really refers to central provision by government of an infrastructure, a framework for the development of society. Even such provision as the welfare state bears the marks of class society. The various services and benefits were conceded by capitalism because of the need, particularly in times of full employment, for a healthier, more exploitable population. Welfare provision was also conceded, after the second world war especially, when the capitalist class feared a more far reaching working-class movement if concessions were not made. However, the welfare state has always been an area of conflict. The working class has seen the welfare state as a vital safety net, which provides basic health, education and security. The capitalists use such provision to discipline workers, for example, by withdrawing benefits from strikers. They also use different wings of the state to uphold their capitalist ideology. For example, the government attacks on single parents or the continual harassment and implication of laziness in relation to the long-term unemployed. In this way they attempt to deflect blame from themselves onto the victims of their system and undermine the support and confidence of those who campaign for better benefits. But also, state intervention has been used in the past to provide cheap utilities such as gas, electricity and transport to private industry to maximise their profits. Theese state utilities were also important to the quality of life of working-class people. Any society needs provisions of this sort. In a socialist society, they would be massively expanded, run for need not profit and subject to democratic control by workers and users. The resources would be provided by a planned, democratically controlled economy. However, the main sense in which Marxists use the term'state' is to describe the institutions by which class rule is maintained. We live in a class society where the ruling class does not represent the interests of the whole population, where a minority maintains its power and privileges by exploiting the majority. They have to persuade the majority to accept this situation. They do this partly though their control of ideas, for example, through their ownership of the mass media, their general control of education and other institutions. They try to persuade people that their system is the only and best way of organising society, almost to the extent of being "natural". But their ideas and system clash with the interests of working class people. For example, if the working class believed the news and political commentators they would never go on strike. But workers find that without organisation and a willingness to take action, they cannot maintain living standards. So, when propaganda and conditioning fail and working-class people and even sections of the middle classes oppose the ruling class, the ruling class use the police, the courts, the law and sometimes the army to defend their profits and power. They did this, for example, in their efforts to defeat the 1984-85 miners� strike and during the anti-capitalist marches in Genoa (where a protester was shot and killed). They need a special apparatus to ensure that their class rule continues. The core of the state, the part which it falls back on to ensure its rule when all else fails, is the repressive apparatus - the police, the army, the courts and the various intelligence agencies like Ml5. (Engels described the state as ultimately being "a body of armed men"). Carrying through the transition to a socialist society inevitably includes major strategic and tactical problems in defeating these agencies which exist to defend capitalist class rule. Has the'state' always existed? IF YOU never read another work of Marxism again, you should read Lenin's brilliant booklet 'The State and Revolution'. Lenin explains that the state arose when society first divided into antagonistic classes. For centuries humans lived in egalitarian societies, what Marx and Engels referred to as 'primitive communism', where all people were dependent on one another and co-operation was the guiding principle of society. However, as labour became more productive, society produced a surplus beyond its immediate needs. This created the conditions for class society - the minority who came firstly to administer and then to control and own this surplus protected their right to it by force. The class with economic dominance and power, the ruling class, created the state to protect itself, hold down its adversaries and guarantee that its will was done. This is a very important point because the reverse is also true. When classes themselves disappear, as a classless socialist society comes into being, that same force will no longer be needed. In a famous phrase of Marx, the state would begin to 'wither away'. Class society based on the private ownership of the means of producing wealth has taken different forms. When the capitalist class began to develop, they had to wage a Civil War in the 1640s against the existing feudal state to establish a new state that would serve their own capitalist, class interests. They became the new ruling class. Different Forms of Capitalist State THE �TYPICAL� form of state in the advanced capitalist countries today is capitalist ('bourgeois') democracy. Governments are elected by general election, and there are wide democratic freedoms - although in many countries these are under threat. Bourgeois � that is, capitalist - democracy hasn't always existed: the labour movement has carried out long struggles to win democratic freedoms such as the right to vote, to organise and the right to strike. Women also had to fight for the vote. In many ways bourgeois democracy is more convenient for the capitalists, enabling them to maintain their domination without risky and unpopular dictatorial measures. In the last 60 years, the capitalist class has had some nasty experiences with non-democratic forms of rule - for example, fascism in Germany and Italy cost a world war and massive destruction. In the last analysis however, if the capitalists feel threatened by the growing power of the working class, they will resort to other forms of capitalist state. In the 20th century typical alternatives to capitalist democracy have been military dictatorship (such as existed in Greece after the colonels' coup in 1967, or Chile after the military coup in 1973) and fascism, such as existed in Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini. In both military dictatorships and fascist regimes, democratic parliamentary rights, trade union and political rights, are abolished and the ruling class gives power to a small group which governs by coercion and terror. Contrary to a common misconception, Hitler did not win the German elections of 1933, but was handed power by the ruling elite. The type of regime which emerges in each historical period depends on how confident the bourgeoisie feels to grant democratic rights. But every ruling class will revert to authoritarian forms of rule if it has to. The ruling class in Britain is no exception. In a revealing insight in his book, Inside Right, Tory MP Ian Gilmour (now Lord Gilmour and a former member of Thatcher's cabinet) stated: "Conservatives do not worship democracy... For Conservatives... democracy is a means to an end and not an end in itself. And if it is leading to an end that is undesirable or is inconsistent with itself, then there is a theoretical case for ending it." There have been many occasions when the British ruling class discussed whether or not military intervention was necessary. In 1977, The Observer carried the following report: "Field-Marshall Lord Carver was chosen as Britain's Commissioner in Zimbabwe because he is a man the government knows it can trust. Carver's proving time came three years ago when he was the focus of tensions in right-wing army circles that gave rise to talk of military intervention in a political emergency. "This time the trouble was over contingency plans for a breakdown in public order after a clash between the government and the trade unions... The Army Council decided that such plans were unnecessary - and indeed that to make them would be politically unwise. Their absence became a talking point in the Army when the 1973 miners' strike and state of emergency precipitated a general election." (Observer 4 September 1977). It's obvious from the language here that the option of military intervention was not dismissed out of hand, considered outrageous, illegal or treacherous - just "unwise". Elaborate plans are in place to revert to dictatorial government if necessary. One of the considerations of capitalist governments before implementing such plans is the strength of the working class and its ability to defend the historic conquests of the vote, the right to strike, organise in unions and other gains, if the ruling class was to attempt to remove them under a form of dictatorship. Is capitalist democracy really democratic? PRO-CAPITALIST POLITICAL theorists say there are two forms of state - 'dictatorship' and 'democracy'. Both of them are ways of ensuring that the ruling class stays in control. Marxists defend democratic rights but say that real democracy cannot exist so long as economic and social power is in the hands of a ruling capitalist class. Capitalist ideologues say the system is 'democratic' because of the right to vote, and (within limits) there is the right of free speech and of political organisation. A typical argument is that 'if you want to change things, you can always stand for parliament.' In reality things are a bit more complicated. Under bourgeois democracy, the capitalist class keeps its power in the following ways: It controls the economy: This, of course, is the basic, most important source of capitalist power, giving |
to bring new communities into the Republican fold. Paul said his party's staunch and sometimes alienating policies face "a hardened resistance."
"It's been going on for decade after decade after decade. So it's not going to be easy to change," Paul said of winning over young and minority voters. "We got three percent of the vote in Detroit. There's not one Democrat that's offered to help the people in Detroit. I offered them a billion dollars of their own money to try to help them recover."
But when asked by Karl to explain how those tax cuts he is proposing would help them, Paul said it would allow businesses to hire the unemployed.
"That money will be left in the hands of businesses that people in Detroit are already voting on," he said. "Let's grow those businesses and they will employ more people."
Jeb Bush and Immigration
Earlier this week, another conservative superstar, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, made headlines with his comments on immigration, saying that while illegal immigrants break the law by crossing the border, "it's not a felony, it's an act of love."
While Paul didn't dispute Bush's comments, he did say he may have framed them differently.
"If it were me, what I would have said is, people who seek the American dream are not bad people."
"But here's the way I'd finish up," he added. "We can't invite the whole world. When you say they're doing an act of love and you don't follow it up with but we have to control the border, people think, well, because they're doing this for kind reasons, that the whole world can come to our country."
While Bush may be a rival to Paul in a potential 2016 GOP race, the Kentucky senator's wife may hold the deciding vote on whether he runs, which he will decide on after the 2014 midterm elections.
As of now, "There's two votes and at least one undecided in the house," Paul said. "So we'll see."
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Check out what time "This Week" airs in your area.Mr Abbott rejected the idea at a media conference in Canberra. Tony Abbott, we learn, was pumping out metadata when he was a journalist years before journalists used the internet. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "A contested warrant is more like a court case and if you had to have a court case to access metadata, well, the whole process would absolutely gum up," he said. And he pointed to his own experience as a journalist in the 1980s as an example for modern reporters. "Well in the days when I was a journalist there were no metadata protections for journalists," he said.
Mr Abbott said local councils and the RSPCA were able to access metadata with a mere authorisation and the protections being offered to the media are the strongest yet. One of Mr Abbott's articles in The Bulletin from the 1980s. Credit:Orietta Guerrera "I was perfectly comfortable as a journalist, I believe that Australian police and security agencies operate in a fair and reasonable and responsible manner," the Prime Minister said. The Australian Federal Police said this week they had received 13 referrals relating to unauthorised leaks of Commonwealth information but described as "rare" requests to access journalists metadata. The government is yet to reveal its amendment even though the laws are currently being debated in the House of Representatives.
After demanding the extra protections, Labor has agreed to the change "subject to the wording of the amendment". Independent senator Nick Xenophon is drafting his own amendment to the laws aimed at giving news organisations the ability to contest an warrant application. He told Fairfax Media Mr Abbott's attempt to reassure modern journalists exposed the Prime Minister's views as behind the times. "The PM is so last century on this one," Senator Xenophon said. "I can't remember what sort of a journalist Tony Abbott was but I do know that investigative journalists that I speak to are worried sick about these laws and the chilling effect it will have on free speech," he said.
The journalists' union wants the laws scrapped altogether but as a second best option says it wants the media exempted from having their metadata accessed because confidentiality of sources is central to a free press. But Attorney-General George Brandis has rejected the notion saying journalists are not above the law. Senator Brandis argues the extra protection is unnecessary and says he is only doing it to address "red herrings" thrown up by Labor and the Greens. The government believes it had a "handshake deal" with Labor Leader Bill Shorten to pass the final set of counter-terror laws that Mr Shorten has walked away from. Follow us on TwitterIt’s been 150 years since a young girl tumbled down a rabbit hole to a magical world of madcap make-believe and curious creatures eager for conversation. Published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” resonated with children and adults. Older readers loved its logic, younger readers its foolishness. The book’s popularity has never dimmed.
Now comes a chance to connect with the story behind the story. “Such A Curious Dream! Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” on view from May 20 through Sept. 5 at Houghton Library, explores the genesis and legacy of the work that inspired generations of writers and captured the cultural imagination. Along with the Bible and the works of Shakespeare, “Alice” remains among the most frequently quoted books in English.
And it still resonates.
In the 19th century, it resonated instantly for Harcourt Amory, a textiles magnate and an 1876 graduate of Harvard College whose interest in Carroll ephemera began when he bought a first edition of “Alice” as inspiration for the toy theater he was building for his children. Amory continued collecting Carroll memorabilia while the author was alive and purchased numerous items directly from Carroll’s estate when he died in 1898.
Much of the material in the show is from Amory’s archive, which includes hundreds of items “related closely to Carroll,” said curator Heather Cole.
“Amory collected the books that Carroll wrote in first editions,” said Cole, “but also subsequent editions, translations, parodies, reinterpretations, anything that had any connection to the stories, as well as ephemera, popular items, games and toys.”
Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson in January 1832 in Cheshire County, England, was a shy, brilliant man whose gift for mathematics matched his vivid imagination. A lecturer in math at Christ Church, Oxford, and an Anglican deacon, Carroll’s artistry was ever present. He wrote poetry and short stories from an early age. Later he became an accomplished photographer. But it was befriending the new dean of the college, Henry Liddell, who arrived at Christ Church in 1856, that changed his life. Carroll grew close to Liddell’s wife and young children, among them a girl named Alice. (Some scholars are convinced that Carroll had an unhealthy relationship with Alice Liddell.) One afternoon, during a row on the Thames with the three Liddell daughters, Carroll told them his tale of a young girl and her adventures in a mysterious land.
The real-life Alice begged him to write the story down, and he obliged. A facsimile of that original manuscript, illustrated by Carroll, which he presented to Alice as a Christmas gift in 1864, is displayed in the first of the show’s nine glass cases.
Nearby, an undated letter from his friend Charles Kingsley, who urged Carroll to publish “Alice,” points to the story’s universal appeal.
“Many thanks for your charming book,” the letter reads. “My real opinion of it may be gathered from this fact, that I received it in bed in the morning, and … in bed I staid [sic] until I had read every word of it.”
Other items in the show reveal Carroll’s drive for perfection, such as a suppressed original edition from 1865 whose poor quality failed to meet the high standards of both the author and his illustrator, John Tenniel. (The recalled edition in Houghton’s collection is exceedingly rare. Only 23 of the 2,000 originals survive, and of those, only one, the copy now under glass in the show, was bound in white vellum and presented to Alice Liddell — who, when asked, dutifully gave it back.)
Carroll’s story is as indelible as the original images that illustrated his prose. The Houghton exhibit includes rich studies of several Wonderland characters: the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and, of course, Alice — the waves of her long hair, the ruffles of her pinafore — sketched in vivid detail by Tenniel.
The book crossed oceans and media. In America, the Perkins Institute and Massachusetts School for the Blind published a version for the visually impaired in 1927, also in the Houghton show. Companies with something to sell, such as the beer-maker Guinness, seized on the story’s popularity, creating ad campaigns around it.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, goes the saying. Artists have interpreted “Alice” for decades. The exhibit includes woodcut prints by Barry Moser that offer a darker, haunting take on Carroll’s vision (look closely at the background), while Robert Sabuda’s 2003 pop-up book brims with creative whimsy.
Other highlights include an “Alice”-themed board game from 1940, a 1923 Russian translation by Vladimir Nabokov, and a 1913 Harvard Lampoon retelling that transplants Alice to Cambridge.
The quirkiest item in the show: bars of soap embossed with the images of “Alice” characters.
“It’s an odd thing for the library to collect,” admitted Cole. “It’s unique for our collections and a good challenge for our conservators.” How have they treated them thus far? “Just by leaving them alone.”
Fans who can’t make it to Houghton can browse the collection via an accompanying website filled with animations and interactive features. Virtual visitors can zoom in on photos and texts and flip through Alice Liddell’s copy of the book.
The library’s digital team wanted to create something “whimsical and different that would catch the eye but maintain the integrity of the material,” said designer and multimedia specialist Enrique A. Diaz. “We wanted to make the inaccessible accessible with these informed glimpses into the collection.”Something Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard said a couple of days ago seems to be flying under the radar. It seems old Billy boy (the disgrace of Irving Kristol) is working on disposing of Trump and Trumpism. Notice Kristol’s tweet:
Several of you have asked, What IS path forward? Well, we're working on it. Disposing of Trump & overcoming Trumpism can't be done in a day. — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) May 16, 2017
Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol: we’re working on disposing Trump
“we’re working on..” so who’s the we? Kristol and Evan McMuffin? Maybe Dianne Powell and Reince Priebus?
Sounds like a threat to me. I think the Secret Service needs to pay Bill Kristol a visit.
As this demonstrates, it’s not just the media and Democrats trying to sabotage Trump at every turn. His own party, the GOP is actively plotting with Democrats, media hacks and Never Trump “Republicans” to cause all the chaos and stop his agenda.
The Weekly Standard, like National Review have become a joke since the Trump election, and many of their hack writers have really revealed themselves to be the true globalist scum they truly are. They are all just big government Republicans who are really Democrat lite. This is treason and sedition.In a tense moment at the New Yorker Festival on Sunday, former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning shut down speculation that information in documents she shared with WikiLeaks in 2010 was sensitive enough to cause harm to other intelligence officers, informants, or ongoing Army operations. When New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar asked whether Manning was afraid of what was in the huge cache of more than 700,000 items she uploaded, Manning answered, “Absolutely not.” It was an emotional and candid discussion for Manning, touching on both her past and what it’s like now that she has been released from prison into a very changed world.
“I knew I was different,” Manning said of growing up in Oklahoma. She grew up on a “primordial” version of the Internet, picking up coding from her father and eventually finding friends online that made her feel more normal than those in real life had been able to. She recalled living on the streets of Chicago for several months after leaving her father’s house, and deciding to go into the Army as an effort to repair their relationship. “I can’t be trans, so maybe I won’t be,” she described thinking. “Maybe this will make me not trans.”
She retold in detail how she reacted to the difference between her pre-deployment training (in which she spent hours analyzing information on the actions of troops in Afghanistan from a base in upstate New York) and the real thing. Once she arrived in Iraq, after her deployment location changed, the numbers and statistics had human faces. “It was like drinking from a fire hose. And it’s just a fire hose of, like, death and destruction and mayhem just every single day. And it’s normal.”
Manning became disillusioned with the presence of the United States Army in Iraq and increasingly dubious about her role in the conflict. She described seeing “feedback loops” in the violence in the region, in which data would lead troops into an area and a violent event would occur, only to create more data to support more troops, and more violence in response. The objectivity of the statistics she was responsible for analyzing became less and less trustworthy: “Sometimes there would be, like, an incident in which, you know, 15 people were killed, and they wouldn’t... so maybe they were or weren’t armed. Like, it was hard to tell, you know? But they would always get put down as being EKIA, you know, enemy killed in action, even though we didn’t know.” One of the items in her disclosures was a video now known as “Collateral Murder,” in which civilians, including children and journalists, were shot and killed by U.S. soldiers in helicopters shooting at the ground.
When the data became overwhelming, she decided to go to the press with the information she had been able to gather in secret. She chose The New York Times and The Washington Post, she revealed, simply because she had seen All the President’s Men. But they didn’t have the capabilities to handle all of the encrypted data she wanted to hand over without meeting in person; WikiLeaks, at the time an obscure organization, had SecureDrop, and she was running out of time.
It was at this point that MacFarquhar pressed Manning on her decision to contact WikiLeaks, which, under its founder, Julian Assange, and his stated policy of transparency, released the documents without the redactions that the Times or Post would have made. “[Assange] believes that it would contaminate the evidence, to use his phrase, if you did redact those names,” MacFarquhar said. “And so he did not, in some cases, which potentially endangered informants, particularly in Afghanistan.” Manning responded, “We strongly dispute those facts,” before shutting down further conversation, though she returned to it later. “There [are] no sources, there are no methods, there’s no intelligence information in here. It’s not there. It’s people dying and people getting killed and people suffering, and on a massive, incredible scale that has—you know, we’ve never had this record before, because so many records have been lost throughout our time, and now it’s there.” She maintained that the government has not been able to prove that her leaks compromised any people or operations; indeed, a year after they occurred, the U.S. Department of Defense released a report that they “had no significant strategic effect on the U.S. war efforts.”
Manning appeared understandably emotional in defending herself, especially when pushed to talk about the impact of her leaks. “Look, I haven’t had time to deal with these questions,” she said bluntly. “Like, I’ve just—all I’ve been doing is fighting for my life for the last seven years.” She described being able to explore old hobbies like making electronic music again, and leaning on friendships and family when she becomes cynical. And cynicism comes easy, given how much the world has changed, with what Manning views as a surveillance apparatus encroaching on American life from both government and private entities.
“The most boring, predictable, dystopian novel I’ve ever read” is how she described New York City now, seven years later, with twice as many security cameras and heavily armed police officers as she remembered seeing in the streets before she went to prison. “I’ve been to an occupied country. I lived in Iraq for a year.... In some communities in this country, it’s like living in an occupied nation.”
The concept of the “feedback loops” she’d witnessed as an intelligence analyst came up again when Manning touched on Facebook, Twitter, and Google and their impact on our ability to self-govern. She urged engineers and software developers to think about the moral implication of the tools they are designing and selling: “Software developers or technologists or whatever term we choose to use for the field, we have an ethical obligation—we have to—we’re the experts. We understand the field. We understand what’s going on with this stuff. We need to think beyond meeting deadlines.”
She has also been thinking about how to protect and support the trans community, which she feels has been railroaded by mainstream-approved, simplified single-issue sound bites like gender-neutral bathrooms and marriage equality. “I saw marriage as kind of the holy grail. Like, if we fix this one thing, everything is going to be good now, and... that’s not true... it didn’t help homeless trans kids. I was a homeless, gender-queer kid... how was marriage equality going to help me in that situation?”
What would have helped is housing and food. And how does Manning plan to accomplish these goals for others? “My plan is to fight.... Every single one of us has the ability to change things... nobody can give this to you... we need to look to each other, and look to our left and look to our right, and realize what our values are—what we care about—and then assert them. Because it’s not going to happen at the ballot box.”THE Stormont Assembly election will take place on March 2, the Northern Ireland Secretary has announced.
James Brokenshire called the poll on Monday minutes after a deadline elapsed that effectively triggered the collapse of the powersharing executive in Belfast.
Mr Brokenshire was obliged by law to set an election date after Sinn Fein brought down the institutions by refusing to replace Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister.
Mr McGuinness quit last week citing irreconcilable differences with his long-term Democratic Unionist partners in government.
The deadline for Sinn Fein to re-nominate a minister passed at 5pm on Monday.
At the start of Assembly business on Monday, Sinn Fein declined to replace Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister a week after he quit citing irreconcilable differences with his long-term Democratic Unionist partners in government.
His resignation was precipitated by the renewable heat incentive (RHI) scandal - a botched eco-scheme set to cost Stormont £490 million - but that row has also reignited a range of other bitter disputes dividing the coalition.
Sinn Fein MLA Michelle O'Neill told the Assembly: "The DUP have treated these institutions and sections of the community with contempt and arrogance.
"Today, Sinn Fein will not re-nominate for the position of deputy first minister."
Ms O'Neill said Sinn Fein would only return to government if there was "real and meaningful change".
Mr McGuinness's resignation automatically removed DUP leader Arlene Foster from her position as first minister - as executive structures dictate one cannot govern without the other.
On Monday, the DUP renominated Mrs Foster to the post. That was rendered meaningless by Sinn Fein's subsequent refusal to renominate its own incumbent at the head of the executive.
Speaker Robin Newton said both ministers needed to be in post for their office to function.
"These requirements have not been satisfied today and the offices of the first minister and deputy first minister must remain vacant," he said.
Ahead of the key Assembly session at Parliament Buildings in Belfast, Mrs Foster said the electorate did not want or need an election.
She accused Sinn Fein of triggering a poll because they did not like the outcome of last May's vote.
"They have forced an election that risks Northern Ireland's future and stability, and which suits nobody but themselves," she said.
Theresa May phoned Mrs Foster and Mr McGuinness early on Monday in a last-ditch effort to prevent the collapse of the devolved administration.
The Prime Minister's official spokeswoman said Mrs May wanted to make sure Northern Ireland has "a voice" in the run-up to the start of EU withdrawal talks - expected to be triggered by the end of March with the invocation of Article 50 of the European Union treaties.
The Stormont Assembly will limp on until it is formally dissolved. An election is likely in late February or early March.Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) in March. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The Post reports:
Friday morning, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) — a frequent critic of the president — sent [President] Trump a letter that proposed this “Plan B” for the health-care legislation: If senators have not agreed on the legislation by July 10, then Congress should “immediately repeal as much of Obamacare as is possible under congressional budget reconciliation rules,” and then cancel the August recess so that lawmakers can work six days a week writing a health-care reform package that can pass by Labor Day. “You campaigned and won on the repeal of Obamacare,” Sasse wrote in the letter to the president, which was released by his office early Friday. “So did every Republican senator. We should keep our word.”
Trump immediately seized on the idea and tweeted, “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!” Sasse later tweeted, “This plan proposes a one-yr delay after voting on repeal before it is effective. (I want real repeal & real replace–as we promised).”
The idea of repeal and then work on replace later was an idea widely rejected by both House and Senate Republicans and the White House just a few months ago for obvious reasons. The Post noted: “Doing so could leave in the lurch more than 20 million Americans who now have private health plans or Medicaid coverage under the ACA and would lose that insurance with no guarantee of any alternative.” Whichever insurers haven’t already pulled out, would be sorely tempted to do so. And given how impossible it has been for Republicans to agree upon a replacement, chances are this would turn out to be repeal only.
The Republicans' time-crunched effort to pass a health-care bill stalled in the Senate over the summer, but now some of the GOP hopes to push another plan forward. The Post's Paige Cunningham explains five key reasons the party is struggling to move their plan forward. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who seemed to have been involved in efforts to develop a replacement for Obamacare was not about to let Sasse get to his right. He soon piped up that he too wanted repeal and then argue about replacement. Then the right-wing FreedomWorks weighed in, cheering the idea.
Well, perhaps Democrats should send Sasse flowers. He seems to have thrown a grenade into the negotiations that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was conducting with conservatives and moderates. Now, however, what is the incentive for other conservatives, such as Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), to be more conciliatory than the freshman Nebraska senator?
It’s not clear whether Sasse was intending to blow up the possibility of a deal. He’s been an outspoken critic of the president but perhaps this was one way to get back in the good graces of the far right in his deep red state. On the other hand, he’s new at this, tending to prefer critiques of the culture and the state of politics from 30,000 feet. Could he have imagined that his letter and then invitation on the morning show he knows the president would be watching wouldn’t make McConnell’s job near impossible? He can say he was suggesting this only if negotiation broke down, but now that becomes catnip for the right and reason to avoid any compromise. The move left many simply flummoxed as to what Sasse was trying to accomplish. (Moreover, does this suggest that Sasse will vote against any bill that isn’t a complete repeal of Obamacare? If so, the GOP will never be able to pass anything.)
The twist is just the latest bit of evidence that Republicans are in disarray and very confused as to how to move their agenda forward. McConnell has long been admired as a crafty legislator, but his untested skill as a dealmaker seems to be undermined at every turn. (Unless, of course, McConnell wanted to get to “no” and then move on to something else like tax reform.) In any event, the far right and the entire Democratic caucus will be delighted at the latest obstacle to compromise.Shanyna Isom has consulted every possible specialist, including a doctor in the Netherlands, but she still as no idea what is wrong with her.
The 28-year-old beautician and former University of Memphis law student has developed a condition so severe, fingernails grow from the hair follicles all over her body.
"Black scabs were coming out of her skin," said her mother, Kathy Gary. "The nails would grow so long and come out and regrow themselves. They are hard to touch and stick you."
The disease so far has affected not only her skin, but her bones and her vision. Because Isom is unable to walk without a cane, her mother helps her out of bed each day.
Doctors at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, where Isom is being treated, told her family that she is the only person in the world with this unknown condition.
And now she has $500,000 in unpaid medical bills. Isom has state insurance, but it doesn't cover medical care in Maryland. Her mother lost her job as a medical receptionist because she looks after her daughter at home, so savings have dried up.
Once a month, mother and daughter travel to Baltimore from Memphis to monitor her treatment.
But now, Isom has put all of her energy into creating the S.A.I. Foundation (so named for her initials) to help others with mystery illnesses.
Bank of America has agreed to take donations at any of their branch offices. Friends have organized fundraisers, and her high school has dedicated a football game to her charity.
Despite her debilitating illness, Isom told ABCNews.com, "I don't know whether to smile or cry. I am very blessed."
On her blog, Pray for Shanyna, she laments: "It has taken all of my hair out and has left my body with scabs all over it, plus I have lost about 200 pounds. Two years ago, I was a healthy woman on my own... had big dreams and goals that I was following until one day my body completely shut down on me."
Isom was a junior studying criminal justice when the mystery illness first occurred in September 2009, according to WLBT in Memphis, which first reported the story.
She went to an emergency room for an asthma attack and was given a large dose of steroids, which doctors suspected caused an allergic reaction.
After returning home, Isom began itching. Doctors prescribed Benadryl, but it got worse.
"It was uncontrollable and we didn't know what it was," said her mother.
Soon, her legs turned black.
"It looked as if she had been in a house fire and gotten burned," said Gary.
Doctors thought she had eczema or a staph infection and prescribed drugs, but it got worse. Meanwhile, all tests came back negative.
"We could not figure out what was going on," said her mother. "She was just breaking out everywhere. Her body was scabbed all over."
At the same time, Shanyna was losing 10 to 15 pounds a week. A bone marrow biopsy turned up nothing.
It was then her Memphis doctor threw up his hands.
"He said she would be like that for the rest of her life," said Gary. "But I couldn't accept that."
Isom and her family persisted, and in August 2011, Shanyna went to Johns Hopkins.
There, doctors determined that she was producing 12 times the number of skin cells in each hair follicle. Instead of growing hair, the follicles were producing human nails.
Doctors think her skin isn't getting enough oxygen -- she is also lacking sufficient amounts of vitamins A, B, C, D and K, according to her mother.
But with treatment, she is improving.
"Her legs aren't covered in black scabs," said her mother. "They are looking better, and her face just looks like she has a real bad sunburn."
25 Medicines and Still No Cure
Today Isom is on 25 medications, but her insurance only pays for five of them. She is awaiting the results of genetic tests that may give doctors clues to what is wrong.
"The doctors are so caring," said Gary. "It's just amazing how much they have done for her. We really didn't think she was going to make it."
Isom said she slipped into a depression, but now feels uplifted by the support of family and friends.
"I know it's a blessing that I can reach out and touch people's hearts," she said.
She remembers the day at Johns Hopkins when she felt sorry for herself, shuffling through the corridors on a walker.
"I saw a little girl, 4 or 5 years old, and she was walking through the same hall and had the biggest smile on her face," said Isom. "She had braces from [her] hip to her feet and had a walker and held her head up so high. I thought, 'If she can, I can. I had a life. This baby is trying to have a life.'... I fed off her energy."
Isom said she prayed, "I will never be selfish again."
Gary said their ordeal has been a "nightmare... to see her whole body shut down."
But she gets her strength from her daughter.
"Shanyna is remarkable," said Gary. "She has been able to hold her head high. I keep telling her we are going to make it, through the grace of God."The city has axed the sale of Christmas trees at a west-end lot that has deep roots in the community after a bylaw complaint was lodged last month about the seasonal operation.
Sweetpea's Christmas Tree Lot has been stocking the holiday fixture in Toronto's Roncesvalles Village neighbourhood for nearly a decade, but says it was initially forced to clear its remaining 150 trees from the lot by Wednesday — five days before Christmas — to comply with the city's zoning laws.
Sara Jameson, owner of Sweetpea's flower shot, which runs the nearby Christmas tree lot, told CBC Toronto on Wednesday that the director of investigations at the city's municipal licensing and standards division informed her this afternoon that the deadline to comply has been extended until next week.
"This is my entire life... To have the whole thing shut down it's so hard, it's just too much," said Jameson.
The local business first opened the seasonal space in 2010 to rekindle the magic of buying a local Christmas tree for families. This year, however, Sweetpea's is using a new lot space to be closer to their parent business — and it's one that isn't zoned for commercial use, according to the city.
Tammy Robbinson, a spokesperson for the city's municipal licensing and standards division, says the city first inspected the lot on Nov. 17 and found that it is a residential space and is "not zoned" to sell Christmas trees. She added that Sweetpea's also illegally "put a sign in the middle of the sidewalk" to advertise its product.
Jonathan Howcroft, manager of Sweetpea's Christmas Tree Lot, is trying to sell off 150 trees by Wednesday night. (Aizak Grimman/CBC)
Robbinson said in an email to CBC Toronto that Sweetpea's was given time to comply with the bylaw which included removing the sign on the sidewalk for the Christmas Tree lot.
"We would not direct the owner to have all the trees removed immediately, we would give them time to comply with the zoning bylaw," she wrote.
In the meantime, Sweetpea's said it had been told that they would need to vacate by Wednesday night or face fines and were scrambling to sell off its remaining trees at a fraction of their original price.
"We'd rather see them go to a home and be enjoyed rather than go to a garbage bin and be hauled off to the city dump," said Jameson, adding they had complied with all the city's requests.
We'd rather see them go to a home and be enjoyed rather than go to a garbage bin. - Sara Jameson, owner
"If we don't sell them off we get to put a disposal bin on the property and everything gets thrown out so all the trees will be hauled into city waste opposed to being enjoyed and used."
The community is now rallying support for Sweetpea's by petitioning the city to rezone the lot for commercial use.
"I shared it and I know a bunch of other people shared it so hopefully it'll go around the community and they'll be able to share as many trees as they can," Lindsay Swanson told CBC Toronto.
Sweetpea's lot manager Jonathan Howcroft has been sending families home with their Christmas trees from the start. He explains "the community involvement, the smell of the trees, the getting to make people smile" is what keeps bringing him back every year.
"People come in here with their families and we really help kick off the holidays for everybody," he told CBC Toronto.After extensive amounts of Hacking Team’s internal data leaked online recently, researchers have been combing through it to find what kind of attacks the company was using.
One attack, uncovered by FireEye, weaponized apps from the top charts of the App Store including Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber, Google Chrome, Telegram and Skype to steal user data.
Hacking Team modified the apps to hide in plain sight, operating as what appears to be the official apps while silently stealing user data in the background. A library injected into the modified apps can steal the following, according to FireEye:
Voice call recording in Skype, Wechat, etc.
Text message intercepting in Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc.
Chrome website history
Phone call
SMS/iMessage content
Precise GPS coordinate recording in background
Contact information
Photos
The modified apps utilized a previously uncovered ‘masque’ attack which made it possible to install a modified app over the top of an official one by prompting the user to install what was seemingly an innocuous app.
FireEye, which also discovered the attack method, reported it to Apple last year and it was patched in iOS 8.1.3. Today’s news marks the first time we’ve learnt that the attack was being used in the wild.
Even though the masque attack has been patched, meaning that apps can’t overwrite others, an attacker can still modify the bundle identifier to circumvent it and install it alongside any official apps if they can trick the user into installing it.
The attack doesn’t require a jailbroken phone to get in and is as easy as tricking a user into clicking an install link in an email.
This is the first time we’ve seen the attack being leveraged in the real world, by a company that was selling such tools to shady government spy agencies.
If you ever see an install prompt outside the App Store, make sure to say ‘cancel.’
➤ iOS Masque Attack Weaponized: A Real World Look [FireEye]
Image credit: Bloomua / Shutterstock.com
Read next: This experiment instantly tells you how real your Twitter followers areThe chain of events that led to a man ploughing a car through dozens of pedestrians on a crowded Melbourne street on Friday afternoon began almost 12 hours earlier.
The 26-year-old alleged driver stabbed his brother in their southeast Melbourne home at about 2am on Friday.
Neighbours said they heard the pair arguing and a female voice saying ‘if you don’t stop, I’m going to call the police’, but both were gone when officers arrived.
Scroll down for video
The horrific chain of events that led to a car (pictured) deliberately ploughing through dozens of pedestrians on a crowded city street began almost 12 hours earlier
The suspect allegedly stabbed his brother at his home (1), took a hostage before letting her out on the Bolte Bridge (2) and led police on a wild car chase towards the city (3)
On Friday morning, a man in a maroon Holden Commodore stopped near the scene of the Windsor stabbing and tried to interrupt a reporter as she did a live cross to the studio.
The camera caught him leaning out of the window with a baseball cap in his hand, waving his arm and apparently yelling something before driving off, spinning the car's wheels on the wet pavement.
Later that morning he led police on a wild car chase through Melbourne with a female hostage in the passenger seat, who police said was 'not connected' to him.
This is the moment a man driving a maroon Holden appeared in the background of a Today show broadcast about a stabbing in the suburb of Windsor, Melbourne
At least 25 people were left wounded by a 26-year-old driver who ploughed into shoppers before being shot by police and arrested
The woman escaped or was let out of the car on the Bolte Bridge near Docklands just west of the Melbourne CBD.
Police gave up their pursuit soon after as the car was moving erratically and it was feared bystanders could be injured.
Helicopters kept track of his movements as officers hoped to find another opportunity to stop him, but instead watched in horror as he drove into the city.
The rampage finally came to an end when he mounted the kerb at 555 Bourke Street and came to a stop after police shot him the arm
Police arrested a man wearing nothing but red underwear following the incident in Melbourne
He first was seen doing doughnuts near Flinders Street Station before speeding up Swanson Street and turning right onto the Bourke Street mall.
The car then drove into crowds of shoppers on the busy shopping strip before, injuring at least 25 people and killing three including a baby.
The rampage finally came to an end when he mounted the kerb at 555 Bourke Street and came to a stop after police shot him the arm.
He was dragged out of the car and stripped down to just a red pair of underwear and arrested face down on the foot |
barges is that they have no means of self-propulsion, which distinguishes them from a "vessel."
The city banned house barges in 1990 except for a few grandfathered ones.
"Vessels" include self-propelled boats. Some look a lot like Tom Hanks' houseboat. Vessel liveaboards don't have to pump out their grey water and can dump it in the lake and Puget Sound.
(In case you're wondering, no one's allowed to dump "black water" into Seattle's waterways; it must be pumped out if no sewer line exists.)
Since the city cracked down on house barges in 1990, there's been a proliferation of homes that look like both boat and house, causing a lot of debate between liveaboards and the city.
To the public, they look like a typical floating home. But a closer look reveals an outboard motor and steering wheel.
Owners say that makes them boat-like vessels which don't have to follow rules for floating homes and barges.
The city disagrees. It says they're more like houses, and that the motors and steering wheels were a way for owners to circumvent the 1990 barge ban.
"They got around that definition," said Maggie Glowacki, a senior land-use planner for Seattle's Department of Planning and Development. She estimated there are about 150 such structures. Most are on Lake Union.
Glowacki said the city's proposal clarifies the intent of the 1990 rule.
"Our waters are preserved for water-dependent uses," she said. In other words, houseboats are nice and romantic, but not a necessity.
The proposal would define barges as something "primarily designed for residential use." It would then retroactively boot out barges that arrived on the water since Jan. 1, 2011, and forbid remaining ones from dumping grey water.
'Offended' by amount of government power
The proposal worried Kevin Bagley, president of the Lake Union Liveaboard Association, who said it was too vague.
"How are they going to to do it?" he said. "Will it be, 'You've got shingles, so you're a place of residence'?" he said.
Will the city, he wondered, suddenly say "boxy-shaped" boats are barges? Could his own squarish boat -- a 72-foot-long paddle-wheeler that cruises in parades for Opening Day and the Christmas ships -- be considered a barge?
"I am a Coast Guard-certified vessel designed for propulsion, but they can now wave their hand and declare me a house barge and I can be regulated a such," he said.
"I'm personally offended the government can have that kind of power."
He wondered why other liveaboards -- such as those on sleek yachts that don't resemble Tom Hanks' houseboat -- weren't targeted by the draft rules. And he said many liveaboards already are already environmental stewards of the lake.
Glowacki said the city is consulting with a naval architect to create a rule that is easily understood. The public has until Dec. 23 to comment on the rules; they will then be reviewed by Glowacki's department and the Seattle City Council.
Visit seattlepi.com's home page for more Seattle news. Contact Vanessa Ho at 206-448-8003 or [email protected], and follow her on Twitter as @vanessaho.This year, at the Dayton Hamvention, I spent more money than I ever have. Though the Hamvention is a showcase of innovations and flea market treasures, I typically walk away with a few connectors, cables, or maybe some handy accessories; I rarely spend more than $100, though I budget much more.
But this year was an exception. I walked away with a few bigger-ticket items I found irresistible. Buyer’s remorse? Nope.
SWLing Post reader, Mike, asked what I purchased, so instead of sending him an email with the tally, I thought I’d post my finds here.
Hallicrafters SX-24
I already have an SX-24, but this one is cosmetically superb for its age. The seller told me that she “lights up” but has no audio; it was an estate sale item. I assume that it has a bad capacitor or two (or more). No doubt, it can be fixed and will fill my radio room with warm audio in due time. At least, that’s the theory!
I purchased this Hallicrafters SX-24 for $60.00
Signal Corps BC-221-AL Signal Generator
This is a working BC-221-AL signal generator that will more than pay for itself each time I align my BC-348-Q (or any of my boat anchors, for that matter). It, too, was in excellent shape and I couldn’t pass it up at $30.00 (great price as the seller was ready to part with it on the final day of the Hamvention). I love the fact that its reference book and log, with schematic, are fully in tact. Bonus: it has that great vintage military electronics smell.
Surmen DC Digital Voltmeter
I picked up this simple in-line volt meter at Universal Radio for $20.
The photo above is enlarged: the actual unit is very small (2.75 x 1.5 x 1 inches). Since my whole DC system is based on Anderson Powerpole connectors, this simple meter will help keep tabs on voltage. I think Universal sold out of these at the Hamvention, but since they build them in house, you can order online.
Side KX panels and cover
I like traveling with my Elecraft KX3, but I worry about the faceplate being damaged in transit. In the past, I’ve used dense foam to protect the front of the radio, but it’s an imperfect solution.
This year, Gems Products was selling their Side KX panels at Elecraft‘s booth in the North Hall. The Side KX handles protrude a good 1/8″ beyond the height of the KX3’s knobs, thus protecting the rig even if turned upside down. I also purchased the clear Lexan cover which fits perfectly on the radio. Now when I travel, I can throw the KX3 in my backpack and not worry about the face being damaged.
At a Hamvention discounted price of $60 with tax, it was no minor purchase, but the investment to protect a $1,200 portable radio was well worth it. I must say, the fit is excellent and installation took perhaps 5 minutes.
Sony TFM-1600W portable radio
This Sony was a late Saturday flea market purchase. The vendor–who attends annually and is well known for his gorgeous display of antique tube radios–had this solid-state Sony sitting at the back corner of the booth. It quickly attracted my attention and that of my buddy (and radio enabler) Mike (K8RAT).
Originally priced at $65.00, the vendor was kind enough to let me talk him down (“beg” is more like it, right Mike?) to the $40.00 cash I had left in my pocket.
Once we got it back to our lodging we confirmed what we had suspected: this Sony has incredible audio fidelity and great sensitivity. No big surprise here: in the 1970’s, Sony was a brand well-known for superb audio fidelity.
This Sony will need a little work–the pots and band switch need a thorough cleaning. Also, the tuning needle somehow came dis-lodged from the fly-wheel mechanism. All of these things can be fixed, though, and I’ll have a superb receiver that should last a few more decades. For a radio built in Japan in 1971, I’m very happy with its condition.
Palstar SP30B Speaker
I’m a sucker for hand-crafted gear. While perusing the flea market, I looked for an affordable vintage speaker for my BC-348-Q, but I couldn’t find one. Inside, however, I spotted this beautiful speaker at Palstar’s booth in the East Hall. I’ve owned a Palstar R30C shortwave receiver before and know how much they care about audio fidelity and overall quality. The SP30B was originally designed for the R30 series receiver.
The wood speaker cabinet on the SP30B is built by a wood worker exclusively for Palstar; the finish is amazing.
The SP30B retails for $99.95 at Palstar.com. I was able to snag this one for only $75 as it was a display and Palstar’s last one with cherry finish.
Miscellaneous items
I purchased a few additional accessories and supplies:
Icom ID-51a BP-272Li extra capacity battery from Batteries America: $52.00
75 feet of coaxial cable: $70
8 blemished PowerFilm solar plates: $5
There may have been more items, but I’m calling this a total Hamvention expenditure of $412.
Did you attend the Dayton Hamvention? How much damage did it do to your wallet?
RelatedMark Levin opened his show saying the stench of the 1930’s is in the air and we are surrounded by Neville Chamberlains. And one of those Neville Chamberlains is our president who wants to make peace with the Islamo-Nazis in Iran while attacking the Prime Minister of our greatest ally in the Middle East. Levin wants to know whose side Obama is on.
With the way Obama’s been acting, especially considering his latest outrage at Netanyahu, Mark Levin makes the point that Obama has all the signals of an anti-Semite:
I’m going to tell you something and it’s going to be unconformable. I don’t care how many wealthy Jews Obama surrounds himself with, I don’t care how many wealthy Jews contribute to his campaign. This man has all the signals of an anti-Semite and I’m not going to take that word back. I believe this in my heart and my soul. It’s not about Israel, it’s about what’s in Israel.
Listen to the full audio of his first segment and make sure you listen to the end:A few years ago, a pair of white security contractors embarked on a journey deep into the African bush. Their mission? Unknown. A week later, a seemingly innocent man lay dead on the side of the road, and the two soldiers of fortune were the targets of an epic manhunt through the Congolese jungle. James Bamford retraces the strange odyssey of Tjostolv "Mike" Moland and Joshua French—and discovers that more than one hundred years after Heart of Darkness, some things never change
The white men seemed nervous. There were two of them—one tall, one a few inches shorter, both conspicuously "other" from the sea of African faces. The tall one with the goatee carried a green nylon bag that he kept suspiciously close to his body, peering into it several times as he and his partner negotiated with the locals in the dusty parking lot.
The muzungus—that’s the Bantu term for foreigner or, in the literal translation, "aimless wanderer"—needed a ride. That much was clear to Kasimu. But they were struggling to communicate with his boss, the driver of the white Toyota Land Cruiser the white men had singled out among all the beat-up trucks and sedans as big enough and rugged enough to transport them and their broken-down motorcycle across the jungle. At first the muzungus balked at the driver’s price. Then they complained when they realized that Kasimu and his friend Kepo, who needed a lift home to his village, would be riding along. Finally, at about 6:30 p.m. on an early-spring evening in the crumbling colonial city of Kisangani, Congo, all five men piled into the Land Cruiser and settled in for a long drive through the jungle. Kasimu and Kepo shared the open back of the vehicle with the motorcycle—a white Yamaha trail bike—and the tall muzungu. The shorter one rode up front with the driver.
Bad Service: How your phone helps fund the fighting that has led to the worst human death toll since WWII
From the Miners...
A kilo of coltan purchases a prostitute "wife" for the length of a villager’s mining stay (a tin can’s worth buys gonorrhea antibiotics) while family farm rots. Villager averages $4 per day.
...to the Militia Groups...
Outfits like the bloodthirsty Lord’s Resistance Army demand coltan from villagers in exchange for "protection." Militia members rape men and women to instill fear. Men die from genital mutilation, too ashamed to say anything. Militia sells coltan for more guns to maintain dominance.
...to the Traders...
Local brokers trade guns bought from Congolese army for coltan. Soldiers are then paid to move the mineral in 110-pound bags through official checkpoints and illegal border crossings via truck and boat to Rwanda.
...to Rwanda...
Illicit coltan is mid with minerals produced by Rwandan mines.
...to the Chinese processing plant...
Refusing to cooperate with U.N. conflict-free supply-chain initiatives, Chinese smelters purchase and mix undocumented Congolese coltan with other minerals from around the world, making its source impossible to trace. Coltan undergoes chemical processing to produce refined tantalum powder, which is then made into circuit-board capacitors.
...to the Manufacturer...
Electronics assemblers like Foxconn—where labor-camp conditions have led to at least fourteen suicides and, this September, a 2,000-man riot—solder coltan-laced circuits into products ranging from laptops to cell phones.
...to your iPhone
While corporate initiatives and the Dodd-Frank Act—the law mandates U.S. companies certify their products as "DRC conflict free"—curtail coltan in domestic products, Apple acknowledges "there’s still work to be done."
Everyone was quiet as they made their way east across the city, lurching and braking in the evening traffic. Known as Stanleyville a century ago, Kisangani was the centerpiece of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the remote "Inner Station" during the days when Belgium’s King Leopold II was the ultimate gangster, running the Congo as his private rubber plantation. More than a century later, it remains isolated and forgotten, a brooding, malevolent town of demons and diamonds, dreams and decay.
As the Land Cruiser cleared the outskirts of the city and continued east through Equatorial Africa, the group passed lopsided trucks piled high with cargo and a dozen or more Congolese sitting precariously on top. After a half hour or so, the vehicle made a brief stop, and the tall man moved up to the cab to join his friend, leaving the two Congolese alone in the back.
Now only the dim glow of the moon and the occasional fire from an isolated settlement illuminated the rocky dirt track that spanned the dense and sweltering Ituri rain forest. Soon the villages of thatched huts thinned out, leaving long stretches with nothing but watery puddles and gray-black shadows. At around 8 p.m., about sixty-five miles east of Kisangani, the driver slowed down and pulled over.
Kasimu and his Kepo were surprised. Another stop? At this rate, the journey would take forever. The white men got out and stood by the vehicle for a few minutes, conferring, seeming to argue, growing more and more agitated. At one point the shorter one walked toward the back, and Kepo took the opportunity to ask for a light for his cigarette. The man said he didn’t have one. He turned to ask his taller friend, who gestured dismissively and shouted to leave him alone. Moments later, according to both Kasimu and Kepo, the tall muzungu erupted in rage, screaming at the driver: Get out, get out, get out!
Then, suddenly, gunfire.
What the...? Kasimu leaped from the truck bed and tried to flee into the thick bush, but the shorter man grabbed hold of his jacket and yanked him to the ground. The two men tussled, Kasimu struggling to loose himself from the man’s grip. But the muzungu was strong. Finally the tall one motioned to his partner to release the African so he could get a clean shot. And the instant Kasimu felt his attacker relax, he bolted. The tall man raised his weapon, aimed, fired...and missed. Kasimu escaped into the blackness of the jungle.
Kepo, meanwhile, was paralyzed with terror, kneeling by the cab of the Land Cruiser. As the shooter shifted his attention to him, Kepo rose to run. The white man fired, but the shot whizzed over Kepo’s head. "I thought, If I lose control now, I’m going to die," Kepo recalls. Like Kasimu, he managed to escape into the jungle as the white man fired a last errant shot into the dark.
The driver, a 42-year-old husband and father named Abedi Kasongo, was not so fortunate. His limp body now lay in a pool of blood in the middle of the dirt track. Within hours, word would go out to every pygmy village and thatch-roofed hut in the jungle that a local man was dead—and that the two muzungus who’d committed the murder were still out there, somewhere, in the vast green hell of the Ituri.
That’s the Congolese version, anyway, of a deeply strange African murder mystery. It’s a tale of the modern-day eastern Congo, a lawless dystopia ruled by brutal warlords and built on the stooped backs of their enslaved subjects. It’s a war story, too, played against the backdrop of a bloody and seemingly endless conflict over land and minerals—specifically gold, diamonds, and coltan, a metallic ore that’s inside your smartphone and a vast array of other electronic devices. And it’s a story of two white Europeans who, like generations of their colonial forebears, saw nuggets of opportunity amidst the chaos.
On Saturday, May 2, 2009, a pair of former soldiers from Norway named Joshua French and Tjostolv "Mike" Moland pushed their white mud-splattered motorcycle into Kisangani after a 600-mile trek across the eastern Congo. (The bike had survived about 599 of those miles before finally succumbing to the relentless pounding of the jungle roads.) They checked into room 23 at the Riviera, a small $65-a-night white stucco hotel with free breakfast and a pleasant outdoor café along the tree-shaded Avenue Bondekwe. What was their business in Kisangani? The answer to that question remains as murky as the Congo River. But a few days later, they were urgently looking for a way out—a search that led them to Kasongo and his Land Cruiser.
Mike Moland was a 28-year-old veteran of the Norwegian military with right-wing views, a hot temper, and an imposing six-foot-plus frame to back it up. After leaving the army, he’d bounced around the world on low-level private-security jobs. In Arizona, he worked on the construction of security fences near the border with Mexico; in Zambia and South Africa, he did some anti-poaching gigs; he says he got his first taste of the Congo in 2005, as a bodyguard for an Austrian businessman.
_Mike Moland (left) and Joshua French in their cell in
Kisangani’s Central Prison. _
Joshua French was a year younger, a few inches shorter, and several degrees mellower than his friend. The son of an English father and a Norwegian mother, French had joined Norway’s elite Army Telemark Battalion in early 2007, hoping to be sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside U.S. and other NATO forces. But with so few Norwegian troops being sent into combat, it seemed like his time would never come, and in the spring he decided to call it quits. On April 12, he climbed the stairs of the battalion’s headquarters in Rena, took a seat, and waited to give his notice. Sitting next to him was Mike Moland, who had re-enlisted and been assigned to guard the royal palace in Oslo. Bored with this post, Moland had decided to apply for admission into Telemark, the elite unit French was leaving. The two connected immediately and became fast friends.
Around that time, Moland had been quietly moonlighting as a security consultant for a Norwegian company called Special Intervention Group, now defunct. He enjoyed the work and had lately been thinking about quitting the military (again) and going to Uganda to open a local office for the firm. He shared the idea with French, who saw it as a great opportunity. So in the fall of 2007, Moland and French decamped for Kampala, the capital of Uganda, a cosmopolitan city where English was widely spoken and shadowy "security" firms—a polite term for mercenaries, some employed on the African continent, others exported to places like Iraq and Afghanistan—were allowed to proliferate. Moland and French rented an office suite in a business park next to a Sheraton, using pseudonyms (Mike Callan and John Hunt) on their business cards, ID badges, and the building’s directory in the lobby.
They lived at Backpackers, a low-cost hostel and campground, complete with resident monkeys, about ten minutes from the center of the city. And they were secretive about their "assignments," says John Hunwick, the Australian-born owner of Backpackers, coming and going at strange hours, often in the middle of the night. They spoke of having trouble obtaining an official license from the government to operate SIG-Uganda and appeared to be casting about for other ways to profit from the instability and mineral wealth of the region. According to Hunwick, one man they seemed especially keen on meeting was Laurent Nkunda, the charismatic Christian warlord who was then the Congo’s most wanted man. "They were asking me how could we contact Nkunda," Hunwick told me as we strolled through the compound. "I said, ’How would I know? I have no idea.’ They said, ’We just want to talk to him.’ "
They were not alone in this desire. Many, many Africans would also have loved a word with Nkunda, who, by 2009, had been waging war, with occasional breaks, for more than a decade. Tall and thin with sharp, angular features, his skin a smooth mocha, often dressed in tailored military garb and sunglasses, the Pentecostal minister and former schoolteacher claimed to lead a rebel uprising against oppressive Congolese and U.N. forces. In reality, the conflict was a war of rape, torture, and enslavement for land, natural resources, and power. By the time the young Norwegians took an interest, the strongman preacher had already seized control of large swaths of the eastern Congo. His goal, or at least his threat, was to push westward toward the capital of Kinshasa, overthrow President Joseph Kabila, and seize control of the entire country. But Nkunda did not operate alone. The even more powerful man behind him, secretly supplying troops and weapons, was Paul Kagame, the president of neighboring Rwanda. After launching two very bloody but unsuccessful wars for control of the Congo, Kagame was now secretly using Nkunda as his proxy for a third try.
Little known and poorly understood in the West, the seemingly endless bloodshed—awkwardly known as the First Congo War, the Second Congo War, and the 2008 Nord-Kivu fighting—has uprooted hundreds of thousands of civilians and caused what the U.N. called "a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic dimensions." While neither the rebels nor the government forces are innocent (alleged atrocities are common to both sides), Nkunda has earned special infamy. He has allegedly conscripted child soldiers as young as 12, and his forces were accused of massacring 160 people in Kisangani in 2002. According to human-rights groups, his troops routinely seized control of entire civilian villages, raping the women and forcing the villagers to dig, often with their bare hands, for rocks containing gold, diamonds, and coltan, also known as "gray gold." The "blood diamonds" of the tech world, coltan contains tantalum, essential for low-cost cell phones, laptops, and many other gadgets. Over half of the world’s tantalum is found in Africa, a significant percentage of it sitting under the ground that Laurent Nkunda controlled.
With the money from his minerals—and additional backing from Kagame—Nkunda was able to buy more weapons and ammunition to conquer more territory, thus establishing a continuous "kill chain" stretching from villagers working at gunpoint in a Congolese mine to the hands of middle schoolers in suburban Chicago tapping out text messages to their friends. Unheard of by most Americans addicted to their devices and seldom reported in the news, the rush for coltan in the Congo has been a major contributor to the deadliest conflict since World War II. Les Pillages, they call it. As many as 4 million dead since the late ’90s.
For years, Moland and French had greatly admired the progress made by Paul Kagame in rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide of the ’90s, and they hoped to be part of Nkunda’s efforts to wage war on President Kabila and extend Kagame’s power over all of the Congo. Soon after setting up shop in Kampala, Mike Moland wrote Nkunda a letter, a copy of which I obtained from the chief of military intelligence in Uganda. "Honorable General Laurent Nkunda," it began, "I have, through following the situation in the Eastern Congo, come to believe that you are the right man to lead this massive country, into the future it deserves.... We wish to offer our services and our support to you General. We are a small and very secretive company which has a front company in Uganda, from where we operate.... We can also provide you with field intelligence and human intelligence gathering behind your enemy’s lines.... I know you will understand the value of Europeans working as information gatherers; who would ever suspect?" But Moland was interested in becoming more than just the warlord’s spy-for-hire. He wanted to be made a full-fledged commander in his rebel army, leading troops into battle against Congolese government forces. "Give me a command and I will be your loyal servant," he wrote.
In the moments after Kepo Ayilla and Kasimu Aradjabu fled into the jungle, French either stepped over the body of the driver, Abedi Kasongo, possibly still clinging to life, or pulled him out and pushed him to the ground, depending on whose story you believe. In any case, French then climbed into the cab as thick, sticky-wet blood streamed down the inside of the door and the driver’s seat.
In Moland and French’s version, the Land Cruiser had been attacked by "bandits" who emerged from the jungle when Kasongo pulled the vehicle over. The Norwegians say they were taking the opportunity to relieve themselves on the side of the road when they heard gunfire.
"It was dark, but not pitch dark," says French, who did most of the talking about what happened next when I interviewed both men in the Kisangani prison where they were being held. "We heard shots, and it took us about half a second to react. We ran in front of the car, heard another shot, and then ran to the left side of the car, backwards down the middle of the road. Then we heard more shots, and we kept running. The engine was still running and the lights were still on, so obviously we didn’t run up the road into the lights. We ran backwards into the dark.
_At the Norwegians’ trial, more than 300 spectators filled the
courtroom. During breaks, the music of Céline Dion played in
the background._
"After about twenty or thirty meters," French continues, "someone intercepted me from my left, a skinny little black man [not, he says, Kepo or Kasimu]. We had a rough tumble for one or two seconds. I’ve done martial arts for quite a few years, so I was on my feet rapidly, and he decided that whatever he was attempting to do wasn’t a good idea. I did a fake charge on him, and he ran off into the woods."
At this point, he says, they ran back to the Land Cruiser. Moland jumped into the open bed and grabbed the shotgun from his bag—"for our own security," French says—while French approached the driver’s side. "I saw someone lying on the ground," French continues. "There was a lot of blood on the seat."
He got in and stepped on the gas, leaving Kasongo’s body in the middle of the road. He claims their first priority was to seek help but that they couldn’t get a cell signal. But they never sought any help—not even when they came to a military checkpoint in the village of Bafwasende, about two hours later. "They just passed us through," said French. "We didn’t stop to try to talk to them because my French and his [Moland’s] French was limited. We knew that the situation would be taken advantage of by the Congolese against us—we just knew. This is how Africa works."
After another hour or so, they reached the village of Nia-Nia, a crossroads where one dirt track leads north toward South Sudan and another heads east toward Uganda. French took the eastern road and again pulled over about a mile later. "We stopped the car because I was sitting in brains and guts, driving," says French. "There was a small pit of water in the road, and we decided, because it was getting smelly in the cockpit, to stop the car and wash out my seat."
As Moland started cleaning the blood from the front seat, French picked up his camera. "I said, ’Hold on a minute, I want to take a picture of the cockpit before anything,’ " he told me. "My intention was to have a clear picture of the inside of the car, undisturbed, before we washed everything clean—at least we’d have a picture of exactly how it looked originally. The problem is, as I took the picture, our reaction as soldiers is, to be honest with you, we don’t cry or get afraid from danger; we laugh and mock it. So I said ’cheese’ or something, and Moland turned to me and smiled."
"Dark humor," Moland chimes in.
They drove for four more hours. At 3:30 a.m., they stopped in the village of Epulu and at a wildlife preserve for okapi—a rare species that’s a cross between a zebra and a giraffe—and they again considered telling the authorities what had happened. But there were several Congolese passenger buses parked at the station, they say, and this changed the situation. "We did not feel comfortable with all these people, a car full of blood, and probably some guys after us. If there had been only the rangers there, we probably would have stopped and explained ourselves. But there were lots of people—sitting by fires, walking around. We didn’t like the atmosphere. Somebody could just turn against you."
Instead, they say, they decided to camp nearby and return in the morning. They drove another half hour and turned onto a nearly hidden dirt track; with few drivable roads, it would only be a matter of time before someone spotted the white Toyota Land Cruiser. Deep in the bush, they stopped and pitched their tent. By not continuing any farther that night, French says, "this proves our intention of going back to Epulu. Otherwise we would have just driven off eastwards." But by then it was about 4 a.m., and fatigue likely played a role in their decision to stop.
They also ditched Moland’s weapon, a camouflaged Italian-made Benelli short-barreled shotgun with a stock that had been replaced with a pistol grip. Why?
"First of all, it was malfunctioning, so we could only shoot two shots with it," French says. "It was an extremely limited self-defense weapon. Also, we didn’t want to be armed for a firefight. If we had a shotgun, they would be much more likely to shoot us than if we were unarmed."
Moland and French woke up in their small blue pup tent on Wednesday morning at around eight, after just a few hours’ sleep. They say they tried to return to Epulu but that—again—something happened that changed their plans.
"As we turned out on the road, we saw a blue truck blocking the road westwards, towards Epulu, and this gave us a very, very bad feeling," French says. Instead they turned east, drove for about two miles, and stopped in the remote pygmy village of Koki. According to the village chief, Roger Matongo, they asked for water but took off before buying any when the blue truck caught up.
French: "It screeched to a halt, and off jumped ten or twelve guys. A couple of them had handguns and machetes, and they were running in our direction."
So they jumped back in the car and sped off again, back toward Epulu. But if they returned to Epulu, they realized, they’d surely be caught. "We were bod in," says Moland.
Desperate now, and worried about being shot or hacked to death, they decided to turn off the road and head back into the Ituri rain forest. They abandoned the car (and their motorcycle) at the same place they’d camped, gathered up a compass, map, and a few other items, and then set off on foot. "We had all our kits pre-packed," says French. "Grabbed the backpack and straight into the jungle. Sixty kilometers or so to Mambasa."
For days Moland and French hiked, jogged, and ran through the Ituri in an area where members of the Lord’s Resistance Army—the small but fanatical Christian guerilla movement led by Joseph Kony and made famous by the Kony 2012 viral video—have been known to engage in cannibalism. Chewing on roots and sipping from tea-colored streams, they hid beneath the towering canopy that in places was so thick that only tiny slivers of light broke through. Gigantic trees, some more than fifteen stories high, rose like hardwood skyscrapers with roots running down their sides and across the forest floor like fire hoses, creating a labyrinth of hidden bumps and twists that occasionally sent Moland and French flying. Then there was the constant noise, day and night, like the wailing at a funeral. It was the maddening sound of a myriad variety of insects: the cicadas with their buzzing chant, and armies of ants that marched in columns, emitting a crackle as they broke apart the bodies of any insect in their path. Grotesque spiders the size of saucers hung in massive webs that stretched between trees like giant fishnets.
By Friday they had been on the run for three days. Shoving aside thick branches, tripping over dead trees, stumbling into muddy streams, they were barely able to see their hands in front of them. And then there were the snakes, including the Gaboon viper, a six-foot tube of deadly venom with two-inch fangs as a delivery system. The Congolese army was on full alert throughout the Ituri, with soldiers and police posted to most villages, searching for the pair. Rangers from Epulu were tracking them, too, and they soon discovered that Moland and French would sometimes leave the bush at night and walk along isolated dirt paths that snaked through the jungle. So the rangers began posting people late at night to watch for them. And at around 2 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, about twenty-one miles from Mambasa, a dog barked, and lights from a car caught the pair.
_French and Moland stand before the judges during one of
their three trials, all of which resulted in the same verdict.
At left is Bibishe Olendjeke, the victim’s widow._
"We were walking through a village very quietly," French says, "and they just opened fire on us from about twelve feet away. No questions asked, just opened fire with AK-47’s." They began to run, Moland in front and French behind, with five Congolese army soldiers in pursuit. (It was French’s turn to carry the heavier of their two water canteens, slowing him down.) A few bullets hit Moland’s rucksack, putting holes in his canteen and obliterating a supply of bananas, but he managed to disappear into the jungle. As French watched two of the soldiers dive into the bush after his friend, he attempted to take cover in a roadside ditch.
Moland sprinted into the woods and tried to make himself invisible. "Into the darkness, down, lie still—they will never find me. I double-checked myself for any bullet wounds. No blood, okay. I just continued to lie still. Shit, Joshua’s not here. And they just kept firing. They shoot, and they shot, and they shot. It was very dark. And they kept on shooting."
Moments later, French realized he was surrounded by all five men—the two who’d been pursuing Moland had given up and returned to the road—so he decided to surrender. "I shouted out, then they brutally arrested me," he says. "I was on my knees. One of the guys continued firing around me. The commander says, ’Maybe I’ll just kill you right now,’ and the other guy picks up his gun and shoots two shots right next to me."
Moland says he heard it all: "I’m lying dead still. I heard the capture and a lot of rumbling, and then I heard two shots and then just this eerie quiet. I thought they ecuted him. That’s when I snuck off." French also assumed the worse. "I thought Mike had been killed in the jungle. Later, we realized that the orders were to kill us, but because Mike got away, they were fearful of killing me in case he got out of the country. He would be an eyewitness. But if we had both been captured at that point, they would have ecuted us both with a bullet straight through the brain."
As French was hauled off to military intelligence in Kisangani for interrogation, Moland continued through the jungle for another three days. But with little sleep, consumed by insects, baking in the heat, and now with only a cup for water, he grew more and more desperate. Nevertheless, convinced his partner was dead and that he was now all alone, he continued ever deeper into the darkness, using his compass to guide him east and avoiding any contact with local villages. By the morning of Tuesday, May 12, Moland—exhausted, dehydrated, starving, weak—had been on the run for six days, half of that time completely alone.
Meanwhile, news of French’s capture had trickled back to Norway. That morning, Moland’s father, Knut, received a call from his local sheriff. "Knut called |
closed several entries this way: "Due to the above facts, I request that this case remain open and updated as events warrant."
The woman's bosses considered her surveillance a low-risk training exercise; it quickly expanded to the antiwar movement as she met activists whose causes overlapped, police said.
Intelligence commanders discussed the spying at their daily briefings and made Lt. Col. Thomas Coppinger, then the chief of the intelligence bureau, and Superintendent Timothy Hutchins aware of it, law enforcement officials said. Coppinger and other officers involved in the case declined to comment.
The program emerged after the antiterrorism squad had been whittled from almost 65 to a dozen.
Hutchins's predecessor, Ed Norris, a hard-charging former Baltimore police commissioner, had built up the division after the Sept. 11 attacks to fight terrorist threats.
But when Norris was forced out by corruption charges in 2004, the unit was gutted. Most of the computers and other high-tech equipment for intelligence troopers were literally ripped out of the walls, law enforcement sources said.
"We concentrated on what we could do best, rather than a little bit of everything," Hutchins said.
When Simpson called, the unit finally had a mission.
Greg Shipley, a police spokesman, said the undercover operation spanned months as the death penalty cases saw their timelines grow and the executions delayed.
Other intelligence gathering was prompted by planned protests largely to ensure that no violence occurred, Shipley said. Investigators had concerns about the potential for "counter-demonstrations" to planned protests, he said.
Current Superintendent Terrence Sheridan said in a Nov. 25 letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery) that police had a right to monitor activists in public forums.
"Presence at a rally, a demonstration, gathering information from open sources such as the Internet, etc. are all part of the collection of the knowledge and information crucial" to police work, Sheridan wrote.
* * *
The undercover trooper's early moves were sometimes clumsy. She sent e-mails from a domain linked to the state police that could easily have been uncovered with an Internet search. She sprinkled truth across her cover story, once revealing her home county. She suddenly changed her name to Lucy Shoup and offered a new e-mail address, claiming a change in marital status. She asked lots of questions but never shared her thoughts, activists say. She also tried to use her new friendships to learn more about other groups.
Then, with Evans's execution stayed, the woman disappeared. "Lucy was no more," Obuszewski recalled.
Meanwhile, the intelligence-gathering expanded in other directions, to activists in New York, Missouri, San Francisco and at the University of Maryland. Shane Dillingham's primary crime, according to the six-page file classifying him as a terrorist, was "anarchism." Police opened a file on the doctoral student in history a week after an undercover officer attended a College Park forum featuring a jailhouse phone conversation with Evans.
Investigators also tracked activists protesting weapons manufactured by defense contractor Lockheed Martin. They watched two pacifist Catholic nuns from Baltimore. Environmental activists made it into the database, as did three leaders of Code Pink, a national women's antiwar group, who do not live in Maryland.
PETA was labeled a "security threat group" in April 2005, and by July police were looking into a tip that the group had learned about a failing chicken farm in Kent County and planned on "protesting or stealing the chickens." A "very casually dressed" undercover trooper attended a speech by PETA's president that month and waited afterward to see whether anyone talked about chickens. Nobody did.
Police had turned to the database in a low-cost effort to replace antiquated file cabinets. The Washington High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a regional clearinghouse for drug-related criminal information, offered its software for free.
But the database did not include categories that fit the nature of the protest-group investigations. So police created "terrorism" categories to track the activists, according to the state review. Some information was sent directly to HIDTA's main database as part of an agreement to share information.
Putting the activists into the database was "a function of nothing more than the insertion of a piece of paper in a paper file in a file cabinet," Sheridan wrote. But labeling them "terrorists," he said was "incorrect and improper."
The activists fear that they will land on federal watch lists, in part because the police shared their intelligence information with at least seven area law enforcement agencies.
HIDTA Director Tom Carr said his organization's database became a dead end for the information because law enforcement agencies cannot access the data directly. The database instead acts as a "pointer": Investigators enter case information and the database indicates whether another agency has related material and instructs investigators to contact that agency. The activists were not a match with any other data, Carr said, and their information has since purged.
"The problem lies in the fact that once [the state police] checked it out and found it was not accurate, they should have removed it from the system," Carr said. "And they did not do that."
* * *
The surveillance program became public largely because of documents released during a trespassing trial for Obuszewski, the nuns and another activist arrested during an antiwar rally at the National Security Agency. The documents showed that Baltimore intelligence officers were tracking them. The American Civil Liberties Union then filed public records requests with several law enforcement agencies. When the state police refused to release what they had, the ACLU sued.
O'Malley condemned the monitoring as a politically motivated mistake and moved quickly to seek answers. He appointed Sachs, who had prosecuted Catholic activists for raiding a Selective Service office in 1968.
Sachs called the spying a "systemic failure" that violated federal regulations and said police were oblivious to the activists' rights to free expression and association.
The Maryland State Police have changed their policies and plan to solicit advice from the ACLU, the General Assembly, prosecutors and police about regulations that would raise the bar for intelligence-gathering to "reasonable suspicion" of a crime.
Some activists have responded by redoubling their efforts.
Pat Elder, a Bethesda advocate who organizes a demonstration on Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the gates of Lockheed Martin's headquarters, sent a public message to police last month on a local Web site.
"Did it ever occur to you that we're on the side of the good guys and you're not?" Elder wrote in an open letter to the NSA, the Maryland State Police and Montgomery police. "How do you think it makes us feel to know you're looking over our shoulders this way?"
Staff researchers Julie Tate and Meg Smith contributed to this report.
© 2009 The Washington Post CompanyEating on the Tube - love it or hate it? TfL launched a poster campaign a few years ago encouraging us not to eat smelly food on the Tube which almost caused a diplomatic incident between Britain & Italy due to its implication that all Italian food is smelly. We've probably all been on the London Underground when someone's been eating chips, chicken, a kebab or even a packet of cheese and onion crisps, and it's really got up our noses.However, not all Tube food is a bad thing as I had the pleasure of dining on an old Victoria Line carriage last weekend.This wasn't a rushed sarnie or breakfast croissant on the Tube, but a delicious four course meal as part of the Basement Galley's celebrations of the London Underground's 150th anniversary. The by-line of Alex and Tom's supperclub is "", but this was the first time they'd taken the whole concept really Undeground. OK we weren't on a carriage physically travelling on the Victoria Line itself, but on an old Victoria Line train stationed at the Walthamstow Pumphouse Museum If you've been to a supperclub before you'll know that the fun is all in the unknown. You usually don't know the location until the last minute. You don't know who you'll be eating with. Even though this was miles away from where I lived, I knew I couldn't turn down the opportunity of eating on the Tube.My friend Rosana Mc Phee from Hot & Chilli who discovered the event, met me at Walthamstow Central Tube and we then spent about 10 minutes trying to find the right bus to get to the Museum.Fortunately some fellow diners were also on the bus & confirmed we were going the right way. The Pumphouse Museum is a bit ramshackle from the outside, with old rusting coaches, buses and bus stops "displayed" in a fairly haphazard fashion. So it was with some trepidation that we wandered round to back of the Museum to our train which was hidden in a very large marquee.Once through the sliding doors we were more relieved. All looked extremely well set out, crisp white table cloths and candles mixed against the backdrop of in-line carriage maps and old Tube posters. We stood in the aisles chatting, drinking wine (we weren't strictly ontransport so not subject the Boris booze ban!) and getting to know our fellow diners. The tables were set so most of us were sitting on the train's own comfy moquette seats whereas others were on seats by the sliding doors.We settled down to our starter of Green Pea & Basil Purée followed by Salmon poached in a Black Pepper Broth, Rucola Salad, Truffle & Parmesan Vinaigrette. With the sounds of the sliding doors swooshing open & shut as the food was carried in and our empty plates taken out, it felt as though the train should have been moving.However, it didn't take long to forget that you were in a train and just spend time enjoying the meal, wine and company.There were only 22 of us that night, but Alex thinks that by re-arranging the seating a little he could fit around 30 people into the carriage.Our main course was piping hot, which was some feat considering Alex & his team only had a very small kitchen at the Museum to heat things up in. Kilner Jar appeared full of yummy slow braised beef in a Móle sauce with garlic mash and wilted spinach.This was followed by a Pimm’s Fruit Salad and a beautifully presented plate of sliced of cheesecake: White Chocolate &; Vanilla, Lapsang Souchong Tea, with a glass of Kiwi Smoothie.Over tea and coffee we shared our amazement that no one (well no one as far as we knew had run a supperclub in a Tube carriage) and applauded Alex for his idea and great food.It would be lovely to return in the summer for an event like this. Firstly, as it was a little cold and secondly, as I wondered how it might look with less bright lighting from the Tube's overhead lights and more reliance on candlelight. Both my and Rosana's Tweets during the meal led to many excited responses saying "How did you hear about this?", "When's the next one?".Keep an eye on the Basement Galley's Twitter feed for when the next one will be, as Alex says he'll definitely run another. There's some more of my photos from the Victoria Line Train Supper Club and the Pumphouse Museum here.
In the meantime, next time you're eating on the Tube, close your eyes and imagine the white tablecloths, glasses, cutlery and candles and you'll get a rough idea of our experience.- 29th April 2013 - due to popular demand, Alex is having another two supper clubs on this train. 11th May is already sold out but you can book tickets for the one on the 25th May nowSchweizer: Clinton Email, State Dept.-Foundation Probes ‘Joined At the Hip’
Julian Assange Discusses Hillary Health Rumors from Latest Email Release
Google is being accused of burying internet searches about Hillary Clinton's health.
A new report says the web's most popular search engine returns search suggestions that have nothing to do with recent rumors and allegations about the Democratic presidential nominee's health issues.
Several social media users posted images showing “Hillary Clinton’s he” typed into the Google search bar. The auto-complete suggestions include “Hillary Clinton’s headquarters,” “Hillary Clinton health plan,” and “Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan," but nothing about her actual health.
Google has helpfully censored questions about Hillary's health. #HillaryClintonSearchTerms pic.twitter.com/qzDRZgNUMh — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) August 27, 2016
Other search engines - like Bing or Yahoo - apparently return far different results.
Watch the "Fox and Friends Weekend" report above, and let us know what you think in the comments.
Megyn Kelly to Julian Assange: 'Are You Rooting for Trump?'
Assange: Murdered DNC Staffer Was 'Potential' WikiLeaks Source
WATCH: Hillary Offers Chocolate to Reporters, But Avoids Their QuestionsThe majority of socially-engaged arts practitioners feel their work is not valued by the sector as a whole and that there is not enough understanding of its benefits, a new survey has shown. The Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s ArtWorks Evaluation Survey of Artists also reveals that artists working in community, participatory and socially-engaged settings rely heavily on informal training, with codes of practice and standards neglected by employers, commissioners and artists alike.
While the majority of arts practitioners believe support for, and understanding of, their work is high amongst employers and commissioners, most say “too many people” in the arts sector do not value participatory work as artistic practice. Almost 80% agree there is a lack of understanding about the benefits of their work and the majority report that employers and commissioners do not always know how to make best use of artists’ experience and expertise. There is significant variation in approaches to project development by employers and commissioners, and some artists would like more time to plan, develop and reflect on projects.
Informal training is much more prevalent than formal training and is preferred by practitioners. Less than a tenth of respondents have a specialised undergraduate degree in this area, with just over a tenth having a specialised postgraduate degree. While almost a quarter have undertaken an accredited course related to their participatory work, and half have undertaken an unaccredited course, a significant majority would like to engage in more training. Most respondents have had to cover the costs of their training and development, and cite this as the biggest barrier to engaging in new opportunities. 71% believe employers and commissioners should invest more in developing artists. A third admit to feeling unconfident about handling participants in certain settings. Just under a third report that there aren’t enough development opportunities relevant to their needs.
Equal proportions of artists report being familiar and unfamiliar with codes of practice and standards, but most say they don’t use them. Instead artists rely on their own experience. More than half say they would be more likely to follow codes of practice if these were recognised and required by employers and commissioners, and most agree that established standards would help employers and commissioners understand what to expect from them.
The survey is the first element of a two-part study exploring how artists can be better supported in developing their practice in participatory settings. The data suggests they work predominantly in primary and secondary education and in community and neighbourhood settings; health, social care and criminal justice were the least common settings. Only a quarter report making an annual income of more than £20k from their artistic practice, but participatory practice does make up the majority of this, with performance/exhibition fees and commissions contributing the second largest amount.There is something special about a game played under floodlights at White Hart Lane; the atmosphere seems to grow in these evening matches. This was further enhanced on Wednesday by the fact that the visitors were Chelsea, who share a deep rivalry with Tottenham, matched only by that shared with Arsenal.
Stakes for the match were even higher give the run of form that Chelsea were currently on as they stretched their lead at the top of the league table. Indeed, the away side were on a run of 13straight wins coming into this match.
Spurs, on the other hand, were operating somewhat under the radar with little in the way of positive media coverage, whilst still managing to keep in touch with the sides at the top of the table. Much had been made of the rotation policy of coach Mauricio Pochettino this season with players, including England international Eric Dier, receiving fewer minutes than they did last season and a tendency to rotate tactical systems leading to some inconsistent performances.
Chelsea, however, had discovered a rich vein of form as soon as their Italian coach had moved away from the 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 that had been the staple at Chelsea and back to his 3-4-3 system which has served him so well in his career so far. The change of system has given a new lease of life to players like Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Pedro in the attacking third and allows N’Golo Kanté and Nemanja Matić to operate alongside each other in roles that suit one another and shield the defensive structure.
To this point, teams in the Premier League seem unable to cope with the change in structure from Chelsea and we have already seen Everton and Bournemouth switch to a back three of their own with little success.
Teams
We saw something approaching a 3-5-1-1 system from Spurs, with Dier slotting into the back line and Dembélé forming a double pivot with Christian Eriksen, whilst Victor Wanyama played in the defensive midfielder role. The role of Dele Alli was an interesting one, and of course with two goals he would go on to settle the game. He played at times as an orthodox striker alongside Harry Kane but he also had freedom to drop back into midfield when required.
There were little surprises from Chelsea with their 3-4-3 system. Cahill, Luiz and Azpilicueta formed the back line with Alonso and Moses in the wing-back positions. In midfield, Kanté and Matić again provided the backbone of the system with Hazard, Costa and Pedro playing in attack.
Spurs’ defensive structure
One of the keys to the 3-4-3 of Chelsea is the fact that it creates overloads across the final third of the pitch. As the wing-backs advance in the attacking phase, they allow the wide attackers space and freedom to take positions in and around the defensive structure of the opposition. This freedom allows the likes of Hazard, in particular, to wreak havoc for the opposition as he takes possession in pockets of space before turning and driving to goal.
In order to effectively nullify this movement from Chelsea, you have to defend in such a way that prevents them from finding and using space.
With the ball in the wide areas of the Spurs half of the pitch, you can see how well set the defensive structure is for Spurs. Eriksen has moved out to engage the man in possession and Walker as the right wing-back is positioned to negate the threat of the pass into the wide area. The defensive and midfield lines are also deep and compact, denying Chelsea the space to play centrally which is where the likes of Diego Costa excel.
This particular defensive structure is extremely effective but only if you are also able to transition into the attacking phase effectively when you win possession of the ball back.
The role of Wanyama
Throughout the match, the role played by Victor Wanyama was key to disrupting Chelsea and preventing them from playing in quick vertical transitions to catch the Spurs defensive block off guard. For most of this season we have seen Wanyama deployed as part of a double pivot in midfield with a role to play both in the defensive and attacking phases of the play. As the lone defensive midfielder, his role was defensive as he sat deep and broke up the Chelsea attack before playing the ball simply and safely out of danger.
Above you can see the structure from Spurs as Chelsea look to bring the ball out from the back. In David Luiz, Chelsea have a player who is capable in his ability to play the ball out and find team-mates in the final third through vertical passing. With Spurs set up in this manner they have depth in their midfield as Wanyama sits notably deeper. This depth makes it difficult for Chelsea to play out and through the Spurs midfield line.
This time we see Wanyama move out from his central position to apply pressure to the man in possession of the ball as Chelsea seek to counter-attack quickly. As Wanyama moves out and presses the ball, the Spurs midfield rotates with Dembélé taking his turn to drop back into the defensive midfield strata. This prevents Chelsea from capitalising on the space being left behind and ensures that there is always balance in the Spurs defensive structure.
The freedom of Eriksen
One of the biggest criticisms aimed at the performances of Danish international Eriksen this season is that he goes missing in the biggest matches. He is devastating in matches against smaller sides but can struggle to truly influence the game when it really matters. This can in part be attributed to his position within the side, with Pochettino preferring to use him from the left where he can cut inside and cause problems centrally.
In this match, Eriksen played as part of a double pivot ahead of the defensive midfielder and, with his intelligence and appreciation of space, he shone.
The ball is on the right side of the Spurs defensive line. They are in an enviable position as all of their back three are comfortable in possession and playing the ball accurately through lines of the opposition into advanced areas. Eriksen has drifted into a significant pocket of space between the defensive and midfield lines for Chelsea. With Kanté and Matić deployed in a flat midfield structure, these spaces can be devastating against the 3-4-3 if used correctly.
This image is taken from an attacking transition from Spurs. As they look to break forward, Eriksen finds himself once more with space to attack in the Chelsea defensive third of the field. His ability to move, identify and utilise space in these areas makes him extremely effective playing from a central platform. This movement actually led to the first Spurs goal as he ended up on the corner of the penalty area where he was able to clip the ball to the back post for Alli to attack.
Eriksen has moved out to occupy space in the wide area of the field as Spurs are moving into an attacking position. On this occasion, he is quickly closed down, preventing him from attacking down the wide area. As he is closed down, though, he is able to shift the ball centrally to the huge open space ahead of Kanté and Matić Once again, the positioning of Eriksen has hugely affected the game by forcing the Chelsea defensive structure to adjust and cover him.
Conclusion
A deserved 2-0 win for Spurs ended the winning streak of Chelsea. Spurs were clever in the way that they set out their resources, and their use of space in the attacking phase ended up being the undoing for Chelsea. It remains to be seen whether other sides can take this as a tactical blueprint to follow as they face Chelsea or whether this will make any realistic dent in the title hopes of the West London side. On the evidence of this match, though, there are no teams in the league who will be looking forward to facing Spurs.
By Lee Scott. Follow @FMAnalysisA 50-year-old thief who stomped on a car owner's head outside a Southeast Portland Safeway store was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday.
Nick Allen Lucas had been hoping for a more lenient sentence, but Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kathleen Dailey said she was taken aback by the callousness of the stranger-to-stranger crime. The unusual confrontation on Aug. 2, 2015, left the car's owner -- 64-year-old Gregory Anderton -- lying brain damaged in a pool of blood in the grocery store parking lot at Southeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard.
Theories abound as to why Lucas -- now a convicted car thief -- so violently attacked Anderton, the owner of the 1998 Subaru Legacy:
Lucas' defense attorney, Drake Durham, told the judge his client hadn't realized Anderton was the Subaru's rightful owner. Rather, Lucas thought Anderton was stealing "his" car, Durham said.
The car had been stolen from Anderton about six weeks earlier. Prosecutor Glen Banfield said he doesn't believe Lucas' claim that he thought he was legally driving the car, after his girlfriend bought it used months earlier.
According to police and prosecutors, the case unfolded as such:
On June 24, 2015, Anderton reported the Subaru stolen.
On Aug. 2, Anderton spotted his stolen Subaru parked in the Safeway lot about 9 a.m. Anderton still had the car's keys in his pocket, so he drove it across the lot and called 911.
After an officer responded, Anderton decided to move the pick-up truck that he'd driven to the grocery store that day, so his pick-up would be next to him and his Subaru as he continued to speak to the officer.
Video surveillance shows Anderton walking toward his pick-up truck near the store's loading dock when Lucas confronts Anderton.
The video shows Lucas taking a swing at Anderton and Anderton beginning to run.
"Mr. Anderton knows the police officer is just around this corner, if he can only make it," said Banfield, the prosecutor, as he played the video Monday for the judge. "But he doesn't make it."
After a short distance, Anderton can be seen on the video falling to the ground and not moving, and Lucas stomping on him once on the head. It's unclear whether Anderton's brain damage was caused from the fall or the stomping.
Lucas rifled through the unconscious Anderton's pockets, retrieved his pick-up truck keys and drove off.
"He took Mr. Anderton's car, he took his truck and he almost took his life," said Banfield, the prosecutor.
Anderton was rushed to Oregon Health & Science University, where he spent 43 days being treated for a traumatic brain injury before he was released.
Anderton's adult daughter, Taylor Wrenn, told the judge Monday during the hearing was the first time she'd seen the surveillance video. A police detective had advised her not to watch it because of its graphic nature, she said.
Wrenn said her father had worked as a whitewater rafting guide, a stockbroker and most recently a cab driver -- but he can no longer drive his cab because of the assault, she said. She said her dad now lives in an apartment next to her.
"This was a random crime on a 64-year-old man. This could have easily been your father or my neighbor or anybody," Wrenn told the judge.
Wrenn said she was surprised by Lucas' age.
"This isn't an 18- or 19-year-old man who needs some lessons told to him," Wrenn said. "This is a 50-year-old man who stomped on my father's head."
Court records show that his criminal history stretches back more than 30 years, to the time he was a teenager, and includes robbery, home burglary and theft. Lucas told authorities at the time of his arrest that he was using heroin two to three times a day -- and that he'd used the drug for the past decade.
Lucas told authorities he spent most of his adult life in jail or prison -- and he likely acquired post traumatic stress disorder from that. He was living off of Social Security disability and food stamps -- as well as fixing up bicycles by word of mouth out of his home garage -- at the time of the incident, Lucas said.
Anderton also spoke at Monday's hearing. Wearing a dark suit and a tie, he walked slowly and stiffly up to the table where the prosecutor was seated.
He spoke softly. It was clear he had to work hard to enunciate. The part of Anderton's brain that was damaged affects speech, according to the prosecution.
"Unfortunately, I cannot take the salt out of the ocean, so I must tell Mr. Lucas I forgive him," Anderton said.
With that, Lucas broke into tears and began wiping his face with tissues.
Anderton told Lucas he hoped he would "make a departure" from his past and turn around his life, to "somehow learn to enjoy things that we all enjoy, like having jobs and stuff." Anderton gestured back toward his family and friends, seated in the courtroom gallery.
Lucas offered a rambling apology -- in which he said he didn't mean to hurt Anderton but he didn't want to spend so much time in prison that he died there.
"I've got kids and grandkids, and I'd like to be back with them," Lucas said. "I am sorry that I did this. I will try to stay out of trouble."
Although the prosecution had successfully sought 10 years, Lucas wanted 71/2 years. That's the minimum prison sentence that Oregon law allows for the crimes he pleaded no contest to: first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery, second- and third-degree assault and two counts of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
A co-defendant, Kim Chee Eng, 53, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for his role in the attack. Eng helped chase down Anderton before Lucas stomped on him.
Eng claimed that he stepped in to help Lucas after hearing Lucas yell that Anderton had stolen his car. Eng is scheduled to be sentenced to 21/2 years in prison next month.
-- Aimee Green
503-294-5119She was subdued and sympathetic on camera. Her recollections of collecting fetal tissue and body parts from abortion clinics in northern California lent emotional force to the anti-abortion videos that provoked a furor in Congress last summer.
In footage made public last July, Holly O’Donnell said she had been traumatized by her work for a fetal-tissue brokerage. She described feeling “pain...and death and eternity” and said she fainted the first time she touched the remains of an aborted fetus.
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Unreleased footage filed in a civil court case shows that O’Donnell’s apparently spontaneous reflections were carefully rehearsed. David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist who made the videos, is heard coaching O’Donnell through repeated takes, instructing her to repeat anecdotes, add details, speak “fluidly” and be “very natural.”
“Let’s try it two more times,” he told her at one point.
Later, O’Donnell protested: “I don’t want to tell that story again. Please don’t make me again, David.”
For more than two years, Daleiden and a small circle of anti-abortion activists went undercover into meetings of abortion providers and women’s health groups. With fake IDs and tiny hidden cameras, they sought to capture Planned Parenthood officials making inflammatory statements. O’Donnell cooperated with the filmmakers, offering an inside view of the fetal tissue trade.
“We are so good” David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt discuss how abortion providers trust them so much they could enter a clinic to sift through “product of conception,” the term used for an aborted fetus. (Center for Medical Progress / Los Angeles Superior Court) ;
The videos sparked numerous investigations into Planned Parenthood and efforts in Congress to strip the organization of its federal funding.
Now, Daleiden, head of the Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress, and his associates contend that they were acting as investigative journalists, seeking to expose illegal conduct. That is one of their defenses in lawsuits brought by Planned Parenthood and other groups, accusing them of fraud and invasion of privacy.
But unpublicized footage and court records show that the activists’ methods were geared more toward political provocation than journalism.
The Times and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley took a detailed look at published and unreleased video footage, sworn declarations, excerpts of recorded dialogue and other court records from the lawsuits against Daleiden.
The videos and court records show that Daleiden and his associates — posing as representatives of a fetal tissue brokerage — tried to loosen the tongues of abortion providers with alcohol.
In conversations, they tried to plant phrases such as “fully intact baby” and to elicit statements suggesting that fetuses were alive when their tissue and organs were harvested for use in medical research.
A comparison of raw footage and the videos he released shows that Daleiden edited out material that conflicted with his premise that Planned Parenthood-affiliated clinics profit from the sale of fetal tissue for research purposes.
Daleiden, asked for comment, said: “I think our methods are really credible.” His lawyers have said Daleiden employed common tools of investigative reporting.
Abortion clinics can recoup costs they incur in supplying donated fetal tissue to medical researchers but they are not allowed to profit from the exchange.
Eight months after the release of the videos, investigations in a dozen states have found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. Nevertheless, the organization apologized for callous remarks caught by Daleiden’s cameras, and it has barred affiliated clinics from accepting even legal reimbursement for making fetal tissue available for research.
In January, a Houston grand jury that had been investigating the videos cleared Planned Parenthood and instead indicted Daleiden and fellow activist Sandra Merritt on felony charges of tampering with government records — using fake California driver’s licenses to arrange meetings with Planned Parenthood officials in Houston. Through their lawyers, Daleiden and Merritt have said they will fight the charges.
Sandra Merritt arrives at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse in Houston in February. (Eric Kayne / Getty Images) David Daleiden leaves the courtroom in Houston after turning himself in to authorities in February. (Bob Levey / AP)
In response to civil lawsuits filed by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) and StemExpress, a fetal-tissue brokerage in Northern California, Daleiden has asserted that because he was seeking to prevent murder, he had the right to break confidentiality agreements he signed to gain access to abortion meetings.
(Planned Parenthood has filed a separate civil fraud lawsuit against Daleiden.)
On Feb. 5, U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco issued an injunction requested by the NAF to keep more than 500 hours of Daleiden’s unreleased footage under seal.
Orrick said the videos Daleiden has made public so far “have not been pieces of journalistic integrity, but misleadingly edited videos and unfounded assertions… of criminal misconduct.”
Daleiden’s “fraud” was so extensive and his videos so misleading that his still-unpublished recordings of private conversations do not warrant 1st Amendment protection as free speech, the judge said. In his order, Orrick used the words “fraud” or “fraudulently” 13 times in referring to Daleiden’s methods.
Daleiden and his associates are appealing the injunction in a bid to unseal the tapes. Meanwhile, the case is headed to trial, with the NAF seeking unspecified damages for fraud, trespassing, invasion of privacy, racketeering and other alleged offenses.
Daleiden, 27, who graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a degree in government studies, has been involved in undercover operations against abortion clinics for years.
In sworn testimony, he said the objective of his most recent operation was to prove the fetal tissue trade encourages illegal abortion procedures.
In a memo to supporters, Daleiden said he wanted to generate “political pressure” on Planned Parenthood, focusing on “Congressional hearings/investigation and political consequences,” such as new restrictions on abortion in the U.S.
As he and his associates prepped in hotel rooms before entering closed-door meetings of the NAF in San Francisco and Baltimore, Daleiden told the undercover activists to lead their “targets” into “saying something really, like, messed up — like ‘Yeah, like, I’ll give them, like, ‘live’ everything for you.’”
“If they say something like that, it would be cool,” he said.
The activists were given key phrases to elicit from their targets. “Fully intact baby” was one.
Daleiden, in an interview, said he trained his associates to "build in a certain number of repetitions and redundancies, clarification, so it’s absolutely clear what is going on to someone who’s just like Joe Schmo off the street."
“We finished the whole bottle” Daleiden sometimes recorded targets over drinks. At one meeting, the owner of a tissue brokerage refused the wine that was ordered and Daleiden’s fellow activist, Sandra Merritt, says she drank most of the bottle. (Center for Medical Progress/Los Angeles Superior Court) ;
The undercover activists zeroed in on those they thought might be susceptible to alcohol. According to excerpts quoted in court records, Daleiden told Merritt at an NAF meeting that it “would be really good to talk tonight” with one doctor, “now that she’s been drinking.”
At another point, he proposed “a little chat” with a physician who had consumed “a little wine,” and suggested that Merritt “invite her to lunch in the next two days. I think she’s the one for our purposes.”
Excerpts of recorded conversations cited in court records indicate that another effort to lead a target to drink was foiled when a tissue broker refused the wine Daleiden and Merritt ordered.
Merritt joked that she had consumed most of the bottle herself, and as they walked out of the restaurant, she said she was too inebriated to read a message on Daleiden’s phone.
“I don’t even know what I’m talking about. Oh, my God…. We finished the whole bottle, too!” she said. “Good thing you brought someone who can hold their liquor.”
Repeated attempts to reach Merritt by phone and at her home were unsuccessful.
In the publicly released videos, Daleiden made extensive use of testimony from O’Donnell, a former technician for StemExpress.
Daleiden became aware of her through Facebook, and she met with him six times over two years, turning over boxes of StemExpress records and her company email password. Daleiden said in a deposition that he used the password to download company documents, including shipping invoices that identified researchers who bought tissue.
Unreleased footage shows that over the source of successive takes, Daleiden asked O’Donnell to repeat anecdotes or add details such as the gender of an aborted fetus and whether she “said goodbye” to a dissected fetal cadaver before placing it in a bio-hazard container.
“Yeah, I could say that” Over two days of taping, Daleiden coached former fetal tissue technician Holly O’Donnell on her responses. At one point she asks: “How do you want me to say it?” (Center for Medical Progress / Los Angeles Superior Court)
“So you want to make it really dramatic?” she asked.
At one point, she laughed and said to Daleiden: “You’re all like, ‘Say it like this! Let me possess your body and I’ll say it for you.’”
Daleiden protested that he was not coaching her, but as he asked O’Donnell to recount her experiences, her telling grew more dramatic and emotional.
In an early take, she says into the camera: “I got into the medical field because I wanted to help people, not steal fetal tissues.”
On the third try, she says: “I got into the medical field to help people, not to steal dead baby parts and sell them.”
Efforts to reach O’Donnell for comment for this article, by phone and by email, were unsuccessful.
Daleiden billed an edited version of O’Donnell’s interviews as the “harrowing story of harvesting an intact brain from a late-term male fetus whose heart was still beating.”
Outtakes show he edited out |
a testament to his growing importance to the first team, Xavi was named deputy captain to Carles Puyol in 2004/05. The club finished the season with La Liga and the Super Cup, ending a trophyless six-year spell. Xavi ended 2005 as “La Liga's Spanish Player of the Year.” A fresh start for the 25-year-old!
The following season wasn't quite so generous to Xavi. A torn ligament in his left knee kept him out for four months. The club’s fortune though was quite different. Along with another league title, 2005/06 brought Barcelona their first Champions League title in 14 years. Xavi, who reappeared in April, could only warm the bench as his side became Champions of Europe by beating Arsenal in Paris.
Despite being a proud Catalan, Xavi holds the Spanish national team dear. In his own words, “At the end if it all, I’d just like to be remembered as someone who gave everything to FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team.” Spain has always produced mesmerizing football talents. But when it came to titles they were living in the shadows of European giants like Italy and Germany. All of that would change in the year 2008, with Xavi at the forefront. Spain won the 2008 European Championship in Austria and Switzerland and remained undefeated in the entire tournament.
Xavi played 368 minutes, scoring a goal and providing the assist for the only goal in the final. His influence to the side was beyond any statistical measurement. So much so that he was named player of the tournament. “We have chosen Xavi because he epitomizes the Spanish style of play. He was influential in the whole possession, passing and penetrating kind of game that Spain played,” said Andy Roxburgh, head of UEFA's technical committee. Following an uninspiring 2007/08 season, this success was, in every sense of the word, pivotal for Xavi. And his contributions to the Spanish national side didn’t end there.
Back home in Barcelona, consecutive trophyless seasons marked the end of the Rijkaard era, which resulted in Xavi being reunited with his boyhood hero, Pep Guardiola. The new manager arrived with clear ideas. “Everything starts with the ball and ends with the ball,” one of those ideas that suited no one better than Xavi Hernández. So it was Pep Guardiola, whose mere presence as a player tested the mettle of a young, up and coming Xavi, who would help him write the most successful chapter of an enviable career. With Xavi being the midfield mastermind along with the illusionist Iniesta and the superhuman Messi, Guardiola found the recipe to rule Europe.
The Midfield Mastermind
“Xavi is a player who has the Barcelona DNA, someone who has the taste for good football, someone who is humble and someone who has loyalty to this club. From the first moment I saw him play, I knew he would become the brain behind Barcelona for many years to come.”
- Pep Guardiola
From the moment he took charge, Guardiola was hell-bent on using this “brain behind Barcelona” to the best possible effect. Pep's obsession for possession became the perfect complement for the player that is Xavi Hernández. If ever there was a perfect manager for his style, Xavi had just found him. He became the team’s midfield orchestrator.
The 2008/09 season secured a permanent spot in the history books and in the hearts of every Barcelonista. The season was the most successful in the club’s history. By winning the treble, Barcelona achieved something that no Spanish team and only four European teams had achieved before them. Xavi was an indispensable member, or as Pep said, “the brain” of the history-making Barcelona side. For Barcelona, the season was the beginning of a lengthy domination of European football. For Xavi, the season kickstarted the most successful period of his Barça career.
One of the major highlights of Xavi's career will always be the 2008/09 Clásico at the Bernabeu. The midfielder all throughout his career made his presence felt in this “battle of archrivals” but never as prominently as that night. On May 2, 2009, in a virtual title decider, Xavi pulled off a performance worthy of the occasion. A packed Santiago Bernabéu watched in horror as Xavi became their chief tormentor. Barcelona demolished the capital side, scoring six and conceding two. Xavi became the only player in the history of this great fixture to bag four assists, a memorable performance on an unforgettable night.
Another such historic night came 25 days later. This time in another European capital, Rome. May 27, 2009, the Champions League final, where Barcelona would secure their first ever treble. Although the pinnacle of that night was the magical Messi header for the second goal, the brilliance of Xavi did not go unnoticed. In fact, Xavi was named player of the match by UEFA. His calming influence and the impeccable control in midfield meant that Manchester United, the opponent that night, never stood a chance. And to round it off, he delivered a pinpoint pass to Messi, who put the final nail in the coffin. By the end of the match Sir Alex Ferguson was full of praise for the midfield maestro and his midfield partner Andres Iniesta: “I don't think Xavi and Iniesta have ever given the ball away in their lives. They get you on that carousel and they can leave you dizzy.” Unfortunately for Sir Alex, this time it was his side that were left dizzy. And it wouldn’t be the last time.
Xavi was voted “UEFA Champions League’s Best Midfielder” for the 2008/09 season. He ended 2009 winning La Liga's best midfielder of the year award and, more importantly, with six trophies. “A year that can be equaled, but never bettered,” according to former president Joan Laporta.
Success kept on following Xavi. He won his fifth league title with Barcelona in the 2009/10 season, topping the assists chart and once again winning “La Liga's best midfielder of the year.” Following his domestic success, Xavi flew to South Africa to write his most memorable chapter with the Spanish national side. He was an invaluable member of Vicente Del Bosque's World Cup winning team in 2010. With a 91 percent success rate, Xavi attempted a staggering 602 passes during the match, highest by any player in a single tournament as far as data goes (1966). Spain finally emerged as world champions. Xavi was included in the FIFA Ballon d'Or shortlist for 2010, finishing third behind teammates Lionel Messi and Andrés Iniesta.
The following years were to bring further glory for Xavi with club and country alike. He became Spanish champion with Barcelona again in 2010/11, Barcelona’s third league triumph in as many years and Xavi’s sixth in his career. The highlight of that league season was the 5-0 annihilation of Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. Xavi along with his teammates pulled off a breathtaking performance, much to the delight of a packed stadium. Xavi scored the opener and his commanding presence in midfield ran the visiting side ragged. Barcelona was totally in charge of the match from the first to the last whistle. For Xavi, it was the greatest match he ever played. “That game was wonderful, the best I’ve played. The feeling of superiority was incredible – and against Real Madrid! They didn't touch the ball. Madre mía, what a match! In the dressing room, we gave ourselves a standing ovation,” he said a year later to Sid Lowe in an interview for the Guardian.
Another landmark in Xavi's career came months later: the Champions League final at Wembley against Manchester United. Sir Alex said his boys were left dizzy in Rome. Thanks to Xavi and company, the game was a déjà vu for the English team, this time in London. Xavi provided the assist for the first goal scored by Pedro. And his anchoring presence in midfield made sure Barcelona never lost control of the proceedings despite Rooney’s equalizer. Xavi completed as many as 148 passes during the match, with a success rate of 95.3 percent, a record in the history of Champions League finals. Barcelona won 3-1, with one of the most outstanding displays of team performances seen in the game. For Xavi, it was his third triumph in Europe’s elite club competition. He won La Liga’s best midfielder of the year for the third straight year and like in the previous year, finished third in the Ballon d’Or race in 2011.
Earlier in 2011, Xavi became the most capped player in Barcelona history. On January 5, 2011, in his 550th match, Xavi surpassed Miguel Bernardo as the player with most appearances for the first team. And years later, on January 16, 2014 Xavi played his 700th match for Barcelona in all competitions. In 2011, Xavi won his second FIFA Club World Cup in as many years. His last title-winning contribution for Spain was the 2012 European Championship in Germany.
The kid from Terrassa, who was constantly disturbed by the lack of silverware, has completed an amazing journey to become the most decorated player in the history of Spanish football.
Adios, Maestro!
Barcelona has always been the ambassador of beautiful football. Technicality over physicality, precision over strength. None represented the Barca doctrine of football better than the great Xavi Hernández. Like he so rightly said “I am a flag bearer for this style and I feel very proud about that.” And the flag bearer was the reference point of the team that left the football world breathless over the last decade. It was mostly thanks to Xavi that every team who had the misfortune of facing this Barça had already given up on the possession battle even before the ball was rolled.
Pep insisted that every player on the ball must have at least three passing options. Xavi was almost always one of the three. And when he was on the ball, no Barcelona player ever had to shout “man on.” He always knew where they were and could find them with his eyes closed. It didn’t matter to him if he was closed down by two, three or four rivals. No space was narrow enough for him and time was always his ally. With him Barcelona's possession was safe. “He is our life insurance,” Puyol perfectly put it in “Xavi 550.” He wasn't the fastest, nor the tallest. But he was always the one pulling the strings. In the words of the great man himself, “I’d love to be faster. Physically I’m limited, but I have survived by using my head.” We can safely say, he did more than just surviving.
During its heyday, Barcelona was blessed with the majestic Iniesta, the awe-inspiring Messi and the born leader Puyol. Yet Xavi was the reference point and his value to the team was indescribable. He was omnipresent during the most nail-biting finals, during the most nerve-wracking Clásicos. Xavi is the player with the most appearances in Clásicos, a fixture that Xavi has relished and in which he would always show up. Lionel Messi may have the highest number of goals in the Clásico fixtures, but it was Xavi who so often made the Real Madrid's midfield irrelevant and almost non-existent. His displays during the 2-6 and 5-0 Clásicos will always be cherished by every Blaugrana heart.
Being a proud Catalan never got in the way of Xavi giving his absolute best for the national side. Like he said, “I am a football player and I say it loudly: One of my dreams was to play with Spain. What’s wrong with that?” His influence on the Spanish national team was more than most can comprehend. It was his football that made the Spanish team great. It was his growing influence on the pitch that resulted in the most successful period in their history. From being the traditional underachievers, Spain became world-beaters. It was no mere coincidence that, as age started to catch up with him, Spain's dominance began to fade. And by the time he retired, he was irreplaceable. Like Del Bosque said, “We will miss him both on and off the pitch. He was more important to the team than the manager.”
He was the implementor of Pep’s style, the realization of Cruyff's vision and during his last days, the guardian and the calming influence of Luis Enrique’s treble-winning Barça. His presence was so vital that when he decided to make 2014/15 season his Barca swansong, Enrique said: “If Xavi were 25, I would have renewed him for 25 years more.” Xavi would always make the right decisions on the pitch. Even off it. And the fans always agreed. But when he decided to leave, the fans couldn’t have disagreed more. It is because of this decision that we will not see Xavi and Iniesta together again. It is because of this decision that we will not see another Messi goal assisted by Xavi. Hence, weeks of 'Xavi quedate!' chants at Camp Nou. Hoping against hope that his mother, like 16 years ago, would once again intervene and keep the legend home. It wasn’t to be. One-third of the holy trinity of Iniesta-Xavi-Messi is gone and all we are left with is his legacy.
Camp Nou gave one of its greatest gladiators a farewell worthy of remembrance: the greatest of standing ovations and two domestic trophies. Camp Nou gave all that it could. The last three matches in his Barcelona career ended in him lifting three trophies – a fitting farewell to a masterpiece of a career. For now, we comfort ourselves with that. For now, we wait until he becomes homesick.
For now, we say adios, Maestro!(updated below - Update II)
A bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin and GOP Sen. John McCain (S. 1867) -- included in the pending defense authorization bill -- is predictably on its way to passage. It is triggering substantial alarm in many circles, including from the ACLU -- and rightly so. But there are also many misconceptions about it that have been circulating that should be clarified, including a possible White House veto. Here are the bill's three most important provisions:
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(1) mandates that all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system; it also unquestionably permits (but does not mandate) that even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil accused of Terrorism be held by the military rather than charged in the civilian court system (Sec. 1032); (2) renews the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) with more expansive language: to allow force (and military detention) against not only those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and countries which harbored them, but also anyone who "substantially supports" Al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces" (Sec. 1031); and, (3) imposes new restrictions on the U.S. Government's ability to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo (Secs. 1033-35).
There are several very revealing aspects to all of this. First, the 9/11 attack happened more than a decade ago; Osama bin Laden is dead; the U.S. Government claims it has killed virtually all of Al Qaeda's leadership and the group is "operationally ineffective" in the Afghan-Pakistan region; and many commentators insisted that these developments would mean that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. And yet here we have the Congress, on a fully bipartisan basis, acting not only to re-affirm the war but to expand it even further: by formally declaring that the entire world (including the U.S.) is a battlefield and the war will essentially go on forever.
Indeed, it seems clear that they are doing this precisely out of fear that the justifications they have long given for the War no longer exist and there is therefore a risk Americans will clamor for its end. This is Congress declaring: the War is more vibrant than ever and must be expanded further. For our political class and the private-sector that owns it, the War on Terror -- Endless War -- is an addiction: it is not a means to an end but the end itself (indeed, 2/3 of these war addicts in the Senate just rejected Rand Paul's bill to repeal the 2003 Iraq AUMF even as they insist that the Iraq War has ended). This is the war-hungry U.S. Congress acting preemptively to ensure that there is no sense in the citizenry that the War on Terror -- and especially all of the vast new powers it spawned -- can start to wind down, let alone be reversed.
Second, consider how typically bipartisan this all is. The Senate just voted 37-61 against an amendment, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, that would have stripped the Levin/McCain section from the bill: in other words, Levin/McCain garnered one more vote than the 60 needed to stave off a filibuster. Every GOP Senator (except Rand Paul and Mark Kirk) voted against the Udall amendment, while just enough Democrats -- 16 in total -- joined the GOP to ensure passage of Levin/McCain. That includes such progressive stalwarts as Debbie Stabenow, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeanne Shaheen and its lead sponsor, Carl Levin.
I've described this little scam before as "Villain Rotation": "They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it." This has happened with countless votes that are supposed manifestations of right-wing radicalism but that pass because an always-changing roster of Democrats ensure they have the support needed. So here is the Democratic Party -- led by its senior progressive National Security expert, Carl Levin, and joined by just enough of its members -- joining the GOP to ensure that this bill passes, and that the U.S. Government remains vested with War on Terror powers and even expands that war in some critical respects.
Third, I haven't written about this bill until now for one reason: as odious and definitively radical as the powers are which this bill endorses, it doesn't actually change the status quo all that much. That's because the Bush and Obama administrations have already successfully claimed most of the powers in the bill, and courts have largely acquiesced. To be sure, there are dangers to having Congress formally codify these powers. But a powerful sign of how degraded our political culture has become is that this bill -- which in any other time would be shockingly extremist -- actually fits right in with who we are as a nation and what our political institutions are already doing. To be perfectly honest, I just couldn't get myself worked up over a bill that, with some exceptions, does little more than formally recognize and codify what our Government is already doing.
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To see why that's true, it is worth briefly examining each of the three provisions that are the most significant. These are complex issues that cannot be meaningfully analyzed in a 400-word post. But they are important enough to take the time to understand:
Military detention of accused Terrorists
The Levin/McCain bill would require that all accused Terrorists be held in military detention and not be charged in a civilian court -- including those apprehended on U.S. soil -- with two caveats: (1) it exempts U.S. citizens and legal residents from this mandate, for whom military detention would still be optional (i.e., in the discretion of the Executive Branch); and (2) it allows the Executive Branch to issue a waiver if it wants to charge an accused Terrorist in the civilian system.
One of the nation's most stalwart war cheerleaders and one of the bill's most vocal proponents, Sen. Lindsey Graham, made clear what the provision's intent is: “If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer... I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home or abroad.” As Graham made chillingly clear, one key effect of the provision is that the U.S. military -- rather than domestic law enforcement agencies -- will be used to apprehend and imprison accused Terrorists on American soil, including U.S. citizens.
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In doing so, Graham and the bill he supports -- exactly like all those who supported Obama's due-process-free assassination of Anwar Awlaki -- have apparently decided simply to dispense with Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that nobody can be punished for treason without heightened due process requirements being met. In that regard, compare (a) Graham's pronouncement (widely shared by those supporting Awlaki's assassination) that "if you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer" to (b) the Constitutional requirement in Art. III, Sec. 3 that "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." To deny a citizen the right to a lawyer and go to court on the ground that they've "betrayed their country" and thus deserve to be imprisoned without a trial (or, worse, to be assassinated without one) is as violent a betrayal of the U.S. Constitution as one can imagine, literally.
But as daunting and radical as this all sounds -- The New York Times described the bill this way: it declares that "the government has the legal authority to keep people suspected of terrorism in military custody, indefinitely and without trial" and "contains no exception for American citizens" -- this more or less describes the status quo. Military custody for accused Terrorists is already a staple of the Obama administration. Long before Congress ever acted to block the closing of Guantanamo (the excuse from Obama apologists we hear endlessly) -- let me repeat that: long before, and totally independent of, any act of Congress -- Obama did two things to entrench indefinite military detention: (1) he made clear that dozens of detainees would continue to be held indefinitely and without charges; and (2) he unveiled his plans not to close, but simply to re-locate to Illinois, the Guantanamo system of indefinite, military detention. The President already has the power to imprison accused Terrorists indefinitely and in military custody, and both the former and current Presidents have aggressively exercised that power.
Even with regard to using the military to imprison U.S. citizens arrested on U.S. soil, this has already been done: that's exactly what the Bush administration's lawless, due-process-free, 3 1/2 year imprisonment of Jose Padilla was. And the Fourth Circuit explicitly approved this power, a decision which stands because the Supreme Court cowardly refused to rule on it on "mootness" grounds after the Bush administration, right before the Court was to hear the case, finally charged Padilla with crimes in a civilian court.
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It's true that the Obama administration has not sought to hold any U.S. citizens in military custody (they apparently prefer the assassination route to the indefinite detention route). It's also true that, to their genuine credit, the Obama White House has strenuously objected to the military detention provision of the bill to the extent it applies to U.S. citizens on American soil, arguing that such a power "would be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets." But even there, the essence of this bill -- that the entire world is a battlefield, including (by definition) U.S. soil -- has long been (as I've always argued) the most important and most dangerous component of the Bush/Cheney War on Terror, because it means the President can exercise "war powers" anywhere in the world against anyone he accuses of being a "belligerent." And that premise is one that has been fully embraced by Obama officials as well.
Indefinite, charge-free military detention of people accused -- accused -- of Terrorism has been fully embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations (it's one of the reasons some of us have been so vocally critical). The Obama administration has gone even further and argued that it has the power not merely to detain accused Terrorists (including U.S. citizens) without due process, but to kill them. It is true that the Obama DOJ has chosen to try some accused Terrorists in civilian courts -- and this bill may make that more difficult -- but the power of military detention already rests with the Executive Branch. And while it would be worse for Congress to formally codify these powers and thus arguably overturn long-standing prohibitions on using the U.S. military on U.S. soil, the real legal objections to such detention are grounded in Constitutional guarantees, and no act of Congress can affect those. In sum, this bill would codify indefinite military detention, but the actual changes when compared to what the Executive Branch is doing now would be modest. That's not a mitigation of this bill's radicalism; it's proof of how radical the Executive Branch under these two Presidents has already become.
Expanded AUMF
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We have the same story with this provision. On paper, Levin/McCain would expand the War on Terror by codifying more expansive language defining the scope of the conflict than is contained in the 2001 AUMF. The old AUMF only authorized force (which the Supreme Court found includes military detention) "against those nations, organizations, or persons [the President] determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the 9/11 attack and those nations which harbored them. By contrast, Levin/McCain would also authorize force against "a person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." This is intended to allow force to be used against groups that did not even exist at the time of 9/11 -- such as the ones in Yemen and Somalia -- as well to allow force against persons who may not be a member of those groups but who provide "substantial support."
Here again, though, this is already what the U.S. Government is doing. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted -- and some courts have accepted -- that the 2001 AUMF already includes not only Al Qaeda but "associated forces." Thus, insists the Obama administration, it has the right to bomb Yemen and Somalia under the terms of the 2001 AUMF even though the targeted groups didn't even exist at the time of the attack -- and to detain people who had nothing to do with 9/11 -- because they are already interpreting the 2001 AUMF in the same way as Levin/McCain define the war: Al Qaeda and "associated forces," and not just members of Terrorist groups but those who "substantially support" such groups.
Critically, this is a large part of why the Obama administration feels free to oppose Levin/McCain even though the bill overtly authorizes the numerous covert wars the Obama administration is already fighting: because the Obama administration already interprets the the 2001 AUMF so broadly as to vest them with all of the war-fighting powers in Levin/McCain. Again, it would be worse if Congress overtly expands the 2001 AUMF's language defining the scope of the W ar on Terror, but that expansion has long been and still is the de facto and even de jure reality.
Restrictions on GITMO transfers
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The Levin/McCain bill also restates many of the restrictions previously imposed by Congress on the transfer or release of Guantanamo detainees. In some instances, it actually loosens some of those restrictions. But it essentially reaffirms the Congressional blockade against the closing of Guantanamo.
This issue has long been one of the most misunderstood. Obama defenders will endlessly claim that it is not Obama's fault that Guantanamo remains open because Congress prevented its closure. That claim is true as far as it goes, but it does not go very far at all. As indicated above, Obama himself -- long before, and totally independent of, any act of Congress -- did two things to entrench indefinite detention: (1) made clear that dozens of detainees would continue to be held indefinitely and without charges; and (2) unveiled his plans not to close, but simply to relocate to Illinois, the Guantanamo system of indefinite, military detention. As he himself made clear, he never tried or intended to end Guantanamo's indefinite detention system, but merely to move it a few thousand miles North. Levin/McCain ensures that Guantanamo will remain open indefinitely, and that is Congress's -- not Obama's -- fault. But the continuation of the system of indefinite detention -- which, along with torture, is what made Guantanamo so controversial in the first place: not its geographic location -- is attributable to President Obama.
President Obama's possible veto of Levin/McCain
Most media discussions of Levin/McCain assert that President Obama has threatened to veto it. That is not quite true: the White House's statement on this bill uses language short of a full-on veto threat: "the President's senior advisers [will] recommend a veto." Moreover, former Bush DOJ official Jack Goldsmith makes a persuasive (though not dispositive) case that it is unlikely that the President would veto this bill. Most likely, it seems to me, is that the veto threat will be used to extract concessions in order to have a bill that the President will sign.
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Let's be very clear, though, about what the "veto threat" is and is not. All things considered, I'm glad the White House is opposing this bill rather than supporting it. But, with a few exceptions, the objections raised by the White House are not grounded in substantive problems with these powers, but rather in the argument that such matters are for the Executive Branch, not the Congress, to decide. In other words, the White House's objections are grounded in broad theories of Executive Power. They are not arguing: it is wrong to deny accused Terrorists a trial. Instead they insist: whether an accused Terrorist is put in military detention rather than civilian custody is for the President alone to decide. Over and over, the White House's statement emphasizes Executive power as the basis for its objections to Levin/McCain:
Broadly speaking, the detention provisions in this bill micromanage the work of our experienced counterterrorism professionals, including our military commanders, intelligence professionals, seasoned counterterrorism prosecutors, or other operatives in the field. These professionals have successfully led a Government-wide effort to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qa'ida and its affiliates and adherents over two consecutive Administrations. The Administration believes strongly that it would be a mistake for Congress to overrule or limit the tactical flexibility of our Nation's counterterrorism professionals.
It's certainly possible that the administration is simply offering these Executive Power arguments as a fig leaf to hide their more politically difficult substantive objections to expanding the War on Terror. But that seems unlikely in the extreme, given that -- as I have documented -- most of these powers are ones expressly claimed and used already by the Obama administration. Does anyone believe that the same President who kills his own citizens without a whiff of due process or transparency is suddenly so concerned about the imperatives of due process? Indeed, Marcy Wheeler has repeatedly suggested that, in some important respects, Levin/McCain could actually limit Executive Power beyond what the Obama DOJ has seized, and for that reason, has mixed feelings about the Udall amendment to remove it:
As I have repeatedly described, I have very mixed feelings about the debate over Detainee Provisions set to pass the Senate tonight or tomorrow. I view it as a fight between advocates of martial law and advocates of relatively unchecked Presidential power. And as I’ve pointed out, the SASC compromise language actually limits Presidential power as it has been interpreted in a series of secret OLC opinions.
I'm willing to believe that there is genuine White House opposition to having the military detain and imprison U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, and that's commendable if true (though it's a sign of just how extremist our government is that we're grateful for that). Indeed, the Obama administration has opted for civilian trials for accused Terrorists captured on U.S. soil (outside of Padilla, so, too, did the Bush DOJ, and even Padilla was eventually charged). But by and large the White House's objections are not to these powers but -- explicitly -- to the idea that Congress rather than the President can dictate how they are exercised. The White House isn't defending due process or limited war; it's defending broad Executive prerogatives to prosecute the war without Congressional interference.
In that regard, the "debate" over this bill has taken on the standard vapid, substance-free, anti-democratic form that shapes most Washington debates. Even Democratic opponents of the bill, such as Mark Udall, have couched their opposition in these Executive Power arguments: that it's better for National Security if the CIA, the Pentagon and the DOJ decides what is done with Terrorists, not Congress. In other words, the debate has entailed very little discussion of whether these powers are dangerous or Constitutional, and has instead focused almost entirely on which of Our Nation's Strong National Security Experts should make these decisions (one of the few exceptions to this is Rand Paul, who, continuing in his New-Russ-Feingold role on these issues, passionately argued why these powers are such a menace to basic Constitutional guarantees). In sum, the debate is over who in the National Security Priesthood should get to decide which accused Terrorist suspects are denied due process, not whether they should be.
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If someone had said before September 11 that the Congress would be on the verge of enacting a bill to authorize military detention inside the U.S., it would be hard to believe. If someone had said after September 11 (or even after the 2006 and 2008 elections) that a Democratic-led Senate -- more than ten years later, and without another successful attack on U.S. soil -- would be mandating the indefinite continuation of Guantanamo and implementing an expanded AUMF, that, too, would have been hard to believe. But that's exactly what Congress, with the active participation of both parties, is doing. And the most amazing part of it all is that it won't change much, because that is more or less what Washington, without any statutory authorization, has already done. That's how degraded our political culture is: what was once unthinkable now barely prompts any rational alarm -- not because it's not alarming, but because it's become so normalized.
UPDATE: Just to underscore what is -- and is not -- motivating the Obama administration's objections to this bill, Sen. Levin has disclosed, as Dave Kopel documents, that "it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power," on the ground it would unduly restrict the decision-making of Executive Branch officials. In other words, Obama officials wanted the flexibility to militarily detain even U.S. citizens if they were so inclined, and are angry that this bill purports to limit their actions.
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That, manifestly, is what is driving their objections here: not a defense of due process, but a demand that Congress not interfere with their war. As John Yoo put it back on September 25, 2001, in a secret memo insisting on Congressional powerlessness: "These decisions, under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make." The Obama administration and their Senate defenders have repeatedly made clear that their real objection to this bill is that they want Executive Branch officials -- in the DOJ, CIA and Pentagon -- to make these decisions, not Congress, and there is no reason to disbelieve them.
UPDATE II: Any doubt about whether this bill permits the military detention of U.S. citizens was dispelled entirely today when an amendment offered by Dianne Feinstein -- to confine military detention to those apprehended "abroad," i.e., off U.S. soil -- failed by a vote of 45-55. Only three Republicans voted in favor of Feinstein's amendment (Paul, Kirk and Lee), while 10 Senate Democrats voted against it (Levin, Stabenow, Casey, Pryor, Ben Nelson, Manchin, McCaskill, Begich and Lieberman). Remember: the GOP -- all of whom except 3 voted today to empower the President to militarily detain citizens without charges -- distrusts federal power and are strong believes in restrained government. Meanwhile, even The American Spectator has a more developed appreciation of due process than these Senate Democrats and the White House.Got Milk? Coca-Cola does. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
Coca-Cola is getting into the milk business—and being extremely calculated about it.
In the coming weeks, the world's largest beverage company will begin rolling out its latest innovation across the United States: a new, high-end, highly modified, and—yes—much more expensive dairy product. The new offering, which is called Fairlife, will look and taste like milk, but otherwise it'll be pretty different from the average white stuff. Fairlife is low in sugar, high in protein, and free of lactose..
This is how Sandy Douglas, Coca-Cola's senior vice president, explained the beverage on a conference call last year:
The milk product that I showed you....has a proprietary milk filtering process that allows you to increase protein by 50 percent, take sugar down by 30 percent, and have no lactose...we’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we used to buy in a jug.
On the surface, the timing of Coca-Cola's foray into the milk world is curious. Milk has been disappearing from American diets for decades. On average, people in this country drink 37 percent less milk today than they did in 1970, according to data from the USDA. The fall-off has been especially pronounced for whole milk, consumption of which has plummeted over the years.
The milk industry's woes reached a new low last year when it was forced to abandon the iconic "Got Milk?" tagline. The campaign, which had run for more than 20 years, had done little to curb the country's growing distaste for milk.
"All the milk mustaches in advertising history can’t disguise the fact that milk is no longer the drink of choice," Hank Cardello, the author of Stuffed: An Insider's Look at Who's (Really) Making America Fat, wrote last year. "Not for teens and 20-somethings, or people with busy lifestyles, or aging baby boomers, or the elderly."
Milk, in other words, isn't really for anyone today.
And yet here is Coca-Cola, selling the country milk. What gives? A few things.
Firstly, and most importantly, Coca-Cola's new milk offering isn't milk so |
we didn’t want that again — that’s why this works for us. A man who covets a trophy wife has nothing in common with those in-touch-with-their feelings metrosexual men. Accordingly, I don’t witter on about PMT or yell at him when I’m stressed. That’s what my friends and mum are for. If I’m poorly I keep out of his way. I knew from the start he was ill-equipped to deal with me when I’m not bright and cheery.
I’d be lying if I said there weren’t downsides to being a trophy wife. I know I’ll have to maintain my figure and looks. Pascal is adamant that even as I get older, it’s no excuse to let myself go. As a younger wife, you battle against the assumption you’re a gold-digger crossing off the years until your beloved is six feet under. But I have my career and own income, so my lifestyle wouldn’t suffer if I wasn’t with Pascal.As expected, the Government has taken another shot at lawful access legislation today, introducing a legislative package called the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act that would require mandated surveillance capabilities at Canadian ISPs, force ISPs to disclose subscriber information such as name and address, and grant the police broad new powers to obtain transmission data and force ISPs to preserve data. Although I can only go on government releases (here, here), the approach appears to be very similar to the Liberal lawful access bill of 2005 that died on the order paper (my comments on that bill here). It is pretty much exactly what law enforcement has been demanding and privacy groups have been fearing. It represents a reneging of a commitment from the previous Public Safety Minister on court oversight and will embed broad new surveillance capabilities in the Canadian Internet.
The lawful access proposal is generally divided among two sets of issues - ISP requirements and new police powers.
1. ISP requirements
There are two key components here. First, ISPs will be required to install surveillance capabilities in their networks. This feels a bit like a surveillance stimulus package, with ISPs making big new investments and the government cost-sharing by compensating for changes to existing networks. The bill again exempts smaller ISPs for three years from these requirements. While that is understandable from a cost perspective, it undermines the claims that this is an effective solution to online crime since it will result in Canadians at big ISPs facing surveillance while would-be criminals seek out smaller ISPs without surveillance capabilities.
Second, the bill requires all ISPs to surrender customer name, address, IP address, and email address information upon request without court oversight. In taking this approach, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has reneged on the promise of his predecessor and cabinet colleague Stockwell Day, who pledged not to introduce mandated subscriber data disclosure without court oversight.
2. New Police Powers
There are several new police powers that come with the lawful access approach. First, police will be able to obtain transmission data about Internet-based messaging. The government says this does not cover the content of a private communication, but it will cover information about what a person is doing online (what sites they visit, who they communicate with, etc.). This will be subject to a judicial order that will allow for obtaining real time data (a warrant) or historical data (a production order).
Second, police can obtain a preservation order that would require ISPs to preserve (ie. not delete) data related to a particular subscriber or even a specific communication. Third, there is an expansion of the police power to obtain a tracking warrant, by allowing police to "remotely activate existing tracking devices that are found in certain types of technologies such as cell phones." Fourth, the law expands the computer virus provision in the Criminal Code and opens the door to greater international cooperation of cybercrime enforcement.
As for what is not in the lawful access package, there is nothing on data retention, a controversial issue in Europe. It is also not clear what reporting requirements the Government envisions to ensure that there is transparency in the process.
I'll have more to say in the days ahead, but it should be stated that everyone wants to ensure that police have the ability to deal with serious crime. Lawful access has been on the public agenda for years, with law enforcement has demanded new powers but not providing compelling evidence that the current system has created serious barriers to their investigations. For example, last year CIRA caved to law enforcement pressure for a backdoor to WHOIS domain name registrant information. More than a year later, law enforcement has never once used this backdoor. Given the potential for misuse (Greece, U.S. telcos), the onus should be on law enforcement to demonstrate how the current system has harmed investigations and then we should work on ensuring that there is always - including for customer name and address information - appropriate court oversight.
Michael Geist is a law professor and the Canada Research Chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa.Pentagon Blames 105 Civilian Deaths From Mosul Strike On 'Secondary Explosion'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images
Updated at 2 p.m. ET
U.S. personnel "could not have predicted" that dozens of Mosul residents would be in a building where ISIS snipers were firing when they authorized a strike on it in March, the Pentagon says in a newly released report. That airstrike in Iraq killed at least 105 civilians.
The report also says the building collapsed after the strike triggered explosives that had been planted by ISIS.
"Our condolences go out to all those that were affected," said Maj. Gen. Joe Martin, commanding general of the ground force fighting ISIS. "The Coalition takes every feasible measure to protect civilians from harm. The best way to protect civilians is to defeat ISIS."
The report provides new details about a strike that devastated several families and prompted rights groups to accuse the U.S.-led coalition of not taking adequate precautions to protect people in Mosul, which Iraq is trying to reclaim from the terrorist group.
It wasn't until after the attack that officials learned civilians were in the targeted building, the Pentagon says. Between 101 and 137 people are believed to have sought refuge there, according to an executive summary of an investigative report prepared for the commander of Operation Inherent Resolve.
Of the 105 civilians who died, 101 died in the structure and another four died from damage to the neighboring building, the Pentagon says.
"Eye witnesses and media outlets reported that an additional 36 civilians may have been at the building," according to the report, "however, there is insufficient evidence to determine their status or whereabouts at this time."
The strike had targeted two ISIS snipers who were on the building's second floor; the U.S. bomb was expected to damage no more than 20 percent of the structure, the Pentagon says. Instead, the building was reduced to a crater of rubble, after ISIS-emplaced explosives detonated, the report says.
The Pentagon says the home that was hit on March 17 either was used to store bombs or was rigged with explosives that "conservatively contained more than four times the net explosive weight" of the 500-pound munition (with 192 pounds of explosive material) that was dropped on the building.
A summary of the report says the munition, described as a "GBU-38 with a delayed fuse," was chosen by the coalition's Target Engagement Authority in the belief that it would achieve "the necessary effect and minimize collateral damage."
Coalition investigators' analysis of the blast site found "residues common to explosives used by ISIS, but not consistent with the explosive content of a GBU-38," the Pentagon says. One of those explosives was nitroglycerin, which investigators say was "likely used by ISIS to sensitize the secondary explosive devices to detonate more easily."
The report adds that the crater at the rear of the structure was in a different area from where the GBU-38 entered and detonated on the second floor.
The civilians who died in the building had been forced out of their houses by ISIS fighters and invited into the home by its owner, the report says. It adds that ISIS fighters had interacted with the residents — and that a next-door neighbor told investigators he had been warned to evacuate his family and move north by the morning of March 17 to avoid danger.
The Pentagon's summary was prepared by the investigating officer, Air Force Brig. Gen. Matthew C. Isler.
After the strike, Iraqi rescue workers told NPR they found dozens of bodies in the rubble. Coming amid a new offensive to try to retake Mosul from ISIS, the attack set off a debate over how to prevent civilian casualties when people are used as human shields — and whether the U.S.-led coalition has been cautious enough in its attacks.
Survivors of the strike told NPR's Jane Arraf about the devastating losses they suffered, and why they hadn't been able to leave.
"Three times we tried to leave and ISIS sent us back," Ala'a Hassan told Jane. "They fired in the air and in the end they said if you try to leave we will hang you."
The deaths prompted Amnesty International to accuse the U.S.-led coalition of not taking adequate precautions to protect people in Mosul, not providing a safe escape route for civilians, and using munitions that are too powerful.
The group's senior crisis response adviser, Donatella Rovera, also acknowledged the challenges in places such as Mosul. Rovera told NPR in March: "There was no easy option because obviously prior to the fighting, Islamic State did not allow people to leave. However, once the fighting got underway, possibilities are created for people to leave."
Within weeks of the strike, as The Two-Way reported, Iraqi and U.S. officials said they would slow the offensive and reduce the number of airstrikes to minimize civilian deaths.
In response to the findings being released Thursday, Amnesty International's Samah Hadid said, "While we welcome the U.S. investigation into the Jadida airstrike, we are curious to know whether any lessons were learned and what steps were taken to ensure such horrors do not occur again."IS Morayfield really Australia’s second most livable suburb?
That is the question being asked by many befuddled people around the district after Aussie Home Loans crunched the numbers on median house price, block size, capital gain and proximity to amenities for 3800 localities.
Reaction on the Caboolture Herald’s Facebook page was predominately disbelief.
Cameron Fowler said: “Whoever voted obviously didn’t visit Morayfield.”
Therese Demaine said she could see the suburb’s downside but felt it was more of a stigma than a reality.
“I think people wouldn’t like the idea of living here because of the stigma Caboolture has. It does have its bad areas as does any other place. But I’m happy here,” she said.
The ranking makes sense to Matt and Sara Curran who have lived in the semi-rural area southwest of Morayfield for three years.
Mrs Curran said considering the facilities it had, Morayfield was perfect.
“I don’t need anything else. We’re close to shops, the kids’ schools, they’re close to sporting facilities. We know the neighbours and they’re all friendly” she said.
“I think if you are searching for the stuff you need it’s probably in the area.”
Roger Meredith has lived in the area for 28 years and said he liked the “country atmosphere while still being close to the city”.
“We’re five minutes from train stations, schools and the shopping centre. It’s close to both coasts, Brisbane and Bribie.”
“We’ve got a quiet sort of street but and there’s a school bus that goes through the area too.”
Mr Curran grew up in the area and said despite the development he had seen in the past 25 years, it was still a quiet area.
He said a better community bus service was the only improvement he would like to see.
“But I think it’s what you make of it,” he said.
Maureen Hopkins, a 15-year resident of, was surprised. “But then again prices are still affordable here and we don’t have to go far for shopping. We’re half way between the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast pretty much and we’ve got good schools and good choice now.”
What do you think? Write a comment below.UPDATE Below: Hoax confirmed.
The Yale Daily News breathlessly informed us of a female student, art major Aliza Shvarts, who claimed that her senior art project was a documentation of nine months of self-induced miscarriages. Her goal, of course, was to "spark conversation" about "the relationship between art and the human body." What is really the truth with this so-called "art" project, though, is that Shvarts has pulled the wool over the eyes of the Yale Daily News, the willing dupes who claim to be her professors, and anyone reading this story on Drudge and believing she really induced her own miscarriages. It's all a hoax. Or if not an outright hoax, it’s a misleading tale of a girl who hasn't a clue about how one becomes pregnant, what the fake drugs she took are really capable of doing, and the psychological pain of a real miscarriage.
It's also proof that our sources of news rarely if ever employ any common sense in how they write up the news. A tiny bit of logic put to this story of "self-induced miscarriages" would reveal it to be all stuff and nonsense. But, no, what we get instead is the story reported as if it is fact and not the cynical efforts of a kid that just wants her 15 minutes of fame. It is also proof that the liberal side of the abortion debate leads the ideological mindset of the news.
Here is the story in the Yale Daily News:
Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.
Seems very grave and serious, doesn't it? This girl put her body through the repeated physical abuse of impregnation and miscarriage for her "art." If this were true, it would have been quite a physical ordeal. In fact, if it had really happened, I'd imagine that she might possibly have put her health, or at least her future ability to become pregnant, at risk. But, in truth she was likely never pregnant, she never had any "miscarriages" and there was nothing but common menstrual fluids resulting.
What was her "process"? How did she create these so-called miscarriages? She asked boys she knew to donate sperm (she claims she also asked them to have tests for sexually transmitted diseases), she supposedly implanted that sperm into herself, and then she took these claimed herbal concoctions misleadingly called "abortifacient drugs" to end the pregnancy with forced miscarriage.
The main question is, was she ever pregnant? I have to say most likely no. The "turkey baster" method of implanting semen for impregnation is very ineffective, though known to be successful. Sperm does not live for too long once it hits the open air, so implantation would had to have occurred quickly after the issuing of the fluids. So, to assume that this girl had actually impregnated herself is not a good bet. There is no indication that there was any sort of "controls" placed on her efforts at implantation and, since there was never once any medical care, there is no proof that she ever was pregnant at all.
Secondly, the so-called "drugs" she used to induce the "miscarriages" are not real drugs. To even call them drugs is misleading. The so-called drugs, the abortifacient drugs, are herbal concoctions that have no medicinal value. The makers of these drugs make unsubstantiated claims that their mixtures cause miscarriage but there are no scientific studies of these claims and the FDA does not regulate these fake drugs under law -- meaning the claims are not accepted as scientific fact. So, Shvarts' claim that she took "drugs" to induce miscarriage is built on the false claims of these fake "drugs."
Then we have the blood. Nine months gives us at the very least 27 days of menstruation. There is little indication that the blood used in this "art" project is anything other than normal flow.
So, what do we really have here? No proof of any real impregnation, no proof that the "drugs" taken could really induce miscarriage, and no medical tests to buttress any claims. In other words, we have a hoax. If not a hoax, we have a girl who has no idea what she is talking about and too many willing accomplices in the school and the media to just accept her claims as truth without any logic or science to put such claims to the test.
Lastly, I'd like to say how cynical and disgusting the entire concept is in the first place. To purposefully create nascent life only to kill it for the sake of "art" is a dangerous concept. How far could such a concept take us into the darkness of true evil? Would it be acceptable to kill small animals for the sake of "art"? If not, why not? After all, if killing human life is acceptable for the sake of "art" why put a limit on killing animals for the same reason?
And then we get to how this "art" project makes light of the real psychological pain that miscarriages cause women. My wife, for instance, went through a miscarriage early in our marriage and to this day she hurts over the event. There is real pain involved for women who have miscarriages, pain that should not be so casually mistreated by this so-called “artist.” They have often invested much emotional attachment to their impending baby's birth, they have settled into becoming a mother, and then, when that life is extinguished for whatever reason, an emotional pain often devastates the woman. She has lost her baby. Who gets over that with the snap of the fingers? Worse, what sort of hateful person would induce the pain of such a loss over and over again on purpose?
I will guarantee that there will be thousands of women who will read this story and will have that pain revisited to their minds immediately, that this Yale "art" student is causing pain to hundreds of thousands of women as we speak. There will be thousands of others incensed that this woman so blithely discarded the life inside her that many who are desperate to become pregnant are trying so hard to foster inside themselves.
Like the fool in Maine who imagined that her putting American flags on the floor to be trod upon was “art” that would “spark conversation,” this student from Yale is not sparking any useful discussion. She is only ginning emotions to no useful end. And, even more cynically, she is using lies to do it.
(Photo credit: stoptheaclu.com)
**UPDATE-- HOAX CONFIRMED**
Well, all my suspicions were justified, it seems. The New York Sun is reporting that Yale announced that this was all the work of a "creative fiction" by the "art" student in question. The Yale Daily News was suckered, big time.
A Yale student’s bizarre art project in which she claimed to have repeatedly impregnated and induced abortions in herself is a work of "creative fiction," the university said in a statement this afternoon. "Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art," a Yale spokeswoman, Helaine Klasky, said. "She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body." Ms. Klasky went on to suggest that Yale would not have permitted a project of the sort described in the student newspaper. "Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns."
Yes, it's all a scam. Just as I thought. The sad thing is that, without so much as giving this story some thought, so many news outlets reported this as fact earlier this morning.ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Recently, four female servicemen and the Service Women’s Action Network sued the Department of Defense over the military’s combat-exclusion policy. They claim the policy, which does not allow women in most ground-combat situations, relies on outdated combat systems and that it impedes career opportunities for women serving in the U.S. military. The suit highlights some of the most troubling features of radical feminism, which conflates gender equality with gender interchangeability. According to this ideology, women aren’t truly free until they’re indistinguishable from men. Waging a real war on women, the movement has pitted itself against both science, which finds sexual differences throughout the animal kingdom, and women, who routinely express a preference for the gender roles that feminists assail.
One of the latest examples comes from a survey of undergraduates at the University of California-Santa Cruz on the question of marriage proposals. After interviewing 277 students, researchers found that no one — whether a single man or a single woman — preferred for the woman in a relationship to propose marriage. That unanimity is somewhat surprising, given the impact of decades of entrenched academic feminism on liberal universities like UC-Santa Cruz.
Instead of this unanimity providing a much-needed detente in the culture wars, institutional feminists cried foul. The study’s authors warned darkly of “the role that hidden power may play in many heterosexual romantic relationships.” Jezebel’s Laura Beck lamented this “benevolent sexism” was “a bit of a bummer,” while Slate’s Amanda Marcotte blamed “unquestioning adherence to sexist gender norms” and women’s fear of “what happens to people who step outside of those norms.”
These commentaries ignore the outcomes of the study, which found the opposite to be true. Instead of uncovering colleges full of women too timid to dream of proposing, they found women who were willing to propose but weren’t thrilled at the prospect. That doesn’t sound like women being dominated by the “hidden power” of heterosexual relationships or fear of stepping out of line. It sounds like women wanting men to behave like men when it comes to proposals and long-term commitment.
This is just one of several areas in which both sexes happily consent to certain gender roles. For another example, according to a 2007 Pew Research survey of families with minor children, 79 percent of mothers described their ideal situation as one in which they worked part time or not at all, while 72 percent of fathers preferred to work full time. Unsurprisingly, men work more hours than women across the board. They are more likely to be full-time workers and tend to work longer hours than their full-time female counterparts. As the Manhattan Institute’s Kay Hymowitz has explained, this “gender-hours gap” (a situation the majority of both sexes appear to prefer) is the primary cause of the so-called “gender-wage gap” that modern feminists hold in such derision.
When they’re not patronizingly assuming that they know what these women want better than the women do, modern feminists are routinely promoting an agenda that threatens the lives and well-being of women. The most dramatic example of this, in the realm of sex-selective abortion and infanticide, serves as an unparalleled threat for females around the globe. As Mara Hvistendahl documents in her book “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,” more than 160 million females are “missing” from Asia’s population, primarily because of sex-selective abortion. This staggering figure, larger than half the entire population of the United States, refers only to those girls whose lives were snuffed out on account of their sex. Yet even here, with the lives of millions of women and girls hanging in the balance, groups such as Planned Parenthood continue to perform sex-selective abortions except where prohibited by laws forbidding the ghastly practice (laws which they have opposed adamantly).
This dangerous radicalism is also on display in the lawsuit surrounding the military’s combat exclusion policy. One of the “gender gaps” feminists have been slow to acknowledge relates to military deaths. Despite making up nearly 15 percent of active soldiers, women have made up less than 0.02 percent of U.S. military fatalities in Operation Enduring Freedom. Surely, feminists wouldn’t really claim this is sexist against women. Yet in fact, the Service Women’s Action Network claims just that, decrying the exclusion of women from the front lines as “a blatant act of gender discrimination.”
Given all of the ways the modern feminist movement promotes an agenda antithetical to the desires and well-being of women, it’s fair to say that there’s a “war on women” afoot, but not from the quarters you may have heard.
Joseph Heschmeyer, 27, is an attorney, blogger and Roman Catholic seminarian for the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.Tom Ziller has already written about why it'd be foolish to blame Kevin Durant for the Oklahoma City Thunder's 3-1 deficit in the second round of the NBA Playoffs. Without Russell Westbrook, Durant has effectively shouldered a massive load with a supporting cast that hasn't come through. That the Thunder are even in this series -- all four games have gone down to the wire -- is a testament to Durant.
Now, it is true that Durant shot 2-14 down the stretch Monday as the Grizzlies came away with an overtime win. Most people are smart enough to cut Durant some slack for that poor shooting, but some people will likely look at the box score and conclude that Durant came up short when his team needed him most.
But that's a remarkably simplistic and tone-deaf way of seeing things. The reality is that Durant was dogged by multiple defenders on most of these attempts. Without Westbrook in the game, the Grizzlies overloaded their defense to the point where it was physically impossible for anyone to get open. Oklahoma City played into Memphis' hands with horrendous spacing, and Durant bore the brunt of these shortcomings by having to fling heavily-contested looks that nobody would have made consistently.
Just look at these shot attempts:
How many of those are high-percentage looks? How many of them are plays where Durant reasonably could have gotten a better one? This is a team game. Durant can't just go one-on-five and barrel through any defense with the way the rules permit zone defenses and other elaborate five-man coverages, much less against a team as elite defensively as the Grizzlies.
When Durant caught the ball, he consistently saw coverages like the one you see here.
Five Grizzlies players are watching him. The two men guarding perimeter players stand with one foot in the paint, ready to plug the lane on any drive. The two big men, aided by Scott Brooks' ongoing curious decisions to play two big men together (Serge Ibaka and either Nick Collison or Kendrick Perkins), wait at the rim. None of the other four Thunder players are legitimate threats to do anything. Reggie Jackson and Thabo Sefolosha need Durant to easily beat Tayshaun Prince, his primary defender, with a one-step move to even be available for a kickout pass and a three. Ibaka and Collison are complete non-factors underneath the rim.
The five-man zone slows Durant's drive. With Jerryd Bayless and Mike Conley spaced perfectly to plug the middle and recover to their corner shooters, this is the best Durant can do.
That Durant even got that deep is a minor miracle, but he misses over the outstretched arm of Prince.
Of course, this only covers what happens after Durant touches the ball. Even getting Durant open proved to be impossible, as Memphis sent two and even three defenders Durant's way as he curled off screens. Consider Darrell Arthur's positioning on this screen from Derek Fisher.
Arthur is "guarding" Fisher in a weird Thunder small lineup, but he doesn't bother to pay attention to him. Instead, he's already helping on Durant, combining with primary defender Tony Allen to box him in along the left baseline. Meanwhile, look how poorly the rest of the floor is spaced.
You have Collison and Kevin Martin right next to each other on the right baseline and Fisher stuck in the middle of the floor instead of spotting up along the perimeter. This allows Memphis to easily guard four Thunder players with three defenders and limits Durant's options. All he can do is shoot over two defenders.
This pretty much kills any argument that Durant should have passed. Where, exactly, should Durant have gone with the ball? Jackson isn't coming to get it, and Fisher is right in the passing lane Conley occupies. On the opposite side, Collison and Martin are nullified. What else is Durant supposed to do besides shoot?
Other Grizzlies bigs overplayed Durant even more coming off screens. Look at Zach Randolph's positioning on that critical fourth-quarter play that ended in a Z-Bo block.
That prevents the Thunder from getting the ball to Durant on the move. Durant is eventually forced to go wider, but even when he finally catches it, the Grizzlies swarm. Conley will gladly help off Jackson to trap Durant here.
Note again how Jackson hasn't shifted right to give Durant a passing lane. With Jackson a non-threat, Durant has no choice but to go rogue. This is how it ends.
You saw a similar phenomenon earlier in the fourth quarter. Durant is going to try fading to the baseline, but Randolph snuffed out the initial play.
OKC now must go to Plan B: Durant curling off a Perkins screen. Because it's Perkins, though, the Grizzlies trap Durant using Marc Gasol.
This is where Durant is handcuffed by his teammates. He's looking to make the right play here, taking the attention of the trap to hit Perkins rolling off his screen into the open space. Except... Perkins isn't rolling, because he's Kendrick Perkins and has little offensive awareness. A halfway decent player takes Durant's pocket bounce pass and creates something good out of it. Perkins stands there and does nothing.
That forces Durant to, once again, go at it alone. While he beats Allen...
... he runs into Gasol, who again cares little about his man, Perkins. This is the shot that results.
Finally, here's a play that sums all of these problems up. It starts when Randolph again overplays a curl -- this time a double staggered screen -- to prevent Durant from catching in his preferred spot.
Because of that, Durant catches the ball at the top of the key and must stare into the beast that is Memphis' 1-4 flat defense.
Ibaka tries to be helpful and set a screen, but that doesn't help because it allows Randolph to trap Durant. KD notices and waives Ibaka off, but it's too late. By now, Durant has nowhere to go.
Look at that last screenshot again. While Durant tries driving, his two big men are essentially holding hands underneath the basket. It doesn't take an expert to recognize just how terrible that spacing is.
With Gasol guarding the two Thunder big men connected at the hip and the shot clock running down, this is all Durant can do.
****
Any player will shoot 2-14 when these are the shots presented to him. That Durant was forced to take them is not an indictment on his shot selection or anything that he is directly responsible for producing. No, the reason Durant took the shots is that he had no other choices.
Credit should go to the Grizzlies' defense, but this is what happens when you have no other threats and can't space the floor properly.
More from SB Nation:
• Ziller: Don't blame Kevin Durant
• The Bulls were historically unenjoyable
• Dan on Fire: Did Kobe fake his injury?
• FAQ: Explaining the Kings situation
• Ziller: Expansion still makes the most sense
• Flannery: Redemption, agony and clear pathsThis is considered America’s oldest bar. Where is it? Read on to find out.
By Matt Meltzer
Because you love drinking, you love history, and of course, you love the history of drinking, we’ve tracked down the oldest bar, tavern, or pub in each of the 50 states… and Washington, D.C.
Now obviously, tracing bars through time is an admittedly inaccurate science, especially in a country that once banned booze. Some bars opened, closed, and reopened again years later; some burned down and were rebuilt; others moved buildings, changed names, turned into post offices, or stopped serving alcohol altogether. And still others, amazingly, remain the longest, continuous-running, liquor-pouring establishments in their great states, having weathered Prohibition by peddling turkey sandwiches and O’Doul’s.
While records are scarce, debate fierce, and the laughter we received when calling state historical societies very real (not to mention, slightly hurtful. Come on, we’re just asking a question!), in the end these 51 bars can — to the best of our research — lay at least some claim to the title of the state’s oldest watering hole.
Credit: Keith Burns
ALABAMA
T.P. Crockmeirs — Mobile (Est. 1875)
It should surprise absolutely nobody that the oldest bar in Alabama was started by “a plantation owner with large holdings, and a loyal Southerner who fought in General Lee’s army.” In New York this would likely lead to your bar getting picketed (unless you put it in Williamsburg to be “ironic”), but in Alabama it makes you one of the most popular spots in Mobile.
Credit: Pinterest user Jone Suleski
ALASKA
B&B Bar — Kodiak (Est. 1908)
When the sun doesn’t come out for a month, it’s nice to have a friendly dive bar where you can go to drink until sunrise… in a few weeks. This little spot in the largest city on Kodiak Island (is there more than one city?) is exactly that dive bar, and it proudly displays the oldest liquor license in the Last Frontier.
Credit: The Palace
ARIZONA
The Palace — Prescott (Est. 1877)
About as close to an authentic Wild West saloon as you’re going to get, this Arizona watering hole claims Doc Holliday and the Earp brothers as early patrons. While a fire in 1900 engulfed the street known as “Whiskey Row” and destroyed the original building, loyal patrons reportedly rescued the hand-carved bar; you can still sidle on up to it today.
Credit: Ohio Club
ARKANSAS
Ohio Club — Hot Springs (Est. 1905)
We’d like to think this was a bar where Bill Clinton took and/or met all his ladies NOT named Hillary, but we have no idea. What we do know is that before Bill ever came to Hot Springs, the Ohio Club was a bookie joint frequented by the likes of Al Capone, and a target of frequent police raids until the late 1960s.
Credit: Nikki Howard
CALIFORNIA
The Saloon — San Francisco (Est. 1861)
When you’ve been around since 1861 and survived the most destructive American earthquake of the 20th century, you don’t need to go around finding fancy names. So this North Beach boozery hasn’t bothered changing its name — or much of anything else if old pictures are accurate — since the 1860s. While the upstairs once doubled as a house of ill repute, today The Saloon doubles as one of SF’s favorite small live music venues.
Related: WATCH: The Oldest McDonald’s in the Country Serves Up Fried Apple Pie and Fifties Charm
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Credit: Buffalo Rose
COLORADO
Buffalo Rose Tavern — Golden (Est. 1859)
Known as the International Bowling Saloon when it first opened in 1859, this place later served as a meeting house for the Colorado Territorial House of Representatives. The current building has stood since 1902, and is now a live music venue that we’re guessing serves a LOT of Coors.
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Credit: Flickr user Joe Mabel
CONNECTICUT
Griswold Inn Tap Room — Essex (Est. 1776)
This spot on the Connecticut River in the tiny town of Essex actually still operates as a working hotel AND bar, and was actually a British command center during the War of 1812. Much as we’re sure that interests you, the REALLY cool part is that it was also used as a filming locale for “Dark Shadows” and still boasts live entertainment nightly.
Related: Live the Luau Life: Top Tiki Bars in the U.S.
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Credit: Flickr user Ron Cogswell (modified)
DELAWARE
Jessop’s Tavern — New Castle (Est. 1724)
America’s second-oldest bar goes to great lengths to keep it real with the folks who founded it, offering Dutch, English, and Swedish food, as well as what they claim is the largest selection of Belgian beers in Delaware.
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Credit: Old Ebbitt Grill
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
Old Ebbitt Grill — Washington, D.C. (Est. 1856)
Once part of the Old Ebbitt Hotel (where President William McKinley lived when he served in Congress), the bar was a favorite drinking spot of other presidents as well, including Ulysses Grant, Andrew Jackson, and Warren Harding. D.C.’s oldest bar once stood on F Street before the Old Ebbitt was demolished for an even grander drinking club: The National Press Building.
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Credit: Palace Saloon
FLORIDA
Palace Saloon — Fernandina Beach (Est. 1903)
In 1903 the “normal” part of Florida (if there ever was such a thing) was up north, and Fernandina Beach near Jacksonville was a major rail and sea port in need of a bar. And so opened the Palace Saloon, complete with an embossed tin ceiling (that’s still there today), Italian marble, and a mahogany & oak bar that was purchased in 1905 for the ungodly sum of $1,250; in today’s dollars, that’s $33,783.78!!!
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Credit: The Pirate’s House
GEORGIA
The Pirate’s House — Savannah (Est. 1753)
Originally built as an inn for sailors in Georgia’s main port city, it didn’t take long for the Pirate House to morph it into a drinking establishment. We are talking about sailors, after all. The oldest bar in Georgia was also once the site of an experimental garden that early colonists used to determine which crops would grow best in the region. It sits next to a house that’s reported to be the oldest standing building in the state.
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Credit: Smiths
HAWAII
Smith’s Union Bar — Honolulu (Est. 1935)
Back when Hotel Street was the main drag for Honolulu’s red |
that are going through the same thing or something similar that we did, but also try to bring light to it, help that awareness, and get these kids the support they need as fast as they can get it."
Michelle Beisner contributed to this story.
Tory Zawacki is an associate producer for "Sunday NFL Countdown" on ESPN.Buy Photo Father Christopher Senk, photographed in 2008, is pastor of St. Isabel Church on Sanibel Island. (Photo: File photo by Andrew West/news-press.com)Buy Photo
A priest at a Sanibel church was investigated by the Lee County Sheriff's Office for allegedly exploiting a elderly parishioner.
Rev. Christopher Senk, of the St. Isabel Catholic Church, has been placed on paid administrative leave, according to the Diocese of Venice.
The criminal investigation was sent to the state attorney's office, but no charges have been brought forward at this time, said Susan Laielli, director of communications for the Diocese.
Senk declined to comment when reached by phone Saturday evening.
"I think I would be advised not to comment," he said.
The Lee County Sheriff's Office has not responded to a request for comment regarding the investigation.
According to the Diocese, investigators interviewed a number of people, including Senk. The victim who Senk allegedly exploited suffers from dementia. Personal records of Senk and the victim were subpoenaed for the investigation.
"Officials believed that Father Senk took advantage of his position of trust to financially exploit an elderly and vulnerable parishioner, and that he continued to do so even after family members, acting as appointed guardians, directed him to stop," the news release by the Diocese of Venice states.
While criminal charges have not been filed, the Diocese will review the incident to see if the alleged actions by Senk broke the Diocesan Code of Pastoral Conduct, Laielli said.
"Pope Francis reminds all, that priests are called to live simply and to identify with the poor, and to avoid seeking personal financial gain," the Diocese said in a statement. "It is necessary to ensure that priests who serve in the name of the Church act with compassion and respect, especially in the care of elderly and vulnerable parishioners."
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Senk, originally from western Massachusetts, arrived in Southwest Florida in 2003 and made a home at the small Sanibel parish. He oversaw the reconstruction of St. Isabel after Hurricane Charley ravaged its building on Sanibel Captiva Road.
Read or Share this story: http://newspr.es/2eHb8AVSANDY, Utah (Monday, March 20, 2017) – Real Salt Lake announced on Monday that the club has dismissed Head Coach Jeff Cassar. The club will host a conference call on Monday at 5 p.m. MT with General Manager Craig Waibel to discuss the direction of the club and the timeline for naming a new Head Coach.
“We want to thank Jeff for his many contributions to the success of Real Salt Lake over the past decade, including our championship run in 2009. Jeff has always handled himself with class and dignity and represented the organization and community extremely well,” RSL Owner Dell Loy Hansen said. “We wish Jeff and his family much success in their future endeavors.”
Cassar, 43, first came to the organization as an assistant coach under Jason Kreis in 2007 and remained in that role through the 2013 season. During that span, RSL reached the MLS Cup final twice, winning the league title in 2009 in a dramatic shootout win over the LA Galaxy. The club also reached finals in the 2011 CONCACAF Champions League – the first MLS club to do so – and the 2013 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.
He took over the position of Head Coach prior to the 2014 season and went 38-37-30 in his tenure, reaching the playoffs in two of his three full seasons. RSL qualified for CONCACAF Champions League in 2014 and advanced to the Quarterfinal Round of the tournament before falling to UANL Tigres. However, the club went on a seven-match winless streak to conclude the 2016 season and through three matches this season has gone 0-2-1 with one goal scored.
“At the conclusion of last season, we felt that while we were disappointed in the end result, Jeff had done enough to earn another shot to lead the team in the 2017 campaign. We have a high sense of urgency for progress this season, and have made many off-season changes towards that endeavor. So, while these decisions are always difficult, we, as an organization, felt that it was necessary to make the change in our head coaching position now,” Waibel said. “The process for a hiring new head coach to lead the club has already begun. We will work quickly and diligently to ensure that we find the right leader that shares our values, passion, commitment and vision.”
During the process of hiring the next head coach, RSL Director of Goalkeeping Daryl Shore will serve as Interim Head Coach. Shore joined Real Salt Lake as Goalkeeper Coach in January 2014. Prior to joining RSL, he served as Head Coach of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers of the NASL from 2010-2013 and was Goalkeeper Coach for the Chicago Fire from 2000-2010.
The rest of the RSL technical department will remain on staff.
Real Salt Lake will return to training on Tuesday before the cross-country trip to New Jersey to face the New York Red Bulls on Saturday at Red Bull Arena.By Alan Ohnsman and Joann Muller
(Update: Divergent 3D announced on Nov. 21, 2017, that it raised over $65 million from a Series B funding round, which has an investor option for another $40 million if needed.)
Nobody has to remind Kevin Czinger what the Rust Belt was like during the heyday of American manufacturing. The pungent smells, the dark soot spewing from smokestacks and his summer job shoveling coke at a steel plant are all seared into memories of his youth in Cleveland in the 1970s. The northern Ohio city was a symbol of industrial might--until suddenly it all crumbled.
Now the 58-year-old entrepreneur wants to help usher in a new manufacturing era--one that can withstand the forces that decimated his hometown along with vast swaths of the United States. You can get a glimpse of this new era at a miniature auto factory, about the size of a large grocery store, tucked inside a concrete-and-glass office park in suburban Los Angeles. Beyond darkened glass doors, parked in the gallery-like lobby of the headquarters of Divergent 3D, his five-year-old startup, is the Dagger, a sporty-looking motorcycle. Nearby sits the Blade, a sleek silver sports car that calls to mind vehicles in the sci-fi film Minority Report. Czinger built both with a patented approach to manufacturing that relies heavily on new digital technologies like 3-D metal printing. They're less expensive than traditional manufacturing methods and better for the environment, and they could prove as disruptive to the transportation industry as electric vehicles and self-driving cars.
The Blade and Dagger are prototypes, but Czinger has teamed up with France's Groupe PSA, which makes Peugeot and Citroën vehicles, to work on a number of development projects over the next few years. And his mini-factory will be making batches of other test vehicles--van-like shuttles--for customers Czinger won't yet name. Investors like Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures and Altran Technologies, a French high-tech engineering consultancy that works in the automotive sector, along with Czinger himself and others, have poured $28 million into the company. A new investment round targeting up to $100 million is expected to close soon.
"Traditional auto manufacturing is fundamentally broken from an economic and environmental standpoint," Czinger says. "You can't scale factories up and down to meet changes in the market."
Divergent 3D, he says, points the way to a better future for how industrial goods are made. In place of Detroit's megafactories--or Elon Musk's Gigafactories--21st-century manufacturing will be ruled, Czinger believes, by networks of small-scale urban factories like his. They'll be able to deliver low-cost, low-carbon vehicles in small and highly customizable batches. And they could help bring jobs back to communities that have lost them.
A typical car factory costs between $500 million and $1 billion to build, and the tooling and machinery are amortized over many years, which is why they need to produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles per year to be profitable. Divergent 3D promises it can build a production line for 20,000 or more cars a year in a warehouse-type space, complete with large-scale 3-D metal printers, laser cutters and assembly robots, for just over $50 million. Because of lower capital and production costs, vehicles would be up to $6,700 cheaper to build, on average, Czinger says.
Czinger is hardly alone in betting on industrial-scale 3-D printing. Until now, 3-D printing has been used mostly to make prototypes. But the technology is changing fast, with ever bigger machines now able to "grow" larger parts from a variety of advanced materials, including metal powder.
Sales of advanced 3-D printers, which are being used to make engines for SpaceX rockets and giant wind turbines for GE, are soaring. Ford Motor may not 3-D print F-150s any time soon, but it is using the technology to make factory equipment. HP predicts the technology will usher in a "distributed manufacturing" future in which companies build what they need, when they need it and where they need it, says Tim Weber, an executive at the company's 3-D printing unit. "Imagine you are on a marketplace like Amazon," Weber says. "You order a car. Maybe it was designed in Lithuania, but it's built in your hometown and delivered a few days later. That's the direction it's going--maybe not immediately, but the fourth industrial revolution is exactly that." Costa Samaras, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says industrial 3-D printing "will disrupt a lot of existing supply chains."
Czinger's version of that disruption relies on using complex 3-D-printed metal joints as the "connective tissue" that attaches to the carbon-fiber structure, or "bones," of a car's chassis using a high-strength adhesive, rather than being welded. The result is a strong, lightweight underbody that costs a fraction of one built using traditional stamping methods. In lieu of a paint job, cars get colored vinyl wraps that are durable and scratch-resistant. Because cars made this way will be lighter, they will also require less fuel.
Groupe PSA embraced Divergent 3D in order to accelerate its manufacturing efficiency, part of a broader turnaround effort under chairman Carlos Tavares. In a six-month study for PSA in 2016, engineers determined that using Divergent 3D's tech to develop a popular SUV would have had a dramatic upside: Development time would be reduced by a year, vehicle weight would be trimmed in half, 75% fewer parts would be required, and there would be more flexibility to make changes on the fly. "This has the potential to dramatically scale down the size and scope of our manufacturing footprint, reduce overall vehicle weight and build complexity, while also giving us almost limitless flexibility in design output," Tavares said after signing the deal with Czinger last year. "We are talking about a radical change for our industry."
In all, Divergent 3D has development deals with about "half a dozen" companies, Czinger says. If Alphabet's Waymo or Apple one day opts to build its own autonomous vehicles, the Divergent 3D system could make that happen, he says. "My focus is to do this globally," Czinger adds.
As industrial disruptors go, Czinger is a curious candidate with an eclectic background. His football talents helped get him to Yale, where he was named Ivy League Player of the Year in 1980. After earning undergraduate and law degrees there, he worked as a federal prosecutor in the late 1980s (under U.S. attorney Rudy Giuliani) and as a Goldman Sachs banker in the early 1990s. He later had stints at Webvan, where he was chief financial officer, and at another investment firm.
Divergent 3D isn't Czinger's first attempt at auto industry disruption. In 2008 he cofounded Coda Automotive, which hoped to kick-start electric-vehicle sales with a ho-hum Chinese-made sedan. Timing wasn't on his side. Just as Coda was ramping up deliveries, Tesla released the elegant Model S that redefined the EV market.
Coda flopped, but Czinger's odds with Divergent 3D may be better. He's not trying to compete head-to-head with Tesla or anyone else by making cars. Instead, his business model relies on licensing Divergent 3D's technology to manufacturers. His timing could be right this time. As pressure for sustainability increases and private car ownership gives way to transportation as a service, especially in crowded cities, 3-D printing offers an efficient way for automakers to locally produce clean, inexpensive cars for shared urban fleets.
"We can do it at the right economics with much greater flexibility," Czinger says. A car for Los Angeles may look very different from a car for Paris or Shanghai. "This is what it comes down to," Czinger says. "The resilience of the environment, the resilience of the economy depends on diversity."The casual drug user - the sort who considers his crime to be essentially victimless – is often reminded that he funds a criminal network in which violence is endemic and bystanders are regular victims. But if you are American and you don’t like drugs, there is another way you can fund this system: by paying your taxes.
This World: Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War (BBC2) sought to explore the various ways in which US government enforcement agencies have become bound up in the business of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, ostensibly in the name of bringing down its kingpins.
Last year, Joaquin Guzman, the cartel’s leader, was finally captured and arrested. But for 13 years before that, it is alleged, US enforcement agencies protected the cartel in exchange for information about rival drugs gangs. This was a convoluted story with a lot of dead ends, but it seems unquestionable that the policy of rewarding and protecting informants ran out of control, essentially making the US government an accessory to all sorts of criminal behaviour.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than by This World’s account of Fast and Furious, an investigative operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The documentary argues that the US doesn’t just provide the money that fuels Mexico’s drug wars, it provides all the weaponry, too. John Dodson, an ATF agent, was supposedly running an undercover sting in which compliant Arizona gun-sellers would provide truckloads of AK-47s to smugglers looking to arm the Sinaloa cartel. While preparing to arrest his first target, Dodson was suddenly told to stand down, and the guns went across the border unhindered. The operation continued for 14 months; 2,500 firearms were put directly into the hands of the cartel.
Why? Acording to Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War, those in charge of the smuggling operation were paid FBI informants. The money for the guns also came from the taxpayer. The helpful US gun dealers were arranged by the ATF. It was a US government operation from start to finish.
It was only a matter of time before weapons traceable to Fast and Furious were used to murder somebody. In fact, they were implicated in a massacre – an attack on a house party full of teens. (It was also an atrocity of mistaken identity – Sinaloan enforcers got the wrong house.) But it was the killing of a US border patrol officer with a gun smuggled through the Fast and Furious sting that finally prompted Dodson to blow the whistle. “Because that’s not who we are,” he said. “That’s not what we do. We’re allowed to make mistakes, but we’re not allowed to cover shit up.” Dodson, as you can imagine, was not rewarded as an informant, but sidelined. “I had to ask myself,” he said. “Are we the bad guys?”
In and Out of the Kitchen (BBC4), Miles Jupp’s sitcom about uptight cookery writer Damien Trench, has lost none of its subtlety in the transfer from BBC Radio 4 to television. At times, it is so bone dry that you might think you are watching a documentary about an insanely boring gay couple (“Am I going completely mad,” said Damien at one point, “or are we down to our last two Hoover bags?”). Over the course of the programme, you even get instructions for a complete, and rather appealing, recipe.
Now the redoubtable Damien of radio has a face – pale, pained, with red-rimmed eyes – and just the soft furnishings you might imagine him to have. The stair carpet, in particular, seemed chosen to reflect a certain kind of effete urban sterility (we used to have the same one, and that’s why we got rid of it; that, and the stains).
Damien’s partner Anthony was embarking on a fad diet recommended by a book called A Whole New Bowel Game.
“Why are you chopping 6lb of courgettes?” said Damien.
“It’s 8lb, actually,” said Anthony.
“This isn’t a specific question relating to mass,” said Damien, never afraid to fight pedantry with more pedantry.
Meanwhile, Damien was persuaded to accept a column in a supermarket magazine, against long-held principles. He was also making a birthday cake for his builder, but it would be wrong to describe this sitcom in terms of what happens, because not a lot does. It is really just a finely observed exploration of one man’s battle against the modern world, waged with such fussy precision that you can’t help but take his side.
In and Out of the Kitchen is gentle, softly spoken and quite savage. At times, I wondered if it had too much patience with itself, but even if it’s not your cup of tea, the recipe for red pepper soup is probably worth trying.Feinstein links LAX to gun control
Sen. Dianne Feinstein says the shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport underscores the need for an assault weapons ban and greater gun control measures.
Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, Feinstein paid tribute to fallen TSA officer Gerardo Hernandez, the first TSA employee to die in the line of duty, then turned her attention to guns. A strong supporter of an assault weapons ban, the California Democrat said, “the weapon was a.223 MP-15, where the MP stands for military and police, clearly designed not for general consumption … Same gun that was used at Aurora. Would I do a bill? Sure, I would do a bill. I mean, I believe this down deep in my soul.”
But Feinstein said that such a bill would be very difficult to pass. “There’s a hammer lock on the Congress by the gun owners and gun people," she said.
In January, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, but the bill stalled.The ultimate form of political and economic power is the power to commit crimes with impunity.
From Dave Kranzler:
The Shadow of Truth is pleased to present a preview of, “All The Plenary’s Men,” the new film by John Titus (Best Evidence videos / Bailout Films). The term “plenary” in this context is defined as, “complete in every respect;” as in, “plenary power,” meaning, “absolute power.”
In his spectacularly prophetic dystopian novel, “1984,” George Orwell offered the following observation about power:
Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
The quiet revolution occurring behind the facade that is called “Washington, DC” for several decades has led to the complete hijacking of the U.S. Government by an entity nefariously known as, “The Deep State.” Those who warned about The Deep State previously were labelled conspiracy theorists. Now, with the help of Wikileaks, the idea of the Deep State is openly discussed even in the mainstream media. The Deep State is Orwell’s Big Brother.
The ultimate power is the power to commit crimes with impunity, meaning that the entity committing the crime does so free from fear of punishment. We saw this with the Iraq invasion in several respects. The invasion was never sanctioned by the UN Security Council or in accordance with the UN’s founding Charter. It was an illegal war waged by what has become the world’s most dangerous terrorist: The U.S. Deep State. Big oil is
part of the Deep State. Therefore, when Halliburton was caught charging the U.S. taxpayer $10/gallon for gasoline being sold to the military in Iraq, Halliburton was never punished.
Even more horrifying was watching the Too Big To Fail banks break every major securities law in the rule book leading up to the financial collapse of 2008 and escape free from any form of prosecution. Not only were these banks allowed to trample all over the law, but the Government used $800 billion of taxpayer money to keep the banks from collapsing and to enable the banks to pay large bonuses that ye ar.
The primary theme underlying John Titus,’ “All The Plenary’s Men,” is that any entity that can commit crimes with impunity has risen above a nation’s sovereign law. In fact, that entity IS the sovereign authority.
Thus, The Deep State is the sovereign authority standing behind the U.S. Government. The Deep State is comprised of not just the NSA, CIA and Pentagon, but also Big Oil, Big Banks, Big Healthcare and Big Technology.
“We’ve been swirling down the toilet as a nation since 2007” (John Titus). The Shadow Truth chatted with John about his upcoming film, for which he provided a thoroughly engrossing, if not chilling, trailer:As you watched last year's US election, did you find yourself aggrieved by the lack of big climate change talk from your leaders? Well, I have an election you're going to want to watch. This weekend, a nation gripped to the point of near-hysteria over carbon abatement policies (yes, there is such a country) will finally put to rest an epic struggle that has rolled on for years. Well, that's the plan, anyway.
In my home country, Australia, carbon pricing has been the "killing fields" of politics, says Lenore Taylor, political editor for Guardian Australia. In an extraordinary couple of years of drama in Canberra, the usually sedate (read: dull) capital, three leaders—including two sitting prime ministers—have been toppled and replaced by their own parties, partly due to disagreements over climate change.
Saturday's national election, if we're to believe the opposition's rhetoric, will be a referendum on the future of the carbon tax that was introduced by the Labor Party that has been in power for the last six years. Tony Abbott, the head of the conservative opposition is leading opinion polls. In the likely scenario he wins, he has promised to repeal the carbon pricing legislation.
Climate change is by no means the only issue in this campaign: immigration, leadership and economic management have played big. But the election will nonetheless be the culmination of a long and heated national debate about climate change, one unlike any other in the world.
In 2009, the conservative opposition party (called the Liberal Party) replaced its leader Malcolm Turnbull, who was a proponent of an emissions trading scheme, with Tony Abbott, a man who is vehemently opposed to a market-based solution. The following year, Julia Gillard replaced sitting Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, her boss, as Prime Minister, only to be challenged and defeated by a resurgent Kevin Rudd in 2013. The names and pace of change might be hard to follow, but the message is simple: carbon pricing has cut to the quick of Aussie politics and become a symbol for deep ideological divides. Politicians enthusiastic about putting a price on carbon in other countries must be looking on in horror.
When a carbon tax was finally introduced by the Gillard government in 2011, it faced immediate, vitriolic opposition from an invigorated conservative opposition party led by Tony Abbott, and a fear campaign run by talk radio around the country, which labeled the "toxic tax" as a broken promise. Before the 2010 election, Julia Gillard had said she wouldn't introduce a tax. In reality, the carbon tax was the fruit of an elaborate negotiation between Gillard, independents and Greens to preserve her vulnerable coalition government (the tax will eventually become a trading scheme). The price she paid was fatal. The opposition has been ruthlessly committed to its mantra ever since: dump this toxic tax. When this pitiless campaign sunk her polling numbers to sub-survival territory, her own party dumped her.
I wouldn't be so sure this issue will go away after Saturday. Abbott's bill to repeal the tax would have to be passed by the Senate, Australia's upper house, which will be hard given the delicate numbers game played between independents and the Greens party. If he's not successful in ditching the tax, he has said he will fully dissolve both houses of parliament next year, plunging the country into another election. In doing so, he would yet again wed his fate to the policy problem no Australian leader seems able to escape: climate change.Above: Shy Glizzy by Ryan Lyons
Over the past couple of years, Washington D.C.'s rap scene has produced a handful of artists that, just 10 years ago, would have had no blueprint on how to make it from the District. Up-and-comers like Fat Trel, Shy Glizzy, Yung Gleesh, Lightshow and others have made moves to build D.C. into an area with regional allure and mainstream potential—both of which are completely new for the city. And though there has yet to be a rapper who properly represents D.C.’s inner city, each of the aforementioned artists are jockeying for who that first one will be. In his hometown anthem "I Am D.C.”, the forthright Glizzy calls out rappers who don’t properly represent the city: “Niggas don’t dress like they from here/ Niggas don’t act like they from here/ They don’t got swag like they from here.” While whom the statement was aimed towards can be explored, the most important takeaway is that, no one outside of D.C. can put a face to any of those standards.
Much like the neighboring Baltimore with club music, D.C.’s urban musical identity has never been rap, but a more city-specific form of music, in this case Go-Go—a percussion-heavy derivative of funk. Starting in the early '70s, bands usually made up of kids from the same neighborhood would come together, head to a local club and jam out, even if they had to create instruments out of crates, pots and pans as The JunkYard Band—whose The Word/Sardines 12” LP was released by Def Jam in 1986— did when they formed in the early ‘80’s. And despite its local acclaim and production of regional superstars like the late Chuck Brown and Backyard Band founder turned actor on The Wire, Anwan Glover, Go-Go has created few national success stories, leading the city’s youth to look elsewhere for their ticket.
In early 2007, D.C. native, Tabi Bonney, hit the national radar when the video for his debut track “The Pocket” (a term used to describe a percussionist’s extended solo groove) started getting regular airtime on MTV Jams. While Bonney was establishing his silky smooth persona, Wale took hold of the backpacker types in the area, with rap more focused on regional sounds, lyrical prowess and a brand that was most active online. “Wale came up on the Internet when you could actually get put on by the internet, you know?” says D.C. area native and curator of the D.C.-based Trillectro Music Festival, Modi Oyewole via email. “He didn't have go the street route. Trel and Glizzy don’t have the co-signs like Mark Ronson and pics of them at Hollywood events.”
Being “put on by the internet” harkens back to something else that Tabi and Wale had in their favor that their successors do not: the opportunity to be grouped into the now-faded “blog rap” scene of the late 2000s. That, and the beginnings of a branding scheme to group surrounding parts of Maryland and Northern Virginia with D.C. called “The DMV”, which has proven over time to still be more of a benefit to the District. With underground rap currently going in more of street rap and trap direction, it’s no surprise that D.C.’s most promising artists fit that mold.
Though his background is not of the streets, Wale is still credited as the first person to crack the code of rap success in the District. “Even though he was raised outside of the city, Wale has been able to create hope for that inner-city kid in D.C.,” says Tony Lewis Jr during a phone conversation. A youth advocate in the city who helps ex-offenders find employment and bridges gaps between local rappers, Lewis sees the immediate effect the city’s burgeoning artists have on its youth. “Rap wasn’t even a conversation a little more than five years ago. It was all Go-Go. Now you have Glizzy who’s from 37th St, Trel’s from Benning Rd. and Lightshow’s from 10th Place; These are real places where people don’t make it out,” Lewis explains. “They make people feel like they can do something too because it’s so relatable.”
Around the same time as Wale’s national rise in the late 2000s, soulful boom-bap rapper and producer, Oddisee, was making his case for being the area’s true underground hero. In 2009, along with local rappers yU and Uptown XO, he formed a group called Diamond District whose 2009 release, In The Ruff, paid homage to D.C., dedicating songs to the city and using percussive elements that were popular in Go-Go (see “Who I Be”, “The District” and “Something For Y’all”). Though it was most certainly not a Go-Go/rap hybrid, In The Ruff was an example of Go-Go becoming a piece of the D.C. sound rather than the entirety of it.
Local music journalist Marcus Dowling sees D.C. rappers starting to take Go-Go’s collective approach without the need to form bands. “It’s economics and the time we live in. It’s hard to push a band of seven to 20 members. How can you take that on the road?” he says over the phone. “Guys like the Junkyard Band were a group of friends from the same neighborhood who decided to come together to make music. Fat Trel and the Slutty Boyz are no different but rappers come out individually and gradually introduce each member instead of being introduced as a group.”
Fat Trel : "In My Bag" [ft. Wale] (via SoundCloud)
The most recent transition from Go-Go to rap is the unorthodox, murmuring D.C. rapper Yung Gleesh. Then going by the name Boogie, Gleesh was a percussionist for standout band T.O.B. which was one of the most popular groups making a newer, younger version of Go-Go called Bounce Beat. Even with several YouTube videos of the group’s live shows hitting the six-figure mark in views, it wasn’t until Gleesh decided to take on rap full-time that he received outsider-attention. Gleesh’s departure from the genre is an evident case, in that, Go-Go essentially served as a guide and precursor for musical triumph out of D.C.’s streets, instead of being the main attraction.
As they’re pushing through the street-level ranks and the many avenues of internet rap stardom, young D.C. artists seem to have an acute awareness of their social responsibility. While driving to local radio station WPGC 95.5’s annual Birthday Bash concert last month at the Howard Theatre, I talked to Lightshow about his place within local rap before he performed at the event. Like his music, he was direct and pensive: “My music has to come from a real place and an honest place,” he says as we drive through crouchy, rush-hour D.C. traffic. “There was a group of local rappers called Real Live Gangstas that I looked up to a lot when I was younger. Their music was harsh but it was real and it made me want to get my morals in order. Learning from them, I have to assume the same responsibility.” A similar sentiment is expressed in Shy Glizzy’s “I Am D.C.” when he closes out his second verse with, “I’m not your favorite rapper. I just wanna motivate you.”
Lightshow: "Go Ham" (via SoundCloud)
Despite the success that Wale’s gained, the new crop of D.C. rappers would still be the first to “make it big” as artists trying to craft a distinct regional sound. In the early stages of his career, Wale frequently used Go-Go and Baltimore club sounds but it wasn’t until he dropped his backpacker ideologies and lended a verse to Waka Flocka’s “No Hands” that his career took off, leading him to doing more songs of the same mold, rebranding himself as a poetic strip club pop-rapper. Most D.C. components of his style are long gone now.
And while he was able to drop his regional identity to obtain stardom, the exact opposite is what will propel the city’s current rising artists to that same fate. Their authentic representation of D.C., from using their neighborhoods in social media handles to shooting videos where they’ve grown up, is what’s largely responsible for the local support they’ve gotten over the past couple years. It’s also what has their potential mainstream come-up looking more promising than ever. Shy Glizzy’s “Awwsome” is a catchy club banger that’s gone viral in Instagram videos and Fat Trel is MMG’s newest signee.
Whether or not these guys are the next to blow, Tony Lewis thinks this is just the beginning of a new musical wave in the District. “There’s been a paradigm shift from Go-Go to rap in D.C.,” he says. “All the new guys have been rapping since they were young kids. That wasn’t the case here until recently. It’s only gonna get better for the kids who are gonna absorb it from day one.”SEOUL, South Korea — Amid rising military threats from North Korea, South Korea conducted its own recent missile test, successfully launching a newly developed ballistic missile capable of striking most of North Korea, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense announced on Friday.
The new missile, with a range of 310 miles and able to carry a warhead of up to 2,200 pounds, was launched on March 23 from a test site in Taean, a coastal town southwest of Seoul.
The test came a day after North Korea raised tensions by test-firing 30 short-range rockets off its east coast on March 22. Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, declined to say when South Korea planned to deploy the new missile.
South Korea has been developing new missiles since Washington and Seoul revised their defense treaty in 2012 to allow it to extend the range of its ballistic missiles from 186 to nearly 500 miles to cope better with North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear programs.Have you seen this 808 in a Eurorack?
Approximate reading time: 42 Seconds
System80 Rhythm Composer 808 · Source: https://youtu.be/ACyDtzc3ids Previous Next
System80 seem to have nothing but this one thing: upload a video of an 808 drum machine clone forged into Eurorack format. It simply says “Introducing the 808 for Eurorack”. Apparently, it’s a “classic analogue drum machine in 60HP Eurorack format”.
It’s the only video on their YouTube channel and website. Looks absolutely phenomenal and doesn’t sound bad either. I can see individual outputs on the right, a MIDI input on the left and a couple of other patch points. Just can’t get over how good it looks.
I imagine we’re going to be hearing a lot more about this very soon. In the meantime enjoy 31 seconds of 808 beating loveliness and wonder how on earth you’re going to fit it in your case.
More information (hopefully soon) on the System80 website where you can also join the mailing list.This is Orwellian.
When confronted by the rage of homosexual activists and their supporters… most of whom do not live in Indiana and none of whom would ever vote Republican… Mike Pence and the two imbeciles leading the Indiana legislature, Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R-Fort Wayne), and House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) [pictured above] did what all moderates do when criticized by people who hate them. The tossed their supporters and whatever they have that passes for principles aside in a vain and rather pathetic attempt to placate the implacable. What did they do?
It is important to note that this fix does not create new sexual orientation and gender identity privileges in Indiana; it says that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act cannot protect citizens from existing (municipal) Indiana sexual orientation and gender identity laws and ensuing coercion from government. In other words, it eliminates any balancing test for sexual liberty and religious liberty. It says sexual orientation should trump religious liberty. That’s bad policy. All citizens should oppose unjust discrimination, but sexual orientation and gender identity laws are not the way to achieve that goal. Sexual orientation and gender identity laws threaten fundamental First Amendment rights. These laws create new, subjective protected classes that will expose employers to unimaginable liability, and would increase government interference in labor markets in ways that could harm the economy.
Essentially the “fix” for the Indiana RFRA is the same “fix” you give your male dog. They have taken a law that simply puts religious freedom |
brutal Islamic State. Yet Islamic apocalypticism is still a powerful force. According to a 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center, half of Muslims or more in nine Muslim-majority countries believe that the coming of the Mahdi is “imminent,” and could happen in their lifetime. The Islamic State just goes further by claiming that it is bringing the prophecies to life.
Even aside from jihadist violence, Islamic apocalypticism often has negative consequences. When recent history and current events are seen as best explained by prophecies, it becomes difficult to analyze them. Take, for example, the main quandary of the Muslim world for the past two centuries: Why have we moved so far backward compared with the West? The apocalyptic narrative, revived since the 1980s by popular Islamic writers such as the Egyptian Said Ayyub and many of his followers, states that this happened because of the forces of “Dajjal” — Islam’s version of the Antichrist.
If the Dajjal is to blame for the Muslim world’s bleak situation, then only divinely guided saviors can find a way out. This belief discourages pursuing the real solutions to the gap between the Islamic world and the West: science, economic development and liberal democracy.
Muslims — and perhaps other apocalyptic believers as well — should see that obsession with prophecies might cost them not just rationality, but also a very fundamental value of their own faith: humility. Because to assert that we are at the end of times means that we are quite special. We are not merely one of the countless generations that God has created. We are the chosen few, at the apex of history. It is really not piety that underlies this conviction; it is vanity.
Muslims should also consider that the prophecies about end times might be better read metaphorically. This could help us open our minds, rather than closing them. The 19th-century Islamic scholar Muhammad Abduh, for example, argued that Jesus’s Second Coming was a metaphor for reform within Islam. Just like the conservative Jews at the time of Jesus, Abduh observed, conservative Muslims of today are often too rigid with the letter of the law, but unmindful of its spirit and the moral purposes. Abduh argued that Muslims need a “Messiah-oriented renewal” focusing on “mercy, love and peace.” His vision was focused not on “breaking the cross,” but on repairing the crescent.This was the inaugural year of the Epcot International Festival of the Arts. There was an expectation by some that this was going to be comparable to Epcot’s Food & Wine Festival, or the Flower & Garden Festival, but in my personal opinion this festival was very much its own. While there were marketplaces that served food much like the other festivals, the focus seemed to be much more on the art. Throughout the World Showcase, there were Festival Galleries that had not only Disney artwork, but a large variety of art.
We visited the festival on its opening day, and unfortunately, it was raining on and off throughout. This put a slight damper on the day, but with that being said, I personally have high hopes not only for the days remaining of the festival this year, but more importantly for the possibilities for this festival in future years!
When the day first started, I was slightly disappointed with the food as I was really looking forward to the Trio of Savory Croissant Doughnuts and they ended up being very odd tasting. After that, we tried the Deconstructed Purple Sweet Potato Pie, which again, I also thought had an odd flavor to it. But after the first two dishes being disappointing, things started to get better.
The next thing tried ended up being one of my two favorite dishes. It was the BLT at E = AT^2. It wasn’t an ordinary BLT, as it was actually a crispy pork belly served with tomato jam and a soft poached egg. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all, but it was amazing. It was slightly messy, but the combination of flavors made it a perfectly savory treat.
My other favorite dish was the Braised Beef Short Rib at the Cuisine Classique. The beef was extremely tender and literally fell apart as soon as I put it in my mouth.
The presentation of the food was fantastic. I’ve never seen them put this much care and effort into each dish at a festival at Epcot. This was both a good and bad thing. It was good because the food you were served looked beautiful, but the downside was it made the lines much longer because the preparation time was so much longer. As the festival goes on and the crowds get heavier, I’d assume that the cast members’ patience with preparing every dish this way will run thin.
I think there is a lot of room for improvement for next year’s Festival of the Arts, but overall the food was fairly good. I wouldn’t say it is quite as good as the food at the past Epcot’s Food & Wine Festivals, but I still thought there were some really great options.
Epcot is at its best when there is a festival going on. The Festival of the Arts upheld that standard as it did make the park feel more alive and exciting than on a standard day in Epcot. I particularly liked the paint by numbers mural. Guests were given a number and a small amount of paint and a number where they then filled in a small square that matched the number they were given. The idea is that by the end of the festival there will be a completed mural that was finished by the guests. Not only was this a hit, it is something they should expand on in the future at next year’s Festival of the Arts (if Disney chooses to continue the event).
Before it started to rain, there were living statues in Future World. Guests loved this photo opportunity, but in the future this is probably something Disney will want to relocate inside somewhere because of how often it rains in Florida.
Speaking of photo opportunities, there were a ton of great spots throughout the World Showcase to take fun pictures with your friends or family. These locations had iconic paintings and works of art that guests could step into to make it look like they were in the The Scream or the Mona Lisa. PhotoPass cast members were there to take your picture.
There were artists painting throughout the different kiosks which really helped add to the atmosphere, but again, they just needed more. It felt very thin. The idea was there, but Disney needs to invest more money into this event to really complete the atmosphere.
There were a couple things that I was disappointed with at the Festival. First off, they didn’t use the former Wonders of Life Pavilion as the Festival Center. As a Disney nerd who loves to see the inside of a closed pavilion, I always look forward to that. Second, the atmosphere of the festival wasn’t spread out very well. It felt very heavy and deeply immersive in the front of the World Showcase, but there were sections where two or three countries in a row had very little to add to the Festival. Third, I was disappointed that there weren’t more Disney Parks-related art. In fact, there was really only one booth that had Disney-related art, and I had seen most of that art before. I was looking forward to exclusive artwork and prints that would only be available for the festival. If they are going to tout this festival as a special event, then there should be more art than what they already display throughout the resort during the rest of the year.
Overall, the Festival of the Arts was a great event. In the coming years it needs to be expanded, but for its inaugural year Disney did a great job. If there were some small tweaks, this could easily become my favorite festival in the future.10 Search Results for label/ENnies 2012
RPGs: Hollowpoint Review It’s a long time coming, but welcome back to Futile Position’s 2012 ENnie Awards spotlight (Check out the full list of coverage with lots more interviews and reviews), where I will be bringing you reviews and interviews regarding many of … Continue reading →
Interview: Robin D. Laws (@RobinDLaws), designer of Ashen Stars (and a bunch of other things) Welcome to Futile Position’s 2012 ENnie Awards spotlight (Check out the full list of coverage including several other reviews and interviews), where I will be bringing you reviews and interviews regarding many of the products current nominated for the 2012 ENnie Awards. Today’s … Continue reading →
Review: Do – Pilgrims of the Flying Temple from @DanielSolis and @EvilHatOfficial Welcome back to Futile Position’s 2012 ENnie Awards spotlight (Check out the full list of coverage with lots more interviews and reviews), where I will be bringing you reviews and interviews regarding many of the products current nominated for the 2012 ENnie Awards. … Continue reading →
← Older postsThis past weekend I attended the Timonium Motorcycle Show. This is one of it not the largest motorcycle event held in the mid-Atlantic region during the winter season. This was the first time I have attended and not knowing if the crowd was good or not I asked a few of the vendors. Almost all the vendors stated that it was average compared to the 2013 event. The show is split between two buildings, which is why I never felt that overly crowded but I did, occasionally, have to wait to get a picture.
The show is held at the Maryland State Fairgrounds, which is about an hour from my home. Traffic was light, by the Washington DC metro area standard, and I made it to and from the show with no issues. Unfortunately, I dove the truck, the temperature was 24F when I left the house, which is not a great excuse for not riding but the best I have.
In addition to the bike show and standard vendors the sponsors brought in several celebrities including the International Bikini Team, Michele Smith, David Uhl and Paul Senior of OCC. Mr. Uhl was a no show do to canceled flight but the others were in attendance. The line for the grip and great with Paul Sr was quite long and I just viewed from afar.
Michele, on the other hand was busy in her booth. She has quite the selection of female themed biker gear. Including the blinged out helmets in my pictures as well as a great variety of thongs. Watching her handling the sheer thongs was….tantalizing! LOL
The bike show itself was neat. With over 40 classes there was something for everyone’s tastes. I was very surprised by the way some of the folks laid out there display areas. Turns out that there was also an award for best display and some entrants were going all out.
The show is a professionally judged event, not a peoples vote type of competition. The judging would not be completed until Sunday afternoon so I will have to wait to see who won from the website. The biggest take away for me was that my customized Heritage would have a good chance at competing in the show, maybe next year. And as for the display….anyone got a cheap camouflage net for sell?!?!We have created a dataset of more than ten thousand 3D scans of real objects. To create the dataset, we recruited 70 operators, equipped them with consumer-grade mobile 3D scanning setups, and paid them to scan objects in their environments. The operators scanned objects of their choosing, outside the laboratory and without direct supervision by computer vision professionals. The result is a large and diverse collection of object scans: from shoes, mugs, and toys to grand pianos, construction vehicles, and large outdoor sculptures. We worked with an attorney to ensure that data acquisition did not violate privacy constraints. The acquired data was irrevocably placed in the public domain and is available freely.
The entire dataset, including both RGB-D scans and reconstructed models, is in the public domain. Any part of the dataset can be used for any purpose with proper attribution. If you use any of the data, please cite our technical report.
File Format
The RGB-D sequences were acquired with PrimeSense Carmine cameras. The resolution is 640×480, the frame rate is 30Hz. Each scan is packaged in a zip archive that contains consecutive color images stored as JPG and depth images stored as 16-bit PNG, where pixel values represent depth in millimeters. The first part of a file name indicates the frame number and the second part provides a time stamp in microseconds.
The focal length is 525 for both axes and the principal point is (319.5, 239.5). The depth images are registered to the color images.
The reconstructed models are all in PLY file format.SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Garrick Sherman had to wonder where it all went wrong.
Just two years ago, as a sophomore at Michigan State, Sherman started 17 games. He left East Lansing and sat out the entire 2011-12 season, and this was supposed to be his year. At the very least, he could contribute. He could play a role next to Jack Cooley on a Notre Dame team with Big East title aspirations. That was the plan.
Garrick Sherman, defending Louisville's Luke Hancock, came up big in overtime for Notre Dame. Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports
In November and December, everything went according to plan, at least on the box score. But Sherman was struggling, missing defensive assignments and boxouts, and when conference season came around, as forward Tom Knight stepped in, Sherman's minutes dwindled -- from 20 to 17 to 13 to six. Against Rutgers and Georgetown, and again versus DePaul and Syracuse last week, the 6-foot-10 forward failed to play a single minute. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey took Sherman's gold No. 11 practice jersey and changed it to blue, which meant Sherman was no longer a part of the Irish's first team.
He was a practice player. He was a scrub.
"I have been through way worse," Sherman said. "This was nothing."
On Saturday night, Garrick Sherman scored 17 points, grabbed six rebounds, corralled a crucial possession with four seconds left in the second overtime, put Notre Dame ahead by one in the third overtime, and made the game-saving tip that sent the game to a fifth overtime, which the Irish would eventually win, 104-101, over Louisville.
He didn't play a minute in regulation.
College basketball has problems.
Scoring has been trending downward for decades, and is now at its lowest point since the early 1950s. The game is slower than it used to be: Offenses are more efficient but possessions per game are down across the board.
Desperate to exert as much control over their young charges as possible, coaches overcoach, bleeding the game dry in predictable 35-second increments. There are too many timeouts. Referees call too many fouls or too few; physical play bogs everything down.
The most talented players leave the sport after just eight months.
Football-oriented conference realignment is like a highway cutting a line through a once-thriving downtown neighborhood; 100-year-old rivalries are tossed aside for nothing more than money.
To many casual fans, conference tournaments and the monolithic Big Dance can make the regular season feel pointless. If VCU can go from the First Four to the Final Four, they say, why does anything that happens now really matter?
It is OK to admit that these are problems. There is a segment of college basketball die-hards, this author included, that don't want to, that see such laments as trolling, that feel the need to preempt criticism by pointing at the thrilling finishes the sport so often produces. And some of that is true. But at the heart of it all are real problems -- a mix of disparate rules and decentralized authorities and decades of competitive evolution that have brought us to where we are now.
It's OK to talk about this. We should.
For 39 minutes and 10 seconds, Louisville-Notre Dame was everything that needs fixing about college hoops. It was a slow, ugly slog, plagued by fouls and bad shooting and missed calls and turnovers. With 50 seconds left in the game, the Cardinals led 56-48, the Joyce Center crowd was filtering out, and Louisville was preparing to fly back to Kentucky with another effective aesthetic abomination notched on its belt. Whatever works.
And then, not a moment too soon, the magic arrived.
The end of regulation was a nightmare for Russ Smith (left) and a dream for Jerian Grant (right). Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports
In that final 50 seconds of regulation, Notre Dame guard Jerian Grant made one 3, and then another, and then another, each more difficult and well-guarded than the last. Louisville made its first four free throws but Grant's makes came too fast; by the time Gorgui Dieng missed two free throws, Notre Dame was down three, and Grant was streaking to the basket, finishing over Wayne Blackshear, drawing a foul, sinking a free throw, and tying the game at 60. In 39 minutes, Notre Dame had managed 48 points; in 50 seconds, Grant scored 12.
"I've never seen that before," Cooley said. "Maybe in old clips of Reggie Miller."
Cooley had fouled out with seven minutes left to play, and was stuck watching the rest of the game on the bench. Soon Grant would join him, as would Knight and fellow forward Zach Auguste. After Grant fouled out, Sherman and freshman Cameron Biedscheid went to their regulation-time savior and made him a promise: "We got this."
What ensued was the longest game in Big East regular-season history. It stretched three hours and 36 minutes. Eight players fouled out. Notre Dame guard Eric Atkins played 60 minutes; five others played more than 50. The final box score is almost comically even: Notre Dame shot 41.6 percent to Louisville's 40.7, Notre Dame shot 49 free throws to Louisville's 48, both teams attempted 25 3s and grabbed 19 offensive boards. Ten players scored in double figures, and five had more than 10 rebounds.
Notre Dame began the final minute of regulation play with 48 points. It finished regulation with 60. It won the game with 104.
Even wackier: Russ Smith, a player of the year candidate all season, had quite possibly the worst five overtimes in the history of the game. That sounds like Waltonian hyperbole until you consider how rare five overtimes is, and how poorly Smith played.
In the first OT, Smith inexplicably ran the clock down before launching a deep 3, leaving his teammates no time to rebound it. In the second, he missed a layup that would have won the game. In the fourth OT, with his team up two and the shot clock dead, instead of dribbling out the clock or waiting to be fouled or passing to an open teammate under the rim, Smith took a layup into contact -- which he missed, giving Notre Dame the ball and a chance to tie, and Sherman promptly delivered.
Last season, as Louisville coach Rick Pitino learned to love the unpredictable shot-happy jolt in his backcourt, he nicknamed Smith "Russdiculous." After last spring's Final Four trip, the duo grew so close Pitino lent that name to a newly purchased horse.
"It gets to the point in a game like this where you're sort of joking with each other," Cooley said. "Gorgui Dieng and I always joke about how much we hate overtimes, and during the first overtime he looked over at me like, 'I'm tired!'
"That play with Russ where they had 30 seconds left and he drove it in?" Cooley said. "I think Coach Pitino lost two years off his life tonight. He might have to put that horse down."
Mike Brey was in an upbeat mood when the first overtime ended. Matt Cashore/USA TODAY Sports
How do we reconcile what happened during the first 39 minutes Saturday night with the final 25? How do we get our heads around a game that can give us two hours of flawed tedium and then, faster than the light in a Joyce Center floodlight hits that midcourt four-leaf clover, give us one of the most thrilling games in the sport's history?
Perhaps it's because the game is flawed that any of this is even possible.
Maybe it's because Pitino doesn't have any future NBA guards in his backcourt that he has cast his lot with Smith, a player whose habits drive his coach insane, who can spend an entire season playing like an All-American and then go mentally missing in action in not one or two but five overtimes.
Maybe the great sport-wide leveling of talent is what allowed a blue-practice-jersey-wearing Sherman to score 17 points against Dieng and Chane Behanan in overtime.
Maybe all that overcoaching is why a team's best two players can foul out and its bench can enter the game with the calm confidence of well-prepared students ready to ace a midterm exam.
Maybe all these low-scoring down-tempo games produce tighter margins, where things are never truly out of reach, and the magic of college basketball -- how we can start a Saturday with Ben Brust's half-court buzzer-beater and end it with five OTs -- is just the gravitational pull of close games.
Maybe having a lot of very good teams and no great ones keeps us on our toes.
Or maybe it really is just magic. I don't know. What I do know is that you have to take what you love as it comes, and in 2013 college basketball is low scoring and slow-paced and stoppage-ridden. It is also five weeks of No. 1 upsets and five overtimes and half-court buzzer-beaters and Roosevelt Jones stealing one from Gonzaga and a walk-on dropping No. 1 Indiana in overtime and TCU coach Trent Johnson standing around looking confused after his team just beat Kansas. College basketball is ugly and beautiful, dull and thrilling, all at the same time. College basketball is never knowing what you're going to see next.
Notre Dame's Tom Knight joins in the celebration after the game finally ended with an Irish victory. AP Photo/Joe Raymond
It's Grant scoring 12 points in 50 seconds, and Biedscheid playing with zero fear, and Behanan scoring 30 points and grabbing 14 rebounds in 56 minutes, and Smith's bad decisions and Montrezl Harrell's airballed free throw.
College basketball is Garrick Sherman, practice player turned hero, standing in a gaggle of reporters explaining into mircrophones why the 17 points he just scored in five overtime periods really wasn't all that big of a deal.
"There wasn't really all that much to think about," Sherman said. "I sat the first two halves, and I was sitting there, and coach put me in, and I had to go in. I didn't have much time to think about it.
"Hopefully I'll get a few more regulation minutes next time, but I'm just helping my team," Sherman said. "Everybody steps up."
College basketball is the best rebounder in the country sitting on the bench, best seat in the house, watching his practice shadow down a reigning Final Four outfit.
"I watched that Michigan-Wisconsin game earlier today," Cooley said. "And then this. It's the craziest day of basketball I'll ever be a part of."
He might be right. But he could be wrong. You don't know, and I don't know, and that's why we love this thing. Flaws and all.Methodists and the Episcopal Willy Wonka
The public announcement of the new proposed Full-Communion agreement between the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church was officially released yesterday, and the response on social media has been… interesting.
As a person who has been working for years inside the faith and order side of ecumenism for the Episcopal Church, it has been painful to see some of the old bugaboos of classism that is a hallmark of the Episcopal Church come to the surface. In addition, there has been some unwitting or sometimes apparently willful ignorance about both historic Episcopal and Methodist theology. I thought I might be able to get to the bottom of some of this by having a conversation with that most mercurial of fictional Episcopalians, Willy Wonka.
Willy, thank you for joining me today. I was actually not aware you are an Episcopalian!
Well, of COURSE I’m an Episcopalian! I’m privileged and I live in a dream world of my imagination, served by an entire set of people I have “saved.” What did you think I was, a Presbyterian?
Ok, Good Point.. and here I was thinking Saruman was the most prominent fictional Episcopalian… Anyhow, So I understand you have some concerns about the full-communion agreement with the Methodists.
YES! Many virulent, fantabulous ones! I HAZ FEELZ! First of all, I don’t like the whole idea of merger with another church! I’m an Episcopalian for a reason! It’s the only way I can maintain the ecclesiastical fantasy world that parallels the one in my factory.
This is a full-communion agreement, not a merger. It enables shared ministry by allowing clergy of one denomination to serve in the other without re-ordination. It does not propose sustantive changes in liturgy, practice or governance (Other than mutual particpation in ordinations)for either church.
But I don’t want to be forced to have a Methodist clergy person serving in my factory! They might baptize the Ooompa Loompas and then they’d get uppity.
This agreement would ENABLE shared ministry, not require it. Any Episcopal or Methodist bishop gets to vet any clergy person from the other denomination before they could serve in their jurisdiction, just as they do currently.
But Methodist clergy are not REAL clergy. I mean, they haven’t been ordained with the Marvelous Magic Hands our bishops have from the Succession Apostolik that goes back to Jesus!
There are three terms that often get confused in Ecumenical discussions. The first is Apostolic Tradition. To quote Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Issued 1982, officially received by the Episcopal Church at General Convention 1985) from the World Council of Churches,
In the Creed, the Church confesses itself to be apostolic. The Church lives in continuity with the apostles and their proclamation. The same Lord who sent the apostles continues to be present in the Church. The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic tradition until the fulfilment of history in the Kingdom of God. Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each. (p. 34)
The second is Apostolic Succession,
The primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole. The succession is an expression of the permanence and, therefore, of the continuity of Christ’s own mission in which the Church participates. Within the Church the ordained ministry has a particular task of preserving and actualizing the apostolic faith. The orderly transmission of the ordained ministry is therefore a powerful expression of the continuity of the Church throughout history; it also underlines the calling of the ordained minister as guardian of the faith. Where churches see little importance in orderly transmission, they should ask themselves whether they have not to change their conception of continuity in the apostolic tradition. On the other hand, where the ordained ministry does not adequately serve the proclamation of the apostolic faith, churches must ask themselves whether their ministerial structures are not in need of reform. (p. 35)
The third is the Historic Episcopate, which is often what Episcopalians mean when they use either of the above terms. This is the process of a bishop being ordained by the laying of of hands of three other bishops who were themselves ordained in the historic episcopate. Some still claim, as you appear to Willy, that this succession is unbroken back to the apostles and Jesus. Few historians accept this as plausible. It is at best a pious legend. Ironically, Anglicans put far more emphasis on this than the Roman Catholics or Orthodox, whom would never rest their claims for apostolicity purely on serial ordination.
In churches which practise the succession through the episcopate, it is increasingly recognized that a continuity in apostolic faith, worship and mission has been preserved in churches which have not retained the form of historic episcopate. This recognition finds additional support in the fact that the reality and function of the episcopal ministry have been preserved in many of these churches, with or without the title “bishop”. Ordination, for example, is always done in them by persons in whom the Church recognizes the authority to transmit the ministerial commission. (p. 37)
The historic episcopate IS a powerful sign of the passing down of the Apostolic Succession in a tangible, material way. BUT, it is important not to mistake the sign for the thing signified. Flipping it on its head so that the apostolic succession is predicated on the continuity of the historic episcopate alone is theologically perilous due to the wide gaps in our knowledge of serial succession. It is also such a functionalist definition that it threatens to curtail the role of the Holy Spirit within the life of the church. Many Methodists welcome the symbol the historic episcopate (as our church has received it) provides, as long as we accept the apostolicity of their current bishops and elders with their own consistent succession. We cannot maintain the position that Methodist orders are invalid due to lack of historical pedigree without calling our own orders into question.
OK, Whatever. I like my definition best, no matter what history says. But can I once again say how much I am against this fiendish merger?
Um, once again, it’s not a merger. Why do people not get this? I can’t even… OK. Let’s try another tack.
We’ve been in full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for over fifteen years now through the agreement Called to Common Mission (CCM). There are many places in which CCM has led to some really great ministry. Some new church plants have been created together. In small towns, unsustainable separate congregations have been able to be served by one minister. Campus ministries have been able to be started or sustained in cooperation. In my diocese, we’ve been able to use some really great Lutheran clergy as supply or interim and vise versa. But for the vast proportion of churches, both Episcopal and ELCA, you don’t see “Blended” worship or changed polity. That’s not what a full-communion agreement is about.
In addition, for those who still cling to a strict, functionalist view of apostolic succession, this creates a situation of temporarily suspending requirements for the long-term health of the institution. Since the ordination of ELCA bishops now requires the presence of bishops in the serial historic episcopate (From us, or from baltic Lutherans who never got rid of theirs, or from the Moravians) all ELCA pastors who are ordained now share in the symbol of that historic succession. Within a generation, that whole argument will be functionally over. Should the agreement pass, the same will happen with the Methodists. The argument will be over without either view having “won.”
But what about the grape juice? As a professional confectioner, I simply cannot abide this lesser vessel for Jesus!
OK. Let’s stop for a moment here and talk about history. This difference between wine and grape juice has NOTHING to do with theology, and has everything to do with history.
We and the UMC are siblings. We are BOTH descendants of the Church of England (CofE) as it existed in the colonial period. Before the revolution, American Methodist societies were still considered part of the Anglican establishment. It was not always an easy co-existence, but John Wesley (Who was a CofE Priest) encouraged Methodists to still be a part of their CofE Parish.
When the revolution came, it was not clear to anyone that the former CofE would survive in ANY form. John Wesley commissioned superintendents (who were later called bishops in America) to keep the Methodist societies operating in America. (Note that this was not an unusual arrangement for oversight in Colonial American Anglicanism. Since America had no bishops, Commissioners, who were priests, exercised authority on behalf of the Bishop of London.) Over 50% of CofE churches closed during the war and over 50% of CofE priests fled to Canada. When the war was over, the remainder struggled to organize, considering several different models. William White, who would later become one of our first three bishops, even suggested that ordination of priests by other priests might be considered for an interim solution, which is functionally the same solution John Wesley instituted. Meanwhile, the Methodist structure, which was less mauled by the revolution, began to flourish and expand in mission. Thus, we are actually both equal descendants of the colonial CofE.
The grape juice thing is another piece of history that has nothing to do with theology. In the early 1800s, most Americans drank a lot of small beer and wine. Technological advances in distilling in the late 1800s replaced much of this consumption with gin, which led to social changes that alarmed the country. Temperance was a large pan-protestant movement, and it included almost all protestant denominations EXCEPT for us and the Lutherans. At the same time, pasteurization of grape juice became possible, so temperance and preservation technology combined to make most protestant denominations switch to non-alcoholic grape juice.
There is NO DIFFERENCE as an issue of Anglican sacramental theology between grape juice and wine. They are both fruit of the grape. As Episcopalians, it is hard for us to say that Jesus CANNOT be present in grape juice. Methodists have never said Jesus cannot be present in wine. We can debate the merits of using one or the other, but those are matters of discipline, not of doctrine. Since this is a full-communion agreement AND NOT A MERGER, Episcopal Churches would continue to follow their discipline and use wine, while Methodist churches would continue to use grape juice. Occasional combined celebrations would offer both, as they currently do under the Interim Eucharistic Sharing Agreement.
But Methodists don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They are naughty.
That is an incorrect myth. Methodists inherit their Eucharistic theology from the CofE just like us. Episcopal theology has changed over the last 100 years to make our theology more “catholic.” (Although often in bizarrely inconsistent ways) Just ask Bl. James DeKoven who was denied episcopacy on the basis of upholding an “advanced” doctrine of Real Presence. Official UMC Eucharistic doctrine has its roots in that of the CofE at the time of the revolution. This Holy Mystery, A document passed by the UMC in 2004 states:
“United Methodists, along with other Christian traditions, have tried to provide clear and faithful interpretations of Christ’s presence in the Holy Meal. Our tradition asserts the real, personal, living presence of Jesus Christ. For United Methodists, the Lord’s Supper is anchored in the life of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, but is not primarily a remembrance or memorial. We do not embrace the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation, though we do believe that the elements are essential tangible means through which God works. We understand the divine presence in temporal and relational terms. In the Holy Meal of the church, the past, present, and future of the living Christ come together by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we may receive and embody Jesus Christ as God’s saving gift for the whole world.”
That is at least as high a view of Real Presence as many Episcopalians hold today, and higher than the church has held in some regions and times in the past.
I went to a Methodist church once, and I didn’t like it, so this is a bad idea. <Takes out recorder and begins playing>
I wish I could document the number of times I’ve heard that about Episcopal Churches. One might argue that the BCP assures some level of quality, but that is sadly untrue. I spent one year worshipping in a Methodist church with weekly communion, great music, biblical preaching and consistent, good liturgy. I have been to Episcopal services that have made me cringe. A denominational stamp of any kind is no assurance of quality.
Isn’t this just really about the saucy problems with human sexuality the Methodists are having? Why don’t they just come back to us if they are unhappy?
No. This dialogue has been in process for fifty years. It is now just coming to fruition. Yes, the Methodists are facing their moment with human sexuality just like we did with the Righter Trial and the General Conventions of 2003 and 2015. But telling them to just give up their identity and “come back to us” (as if we are not equal siblings of the revolution) has roots in the biggest thing that divides us — our historic class division. (Side notes: Both denominations have had and continue to have problems with racism, so I am not going to touch that here. Likewise, while TEC has certainly made what I consider progress on LGBTQ issues, we still have eight dioceses who do not allow clergy in same-sex marriages to serve, while there are many LGBTQ clergy in the UMC who serve under very difficult circumstances. We don’t have a “higher ground” to stand on regarding this.)
Vance Packard, in his 1959 book “The Status Seekers” notes that Americans then were much more likely to attend churches that corresponded to their social class than with any sort of doctrinal focus in mind. At the top of the heap were Episcopalians, who were the church of the ruling class. The often-repeated fact that 11 of our presidents have been Episcopalian while we represent less than 1% of the population is but one indicator of that historic truth.
Packard notes that “Methodism probably comes closer to being the choice of the average American than any other.” While these class distinctions have started to erode since 1959, they still exist. In the church I was baptized in during the 1980s, we would pull our 10 year old Honda Civic into a parking lot filled with newish BMWs, Jaguars and Cadillacs. As Episcopalians, we don’t need to be ashamed of this. It’s simply our history. But we do need to be sensitive to it. Any call for Methodists to “Come home” not only has the doctrinal and historical overtones of say, Roman Catholics calling for US to “ |
would have to be informed of that -- or at least would hope to be informed of that."
Corgan calls the current negotiations "a serious fight" for who is going to end up with majority ownership, saying, "Everybody has got the gun out and no one seems to know what to do."
While Corgan has a large vision for the future, he admits it's just a lot of talk unless he can gather the proper resources.
"I think you need consistent capital, that has been a plague of the company for a long time," Corgan said. "You don't have a consistent resource so you can't make consistent decisions."
TNA champion Bobby Lashley, who is scheduled to headline Sunday's PPV card against Ethan Carter III, told ESPN.com on Thursday he has a backup plan in place regarding his travel should the card get cancelled. But, as of now, his plane ticket to Orlando, Florida, is still valid.
"As far as I know, I'm supposed to be doing a match Sunday and if anything changes up until then, it's no big deal," said Lashley. "I want to be wrestling and I want TNA to stay alive because it has been a great program for me up to this point."Support my Patreon!
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Checkout my latest Pinkie Pie:Hi guys!I hope you've all enjoyed your holidays and I'd like to say a HUGE welcome all my lovely new watchers! I am so honoured that you've decided to watch me! Thank you so so very much! And I have so much fun reading all your lovely comments! Sorry for this super late submission - I've been dividing my spare time between plushing and WoW. So.... my Pinkie Pies are finally complete!They are plushie # 21 and 22! I was spoilt for choice with several shades of pink to choose from for her body :3. In the end, I decided to go with bubblegum pink and I reckon it suits Pinkie extremely well! I'm very pleased!I hope you like them too!!!!!I've been sewing at really strange hours lately xD like I'd sleep really early at about 9pm, then wake up at 3am to sew and sew until 6-7am when baby wakes up/work-time. I feel I'm more productive this way (in the past I'd sew from 11pm until 2am-ish). The day feels longer this way tooand instead of dreading to wake up each morning, I'm actually excited!*Materials: cuddle 3 minky by Shannon Fabrics and Minky Baby Fabric*Minky colours: fuchsia, bubblegum pink*Stuffing: premium polyester fiberfill, craft foam and poly pellets in hooves*Thread: gutermann polyester sew-all thread, gutermann rayon embroidery thread, madeira polyneon embroidery thread*Eyes/Cutie marks: machine embroidered*Size: Approx 17" tall, 20" long*She has my signature embroidered into the bottom of her front left hoofThe Pinkie on the left is for my own collection, the Pinkie on the right is up for adoption on Ebay!I still haven't decided what my next project is going to be... I was thinking Apple Fritter in her outfit... but then I'm also tempted to make myself a pony I had adopted.... hmmmmmmm ~ after my next project, I'm planning to start designing and prototyping filly and stallion patternseeeek, I'm so excited!!!!Image copyright AP Image caption Lauri Love says he wants to answer US charges against him in the UK
Home Secretary Amber Rudd has signed an order for the extradition of a man with autism to the US, where he is accused of computer hacking offences.
Lauri Love, of Stradishall, Suffolk, is accused of hacking into the FBI, the US central bank and Nasa.
The family of the 31-year-old, who has Asperger's syndrome, said they would appeal against the decision.
Mr Love has previously said he feared he would die in a US prison if extradited.
Image copyright PA Image caption Lauri Love appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court earlier this month for an extradition hearing
Last month, a judge at Westminster Magistrates' Court ruled he could be sent to the US to face trial.
His lawyers said he could be sentenced to up to 99 years in prison if convicted.
Analysis by Danny Shaw, BBC Home Affairs Correspondent
Two months ago, a court ruled that Lauri Love should face trial in the United States.
He's accused of hacking into the FBI, the US central bank and the country's missile defence agency.
Lawyers for Mr Love said his mental health problems meant he should not be sent abroad, but US prosecutors said that was an excuse to escape justice.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, has now signed an order for the extradition to proceed. The Home Office said Ms Rudd made the decision after "carefully" considering all relevant matters. Mr Love is expected to appeal.
His father, the Reverend Alexander Love, said the Home Secretary had written to his son.
He added: "My sense is they are saying it is not their fault. They have created procedure [for extradition] that they can't control.
"We will be appealing. We are talking to our lawyers. It was going to happen - it was inevitable - but it's still painful. I cannot begin to express how much sorrow it causes me.
"All we are asking for is British justice for a British citizen."
Tor Ekeland, Mr Love's US lawyer and an expert in hacking cases, said Mrs Rudd was "boxed in" by UK legislation and would have found it "very hard" to justify blocking the extradition.
He told Iain Dale on LBC: "He does have an appeal to the High Courts. We have one more shot at it in the UK."
Mr Ekeland added that he feared that Mr Love would face a "way harsher environment" in the US following Donald Trump's election.
Barry Sheerman, one of the more than 100 MPs who have signed a letter calling on US President Barack Obama to block Mr Love's extradition, said he was "deeply disappointed" at the decision.
Mr Love was first arrested at his Suffolk home in 2013.
He had computer equipment seized by British police, but the UK investigation into him was dropped.ADVERTISEMENT
The Judicial Crisis Network had been prepared to target McConnell specifically, urging the Kentucky Republican to speed up the chamber’s consideration of Trump’s judicial nominees. But the group said earlier this month that it was holding off after outreach from McConnell’s office.
Carrie Severino, JCN's chief counsel and policy director, lauded McConnell's "commitment to ensuring the confirmation of all of President Trump’s outstanding nominees” after he set up this week's slate of votes.
“The Leader has chosen to try to accomplish through the courts what Republicans have been unable to achieve through the legislative process,” Schumer added, questioning rhetorically what was driving the schedule.
Senate Democrats nixed the 60-vote filibuster for lower-court nominees in 2013, meaning they can't block any of Trump's picks on their own.
But they can use the Senate's rulebook to drag out debate time. If they force the full 30 hours of debate for each nomination the Senate could be forced to stay in through the weekend or kick some of the votes to next week.
Democrats argue that many of Trump's picks are either unqualified or too ideologically extreme. But they're also under growing pressure from their base, and outside progressive groups, to attempt to block the president's picks.
A coalition of progressive groups — NARAL, Daily Kos, MoveOn, Every Voice, Democracy for America, Progressive Change Campaign Committee — urged McConnell and Schumer to stop processing Trump's nominations in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller's announcement of charges against former Trump campaign staff on Monday.
“With this legal storm now forming directly over the White House and high-ranking Trump associates, the United States Senate should immediately halt all action on all lifetime appointments to the federal bench until the investigation is complete,” the groups said.
They added that it is “far past time that the Senate stop being complicit as Trump and his associates do tremendous damage to our nation and, according to Special Counsel, break the law.”
Senate Majority Whip(R-Texas) echoed that the circuit court positions were important enough to “stay in session over the weekend or night.”In addition to a final vote on Trevor McFadden to be United States district judge for the District of Columbia, McConnell has teed up four circuit court picks: Amy Barrett to be U.S. circuit judge for the 7th Circuit, Joan Larsen to be U.S. circuit judge for the 6th Circuit, Allison Eid to be U.S. circuit judge for the 10th Circuit and Stephan's Bibas to be U.S. circuit judge for the 3rd Circuit.Local Motors has unveiled their new 3D-printed LM3D Swim at SEMA.
Designed by Local Motors community member Kevin Lo, the LM3D Swim was selected as the winner of the company’s Project Redacted challenge in July. The car won the approval of the Local Motors community as well as a judging panel that included Jay Leno and SEMA Vice President of Vehicle Technology John Waraniak.
While the winning entry was selected just a few months ago, Local Motors says software developed by Siemens enabled them to quickly develop the car. The company was also assisted by the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) which provided the materials used to build the body of LM3D Swim.
Local Motors is now moving into an intensive testing and development phase that will culminate in a fully homologated series of cars built using direct digital manufacturing methods including 3D printing. The company went on to say they will release several new models in the LM3D series throughout 2016 while also pursuing federal crash testing and safety certifications.
If everything goes according to plan, the models will go up for pre-order in the spring of 2016 and pricing will start at approximately $53,000. The models are slated to go into production as the company's new microfactory in Knoxville, Tennessee in early 2017.Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved Ronald Antonio 'Pooh' Johnson (Photo: FBI)
Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved Ronald Antonio 'Pooh' Johnson (Photo: FBI)
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) -- The FBI is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of a man wanted on federal drug trafficking charges.
A warrant for Ronald Antonio Johnson, also known as 'Pooh,' was issued on Wednesday, June 8. He has not been arrested.
Johnson's charges stem from his involvement in an alleged conspiracy among members of a neighborhood streets gang known as "Cheesetown Money Gettas," or "CMG," to distribute cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.
Since 2009, federal prosecutors say six members of the gang dealt or stored drugs at homes and businesses throughout Hampton Roads.
Court documents show CMG members with nicknames like "Bae Dollas," "Jug" and "Safety" now face a lengthy list of charges.
The FBI Tidewater Violent Crimes Task Force and the Chesapeake, Norfolk and Virginia Beach police departments are investigating the case.
Anyone with information about Johnson is asking to contact the Norfolk FBI office at 757-455-0100. A reward of up to $2,500 is being offered for information leading to Johnson's arrest.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or so they say. If that is to be the case, then someone at Western Michigan is a big fan of Boise State. At least, somebody is a fan of their helmets.
Western Michigan shared some images of their new football helmets for the 2013 season, and you may be quick to notice a striking resemblance to the domes worn by the Boise State Broncos, with an enlarged steed on one side of the helmet and a uniform number on the other. While the creativity is clearly lacking with the Western Michigan helmet design, it is still a solid concept that seems to work well for the… uh, Broncos. How long until the Denver Broncos catch up to this helmet design? With Nike in charge, it should not be a surprise to see something like it at some point, right?
More images of the Western Michigan helmets after the jump…
Western Michigan had some fun with their look last season, and I can only imagine that at some point we will see this helmet design be given a different color scheme. Perhaps a black helmet with a golden bronco logo and numbering? While black as an alternate look may not be my cup o tea, I would be curious to see how it looks before casting any further judgement. For now, well done Western Michigan, even if you did copy off the Boise State helmets. But hey, Western Michigan certainly was not the first to commit such a uniform crime.
What do you think about these helmets? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
Helmet sticker to Western Michigan Athletics for the photos.
Hype this up on BallHyped!Arsene Wenger has praised Joel Campbell’s “individual quality” and his team ethic.
The Costa Rica forward has had limited first-team opportunities but is set to play in the Gunners’ Capital One Cup fourth-round clash at Sheffield Wednesday.
Wenger has praised Campbell’s attitude and backed the 23-year-old to make a big impression at Hillsborough.
“I like Joel Campbell very much for two reasons,” the manager said. “One is that he has outstanding individual quality, but he is also a team player. He works very hard for the team.
“I’m convinced he will get a chance here and that he will take it. He has another opportunity against Sheffield Wednesday and I’m hopeful that he will show that he has the quality to play for Arsenal.
Capital One Cup video Match highlights of the Tottenham win in the third round Watch now for free
“When you get the chance, you have to be ready. To be ready, you have to prepare. I must say that Joel Campbell and Calum Chambers are two players who do absolutely everything right.
“They are prepared, the preparation they have created will give them the confidence against Sheffield Wednesday and I’m confident they will play well.”You may have heard this one before: a foreign-born hockey player traveled thousands of miles in the hopes of earning a spot on an NHL roster.
The usual countries that come to mind include: Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and several more hockey-crazed nations. All of the aforementioned countries have produced some of hockey’s brightest stars. Just last season, the statistical categories of goals, plus/minus, wins and shutouts were led by players who hail from outside of North America.
The Blue Jackets brought 28 hopeful prospects to Nationwide Arena for their annual development camp, a group comprised of representatives from 10 different nations -- but one of them stands out among the rest.
Sapparo, Japan’s own Ryo Hashimoto.
His hockey story began at the age of six. The now-21-year old defenseman admired the physicality of the game and from the time he first tightened his skates, he was hooked.
After graduating high school, Hashimoto joined the Japanese National Hockey program and as of today, he has appeared in 26 games for his home country. During the 2011-12 season, Hashimoto joined the Oji Eagles of the Asia League, an 11-year old league comprised of eight clubs from China, Japan and South Korea.
The Asia League was created out of necessity when leagues in those three countries lost popularity and needed to join forces to keep hockey alive in the region.
Hashimoto watched the NHL from across the Pacific, quickly becoming a fan of what he described as the best league in the world. He also became a fan of former NHL greats like Paul Kariya and Joe Sakic.
“Those guys are such great players,” Hashimoto said, with the assistance of a translator.
In his first year with Oji, Hashimoto played in 29 games, recorded five assists and posted a plus/minus of +4. The Eagles went 36-21-1 with a goal differential of +59 during the regular season, and their 75 points earned the top seed in the playoffs -- where they eliminated Nippon Paper Cranes 3-0 in a best-of-five series in the first round before capturing the Championship Trophy with a 3-1 series win over the Nikkō Ice Bucks.
Since joining Oji, Hashimoto has played in 109 games, totaling 7-31-38 with a plus/minus of +61. Though his mind was focused on the ALH, NHL games were frequently playing on his television.
Hashimoto prides himself on his speed, but said it's the pace of NHL practices that he has found most difficult.
“The skating speed, the passing speed, the shooting speed,” Hashimoto said. “Everything is new to me.”
Hashimoto’s speed has been on display through the first two days of development camp, but picking up on the NHL practice routine hasn’t been easy, either -- especially because of the language barrier.
“There are a lot of one-way answers,” Hashimoto admitted. “I tried to explain something to my teammate and when he finally answered, I couldn’t understand.”
Columbus development coach Chris Clark expected Hashimoto to have some difficulty keeping up with the language, but he and the rest of the coaches have been impressed by Hashimoto in his first-ever trip to the United States.
“Once you’re on the ice, hockey is hockey,” Clark said. “You see what a drill is the first time and then you go right into it.”
Blue Jackets assistant athletic trainer Nates Goto first brought Hashimoto to Clark’s attention and has been helping the young prospect settle into camp. It's a culture shock in some respects and a terrific learning experience at the same time, and the Blue Jackets want to make sure Hashimoto gets the absolute most out of development camp.
Hashimoto would love to blaze a trail as an Asian-trained hockey player in the NHL one day, and taking part in this week's camp has given him an idea of what it takes. Only one Japanese-born player has logged time in the NHL, and that was goaltender Yutaka Fukufuji, who made history on January 13, 2007 when he became the first Japanese hockey player to start an NHL game when his Los Angeles Kings fell 6-5 to the St. Louis Blues.
Yasuhiro Umeta, vice chief secretary of the Asia League, traveled with Hashimoto to Columbus and noted that the league is going through a transitional period. He's hopeful that if the league improves over time, the possibility of players making the jump to the NHL won't be such a far-fetched idea.
“The (Asia League) is trying to turn into a real professional league,” Umeta said. “Within the next three years, a big turning point will come up. That is what I’m hoping for.”
Hashimoto, who is paying his own way to development camp, isn't concerned that the Asia League-to-NHL pipeline is slow developing. He's focused on his own path, and though he has no idea what the future holds for him or Japanese hockey, he's excited to take this step and help put his home country on the hockey map.
Clark said he would not be the least bit surprised to see Hashimoto or another Asian-trained player break into the NHL sometime soon.
“Our game is global,” Clark said. “Down the line, it’s going to be an avenue.”Big Bang Art Toy Figure by Eric So
After a long time of waiting Big Bang are finally back with their first single this year. This was the perfect occasion for YG Entertainment to launch their new series of merchandise. One of the most interesting goods you can buy from YG official shop is a figure of your favourite member designed by an artist named Eric So.
You can get a toy of any of your bias including G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Seungri and Daesung. Every toy has its unique design and has small removable parts. It’s made of PVC and is extremely detailed.
So what kind of accessories each figure has? G-Dragon is wearing blue suit and has removable hair, hat and bag. T.O.P comes with a giant microphone and his ‘Doom Dada’ baby. Taeyang is showing you his abs wearing(?) just a black bible. He has a removable hair and a black cap. Seungri comes with his cute panda and removable hair and hat. He’s wearing a black striped suit. The last Big Bang member – Daesung comes with a white angel’s wings
What is the price for this figure or piece of art I would say? As always you can expect from YG Entertainment KPop products of the highest quality and a high price for this quality. This item costs $70.99 but if you are a Big Bang fan you might consider buying it.You can protect yourself online.
Photo by PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty Images
A few short weeks ago, we were conducting a security training for a group of journalists in Palestine. The journalists were deeply aware of the potential threats facing them—and by not one, but three governments—but didn’t have the first idea of how to mitigate against those threats. “It’s too confusing!” claimed one, while another said it was futile.
Unfortunately, these reactions are all too typical. We’ve heard from a variety of populations all over the world. Despite all of the awareness-raising around surveillance that has taken place over the last year, many individuals feel disempowered, helpless to fight back. Efforts such as the February 11 initiative the Day We Fight Back aim to empower individuals to lobby their representatives for better regulation of mass surveillance. But legislation and policy are only part of the solution. In order to successfully protect our privacy, we must take an approach that looks at the whole picture: our behavior, the potential risks we face in disclosing data, and the person or entity posing those risks, whether a government or company. And in order to successfully fight off the feeling of futility, we must understand the threats we face.
In a recent piece for Slate, Cyrus Nemati hems and haws over the complexities of creating a private online existence, ultimately choosing to give up on Internet privacy and embrace the convenience of sharing. While working at an organization that advocates for digital rights, Nemati found himself anxious about his personal privacy and took steps that made browsing “a chore”; later, after getting married and wanting access to social tools, he claims he “learned … to love a less private Internet.”
The truth is that most of us simply can’t protect ourselves from every threat 100 percent of the time, and trying to do so is a recipe for existential dread. But once we understand our threat model—what we want to keep private and whom we want to protect it from—we can start to make decisions about how we live our lives online. You’ll find yourself empowered, not depressed.
Threat modeling is an approach undertaken by the security community. It looks at the specific circumstances of the individual and the potential threats facing him or her and makes a diagnosis (and a prescription) on that basis. Threat modeling looks at what a person has to protect (her assets), who she has to protect those assets from (her threat), the likelihood that she will need to protect them, her willingness to do so, and the potential consequences of not taking precautions.
A teacher in suburban California doesn’t have the same set of online privacy concerns than a journalist in Palestine. And the kinds of steps the teacher might take to protect his personal photos from nosey students and their parents are quite different from the precautions the journalist might take to protect her anonymous sources from being identified by the government. Some us don’t want our Internet browsing habits tracked by companies like Google and Facebook. Some of us don’t want the NSA reading our emails. But without enumerating our threats and our assets, it’s easy to choose tools that are inappropriate or unnecessary to the task at hand. The schoolteacher probably doesn’t need to PGP-encrypt his email or run every privacy-enhancing app and plugin, like Nemati did in his privacy hipster phase. The journalist might find that taking the time to use PGP gives her peace of mind.
Nemati’s frustration may not have come from failing to list his threats and assets as much as may have come from misidentifying them. He writes that he “treat[ed] himself like a criminal, obsessed with keeping a very low online profile”—a perfect recipe for frustration, bearing little to no resemblance to how an actual criminal might behave. A successful criminal understands his threat—law enforcement—and recognizes the steps he needs to take to evade them, which may or may not include keeping a low profile online. Nemati might instead face the threat of his parent, spouse, or boss viewing his online activity and work to hide those activities from them. He might also be worried about criminals who want to steal his login credentials and gain access to his bank account. This requires an understanding of security settings, social media, and browser privacy settings, for sure, but not the elaborate privacy kabuki Nemati describes.
Don’t get us wrong: We’re sympathetic to Nemati and the many Internet users like him we meet every day. But we also know that the choice between a crippled Internet experience and an Internet in which privacy is a mere afterthought is a false one. Instead of heading down the rabbit hole of deep paranoia and subsequent nihilism, we recommend that you tackle the task of becoming safer online the way you would any other task: step by step. By starting slow and building on your repertoire of tools, you can protect yourself. For a list of 10 things you can do right now to protect yourself against surveillance, check out this blog post from the EFF, where we work.
Total privacy on the Internet may not be possible, but meaningful privacy is within your reach. And you don’t have to go crazy trying to achieve itMRF's Chairman and Managing Director KM Mammen formally handed over the agreement to the cricketer at the MRF office in the city today.
"I look forward to making an important contribution to the company. It is also a great honour for me, as a proud South African, to be associated with such a successful Indian company, which is one of the largest manufacturers of tyres in this part of the world," de Villiers said.
As per company norms, this association is for a period of three years and De Villiers will endorse the company's products and services through advertising campaigns and other such promotional programmes during the term of the agreement.
De Villiers and his South African team-mates are currently in India playing a 5-match ODI series. It will be followed by 4 Tests.
PTIMANTEO, N.C. – A Shamokin native holds the only video of Superbowl I. 47-year-old Troy Haupt, who now lives on the Outer Banks, tells The New York Times that his biological father, Martin Haupt recorded the 1967 game between the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs. The original broadcast by CBS and NBC was not preserved by either network.
Haupt’s mother, Beth Rebuck was given the tapes by her ex-husband shortly before he died. The recordings languished in Rebuck’s attic in Shamokin until 2005 when a friend reminded Haupt of the tapes’ existence.
Haupt has had the recording restored as years in a Shamokin attic had degraded the tapes. While he owns the recordings, the content belongs to the NFL. The league has not expressed interest in purchasing the tapes and has threatened litigation should Haupt attempt to sell them to a third party.NASA on Thursday evening released conceptual images of its Orion spacecraft featuring a new, metallic-based coating that will protect the vehicle both in orbit and during its fiery return to Earth.
Engineers at Johnson Space Center have decided to add a silver coating to the back shell panels of the spacecraft, which will help Orion regulate its temperature. When in space, as Orion faces away from the Sun, the new insulating coating will help keep the vehicle warm. And when the spacecraft is in direct sunlight the coating will keep the interior of the spacecraft cooler.
NASA says the coating will help Orion’s back shell maintain a temperature on the exterior of the spacecraft from -100 degrees Celsius to 290 degrees Celsius while in space. It will also help shield Orion from electrical charges during the nearly 40,000km/h return velocities from the vicinity of the Moon.
Orion flew its first test mission in December of 2014, when it climbed to about 5,800km above the Earth's surface before returning through the atmosphere, deploying parachutes and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Although the uncrewed vehicle performed well during that flight, engineers determined that they needed to boost its thermal protection system for missions deeper into space, when it would return at an even higher velocity.
The vehicle will next fly in 2018 or 2019, atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket, making another uncrewed test on what will be the massive rocket's maiden flight. Orion, which has been under development in one form or another since 2004, is not likely to carry humans until 2022 or 2023 at the earliest.Go to: Jr Subtraction – Basic Subtraction – Advanced Subtraction
Coloring Squared would like for you to enjoy these free subtraction worksheets to download. If you enjoy them, check out Coloring Squared: Addition and Subtraction. It collects our basic and advanced addition and subtraction pages into an awesome coloring book.
There are several different difficulties for our subtraction worksheets. Hover over an image to see what the PDF looks like. Then you can click on any one of the images to pull up the PDF. You can then print the PDF.
Jr. Subtraction
Basic Subtraction
Advanced Subtraction
Coloring Squared will try to provide you with new worksheets often. Give us some feedback on pages you have used and enjoyed. Or, tell us what you would like to see in one of our next books.
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We hope kids enjoyed these free math coloring pages. Try out our Free Math Coloring Pages and our Comics, Cartoons, and Video Games. More free activities for kids will be coming soon. Come back often to see what’s new!
Coloring Squared: Pixel Art and Math Coloring PagesFor some fans of John Denver, Wednesday will be remembered as a Rocky Mountain High.
For others, it will be the day the late singer was knocked from a pedestal for no good reason.
A larger-than-life bronze statue of Denver called "Spirit" was removed from the Windstar property in Old Snowmass on Wednesday and loaded in a truck for relocation. The statue — a fixture at the site since October 2002 — was donated to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in Denver.
A committee appointed to handle the former Windstar Foundation's assets decided in July to donate the statue to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
“We’re just thrilled that Karmen and Windstar have identified us as the proper place for Spirit,” said G. Brown, director of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. Recommended Stories For You
"They actually contacted us," said Karmen Dopslaff, a member of the committee and former member of the Windstar Foundation's board of directors. When Windstar was dissolved last year, the board of directors appointed the committee to handle certain assets such at artifacts, including the statue.
The Windstar Land Conservancy and Rocky Mountain Institute sold the Windstar property earlier this year for $8.5 million, so the statue had to be moved, Dopslaff said. The property totals 957 acres, and there is a conservation easement on 927 acres. The remaining 30 acres isn't protected from development.
Dopslaff said the committee decided the statue should be moved to a place where the public will still have access to it.
"I think the fans that love John and know John will be thrilled," Dopslaff said. The fans who she dubbed "troublemakers" will probably be upset, she said.
A civil war has been simmering for years between factions of Denver's fans. The foundation's board voted about one year to dissolve the organization because of poor financial condition and inactivity after Denver's death in 1997. The land was sold in April. Critics contend the board gave up on Windstar Foundation too soon. The sale of the land added insult to injury, in their eyes.
Critics of the board's action started an online discussion of where the "Spirit" statue should go. Many supported moving it to the John Denver Meadow at the former Windstar property. The meadow remains under a conservation easement and accessible by the public despite the sale.
Dopslaff said after considering the request from the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, that option was deemed the best for the statue because it will be accessible to more fans. Denver's family didn't want the statue placed in the John Denver Sanctuary in Aspen.
Denver was the first person inducted into the Colorado Hall of Fame when it was formed in April 2011. He plays a prominent part in the displays.
"We're just thrilled that Karmen and Windstar have identified us as the proper place for Spirit," said G. Brown, director of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
The statue will be delivered Thursday to the hall's current headquarters at The First Bank Center in Broomfield, a popular concert venue. Memorabilia held by the Hall of Fame is on display at the center.
However, it isn't certain yet if Spirit will be displayed there. The Colorado Music Hall of Fame is negotiating with the city of Denver to relocate its headquarters to a prominent spot, Brown said. A "major" announcement could be coming soon, he added.
Wherever the Hall of Fame lands, the statue of Denver will play prominently in the plan, according to Brown.
"We'll post him right at the entrance of our new home," he said. "He will be our official greeter."
Moving the statue proved difficult. First, there were the expected challenges of dislodging a statue that large and heavy yet somewhat delicate. Spirit stands 15 feet tall and weighs 1,500 pounds. The likeness of Denver has his left arm outstretched and wearing a protective glove and sleeve. An eagle with spread wings is landing on his arm. A guitar is strapped to Denver's back.
Complicating the removal was the soggy ground and standing water around a concrete base and circular foundation as a result of the recent rain. A crew from Aspen Valley Landscaping was hired to do the heavy lifting. They used an all-terrain forklift to negotiate the swampy land around the statue and secure the statue's arms in slings.
T.J. Irrigation was hired to use a jackhammer to break up the concrete base of the statue, no easy task because it was well lined with rebar. Once the concrete was drilled into, Aspen Valley Landscaping had to use a special saw to cut through the steel bolts used to mount the statue. The combined work took from 8 a.m. until nearly 1 p.m.
Once the statue was ready to lift, the swampy conditions came into play. A truck used by Columbine Moving and Storage to haul the statue got stuck in the mud. The forklift also became temporarily bogged down.
"He doesn't want to be moved," one crew leader said.
The statue was eventually hoisted off the base, gently laid on its side on the ground and later packed into the truck for delivery to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.
Word of the move was kept quiet so that protesters wouldn't turn out, Dopslaff said.
Doug and Kathy Christine, of Glenwood Springs, both professed fans of John Denver's, stopped by the Windstar property Wednesday around noon because Doug said he sensed something was going on. They said they were sad to see the statue go.
"I never pictured it going to Denver," Doug said. "I feel his statue needs to stay somewhere on the Windstar property. I just feel people get in touch with his spirit."
Kathy said it is paramount that the statue be relocated to a permanent home, and not moved from place to place — though she preferred it stay at Windstar. It is also paramount that the statue be accessible to the public, she said.
The Christines weren't impressed that the statue will be a focal point at the Colorado Music Hall of Fame's home. It should be kept in the Aspen area, they said.
Brown said he was aware of the differences of opinion over various issues connected to John Denver and the Windstar Foundation. He believes the Colorado Music Hall of Fame ultimately will provide a good solution for the statue.
"I think when we open our permanent home, it's hard to imagine all parties won't be thrilled," he said.
[email protected] am I to be writing about survival? Well, I’m someone who’s survived. It’s happened a few times, but this is the story that was closest to being my last.
So there I was one night, riding home on my motorcycle, nothing out of the ordinary. The bike I was riding was one of the fastest bikes ever made and I’d ridden it an hour away to meet a friend for dinner. It was warm, so I just threw on riding gear that worked pretty well, but also looked good off the bike. That meant abrasion and impact protection for my head, hands, upper body and feet, but nothing but jeans from the waist down.
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Rounding a corner — I don’t remember how fast — all of a sudden I was leaning way over, then I was sliding on the ground with the 450lbs motorcycle bouncing and flipping on top of me. There was no warning and no time to react, just the surprise realization that something bad was happening.
It was over almost as soon as it started. I kicked the bike off my left leg and stood up. Doing that was confusingly more difficult than usual. I looked around and there was a car sitting right there with a lady looking at me just totally aghast. Mouth open, a look of shock on her face. I remember seeing her eyes and knowing it was bad, but also remember refusing to accept that.
Autopilot kicked in and I tried to pick my bike up to move it out of the road. But my left arm wouldn’t work. There was a man there — I guess he’d gotten out of his car — and I told him to pick it up for me. He also looked aghast, but didn’t argue.
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I remember leaning the bike against something — the sidestand either wasn’t there or wasn’t working — and coldly evaluating the damage to it. It’d slid and bounced mostly on its left side and all the controls there were broken off. No left clip-on, no clutch lever, no foot rest and no shift lever.
I’m not really sure how my thought process got here, but I was beginning to get really worried. I was worried I’d get in trouble and I was worried I might not be able to get home. So I did the logical thing and used my one working arm to put the bike in second gear, then pulled the clutch cable free of its perch and wrapped it around my left hand. My left leg still wasn’t working and I’m not sure how I climbed on, but I managed it somehow |
MI – Blind Pig%
08/05 – Columbus, OH – Double Happiness%
09/09 – San Bernardino, CA – High & Low Festival)*
09/14 – Teneack, NJ – Debenoir Music Hall
09/23 – Philadelphia, PA – Xfinity Live!
% = w/ The Dig
+ = w/Whitney
* = w/Brand New, Death Cab for Cutie, etc
! = w/Taking Back SundayGeorgians voted three to one on Tuesday to keep the year-old state flag, seeking in a nonbinding referendum to lay to rest a race-tinged issue that has roiled the state for years.
The winning flag has been flying since the Legislature adopted it last year. It is based on older Georgia flags and the first official flag of the Confederacy, the Stars and Bars, but avoids the X on a red background associated with the Confederate battle flag, which was in a flag adopted by the Legislature in 1956.
The flag rejected Tuesday bore a miniature of the battle flag, as well as miniatures of two American flags and two earlier Georgia flags and the state seal displayed prominently on a field of blue. It replaced the 1956 flag in 2001 after an acrimonious debate, but did not satisfy many Georgians and lasted only until last year.
Many blacks viewed the 1956 flag as racist; many whites saw it as a symbol of the South's heritage.
While the vote was not binding, legislators have expressed little appetite for continuing the fight.
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State Representative Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, campaigned for the current flag, though it is based in part on a Confederate flag. ''I think this flag can bring closure to this long, very ugly, very divisive racially polarizing debate,'' Mr. Brooks said.
Black voters like Michael Washington seemed to agree. Mr. Washington, 57, a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta, said he planned to vote for the other flag but changed his mind, deciding it was more important to just be done with the issue altogether. ''I thought, let's kick dirt on it,'' he said. ''Let's finish it.''Dozens of young Palestinian girls are practicing their footballing skills on a makeshift village pitch, enjoying an opportunity denied their mothers' generation in the socially conservative West Bank. Gender barriers and taboos mean that the sight of women wearing football kit, even girls, is still shocking to some Palestinians who regard it as a men's game. Yet women's football has developed significantly since the first Palestinian team was formed in 2009. There are now six adult teams playing in an outdoor league and a dozen more in an indoor league. Around 400 girls over the age of 14 are registered as players, and more and more younger girls are taking up the sport.
A Palestinian girl takes part in a football training session in the northern West Bank village of Deir Jarir, near Ramallah.
The 40 or so girls between 10 and 14 training in the village of Deir Jarir, outside Ramallah, have to make do with just six balls between them and their shirts have the name of the boys' team on the back. But under the watchful eye of coach Rajaa Hamdan, they are learning how to trap and pass a ball, dribble between cones and jump for headers. Hamdan said she had been desperate to play as a child but was prevented by social attitudes in the village. Now aged 32, she decided to set up a team for girls.
"When I was young, the circumstances did not allow me to practice, but the idea stayed in my mind," she said. "So I said to myself as I didn't play when I was small, why doesn't my village have a team for girls like for the boys?"
Using Facebook, she urged girls to sign up and was surprised to have 30 volunteers almost immediately.
"I was afraid of problems with the villagers, but so far there have been no serious ones," she said. Salma Fares, 12, said she was proud to be part of the team.
"I am very happy to practice football with girls like me. It is my right," she said. "I am happy they formed a team in the village for girls, like for the boys."
The president of the village football club, Youssef Mousa, said he had been pleasantly surprised by villagers' reaction so far.
"When the idea of setting up the team started, we were afraid of the subject because it was not easy to set up a girls' football team in a conservative village. But so far there has been no problem," Mousa said.Rich Hartzog writes:
I forwarded the article on Russian Beard Tax countermarks to Dr. Gregory Brunk, noted countermark researcher.
Thanks! Dr. Brunk's response is below. -Editor
A lot has been written about them. Most are "novodels," which are official fantasies made by the Russian mint in the 19th century to satisfy collector demand. The countermarks, if I remember correctly, indicated payment of an additional year's tax on the original pieces. I think I have only seen photos of a couple of originals. All the rest are novodels with novodel cms added by the mint. All of them do have value. Below are articles that have been written on them in non-Russian journals.
Bialkowski, A. 1973. Brodowy zeton (Genuine and Fake Beard Tax Tokens). Biuletyn Numizmatyczny 1973: 170-171.
Chizhov, S. I. 1900. Borodovie znake. Trudy Moskovskago Numizmaticheskago Obshtchestwa 1900: 331-352.
Jensen, J. S. 1975. Russiske skaegtegn fra Peter den Stores tid (Peter the Great Beard Tax Tokens). Montsamlernyt 1975 (Sept): 240-242.
Hawkins, W. 1844. Beard Tax Tokens. Numismatic Chronicle 1844 / 1845: 153-155.
Zander, R. 1948. Russian Beard Tokens. Numismatist 1948: 842-847. Reprinted in Journal of the Russian Numismatic Society 1983 (Fall): 14-23.
Ursula Kampmann forwarded this article from CoinsWeekly with additional information on the beard tokens of Peter I. Thanks! -Editor
On September 5th, 1698, Peter – who was later to be called The Great – returned from his educational tour in the metropolises of Europe to Moscow. Of course, all important officials, the flunkeys and all those hoping for the Tsar to confer a favour on them gathered at the court the next morning. But instead of talking to them about Russia’s political future, Peter did something totally unexpected. He pulled a long and sharp razor from his bag and began to shave the commander in chief of the army. The latter was too stunned to react. The next in line followed, an important politician, a boyar stemming from the eldest and noblest Russian family. One Russian nobleman after the other was shaved except for three people. Peter spared only the Patriarch, a very old man and his own guardian.
At first, the shaving skills of the Tsar were restricted to those living closest to him. But shortly afterwards, Peter gave the order for the ordinary people to follow the example of the big wigs. The Tsar imposed a prohibition for every inhabitant of his country to wear a beard. Exceptions were made only for churchmen and peasants. Officials were sent out to supervise the ukase’s implementation and to personally shave anybody refusing to obey on the spot.
But Russia would not be Russia if the officials had not been willing to miss a beard for a small reward. Buying the illegal tolerance, however, could cost bearded men dearly. After all, each and every official encountering a bearded man was entitled to shave.
Peter saw that abuse and his subjects’ willingness to buy the beards with money. The westernization of the Russian nobility being accomplished, he could be generous with the commoners. Peter enacted a new law that enforced the peasants to shave, too, but allowed all Russians who did not want to part with their beards to acquire the right to keep them for a tax.
It was a progressive tax: the humble peasant paid two kopeks, a rich merchant up to 100 rubles. In return, they were given a copper token with the image of a beard and the Russian words “tax paid”.
To read the complete article, see: Peter the Great as his nation’s barber (www.coinsweekly.com/en/Peter-the-Great-as-his-nations-barber/8?&id=70&type=a)
To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see: QUERY: RUSSIAN BEARD TAX TOKEN COUNTERSTAMPS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v15n46a19.html)
Wayne Homren, Editor
NBS (coinbooks.org) Web
The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.
To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor at this address: [email protected]
To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylumDeltaDNA recently conducted a survey featuring nine million mobile game players. The results show that a large portion of action game players are male, while a large portion of puzzle game players are female.
GamesIndustry.biz picked up the news from over on the deltaDNA website, where they rolled out the intriguing stats for free-to-play mobile games that you can check out below.
So basically, 90% of FPS games on mobile devices are consumed by men, while 89% of hidden puzzle games are consumed by women. Match-three games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush Saga have also been consumed more by women… 78% to be exact, where-as men only make up 22% of that market.
Infinite runners are nearly tied even, and fantasy sports see 92% of its audience as men, while social slots and casino games see a majority of women at 62%.
According to deltaDNA’s head of insight, Isaac Roseboom, he believes these trends are based on social engineering from a marketing perspective, stating…
“While some may blindly argue this reflects an innate preference, it is quite clear that many games have been purposively tailored to appeal to one gender. This has led to criticism being aimed at FPS and RPG games with predominantly male avatars for not considering a female audience. Similarly, many puzzle games utilize signals that are seen as not being masculine.”
I usually refrain from just dropping in no-nonsense common sense but I’m going to go on and call bulls**t here.
First of all, whether you play a male or female in a first-person shooter is moot since you can’t see them. It usually means these games gain popularity and retain their player base based on the merit of gameplay and replayability, like Dead Trigger or Bullet Rush.
Second of all, if what Roseboom says is true then all those gender neutral action games out there like Tempo (which has playable female avatars) N.O.V.A. 3 (which features gender neutral robots), and Xenowerk (which stars a female protagonist) should help balance the disparity in the male to female player engagement ratio. They do not.
Tempo | iOS Gameplay Video Tempo™ – WARCHEST LIMITED | iOS Gameplay Video Liberate London and take the city back! Test your reflexes in cinematic bursts of action as you race against time to stop a psychopath and his shady army. Are you quick enough to save the city?
What’s more is that if it’s true that targeted marketing attracts specific genders to a title, then a game like Rise of the Tomb Raider should have had equal or higher day one sales than Halo 5: Guardians because it was marketed toward females, and obviously marketing makes up for interest in sales, right? Wrong.
The reality is that the game has had a tough time on the market. Many people blame the likes of big AAA blockbusters such as Star Wars: Battlefront, Call of Duty and Fallout 4, but then shouldn’t the game at least have sold as well as Halo 5 since they’re both Xbox exclusives? Even more than that, Rise of the Tomb Raider was on the Xbox 360 in addition to being on the Xbox One, where-as Halo 5 was an Xbox One exclusive. There’s a larger market opportunity being on two platforms for Crystal Dynamics’ game over 343’s title. If a female protagonist is what determines the lure of the female audience, then what happened?
The same could be said of Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate. We’ve been told by media that if you promote and put a female protagonist in a game it’s enough to lure the female gaming audience, but according to Gamezone Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate‘s sales were down. A coddle-free report from Crave Online noted that U.K., sales trackers have noted that Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate has had the second worst first week sales in the history of the franchise next to Assassin’s Creed: Rogue. While obviously a lot of people have been turned off in general with Ubisoft’s handling of the franchise, the excuse that the game could reach a broader audience by adding a female protagonist into the mix did not turn out to be true.
Maybe the more obvious answer is in the stats: females in general just don’t like shooting and killing all that much compared to males.
XENOWERK | IOS GAMEPLAY TRAILER XENOWERK | IOS GAMEPLAY TRAILER More iOS and Android gameplay videos, trailers and walkthroughs: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=IGVGameplayreviews Be the last hope against the mutant infestation. Enter the aftermath of a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong. Xenowerk™ comes from Pixelbite, the creators of Space Marshals. It is a top-down action shooter challenging your combat skills in an underground science lab.
I’m going to not go out on a limb and simply say that the stats in deltaDNA’s survey seem to reflect a general trend in most of society: guys like explosions and guns and girls like critical thinking and problem solving.
I think the media really needs to stop trying to fool the average person and admit that maybe men and women just naturally don’t like some things in the same manner.
This isn’t to say that this is every guy or gal, but the stats from deltaDNA’s survey syncs up with the typical trends in PC, console and portable gaming.
Games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon and The Sims are generally favored amongst female audiences, while games like Call of Duty, Mortal Kombat and Project CARS have a stronger lure for male gamers. That rings especially true for Project CARS since it was crowd-funded and marketed by the community to the community up until a few months before Bandai Namco distributed it on store shelves. There was no gendered marketing at all for Project CARS since it was funded and marketed by the community. Users like Jonz put together most of the promotional ads for the game leading up to release, something that was neither gender locked nor exclusionary. Anyone could have stepped in to help fund and market the game.
project CARS – Louder Than Words There we are, project CARS is out! The crowdfunded game throughout these 3 years and an half of development did went without it problems. Dealing with multiple affairs and delays, the game quickly gained the favor of the public once it been in the market. Now enjoy my latest montage one month after official release.
But what’s more is that back in 2010 Maxis admitted that despite The Sims being promoted as gender neutral, the game’s largest demographic for the most part was “teen girls”, as noted in a lengthy piece by CNN. The Sims was not the recipient of gendered marketing back when it first released, but it obviously resonated with a specific audience and organically developed a strong female player base. Nintendogs and Petz also garnered a strong female audience, but it wasn’t like males were excluded, females just preferred those games more, as noted by Forbes.
Games like Farmville also started gender neutral but attracted more female gamers than male gamers in the long run. Additionally, mobile games showed that there were more female game players than male game players for social and casual titles, as noted by Immobi. Peanut Labs also revealed that female gamers spend more money than male gamers on said casual and social games.
Nevertheless, Roseboom seems to believe that gendered marketing – or rather, neutral marketing – would help balance the sexes and what appeals to them, stating…
“If you acknowledge the effect of gender targeting, you might not be surprised that our stats at deltaDNA show infinite runners have the most even split of players. Arguably one of the only ‘gender neutral’ genres of game as the gender of characters tends to be ambiguous.”
It’s interesting because even without marketing, just development blogs and updates, Prison Architect attracted a 90% male player base while the game was still in Early Access. This is the effects of non-marketing, so to speak.
Now to be fair, there are stats that back up part of what Roseboom is saying. Adjust Research did reveal that math and game apps are marketed three times more toward males than females… 16,855 apps to be exact. Only 5,618 apps were marketed with gender neutrality. The interesting thing about it, though? Engagement was nearly equal across the board for both genders despite targeted marketing. And as the stats above from deltaDNA reveal, targeted marketing does not seem to have much of an effect on males being attracted to puzzle games or females being attracted to shooter titles.
So marketing female characters to females doesn’t mean you’re going to get female gamers, just the same as marketing male characters to male gamers doesn’t necessitate you’ll get mostly male gamers. Obviously, both genders have preferences in what appeals to them and it has more to do with the content of the game than the marketing appeal.
Nevertheless, Roseboom ends on a note with rather poor advice, stating…
“Creating a game that appeals to everyone is hard, and the F2P marketplace is brutal, so it’s unsurprising that developers choose a targeted approach. And in an age where each install can cost several dollars in acquisition spend, it’s unlikely that many female-targeted FPSs are waiting to be developed. So if venturing away from the ‘traditional’ may feel too high risk, perhaps broadening the appeal of your game to both genders is a smaller step worth taking.”
How about add the content in your game that your vision and budget allows. Why waste money chasing ghosts?
If Rise of the Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate weren’t obvious enough failures that just by adding a playable female character to the game doesn’t guarantee sales, then look no further than another financial failure in the form of Sunset. The game was specifically targeted and marketed toward female gamers and featured a female protagonist. The game sold so poorly that the developers stated they were stepping away from gaming.
Make the game you think will be fun and target it to the people you think will have fun playing it. If you want to throw in a female character, then great. But the numbers do not support the postulation from the media that adding female characters instantly raises the appeal of the game for female audiences (especially if it’s a shooter game or a racing title). Just the same as adding male characters to puzzle or hidden object games is not going to guarantee an increased appeal to the male demographic.
Plain and simple: the numbers don’t lie, people do.Women's clothing company The Limited announced it's closed all retail stores, but will remain open online.
On a message posted to their official website, The Limited said, "We're sad to say that all The Limited stores nationwide have officially closed their doors. But this isn't goodbye. The styles you love are still available online - We're just a quick click away 24 hours a day."
Following the announcement, The Limited began offering a half-off sale for 'every single thing' on their website.
Speaking to the Associated Press, a spokesperson for The Limited said that about 4,000 jobs, including both seasonal and temporary work, would be lost with the closure of the 250 stores.
Last month, The Limited began to offer up to 80 percent off of merchandise, with the exception being no returns would be accepted. According to The Columbus Dispatch in December, corporate employees at its New Albany, Ohio headquarters were notified the company would soon be facing layoffs.
The Limited had one location in Knoxville at West Town Mall.On Wednesday 20th March, at PMQs, David Cameron went nuclear against Labour’s Sadiq Khan by accusing him of sharing a platform with and giving cover to the “extremist” imam Suliman Gani.
It was the second time the Tories had created a story of ‘extremism’ around Khan out of thin air – this time by calling Gani an “IS [Islamic State] supporter”. A week later this claim has also collapsed.
A few week ago, the Evening Standard and Zac Goldsmith were claiming Khan had questions to answer about Makbool Javaid, the ex-husband of his sister who shared a platform at a rally over 10 years ago.
Then, Political Scrapbook revealed that Javaid’s name had been cleared by The Times in 1998, and Private Eye pointed out that now worked for lawyers that had clients including the Sun Newspaper. Suddenly, those questions vanished.
Now the attention has shifted to Suliman Gani, and this accusation is just as ludicrous as the last one.
First, it was revealed that Zac Goldsmith had himself posed for a picture with Suliman Gani.
Then it turned out that several Conservative MPs had also shared a platform with the imam on various campaigns. The Tory party has studiously avoided any mention of them.
And from there the smears collapsed even further.
Gani revealed he had switched support from Labour to the Tories because of Sadiq Khan’s support for legalising same-sex marriage. In switching support, Gani had been courted by the local Tory candidate Dan Watkins.
In fact, Watkins even invited Gani to an event in Tooting last year to boost Muslim representation.
Write-up of our busy Be a Councillor event to boost Muslim & #BME representation https://t.co/hsno49ORaL pic.twitter.com/mzPPPBPomm — Dan Watkins (@DanWatkins) November 18, 2015
The Tories even wrote about it here. It took place just six months ago.
Mr Gani is pictured in the final image, on the second row.
It now turns out the imam wasn’t just invited to the event – he was even encouraged by the Tories to spread the word.
LBC is now in possession of evidence which contradicts Mr Goldsmith’s claim that Mr Gani was not invited to the meeting.
LBC has obtained text messages and emails to Mr Gani from Dan Watkins where he specifically invites him to the meeting.
The very man the Tories accuse of supporting IS (which Gani vehemently denies) wasn’t just a supporter of the Tories, they in turn welcomed and invited him.
But they linked him to Khan anyway, in order to win the race for London Mayor.
Is there any depths to which Zac Goldsmith won’t sink to?The Last Echo Sweepstakes of the holidays! Enter to win yourself one! Mirror World: A Young Adult Fantasy Book by John Calicchia. What would you do if you saw the future apocalypse of the world in a mirror?
Scroll down to enter our giveaway, but first check out our sponsor!
* * * * *
by John Calicchia
Here’s the set-up:
What would you do if you saw the future apocalypse of the world in a mirror? Would you try to save the world and those you love, or die trying?
Welcome to my life, this is the vision of the future I’ve been cursed to see. – Cailyssa Larkin
You need to read this book to find out!
When Cailyssa Larkin looks in a mirror she has an ominous feeling that someone is watching her. Stranger still, she has visions that foretell the future. While visiting her Uncle Spencer, Cailyssa gazes into a mirror and sees a dark future that only she can change. With the future of her own world hanging in the balance, Cailyssa bravely enters the portal to the Mirror World. Here, the Dark Lord controls all the mirrors and bends reflections so all creatures see evil within themselves. With her sister Terry, her mysterious best friend Daemon, and a host of weird and wonderful creatures, Cailyssa embarks on an epic quest to overcome the evil forces trying to destroy her world. She can only defeat the Dark Lord by finding her true self and discovering the family secret that has led her to Mirror World.
This young adult fantasy book, written by a psychology professor, integrates famous psychological studies in the story. Readers will enjoy learning important life lessons through the psychological concepts illustrated in the book.
Reviews:
“In Calicchia’s debut YA fantasy novel, two sisters fight to destroy a powerful dark angel with the ability to taint humans’ views of themselves…this novel succeeds in injecting fun and adventure into the psychology of self-perception.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“This book was a pleasure to read – A young adult adventure which reminded me of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, only the characters access a cold hostile place through a mirror rather than a wardrobe and behold a startling world of other worldly entities. The book was very readable and will be very interesting for people who wish to to take escapism to a new level with warrior princesses, dragons and dwarfs. The Author connects well to the target audience and the story and plot unfold in a believable way. I love strong female oriented books and this book was a treat! Looking forward to what’s coming next!” – Amazon Reviewer
* * * * * Enter Here to Win a new
Amazon Echo! To be eligible for the current drawing, complete the form below. This is your official entry and automatic sign-up for the Kindle Nation Daily email list. If you already are a BookGorilla and KND member then you are all set! Otherwise upon completion, you will see a link that will take you to sign-up and customize your BookGorilla account. You will also receive a personal link that will allow you to earn bonus entries. Share your personal link and each person that signs up for the contest through your link will earn you an additional entry. A win-win for all! The KND Digest is a daily newsletter that highlights free and quality discount books, apps, tips, and tricks, while BookGorilla offers a daily alert with bestsellers and books you already want to read at prices you never dreamed possible. Another win for you! One qualified winner will be selected and announced the day after the end of the weekly sweepstakes. To win the sweepstakes, you must be a current subscriber to BOTH the BookGorilla and Kindle Nation Daily email lists.
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Click here next Wednesday afternoon to see who won!Eastern Asia is home to some interesting smartphones, like various Android-powered flip phones from Samsung and LG. Earlier today, the 'NichePhone-S' from FutureModel was announced in Japan. It's a phone the size of a credit card priced around 10,000 yen (or $88 USD), with a heavily customized version of Android.
The design looks quite a bit like a pocket calculator and comes in black or white. The phone weighs 38 grams, and is 6.5mm thick. It's capable of calling, texting, voice recording, playing audio files, tethering a 3G data connection, and connecting to Bluetooth accessories. It's essentially a feature phone that happens to be running a very old version of Android - 4.2 Jelly Bean, to be exact. You can't install apps, so the underlying system probably doesn't matter much, but it's still a bit strange.
As for the technical specifications, the NichePhone has a MediaTek MT6572A processor (from 2013), a nanoSIM card slot, and a microUSB port for charging. There's no water or dust resistance of any kind, but the 550mAh battery should give you 3 hours of talk time or 72 hours of standby. The phone will be available on November 10.Saying you like Ingmar Bergman is like saying you like cinema. His influence and style have become more than an influence, a defining layer in the foundation of cinema. With some directors you can recall a few classic movies, but with filmmakers like Bergman, who has so many definitive credits as a director, his filmography can almost seem too daunting to follow.
Saying you like Ingmar Bergman is like saying you like cinema. His influence and style have become more than an influence, a defining layer in the foundation of cinema. With some directors you can recall a few classic movies, but with filmmakers like Bergman, who has so many definitive credits as a director, his filmography can almost seem too daunting to follow. The purpose of this Beginner’s Guide is to guide you through Bergman’s epic filmography.
When recalling Bergman’s filmography one has to select the foremost titles from a modicum of classics in order to compile a list of favorite titles. Famous, widely regarded, and well known films like The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Fanny and Alexander, Persona, and Cries and Whispers are frequently referenced, but this handful merely scratches the surface of the master’s inventory.
Early Life: Childhood, Theater, Early Films
Bergman was born on 14 July 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden. His upbringing was lead by his father autocratic Lutheran Minister Erik Bergman, and his mother Karin Bergman, a nurse and loving subject of one of the director’s few documentaries; Karin’s Face.
Despite recalling occasional moments of warmth Bergman recalls most of his childhood with cold treatment, and harsh punishments from his father. Wetting the bed was an offense that sought the punishment of being locked in dark closets, whippings and most humiliatingly, he would be forced to wear a skirt for the duration of the day. These punishments would be recounted in his later film Fanny and Alexander.
At an early age Bergman sought escape by losing himself in his own imagination and fantasies. His father’s abrasive demeanor solidified the young director’s atheism as he recounts that he lost his faith by the age of eight.
The Magic Lantern
In a cruel turn of fate Bergman’s Aunt Anna came by with Christmas gifts, from the bag she presented one for Bergman, and one for his brother Dag. Young Ingmar was sure that he would receive his sought-after cinematograph, instead his brother received the cinematograph and he was burdened with the mocking gift of a teddy bear.
Luckily for Bergman, his brother Dag couldn’t care less about the cinematograph: he favored tin soldiers and “had armies of them” as Bergman recalls. He saw the cinematograph sitting on the shelf and thought “it’s now or never” and woke his brother up, offering to trade Dag his entire collection of tin soldiers for the cherished movie lantern. Young Bergman’s soldiers won the battle.
Making a Home at the Svensk Filmindustri
Although Alf Sjöberg directed the 1942 film Torment, it is considered to be Bergman’s first movie. During production Ingmar would rush to the set in order to whisper notes to the actors between takes. During the filming of Torment, Bergman had shot interiors as an assistant director; these were some of his first professionally filmed sequences. Torment depicted an oppressive Latin teacher and was a subject of controversy. Bergman’s stern upbringing and rebellious tendencies finally had an outlet in the cinema.
After Torment, Bergman asserted himself as a director both on stage and in film. In 1946 Bergman directed his first film Crisis, followed by It Rains on our Love, A Ship Bound for India, Music in Darkness, Port of Call, Prison, Thirst, and To Joy in a three-year period. These early titles vary in quality but at this early point you can see the germinating themes that would be paramount in the director’s subsequent films.
International Acclaim: Summer with Monika, Smiles of a Midsummer Night, Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal
After being humbled by Victor Sjöström, Ingmar Bergman directed three important films in his earlier career, Summer Interlude in 1951, and in 1953 Sawdust and Tinsel, and his first international breakthrough: Summer with Monika. Featuring stock member to be Harriet Anderson in a breakthrough role, Summer with Monika is a stunning tale of young love and caught the attention of audiences worldwide.
If people operate under the impression that Bergman is the arbitrator of gloomy European cinema his other (of multiple) internationally acclaimed film Smiles of a Summer Night would prove even fans of the director’s work wrong. A bawdy canvas that satirizes manner, mores, class, and sex that would inspire musicals and other films including Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Nights Sex Comedy.
Ingmar Bergman garnered international acclaim with his work at this point in time, but his name would ring out with praise in 1957, with two of what many consider his finest work. The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries are the director’s best-known work, and serve as accessible entry points for those curious about his work, as well as recurring titles that are staples in the education of any self-respecting movie buff. Both films carry symbols that are synonymous with classic international cinema to the point of being iconic.
The Seventh Seal ushered in the partnership of Bergman regulars Max von Sydow and Bibi Anderson. While The Seventh Seal brought together new partnerships, Wild Strawberries starred an aging Victor Sjöström, the same man who put the cocky young director in check in 1945. His performance is an endearing swan song to an illustrious career.
Following these two major classics Bergman continued to make stimulating and personal films that challenged the cinematic form. As time went on the director pointed a more direct eye on themes of spiritualism, love and of course the existence of God and the nature of humanity. 1958 marked the year of another classic from Bergman, The Magician, followed by another vivid period drama The Virgin Spring in 1960. Both films star Max von Sydow and were entries for best foreign language film, the latter won the nomination.
Silence of God Trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence
In 1961, Bergman decided to film the first in his “Silence of God” trilogy on the remote Swedish island of Fårö. Armed with cast members of his stock company, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, and Harriet Anderson, and cinematographer Sven Nykvist the shooting of Through a Glass Darkly commenced. The film would be the first of many movies Bergman would shoot on Fårö Island, which also became his home in later years. It also marked another vital change in his career, because his films were now in contemporary settings with themes directed in a more concise manner leaving the period melodrama (for the most part) behind.
Many consider Bergman’s “Silence of God” trilogy to be some of his finest work and the second installment Winter Light is known as one of his more personal efforts. It’s rumored that the director “realized who he really was” when he made the film.
Followed by the equally captivating 1963 movie The Silence, which exchanges the filmmaker’s heavy approach for an ominous atmosphere of oblique visuals. Sven Nykvist’s camera simultaneously captures images of a war-torn landscape while bringing our attention to the characters facial expressions by use of intimate close-ups. The directors fascination of studying facial expressions through the use of close-up photography would be a burgeoning trademark device in these films. Never has spiritual alienation and emotional bleakness looked so beautiful.
At this point in time it seemed like Bergman could do no wrong, and was hailed as one of the most eminent voices in world cinema.
Second Era, Color, Television and Fårö Island: Persona, Hour of the Wolf, The Ritual, The Passion of Anna
Bergman’s second era (mostly) left the settings of his earlier films behind. His apprehensive study of mankind brought his films to the present day, his following movies examining social alienation more so than spiritual, but the style of existential abandonment consistently remain intact for the rest of Bergman’s career.
While his films from the fifties and early sixties vigorously examine spiritual and religious matters, his focus following the mid sixties (most notably in his 1966 film Persona) had shifted from the disintegration of faith to the disintegration of the psyche. He adopted a more personal style of filmmaking, hired smaller casts and an intimate filming style would be his trademark for many of his following films.
With international acclaim following his projects, MGM distributed one of his most challenging and dynamic studies of psychological horror, Persona. Starring Bibi Anderson, and Liv Ulmann, it concerns the philosophical suffering and solitude in contemporary society as an actress whose inability to speak (because of the horrors in the world we assume) lead to a multi-layered and undeniably complex relationship that deconstructs personality, identity and the cinematic form.
Adopting classic horror movie techniques, while retaining a hallucinatory sense of existential dementia, his 1968 film The Hour of the Wolf is dark, witty and occasionally funny. A high point representation of Bergman’s versatility as a creative maverick.
While Ingmar Bergman was tackling different genres he decided to take on his interpretation of the war film with yet another masterpiece: Shame. With a collection of so many classics, Shame seems to be an overlooked entry among Bergman fans. It’s smart, dramatic, and one of the psychological films on war ever made.
Although it may seem like a downgrade, Bergman began making films for television in 1969. His first television film The Ritual (or The Rite) is a compelling treatise on art and censorship. A jarring and incomparable experience that belongs alongside Bergman’s best work.
Bergman’s triumphant return to color photography in The Passion of Anna (known to everyone else in the world as A Passion) thanks to Sven Nykvist’s diffused cinematography and more wonderful performances from Erland Josephson, Liv Ulmann, Max Von Sydow, and Bibi Anderson, The Passion of Anna is one of Bergman’s most effective psychological studies that is less abrasive and underscored than some of his other work. This makes it a masterpiece of slow burning moral disintegration. Adding to the film’s dramatic gravitas, the long-running romance between Bergman and actor Ulmann was coming to a close. Ulmann recounts this film as especially difficult, but the result are undeniably astounding.
Despite the dialogue-heavy nature of his work, Bergman doesn’t favor improvisation, except in a small amount of his later films including the dinner scenes in The Passion of Anna. Cast members who were on camera were given real wine to let the dialog |
have been a warning that I should have noticed.
I then run strace with the -c flag, which produces a cumulative count of the system calls and the time spent in them. The results were interesting.
% time seconds usecs/call calls errors syscall ------ ----------- ----------- --------- --------- ---------------- 98.34 18.562341 4428 4192 571 futex 1.07 0.201412 1 178548 gettimeofday 0.27 0.051676 47 1094 mprotect 0.12 0.023182 4 6428 5687 stat 0.11 0.020168 160 126 madvise 0.06 0.011662 1 11292 lseek 0.01 0.002735 0 13208 read
export EC2_JVM_ARGS = -XX:-UsePerfData
Reasoning that futex was simply showing the synchronization between threads I decided to try to eliminate gettimeofday, because of a reference I found regarding its effect on virtualized machines. After some searching and reading the command's invocation code I found I could eliminate the gettimeofday calls by setting an environment variable.This reduced the clutter in the strace file, but didn't improve the performance.
I then tested how long it took to open and read all the files, by writing a command sequence that got the file names from the trace log and concatenated their contents.
fgrep'open(' strace.out | grep -v ENOENT | sed's/",.*//;s/.*"//' | egrep -v '^/(proc|dev)' | xargs cat | wc -c
The total size of the output was 25MB and the command run swiftly. So simply reading the files was not costly.
Another thing that struck me in the trace file were thousands of failed calls to open class files in the current directory.
stat("/home/dds/org/codehaus/xfire/fault/XFireFault.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/org/codehaus/xfire/XFireException.class", 0x7f82cb39e280) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/ImageAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/KernelAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/ImageValueAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39e280) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/RamdiskAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/BlockDeviceMappingAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/ImageMapAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39e280) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/ProductCodesAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/ImageListAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39e280) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory) stat("/home/dds/com/amazon/aes/webservices/client/LaunchPermissionAttribute.class", 0x7f82cb39ffd0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
for jar in " ${ LIBDIR } " /*.jar ; do CP = " ${ CP } : ${ jar } " done
CP
for
CP = $( echo $CP | sed's/://' )
I traced the cause to be the way the invocation shell script built the class path by concatenating all jar files in the library.This sequence results in the class path, stored in thevariable, starting with a colon, which is taken to mean to search in the current directory. I fixed that problem by adding the following line after theloop:This seemed to improve the command's execution time, but only by about a couple of seconds.
While examining the strace files I found many long read/seek sequences, like the following.
13190 15:07:29.981602 lseek(3, 56113794, SEEK_SET) = 56113794 <0.000034> 13190 15:07:29.981713 read(3, "PK\3\4
\0\0\0\0\0\345)p@\216a\310\346\f\3\0\0\f\3\0\0001\0\0\0", 30) = 30 <0.000034> 13190 15:07:29.981848 lseek(3, 56113873, SEEK_SET) = 56113873 <0.000034> 13190 15:07:29.981953 read(3, "\312\376\272\276\0\0\0001\0%
\0\4\0\26
\0\27\0\30\7\0\31\7\0\32\1\0\6"..., 780) = 780 <0.000036> 13190 15:07:29.986162 lseek(3, 56112935, SEEK_SET) = 56112935 <0.000040> 13190 15:07:29.986288 read(3, "PK\3\4
\0\0\0\0\0\345)p@\261\311$\200\f\3\0\0\f\3\0\0001\0\0\0", 30) = 30 <0.000033> 13190 15:07:29.986410 lseek(3, 56113014, SEEK_SET) = 56113014 <0.000031> 13190 15:07:29.986507 read(3, "\312\376\272\276\0\0\0001\0%
\0\4\0\26
\0\27\0\30\7\0\31\7\0\32\1\0\6"..., 780) = 780 <0.000043> 13190 15:07:29.990264 lseek(3, 56112080, SEEK_SET) = 56112080 <0.000036> 13190 15:07:29.990379 read(3, "PK\3\4
\0\0\0\0\0\345)p@\32\17|\317\10\3\0\0\10\3\0\0001\0\0\0", 30) = 30 <0.000042> 13190 15:07:29.990515 lseek(3, 56112159, SEEK_SET) = 56112159 <0.000034> 13190 15:07:29.990626 read(3, "\312\376\272\276\0\0\0001\0%
\0\4\0\26
\0\27\0\30\7\0\31\7\0\32\1\0\6"..., 776) = 776 <0.000040> 13190 15:07:29.994931 lseek(3, 56111220, SEEK_SET) = 56111220 <0.000047> 13190 15:07:29.995065 read(3, "PK\3\4
\0\0\0\0\0\345)p@$\333\211\31\f\3\0\0\f\3\0\0002\0\0\0", 30) = 30 <0.000044> 13190 15:07:29.995204 lseek(3, 56111300, SEEK_SET) = 56111300 <0.000035> 13190 15:07:29.995316 read(3, "\312\376\272\276\0\0\0001\0%
\0\4\0\26
\0\27\0\30\7\0\31\7\0\32\1\0\6"..., 780) = 780 <0.000043> 13190 15:07:29.999541 lseek(3, 56110361, SEEK_SET) = 56110361 <0.000043> 13190 15:07:29.999667 read(3, "PK\3\4
\0\0\0\0\0\345)p@2u\340\335\v\3\0\0\v\3\0\0002\0\0\0", 30) = 30 <0.000047> 13190 15:07:29.999809 lseek(3, 56110441, SEEK_SET) = 56110441 <0.000037>
ec2-run-instances $AMI -b /dev/sdb = ephemeral0...
tar cf - /opt/aws | sudo tar -C /media/ephemeral0/ -xf - sudo ln -s /media/ephemeral0/opt/ /opt tar cf - /usr/lib/jvm | sudo tar -C /media/ephemeral0/ -xf - sudo ln -s /media/ephemeral0/usr/lib/jvm/ /usr/lib/jvm tar cf - /usr/share | sudo tar -C /media/ephemeral0/ -xf - sudo ln -s /media/ephemeral0/usr/share/ share
This got me thinking about the performance implications of these, and whether the seek calls were somehow interacting with Amazon's Simple Storage Service (S3), which was used as the machine's backing storage. Searching for data on AWS's performance, I came across an excellent technical report written by Simson L. Garfinkel of Harvard's Computer Science Group. There he mentioned that S3 performance depended on the size of the objects stored. Although the operating system's file system and buffer cache should isolate the seek system calls from S3, I decided to test whether using local storage would improve the performance. I therefore modified the instance's startup command to attach some local storage to the machineand moved most of the files Java was opening into it.However, I didn't see any performance benefit.
I then considered whether all those seek/read calls were an inefficiency of the OpenJDK that comes with Amazon's AWS Linux. Could Sun's (now Oracle's) Java runtime be more efficient? Based on instructions by Dmitry Leskov I downloaded and run Orcacle's Java 1.7, but the performance appeared to deteriorate a bit. Another dead-end.
In the end it turned out that all the solutions I tried produced negligible or (in the case of Oracle's JVM negative) results:
removing thousands of calls to gettimeofday,
, optimizing Java's library path,
using local storage,
using Oracle's JVM.
Apparently, AWS command-line tools are indeed slow due to Java's long startup time. Dynamic class loading ensures that running small programs or even an AWS command with the -help flag isn't slow, but when the command needs to do some actual work and thus loads all the required class files, it takes many seconds to run.
So what can one do? Here are some things that do work.
Use a faster multi-core machine: an m1.large instance runs the tools twice as fast as an m1.small one.
Make the command work harder for you. For instance, pass multiple instance ids to ec2-terminate-instances, or multiple tags to ec2-create-tags, instead of calling each command multiple times.
Use the API from another language. As an example, you can obtain your machine's instance id in just 10ms by using the following shell command. curl -s http://169.254.169.254/2011-01-01/meta-data/instance-id
If you're looking for the answer on why the AWS command-line tools are slow I hope that this blog entry has saved you the expense of running down a few blind alleys. Otherwise, I hope you found out how you can use tracing tools to investigate performance problems.It’s become very obvious that the media has a dramatic effect on the outcome of politics, and specifically, the presidency. Last Wednesday, Facebook and CNN partnered together to present to America the upcoming election’s first Democratic debate. According to viewer polls by CNN, Slate and TIME Magazine, Senator Bernie Sanders was the clear champion. This was not the case for the editors of these specific multimedia entities, however. CNN titled its post-debate headline as “Clinton’s Confident Sweep,” Slate as “Hillary Clinton Won,” and Time as “Clinton in Control.”
There’s a stark difference between the polls and the media conglomerates. One says Sanders won. The other says Clinton won.
Here’s the problem: Most people, when looking online for the victor, are only going to see the large bolded headlines rather than the polls. Viewer polls aren’t the sole determinant in the outcome of the debate, but they should have some influence. While it is very valid to say the debate went very well for Clinton, it’s ridiculous to say that it didn’t go well for Sanders — especially considering the fact that nearly every poll said that Sanders did well. By reading headlines such as “Hillary Clinton Won” or “Clinton in Control,” the audience assumes Clinton won, and therefore Sanders lost. Phrasing opinions as facts has historically allowed media to influence politics.
The function of any form of media is to relay information to the people. Thus, the media has the onus of providing information that is pure and unbiased. To many, this was not the case in the post-debate headlines. According to the Natural Bureau of Economics, “70 percent of Americans believe that there is either a great deal or a fair amount of media bias in news coverage.”
We see this bias manifest not only from the post-debate headlines but also from the overall coverage of the debate. CNN and MSNBC conveniently decided to cut out Bernie Sander’s attack on the media after he defended Clinton and her emails.
With all this happening, it seems fair to say that CNN is biased toward Clinton. The argument becomes stronger when one realizes Time Warner Cable, the parent company of CNN, is the seventh largest donor to the Clinton campaign. When Americans read this information on social media and notice its omission in traditional media sources, they feel that politics is ultimately corrupt. Oftentimes, this idea of the government being corrupted leads to political apathy and lower voter turnouts, therefore limiting the effects of democracy.
With such bias in the media, there seems little we Americans can do other than actively search for the truth. Instead of forming opinions based on superficial, biased headlines, the American people must go to a variety of sources that both confirm and deny their initial opinions. Political education is the only solution to deterring the sphere of political bias.
Syed is a biochemistry freshman from Houston.Thursday, 8 September, 2016 - 10:25
Electronic Council parking machines in the main centres have raked in at least $1.7 million in card payment fees over 2015/16, says New Zealand First.
"While 50 cents here and 50 cents there may not sound very much, it adds up to a large sum of money and is symptomatic of a more serious issue," says New Zealand First Spokesperson for Commerce Fletcher Tabuteau.
"It is how the public is being conditioned to accept surcharges on electronic payments. With the huge growth in card payments for parking, there has also been an exponential growth in transaction fees collected by councils - at least $1.7m last year.
"What’s more, $1.7m over 2015/16 is very much the tip of a transaction fee iceberg because this sum is only for the main centres and Palmerston North. There is also a serious lack of transparency because this data was not easy to obtain.
"Auckland Council refused citing commercial grounds for its 813 machines. Since it shares the same provider - Global Integrated Solutions - with Christchurch City’s 292 machines, we modelled transaction fee revenue in Auckland as being almost $600,000 last financial year.
"Each of those electronic machines could be taking $700 plus each year in transaction fees alone and this sum will only keep rising.
"As we also have some of the highest credit card transaction fees in the world, it is time to look at all card fees and surcharges and regulate them because the market has failed," Mr Tabuteau said.
Council [incomplete 2015/16 financial year]
Parking Meter Revenue
Transaction Fee Revenue
Parking Fine Revenue
Auckland City Council
$ 16,307,652
$ 574,087
$ 7,537,770
Hamilton City Council
$ 1,111,884
$ 27,785
$ 1,484,895
Tauranga City Council
$ 1,576,093
$ 558,127
$ 170,688
Palmerston North City Council
$ 1,343,923
$ 50,850
$ 1,188,417
Wellington City Council
$ 10,363,000
$ 318,262
$ 2,918,978
Christchurch City Council
$ 4,920,744
$ 206,191
n/a
Dunedin City Council
$ 3,132,009
n/a
$ 640,956
TOTALS
$ 38,755,305
$ 1,735,301
$ 13,941,704Many of Scotland’s highest-profile thinkers have called for Brexit to be called off as "its disastrous consequences become clearer every day".
Scores of senior figures from the worlds of politics, business, academia, and the arts have signed a landmark letter to The Herald breaking a fragile consensus accepting last year's referendum.
Big political names adding their names to the letter include former Labour first minister Henry McLeish; his Liberal Democrat deputy Jim Wallace; SNP MEP Alyn Smith; and former Tory MEP Struan Stevenson.
They are backed by a Who's Who of Scotland's intellectual elite, including historians Sir Tom Devine and Chris Smout; former chief medical officer Sir Harry Burns; scientist and Edinburgh University vice-dean Prof Anne Glover; distinguished international jurist Sir David Edward; businessman and diplomat Lord John Kerr; and trade union leader Grahame Smith.
Their ground-breaking intervention comes amid growing concern at home and abroad that the UK economy is already suffering from crippling uncertainty over its future relationship with its biggest trading partner.
The signatories wrote: "We see our society, economy and politics becoming ever more undermined due to the impact of Brexit.
"We recognise that a narrow majority voted to leave the European Union, but the disastrous consequences are now becoming ever clearer – every day.
"Even before the UK has left the EU, we face falling living standards, rising inflation, slowing growth and lower productivity."
"In a democracy, it is always possible to think again and to choose a different direction.
"We need to think again about Brexit, to have a UK-wide debate about calling a halt to the process and changing our minds."
Today's letter represents a significant challenge to both Labour and the Conservatives at Westminster. The SNP and the Liberal Democrats have both opposed Brexit staunchly, with the latter party calling for a second referendum.
But both Prime Minister Theresa May and Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn have accepted the result of the Brexit vote even as public and academic doubts grew.
Earlier this month veteran Labour MEP David Martin told The Herald his party should be the vehicle to stop Brexit. Mr Martin has signed today's letter as have former Labour cabinet ministers Helen Liddell and George Robertson and their current fellow peer George Foulkes.
Their signing came after former Prime Minister Tony Blair this weekend suggested it was "possible' that Brexit would not happen. Westminster sources have suggested there are now Conservative ministers who feel the same as negotiations with the EU became a reality.
The first Tory to break ranks on the issue was former MEP Struan Stevenson, who last week in The Herald revealed his desire for a rethink amid evidence leaving the European Union will put up barriers to Scottish farm exports while a potential US trade deal opens up Scotland to imports of cheap, low-quality American beef and chicken.
English academics this week warned Brexit marked a serious threat to Britain's food security with 80 per cent of vegetables and 40 per cent of fruit being imported.
Tim Lang of City University, described the situation as a "serious policy failure on an unprecedented scale".
His concerns over food security echo those of Professor David Bell of Stirling University and Scottish farming experts who warned of similar problems earlier this summer.
Prof Bell is one of several academic experts on the EU, its laws and economic impact,to sign today's letter. Others include Kirsty Hughes of the Scottish Centre on European Relations; and Professors Jo Shaw, Andrew Scott and Christina Boswell of Edinburgh University.
Forecasters, meanwhile, predict stunted growth for Scotland and the rest of the UK even ahead of a final deal.
Accountancy firm PwC attributed a low growth prediction to "slower consumer spending growth and the drag on business investment from ongoing political and economic uncertainty relating to the outcome of the Brexit negotiations".
A spokeswoman for the Department for Exiting the European Union was unmoved by the Herald letter.
She said: "In one of the biggest democratic exercises in our history, the British people voted to leave the European Union.
"The Government is committed to delivering on that mandate, by building a new deep and special partnership with our closest allies and neighbours in Europe."CLOSE At a care home for cows just outside the Indian city of Mumbai, dedicated staff lovingly tend to the every need of its ageing bovine residents, recently saved from slaughterhouses (2015) Newslook
A cow sanctuary in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh. It is part of a veritable infrastructure set up by Hindu nationalists to protect the sacred cow. (Photo11: Petra Sorge, Special for USA TODAY)
MEWAT, India — Shaukat Qureshi will never forget the day when police raided his roadside food stall here in northern India.
“They picked out meat pieces from my biryani,” Qureshi, 17, said of a much-loved local dish of rice, meat and vegetables. “They packed the pieces in plastic bags and took them away.”
The recent raid on Qureshi and his fellow vendors’ stalls was the first in the region following the passage of a local law to protect cows, sacred animals among Hindus, who make up 80% of India’s more than 1.2 billion citizens.
Imposing a maximum prison sentence of 10 years for slaughtering a cow and five years for selling the meat, the state of Haryana’s legislation is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s crackdown on beef consumption.
Since his election in 2014, Modi has stressed the importance of Hinduism to India’s identity. But his critics charge that he is improperly mixing religion and government in a secular country.
After a crowd lynched a Muslim man last year in Dadri, east of Delhi, for allegedly eating beef that his family later claimed was mutton, Modi took days to express his condolences, furthering the perception that he is willing to turn a blind eye to Hindu radicals.
In Mewat, a majority Muslim district, the recently formed Cow Protection Task Force heard rumors that street vendors were cooking their biryani with beef. Qureshi insisted he used only chicken and buffalo, which are not banned.
Months later, the police lab has yet to publish findings from the seizures on whether the rice dishes contained the outlawed meat.
Shabnam Hashmi, an activist at Act Now for Harmony & Democracy, a New Delhi-based human rights group, said the raids unfairly target non-Hindus amid an increasingly Hindu nationalist climate in India fostered by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its affiliated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a private volunteer organization criticized for its paramilitary characteristics.
“This police unit is part of a design to target minorities and to convert India into a Hindu state,” she said.
Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Vijay Chauthaiwale, who is also an active RSS member, said the central government had nothing to do with the state law. “That is a local level policy,” he said, adding that he supported the law. “Personally, I am fine with these controls.”
Bharti Arora, the head of the task force, said the law addresses cow smuggling that funds organized crime and terrorism. She denied the law targets Muslims. Rather, Haryana is a transit route for smugglers heading to neighboring Bangladesh, a largely Muslim country, she said.
A free roaming cow stands amidst a field of rubbish. As it is the holy animal, slaughtering it for consumption or transporting it for slaughter is illegal. (Photo11: Petra Sorge, Special for USA TODAY)
“This is not a Hindu-Muslim problem — even Hindus are into the smuggling of cows,” Arora said.
When the police catch a trafficked cow, the driver faces charges and the cow goes to a sanctuary known as gaushala, like the farm Prithvi Pal Arya runs in Gazipur in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. He shelters 1,000 cows.
These sanctuaries are part of a cow rescuing infrastructure set up by Hindu activists in northern India. “The punishment for slaughtering a cow should be the same as for killing a man,” Arya said.
The task force also works with informants called gau rakshaks — or “cow protectors” — vigilantes who are increasingly criticized for their militancy.
Arvind Swami of Varanasi, an ancient holy city on the Ganges, is a gau rakshak who hunts smugglers and operates bovine sanctuaries across northern India.
When Swami hears about cow smugglers on the highway, he dons his bulletproof jacket, grabs a gun and drives off in pursuit. He said that he has rescued 130 cows in his career.
Human rights activist Hashmi said gau rakshaks have been around for decades. But since Modi was elected, the right-wing activists have become emboldened, she said.
“The hatred has reached a level that you can even make an announcement from a temple and a crowd will go and attack,” Hashmi said.
Mohammad Sartaj, 32, the son of Akhlaq Sartaj, the man lynched in Dadri last year, said: “It looks like cow slaughter is more criminalized than human slaughter.” He added that his younger brother sustained severe head injuries in the attack.
Authorities are still investigating the alleged murder, which includes the son of a local Bharatiya Janata Party politician as a prime suspect. While the Sartaj family challenged the results of a lab test that said they possessed beef, a local court ordered the police not only to investigate the lynching but also the allegations of cow slaughter.
Prior Supreme Court verdicts on the beef ban have been inconsistent. In 2005, the court upheld a ban on cow slaughter in the Gujarat. But in September the judges stopped a temporary prohibition of beef sales in Mumbai.
“Isn’t it a human right to decide what you want to eat?” Mohammad Sartaj asked.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2hAml7o18 IKEA Storage Hacks for Every Room in the House
Some of the best things about IKEA products are their versatility and endless storage capabilities. Sure, you can hack the RAST and the KALLAX, which make great storage units on their own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put them — and dozens of other IKEA items — to work in other creative or beautiful ways with a little hack action. To keep it all contained (and stylish!), check out the IKEA storage hacks below to add a little extra storage to every room in the house. After all, no apartment makeover is truly complete until it involves a good IKEA hack, right?
1. Bar Cart Nightstand: Bar cart, shmar cart — that IKEA classic goes from the kitchen to the bedroom without skipping a beat. It’s small enough that it can fit in the tiniest space, but the three tiers mean you get plenty of storage for your never-ending reading list. (via The Everygirl)
2. DIY Retro Storage Makeover: Give those wooden pullout drawers a trendy makeover by flipping them around and drilling circular holes. For a more classic look, add hardware instead. (via Curbly)
3. Craft Storage: Use the RIBBA picture ledges in your office or craft space to display favorite books, prints, ribbons and spools of washi tape. The casual display is both pretty and practical and you can easily move things around as inspiration strikes. (via Decor8)
4. Media Console: Go long and low by purchasing multiple IKEA kitchen cabinets, setting them on the floor and adding a surface. You can create a media stand that perfectly fits across your living room wall, whether it’s two or ten units long. (via Villa Luova)
5. TRONES Hallway Storage: Just because the TRONES units were designed to store shoes doesn’t mean they can’t be super useful in other rooms. Since they come in sets of threes, you can put them together like LEGOs to fit your space. The units are only seven inches deep, which makes them perfect for narrow spaces like hallways. (via Apartment Therapy)
6. DIY Faux Brass Drawer Fronts: Those plain white drawer fronts were practically made to be covered in gold foil. This is definitely the quickest way to take your IKEA desk from serious to seriously gorgeous. (via Sugar and Cloth)
7. DIY Mudroom Bench: The STUVA benches offer plenty of space to store shoes. You can also make the bench more durable by screwing it right to the wall and adding a seat of wood planks. (via The Mombot)
8. DIY Picture Frame Tray: When it comes to organizing your closet, trays are a lifesaver for corraling accessories and jewelry. Hack a basic picture frame into a tray and use it on your dressing table, bathroom countertop or your coffee table to hold remotes and other clutter. (via Melodrama)
9. Topped With Marble: If you like the basic structure of your IKEA dresser, but you want it to look a bit more expensive, dress it up with a marble top. You can also hack the legs by adding new ones or dipping the existing legs in gold. (via Design Love Fest)
10. DIY Floating Credenza: In a small homes and apartments, floating cabinets are great storage solutions that combine side table surface space and storage. They’re also a great DIY for a nursery or kids’ room since they’re the perfect height for little ones to easily open and close the doors. (via Sugar and Cloth)
11. IKEA Changing Table Makeover: Use cute nursery wallpaper to update the plain IKEA HEINSVIK changing table. This is a great alternative to painting since the paper is easy to remove and you can play with patterns. (via Poppinette)
12. DIY Retro Sideboard: It’s not exactly a hack, but this DIY sideboard was too pretty not to include. A pair of oversized knobs — or in this case, door handles — can really make that IKEA storage look like a million bucks. (via Sugar and Cloth)
13. DIY Bathroom Organizer: Transform an IKEA towel holder into a leaning ladder where you can store towels, bottles of pretty shampoo and a few spa-night necessities. (via Thistlewood Farms)
14. Spice Rack Bookshelf: Paint the IKEA spice racks in bright and bold colors and use them in a nursery for a colorful book display. It’s way easier for little ones to find their favorite reads when the covers are facing them and they don’t need to dig through a traditional bookshelf. (via Misspfui)
15. DIY Wardrobe Hack: DIY your own custom closet using two RAST dressers and a chest of drawers. Paint the entire unit the same color to make it look like it’s one piece, then add a few extra bells and whistles for even more storage, like hooks for scarves and jewelry. (via Homemade by Carmona)
16. Bathroom Storage: Pedestal sinks are pretty, but nothing’s more frustrating than a sink without any storage. This narrow IKEA shelf fits above your sink so you can add space to keep soap, candles and toothpaste. (via Yasam Stil)
17. DIY Modern Vanity: Pair the EKBY ALEX shelf with stained and tapered wood legs and mount it right to the wall to make a little vanity. Add a tall bench with a comfy cushion and you’ve got yourself the perfect place to put your face on. (via A New Bloom)
18. Plate Display: Use IKEA ledges to display collections like decorative plates. This is a fun option if you like switching out your art display and don’t want a constellation of nail holes to remind you of every change. (via Yvestown)
We want to see what IKEA pieces you’re hacking! Show us your project by tagging us on Instagram + using hashtag #iamcreative!(Last Updated On: May 19, 2018)
Conventional medicine offers no preventative agent for the common cold. This is not the case for natural therapies. Echinacia is one of those natural therapies can help prevent and reduce the duration of a cold.
Large study on Echinacea and the common cold
Researchers from the UK’s Cardiff University have determined in a large scale clinical study that Echinacea can indeed prevent and reduce duration of the common cold.
This research follows an increasing chorus of conventional doctors that have put forth that there is no proof that Echinacea purpurea – an herb used for centuries to stave off colds and flus in Europe – indeed lives up to its legend.
Well, the naysayers were wrong. In a gold-standard double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study, 755 healthy adults were given either an Echinacea extract or a placebo for four months. The placebo simulated the treatment in all respects.
The subjects completed diaries and were interviewed and analyzed once a month. The researchers also collected nasal mucous during cold or viral episodes. Blood samples were also collected and analyzed.
Those who took the Echinacea had significantly fewer colds and virus infections during the treatment period. In addition, duration of illnesses were significantly reduced among the Echinacea group compared to the placebo group.
The subjects in the placebo group had 188 colds, compared to 149 among the Echinacea group. The placebo group’s collective duration of illness was 850 episode-days, compared to 672 episode-days.
The researchers also found that only 65 infections recurred in 28 subjects among the Echinacea group compared 100 recurrent infections among 43 people in the placebo group, a difference of 59%.
The study also found that the placebo group took 52% more pain medication to help relieve infection symptoms than did the Echinacea group.
Echinacea combination of leaves and roots
The research utilized an alcohol-extract of freshly harvested Echinacea leaf (at 95%) and root (at 5%). This may well account for the widely positive results, as different types of extract processes will yield different medicinal effects. In addition, because both the root and the leaf of the plant was used, there was a wider breadth of medicinal constituents.
Echinacea purpurea is also called the purple cone flower because of its large cone and purple flower. It grows through Europe and North America. It has several relatives with varying degrees of medicinal potency. A 2007 review of research from the University of Connecticut concluded that 14 studies showed Echinacea can cut the risk of the common cold by half and cold duration by an average of 1.4 days. Even with this, conventional medicine has remained largely negative about Echinacea’s ability to help prevent and counteract the cold, stating that there wasn’t enough evidence. Well, it looks like that has changed.
Colds shortened by garlic,zinc and vitamin C.
Pine bark also shortens cold length.
Probiotics help prevent and ease colds.
Larch tree extract helps prevent a colds.
REFERENCES:
Jawad M, Schoop R, Suter A, Klein P, Eccles R. Safety and Efficacy Profile of Echinacea purpurea to Prevent Common Cold Episodes: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2012;2012:841315.
Shah SA, Sander S, White CM, Rinaldi M, Coleman CI. Evaluation of echinacea for the treatment of the common cold: a meta-analysis. Lancet Infect Dis. 2007 Jul;7(7):473-80.
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MoreA top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersSenate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Bernie Sanders Town Hall finishes third in cable news race, draws 1.4 million viewers Woman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid MORE brushed aside criticism of interim Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Donna Brazile on Tuesday, in the wake of leaked emails showing she may have tipped off Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE's campaign off about a primary debate question.
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Tad Devine, a key confidante of the Vermont senator, defended Brazile on MSNBC.
He argued that while the Sanders presidential campaign believed the DNC had its "thumb on the scale" during the Democratic primary — the campaign briefly push a lawsuit against the party over a clash about voter data — he "wouldn't include [Brazile] in that group."
"I've known her for 30 years, I was in constant touch with her for the campaign," Devine |
humans is extremely low, Truman said.
Most people are immune
Only a small number of people, about 5 percent of the population, are susceptible to infection with the bacteria. The infection primarily affects the skin and nerves, and can cause symptoms such as skin lesions, nerve damage and deformity if not detected and treated early.
Studies have found that 95 percent of people are immune to the bacteria; even if people are exposed to these germs, they do not get sick.
Somewhere between 150 and 250 new cases of leprosy are diagnosed in the United States each year, Truman said. In a previous study, his research found that as many as 40 new cases of leprosy in the United States per year seem to be associated with exposure to infected armadillos, he said.
In the new study, the researchers compared the gene sequences of the bacteria from 42 of the infected armadillos to those from 52 people who developed leprosy between 2007 and 2012 in the same geographic region. M. leprae had not been found in this region before 2009, according to the study.
The researchers found that most of the infected armadillos carried the same strain of bacteria that had previously been linked with probable transmission to humans. Additionally, the investigators identified a different strain of M. leprae in armadillos in southern Florida, which may have infected several leprosy patients in that area. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
None of the patients who were interviewed remembered having any direct contact with armadillos, but the patients could have had contact through gardening or other outdoor activities, such as hunting, fishing or tramping through a swamp, the researchers said.
How Hansen's disease may spread
The more common method of transmission of Hansen's disease is long-term direct contact with an infected person who has not been treated, typically someone who has traveled to a tropical country where the disease is more prevalent. The bacteria can spread through the air from one person to another, Truman said.
People who consume armadillos for food, who hunt the wild animals and prepare them for cooking, seem to be more at risk for the infection, Truman said. Avoiding direct contact with the blood or tissue of armadillos is an important element in decreasing exposure to the bacteria, he said.
"Most people are immune to becoming infected with Hansen's disease, and most armadillos don't have the bacteria that can cause" the illness, said Dr. David Scollard, director of the National Hansen's Disease Program Laboratory Research Branch, who was also involved in the study.
"There's no reason to become hysterical about seeing an armadillo," he said.
Since the 1940s, antibiotics have been used to cure Hansen's disease, and even more effective medications are available today, Scollard told Live Science. It was only before this time period that the disease was incurable, and that doctors could not prevent the infection from advancing, he said.
Hansen's disease is not a highly contagious disease, but most people have an image of leprosy as it's been depicted in movies and books, Scollard said. Today, the disease is no longer the curse people have imagined it to be, he said.
Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.Bushfire starts after drug labs torched
Updated
Drug squad detectives have arrested a father and son over two clandestine drug laboratories, after a bushfire swept through Sydney's south-west.
Police believe the laboratories, hidden in remote bushland at Camden and only accessible by foot, had been operating for years.
They say a fire was deliberately lit to destroy the labs last week, sparking a bushfire in the Blue Mountains National Park which destroyed 55 hectares.
A father and son were arrested last night and have been accused of making millions of dollars worth of the drug known as ice.
Police say the laboratories were capable of producing five-kilogram batches of the drug. A kilogram is worth up to $2 million.
Detectives began watching the men just before Christmas and had planned to raid the labs last Tuesday, but the hot weather and extreme fire danger stopped them.
The next day, police allege the 27-year-old son started the bushfire when he tried to destroy the drug labs.
"We don't know what tipped them to light the fire," said Acting State Crime Commander Peter Cotter.
"It will be our summation that they obviously became aware of our investigation - we're not sure how that happened."
The bushfire was only completely extinguished last night after six aircraft and ground crews worked on it.
Topics: drug-offences, bushfire, camden-2570
First postedTom Straw published his first mystery, The Trigger Episode, in 2007 and then authored seven crime novels under the pseudonym Richard Castle—all of which were New York Times bestsellers. An Emmy and Writer’s Guild of America nominee, Straw also wrote for and produced television shows, including Night Court, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Cosby, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. For the first time since his fiction debut, he reclaims his own name with Buzz Killer (available October 31, 2017)—the inaugural title in a prospective new series featuring New York City Public Defender Macie Wild and ex-detective Gunnar Cody.
Recently, the author generously took time from his creative endeavors to indulge curiosities pertaining to retiring his nom de plume, using relationship dynamics to promote character development, staying ahead of technological advancements, and capturing a realistic sense of time and place. He also teases what comes next.
Buzz Killer is the first book published under your own name since writing seven bestsellers as “Richard Castle.” What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a pseudonym, and how does this book balance that tradition with reasserting your own identity?
Advantages, yes. Disadvantages, few. The advantage is right there in your question. As a new novelist, I dreamed of making the New York Times list just once. But seven times in a row? Sure, I always gave the writing my best effort, but the power of the brand name and all the promotion that came with it—including a hit show of quality—no doubt made a difference. But tie-ins have been attempted before with lesser results. All the good stars lined up for this.
Any disadvantage wouldn’t be the cliché of credit. It’s more about being a writer working to craft his own mystery with the TV series tapping on his shoulder. But that’s a quibble, too, because I was able to forge new roads in the books with support from Castle creator-executive producer Andrew Marlowe. To wit: the TV show was loaded for seasons with “will-they-won’t-they?” I had my characters, Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook, sleep together in the first novel. And Andrew championed that because after “will they-won’t they?” comes “now what?” In book length, I was able to explore those juicy complications that arise when romantic partners find themselves in professional conflict.
Writing Buzz Killer under my own name did free me from servicing source material, but I was surprised at how I ended up approaching the story and characters in much the same way as my Richard Castle books. Ultimately, I suppose it’s about serving the readers, not a show.
You introduce dual protagonists in NYC Public Defender Macie Wild and ex-cop Gunnar Cody. In what ways does their relationship dynamic allow for organic character development, and in your opinion, how does the element of romantic suspense enhance the overall narrative?
Wow, John, you’ve hit the very essence of the whole thing. The Macie-Gunnar relationship in Buzz Killer is not only full of romantic tension, but I also made sure that aspect informed everything in their efforts to solve the mystery. You know, it’s not hard to conjure a generic plot, scatter a bunch of clues, and let some solution come to pass. Snore. I believe a reader craves investment on a personal level. Most of my effort goes into thatching the human, often intimate, connection the protagonists have to solving the crime into the obstacles and dangers they confront. For them, it’s not just some case. I give them skin in the game so the reader can have it too. I want the reader to feel. To worry. To get scared. To experience thrills. If I do it right, it’s a mystery that only they can solve together, with jeopardy only they can feel as a couple.
Of course, I made sure to have their romantic tension legitimately complicated. There’s robust sexual magnetism that is at odds with fundamental differences they have about the world. Macie is an ethicist and die-hard champion of the disenfranchised. Gunnar excelled at brash surveillance methods she disdains—until she needs his help cracking her homicide case. So that tension dynamic will stay in play and develop in deeper ways. For seven books, if I’m lucky.
Technology, and the inevitable gray areas that come along with it, is an integral component to the story. How can such advances both help and hinder a plot, and in what ways did you endeavor to stay current on what’s available?
The thematic engine for this novel is all about the impact of technological advances on us as human beings. And my response was not to judge but to place my characters into the arena where surveillance technology gets used and abused and let them roll around in the gray areas until they question their own views. When Macie experiences her first illegal stakeout, she ruminates on it by saying:
“What is private anymore? Not our homes, our neighborhoods, our mistakes, our intimate moments—our secrets. Nothing is sacred. And when nothing is sacred, what happens to us?”
But it’s not all earnest. When Gunnar counters with, “What did Orwell say about rough men who keep vigilance so that the innocent may sleep at night?”, Macie replies, “You do realize you’re quoting the guy who wrote 1984 from inside a surveillance van.”
Staying current is a writer’s job; staying ahead is a novelist’s. By that, I don’t mean guess what invention is coming next but imagine how current tech could be used and then ask what the ramifications of that use are for all of us so I can have my characters poke around in that. It’s the byproduct of my author’s mantra: Notice what you are noticing.
The story plays out against the backdrop of New York City. In what ways does, or can, setting become its own character within a book, and how important is it for you to have an intimate knowledge of the places you write about?
To me, setting is vital, and I immerse my books in place and time. But not in the same way some writers gas about the weather just to have something to describe (I say this fully aware I wrote a book entitled Heat Wave). Your point is a good one; setting should be a character, and that means using it as you would a human one: for specific purposes and with aspects that impact the story. And it’s important to me to get it right.
For the New York of my Richard Castles—and now, for Buzz Killer—I researched streets, buildings, fishing piers, everything. And then I walked the city to visit those places so it feels real to the reader. I want him or her to feel they are there. In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner wrote that a good story should be an unbroken dream. Nailing the setting is one more way to put my reader in that dream.
You have a long, distinguished background in television. In what ways has that influenced your storytelling? Conversely, what are the greatest differences when writing for one forum versus the other?
I’d say TV writing has aided me technically, but a lifetime of reading has fueled a hunger to imagine and spin tales on a book-sized scale. Yet, a few decades of writing to television’s strict forms and onerous deadlines is my ally in crafting the work. The tight structure of a TV script demands building dramatic tension quickly, focusing on a clear story with a satisfying and, hopefully, surprising resolution. But beyond all that, TV writing is character and relationship writing. In each episode, you want to use the unique needs, drives, and frailties of your characters to make it all a personally felt journey. That’s true in both comedy and drama.
For them, it's not just some case. I give them skin in the game so the reader can have it too. I want the reader to feel. To worry. To get scared. To experience thrills.
The principal difference between forms is not length. It still astonishes me how the novel form is as tight in its constraints as TV’s. The real difference is the ability I get, as an author, to share the inner narrative of my characters. That stuff gets acted on TV, and I’ve had some gems who pulled off that magic—from Edie Falco to John Larroquette to Mary Tyler Moore. But in novels, I share all that on the page, and I enjoy that part. Although Edie could do with a suppressed smile what it takes me a paragraph or two to achieve.
Leave us with a teaser: What comes next?
I am already deep into writing the sequel to Buzz Killer. I take it as a good sign that Macie Wild and Gunnar Cody won’t sit still. Got me a fresh, very cool story building on fragments from their first adventure. It not only gives them a big, nasty mystery to solve but also puts their new and complicated relationship to a huge test. To give more away would be … well, a buzz killer.
To learn more or order a copy, visit:
Tom Straw published his first mystery, The Trigger Episode, in 2007. Subsequently, writing as Richard Castle, he authored seven more crime novels, all of which became New York Times Bestsellers. Buzz Killer is Tom Straw’s first book under his own name since that blockbuster Nikki Heat series. He is also an Emmy- and Writer’s Guild of America-nominated TV writer and producer having written and produced Night Court, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, Dave’s World, Grace Under Fire, Cosby, Whoopi, and Nurse Jackie. A former board member of the Mystery Writers of America, New York Chapter, he lives in Connecticut, where his home is his castle.Former Pentagon personnel official: The warrior units are holding tanks for misfits
Here is a thoughtful and worried note from Noel Koch, who recently left his position at the Pentagon overseeing the "wounded warrior" program, about "warrior transition units," or WTUs, which he says that despite their publicity have become dumping grounds for soldiers who never should have been recruited-and most, he reveals, have never seen combat.
By Noel Koch
Best Defense guest columnist
Our men and women in uniform today represent the finest fighting force ever fielded. The only problem? There aren’t enough of them.
The evidence has been multiplying and cascading down on the Pentagon since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes the assignment of military duties to extravagantly paid private contractors because there are not enough soldiers to perform these duties; the use of "stop-loss" orders to keep personnel past the end of their contracts, at which point their service is no longer "voluntary"; and, because "stop-loss" is not a sufficient expedient, the call up of National Guardsmen to deploy, at the age of 45 or 50, to Iraq or Afghanistan.
These desperate attempts at patching institutional shortfalls have human consequences: spouses are deployed multiple times as marriages falter and fail and children grow up with a parent they scarcely know; soldiers take their lives in record numbers, their deaths lamely assigned to "relationship problems"; and, most tellingly, recruiting NCOs commit suicide because they can’t bear the brutal stress put on them to bring in more people when qualified people are unwilling to join the military. The Army says it is meeting its recruiting quotas, but many of those recruited are unfit for service.
The evidence for that can be found in the failure of our Warrior Transition Units. Over the past eleven months my colleagues and I spent countless weeks visiting these units and hundreds of hours talking to the men and women in them. The WTUs were created following the discovery of substandard conditions in temporary quarters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. They were intended to assist with the healing of combat-wounded service personnel. Yet the majority of the people in these units today are not combat-wounded. To the contrary,most have never left the country.
To understand how this happens, recall the stressed-out recruiting sergeants. To meet their quotas people who are physically unfit; mentally unfit; emotionally unstable; or, who have criminal histories and disciplinary problems are recruited. Commanders refuse to deploy with these people. So, commonly, they are put in the Warrior Transition Units, which is why these are called "warehouses" and "dumping grounds."
Here’s a snapshot: I am in a room with 35 soldiers. The one first in front of me is glassy-eyed, staring into the middle distance, and I have to raise my voice to get his attention.
Wilson, what are you doing here? "I’m schizophrenic, sir." How old are you? "Nineteen, sir." You haven’t been downrange, have you, son? "No, sir."
Smith, why are you here? "I’m bi-polar, sir." How old are you? "Twenty, sir." Have you deployed? "No, sir." Same glassy-eyed look.
The next youngster is also twenty. He suffers from depression. He can’t be deployed.
And so on. Some are physically unfit. Some exhibit mental health problems. Others are disciplinary cases. All dumped in the WTUs. Oddly enough, many tend to get quite comfortable in these units and are adept at finding ways to remain in them for months reaching into years, as they dream up new complaints. Meanwhile, the limited numbers of personnel who actually are combat-wounded feel stigmatized by being lumped together with people they consider malingerers; they don’t want to be in the WTUs, but would rather be sent back to their regular units to heal. So, in the end, the entire purpose of the WTUs is defeated.
About the glassy-eyed look? Here’s a snapshot from another WTU session. A visibly agitated soldier tells me, "A lot of times I run out of my meds when the dispensary is closed and I can’t get a refill when I need it." I ask him what he is taking, and he tells me Percocet. I ask him how many he takes that he can’t time his refills with the dispensary schedule. He says he has a jar of the stuff that he takes when he needs it. This turns out to be a common problem, and an uncontrollable one in the WTUs.
In Vietnam the enemy turned our war fighters into drug addicts. Today, their caregivers are doing it.
These, in aggregate, are the results of going to war with insufficient manpower. These are the evidences of the failure of the All Volunteer Force. There was a time when the draft bound our nation together. Many believe that any attempt to restore it today could risk tearing us apart. Still, more and more people, quietly, are coming to the conclusion that careful consideration has to be given to restoring the draft.
The alternative is to continue to rely on that less than one percent of the American population that currently defends the nation to produce our war fighters and the question that prompts is simple enough: Are we going to continue to send these few back to the battle again and again and again until their marriages collapse, and their children are resentful strangers to them, and they are either battle-crazed or suicidal or homicidal – the way we do now? And how long can we depend on that expedient?
How long can we afford to delude ourselves about the efficacy of the All Volunteer Force?
All the problems noted here were regularly recorded and reported to the appropriate officials in the Defense Department.
Noel Koch served as the Obama Administration’s first Deputy Undersecretary of Defense heading the Office of Wounded Warrior Care and Transition Policy. He is a Vietnam Veteran, served as Special Assistant to two Presidents and as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs and Director for Special Planning in the Reagan Administration.The surprise is how long a backlash took to come. When I was a child in a heat-hazed suburb to the north of Palo Alto, almost no one had heard the term Silicon Valley. In common with the hamlets scattered around it like points on one of my join-the-dots colouring books – Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Woodside – it was an unassuming place, with pretty, straw hills and decent schools; a good, honest incubator for the aspirant lower middle class; benign spot for Hispanic incomers to land.
Now Palo Alto is the spiritual epicentre of Silicon Valley, the Detroit of the 21st century. An average home costs $2m, despite an eastern flank still mired in poverty, even as rich young "tech" workers glide in from nearby San Francisco aboard white, smoked-glass, Wi-Fi equipped buses, shielded by headphones and shades – a target for resentment that could only be improved if they wore handlebar moustaches and snatched kids' iPods on the way past. Is the resentment fair? When I last came here, the Valley was still reeling from the great dotcom crash of 2000, with Amazon shares trading at $3 and the fledgling industry on its knees. And although it's hard to believe now, no one was predicting that by 2014 our lives would be very largely shaped here, by an army of software engineers – programmers or "coders" – who are progressively recasting the human environment in their own image, forcing the rest of us to adapt to this radically reconfigured landscape in the only way possible: by becoming … more … like … them.
Yet, for all we see and hear about the Valley's gilded apps and networks, glimpses of the people behind them are rare. Who are they and what does the society they have made for themselves (the template for our own) look like by light of day? A recent anti-tech protest in San Francisco became the first to draw attention from the FBI. What don't San Franciscans like about the tech titans to the south who have made their city rich?
East Palo Alto. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
Gliding into Santa Clara, home to Intel among others, the last question is not so hard to answer. Silicon Valley runs from San Francisco in the north to San José in the south and is here thanks to an unlikely alliance of Stanford University computer pioneers and hippies who saw that while acid hadn't made the world more free and open, computers just might. Sixties and seventies originals such as Douglas Engelbart (inventor of the mouse and a conceiver of the web) and Stewart Brand (founder of the first online community The Well) hoped for wisdom and enlightenment through the spread of information, as a bulwark against The Bomb or World War Three. Counter-cultural rhetoric still suffuses the Valley tech industry.
Talk of "disruption" and "changing the world" assails you like tinnitus the moment you arrive, and if "making a difference" often devolves into piddly goals such as "improving the end-user experience", it still contains an idealistic sheen.
What to make of some tech insiders' recent pronouncements, then? The first Frisco protests followed a speech by biotech entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan last October, in which he decreed that the rest of America was holding Silicon Valley back and it was time to consider secession. Lest this be taken for a joke, a venture-capitalist investor named Tim Draper duly filed a petition to split California into six, with an independent Silicon Valley – putatively the richest state in America – abutting Central California, which would be poorer even than Mississippi.
And it got better. In the absence of independence, another venture capitalist, Tom Perkins, suggested that, at the very least, rich techies should be given extra votes and went on to compare criticism of his industry to the Nazi persecution of Jews.
With spectrum-friendly timing, the billionaire CEO of social network Yammer, David Sacks, then spent $1.4m throwing himself a Marie Antoinette-themed 40th birthday party under the banner "Let Him Eat Cake", even as Valley legend and Facebook billionaire Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake in the movie The Social Network) spent a reported $10m on a wedding in which guests were dressed by the costume designer from Lord of the Rings (at least it wasn't Star Wars), and a young startup founder named Peter Shih penned a blog post entitled "Ten Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition", in which hate number six was given as "homeless people". Is there an app for hubris?
British comedian John Oliver, in hosting a tech awards ceremony called the Crunchies, gently roasted his guests with the quip: "I heard that the new design for the buses had tinted windows, but with the tint on the inside: 'Look, I don't mind if the peasants see me, but I'd rather not see them'." Laughter in the hall was muted.
Workers glide into the Valley aboard anonymous white, smoked-glass, Wi-Fi equipped buses. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
Like bankers in the UK, techies seem surprised at what is happening to them. So in many ways am I. For all the gathering cultural divide, driving through Silicon Valley is still an awesome experience. Around every turn stands the glinting HQ of another household name, or two, or three – and not just the big ones you expect, but the everyday others you seldom think about. Look! There's Adobe, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Pixar, SanDisk, Symantec …now to Oracle, Netflix, Asus, Atari, Groupon, LinkedIn, Logitech, Electronic Arts, Mozilla, PayPal, Twitter, YouTube, McAfee, Yelp, Atari, Nvidia, Yahoo!, Tesla, Sun Microsystems … not hundreds, but thousands, tens of thousands, everywhere you look.
Even those giants with headquarters elsewhere – Microsoft, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung, Amazon, Nasa – have research centres here, such is a concentration of tech talent. The sensation is of having stepped like Alice through your computer screen and even the disposable-looking architecture whispers of the Valley's exotic, hyper-Darwinian credo of "creative destruction". The phrase you hear everywhere is "innovate or die", which is not intended to relax you.
My first mass encounter with the present workforce comes on a Saturday night in Mountain View, home to Google and Microsoft among others, and it couldn't be more startling. Last time I was here, I phoned an editor at the San José Chronicle to ask where the geek people hung out. "You won't believe this," he chuckled, "but if you go to the cafe at Fry's Electronics superstore, that's where you'll find them."
I did, but every time I tried to speak to one, they stared at their sneakers and scuttled away like crabs clutching circuit boards. They were of a stereotypical piece, though, which is why first sight of Mountain View's bright-lit main drag is such a surprise, because the scene doesn't look American. It's populated mostly by knots of generically-dressed young men, the vast majority from the Indian subcontinent or Asia, looking lost, as though not sure what to do away from their screens.
Later I'll check the census figures to find that more than three-quarters of tech workers are now born outside the US, with China, India, Korea and Japan supplying most, often via Ivy League universities, with a small contribution from eastern Europe. Given that women are outnumbered 25 to one, the modern Valley is at once highly international and culturally monocular, adding to the air of transience. Minority female tech workers complain of a frat-housey "brogrammer" atmosphere within the industry. I'm floored by what I see.
Molly Magees. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
Inside Molly Magees, an ersatz Irish pub, which turns out to be one of only three places you can dance in Silicon Valley, the music is overwhelmingly from the decade in which most of its clientele was born, the 1980s (and I abruptly realise that this is what most the local radio stations are playing, too). Most of the women cutting a rug together are from local colleges and universities, but the genders operate for the most part at a tangent.
Asked what dating is like in this apparent 25:1 paradise, women tend to roll their eyes or laugh ruefully. "The odds are good, but the goods are odd," one tells me. "Most are just interested in money or programming," says another, echoing screeds of anguished posts on tech forums. I soon see what they mean. Conversations with the men are mostly fluid, but tend to resemble those you have at technology "meetups", where the unspoken question is "Can we do business together?" When I mention this unexpected gregariousness, an important truth is explained: that the people in Molly's are not "tech people", that there is a clear divide between tech people, meaning coders, and "non-tech" people, which is to say entrepreneurs, financiers, idea and business people. Good coders are in short supply and tend to regard themselves as an elite, with the best being paid six-figure bonuses just to stay at places such as Google and Facebook.
Coders, I quickly learn, are almost universally regarded as weird. A Valley entrepreneur I contact in an effort to find some to speak to (he asks not to be named) warns that "a small percentage of the good ones are not so autistic/introverted that they might be willing to talk", and, as if to script, two of the three candidates he suggests as being in this category subsequently refuse, one sniffing airily, "No, I don't really want interviews with journalists."
I do meet one coder at Molly's, a 26-year-old goateed American named David, who looks more hipster Shoreditch than Banana Republic Valley, who has travelled through Europe and chats easily about Breaking Bad and Mad Men and whose favourite bands are the Pixies and Sigur Rós rather than Metallica – not the stereotype at all. So the stereotype is flawed, I rejoice! But no, he groans.
"In truth, I feel kind of isolated, 'cos I'm intellectually curious and outgoing. As a single guy who likes women, it's hard. I mean, I just work with nerdy guys and there are hardly any women – it's horrible, man." Why does he stay? "The money's really good," he says with a shrug. "It's hard to walk away." I ask what he earns, and he smiles. He doesn't want his name used.
Later I meet a woman in her mid-twenties named Sunny Allen whose ex-fiance was a coder. Her eyes widen as she tells me: "They're the real hardcore. He would work for 36 straight hours, sleep for four, then get up and work another 36. Eighty-hour weeks are the norm for those guys and weekends don't exist. They work harder than any group of people I've ever come across."
It's as if these people are not so much a different breed, as a new species. An ad in the back of the main San José listings magazine reads: "Computer Systems Analyst, Sunnyvale, CA. Bachelor and five years experience required." What is this place?
Machines from the 70s and 80s on display at the Computer History Museum, in Silicon Valley. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
I drive home to Santa Clara thinking about the society being made here. The average age of employees at Facebook is said to be 26, which is exactly the same as at Nasa during the moon landings of the 1960s and early 70s. A Brit I meet named Mark Whelan (one of very few Brits out here) says he loves being in the Valley, where finance is available for risky good ideas – unlike at home. Now on his third "startup", for an electronic payment system, he tells me that he loves being around (software) engineers, "a unique breed, because they're always trying to solve problems, that's what they care about – getting the job done".
The question, of course, is whether the problems being solved are worthy of such energy, intelligence and investment. With the honourable exception of Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, the challenges they address are not big ones requiring years of commitment, they are the local concerns of Ivy League-educated twentysomething males with a surfeit of cash and no off-screen responsibilities. Not to mention a widespread awkwardness with people; an empathy deficit that may explain not just the prevailing libertarian, often Ayn Randian politics, but the much-trumpeted techy grail of "connection". Because hardly anyone seems to have noticed that connection is not the same as engagement, upon which deeper relationships are built, and may even run counter to it.
Is this disjunct written into Valley DNA? Top venture-capitalist investor Marc Andreessen has pointed out that by the time most techies are 22, they've done the 10,000 hours work which Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, claims to be the main constituent of "genius". As Andreessen says: "[That] doesn't happen in other fields … you can't start designing bridges at age ten." True. But those 10,000 hours can only come at the expense of other activities we associate with the process of transcending youth, growing up, finding a place in the here-and-now.
If this is the case, should we be more afraid of these men than we currently are? As a graduate computer science student named Yiren Lu noted in a New York Times piece headed "Silicon Valley's Youth Problem": "If the traditional lament of Ivy League schools has been that the best talent goes to Wall Street, a newer one is taking shape: why do these smart, quantitatively-trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?" Why do programmers do what they do, in the obsessive way they do it?
Alison Chaiken is in her fifties, and made a career switch from physics two years ago. Her challenge to Valley norms is more a source of awkwardness for the young men she works with than for her, she chuckles, "because I'm used to it – it's 100% of the time for me". The cult of youth around startups exists because "if you want people to be willing to die for the cause, who are willing to work long hours for almost no money, you have to get 'em young".
Asked if she thinks coders are weird, she pauses: "Well, this is an elliptical answer, but I'm a person who loves music, and there are certain fields like music and math – and a lot of people love both – where you have to be a little bit obsessive and quite devoted to be good at your craft. And to maintain your skills you have to spend an awful lot of time keeping up with recent developments.
"So to be a real professional coder you have to put in a lot of hours. And if you don't really love it, you can't motivate yourself to do it, so the motivation has to come from within, same as for musicians or writers."
Right. Except that most neutrals can appreciate the pull of music or writing. Why does coding appeal? "I think part of it is a feeling of power and mastery, in that you can solve problems. That is very reassuring. The other thing is instant gratification. People always talk about 'gamifying' interfaces, where you're getting points totals and a lot of feedback … and with programming, you get that same kind of feedback. Every time you add a function and it works, it's like a little mini accomplishment."
Or as another coder, Jesse Monroy, has it: "The overwhelming reason I know that people program is the certainty of the outcome … the way a small amount of work can make a profound difference." Do coders deserve their reputation for weirdness, I ask? "Yes," he says. "Good coders are a bit weird." And they're busy redesigning society for us. Excellent!
Tech Museum of Innovation. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
Next morning I follow the sun south to San José, a bigger point on the map because, like San Francisco, it's had its own song. José is a light-washed picnic blanket of a town, gathered around featureless buildings barking the cryptic handles of tech firms such as InvenSense and SunWize. Nicknamed "Man José" for the dearth of females, it houses the sheeny Tech Museum of Innovation, a paean to digital technology, which should be exciting but presents as a lesson in fatuousness. I snigger at bold, declarative wisps of nothing, such as "digital technologies bring people together to work, learn and play".
Brilliantly, nowhere is it explained what "digital technology" is or suggested that anything existed before it. In a society so fixated on the future, does the past become a kind of irritant, an inconvenience? Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is on record as having declared that young people are "just smarter" than older people (even while supporting politicians opposed to Obamacare and in favour of Arctic drilling), which may have more to do with disdain of history than elders. As per much of Silicon Valley, the Tech Museum, which is funded by the likes of Intel and Microsoft, betrays no concern for context and is quite simply the most arcane museum I've ever seen. Battalions of schoolkids look bored out of their trees and would undoubtedly be better off running outside to climb something.
There is still something Las Vegas-ly thrilling about Silicon Valley. Tourists flock to the Facebook, Apple and Google "campuses" just to cop a sense that they are real and exist in physical space, a surprisingly hard mental adjustment to make. At Google, as elsewhere, you find nothing much to see, except that as you drive through the maze of lanes radiating from a huddle of inscrutable main blocks, dodging staff on Google-liveried bikes, it seems to go on forever.
In fact, this HQ belonged to a fleetingly massive 1990s tech firm called Silicon Graphics – creative destruction in motion – and Google has staked out a yet grander estate to rise on the hills opposite. For the first time, the scope of its empire seems tangible.
Then, an unexpected turn. While queuing to take the obligatory tourist snap with the giant corporate "like" sign outside Facebook – simultaneously wondering why I'm doing it – a likewise-engaged Indian startup founder named Jagmeet Lamba steers me towards a very different kind of place: a startup "incubator" called Hacker DoJo.
Hacker Dojo, Mountain View. Photograph: Barry J Holmes for the Observer
DoJo is remarkable: an airy tech playground in which anyone can grab |
in the past tended to the elevation of mankind, and the installation in place thereof of a system of thorough dishonesty, emphasized by brutal stupidity. There is a low cunning about it, too, which is to me in the last degree repulsive.
Germanism was born ages ago, its growth has been proceeding for centuries, and it has now reached an advanced stage of flowering. Hitler is but a bud indicative of what kind of "flower" when it comes to full bloom, the world may expect to see!
Because she made no effort thousands of years ago, to become civilized as did her neighbors, Germany today is an outsider among all civilized nations. The processes which it has taken other nations thousands of years to absorb, cannot be suddenly absorbed by Germany overnight. Consequently, the continued existence of Germany among them becomes increasingly inimical to the best interests of civilized nations.
The deliberate and perverse distortions of what should have been a sane and normal course of development -- as in other nations -- now gives to Germany and her people a capacity unexcelled by any other peoples on earth, for fostering and propagating every indecent and inhuman precept of life. And as she seeks to distribute her own poisonous brew she has herself become so intoxicated by its ingredients that she can no longer escape the ever- constant desire, the urgent compulsion and the burning lust which it incites in her to extinguish any and all signs of good which she sees developed or practiced in other lands. Thus in self-justification Germany would excuse her own unnatural and perverse life by polluting others with her malignant infection. Germany is now well beyond all saving. The world had best look to its own preservation and welfare, lest some of those German poisons run through her system also and come to destroy it!
With each succeeding world war which she plans, plots and starts Germany comes ever closer and closer to her goal of world-dominion. At the present time Hitler, who has merely striven to remedy mistakes which previous German leaders made in attempts at world-subjection, may bring the German people very close to realizing their goal. And Hitler is not the last of the Führers!
How much misery, suffering, death and destruction are needed before it becomes apparent to the world that any compromise with Germanism will, of itself, be a certain guarantee that soon thereafter, Germany must again embark upon her unholy crusade to dominate it. How many more chances will be vouchsafed it to beat back Germany? Suppose there comes a time when Germany can not be halted? Dare we risk waiting? One never knows the exact hour one is scheduled to die; can we, with any more certitude and assurance tell which opportunity shall be our last? It may well be that this is our last chance. Suppose we pass it by; look ahead. Next time, the so-called elder generation of Germany will be the Hitler-trained youth of today, and this elder generation, now mothers and fathers, will already have instilled and encouraged their children with the idea of world-dominion. Thus the next Fuhrer may come to lead a nation of born fanatics! As a consequence of this there may come to be welded a machine so gigantic in proportions, so overwhelming in destructive power, that it may well overcome every possible obstacle in its path. For assuredly the German youth of the next generation -- today schooled in Fuhrer schools -- will find a leader, as past generations of German youth have always found a leader, to incarnate and personify the body and soul of that nation and dominate its collective Will.
A leader who will feed that German body and soul the only food upon which it can subsist: War!
6. A Middle Road?
With Germanism shown thus to be the very soul of conquest and world-dominion, may we not then pose this question: Is it possible for the world, in any manner, to find some compromise that will allow both it and Germany to exist side by side in peace and justice? In concrete terms, were peace declared tomorrow to Germany's apparent satisfaction, could this nation born and bred on blood, be expected to be appeased for more than the immediate future?
We should like to hope so; but the history of that nation cuts the hope out of our heart.
The majority of people claim that Hitler alone stands between war and peace. But is it Hitler alone who smashed Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Holland, Poland, Norway, Belgium and France and the Balkan countries? Is it Hitler alone who tortures and oppresses these people?
But for argument's sake, let us assume that Hitler is no more and the world is seeking a just basis for peace with Germany. We quickly discover that the Germany of our dreams is not the Germany of dread reality.
For, in the first place, there is no longer living in Germany that so-called "older generation" with whom reasonable talk might be made. This woeful handful is gone and forgotten and in its stead stands that brown-shirted legion singing that glorious Horst-Wessel paean: Today Europe, tomorrow all the World! Enlightened reason with perverted chanters of a world-dirge composed by a drunkard, written in a brothel and dedicated to a pimp?
What then of a democratic Germany?
Democracy for a nation that has destroyed a mighty people of some thirty million Poles with the epithet "such a servant race has no existence"? Democracy for a people who believe only in superiority, not equality?
Well then, break Germany up into small autonomous states?
Nonsense!
That Pan-Germanism which has received blind allegiance in Berlin of every German irrespective of his remoteness or his nationality could not overnight endure such an arbitrary and weak barrier to its dreams.
Let us carve up the world and give Germany a share which the world and she will agree is her just due?
Germany already has given us her answer:
"Germany does not want a share of anything. She wants, she demands, all or nothing."
Re-educate the younger generation?
Even were such a vast program put into operation it is highly doubtful whether it would be worth the effort, or achieve its objective. The soul is a greater and infinitely more powerful force than the brain. And the martial characteristics of the German are linked indelibly with his spirit and have become an integral part of his soul. Some day that war-soul would again come to dominate his brain.
A final solution: Let Germany be policed forever by an international armed force?
Even is such a huge undertaking were feasible life itself would not have it so. As war begets war, suppression begets rebellion. Undreamed horrors would unfold.
Thus we find that there is no middle course; no act of mediation, no compromise to be compounded, no political or economic sharing to be considered. There is, in fine, no other solution except one: That Germany must perish forever from this earth!
And, fortunately, as we shall now come to see, that is no longer impossible of accomplishment.
7. Death to Germany
When an Individual commits premeditated murder, he must be prepared to forfeit his own life in consequence. When a nation commits premeditated murder upon its fellow nations, it must be prepared to forfeit its own national life.
On that point the laws of man and God are explicit:
"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life."
But what is the law of man or God to Germany? Nothing.
She recognizes only German law; so be it.
It must then be German law, if such a law there be, which decrees her penalty -- the penalty of death.
And there is such a German law which decrees that death to her:
As in all human affairs, there must also be in every system of punishment a last limit, a ne plus ultra that no punishment can overstep. Thus even from the point of view of pure theory the necessity of the depth-penalty is postulated; it is, as the ultimate punishment on earth, the indispensable keystone of every ordered system of criminal law. No apparent reasons which are alleged against it can withstand any serious criticism. The State, which has the right to sacrifice for its own protection the flower of its youth, is to feel so nice a regard for the life of a murderer? We much rather allow to the State the right to make away with men who are undoubtedly injurious to the common weal. That the powers that be must bear the sword is an expression which runs deep in the blood of the honest man; if this truth is to be banished out of the world, great wrong is done to the simple moral feeling of the people. The ultimate problems of the moral life are to be solved in the domain of the practical, not of the theoretical, reason. The conscience of every earnest man demands that blood be atoned by blood, and the common man must simply grow doubtful of the existence of justice on earth, of this last and highest punishment is not inflicted. The StTwenty years ago this month, a French-born Iranian-American computer programmer named Pierre Omidyar added an experimental online auction section to his personal website, which at that time focused mainly on the Ebola virus. He called it AuctionWeb because it enabled people to bid to purchase items that other people were advertising for sale. One of the earliest, and most puzzling, sales on the site was of a broken laser pointer, which went for $14.83. The story goes that Omidyar wrote to the buyer asking if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. The guy replied that he was a collector of broken laser pointers. At this point, Omidyar realised he might be on to something.
He was: he called it eBay. The idea that one could use the web as a way of putting buyers and sellers in touch with one another was not new. But up to then that affordance of the technology had been seen mainly in the context of firms. It was the basis, for example, for the early and rapid growth of so-called B2B (business-to-business) sites. The critical twist that Omidyar added was that the same technology could work for ordinary people. And so he created what turned out to be the greatest car boot sale in the history of the world.
20 years of eBay and all I got was a sweetcorn-shaped tea set Read more
But now, with the 20-20 vision of hindsight, we can see that he did much more than that. In the first place, eBay played a significant role in persuading millions of people who were ignorant of, or indifferent to, cyberspace that there might actually be something in this internet thing.
I saw that happen in my own family. My elderly mother-in-law was a technophobe from central casting. She thought that mobile phones were weird and could not understand why I kept going on about “this internet thing”. In desperation one day, I thought of showing her eBay. I logged in, and knowing that she was passionately interested in pottery and porcelain, clicked on some auctions in that area of the site. In an instant she was transfixed: she might not have been interested in technology, but boy, was she interested in porcelain. Suddenly, for her, the internet made sense. It was transformed in her mind from an obsession of her geeky son-in-law into something that would be useful to normal human beings. And in that respect, she was simply treading the same path as hundreds of millions of other people.
The second transformation brought about by eBay was that of enabling millions of small traders to sell online. Before eBay, getting into “e-commerce” was a pretty daunting and expensive business – way beyond the reach of sole traders and mom-and-pop businesses. But with eBay anyone could sell (almost) anything online, either via an auction or (later) via conventional “buy it now” arrangements. eBay provided the infrastructure and took much of the hassle out of online trading.
Before eBay, getting into “e-commerce” was a pretty daunting and expensive business
In order to succeed, eBay had to solve what many people thought would prove an insuperable obstacle to online auctions – namely how to introduce an element of trustworthiness into transactions between people who don’t know one another and lack any independent means of verifying whether a potential trading partner is reliable. The solution was to ask buyers and sellers to rate one another and to make those ratings public. As a solution it was not, of course, perfect – because people could, and did, try to game the system. But it has turned out to be good enough for most purposes and is now ubiquitous in online trading systems.
But perhaps the most significant thing about eBay was that it was the prototype for what may turn out to be the most disruptive business model enabled by digital technology – that of the online “platform”. Most economic activity in the real world involves matching buyers with sellers, and before the internet this was mostly achieved by conventional markets in which prices determined the point at which the match was made. But as we know to our cost, and as the Nobel prize-winning economist Alvin Roth points out in a fascinating book, Who Gets What and Why, markets can be imperfect or downright dysfunctional and are sometimes inappropriate ways of coordinating supply and demand (for example, in matching organ donors with transplant patients).
Ebay showed how digital technology could supplant a functioning but small-scale and inadequate market mechanism (the car boot sale) with a more efficient and larger-scale way of matching people who had stuff to sell with those who might be interested in buying it. In that sense, it turned out to be a forerunner of platform-based enterprises such as Uber and Airbnb which exist to make similar kinds of matches. The only difference is that whereas eBay was disrupting a diffused and low-rent system, its imitators are taking on tougher opposition. But if you want to see their debt to eBay, just take a ride on Uber. You get to rate the driver; but s/he also gets to rate you! And that’s pure eBay.
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The links are powered by Skimlinks. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that Skimlinks cookies will be set. More information.Students graduating from church-run schools in the Holy Land are among the best performing and successful. Some of these educational institutions recently received worldwide visibility with the canonization of two Palestinian nuns whose selfless efforts were instrumental in raising the level of education in what is now Palestine and Israel.
Christian schools in Israel, however, are facing severe financial difficulties, leading to an unprecedented demonstration in Jerusalem on May 27.
While the financial crisis in schools is not new, funding inequalities have recently became more clear. Haaretz reported May 15 that as part of the recent coalition negotiations, United Torah Judaism won financial equality between Heredi (Jewish Orthodox) and state education systems.
As a multiparty parliamentary system, Israeli governments are regularly created as a result of painstaking coalitions in which Cabinet portfolios, policy issues and financial disbursements are carrots used to convince small parties to keep the government in power.
Israel guarantees education for its citizens and has a special clause that gives nonpublic schools support for taking some of the burden from the government for educating its citizens.
Kamal Attieh, spokesman for non-Jewish schools at the Israeli Education Ministry, issued a statement May 26, the eve of the demonstration, stating that Christian schools do get partial government funding, but that if they want to receive full funding they need to become fully registered within the school system. At present, these schools are recognized but not fully registered as members of the Israeli educational system.
Christian school founders say that their schools were created before the creation of the State of Israel and have their own religious specificity. They feel this is an attack on them as an Arab Christian minority in the Holy Land. Most of the Christian schools were established in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Catholic order of Nazareth Nuns was founded in France in 1822. In 1854 a delegation was sent to bring education to the Holy Land. In 1855 the first school was founded in Nazareth and the school in Haifa was established in 1858. The Baptist School in Nazareth was established in 1936.
Israeli law allows schools with a specific religious identity to receive up to 75% of the cost of tuition from the national budget. But according to Botrus Mansour, general director of the Baptist School in Nazareth, these funds have been reduced through technical and accounting maneuvers to no more than 45% of the cost of running his school at its current high-quality level.
Mansour told Al-Monitor that the Israeli government has set a tuition limit on what the schools can collect from students/parents. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that the government reduced financial support and at the same time refused to allow us to make up the difference through the collection of tuition.”
Christian schools would need to charge an average of 5,000 shekels ($1,290) annually per student while the government has put a cap at 2,500 shekels ($645), according to Mansour. “We understand that what we are asking from parents is high, but we have no other way to pay our teachers’ salaries,” he said. The minimum wage in Israel stands at 4,650 shekels ($1,200), with good teachers earning much more.
Fadi Helou, parent of a student at the Baptist School, said that it is difficult to pay the high tuition fees. "It is hard for most families to afford the higher tuition and the problem is even greater for families with more than one child having to cover these high school costs."
The latest demonstration had been first planned for the eve of the start of the 2014-15 school year in September but was postponed based on promises by the ministry’s director general, Michael Cohen, to rectify the financial inequality. Nothing happened until May 25, the day before the next demonstration, when the head of the department met with representatives of the schools and made still more promises but no concrete agreements, according to Mansour.
One of the demands of the organizers of the demonstration has been equality with Jewish religious schools, whose costs the Israeli government covers entirely. “While the Christian schools adhere to the curriculum from the Ministry of Education and accept the monitoring of the supervision of the ministry, the Jewish religious schools don’t accept either and don’t even agree to teach English to their students.”
Christian schools in Israel are also not willing to be officially recognized as part of the public school system, a category that would give them special status and tuition fees of up to 6,800 shekels ($1,753). Mansour says that his school's tuition is 4,500-6,500 shekels ($1,160- $1,676), lower than what would be allowed if it received this recognition.
He adds that the school has rejected that proposal because it would add to the parents’ burden. “We want the parents to be able to teach their kids in Christian schools that preserve their identity as Christian Arabs, free of charge, just like the Jewish ultra-Orthodox are able to do.”
For the time being, the Christian schools are fighting for a fair share of the budget from their own taxes. However, many worry that if this issue is not resolved internally, some of the schools might seek the help of the Vatican, which could be seen as unpatriotic.Contact posions
Hand soap and hand sanitising gels are great for hygiene, but it’s essential you use them after going into the tank, not before. I’ve even known aquaria wiped out by people who had been doing the dishes and still had soap residue on their skin.
If you use the same bucket to clean the car, windows, floor and aquarium, you’re asking for trouble from the cocktail of deadly chemicals clinging to the bucket’s sides — even if you rinse it out.
Insecticides may be less of an issue for fish, but outright lethal to inverts like shrimps. To leave some Eastern countries, plants need to be sprayed with chemicals that kill hitch hiking bugs and beasts. New plants that haven’t been soaked or rinsed appropriately are a common cause of shrimp deaths, making their flesh turn opaque before they die. With some insecticides, a rinse of your new plants won’t be enough, and instead they may need several days of soaking.
Fish medicine can be alarmingly toxic. Too many newcomers (and quite a few old hands) think ‘if one drop will fix the disease, two will fix it in half the time!’ Medications are designed to work at a set dose, usually just enough to be lethal to pathogens, but not quite lethal enough to harm fish. Overdoses can cause major organ damage, clubbing gills and ravaging kidneys.
Always carry out water tests away from the tank and never place the sample on top of the aquarium while you wait for the results. A spillage could prove deadly to your fish.
Salt should be handled with care. Used to excess it will accumulate in the water, and can start to dehydrate fish. It may sound odd, but it happens much more than you might think.
How to spot a case of poisoning
Symptoms can vary between fish, as well as pending which chemicals have affected them, but there are a few general things to watch out for.
Enhanced colours can often be associated with toxins in the water, as can typical stress markings such as dark bars or spots on the body.
Gasping at the surface can be from water-borne problems like ammonia, but it can easily be an introduced chemical that’s irritating the gills.
Lethargic behaviour and resting in one spot may be a natural behaviour for some fish, but when all are doing it, you’ll need to investigate.
Erratic behaviour, flicking, or trying to jump from the tank can be from a sudden change of pH, but it can also be an escape reaction from something nasty that has gotten in to the water.
How to fix it
If you don’t know the mantra already, then recite it until it’s firmly in there. “The solution to pollution is dilution!” Now say it fifty times in a row.
Water changes are essential in suspected poisoning cases. The sooner you can dilute down the offending chemical, the better. In mild cases, a course of 20% daily changes over a week will help, while outright emergencies may require 50% or more of the water in one go. There are no hard and fast rules, but remember that if you take out more then you also risk upsetting the filter.Following an outcry over the farcical end to Q3 in Australia, when there were no cars on track in the closing minutes of the session, F1 teams met on Sunday morning and agreed to revert to the old qualifying system for the Bahrain Grand Prix.
That move still needs to go back through the Strategy Group and F1 Commission for unanimous approval though – which means it will need support from other interested parties like track promoters and Pirelli.
And Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery has made it clear he does not share the view that the elimination qualifying was a total disaster – and thinks that a better solution would be just to tweak Q3.
“We haven't heard all of the arguments,” said Hembery, when asked for his views on the matter. “There were a number of positives and negatives from the qualifying.
“I think Q3 needed improving – as not having cars running was unanimously seen by fans and the viewers as negative. But that could be easily be resolved by going back to last year's Q3 running, so there is no elimination process.”
Hidden benefits
While the Q3 spectacle was universally criticised, Hembery is eager to point out that there were some positive factors that came out of the earlier sessions – which included forcing teams like Mercedes to be more aggressive with tyre choices.
That factor – which meant it was impossible for them to make it through to Q3 on just the soft tyre – was viewed by Hembery as one of the ingredients that helped deliver a better spectacle on Sunday.
"I think the one thing that did come from qualifying here was that it had an impact on the race, which was the original motive as explained to us as F1 Commission members,” he said.
“There were things like stopping maybe the top teams trying to qualify on what would have been the soft tyre here in Q2, which would then have allowed them to start on the soft tyre in the race.
“Having no elimination, they would probably have gone out on the soft tyre, tried to set a time and then evaluated whether that would be sufficient to get them through. So you have to be careful.”
He added: “We sat in one meeting and were given one argument that the change was due to a need to add an extra element to the race strategy. And it delivered that on many levels. If that is no longer required, then we need to hear the arguments.”
Force India rethink
Pirelli is not the only party sceptical about abandoning elimination qualifying so quickly, with Force India having voiced its view in Sunday's team meeting that the system should be given more time to be evaluated.
Deputy team principal Bob Fernley said it was especially ludicrous for F1 to have agreed to ditch the elimination system without seeing how it had helped the race.
“When you are making a decision where the end result was to influence the race, how the hell can you make the decision to abandon it before you have had the race? That was my argument [on Sunday] – and I still feel that now," he told Motorsport.com.
“When you redo something like this, you should not have a knee jerk reaction. You should let the process go through, and then step back in the calm light of day, pick out what was good – and say can we use that? Do we need to tweak a few areas? Did we get something terribly wrong? You can address all of them – you don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water.”
When asked if Force India was go so far as stand out as a lone voice and block the change back to the old system, Fernley said: “We would never stand up as a lone voice if it was detrimental for Formula 1.
"When it comes to what is good for fans and good for F1, that we will never get in the way of.
“But we were all working under a pressure cooker [in qualifying]. So it seems a shame to me to throw it all away when you have never evaluated it properly.”JINDO, South Korea — The parents waited in dread through the night, huddled under blankets in this South Korean port town, staring out to sea for a sign that rescuers had found any of the 281 people, many of them high school students, still missing after a ferry sank on Wednesday.
They refused to sleep in a tent set up for them, preferring to scan the horizon for helicopters returning from the rescue effort 11 miles off the country’s southwest coast. As the hours passed with little news of what may be one of South Korea’s worst peacetime disasters, they demanded information from officials who said that fierce tides were keeping divers from entering the ship, which had mostly slipped beneath the waves long before.
“Why are you not going in to save them?” one woman screamed. Another, Chung Hae-sook, the mother of a missing 16-year-old boy, echoed her rage: “There is no tomorrow for this,” she said. “My heart is turning to ashes.”
By Thursday morning, the Ministry of Security and Public Administration, which is coordinating the rescue efforts, reported that 175 passengers and crew members had been rescued. Nine people were confirmed dead, including four students, two teachers and a member of the ferry’s crew. But fears of a much higher death toll were stoked as survivors said they believed that many people had been trapped below deck. According to some who spoke to the local news media, passengers had been told to remain in their seats and may have stayed there until it was too late.You might notice the sting of the injection. Within seconds you'd realize you're having trouble moving your eyes and fingers, followed by your arms and legs. If you were standing, you'd collapse. In a heap on the floor, you'd realize nearly every muscle in your body was paralyzed. Being fully conscious, your sense of panic would be rising as rapidly as the paralysis was spreading. Swallowing and breathing has become more and more difficult. Slipping into unconsciousness, your last conscious thought may well be "I am going to die."
Statistically speaking, you're not going to die. Not because what was injected isn't lethal – it most certainly is. No, you're probably not going to die because if you've been injected with succinylcholine (also known as suxamethonium chloride or simple ‘sux') you're most likely in a hospital, undergoing intubation with accompanying respiratory support. The administration of sux is part of the rapid sequence intubation (RSI) protocol, which means a medical team is actually trying to keep you alive – they've just got to paralyze you do to it. If you're being intubated, your airway is blocked and the RSI protocol is employed to get a breathing tube down your throat. To get this tube in quickly, they'll paralyze and sedate you.
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Sedation means you won't be conscious when the paralysis sets in. Respiratory support means something will be breathing for you when the muscles involved in respiration stop working. In 5 – 10 minutes, a clinical dose of sux wears off as it's rapidly metabolized by your body. The sedation will likely last longer. The goal is that by the time you're awake, your breathing has been stabilized and perhaps other medical issues have been (or are being) addressed. This is the intended use of sux. But, like many chemicals, people can use it for nefarious reasons.
If you're hit with clinical dose of sux and have no respiratory support, you will likely die. Though the effects of sux wear off in 5-10 minutes, your body's need for oxygen renders those minutes far too long. If you're hit with sux without sedation, you'll spend those minutes before death in a state of waking terror, realizing there is nothing you can do. It is a horrible way to die. For a time, it was a clever way to kill someone.
Since the early 1950s, sux has been used in a clinical setting mainly by anesthesiologists. It's a mystery when it was first used in a homicide, but the first high-profile killings came in the 1966 and 1967. This salacious tale of murder involves anesthesiologist Dr. Carl Coppolino, his mistress, his mistress' husband dying suddenly in '66, Coppolino's wife dying suddenly in '67, a quick remarriage by Dr. Coppolino (not to that mistress), two trials in different states leading to different verdicts.
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Coppolino's first trial in New Jersey involved a shaky witness (that jilted mistress) and a tricky toxicology problem. In their 2006 J Am Soc Mass Spectrom paper, Ballard et al. expound on sux's tricky tox.
…few forensic laboratories will even attempt to analyze these compounds. This is partially because there is little need to measure them clinically and, thus, no routine assays are available, and partially because they are analytically challenging compounds. Nevertheless, the potential for their use as murder weapons must be considered, particularly in cases involving sudden, unexpected, and unexplained death with a medical professional as a potential suspect, both within and outside of a hospital setting. Succinylcholine in particular has a long reputation as an undetectable, "perfect" poison. The analysis of quaternary ammonium neuromuscular blocking agents in a forensic setting is challenging for two reasons. The first reason is that the chemical behavior of these compounds, involving both hydrophilic and lipophilic characteristics, makes them difficult to isolate from biological specimens. The second reason is the extraordinary variability of the types of specimens encountered; this variability is such that each specimen must be considered unique.
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Back in the mid-to-late sixties, sux was likely considered a "perfect poison" as no tried-and-true method for detecting it in tissues was developed until the 1980s. Previous analysis had holes – including the analysis presented in both of Coppolino's trials. It wasn't sux that was detected, but the metabolites succinic acid and choline. Here's a big hole: what else could give rise to those detected metabolites?
While Coppolino's soon-to-be very famous defense attorney F. Lee Bailey focused on the tricky tox of sux in both trials, Coppolino was only aquitted of the death of his ex-mistress' husband. That second set of jurors in the Florida trial for Mrs. Coppolino's murder returned a guilty verdict.
The Coppolino trials shined a light on the challenges of detecting sux. In the decades that followed, advances were made but even these new techniques had their limits. Police in Osaka, Japan had a string of missing persons in 1993-1994, which they linked to single suspect who subsequently confessed to killing five people. Oddly, the suspect was a dog breeder. Typically, suspicious deaths involving sux have one thing in common – access to sux. This usually means medical professionals are involved. Just how did a dog breeder get his hands on drug typically associated with anesthesiologists? The suspect explained both his access to sux and his mode of administrating sux to police.
The suspect (the dog breeder) confessed that he had injected around 40 mg (one ampule dose) of succinylcholine (suxamethonium chloride) intramuscularly into one arm of the victims after sedating them by oral administration, via some soft drink, of a small amount of bromovalerylurea (bromisovalum) and/or nitrazepam. The drugs had been illegally provided by a veterinary surgeon of his acquaintance under the pretense of killing unwanted animals. The suspect had prior experience of killing dogs with succinylcholine. [excerpt from here]
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During his confession, this dog breeding killer directed police to the burial sites of all five victims. At the site of one victim, a plastic syringe was found. A needle mark was noted for one victim during autopsy, but not for the other four. In 1994, body decomposition and the rapid metabolism of sux proved too big a hurdle for a sux tox screen to overcome – no sux was found in any of the victims. Sux was found in that recovered syringe, however. Though no sux was found in the victims, the suspect was convicted based on his confession and other evidence.
By the time of Kathy Augustine's death in 2006, analysis of sux in tissues and biological fluids had advanced greatly. Like Mrs. Coppolino, Augustine's death was first thought to have been the result of a heart attack. Found unconscious at home by her husband Chaz Higgs, Augustine was rushed to the hospital where she died a few days later. Augustine, the first female state controller in Nevada history and a political mover-and-shaker, was a high profile death in Nevada from day one.
Like Coppolino and the dog breeder before him, Higgs had access to sux. Higgs was a critical care nurse who had experience administrating sux. But it wasn't Higgs' access to, and familiarity with, sux that raised a red flag. It was the troubled Higgs – Augustine marriage, along with something Higgs supposedly told fellow nurse Kim Ramey.
Ramey told police that she and Higgs had talked at work just a day before Augustine was rushed to the hospital. At the preliminary hearing, Ramey said Higgs had mentioned a well known local murder case involving a man who had stabbed his wife to death. "He said, ‘That guy did it wrong.' He said, ‘If you want to get rid of somebody,' and he made a gesture like this (holding a needle), ‘You just hit her with a little Sux, because they can't trace it post mortem,'" Ramey told the court. "I looked him at the face and I said, ‘Chaz, that's too much anger to carry around.' And the hair on my arm arose." [excerpt from here]
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After hearing from Ramey, police sent urine collected during Augustine's hospital stay directly prior to her death. Analysis of Augustine's urine showed sux metabolites and sux. At no time during her hospital stay was Augustine administered sux.
The detection of sux, not just sux metabolites, in Augustine's urine was dismissed by Higg's defense attorney David Houston.
…he argues the amount of succinylcholine detected by the urine test is inconsequential. "What they're talking about from the prosecution's stand point is finding what they euphemistically refer to as traces. Well, I'm not really sure what a trace is, but it's certainly not enough to convict somebody beyond a reasonable doubt of a murder," Houston says. [excerpt from here]
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Traces of sux was enough for Tom Barb, the prosecutor handling the Higgs case.
"Succinylcholine is not a recreational drug. If that's present, somebody put it in her, and the only one that had the opportunity to put it in her was her husband," argues Tom Barb. "I guess it's just pretty straightforward. It's murder by injection, as opposed to a gunshot." [excerpt from here]
Interestingly, the way sux was put into Augustine was a focus of Higgs' defense. Higgs' attorney David Houston raised what can be called the "my client knows better" defense.
He also tried to raise doubts about the medical evidence, including the site of the injection, which was in the muscle of the buttocks. The drug works fastest if delivered intravenously, and Higgs would have known that, Houston argued. [excerpt from here]
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Nearly a year after Augustine's death, a jury convicted Higgs of first degree murder.
The cases discussed here weren't cracked by some routine tox screen. The tip-off to sux came from a jilted mistress, a confessed killer and a coworker. Such witness tips have helped resolve other high profile sux cases. Tips aren't usually enough in today's criminal prosecutions, neither is a suspect's access to sux. This is where modern analytical techniques come in. Tests can bolster, or weaken, witness tips and other circumstantial evidence against accused killers that sux.
Image from Hospira
Republished from the Journal of Are You Fucking Kidding under kind permission from DrRubidium.Eclypsia confirme aujourd’hui qu’à la suite des récents événements survenus dans son département « eSport », la société va se concentrer sur le développement de ses sections medias et évènementielles.
Eclypsia a ainsi redéfini sa stratégie et ferme sa section « Pro-gaming ». A partir de cette date sont officiellement libérées de leurs engagements auprès d’Eclypsia les équipes League of Legends |
the ground. A few soldiers paused, mistakenly thinking it had misfired... before with a single wink from the rabbit-faunus, an effect like a dozen Cardin mace-strikes compounded on the other side of the field, tearing up the entire landscape into jagged rock formations with a large quake which even sent rubble rolling over to an increasingly peeved Roman's feet by the building entrance.
Satisfied with her work, Velvet pulled out an amethyst gem as her teammates continued engaging the White Fang's dwindling numbers before turning and holding her arm out at Sun who was currently locked nunchucks to blades against a particularly aggressive Faunus who also sported a monkey tail.
"Gandr Shot!"
The blaster-like ray of orange energy made short work of the assailant, Sun throwing him off and giving her a relieved thumbs up.
"Thanks for the assist. I was kinda torn up inside with possibly breaking the whole Ape no hurt Ape rule I grew up with."
But with the passage of the battle, the speed with which the quantity of attackers dwindled was only matched by the speed at which the students' ammunition dwindled as well, each team rotating to save ammo and place their members more specialized with close combat in trouble areas. In the midst of those switches, Jaune and Blake had ended up handling the same corner, each one handling oncoming attackers in their own way... one with ranged aura attacks and the other with well-placed kusarigama slashes with the occasional gunshot.
"Holding up alright?" the young leader finally asked as he cleared out a small group of soldiers with a razor wind slash to the legs.
"Not very. I'm without my stat boosts I have when fighting Grimm. Low on ammo as well... I'll need more to stash in the inventory, and I was very much hoping to save the Dust rounds Weiss gave me as a last resort."
"Funny thing you mention that- watch your nine," Jaune interrupted himself, Blake turning left and placing a ranged slash on a particularly bulky rhino-faunus which left the attacker dazed enough for Yang to knock him out of commission with a short volley of whistling gauntlet shots, "I just had a thought. Remember how me and Weiss noticed my fighting looks like Dust attacks? My great-great gramps back in the War was one of the pioneers in Dust-infusion... some people say he was the only one in his time who survived a Dust transfusion into his blood before it was banned due to its mortality rates!"
"Jaune, don't you think this topic of conversation can wait until a more convenient time!?" Blake retorted with an almost desperate tone as she flipped through the air to add extra speed to her successive swarm of slashes onto another wave of insurgents.
But Jaune knew the desperation was not of frustration, but of mental exhaustion... beads of sweat had begun rolling down her forehead as it surely was the case for them all.
"No! Don't you get it!? Ignis Hastam!" the blonde leader continued as he shot back an assailant with a plume of flame from his sword, "It's in the blood, Blake! I've got Dust in my blood! Somehow, it must stabilize it in a way that it doesn't run out like normal Dust does, and my weapons can amplify it through my Semblance! What I'm trying to say is - instead of using your physical ammo, use the ammo you know doesn't run out!"
Pausing at the thought, Blake turned to give Jaune a quick nod before stepping back into the pocket between the teams, Neptune quickly filling in the gap and providing cover fire as she sheathed her bloody Gambol and focused her mana into her palm.
Looking up, she then focused on her first target as the pale blue energy now coalesced into a single spinning axis beside her.
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
And with each command, an individual arrow targeted and hit a different White Fang soldier in the distance, incapacitating them as the energy tore through their limbs. But unsatisfied with the poor rate of fire, Blake only turned to direct herself at Jaune, "It's not fast enough! I need a better way to buff my skill!"
Turning to face her once before bashing a Faunus back with a shield-butt, Jaune turned to his partner quickly, "Pyr, I need a quick reprieve. Mind a little push?"
Nodding at her leader, the focused Mistrali squared her stance as Jaune stepped back to join the ravenette in the center, her crimson locks sticking to her grimy armor with her perspiration as her hand glowed and she thrust it forward towards the oncoming mob.
"Nyah!"
And with an irresistible invisible force, dozens of fighters were thrown back several yards by their armor and weapons as Jaune turned towards his fellow blonde.
"Sun! I heard your semblance involves something like making aura clones; how many of them can you make at once?"
The simian faunus pausing his onslaught with Cardin's team, switching back with Russel and giving the pair of students in the center a quick once over, he merely smirked.
"Lots."
"Can you aim them all at one soldier at a time without harming them?"
At that, Sun drew back in confusion before retorting, "Dude. That makes no sense, why would I wanna do that?"
But Blake's eyes suddenly widened in realization, looking at Jaune with an impressed smile before turning her sights on Sun, "Jaune, you're a genius. Sun, I need your help to line up as many clones as possible with each of my shots..."
"If her Semblance allows for TKs," Jaune then continued with a smug smirk, "It'll help her skill get stronger much faster since your clones would be giving her EXP!"
"Wait, it works like that?" Sun asked incredulously, receiving a quick nod from the catgirl before scoffing in reply, "You gotta be kidding me. Your power is so broken!"
"Broken? But I feel fine..."
"It's another gaming term," Jaune explained, placing his hand on her shoulder amiably with an understanding smile, "I'll explain later. But Sun, you're up. Aim for the guy at your five o'clock."
Turning accordingly, the Faunus-boy shrugged his shoulders before focusing on the target, quickly rolling his neck and loosening his shoulders before bringing his hands together in a prayer-like pose. And without a sound, a brief bright yellow glow surrounded him before spawning dozens of aural clones armed with several iterations of Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang towards the surprised foe among the attackers.
Giving her a quick nod, Jaune watched Blake then hold her hand out to the side, the enthralling energy forming at will as she aimed her shot.
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
SSSSSSSSrak!
DING!
[Spinning Mana Arrow's level has risen by 1.]
"It works!" Blake then exclaimed, turning to give Jaune a warm wide grin which he couldn't help but return in kind.
"Ummm, cool. Let's, you know, take out some more?" Sun interrupted after glancing back and forth between the teens with a faintly raised brow, Blake subtly shaking herself out of it and nodding in accord with Sun's statement as Jaune coughed to the side to hide a slight blush.
But just as they had predicted, it only took a few more repetitions before the following summoning of her skill wielded two arrows at once. With a smug smirk at the two readied arrows in the air, Blake's hit rate logically doubled as the following launches through dual arcs of Sun-clones in the air racked up skill points.
However, neither of the teens had noticed the man in the bowler hat beside the building keenly observing the entire unfolding of events with a wicked grin.
"Well how 'bout that..."
Stepping out from beside the building, Roman now held out his cane as he cried out with an aura-projected voice, "Alright, mutts! Heel!"
To the students' surprise, and small measure of relief, the remaining few dozen fighters stopped a fair distance from the teams as Torchwick continued, "Well as much as I'd like to see you all fall one by one against these boys, I don't have all day. So if you don't mind, to speed up the process, I've invited a few of my... bulkier friends!"
And out from behind Lambent suddenly strode out a dozen Atlesian Paladins, much to the students dismay, each mech entirely armed and ready for combat.
"I... don't think I brought enough grenades for those," Nora noted with a slight cringe.
"I don't think any of us have enough ammo for those," Ruby added, knowing full well how much it had taken for her team to take down even one of those armed constructions.
"Okay boys, new plan!" Roman declared as the students quickly loaded the remainder of their ammunition, "Take the faunus girl... the one with the cat ears. Kill the rest. We'll call it a day!"
Jaune and Blake traded a glance, the ravenette immediately understanding the blonde as she noticed his fist gripping the hilt of Crocea Mors tighter before shaking her head.
"Jaune, don't. You'll be rendered unconscious, and there's no telling how many more soldiers he has ready to follow..."
Stopping mid-step, Jaune opened his mouth to say something when the mechs spring forward with multiple lasers focusing on their new targets. However, the students paused in shock when what felt like an earthquake caused everyone to lose their balance.
CRRRRACK!
And with the crumbling sounds of scorched earth, the Paladins were suddenly held in place by an unexpectedly healthy root system that sprouted upwards around their legs, Sun and Neptune the only ones in the group with ear-to-ear grins on their faces. There was no need to ask them why when a figure suddenly blasted up out of the rock just as a hail of jagged red energy rained down on the trapped mechs, causing them to explode in huge fireballs all over the soldiers as well.
A second figure clad in red and white landed by the first, a large young man with tanned skin and green hair who was promptly approached by the grateful Haven students.
"You made it!" Neptune cried out happily as the fourth member turned to face Roman with a statement too feminine to be a guy's yet too masculine to be a girl's.
"Yeah, right on time, too. Looked like this prick was about to have your balls handed to you."
"Well's that still to be seen, kid!...Or whatever you are," Roman added with a rare raised brow in confusion before clapping his hands together in excitement, "This is exactly what I wanted! Beacon's best players... against mine!"
Sun scoffed at the villain before shouting, "So much for that, douchebag! Was that all you got!?"
With that, Roman raised both arms up by his sides with a malicious grin, the students going wide-eyed as cloudy red portals opened up all around the borders of Lambent to spill out scores of much more ominous versions of the White Fang soldiers they had been fighting. Neptune only deadpanned at his partner before smacking him up the back of the head.
"You just had to ask."
"Uh, people. Several of these fighters have an unlocked Aura," Fox now stated from the midst of the main group with evident apprehension as the swarm of soldiers and dark mechs closed in on the students like locusts, "We're gonna need a plan on the pronto!"
But the student's turning to the second-year leader yielded no results, the fashionista momentarily frozen in place by the shock at the overwhelming numbers against them.
"Alright, that's it!" Jaune suddenly roared, taking Blake by the hand and practically dragging her to Coco's side as all eyes were riveted on him, "You heard that guy in the funny hat, they want Blake - which means we're setting up a perimeter! Blake and Coco, you two stay back to back; stick to long range and take out anything that comes at us from the air!"
He then turned to the remainders of teams CFVY and RWBY, pointing them each out in turn, "You three for a perimeter around Coco; Ruby, you three keep a perimeter around Blake! The six of you better stop anything from taking them out from the ground! Everyone else, cover your partner's back and form an outer perimeter around CFVY and RWBY; focus on anything with an Aura! As for the new guys..."
"Scarlet," the figure in red and white stated in introduction before pointing from underneath a white side cape to the tall muscled figure beside Sun and Neptune, "That's Sage. He don't talk much."
"Right. You two knock out any more robots that come our way!"
"Hmm, a guy with a take-charge attitude and a big sword?" Scarlet added with a suggestively raised brow, "I like it when they're feisty."
"Hey!" Yang shouted with what almost sounded like jealousy as her team formed their perimeter around Blake, her teammates giving her surprised glances before she added lamely, "That's uh... supposed to be, my line...?"
But with no more time to lose, everyone got in position, Cardin's and Jaune's team splitting into pairs along with Sun and Neptune as Sage took to the ground and Scarlet to the air. Thankfully, it didn't take long for the smell of Dustpowder from the firearms and the roars of attackers to snap Coco completely back into the moment, the minigun wielder turning her sights to the skies to take out any insurgents with flight-type Semblances from converging on their teams from above.
"Alright, Belladonna. I gotta reload in a sec, can you cover me?" Coco stated as she saw the magazine feeding her weapon finally running low.
"Yeah, I can get your twelve, and your three," Blake began in the midst of flying arrows before being interrupted by a pop-up window.
DING!
[Spinning Mana Arrow's level has risen by 1.]
Blake couldn't help a smug smirk as the notification preceded the appearance of a third spinning axis over her head, "And your nine..."
Coco idly glanced at the swirling energy above them both as her gun ran empty with a series of bullet-less clicks, "Good."
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
sssrak!
sssrak!
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
sssrak!
sssrak!
"Spinning Mana Arrow!"
sssrak!
sssrak!
sssrak!
The flurry of arrows flying through the air as Coco reloaded her weapon, Blake's improving aim and arrow strength was evident as each projectile passed through several assailants at a time, incapacitating them with the force of the blows. However, what made her smirk with what almost felt like pride was when she heard Weiss state in awe to their red-hooded leader, "I can't believe it... Arc's plan is actually holding up."
Several feet away, the scraggly Arc in question ducked back, lightly placing his hand on Pyrrha's bare shoulder and back to make her duck forward slightly as an arrow whizzed over their heads. The Mistrali enjoying the contact a little more than she'd care to admit out loud, she turned to face her leader after surveying the successful defense despite their low ammunition, "Jaune, the formation is working! I've already sent an emergency beacon to the Academy; we may be able to hold up our defense until then at this rate..."
However, her voice died down as she noticed that after his ducking motion, Jaune's attention had become increasingly focused on Lambent itself. Finally turning to see what Jaune was looking at, she heard him state grimly, "I'm not so sure about that. That guy looks like someone's talking into his ears... and I've honestly never seen him lose the color on his face like that before..."
And sure enough, Pyrrha caught sight of Roman just as he let his hand drop from his ear with a small tremble to snap his fingers into the air. In the blink of an eye, a girl decked in brown, pink and white appeared at his side only do disappear with him in her arms a second later.
"Jaune... something is about to go very, very wrong."
GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!
If the inhuman roar wasn't loud enough, the reverb of the shock itself was enough to cause everyone on the field to fall to the floor in pain. The after-effects of the supersonic roar like having a charge go off a few feet away, the students looked up to see a massive Grimm approaching Lambent.
"That is a lot of walking negativity approaching us," Yatsuhashi finally stated aloud, the students seeing the whites of his eyes for possibly the first time ever as the beast reared more and more pairs of crablike legs trailing behind it.
The Grimm was huge, more white armor than exposed black tissue, a sure sign for any Hunter with half a mind that this Grimm was clearly ancient. Every lower leg curved and sharpened to a point like a scythe, each of its dozens of steps resulting in the tips of the legs embedding themselves to the ground, the creature easily reared up to the height of thirty feet as a dozen legs on each side rose from the ground like a giant centipede. But what scared the students the most was that this time, instead of roaring as it had to make its presence known, it stayed still with animalistic clicks of its legs to survey the field beneath it.
This Grimm had gained the faculty of intelligence.
Now pointing their arms away from the students for a change, a small horde of Faunus began shooting at the Grimm, the giant creature not even taking a dent from the heavy firepower before making its way closer to the facility.
ssssssssssss...
ssssssssssss...
ssssssssssss...
ssssssssssss...
SSSSSSSSSS...
But slowly, surely, everyone present heard what at first was nearly unnoticeable hissing from the Laser-defense system gain additional lasers which began banding together into a giant ray of Dust-powered energy directed straight at the creature with a giant red beam. Once again rearing back, the massive beast held its ground against the increasing automated attack as the horde of Faunus and students within the perimeter watched in muted awe.
"Stupid Grimm, doesn't even know when to turn back," a lone White Fang soldier was heard in the distance with how silent the field had become other than the loud hissing of the defenses.
But as he watched, Jaune's eyes widened - and stomach sank - as he was the first to see the creature sprouting what looked like extra legs onto its foremost two limbs with sickening squelches, the creature holding out the awkward limbs in front of itself lamely against the impossibly hot beam as the extra limbs seemed to solidify into one. Finally, the students began regripping their weapons as the two new limbs solidified into giant curved blades with a near mirror-like finish... right in time to see the monstrous new ivory blades reflect the beam cleanly back onto the Laser-system generators.
"Wha- it found out where the generators were just by looking at the field!"
"That thing just grew out sickle arms like some kind of weapon!"
"That's no juvenile Grimm!"
The cacophony of statements and remarks growing into a mass of yelling and screaming, the army of White Fang soldiers turned their weapons to the Grimm as it easily crossed over the facility perimeter.
"Coco, do we engage?" Velvet asked worriedly as the beast continued toward the facility on all its legs, its previous form as to once having been a Deathstalker evident as it crawled forward like an arachnid that had grown dozens more segments and legs over time.
But as it took the blasts from the soldiers without flinching, the students' jaws dropped collectively as the creature suddenly reared up again with unexpected speed, swinging its claw with nearly imperceptible velocity to cleave dozens of insurgents in half. Taking the opportunity, Blake stepped forward, narrowing her eyes at the creature as she readied her weapons.
"Observe."
Grimm Reaper LV87
HP: 385400 (386000) MP: 14900
A legendary Grimm full of hatred for humanity.
Attracted only by the most concentrated pockets of negativity, this creature has gained self-awareness throughout its centuries of life.
A highly evolved form of Deathstalker, the Grimm Reaper has grown extra leg segments for extra offensive ability and to replace lost limbs or sections when necessary. Having lived through countless battles, its hardened carapace is invulnerable to all conventional weaponry. Its only known weak spot is the cranial joint on its minuscule head, a soft spot less than an inch in diameter.
Age: circa 1300 yrs.
Analyzing options against current Gamer level...
Recommendation: DO NOT ENGAGE
"That's well above the stats something its level should even have," Blake mumbled in silent surprise before turning to her peers with urgency, "Everyone, whatever you do, do not engage that thing!"
"And why not?" Cardin retorted with a cocky grin as he idly smacked his mace on his free hand impatiently, "We're way better trained than a bunch of... those guys. We'd be legends if we managed to take that thing down!"
Shouting words of agreement at their leader, team CRDL and even Coco nodded in assent before Blake took another step forward and turned to the group as the Grimm whittled down the field of fighters in front of them.
"No! Can't you even see that thing!? It's only weak spot is on its head, which is the size of a coin. A coin! Can anyone here even make that shot!?"
Upon seeing Ruby raise her hand, the wound up catgirl was about to have another outburst when Ruby quickly elaborated, "Um, B-Blake? You really might wanna step back here now..."
grrrrrr...
The color on her face fading, Blake cautiously stepped towards the group before turning to see the giant beast already looming over them, its main claws and rows of of minor legs stained with the lifeblood of its most recent victims. Its clicking sounds resuming with what the students finally realized was sadistic glee, the beast began taking a few steps forward as the students fell in line and stepped back with weapons at the ready.
"Easy," Jaune softly intoned as the powerful feeling of helplessness began weighing down the legs of the students, "Easy..."
But of them all, Sky was the first to crack, his breath picking up in shallow huffs as he glanced to the building behind them and back at the beast, "Oh Monty, we're running out of room! Guys we're running out of room!"
And to their horror, Sky tripped back against a fallen soldier, the sudden movement attracting the Grimm's attention as its tiny eyes focused on its next prey and it lifted its razor-edged claw up for the killing strike...
POW
A single gunshot.
And in a second, the entire beast lurched, its claws suddenly scraping at its head to rid itself of the foreign object now lodged in its skull but to no avail. With sickening cracks and squelches of dark meat and ichor, the entire Grimm's body began bursting at the joints with an unnatural glow. And just when the students could've almost sworn that some sort of Aura was impossibly surrounding its body, the energy imploded the creature, the only things left being the ivory chitin that once comprised its armor which now freefell to the ground like a mass of dried toothpicks.
Having looked amongst each other and confirmed that neither of them had delivered the impossible shot, the students slowly turned behind them towards the entrance of the abandoned facility to see the still-smoking barrel of an ornate rust-colored musket.
A musket which slowly mecha-shifted with steampunk-style movements into a normal walking cane in the hands of an emotionless Headmaster.
"Worthless bug."
Partly amazed at the incredible feat and partly amazed at their first time hearing an ill-toned utterance from the serene man, the twenty students could only gape as Ozpin looked over each of them with only a short sigh.
"To begin, I would like to apologize for your troubles. We had received a tip earlier this week that Mister Torchwick had escaped from prison and was scouting the continent for facilities of unknown operations. Knowing that Lambent is one of Vytal's most well-guarded facilities... and best kept secrets... I arranged with Miss Goodwitch to have myself transported here hours before there were any signs of enemy contact. Now that Roman has been found and the identity and extent of the forces he controls discovered, Valean forces, in conjunction with Atlas military, will be better able to grasp the gravity of the situation and the extent of the resources which will be necessary in recapturing him. You have all done your academies and kingdoms a great service today."
There was brief silence before Russel finally sputtered out, "Y-You... you just shot a really scary Grimm in the face."
"Yes. I did."
"But that was no ordinary bullet," Pyrrha then observed, her trained eyes seemingly scouring the man's cane for any more answers to the myriad of questions now rushing through her mind, "Dust-powered ammunition could never cause such a reaction in a Grimm, no matter how old it became. It was almost as if... as if..."
"It had an Aura?" Ozpin finished, the eerie silence surrounding the group in the wide area of the dead and dying only becoming painfully noticeable in the stagnant moment of pause that followed, "Two very astute arguments, each explicable with the same reply..."
Reaching into the inner pocket of his coat, the silver-haired man produced a small black bullet for everyone to see which strangely enough didn't glint in the sunlight. In fact, the small object didn't have any luster at all.
"This bullet is not crafted using Dust; it was created using dust ground from the bone of my own rib many years ago after an old injury with ancient methods that have since been all but banned from Remnant due to their questionable methods of creation and use - the bonding of living human bone with the smoke of a dying Grimm."
Another pause to let the students process the information before he continued, "This process seals the human's Aura in a shell tougher than any Grimm's hide; a bullet which can pierce through anything as if it were tissue paper... including the hardiest of Hunter's Auras."
"And that's why it was banned," Ren echoed aloud as he looked at the Professor with a nearly reverent awe, "A bullet which could pierce through anything... there's no telling what it could do."
"Oh no, the effects were quite known, once upon a time," Ozpin continued as he returned the bullet to its place, "Against a Hunter, even a flesh wound from a Genesis Bullet, as they came to be known, would cause violent reactions within their active auras, causing the instant crippling of their natural energy and likely death. Against a Grimm, the reaction is eerily similar; contact with their soft tissues ignites a virulent reaction within the very dark energy that animates it... the stronger the target energy, the more violent the reaction. Thus the Aura-like glow around the Grimm upon its death."
"Genesis Bullet... Genesis, since it came from your rib like the Origin story of man," Yang recounted as if recalling a childhood tale, to which the man nodded.
"Precisely, Miss Xiao Long. Now, I'm sure you must all be tired; I've taken the liberty of ensuring that ADA was kept at a safe distance in light of this very unexpected development. It will be here shortly to take your teams back to-"
"Unexpected?" Blake suddenly began, drawing the students' attention to the unusually sharp tone she was using, "Unexpected? I'm beginning to think it funny how many things have been happening all around Vale this year that you're so easily waving away as unexpected..."
"Now now, Miss Belladonna. As I said, I expected the escaped convict to try such an advance on a facility such as this; the activation of the emergency beacon only confirmed it, which is why I had a larger number of teams sent to investigate as I gathered information on his movements. I truly did not expect he could control the spatial anomaly which spawned the third and largest wave against you all..."
"Yeah... that was kinda weird," Yang echoed softly, a strange niggling at the back of her head returning as she thought about the eerily familiar red portals which had opened up at the time.
"Then why wait until the last possible second to intervene? Why watch as we all struggled to within a literal inch of our lives!?"
The Headmaster merely leveled a silent glare at the young woman, an awkward pause which surely would have been alleviated by a sip of coffee if the Professor had one, before replying, "Miss Belladonna, I understand you have your reasons to be upset. But if this were an actual mission, you wouldn't have been expecting any reprieve at all until the mission was accomplished, no matter the complications. Please rest assured that my actions, though sometimes misconstrued, are always for the greater good."
He then turned to look over the remaining students as he continued, "Be that as it may, I had full awareness of your situation and was ready to intervene in your favor, as you all can now see. During which, I was carefully observing each and every one of your styles and combat performance to note for improvements made throughout your time at Beacon. You can be sure that you've all passed this assignment wondrously and will be rewarded generously in the form of marks and rest periods at the academy."
As several students began mouthing a string of Yes's around Blake, the ravenette herself was momentarily distracted by the notification that popped up in front of her.
PING!
[Quest Completed!]
Completion reward: Exp 5000000.
One step closer to discovering the identity of The Red Queen.
DING DING!
[Your level has risen by 1.]
[Your level has risen by 1.]
[Your level has risen by 1.]
'That makes no sense. I still have absolutely no indication as to who this Queen might even be,' Blake mentally huffed before closing the window and turning up to call Ozpin's attention.
However, her action to speak was stopped by the sudden pressure on her arm, the catgirl turning to see the blonde knight giving her a tight-lipped benign smile.
"Later, Blake... We'll investigate more after we've gotten back and had a good rest."
She still wanted to speak, she knew she did... but unable to bring herself to butt heads with the well-intentioned leader, Blake let her heated anger ebb into a sympathetic warmth without a reply. However, as Jaune let his hand drop from her shoulder, the ravenette slightly raised that arm at the same time so she could catch his hand in hers, giving it a light squeeze to show her confirmation.
With a light smile, the blonde quipped to lighten the mood, "Remind me why we didn't end up on the same team again?"
Unable to hold back a grin, Blake didn't even notice team CRDL watching the entire exchange, the team members trading fist bumps with encouragement at Jaune's line while even Cardin with arms crossed couldn't help an impressed nod at the blonde's way with her. Further communication was interrupted, however, as ADA finally emerged over the horizon to land in a relatively body-free area near the group, the entrance of Lambent opening by some unknown means to permit the Headmaster reentry before Sun called out to him.
"So anyway, what's the big deal about this place, dude? You guys got some kind of super-sized world-ending Grimm down there or something?"
The remaining students hadn't thought much of it, preferring the promising refreshment of a well-deserved shower and warmth of a bed as the side door of ADA opened a few yards away from them, but their eyes slowly turned pair by pair towards the Professor in the vaguely suspicious moment of silence that followed just in time to see him reply with what almost looked like a ghost of a smirk.
"Poppycock."
With that, Ozpin turned and reentered the building to leave the students shrugging at each other in dismissal and beginning to enter the airship.
"Jaune, right?" Scarlet began at his side after he and Blake had separated to head towards their respective teams as the group approached the on-ramp, the blonde in question nodding before receiving a smirk from the Haven student, "I like you. Let's keep in touch, kay?"
The action happening right in front of her team caught Coco slightly off-guard, who finally leaned over to Velvet in curiosity.
"So is that Scarlet dude a chick or what?"
A/N: Ahhh, finally some good ole melee action! Work and stuff have seriously limited my writing time, so expect less frequent updates. However, I'll be focusing solely on TGG due to this, so also expect at least biweekly updates to this fic in the meantime! That being said, I did kick-start a new story I'd been meaning to write for months now, a reboot of a modern day AU called Remnants Reloaded! It's a two-shot for now, but feel free to check it out while waiting for the next update, yeah?
Anyway, a few blurbs in regards to the truckloads of reviews I didn't get the chance to respond to since last chapter (told you a PM is usually better, but I'll be catching up with individual reviews for the next few days):
Scarlett's gender. Don't. Just don't. I've already decided, and I'm already gonna have a field day with all the arguments for and against each gender in the next chapter, so feel free to save your questions and comments until then. Hehe.
Oobleck. Yes, I messed his speech up on purpose. It seemed to fit his style. No, I didn't mess up with the tea. I dunno which fanfic it was, but I remember a bout a year ago reading in someone's parody story Oobleck and Ozpin having a shouting match over tea being better than coffee respectively. Kinda solidified it for me since then. If it was clarified somewhere outside of canon that Oobleck drinks coffee, then that's a mistake I'm willing to live with :)
"My leg!" Yeah, the random grunt that gets Nora's grenade to the shin in the story? Totally a reference to the random guy in SpongeBob that shouts it all the time... it just felt so right at the moment :D One of the few Easter Eggs I'll be giving out for free heh
Velvet. According to Monty, she's a kickboxer. And a Mage. Is it so wrong that I drew some inspiration from a certain kickboxing Mage everyone knows and loves? You don't know her? You should. Her tsundere levels definitely trump Weiss' ;)
The song. No, not that one... That one. Emotions by Mariah Carey. Yep, I totally went there.
Lambent. Hehe... might I have over-hyped it a bit? Maybe, but trust me, that is not the last we will see of TGG's favorite cross-over place. It will become very important in the future.
So yep, other than that, TGG has just turned 5 months old! Dang! And with it, it has just over 450 reviews, about 800 favorites, and nearly 925 follows along with 80,000+ views and 17 communities! I know that's not a lot compared to the heavy-hitters out there, but it's thanks to you, dear reader, that TGG is currently knocking on the door of #15 most followed in the genre, right up there (ironically) with The Red Queen! *cries a manly tear* Can we get to 1,000 followers by six months!? I think we can, let's do it! :D
And like I said, the action writing was so fun that the crossov-omake I've already written out for next chapter will feature a crapload of it! To be specific (but not too specific), 7 evil bosses Jaune must defeat in his quest for love!
First person to guess the crossover gets one free request - shoutout, OC cameo, reference, etc! Or anything else that doesn't violate my anonymity... or morals :P
So while work takes me all over the place (and possibly London in the future, where I might even get the chance to meet Coeur A'A... though I'd probably have to pay like 1,000£ to his account to meet him haha [Just kidding Coeur, I love you man! I'll name my first kid after you if the wifey approves! All I have to do is get married first!]), I'll be sure to work out the next chapter, where there's more male bonding, female bonding, hetero bonding, and especially Knightshade bonding! Bonding for everyone! And a long awaited look into Blake's current stats. And everyone else's stats, for that matter. Oh, and not to mention that niggling in Yang's head? Maybe that, too. So until then, remember to Fave, Follow, and Review to show your support! Take care...
And Happy Reading!Pro-LGBT groups on Monday petitioned a federal court to immediately halt the enforcement of North Carolina’s HB2 bathroom provision while the law is under review. From a joint release by Lambda Legal and the ACLU:
"HB 2 is causing ongoing and serious harm to transgender people in North Carolina and must be put on hold while it is reviewed by the court," said Chris Brook, ACLU of North Carolina legal director. "The Justice Department has made it clear that HB 2 violates federal law. Gov. McCrory and the North Carolina Legislature wrote into state law discrimination against transgender people who just want to be able to use public facilities safely and securely."
The groups originally filed a lawsuit two months ago challenging the anti-transgender bathroom provision. The Justice Department also sued North Carolina last week for refusing to comply with federal guidelines on the matter after Gov. Pat McCrory first sued the agency.
By week’s end, the Departments of Education and Justice had issued guidance nationwide telling public schools that they should allow transgender students to use the bathroom facility that aligns with their gender identity. That move has produced a predictable round of hysteria from right wingers across the country, with Texas doing its level best to steal the bigotry spotlight away from North Carolina by adding two anti-transgender planks to the party platform, reports John Wright.Best Pizzerias in the U.S.
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because Peter got this tape when he was older, it’s a more mature mix. “The soundtrack is an evolution from the soundtrack to the first movie,” he said. “I think the first movie was made for a child that was a couple years younger than the child that this music was made for. So it’s [got] slightly more complex songs.”
Cast members raved about Gunn playing the songs during filming to get them into the right mindset, a practice that carried over from the first film. And though no one would give up any other tracks (Gunn did tease a couple of “enormous” songs, as well as “songs that are almost completely unknown”) we did hear George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” playing during a scene we weren’t allowed to watch.
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Outside of the themes of family, much of the talk about the movie itself was about the look of the film and character dynamics. “There’s a conscious return to pulp and getting a greater sense of getting pulp from all areas,” said Gunn. “But everything from ‘50s Amazing Stories covers to the ‘60s stuff that you can see in that ship, it’s very ‘60s-inspired. A lot of almost Ralph Bakshi-inspired, Yes album cover-inspired stuff.”
This was clear in the concept art we saw of various new planets, that looked like something out of a Bollywood music video, drippy and bright and crazy. Gunn is pushing the weird, scifi angle much more in Vol. 2. “I was scared last time,” he admitted. “And this time I’m not really scared because I know that people want to go see the movie. There have been absolutely no restrictions placed on me in terms of that’s too far, that’s too artistic, or that’s too unique, that’s too dramatic, that’s too comedic. None of that stuff has ever come up. We’re really, really pushing it.”
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“One of the things I think makes James so special as a writer/director is for as fun as it is, for outrageous as it is, characters named Taserface, baby Groot, killing people and throwing them around, it is very, very emotional,” said Feige “And it’s not cynical in the least. It is very, very truthful and sort of unabashedly so, in its emotions. It’s a very special combination, that I think James is perfect for, and that’s sort of the crux of this whole movie.”
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Speaking of Taserface, the film’s secondary villain, has his arc based on the fact he wants to take over the Ravagers because they think Yondu has gone soft. (He has.) Since Groot is still just growing up after his sacrifice in the first film, now Rocket is his protector instead of the other way around. “From the moment we were shooting and animating Rocket on Groot’s shoulder [in the first film], we were saying, ‘On the next one, we’ll reverse it. Wouldn’t that be cool?’” Feige recalled. “And that’s what we’re doing.”
Meanwhile, Gamora and Nebula will dive deeper into their backstories of how Thanos raised them (though Thanos isn’t in the movie, nor are there Infinity Stones). “I get to have a sister on screen,” Saldana said. “I don’t think many actresses can say that about the characters that they’re playing in films lately.” Meanwhile, Nebula will not only tag along with the Guardians, but be on the quest for a new arm. Then there’s Drax, who’ll bond with Mantis, Kurt Russell’s right hand.
“At the very core of Drax, he’s really just heartbroken,” said Bautista. “There’s a real innocence about Drax and I think Mantis has that as well. I think that’s probably where the connection would be the most. There’s just a very child-like innocence with both characters.”
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Mantis was another relative mystery on set; how she came to be with Ego and what role she plays was largely skirted over. Even more mysteriously, Gunn hinted that Ayesha’s people, the Sovereign, could have a link to the race of Adam Warlock, one of Marvel’s most cosmic (and cult favorite) characters. “Totally possible,” he said. “They’re created in pods.”
But they also said whatever happens in this movie, it will not be a huge jump off for the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “I think we’re that branch that’s really reaching out, you know? “ said Pratt. “Trying to find sunlight in space. And so that gets me really excited because I think the potential for this group of heroes is really unlimited.”
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That even extends to the film’s post-credits scenes. “I don’t think the fate of the Marvel universe is gonna be after the credits,” Gunn joked. “Don’t wait for that. Wait for stupid shit.”
Gunn may call it “stupid shit,” but we suspect what he really meant was “fun shit.” Despite how unknown the characters were, the first film became one of Marvel’s most beloved hits because it was something no one expected. And everyone making the movie feels the only way to do that again is to play with audience expectations. “The pressure we’re feeling now is, how do we do the same thing in terms of wowing an audience, getting people to come in and have their expectations defied?” asked Pratt. “To come in expecting one thing, not knowing what they want but getting what they want, you know?”
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“I think there’s a trap a lot of sequels fall in,” continued Gunn, “where they say ‘Okay, we had that beat where there was a dance off, so what is our dance off in this movie’? And we had that moment where they ‘We are Groot’, so what is our [new] ‘We are Groot’ moment?’ And then I’m like, screw all of that. This is its own thing... I think the only tradition is that we try to give the audience what’s unexpected and what they don’t think is coming next. And mostly just in terms of the story, the characters hopefully being something that’s a little deeper than the first one movie.”
At least we can all expect the Guardians to eventually battle Thanos, the most evil entity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe... eventually. “All in due time, my friend,” promised Pratt.
* Correction: We screwed up the name of the song played on set a few times. But James Gunn himself confirmed on Facebook it was Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.” That change has been made.
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Note: Disney paid for io9/Gizmodo’s travel to Atlanta to report this piece.North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and ambitions often make headlines, but recently they have focused more on building national strength in more conventional, yet equally threatening ways.
Last month, for the first time in decades, North Korea opened their doors to outsiders for the North Korea Workers Party Congress. At this Congress, the idea of Kim Jong Un’s “byungjin,” or a two-sided push towards economic and nuclear development was discussed.
As Curtis Melvin, a researcher at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, explained: “Lots of people say that if they have a nuclear deterrent, they won’t need conventional weapons… But under the Kim Jong Un era, there has been a big increase in spending on the economic and conventional military side,” The Washington Post notes.
Using satellite imagery, one of the few windows into the secretive nation, Melvin claims to have spotted construction indicating that a railway was coming to the Korean People’s Army naval base and the shipyard at Wonsan.
According to North Korean media, Kim Jung Un has commented that the naval base would be useful for bolstering the economy.
As it stands now, the rogue hermit nation already possesses a fearsome array of artillery installations across the DMZ just 30 or so miles from Seoul.
Against these low-tech weapons, advanced defences like the patriot missile defence system and possible deployment of the THAAD system meant to guard against ballistic missiles are little use.
Additionally, there is reason to believe that Kim Jung Un has had some success in revitalizing the military by instituting new military leadership after a rash of executions removed some of the old brass.
Joseph S. Bermudez, an expert on North Korea’s military, told the Washington Post: “I get a sense that when Kim Jong Un came to power, he looked around and said, ‘We have all these old guys running things who haven’t been in the field for 15 or 20 years. We need people who know what they’re talking about.’ ”
“Before, you had leaders of special forces who couldn’t run a mile. Now, we see artillery division commanders that actually have an artillery background,” Bermudez continued.
The North Korean dictatorship claims to have a military that is 1.2 million strong with an “unlimited reach” from government to conscript citizens into service.
The threat from North Korea’s conventional forces, and nuclear forces, have triggered nations around the world to tighten sanctions against the rogue nation, and the US to engage in vigorous military exercises with South Korea, should the need for decisive action arise.
NOW WATCH: This is what a bar in North Korea looks like
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Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.TOP OF THE SEVENTH: YANKEES 2 (0) – 1 RAYS
Jake Odorizzi is throwing a no-hitter. Six innings on the books. His last name appears to be Rougned Odor’s rap name. Drizzy. Weezy. Odorizzi.
The cowbells are at full clang inside the Trop, locked in tight battle with a strong New York contingent, chanting “Let’s goooo Yan-keeees!!” every inning.
The Rays dugout looks stoked, smiling, all perked up on the railing, a jinx-appeasing ban on the phrase “no-hitter”—except for the TV broadcast, with a graphic above the score-box: NO-HITTER THRU 6.0.
Jacoby Ellsbury comes up and makes the first out, on a ground-ball up the middle. Brad Miller drifts over behind second, snags it, whips over to Logan Morrison at first, and it’s one easy out with Brett Gardner coming up to the plate.
Odorizzi, key piece in the 2012 deal with the Royals for James Shields, has a nervous look on his face, above the bright blue of the alternate Rays’ jerseys—as he brings a full count to Gardner on a slider trailing inside.
Rays P Jake Odorizzi has shut down the Yankees through 6 IP. pic.twitter.com/JUyClo2K9a — Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) May 29, 2016
Pitch count at 93. A little high for the seventh. Odorizzi whips a fastball in low, inside, ball four. Gardner runs to first, sets up in a two-step lead. Second Yankee to touch first-base all game.
Doubt creeps in to the Rays fanbase. Should he stay or should he go? 1-0 lead for Tampa Bay, it’s the Yankees, it might be the first Rays no-hitter since 2010, second all-time.
Starlin Castro waddles his way into the batter’s box, blowing gum into offensively large bubbles, and Odorizzi readies to pass over 100 pitches. Eyeing Gardner on first.
Castro takes the first pitch low. He steps out halfway, hacks a big practice swing, steps back in, blows another bubble, and Odorizzi watches Curt Casali for the signs.
“Let’s gooo,Yan-keeeees!!!!” booms out from around the ballpark circus dome.
Odorizzi throws over to first, Gardner slides back safely. He pops up, sticking his gum out mid-chew, tucks a silver chain back into his shirt. Takes another lead.
And Castro, watching a fastball shoot out of his opponent’s hand, over the sickly green turf carpeting the space between mound and home, whips his bat through the zone, and connects on one. It’s deep, a straight line drive, soaring 300, 400 feet over green washrag fabric, over the blue fence in left-center, and bouncing around with ecstasy under the Ducky’s pavilion beyond the fences.
Bat in hand, he struts with big steps out of the box: one two three four—then takes off jogging to first, drops the bat, tips his helmet, and away he goes. “Mama, there goes that man…”
And on the Yankees’ radio broadcast, a baseball nursery rhyme: “Ahhhhh… Starlin Castro!! Star light, star bright, Starlin just hit one with all his might! Starlin is darlin’!!”
Odorizzi’s hands fall to his knees, his head drops down, peeking up at the ball’s flight from under the brim of his cap, like it’s a movie too scary to watch—spitting on the ground, wishing for a mulligan. The no-hitter: gone. Shut-out: gone. Lead: gone. Win: gone.
Castro trots around the bases, shuffles his way home, with a slightly improved, still strange running form—and all I can think of is, well, he might need to go see Larry David’s doctor.
Castro taps home and struts past Joe Girardi back into the dugout, hugs all around, narrating his at-bat, the hit, the eventual winner, all smiles—the happy result of a change of scenery.
Brian McCann comes up and grounds out down the line, A-Rod strikes out, Odorizzi cruises out of the inning.
And so, it’s the no-more no-no walk-back to the dugout, the rare non-win one-hitter. Saddest feeling in baseball?
He’ll be awake at night with this one—Starlins leaping giddy around basepaths for months, one endless baseball nightmare.
More history on the game here, here.
Follow @big_inning
Previously:
2nd Inning: NYY vs. HOU
5th Inning: NYY vs. BOS
9th Inning: TBR vs. TOR
8th Inning: TEX vs. TOR
7th Inning: BAL vs. BOSHere you can see workers putting the through hole components in to the main PCB of a multimeter. The black blob is the main IC of the device. Many devices use COB or chip-on-board to reduce the cost of components and manufacturing.
On our 2014 China trip we got the opportunity to visit with Victor, one of our digital multimeter (DMM) manufacturers. We have toured their factory before but this tour was special for two reasons:
COB Manufacturing
Shown above is a tray of controller silicon dies that serve as the brain of the multimeter. These ICs are made by a different company and are ordered with features that are desired in the overall feature set of the DMM. While I shouldn't have been surprised, it was interesting to think about the fact that there are companies setup to create nothing but DMM controller ICs. What I now understand is that few multimeter companies own the entire tool-chain to create a DMM. Instead, there are companies that specialize in small cottage industries: manufacturing the DMM displays, the batteries, the control ICs, and assembly of the parts into a final DMM.
Very similar to how LEDs are made, the first step is to glue the silicon die to the PCB. I'm not entirely sure if the adhesive is conductive or not, but, judging by the exposed pad, it probably is.
With a pair of tweezers the dies are placed by hand(!). The adhesive sets within 5 minutes. This was another moment that caught me off guard: I assumed COB required a clean room with precision tools and ultra-accurate placement. It turns out, just like SMD soldering in a hot plate; you can have a lot of variance and still have a fully functional board.
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The PCB is then inserted into an amazing automated wire bonding machine that bonds a very thin wire from the IC to the PCB. You can see the operator has to tell the visual recognition system a few alignment spots once in awhile, but in general, the machine quickly solders all the connections.
From one of our readers manton:
It would be unlikely that the wire bonding process is done by soldering the wires. Usually this is done using thermosonic bonding, which uses a combination of heat, pressure, and ultrasonic vibrations to bond the wires.
Very good point! Thanks Manton. I thought it was soldering because that's what I know but this is thermosonic bonding.
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In the video above, you can see that the machine requires some operator input to bond the last connection, completes it, and the board is done. You also get a sense for how rough the boards can be handled without damaging the connections. I expected the hair like connections to be quite fragile, but, instead, the boards can be handled regularly. This is very similar to how liquid solder paste holds SMD components solidly in place before they enter the reflow oven.
Forty one connections later, and the die is all connected up. As you can see, the small theta rotation of the IC doesn't make much of a difference.
The next step is to squirt a small dab of potting compound over the entire structure. This material electrically and physically protects the die and wire bonds from damage.
The viscosity of the compound must be tightly controlled to prevent the hairs from bending over and connecting with neighboring wires.
The liquid compound is then cured in an oven for four hours. Once complete the boards are tested and continue down the process of becoming a multimeter.
Now, whenever you see those black blobs on an electronic device, such as the ones on our 16x2 basic LCD, you'll know how they are made!This post is about my first personal experience with somewhat structured and systematic training for climbing. When I started training in September, I could barely climb 6a. 6 months later, I climbed my first 7a in Spain, Siurana. I’ll describe what I did to get there in the past 6 months and I’ll reflect on the good and the bad parts of my program. I kept detailed records during the last training cycle, so I can provide you with a lot of numbers on my training. I am by no means a solid 7a climber of course. It is only one 7a that I managed to tick and I have yet to climb a 6c. My following training cycle will thus be focused on consolidating my base. However, I learned valuable lessons during my last cycle. Focus and perseverance can bring you very far and if you pair it with intelligent training you’ll surely be able to achieve your goals.
General structure
I planned to structure my training as follows:
4 weeks of base endurance (September)
8 weeks of strength (October + November)
4 weeks of power (December)
4 weeks of strength endurance (January)
2 weeks tapering (first half of February)
However, I ended up modifying the rough plan as I was training. I did the base endurance phase as planned but had some difficulties during the strength phase. I injured my shoulder during my first hangboard cycle and couldn’t do a second hangboard cycle. So I decided to experiment with a new approach. Upon reviewing my records, I realize that my bouldering lacked structure during the strength phase and that I could have done a lot more targeted training. My performance dropped of and I consider the 8 weeks of strength training as a phase of very inefficient use of my time. I’ll have to change that during the next cycle.
After 2 weeks of power training, I decided to move on to the strength endurance phase. I felt like I was lacking much more in that department. I also changed the periodization model that I followed. I didn’t do a strict block of strength endurance. Instead, I did mostly strength endurance but mixed in some power and strength sessions. This period provided me with my fastest and most consistent gains both in my bouldering and in my lead climbing. I’ll definitely take another look at undulating periodization for my next training cycle.
Overall numbers
Here’s some raw numbers on my training. To sum it all up: I did roughly 300 pull-ups… kidding 😀
I have recorded the number of hours that I spent bouldering indoors, the number of problems above 6A that I climbed (or repeated) and some more data on roped climbing indoors and outdoors, as well as some details on my additional exercises.
Prior to my trip to Siurana, I completed 55 indoor bouldering sessions, 18 indoor climbing sessions and 10 days of outdoor climbing. This amounts to roughly a 100 hours spent at the bouldering wall (I didn’t record time for roped climbing). Additionally, I performed general strength training for 14 hours (20 sessions). I climbed 51 routes outdoors and redpointed merely one 6a, one 6a+ and three 6b’s (fucking weak, i know… it was all in the early stages of my training). One thing that contributed to my low score outside was the fact, that I rarely attempted a route twice. A total of 158 routes were climbed indoors, out of which 18 were 6a redpoints, 7 6a+ redpoints, three 6b sends and one tick for a 6b+. While looking at those numbers, I am rather surprised that I managed to tick a 7a in Siurana (in 4 goes). It was however a legitimate 7a, that gets the grade across all guides. It certainly felt a bit soft, but it’s still 7a.
As mentioned above, the bulk of my training was spent bouldering indoors. During 55 sessions I ticked 33 6As, 12 6A+s, 12 6Bs, two 6B+s and one 6C (repeats not counted, 6C = V5). My bouldering accomplishments match the strentgh requirements for 7a I guess, so it’s not too surprising after all that I was able to send (the 7a featured a bouldery crux and not much difficulty before and afterwards). Eight bouldering sessions were specifically targeted at base endurance (ARC), 11 sessions targeted my anaerobic capacity, 15 sessions were spent training strength endurance and five sessions were dedicated to power. I also did 11 fingerboard workouts, 8 of them in October and 3 in January.
On top of all that I performed a lot of prehab and rehab exercises. I suffered from a mild shoulder injury, so I made sure to include rotator cuff work and such in my program and I performed regular exercises to stay on top of any elbow pain.
The phases in detail
Base endurance
The base endurance phase consisted mostly of ARC-sessions. I did a total of 7 ARC workouts in September. During those workouts I climbed for 30 to 60 minutes (time on the wall). I also went on a 3 day climbing trip during the base phase, where I didn’t achieve much. I performed roughly two sessions of additional exercise per week, where I mostly did pull-ups and other bodyweight exercises on the gymnastic rings.
Strength phase
During the first 4 weeks, I completed 8 hangboard workouts. I went from bodyweight to 10 kg added on my two major grips. I bouldered a lot but didn’t do very specific training during the bouldering sessions. Weeks 5 to 8 where filled with a no-hang experiment. I was able to improve my max again. On the additional exercise side, I basically continued my program from base phase but had to drop a few exercises due to a shoulder injury (turns out that ring dips are not very good on my shoulders).
Power phase
Power phase meant training on the campus board. I made initial progress but felt like injury was closer than improvement around the 4th session. I therefore moved on to strength endurance.
Strength endurance
I did circuits, foot-on campusing, route laps and some other exercises for more strength endurance. I also trained strength and power on the steep 45° board. My endurance improved quickly but I failed to reach my intermediate goals. The hardest route that I sent indoors up until the end of January was a 6b+. This phase still brought clear gains across all disciplines. I felt like all the training that led up to this month was just to prepare me for some real training.
Tapering
The volume during strength endurance phase was really high, I did up to 5 hard climbing sessions a week. I reduced this to 2 sessions per week during tapering phase. 3 of these sessions were spend redpointing hard routes indoors and one was a max-recruitment session on the steep board.
Trip to Siurana
When we left Vienna for Siurana, I knew that I’d need a lot of luck and good tactics to reach my goal. My plan was to climb on a variety of routes during the first half of the trip to get used to the rock and to project a climb during the second half of the week. In the end, my tactics played out, but I don’t think that having 4 goes on a climb counts as real projecting. The most important thing was to find a climb that emphasized my strenghts and that fit my bodytype.
The good, the bad and the boring
Upon reflection, I think that my program had good elements and bad elements. Let us start with the boring. ARCing is mind numbing as hell. I barely made it through the initial 4 weeks of base endurance training and I avoided ARC workouts like the plague after I was done with base phase. This needs to change. It’s quite obvious that any aerobic gains I made in September are pretty much gone in February. It would be good to do some form of ARC training consistently throughout the program. This brings me right to one of the major changes I will make in my next season. Linear periodization is not the model that I want to follow. Don’t get me wrong, linear periodization is a valid form of organizing ones training and I know that lots of people see good gains from it, but it’s just not for me. Let’s look at the example of base phase. The way I did it, I didn’t do much more than ARC workouts and supplemental strength training. While boredom was one of the disadvantages, I think there’s another problem which has to do with efficiency. ARC sessions are not very tiring, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t mix some fingerboarding into base phase to stimulate my fingers a little more. Come to think of it, I tend to agree with the people who say that fingerboarding should be a year long pursuit. I’ll try to fingerboard most of the time during the next training cycle. Another thing that I didn’t like was the 8 week strength phase. This was way too long. Shorter phases are the way to go. I’ll write more on the coming training cycle in another post.
After the ramblings about the bad parts of my program, I also have to mention a few good points. First of all, laying out a rough training plan and planning ahead for my sessions gave me more focus and I was able to have more quality sessions. My strength endurance training was also pretty successful. I found some good exercises (like foot-on campusing) that were specific to my goals and that brought steady improvement. Power phase was ok and I discovered that the 45° board is a really good tool for training power. In fact, I knew from the beginning that training on the steep angle would be really great, but I was essentially too weak to effectively train on that angle. January was my best training month and I attribute this to the fact that I had significantly changed my training schedule. While I certainly focused on one quality (strength endurance), I still did much more to improve the other qualities as well (power, strength, aerobic capacity). This was very much different from the training blocks that I did in the months before, and it’s a training structure that I will keep for future phases. I didn’t have a major injury and I was smart enough to take some rest when I had minor tweaks, so that they wouldn’t aggravate too much. On top of all that, I achieved my goal, which kinda proofs that my training program was somewhat effective. I know that I could not have done this without training.
Conclusion
In the end, it all comes down to consistency and to actually following your program. I believe that doing the sessions you planned and doing so throughout the whole training cycle is far more important than what training program you follow. It took me a lot of mental strength and perseverance to finish every single session, but this is what got me to 7a. Of course, some things can be optimized and you might see faster short-term success, but in the long-term consistency and staying injury free beats any super intense program that only looks at a short term goal. I’d highly recommend a somewhat structured approach towards training in order to reach your goals. It is more efficient and I believe it’s also more fun to actually improve and not to bumble around the same grades for years.
Cheers!Work. Play. Adventure.
SAVAGE is made for Adventure, are you? We’re looking for a skilled full-time graphic designer to come join our team. Can’t commit to full-time? You’re in luck, we are also looking for a few freelance designers we can have on call for when our Art Department needs a little help.
Are you ready?
As a SAVAGE Graphic Designer your mission will be to create fun, unique and creative designs that will be featured on apparel for sports teams, non-profits, and business around the country and sometimes around the world. Other responsibilities may include designing SAVAGE branded apparel to be featured in our store, social media posts, or other collateral that will be used throughout the company. This position will require strong vector based skills and will be heavy in logo design. Along with creation, there will also be production needs that will need to be fulfilled.
This position has the option for being remote or semi-remote. If you choose to work remotely, you can live anywhere in the United States. If you choose to work semi-remotely, our headquarters is based in Richmond, VA where an optional-use workspace can be provided.
Qualifications:
College Degree in Graphic Design or related field preferred.
Excellent skills in the Adobe Suite.
Excellent vector based skills and logo concept.
Strong attention to detail.
Ability to work on multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
Ability to work in a timely manner while still producing quality work.
Must have great organizational and time management skills.
Strong drawing and typography skills.
Demonstrate the ability to create 2 dimensional art that translates well to a 3 dimensional piece of clothing
Knowledge of website building and maintenance is preferred.
Understanding of Screen Printing, Sublimation, Heat Transfer and Embroidery preferred
Working with SAVAGE gives you the chance to work for a company with a lot of growth potential and plenty of opportunity for advancement. You have the benefit of choosing where you live and being part of a young, fun and energetic team who works hard to continually grow our company.
Starting salary will be $24,000-$28,000 with opportunity for advancement.
Ready to start your next adventure?
Submit any questions or portfolios to [email protected] I was young, I remember tuning in with my brother for the Sunday morning cartoons and watching reruns of the Jetson family going about in their flying car. That was the golden era for science fiction. Hollywood was filled with movies like Blade Runner, Back to the Future, Star Wars and The Fifth Element. These movies promised us futuristic worlds full of wonderful tech.
It seems like we’ve achieved that future in many ways. Everybody now has a super transmitter in their pocket, allowing them to communicate instantly with anyone else on the planet. We’ve mapped the human genome, made most of the human knowledge freely accessible at one’s fingertips and hell, we’re even making plans to colonize Mars. But despite all of this, one part is missing. There are still no flying cars in sight. They can’t be so hard to make, right?
The forgotten history of flying cars
Believe it or not, flying cars have been around for more than 70 years. Ever since Jules Verne introduced the idea in his 1904 Master of the World novel, generations of engineers have tried to make flying cars happen. In 1940, Henry Ford predicted that a combination of airplane and motorcar was coming. At the time, both the car and the plane were becoming cheaper, better and saw massive adoption. A combination of the two was thought to be inevitable. It turns out Ford was right. Just a few years after his announcement, aeronautical engineer Ted Hall came out with the first fully functioning flying car.
What you just watched is a 70-year-old video of a fully working flying car. The vehicle was a combination of a road car and attachable wings. It was backed by Convair, a major airplane manufacturer at the time, and had a total of 66 successful test flights. With just a few minor adjustments, it promised to become a huge commercial success. But in 1947, a crash landing during a test flight led Convair to back out. The project, judged to be too dangerous, was eventually shut down, along with Hall’s dream of a flying car in every garage.
Since then, there have been countless attempts at building flying cars. None of them made it beyond the prototype phase. However, what’s most remarkable about the idea of the flying car is how enduring it is. Despite a history of failures and setbacks, every generation of engineers have been, and still are, captivated by the idea.
Ultimately, the reason we don’t have flying cars isn’t technological or cost limitations.
Today, companies like Terrafugia, AeroMobil and Moller International are actively pushing the dream forward. You probably have never heard of them, but all of these companies have actual, workingflying car prototypes.
Dude, where’s my flying car?
As we’ve seen, the technology for flying cars has been around for decades, and even today, companies are working on them. So why are there still no flying cars in sight?
In a word: humans.
As I covered before, humans are horrible drivers. In the U.S., cars cause about 30,000 deaths per year, costing $871 billion dollars in the process. Think of the worst driver you know. Now imagine that person flying a two-ton death machine. How would that make you feel?
Public adoption of flying cars would be a death warrant for every single building in the world. Modern buildings have been designed to sustain normal car crashes (which happen all the time), but not flying ones. In the air, a mere collision with another car could send both vehicles crashing to the ground. Who would want to live in a world where flying metal can fall on your head at any time?
Ultimately, the reason we don’t have flying cars isn’t technological or cost limitations. It’s because most human beings are way too unreliable to fly anything.
Enters driverless tech
This is where it gets interesting: We’ve already solved the problem of unreliable human beings with self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars are real. All of the biggest tech companies are working on them, and it is only a matter of time until we see Google-like cars everywhere. While self-driving cars are neat, they are not nearly as fascinating as their potential successor: self-flying cars.
“How can a computer be smart enough to fly a vehicle?” you might ask.
It turns out, it is much easier to build driverless tech for flying vehicles than regular cars. In the air, there are no pedestrians, potholes, construction sites or any other obstacles that give computers a headache. This is why driverless tech has been first developed for airplanes and has now been used in airfare for decades. Recent advances in sensors, computing and AI are making human pilots almost unnecessary. Today, pilots fly, on average, between 3.5 and 7 minutes per flight. While pilots’ income used to compare to lawyers and doctors, the entry salary for new pilots in the U.S. can now go as low as $10.75 per hour. There has been a lot of talk about how automation is taking out taxi and truck driving jobs. Pilots are no exception.
To sum things up, safety is the main issue with flying cars, and driverless tech is the key to solving that problem. So, who is working on that?
The usual suspects
In the last years, three major players in the Valley have raised strong interest in flying vehicles. All of them are currently working on driverless technology. Oh, and they also have very deep pockets, access to the best engineers in the world and a history of making seemingly impossible ideas happen. They are Travis Kalanick, Larry Page and Elon Musk.
Last month, Uber published a 98-page white paper explaining their vision for our flying-car future. The paper, summarized here, describes a concrete plan to expand their business toward a global, shared, on-demand aviation service within the next 10 years. In short: Picture the Uber app, but for driverless, flying vehicles.
Beyond Uber, Larry Page also has a big interest in flying cars. In the past years, he has secretly invested more than a $100 million in two flying car startups, Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk. Zee.Aero is currently testing its prototype at the Hollister Municipal Airport, where people have reported seeing weird vehicles taking off and landing. Kitty Hawk is a bit more secretive, but interestingly enough, it is run by Sebastian Thrun, the former head of Google’s self-driving car program.
Picture the Uber app, but for driverless, flying vehicles.
As for Musk, well, he doesn’t quite believe in the idea of a flying car. Not because they would be too hard to make, mind you, but because he thinks there are more efficient ways of traveling between cities, such as the Hyperloop. However, for long distance travel, he thinks that electric aircraft are the way to go. In several interviews, he mentioned that his next big idea is a supersonic electric jet. In fact, he already has a design, and if no one else does it, he might start yet another company to make it happen.
What’s interesting about these projects is that they have one point in common: their design. Indeed, Uber, Page and Musk’s projects are about electric, human-carrying vehicles that can take off and land vertically. That last part is important.
VTOLs, aka drones for humans
You could argue that the flying cars shown so far are, at best, an awkward and overly expensive combination of a plane and a car — the resulting vehicle being much worse than the sum of |
Uranus and Neptune, and it remains the only spacecraft to fly by these two outer planets. Voyager 1 used Saturn as a gravitational slingshot to catapult itself toward the edge of the solar system.
"Time after time, Voyager revealed unexpected -- kind of counterintuitive -- results, which means we have a lot to learn," said Stone, Voyager's chief scientist and a professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology.
With enough fuel to last until around 2020, the nuclear-powered spacecraft, each about the size of a subcompact car, have five instruments to study magnetic fields, cosmic rays and solar wind. They also carry gold-plated discs containing multilingual greetings, music and pictures -- should intelligent species come across them. Cameras aboard the Voyagers were turned off long ago.
From a satellite campus near JPL in Pasadena, a handful of engineers still listen diligently for Voyager transmissions. Because of the distance, a radio signal from Voyager 1 takes 17 hours to travel to Earth. For Voyager 2, it takes about 13 hours. 20 part-timers analyze the streamed back data. There are no full-time scientists left on the mission.
Carpeted and cubicled, the control room could be mistaken for an insurance office if not for the blue, "Mission Controller" sign, and the warning on a computer that reads, "Voyager mission critical hardware. Please do not touch!"
Since 2004, Voyager 1 has been exploring a region in the bubble at the solar system's edge where the solar wind dramatically slows and heats up. Over the last several months, scientists have seen changes that suggest Voyager 1 is on the verge of crossing over.
The double missions so far have cost $983 million in 1977 dollars, which translates to $3.7 billion now.
EVENTSA GEELONG start-up company has won a multi-million dollar contract to export lightweight wheels for the fastest and most expensive Ford supercar ever made.
Detroit executives confirmed overnight the $500,000 Ferrari-fighting Ford GT will be fitted with wheels made in Geelong with world-first technology.
Carbon Revolution is one of 63 companies that will continue to supply parts to Ford after the Broadmeadows and Geelong factories close in October 2016.
Last year the company — which started in an old shearing shed but now has a production and research facility on the Deakin University campus — won a contract to supply wheels for a limited edition Ford Mustang.
Following that success, it has now been given responsibility to supply wheels for Ford’s most expensive car of all time.
The wheel technology was previously used in Formula One motor racing and this is its first application on road cars.
“No-one has been able to do what we’ve been able to do,” the chief executive officer of Carbon Revolution, Jake Dingle, told News Corp Australia in October 2015. “Even the aerospace industry couldn’t figure out a way to do it.”
Ford heard about the start-up company by chance three years ago, and then began torture testing the wheels, including hitting pot holes at 100km/h to see if they would shatter.
“A lot of people think they’re going to turn to dust when they hit a pothole, but these wheels are stronger than alloy wheels,” said Jamal Hameedi, the global head of Ford Performance, at the opening of the Geelong facility last year.
“This shows Ford is prepared to go to the ends of the earth to get an advantage over our competitors,” he said.
Carbon Revolution has doubled the number of employees from 50 to 100 since signing the Ford deal.
The only bad news for local revheads is they will only get to see the wheels in photos or shipping containers.
Both the special edition Mustang and the GT supercar will not be sold in Australia as the cars are made only in left-hand-drive.
Even then it will be slim pickings; Ford has reportedly taken 6500 orders for the new generation GT, but only 500 will be made, making it more exclusive than a Ferrari.
The Ford GT has other local input: it was styled by a team led by Ford Australia designer Todd Willing.
Willing, who was born and bred in Hobart, but studied industrial design at Monash University in Melbourne, had previously worked on the Ford Territory family SUV.
He was posted to Detroit three years ago to work on the secret supercar project.
Willing has since returned to the Broadmeadows design studios, which will remain operational for foreign Ford markets once the local car assembly line closes.
Why is the Ford GT such a big deal?
The original Ford GT40 won the LeMans 24-hour race four consecutive times from 1966 to 1969 after a bitter battle with Ferrari, which had won the previous six years in a row.
The 1966 event was the first European race victory by an American car manufacturer since 1921; Henry Ford himself was there to witness the momentous win.
Ford built a modern version of the GT between 2004 and 2006 but it was axed earlier than planned because only 4000 of the 4500 it forecast had actually sold.
In a controversial move Ford has fitted a twin-turbo V6 rather than a V8 to the new model, but the company says it makes more power (600 horsepower) than its predecessor without burning as much fuel.
The new Ford GT is due to go on sale next year, but only 500 customers globally are likely to own one.
This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowlingThe AAC is better than anyone expected. UCONN won the national title in women's and men's basketball, the AAC finished with five top-25 men's basketball teams last year, UCF had an amazing year in football, and the list goes on. That being said - The AAC just doesn't have the star power of the bigger conferences, and unfortunately that matters. For example, last year we played Purdue at home. I don't think it is a stretch to say Purdue has been a sub-par football program of late. However, the star power of a big school like Purdue sold out Nippert stadium. And when we played better schools without the star power of Purdue later that year, Nippert was far from sold out.
To set the stage, here is a quote from Big 12 commissioner speaking to the Orlando Sentinel (Link) a month ago:
"There may be some opportunity for us to have a postseason championship with us just having ten [schools] down the road if de-regulation goes through. The other side of it is, that at some point I suppose, we could add two members or four members – I would never say never. But right now, our distribution is the largest in college athletics because we’re only splitting it 10 ways. Anything else would dilute it and I don’t blame our members for not being interested in doing it. Right now there are a couple of presidents and a couple of ADs that probably would advocate for adding somebody if we could find the right fit. I don’t know if there would be a majority that would feel that way."
We have heard the rumors of a move over the last few years. Unfortunately, they have went no where. Every nationally televised Bearcat game you watch nowadays the announcers inevitably discuss how Cincinnati was the team "left out" of the Power 5 conferences. Well, it seems things may be changing... and soon...
In a post yesterday (Link), C. Austin Cox broke a realignment scheme by the Big 12 that actually makes some sense for everyone involved. The Big 12 may be adding ECU, Cincinnati, USF, and UCF to create a new Eastern Division with our old buddies in West Virginia. This makes sense for a few reasons:
West Virginia. WV currently gets screwed with having to ship their teams to Texas, Oklahoma, etc... It costs them a lot of money. The Big 12 even initially promised (maybe even guaranteed) bringing in some East coast schools to help WV with travel costs, and it seems like that might be happening. New Markets. USF, UCF, ECU, and Cincinnati all offer a vastly expanded market to the Big 12. The Big 12 has wanted a piece of the Florida pie for a while, and the addition of UC and ECU give them a nice added bonus with Ohio and the Carolinas, respectively. Championship. I know. I know. The Big 12 has been adamant about how they don't need a conference championship game. I call BS. With only four teams in the playoff, the best of your conference needs to be able to separate themselves from the other Power 5's best. To put it simply, a one loss Alabama conference champion sounds better than a one loss Oklahoma regular season champion. The conference championship also gives the selection committee the ability to see your best teams perform with the lights on late in the season. This can then help them avoid bad games (e.g. Bama vs. Notre Damn).
Usually I would ignore rumors such as this, but one thing and one thing only makes me believe in it, and that is the behavior of AAC Commissioner Mike Aresco. He is in panic mode and is currently renegotiating the television deals in an effort to keep the four flagship schools. Also, he is seeking a GOR. I am not sure exactly what a GOR is, but it seems to somehow tie up teams who want to leave a conference. If I figure it out I will edit this section, but at this point I don't want to guess.If you know, please let me know in the comments along with a source.
It also seems that the Big 12 caught wind of Aresco's plans and is now looking to accelerate the process. Specifically, they are looking to make a move in the next four weeks!!
Indeed, the Big 12 may not have been impressed with the Bearcat's football performances this year, but Cincinnati is still a very attractive university. The simple truth is that Cincinnati has a well established basketball program with decades of history, a growing football program with significant promise (e.g. Gunner Kiel, Nippert Renovations), and is probably one of, if not the best school available academically. I thought that last piece mattered more, but with some of the decisions of the Power 5 conferences over the last few years (I won't call out names) I realized I was very very wrong. Needless to say, it can't hurt that Cincinnati is the #3 Up and Coming University in the country.
With all that being said, these are just rumors. We have been here before, and have been left disappointed. It is nice to know that at least our hat is in the ring. At a bad time, I hope this lifted your spirits as much as it did mine. Hopefully we will have Gunner back soon (preferably this weekend) and can start feeling good about ourselves again. For now keep your fingers crossed and hope that Santa, Tommy T., and Mick are hard at work lobbying to the Big 12.
-Daniele "Da" BolognaThis post contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we genuinely recommend. While clicking these links won’t cost you any extra money, they will help us keep this site up and running! Thank you for your support!
Since I went to Thailand in 2011, I’ve sent out the same email full of practical tips so many times that I’ve lost count. Instead of searching through my very messy email chains to find out the last person I sent these tips to, I can now refer them to this post… whew!
It all started when my now husband and I embarked on one of the most care-free and fun adventures we’d have in our adolescent lives… if you consider being 24 still an adolescent.
This trip was a sort of symbolic ending to the chapter of college closed behind us recently and an exhilarating way to say hello to the rest of our adult lives ’cause you know,
growing up doesn’t have to be boring!
Before starting our careers, we took the year off to study for our CPAs and travel the world.
We road tripped out to Arkansas for Wakarusa Music Festival, went to Chicago for a couple of weeks to eat our hearts out, and finally, flew to Thailand for three weeks as our last hurrah.
Thailand was thrilling and exhilarating yet so peaceful and soulful at the same time.
It gave me the ultimate culture shock I yearn for when traveling and filled my tummy with savory, authentic goodness and sweet, tropical fruits day after day.
And the people! This was the first country I went to where even in Bangkok, their big city, I would say hello to EVERY person on the street without getting some weird stare for being socially open and reaching out to strangers (so not NYC).
Maybe it’s because Buddhism is the main religion in Thailand or because the sun warms up people’s souls, but everyone was SO nice, and gosh, I love nice.
Anyways that trip of a lifetime led me to this– my 9 practical tips for Thailand that I’ve been sharing with my friends and family since 2011.
9 Practical Tips for Thailand
1. Buy the Thai government brand water
Do not any under circumstance drink the tap water in Thailand. Even when it’s boiled, you can get very sick from it, which is quite the circumstance to have in a gorgeous, adventure packed country (speaking from a very romantic experience Mike and I had in Phuket).
Since you can’t drink tap water, you have to buy bottled water, which can add up pretty quickly if you drink a lot of water like me.
To save money on bottled water, instead of opting for big brand names like Nestle water, choose the Thai government brand water. You’ll know which one it is because it’s usually all the way at the bottom of the coolor, has a flimsy matte white plastic with blue graphics on it, and is about 90% less of the big brand water’s cost.
2. Pack a pillowcase.
If you’re backpacking around Thailand, you may stay at some budget friendly places at the cost of unclean accommodations. Pack your own pillowcase to use whenever you encounter questionable sheets on your bed. You’ll sleep a little better at night knowing that your face isn’t rubbing onto unwashed sheets.
3. Carry hand sanitizer and toilet paper on you at all times.
Thailand’s sanitization levels are much lower than the United States’ levels, and this might not be tolerable to many people used to pristinely clean facilities.
A lot of bathrooms don’t have any soap to wash your hands, and most charge for toilet paper. If you don’t feel like carrying toilet paper or tissues on you, then bring change to buy some, and at the very least, bring hand sanitizer.
4. Eat at food carts over restaurants.
One of the most common things you may hear about Thailand is that it’s street cart heaven.
Well, it’s true! You can literally feel like you died and went to the type of heaven that has whole, filling, and spice-filled foods for only $1 USD.
Opt for street food over restaurants because from experience, the street food can be better than the food at restaurants. My theory is that street cart owners spend their whole lives mastering the one or two dishes they sell at their carts daily, which makes them better than chefs at restaurants in Thailand– just a theory…
Plus, spending less money at a restaurant means you have more money to try out at a variety of food like deep fried crickets—yum!
5. Don’t take bike cabs (aka tuk tuks) or anyone else you didn’t plan on taking a ride from. If you take a cab, ask to turn on the meter.
Ok, admittedly, even though everyone is SO nice, Thailand has its sketch balls, especially in Bangkok so be alert.
Always ask the cabs to turn their meters on because they have them, and don’t take rides randomly even from official looking tuk tuks because they’ll charge you out of the wazoo or bring you somewhere unknown that’ll charge you out of the wazoo from something else.
On this note, there will be guys outside of big tourist sites saying that the site is closed for the day, and they can bring you to another place for good sales and shopping.
UM HELLO– don’t fall for it. We actually heard this one on the way into the Grand Palace. Almost got us… NOT!
6. Pack less to travel lightly.
There are two reasons to pack lightly. One awesome reason is that clothes in Thailand is really cheap and you’re bound to put up a handful of $3 shorts and $5 dresses.
The second reason is that getting your laundry sent out is super cheap at about 50 cents a pound, which comes back smelling nice and neatly folded, so there’s no really to pack enough clothes to get you through your vacation when you can just get your laundry done.
7. Carry a raincoat or umbrella on you.
Depending on the season, you’ll never know when it’s going to rain so either carry a raincoat or umbrella on you for random downpours.
If carrying an umbrella isn’t your thing, then try getting one of those cheap 99 cent raincoats to slip into your pocket as you walk around.
8. Wear sandals with straps at waterfalls or on hikes.
Although they’re not the average person’s choice of sandals for fashion, wearing sandals with straps are the best for waterfalls or on hikes because you need a solid grip to walk on the very slippery rocks and paths of the waterfalls.
Boots or sneakers with socks have the grip but soak your feet into wrinkly, old grandma feet whereas regular sandals can have you slipping around ‘till you fall on your back.
For example, these Merrell sandals with straps do a great job for hiking at waterfalls.
However, if you want to save money on shoes you may only wear once, then check out Target or Wal-mart for similar style shoes. I got a pair for $15 in the boys’ section. 🙂
9. Buy leather and silk.
Ok so this isn’t exactly a practical tip, but if I could go back in time and wasn’t as cheap as I used to be right after college, I would buy leather and silk in Thailand.
I bought one small leather purse back then for $12, and it still looks basically brand new ’till this day.The craftsmanship and quality is excellent, and you can even get custom jobs done for really cheap.
For those who love silk, silk’s the thing to get here too.
Well, there’s all my 9 practical tips for Thailand, which include:
Buy the Thai government brand water
Carry hand sanitizer and toilet paper
Pack a pillowcase
Eat at food carts
Turn the meter on in cabs, and don’t take random tuk tuk or cab rides
Pack lightly, and get your laundry sent out
Carry a raincoat or umbrella on you
Wear ugly sandals with straps
Buy leather and silk
Resources
Want:
standard travel tips from a trusted guide? Try out these tips & resources from Fodors.
to see photos from my trip to Thailand? Check it out here.
to go to hidden beaches in Phuket without tourists? Check them out on Once in a Lifetime Journey’s blog!
Have any tips for tourists besides my 9 practical tips for Thailand? Please share by commenting below!
Thanks for stopping by! xo.
Feel free to reach out to me via the Contact page, my Facebook group, or Instagram with any questions.
Can we stay in touch via Facebook? Or perhaps Instagram? Your pick!
Thank you so much!Share
It’s not every day that we see a post-Steve Jobs Apple take risks on a technology that hasn’t yet proven its viability on the market. That’s why it may come as a shock that the Cupertino computing company just hired VR expert Doug Bowman, according to a Financial Times report.
Previously serving as a computer science professor and director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech, Bowman’s expertise lies in 3D interaction, immersive environments, and usability engineering. Notably, he was also one of several winners of a $100,000 grant and HoloLens kit issued by Microsoft last November.
“It’s a no-brainer for Apple to invest in this area,” responded CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood. “It certainly can’t let rivals such as Facebook, Google and Samsung run away with the market, particularly given the momentum building around smartphone-based virtual reality.”
While this news does indicate that Apple is starting to take its interest in VR in a more serious direction, it’s far from the first time we’ve heard about it. In fact, just last May, Apple purchased augmented reality company Metaio and, at separate times last year, Faceshift and Emotient.
Still, with VR so prominently embraced by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Sony, and Google right now, Apple sitting back and observing the fates of these investments wouldn’t be the most proactive decision. At the very least, we can all safely agree that Apple is at least interested in VR even if we have no idea what it’s actually working on with Bowman.
It will be interesting to see if, alongside other consumer HMDs like Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard, an Apple VR headset emerges from the shadows and takes the world by storm — or if the project ends up to be a phantom, like the Apple television that has been rumored for years, but never officially announced.Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
Sep. 27, 2017, 10:51 PM GMT / Updated Sep. 27, 2017, 10:51 PM GMT By Alex Johnson
Russia is joining a U.S.-led project to build a manned lunar spaceport, parts of which could be orbiting the moon by 2024, both countries said Wednesday.
The agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, was announced at the annual conference of the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia.
NASA first revealed plans to build what it's now calling the Deep Space Gateway in March 2016. It is meant to extend technology and expertise developed for the space shuttle and the International Space Station, with an eye toward using the port as a launching pad for possible manned missions to the lunar surface or even Mars.
The proposed Deep Space Gateway in an artist's rendering. NASA
The space station, the world's largest science project, is one of the few arenas of cooperation that hasn't been torpedoed by the escalating sniping between Washington and Moscow in the past few years.
The United States has been working on the Deep Space Gateway with other partners in the space station program, including the European, Canadian and Japanese space agencies, NASA said. But until Wednesday, Russia's participation had been up in the air.
Related: Trump Adds to NASA Budget, Approves Crewed Mission to Mars
In an address at the space conference Wednesday, Roscosmos' director general, Igor Komarov, confirmed that Russia will be a primary partner.
"The agreements reached open new prospects for international cooperation and expand the opportunities for using the capabilities of the Russian space industry," Komarov said. "The first modules may be put in space in 2024 to 2026."
In a statement, NASA said Russia's participation "reflects the common vision for human exploration that NASA and Roscosmos share" in so-called cislunar space, science-speak for the void of space between Earth and the moon.
"While the Deep Space Gateway is still in concept formulation, NASA is pleased to see growing international interest in moving into cislunar space as the next step for advancing human space exploration," said Robert M. Lightfoot Jr., NASA's acting administrator.We do not have all the details of what happened during the coup attempt that took place in Turkey in the hours between July 15 and July 16.
However, we know very well that plans that are supported by foreign forces, that do not take its power from the working class can not defeat AKP darkness and solve Turkey's problems.
The events of today reminded us the following reality once again: Either the people of Turkey will organize and get rid of AKP or AKP's reactionary policies will intensify, repression will increase, massacres, the plunder and theft will continue.
The only power that can overthrow AKP is the people's power, there is no alternative to it.
AKP is responsible for all that took place tonight. All the factors that led to the current situation and the conditions are the product of AKP's rule and the domestic and foreign bosses that support AKP.
However, the fact that the main responsible party is AKP does not mean that the coup attempt was one that was orchestrated by Erdogan himself in order to achieve his objectives such as paving the path to an executive presidency or clearing the obstacles facing the new constitution.
The tension and the rivalries between different groups within the state and the armed forces that have been known to exist for a while have turned into armed conflict. While the tension between these forces is real, it is a lie that any of the sides in this conflict represent the interests of the people. Following this, searching for the solution against AKP's rule in a military coup is as wrong as lending any support to AKP under the guise of taking a position against military coups for whatever reason. The last thing that should be done in the name of supporting freedom and human rights in Turkey is to lend support to AKP which has proven over and over that it is an enemy of humanity.
While they have not orchestrated this coup, Erdoğan and AKP will make an effort to use the resulting conditions and the support they received as means to increase their legitimacy. Our people should be on the alert against steps that AKP will be certain to take in the days to come. Raising the struggle against AKP and its darkness is the only way to stop this failed coup attempt resulting in AKP's solidifying its rule and turning into a tool for transforming AKP's unstable Turkey into stability. The fact that all mosques in Turkey have broadcasted continuous Erdoğan propaganda the whole night is a concrete indication of the urgency of our task at hand.
The Communist Party is calling on our people to organize in the Party's ranks against the enemies of the people and humanity.
The liberation is in our own hands.
Communist Party, Turkey
16.07.2016
See below for Arabic:I do not believe there is anyone out there that doesn’t admire Audrey Hepburn, if only a little. Some perhaps know her best as the spunky ‘Liza Doolittle, the cockney flower-girl often heard twittering a happy tune. For others, her name conjures up a crystalline image of a young lady walking down Fifth Avenue, armed with an impressive pair of oversized sunglasses and wearing that unmistakable “little black dress”. And for others still, Audrey Hepburn is the tireless humanitarian, appointed in 1988 as UNICEF’s Goodwill Ambassador, and serving until her untimely death five years later.
From my title you can probably gather than I am no exception to the rule. I have spoken already about seeing Audrey in Roman Holiday for the first time and how very profound an effect it had on me as a young girl. It wouldn’t actually be wrong to say that it was my first truly thrilling cinematic experience; I was just thoroughly enthralled, so utterly lost in a world which had once been quite foreign to me. With Audrey though, it felt like I had always known this world and this life; I understood it as if it were my own.
I suppose the question to ask now is simply why.
Why is it that I, along with so many others over the years, have been so completely captivated by this rather unconventional actress? Audrey Hepburn appeared in no more than thirty feature films throughout her life, and starred in her last more than thirty years ago; by all standards we should’ve forgotten her a long time ago. Yet we, of course, have most definitely not.
On a purely superficial level, the answer is quite simple. Miss Hepburn was beautiful, likeable and spectacularly lucky. Throughout her career, Audrey consistently chose wisely (and was consistently given the chance to do so). She played in romantic comedies with an effortless elegance, took on board the Tiffany tale just when the 60s started to swing, and rode the last of the musical craze with her role in My Fair Lady.
Audrey also had perhaps the most unbeatable trail of leading men who starred opposite her. One cannot forget that these were not merely talented actors with whom she shared a scene, but almost exclusively full-out legends: Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Henry Fonda, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant… the list goes on.
However, to pin her status of 20th century icon down as simply a case of savvy career choices and agreeable costars would be terrifically foolish. Audrey Hepburn was so very much more. Behind a face to die for and a style entirely of her own, Audrey Hepburn possessed something innately special. She shone in both the real world and the reflection of it, the silver screen, with an unbreakable warmth; a generosity of spirit that shone from her very eyes.
Within this warmth there was also a aching drop of tragedy. As a young girl she grew up without a father, and suffered through the great hardships of the Second World War like countless others of her generation. Although she dreamed of being a prima ballerina, Audrey grew too tall, and was simply not strong enough after years of malnutrition during her teenage years. Knowing that she could not fulfil her hopes of being the very greatest a person was capable of in the shoes of a dancer, Hepburn changed her course to become an exceptional actress. The rest, as well all know, is simply history.
Unlike most stars, I think there is not one set film of Audrey’s that stands out better than the rest, for it is her entire body of work shapes our understanding of this actress. Each film is a classic in its own right, and each embodies a particular facet of character which made her so distinctively wonderful.
The culmination of all this is a figure who continues to inspire. Audrey Hepburn, and the characters she played, was by no means perfect, but endures in our hearts because of precisely that. Her determination, strength and unfailing goodness are not something to admire from a distance, but things we can readily achieve if only we give ourselves the chance.An extortion syndicate preying mainly on the elderly and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and involving personnel from various state agencies, not only plants bullets in bags of airline passengers but also harasses them by questioning their travel papers, the Inquirer has learned.
Initial findings by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation reveal that some porters identify potential victims of the “tanim-bala” (bullet-planting) scam and accomplices in the security and immigration services take over from them inside the four terminals of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia).
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The activities of the syndicate came to light last month when Gloria Ortinez, 56, a domestic helper in Hong Kong for 26 years, was arrested, detained and charged with carrying bullets in her luggage, despite her tearful denials. Her plight was caught by TV news cameras and went viral on social media.
Amid widespread outrage and concern among domestic and international travelers, the NBI began its investigation on orders of Justice Secretary
Alfredo Benjamin Caguiao to “act with dispatch” and report within 15 days, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Narrating the activities of the extortion ring, the NBI source, who spoke to the Inquirer on condition of anonymity for lack of authority to speak to the media, said: “Each unit has an assigned task and roles, its members are recruited by longtime workers in the four airport terminals.”
“Apart from the now very known bullet-planting extortion, the racket also covers supposed questionable documents and purpose of travel of the passenger,” he said.
“The syndicate is composed of various airport workers such as immigration personnel, airport police, X-ray scanners, baggage inspectors and porters, the source said.
Usual targets
“The usual targets are OFWs who are easily duped and the elderly who easily get nervous,” he said. “The group had a profile of their victims who they see as gullible and could easily be bullied.”
The source explained that in the case of tanim-bala, X-ray scanners and baggage inspectors under the Department of Transportation and Communications-Office for Transportation Security (DOTC-OTS) have no police powers and are not authorized by law to make an arrest and need the Philippine National Police-Aviation Security Group (PNP-Avsegroup) to step in, make the arrest and file the appropriate charges.
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“OTS personnel or X-ray scanners as well as baggage inspectors cannot make an arrest,” he said. “An airport police should be summoned to make a believable scam.”
While the role of the porter is “to spot a target and sometimes a planter of supposed evidence whichever is convenient for possible airport violations,” the source said.
NBI agents are looking at records as far as several years ago to determine and identify members of the syndicate.
“They are now cross-referencing the incident report and airport workers on duty and even those who are in the immediate vicinity of the area and make them explain their presence,” the source said.
100 bullets seized
The source said that based on the records furnished by airport officials, close to 100 rounds of ammunitions of various calibers had been seized by OTS personnel since January of this year.
The source added that seized evidence like bullets and slugs would be subjected to forensic tests, including fingerprints to determine its origin.
Stories of victims of harassment of departing passengers, mostly unaccompanied, center on their alleged lack of proof of sufficient reason to travel.
“They will ask for documents, such as letters of invitations, just to delay the passenger and impress on the unsuspecting victim that she or he had been profiled. Most of the victims were seafarers who usually carry money and almost always have various destinations. They will ask for a visa despite the explanation of some seafarers that visa will be issued by their employer in the next destination,” the source said.
According to the source, sometimes the intention was simply just to delay the passenger, especially those who were rushing to board their flights.
“These airport workers will accept anything from the harassed passengers who sometimes were even grateful to be allowed to leave,” the source said.
NBI task force
The justice department spokesperson, Emmanuel Caparas, told reporters Wednesday that an NBI special task force had been formed to look into the airport scams.
The task force will “undertake an investigation on all incidents of the tanim-bala scam at
Naia to similarly undertake a case buildup on the possible criminal and/or administrative liabilities of all individuals and agencies involved, whether public or private,” according to a department order that Caguioa signed on Monday and released Wednesday.
The NBI agents assigned to the task force are Manuel Antonio Eduarte, chief; Manuel Fayre Jr., executive officer; Dennis Asistio, team leader; Joselito Guillen, assistant team leader; and Aubren Cosidon, Rodelio Velez and Marvin Villena, members.
Caguioa ordered the task force to coordinate with “all relevant government agencies” to accomplish their job.
At least two alleged victims of tanim-bala have sought the help of the NBI: American missionary Lane Michael White and Maria Paz Triaz.
Lane, who was detained after arriving from the United States, was charged with illegal possession of ammunition but was freed on bail. Triaz was allowed to leave for Singapore after signing a waiver stating that the bullet found in her bag was an amulet. With a report from Jerome Aning
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MOST READAs one half of Vex’d, Jamie Teasdale’s role in the rise of dubstep was an important one: together with Roly Porter (who, himself, has impressed with his recent solo endeavours), he carved out some of modern Britain’s ugliest, most malevolent dance music – a middle ground between dubstep and grime so bleak it felt like the kick drums were actually sculpted from tower block debris. As far as inner city anger goes, it was the missing link between Godflesh and Dizzee Rascal, and despite groups like Cloaks doing an admirable job in attempting to take on the Vex’d mantle (Jamie and Roly split around 2008, though a second, retrospective Vex’d album titled Cloud Seed has since been released), it’s debatable whether the country has produced anything as brilliantly violent since.One of the greatest discoveries from China’s Bronze Age occurred in 1939 when a bronzeware piece from the Shang Dynasty, dated to be more than 3,000 years old, was found in Anyang City, Henan Province. It is known as the Simuwu ding.
A “ding” is a tripod or 4-legged ceremonial cauldron. It is 4.2 feet (1.3 meters) tall, 3.6 feet (1.1 meters) long, and 2.55 feet (0.78 meters) wide. The wall of the 4-legged Simuwu ding is 2.3 inches (6 cm) thick, and it weighs 1929 pounds (875 kg). The three characters Si-Mu-Wu are engraved on the inside wall of the ding, giving the ding its name.
It is said that Emperor Wending of the Shang Dynasty (1112-1102 B.C.) made the 4-legged ding to worship (si) his mother (mu) Wu. It is one of the best-known pieces of bronzeware in the world.
During the Shang and Zhou periods, the making and application of dings peaked. China’s Bronze Age civilization reached its zenith at this time. A ding became a symbol of the power and authority of the ruling emperor.
In 1965, a bronze sword was found in Jinan City, Hubei Province. When the sword was pulled out of its sheath, the metal was shiny and sparkling. There was not a spot of corrosion on the sword after being buried underground for more than 2,000 years. The sword’s blades were thin and sharp.
The sword is 21.8 inches (55.6 cm) long and the top of the handle is 1.9 inches (5 cm) wide. The sword’s blades were covered with black diamond patterns. Blue glass and turquoise were embedded in the front and the back of the top of the handle, forming a beautiful ornament. The handle is wrapped in silk thread.
There are 11 carefully carved concentric circles at the bottom of the handle. On one side of the blade, there are eight engraved characters. Six of them are identified as Yue Wang Zi Zuo Yong Jian (This sword was made for the King of Yue).
China’s Bronze Age civilization declines
The Qin Dynasty began in 221 B.C. Emperor Shihuang of the Qin Dynasty unified the calendars, words, currencies, and ways of measurement in China, and built the longest wall in the world — the Great Wall. The peak of China’s Bronze Age civilization gradually degenerated as the doctrines of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism rose |
The online application system for students is "not designed sufficiently around the customer"
The back office system is "not designed to support case ownership and management of applications is fragmented".
Ministers said other improvements to the service included keeping the Saas helpline open for longer during peak times, simplifying the application process and arrangements to deal with priority cases.
Education Secretary Mike Russell said: "Last year we put £580m into students' pockets.
"Where students applied by the deadline, there were very few problems, however, it was clear we took too long processing late and complex applications."
Mr Wallace welcomed the extra funding, adding: "I believe that the report and its recommendations speak clearly for themselves."
NUS Scotland president Robin Parker said: "We welcome these changes, but will be watching very closely over the coming months and years to ensure we see big improvements on that what has happened over the last few years."Trial begins for two former San Antonio PD officers accused of duping women into sex
Former San Antonio Police officers Alejandro Chapa, left, and Emmanuel Galindo listen to testimony Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017 during the first day of their trial in the 187th state District Court, presided by Judge Steven Hilbig. The former officers are on trial for charges of compelling prostitution. Chapa and Galindo are accused of recruiting and duping the women into having sex with them. less Former San Antonio Police officers Alejandro Chapa, left, and Emmanuel Galindo listen to testimony Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017 during the first day of their trial in the 187th state District Court, presided by Judge... more Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 88 Caption Close Trial begins for two former San Antonio PD officers accused of duping women into sex 1 / 88 Back to Gallery
Testimony is expected to begin Tuesday in the trial of two former San Antonio Police Department officers who are charged with compelling prostitution after four women complained that they were duped into having sex with the officers.
Alejandro Chapa and Emmanuel Galindo were arrested Sept. 24, 2015 after a three-month investigation. Authorities charge they impersonated members of the department’s vice unit and recruited the women for a phony sting operation.
Chapa, 29, and Galindo, 31, both are out on bond. Compelling prostitution is a second-degree felony. If convicted, each man faces two to 20 years in prison.
RELATED: Police: Man killed prostitute, let acquaintance have sex with her body, set her on fire
Video: Two Former Policemen Charged With Fake Sting/Rape
The investigation began when one of the women reported to Live Oak police that she had been sexually assaulted by an SAPD officer.
“It was evident something was going on when we started talking to the victims,” Live Oak Police Chief Ken Evans said at the time. “In no way did they know they were getting involved in prostitution.”
Aaron Alford, a third SAPD officer, was arrested and fired along with Chapa and Galindo. Alford was charged with official oppression, a Class A misdemeanor.
An arrest warrant affidavit said Alford referred one woman to Chapa and Galindo and told her she could make up to $5,000 per day if she worked as a police informant.
RELATED: Suspected Medical Center sexual attacker continues to evade capture. Here's what we know about him.
The affidavit states that the woman was given a contact number to call, and met with a man later identified as Galindo, who told the woman she needed to perform a series of tests, which included drinking beer, standing blindfolded in a bikini, dancing, “twerking,” performing a lap dance on Galindo, kissing him, getting naked and streaking across the living room, and eventually having sexual intercourse.
Another affidavit described a separate incident in which the officers offered money to a manager of a downtown bar to recruit women. It said the manager participated in a fake scenario set up by the officers to train the women on doing undercover work.
The trial is being heard in the 187th state District Court, presided by Judge Steven C. Hilbig.
This report contains material from Express-News archives.
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Twitter: @elizabeth2863The European Cycling Union (UEC) has confirmed that the European road race championships due to be held in Nice between September 14-18 will now be held in Plumelec-Morbihan, in the east of Brittany. Related Articles Tour de France honours victims of Nice attack with minute of silence
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Nice was due to host the races –including the first-ever elite races for professional riders but opted to withdraw after the terrorist attack on July 14 when a man claiming allegiance to the terrorist group IS drove a truck into crowds celebrating the French national day on the Promenade des Anglais, killing 85 and injuring hundreds more.
The UEC backed the decision by the Nice mayor to cancel the event and quickly began to find an alternative location. Several other European locations offered to host the championships, including Yorkshire, Trentino and Le Marche in central Italy. However the UEC opted for Brittany during their Management Board meeting in Lausanne.
The town of Plumelec is used to hosting major cycling events having already welcomed the Tour de France five times, the last in 2015, and has also hosted three French professional championships. The area also organizes several prestigious road races and the European Championships will follow the route of the GP Plumelec-Morbihan, with the finish at the summit of the Côte de Cadoudal (1.8 km at an average of 7.8%). Full technical details will be revealed in the next few days.
Philippe Gilbert, Fabio Aru and Alberto Contador have previously been named as possible team leaders for their national squads. The European championships will be held a week after the finish of the Vuelta a Espana and a month before this year's road world championships in Qatar.
Former winners of the under-23 road race include Stefan Kung and Sean de Bie in the men's race, and Marianne Vos and Kasia Niewiadoma in the women's. Niewiadoma won last year's race ahead of Ilaria Sanguineti in Tartu, Estonia, while Erik Baska beat Mamyr Stash to the men's title.
"We would like to convey our sincere thanks to the town of Plumelec in the department of Morbihan, in East Brittany and the government who have stepped in to organise these Road European Cycling Championships following the withdrawal of the city of Nice," UEC President David Lappartient said in a statement confirming the news.
"The Breton venue in Plumelec is a very good solution enabling us to fulfill the UEC's technical and sporting requirements. Brittany has loyal and passionate cycling fans and we are delighted to offer a quality venue to host the 1st European Professional Championships. In these special circumstances the UEC and its partners will do everything in its power to deliver a great event to the 50 European Federations, to the 800 riders and to all cycling fans.
"I also like to thank our friends from Yorkshire, Trentino and Marche for their bids. All these bids demonstrate the attractiveness of Road Cycling European Championships."
Programme for 2016 European Championships
Wednesday, September 14: ITT Junior women / ITT Junior Men + ITT U23 men
Thursday, September 15: ITT Elite and Espoir women / ITT Elite Men
Friday, September 16: Road race Junior women / Road race Espoir men
Saturday, September 17: Road race elite and Espoir women / road race Junior men
Sunday, September 18: Road race elite men.Japanese women are more likely to have a university degree than men, and the number of women in employment has been rising steadily for 10 years - but, for a range of reasons, a woman who has had children still has a hard time getting a good job.
Nobuko Ito is the very model of a modern professional Japanese woman.
She is a qualified lawyer and she speaks fluent English. She has years of experience working in international contract law.
But Nobuko no longer works in a big international law firm. The reason? She has three small children.
According to Japanese government statistics by far the biggest reason why Japanese women quit their jobs after childbirth is that Japanese "working hours make child care unfeasible".
"Before I had a child I remember one busy month where I billed the client for 300 hours!" Nobuko says.
Image caption Nobuko Ito says Japanese men fear losing their job if they take paternity leave
"I'd get in the office at 09:00 in the morning, and leave at 03:00 the next morning, and I'd come in on Saturday and Sunday.
"If you want to keep working you have to forget about your children, you have to just devote yourself to the company.
"I can't do this, it's impossible."
As Nobuko's example shows Japan's working culture can be brutal. It's one of the reasons why 70% of Japanese women still give up work as soon as they have their first child.
Another is their husbands.
When it comes to housework Japanese men are still far behind their counterparts in Europe or America.
In Sweden, Germany and the US husbands spend, on average, three hours a day helping out with children and household chores. In Japan it's one hour, and they spend just 15 minutes a day with their children.
The pay gap Many Japanese women still withdraw from the labour force upon childbirth and often cannot resume their regular employment pattern: in the dual Japanese labour market, women often end up in relatively lowly-paid non-regular employment. The gender pay gap at median earnings is the second highest in the OECD. OECD: Closing the Gender Gap (2012)
Then there is paternity leave. Japanese men are entitled to take it, but only a tiny minority actually do - just 2.63%, according to the Health and Welfare ministry.
"My husband didn't take paternity leave" Nobuko Ito says.
"Most Japanese men are very hesitant to use the system. They may want to come back home to help with the family, but on the other hand they think they need to work as hard as possible otherwise they may not get promoted, or they may lose their job."
Despite all this Nobuko, like many Japanese mums, wants to continue working. She now runs her own law practice from an office near her home.
But the next hurdle she and other Japanese mothers face is childcare, or rather the lack of it.
According to the Tokyo government's own statistics there are 20,000 children in the city waiting for places in day-care centres.
The government centres that do exist are good, but they are far too few. And even if you do get a place it's means-tested and can be expensive - around 70,000 Yen ($737, £484) per month for the first child.
Image caption Japanese fathers make a "limited" contribution to childcare, and do less housework than men from other developed countries, the OECD says
"I'd get a discount for having three children, but it would still be at least $1,000 a month even at the state nursery," says Nobuko Ito.
"At an expensive private nursery it can cost $2,000 a month per child. But those are really good!" she says laughing.
Kathy Matsui's Womenomics Japan's female employment rate of 60% still ranks well below that of many other developed countries such as Norway at 75%, the US at 66%, and Germany at 64%.
Roughly 70% of Japanese women quit working after giving birth to their first child. This compares to around one-third of women in the US.
The ratio of Japanese mothers with children under six who work (34%) remains extremely low compared to 76% in Sweden, 61% in the US, 55% in the UK, and 53% in Germany. Womenomics 3.0 (Goldman Sachs 2010)
All of this adds up to two things. Women who are having children are not working. Women who are working are not having children. Both are terrible for Japan's future.
In her ground-breaking work Womenomics: Japan's Hidden Asset, Japanese-American economist Kathy Matsui says getting more Japanese mothers to stay in work or go back to work should be a "national priority".
She says it could add as much as 15% to Japan's GDP.
But Matsui says there is another even more pressing reason. Japan is running out of people.
"Although a low fertility rate is common among other developed countries, Japan may be the only OECD nation where the number of pets exceeds the number of children," she says.
Japan's birth rate is just 1.37 births per woman, far below the 2.1 figure at which a population remains stable.
Evidence from Europe and America suggest helping women to stay in work can increase the birth rate.
More from the Magazine Each Swedish child is guaranteed a place at a public preschool and no parent is charged more than three per cent of their salary. The state subsidy for preschool services is more than the annual defence budget. Sweden's night nurseries
In countries like Sweden, Denmark and the US, where female employment rates are high, birth rates are also higher. In countries where female employment is low, like Italy, South Korea and Japan, birth rates are also low.
In Japan a demographic crisis is already under way. In 2006 Japan's population began to shrink.
If current trends persist it will lose a third of its population in the next half century.
Nothing like that has ever happened before.Thursday on “Extra,” Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood weighed in on the 2016 Republican presidential field.
“I think there’s quite a few of them who are really good people,” Eastwood said.
Co-host Mario Lopez asked Eastwood about his feelings on Trump, to which Eastwood said he seems to fill a desire of what people want in a candidate. He also spoke of Carson and said any of those would be better than the current president, Barack Obama.
“You know, I don’t know,” Eastwood replied. “I think people are looking for somebody who is outspoken and who isn’t afraid. And he seems to have kind of a fearless attitude. I like Ben Carson because he is kind of a common sense guy. Anyone of them would be better than what we got.”
Eastwood was also asked about the prospects of his attendance at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next year, to which Eastwood said he might now be wanted, referring to his 2012 appearance at the event in Tampa.
“They might not want me this year because I’ll be talking to chairs and doing something stupid,” he added.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poorIt seems Google has gone after yet another guest blog network that is being used by SEOs for link building purposes. The link network is named PostJoint and has gone on record that they are different from MyBlogGuest, which was penalized a month ago.
Matt Cutts confirmed on Twitter in a round about way that PostJoint and likely all the publishers in the network, were penalized. I bet they will start seeing unnatural link notifications within Google Webmaster Tools Manual Actions Viewer this coming week.
Matt tweeted:
@techtada any link or guest blog network that claims to have "zero footprints" is waving a giant red flag. — Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) April 18, 2014
Brian White, his colleague spam fighter added a tip:
@mattcutts I've said it before, but if you want your network to have "zero footprints" this goes a long way http://t.co/ZlBPOOBXkG — Brian White (@brianwhite) April 18, 2014
PostJoint was penalized and some of those who participated in the network were also.
PostJoint confirms receiving a penalty, this is a new one named "business model violations" where it says:
UPDATE: They made up this penalty notification. I am so sorry for the confusion.
Google's algorithms are currently unable to detect the difference between genuine and spammy content marketing activities. Platforms like yours mess with our business model leaving us with no alternative but to setup a complex and labour intensive manual operation. As a result, Google has de-indexed your site.
Then PostJoint claims that only 16% of the publishers using their site received an unnatural link notification from Google. I am not sure how they know it was only 16%, that simply doesn't make sense to me.
But then they blow my mind and go bold by saying:
The fact that only 16% of our sites have been hit shows that Google can't infact trace all of the sites using PostJoint.
Man, they are asking for it.
Here are some recent link networks taken down by Google:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Note: I am offline today and this post was pre-scheduled to be automatically posted. So if I am delayed in responding to issues or comments, I apologize in advance.The boom in the new digital currencies reaches the classical forms of investment in the financial sector. In Switzerland, a fund will be launched this year with bitcoin, ethers and other cryptic additives.
“We are in talks with Financial Market Supervisory Authority Finma,” says Jan Brzezek, head of CryptoFund AG, headquartered in Zug, who wants to launch the fund. “In the fourth quarter, we want to go live. It will be the world’s first regulated fund for cryptosis. “Negotiations are under way with the future custodian bank in Switzerland. The company is advised by the law firm MME, audit firms are expected to be PWC and EY.
On the project are prominent heads. On the Board of Directors of the CryptoFund, Marc Bernegger, a Fintech specialist and investor, is sitting in numerous start-ups. Chief Jan Brzezek comes from UBS, where he was most recently a business manager at President Asset Management and President UBS Group EMEA and was also part of the innovation team. The co-founder is Tobias Reichmuth, head of Finma-regulated asset manager SUSI Partners. In the summer, the Board of Directors is also to be filled with a further known person from the Swiss banking industry.
For qualified investors
The prices of Bitcoin and Ether have grown massively this year against francs and dollars, partly by more than 1000 percent. The new digital assets are still pioneering and pose a number of risks, including the so-called “blockchain” technology. But the interest of investors is nevertheless enormous. Every day, Swiss banks are asked by wealthy customers how they can invest in the new asset class.
So far, it is not quite trivial to buy bitcoins and ethers in the larger style and, above all, to manage them. This should change with an investment instrument with a common security number. “We want to build bridges between the old and the new world,” says Brzezek. CryptoFund’s fund is open to qualified investors, such as pension funds, insurance companies, banks, family offices and other eligible investors. The reason lies in regulation. There are fewer obstacles when a fund is offered to qualified investors only and not to the general public. “Because of the risks, cryptic investigations should at present only be used for diversification in the Alternative Investments category,” says Brzezek.
«The Cryptocurrency Fund»
The new fund, called “The Cryptocurrency Fund”, will include the most important cryptoscripts, bitcoin and ethers, but will also include others such as ripple or Litecoin. Brzezek, the asset manager, will invest the portfolio into individual currencies and work with several trading venues. Responsibility for the net asset calculation and issue and redemption of units has a FINMA-regulated fund management, and the currencies purchased are not held with CryptoFund AG, but with a FINMA-regulated custodian bank in Switzerland. Specifically, this bank will manage the so-called private keys – a type of passwords – that entitle the transfer of digital assets. Corresponding technical solutions for custodians are in process.
Brzezek is aiming at a fund volume of 100 million Swiss francs in the first year, with around 10 million already being invested by investors. There are limits to the upper limits, since the liquidity of the cryptoscripts is still too small to allow for large commercial orders without a massive movement of prices. After all, they are already worth more than a billion dollars a day. The market capitalization of all cryptos is about 100 billion dollars.
world first
To date, there is no regulated fund, as planned by CryptoFund. In Switzerland, Vontobel only holds a certificate, which follows the course of Bitcoin. In the US, Bitcoin Investment Trust is open to certain investors. In addition, there are a few other financial instruments, which usually only focus on one single currency.
The Bitcoin NewsEnglish [ edit ]
Etymology [ edit ]
Blend of snow cone + clone, after the popular idea that the Inuit have a large number of words for different types of snow; coined by Glen Whitman in response to Geoffrey Pullum on the blog Language Log.
Pronunciation [ edit ]
Noun [ edit ]
snowclone (plural snowclones)
A type of cliché which uses an old idiom formulaically placed in a new context. "To fry or not to fry" is a snowclone of the famous quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet, "To be or not to be". 2005 Nov 5, auuV, "Some articles that I like. They are about language," alt.running.out.of.newsgroup.names, Usenet I stumbled upon the site the other day, when I was looking up the origins of the "Im not an X, but I play one on TV" snowclone.
Nov 5, auuV, "Some articles that I like. They are about language,", 2005 December 3, David Rowan, "Trendsurfing:'Snowclone'journalism" [1], The Times Suddenly snowclone hunters were documenting media usages suggesting that, in space, no one can hear you belch, bitch, blog, speak, squeak or suck.
December 3, David Rowan, "Trendsurfing:'' journalism" [1], 2006 Jun 20, Michael Erard, "Analyzing Eggcorns and Snowclones, and Challenging Strunk and White", in The New York Times, page F4 Regular readers learned there first about snowclones, the basic building blocks of cliches, like "X is the new Y" or "you don't need a degree in A to do B."
Jun 20, Michael Erard, "Analyzing Eggcorns and, and Challenging Strunk and White", in, page F4 2006 Jul, Mark Peters, "Not Your Father's Cliché", in Columbia Journalism Review 45(2), page 14 If so, you're being snowed under by snowclones — a category of fill-in-the-blank cliché identified by linguists.
Jul, Mark Peters, "Not Your Father's Cliché", in 45(2), page 14 2006 Nov 18, unknown author, "Snowclone", in New Scientist 192(2578), page 80 When you read phrases like these in a newspaper, you've stumbled across a particular type of cliché: the snowclone.
Related terms [ edit ]
Translations [ edit ]
a type of cliché Chinese: Mandarin: 雪克隆 ( xuěkèlóng )
Finnish: kulunut ilmaus Japanese: もじり ( mojiri )
Russian: фра́за-клише́ f ( fráza-klišé )
Spanish: please add this translation if you can
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Talk about energy efficient, this boat will use only sun, wind, and hydrogen for power to last six years as it travels around the world.
Called the "Energy Observer," the eco-friendly vessel is a converted multi-hull race boat powered by solar panels, wind turbines, and a hydrogen fuel cell system. The boat's captains, Jerome Delafosse, a professional diver and documentarian, and Victorien Erussard, offshore racer and Merchant navy officer, both from France, are preparing now to embark on this long, experimental journey.
"In the past, man explored to conquer territories and to appropriate wealth. With Energy Observer, we want to explore to discover and share solutions for a cleaner future," said Delafosse on their website.
Crafted by architects, navigators, and engineers, the boat is not only energy efficient, but totally autonomous: it creates energy onboard. It uses natural wind energy and hydrogen that's been decarbonized from ocean water, making it the first independent hydrogen-powered boat in the world. This model allows powering the boat to be both inexpensive and carbon-free. A smart traction kite will help convert the boat's engines into hydro generators.
The boat will visit 50 countries and make 101 stops in search of "innovative solutions" to environmental issues. The "Energy Observer" is meant to be more than a boat, but a form of media promoting the idea that creative, environmental solutions are possible, according to the project's website.
The "Energy Observer" expedition has two goals: It will test these technologies in real time out at sea, and therefore also in extreme environments, and search for environmental solutions as it circumnavigates the globe.
Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.I consider it both a strange mystery and a settled matter of the faith that God prefers not to do things alone. Repeatedly, He acts in a manner that involves the actions of others when it would seem, He could have acted alone.
Why would God reveal His Word to the world through the agency of men? Why would He bother to use writing? Why not simply communicate directly with people? Why speak to Moses in a burning bush? Why did the Incarnation involve Mary? Could He not have simply become man, whole, complete, adult, in a single moment?
Such questions could be multiplied ad infinitum. But at every turn, what we know of God involves others as well. We may rightly conclude that such a means of acting pleases Him.
An Orthodox hymn for the Annunciation says:
The manner of His emptying cannot be known;
the manner of His conception is beyond speech.
An Angel ministers at the miracle; a virginal womb receives the Son;
the Holy Spirit is sent down; the Father on high is well pleased,
and according to their common counsel, a reconciliation is brought to pass
in which and through which we are saved.
“According to their common counsel” is a rich phrase describing this conciliar action of God.
At the same time that this conciliar mode of action seems obvious to Orthodoxy, it is frequently denied or diminished by others. There is a fear in some Christian quarters that were we to admit that God shared His action with any other, our salvation would be a matter of our own works and not the sovereign act of God. It is feared that a conciliar mode of action shares the glory of God with mere mortals.
It is true. This understanding shares the glory of God with mere mortals. But, interestingly, St. Paul says that man is the “image and glory of God” (1 Cor. 11:7). Apparently, we were brought into existence in order to have such a share.
The failure to understand this and the effort to re-invent the Christian story with diminished roles for angels and saints, or Christians themselves, comes very close to setting forth a different gospel altogether.
The Word became flesh of the Virgin Mary. The flesh of the Virgin is also the flesh that is nailed to the Cross (when her soul was itself mysteriously “pierced”). The flesh which we eat in the Eucharist is also the flesh of the Virgin – for there is no flesh of God that is not the flesh of the Virgin.
And it does no good to protest that the Word merely “took flesh” of the Virgin. For Adam cried out concerning Eve, “This is truly bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” And St. Paul noted concerning the wife of a man that a man should love her, “For no one ever yet hated his own flesh.”
I puzzle at how Christians who understand that it is wrong for a woman to say, “It’s my body and I can do with it what I want,” when she is carrying a child, can at the same time treat the Mother of God as though she had merely lent her womb to God for a period of time.
God’s conciliar action in our salvation is so thoroughly established that it involves our will, our soul, our flesh and bones. This is not only true in the Incarnation, but continues to be true for every saving effort in our lives. We cannot save ourselves, of course, for that, too, would be denying the conciliar action of God.
There is a saying among the fathers, “If anyone falls, he falls alone, but no one can be saved alone.” But I think we cannot even say that we fall alone – for the one who falls is equally bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Christ does not distance Himself from the one who falls, but unites Himself with him so completely that He endures the consequence of our fall, entering death and hell to bring us back alive.
The Church is nothing other than the conciliar salvation of God, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh – His body. We are being saved together whether we will admit it or not. Those who study and quote the Bible are themselves handling documents that were written, copied and preserved by others. It is a conciliar document.
The Orthodox way of life urges us to embrace the fullness of our conciliar being. In sacraments and saints in worship and wonder we live within the cloud of witnesses and share the common struggle.
For this reason let us unite our song with Gabriel’s,
crying aloud to the Virgin:
“Rejoice, O Lady full of grace, the Lord is with you!
From you is our salvation, Christ our God,
Who, by assuming our nature, has led us back to Himself.
Humbly pray to Him for the salvation of our souls!”VEGAS (June 1, 2017) - Vegas Golden Knights General Manager George McPhee announced today, June 1, that the team has signed Czech Republic free agent forward Tomas Hyka (pronounced "TOE-mas HEE-kah") to an entry-level contract.
The 24-year-old forward joins the Golden Knights after most recently playing for his hometown club of Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Extraliga. Last season, Hyka skated in 48 regular-season games and led his team in goals (17), assists (21) and points (38). During the 2015-16 season, he was again among the team scoring leaders as he tallied 30 points on 12 goals and 18 assists. The 30 points were tied for the second highest on the club. In 130 career regular-season games with Mlada Boleslav, he scored 37 goals with 42 assists for a total of 79 points. He also registered nine goals and three assists in 24 postseason contests.
Prior to his most recent stint in the Czech league, he skated with the Gatineau Olympiques of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League from 2011-2013 and Farjestads BK Karlstad of the Swedish Elite League during the 2013-14 season. He has twice represented Team Czech Republic at the World Junior Championships.The CFTC has adopted a regulation banning the usage of credit cards and credit card funded accounts such as PayPal for depositing money into forex accounts. Debit cards are still accepted. The concern is that traders would borrow funds via their credit card and use it for trading.
This is big news for the US forex industry. Will other regulators follow? Here are some more details:
Here is the report from Leap Rate:
A matter that was first proposed by the National Futures Association (NFA) in the early stages of 2013, The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has approved the controversial plan by the NFA to ban use of credit cards and related payment methods for funding of retail FX accounts. In an announcement dated December 1, 2014, the NFA unveils the decision by the CFTC, which means that the proposed changed will come into force on January 31, 2015.
And here is the press release by the NFA, regarding the CFTC decision.
More: Will Foreign Forex Brokers Get “Gambling” Classification?Parking is located under the building with additional parking options, such as:
Padres Parkade
433 10th Avenue (10th Avenue & J Street)
San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 230-0003
Note: You may park in the San Diego Padres Parkade at a rate of $1.00/hr. or $6/day. Levels 6 – 9 are reserved, so please be sure not to park on those levels. Parking is not available on game days.
You are more than welcome to park along the street and pay for metered parking. There are meters on 10th Avenue, Island Avenue, 11th Avenue and several other locations.
There are additional parking lots located within the vicinity of the law school. These parking lots are either managed by “Ace Parking” or “5 Star.” You must pre-pay before leaving your vehicle.Mr. Sunderland’s election last fall represented the triumph of a wing of the party that wants to rebuild it by emphasizing moderation and its distinctive Vermont character, over a more combative faction that included its previous chairman, Jack Lindley, that was more interested in social issues and in aligning itself with the national party.
The most prominent face of the party’s moderate wing is Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, an affable 55-year-old who owns a construction company and is a member of Mr. Shumlin’s cabinet. “I feel we have probably bottomed out,” he said this week. “I’m sure it’ll never return to what it once was, but that’s O.K.”
He says he takes his cues from predecessors like Deane C. Davis, a moderate governor who oversaw the creation of a sales tax and environmental protections. “Vermont Republicans are a different breed than nationally, admittedly,” Mr. Scott said, adding, “I would like to bring the party back to its roots.”
He is too pragmatic to challenge Mr. Shumlin, who is popular and, as chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, has a healthy war chest. But Mr. Scott has not ruled out running for governor when Mr. Shumlin moves on.
For now, party leaders are focusing on increasing their base and gaining ground in the Legislature — or at least not losing any. “It took a long time to get where we are; it’s going to take time to get back to where we have more relevance and we have more people,” said Rep. Donald H. Turner, the House minority leader, who is trying at least to hold on to the party’s 45 out of 150 seats in the House, despite six retirements.
The party is hopeful that voters will turn its way because of rising education costs and questions about the financing of the single-payer health care system Democrats established in 2011.
Meanwhile, Mr. Milne is building a strategy for a low-key primary on Aug. 26. He appears to be the party’s preferred choice for governor; another candidate, Steve Berry, surprised the party by jumping in, too, but his is considered a fringe campaign. And a candidate who has twice run previously as an independent, Emily Peyton, is running as a Republican, but the party will not support her.
“I feel like there’s an opportunity to win. I wouldn’t bet on it,” said Mr. Milne, 55. “We’ll run a good campaign.”Firaxis
I started out playing Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown on “Classic” difficulty with “Ironman” disabled. I had this idea going in that I was going to inch rather than sprint through the game, reloading if I lost soldiers, like whittling slivers from a wood carving or lingering over each sentence in an anticipated book. Missed shots? Botched moves? Wounded or incapacitated soldiers? No problem. But permadeath, no thank-you, at least not the first time through.
It’s a slightly obsessive way of playing a turn-based tactics game, granted, but one that’s designed to ensure you’re always putting your best foot forward as you work through the game’s strategic layer, safeguarding leveled-up soldiers and snowballing your capabilities. You pay for the luxury in time and iteration — how repetitive it feels depends on the game’s unpredictability each time you draw back the hands on the clock.
(MORE: How XCOM: Enemy Unknown Is Like Bowling)
In XCOM, the more you’re inclined to alter your squads’ moves and actions when reloading from a save point, the less automatic each scenario feels. Obvious, right? If you take a low odds shot instead of hunkering down (a defense-bolstering option), different results. If you choose to reload instead of spending your clip’s last shot on overwatch, different results. If you zig instead of zag, different results. And if you’re the sort of player who never does the same thing twice when reloading, what you experience will always seem unpredictable, guaranteed.
But let’s say you’re playing through a sequence of events in a scenario that leads to one of your soldiers being flanked by a sectoid (XCOM’s “gray-skinned, black-eyed” aliens) who fires and scores a one-shot kill. If you reload, then perform each move and action in XCOM exactly as you did before from that point in the scenario, you’ll get exactly the same results.
I don’t mean sometimes or mostly, but every time and precisely the same, from misses to hits, damage meted out or incurred, where your opponents go and what they do, and so forth. Execute the same moves a dozen times in a row and you’ll have a dozen identical replays, right up to and including the sectoid shot that puts the soldier you were reloading to save down. As The Doctor might say, some events are fixed points in time: In XCOM, those fixed points become tantamount to saved games when played as re-enactions.
There’s a reason for this. Technically speaking, it’s because XCOM randomizes its numbers from a seed that’s saved at the outset of a scenario. That seed determines what happens thereafter, and once you’ve memorized a certain play sequence, if you choose to repeat it, it’s doing so in essentially non-random terms.
Bear with me here. Random numbers on computers aren’t truly random, they’re actually pseudo-random, because computers are deterministic. The |
from garden sheds to watches.
Keeping an eye on this rather vast tranche of the UK’s male populace is motoring journalist Dan Trent, PistonHeads.com’s 38-year-old editor, who explains that the URL was first registered back in 1998 as a fansite for TVR owners. “It was a way for them to keep in touch and discuss how to keep their cars running, which if you know TVRs you’ll know figures quite highly,” Dan says.
To say that the site has evolved a little since then would be something of an understatement. Despite an editorial team of just two – plus assorted freelancers – there are now more than 30,000 motoring-related articles archived on the website. What’s equally impressive is that PistonHeads claims to be the biggest male-oriented online network in the world outside of Twitter and Facebook, with 9,000 posts on the site each day.
Dan likens his role to “more of a landlord than a minder,” and says he’s merely providing a venue and “a little sustenance.” He is downplaying things a little because his menu (so to speak) is frankly colossal. Though a good portion of the website’s daily visitors just dip in for a peep at some of the 100,000 cars on sale in the PistonHeads classified pages, just as many disappear into one of the site’s innumerable forums. Once there they vent, ask for advice, or they pass on wisdom of their own to fellow ‘PHers’, as they call them (far better than the other obvious alternative: “Pist-heads”).
“There are discussions on everything from cars and motorbikes to gardening and watches,” says Dan. “A surprisingly popular forum for everyone who might have us down as a Clarkson-esque world where anyone who doesn’t drive a 500 horsepower car is looked down upon, is the cycling forum. That’s quite big.”
Dan deals in such large numbers, of course, that the meaning of “quite big” gets a little lost in translation. At the last count his “Pedal Powered” forum featured a whopping 223,000 posts.
There are 362,000 posts about football, 218,000 about food and drink and over a million about “News, Politics And Economics”. All of these are subsections of a much bigger haunt known as The Pie And Piston, PistonHeads’ virtual pub. It’s a lively, friendly place where members tend to watch each other’s backs.
“The tone of the postings can be quite punchy at times,” says Dan, “but people are banned only very rarely. It’s pretty well-mannered and there’s a lot of self-regulation from fellow members.”
What PistonHeads ultimately does for many a man is fill something of a social black hole. Dan says that he himself is typical of the reader demographic, which means that a busy workload and being a dad are just the kind of responsibilities that users have to shoulder. PistonHeads is a release. A chance to reconnect with other chaps – exactly the reason, perhaps, that it’s been dubbed ‘Mumsnet for men’.
“I don’t think that’s far off the mark,” Dan says. “Much as Mumsnet’s discussions go a long way beyond nappies and nursery recommendations, so ours go way beyond cars and driving. It’s a bit of a cliché, but I think there’s a real sense of community there.”A new series launches on the YouTube channel at 9pm UK time tonight. Surprise!
I did threaten that I'd be making more videos eventually and, over two months after tearing it all down I'm going to start building it back up again.
I noticed a gap in what I was making. The experimental shit is great fun and I love thoroughly testing new games on Twitch but, well, Twitch isn't exactly great at promoting those games. If you see a game or not depends on when I stream, if you're free etc etc. My promoting cool games plan isn't working, so I'm changing it.
Starting tonight is Nerd³ Recommends. I'm going to take the best games I test on the live streams and show them off to a wider audience. The videos will be hopefully succinct, quick looks at games I already know are good. This isn't a first impressions series, this is just a "look at these awesome games" series.
The plan so far is to release two a week. Wednesdays/Friday or Wednesday/Mondays with the mad shit still on Saturdays. If I haven't got a good game to show off then I just won't make a video. Simple as that.
That's all for now! Tonight I'll be looking at Opus Magnum and waaaay over complicating a machine for fun. See you there.
- DanBy Laman Ismayilova
Astana has hosted an opening ceremony of the Turkology Museum subordinated to the International Turkic Academy.
Scientists, intellectuals and media representatives from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Mongolia attended the event, Report.az reported.
The museum features personal belongings, unpublished diaries and manuscripts of outstanding Turkologists such as Abduali Kaydar, Abzhan Kurishjanov, Amir Najib, Rabiga Sizdikova and Osman Fikri Sertkaya.
President of the International Turkic Academy Darkhan Kydyrali, addressing the event, said that the International Turkic Academy was established by the heads of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Kyrgyzstan at the summit in 2009 in Nakhchivan. The decision to open academy's library and museum was made during the summit.
Later, the International Turkic Academy held a round table "Turkology and modern problems of Altai researches".
Notably, within the event, well-known turkologist, Professor at American University of Michigan Timur Kocaoğlu was awarded the academy's medal for his contribution to the development of the science of turkology.
---
Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzShutterstock.com
These family doctor and emergency-room alternatives are popping up in more storefronts around the country — but they differ in price and quality of care.
1. “We might put your family doctor out of business…”
The next time you get sick or need a physical, there’s a good chance you’ll be seen not in a hospital or your primary-care physician’s office, but in a clinic based in a drugstore or supermarket. Retail health clinics, popping up everywhere from strip-mall storefronts to Wal-Marts, are one of the newest alternatives to the doctor’s office — no appointment necessary. There are now nearly 1,400 stand-alone clinics across the country, 54 more than last year and over twice as many as five years ago. That’s in addition to about 8,700 urgent-care centers, which treat more serious ailments and injuries. The proliferation of the walk-in clinics is largely an effort by the overburdened health system to divert patients with minor ailments to facilities that are less expensive than the emergency room: On average, retail and urgent-care clinics cost 80% less than the E.R., according to the Rand Corp., a research firm, and a study by BlueCross and Blue Shield of Minnesota found clinic visits cost half as much as a primary-care appointment. And as health reform kicks in and millions of newly insured patients flood the system, experts say, the difficulty of getting an appointment at a regular doctor’s office could make the clinics the only realistic option for some consumers.
But patients choose the clinics not just out of desperation, but because they offer another advantage over traditional doctor offices: convenience. The clinics are open on nights and weekends — after most primary-care physicians have gone home — and since walk-in patients are welcome, people can go when they first feel sick, instead of waiting for their doctor’s schedule to open up. Plus, the clinics offer fast service, so people need not block off half a day to sit in the waiting room: The average patient is in and out in 15 to 20 minutes, according to the Convenient Care Association, the retail clinics’ trade group. “We were considered the soccer mom favorites early on,” says Tine Hansen-Turton, executive director of the association. Indeed, a Rand study found that patients who try retail clinics are 67% less likely to go to a doctor the next time they get sick with a similar problem, a phenomenon health experts view as potentially dangerous: “If every time a patient goes to a retail clinic is one less visit to their doctor, could they be undermining primary care relationships?” questions Ateev Mehrotra, a Rand health policy analyst.Teafaerie – founder of Burning Man’s Promotheatrics, co-founder (along with Burning Dan) of LA’s Flow Temple, and Erowid.org columnist – has long been an inspiration to me. This article is called “Why Flow Arts Are Awesome.” To me, this woman also describes “Why Flow Artists Are Awesome.” Maybe flow arts are awesome because there are so many awesome people practicing them...
From her website:
When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I teach Flow Arts. That’s much is easy. The hard part comes about three seconds later, when my well intentioned interlocutor inevitably insist that I define my terms.
What is Flow Arts? It’s a question that has been posed to me countless times. As one of the co-founders of Flow Temple (along with Burning dan), I’m often asked to explain why so many fully grown adults suddenly seem to be rediscovering the magic of playing with a certain class of toys. The answer turns out to be complex and involved, but it’s ultimately intuitive at the core. Which is actually a fairly decent description of Flow Arts itself, now that I come to think about it.
According to the propaganda on our website Flow Arts is a meditation and self transformation practice that improves patience, balance, confidence, dexterity, focus, coordination and self-esteem. It’s also a fun and sexy performance art. All of this is true, and more. Or not. It’s one of those things where what you get out of it is largely dependent upon what you bring to it in the first place. Some people spin for years and only have an increasingly sophisticated bag of tricks to show for it. Which is a noble and worthy accomplishment, don’t get me wrong! On the other hand, some practitioners experience it as a sort of an integrated physio-energetic practice like yoga or like martial arts, (but with less martial and more art). I’ve seen several of my beginning poi students turn their whole world around in just six weeks, simply by getting in touch with their minds and bodies, and by applying the profound insights gleaned from their practice to surprisingly diverse aspects of their daily lives.
At Flow Temple our focus is on flow, not tricks. It’s sort of a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach. Both methods work, and of course they can be (and always essentially are, to some extent) used in combination. If you just stand there and do a bunch of basic moves over and over, you will eventually find yourself immersed in the flow almost by accident. On the other hand, if you start out cultivating your flow from day one, most of the basic tricks will tend to manifest and unfold themselves quite naturally in the course of your instinctive and/or methodical exploration.
So what is flow? Now there’s a fun one. Now we’re getting to the good part! Which, typically enough, turns out to be somewhat challenging to describe.
Flow is obviously not unique to Flow Arts. In fact the movement as a whole only started using that term relatively recently, as the practice has evolved in that direction over a number of years. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience defines flow as a state in which “action and awareness are merged”. Flow is the state of relaxed responsive focus that you feel when you’re “in the zone” and ready for anything. Flow is what happens when your body, mind, and spirit are in dynamic balance and the Now is so compelling that everything else fades away. Ego and fear dissolve in the perfect moment, time slows down, and whatever you’re doing becomes a meditation.
The basic principles that apply to objects in motion turn out to be fairly universal, and a deeper understanding of these principles helps us to to operate much more flowfully in our daily lives. In almost every scenario, for instance, there is effort needed to accomplish our goals, and close examination will usually reveal that a light touch at the right time will redirect the relevant momentum much more efficiently than roughly yanking the whole situation out of it’s given trajectory. Insights of this nature come up constantly in the course of our exploration; so much so that it sometimes makes a stick or a sock with a water balloon in it seem like some kind of a magical teaching tool.
Part of what Flow Arts does, at least in our experience, is extend the time that the practitioner is capable of paying attention from about a second and a half to almost a full three seconds. And that makes all the difference in the world! There are very few manipulations that take more than three seconds to complete, and if you can stay focused for that long, it turns out that you can accomplish almost anything you desire. Flow Arts does not require an enormous amount of strength or agility, and though it rewards natural talent, most of it’s principle techniques can be mastered by anyone with a good attitude and a willingness to devote some time and patience to an engaging enterprise.
Fortunately, this is not hard to convince people to do, because Flow Arts is rather addictive. It’s the only system of meditation I’ve ever found that starts paying off right away. I think it has something to do with the way the human brain responds to intermittent reward. It’s the same reason why so many people are addicted to gambling. We’re programmed to respond with interest and enthusiasm when we succeed at a task in which the outcome is uncertain right up until the last moment. When we successfully accomplish a new move, our brains supply us with a big dose of happy juice that’s designed by nature to keep us coming back for more.
And more is easy to get, because the possibilities are virtually limitless! It’s like playing a musical instrument. Even if you work at it every day for the rest of your life, you’ll never bottom out. You’ll never run out of the infinitely precious commodity of something that you can almost-but-not-quite do, and that you could almost certainly learn to do in an hour if you buckled down and tried real hard. One side effect of this, if you do it a lot, is that you artificially inflate the percentage of encountered challenges at which you are able to succeed simply by applying patience and intelligence to the task at hand. Imagine what your life would be like if you were more instinctively confident that this was true!
Flow Arts gently teaches you to celebrate your triumphs and to persevere in the face of frustration. It teaches you about how you learn as an individual, and if you’re lucky and persistent you may even learn to love to learn again, as we all naturally did when we were very young. At Flow Temple we make a big deal out of all of out little victories, because we find that a high-five or a rousing cheer from across the room literally helps to lock in the successful sequence. When we drop our props or smack ourselves in the face, it simply triggers a reminder to return our consciousness to our breath, to focus our minds, and to try it again more slowly. It’s not possible to mess up when you’re practicing. Practice is perfect, always. We find that we learn as much from our mistakes as we do from our successes, anyway.
One of the things that makes Flow Arts such a terrific practice in general is it’s amazing versatility. When I need an endorphin boost, spinning is a quick chi-up. When I’m bubbling over with excess energy it can also be the perfect chill down. When I need to focus myself, I can attempt the most challenging move that I know, or I can simply concentrate on trying to do an easy move perfectly. On the other hand, if my brain needs a break I can just trance out and spin on automatic pilot for a while. It’s grounding and invigorating at the same time. And there’s a whole lot of room for personal style! Everybody does it a little bit differently. Burning dan could famously look out across Burning Man and tell you who all was spinning at what camp, just by observing the distinctive geometries traced out by the tiny balls of distant fire.
There’s till plenty of room left for making novel discoveries, too! Beginners come up with new moves all the time. Flow Arts rewards what Zen calls “beginners mind”, and it’s important to maintain an attitude of exploratory inquiry as your practice develops. It can be easy for intermediate students to fall into the habit of just doing the tricks that they know; but I’m always encouraging people to lean into their challenges, because that’s where the good stuff happens. I often find myself deeply moved and inspired by watching beginners, because unlike many of us who sometimes imagine that we know what we’re doing, beginners are always trying new things and pushing themselves to play at the very edge of their ability. I have found the Flow Arts community at large to be exceptionally welcoming to folks who are just starting out. Everybody was once a beginner, and established spinners tend to be enthusiastic about what they do, and most are quite eager to help novices find their flow.
Sometimes when people asked Dan what he did, he would tell them that he was trying to save the world by spinning socks around. And then they’d look at him funny. Sure. He was kind of serious about it, though. Or if not exactly serious, then at least sincere. Flow Arts is good for you. It builds up the connections between the hemispheres of your brain. (Which is one of my pet theories about why it tends to make it’s practitioners so much more well-integrated all around.) It makes you smarter. It really does. It makes you more patient with yourself, too. It fills you full of endorphins without being especially dangerous or making you feel all crappy the next day. It moves your body and it stills your mind. It teaches you how to react in bullet time. It makes you more Force-sensitive. It makes you better at everything that you do. And most important of all, it teaches you how to play. Or rather, it reinforces the state of open engaged receptivity that that is at the root of play, and ultimately at the root of everything that’s awesome.Millions of tourists have come to Philadelphia to visit the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, but New Jersey’s connections to U.S. history run just as deep. (Photo: Photo provided)
I have lived and worked in the Philadelphia area, which includes South Jersey, for most of my life. But I had not been to the Liberty Bell or Independence Hall until I started working as a park guide at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.
When visitors first come to the park, typically they want to know:
"Where's the bell?"
"How do we get to the Rocky statue?"
"Where can we get a Philly cheesesteak?"
While traveling daily on the PATCO Hi-Speedline to Philadelphia and back to Jersey, I oftentimes pondered, "Did the birthplace of America have many New Jersey participants?" I discovered some surprising facts that many may not know.
The Liberty Bell is a well-known iconic symbol but few know that it first started out as an ordinary statehouse bell. In 1751, the Pennsylvania Assembly ordered the bell from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London. Yes, Whitechapel — the neighborhood that is best known for the location of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in the late 1880s, but that's another story.
The Old Testament inscription on the bell is presumed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges. The charter details the "rights and freedoms" valued by people the world over. Penn had his own ideas on religious freedom, which included Native American rights and the inclusion of citizens enacting their own laws.
The bell arrived in Philadelphia on Sept. 1, 1752, and may have cracked when first tried out. The Colonials must have had a severe case of buyer's remorse so they decided to go for a local remedy. Two foundry workers, John Pass and John Stow, were hired to recast the bell. Although both were inexperienced in bell casting, the Philadelphia folks must have been impressed with Pass since he headed up the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in New Jersey. Subsequently, the bell was broken down into small pieces, melted down, and cast into a new bell at Stow's foundry on 2nd and Market streets.
Although it took them two tries to get it right, the Jersey guy and his partner came through in the long run. This new and improved bell was finally raised in the statehouse steeple on June 11, 1753. On the back of the bell, check out the spelling of Pennsylvania with only one "n."
Twenty-three years later many of the Colonials had finally had it with the British and their unfair taxes. They were tired of being pushed around by a foppish king in a faraway land. An exception was the royal governor of New Jersey, William Franklin. The governor was the acknowledged son of the esteemed patriot Benjamin Franklin. He was quite content with the status quo. In other words, Ben's Jersey son was a Tory.
Thomas Paine's 1776 best-seller, "Common Sense," could not even persuade the governor that America would be better off on their own. Paine, a British subject himself, was a failed corset-maker turned activist-writer. He unabashedly challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that he used in his pamphlet spoke to the common people and helped to influence the American colonists that independence was a "just and glorious cause."
In the summer of 1776, William Franklin, the steadfast loyalist, was formally taken into custody by order of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, an entity he refused to recognize. He was incarcerated in Connecticut for two years, thus having the distinction of becoming the last appointed royal governor of New Jersey.
When you visit Independence National Historical Park, take a tour of Independence Hall led by knowledgeable park rangers. You will see where the delegates debated and eventually adopted the Declaration of Independence and later on the U.S. Constitution. Where what had been colonies were now independent sovereign states on the path to becoming a unified nascent nation.
If you stop in the West Wing of Independence Hall, you will see an original printed edition of the Declaration of Independence. This surviving document is known as a "Dunlap broadside." There were 100 to 200 copies printed by John Dunlap on the night of July 4, 1776. Only 26 are known to exist today. In 2001, Norman Lear — the TV writer and producer — purchased an authenticated broadside, reportedly for $8.1 million.
Many visitors ask, "Where is the original that was written by Thomas Jefferson?" They are referring to the "engrossed," formally signed document that is displayed in the National Archives in Washington. It surprises many, but this version was penned a few weeks later on parchment by a clerk to the secretary of the Second Continental Congress. His name was Timothy Matlack. Born in Haddonfield, he was a Quaker merchant and brewer. Evidently, he had impeccable handwriting, especially with the quill pen. His portrait, painted by Charles Willson Peale, can be seen at the Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank of the U.S., located in the park on Chestnut Street.
While at the gallery take a look at Daniel Morgan's portrait, another Jersey guy, believed to have been born in Hunterdon County. He was a rough-hewn soldier who began his career in the French and Indian War and had the scars to prove it.
Morgan was involved in a lot of battles. He became a prisoner of war during the Battle of Quebec. Morgan along with 400 men was taken prisoner on Dec. 31, 1775. He remained imprisoned until formally exchanged in January 1777. What a mistake that was for the British. Morgan went onto defeat the British at the Cowpens in South Carolina on Jan. 17, 1781, by instructing the militia to fire two volleys and then run away, thus inviting a premature charge by the British.
Pass, Franklin, Matlack and Morgan are not the only cast of characters who had a Jersey connection to our nation's early history. There were many more events, battles and patriots, such as Jonas Cattell, who ran 10 miles on Oct. 22, 1777, from Haddonfield to Fort Mercer in Gloucester County, to warn the Continental Army that the Hessians were coming.
Most know of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the frigid night of Dec. 25, 1776. It was his first surprise assault, organized against the Hessian forces stationed in Trenton. Prior to this successful attack, Washington ordered Paine's essay, "The American Crisis," be read to his dispirited and suffering soldiers. These truly were "the times that try men's souls."
If it wasn't for the heroics of these courageous soldiers, as Paine so aptly summed up in his essay, "our homes would be turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for the Hessians." Bawdy-houses! Thank God this never happened!
Now if we the people could only do something about our high taxes in New Jersey, I believe that would rate a collective and sonorous "huzzah."
See you on the PATCO Hi-Speedline, on the way back to Jersey.
Thomas E. Hastings is a freelance writer and works as a park guide in Philadelphia. He lives in Gloucester Township.
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Two American-born soldiers for the Israeli Defense Forces were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, their families confirmed Sunday.
Stuart Steinberg confirmed the death of his son Max Steinberg, 24, to The Associated Press on Sunday. Steinberg, whose family lives in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, was a sharpshooter for the Golani Brigade. He was one of 13 Israeli soldiers killed in fighting Sunday during the first major ground battle in two weeks of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier Sunday, the IDF said in a statement that Sgt. Nissim Sean Carmeli, 21, was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip. Carmeli was from South Padre Island, Texas, said Deputy Consul General of Israel to the Southwest Maya Kadosh. She said Carmeli moved to Israel four years ago and added that the consulate helped his family get a flight there Sunday.
Late Sunday, the State Department also confirmed the soldiers' deaths, but made no further statement.
Rabbi Asher Hecht of Chabad of the Rio Grande Valley, who is a longtime family friend, said Carmeli joined the Israeli Army after finishing high school in Israel and was in the Golani Brigade. The IDF statement said Carmeli was from Ra'anana, Israel.
"He had great energy, yet had a kind and gentle soul," Hecht said. "It's been a very tough day for us," he added. "We lost a gem."
Carmeli was the youngest of three and has two sisters who currently live in Israel. He was "loved by his parents infinitely," Hecht said.
More than 18,000 people from across Israel showed up Monday for Carmeli's funeral in Haifa, police said.
Carmeli was a fan of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team, and a team member — after learning Carmeli had no family living in Israel — sent a Facebook message to fans urging them to attend the funeral.
Steinberg was living in Beersheba, Israel. He attended Pierce College and El Camino Real High School in Southern California.
He visited Israel for the first time on a Birthright Israel trip with his younger brother and sister in June 2012, his father said. When he returned, he made an announcement to his parents that he was planning to return and join the IDF, Steinberg said. He made good on that promise less than six months later, making the move in December.
"He went back," Steinberg said. "He was completely dedicated and committed to serving the country of Israel. He was focused, he was clear in what the mission was, and he was dedicated to the work he needed to be doing."
The Times of Israel reported that seven of the 13 soldiers killed before dawn Sunday died when an anti-tank mine exploded under an armored personnel carrier. Hours later, the paper reported that two more soldiers were killed in an exchange of gunfire with Hamas militants, and three others died when an anti-tank missile struck a building where soldiers were setting up a command post.
Sunday morning's fighting took place in the Shijaiyah neighborhood in the northeastern part of Gaza City. Israel has identified the area as a primary launch site for rockets fired by Hamas targeting Israel territory.
On Sunday morning, the Steinbergs were visited by representatives from the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles. They broke the news of Max Steinberg's death.
Stuart Steinberg last spoke to his son at 4 a.m. Saturday California time, hours before his death. Max Steinberg called his father to tell him that his group had been injured when two of their tanks collided. They had to return to Israel for treatment at the hospital. Some soldiers had broken bones, and Max Steinberg had sprained his back, his father said.
"He called me up at 4 a.m. that morning and said he'd be returning to Gaza, back to combat, to be with his friends," Steinberg said.
Steinberg said the family is leaving on Monday for Israel, where their son will be buried. On Max Steinberg's Facebook page, hundreds of people liked a profile photo that appeared to be a selfie of him in uniform, armed, with his helmet on. Dozens gave their condolences.
Jay Sanderson, who heads The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said in an email message to the community that "our thoughts are with his family and our community is committed to support them in any way they need -- and to honor Max's memory."
The Jewish Federations of North America said in a statement that its "deepest sympathies" were with the families of 18 Israeli soldiers killed over the last two days. "Along with all of Israel, and the entire Jewish People, we mourn their loss as if they were our own," the statement said.
IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Benny Gantz told The Times of Israel that the IDF "would learn from the incident" and said that its soldiers were doing "fantastic work."
"I'm proud of them," Gantz told the paper. "All of Israel should be proud of them."
Click for more from The Times of Israel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Leading power tool manufacturers have conspired for years to thwart adoption of a safety device that could prevent thousands of finger amputations and other disfiguring injuries in table saw accidents, according to a federal antitrust lawsuit filed by the developer of the safety technology.
Using a hot dog as a proxy for a finger, SawStop produced this video to show how its safety technology can stop a spinning blade so fast that it causes only a minor nick.
The complaint by SawStop LLC, of Tualatin, Ore., names top power tool companies, including Bosch, Black & Decker, Makita, and Ryobi Technologies. It contends they orchestrated a secret boycott of SawStop’s finger-saving technology, fearing that if it gained traction, they would face increased liability for injuries from standard table saws.
As reported by FairWarning, more than 67,000 U.S. workers and do-it-your-selfers suffer blade contact injuries annually, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates. That includes more than 33,000 injuries treated in emergency rooms, among them 4,000 amputations. The SawStop system instantly stops a whirring blade on contact with skin, typically resulting in a minor nick instead of a life-changing injury.
The suit, filed in federal district court in Alexandria, Va., says the big manufacturers joined forces to spurn the technology when it was offered to them, and manipulated industry guidelines to keep safety systems, such as the one developed by SawStop, from becoming the industry standard. As a result, the suit contends, SawStop should be paid at least $10 million in lost revenue along with treble damages.
The 40-page complaint was filed on Feb. 20, and the 22 defendants—including saw manufacturers, their subsidiaries and affiliates—have yet to file answers.
In a statement to FairWarning, Cheryl Kilborn, director of media relations for Robert Bosch LLC, noted that “the use and adoption’’ of the SawStop technology “has long been debated in the industry.”
But Kilborn said Bosch “has acted in a lawful and responsible manner, we deny the claims in the lawsuit, and we will vigorously defend our position in court.” A Makita spokesman declined comment, and Black & Decker and Ryobi did not return calls.
Though not named as defendants, the Power Tool Institute, an industry trade group, and Underwriters Laboratories, a safety consulting firm that oversees the content of voluntary table saw standards, were described in the lawsuit as co-conspirators. Representatives of both groups declined comment.
Industry officials have said in the past that their saws are reasonably safe. They have claimed that the cost of flesh detection technology and paying royalties to SawStop would make some popular lines of saws unaffordable.
“Bosch has always been committed to ensuring the safety of its products. The use and adoption of this particular technology [SawStop] has long been debated in the industry.” –Cheryl Kilborn, spokesperson for Robert Bosch LLC
The suit says the conspiracy began in 2001 or 2002, but was not revealed until February, 2010, through testimony of a retired Ryobi official at a trial in Boston. The case involved a worker named Carlos Osorio, who had sued Ryobi after suffering severe hand injuries in a table saw accident, and won a $1.5 million judgment.
During the trial, David Peot, Ryobi’s former director of advanced technologies, testified that at meetings of the Power Tool Institute, officials had voiced concerns that the SawStop technology could expose them to greater legal liability. The fear was that “if another manufacturer were to develop a concept of improved table saw safety, then the manufacturers who don’t have that would certainly be at a disadvantage when it comes to product liability,” Peot said.
Because of potential statute of limitations issues, the Peot testimony could be pivotal in determining if the SawStop case survives defense dismissal motions. Under federal law, anti-trust claims must be brought within four years of alleged violations, but the time “can be extended if the defendants willfully concealed that conspiracy,” said Joseph P. Bauer, a professor and antitrust expert at the University of Notre Dame Law School. According to the lawsuit, the clock should start running at the time of Peot’s testimony—almost four years to the day from the filing of the case.
“Defendants engaged in a group boycott of Plaintiff’s safety products for table saws beginning around 2001 or 2002, by agreeing among themselves to collectively refuse Plaintiffs’ offers to license its…technology, and by fraudulently concealing that conspiracy.” –SawStop lawsuit against power tool manufacturers
The SawStop invention involves running a weak electrical current through the saw blade. When a person comes in contact with the blade, the body absorbs part of the signal. A sensor detects the change in current and activates a spring that jams an aluminum wedge between the teeth of the blade, which acts as a brake. It all happens in about three milliseconds—about 100 times faster than a person could react after touching a blade.
The system was invented by Stephen Gass, a lawyer with a PhD. in physics, while tinkering in the workshop behind his house in 1999. After several years of fruitless attempts to license the technology, Gass and his SawStop partners decided to go into the table saw business themselves. Since 2004, they have sold more than 50,000 of the safer saws, which are larger and more expensive than most models.
The company has compiled a list of more than 2,000 “finger saves,” in which a user came into contact with a spinning blade on a SawStop saw. In more than 95 percent of the cases, the lawsuit states, the result was a cut that required no more than a band-aid.
In response to SawStop, five of the larger companies—including Black & Decker, Bosch and Ryobi—formed a joint venture to develop their own injury reduction system. The joint venture ended in 2009, when members said they had developed a safety system superior to SawStop’s, though they have yet to include it in a single saw.From Issue Three of the Gear Patrol Magazine.
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One morning in the spring of 2002, a barge shoved off from the blustery docks of Ossabaw Island, towed by a little boat called the Eleanor, and headed for the mainland. It did not carry any of its usual cargo. In place of the oil drums, tractors, pickup trucks and pallets of milk or frozen beef that constantly had to be ferried between the sea-locked island and the Georgia coast, there was only a makeshift wooden enclosure in the center of the deck, out of which emanated the occasional clatter of hooves, snorts and oinks.
As the ship motored slowly through swaths of sawgrass dancing in the breeze, a small team of scientists, researchers and graduate students huddled in the cabin, muddy and exhausted. They kept watch over the living cargo they had painstakingly captured over the span of a month. They were busy preserving the precious bounty of their catch: pig blood, dried on special paper that would lock in viable DNA samples for many years.
Among the scientists, one was warier than the rest, keeping an eye on the island, scanning the horizon for boats giving chase. It was Dr. I. Lehr Brisbin, a rabble-rouser of sorts, and leader of one of the more unusual animal abductions in history. Brisbin, a senior research scientist and adjunct professor at UGA, knew more about the feral Ossabaw Island hogs they were carrying than any other person on earth. He knew that they lived only on this island and that they were some of the most vital research specimens in the world. A professor and medical researcher, Dr. Michael Sturek, had approached him about using the hogs to study diabetes, obesity and heart disease in humans.
But Brisbin was also convinced that the owner of the island, the |
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[caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) CLE Array ( [id] => 58 [franchise_id] => 58 [franchise_start_year] => 1993 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => colorado-rockies [url_title_short] => rockies [state] => CO [city] => Denver [city_name] => Colorado [name] => Rockies [full_name] => Colorado Rockies [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => COL [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 26 [hex_color1] => #000000 [hex_color2] => #333366 [hex_color3] => #C0C0C0 [logo_y_large] => -1700 [logo_y_medium] => -850 [logo_y_small] => -850 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Walt Weiss [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 23 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => COL [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/rockies1.png [filepath_large] => images/large/rockies1.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/rockies1.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/rockies1.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => rockies1.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) COL Array ( [id] => 39 [franchise_id] => 39 [franchise_start_year] => 1901 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => detroit-tigers [url_title_short] => tigers [state] => MI [city] => Detroit [city_name] => Detroit [name] => Tigers [full_name] => Detroit Tigers [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => DET [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 6 [hex_color1] => #001742 [hex_color2] => #FFFFFF [hex_color3] => #DE4406 [logo_y_large] => -400 [logo_y_medium] => -200 [logo_y_small] => -200 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Brad Ausmus [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 17 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => DET [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/500px-Detroit_Tigers_logo.png [filepath_large] => images/large/500px-Detroit_Tigers_logo.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/500px-Detroit_Tigers_logo.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/500px-Detroit_Tigers_logo.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => 500px-Detroit_Tigers_logo.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) DET Array ( [id] => 53 [franchise_id] => 53 [franchise_start_year] => 1965 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => houston-astros [url_title_short] => astros [state] => TX [city] => Houston [city_name] => Houston [name] => Astros [full_name] => Houston Astros [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => HOU [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 7 [hex_color1] => #072854 [hex_color2] => #FF7F00 [hex_color3] => #ffffff [logo_y_large] => -2000 [logo_y_medium] => -1000 [logo_y_small] => -1000 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => A. J. Hinch [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 30 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => HOU [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/HoustonAstrosAL.PNG [filepath_large] => images/large/HoustonAstrosAL.PNG [filepath_medium] => images/medium/HoustonAstrosAL.PNG [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/HoustonAstrosAL.PNG [filepath_crop] => [title] => HoustonAstrosAL.PNG [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) HOU Array ( [id] => 40 [franchise_id] => 40 [franchise_start_year] => 1969 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => kansas-city-royals [url_title_short] => royals [state] => KS [city] => Kansas City [city_name] => Kansas City [name] => Royals [full_name] => Kansas City Royals [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => KC [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 6 [hex_color1] => #15317E [hex_color2] => #74B4FA [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -500 [logo_y_medium] => -250 [logo_y_small] => -250 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Ned Yost [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 5 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => KCR [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/200px-Kansas_City_Royals.svg_.png [filepath_large] => images/large/200px-Kansas_City_Royals.svg_.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/200px-Kansas_City_Royals.svg_.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/200px-Kansas_City_Royals.svg_.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => 200px-Kansas_City_Royals.svg_.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) KC Array ( [id] => 42 [franchise_id] => 294 [franchise_start_year] => 2005 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 293 [url_title] => los-angeles-angels [url_title_short] => angels [state] => CA [city] => Los Angeles [city_name] => Los Angeles [name] => Angels [full_name] => Los Angeles Angels [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => LAA [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 7 [hex_color1] => #B71234 [hex_color2] => #002244 [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -600 [logo_y_medium] => -300 [logo_y_small] => -300 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Mike Scioscia [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 21 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => LAA [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/angels2.png [filepath_large] => images/large/angels2.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/angels2.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/angels2.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => angels2.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) LAA Array ( [id] => 59 [franchise_id] => 59 [franchise_start_year] => 1958 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => los-angeles-dodgers [url_title_short] => dodgers [state] => CA [city] => Los Angeles [city_name] => Los Angeles [name] => Dodgers [full_name] => Los Angeles Dodgers [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => LAD [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 26 [hex_color1] => #083C6B [hex_color2] => #FFFFFF [hex_color3] => [logo_y_large] => -2100 [logo_y_medium] => -1050 [logo_y_small] => -1050 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Don Mattingly [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 1 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => LAD [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/dodgers.png [filepath_large] => images/large/dodgers.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/dodgers.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/dodgers.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => dodgers.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) LAD Array ( [id] => 129 [franchise_id] => 47 [franchise_start_year] => 2012 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 47 [url_title] => miami-marlins [url_title_short] => marlins [state] => FL [city] => Miami [city_name] => Miami [name] => Marlins [full_name] => Miami Marlins [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => MIA [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 24 [hex_color1] => #00A3E0 [hex_color2] => #EF3340 [hex_color3] => #000000 [logo_y_large] => 0 [logo_y_medium] => 0 [logo_y_small] => 0 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Mike Redmond [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 22 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => MIA [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/marlins-2019.png [filepath_large] => images/large/marlins-2019.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/marlins-2019.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/marlins-2019.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => marlins-2019.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) MIA Array ( [id] => 54 [franchise_id] => 54 [franchise_start_year] => 1970 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => milwaukee-brewers [url_title_short] => brewers [state] => WI [city] => Milwaukee [city_name] => Milwaukee [name] => Brewers [full_name] => Milwaukee Brewers [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => MIL [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 25 [hex_color1] => #182B49 [hex_color2] => #92754C [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -2200 [logo_y_medium] => -1100 [logo_y_small] => -1100 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Ron Roenicke [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 32 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => MIL [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/brewers.png [filepath_large] => images/large/brewers.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/brewers.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/brewers.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => brewers.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) MIL Array ( [id] => 41 [franchise_id] => 41 [franchise_start_year] => 1961 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => minnesota-twins [url_title_short] => twins [state] => MN [city] => Minneapolis [city_name] => Minnesota [name] => Twins [full_name] => Minnesota Twins [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => MIN [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 6 [hex_color1] => #072754 [hex_color2] => #C6011F [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -700 [logo_y_medium] => -350 [logo_y_small] => -350 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Paul Molitor [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 20 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => MIN [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/twins.png [filepath_large] => images/large/twins.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/twins.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/twins.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => twins.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) MIN Array ( [id] => 48 [franchise_id] => 48 [franchise_start_year] => 1962 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => new-york-mets [url_title_short] => mets [state] => NY [city] => New York [city_name] => New York [name] => Mets [full_name] => New York Mets [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => NYM [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 24 [hex_color1] => #002C77 [hex_color2] => #FB4F14 [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -2300 [logo_y_medium] => -1150 [logo_y_small] => -1150 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Terry Collins [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 18 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => NYM [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/200px-New_York_Mets.svg_.png [filepath_large] => images/large/200px-New_York_Mets.svg_.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/200px-New_York_Mets.svg_.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/200px-New_York_Mets.svg_.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => 200px-New_York_Mets.svg_.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) NYM Array ( [id] => 34 [franchise_id] => 34 [franchise_start_year] => 1913 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => new-york-yankees [url_title_short] => yankees [state] => NY [city] => New York [city_name] => New York [name] => Yankees [full_name] => New York Yankees [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => NYY [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 5 [hex_color1] => #1C2841 [hex_color2] => #FFFFFF [hex_color3] => #808080 [logo_y_large] => -800 [logo_y_medium] => -400 [logo_y_small] => -400 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Joe Girardi [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 29 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => NYY [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/yankees.png [filepath_large] => images/large/yankees.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/yankees.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/yankees.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => yankees.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) NYY Array ( [id] => 43 [franchise_id] => 43 [franchise_start_year] => 1968 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => oakland-athletics [url_title_short] => athletics [state] => CA [city] => Oakland [city_name] => Oakland [name] => Athletics [full_name] => Oakland Athletics [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => OAK [conference_id] => 3 [division_id] => 7 [hex_color1] => #003831 [hex_color2] => #FFD800 [hex_color3] => #FFFFFF [logo_y_large] => -900 [logo_y_medium] => -450 [logo_y_small] => -450 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Bob Melvin [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 24 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => OAK [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/oakland1.png [filepath_large] => images/large/oakland1.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/oakland1.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/oakland1.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => oakland1.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) OAK Array ( [id] => 49 [franchise_id] => 49 [franchise_start_year] => 1883 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => philadelphia-phillies [url_title_short] => phillies [state] => PA [city] => Philadelphia [city_name] => Philadelphia [name] => Phillies [full_name] => Philadelphia Phillies [twitter_account] => [sport_id] => 1 [abbreviation] => PHI [conference_id] => 4 [division_id] => 24 [hex_color1] => #BA0C2F [hex_color2] => #FFFFFF [hex_color3] => #002d72 [logo_y_large] => -2400 [logo_y_medium] => -1200 [logo_y_small] => -1200 [status] => active [ad_url] => [ad_image] => [owner] => [head_coach] => Ryne Sandberg [offensive_coordinator] => [defensive_coordinator] => [special_teams_coach] => [defensive_type] => [fd_id] => 12 [fd_player_id] => 0 [reference_id] => PHI [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/philadelphia_phillies_2019-pres.png [filepath_large] => images/large/philadelphia_phillies_2019-pres.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/philadelphia_phillies_2019-pres.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/philadelphia_phillies_2019-pres.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => philadelphia_phillies_2019-pres.png [caption] => ) [cover] => [sport] => Array ( [id] => 1 [url_title] => mlb [name] => Baseball [league] => MLB [league_updated] => 2010-11-10 07:53:55 [season_start] => 2019 [draft_default_year] => 2018 [free_agency_default_year] => 2019 [market_value_start] => 2016 [current_season_cap_view] => offseason [current_season_week] => 0 [statistics_end_year] => 2018 [image] => Array ( [filepath] => images/original/mlb.png [filepath_large] => images/large/mlb.png [filepath_medium] => images/medium/mlb.png [filepath_thumb] => images/thumb/mlb.png [filepath_crop] => [title] => mlb.png [caption] => ) ) ) PHI Array ( [id] => 55 [franchise_id] => 55 [franchise_start_year] => 1912 [franchise_end_year] => 9999 [was_id] => 0 [url_title] => pittsburgh-pirates [url_title_short] => pirates [state] => PA [city] => Pittsburgh [city_name] => Pittsburgh [name] => Pirates [ |
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