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% 43% 46% 29% 43% 44% 42% Democratic 78 46 12 43 39 37 45 37 37 40 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 3 3 2 2 3 2 6 3 2 2 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 2 2 2 3 1 2 5 2 2 1 DK/NA 9 20 13 16 13 12 15 15 15 15
TREND: If the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were being held today, would you vote for the Republican candidate or for the Democratic candidate in your district?
DEMOCRATIC ADVANTAGE High Low Dec 10 Nov 13 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 12 Oct 01 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 Republican 41 39 34 36 34 34 41 Democratic 38 39 43 40 39 43 38 SMONE ELSE(VOL) 3 3 4 3 3 4 3 WLDN'T VOTE(VOL) 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 DK/NA 16 18 17 19 21 17 16
3. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 38% 6% 76% 30% 31% 44% 29% 85% 50% Disapprove 57 92 18 62 64 49 65 9 43 DK/NA 6 2 5 8 5 7 5 6 7 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 74% 44% 13% 42% 37% 36% 41% 37% 37% 37% Disapprove 19 50 83 51 58 61 49 57 58 58 DK/NA 7 6 3 7 5 3 11 5 4 5
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President? (* High also 59% Mar 2009)
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Jun 04 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2009* 2013 Approve 38 39 45 46 44 59 38 Disapprove 57 54 49 48 48 31 57 DK/NA 6 7 6 6 8 10 6
4. Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 19% 38% 6% 16% 20% 17% 18% 13% 26% Disapprove 74 54 91 75 74 74 74 82 69 DK/NA 7 9 3 9 6 9 8 5 5 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 6% 14% 30% 19% 19% 14% 20% 19% 18% 19% Disapprove 90 80 61 72 75 83 71 75 76 73 DK/NA 4 6 8 9 6 3 10 6 6 8
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job? (* High also 34% Mar 2011, Mar 2010)
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 13 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 12 Mar 31 Oct 01 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2011* 2013 Approve 19 20 17 19 19 34 17 Disapprove 74 73 74 73 71 55 74 DK/NA 7 8 9 8 10 11 9
5. Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Democrats in Congress are handling their job?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 27% 4% 59% 19% 22% 32% 20% 69% 39% Disapprove 67 93 36 72 73 60 74 25 55 DK/NA 6 3 5 9 5 8 7 6 6 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 56% 30% 10% 31% 27% 25% 31% 26% 26% 28% Disapprove 37 64 86 61 69 73 57 69 69 65 DK/NA 7 6 4 8 4 3 13 4 5 7
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Democrats in Congress are handling their job? (* Low also 24% Sep 2011, Oct 2011)
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 13 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 12 Mar 4 Nov 23 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2009 2011* Approve 27 30 32 31 29 45 24 Disapprove 67 62 60 61 62 45 69 DK/NA 6 7 8 7 9 10 7
6. In general, how satisfied are you with the way things are going in the nation today; are you very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Very satisfied 2% 1% 3% 1% 1% 2% 1% 3% 3% Smwht satisfied 22 6 42 17 19 25 16 50 31 Smwht dissatisfied 30 25 34 32 29 32 31 31 27 Very dissatisfied 46 68 21 50 51 41 51 16 38 DK/NA - - - - - - - - - POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Very satisfied 3% 2% 1% 2% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 2% Smwht satisfied 38 26 10 24 21 22 33 22 18 19 Smwht dissatisfied 37 35 24 29 32 32 38 32 25 30 Very dissatisfied 22 37 66 45 44 45 27 44 55 48 DK/NA - - - - - - - - - 1
TREND: In general, how satisfied are you with the way things are going in the nation today; are you very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?
VERY+SMWHT SAT High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Dec 11 Nov 13 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2001 2008 Very satisfied 2 2 2 2 3 21 2 Smwht satisfied 22 19 23 26 28 47 14 Smwht dissatisfied 30 31 34 29 29 19 38 Very dissatisfied 46 47 41 41 40 10 44 DK/NA - 1 1 1 - 3 2
27. And if the election were today, would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States Senate?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Republican Party 47% 94% 5% 50% 56% 39% 55% 8% 33% Democratic Party 42 2 89 35 35 50 35 86 57 DK/NA 11 4 6 15 9 12 10 6 10 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Republican Party 8% 37% 79% 40% 52% 53% 35% 49% 50% 50% Democratic Party 84 50 14 47 42 42 51 40 41 42 DK/NA 7 13 7 12 7 6 14 11 9 9
28. And if the election were today, would you want to see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Republican Party 47% 94% 5% 50% 55% 40% 55% 9% 30% Democratic Party 42 2 89 35 36 49 34 86 62 DK/NA 11 4 5 15 10 11 10 5 8 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Republican Party 9% 38% 79% 40% 51% 53% 37% 49% 49% 50% Democratic Party 83 51 14 48 41 41 48 41 42 40 DK/NA 8 11 7 12 7 6 15 10 9 9
29. Do you think of your vote for the United States House of Representatives in your district as a vote for Barack Obama, or as a vote against Barack Obama, or isn't Barack Obama much of a factor in your vote?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp For Obama 20% 2% 46% 13% 14% 26% 13% 60% 36% Against Obama 33 62 6 34 37 30 39 5 22 Not much of a factor 43 34 43 49 47 39 44 30 39 DK/NA 4 1 5 3 2 6 4 5 3 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ For Obama 42% 22% 8% 27% 17% 15% 24% 15% 21% 23% Against Obama 8 22 58 33 33 29 26 31 37 36 Not much of a factor 45 53 32 34 46 54 44 50 39 35 DK/NA 5 4 2 5 3 2 6 3 3 6
30. How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right; almost all of the time, most of the time, only some of the time, or hardly ever?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Almost all the time 1% 1% 2% 1% 2% 1% 1% 2% 2% Most of the time 11 6 22 6 10 12 9 19 24 Some of the time 46 40 53 45 42 50 45 55 43 Hardly ever 41 52 22 48 46 35 44 22 30 DK/NA 1 1 1 - 1 2 1 1 - POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Almost all the time 2% 1% 1% 2% - 1% 2% 2% 1% 1% Most of the time 21 11 6 11 12 12 12 11 11 10 Some of the time 50 53 38 47 46 45 51 46 43 47 Hardly ever 28 34 53 38 42 41 34 40 45 40 DK/NA - 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2
TREND: How much of the time do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is right; almost all of the time, most of the time, only some of the time, or hardly ever?
ALMST+MOST.... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Jul 12 May 30 Mar 24 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2010 2013 Almost all the time 1 2 3 2 3 2 1 Most of the time 11 13 14 14 12 17 11 Some of the time 46 49 51 46 47 50 46 Hardly ever 41 35 31 37 36 30 41 DK/NA 1 1 2 1 1 1 1
31. Would you say that Barack Obama - is honest and trustworthy or not?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 44% 11% 85% 36% 36% 52% 37% 89% 52% No 52 86 12 60 61 44 60 7 41 DK/NA 4 3 3 3 3 5 4 5 7 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Yes 81% 52% 19% 47% 45% 44% 48% 44% 43% 44% No 17 43 79 47 54 54 43 53 54 52 DK/NA 2 5 3 6 2 2 9 3 3 4
TREND: Would you say that Barack Obama is honest and trustworthy or not? (* Low also 44% Nov 2013)
YES........... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Jul 11 May 30 Jan 13 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2011 2013 Yes 44 44 54 50 49 63 44 No 52 52 41 44 47 31 52 DK/NA 4 4 4 5 5 6 4
32. Would you say that Barack Obama - has strong leadership qualities or not?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 47% 19% 80% 40% 40% 53% 39% 89% 65% No 51 79 17 57 58 44 59 8 33 DK/NA 2 2 3 2 2 3 2 2 2 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Yes 76% 56% 24% 53% 47% 41% 68% 49% 42% 36% No 22 41 75 45 51 57 30 49 56 60 DK/NA 2 3 1 3 2 2 2 2 2 4
TREND: Would you say that Barack Obama has strong leadership qualities or not?
YES........... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Jul 11 May 30 Jan 13 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2010 2013 Yes 47 48 53 52 53 66 47 No 51 50 45 46 45 32 51 DK/NA 2 2 3 3 2 2 2
33. Would you say that Barack Obama - cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes 48% 14% 86% 44% 42% 54% 41% 91% 59% No 49 85 12 53 55 43 56 6 38 DK/NA 3 1 3 3 2 3 2 4 3 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Yes 85% 60% 20% 52% 51% 48% 59% 50% 45% 45% No 14 38 78 44 47 52 36 48 53 53 DK/NA 1 3 3 4 1 1 5 3 2 2
TREND: Would you say that Barack Obama cares about the needs and problems of people like you or not?
YES........... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Jul 11 May 30 Nov 12 Dec 10 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2008 2013 Yes 48 49 54 52 53 70 48 No 49 48 42 45 45 22 49 DK/NA 3 3 3 3 3 7 3
34. Which of the following do you think should be the most important priority for President Obama and Congress in 2014; the economy, the federal budget deficit, health care, taxes, gun policy, immigration issues, or something else?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Economy 41% 39% 45% 41% 40% 42% 41% 44% 43% Deficit 22 35 11 21 27 18 24 12 16 Health care 14 11 19 14 11 18 14 22 13 Taxes 4 3 3 5 4 3 3 4 2 Gun policy 3 1 5 3 3 4 3 7 3 Immigration 5 2 7 5 4 6 4 4 17 Something else 8 7 7 9 9 6 8 5 6 DK/NA 3 2 3 3 3 3 3 3 1 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Economy 38% 44% 41% 41% 40% 42% 31% 41% 48% 38% Deficit 15 20 29 17 27 30 27 23 21 20 Health care 18 15 12 17 13 12 14 14 15 14 Taxes 4 4 3 4 3 2 4 5 2 2 Gun policy 4 4 3 4 1 2 2 4 2 5 Immigration 8 5 3 7 3 3 8 5 3 6 Something else 11 5 7 6 10 7 13 6 7 8 DK/NA 2 3 3 3 2 1 2 2 2 7
35. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling - the economy?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 37% 7% 73% 29% 31% 42% 30% 78% 40% Disapprove 59 91 23 66 66 53 66 16 54 DK/NA 4 1 4 4 3 6 4 5 6 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 69% 45% 14% 41% 35% 38% 37% 37% 36% 37% Disapprove 26 50 85 55 60 60 55 59 61 59 DK/NA 5 5 2 4 5 2 8 3 3 4
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the economy? (* Low also 32% Sep 2011)
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Mar 04 Oct 06 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2009 2011* Approve 37 38 44 42 41 57 32 Disapprove 59 59 52 54 55 33 64 DK/NA 4 3 4 4 4 10 4
36. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling - health care?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 34% 4% 69% 28% 30% 39% 26% 78% 48% Disapprove 62 95 25 68 68 55 70 16 48 DK/NA 4 1 6 4 2 6 4 5 5 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 70% 40% 11% 37% 34% 35% 40% 33% 33% 34% Disapprove 26 55 87 57 63 64 54 64 63 60 DK/NA 3 6 2 6 3 1 6 3 3 6
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling health care?
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Jul 11 Feb 23 Mar 30 Jul 02 Dec 10 2013 2013 2012 2012 2011 2009 2013 Approve 34 36 43 40 38 46 34 Disapprove 62 60 52 56 55 42 62 DK/NA 4 4 5 5 7 13 4
37. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling - terrorism?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 50% 26% 79% 47% 49% 52% 46% 82% 62% Disapprove 41 66 13 45 45 38 46 11 30 DK/NA 8 8 7 8 6 10 8 7 9 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 74% 61% 29% 51% 52% 57% 52% 56% 49% 44% Disapprove 20 30 64 40 41 38 36 39 45 44 DK/NA 6 9 7 9 7 5 12 5 6 12
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling terrorism?
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 May 05 Jan 13 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2011* 2010 Approve 50 52 52 54 52 67 48 Disapprove 41 42 42 39 43 27 44 DK/NA 8 6 6 6 6 7 8
38. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling - foreign policy?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 42% 12% 77% 36% 36% 47% 35% 74% 60% Disapprove 49 81 14 54 58 41 56 14 30 DK/NA 9 7 9 9 6 12 9 12 11 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 74% 51% 17% 44% 40% 46% 43% 43% 40% 41% Disapprove 18 39 75 44 53 50 43 48 51 51 DK/NA 8 9 8 12 6 5 14 8 9 7
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling foreign policy?
APPROVE....... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Apr 29 Nov 12 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2009 2013 Approve 42 38 41 44 40 57 38 Disapprove 49 53 53 50 52 32 53 DK/NA 9 9 7 6 8 11 9
39. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling - the situation in Iran?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Approve 40% 15% 70% 36% 37% 44% 35% 72% 50% Disapprove 48 78 18 50 53 43 53 16 39 DK/NA 12 7 12 14 9 14 11 13 10 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Approve 68% 50% 19% 42% 42% 44% 37% 44% 41% 38% Disapprove 21 36 73 45 49 47 45 44 51 51 DK/NA 10 14 9 13 10 9 18 12 8 11
TREND: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling the situation in Iran?
Dec 10 Oct 01 Nov 23 Apr 22 Oct 07 2013 2013 2011 2010 2009 Approve 40 48 46 44 45 Disapprove 48 40 38 43 39 DK/NA 12 12 16 13 17
40. Would you describe the state of the nation's economy these days as excellent, good, not so good, or poor?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Excellent - - - - - - - - - Good 20 8 33 19 20 20 18 31 24 Not so good 44 41 48 43 43 45 42 50 48 Poor 36 51 18 37 36 35 39 18 28 DK/NA 1 - 1 - - 1 - 1 - POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Excellent - - - - - - - - - 1% Good 35 25 8 18 22 26 25 20 18 19 Not so good 47 46 41 43 46 44 52 45 41 42 Poor 18 28 50 38 32 28 23 35 41 37 DK/NA - 1 - - - 1 - - - 1
TREND: Would you describe the state of the nation's economy these days as excellent, good, not so good, or poor?
EXLNT+GOOD.... High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Dec 10 Mar 04 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2003 2009 Excellent - 1 - 1 2 3 - Good 20 21 23 25 27 37 3 Not so good 44 41 44 40 41 42 28 Poor 36 36 31 33 30 16 68 DK/NA 1 1 1 1 1 1 -
41. Do you think the nation's economy is getting better, getting worse, or staying about the same?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Better 29% 11% 49% 26% 29% 28% 27% 42% 33% Worse 28 41 13 28 27 29 30 20 24 The same 42 46 36 45 43 41 43 38 43 DK/NA 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 - - POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Better 51% 37% 11% 25% 33% 36% 34% 28% 28% 28% Worse 13 19 42 32 24 18 25 23 34 28 The same 35 44 46 42 42 45 39 49 37 42 DK/NA 1 1 1 1 1 - 2 - 1 1
TREND: Do you think the nation's economy is getting better, getting worse, or staying about the same? (* Low also 11% Sep 2011)
BETTER........ High Low Dec 10 Nov 12 Oct 01 Aug 02 Jul 11 Jan 18 Oct 06 2013 2013 2013 2013 2013 2011 2011* Better 29 28 31 34 35 36 11 Worse 28 31 24 25 22 20 44 The same 42 40 44 40 43 43 44 DK/NA 1 1 1 1 1 2 1
44. Do you think that in general the Obama administration has been competent in running the government, or don't you think so?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes/Competent 40% 8% 76% 36% 35% 46% 32% 84% 53% No/Not competent 56 91 20 60 64 49 65 12 42 DK/NA 3 1 4 4 2 5 3 4 5 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Yes/Competent 74% 51% 14% 44% 40% 41% 47% 41% 39% 37% No/Not competent 22 46 84 52 58 58 48 56 59 59 DK/NA 4 3 2 4 2 1 5 3 2 4
TREND: Do you think that in general the Obama administration has been competent in running the government, or don't you think so?
Dec 10 Nov 12 2013 2013 Yes/Competent 40 43 No 56 53 DK/NA 3 3
45. Do you think President Barack Obama is paying enough attention to what his administration is doing, or don't you think so?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Yes/Paying attention 41% 18% 70% 34% 37% 45% 35% 77% 50% No 52 77 24 58 58 47 58 21 46 DK/NA 6 5 5 8 5 8 7 3 3 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Yes/Paying attention 69% 48% 22% 41% 43% 45% 47% 44% 39% 37% No 27 45 73 51 51 52 44 51 56 55 DK/NA 4 7 5 8 5 3 9 5 6 7
TREND: Do you think President Barack Obama is paying enough attention to what his administration is doing, or don't you think so?
Dec 10 Nov 12 2013 2013 Yes/Paying attention 41 43 No 52 51 DK/NA 6 6
47. Would you support or oppose raising the national minimum wage, which is now $7.25 an hour?
Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Support 69% 49% 91% 67% 62% 75% 65% 90% 76% Oppose 27 44 8 28 34 20 30 8 21 DK/NA 4 7 1 5 4 4 5 2 3 POLITICAL PHILSPHY ANNUAL HSHOLD INC AGE IN YRS.............. Lib Mod Con <50K 50-100 >100K 18-29 30-49 50-64 65+ Support 91% 77% 49% 74% 68% 66% 71% 70% 68% 66% Oppose 8 18 46 23 28 31 25 28 28 26 DK/NA 1 5 5 4 4 3 4 2 4 7
48. (If support q47) Do you think that the minimum wage should be $10.10 an hour, should be less than $10.10 an hour, or should be more than $10.10 an hour?
SUPPORTS INCREASE Q47............................................. Tot Rep Dem Ind Men Wom Wht Blk Hsp Exactly $10.10 42% 42% 43% 43% 40% 43% 42% 43% 48% Less than $10.10 23 40 14 24 25 21 28 9 13 More than $10.10 32 16 40 30 30 33 26 47 37 |
were aware that engagement analytics exist, and were aware that their sales departments had some form of access to them (though it's still unclear both how much reader engagement data Apple and Amazon collect, and how much of it they share with publishers, including those, in Amazon's case, of their own imprint), they all said these numbers had nothing to do with acquisitions or editing.
Could that change? Well, for engagement to rival sales purely as a measure of commercial importance, and as a factor in acquisitions and editing, books would have to be monetized in a much different way: namely, in-book ads. These kinds of experimental ads have been tried, and, according to independent publishing entrepreneur Richard Nash, they've mostly failed.
"As best as anyone can tell, it has to do with the fact that the average book is read by not that many people," Nash told BuzzFeed News. "Advertising is a volume business and there's not that much to sell when you're talking about 18,000 eyeballs."
That's not to say that editors don't want to see them, and not for purely financial reasons. To use Prose's example, if everyone is stopping on page 272, well, maybe there's an editorial problem on page 272!
If engagement analytics hold actual actionable advice for big publishers today, though, it probably has more to do with figuring out which books to promote and how to promote them, rather than how to edit them or which ones to acquire. In a section called "Identifying the next Dan Brown," the Kobo paper points specifically to the case of so-called "midlist" writers (those who sell well, or garner critical acclaim, but are not major money makers) with high engagement rates as inadequately marketed.
A major factor in the failure to complete books is, of course, lack of time. Safari, a platform for professional education books (it's wholly owned by O'Reilly Media, which publishes coding tutorials), aggregates reading data to point users to relevant sections in separate books. It's easy to imagine this model being applied to mainstream books, especially in non-narrative and nonfiction titles. (Say, a collection of highly read jambalaya recipes pulled from 20 different cookbooks.)
Last year, the publishing giant Macmillan announced Next Big Book, a collaboration with the analytics company Next Big Sound — which tracks sales, publicity, social media activity, and traffic stats (among other things) — to determine which of these factors is most influential in driving a book's popularity. (It doesn't yet include engagement metrics in its analytics, though Next Big Sound CEO Alexander White told BuzzFeed News that it may eventually.) And Macmillan has started to distribute some of this data to writers. So it's not impossible to imagine a point at which writers commonly have access to engagement data.
Would this, as Prose fears, change the way writers write? Of course, most authors have never seen engagement statistics for their work. But Eli Horowitz, formerly the managing editor of McSweeney's and now a founder of the mobile storytelling startup Ying, Horowitz and Quinn, had access to reader data for The Silent History, a serialized digital novel that he co-wrote. Yet after the project was complete, Horowitz and his co-creators actually spent very little time with the data for pretty understandable reasons: lack of time, and fatigue.
"We didn't do it because we had other stuff to do and the book was written," Horowitz told BuzzFeed News. Asked if the data might prove useful for future projects, Horowitz said no, because "I don't want to write that novel again."
Indeed, using any data — even sales data — to futurecast in publishing has always been a dangerous prospect because of years-long lead times and the personal investment involved in writing a book. Trends change, and writers move on. "It's not a quick post the author is going to jot off," Ballard, the book agent, said. "They have to live with a book for years or a decade. To live in that space for that long you have to be mentally prepared to have all sorts of feelings about it, and you have to really want to write it, not simply because you think people will want to read it. That place of passion is always where good books come from."
So don't expect Prose's page 272 scenario anytime in the near future, if at all. Of engagement-based editing, Nash said, "We haven't seen anything yet and I'm skeptical that we'll end up with much. Not even Netflix, which is deeply interested in analytics, was telling Kevin Spacey how to act [in House of Cards]."Windows Live, intended to be a landing page for social activity and Microsoft's cloud-connected apps, is rolling out a host of redesigns and upgrades today, but none so exciting (to our eyes, anyways) as the anticipated jump of the SkyDrive online storage service to 25GB capacity. As the Digital Inspiration blog points out, SkyDrive seems to be a central part of the Redmond giant's web ambitions, so it's not likely to go away or shrink. Aside from the raw upload/download capabilities, having a SkyDrive account gives you a few other cool abilities, which we'll detail below.
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No-sign-up-needed sharing: If you've used most any Microsoft service, you know their features are often linked to a drive to get more people signed into their apps and networks. Not so with SkyDrive, which offers a nice little checkbox for sending sharing links to any email address without requiring a Live sign-in.
Lots of tools for photos: Tag yourself or friends Facebook-style in your photos, launch elegant pic-on-black-background slideshows from folders of pictures (your own or shared) that works on any browser (but supposedly better with Silverlight installed), order prints, and SkyDrive's thumbnails are nicely big and clear. Here's how photos are handled in SkyDrive's file browser:
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Grab entire folders as single.zip files: This simple, helpful compression feature isn't entirely common amongst file-sharing/storage services. You can also drop photos right into your Live Photo Gallery, if that's how your roll.
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Easy sharing and updates on contacts' files: Windows Live allows you to keep updated with what your friends on Live, Facebook, and LinkedIn are up to, and SkyDrive is no different. Your main SkyDrive page will let you know if any of your contacts have opened up a file for public sharing, and you can organize contacts into categories for easy group sharing—so everyone, for example, in "Project Team" can be sent your latest report at once, with one click.
Mount SkyDrive on your desktop with Gladinet: As we detailed earlier this week, Gladinet's free Cloud Desktop beta allows you mount and access SkyDrive (and Picasa, Google Docs, and Amazon's S3) as if it were a plain network folder. Drag-and-drop access to 25GB of go-anywhere cloud space is surely a nifty thing.
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Still lacking—50MB file size limit: Amongst SkyDrive's online storage peers, 50MB isn't quite eye-opening, especially for a service that wants to be the hub of a burgeoning online network. Still, for photos, documents, and even most zipped-up MP3 albums, it's decent enough.
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SkyDrive requires a sign-up with Windows Live for storing and sharing files. What do you think of the newly-expanded SkyDrive? Share your review in the comments.
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● LEADERBOARDS. Prove who is the best in the world on the global leaderboards.
● FREE to download! --- Angry Birds 2 is completely free to play. Although Angry Birds 2 can be downloaded for free, there are optional in-app purchases available.
This game may include:
- Direct links to social networking websites that are intended for an audience over the age of 13.
- Direct links to the internet that can take players away from the game with the potential to browse to any web page
- Advertising of Rovio products and also products from third parties
This game may require internet connectivity and subsequent data transfer charges may apply. When the game is played for the first time, there is a one-off download of additional content.
Terms of Use: https://www.rovio.com/terms-of-service
Privacy Policy: https://www.rovio.com/privacyA federal judge in Nashville issued a preliminary injunction against Tennessee's same-sex marriage ban on Friday, according to the Tennessean.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three same-sex couples who moved to Tennessee after being married in states where their unions were recognized. Tennessee does not recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions. The court's ruling applies only to these three couples until the court reviews the case at a later time.
“At this point, all signs indicate that, in the eyes of the United States Constitution, the plaintiffs’ marriages will be placed on an equal footing with those of heterosexual couples and that proscriptions against same-sex marriage will soon become a footnote in the annals of American history,” Judge Aleta Arthur Trauger wrote in the order, according to the Tennessean.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision to invalidate a federal law barring the recognition of same-sex unions, states refusing to recognize gay marriages performed in outside states have faced a growing flurry of legal challenges.
The couples in Friday's ruling were Dr. Valeria Tanco and Dr. Sophy Jesty of Knoxville; Army Reserve Sergeant First Class Ijpe DeKoe and Thom Kostura of Memphis; and Matthew Mansell and Johno Espejo of Franklin. They were represented by Nashville attorney Abby Rubenfeld.Review: Rise Of The Tomb Raider Soars To The Occasion
Rise of the Tomb Raider sees the rebooted Lara Croft returning to action; it might sound like a prelude but it's actually a direct sequel to Tomb Raider. But is it a good one?
Quick Rating Worth The Time? A surprising amount of time, but definitely.
Things Loved Crystal Dynamics really know how to craft a deliciously fun world, both to look at and explore; Lara is breathtakingly well-rendered; There's a hell-of-a-lot to do here, and some neat new ways to get around; Customisation and crafting gives you a reason to care about collecting and resource-gathering; Tombs have returned in a big way.
Things Hated The story's okay, but it's not particularly great; The game still suffers from dissonance between narrative and gameplay; It all feels a bit formulaic at times.
Recommendation Rise of the Tomb Raider is an easy purchasing recommendation, as it offers a compelling (if somewhat standard) narrative, together with a magnificently rendered game world to run around in, and tonnes to collect within that game world. You won't mind the issues the game has because you're just having a good time playing it, that is, assuming you enjoy running around and climbing things.
Name: Rise of the Tomb Raider
Rise of the Tomb Raider Genre: Action Adventure
Action Adventure Players: 1
1 Multiplayer: Leaderboards
Leaderboards Platforms: Xbox One (PC, PS4 in 2016)
Xbox One (PC, PS4 in 2016) Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Crystal Dynamics Publisher: Square Enix / Microsoft Game Studios
Square Enix / Microsoft Game Studios Price: $60
$60 Reviewed On: Xbox One
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a direct sequel to 2013’s Tomb Raider, the reboot of the long-running franchise that was acquired from Eidos by Square Enix. Why is it called “Rise of” if its a sequel? Well, I can only assume whoever named the game was also responsible for naming the Xbox One.
Rise of the Tomb Raider follows the events of Tomb Raider, albeit rather vaguely. Lara is a little older, a little wiser, and a little more dead-set on following in her father’s footsteps now that she knows he’s not a total loon… see, her old man used to go on about ancient secrets, guarded treasures, holy artefacts, that sort of thing. You’ve watched National Treasure, right? That. Having survived the island and its supernatural forces in the first game, Lara has returned home not just believing her father’s old stories had gravitas, but wanting to prove their accuracy for herself. Being Lara the overachiever, she naturally decides to pursue her father’s life work, picking up the trail from where he left it after he died; she follows the trail all the way to Siberia, to try and find a lost city that is said to contain the secret to immortality.
That’s the basic set-up for Rise of the Tomb Raider, and if you’ve forgotten the events of the previous game then all the better for you because some fan-favourite characters are conspicuously missing here, together with Lara’s repertoire including the dual pistols she sported at the end of the first game. It’s a bit of a hard reset, but in a new area, with new reasons to shoot bad guys, but a more composed and resolute Lara. This makes for an entirely different tone to the first game, where Lara was very much a victim of circumstance. Here she is a force to be reckoned with.
Given its “Indiana Jones” type setting, the story found in Rise of the Tomb Raider is actually quite par for the “adventure genre” course. Without spoiling too much, it’s got the ancient holy army of “greater good” types hot on her trail, the native protectors of some sacred location that are suspicious but amicable, some supernatural element that is regularly teased throughout the story, and a few enigmatic characters that provide the character motivations and eventual twists throughout the game. While it might not win awards, it’s actually quite serviceable and does enough right that it’s not a chore at all, and actually quite entertaining. Might upset a few religious types though, since it delves quite heavily into Byzantine lore.
One thing that Crystal Dynamics still haven’t managed to get right is the dissonant storytelling. Like its predecessor, Rise of the Tomb Raider suffers from the same “problem” of the narrative trying to instil a sense of urgency and impending danger, but the open-world exploration betraying that feeling entirely. In Rise of the Tomb Raider, much like Tomb Raider before it, Lara would make it clear that I was against the clock, but once the story gave me the opportunity I would be able to freely meander off the trail and spend hours dicking about. While this doesn’t necessarily break the flow of the story itself — it is after all, entirely optional — it never stops being noticeable. Especially when once you decide to rejoin the story in an area you’ve been exploring, explosions start going off everywhere as if they had just waited for you to be ready for them.
And it doesn’t end there, either. Rise of the Tomb Raider commits many cardinal gaming sins. Having to start out with no weapon/skill upgrades despite ending the previous game fully upgraded felt like an arbitrary downgrade for “game logic” reasons. Or discovering new skills just before you’re required to use them. As an example, early in the story Lara found an item and took it figuring she might need it in future, and the very next room required its use. It felt a bit too “story convenient”. Why couldn’t it have been a bit more natural, like say she first discovered the obstacle and then went back to get the item because she needed it? And that’s not all, either. In story sections of the game there is almost always a very specific path you can climb, leading to a linear feel, almost scripted, which when you think about it… this woman is climbing a mountain, or scaling a building, or making her way across towers. How does everything line up so perfectly? Also why are there red barrels near those enemies I’m about to fight? So yes: Many crimes of convenience to be found in Rise of the Tomb Raider.
That said, don’t for a second take it as a bad thing. Rise of the Tomb Raider understands that it’s a game, so it does some shamelessly game-y things. Some of the things Lara endures in this game would absolutely kill her, but she survives for the sake of entertainment. And to its credit, Rise of the Tomb Raider has entertainment in abundance, whether it’s simple stuff like getting around the place, or more complicated stuff like your reasons for getting around the place, away from the story.
Rise of the Tomb Raider brings back the hub areas from the first game, but much bigger and with a lot more to do. These larger areas play host to a series of story missions in various places, but you can also find the likes of collectibles (including relics, documents, caches, and more), challenges, caves, tombs, and side missions. While all of these remain optional, they all provide some reward as well as experience points which help to upgrade Lara’s skills. For example, relics and documents provide narrative elements, explaining the backstory of her location in intricate detail, whereas caves and tombs provide unique weapon parts for you to collect.
Tombs deserve a special mention here for being just incredible to explore; you get a puzzle you have to solve, and some reward for it, but they also make for some of the most beautiful and enthralling locations in the game. There’s a certain feel to exploring these areas that… can’t quite be explained in words. It’s equal parts claustrophobic and exhilarating, as you nervously dive into the depths below, and it ends with this moment of utter relief when you discover the treasure you risked mortal danger for. Crystal Dynamics have somehow managed to nail this feel with aplomb, and that alone is worth experiencing for yourself.
Hub areas are practically playgrounds for you to get lost in, and there are some cool new ways to get around the place including — finally — the grapple, which makes your life infinitely easier once unlocked. Some are a bit finnicky (like arrows you shoot into walls and then climb, those weren’t much fun) but for the most part they’ve gone and made a good experience great, to the point that climbing things in this game actually becomes quite fun and dynamic. Some areas feel like jungle gyms, and you as Lara are the little kid who gets to find their way through it.
Another thing that has been revamped in Rise of the Tomb Raider is the crafting. Lara is more experienced now, and more adept at thinking on her feet, so naturally she is a PhD-level engineer, and can craft anything from rucksacks to arrows to tinned bombs, yes bombs. Taking a page out of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, Lara can collect more than just scrap metal this time around, and everything can be used in a specific way on-the-fly. In combat, you can craft healing packs for yourself, or arrows for your bow, or molotov cocktails out of bottles. At base camp, you can craft weapon upgrades, inventory items like quivers and pouches, or ammunition. Of weapons and weapon upgrades there are quite a few available to you, but unfortunately still no dual pistols. Perhaps for the better, because the bow is just sexier in every way.
The bow also helps for stealth sections, where you now have a few more ways to kill people including aerial assassinations, and surprise banzai attacks (no seriously, bush kills). While Rise of the Tomb Raider does force combat situations on you sometimes, you’d be surprised at the amount of areas you can quite easily stealth through without killing a single enemy. The choice remains yours.
Lara herself is breathtakingly well-rendered in Rise of the Tomb Raider. At times you struggle to believe that this is a digitally crafted (Crofted?) character, the team that did her animation deserves awards for their talent because it is staggeringly good. Unfortunately TressFX is still a thing, which means Lara’s hair can go from wavy and liberated to downright wonky depending on the situation, and it never quite looks right.
Rise of the Tomb Raider must also get credit for using animations to convey tone and atmosphere. When in colder areas Lara will start to shiver and hold in her arms for warmth. After going for a swim Lara attempts to dry off her hair and face. When exploring, Lara outwardly displays facial expressions such as anger, caution, weariness, and more depending on the situation, even bringing up a light depending on how dark things are around her. She is by far the most believable character I’ve seen in a game this year, albeit somewhat cold towards murder (but hey, game logic!). Even when walking near ledges or obstacles, she contextually knows to step lightly, or holds out a hand Uncharted-style, as she goes along a wall.
In fact this isn’t the only direct comparison to Uncharted. With Rise of the Tomb Raider the two franchises are practically indistinguishable at times. Now sure, she’s not crashing trains or planes, but from the exploration to the animation down to the Henley she can wear, Lara is a like-for-like Nathan Drake, but with a few less one-liners and a bit more outward determination. The game also does what Naughty Dog love to do, and loads levels behind cutscenes. This makes for a near-seamless storytelling experience, once again much like Uncharted. Not at all a bad thing, but certainly worth noting how these series have influenced each other.
Following in Lara’s footsteps, Rise of the Tomb Raider as a whole can be quite breathtaking at times, with both visuals and audio done perfectly on cue. It might not always seem this way, especially at the beginning when you’re wondering why everything looks so bland. But the game does open up, and presents some incredible vistas to behold. Crystal Dynamics claim the game runs at the full 1080p (down to 900p in cutscenes) and in practice, the game is nothing to shirk at. Although I did notice a few occasions of framerate stutter. To be fair, there’s a lot going on in this game, particle-wise.
One issue I had with the first game that seems to have carried over is that of collectible documents, which read out like audio logs, but cannot be played in the background. You have to sit in that screen and listen to the text you could probably read faster. If you go back, it ends, and you’re left without vital information until you go back and sit through it. Not particularly dooming of the game, but an annoyance at times, nonetheless.
Finally, once you’re done with the singleplayer the other mode on offer is Expedition mode, and it’s basically singleplayer again… yes, really. This time around you get different modes including score attack, where you can replay story chapters for points and medals. While doing so, you can also play “cards” which come in different forms, both beneficial and challenging. These can be unlocked by playing through the game, or, naturally, purchased for real money using the Marketplace. Thankfully Expedition mode can be entirely skipped, unless you care about Square Enix’s beloved leaderboards and being better than your friends. Also in the Marketplace right now is a season pass that promises at least three DLC packs, but they do not elaborate on whether those will be story or not.
In closing, it’s true that Rise of the Tomb Raider makes a few uninspired decisions, but what it does, it does in the interest of fun and excitement. And Rise of the Tomb Raider is thankfully short on neither. While its story won’t blow you away, it’s got so much going on in this game that you likely won’t care anyway. Easily twenty to thirty hours worth of fun can be found here, maybe more if you’re fond of getting lost in the wilderness. While it’s not going to give you a Fallout 4 level sandbox, or a Blizzard-level story, if you’re feeling a little starved for some traditional action adventure, you can’t really go wrong with Lara Croft. That’s why I have no qualms with recommending this game as a purchase. Will it ever be the Tomb Raider of old, filled with fantasy locations and fantastic beasts? Probably not, but that’s perfectly fine because this new Tomb Raider is more than adequate. This new Tomb Raider is quite literally something else…
The Verdict 80 100 Any criticisms of Rise of the Tomb Raider come from a place of adoration for this long-running franchise, but the truth is that Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn't do a whole lot excessively wrong. It's got a decent enough narrative going on, but you won't mind because you're running around the various wildernesses, collecting, hunting, and being stupefied by how majestic it all looks. Not to mention spelunking, which is back in a big way here. Rise of the Tomb Raider mixes excitement with adventure deliciously, and is going to provide a solid challenge for Uncharted 4 come next year. Most importantly, it puts the "Tomb" back in "Tomb Raider". Buy it.
Click Here, Read More. It's Easy.Remember THIS Dork Tower?
So, apparently, the BBC owns the trademark on Police Boxes, or somesuch. Meaning I can’t make anything with CthulWHO and the Police Box unless it’s licensed officially. Which seems like a bit of a long-shot, let’s be honest.
That being the case…how would you like a download of the CthulWHO poster, for FREE?
Because…here it is.
Clicking on the image below should download a high-res 8.5×11″ poster. If you have the right software, you should be able to blow it up even larger!
***
In other CthulWHO news, Offworld Designs is doing a CthulWHO t-shirt (sans Police Box) that’s available now!
Offworld Designs also did up a spiffy Your Dice Really Do Hate You t-shirt. IT IS AS IF THE HOLIDAYS WILL SOON BE HERE!
In other YOUR DICE HATE YOU news (a sentence I never really thought I’d type), Game Trade Magazine will be bagging a full 16 x 20″ version of the poster with a future issue. Details on which issue once we nail down the details.
– JohnDespite appearances, that bike lane
continues through the intersection.
(Photo © J. Maus)
We’ve got more reaction and analysis on the infamous disappearing bike lane decision.
First, a quick review: Carmen Piekarski was right-hooked by a woman driving a car while biking through an intersection. Multnomah County Judge Pro Tem Michael Zusman ruled that the person driving was not guilty of “failure to yield to a bicyclist in a bike lane” because the paint striping of the bike lane was not present in the intersection where the collision occurred (therefore the victim was not “in the bike lane”).
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The decision has been criticized by legal experts and has left many riders concerned and confused.
“The judge just got hung up on a very literal definition of the law. It’s a poor ruling in an individual case but it doesn’t change the way we do business.”
— Lt. Bryan Parman, Portland Police Bureau
Acting Captain of the Portland Police Bureau Traffic Division, Bryan Parman, addressed the issue at the City’s Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting earlier this week. Parman said that despite the judge’s decision, the Police believe that bike lanes continue through intersections, whether they are actually painted there or not.
“We all know that lanes continue through an intersection, we just don’t lay down a bunch of criss-crossing lines because it would be confusing.”
Parman also added that if they become aware of other judges adopting a similar logic, the Portland Police Bureau would meet with them to “have a discussion about it.” In the end, Parman said, “It’s a bump in the road, it’s not what we wanted to see… The judge just got hung up on a very literal definition of the law. It’s a poor ruling in an individual case but it doesn’t change the way we do business.”
There was then some discussion about whether or not the ORS should be amended to clarify this issue in the future. Michelle Poyourow from the Bicycle Transportation Alliance said the BTA Legislative Committee is currently discussing whether or not to take this on. “The question hinges on whether this is a one-time fluke or if this is something that will spread like a virus.”
Front Page, Infrastructure, News, Police
disappearing bike lane caseMilitary Police announced Tuesday the launching of an investigation into an incident in which IDF soldiers and Border Guard officers allegedly beat a Palestinian man during his arrest.
Related stories:
The incident occurred in late April in the village of Silwad, located east of Ramallah in the West Bank, and was documented by a security camera belonging to the Ofra settlement.
X
Watch: Security camera footage of incident
The Palestinian, Muhammad Da'ar Sa'ad from the village of Al-Mazra'a Al-Sharqiya, was held in Israeli detention for about a month. After the footage was exposed, due to the efforts of the Palestinian's attorney, the Military Prosecution withdrew its claim that he had thrown stones. The youngster was subsequently released.
Based on the footage, B'Tselem claimed the operators of the camera purposely turned it away from the incident. The human rights group further claimed that the footage was not transferred to the Palestinian's attorney.
The camera was positioned far from the scene of the incident, but the footage allegedly shows a soldier apprehending Sa'ad, knocking him to the ground and beating him. Shortly thereafter two other soldiers join in and hit the Palestinian.
B'Tselem says the filming was disrupted while the soldiers were beating the Palestinian.
Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and TwitterPlans to build more wind farms are 'deluded', L&G boss warns the government
Plans to build more wind farms are ‘deluded’, one of Britain’s biggest investors warned the Government.
Dr Nigel Wilson, chief executive of insurance giant Legal & General, said the controversial green energy strategy will carpet the countryside with ‘ugly modern windmills’ and result in even higher bills for hard-pressed consumers.
Wilson yesterday confirmed plans to invest more than £1billion a year on infrastructure projects including homes, roads, and airports.
No go: Dr Nigel Wilson, chief executive of insurance giant Legal & General, said he would not put a single penny into wind farms because they are too 'inefficient' and 'expensive'.
But he said he would not put a single penny into wind farms because they are too ‘inefficient’ and ‘expensive’.
In an outspoken attack, Wilson said: ‘The Government is deluding itself that it is saving the world by building these ugly modern windmills.
' This is a very expensive and inefficient way of producing electricity. I fear we will end up having to import it from elsewhere.’
He added: ‘It is sad that normal people are having to pay even more for the government’s inefficient energy strategy, on top of their already very expensive energy bills.’
The comments are a blow for the government, which is trying to persuade insurance companies to invest in big infrastructure projects, including renewable energy.
As Britain’s second biggest insurance company Legal & General runs more than £430billion of savings, investments and pensions on behalf of its customers.
In recent years the firm has invested £4billion in UK’s creaking infrastructure, with the money going to projects including house-building and solar energy.
Costs@ Ordinary households have been forced to subsidise wind farms and other government environmental projects through higher energy bills.
Last night campaigners described the FTSE 100 firm’s rejection of wind farms as a ‘big blow’ to the Government’s energy strategy.
Dr John Constable, director of charity the Renewable Energy Foundation, described wind farms as ‘risky’, ‘unreliable’ and ‘dependent on subsidies’.
He said: ‘L&G’s reservations are a big blow to the government’s plans and suggest that prudent investors don’t think the returns on offer from windfarms are worth the risk. Investors are also gambling on the continuing political will to inflict very high costs on consumers’.
Ordinary households have been forced to subsidise wind farms and other government environmental projects through higher energy bills.
The Renewable Energy Foundation estimates that consumers currently pay around £1.6 billion a year in subsidies. This is expected to rise to £6billion a year by 2020 to meet targets for providing 30 per cent of electricity through green energy.
This could add £200 to households’ average annual energy bills, according to the charity.
Last week deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced £66million of fresh government funding for wind farms, claiming it would help make the UK a ‘world leader’ in the sector and create 30,000 British jobs by the end of the decade.The US Transportation Security Administration has done a backflip on a policy of adding people who had forgotten their ID to its database of suspect fliers.
The scheme kicked off in June, according to USA Today, the same time the agency officially declared people could not board planes in the US unless they showed ID.
At the time the TSA said it would still allow people who had misplaced, as opposed to refused to show, their ID on to planes. But there was no mention of the database.
Being added to the database, effectively meant that innocent but absent-minded fliers in the US would find their IDs slapped in a database with everyone else the TSA decided was an undesirable, including people who breached flight securities regulations or acted suspiciously. Or are foreign. (We’re guessing on that last one.)
Getting lumped in with the undesirable or just plain stupid in the virtual world is bad enough. But in the real world unlucky fliers who were slapped into the database could also expect ongoing aggravation on subsequent flights.
TSA boss Kip Hawley told USA Today that adding the "forgetful" would enable the agency to track potential terrorists who were “probing” for weak points in US airport security.
However, Hawley phoned the paper back shortly afterwards and said the agency would not retain details, if subjects could convince screeners of their actual ID. Which will still be a push if you really have lost your wallet/been mugged/are plain stupid.
Hawley said names of the ID-forgetful already in the database would be expunged within the month.
However, people simply deemed to have been “acting suspiciously” and who have been questioned by airport police will remain in the database for 15 years, along with information about their travelling companions.
Deep down, the TSA still believes that being forgetful is inherently suspicious.®Methane warms planet 20 times as much as similar CO2 volumes but lack of monitoring means scientists can’t be sure of sources
Emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane have surged in the past decade, threatening to thwart global attempts to combat climate change.
Scientists have been surprised by the surge, which began just over 10 years ago in 2007 and then was boosted even further in 2014 and 2015. Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere over those two years alone rose by more than 20 parts per billion, bringing the total to 1,830ppb.
This is a cause for alarm among global warming scientists because emissions of the gas warm the planet by more than 20 times as much as similar volumes of carbon dioxide.
In the meantime, emissions of carbon dioxide – the main component of manmade greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – have been levelling off. The new research, published in the peer-review journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the world’s attempts to control greenhouse gases have failed to take account of the startling rises in methane.
What is causing the rapid rise in methane emissions? Read more
The authors of the 2016 Global Methane Budget report found that in the early years of this century, concentrations of methane rose by only about 0.5ppb each year, compared with 10ppb in 2014 and 2015.
The scientists speculate that agriculture may be the main source of the additional methane that has been recorded. However, they cannot be sure of all the sources, owing to a lack of monitoring.
At least a third of methane comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels, including fracking and oil drilling and some coal mining, where methane is viewed as a waste gas and is frequently allowed to escape or, in some cases, flared off, which is less harmful.
Unlike carbon dioxide emissions, however, which have been tracked in various ways since the 1950s, emissions of methane are poorly understood and could represent a threat that scientists have still not accounted for.
For instance, the melting of the Arctic tundra releases methane as the vegetation underneath is gradually and sometimes suddenly exposed. This has been regarded by scientists as a potential “tipping point” whereby warming of the Arctic leads to greater releases of methane, therefore greater warming, in a runaway and uncontrollable cycle.
Comparison of detected methane plumes over Alison Canyon, California, acquired 11 days apart in January 2016 by (left) Nasa’s Aviris instrument on a Nasa ER-2 aircraft at 4.1 miles altitude and (right) by the Hyperion instrument on Nasa’s Earth Observing-1 satellite in low-Earth orbit. Comparison of methane over Alison Canyon, California, acquired 11 days apart in January 2016 by (left) Nasa’s Aviris instrument on an ER-2 aircraft at 4.1 miles altitude and (right) by the Hyperion instrument on Nasa’s Earth Observing-1 satellite in low-Earth orbit.
Although the world’s governments pledged at Paris last year |
the tragic torch singer, using the sensuality of her voice to evoke heightened states of consciousness rather than just channel heartache and pain." Joe Banks
Read our review of Blackened Cities here
87. The Dwarfs Of East Agouza - Bes
(Nawa)
"Having formed in 2012 while living in the same apartment building in Cairo's Agouza district, the trio soon set out on crafting their sound built on instrumental improvisational loops of percussion as well as taking influence from Krautrock and free jazz among other sounds."
Christian Eede
86. Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - We Be All Africans
(Strut)
"We Be All Africans as a whole has a joyous sentiment – loose and unrestrained by tensions."
Lottie Brazier
Read our review of We Be All Africans here
85. William Tyler - Modern Country
(Merge)
84. Ash Koosha - I AKA I
(Ninja Tune)
"Iranian-born, London-based producer Ash Koosha rips his way through all notions of genre, identity and idiom on I AKA I; an exploration of music traditions twisted inside out through technology."
Joseph Burnett
Read our review of I AKA I here
83. Giacinto Scelsi, Chris Watson & Joe Browning - Scelsi
(SN Variations)
"Appearing alongside a new recording of Giacinto Scelsi’s ‘Duo for Violin and Cello’ by Lucy Railton and Aisha Orazbayeva as well as a shakuhachi honkyoku performance by Joe Browning, Chris Watson’s piece, entitled ‘Invertebrae Harmonics’, incorporates field recordings of insects made originally on a boardwalks in the middle of the Borneo jungle."
Christian Eede
82. Maja S.K. Ratkje – Crepuscular Hour
(Rune Grammofon)
"Norwegian composer Ratkje's mesmerising Crepuscular Hour seeps through the liminal cracks between light and dark, the spiritual gloaming during which living bodies and minds change their patterns of behaviour. Recorded during the 2012 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, it is a piece for three choirs, three noise musicians and church organ."
Euan Andrews
Read our review of Crepuscular Hour here
81. Skuggsjá - A Piece For Mind And Mirror
(Season Of Mist)
"May go on to be one of the most bar-raising records to drop in 2016."
Louise Brown
Read our review of A Piece For Mind And Mirror here
80. Let’s Eat Grandma - I, Gemini
(Transgressive)
"Walton and Hollingworth are fantastic and surprising songwriters, totally unafraid of wielding cumbersome intros and atypical instruments, forming songs from fragments of dreams and fairytales. They have an ear for the texture of words and they understand the capacity of their hauntingly similar voices. And it's an absolute treat to hear their exploration of what it's possible to create using classroom recorders and birthday-present synthesisers."
Suzie McCracken
Read our review of I, Gemini here
79. The Invisible - Patience
(Ninja Tune)
"The Invisible unfurl their full, joyous breadth of skills."
Matthew Horton
Read our review of Patience here
78. Nisennenmondai - #N/A
(On-U Sound)
"Make no mistake: prettiness is merely a byproduct throughout a project where hypnotic relentlessness is the raison d'être. The listener can opt to be pummelled into acquiescence or swept contentedly along. Either way, this is a collection that insists you submit, allow the music convey you to destinations unspecified."
Ed Power
Read our review of #N/A here
77. Chris Abrahams - Fluid To The Influence
(ROOM40)
76. Sumac - What One Becomes
(Thrill Jockey)
"Sumac soon had me gesticulating wildly and headbanging in my living room. As brutal as this record is, it is also exuberant and life-affirming. As st00pid as it gets, it is also smart and unpredictable."
Pavel Godfrey
Read our review of What One Becomes here
75. Munma - Three Voices
(Ruptured)
"Beirut based composer Jawad Nawfal has produced one of this year's best electronic LPs in Three Voices which came out on Ruptured, the label he co-runs, last month. The titular three voices belong to a group of spoken word artists that Nawfal commissioned specifically for the piece before building sound beds round each recording."
John Doran
Read our review of Three Voices here.
74. Bruxa Maria - Human Condition
(Extreme Ultimate)
73. Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld - Nerissimo
(Specula)
"Teho's intrumentation and arrangements are the perfect foil to Bargeld's voice, no mean feat given that it's one of the most distinctive in contemporary music."
Luke Turner
Read our review of Nerissimo here.
72. Fumaça Preta - Impuros Fanaticos
(Soundway)
71. Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP
(House Of Mythology)
"The Ulver on display here have fully assimilated their vast array of former selves, and the result is twelve tracks of multifaceted jams packed with the kind of intensity and drama only an entity as thoroughly experienced and self-explored as Ulver could summon."
Tristan Bath
Read our review of ATGCLVLSSCAP here
70. Ulrika Spacek – The Album Paranoia
(Lefse)
"It's a record that at first sounds disgruntled but is ultimately psyched on being alive – songs like 'Porcelain' and 'Strawberry Glue' are submerged and gently swaying, while moments such as 'NK' muster a masticating drone. 'Beta Male' has a riff so fantastic and fist-punchingly pure in pleasure, you wonder how it wasn't a song already, and nods to Television, Pavement and Sonic Youth are all present."
Suzie McCracken
Read our interview with Ulrika Spacek here
69. Deux Filles - Space & Time
(Les Disques du Crépuscule)
"All together these tracks seem to exist in different worlds entirely, but they're brought into accord through a capricious, disorderly sense of arrangement and an even-tempered restraint. Out of such measured eccentricity comes a pliant, curious form of instrumental chamber pop that favours a vivid dream logic above straight forward linearity."
Tim Wilson
Read our review of Space & Time here
68. Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
(Svart)
"Oranssi Pazuzu's latest release Värähtelijä could in fact represent a potential high watermark for the current phase expansive black-infused metal." Tristan Bath
Read our review of Värähtelijä here
67. Elza Soares – The Woman At The End Of The World
(Mais Um Discos)
"While there’s no doubt A mulher do fim do mundo is born out of personal suffering, at a time when the world seems to be eating itself, you’d do well to heed Soares’s song of overcoming."
Laurie Tuffrey
Read our review of The Woman At The End Of The World
66. Melt Yourself Down - Last Evenings On Earth
(Leaf)
65. John Cale - M:Fans
(Domino)
"John Cale couldn't have selected a more suitable timeframe in which to release M:FANS; it jumps out at us from the ball-pond of detritus that was 2015, and has a good rummage around."
Lottie Brazier
Read our review of M:Fans here
64. Wolf Muller & Cass - The Sound Of Glades
(International Feel)
"The Sound Of Glades’s five tracks are free-flowing, a natural energy and spark between the two captured flawlessly in a way that doesn’t sound too rehearsed or polished - just two fine producers experimenting in the most enthralling way possible."
Christian Eede
Read our review of The Sound Of Glades here
63. DJ Qu - Conjure
(Strength Music)
"Conjure fully realises Qu’s ability to produce a techno album geared towards the club and home listening, and continues to see him carve out a sound that is one of the most distinctive in the scene today."
Christian Eede
Read our review of Conjures here
62. Maja Osojnik – Let Them Grow
(self-released)
61. Knifeworld - Bottled Out Of Eden
(Inside Out)
"Bottled Out Of Eden is loose, (extremely) busy and roughly energetic."
Chris Roberts
Read our review of Bottled Out Of Eden here.
60. Ghold - Pyr
(Ritual)
"Ghold's primordial sludge is not gratuitous, it's a masterclass of doom-laden sturm und drang with an eerie, dread-filled undercurrent that sets the heart pacing and the mind wandering."
Louise Brown
Read our review of Pyr here.
59. Matthew Bourne – Moogmemory
(Leaf)
"This is an album dedicated to and made entirely using the Memorymoog, the last official synthesiser made by Moog before the company went bankrupt."
Danny Riley
Read our interview with Matthew Bourne here.
58. Wire - Nocturnal Koreans
(Pink Flag)
"This isn't an entirely new proposition. But it's a band making steps in another direction, eschewing their post-punk bedrock and cold, unsettling soundscapes in favour of a cloudy, hazy future-psychedelia."
Tom Marsh
Read our review of Nocturnal Koreans here.
57. Kowton - Utility
(Livity Sound)
"A producer who's been working primarily with bass-driven house and techno, mostly on Peverelist's Bristol-based Livity Sound label, one of the UK's most distinctive electronic music labels, for some years now, his debut album has been a long time coming and sees him delivering nine mostly club-ready cuts for Livity taking in the sound he and associates have been finessing across a number of releases."
Christian Eede
Read our review of Utility here.
56. Big Business - Command Your Weather
(Joyful Noise)
"Big Business remind me of two barbarian kings who've teamed up to smash the skulls of a thousand orcs using maces so hefty that no real-life metrosexual man would be able to lift."
JR Moores
Read our review of Command Your Weather here.
55. Mark Pritchard - Under The Sun
(WARP)
54. Kanye West – The Life Of Pablo
(GOOD)
"Kanye West's personal brand is performative megalomania with a twist of tortured artist."
Alex Macpherson
Read our review of The Life Of Pablo here.
53. Black Merlin - Hipnotik Tradisi
(Island Explorer)
52. Swans - Glowing Man
(Young God)
"Much like religious experience, the constellations of songs here (and their brethren on the two prior albums) rely on an intensely relatable core, a simple idea or feeling sizzling at the center that anyone can attach to. From there, the instrumentalists ripple out in meditative layers, never covering over or distracting from it, but rather reinforcing."
Lior Phillips
Read our review of Glowing Man here.
51. Floorplan - Victorious
(M Plant)
"Victorious, the second Floorplan album and first co-produced with Robert Hood’s daughter Lyric, is a master class in ratcheting up dance floor energy, where every sound is finely calibrated to make the listener move. The music within is innately, intensely rhythmical, each element chosen for its cadence rather than its note, the result akin to the filtered French house sound of the 90s fed up on protein shakes and sent out to join the Foreign Legion."
Ben Cardew
Read our review of Floorplan here.
50. Steve Gunn – Eyes On The Lines
(Matador)
"Eyes To The Lines is the most cohesive, robust, confident, and widely-distributed LP in Steve Gunn's unofficial trilogy."
Joe Buccierio
Read our review of Eyes To The Lines here.
49. Sam Shalabi - Isis And Osiris
(Nashazphone)
"Hectic piano arpeggios, voice manipulation, an AFX sounding jaw harp, a hypnogogic narrator, outer edges oud explorations, berserk tape manipulation and machine noise mark this out as a truly unique and psychedelic listening experience."
John Doran
Read our review of Isis And Osiris here
48. Kristoffer Lo - The Black Meat
(Propeller)
"On The Black Meat Kristoffer Lo literally collaborates with extreme weather. Installed in Ryvingen Lighthouse off the south cost of Norway, he improvises and responds on amplified trombone and tuba to the lashings his remote location is getting from a fierce storm."
Russell Cuzner
Read our review of The Black Meat here
47. Gold Panda - Good Luck And Do Your Best
(City Slang)
"Whether you follow the more conceptual, Magical Realist reading or the narrative that Gold Panda (though, what's more indicative of fantastical leanings than an anthropomorphised, metallic bear I don't know) himself sets out in conversation and press releases, the theme of separation — and its opposite number in unification — still runs through Good Luck And Do Your Best. Whether it's the dream / wake divide or the English / Japanese language barrier, the initial segregation gives way eventually to something else. Something all-encompassing."
Karl Smith
Read our review of Good Luck And Do Your Best here.
46. Chairlift – Moth
(Columbia)
45. Babyfather - BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow
(Hyperdub)
"Massive Attack are an unexpected reference point, both in BBF's melodic dub bass lines and the casual-to-the-point-of-coma vocals, which raise the smokey spectre of Tricky or 3D in Massive's Blue Lines era. As with those two MCs, the vocals on BBF suggest improvisation and spontaneity, with simple melodies and rhymes gently pushed to their limits in a way that is hypnotic, affecting and very low key."
Ben Cardew
Read our review of BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow here.
44. Skee Mask - Shred
(Ilian Tape)
43. WIDT - WIDT
(Zoharum)
42. Susanna - Triangle
(Susanna Sonata)
" It's a sparse, isolated and overlong affair that's more difficult to love than previous solo outings like the lush The Forester or the sweet Wild Dog. However, for an artist with the vision to take such on such a huge subject as the three-pronged relationship between one woman, her gods and her planet, even managing to squeeze it down to a mere 22 songs is achievement enough. That the album is spectacular, introspective and terrifying all in equal measures is just a bonus."
Josh Gray
Read our review of Triangle here.
41. Thomas Cohen - Bloom Forever
(Stolen)
"Bloom Forever holds, even in its title, the blossom of a songwriter ready to open up to the light. A prompt to a better life."
Guia Cortassa
Read our review of Bloom Forever here.
40. Ahrkh Wagner - Ahrkh Wagner
(Tesla Tapes)
"By steering and ultimately subsuming vocal layers into their cosmic circuitry Ahrkh Wagner bring both drama and a rare romantic, libertarian lilt that bravely stands apart from the more common evocations of urban decay in electronic music."
Russell Cuzner
Read our review of Ahrkh Wagner here
39. PJ Harvey - Hope Six Demolition Project
(Vagrant)
"The sensory tumult of DC, Afghanistan and Kosovo infuse the Hope Six Demolition Project but Polly Harvey keeps her thoughts off the page. This is documentary in its purist sense. There are no value judgements – just an act of bearing witness (even if the "facts" are often mired in mystery - when she sings of the "28,000" children vanished in 'The Wheel', the context is unclear, even if the message is haunting)."
Ed Power
Read our review of Hope Six Demolition Project here
38. Atomikylä - Keräily
(Svart)
37. Cats Eyes - Treasure House
(RAF)
"After a first record mainly inspired by Farris Badwan's passion for girl groups of the sixties and the orchestral soundtracking closer to Rachel Zeffira's own conservatory studies, on Treasure House they find an impressive balance: classical, symphonic music melds with garage and post-punk, giving credence to the cliché that opposites attract, outstanding in its complex sounds and arrangements."
Guia Cortassa
36. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – EARS
(Western)
"These tracks, intermingling synth, treated woodwind and Smith’s processed vocals, feel evocative of landscapes, albeit seen as if through subtly warped vision."
Laurie Tuffrey
Read our review of EARS here.
35. Atlantikwall - Atlantikwall
(Sivilised)
"The artist behind Atlantikwall is an intensely clever arranger, and each of the 10-minute plus tracks builds and shifts with a keenly thought out logic, occasionally parting the sea of criss-crossing textures and chanting for a perfectly placed guitarpeggio."
Tristan Bath
Read our review of Atlantikwall here.
34. GNOD - Mirror
(Rocket)
"Every second of this album feels gargantuan. The aural vistas seems to stretch for mile after mile of mountainous terrain, complete with giant peaks and chasms. This is where Gnod stride gloriously ahead of many of their contemporaries."
Mick Middles
Read our review of Mirror here.
33. Underworld - Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future
(Caroline International)
"Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future, is an album on which Underworld reestablish themselves as supreme dance music architects."
DJ Pangburn
Read our review of Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future here.
32. Anna Meredith - Varmints
(Moshi Moshi)
"Thrilling."
Nicola Meighan
Read our interview with Anna Meredith here
31. Kendrick Lamar – Untitled Unmastered
(Top Dawg)
"A perfectly fine release, Untitled, Unmastered doesn't exist to change anyone's mind about Kendrick Lamar. That ship has sailed, and for the foreseeable future the narrative course is a righteous one. But the vessel has cracks, as it always has, and if we continue to rely on the immensely talented and imperfectly mortal Lamar in the ways we've been relying on him, we're likely to end up dashed on the rocks."
Gary Suarez
Read our review of Untitled, Unmastered here.
30. Family Atlantica - Cosmic Unity
(Soundway)
29. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
(XL)
"Remember when Radiohead had fire in their bellies, blood in their mouths? When there was drama to their music, a singular lurch and lope; when they were truly themselves and several years ahead of dancing around the handbag of self-pastiche?"
Mike Diver
Read our review of A Moon Shaped Pool here
28. Suede - Night Thoughts
(Warner Music)
"Musically, Night Thoughts is the most solid and focussed-sounding album Suede have ever realised."
Luke Turner
Read our review of Night Thoughts here.
27. King - We Are King
(King Creative)
26. Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body
(Peder Mannerfelt Produktion)
25. Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book
(mixtape)
"No doubt about it: Chancelor Bennett has the joy game on lock. No other hip hop artist this year has even come close to the ebullience and mirth emitting from Coloring Book, the incessantly buzzed-about Chicagoan’s third mixtape."
Gary Suarez
Read our reiew of Coloring Book here.
24. Laniakea - A Pot Of Powdered Nettles
(House Of Mythology)
"A Pot Of Powdered Nettles is as much a beautiful work of art as it is a fulsome tribute to a lost friend. Stepping outside the biographical and listened to dispassionately, Laniakea's music sounds possessed, inspired, driven into the realm of the angelic on the steady processional which the story and the music both tell, funereal yet celebratory. There's an irresistible emotional upsurge here, a power to the words and music that makes of itself an almost tangible presence, one that resonates with those profound feelings of loss - and yet more importantly, recovery - that follow every departure."
Richard Fontenoy
Read our review of A Pot Of Powdered Nettles here.
23. Billy Bao - The Lagos Sessions
(Night School)
"This is a beautifully scarred portrait of the Nigerian metropolis Lagos, but it's surprisingly listenable for something both so radically experimental and coarsely textured. The production throws the listener about like loose change in a washing machine, hurling us quickly between angered screaming noise of the Hanatarash variety and passages of unsettling quiet. The addition of Lagos' own sonic fingerprint take the whole rugged affair to the next level."
Tristan Bath
Read our review of The Lagos Sessions here.
22. Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn
(Thrill Jockey)
"The record's economy is striking: a little over 20 minutes in length, the listener is still treated to a wealth of textures, atmospheres and narrative ideas, bound together by Fohr's vocals and an insistent, Lynchian sense of the uncanny. The record may be focused and poppy, but there's a permeating darkness that becomes more and more evident over multiple listens."
Luke Cartledge
Read our interview with Haley Fohr here.
21. DJ Marfox – Chapa Quente
(Principe)
20. Anohni - Hopelessness
(Rought Trade)
"As much as critics may contest the lyrical directness of artists like Björk and Anohni when tackling politics, there is something to be said about the necessity for such frankness in these times. It seems to be a common criticism that such work fails to recognise the complex political environment in which we operate, or comes off as naïve, but this seems a fatal misrecognition. It is refreshing to hear an album prepared to confront our complicity, and our hopelessness, in such a direct fashion."
Frankie Basweld
Read our review of Hopelessness here.
19. Matmos - Ultimate Care II
(Thrill Jockey)
"This album is a triple threat: it expands the palette of sounds normally at the disposal of the electronic musician; it teases with questions about the meaning and politics of objects; and it is suffused with an expert dance floor aesthetic. In other hands this would have been a dry, conceptual conceit, but this is 50/50 head and heart. Matmos remain vital, may they continue to launder, may they never wash separately."
Leo Chadburn
Read our review of Ultimate Care II here.
18. Daniel Patrick Quinn - I, Sun
(self-released)
"I, Sun follows in the grand tradition of Daniel Patrick Quinn's work; regardless as to whether it’s one of his solo efforts, one beamed in from Indonesia, or one from his supergroup, One More Grain. To wit, it is chock full of antediluvian riddles, goggle-eyed bridle-shakings and invigorating inner-space drones that emit a deep non-wisdom."
Richard Foster
Read our review of I, Sun here
17. Jute Gyte - Perdurance
(Jeshimoth)
"Perdurance is aggressively antisocial music, systematically stripped of anything remotely enjoyable or expressive. The guitar tone has been forcibly sterilised, the drum machine reduced to a Casio click. Nothing is left but convulsion and abrasion, alienation and revulsion."
Pavel Godfrey
Read our review of Perdurance here
16. Wacław Zimpel - Lines
(Instant Classic)
"This is a spectacular solo statement from Wacław Zimpel - and yet another essential transmission from modern Poland to boot. Above all it's a heartfelt response to the ongoing influence of American minimalism that pays tribute and rebuts in equal measure."
Tristan Bath
Read our review of Lines here
15. Jambinai - A Hermitage
(Bella Union)
"Jambinai have altered the course of post rock — as ever, by just a few degrees — directing it toward something more egalitarian. Something genuinely connective and less imperative."
Karl Smith
Read our review of A Hermitage here.
14. The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
(Thrill Jockey)
"No One Deserves Happiness is a rich listen - on occasion an over rich listen – but it's continued evidence of The Body's aversion to repeating themselves and willingness to view their sound with an appropriate lack of respect and preciousness."
Mat Colegate
13. Wolfgang Buttress & Bees - Be One
(Rivertones)
12. Huerco S - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
(Proibito)
"For Those Of You Who Never Have (And Also Those Who Have) is a haunting and deeply moving album, soporific in its repetitions of meditative and often ambivalent melodies, made to be listened to on headphones, alone, in a dark room. It is, ultimately, an incredibly personal collection of songs."
Christopher Sanders
Read oure review of For Those Of You Who Never Have (And Also Those Who Have) here.
11. Puce Mary - The Spiral
(Posh Isolation)
"On The Spiral Frederikke Hoffmeier's approach is subtle but forceful, with tracks building from quiet beginnings into multi-faceted vignettes that lurch from raw power to more expansive territories where silence is almost as valued as noise."
Joseph Burnett
Read our review of The Spiral here.
10. Marissa Nadler - Strangers
(Bella Union)
"Throughout, Strangers is quite simply an understated tour de force by a now experienced composer and performer, able to convey a feeling and lead the way within it in equal measure."
Ned Raggett
Read our review of Strangers here.
9. Fat White Family - Songs For Our Mothers
(Without Consent)
"Strong melodies with jagged contours, brain-wronging phrases chanted in lieu of choruses, forgotten garage rock licks mixed with artful post-punk aesthetics. They conjure the thrill of scrambled signals when you're off your rocker on booze and drugs, project an uncensored phantasmagoria."
Lee Arizuno
Read our review of Songs For Our Mothers here.
8. Julianna Barwick – Will
(Dead Oceans)
"Will is elegiac, siren-like, contemplative and emotive in the purest sense to almost equal degrees."
Karl Smith
Read our review of Will here.
7. Sote - Hardcore Sounds From Tehran
(Opal Tapes)
"I know what you're thinking: "Look at that brutally-horned metal helmet decorated with a brass man's moustachioed face replete with jagged chain mail neck bunting... there is no way any music made by mere mortals can live up to such a fierce image." Except you would be wrong. This juddering slab of Iranian techno not only lives up to the anticipation generated by the glorious sight of a forged metal war hat - it exceeds it and then some."
John Doran
Read our review of Hardcore Sounds From Tehran here.
6. Skepta - Konnichiwa
(Boy Better Know)
"Grime may be poised ready to sally forth out of its largely self-built walls and conquer hearts and minds the world over, but its fate rests firmly in the hands of its head bannerman. This is his warcry."
Josh Gray
Read our review of Konnichiwa here.
5. Brian Eno – The Ship
(WARP)
"The Ship is the work of someone who fully believes in the power of art as an empathic tool, as a means to invoke a particular viewpoint, an unconsidered perspective."
Lottie Brazier
Read our review of The Ship here.
4. Klara Lewis - Too
(Editions Mego)
"Klara Lewis' knack for combining found sounds with contemporary beats and careful balance of experimentation and restraint originally marked her out as something special, and thankfully she doesn’t disappoint on Too."
Amelia Phillips
Read our review of Too here.
3. Jessy Lanza - Oh No
(Hyperdub)
"What distinguishes Jessy Lanza as a songwriter is this ability to craft deeper meaning without the furnishing of symbols, and little in the way of direct references to the outside world - save pop’s one eternally out-of-reach totem, ‘baby’ – all the while never sacrificing boogieability. The no frills content of the songs signposts a direct path to the artist’s soul, and Lanza’s total and utter presence throughout the record is just undeniable. She’s the prototypical 21st century singer-songwriter: synthetic yet pure."
Tristan Bath
Read our review of Oh No here.
2. David Bowie - Blackstar
(ISO)
"Somehow Bowie and producer Tony Visconti pull elements of Walker, jazztronica, manual beats, Aleister Crowley, Bartók, arabesque ululations, Friedrich Nietzsche and the visual menace of Chris Cunningham all together, and they make a 10-minute melange that is both defiantly avant garde and peculiarly pleasing to the ear and eye all at the same time. One listens to 'Blackstar' and all of a sudden The Next Day feels like a solid but safe stepping stone to something truly important; the sense of anticipation has been almost tangible in my household ever since. ★ in no way disappoints."
Jeremy Allen
Read our review of Blackstar here.
Read our review of Blackstar here.
1. Årabrot - The Gospel
"The Gospel deserves to be heard on a far wider scale than anything they've previously released. Before, their appeal was limited by their approach, however excellent it might have been. Now, the sludgy guitars and snarled lyrics are a minor component, not the driving force. There's tinkled ivories, rock-club air guitar moments, a genuine pop sensibility, camp theatre and high drama. Plus a backstory with an ending that's happy not just for Årabrot, but for all of us."
Noel Gardner
Read our review of The Gospel here.
ONE: Arabrot - The Gospel
TWO: David Bowie - Blackstar
THREE: Jessy Lanza - Oh No
FOUR: Klara Lewis - Too
FIVE: Brian Eno – The Ship
SIX: Skepta - Konnichiwa
SEVEN: Sote - Hardcore Sounds From Tehran
EIGHT: Julianna Barwick – Will
NINE: Fat White Family - Songs For Our Mothers
TEN: Marissa Nadler - Strangers
ELEVEN: Puce Mary - The Spiral
TWELVE: Huerco S - For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have)
THIRTEEN: Wolfgang Buttress & Bees - Be One
FOURTEEN: The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
FIFTEEN: Jambinai - A Hermitage
SIXTEEN: Wacław Zimpel - Lines
SEVENTEEN: Jute Gyte - Perdurance
EIGHTEEN: Daniel Patrick Quinn - I, Sun
NINETEEN: Matmos - Ultimate Care II
TWENTY: Anohni - Hopelessness
TWENTY ONE: DJ Marfox – Chapa Quente
TWENTY TWO: Jackie Lynn - Jackie Lynn
TWENTY THREE: Billy Bao - The Lagos Sessions
TWENTY FOUR: Laniakea - A Pot Of Powdered Nettles
TWENTY FIVE: Chance The Rapper - Coloring Book
TWENTY SIX: Peder Mannerfelt - Controlling Body
TWENTY SEVEN: King - We Are King
TWENTY EIGHT: Suede - Night Thoughts
TWENTY NINE: Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
THIRTY: Family Atlantica - Cosmic Unity
THIRTY ONE: Kendrick Lamar – Untitled Unmastered
THIRTY TWO: Anna Meredith - Varmints
THIRTY THREE: Underworld - Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future
THIRTY FOUR: GNOD - Mirror
THIRTY FIVE: Atlantikwall - Atlantikwall
THIRTY SIX: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – EARS
THIRTY SEVEN: Cats Eyes - Treasure House
THIRTY EIGHT: Atomikylä - Keräily
THIRTY NINE: PJ Harvey - Hope Six Demolition Project
FORTY: Ahrkh Wagner - Ahrkh Wagner
FORTY ONE: Thomas Cohen - Bloom Forever
FORTY TWO: Susanna - Triangle
FORTY THREE: WiDT - WiDT
FORTY FOUR: Skee Mask - Shred
FORTY FIVE: Babyfather - BBF Hosted By DJ Escrow
FORTY SIX: Chairlift – Moth
FORTY SEVEN: Gold Panda - Good Luck And Do Your Best
FORTY EIGHT: Kristoffer Lo - The Black Meat
FORTY NINE: Sam Shalabi - Isis and Osiris
FIFTY: Steve Gunn – Eyes To The Lines
FIFTY ONE: Floorplan - Victorious
FIFTY TWO: Swans - Glowing Man
FIFTY THREE: Black Merlin - Hipnotik Tradisi
FIFTY FOUR: Kanye West – The Life Of Pablo
FIFTY FIVE: Mark Pritchard - Under The Sun
FIFTY SIX: Big Business - Command Your Weather
FIFTY SEVEN: Kowton - Utility
FIFTY EIGHT: Wire - Nocturnal Koreans
FIFTY NINE: Matthew Bourne – Moogmemory
SIXTY: Ghold - Pyr
SIXTY ONE: Knifeworld - Bottled Out Of Eden
SIXTY TWO: Maja Osojnik – Let Them Grow
SIXTY THREE: DJ Qu - Conjure
SIXTY FOUR: Wolf Muller & Cass - The Sound Of Glades
SIXTY FIVE: John Cale - M:Fans
SIXTY SIX: Melt Yourself Down - Last Evenings On Earth
SIXTY SEVEN: Elza Soares – The Woman At The End Of The World
SIXTY EIGHT: Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä
SIXTY NINE: Deux Filles - Space & Time
SEVENTY: Ulrika Spacek – The Album Paranoia
SEVENTY ONE: Ulver - ATGCLVLSSCAP
SEVENTY TWO: Fumaça Preta - Impuros Fanaticos
SEVENTY THREE: Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld - Nerissimo
SEVENTY FOUR: Bruxa Maria - Human Condition
SEVENTY FIVE: Munma - Three Voices
SEVENTY SIX: Sumac - What One Becomes
SEVENTY SEVEN: Chris Abrahams - Fluid To The Influence
SEVENTY EIGHT: Nisennenmondai - #N/A
SEVENTY NINE: The Invisible - Patience
EIGHTY: Let’s Eat Grandma - I, Gemini
EIGHTY ONE: Skuggsjá - A Piece For Mind And Mirror
EIGHTY TWO: Maja S.K. Ratkje – Crepuscular Hour
EIGHTY THREE: Giacinto Scelsi, Chris Watson & Joe Browning - Scelsi
EIGHTY FOUR: Ash Koosha - I AKA I
EIGHTY FIVE: William Tyler - Modern Country
EIGHTY SIX: Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids - We Be All Africans
EIGHTY SEVEN: The Dwarfs Of East Agouza - Bes
EIGHTY EIGHT: Melanie De Biasio - Blackened Cities
EIGHTY NINE: Pinkshinyultrablast - Grandfeathered
NINETY: Roly Porter - Third Law
NINETY ONE: Forteresse - Thèmes pour la Rébellion
NINETY TWO: Jozef Van Wissem - When Shall This Bright Day Begin?
NINETY THREE: KHÜNNT - Failures
NINETY FOUR: Graham Dunning & Colin Webster – Oval
NINETY FIVE: Palehorse - Looking Wet In Public
NINETY SIX: The Comet Is Coming - Channel The Spirits
NINETY SEVEN: Our Solar System - In Time
NINETY EIGHT: Giovanni Lami – Bias
NINETY NINE: Die Krupps - Stahlwerksrequiem
ONE HUNDRED: Brood Ma - DazeWhat a Straight Man’s Favorite Musical Says About Him
The Music Man
He logged more than 50 hours of detention in high school.
Les Miserables
He took inspirational school assemblies very seriously.
Phantom of the Opera
He keeps asking if Jenna will be at the reunion.
West Side Story
He can’t help you if you won’t tell him what’s wrong.
Damn Yankees
He has his grandfather’s baseball cards and his grandfather’s Playboys.
Fiddler on the Roof
He has a special name he called his grandmother.
Guys and Dolls
He has his own nickname for every member of the Rat Pack.
Jersey Boys
He and his dad have plans for that Camaro.
Tommy
He and his dad have plans for that acid.
Grease
He has photos of himself on every ride at Six Flags, and he knows where they are.
Little Shop of Horrors (Movie)
He thinks Phineas and Ferb is funny.
Little Shop of Horrors (Broadway)
He thinks Hannibal is funny.
Book of Mormon
He will explain to you why something is funny.
Cats
His fingernails are creepily long.
Avenue Q
Don’t get him started on student loans.
Gypsy
Don’t get him started on his mom.
Sweeney Todd
Don’t get him started on anything.
Company
He carries a tiny notebook and writes down things people said, but feels bad when he reads it.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
He has pierced his own ear at |
, 2012
Bob Dylan, one of the most iconic musicians of the 20th Century, recently granted Rolling Stone magazine a rare insight into his life, granting them an opportunity for an interview to support his forthcoming album. However, interviewer Mikal Gilmore got a little more than he bargained for when asking about musical quotations.
The question was simple enough, asking about the ‘controversy over your quotations in your songs from the works of other writers’. However, what followed saw Dylan open up about the controversial decision to utilise electric guitar, and the ‘Judas’ incident that followed suit.
Opening up, Dylan stated that “these are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.”
Fair enough Dylan. In 2005, The Independent published an article covering the same issue, but from the perspective of a fan. It told the story of John Cordwell, an instigator of the ‘Judas’ remarks, who told the UK Newspaper “I think most of all I was angry that Dylan… not that he’d played electric, but that he’d played electric with a really poor sound system. It was not like it is on the record [the official album]. It was a wall of mush. That, and it seemed like a cavalier performance, a throwaway performance compared with the intensity of the acoustic set earlier on. There were rumblings all around me and the people I was with were making noises and looking at each other. It was a build-up.”
After all these years, it’s clear that Dylan is still pissed about the entire situation. Tempest is in stores now and is his thirty-fifth album.All that's standing between you and Microsoft's Consumer Technical Preview for Office 2016 is an NDA. After launching an early, limited preview of the touch-optimized Office 2016 suite, Microsoft is opening up its program to allow anyone who agrees to a non-disclosure agreement the ability to download the software and test it before it goes on sale.
"Anyone can access the bits under the terms of the NDA," Microsoft said in a response to an inquiry from ZDNet. "And what people are currently accessing is very early NDA preview."
The productivity suite, a staple of many businesses for creating Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations, is slated to release in the latter half of this year. On smaller devices, like phones and sub-8-inch tablets, Office 2016 will be available for free.
What's new
It may take a while for Microsoft to announce all the new Office 2016 features. Right now, the two notable new features for Office 2016 include a new Tell Me tool to help users get acquainted with Office and an automatic image-rotation feature.
Tell Me is already available on Office Online and Office for iPad, and it's headed for Office 2016 for Windows. With Tell Me, users can ask the help assistant how to perform a task in Office.
"There's also an automatic image-rotation feature to help users correctly position images in Office documents, the screenshots indicate, as well as a new 'black' theme option for Office users (in addition to the current light gray, dark gray and white themes)," ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reported.
Additionally, InfoPath will drop from the Office suite, making InfoPath 2013 the last release of the client. Microsoft, however, is extending support for InfoPath Forms Services to 2016.
How to download
If you're interested in previewing Office 2016, you can head over to Microsoft's Connect site and sign up. The sign-up process asks you to enter the email where you'd like to receive an invitation to participate in the beta, but as Foley confirmed earlier, any email address will work. Just remember that what you're seeing and testing is under NDA.
After entering your email address, you'll be able to download the necessary bits to install the preview on your system.Those attending the ceremony called for Indians to unite
Enlarge Image
An urn containing the ashes was opened and they were mixed with water from the Arabian Sea by his great-granddaughter Nilamben Parikh.
The ceremony was in accordance with Hindu rites.
Gandhi - called Mahatma or "Great Soul" - spearheaded a non-violent campaign against the British Raj.
'Come together'
His campaign culminated in India getting its independence in 1947.
"It is a day of thought and reflection for me and for all of us who can now look to carry his thoughts forward," Ms Parikh, 75, said.
A Mumbai display depicting Gandhi's assassination
"I feel on this occasion the whole nation will come together."
She and 10 other family members - descendants of Gandhi's four sons - boarded a boat and scattered the ashes about 1km (0.6 miles) out to sea.
Ms Parikh is descended from Gandhi's eldest son, Harilal, who had a turbulent relationship with his father and was not at his funeral, contravening Hindu tradition by which the eldest son lights the father's funeral pyre.
Her participation in the ceremony has been described by family members as a gesture of reconciliation.
After Gandhi's cremation, his ashes were distributed in 20 different containers to towns and villages across India for memorial services.
Some were kept and worshipped by wealthy industrialist families who supported Gandhi during his lifetime.
Moral conscience
In 1997, one such urn was found in a bank locker in the state of Orissa. They were later immersed in keeping with the family's wishes.
The BBC's Prachi Pinglay, who attended the Mumbai ceremony, says that many of those present at Chowpatty beach were in their seventies.
Indian Home Minister Shivraj Patel and Maharashtra Governor SM Krishna represented national and state governments.
The ashes were taken to sea after police formed a guard of honour.
Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic in 1948. Today he is widely revered as the nation's moral conscience.
His principles of truth and non-violence have been widely followed and worshipped.
However, some Hindus question his philosophy of non-violence.
Wednesday's ceremony was deeply moving for 72-year-old lawyer Trivedi, who stood at the barricade in Mumbai and watched his wife Usha Trivedi go with the boat to immerse the ashes.
He watched the media scuffle with police as they jostled to get on other boats to cover the ceremony with a certain amount of sadness.
"Isn't it an irony that when ashes of a man who practiced peace and non-violence are being immersed, there is so much commotion and chaos?" he asked.
As the ashes dropped deep into the sea, another follower with childhood memories of Gandhi, 72-year-old Dr Vora, was overcome with emotion.
"Hope he is reborn," she said.Four Ways The Shame Culture Is Corrupting Mormon Culture.
There is a thriving shame culture in the world today. The shame culture is cancer; and sadly, it has infected in many aspects of Mormon culture. Having lived in the South I experienced persecution for being a member of the church. But nowhere have I experienced more shame and persecution than by members of the church. Like the olive tree overtaken with wild branches, Mormon culture has been overpowered and corrupted by the shame culture. (See Elder Christofferson’s talk on the shame culture). It is time for us to realize that aspects of Mormon culture are really cancerous aspects of the shame culture. I want to outline 4 aspects of Mormon culture that have been corrupted, and how to fix them.
“Holocausts, are caused not only by atomic explosion. A holocaust occurs whenever a person is put to shame.”
~Abraham Joshua Heschel
1st. The Caste System Within Mormon Culture.
One of the first things the shame culture does is feed one’s pride. It does this by categorizing everyone and creating a caste system so to speak. (A caste system is a class system). A few examples of the Caste system are, Pioneer stock vs Converts, Rich vs Poor, Early RM’s vs RM’s, Baptizing Missionaries vs Non-Baptizing Missionaries, Singles vs Married, Those who have served missions vs those who have not, Large Families vs Small Families. I could go on and on about the growing caste system within Mormon culture.
We even do this with the leadership of the Church, we want to idolize them as more than men. One time I was doing an endowment at the Salt Lake Temple and Elder Christofferson sat right in front of me! And then Steve Young sat right next to me. I made a comment about how cool it was to do an endowment with Elder Christofferson, Steve Young turned to me and said, “He is just a man, as normal as me or you.”
It was humbling to see that to Steve Young, an Apostle, an NFL Super Star, and a single 24-year-old were all the same. His words reminded me that in the Kingdom of God, there are no caste systems! Each of us is a child of God with the potential to become like Him.
“it is essential that our preeminent identity is as a child of God.”
Elder Donald L. Hallstrom
2nd. Treating Culture As If It Was A Commandment.
One of the biggest contributors to the shame culture is when we blend culture and commandments. Growing up a few young men in my ward had long hair, members would incessantly tease them and tell them to cut his hair. Last I checked there is not a commandment that tells us certain haircuts are sinful. Beards do not violate temple covenants.
The fact of the matter is this, too many members of the church, like the Pharisees of old, love inventing new commandments. They theorize and then teach these commandments of men mingled with scripture as doctrine. But the worst part is they then judge others on how diligently they keep their faux commandments. And even if it is a real commandment they are struggling with, the best place for them to be is in Church working on it!
Take, for example, my boss. Who I had been trying to share the gospel with for years. I invited him to the Provo City Center Temple Open House and he agreed! He told admitted that one of his ‘bucket list’ items as to go inside a temple, as his sister had joined the church and was married in one.
We had an amazing car ride talking about the gospel, the video at the beginning of the tour was amazing, he told me he had so many questions and as we were walking into the temple he asked me “Why do Mormons believe in baptisms for the dead?” As I started to reply an elderly couple turned around looking appalled and told us in a loud voice “BE QUIET IN THE TEMPLE!” They gave us nasty looks and we walked the rest of the way in silence.
After the tour was over as we drove home, I asked what his favorite part was and if he had any questions? He replied, “Why was that couple so rude to us?” It was such a negative experience that it was the only thing he remembered. I tried to explain that to some members they equate absolute silence with reverence, but it was too late. As I dropped him off at his house he said: “Well, I can check that off my bucket list now.”
“When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: Stop it!”
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
3rd. Allowing Politics To Divide Us.
Politics is the most divisive thing I’ve witnessed separating people within the church. Want to know the big secret? God is neither conservative nor liberal. God is not a Republican, Democrat, or a Libertarian and we need to stop acting like He is. Each of the political ideologies has aspects of the Gospel incorporated into them. To quote a 2016 letter from the First presidency. “Principles compatible with the gospel may be found in various political parties, and members should seek candidates who best embody those principles.”
I have seen too many members who take it upon themselves to declare the church supports their political ideology. And not only that, they go so far as to treat all members who disagree with them as apostates. Yes, we must be engaged in the political arena, but we must always act as disciples of Christ. At political rallies/marches/protests/town hall meetings, we should always act in accordance with the principles of the gospel.
The great danger is when our politics becomes our God. Ask yourself, do people know me as Latter-day Saint or as Democrat/Republican/Libertarian? Do I put as much effort into building the Kingdom of God as I do a political kingdom? Never let politics draw you away from building the Kingdom of God.
“A threat to our unity derives from unseemly personal antagonisms developed in partisan political controversy.”
The First Presidency. October conference, 1951.
4th. Persecuting Others. Are Vistors Really Welcome?
In front of every LDS Church is a sign declaring “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Visitors Welcome.” But sometimes I wonder if members have another sign that they place in the lobby, chapel, and classrooms. A sign placed by the attitude, lack of friendliness, and judgemental looks. A sign that reads:”Visitors not welcome, unless you think like us, look like us, and are straight.” We must always remember that this is NOT our church but His church. Jesus Christ sets the rules.
One of the saddest examples of this happened in Nevada. A stake was doing a “Why I believe” series with famous members of the stake sharing their testimony of the restored gospel. The stake president asked Harry Reid, a convert to Church and the United States Senate Majority Leader to share his conversion story. Harry Reid agreed, but threats from members of the church who disagreed with his politics became so bad that his security detail told him it was too dangerous, he was forced to cancel the fireside. Think about that. It was too dangerous for a Latter-day Saint to share his testimony in a chapel because his political ideology was different!
I can’t help but close my eyes and see Christ crying over how members of His church treat others. Christ has declared that in His church visitors will be welcome. Welcome to the active and less active alike, welcome to the person who is a temple worker and the person who struggles with the word of wisdom. Welcome to the LGBTQ youth who need to be told they are a child of God and that someone loves them! His arms are open and welcoming everyone. Do our actions echo or disagree with His?
“We must not be guilty of persecuting anyone inside or outside the Church.”
Elder Dale G. Renlund
Conclusion: WE NEED YOU.
We like to talk about how everyone needs the church. And it is true, we need the ordinances and blessings that are offered only within the organization of the Church.
But there is another truth, the church needs you. Yes, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints needs singles, converts, liberals and conservatives, transgender people, gays, the barren, the alcoholic, the less active. The church needs YOU!
Each of you has a role in building the Kingdom. Christ died for you as much as he died for anyone else. Please never let the actions of others or the culture scare you away from this simple truth: God loves you and we need you!
“There is room for the single, for the married, for large families, and for the childless... There is room for those with differing sexual attractions. In short, there is a place for everyone who loves God and honors His commandments”
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland.
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Like this: Like Loading...From the classic era to Christopher Eccleston’s first series of Nu Who, Doctor Who has always been funny, but it only really got hilarious when David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor took over the Tardis.
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For not only had modern Doctor Who’s second series really found its stride in terms of tone, but Tennant himself seemed a lot more suited to humorous hi-jinks than Eccleston, who was more a dark, tortured soul. So, of course, the question is: what is the Tenth Doctor’s funniest moment? RadioTimes.com thinks we know, so have compiled our top ten.
Do you have a different opinion, though? Leave it in the comments below…
10. “You’re naked!”
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After the Tenth Doctor is inadvertently cloned by, er, Donna touching the Doctor’s spare hand, the clone wakes up as naked as the day he was born – which was that day, as he had just been born. Hilarity, obviously ensues, with the duplicate Doctor not only having sprung into life naked, but having taken on some of Donna less than graceful personality quirks. “Oi, watch it, Earth girl!”With Halloween right around the corner, SEGA has released a special Halloween stage for Sonic Runners. If you had a chance to play this stage, you may have noticed a hilarious typo for one of Sonic Runners' characters. An employee at SEGA accidentally named a character "Boob" instead of "Boo", which prompted an apology from the house of Sonic.
"In the current 'Halloween Special Stage' event, the character 'Boo' has been incorrectly named 'Boob,'" reads a notification from the free-to-play auto-run platformer. "We are currently working on a fix for this error and hope to have one implemented shortly. The Sonic Runners team apologizes for any inconvenience caused and hopes to see you again soon in the world of Sonic Runners!" — SEGA
Whoever made that mistake at SEGA must be in some deep trouble right now, and I'm surprised that no one noticed this typo before the Sonic Runners update went live. Have you come across this typo in Sonic Runners? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: DestructoidApple over the past few weeks has removed a number of popular Iranian apps from various international iOS App Stores, saying the move is in line with U.S. sanctions against the country.
Due to American sanctions on Iran, Apple does not sell hardware or distribute software in the Persian Gulf republic. However, the company has not actively inhibited Iranian app developers from creating and distributing apps through official App Stores operated in other countries.That is changing, according to a report from The New York Times that claims Apple is "moving aggressively" to shut down Iranian apps. On Thursday, for example, Apple pulled popular ride-hailing app Snapp from its App Stores, a decision that follows the removal of apps for food delivery, shopping and other services, the report said.Apple recently informed Iranian developers affected by the crackdown that, "Under the U.S. sanctions regulations, the App Store cannot host, distribute or do business with apps or developers connected to certain U.S. embargoed countries."Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr confirmed the message as authentic, but declined to further elaborate on the issue.Though Iranians do not have direct access to iPhones and iPads, many young and wealthy consumers purchase Apple products smuggled into the country. Indeed, black market iPhone trading became such a significant problem that Iran's government reportedly mulled options to allow import of the popular smartphone.The takedown appears to be an expansion of efforts to restrict Iranian titles that offer in-app transactions. In January, Apple pulled a number of Iran-based iOS apps from the App Store, including online e-commerce service Digikala, citing noncompliance with Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations.Since Apple takes a cut of all App Store purchases, sales from Iranian apps generate revenue and are thus in violation of U.S. law.Apple first notified Iranian developers affected by the recent takedown in February, the report said. In response, many app makers, including Snapp, transitioned to Iranian online payments system Shaparak, cash or other forms of payment. The move could have prompted Apple's app exodus.App makers impacted by Apple's decision, like Mahdi Taghizadeh, founder of online delivery service DelionFoods, protested Apple's decision on Twitter. Iran's telecommunications minister, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, also took to Twitter to voice his concern over the app removal."11 percent of the cellphone market in Iran belongs to Apple," Azari Jahromi said. "Respecting customer rights is a principle today that Apple hasn't abided by. We will legally pursue the omission of apps."The minister's statements are of particular interest considering Twitter is a banned service in Iran.Apple's recent Iranian app removal follows a crackdown on virtual private network (VPN) apps being marketed on the Chinese iOS App Store. In July, the Cupertino tech giant pulled a number of VPN apps from the App Store in observance of government regulations.Responding to criticism, CEO Tim Cook explained that Chinese regulators recently renewed efforts to enforce existing policy dating back to 2015. The country requires VPN operators to obtain a license, suggesting a bulk of the apps culled from the App Store were likely marketed by developers lacking such credentials."We would obviously rather not remove the apps, but like we do in other countries we follow the law wherever we do business," Cook said during an investor conference call in August. "And we strongly believe that participating in markets and bringing benefits to customers is in the best interest of the folks there and in other countries as well. So we believe in engaging with governments even when we disagree."Back when vegetarians were considered obscure and eccentric, Laurel Robertson and her friends Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey published “Laurel’s Kitchen.”
The 1976 “handbook for vegetarian cookery & nutrition” promulgated more than wholesome meatless eating. Through their anecdotal recipes, the women wrote
about community, slowing down, and countercultural gender roles. They invited more than a million cooks into their literary kitchen, “a sun-splashed room of wood and wicker, copper and crockery, bright colors and curling houseplants,” and helped make vegetarianism mainstream.
As a kid, I didn’t know any of the history behind the corn pone my mom frequently served. I just liked its crispy corn bread crust and gooey black bean filling. Turns out it was Laurel’s Tennessee Corn Pone.
When recreating Robertson’s dish, I cut the recipe in half, added cheddar cheese, and used canned black beans instead of the “very juicy cooked and seasoned beans (especially pinto or kidney)” she calls for. Her original directions vaguely state that the beans should be heated “until quite hot.” I translated this to mean “microwave them for a couple of minutes.”
More Tips:
I don’t usually have buttermilk on hand, so I substitute the real stuff with regular milk and white vinegar, 1 tablespoon of vinegar per cup of milk.
The cornmeal-milk-egg mixture will appear very liquidy, much thinner than typical cornbread dough since there is no flour in this recipe. To avoid messy spillage when sliding the uncooked corn pone into the oven set the round pan on a baking sheet.
Tennessee Corn Pone
Recipe adapted from “Laurel’s Kitchen,” by Laurel Robertson, et. al.
Serves 4
1 15.5-ounce can black beans
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tablespoon butter, melted
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Open can of black beans and drain about half the liquid. Do not rinse beans. Pour into a bowl and heat beans and remaining liquid for 2 minutes in microwave. Pour beans into a 9-inch round pan and sprinkle cheese on top.
Mix the cornmeal, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Melt the butter and combine with buttermilk and egg. Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth and pour over the warm beans and cheese.
Bake on the top rack of oven until corn bread is a rich golden color, for about 25 minutes.
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– Nora Dunne is a Monitor contributor.FEATURED NEWS
First things first: No, this isn’t a release date announcement. It’s a progress report!
The first of a few we’re planning for the next few weeks, in fact. It’s been a while since we talked about the state of The Silver Lining, and we’d like to let you know some of the things going on behind-the-scenes.
One of the reasons for the slow updates is that much of the work that’s been done in the last year isn’t the very glamorous kind. Much of game development is programming (over and over and over), fixing bugs (over and over and over), exporting animations, rigging, scripting, tweaking, over and over and…you get the idea. In fact, that stuff is the meat of game development, if I’m quite honest.
This year, our TSL work has been focused on the non-glamorous nuts and bolts. In particular, we’ve been making pipeline improvements. Meaning that we’ve been improving our own workflow and the tools we use in order to make said nuts and bolts work better and work for us. For example:
Cloth simulation
Facial capture and lip-syncing
Online VR mocap systems
Puzzle tweaking
What each of these entails I’ll go into when we cover them in more detail, but at a high level, here’s the scoop.
Cloth simulation. This one even puzzled me for a while. Sure, every game dev prides themselves on pushing the envelope, honing their craft, making each game better than the last. But we don’t want the look of Ep 5 to stray so far from the previous episodes that it’s jarring, and we’re not trying to match AAA quality. But if you’ve been playing TSL, you may have noticed it’s a little fixated on these people who love wearing cloaks! And what do cloaks do when you move? They also move. And what’s a pain in the butt to animate in every single animation you create for a person in a cloak? The animation of their cloak! You know what helps with that? A tool that handles the animation of the cloth for you! (All of this is also a roundabout way of saying, you’re going to see a lot more of people in the Black and Silver Cloak Societies in Episode 5 than you did previously!)
Facial capture and lip syncing. Much like the cloth simulator, this is a tool that, once implemented, makes animating a lot easier. We have tools that already form a character’s mouth roughly to the sounds of the words, but we still need to plan their expression as they speak, and program those expressions in. Facial capture lets you skip a lot of that by recording the expression of the actor when they read the lines. Now, an added challenge for us is that we recorded all these lines years ago, and without filming the actors, so to get this to work, someone needs to re-read the lines so their face can be captured. And you know how wordy we are– when else has a game had to offer a “Short Narrations” option? So this re-recording takes a while, especially when you’ve got busy schedules and different time zones to work around.
Online VR mocap systems. Full motion capture is just like the facial capture, but it takes a lot more people and a lot more space. Here we’ve got the added challenges of needing physical space to move in, cameras to capture the movement from many angles, and the fact that the person with the cameras and space and the actors lives in a totally different time zone (country, even!) from the person directing the acting. And Phoenix, as you know, is an online company without a physical office. So how do we solve this? Create a virtual space where everyone can be at the same time! With the use of VR tools and headsets, it’s like everyone is in the same place and watching one another live, even seeing the animation on the character model practically live! Instant tweaking and adjustments become possible! There’s still that scheduling issue, of course, and the sheer volume of animations to get through.
Puzzle tweaking. The puzzles of Episode 5 were designed a while ago, but often when you’re working through implementing puzzles in-game, you find you need to make adjustments. We’ve held some brainstorming sessions to address this exact issue, finding ways to keep the puzzles interesting and true to the world and gameplay we’ve established, but also work within the game engine and the ‘physical’ world of the game. I don’t want to give away too much here, since we’re talking about the meat and potatoes of the game, but I will say a forced perspective of distance posed a problem when a distant object that needed to be interacted with proved to be further away due to the scene setup than we thought it was thanks to looking much closer due to the angle of the camera. Moving the camera didn’t work as a solution, because everything else was framed up where we needed it, so we had to find a way to fit fewer objects in a smaller space that was in fact a much larger space. Basically, game design is like a TARDIS, sometimes!
In the coming weeks, we’ll gather and share some more of the ‘flashy’ examples of some of these things and go into some more details. Thanks as always for coming along on this journey with us!
~KatieBy Darts Weekly Staff
25 NOVEMBER 2016 • 12:45PM
Updates from the Cash Converters Players Championship Finals at Butlins Minehead.
The £400,000 tournament begins with the expanded 64-player field competing in the first round across two sessions today, with play on two stages.
2016 Cash Converters Players Championship Finals
Draw Bracket
First Round
Michael van Gerwen (1) 6-1 Andy Hamilton (64)
Vincent van der Voort (32) 6-5 Andrew Gilding (33)
Josh Payne (16) 6-5 Mark Walsh (49)
Cristo Reyes (17) 5-6 Berry van Peer (48)
Mensur Suljovic (8) 4-6 Raymond van Barneveld (57)
Adrian Lewis (25) 6-3 Robert Thornton (40)
Joe Cullen (9) 6-1 Steve Brown (56)
Ronny Huybrechts (24) 4-6 Rowby-John Rodriguez (41)
Gerwyn Price (5) 5-6 Dimitri Van den Bergh (60)
Christian Kist (28) 6-4 Ricky Evans (37)
Steve West (12) 3-6 Jan Dekker (53)
Justin Pipe (21) 6-3 Andy Jenkins (44)
Simon Whitlock (4) 6-3 Matthew Edgar (61)
Darren Webster (29) 6-3 Jonny Clayton (36)
Chris Dobey (13) 3-6 Mick McGowan (52)
Alan Norris (20) 6-4 Michael Smith (45)
Benito van de Pas (2) 5-6 Brendan Dolan (63)
Joe Murnan (31) 0-6 Jermaine Wattimena (34)
Kim Huybrechts (15) 6-3 Mickey Mansell (50)
Daryl Gurney (18) 6-3 Ronnie Baxter (47)
Peter Wright (7) 6-3 Jason Wilson (58)
James Wade (26) 6-4 Mervyn King (39)
Stephen Bunting (10) 4-6 Ron Meulenkamp (55)
Gary Anderson (23) 6-3 John Henderson (42)
Dave Chisnall (6) 6-4 Kevin Painter (59)
Jamie Caven (27) 4-6 Jamie Lewis (38)
James Wilson (11) 2-6 Vincent Kamphuis (54)
Jelle Klaasen (22) 6-4 Simon Stevenson (43)
Ian White (3) 6-5 Keegan Brown (62)
Mark Webster (30) 3-6 Terry Jenkins (35)
Steve Beaton (14) 4-6 Jeffrey de Graaf (51)
Robbie Green (19) 6-3 Devon Petersen (46)
Second Round
Michael van Gerwen (1) 6-1 Vincent van der Voort (32)
Josh Payne (16) 6-4 Berry van Peer (48)
Raymond van Barneveld (57) 6-4 Adrian Lewis (25)
Joe Cullen (9) 6-0 Rowby-John Rodriguez (41)
Dimitri van den Bergh (60) 2-6 Christian Kist (28)
Jan Dekker (53) 1-6 Justin Pipe (21)
Simon Whitlock (4) 3-6 Darren Webster (29)
Mick McGowan (52) 3-6 Alan Norris (20)
Brendan Dolan (63) 6-5 Jermaine Wattimena (34)
Kim Huybrechts (15) 6-1 Daryl Gurney (18)
Peter Wright (7) 6-2 James Wade (26)
Ron Meulenkamp (55) 6-5 Gary Anderson (23)
Dave Chisnall (6) 6-4 Jamie Lewis (38)
Vincent Kamphuis (54) 2-6 Jelle Klaasen (22)
Ian White (3) 5-6 Terry Jenkins (35)
Jeffrey de Graaf (51) 1-6 Robbie Green (19)
Third Round
Michael van Gerwen (1) 10-2 Josh Payne (16)
Raymond van Barneveld (57) 10-2 Joe Cullen (9)
Christian Kist (28) 10-6 Justin Pipe (21)
Darren Webster (29) 10-5 Alan Norris (20)
Brendan Dolan (63) 4-10 Kim Huybrechts (15)
Peter Wright (7) 10-3 Ron Meulenkamp (55)
Dave Chisnall (6) 10-9 Jelle Klaasen (22)
Terry Jenkins (35) 7-10 Robbie Green (19)
Quarter-Finals
Michael van Gerwen (1) 10-5 Raymond van Barneveld (57)
Christian Kist (28) 6-10 Darren Webster (29)
Kim Huybrechts (15) 9-10 Peter Wright (7)
Dave Chisnall (6) 10-5 Robbie Green (19)
Semi-Finals
Michael van Gerwen (1) 11-8 Darren Webster (29)
Peter Wright (7) 8-11 Dave Chisnall (6)
Final
Michael van Gerwen (1) 11-3 Dave Chisnall (6)
Order of Play
Friday November 25
First Round
Afternoon Session (12.45pm)
Main Stage
Joe Cullen 6-1 Steve Brown
Ian White 6-5 Keegan Brown
Chris Dobey 3-6 Mick McGowan
Jelle Klaasen 6-4 Simon Stevenson
Simon Whitlock 6-3 Matthew Edgar
Cristo Reyes 5-6 Berry van Peer
Christian Kist 6-4 Ricky Evans
Dave Chisnall 6-4 Kevin Painter
Stage Two
James Wilson 2-6 Vincent Kamphuis
Joe Murnan 0-6 Jermaine Wattimena
Justin Pipe 6-3 Andy Jenkins
Darren Webster 6-3 Jonny Clayton
Josh Payne 6-5 Mark Walsh
Vincent van der Voort 6-5 Andrew Gilding
Jamie Caven 4-6 Jamie Lewis
Robbie Green 6-3 Devon Petersen
Evening Session (7pm)
Main Stage
James Wade 6-4 Mervyn King
Gerwyn Price 5-6 Dimitri Van den Bergh
Mensur Suljovic 4-6 Raymond van Barneveld
Benito van de Pas 5-6 Brendan Dolan
Michael van Gerwen 6-1 Andy Hamilton
Gary Anderson 6-3 John Henderson
Peter Wright 6-3 Jason Wilson
Adrian Lewis 6-3 Robert Thornton
Stage Two
Steve West 3-6 Jan Dekker
Steve Beaton 4-6 Jeffrey de Graaf
Mark Webster 3-6 Terry Jenkins
Daryl Gurney 6-3 Ronnie Baxter
Kim Huybrechts 6-3 Mickey Mansell
Alan Norris 6-4 Michael Smith – Alan Norris hits a nine darter
Ronny Huybrechts 4-6 Rowby-John Rodriguez
Stephen Bunting 4-6 Ron Meulenkamp
Saturday November 26
Afternoon Session (12.45pm)
Second Round – Best of 11 legs
Main Stage
Dave Chisnall 6-4 Jamie Lewis
Mick McGowan 3-6 Alan Norris
Brendan Dolan 6-5 Jermaine Wattimena
Kim Huybrechts 6-1 Daryl Gurney
Michael van Gerwen 6-1 Vincent van der Voort
Raymond van Barneveld 6-4 Adrian Lewis
Peter Wright 6-2 James Wade
Ron Meulenkamp 6-5 Gary Anderson
Stage Two
Dimitri Van den Bergh 2-6 Christian Kist
Vincent Kamphuis 2-6 Jelle Klaasen
Simon Whitlock 3-6 Darren Webster
Jan Dekker 1-6 Justin Pipe
Josh Payne 6-4 Berry van Peer
Joe Cullen 6-0 Rowby-John Rodriguez
Ian White 5-6 Terry Jenkins
Jeffrey de Graaf 1-6 Robbie Green
Evening Session (7pm)
Third Round – Best of 19 legs
Main Stage
Dave Chisnall 10-9 Jelle Klaasen
Raymond van Barneveld 10-2 Joe Cullen
Michael van Gerwen 10-2 Josh Payne
Peter Wright 10-3 Ron Meulenkamp
Stage Two
Christian Kist 10-6 Justin Pipe
Darren Webster 10-5 Alan Norris
Brendan Dolan 4-10 Kim Huybrechts
Terry Jenkins 7-10 Robbie Green
Sunday November 27
Afternoon Session
Quarter-Finals
Christian Kist 6-10 Darren Webster
Michael van Gerwen 10-5 Raymond van Barneveld
Dave Chisnall 10-5 Robbie Green |
. He's got a lot of energy. You see him when he scores a touchdown. It's all that stuff combined. It's natural. It's not phony."
Rivera never has tried to change that, even though Newton sometimes draws more attention to himself than Rivera might like with non-football antics.
"The one thing I'll say about Coach is, he's been consistent throughout his time here," center Ryan Kalil said. "Cam's one of the biggest personalities I've ever been around, and he's been the same throughout his time here."
That approach has helped create a locker room atmosphere that is basically the same now as it was last season, when the Panthers were 3-8-1.
Winning just amplifies everything.
"It's a fun locker room, but more so, it's fun because everybody in this locker room has their eyes on the goal and how special this opportunity is," Kalil said. "When you do that and you win, you can do those other things."
Norman is the first to admit his transformation into one of the leagues' best cornerbacks began when Rivera unleashed him -- and his personality -- last season.
"I wasn't myself," he said. "They let me go. They let me be free, and all this started."MY VEGAN Day is a new initiative launched by actor and drama teacher Curtis Fernandez.
The vegetarian and Stanmore resident wants people to spend one day eating a plant-based diet on December 1.
"Some of my friends eat whole chickens after the gym, but now they are taking part in Vegan Day, but for them the launch of this initiative has given them the possibility to try it as they never thought it would be possible," he said.
"Down the track instead of having 20 sausages at a barbecue, they might have 10 sausages and salad. Every micro thing counts."
media_camera My Vegan Day is an initiative launched by actor and drama teacher, Curtis Fernandez to do just that - Vegan for a day.
Mr Fernandez is posting useful links on his Facebook page, such as ideas and help for the day, recipes, tips for social eating situations, nutrition advice and information on animal welfare and rights.
"It's about being more conscious for one day. If we can lay off animals and animal products, just for the planet in terms of pollution, packaging and the environment," he said.
My Vegan Day, like other worldwide movements such as Earth Hour, is a day of coming together and creating an impact by eating plant-based food, founder Curtis Fernandez said.
For more information go to facebook.com/myveganday.
media_camera Go vegan for a day
WHAT IS A VEGAN DIET?
Like vegetarians, vegans don't eat meat, fish or poultry.
They also don't use other animal products or by-products such as:
● Eggs
● Dairy products
● Honey
● Leather
● Fur
● Silk
● Wool
● Cosmetics
● Soaps derived from animal products“The study showed significant efficacy and safety improvements in multi-allergic patients treated with omalizumab and food immunotherapy,” said co-author Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, director of the Parker Center and professor of medicine and of pediatrics. “Multi-allergic patients are at much higher risk for anaphylactic reactions since they are allergic to more foods, and omalizumab can help change the course of therapy by making it safer and faster.”
The study included 48 children ages 4-15. Thirty-six children were randomly assigned to receive omalizumab, and 12 children to receive placebo, during oral immunotherapy. The drug or placebo was given for eight weeks before oral immunotherapy began, and also for the first eight weeks of oral immunotherapy. Immunotherapy continued without the medication or placebo for the next 20 weeks. The oral immunotherapy was tailored to patients’ individual allergies, with each child being treated for two to five of their food allergens. The foods included in the study were almond, cashew, egg, hazelnut, milk, peanut, sesame, soy, walnut and wheat, all of which are common causes of food allergies.
Children taking omalizumab were desensitized significantly faster than those dosed with placebo. They also had fewer gastrointestinal side effects during therapy, such as nausea and abdominal pain, and fewer respiratory side effects, such as shortness of breath. Twenty-two percent of oral immunotherapy doses in omalizumab patients and 54 percent of doses for placebo patients caused gastrointestinal side effects, while 0 and 1 percent of doses caused respiratory side effects in the omalizumab and placebo groups, respectively. None of the patients in the study experienced serious side effects, such as anaphylactic shock.
They can broaden their food variety and participate in more social activities without fear of a bad allergic reaction.
To maintain success of treatment for their food allergies, patients continued to eat each food daily after the study was completed. The trial found that after the nine-month immunotherapy procedure, patients continued to be able to eat the foods safely. Larger and longer clinical trials are needed to understand how tolerance develops after someone stops eating the food every day and what makes the benefits of treatment last, the researchers said. The Parker Center is now engaged in such studies.
The successful therapy made a big difference for children who participated in the trial, Chinthrajah said.
That’s certainly the case for Joshua Geller and his family. During the trial, Joshua became tolerant to milk, eggs, cashew and pistachio. (Although pistachio was not administered in the trial, some individuals who are desensitized to one nut allergen, such as cashew, develop tolerance to other nuts, such as pistachio, the study found.) Joshua is now trying many foods that he couldn’t eat in the past, according to his mom. “He’s loving everything, and he seems a lot healthier,” Kristen Geller said. “It’s completely changed our lives.”
“Patients and families say they’re so grateful,” Chinthrajah said. “They can broaden their food variety and participate in more social activities without fear of a bad allergic reaction. Kids say things like ‘I no longer sit at the allergen-free table at lunch; I can sit with my usual friends.’ These tiny things that others take for granted can open their social world.”
The team’s work is an example of Stanford Medicine’s focus on precision health, the goal of which is to anticipate and prevent disease in the healthy and precisely diagnose and treat disease in the ill.
Other Stanford co-authors of the study are lead author Sandra Andorf, PhD, director of computational biology at the Parker Center; biostatistician Natasha Purington; nurse practitioner Whitney Block; staff pharmacist Andrew Long, PharmD; research data analyst Dana Tupa; Manisha Desai, PhD, professor of medicine and of biomedical data science; and Stephen Galli, MD, professor of medicine, of pathology and of microbiology and immunology.
Nadeau is also the Naddisy Foundation Professor of Pediatric Food Allergy, Immunology and Asthma, and is a member of the Stanford Child Health Research Institute, the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute and Stanford Bio-X.
The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Centers (grant U19AI104209), the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy & Asthma Research at Stanford University, the Simons Foundation, the Myra Reinhard Foundation, and the Food Allergy Research and Education Center of Excellence. Genentech provided omalizumab and placebo omalizumab for the research at no cost.
Stanford’s departments of Pediatrics and of Pathology also supported the work.Sublime Text 2 is available now as a public alpha, for Windows, OS X, and Linux.
Sublime Text 2 started life as Sublime Text X, and was first available as a preview to registered users several months ago. Since then, there's been an average of one new release a week. It's come a long way, and it's time to open it to a wider audience.
Sublime Text 2 is currently at a late alpha stage. Primarily, this means there are still several features missing compared to Sublime Text 1. These include spell checking, bookmarks, distraction free editing, a full python API, and general UI polish. These features will be coming over the next few months.
Goto Anything
Sublime Text 2 has Goto Anything (Ctrl+P on Windows and Linux, Command+P on OS X) to quickly navigate between and within files:
Type part of a file name to open it. Files can be open files, recently closed files, or files in the project. The fuzzy matching is fast and intelligent, providing instant-as-you-type navigation on 50,000+ file projects.
Type an '@' character, and start browsing by symbol. Type '#' to search within the file, or ':' to go to a line number.
Combining these together, for example, "tp@rf" may take you to a function called "read_file" within a file named "text_parser.py". Similarly, 'tp:100' would take you to line 100 of the same file.
The Goto Anything panel previews where it will take you as you type, loading files asynchronously in the background. You can use this to quickly look up the definition of a function, pressing escape to go back.
The various within-file symbols operate on the current file if typed alone, for example, ":50" will take you to line 50 of the current file, and "@" will browse the symbols of the current file. There are key bindings to open the Goto Anything panel with these pre-filled, for example, Ctrl+R (Command+R on OS X) will go directly to the list of symbols in the current file.
Instant Project Switch
Projects in Sublime Text 2 capture the full contents of the workspace, including modified and unsaved files. You can switch between projects using similar fuzzy matching logic as the Goto Anything panel, and the switch is instant, with no save prompts - all your modifications will be restored next time the project is opened.
Multiple Selection
Sublime Text 2 has the same multiple selection functionality as Sublime Text 1, providing a simple way to make many edits.
For example, to make the same edit on multiple lines, split the selection into lines (Ctrl+Shift+L on Windows and Linux, Command+Shift+L on OS X), and start navigating the cursors and type. Your actions will occur simultaneously at each cursor.
To rename a variable within a function, position the cursor next to it, and press Select More (Ctrl+D on Windows and Linux, Command+D on OS X) several times to select all occurrences, and then start typing to rename them all.
To rename a variable everywhere, use the Find Panel and press the Find All button (or Alt+Enter), then start typing to edit every occurrence.
User Interface
Sublime Text 2 supports multi-pane editing (i.e., side by side editing and other layouts), multi-window editing, full screen editing, and a minimap to show you an overview of your files.
Sublime Text 2 also lets you choose how you switch between files. It has a modern tab implementation, including dragging tabs between windows. A side bar is available, for when you need to work with a large number of open files. Both the tabs and side bar can be shown or hidden individually.
The side bar allows you to browse files in your project without cluttering the list of open files. Click once to preview a file, without opening a tab. Start editing the file, or double click, and the file will be opened as normal in a tab.
Customizable
Sublime Text 2, like Sublime Text 1, allows you to extend the editor with Python plugins. It has a Python console (Ctrl+~) to work with them at run time.
Every key binding is customizable, as are the menus, themes, and per-file type settings.
Cross Platform
Sublime Text 2 is available on Windows, OS X, and Linux, in 32 and 64 bit versions, and one license covers all operating systems.
Sublime Text 2 can be downloaded and evaluated for free. Give it a try, I think you'll like it.
For news about new versions, follow sublimehq on twitter.Trenton police officer Richard Takach has been suspended after a photo of him sleeping in his patrol car was posted online. NBC10's Deanna Durante spoke to Takach's attorney who claims that the punishment is too harsh. (Published Thursday, July 26, 2012)
A Trenton police officer has been suspended after a photo of him asleep in his patrol car was posted online.
The photo of Officer Richard Takach was taken by a passerby.
Trenton City Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr. tells The Trentonian newspaper having a sleeping officer in uniform, in a patrol car and carrying a gun is ``dangerous to the city whether the officer is working or not.''
Takach's lawyer, Stuart Alterman, tells the newspaper the 12-year veteran of the force was ``not on city time'' and needs to work additional hours because of living expenses.
Private companies pay the city to hire officers who want to increase their salaries.While looking at the falling snow, my phone buzzed with a notification. The direct message read, “look at this, man. We are still here”. Within the DM, a tweet from former Oakland Raiders guard/current broadcaster Lincoln Kennedy surfaced. The tweet quoted Kennedy’s opinion on what derailed the Oakland Raiders. Here is the link to the interview.
First, I respect Lincoln Kennedy’s career as a Raider and his contribution to their broadcasts. From all signs, he appears to be an upstanding individual. In fact, we tried to schedule an interview regarding other matters. Kennedy was respectful in his correspondence.
With that said, the thought that we are still discussing the Washington anthem protest on December 28 centers somewhere between comical and annoying. Since the sitting, the Oakland Raiders saw their season go off the rails for a myriad of reasons. None of which are remotely connected to whether they team stood for the anthem or not.
Since Washington
If you take Kennedy at his gut feeling, the distraction began on September 24th. During that four game losing streak:
Derek Carr missed a game with fractures in his lower back, suffered in Denver. Conspiracy theorists would blame the offensive line for not blocking, wanting Carr injured. If you look at the film, Carr holds the ball for an extended period. Moreover, the sack he endured folded him up in peculiar fashion. A freak accident.
In the same game, the Raiders lost by five points. If EJ Manuel and Amari Cooper connect, the outcome changes rapidly.
During the first Charger game, Giorgio Tavecchio missed an extra point. The Chargers escaped Oakland with a one-point victory.
If the anthem would cast such a large shadow, how did the Raiders climb to 6-6, after wins versus Miami, Denver, and New York?
The Carr Theory
Granted, Derek Carr did not play his 2016 version. He appears less confident than he did last season. One apparent factor is that he suffered a back injury in September. The notion of the offensive line, not blocking for him, and caused disruption feels misguided and wrong. If you look at opponents’ sacks since Washington, one stat jumps out: over the last 11 games, Carr was sacked 12 times in eleven games.
Scheme Changes
As mentioned, Todd Downing changed to a zone-blocking scheme. As a result, the monster line did not appear as dominant. Yet, according to PFF’s Austin Gayle, the line rated very well during the season. Therefore, where does that distraction hurt the team?
On the other side of the ball, the Raiders fired Ken Norton. Since John Pagano assumed the role, the team forced eight turnovers in five games and the pass rush came alive.
In reality, my only issues with Lincoln Kennedy’s comments were that no tangible evidence exists. It is disappointing to continue discussing a non-issue. More importantly, his words give credibility to those who wholeheartedly believe that exercising your constitutional right somehow affected the course of the Oakland Raiders. Not Downing, drops, lack of interior pass rush, or bad secondary play. The Raiders endured a hellish, nightmare of a season, no conspiracy about it. These are grown men, professionals that know if they do not execute, teams will find players that can. Period.
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Like this: Like Loading...A U.S. judge has tossed out the Apple v. Motorola patent case for good, according to reports.
Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. District of Northern Illinois said that neither Apple nor Motorola has been able to prove damages and that neither company would be permitted to refile a claim, according to All Things Digital.
"It would be ridiculous to dismiss a suit for failure to prove damages and allow the plaintiff to refile the suit so that he could have a second chance to prove damages. This case is therefore dismissed with prejudice; a separate order to that effect is being entered today," ATD quoted Posner as having said in his ruling.
Earlier this month, Posner canceled Apple's patent infringement jury trial against Google's Motorola Mobility unit, then granted Apple's request for an injunction hearing.
On Wednesday, Posner strongly questioned Apple's bid for an injunction against Motorola smartphones, saying, according to Reuters, that a ban on sales could have "catastrophic effects" and would be "contrary to the public interest."
Apple has been waging a patent war over its iOS mobile operating system and Google's competing Android OS. Motorola sued Apple in 2010, in what some saw as a preemptive strike, but over the course of the legal proceedings, many of Motorola's claims had been tossed out, leaving the company with little ammunition.
The one claim Motorola had left was based on a patent it had agreed to let other companies use in exchange for the covered-technology becoming an industry standard (a so-called frand patent). At the time of his "catastrophic effects" comment to Apple, Posner had also told Motorola's lawyers, according to Reuters, "I don't see how you can have injunction against the use of a standard-essential patent."
While this evening's ruling, and the accompanying evaporation of an Apple injunction against Motorola devices, is a win for Motorola, Posner's decision and his comments during the case seem to go beyond any one company.
During the legal proceedings, the judge also pointed to serious problems with the U.S. patent system and questioned the worth of many software patents, saying, Reuters reported, "You can't just assume that because someone has a patent, he has some deep moral right to exclude everyone else."
Apple declined to comment on this evening's ruling. Motorola sent the following statement:
"We are pleased that Judge Posner formally dismissed the case against Motorola Mobility. Apple's litigation campaign began with their attempt to assert 15 patents against us. As it relates to Apple's violation of our patents, we will continue our efforts to defend our own innovation."
Update, June 23, 11:50 a.m. PT: Adds statement from Motorola.That’s why so many people working in Afghanistan at the grass roots are watching the Obama escalation with a sinking feeling. President Lyndon Johnson doubled down on the Vietnam bet soon after he inherited the presidency, and Mikhail Gorbachev escalated the Soviet deployment that he inherited in Afghanistan soon after he took over the leadership of his country. They both inherited a mess — and made it worse and costlier.
As with the Americans in Vietnam, and Soviets in Afghanistan, we understate the risk of a nationalist backlash; somehow Mr. Obama has emerged as more enthusiastic about additional troops than even the corrupt Afghan government we are buttressing.
Photo
Gen. Stanley McChrystal warned in his report on the situation in Afghanistan that “new resources are not the crux” of the problem. Rather, he said, the key is a new approach that emphasizes winning hearts and minds: “Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent troops; our objective must be the population.”
So why wasn’t the Afghan population more directly consulted?
“To me, what was most concerning is that there was never any consultation with the Afghan shura, the tribal elders,” said Greg Mortenson, whose extraordinary work building schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan was chronicled in “Three Cups of Tea” and his new book, “From Stones to Schools.” “It was all decided on the basis of congressmen and generals speaking up, with nobody consulting Afghan elders. One of the elders’ messages is we don’t need firepower, we need brainpower. They want schools, health facilities, but not necessarily more physical troops.”
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For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.
Another program that is enjoying great success in undermining the Taliban is the National Solidarity Program, or N.S.P., which helps villages build projects that they choose — typically schools, clinics, irrigation projects, bridges. This is widely regarded as one of the most successful and least corrupt initiatives in Afghanistan.
“It’s a terrific program,” said George Rupp, the president of the International Rescue Committee. “But it’s underfunded. And it takes very little: for the cost of one U.S. soldier for a year, you could have the N.S.P. in 20 more villages.”
These kinds of projects — including girls’ schools — are often possible even in Taliban areas. One aid group says that the Taliban allowed it to build a girls’ school as long as the teachers were women and as long as the textbooks did not include photos of President Hamid Karzai. And the Taliban usually don’t mess with projects that have strong local support. (That’s why they haven’t burned any of Mr. Mortenson’s schools.)
America’s military spending in Afghanistan alone next year will now exceed the entire official military budget of every other country in the world.
Over time, education has been the single greatest force to stabilize societies. It’s no magic bullet, but it reduces birth rates, raises living standards and subdues civil conflict and terrorism. That’s why as a candidate Mr. Obama proposed a $2 billion global education fund — a promise he seems to have forgot.
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My hunch is that if Mr. Obama wants success in Afghanistan, he would be far better off with 30,000 more schools than 30,000 more troops. Instead, he’s embarking on a buildup that may become an albatross on his presidency.Over the next two days HPN will look at the wash-up of the 2016 AFL Draft. Today we will look at how each individual phantom draft went, and tomorrow we will look at how each club did, and which players slid from contention.
Analysing the experts (and ammos)
In order to make the Consensus Phantom Draft we compile a bunch of drafts from a bunch of experts – this year thirteen ended up in the final cut before the draft. While the CPD is a useful barometer of each player’s draft stock before the draft, it’s also how handy to look at how reliable each expert is in their predictions.
To try to analyse this, HPN have determined four measures of success:
The number of AFL Draft Points from the actual selections on the night. This measure prioritises early correct selections, and punishes lower incorrect selections at a much lower rate (due to the logarithmic formulation of the Draft Points). Example – if I picked McLuggage at 1 rather than 3, I would lose 766 points. If I missed Willem Drew at pick 33 by one selection, I’d lose about 21 points. The count of cumulative missed picks. This is the raw number of picks between the phantom selection and that player’s real selection, a “closest to the pin” measure. The number of exact selections correct. This one looks at the exact hits, selecting players at their exact pick. The number of players chosen to go to the right club. This measure avoids the uncertainty of the bidding process shuffling pick numbers around, and just looks at whether the phantom draft correctly identified which players would go to which clubs.
Phantom drafts were different lengths, and a number of players were not selected in all phantoms. To account for this, if a player selected in any of the groupings below (e.g. first round) wasn’t picked up by the phantom drafter, HPN imputed a selection at either the latest position at which any phantom drafted picked them, or we slotted them in after the end of their draft (since the phantom drafter clearly rated the player below that position).
For example, only one phantom drafter picked the improbably named Quinton Narkle – placing him at pick 58. Narkle was selected by Geelong at pick 60. As a result, all the other phantom drafters were given the latter of pick 58 and the end of their own draft. So a 30-pick phantom draft like that of the professional columnists was given Narkle at 58, while a full 77-pick draft was assumed to rate him at 78.
For players who everyone missed, such as Sydney’s Darcy Cameron, we removed them from the performance ratings completely.
For all four measures the same handful of phantom drafters seem to be the most successful. At the top end, Callum Twomey stands out as the most successful for the first round, topping three of the four measures and finishing second in the fourth. As we look at more selections, Brett Anderson starts to take over, having had the most accurate full mock draft. The most successful “ammos” from last year, Balmer, Poulter and Doerre, continue to rate at the top end of the table, along with newly-added DraftMe at Bigfooty, whose top 30 was third-closest to the pin.
At mid-table we see two drafters representing the big two newspaper organisations, perennial champion Emma Quayle and News’ Sam Landsberger. Quayle seems to have had an off year in 2016, but this still puts her above most of the pack (and most of the professional media outlets). Sam Landsberger did particularly well with matching players to their prospective clubs, particularly across late first round picks, but struggled with other measures.
Of the professionals, Riley Beveridge struggled the most, but even he correctly identified the player to club choice a quarter of the time. For an incredibly difficult task, this is admirable.
Let’s have a look at the total leaderboard:
If HPN were forced to pick a “winner”, we’d award it to Twomey and Anderson in a photo-finish tie.
However when compared with the results from 2015, all drafters were significantly down on the accuracy of their performances 12 months ago. This perhaps speaks to the eveness of the 2016 draft, and perhaps that the clubs are beginning to play their cards closer to their chests.
Wisdom of the crowd
HPN used two different Consensus Phantom Draft models in 2016, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. First, we looked at the average consensus ranking of players, and the second looked at the mode or most frequently drafted player at each pick. As the draft drew closer both different systems of measurement became significantly more accurate. The third edition of both the mode and consensus average performed about twice as well as the first editions of each. Time, and the late publishing of the expert’s opinions, plays a critical role in honing in the accuracy of the model. Or; don’t get too excited about Player X if he’s linked to your club in early October – a lot will change in that timeframe.
The consensus mode draft got more exact matches and also did quite well matching clubs to players. The consensus average ranking draft was third closest to the pin of any phantom draft over the first round, but lost accuracy later in the draft.
Overall, we feel the mode performed a little better overall this year, which differs to the results last year. As the 2016 draft had a number of highly variable moving parts, some of which bumped players down the pecking order significantly based on the selection of other clubs, using the wisdom of the “most likely” draft worked this year. In other years, with a much clearer distinction of talent at the top end, the consensus average draft will likely perform a little better.
Tomorrow, HPN will use the gap between consensus rankings and reality to identify the much vaunted “sliders” and “bolters”, and which clubs did better on paper.
AdvertisementsA shot rings out across what remains of Isle de Jean Charles as the sun drops behind the gnarled skeletons of what once were massive oak trees. Rifle in hand, Howard Brunet, 14, stands on the deck of his uncle’s stilted house looking down at the rabbit he shot on the far edge of the property. His sister Juliette, 13, leaps down the stairs to retrieve the body—since neither of the boys will touch it. Next comes rabbit stew. It’s a normal evening at the Brunet household. The kids are tough. The water forces them to be.
“We have to be careful with the.22; we need those shells for food,” their uncle, Chris Brunet, who is raising Juliette and Howard, said as the siblings set out empty laundry-detergent containers for target practice with their cousin Reggie Parfait, 13, who lives down the road.
Since 1955, the Isle de Jean Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe has lost 98 percent of its land to the encroaching Gulf waters. Of the 22,400-acre island that stood at that time, only a 320-acre strip remains. The tribe’s identity, food, and culture have slowly eroded with the land.
View Images Since 1955, the island has lost 98 percent of its land. Island Road, pictured, frequently washes out. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
In response, on January 21, 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the tribe $48 million to relocate through the National Disaster Resilience Competition. But moving isn’t a simple solution. (See video of the sinking island.)
“We don’t have time,” tribal chief Albert Naquin, who spent the last 15 years advocating to relocate his people, said. “The longer we wait, the more hurricane season we have to go through. We hate to let the island go, but we have to. It is like losing a family member. We know we are going to lose it. We just don’t know when.”
View Images Reggie Parfait, 13 (in red); Howard Brunet, 14 (in brown and green); and Juliette Brunet, 13 (in white) hunt for rabbits around their home on Isle de Jean Charles. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaws are receiving funding, but the fight to save their culture is not over. The federal grant will help save the tribe from the eroding landscape, but addressing the effects of cultural erosion is far more difficult.
“Once our island goes, the core of our tribe is lost,” said Chantel Comardelle, the deputy tribal chief’s daughter. “We’ve lost our whole culture—that is what is on the line.”
According to JR Naquin, a member of the tribe, the island once housed about 300 people, but only about 60 remain today. Much of the tribe’s heritage and traditions have faded away because the people have been scattered by land loss and rising waters. The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaws haven’t been able to hold a powwow since before Hurricane Katrina hit over 10 years ago. (Learn more about rising seas.)
View Images This area used to be land but is now largely covered with water, leaving only remnants of past lives exposed. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
Living off the Land
For generations, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaws have sustained themselves off of the island’s natural resources. But today, residents say the land loss has made that untenable.
“When the Great Depression hit, we didn’t know because we would just trade with each other,” says Wenceslaus Billiot, Sr., who was born, raised, and married on the island. He and his wife of 69 years, Denecia Billiot, raised their children there, but their grandchildren and great-grandchildren no longer consider it a viable place to live.
Chris Brunet is the eighth generation in his family to live on the island as a member of the tribe. In one generation, “this island has gone from being self-sufficient and fertile to relying on grocery stores,” he says. “What you see now is a skeleton of the island it once was.”
The land is disappearing into the Gulf because of a combination of coastal erosion, rising sea levels, lack of soil renewal, and shifting soil due to dredging for oil and gas pipeline placement. The soil that remains is nutrient-depleted because the protective marshlands that once served as the first line of defense against saltwater intrusion for the Louisiana coastline are disappearing at a rate of the area of a football field an hour.
View Images Only a handful of structures remain intact on the island, but residents fear it's only a matter of time before those crumble, too. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
As the effects of climate change transform coastal communities around the world, the people of Isle de Jean Charles will be only 60 of the estimated 200 million people in coastal communities globally who could be displaced by 2050 because of climate change.
Theresa Billiot, living on the island with her parents, Wenceslaus and Denecia, in order to help take care of them, commutes nearly an hour each way to her job at a grocery store in Houma, Louisiana. Her small garden between their house and the levee is one of the only remnants of the days when the tribe could live off of the land. In the distance, three oil storage tanks are visible reminders of how nearby underground pipelines have contributed to the shifting and sinking land.
“It is hard for everyday Americans to see and understand climate change,” Comardelle said. “They don’t see land that was once there disappear.”
The island, which is thought to have been named after the father of a Frenchman who married into the tribe in the 1800s, is located deep in the southern bayous of Louisiana, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of New Orleans and 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gulf of Mexico.
Only Way Out
The only way into or out of Isle de Jean Charles is on Island Road. In 1953, the year the road was built, land and thick marsh surrounded the road. At that time, tribal members could traverse the land around the road to hunt and trap.
But erosion is eating away at the road today. Marks of sand and debris indicate where the water covers the road during high tide. If strong southerly winds persist across the island, the road will flood even on a cloudless day.
View Images An aerial image reveals Island Road, which used to be surrounded by dry land but is now nearly washed out. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
Chris Brunet says he believes that when the bayou was dredged to build up the foundation for the road, that process exposed the road and the island to more erosion.
“The more avenues you create for the water, the more she’s coming,” Chris Brunet said. “It’s a powerful thing.” (Watch how the Gulf oil spill destroyed a different island.)
Every time a strong storm heads toward the island, residents have a small window of time to decide whether they will evacuate. If they don’t immediately decide to leave, their only choice will be to stay on the island and ride out the storm. Once the storm arrives, the road out of the island will be flooded.
View Images Jason Michael Dardar, Jr., 8, plays in his neighborhood on the island. Elders worry about what will happen to their unique culture when they have to move. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National Geographic
“It takes a lot of prayer to live down here,” Theresa Handon, Chris Brunet’s sister, said. “I think, ‘Please God, no more storms,’ but I know it’s going to come.”
With every storm that hits the island comes a chance that another home will be destroyed. Louisiana contains 40 percent of the nation’s wetlands, but each year an amount of land larger than the size of Manhattan is sapped from the state's coastline. The water has now overtaken many structures that were once a part of the community. Sea level rise, shifting soils, and several hurricanes have led to the abandonment and eventual demise of what once were people’s homes.
“Climate change didn’t happen overnight, so we can’t fix it overnight,” Comardelle said. “What we can do is make the best of what we’ve been given and adapt.”
Many of the tribal members who remain on the island despite the rising waters are those who can’t afford any other option. Most of those who have left the island remain in the tribe but are spread throughout Louisiana.
“The tribe has physically and culturally been torn apart with the scattering of members,” the resettlement proposal submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s National Disaster Resilience Competition states. “A new settlement offers an opportunity for the tribe to rebuild their homes and secure their culture on safe ground.” (Learn about other sinking islands.)
Beacon of Hope
“We know we aren’t the only ones,” Comardelle says. “If we can do this, not only for our people, but to be a beacon of hope for other communities is important. This is not just about us.”
The resettlement proposal argues that Isle de Jean Charles "is ideally positioned to develop and test resettlement adaptive methodologies," something that is badly needed around the world. As such, the plan aims to move families to a historically contextual and culturally appropriate community.
As hurricane season looms, the tribe hopes to be spared long enough to have time for relocation; however, with questions from the state about how to allocate the money, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw culture hangs in the balance.
“To stay here would have been my first choice, but common sense tells me that if I don’t take advantage now and a hurricane comes and destroys everything, then where will I go?” said the Reverend Roch Naquin, a resident who grew up on the island and was a trapper until going to seminary school.
View Images Wenceslaus Billiot, Jr., walks on the levee behind his parents' stilted home. Photograph by Carolyn Van Houten, National |
Utah Trump has Narrow Lead But Clinton and McMullin are Hot on His Heels
West Long Branch, NJ - The Republican presidential nominee is ahead in the race for Utah's electoral votes - which wouldn't be a headline except for the fact that his lead is a relatively meager 6 points. The Monmouth University Poll finds Donald Trump staving off a challenge from both Hillary Clinton and independent candidate Evan McMullin. More than 2-in-3 voters in one of the nation's most reliable Republican states say Trump does not share their values and he lacks the temperament to serve as president.
Among Utah voters likely to cast ballots in November's presidential election, 34% currently support Trump, 28% back Clinton, 20% back McMullin, and 9% support Libertarian Gary Johnson. Green Party candidate Jill Stein has 1% of the vote and another 6% are undecided. Historically, the GOP nominee tends to enjoy a winning margin in the 30 to 50 point range. The only time in more than 50 years when the Republican margin of victory was less than 20 points occurred back in 1992. That election saw Utah's vote divided among three candidates - 43% George H.W. Bush, 27% Ross Perot, 25% Bill Clinton.
"While this race is close, it is unclear whether Clinton or McMullin has the better opportunity to upset Trump," said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. [Note: nearly all the interviews for this poll were conducted before news of sexual assault allegations against Trump received wide coverage on Wednesday.]
The last Democrat to win Utah's electoral votes was Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Since then, no Democrat has done better than about one-third of the vote and, more often than not, has barely been able to top one-quarter of ballots cast. Among the few Beehive State polls that have been conducted this cycle, Clinton has been stuck at about one-quarter of the vote in all the telephone polls, although she has attained one-third support in a number of online surveys. The more volatile number has been Trump's level of support.
"It is likely that some Republican voters are looking for cues from their state's party leadership, who have pretty much abandoned Trump en masse," said Murray.
Self-identified Republicans support Trump over McMullin by a 55% to 26% margin, with 6% supporting Clinton and 5% supporting Johnson. Among independent voters, 29% back Trump, 23% back Clinton, 21% back McMullin, and 16% back Johnson. Nearly all Democrats (92%) support Clinton.
Male voters tend to stick with the GOP nominee - 42% Trump, 26% Clinton, 14% McMullin, and 10% Johnson. Women, however, narrowly prefer the Democrat - 31% Clinton, 27% Trump, 26% McMullin, and 8% Johnson. In 2008, the most recent year with a Utah exit poll, GOP nominee John McCain enjoyed an identical support level of 63% among both men and women.
About 6-in-10 Utah voters identify their religious affiliation as Mormon. Among this group, Trump leads McMullin by 38% to 32%, with Clinton at 13% and Johnson at 8%. Among those with another religious affiliation or no religious identity, half back Clinton (50%), with Trump at 29%, Johnson at 9%, and McMullin at 4%. In 2008, McCain defeated Barack Obama among Mormon voters by a 78% to 19% margin according to the exit poll, while Obama won the support of voters with another or no religious identity by 62% to 31%.
The Monmouth University Poll finds that Utah voters have an overwhelmingly negative opinion of both major party nominees while the independent candidate is not particularly well-known. Just 19% have a favorable view of Trump and 71% have an unfavorable opinion of him. Only 25% have a favorable view of Clinton and 69% have a negative opinion of her. McMullin gets a 28% favorable and 6% unfavorable rating, but two-thirds (66%) do not know enough to form an opinion of the candidate who is positioning himself as the principled conservative option in the race.
Furthermore, 73% of voters say Trump does not share their values, including 61% of Republicans and 73% of Mormons. A similar 70% of voters say that Clinton does not share their values.
"Utah's large number of Republican voters could never support the Democrat, but they are having an awfully hard time coming to terms with their own nominee. This may provide an opening for McMullin, especially if the national picture continues to point toward a Clinton victory and they become less worried about 'wasting' their vote," said Murray.
Only 25% of Utah voters feel Trump has the right temperament to be president while 70% say he does not. They are more evenly divided on Clinton, with 49% saying she has the right temperament and 48% saying she does not.
Nearly all Utah voters are aware of the graphic recording of Trump released on Friday, including 52% who have watched or listened to it and another 41% have read or heard about its contents. About 2-in-3 voters (67%) say they were not really surprised by what they heard come out of Trump's mouth. Only 6% say they were shocked and 18% say they were surprised but not shocked. Nearly 4-in-10 voters (39%) feel what Trump said in that tape makes him unfit for office while 50% say his words were inappropriate but not necessarily disqualifying. Seven percent are not familiar with the recording.
The presidential race aside, Republicans are enjoying a typically large advantage in other statewide contests. In the election for U.S. Senate, first-term incumbent Mike Lee has a 60% to 31% lead over challenger Misty Snow. In the race for governor, incumbent Gary Herbert has a 63% to 30% lead over challenger Mike Weinholtz.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from October 10 to 12, 2016 with 403 Utah residents likely to vote in the November election. This sample has a margin of error of ±4.9 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long Branch, NJ.
QUESTIONS AND RESULTS
(* Some columns may not add to 100% due to rounding.)
1/2. If the election for President was today, would you vote for Donald Trump the Republican, Hillary Clinton the Democrat, Gary Johnson the Libertarian, Jill Stein of the Green Party, or independent candidate Evan McMullin? [IF UNDECIDED: If you had to vote for one of the following candidates at this moment, who do you lean toward – Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton?] [NAMES WERE ROTATED]
(with leaners) Oct.
2016 Donald Trump 34% Hillary Clinton 28% Gary Johnson 9% Jill Stein 1% Evan McMullin 20% (VOL) Other candidate 1% (VOL) Undecided 6% (n) (403)
If the election for U.S. Senate was today, would you vote for Mike Lee the Republican, Misty Snow the Democrat, or some other candidate? [IF UNDECIDED: If you had to vote for one of the following candidates at this moment, who do you lean toward – Mike Lee or Misty Snow?] [NAMES WERE ROTATED]
(with leaners) Oct.
2016 Mike Lee 60% Misty Snow 31% Other candidate 3% (VOL) Undecided 6% (n) (403)
If the election for governor was today, would you vote for Gary Herbert the Republican, Mike Weinholtz the Democrat, or some other candidate? [IF UNDECIDED: If you had to vote for one of the following candidates at this moment, who do you lean toward – Gary Herbert or Mike Weinholtz?] [NAMES WERE ROTATED]
(with leaners) Oct.
2016 Gary Herbert 63% Mike Weinholtz 30% Other candidate 2% (VOL) Undecided 5% (n) (403)
Regardless of who you may support for president…
[QUESTIONS 5 THROUGH 7 WERE ROTATED]
Is your general impression of Donald Trump favorable or unfavorable, or do you have no opinion of him?
Oct.
2016 Favorable 19% Unfavorable 71% No opinion 10% (n) (403)
Is your general impression of Hillary Clinton favorable or unfavorable, or do you have no opinion of her?
Oct.
2016 Favorable 25% Unfavorable 69% No opinion 6% (n) (403)
Is your general impression of Evan McMullin favorable or unfavorable, or do you have no opinion of him?
Oct.
2016 Favorable 28% Unfavorable 6% No opinion 66% (n) (403)
[QUESTIONS 8 & 9 WERE ROTATED]
Regardless of whether you would vote for him, do you think Donald Trump does or does not have the right temperament to be president?
Oct.
2016 Does 25% Does not 70% (VOL) Don’t know 5% (n) (403)
Regardless of whether you would vote for her, do you think Hillary Clinton does or does not have the right temperament to be president?
Oct.
2016 Does 49% Does not 48% (VOL) Don’t know 3% (n) (403)
[QUESTIONS 10 & 11 WERE ROTATED]
Do you think Donald Trump does or does not share your values?
Oct.
2016 Does 24% Does not 73% (VOL) Don’t know 3% (n) (403)
Do you think Hillary Clinton does or does not share your values?
Oct.
2016 Does 29% Does not 70% (VOL) Don’t know 1% (n) (403)
A recording of Trump talking about some of his sexual encounters emerged on Friday. Have you heard about this or not? [IF HEARD: Have you watched or listened to the actual recording or did you just hear or read reports about what he said?]
Oct.
2016 Watched/listened to actual recording 52% Heard/read reports about it 41% Not aware of recording 7% (n) (403)
Does what Trump said on this recording make him unfit for office or is what he said inappropriate but it does not necessarily make him unfit for office?
Oct.
2016 Makes him unfit for office 39% Inappropriate but not necessarily unfit 50% (VOL) Neither 2% (VOL) Don’t know 2% Not aware of recording 7% (n) (403)
Would you describe your reaction to Trump saying these things as shocked, surprised but not shocked, or not really surprised?
Oct.
2016 Shocked 6% Surprised but not shocked 18% Not really surprised 67% (VOL) Don’t know 2% Not aware of recording 7% (n) (403)
METHODOLOGY
The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from October 10 to 12, 2016 with a random sample of 403 likely Utah voters. Interviews were conducted by a live caller in English, including 353 drawn from a list of registered voters (201 landline / 152 cell phone) and a random digit dial supplement of 50 cell phone interviews. Monmouth is responsible for all aspects of the survey design, data weighting and analysis. The final sample is weighted for age, gender, race and partisanship based on voter list and U.S. Census information. Data collection support provided by Braun Research (field), Aristotle (voter list sample), and SSI (RDD sample). For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling has a maximum margin of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points (unadjusted for sample design). Sampling error can be larger for sub-groups (see table below). In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
DEMOGRAPHICS (weighted) Self-Reported 39% Republican 43% Independent 18% Democrat 48% Male 52% Female 23% 18-34 30% 35-49 27% 50-64 21% 65+ 95% White 1% Black 3% Hispanic 1% Other
Click on pdf file link below for full methodology and results by key demographic groups.
Download this Poll Report with all tablesImage copyright Thinkstock Image caption Some countries recommend eating 10 portions a day of fruit or veg
New research backs the five-a-day target for fruit and vegetables, but suggests eating more may have no added benefits.
An analysis of 16 worldwide studies suggested that for every portion of fruit and vegetables consumed, there was a lower risk of premature death.
But after five portions a day, there was no further impact, researchers report in The BMJ.
There have been calls to up the quota to seven-a-day, to prolong lives.
Current NHS guidance is to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Most people manage about four.
Most people do not eat five portions of fruit and veg a day, so the message for the public is still to eat more fruit and veg Dr Oyinlola Oyebode, University College London
The new analysis looked at 16 studies in the US, Asia and Europe involving more than 833,000 people, of whom about 56,000 died during the follow-up period.
Researchers in the US and China found eating more fruit and vegetables was linked with a lower risk of dying from any cause, particularly from cardiovascular disease.
The average risk of death fell by about 5% for every extra serving of fruit and vegetables, up to five servings a day, but not beyond.
"This analysis provides further evidence that a higher consumption of fruit and vegetables is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, particularly cardiovascular mortality," said the team, led by Prof Frank Hu, of Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston, US.
"There was a threshold around five servings of fruit and vegetables a day, after which the risk of all cause mortality did not reduce further."
Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Eating even five portions of fruit and vegetables a day is a challenge for many
Seven-a-day?
There have been calls to increase the quota of fruit and vegetables beyond five.
A previous study in England found eating seven or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day was healthier than the minimum five currently recommended and could prolong lives.
But lead researcher Dr Oyinlola Oyebode, of University College London, said both studies showed eating more fruit and veg was associated with lower risk of early death.
"This study suggests not much additional effect over five portions, although there was possibly a greater effect in the groups eating five to seven, and seven plus portions in our study," she told the BBC.
"Most people do not eat five portions of fruit and veg a day, so the message for the public is still to eat more fruit and veg."
Five a day facts
The five-a-day message is based on advice from the World Health Organization
It highlights the health benefits of eating five 80g (3oz) portions of fruit and vegetables every day
The five portions should include a variety of fruit and vegetables
Most fruits and veg count towards five a day
The government says it can include fresh, frozen, canned, dried or pure juices
Potatoes and cassava don't count because they mainly contribute starch to the diet
Commenting on the study, Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Although our five-a-day message is well established, worryingly 70% of adults are still not meeting this target.
"Just remember that every extra portion you eat towards your five-a-day could help you keep your heart healthy."
Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: "The majority of people in England are not eating enough fruit and vegetables with the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) data from 2008 to 2012 showing that only 30% of adults and 41% of older adults met the five-a-day recommendation.
"Eating a healthy, balanced diet that is high in fruit, vegetables and fibre and low in saturated fat, sugar and salt, alongside being more active, will help you to maintain a healthy weight and lower your risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers."Sujana Rana, a Nepalese domestic worker, shares her experience at a community center in Beirut. Alicja Rogalska
In any other context, this set of people would not be mingling in Beirut: artists, academics, and domestic workers. On a recent evening, all gathered at a community center to share research and experiences on an issue–domestic workers’ rights–not otherwise addressed much in Lebanese circles.
“I want to try and help our sisters who don’t sleep, don’t eat, and are afraid,” said Sujana Rana, a member of a Nepalese domestic workers group. “We leave our homes, our families to come to Lebanon,” she said with a quivering voice, “and work so hard to earn a living.”
Ms. Rana is one of about 200,000 migrant workers in Lebanon. Hired household help is common across the Middle East. In places like Lebanon, it’s inexpensive, so large communities of domestic workers from Ethiopia, Nepal, the Philippines and other countries come to meet the demand. They are part of the fabric of life here–but no legislation protects their rights.
Migrant domestic workers are excluded from the Lebanese labor law, according to a 2013 report by Human Rights Watch. Their terms of employment are defined in a specific relationship with their employer, a system called “kafala” that is rife with profit-reaping and exploitation. Agencies lure workers from their home countries with promises of large salaries and a better life–a far cry from the working conditions they usually face.
Ethiopia and the Philippines even banned their citizens from working in Lebanon. The Philippines overturned the ban in 2012 after signing an agreement with Lebanon to regulate recruitment and employment. Ethiopians still find ways to come here, despite their country’s regulations.
Their plight grabbed headlines in 2012 when an Ethiopian domestic worker committed suicide at a psychiatric hospital. After that incident brought public outcry, workers began to speak out across the country about abuse by their employers.
The Migrant Community Center in Beirut was set up three years ago as a place where migrant workers and others in the community can learn about the workers’ rights and how to protect them. “People come here for help,” said Rana Boukarim, a program manager.
Alicja Rogalska, an artist based in London and Warsaw, organized the recent gathering at the center as part of a series of events that bring together artists and academics on various social issues.
Ms. Rana, the Nepalese worker whose group is supported by a local NGO, said she visited the center to learn how to help others in her community “who are suffering and who are scared to speak up.”
“We want to help migrant workers,” she told a room of Lebanese researchers, expats, and other migrant workers. “We are all human beings.”In an op-ed published in The Washington Times, National Organization for Marriage president Brian Brown goes on the attack against the Human Rights Campaign's new "Export of Hate" report exposing America's anti-gay activists (including Brown) and their work promoting bigotry abroad.
Writes Brown:
As is its custom, the Human Rights Campaign cites long-discredited and ideologically partisan sources such as the Southern Poverty Law Center to give apparent credibility to its hate-filled invective. The HRC also intentionally misrepresent facts, twisting them beyond recognition to justify the charge that somehow supporting marriage as the union of one man and one woman around the world is wrong. […]
As the Human Rights Campaign well knows, I have consistently denounced hate and violence. It is a slur and lie to claim otherwise. It should be clear to any honest observer that the truth is not what the organization is after. Instead it simply seeks to silence and intimidate those with whom it disagrees. Hence, the self-professed purpose of the report is to name and shame those who stand for the truth of the nature of marriage.
The Human Rights Campaign, as a founding member of the Council for Global Equality and partner of the George Soros-funded International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, is a key part of a network of organizations that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide attacking traditional faith communities, states and individuals who stand for the truth about marriage and family. They are in the phalanx of a new form of cultural imperialism that seeks to overthrow the traditions, wisdom and reason of cultures and faiths around the world.
Brown goes on to say that he's "proud to have played some small role" in the "emerging pro-family movment" around the globe – likely in reference to his trip to Russia last year collaborating with lawmakers on the country's gay adoption ban.
The HRC, meanwhile, is firing back in a blog post titled "Sorry We're Not Sorry, Brian Brown"
Brian Brown is one of many Americans taking the mission of anti-LGBT hate and bigotry abroad. It’s time for American extremists like Brown to be called out for their actions. It is unacceptable to fight against the freedom and liberty of LGBT people worldwide. Sorry we’re not sorry, Brian Brown. It is time for you, and other exporters of hate, to end the spread of bigotry and lies.
Check out the full post HERE.
Brown isn't the first anti-gay activist included in the report to make a fuss about it. Scott Lively has said that the report is "deliberately trying to incite murder against me" and Libery Council's Mat Staver has also voiced his displeasure with having his bigotry called out.Despite a tough month back home in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie broke fundraising records in January as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, an aide told The Daily Caller.
“This January, with the help of Chairman Christie and all of our Republican Governors, the RGA raised $6 million,” RGA communications director Gail Gitcho said in a statement.
“That is more than twice as much that has ever been raised during the same month in RGA history, and twice as much that was raised in the last comparable cycle (2010) in the same month,” Gitcho said.
Christie continues to face questions over the so-called bridge-gate scandal, specifically why members of his administration closed lanes to the George Washington Bridge bridge last year.
Because of that scandal, critics are questioning whether Christie should continue leading the RGA during the bridge-gate aftermath.
On Monday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said of Christie: “The fact is right now, he’s a distraction to the RGA. … If Republicans’ job is electing governors and you got a guy running the RGA that has Republican candidates running away from him, that’s a serious problem.”
But Christie is showing no signs of letting up on his RGA duties. He takes off Tuesday for fundraisers in Illinois. Last week, Christie traveled to Texas and raised $1.5 million for the organization.
He has plans to fundraise in Massachusetts, Utah, Georgia, Connecticut and Michigan too.
“The RGA has solid financial footing to elect and re-elect Republican Governors in the 36 gubernatorial races this year, and is in strong position to counter the public sector union influence on the other side,” Gitcho said.
Follow Alex on TwitterIf you want to extend fast internet to every corner of your home, the Google Wifi is the best device to do it. You just need two things:
An internet-connected iOS or Android mobile device, like a phone or a tablet
A Google account, which you can get for free
This is because, unlike most routers, there's no web-based interface and the new Wi-Fi system can only be set up and controlled via the new Google Wifi mobile application. Once set up, the Google Wifi will stay connected to Google at all times and will log into your Google account each time you want to manage it.
Google says the Wifi doesn't collect user activity data, like what sites you're visiting. By default, it appears to collect only hardware-, app- and network-related information. However, you can turn this off in the Privacy section of the settings.
Still, a constant connection to Google is required. That's a dealbreaker for some. Not all home mesh Wi-Fi systems, which use several "satellite" devices to extend the Wi-Fi signal, require a connection to the vendor in order to work -- the Eero does while the Netgear Orbi doesn't. Most home routers don't require this at all.
But that's not something most people will care about, plus it will keep the device secure from hacking via regular automatic updates. So if you're cool with this setup, Google Wifi has the best balance of ease-of-use, performance and price yet.
View full gallery Josh Miller/CNET
What I love about Google Wifi
The price: At just $129 for a single unit or $299 for a set of three, the Google Wifi is cheaper than other Wi-Fi systems like the Eero or Orbi. (Google hasn't said whether the Wifi will go on sale in the UK or Australia, but those prices convert to around £100 or AU$170 and £235 or AU$400.)
It's really easy to use: It took me about 15 minutes to set up all three units using an Android phone. The whole process was self-explanatory, and dare I say, fun.
And fast. In terms of data throughput it tested well for a dual-stream AC1200 router, with a top sustained Wi-Fi speed of more than 470 megabits per second.
The nature of Wi-Fi, however, means that each time you extend the signal wirelessly, signal loss will occur, which basically means slower speed. You can mitigate this by placing the satellite units around the first router unit. To avoid this completely you can connect the units together using network cables.
Coverage and reliability is great: As a single unit or as a system of three units, the Google Wifi passed my 48-hour stress test with flying colors. During the test I set it to transfer lots of data between multiple wireless clients (four laptops in this case). The Wifi did this without any disconnections. The system also had excellent signal hand off, allowing you to walk around your house, seamlessly connecting from one unit to another without getting disconnected from the internet. I tried this while making a call over Wi-Fi and the conversation wasn't affected at all.
Google claims the system is constantly analyzing the air space to figure out the cleanest channel and the best Wi-Fi band (5GHz or 2.4GHz) for a client to connect to. I used it in a home with many other routers and the Google Wifi network remained stable, which definitely adds credence to its claim.
View full gallery Josh Miller/CNET
OK, so how exactly does this work?
In many ways the Google Wifi is the evolution of the company's previous home routers, the OnHubs. The difference with the Wifi is that instead of just a single unit, you can have up to three. Each hardware unit is called a Wifi point. If you get a single unit, you have just one point, which can cover about 1,200 square feet, which is suitable for a small home or average-sized apartment. More points (up to six) scattered around the house will increase the area of coverage accordingly. A set of three units can easily cover a 4,000 square-foot or even larger home.
All Google Wifi units are identical. When multiple units are used in a home, the first unit works as the main router that connects to an internet source, like a broadband modem. The additional units extend the Wi-Fi coverage to create a single Wi-Fi mesh network. Depending on the layout of your home, you can put the Wifi points one or two rooms away from one another to maximize the Wi-Fi coverage. The Google Wifi app can help determine the best location by measuring the connection between units.
The app displays your entire home network in an easy to understand layout. You can use it to visualize your entire home network, quickly prioritize the broadband connection to any particular device, and pause the internet to one or a group of devices. You can also use it to find out which Wifi point a particular client is connected to and customize a few network settings that the Google Wifi has to offer, including guest network, IP reservation and port forwarding. Everything can be done via a few taps on your phone's screen. Google says it will continue to update the Wifi with more features, such as voice control (via your phone, Google Home and Amazon Alexa) and support for other appliances, like the Nest thermostat. Be sure to check back to find out how these features pan out.
So yes, Google Wifi has a lot to love. It delivers both in ease of use and Wi-Fi coverage. It has great performance, too. And there's more: If you already own one of the Google OnHubs, starting today, it will be automatically updated to be part of the Wifi ecosystem, and use the same Google Wifi app. This means, apart from being a standalone router like it has always been, any OnHub can also work as a Wifi point, the same as a unit of Google Wifi.Red Sonja, the swashbuckling comic book heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith, is returning to the world of film.
As reported by Deadline, the new Red Sonja film will be financed by Millennium Media and produced by Avi Lerner (The Expendables, Olympus Has Fallen) and Joe Gatta (2011's Conan the Barbarian) with support from Mark Canton (300) and Courtney Solomon (Cake) of Cinelou production company.
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“We have been waiting for the right time for this remake,” Lerner told Deadline,” and with the success of Wonder Woman, the audience has spoken. They want female heroes.”
First introduced in Conan the Barbarian #23 for Marvel Comics, Red Sonja, based on a creation by author Robert E Howard, is a sword-wielding warrioress who has headlined several comics runs, the highlight of which is a reboot run in 2013 by Gail Simone, and one feature film (a 1985 joint starring Brigitte Nielson as Sonja and Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Conan stand-in called High Lord Kalidor).
The last we heard from Red Sonja were rumors that Bryan Singer was producing a TV version of the heroine. The Deadline news offers no information on that, or much about the movie, except that it’s in the works. But if the Millenium and Cinelou are still looking for talent, there’s at least one interested taker:
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[Deadline]One of the loudest voices in Congress crying foul over leaked details about the National Security Agency's super-secret surveillance programs is Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and he is doing it largely without the backing of fellow Republicans.
Some of Paul's GOP congressional colleagues are calling former NSA contractor Edward Snowden's admitted leak to two newspapers an "act of treason," but Paul doesn’t see things that way.
His problem is with the sweeping nature of the program itself that he expects to be spotlighted in a new court challenge – not necessarily how the initiative came to light.
"Committing civil disobedience is a big step forward, and history has treated people in various fashions," Paul told CNN. "Some people who commit civil disobedience have been treated heroes, some have not."
"It's an interesting parallel to see [how] will we treat the head of intelligence, who lied in open committee?" said Paul. "How will history treat him and how will history treat the person who was trying to defend the Fourth Amendment?"
Paul is referring to a congressional hearing on March 12, when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was asked, “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” Clapper replied, “No sir … not wittingly.”
The head of the NSA on Wednesday, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, told Congress how important the agency's broad surveillance programs have been in stopping terrorist attacks.
He did not go into details broadly before a Senate committee, but suggested that monitoring helped disrupt a 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subway system by Najibullah Zazi.
"The phone numbers on Zazi were the things that then allowed us to use the business records, FISA, to go and find out connections from Zazi to other players throughout the communities, specifically in New York City," Alexander said.
But Paul said there is “a little bit of a credibility gap” with U.S. intelligence agencies.
“They, frankly, lied to us in open testimony in committee and said they weren't collecting any data, when, in fact, not only were they collecting data, [but] billions of bits of it," he asserted.
Paul suggested Zazi could have been captured through his connections to Abid Naseer, a terrorist suspect who was captured and interrogated several months before Zazi's plot was thwarted.
"I'm not opposed to searching the phone records of people we think are terrorists. You go to a judge. It's not that difficult of a bar. You get phone records from Naseer. If Naseer is calling Zazi, you get Zazi. Then if Zazi is calling other people, you get warrants for those people," said Paul.
"That does not require the phone records of everybody who makes a phone call in this country. That, I think, is a generalized warrant and unconstitutional," said Paul.
The argument from the NSA is that a lot of these calls and relationships happen in the past, and by storing up data as they get it, the agency can then go back and look at it once they know where to look.
"They love these programs so much that sometimes the truth may be stretched," said Paul.
"Even though we're trolling through a billion phone calls a day, we're still having attacks because of poor police work. The Boston Marathon bomber went back to Chechnya. How come we didn't know that? The ‘Underwear Bomber’ that came from Nigeria - his dad reported him and he still got on a plane and came here," said Paul.
"Good old-fashioned police work needs to be a little more thorough," said Paul.
Paul said he is ”very concerned about due process issues” and plans to be part of a legal challenge from privacy groups.
“We're going to bring a challenge in court that says that generalized warrants, that warrants on everybody don't and are not essentially consistent with the Fourth Amendment. We'll be having a press conference (on Thursday) on Capitol Hill with a lot of these different privacy groups that want to defend your civil liberties,” he said.
Immigration reform is another big issue Paul is involved with, though the current reform bill has not won him over yet. Paul introduced a bill that emphasizes border security over granting citizenship to immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
"I won't let it proceed until the border is secure. I let the bill proceed, but I'm not for passing a bill unless border security is primary and foremost," said Paul.
"I want people to be part of the system. I also want to treat these people with respect and dignity. And if you want to work in our country, I think we can find a place for you," said Paul. "But it has to be part of a bill that they make acceptable to people like me, who are conservatives."MORE TOP RANKED STORIES WE THINK YOU'LL ENJOY:
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Estimated reading time — 7 minutes
There it is again! What is that thing?! I can’t take this anymore. It’s like everywhere I go all I see is this horrible, tall, thin and seemingly faceless creature. It’s been haunting my dreams as well ever since I first saw it; all it does is stand there, and watch me. I can’t shake this constant feeling of being watched, it’s like I’m never alone. I hate it. I can’t sleep, I can’t go outside, and I can’t function as a normal person anymore without… It being there.
I done a lot of research on it the last couple of days, Googling what I can best describe it as. All I could remember was it being an impossibly tall, thin man. I say impossibly because no human could be that height and that thin, it’s just not goddamn natural. I tried my best to remember its face, I figured that would help narrow the search, but there wasn’t one. I have no memory of seeing this thing’s face. It was always just a blur. But then, I could never look at it long enough without feeling uneasy. I usually just walked in the other direction or something. Or if it was a dream, or a nightmare at that, I would always wake up before I could get a clear look. Well, the search provided me with something called “The Slenderman”. What the fuck is a Slenderman? This mythical creature is the thing that’s been stalking me? No, it can’t be. I refuse to believe it.
I’ve not left my house in two days. I’ve been held up reading all these Slenderman stories and accounts. Needless to say sleep has eluded me for the duration. Nothing’s going right anymore. I think I’ve angered it by not letting it in my dreams. I keep hearing banging on the windows late at night, and creaking of the floorboards as I’m lying in bed. I know they say houses do that on their own, but this is different. The creaks aren’t that of the house settling, there’s weight behind them. Like soft footsteps. However, every time I go to look there’s nothing there, but when I re-enter my room I always get the sensation I’m being watched.
Tell me, have you ever been sitting in a room by yourself, windows and door closed, when suddenly the door opens for no reason? I think everyone has, but I’m different. I swear it’s not the draft; I’ve had all the windows locked for about a week now. I’m not one to believe in ghosts or anything of the sort, but this just has an eerie feel to it. Whenever the door spontaneously opens, it gets noticeably colder in the room. The second I leave the room however, all the other rooms are back to normal, so it’s not like my thermostat’s on the brink. Any room however, except my own. My room has been getting cold recently, real cold. I’ve resorted to lighting candles all around the room to try and heat up the place. I don’t know what’s happening; I’m starting to lose it.
I went outside for the first time in over a week today. I thought maybe my delusions were coming from being cooped up and |
, fourth and fifth. That slide is going in the wrong direction.
They are bringing developments to the track - as they did with a new diffuser in Hungary - but they are not using them in races.
So all of that research and effort is not being turned into performance.
Caution can be a positive when it comes to engineering, but Ferrari are guilty of over-caution.
They spent Friday in Hungary trying to compare the new diffuser with the old one. But it is impossible to do so-called back-to-back runs on a part as influential as that with the track changing as quickly as it does in Hungary.
That's because you can never be sure what is influencing the changes in car behaviour and lap time - is it the track evolution, or the new parts?
Sometimes you simply have to have faith in your simulation data, put the part on the car and get on with it. Because Ferrari are not, they are effectively going backwards, because while they are standing still everyone else is going forwards.
Mercedes had new parts on the car. They had a new front wing and they just got on with it.
Ferrari are in a halfway house. They're neither optimising the car, nor benefiting from new parts. Mercedes, Red Bull and Lotus by contrast, tend to stick new parts on the car, believe in them, and get on with it.
This is why Ferrari badly need former Lotus technical director James Allison to start work in his new role. They need someone to stand up and make those decisions.
You have to make decisions. They might be wrong, but at least by committing to something you get the bits on the car and get the best out of it that weekend.
It might only be 95% of the total potential of the car, but at least you got that 95%. If you back-to-back things all weekend, you don't get the best out of the car either with or without the new parts, so your overall performance is worse.
RAIKKONEN LOOKING GOOD
Unlike Ferrari, Lotus are maximising their car's potential, with the proviso that had Kimi Raikkonen qualified in third, where his team-mate Romain Grosjean was, rather than sixth, he could have been a thorn in Hamilton's side in the race.
Even so, Raikkonen moved up to second in the championship by finishing second and is now 38 points behind Vettel. That is not an impossible gap to bridge by any means.
For Raikkonen - and the same applies to Ferrari if they can sort themselves out - it is good news that Mercedes are going well because they will take points off Vettel.
GROSJEAN HARD DONE BY
In one sense Grosjean threw away a potential win with the two penalties he earned for his collision with Jenson Button's McLaren and his overtaking move around the outside of Felipe Massa's Ferrari in Turn Four.
On the other hand, in my opinion both those penalties were unfair, especially the one for the move on Massa, which earned him a drive-through penalty.
That was a fantastic move - and even Massa did not think Grosjean should have been penalised, which is the last thing another racing driver would say if he thought there was any possibility that the move was on the edge.
The FIA has its priorities wrong in taking away the potential for drivers to do moves like that but giving them the ridiculous DRS overtaking aid to create artificial overtaking manoeuvres.
What is motor racing becoming? That was a great move by two good, aggressive drivers, and it was real. That's what it's all about.
Even with the Button move, OK, strictly speaking Grosjean broke the rules - he did not quite leave Button a car's width of space on the outside.
But sometimes drivers have to do what's called a 'block pass'.
I believe Grosjean would have made the chicane had Button's front wing not touched his left rear tyre.
Look back to what McLaren's Sergio Perez did at Monaco. He pulled lots of block passes into the chicane but he got away with it. Grosjean's pass on Button was no different.
DRS should be abandoned. It either doesn't work - as in Hungary - or it's of too big a benefit. But it's never exactly right.
MR CONSISTENCY
Vettel had a scrappy race, harming his chances of battling with Hamilton by damaging his car, but he keeps on racking up the points.
Media playback is not supported on this device Hamilton joy at first Mercedes victory
The Red Bull is quick. As Mark Webber showed by coming through from 10th to fourth, they have a car that is fast enough to finish in the top four no matter what.
For the sake of the championship, we have to hope other people get ahead of Vettel and deprive him of the big points.
Gary Anderson is the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams. He was talking to BBC Sport's Andrew BensonIt was the boys' idea.
Button's doing his thang. Pixie's workin it and so is Sweetie. T's confused. Spike's lookin so swag. Rarity's so embarrassed. Claire is unamused (she looks like grumpy cat).
Button: Now look Bit, you gotta put your hoof on your chin like so.
Pixel: Like this?
Button: Yeah! Then you gotta raise one eyebrow ever so slightly...
Pixel: *raises eyebrow*
Button: That's it! Oh you got it down too, Sweetie!
Sweetie: I learned from the best!
Turquoise:......
Spike: Think I can pull off this mustache now, Rarity?
Rarity: I don't care if you can pull it off! I just can't believe you got me to wear this silly thing! I'm a lady! Ladies don't wear "'staches"
Spike: Well, you look great in it to me!
Claire: This is stupid.
The idea came from several people wanting a Buttonbelle family pic as well as some people wanting to see the'stache
EDIT:
Hahaha oh my god. Not sure if this is "notify watchers" worthy but I had to. I just showed my friend this and she said that Claire looks like Ron Swanson XD Go to #10 on this website: www.uproxx.com/tv/2013/05/ron-…CLOSE New Rams DE Michael Sam talks about making history by becoming the first openly gay player in the NFL.
Missouri Tigers defensive lineman Michael Sam (52) reacts after a play during the second half against the Oklahoma State Cowboys in the 2014 Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports ORG XMIT: USATSI-164864 ORIG FILE ID: 20140103_krj_aj6_455.jpg (Photo: Kevin Jairaj, USA TODAY Sports)
The NFL at last has drafted its first openly gay player, and he's headed to St. Louis.
The Rams selected defensive end Michael Sam with pick No. 249 Saturday night, ending months of speculation to when — or if — Sam would hear his name called in the draft.
His named was called in the waning moments of the draft, with the 34th pick in the seventh round, and after 17 other defensive ends received a phone call from an NFL team.
Rams coach Jeff Fisher made that historic call to Sam, who was watching the draft in San Diego with a small group that included his agents and his boyfriend.
WATCH: Michael Sam's reaction
REACTION: Around Twitter to Sam being drafted
Sam's eyes watered, he bit his lip and then doubled over as he began to sob as a camera from ESPN captured the moment. A few minutes later, he tweeted a picture of himself wearing a navy blue Rams ball cap flashing a huge grin.
"I am overwhelmed. I'm excited and I'm proud to be a Ram," Sam said on a conference call with St. Louis reporters Saturday night. "I knew I was going to get picked somewhere. Every team that passed me, I was thinking how I'm going to sack their quarterback."
Sam, who announced he was gay in February, became the first openly gay athlete drafted into one of America's major professional sports leagues. Veteran NBA player Jason Collins came out last summer and plays for the New Jersey Nets.
"From a historic standpoint, I'm honored to be part of it," Fisher said.
Sam was a first-team USA TODAY All-America selection at Missouri last fall after leading the SEC with 11.5 sacks. He did that after coming out his teammates prior to his his senior year. His sexuality clearly wasn't an issue for the Tigers, who won the SEC East and the Cotton Bowl with Sam as their defensive leader.
Sam's sexuality became national news three months ago, but his football acumen seemed to be more of an issue for NFL teams in the lead up to the draft. He was considered to be small by NFL standards, at just 6-foot-2 and 252 and had a disappointing showing at the NFL scouting combine in February. His 40-yard dash was slow, at 4.91 seconds, and he didn't jump as high or lift as much as the top pass rushers in the class.
DAY 3: Pick-by-pick analysis
MORE: Track undrafted free agent signings
Sam's measurables improved at his pro day in Columbia, Mo. in March, and Sam was widely considered to be a third-day pick.
Fisher said the Rams gave Sam a seventh-round grade as a pass rush specialist, but the team expected him to be gone by the time they were on the clock for picks No. 249 and 250.
"As much contact I've had with teams and owners and general managers over the past couple of months, I have no doubt that teams are evaluating him strictly on his football ability," Wade Davis, a gay former NFL player and executive director of the You Can Play Project, told USA TODAY Sports. "That's not to say there aren't one or two that were scared off by it, but the vast majority of teams really are just saying hey, if this guy can help us win, and he has a body of work that we all respect, then we're going to take him."
As Saturday afternoon turned into evening, the seventh round began with Sam still undrafted and his status became compelling theater on TV and social media: Would he be drafted? And if not, why not?
BELL: Sam's draft slide was puzzling
ANALYSIS: Sam could have tough time making roster
With the Rams' decision to draft Sam, the NFL might be able to dodge serious questions that Sam's sexuality affected his draft status had all 32 teams passed on Sam. There were few expectations that Sam would have been selected any earlier than the fourth or even fifth round, but it would have been notable that had a player as productive as Sam was in college not been picked at all.
Sam was the 19th player in the SEC to record double-digit sacks in the past 10 years. All but two others (Auburn's Antonio Coleman, in 2010; and Alabama's Wallace Gilberry in 2008) were drafted -- all but one of those within the first three rounds.
All 10 of the previous SEC defensive player of the year winners (the league began the award in 2003) were drafted, and Sam's co-winner last season, Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley, was a first-round pick on Thursday by the Ravens.
"It's good that Michael Sam was drafted. I think there's still very much a problem in that it took for so long for it to happen. But, baby steps," former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, one of the first active players to publicly advocate for gay rights, told USA TODAY Sports.
Sam made his public announcement in February in a series of interviews, and then spoke about sexuality at a press conference at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. He has largely avoided the spotlight since, eschewing interviews with large and small media outlets.
Sam spent the weekend in San Diego, watching the draft unfold in private, inviting only one television camera from ESPN to capture the moment. The video of Sam and his boyfriend, their hugs and kisses, and their playful exchanges went viral.
"It's a very historic moment, because what it does is it shows people that look, Michael Sam has people who he loves, who love him, and why can't he be shown celebrating that draft experience just like any straight player?" Kluwe said. "That's what gay players in the NFL are going to be looking at, like hold on a minute, if Michael Sam can celebrate with his boyfriend after he's drafted, why am I not allowed to take my boyfriend or husband or whoever to team parties? Why can't I take them to the Christmas party? Why can't I take them to team functions? And that hopefully will drive more change and someone will say, I should be able to take someone to these events."
VIDEO: Draft's five diamonds in the rough
CLOSE While Johnny Manziel was the talk of this year's draft, these players could have just as big an impact for their new teams.
The media attention should only intensify as soon as he arrives in St. Louis, where he'll participate in his first minicamp next weekend. Fisher is confident Sam's sexuality won't be an issue in his locker room, and he said he's received nothing but positive feedback from Rams' players and his colleagues from across the league.
"People will try to make it a distraction, but it's not a distraction," Fisher said. "Personally I'm proud of him for coming out. I'm sure it was a very hard thing to do."
Davis is working with the NFL to help executives, coaches and players better understand LGBT issues in pro sports -- not just to help the league prepare for Sam's arrival, but to make the NFL a more welcoming environment for future gay players.
Davis met with league officials, including commissioner Roger Goodell, in New York City and gave a presentation to league owners, general managers and head coaches in Orlando in March. Now Davis is working with NFL vice president Troy Vincent to put together a series of presentations with teams and players as part of the league's Respect at Work program.
"This really is a reassurance that all the work that we've been doing is impactful, that it's been paying off for so many other LBGTQ individuals, and those who are straight as well, who can look to the NFL and see that it is welcoming," Davis said. "Young kids can now turn on their televisions and see that Wow, I can say that in my lifetime I saw the very first openly gay NFL player."
Contributing: Tom Pelissero
PHOTOS: MICHAEL SAM'S CAREERThis build is an awesome example of a Volkswagen Baja conversion. It’s a ground up restoration with zero rust and careful details.
To Order OEM Beetle parts online, click here
Performance mods include:
2100 CC stroker VW engine
Engle W120 camshaft
1.25 rockers
Chromoly pushrods
82mm C/W crankshaft
90.5mm stroker pistons & rods
Straight cut cam gears
0.44 cylinder heads
Scat valve lifters
2 oil coolers (1 with fan)
MSD ignition
MSD distributor
Turbonetics T3 Tturbo
"C&S Specialties" special built Holley 4 barrel carb
K&N air filter
Kennedy stage 2 racing clutch with lightweight flywheel
California Bus transmission
Scat Racing shifter
It has some major stopping power with Wilwood disc brakes on all four corners.
The build rides on Mickey Thompson 4-ply tires on the front and rear.
The body features fiberglass fenders and hood amongst the body mods.
Included you’ll find:
VR3 CD/DVD player
900 watt 4 channel Jensen amp
Rockford Fosgate 10" subwoofer
2 Jensen 6x9 speakers
Blue LED interior lights
This build isn’t extreme, but it’s very well done.
It would be a great ride to hit the streets with, or take it off-road for a little weekend fun!SCITUATE - Town officials say a malfunction at Scituate’s wastewater treatment plant Wednesday night caused partially treated sewage to be dumped into the North River.
The town alerted residents to the spill Thursday afternoon, saying that that it had corrected the problem and was working to test water in the North River. Town officials were still waiting for those results Friday.
"I’m hoping that the amount that came out was very minimal and we don’t have anything major," said Kevin Cafferty, Scituate's public works director.
Cafferty said the malfunction occurred in a bank of ultraviolet lights meant to keep any bacteria in treated water from reproducing. He said the water released Wednesday had been through three other stages of treatment.
"It was by no means raw sewage or anything like that," Cafferty said.
Cafferty said the bank of lights went out for around three hours Wednesday night, perhaps because of a power surge. Officials don't yet know how much water was released into the North River without receiving the ultraviolet treatment, but Cafferty said sewer flows at night are typically low.
While officials await the water test results, the North and South Rivers Watershed Association is advising people to avoid parts of the watershed near where the sewage was dumped, which includes the Herring River and the mouth of the North River, home to a beach known as "the spit."On Monday, American prosecutors announced that two of the four men involved with two Android piracy sites, snappzmarket.com and appbucket.net, have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement. The case marks the first time that US authorities have successfully prosecuted a case involving pirate app stores.
The FBI shut down the sites listed above in August 2012 and filed charges against the quartet of men in January 2014.
The two men, Nicholas Anthony Narbone, 26, of Orlando, Florida, and Thomas Allen Dye, 21, of Jacksonville, Florida, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. They are set to be sentenced in the coming months.
Charges remain against Kody Jon Peterson and Thomas Pace, who are accused of distributing another one million copyrighted apps through AppBucket from August 2010 to August 2012.
According to Dye’s guilty plea agreement, which was filed in the Atlanta federal court on March 10, 2014, he could face a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. Peterson's plea was not yet public when this article was published.
That same document states Dye will act “in an undercover investigative capacity to the best of his ability” upon the government’s request.Having immutable entities allows us to recover from user errors very easily. Users can rollback their data to earlier versions or even recover data they may have accidentally deleted (see how we implemented deletion below) 1.
. Potentially easier debugging. It’s often useful to see how an entity changed over time and got into its current state. We can also run historical queries on the number of changes to an entity - useful for user behaviour analysis or performance optimization.
Some context
Before we go into our implementation of immutable entities on the Cloud Datastore, we need to understand some of the basics of how the datastore operates. If you’re already familiar with the Cloud Datastore, feel free to skip this section.
You can think of the Cloud Datastore as a key-value store. A value, called an entity in the datastore, is identified by its key, and the entity itself is just a bag of properties. There's no enforcement of a schema on all entities in a table so the properties of two entities need not be the same.
The database also supports basic queries on a single table — there are no joins or aggregation, just simple table scans for which an index can be built. While this may seem limiting, it enables fast and consistent query performance because you will typically denormalize your data.
The most important property of Cloud Datastore for our implementation of immutable entities is “entity groups.” Entity groups are groups of entities for which you get two guarantees:
Queries that are restricted to a single entity group get consistent results. This means that a write immediately followed by a query will have results that are guaranteed to reflect the changes made by the write. Conversely, if your query is not limited to a single entity group you may not get consistent results (stale data). Multi-entity transactions can only be applied within a single entity group (this was recently improved — Cloud Datastore now supports cross entity group transactions but limits the number of entity groups involved to 25).
Both of these facts will be important in our implementation. For more details on how the Cloud Datastore itself works, see the documentation
How we implemented immutable entities
We needed a way to store every change we made to a single entity while supporting common operations for entities: get, delete, update, create and query. The overall strategy we took was to utilize two levels of abstraction — a "datastore entity" and a "logical entity." We used individual "datastore entities" to represent individual versions of a "logical entity." Users of our API would only interact with logical entities and each logical entity would have a key to identify it and support the common get, create, update, delete and query operations. These logical entities would be backed by actual datastore entities comprising the different versions of that logical entity. The most recent, or tip, version of the datastore entities represented the current value of the logical entity. First let’s start with what the data model looks like. Here’s how we designed our entity:You know how Hollywood always knows what’s trendy before we do?
They romanticized the idea of living in cities and before we knew it every girl wanted to move to NYC to live out her own Sex and the City fantasy.
Maybe it’s just the movies I’ve been watching, but I’ve noticed there seems to be a new reversal trend in Hollywood featuring high tech homes in rural areas.
So it got me thinking… what are some ways technology has or will disrupt rural America?
1. Amazon in Rural America
Amazon has already changed the game for many Americans living in rural areas. In fact, I would be willing to bet that a lot of their highest valued, repeat customers, live in rural areas. I know I didn’t use my Amazon prime membership nearly as much as I do now when I lived in the city.
And this is just the beginning.
On Friday, June 16th 2017 Amazon announced that they were in the process of buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. While Whole Foods currently has 431 stores in high income areas throughout the United States, I’m sure Jeff Bezos is strategizing how to work with vendors to ship throughout the United States.
And that would be a game changer.
Right now, it’s estimated that 29 million Americans live in food deserts throughout the United States, meaning that they do not have a supermarket within 10 miles if they live in a rural area or 1 mile if they live in an urban area. If Amazon could figure out a way to make that number disappear, they would be a hero in my book. And while I would love everyone to grow their own food, I understand that we all have different priorities at different points in our lives (though I think technology will help with this too).
2. High Speed Internet
Perhaps you’re familiar with Google’s fiber optic internet, but did you know that a large number of rural areas throughout the United States are starting their own co-ops and wiring their communities with gigabit fiber?
This kind of high speed internet will enable those living in these forward thinking areas to work from home, learn at a faster pace, and share their knowledge with the rest of the world.
How to Find Cheap & Beautiful Rural Land with Fiber Optic Internet
How to Find (and get) Remote Work
3. Driverless Cars
Depending on how rural you live, it can take hours to drive to a large metropolitan city. The good news is there is no traffic, but any time saved by the lack of traffic is made up by the miles that need to be traveled. Driverless cars would make the commute to the city more relaxing and enjoyable.
Communities could come together and purchase electric driverless busses that shuttle people to and from the city as a perk to live in their rural town.
So while technology will help people in some rural areas live more prosperous lives it’s also important to remember why we chose this life to begin with. It’s the reason why sometimes I log out of this blog and don’t come back for a couple of months. To get away from it all, enjoy nature, and live a more relaxed, peaceful, and simple life.The Nigeria captain, who has logged a decade with the Pensioners, has become a big brother to the club's young African stars just like Geremi and Drogba took him under their wings
EXCLUSIVE By Lolade Adewuyi Follow on Twitter By
After an early tussle that saw him claimed by both Manchester United and Chelsea in his teens, John Obi Mikel has grown into a veritable member of the Blues as he clocked ten years in London this month.
From those early days at Stamford Bridge where his ‘casual attitude’ troubled team staff, the Nigerian has become a wise old man at 29 in a club that has seen big money signings come and go since Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought it over in 2003.
While Mikel is not the first Nigerian to play for Chelsea, he has become the club’s iconic Nigerian signing and ensuring its increased popularity here since he moved over from Lyn Oslo in 2006.
Despite his youthful exuberance that led to club fines for turning up late at training and the easy red cards that trailed him on the pitch, Mikel has turned out a more measured midfielder who has earned the trust of several coaches leading him to become the club’s longest serving player behind captain John Terry.
“I’ve always embraced the pressure at Chelsea, the expectations of the fans, the expectations of the board to win trophies and make sure the club grows,” Mikel told Goal in March at the Nigeria national team camp.
Even though his future at Stamford Bridge is up for discussion with new manager Antonio Conte after Euro 2016, Mikel hopes to continue if he gets assurance of a starting place under the Italian.
It is in the dressing room and off the pitch where his influence will be missed when he leaves. Just as he came under the watchful eyes of Claude Makelele, Geremi Njitap, Didier Drogba and Michael Essien, his African seniors at Chelsea, Mikel has become a big brother to a new crop of young Africans at the club.
Burkina Faso striker Bertrand Traore and Ghanaian full back Baba Rahman both broke into the first team last season with the Nigerian saying he has helped them settle in.
“Baba Rahman, I speak to him a lot. He’s young and I always look after him,” Mikel told Goal.
“Traore, the same thing, I speak to quite a lot of them because these guys are young and they’ve come to this football team that demands a lot.
“Chelsea demands a lot, a season without trophies is a major disaster. Maybe they’re not used to that, maybe they’re used to a club where you play and you don’t win.
“At Chelsea you have to win everyday that is the legacy, that’s how it is. Sometimes when you lose a game and the pressure makes them tend to go down, this is where you need experienced players to pick them up and say ‘come on, we need to prepare for the next game.’”
While Mikel is a rather private individual off the pitch, he is hopeful of leaving a positive legacy on the next African stars of Stamford Bridge.
“Baba and Traore, I speak to them and encourage them to keep doing what they’re doing because they are very good players,” he said.
Mikel has been included in the provisional Nigeria Olympic squad and he would sort out his future with Chelsea in a few days. There's no doubting that he would be missed if he leaves, 10 years after making his entry onto the grand stage.If you're looking for proof that fairytale endings exist, then look no further.
Flight attendant Olivia Sievers has officially adopted a stray dog who waited outside her Argentinian hotel for six months.
Sievers told NoticieroTrece that while she was on a business trip, she stopped to feed and play with the homeless pup as she was walking back to her hotel in Buenos Aires.
After that, he refused to ever leave her.
"I tried to change my way because I didn't want that he follow me back to the hotel," she told Noticiero Trece.
But her tactics were of no use -- the dog, whom she nicknamed Rubio, would always find his way back to her hotel and be waiting right outside when she returned.
Eventually, Sievers had to fly back to Germany, but when she returned a few months later on business, Rubio was right there waiting for her.
So, Sievers did the only sensible thing she could in this scenario: She adopted him and brought him back to Germany.
RELATED: The best dogs to follow on Instagram
And judging by photos she has shared on Facebook, it looks like Rubio having a great time in his new home!
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Discover your inner Arch-mage. Veteran developer Insomniac Games presents The Unspoken—an Oculus Touch‐enabled VR action game that pulls players into a hidden world of spellcasting and magician’s duels. Manipulate the environment around you with the powerful arcane forces that flow through your fingertips, summon unfathomable monstrosities with your bare hands, and rise up through the ranks of an urban magic fight club.
Storyline
Magic is real. Its practitioners lurk in backrooms across the city. Duels play out in concealed urban areas, each with different destructible features and spell‐enabling properties: it’s the physical action of a fighting game married to the dynamic battlefield of an arena shooter.
Spellcasters are bound by a code where dueling is everything, policed by an order so ancient and powerful that its name remains unspoken. Will you be corrupted by this world? Or will you learn its secrets and become an unrivaled arch‐mage?related media assets (image or videos) available. Click to see the gallery.
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Spurred by her mum's dying wish, Indonesian Dewi Nur Fatikah came to Singapore to work and save up for a music career - but it almost meant leaving her music behind, but for a chance opportunity.
SINGAPORE: All she ever wanted to do was make music.
Dewi Nur Fatikah was happily playing the drums and performing in shows in Jakarta with a band, while working in a factory to save up enough to open a music studio - when her dreams were put on an abrupt hold.
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Her mother fell sick, and Ms Dewi had to return to her hometown last year to care for her. She died from lung disease, which left the grief-stricken young woman shattered, lonely and lost.
“When my mother died, I felt that I didn’t have anyone else in this world because all my siblings were married and had their own families,” she said. “At home, I always thought of my mother and cried.”
But when the tears dried, she remembered her mother’s dying wish: For her to find success.
“I thought, I need to go abroad to continue my efforts, to fulfil my mother’s wish for me to succeed. With music, I can."
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And so, she forced herself out of the rut, packed her bags, and left Indonesia to come to Singapore in December to work as a maid - hoping to eventually make enough, about 100 million rupiah (S$10,000), to start that studio she always wanted.
It turned out to be a move that almost cut her off entirely from the thing she loved most - her music.
NO MUSIC, NO LIFE
She struggled with her new life in Singapore and her first employer. Not allowed to have a mobile phone and rest days, she was cut off from her friends and relatives. She became homesick and miserable.
Constantly working, the 30-year-old had no time for her music, and it left her wondering whether she did the right thing in leaving home.
“(It was) work, work and work all the time. I felt stressed. I constantly thought of my mother and cried,” she said. But with seemingly little choice, she soldiered on.
When she feels sad, she writes songs to express herself.
Relief came nearly three months later, when she was granted a transfer to another employer, one who was understanding and let her have her days off – and the freedom to pursue her interest in music.
She could, for example, play the guitar (borrowed from a friend) after her chores were done; take strolls along nearby East Coast Park in her downtime, or use her mobile phone to keep in touch with her friends.
POIGNANT LYRICS
She also came across the Foreign Domestic Worker Association for Social Support and Training (FAST), a non-profit organisation for maids. Its clubhouse for them to unwind became just the thing for her musical journey in Singapore.
Heading there almost every Sunday, Ms Dewi started off practising on the guitar, which gave her “a new spirit”.
And when a talent contest organised by FAST came up, she signed up for the solo singing category, performing a self-composed song.
Songwriting has always been an outlet for this shy woman to express her emotions, and in one of her compositions, Gapai Satu Mimpi (Reach For A Dream), she writes that in “reaching for a dream in your life, facing all trials, don't ever grow weary – life is something to fight for”.
She explained: “Whenever I feel sad or something, I’ll play the guitar and compose my own song.”
She reached the finals of the talent contest, performing hits like Evanescence’s My Immortal, Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up, and Europe’s The Final Countdown along the way. But she did not win.
Something else, however, came out of the contest: She met a fellow maid who played the guitar, and together they helped to form a band with other musically inclined maids.
AN INTROVERT TRANSFORMED
There were some communication issues at first, as Ms Dewi was the only non-Filipina in the band. Her newfound friends spoke mostly in Tagalog, and it did not help that her command of English was poor.
“I wasn’t comfortable with my English,” she said in Bahasa Indonesia. “Sometimes if they spoke English and I didn’t know some of the words, I just kept quiet.”
She never felt isolated, however, adding that “even though we come from different countries, we have one goal: To make music”.
Dewi's FAST bandmates, who are all Filipinos.
They jam every Sunday. An introvert who comes alive on the drums, the self-taught musician looks every inch the rock chick in her cropped vest, black T-shirt, camouflaged trousers and trendy sneakers, confidently holding the groove with her band.
She focuses on nothing but the music once she starts drumming, her head rolled back as if soaking in every ounce of energy from the music. Now and then, she glances at her bandmates with a glow in her eyes and a smile.
But once she puts down her drumsticks, she is back to her usual self again – bashful, and somewhat sheepish. The transformation is over.
WATCH AND LISTEN: Dewi's music, and her story (5:07)
HER EMPLOYER, HER SUPPORTER
The band has performed a few times in public, including during Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations in August and at a foreign domestic worker event at Singapore Polytechnic last month.
Next month, a bigger challenge awaits Ms Devi – a Christmas performance where they will be performing festive songs. As a Muslim, she has never heard any of the festive songs before. But, she said: "I’ll follow whatever the music is because I’ll enjoy the music, whatever the song may be.”
Already, she has fans: Her employer Poonam Kaushik and his family, who turned up at last month’s event to support her after she secured tickets for them.
Dewi's employer Poonam Kaushik has been supportive of her passion, after hearing her band perform.
They liked the performance and were surprised at her talent. The headbanging drummer was also a far cry from the helper who went about her work quietly at home every day.
“Initially, we were like, how serious would this be? But she was putting so much into it (playing the drums),” said Mr Kaushik, who has employed Ms Dewi for about eight months. “It makes sense for us to encourage her to go all the way.”
They are even considering buying her a keyboard, so that she can expose their children to more music.
Mr Kaushik said they make efforts to ensure that Ms Dewi is comfortable at home. “If (we) have somebody who’s stressed, depressed or angry, my kids (and) my wife will be impacted."
“She’s very hardworking, and she wanted to pursue music which didn’t hamper her day work. So I felt, okay, please go ahead.”
For Ms Dewi, the benefit of having free time to spend on her music has been immeasurable. “Music is my soul,” she said simply.
A LONG WAY HOME
Her case is “a good example that even domestic helpers, given an opportunity, can express themselves the way they want to”, said Mr William Chew, executive director of FAST.
The idea of having a Fast band was a recent development, as the organisation realised that there were hidden talents like Ms Dewi's among the community.
“I think they (the band members) are very happy that they have (this) chance,” said Mr Chew. “The way they strum away and sing and play the drums, it looks like they’re just venting everything out of their system.”
The band performing at a community function.
The non-profit, which started with 500 members some 12 years ago, has close to 8,000 members today.
Among other things, it prepares them for life after Singapore, training them in areas like food and beverage, hospitality and even reflexology skills so that they can operate a small business and be self-sufficient when they return home. Said Mr Chew:
If they can go home and move on to do something better than what they’re doing now, this is what we’d be most happy about.
For Ms Dewi, who paid off her agency fees only recently, it is a long way to her S$10,000 target, but she knows that she will get there, even if she has to continue working here after her current contract ends.
Not only does she hope to earn an income from operating a music studio, she also aspires to cut her own album and sign to a recording label.
She admits that there are naysayers back |
said he still has fond memories of the venue.
"The good outweigh the bad in that stadium over the last 12 years that I can speak of," Rivers said. "And I know there's been a lot more football played in there well before I got here. And I know that many fans have been to those games a lot more years before I've even been around. So I'm sure they have different kinds of emotions for different reasons."
"I've given it a little thought, even the thought that it could be playoffs-like, or it could absolutely be preseason-like. I could see it being on either end. It would be awesome given the situation that we could block out the fact we're 3-10 and just go, 'Hey, if this is the last one, let's make it the coolest Sunday ever there.'"
Rivers said he has appreciated the support from Chargers fans over the years, along with the interaction he has had with fans in the city he has called home for over a decade. With the Chargers struggling this season and the potential relocation of the franchise looming, Rivers was asked by a reporter what type of crowd he expects on Sunday.
"I have no idea," he said. "I've given it a little thought, even the thought that it could be playoffs-like, or it could absolutely be preseason-like. I could see it being on either end. It would be awesome given the situation that we could block out the fact we're 3-10 and just go, 'Hey, if this is the last one, let's make it the coolest Sunday ever there.'
"Obviously, us players would have a hand in that. Making it that would be us winning a game, which is something we've struggled to do eight out of the last nine. The emotional part is one thing. But I do think once we get there and the ball's kicked off, it's going to be like any other game."EXCLUSIVE: Varsity Blues is headed to television. CMT is developing a TV series inspired by the cult 1999 football movie. The network has ordered a script for the project, which will be penned by W. Peter Iliff, writer of the original movie that starred James Van Der Beek. Paramount TV, whose parent Paramount Pictures distributed the film, is producing.
The 1999 feature, directed by Brian Robbins, starred Van Der Beek as a back-up quarterback who is chosen to lead a Texas football team to victory after the star quarterback is injured as he butts heads with his football-obsessed father (Thomas Duffy) and abusive coach (Jon Voight). Watch a trailer below.
Perhaps best known for writing the 1991 cult classic Point Break, starring Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, Iliff recently wrote the Glass Axes pilot for Netflix, as well as Beats Per Minute for All Edge Entertainment and Fortress Features, which centers on a young American deejay’s treacherous rise to stardom in Amsterdam’s EDM scene. His other feature credits include Rights of Passage, Patriot Games and Under Suspicion. Iliff is repped by APA, and Zero Gravity attorney Fred Toczek.
CMT, which has been making strides in original scripted programming, recently picked up country drama series Nashville after it was canceled by ABC.Background
Users have been using Lucidchart for a long time to make their diagrams, since 2010 and IE6. And for nearly that long, Lucid has used Google’s Closure Compiler to manage its increasingly sophisticated code base. Closure Compiler is a typechecker and minifier that uses JSDoc annotations in comments to understand type information. As Lucid grew from 5 to 15 to 50 engineers, the tool proved enormously helpful for quality and productivity.
Then in 2016, Lucid began experimenting with TypeScript. TypeScript offers more flexible and comprehensive type checking, cleaner syntax, and better IDE support than we could get with Closure-annotated Javascript.
// Closure JavaScript /** @const {!goog.events.EventId<lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PagesContentChanged>} */ lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED = new goog.events.EventId(goog.events.getUniqueId('PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED')); /** * @constructor * @extends {goog.events.Event} * @final * @param {!Object<boolean>} pages * @struct */ lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PagesContentChanged = function(pages) { lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PagesContentChanged.base( this, 'constructor', lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED ); /** @const {!Object<boolean>} */ this.pages = pages; }; goog.inherits(lucid.model.DocumentEvents.PagesContentChanged, goog.events.Event);
is equivalent to
// TypeScript export const PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED: EventId<PagesContentChanged> = new EventId(events.getUniqueId('PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED')); export class PagesContentChanged extends Event { constructor(public readonly pages: {[key: string]: boolean}) { super(PAGES_CONTENT_CHANGED); } }
TypeScript was well received among our engineers, and by summer 2017, Lucid had 100k lines of TS and 600k lines of Closure-typed JS. To bridge various parts of the codebase, we used clutz (converts Closure-annotated JS to TypeScript declarations) and tsickle (compiles TypeScript to Closure-annotated JS).
While the benefits of TypeScript were clear, it looked like it would be years before we could entirely replace our JavaScript with TypeScript.
Idea
Every summer, Lucid has a two-day hackathon during which Lucid employees work on an interesting project of their choice. The hackathon presented a unique opportunity to migrate to TypeScript while no production-ready code was being authored. Compared to an active migration, a stop-the-world migration could be much faster and less overall effort.
Google has an open-source tool called gents (generate TS) which converts Closure-annotated JavaScript to TypeScript. The tool has many caveats and limitations — bare-bones, idiomatic code translates well, but more unusual code and sophisticated language features (e.g. generics) do not. Initially, gents crashed with runtime errors on Lucid’s codebase. A few patches got gents to about 80% of what we needed. Ad-hoc pre- and post-processing scripts added an additional 10%.
Even then, the remaining 10% was still enormous in absolute terms and would possibly be too large to complete in a couple days. We asked our CTO to join in the migration. He supported the idea but preferred working on a project more within the realm of possibility.
Six of us engineers decided to try anyway.
Plans
A very challenging aspect of the migration would be the lack of feedback. Computers are picky things; 70% of code working looks a lot like 0% working. While it would be difficult to get incremental runtime feedback, we decided to at least get incremental compile-time feedback. We would create a dependency graph of the 2000+ files and start working from the leaves, moving each file to a new source root, fixing the type errors, and committing it. At any given time, we would have a set of successfully compiling TS files.
To parallelize this effort across the six engineers, we constructed a 2,840-line spreadsheet with each files, its status, and its dependencies. Once a file’s dependencies were marked completed, the file would be color coded as ready for work. One of us would self-assign it, move it, fix it up after automatic translation, and mark it as done. Then that process would repeat on the remaining files.
If you would like to try using this example, make a copy of the Google Sheet.
Hackathon
To process all 2,840 files, we needed to complete one file per minute for 48 hours straight. The six of us worked around the clock, sleeping only a few hours during the two-day hackathon. Some files had cyclical dependencies (allowed, as long as some of the dependencies are type-only rather than value dependencies), and we frequently had to tackle large groups of files all at once. Velocity varied. Twenty hours in, prospects looked bleak. This was disappointing, as partial success for this hackathon project was the same as no success—there would be too many conflicts if this project had to be extended into a normal working day.
There were several recurring challenges:
1. Base constructor requirements are different between Closure JS and TS. Complex, overgrown inheritance trees with tricky initialization semantics were challenging to re-architect.
2. TypeScript is more aggressive than Closure Compiler at identifying errors. For example, tsc detected the assignment-vs-comparison mistake that Closure Compiler did not:
var usernameOnTeam = (alreadyOnTeamFilter['usernameOnTeam'] || []).map(onTeam => goog.array.find(me.loadedUsers, user => user.username = onTeam.username); );
Naturally, in a legacy system, it’s hard to say what is the bug and what is the unexpected feature. Therefore, we generally left the code as is and added a workaround for the typechecker. No one is proud of this, but we had a VS Code macro to insert `as any` for highlighted expressions.
3. Closure JavaScript predates the ES2016 module system by many years. Traditionally, it uses `goog.provide` and `goog.require` to identify dependencies between files, and all functions are added to a global namespace. Idiomatic TypeScript typically uses modules and imports, which was a substantial paradigm shift. For example, Closure JS permits odd constructs like multi-file classes and implicit circular dependencies, but these do not work with TS imports.
4. The autogenerated imports from #3 meant we often had shadowing conflicts with existing local identifiers. And thanks to #2, we often missed this and mistakenly forced tsc to accept broken code.
Despite these challenges, after thirty-six hours, it looked more likely that we might finish, though it was impossible to be sure. Perhaps it would all compile, but we’d encounter a hopeless wall of errors at runtime. At forty-four hours, we met with engineering leadership to discuss the project’s potential. The stakes were significant. On the one hand, a wholesale rewrite of the entire codebase could harm the company’s success. On the other hand, if it wasn’t completed now, it would take years to reach this point incrementally.
At forty-six hours, we partially loaded the main Lucidchart document list and editor. They were definitely broken, but we had proof of life within the two-day hackathon. That was enough. The hackathon ended on a Friday, and with the bulk of the work completed, we worked through the weekend on rounding out the build process and getting the primary parts of the product working well enough that it would not impede the 60 engineers returning to work on Monday.
Monday at 9 a.m., we pushed. 600k lines of typed JS became 500k lines of TS.
Release
Of course, the story was far from over. We still needed to ship it.
Lucid releases every two weeks and has not missed a release for over four years. The next two weeks were spent getting secondary parts of the product functioning, unit tests passing, tree-shaking and minification working (still using the Closure Compiler), and CI running. QA made multiple passes, finding dozens of bugs. When release day came, every team had a member on call in case of problems. Though we had worked hard to ensure everything would run smoothly, we anticipated something within the half a million lines of a seven-year-old code base to go wrong.
We waited and waited. And the issues never came. The combination of unit tests, manual testing, and a new, very robust type system bought us a TypeScript migration with zero customer-facing issues.Vice President Mike Pence refuses to wear unisex t-shirts according to White House sources.
The revelation came after his three children accidentally presented him with a unisex “world’s best dad” t-shirt for Fathers Day.
According to the source, Pence put the shirt on before realizing it was unisex and then spent the better part of Sunday begging God for forgiveness.
The report falls in line with much that is already known of Pence.
Earlier this year it was revealed that Pence actually refers to his wife as mother and refuses to eat meals with female business colleagues unless there is another man around.
Additionally, American voters learned during the debates that Pence finds mayonnaise to be too spicy and has only had sex three times, each of which “yielded one normal human child.”
Follow Stubhill News on Twitter and Facebook for all the newest news.FILE- THIS Nov. 11, 2016, file photo shows Team Japan, from left, manager Hiroki Kokubo, infielder Tetsuto Yamada, infielder Ryosuke Kikuchi and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and infielder Sho Nakata standing during a ceremony prior to their international exhibition series baseball game against Mexico at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo. A person familiar with the agreement tells The Associated Press that Major League Baseball, its Japanese counterpart and the American players' union agreed Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017, to a new posting system that could allow Japanese star pitcher-outfielder Shohei Ohtani to be put up for bid next week. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File) (Photo11: The Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — Major league teams were given homework this weekend by Shohei Ohtani.
The agent for the star pitcher and outfielder asked for written explanations in English and Japanese on how Ohtani would fit into each organization intending to bid and what makes the team attractive, according to details obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo from Nez Balelo, co-head of CAA Baseball, was distributed to all 30 teams by the commissioner's office late Friday along with materials for the Dec. 1 vote on a new posting agreement between Major League Baseball and Nippon Professional Baseball. If the deal is approved, the 23-year-old is expected to be put up for bid later that day or the following day.
Balelo's memo asks for a team to evaluate Ohtani's talent as a pitcher and as a hitter; to explain its player development, medical training and player performance philosophies and facilities; to describe its minor league and spring training facilities; to detail resources for Ohtani's cultural assimilation into the team's city; to demonstrate a vision for how Ohtani could integrate into the team's organization; and to tell Ohtani why the team is a desirable place to play.
Each team was asked to provide its answers in both languages as soon as possible. Clubs were told not to include any financial terms of a possible contract.
The Nippon Ham Fighters of Japan's Pacific League are expected to set the posting price at the $20 million maximum, and any big league team meeting that price would have 21 days to negotiate a deal. The money is paid only if a contract is agreed to.
Because of restrictions in MLB's new labor contract, any agreement must be for a minor league contract subject to remaining amounts in each team's 2017-18 international signing bonus pool. Texas has the most available at $3,535,000, followed by the New York Yankees ($3.5 million), Minnesota ($3.07 million) and Pittsburgh ($2,266,750).
Other teams viewed as possibilities include Seattle ($1,557,500) and the Los Angeles Dodgers ($300,000).
Ohtani was the 2016 Pacific League MVP and was 3-2 with a 3.20 ERA this year, limited because of a thigh injury and a hurt ankle that required surgery Oct. 12. He hit.332 in 65 games with 16 doubles, eight homers and 31 RBIs.
He has a 42-15 record with a 2.52 ERA and 624 strikeouts in 543 innings over five seasons, and a.286 batting average with 48 homers and 166 RBIs.
Under MLB's labor contract, he would not be eligible for a major league contract until he is 25 — after the 2019 season.
___
More MLB baseball: https://apnews.com/tag/MLBbaseball
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Official State Fossil of North Carolina
North Carolina designated the fossilized teeth of the megalodon shark as the official state fossil in 2013. All State Fossils
This massive prehistoric shark lived over 1.5 million years ago and had serrated, heart-shaped teeth that grew to over seven inches in length! Georgia also recognizes fossilized shark teeth as a state symbol - teeth from any of the many types of sharks that lived in prehistoric Georgia and North Carolina (the oldest teeth date back about 375 million years).
Excerpt from House Bill 830
Whereas, the megalodon shark is an extinct shark species that lived over 1.5 million years ago; and
Whereas, the megalodon shark may have reached over 40 feet in length and weighed up to 100 tons; and
Whereas, the megalodon shark had serrated, heart-shaped teeth that may have grown to over seven inches in length; and
Whereas, fossilized teeth of the megalodon shark have been found in North Carolina and throughout the world;
Now, therefore, the General Assembly of North Carolina enacts: The fossilized teeth of the megalodon shark is adopted as the official fossil of the State of North Carolina.Traffic deaths are up 19 percent in North Carolina so far this year, mirroring a troubling national trend, according to data from the National Safety Council.
Accidents are increasing in the Charlotte area as well, reaching levels not seen since before the 2009 recession, the Charlotte Department of Transportation says.
A confluence of factors is to blame: Plunging gas prices are sending more people out on the roads and for longer trips. The steadily improving economy is having a similar effect. And distracted driving continues to be an intransigent problem.
“This could be one of those years where we see a sizable increase in fatality numbers,” said David Harkey, director of the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center.
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Across the state, 634 people were killed in motor vehicle wrecks in the first six months of 2015, compared with 531 the year before. In South Carolina, fatal accidents have increased even more: up 21 percent to 445.
Both states showed larger increases in deadly crashes than the nation as a whole. Across the U.S., about 19,000 people died through June, up 14 percent over 2014.
Part of the blame can be attributed to lower gas prices and an improving economy encouraging more people to spend more time on the road, National Safety Council CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman said. Low gas prices also tend to bring out drivers more prone to crash, like teen drivers.
North Carolina also has seen steady population growth.
“We’re certainly seeing a whole lot more people and a lot more miles traveled,” said Christopher Oliver, a traffic safety specialist with the N.C. Department of Transportation.
But Hersman said the increase also likely has to do with increasing number of distractions – like cellphones – and rising speed limits.
“As a safety professional, it’s not just disappointing but heartbreaking to see the numbers trending in the wrong direction,” she said.
In Charlotte
Charlotte has seen an uptick in collisions on its streets, as well. Fatal crashes, however, actually decreased in 2014.
The city recorded more than 23,000 collisions in the city in 2014, up 9 percent from the year before and approaching pre-recession levels, according to CDOT data. The department cited increased time on the roads and population growth. The numbers do not include wrecks on interstates like I-77 or I-85 or in private parking lots.
Fatal collisions in the city, however, were down 10 percent last year, to 39. Less than 1 percent of wrecks on city streets result in a death, the city’s transportation department says.
The number of accidents in Charlotte plummeted in 2009, and remained low for three years after that. The number of wrecks in 2013 and 2014 were similar to those in 2007 and 2008.
Historically safer
Despite the increase in traffic deaths this year nationally and in North Carolina, Harkey of the Highway Safety Research Center said the historical trend is toward safer roads.
He said year-to-year numbers can be misleading and subject to natural variation. Several decades ago, he said, more than 50,000 people were killed each year on the roadways. For the past few years, the number has been in the mid-30,000s. He said he did not quibble with the National Safety Council’s numbers, but stressed the importance of looking at the overall trend.
“Vehicles get safer, the way we design roadways gets safer,” Harkey said. “Those numbers in general, they get better.”
The Associated Press contributed.GOP leaders had delivered the sweeping spending proposal to the Democrats on Tuesday evening as Congress scrambles to fund the government and prevent a shutdown ahead of a looming Dec. 11 deadline.
But Democratic leaders said "more than 30" Republican policy amendments, known as riders, made the package unacceptable, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the budget talks.
Those appropriators are now working on a counter-offer to the GOP bill, the aide said.
"We haven’t been talking to the press, we’ve been respectful, we’ve been open, understanding that we have to compromise and the rest — and then all of a sudden, they announce, ‘We’re telling the Democrats time is running out,’" House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told fellow Democrats Wednesday morning, according to the senior aide. "Well, we told them to have this done by Nov. 20 — before we left so the staff could work on it the next week into Thanksgiving."
The GOP offer followed a roughly 30-minute phone call between Ryan and Pelosi on Tuesday, another source familiar with the negotiations said. During the call, the Speaker urged Pelosi to allow the Appropriations Committee to do its work given that time is running short.
And Ryan urged Pelosi to consider the offer put forth by GOP Appropriations Committee negotiators, the source said.
"The proposal was an Appropriations Committee offer, constructed by the Appropriations Committee. The speaker supported it, but he's deferring to Chairman Rogers," Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said.
Among the riders rejected by the Democrats are provisions scaling back environmental regulations and undoing parts of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law of 2010, the aide said.
The Democrats also rejected a Republican amendment to toughen the screening process for refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq. GOP leaders had pushed that bill, sponsored by Homeland Security Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), through the lower chamber last month as an emergency response to the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.
The bill won the support of 47 House Democrats, but party leaders rejected it as an attempt to end the refugee program altogether, and President Obama has vowed to veto the language if it hits his desk.
Trying to avoid a shutdown, which damaged the Republicans in 2013, GOP leaders are eying another anti-terror amendment that could serve as a substitute to the McCaul provision. The alternative proposal is designed to strengthen the current visa-waiver program, making it tougher for some foreigners to visit the United States in the name of national security.
This story was updated at 12:15 p.m.
Citing dozens of "poison-pill" riders, House Democrats have rejected the Republicans' initial year-end government funding bill and plan to respond with their own alternative package.TSE Communications manager Ott Raidla said that the blockchain-technology is seen in the financial world as the next potential breakthrough developing the market and, therefore, companies of many spheres are experimenting with it.
"Since Nasdaq in the global sense is now largely a technology company, then developing solutions based on blockchain as a technology with great potential is a priority in Nasdaq's product development too," he said.
Nasdaq's manager Bob Greifeld said last week in London that testing of blockchain technology starts in Estonia, because it is a forward-looking country.
Raidla said that at the initiative of Nasdaq's Tallinn unit and with the support of Nasdaq group technologists, they are really starting to develop the so-called proxy voting technology, but the process is still at a very early stage, and it is therefore too early to speak about real testing.
"The reasons why this project is handled from Tallinn are simple: first, the Tallinn Stock Exchange has about 15 years of experience in organizing corporate shareholders general meetings, secondly, Estonia is in IT services use and integration with various areas ahead of many Western countries," said Raidla.Ancient Online Shopping Cart Patent Still Biting Retailers
from the a-tax-on-online-shopping dept
This one goes way back. If you've been following the absolute ridiculousness of software patents for a while, you're probably aware of the infamous Open Market "online shopping cart" patents ( 7,272,639 5,715,314 and 5,909,492 ). While Open Market failed, the patents have lived on. There was an internet company in Chicago, called Divine, that went through more business models than you can imagine, and somewhere along the line it bought the remains of Open Market. In struggling for some way (any way, please!) to make some money, the company realized it had Open Market's shopping cart patents and announced plans to sue way back in 2002. Next we heard of them, was in 2004, when Amazon was sued over those patents, by a company called Soverain software -- who bought the patents in 2003 or 2004 out of bankruptcy from Devine. Because fighting patent battles is costly, Amazon eventually just paid off Soverain I hadn't heard much about the patents, but it appears that Soverain has been busy again, and sued popular online tech retailer Newegg... and, unfortunately, as reader Ron Murphy let us know, a court in East Texas (of course) found that Newegg infringed... though, the details show that the jury didfind "direct" infringement, but rather "indirect infringement." However, last month, the judge's ruling sided with Soverain over Newegg, meaning that Newegg may have a huge bill facing it.Even if Newegg fights this, Soverain has been suing all sorts of companies over the years, with many of them just agreeing to license the patent to avoid having to go through a lawsuit. And, because of that, Soverain has the ability to just keep on suing. The Newegg case originally involved six other companies (including Zappos), though all of the others settled. And since that lawsuit was filed, Soverain, more recently, sued a whole bunch more companies, including J.C. Penney, Amway, HSN, QVC, Shutterfly, Victoria's Secret and more -- and that case is in front of the same judge who just ruled in Soverain's favor -- so it doesn't look good.I can't wait to see how our favorite patent system defenders defend this one. They'll say that we can't really say that the idea of an online shopping cart was "obvious" back when these patents were filed, but that's pretty laughable. It's pretty ridiculous to see anyone defend what has become a blatant tax on online retail now, from a company that did nothing to advance the space.
Filed Under: e-commerce, patents, shopping cart
Companies: newegg, open market, soverain softwareNew predictions for sea level rise
Sea level graph from the University of Colorado is shown below:
University of Bristol Press release issued 26 July 2009
Fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements have been used to place better constraints on future sea level rise, and to test sea level projections.
The results are published today in Nature Geoscience and predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be between 7- 82 cm (0.22 to 2.69 feet)
– depending on the amount of warming that occurs – a figure similar to that projected by the IPCC report of 2007.
Placing limits on the amount of sea level rise over the next century is one of the most pressing challenges for climate scientists. The uncertainties around different methods to achieve accurate predictions are highly contentious because the response of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to warming is not well understood.
Dr Mark Siddall from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, together with colleagues from Switzerland and the US, used fossil coral data and temperature records derived from ice-core measurements to reconstruct sea level fluctuations in response to changing climate for the past 22,000 years, a period that covers the transition from glacial maximum to the warm Holocene interglacial period.
By considering how sea level has responded to temperature since the end of the last glacial period, Siddall and colleagues predict that the amount of sea level rise by the end of this century will be similar to that projected by the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr Siddall said: “Given that the two approaches are entirely independent of each other, this result strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results. It is of vital importance that this semi-empirical result, based on a wealth of data from fossil corals, converges so closely with the IPCC estimates.
“Furthermore, as the time constant of the sea level response is 2,900 years, our model indicates that the impact of twentieth-century warming on sea level will continue for many centuries into the future. It will therefore constitute an important component of climate change in the future.”
The IPCC used sophisticated climate models to carry out their analysis, whereas Siddall and colleagues used a simple, conceptual model which is trained to match the sea level changes that have occurred since the end of the last ice age.
The new model explains much of the variability observed over the past 22,000 years and, in response to the minimum (1.1 oC) and maximum (6.4 oC) warming projected for AD 2100 by the IPCC model, this new model predicts, respectively, 7 and 82 cm of sea-level rise by the end of this century. The IPCC model predicted a slightly narrower range of sea level rise – between 18 and 76 cm.
The researchers emphasise that because we will be at least 200 years into a perturbed climate state by the end of this century, the lessons of long-term change in the past may be key to understanding future change.
Please contact Cherry Lewis for further information.
Further information: The paper: Constraints on future sea-level rise from past sea-level reconstructions. Mark Siddall, Thomas F. Stocker and Peter U. Clark. Nature Geoscience.
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RedditLast night, while watching "The Connor McDavid Show" I was discussing various Oilers-related topics with members of the Oilers twitter-verse when an interesting point was raised by Cam Thompson:
@DKingBH Sure. I think they deal one though. — Cameron Thomson (@ThomsonCam) February 3, 2016
I've been one of a number of Oiler fans who were not only frustrated by the cost of acquiring Griffin Reinhart, but also the fact that given his skill set and place on the depth chart, I consider him a redundancy in Edmonton. Considering the fact that Andrej Sekera, Oscar Klefbom and Darnell Nurse appear to have the left side locked down for many years to come, not to mention the emergence of Brandon Davidson as a legitimate consideration for a bottom-pairing role next season, Reinhart's presence has always seemed superfluous.
Given that, when Cam mentioned the notion that one of Nurse or Reinhart could likely be dealt this summer, my initial instinct was that the logical choice was Reinhart. As the conversation continued though and I took some time to consider the question, I'm not so sure that's the best option.
The honest fact of the matter is that Reinhart is starting to settle into what he's going to be as a pro hockey player. He's in his second pro season and while we're not quite sure what he is, we're starting to be able to discern what he's not...in this case, he's not going to be a top pairing guy in the NHL. Could he still achieve a long-time top 4 role? He could, though I'd place my bets on a competent third-pairing guy who might be able to slide up to cover for injuries. I don't think there is a very strong argument for projecting him higher than that at this stage. That's not intended as a knock on Reinhart either. Guys like that can have long careers and it's just fine if that's what he is. It means the Oilers overpaid for him, but that's not his fault.
If that's the perception of Reinhart around the league, as I suspect it likely is in most markets, then you're not going to grab a young, established top 4 Dman in a deal where he is a main piece of the return. You might be able to toss him into a deal where it also costs you another significant asset like Eberle or Yakupov, but he won't bring the return himself. But Nurse might.
Given the reality that exists today on the Oilers' depth chart, the left side long-term has Sekera, Klefbom, Nurse and then Reinhart and Davidson, while the right side is a trainwreck. That imbalance has to be addressed this summer, preferably by adding TWO top-4 right side blueliners to (finally) give the Oilers' young players some protection by icing a legit top 4.
The Oilers have the freedom to deal from the depth in the top six (Eberle?) to address one of those needs, but the other has to come from somewhere else. Nurse might be the best answer.
He's still viewed as an impact prospect around the league and while his rookie season has been up and down, he's certainly shown flashes of what he can be, which is a Dman in the same league as Seth Jones, who was taken just a few spots ahead of him in his draft year. I think there's a very real chance Nurse reaches that status in the league, but I'm also of the belief that there's a real possibility he doesn't as well.
If the Oilers' timeline to be competitive is linked to the career of Connor McDavid, they need a legit top four next season, not after a couple more years of letting kids learn on the fly in the NHL. With a lack of trade chips that carry the cache to be able to acquire a young top 4 Dman, and plenty of depth on the left side to cover for his absence, the best use of Nurse's current value might be to deal him now, while he's still considered an elite prospect around the league.
How do you get fair value for Darnell Nurse?
It's a great question. There aren't many players around the NHL that you could legitimately say are available for trade and are worthy of parting with a high-end guy like Nurse. Sure you can rattle off names like Oliver Ekman-Larsson or TJ Brodie but teams aren't about to part with core pieces of their future like that for what, at best, potentially amounts to a younger version of that same player. Let's create a quick profile of what the ideal target would be:
Age: Early-to-mid-twenties
Contract status: Either locked into a long-term deal or who will be an RFA once their current deal expires, to ensure potential for long-term team control
Preferably right-handed and is a top 4 NHL defenceman today, not projected to be so in the future.
For one reason or another, the current team doesn't view them as a long-term core piece.
That cuts the list down pretty small. There are some players who fit the criteria, sure, but very few at the level where you'd consider moving a player with Nurse's high-end potential. Sami Vatanen would be a good example. He'd be an excellent fit in Edmonton, but is he really established enough to part with Darnell Nurse? I'd be hesitant to consider a deal like that. Ryan Ellis would be another option who is a heck of a player, but again, you'd hesitate to part with Nurse for him.
No, we're looking for more established guys and the list really comes down two names in my opinion. Travis Hamonic and Tyson Barrie. The Hamonic situation is well known at this point in that he wants to be closer to his home in Manitoba and while I'd likely make this trade if I had to, I personally think there's a real shot for the Oilers to land Hamonic in the summer with a deal built around Jordan Eberle. The Islanders apparently wanted an established Dman in return for him, but I suspect that might change in the off-season after they lose Kyle Okposo. My ideal scenario is for Edmonton to try and target both Hamonic AND Barrie, which is entirely plausible, but that's likely beyond wishful thinking.
For me though, the guy I'm offering up Nurse for is Tyson Barrie of the Colorado Avalanche. Barrie is an absolute beast. He's 24 and he's a legitimate top pairing right-handed Dman right now. I'd place him easily in the top 20 all around defencemen in the NHL. Barrie is a 1st unit PP quarterback, he produces points at elite levels and is a dominant possession player. He plays 22+ minutes a night in Colorado and despite their possession woes in recent years, he's continued to perform among the very best Dmen in the league.
For the sake of conversation below, I've included a visual comparing Barrie's on-ice impact to that of Seth Jones, who many were ready to part with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for only a couple of months ago:
Why would Colorado trade him then? Well, for the same reason they moved Ryan O'Reilly. His contract. Barrie is an RFA at the end of the season and Colorado is having trouble signing him. If they decide they need to move on and replace him as best they can, Nurse is an affordable player who has the potential to grow into the role Barrie would be vacating. It would really make a lot of sense for the Avs as well if they do decide they have to move him. Maybe not in a straight up swap but as the core components of a deal I think there' a lot of logic there for both parties if this scenario does come to pass.
What do you think?
Are you willing to part with Darnell Nurse at this stage in his career? Is Tyson Barrie a worthwhile target if Edmonton did consider moving Nurse? Are there other players worthy of such a move we haven't considered?
Interested to hear your thoughts in the comments.*I'll be away on vacation Thursday through Monday, so Friday's and Monday's parts might be late. I don't know what sort of internet situation I'll have. They should still be up on the appointed day, just later. If not, I |
off, Jackson said.
She was treated at an area hospital for bruises and swelling to her face and abdomen and released, he said.
The woman said she rides the same bus almost every day and did not recognize the attackers, he said.
She and her partner were one of more than 300 couples around the state who sought licenses on Saturday, March 22, and her image was broadcast on local television, Jackson said.
A federal appeals court stayed the judge’s ruling later on Saturday and same-sex marriages in Michigan have been halted until an appeal is heard.
Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia now allow gay marriage, a number that would be substantially increased if a series of recent federal court decisions are upheld in Michigan, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia.Microsoft has released Seeing AI — a smartphone app that uses computer vision to describe the world for the visually impaired. With the app downloaded, the users can point their phone’s camera at a person and it’ll say who they are and how they’re feeling. They can also point it at a product and it’ll tell them what it is. All of this is done using artificial intelligence that runs locally on their phone.
The company showed off a prototype of Seeing AI in March last year at its Build conference, but starting today, the app is available to download for free in the US on iOS. However, there’s no word yet on when it’ll come to Android or other countries.
The app works in a number of scenarios. As well as recognizing people it’s seen before and guessing strangers’ age and emotion, it can identify household products by scanning barcodes. It also reads and scan documents, and recognizes US currency. This last function is a good example of how useful it can be. As all dollar bills are the same size and color regardless of value, spotting the difference can be difficult or even impossible for the visually impaired. An app like Seeing AI helps them find that information.
The app uses neural networks to identify the world around it, the same basic technology that’s being deployed all over Silicon Valley, powering self-driving cars, drones, and more. The app’s most basic functions are carried out directly on the device itself. This means they can be accessed more quickly and in situations where there’s no stable internet connection. However, Seeing AI’s experimental features — like describing an entire scene or recognizing handwriting — require a connection to the cloud.
Speaking to The Verge at a Microsoft event in London, Saqib Shaikh, the tech lead on Seeing AI, said he most commonly used the app for reading documents like signs and menus. He points out the app doesn’t just perform the basic task of optical character recognition technology, but also directs the user — telling them to move the camera left or right to get the target in shot.
Shaikh says that the difference between this and similar apps is the speed of the neural nets: “One of the things we wanted to do was face recognition on device, and we’ve done that so within a few milliseconds you’ll hear the result. It’s all about the speed, and we try to do as much as we can on the device.”Ireland should move quickly to take unaccompanied minors stranded in Calais as a “humanitarian gesture”, Fine Gael MEP Brian Hayes has said. The Dublin MEP says he agrees with his party colleague, Government Chief Whip Regina Doherty, that it is a “no-brainer” to relocate 200 unaccompanied children to the State.
“We should take action here,” Mr Hayes said. “Given that we have a large number of minors there [in Calais], as a humanitarian gesture we should move quickly on this. It’s the right thing to do.”
An estimated 1,400 unaccompanied children, some as young as six, remain at the site of the makeshift migrant camp known as the “Jungle” on the outskirts of the French port town. Although about 1,300 are being housed in shipping containers, dozens are sleeping rough in the fields and on roads around the camp, without access to education or adequate food.
Calls to bring 200 of them here, spearheaded by the Not On Our Watch campaign, are being supported by a growing number of organisations and church bodies, including the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW), the Irish Refugee Council, the Methodist Church, as well as the Children’s Rights Alliance, the Immigrant Council of Ireland and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
Statements will be made in the Dáil on the situation on Wednesday evening as a cross-party opposition motion, calling for the “immediate” relocation here of 200 unaccompanied minors from the camp, is considered by Government.
It was discussed briefly at Cabinet on Tuesday afternoon and will be discussed again on Wednesday, according to Government sources.
Tusla meeting
Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, who is understood to be positively disposed to bringing unaccompanied minors from Calais, will meet Fred McBride, chief executive of the Child and Family Agency Tusla, on Wednesday, to discuss its capacity to take 200 young people.
Mr McBride on Tuesday told RTÉ that an average of 100 unaccompanied minors were referred to the agency each year. “To receive 200 in one fell swoop would cause some practical difficulties... but of course we will do everything we practically can. If the Government needs us to respond, we will do everything we possibly can to respond to that situation.”
President Michael D Higgins on Tuesday said the language used to depict Europe’s current migrant crisis was once applied to survivors of the Great Famine in Ireland. Mr Higgins said that contemporary references to “swarms” of migrants had resonances with a similar negative depiction on the Irish western seaboard in the mid-19th century.
There were reports of Galway being “swamped... with wandering people” and there were stark contrasts during the growth of the urban environment, he said at the publication of the Royal Irish Academy’s historic towns atlas for Galway.
Methodist Church president the Rev Bill Mullally said “rescuing 200 children from the cruelty and chaos of Calais” would be an opportunity to remove a “great moral stain masking the European Union and [beginning to] colour Ireland as a result of the failure to care for unaccompanied children. We would encourage An Taoiseach to respond positively and with leadership by accepting the cross-party motion to that effect now before the Oireachtas. ”The apparent bloody arrest of respected third-year student Martese Johnson caused uproar on the University of Virginia's campus Wednesday as #JusticeForMartese trended on social media. (Published Thursday, March 19, 2015)
(WARNING: This article includes a graphic image of the bloodied student.)
The apparent bloody arrest of respected third-year student Martese Johnson caused uproar on the University of Virginia's campus Wednesday as #JusticeForMartese trended on social media.
Hundreds of students gathered at the university campus Wednesday night to demand justice for Johnson before demonstrators marched down streets in Charlottesville’s downtown area, making their way to police headquarters, according to NBC affiliate WVIR.
"We deserve to respect each other, especially in times like this," Johnson, who attended the event, said to calm the crowd.
A photo of the 20-year-old Johnson bloody-faced on the ground next to an officer went viral on social media and prompted school President Teresa Sullivan and Gov. Terry McAuliffe to call for an investigation Johnson's arrest.
“I thought about how this poor man’s mother would feel when she saw that photo, because I know how it made me feel,” Sullivan told News4's David Culver.
Virginia State Police is conducting an administrative review of the arrest at McAuliffe's request.
About 12:45 a.m. Wednesday, Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control agents watched as a bouncer refused Johnson entry into the Trinity Irish Pub in The Corner, a social hub near the U.Va. campus, the Associated Press reported. U.Va. student Bryan Beaubrun, who said he is friends with Johnson and witnessed the arrest, said an ABC agent then grabbed Johnson by the arm and pulled him away from the bar to speak with a group of police officers.
According to ABC, the agents decided to detain Johnson after questioning him.
After about a minute talking to the officers, Beaubrun said, Johnson asked the ABC agent to let go of his arm and tried pulling away, the AP reported. At that point, another ABC agent grabbed Johnson from behind and the two ABC agents wrestled him to the ground, Beaubrun said.
Photo Shows U.Va. Student's Face Bloody in Arrest
A new photo shows an officer holding down a U.Va. student who has a face covered in blood. (Published Wednesday, March 18, 2015)
"Just before handcuffing him, police took Martese to the ground, striking his head on the pavement and causing him to bleed profusely from the gash on his head," said Johnson's attorney, Daniel P. Watkins. "This morning he received ten stitches at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Fortunately, Martese's physical wounds are beginning to heal."
The agent who made the arrest, listed in court records as J. Miller, said in the arrest report that Johnson “was very agitated and belligerent.”
"He didn't need to be tackled," Beaubrun told the AP. "He wasn't being aggressive at all."
Charlottesville General District Court records show Johnson was charged with obstruction of justice without force and public swearing or intoxication, both misdemeanors.
Martese Johnson being detained outside Trinity Irish Pub on The Corner in Charlottesville. The officer's face is blurred because his involvement in the incident is unclear.
Photo credit: Bryan Beaubrun
An email to the U.Va. community signed “Concerned Black Students” claims the arrest of Johnson was unprovoked. It includes the photo of Johnson on the ground with blood covering his face and an officer kneeling next to him with his hands on Johnson.
The pictured officer's involvement in the incident is unknown at this time.
Students marched up and down The Corner Wednesday evening in peaceful protest, shouting for justice.
"Governor McAuliffe is concerned by the reports of this incident and has asked the Secretary of Public Safety to initiate an independent Virginia State Police investigation into the use of force in this matter," the statement reads. "The Governor's office has been in contact with University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan and local law enforcement and will continue to monitor this situation closely as the investigation proceeds."
ABC said it will provide any assistance state police need in the investigation. The special agents involved are restricted to administrative duties during the investigation.
Johnson, a third-year student, is double-majoring in Italian and media studies. He is vice chair for Community Relations of the Honor Committee, vice polemarch of the Eta Sigma chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi and a chair of the Leadership Development Committee of the Black Student Alliance.
Watkins described him as "absolutely devastated" by the incident.
ABC agents in Charlottesville have been accused of heavy-handed actions in the past.
The state of Virginia reached a $212,500 settlement last year with a U.Va. student who was arrested after her purchase of water was mistaken for beer.
Elizabeth Daly fled in terror outside a Charlottesville supermarket in April 2013 when her vehicle was swarmed by state ABC agents who mistook her just-purchased carton of sparkling water for beer.
Daly was charged with eluding police and assaulting a police officer after her SUV grazed two of the agents. The arrest provoked a public outcry, and the charges were dropped.
Statement From Martese Johnson's Attorney:
On March 18, 2015, Charlottesville Police charged 20-year old Martese Johnson with two misdemeanors: 1) obstruction of justice without force and 2) profane swearing and/or intoxication in public. The charges were filed after a Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) officer and local police confronted Mr. Johnson near "the Corner," a popular off-campus social hub near the University of Virginia. Contrary to early police reports, Mr. Johnson has not been accused of possessing false identification.
"Just before handcuffing him, police took Martese to the ground, striking his head on the pavement and causing him to bleed profusely from the gash on his head," Mr. Watkins said. "This morning he received ten stitches at the University of Virginia Medical Center. Fortunately, Martese's physical wounds are beginning to heal."
Mr. Johnson is a third-year student at the University of Virginia, double majoring in Italian and Media Studies. He holds numerous leadership positions on grounds, including Vice Chair for Community Relations of the Honor Committee, Vice Polemarch of the Eta Sigma Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, and a Chair of the Leadership Development Committee of the Black Student Alliance. He has no criminal record.
"As evidenced by both his academic and extracurricular achievements, Martese is a smart young man with a bright future," Mr. Watkins said. "I have spoken with him several times today, and he is absolutely devastated by yesterday's events. Currently, we are preparing to investigate and defend this matter vigorously. Please keep Martese in your prayers during this difficult time."
Mr. Johnson and his family ask that the media respect his privacy at this time and direct any further questions to his attorney, Daniel Watkins, with Williams Mullen. The investigation is still in its early stages, and Mr. Watkins and Williams Mullen are limited in what information can be shared with the media.
Virginia ABC's Complete Statement:
While monitoring licensed establishments on University Avenue in the City of Charlottesville, uniformed Virginia ABC special agents arrested a 20-year-old male early on the morning of March 18.
The individual was charged with Public Intoxication and Obstruction of Justice in an incident that occurred at approximately 12:45 a.m. on March 18 in the 1500 block of University Avenue. The uniformed ABC Agents observed and approached the individual after he was refused entry to a licensed establishment. A determination was made by the agents to further detain the individual based on their observations and further questioning.
In the course of an arrest being made, the arrested individual sustained injuries. The individual received treatment for his injuries at a local hospital and was released.
Governor McAuliffe has requested that Virginia State Police conduct an independent investigation into the circumstances of the arrest, including use of force. Virginia ABC will provide whatever information or assistance is requested by Virginia State Police.
Virginia ABC is restricting the Special Agents involved in the incident to administrative duties while the investigation is underway.
U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan sent the following email to the school community Wednesday:
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:
I write to express my deep concern about an incident that occurred on The Corner early this morning and to provide information about immediate steps that I have taken in response.
At about 12:45 a.m., one of our students was injured while Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) agents were attempting to take him into custody on the sidewalk in front of Trinity Irish Pub. University Police and Charlottesville Police arrived on the scene shortly after the incident occurred. We have not yet clarified all of the details surrounding this event, but we are seeking to do so as quickly as possible.
This morning I met with Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo and University Police Chief Mike Gibson in an effort to learn more about the incident. Furthermore, because ABC is a state agency, I contacted the Governor's office to ask for an independent investigation of the incident. In response, the Governor has asked the Secretary of Public Safety to initiate an independent Virginia State Police investigation into the use of force in this matter.
As the investigation unfolds, eyewitnesses will play an essential role in shedding light on the details of this incident. I urge students and other members of our community who witnessed the incident or have other direct knowledge of it to come forward. Please contact the Virginia State Police at 804-674-2000 immediately.
The safety and security of our students will always be my primary concern, and every member of our community should feel safe from the threat of bodily harm and other forms of violence. Today, as U.Va. students, faculty, and staff who share a set of deeply held values, we stand unified in our commitment to seeking the truth about this incident. And we stand united in our belief that equal treatment and equal justice are among our fundamental rights under the law.
Teresa A. Sullivan
President
Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 WashingtonSo, after I've come across to Pony Hearts made by ~ pyrestriker I've immediately thought they would look amazing as wallpapers. This said, I decided to give it a shot at making one. Be gentle, it's my firstStill, I'm mostly satisfied with how it turned out. I've aimed at having it minimalistic as to not detract from the actual character itself. Admittedly the stars could be better but hey... I might change them later.I might make more of these pony-heart wallpapers later.All credit for the pony vector goes to ~pyrestriker. You can find the original here: [link] NOTIFICATION: I would like to point out that the original creator of the pony heart design is * BambooDog and you can find the originals on his deviantART profile. I put this up only now because I wasn't aware of these being his creation at the time of posting this.Listen to Rep. Ron Paul deliver this address.
Although Congress was back in session for scarcely more than a day last week, private citizens across the country managed to cause an uproar felt across Capitol Hill. The uproar took the form of hundreds of thousands of phone calls to both senators and representatives, urging them to oppose two draconian new bills that threaten the free and unbridled flow of information on the Internet.
On Wednesday last week, dozens of prominent websites like Wikipedia, Reddit, and Craigslist were blacked out in protest of two bills known in D.C. jargon as SOPA and PIPA. SOPA is the House bill; PIPA is its Senate companion. These bills ostensibly will combat Internet piracy, and of course we also are told they will help us wage the never-ending “war on terror.”
What these bills actually do is force website owners to police the Internet; create entry barriers to the only relatively free and open medium of communication; and threaten to break the technological structure of the Internet itself. They also violate our 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and our 4th Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
SOPA and PIPA have been drafted not only without respect for the Constitution, but also without an understanding of the how the Internet works. These bills attack the very system upon which the entire orderly organization of the Web depends. Search engines, Internet service providers, advertising sites, and sites with user-generated content such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter — all magnificent creations of the market — are directly threatened by these bills. They will be held responsible if even a single one of their millions of users posts even one link to a website that a copyright holder claims is violating a copyright.
Note that under the bills as written, the Department of Justice or a copyright holder does not have to prove that a copyright was violated — they simply have to claim copyright infringement and an entire site is shut down. The burden of these regulations on the Internet will be enormous, shifting resources away from productivity and innovation and into monitoring and censoring. It turns Internet companies into involuntary tools for Big Brother government, further eroding our constitutional rights.
As is typical of so many bills in Congress, SOPA and PIPA were not crafted to make life better for the American people but rather were written at the behest of big business trying to enlist the federal government as its strong arm. For example, the Motion Picture Association of America spent more than $1.2 million so far lobbying for passage.
But the Internet community is fighting back effectively, not just with websites that went black but with millions of users who expressed their solidarity. Congressional sponsors of both bills have been jumping ship in response to the outrage. The House Judiciary Committee canceled the SOPA hearing they were planning to hold last Wednesday; the House leadership announced they have no intention of considering this bill; and at the end of the week Sen. Harry Reid announced he was postponing the vote until a “compromise” could be reached. The American people are speaking, and with their continued grassroots efforts the marketplace for free ideas and communication will prevail over government controls and censorship.
Read more by Ron PaulThe Miami Marlins, in hiring their new manager, have turned to an old friend.
Article continues below...
Former catcher Mike Redmond, who played for the Marlins from 1998 to 2004, will replace Ozzie Guillen, the team announced Thursday.
Redmond, 41, received a three-year contract, and the Marlins also have rehired Perry Hill to be their first base and infield coach. Hill was with the Marlins from 2002 to ’07.
The Marlins fired Guillen last month after he completed the first year of a four-year, $10 million contract. Redmond was much more affordable — his previous managing experience was within the Toronto Blue Jays organization at Class A affiliates Dunedin and Lansing over the past two seasons.
Former major-league manager Larry Bowa, Tigers hitting instructor Lloyd McClendon and Reds pitching coach Bryan Price also interviewed for the Marlins’ vacancy. Price withdrew from consideration last week.
News of Redmond’s hiring first was reported by CBSSports.com.
A former major league catcher, Redmond had not interviewed for a big league job until he met with the Marlins last week. He will be introduced as the Marlins’ fifth manager since mid-2010 at a news conference at their ballpark Friday.
Guillen said he would be rooting for Redmond.
”Congrats Mike Redmond,” Guillen tweeted. ”Good luck buddy u have great guys going to play for you. … Hope the best for you. u are a good baseball man and you will have fun with the players.”
Guillen was fired last week after only one season with the Marlins. A year ago they traded two minor league players to obtain him from the Chicago White Sox and gave him a team-record $10 million, four-year deal.
Redmond brings a much lower profile. A.287 hitter over 13 seasons, he played seven years for the Marlins and was the backup catcher to Ivan Rodriguez on their 2003 World Series championship team.
”It’s a great hire,” said Jack McKeon, who managed Redmond with the Marlins. ”I’m just delighted. He’s a very knowledgeable young man. He was an unselfish player and dedicated. I was very impressed when I had him the years I was in Florida. I thought someday he would make a good manager.”
Redmond was popular with teammates because of his droll wit, and they still fondly recall him taking batting practice naked in an indoor cage several days in a row to help the 2003 team snap a slump.
McKeon claimed no firsthand knowledge of the episode but added, ”Mike was a guy who kept everybody loose.”
Because of Redmond’s ties to Miami owner Jeffrey Loria and president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest, he was considered the front-runner for the job.
Redmond becomes the 11th former catcher among current managers, and even during his playing days, he expressed an interest in managing. Besides McKeon, he played for Jim Leyland and Ron Gardenhire, among others.
”People ask you, `What’s your style?”’ Redmond said last week. ”I learned a lot from all of my managers. … There are so many guys I learned different things from. I sat and listened and watched and learned.”
Redmond was chosen Midwest League manager of the year in 2011, his first as a manager, after guiding the Lansing Lugnuts to a 77-60 record and an appearance in the league finals. This year he managed Dunedin to a 78-55 record and a berth in the Florida State League playoffs.
The rebranded Marlins moved into a new ballpark this year with a heftier payroll and high hopes, but the promising season began to derail in the first week with Guillen’s laudatory comments about former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Six months later, the episode was a factor in the decision to fire Guillen.
A lousy record and disappointing attendance didn’t help, either. Despite a free-agent spending spree a year ago, the Marlins finished last in the NL East at 69-93, their worst record since 1999. They drew more than 2.2 million fans but had projected attendance of nearly 3 million.
Under Loria, the Marlins have usually been among baseball’s thriftiest teams. With revenue falling short of projections this year, the spending binge of last offseason is unlikely to be repeated.
Budget constraints will make it difficult to upgrade a team that batted.244, the worst average in franchise history. The Marlins scored the fewest runs per game since their first year in 1993.
In the Marlins’ 20 seasons they have reached the postseason only twice, as wild-card teams in 1997 and 2003. Both times they won the World Series.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.WWE Studios and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA) today announced that the two studios will partner on the upcoming action film, “The Marine 5: Battleground.” Directed by James Nunn (“Eliminators”), the film will feature WWE Superstars The Miz, Maryse, Heath Slater, Bo Dallas, Curtis Axel and Naomi. The film will begin production this Tuesday, May 31, in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
The Miz returns as Jake Carter, an ex-Marine who served in the Middle East and is now saving civilian lives stateside as an EMT. After responding to an emergency call in an abandoned parking lot, Carter finds himself protecting an injured man from a ruthless biker gang. With the odds stacked against him, Carter utilizes his unique Marine skills to stop the bikers’ rampage before any more innocent blood is shed.
“The ‘Marine’ series is a true fan-favorite and we are thrilled to join with Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions and director James Nunn to launch this next installment,” said Michael Luisi, President of WWE Studios. “For the first time ever, we will have six WWE Superstars in one live action film to ramp up the excitement and thrill audiences worldwide.”
The film is written by Ed McHenry and Rory McHenry.ESPN NFL analyst Tedy Bruschi thinks going for a 2-point conversion after every touchdown is not a good strategy to follow in the NFL. (2:07)
GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Mike McCarthy likes the way Ben Roethlisberger and Drew Brees are thinking.
That said, the Green Bay Packers coach says the 2-point conversion conundrum isn't as simple as just believing you'll convert more than half your attempts -- even though he's absolutely certain that quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his offense would succeed far more often than they'd fail.
"Personally, I definitely agree with Ben and Drew. I think especially with Aaron being our quarterback, I would have zero issue as an offensive coach going for it every single time," McCarthy said Wednesday morning, in advance of the team's minicamp practice.
"Personally, I definitely agree with Ben and Drew. I think especially with Aaron being our quarterback, I would have zero issue as an offensive coach going for it every single time." Packers coach Mike McCarthy on trying for 2-point conversions
Roethlisberger said Tuesday that he'd like to see his Pittsburgh Steelers go for two after every touchdown this season, having converted 8 of 11 such situations last season for a league-leading 72.7 percent success rate.
"Put it in our hands. I want the ball. Any player would relish that opportunity," Roethlisberger said.
And in an interview on "The Dan Patrick Show" on Wednesday, Brees said he believes his New Orleans Saints would be just as successful, even though they converted only one of four attempts last season.
"Personally, I feel like if we went for two that we could make it more than 50 percent of the time," Brees told Patrick. "So, I'm all for it."
Brees said he doesn't think he needs to suggest the idea to Saints coach Sean Payton.
"I don't need to tell Coach Payton to be more aggressive," Brees said with a laugh. "I think we've got that part of it taken care of."
McCarthy said he believes the Packers would be successful because of Rodgers' ability in what he called the "tight red zone" area near the goal line and the quality of the plays they have in their offense for such situations.
"Just because of the way we're built... and the volume of [offensive plays] which you would need to go the entire course of the year, I'm comfortable that we could attain that very easily," McCarthy said. "But I think you have to look at the whole picture, too.
"You have to look at the defense, the development of your special teams and so forth. I think there's a little more to the question than, 'Can we score more than 50 percent?' Because I definitely agree with what Ben and Drew are saying, because I would definitely have the confidence to go after a defense and win more than 50 percent of them."
Including the playoffs, the Packers were 5-for-7 on 2-point conversion attempts last season after converting just 2 of 12 2-point attempts the previous five years combined.
McCarthy opted not to go for two in the team's season-ending playoff loss at Arizona following Rodgers' 41-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass to Jeff Janis as time expired in regulation. Instead, McCarthy chose to have Mason Crosby kick the 33-yard extra point to send the game into overtime, where the Packers lost the coin toss and then lost the game without ever getting the ball back on offense.
The Packers' opponents were 1-for-2 on them last year in the regular season and did not attempt one in the playoffs.
Asked if he expects to go for two more often this season and have to defend more 2-point attempts on defense, McCarthy replied, "Well, we practice it a lot more. I think that was evident in training camp, I think it's evident just the way we train our football team. Now, the defense, we've got to make sure they're prepared for it and we're prepared to go for it [on offense]. It's definitely [a larger] part of our training."
ESPN's Mike Triplett contributed to this report.Article originally published by: NY Times
For an additional $1,000, a family can have a loved one buried near the chardonnay vines glistening in the sun, or if they prefer, near the pinot noir vines at a cemetery here in an East Bay suburb of San Francisco.
The vines were planted 10 years ago as a less expensive and more water-frugal alternative to grass at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery here.
But this is California, the land of gold and grapes, and the ornamental grapevines are now producing prizewinning wines.
“It was kind of like Jesus’ miracle when he made water into wine,” said Bishop Michael C. Barber of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, which oversees 16 acres of grapes at this cemetery and two others. He became the bishop in 2013, when the wine was called Cathedral of Christ the Light before church officials came up with Bishop’s Vineyard, a snappier label for a larger market.
The grapevines serve another purpose. “The cemetery doesn’t seem like such a sad and fearsome place when you go there and see the vines,” Bishop Barber said.
These are challenging times for cemetery owners, who are struggling to cover their costs, primarily upkeep of the land. The burial habits of Americans have changed, and nearly half are cremated rather than buried. In 2015, there were 1,300 burials at the Hayward cemetery, down from nearly 2,500 in 1980.
“You just drive by cemeteries like they’re a museum,” said Robert Seelig, the chief executive of Catholic Management Services, which oversees the diocese cemeteries. “People are attracted to wine. It draws them into a cemetery and attracts you to a different story line.”
American cemeteries have developed creative ways to draw visitors, holding horror movie nights, concerts in mausoleums, fun runs and yoga classes in chapels. Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemeteries hosts bird walks, twilight tours, family fun nights, an annual dog day and designated times for Segway riders. In Bridgeport, Conn., people still stroll the pathways around the pond atMountain Grove Cemetery to admire the flowering dogwood trees in the spring or the brilliant foliage in the fall.Last week Flickering Myth’s Amon Warmann was lucky enough to chat with legendary Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy about the latest instalment in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line Batman and Harley Quinn. During the discussion, they also spoke about their favourite Batman movie – 1993’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
Amon Warmann: My favourite Batman movie – animated or otherwise – is Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. What are your memories of working on that?
Kevin Conroy: I agree with you – I think that is the best Batman movie, live action or animated. You get the whole genesis of the Batman story in that one film. And then you’ve got the drama, falling in love with Andrea Beaumont, wanting to have a normal life, pleading with his parents grave to release him from the vow and then realising he’s doomed to avenge their deaths. He’s trapped in his fate. It’s a great, classic, tragic movie.
When you work on things like that you don’t realise you’re working on something that’s going to become so iconic. We recorded that movie and it was just like “Oh great, we get to record a Batman movie, this’ll be fun”. None of us knew that it was going to become this time tested iconic film.
SEE ALSO: Kevin Conroy on the Batman stories he’d like to see adapted as animated movies
SEE ALSO: Read our full interview with Kevin Conroy here
Batman and Harley Quinn is based on an original story by Bruce Timm and sees Kevin Conroy and Loren Lester reprising their Batman: The Animated Series roles as Batman and Nightwing respectively. The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch lends her voice to Harley Quinn, while the voice cast also includes Paget Brewster as Poison Ivy, John DiMaggio as Swamp Thing, Jevin Michael Richardson as Jason Woodrue and Eric Bauza, Rob Paulsen, Mindy Sterling, Robin Atkin Downes and Trevor Devall.
Batman and Harley Quinn is out now on Digital, Blu-ray and DVD.Just over a week after Google's spectacular demonstration of its Project Glass headset at Google I/O, Japanese camera maker Olympus is jumping back into the wearable computing game, announcing a new prototype of a glasses-mounted heads-up display. Dubbed MEG4.0, the display features Bluetooth connectivity for interfacing with smartphones and uses Olympus' own "proprietary optical technology" to maximize the visibility of the outside world. Unlike Project Glass, however, Olympus' device doesn't appear to include a camera — an odd choice for a company built on imaging products.
According to the Japanese press release for the MEG4.0, the device features a QVGA (320 x 240) display and up to eight hours of battery life in "intermittent display" mode, switching on for approximately 15 seconds every three minutes. It also contains a built-in accelerometer, allowing it to detect the position of the user's head and react accordingly.
This is not the first time that Olympus has experimented with head-mounted displays — the company has been working on prototypes since at least 2005. But the timing is certainly significant, coming just as the technology finally seems set to make it to consumers (or at least Google developers) at sub-astronomical prices.Major U.S. retailers including Walmart and Sears have declined to contribute to any compensation funds that would help the families of the more than 1,200 people who died while making their products in Bangladesh last year.
NYT:
One year after the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh, many retailers that sold garments produced there or inside the Rana Plaza building that collapsed last spring are refusing to join an effort to compensate the families of the more than 1,200 workers who died in those disasters.
The International Labor Organization is working with Bangladeshi officials, labor groups and several retailers to create ambitious compensation funds to assist not just the families of the dead, but also more than 1,800 workers who were injured, some of them still hospitalized.
A handful of retailers — led by Primark, an Anglo-Irish company, and C&A, a Dutch-German company — are deeply involved in getting long-term compensation funds off the ground, one for Rana Plaza’s victims and one for the victims of the Tazreen fire, which killed 112 workers last Nov. 24.
But to the dismay of those pushing to create the compensation funds, neither Walmart, Sears, Children’s Place nor any of the other American companies that were selling goods produced at Tazreen or Rana Plaza have agreed to contribute to the efforts.
Supporters of compensation plans say they are needed to pay for medical care for those who are paralyzed or otherwise badly injured, to provide income after a vital breadwinner died and to give families enough income so that children are not forced to quit school and go to work.Terence Garvin signed with the Seahawks in March after spending his first four years in the NFL with Pittsburgh and Washington. He's hoping the Seahawks will help him take that next step in his career from special teams star to defensive starter
RENTON – Terence Garvin has only been in Seattle for six months, but the Seahawks linebacker already likes his new city so much he’s trying to get his mother to move here.
Garvin and his mother, Pat, have always been close. But their bond has intensified ever since Garvin’s father, Terry, died unexpectedly in March 2014, right before Garvin’s second season with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“He died in his sleep. I was sad. It was tough, but I feel like God has a plan, so he kinda got me through the tough times, and I feel like that’s another reason I play as hard as I play,” Garvin says. “My dad was really tough on me, but he was there for me all the time, so I feel like I gotta play hard for him.”
After Garvin’s father died, Garvin moved his mother from his hometown of Baltimore up to Pittsburgh so she would be closer to him.
Now, he working to convince her to move to Seattle, where he hopes he’ll make the 53-man roster with the Seahawks.
“I’m trying to keep her up here,” Garvin said, grinning. “She’s cool with it though she lives in Pittsburgh right now.”
So far, things are looking good for Garvin, who signed with the Seahawks as a free agent in March after three seasons in Pittsburgh and one in Washington.
As the Seahawks prepare to face Kansas City this Friday at home, Garvin is battling Michael Wilhoite for the starting spot at sam linebacker.
He earned a start in the Seahawks’ second preseason game against Minnesota last week and tallied two tackles before leaving the game with the rest of the starting defense |
part.
‘Mucilaginous’ means ‘moist and sticky’. The point is that he did not use any lubrication. Unwisely, as it turned out.
The occupation of shepherd, which he had adopted, afforded him frequent opportunity of being alone and of easily giving himself up to his passion.
That’s one advantage, I suppose.
At different times he employed a few hours each day in tickling the interior of the urethra with his stick. He made constant use of it for a period of sixteen years, and by this means procured more or less abundant ejaculation. The urethral canal, from the so frequently repeated and long continued friction of this kind, became hard, callous, and absolutely insensible. Galien then found his stick as useless as his hand, and considered himself the most unfortunate of men.
Tormented by ‘continual erections’ and by his ‘insuperable aversion’ to women, he became depressed.
In this condition of melancholia, which affected both his physical and mental condition, the shepherd often allowed his flock to stray; he continually busied himself in seeking some new means of self-gratification. After numerous fruitless attempts, he returned with renewed fury to the use of the hand and the stick of wood, but finding that these measures only stimulated his desires, he became desperate, and drew a dull knife from his pocket, with which he incised the glans along the urethral canal.
I’m wincing. The glans, the tip of the penis, has the highest density of nerve endings in the adult male body.
This incision, which would have caused the most acute pain in another man, only produced in him an agreeable sensation followed by a complete ejaculation.
M. Galien clearly had something very wrong with him.
Enchanted with this new discovery, he resolved to make amends for his enforced abstinence, whenever his fury possessed him. Pits, bushes, and rocks served him as refuges in which to repeat or exercise this new measure, which always procured for him the pleasure and ejaculation which he desired.
So the shepherd had now started using a blunt knife to pleasure himself. What could possibly go wrong?
Having given the utmost possible play to his passion, he finally, after perhaps a thousand trials, divided the penis into two exactly equal parts from the meatus urinarius to that portion of the urethra and corpora cavernosa which is found above the scrotum and near the symphysis pubis.
The ‘meatus’ is the opening of the urinary tract, at the tip of the penis.
Cutting one’s own penis into two equal parts is quite a feat – even if that’s what you were trying to do. Which somehow I doubt was this chap’s intention. But surely this would all result in horrendous loss of blood? Luckily he had this covered:
When profuse haemorrhage occurred, he arrested it by tying a piece of string around the penis, and he tightened the ligature sufficiently to stop the flow of blood without interrupting its course through the corpora cavernosa.
The corpora cavernosa are the masses of spongy tissue which, when filled with blood, produce an erection.
Three or four hours later he unloosened the ligature and left the parts to themselves. The various incisions which he made upon the penis did not extinguish his desires. The corpora cavernosa, though divided, often caused an erection and diverged to the right and left. Dr. Sernin, surgeon-in-chief at the Hotel-Dieu of Narbonne, who communicated this case to me, was a witness of the phenomena of this erection.
Oh my word. Two erections, right and left. Now I’ve heard it all.
Being unable to use his knife any farther, because the section of the penis extended to the pubis, Galien found himself in new distress. He resumed the use of another piece of wood shorter than the first; he introduced it into the remainder of the urethral canal, and tickled, at will, this portion of the canal and the orifices of the ejaculatory duct, thus producing an emission of semen.
He was now inserting a stick through the stump of his penis for sexual pleasure. Without, apparently, stopping for a moment to ask himself what had gone wrong with his life.
This truly extraordinary masturbator amused himself in this manner for the last ten years of his life, without feeling the slightest uneasiness with regard to the division of his penis.
The original French is even better: ‘ce masturbateur vraiment extraordinaire’. A phrase you’d want on your headstone. Or at least in an obituary.
The long-continued practice which he had in the use of this stick rendered him bold and sometimes careless in its use. June 12, 1774, he introduced it so carelessly that it slipped from his fingers and fell into the bladder.
Not long afterwards he started to feel the consequences. Symptoms included sharp abdominal pain, difficulty urinating, fever, vomiting and worse.
Tormented by these symptoms, he made attempts to rid himself of his cruel enemy. He introduced the handle of a wooden spoon into the rectum more than a hundred times, and forcibly pushed the spoon from behind forward in order to cause the stick to escape the same way that it had entered; but the condition did not yield to the measures which he adopted.
I think it’s fair to say that these ‘measures’ were not terribly sensible ones.
He was finally induced to return to the hospital of Narbonne, in which he had been received three times during a space of two and a half months, and which he always left without experiencing any relief, as he would never consent to an examination in order to determine the cause of his disease. What was the surprise of Dr. Sernin, when, upon examining the hypogastric region of this unfortunate shepherd, who complained of retention of urine, he found two penises, each of which was almost as large as a normal penis.
Well, yes, I imagine that he might have been surprised.
This peculiarity attracted the attention of the surgeon, and although the patient at first assured him that this conformation was congenital, an examination of the parts, of the very apparent cicatrices [scars], and of the callosities along the whole extent of the division, led him to believe that this was not a natural vice of structure. Galien then gave the history of his life, and entered into all the details which we have reported above.
The surgeon used a probe to confirm the presence of a foreign body in the bladder, and then decided to extract it. This would entail making an incision in the perineum, the surface between the scrotum and anus – a procedure similar to that for removing a bladder stone.
The patient, tortured by frightful pains, and not experiencing any relief after taking 100 drops of Sydenham’s anodyne solution, submitted to the operation.
‘Sydenham’s solution’ is laudanum, a tincture of opium in alcohol. It is named after Sir Thomas Sydenham, the great 17th-century medic who popularised the use of laudanum in the treatment of a variety of conditions. The tincture was full of opiates and (usually) effective for pain relief.
The incision having been made, the finger was carried to the foreign body in order to change its direction, and one end was turned toward the wound. The stick was extracted with a polypus forceps.
The term ‘polypus forceps’ is still used today: it’s an instrument used to remove polyps (abnormal growths affecting a mucous membrane).
The patient’s symptoms were relieved, but complications soon set in.
Slight haemorrhage, quiet sleep, the urine escaped without difficulty; on the fifth day a cough, which had tortured the patient for a long time, increased. Fever, irregular chills, relaxation of the bowels, gangrene over the left thigh, buttocks and sacrum. All these symptoms gradually yielded to appropriate treatment.
This sounds like the result of infection, in which case he was lucky to survive. Alas, the ‘truly extraordinary masturbator’ did not much last longer:
The thoracic affection continued, and the unfortunate shepherd died three months after recovery from the operation of perineal section. At the autopsy a considerable collection of greenish pus was found in a sac formed between the pleura and right lung.
This is an empyema, a collection of pus in the space around the lungs. On its own it’s unlikely to have caused his death, but it may well have resulted in sepsis, which would quite rapidly prove fatal.
It’s easy to dismiss M. Galien as a pervert, but he must surely have been suffering from a psychiatric disorder of some kind. The obsessive pursuit of sexual pleasure is variously known as sex addiction or hypersexual disorder, among other terms – but it’s poorly understood and the subject of much disagreement. Evidently his was a particularly extreme case.Berlin (CNN) Police in northern Germany are conducting raids on the homes and business premises of two men suspected of plotting to kill leaders of the left, the country's federal prosecutor said in a statement Monday.
Motivated by anger at Germany's immigration and refugee policy, the men are suspected of stockpiling ammunition and drawing up a hit list of targets.
The two suspects are not in custody, the prosecutor's office told CNN. The prosecutor would not confirm German media reports that a police officer is under investigation in connection with the plot.
The raids happened in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
"According to the results of the investigation so far, the two accused were in contact with different chat groups with other people," the statement said.
Read MoreDarlington dog finds his way home after he was lost for 7 months Copyright by WBTW - All rights reserved Video
DARLINGTON, SC (WBTW) – A Darlington dog is lucky to be home after walking for almost seven months to find his way back to his owner.
Betty Trogdon says she's holding her dog, Charlie Brown, a little tighter after she lost him for almost seven months.
Trogdon says she was going from Darlington to Hartsville when she got in a car accident back in December with Charlie Brown in the car.
She said when she opened the car door, Charlie Brown was frightened and ran off into the woods.
"I went out just about every day for close to two months. I went out Christmas eve, it was moonlight, and we called, no Charlie," said Trogdon.
Trogdon says she searched the woods for months, and almost gave up hope she would see Charlie again.
"Everybody said ‘don't give up, he might come home', and he did," said Trogdon.
He did, almost seven months later.
Trogdon says when she came home from taking her other dogs on a walk earlier this month, she looked up and saw a miracle.
"I looked up, and there was this thin, brown dog standing in the back yard. It really didn't register for just a second, you know, the other dogs were quite upset thinking it was a strange dog, and I said ‘Ah! It's Charlie'," said Trogdon.
She says the pads on Charlie's feet were torn from walking, and he was very slim.
Now, she says she's working to get him healthy again and still can't believe he made it home.The professor aimed to show maths can solve life's problems
Professor Dwight Barkley, of Warwick University, calculates there are three key factors that decide the timing of the wearisome question.
Crucial in putting off the first prompt about the proximity of the destination are on-board activities for children.
So no activities equals a question before leaving the driveway, he said.
The equation for the time it takes for a child to ask the question is: one, plus the number of activities to do, divided by the number of children in the car squared.
To get the final answer, that figure is then added to the time it took the family to get into the car and set off on their journey.
"Mathematics can help answer many of life's questions," said Prof Barkley
"This equation can be a fun way to think about the problem of keeping children entertained on a family car journey."Story highlights William Lynch was accused of confronting retired priest Jerold Lindner in 2010
Lynch and his younger brother had claimed they were abused by Lindner decades earlier
A civil suit by the brothers against Lindner led to a $625,000 settlement in 1998
A jury Thursday acquitted Lynch on three counts, with a fourth dismissed after a deadlock
A California jury Thursday acquitted a man charged with assaulting a retired Catholic priest, in a case that prosecutors had described as a vigilante attack.
William Lynch, 44, was accused of confronting the Rev. Jerold Lindner, 68, during a visit at Sacred Heart Retirement home for Jesuit priests in Los Gatos, California, where Lindner had been living since retirement in 2001.
Prosecutors claimed that Lynch walked into the retirement center on May 10, 2010, under the pretense of delivering news about a relative, and attacked his former pastor.
Lynch and his younger brother had claimed more than a decade earlier that Lindner sexually molested them during church-led camping trips in northern California when they were 7 and 5 years old.
During Lynch's assault trial, Lindner denied abusing the boys and maintained his innocence from the witness stand.
But two days into Lindner's testimony, his attorney notified the court that his client was invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and would not testify further for fear of a perjury prosecution.
Lynch also took the witness stand and testified that he only had wanted the priest to sign a confession, and he said he had punched him after experiencing an irrational fear triggered by memories of the alleged abuse.
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Lynch's defense attorney, Pat Harris, claimed Lindner was responsible for his client's actions.
"Society is the victim in all this... because there's a man sitting up there at Los Gatos who is a rapist, who molests children, and he's allowed to go free," Harris said.
The statute of limitations on criminal molestation allegations had expired when Lynch and his brother went public with their allegations in 1997.
But in a civil lawsuit that was settled in 1998, Lynch and his brother asserted that Lindner sodomized them and forced them to have sex with each other while Lindner watched. In that suit, Lynch and his brother received a $625,000 settlement with the Jesuits of the California Province.
In the assault case against Lynch, he faced four counts stemming from the 2010 incident. The jury Thursday acquitted him on three counts and was unable to reach a decision on the fourth charge. The judge declared a mistrial on that count, and dismissed the charge.
Dozens of Lynch supporters, including his parents, gathered with demonstration signs outside the Santa Clara County Courthouse proclaiming the defendant's innocence.
Before the trial, prosecutors offered Lynch a plea deal offer that would have required a year in jail.
In closing arguments, prosecutors urged the jury to refrain from being swayed by Lynch's emotional testimony describing the alleged childhood trauma he claimed to have endured at the hands of Lindner.
After the verdict, Jim Muyo, a spokesman for the California Province of the Society of Jesus, released a statement saying they respect "the legal process and the findings of the judge and jury in the case of William Lynch."Germany on Wednesday became the first European nation to offer birth registration options outside of traditional gender labels, The Telegraph reported.
The Federal Constitutional Court ruled that restricting identity registration to binary gender labels is discriminatory against individuals who do not fall in the categories of “male” or “female.”
The case was brought forward by an “intersex” individual, after many lower courts denied their request to include “inter” and “various” as identifiers at birth. The top court ruled in favor of the individual, who was registered as female at birth, despite a chromosomal analysis that revealed neither male nor female biology.
According to the Court’s Wednesday ruling, legislators must pass a new regulation by the end of 2018, which offers the third gender option of “intersex.”
TRANSGENDER WOMAN WINS VIRGINIA HOUSE SEAT IN HISTORIC VICTORY
The Intersex Society of North America defines intersex as “a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.”
The broad term applies to individuals who have features that are neither wholly male nor wholly female. These individuals often have sex traits, such as genitals or chromosomes that do not fit exclusively in the gender categories of “male” or “female.”
The City of Berlin has already pledged to comply with the new ruling.
“The government stands ready to implement it,” Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth said.
Many in Germany are celebrating the ruling, including the activist group ‘Third Option.’
TRANSGENDER LESSON GETS NEW YORK 7TH-GRADE TEACHER SUSPENDED
“We are completely overwhelmed and speechless,” Third Option wrote on Twitter. “That’s a small revolution in the gender area.”
The United Nations says between 0.05 and 1.7 percent of the global population are intersex.
Those who favor the ruling say it is designed to prevent parents from having to make rash decisions regarding gender or gender re-assignment surgeries at birth.
Germany joins a short list of countries, including Australia, India, New Zealand and Nepal that already recognize intersex identity on official documents.
Last year, the United States issued its first intersex birth certificate in New York City.We know you love privacy, Judge Posner. We just wish you'd share.
As I wrote yesterday, 7th circuit judge Richard Posner's views on privacy (basically: "nothing to fear, nothing to hide" and "it should be illegal to made a phone the government can't search") are dismal and unsophisticated -- but they're also deeply hypocritical.
That's because Posner is the judge who argued against police bodycams because "Once all this stuff can be recorded, there’s going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers... it is a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy."
And because Posner is the judge who blacked out the name of his trust on his financial disclosure form.
We know you love privacy, Judge Posner. We just wish you'd share.
Even worse, as Glenn Greenwald reminds us, Judge Posner is a complete and total hypocrite on this issue -- in a 2011 case concerning whether or not citizens have a First Amendment right to film the police, Posner was suddenly worried about the police's right to privacy: JUDGE POSNER: Once all this stuff can be recorded, there’s going to be a lot more of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers. ACLU attorney Richard O’Brien: Is that a bad thing, your honor?
JUDGE POSNER: Yes, it is a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy.
Judge Posner Says NSA Should Be Able To Get Everything & That Privacy Is Overrated [Mike Masnick/Techdirt]Arsenal have contacted Olympiakos to discuss the availability of Greece centre-back Kostas Manolas, sources have told ESPN FC.
Manolas, 23, caught the eye at this summer's World Cup in Brazil, as he played a key role in a Greek side that came within touching distance of place in the quarterfinals, before they lost out to Costa Rica in a penalty shootout.
Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has confirmed that he is looking to add strength in depth to his defensive options as he looks to fill a void in his squad created by Thomas Vermaelen's departure to Barcelona.
"If [Calum] Chambers goes into midfield, we are short at the back," said Wenger, who has previously hinted he is keen to sign a central defender. "If we find somebody, we will do it."
ESPN FC sources suggest Arsenal's working relationship with Olympiakos is strong following the successful loan move of striker Joel Campbell to the Greek club last season, but the Gunners have competition for the signature of Manolas.
"We are not willing to negotiate his sale for less than eight million pounds," Olympiakos strategic advisor and former Real Madrid midfielder Christian Karembeu told reporters.
"We have not set a deadline for clubs to bid but, if we receive the right offer, we're willing to sell him. Otherwise, we will keep him.
"Juventus are interested and have made a sound offer. They are not the only ones interested in him, though. In the last few days, interesting proposals have also arrived from England."
A stumbling block in the deal may be Manolas' eagerness to be a first-team regular at his next club, with the settled Arsenal centre-back pairing of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny set to resume their successful partnership.Hillary Clinton denied leaking the photo of Barack Obama wearing a turban, but her campaign manager says that even if she had, it would be no big deal. "Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."
Sure she did. And George Bush put on a poncho in Santiago, while Paul Wolfowitz burned up YouTube with his anti-malarial African dance routines while World Bank president. The obvious difference is this: when white politicians go ethnic, they look funny; when a black presidential contender does it, he looks foreign - and when the ethnic apparel in question is vaguely reminiscent of the clothing worn by Iraqi and Afghan fighters (at least to many Fox viewers, who think any headdress other than a baseball cap is a declaration of war on America), the image is downright frightening.
The turban "scandal" is all part of what is being referred to as "the Muslim smear". It includes everything from exaggerated enunciations of Obama's middle name (Hussein) to the online whisper campaign that Obama attended a fundamentalist madrasa in Indonesia (a lie), was sworn in on a Qur'an (another lie), and if elected would attach speakers to the White House to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer (I made that one up).
So far Obama's campaign has responded with aggressive corrections that tout his Christian faith, attack the attackers and channel a cooperative witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee. "Barack has never been a Muslim or practised any other faith besides Christianity," states one fact sheet. "I'm not and never have been of the Muslim faith," Obama told a Christian News reporter.
Of course Obama must correct the record, but he doesn't have to stop there. What is disturbing about the campaign's response is that it leaves unchallenged the disgraceful and racist premise behind the entire "Muslim smear": that being Muslim is de facto a source of shame. Obama's supporters often say they are being "Swift-boated" (a pejorative term derived from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against the 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry), casually accepting the idea that being accused of Muslimhood is tantamount to being accused of treason.
Substitute another faith or ethnicity, and you'd expect a very different response. Consider a report from the archives of the Nation. Thirteen years ago Daniel Singer, the magazine's late Europe correspondent, went to Poland to cover a presidential election. He reported that the race had descended into an ugly debate over whether one of the candidates, Aleksander Kwasniewski, was a closet Jew. The press claimed his mother was buried in a Jewish cemetery (she was still alive), and a popular TV show aired a skit featuring the Christian candidate dressed as a Hassidic Jew. "What perturbed me," Singer said, "was that Kwasniewski's lawyers threatened to sue for slander rather than press for an indictment under the law condemning racist propaganda".
We should expect no less of the Obama campaign. When asked during the Ohio debate about Louis Farrakhan's support for his candidacy, Obama did not hesitate to call Farrakhan's antisemitic comments "unacceptable and reprehensible". When the turban photo flap came up in the same debate, he used the occasion to say nothing at all.
Farrakhan's infamous comments about Jews took place 24 years ago. The orgy of hate that is the "Muslim smear" is unfolding in real time, and it promises to greatly intensify in a general election. These attacks do not simply "smear Barack's Christian faith", as John Kerry claimed in a campaign mailing. They are an attack on all Muslims, some of whom actually do exercise their rights to cover their heads and send their kids to religious school. Thousands even have the very common name Hussein. All are watching their culture used as a crude bludgeon against Obama, while the candidate who is the symbol of racial harmony fails to defend them - this at a time when US Muslims are bearing the brunt of the Bush administration's assaults on civil liberties, including dragnet wiretapping, and are facing a documented spike in hate crimes.
Occasionally, though not nearly enough, Obama says that Muslims are "deserving of respect and dignity". What he has never done is what Singer called for in Poland: denounce the attacks themselves as racist propaganda, in this case against Muslims.
The core of Obama's candidacy is that he alone - having lived in Indonesia as a boy and with an African grandmother - can "repair the world" after the Bush wrecking ball. That repair job begins with the 1.4 billion Muslims around the world, many convinced that the US has been waging a war against their faith. This perception is based on facts, among them the fact that Muslim civilians are not counted among the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan; that Islam has been desecrated in US-run prisons; and that voting for an Islamist party resulted in collective punishment in Gaza. It is also fuelled by the rise of a virulent strain of Islamophobia in Europe and North America.
As the most visible target of this rising racism, Obama has the power to be more than its victim. He can use the attacks to begin the very process of global repair that is the most seductive promise of his campaign. The next time he's asked about his alleged Muslimness, Obama can respond not just by clarifying the facts but by turning the tables. He can state that while a liaison with a pharmaceutical lobbyist may be worthy of scandalised exposure, being a Muslim is not. Changing the terms of the debate this way is not only morally just but tactically smart - it's the one response that could defuse these hateful attacks. The best part is this: unlike ending the Iraq war and closing Guantánamo, standing up to Islamophobia doesn't need to wait until after the election. Obama can use his campaign to start now. Let the repairing begin.
A version of this article appears in the Nation (thenation.com) naomiklein.orgSelling a big urban idea isn't easy. More than ever, architects rely on jaw-dropping images to convince their clients to spend millions on their projects. And to do it, they fill their fantastical renderings with people — people who have a story all their own.
These denizens of the designed future are the subject of Designing People, a show that's up through May 19 at the Environmental Design Archives at the University of California Berkeley. From refined watercolours of the early 1900s to today's fantastical landscapes, the architectural rendering has evolved from an elegant illustration to a high-tech marketing tool, and the people populating them have evolved as well.
Using people to sell buildings
Donald Reay (renderer), Ocean Park Towers and Terrace Apartments, Santa Monica, CA, 1961, Vernon DeMars Collection; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
After arriving at Berkeley's archives 17 years ago, co-curator Waverly Lowell found herself tucking away intriguing architectural drawings as she stumbled upon them, especially ones which incorporated an usual aesthetic. With her fellow curator Christina Marino, she quickly realised there wasn't much available in books about the history of the people who populated these drawings — not even an agreed-upon term, although Lowell prefers "scalie", since the human forms were originally inserted into renderings simply to show scale.
But each rendering told a story, which was largely due to its inhabitants. "We started realising there is all kinds of information in these drawings once you start paying attention," says Lowell.
UCSC Kresege College, Santa Cruz, CA, 1966, William Turnbull / MLTW Collection; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
The "scalies" themselves reveal much about prevailing social norms. Many of the images in Designing People are from the midcentury modern era and it's not just the fashion that reveals current trends. You'll find that starkly divided gender roles are prevalent: Men are in the living room, women in the kitchen. Golfers are a running theme, especially if the project was hoping to look high-class.
The drawings were illustrating the architecture, says Lowell, but it was the people who were marketing an aspirational lifestyle. "They were selling the idea to the client."
Back when architectural drawings were art
Board of Home Missions & Methodist Episcopal Church Extension, Chinese Mission. Henry H. Meyers Collection; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
At one point in architectural history, renderings were as beautiful as the buildings they would become. Architects hired illustrators to take their blueprints and romanticise them. Frank Lloyd Wright's drawings, for example, were legendary for their lush, Japanese aesthetic (which were almost all created by one woman, Marion Mahony Griffin).
Unidentified Project, n.d. Tallie Maule Collection; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
Slowly, these watercolours and pencil drawings began to include people, but even then, it was often in these unnaturally posed, highly stylised ways. People were added as abstract forms with the same look and feel as the building itself. Modernist project drawings, for example, might include geometric silhouettes.
"Biomorphic Man", Garrett Eckbo Collection; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
It was changing technology that quickly influenced exactly how people were depicted in drawings. Over the years, artists strived for more realism, says Lowell, adding cardboard-mounted cut-out photos to 3D models and photographing them, "a kind of pre-Photoshop Photoshop."
Photographs of actual people were used in models such as this one from Ray Lifchez's design class; courtesy Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley
Soon, as the market demanded more than vague sketches, the only acceptable inhabitants of renderings would be photo-quality humans, with no nuance whatsoever.
One reason you'll see kayakers in renderings
BIG's proposal for a St Petersburg, Florida pier includes balloons, although no one really knows why
In the last few years, architectural renderings have undergone a strange revolution, becoming almost over-the-top parodies of themselves. Architizer has a funny series where they look at the odd choices architects make in their renderings. The Architect's Newspaper also ran an excellent piece looking at emerging trends in renderings, from kayaks to fireworks to butterflies. Recently, San Francisco Chronicle architecture critic John King brilliantly annotated renderings for the city, pointing out their stereotypical details.
There's a reason for these bizarre, nonsensical additions — ooooh, balloons! — to these future landscapes. Architecture is becoming less about a single walled-off phallus on the horizon, and more about parks and public spaces which engage with the city. As these types of projects evolve, they're not as much about bombastic design as they are about community-focused improvements, so the people and how they're actually using the space become even more important.
Rendering for DC's proposed 11th Street Bridge Park by OLIN and OMA. Note the kayak!
Today, even if the plans themselves are half-baked, you'll rarely see a hand-drawn person. People need to see people — faces, expressions, clothing, lifestyles that they immediately identify with. They need to see representations of themselves. This has led to a whole new way of snapping up the appropriate humans.
The rise of the "hipster scalie"
At a site like Architecture People, $US5 gets you cut-out image files of 52 people.
So where do these people come from now? For architects, the process of collecting their "entourage" used to begin in architecture school. Scanned JPGs of people, cut out from magazines or newspapers like so many paper dolls, might be handed down from teachers to students. But the internet has changed all that. Now you can entrust a stock photography company to hire models posing as on-the-nose characters. Bundles of "Single Casual People" can be had for $US50 or more.
But these oh-so-perfect people are also why this kind of stock photography won't cut it for many projects. Most of it looks too staged, its scalies far too plastic to seem like real, relatable citizens out on the streets. Architects are increasingly on the hunt for ambiguous, diverse, but ultimately believable people.
Enter the industrious entrepreneurs who scour the internet for Creative Commons-licensed images of people which can be clipped out of the surrounding background. Now you can easily snap up images like "hipster leaning on wall" from sites like Easy Entourage, cleared for all rights.
The Easy Entourage Tumblr showcases one-off CC-licensed images. " People Walking on Beach" from Immediate Entourage are just regular folk
Then there are the entourage services which offer an almost artisanal touch. Swedish architecture student Teodor Javanaud Emdén didn't like the quality of people he was finding on the internet for his own projects, so he started photographing friends. The result is Skalgubbar, a free website with plenty of young, well-dressed folks, often engaging in rendering-friendly activities like biking.
Skalgubbar, is new — about a year old — but already it's been featured in plenty of major projects, even ones that we've written about here on Gizmodo.
What's most fun about Emdén's site is that he's one of the few entourage providers who actually collects the examples of his people out in the wild. But this highlights another problem with certain "people" becoming popular. Already, some of Emdén's characters have become too recognisable.
Can you find "seated girl enjoying coffee in white dress" in these two renderings, one from Selgas Cano & Urban Design (top) and one from GRAFT (top)?
Just looking through Skalgubbar's archives, you really do start to see how many firms are really using the same people over and over and over. It's kind of a shame.
At one time, architectural renderings had such distinctive styles, which included the look of the people within them. Now, in their search for such a relatable, universal aesthetic, architects have managed to make their renderings all look alike.Nintendo announced Tatsumi Kimishima as its new president earlier today. In a followup piece from Japanese outlet Nikkei, Kimishima shared a few comments through an interview. Nikkei also provides the following information about him:
– Personality is described as “soft and friendly”
– According to the Nikkei, Kimishima predicted Wii U’s failure when it was introduced by warning it was too similar to the original Wii
– Despite his business background, he is quoted as saying it’s wrong to lead a gaming company on numbers alone
– The Nikkei claims Kimishima wasn’t Iwata’s favorite choice
– Nintendo was first looking for somebody younger but didn’t have the personnel
– The article also suggests the troika was a rushed decision because the holiday season, where Nintendo makes 50%+ of sales, is near
– Accordingly, Kimishima is quoted as saying one task for him will be to develop the next group leadership structure for Nintendo
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PocketDefending the Slumlord
by Walter Block by Walter Block Recently by Walter Block: Defending the Speculator
Excerpted from Defending the Undefendable. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download.
To many people, the slumlord — alias ghetto landlord and rent gouger — is proof that man can, while still alive, attain a satanic image. Recipient of vile curses, pincushion for needle-bearing tenants with a penchant for voodoo, perceived as exploiter of the downtrodden, the slumlord is surely one of the most hated figures of the day.
The indictment is manifold: he charges unconscionably high rents; he allows his buildings to fall into disrepair; his apartments are painted with cheap lead paint, which poisons babies, and he allows junkies, rapists, and drunks to harass the tenants. The falling plaster, the overflowing garbage, the omnipresent roaches, the leaky plumbing, the roof cave-ins and the fires, are all integral parts of the slumlord’s domain. And the only creatures who thrive in his premises are the rats.
The indictment, highly charged though it is, is spurious. The owner of ghetto housing differs little from any other purveyor of low-cost merchandise. In fact, he is no different from any purveyor of any kind of merchandise. They all charge as much as they can.
First consider the purveyors of cheap, inferior, and secondhand merchandise as a class. One thing above all else stands out about merchandise they buy and sell: it is cheaply built, inferior in quality, or secondhand. A rational person would not expect high quality, exquisite workmanship, or superior new merchandise at bargain rate prices; he would not feel outraged and cheated if bargain rate merchandise proved to have only bargain rate qualities. Our expectations from margarine are not those of butter. We are satisfied with lesser qualities from a used car than from a new car. However, when it comes to housing, especially in the urban setting, people expect, even insist upon, quality housing at bargain prices.
But what of the claim that the slumlord overcharges for his decrepit housing? This is erroneous. Everyone tries to obtain the highest price possible for what he produces, and to pay the lowest price possible for what he buys. Landlords operate this way, as do workers, minority group members, socialists, babysitters, and communal farmers. Even widows and pensioners who save their money for an emergency try to get the highest interest rates possible for their savings.
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:00 PM 3320 0.5 TANGLED DSNY 4:50 PM 2142 0.5 FOUR CHRISTMASES TBSC 8:00 PM 1204 0.5 LIBRARIANS, THE TNT 8:00 PM 2021 0.5 AMERICAN DAD ADSM 2:00 AM 931 0.5 NFL INSIDERS: SUNDAY L ESPN 10:00 AM 1199 0.5 HOLIDAY BAKING CHAMPION 2 FOOD 9:00 PM 1818 0.5 BOBS BURGERS ADSM 9:30 PM 1135 0.5 WALKING DEAD MARATHON AMC 7:00 PM 1253 0.5 SPONGEBOB NICK 10:30 AM 1830 0.5 SOUL TRAIN AWARDS BET 11:00 PM 1225 0.5 HALL ORIGINAL MOVIE HALL 2:00 PM 2223 0.5 SUNDAY MOVIE FAM 5:30 PM 1354 0.5 HALL ORIGINAL MOVIE HALL 6:00 PM 2463 0.5 TANGLED DSNY 8:40 PM 2032 0.5 RICK & MORTY ADSM 3:30 AM 882 0.5 HOMELAND S5 SHO1 9:03 PM 1420 0.5 SPONGEBOB NICK 10:00 AM 1778 0.5 SOUL TRAIN AWARDS PRESHOW BET 7:00 PM 1214 0.5 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 6:27 PM 1133 0.5 SPONGEBOB NICK 9:30 AM 1545 0.5 90 DAY FIANCE TLC 9:00 PM 1353 0.5 REAL HOUSEWIVES ATLANTA BRVO 7:00 PM 913 0.5 YOUR PRETTY FACE/HELL-11/29/2015 ADSM 12:45 AM 862 0.5 BOBS BURGERS ADSM 1:00 AM 854 0.5 ALASKA: THE LAST FRONTIER DISC 8:00 PM 1989 0.4 GUYS GROCERY GAMES FOOD 8:00 PM 1308 0.4 JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS NICK 11:00 AM 1587 0.4 FX MOVIE PRIME FX 8:00 PM 1086 0.4 ALVINNN!!! AND THE CHIPMU NICK 8:30 AM 1450 0.4 ROBOT CHICKEN ADSM 4:00 AM 793 0.4 ALVINNN!!! AND THE CHIPMU NICK 9:00 AM 1535 0.4 KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERV HBOM 6:45 PM 928 0.4 SPORTSCENTER WEEKEND ESPN 9:00 AM 910 0.4 LEFTOVERS, THE HBOM 9:01 PM 861 0.4 TALKING DEAD AMC 1:02 AM 765 0.4 MIKE TYSON MYSTERIES ADSM 4:15 AM 766 0.4 HALLMARK MOVIE HALL 12:00 PM 1611 0.4 SPONGEBOB NICK 3:00 PM 1606 0.4 ALVINNN!!! AND THE CHIPMU NICK 8:00 AM 1244 0.4 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 5:54 PM 949 0.4 AQUA TEEN HUNGER FOREVER ADSM 4:30 AM 742 0.4 ALVINNN!!! AND THE CHIPMU NICK 4:00 PM 1536 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 11:30 AM 1460 0.4 TNT SUNDAY MOVIES TNT 5:30 PM 977 0.4 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 10:45 AM 855 0.4 PROPERTY BROTHERS (1 HR) HGTV 7:00 PM 1653 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 10:00 AM 1382 0.4 BOBS BURGERS ADSM 9:00 PM 972 0.4 FRIENDS NAN 12:34 AM 827 0.4 CUTTHROAT KITCHEN FOOD 10:00 PM 986 0.4 GEORGE LOPEZ NAN 6:00 AM 797 0.4 FRIENDS NAN 12:00 AM 868 0.4 PROPERTY BROTHERS (1 HR) HGTV 5:00 PM 1588 0.4 PROPERTY BROTHERS (1 HR) HGTV 6:00 PM 1423 0.4 HALLMARK MOVIE HALL 10:00 PM 1855 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 6:00 AM 907 0.4 GEORGE LOPEZ NAN 6:30 AM 790 0.4 FOUR CHRISTMASES TBSC 10:00 PM 756 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 9:30 AM 1397 0.4 SPONGEBOB NICK 7:00 AM 891 0.4 SPORTSCENTER 1AM L ESPN 1:00 AM 712 0.4 AX MEN HIST 9:00 PM 1334 0.4 TRANSFORMERS:ROBOTS/DISGU TOON 6:30 AM 954 0.4 POKEMON THE SERIES XY TOON 7:00 AM 945 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 11:00 AM 1373 0.4 TEEN TITANS GO TOON 9:00 AM 1329 0.4 SUNDAY MOVIE FAM 11:30 AM 987 0.4 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 5:21 PM 870 0.4 KING OF THE HILL ADSM 5:00 AM 687 0.4 NCIS USA 5:00 PM 1926 0.4 REAL HOUSEWIVES ATLANTA BRVO 9:00 PM 947 0.4 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 11:51 AM 783 0.4 HOUSE OF PAYNE BET 10:12 AM 846 0.4 WALKING DEAD MARATHON AMC 6:00 PM 890 0.3
Source: The Nielsen Company.The scenarios modelled for the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report assume the large-scale deployment of technologies that achieve negative emissions that draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and permanently store it. But whether such proposed methods could be deployed at a material scale is unproven. It would be more prudent to exclude these techniques from mitigation scenarios used by the IPCC, unless and until we have sufficient evidence of their availability and viability to support their inclusion.
Most of the modelled emissions pathways limiting warming to 2 °C (and all the ones that restrict the rise to 1.5 °C) require massive deployment of Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS). This involves growing biomass which is used to generate power and geologically sequestering the carbon dioxide produced. While the constituent steps of this process have been demonstrated, there are but a few, small, examples of the combined process. To rely on this technique to deliver us from climate change is to demonstrate a degree of faith that is out of keeping with scientific rigour.
There is a distinct lack of evidence to determine whether BECCS is technically feasible, economically affordable, environmentally benign, socially acceptable and politically viable at a material scale. Technically, there are serious doubts about the ability to sequester the vast quantities of carbon dioxide that are implied in the models. Economically, without a substantial carbon price, the costs would be much higher than competing power-generation technologies. Environmentally, growing such volumes of biomass would have profound effects on biodiversity. Socially, the use of land for BECCS would restrict agriculture – contributing to substantial increases in food prices; while politically, the issue seems so toxic that the Paris Agreement carefully avoided mentioning negative emissions at all. Such impacts would not be material were BECCS to be deployed at a small scale, but the economic scenarios consistent with 1.5 °C (or even 2°C) assume that BECCS is deployed at a truly gargantuan scale, at which these adverse impacts would indeed be material.
For a technology to be deployable it needs not only to work, but also to possess a social licence to operate. For example, that Germany possesses the technical ability and financial means to build new nuclear power plants is not in question, but lacking the social and political will to do so makes the point moot.
The IPCC’s own scenario database suggests that the ambition of the Paris Agreement cannot be achieved without negative emissions technologies. Even with rapid decarbonisation, there will be a need to achieve net negative emissions during the second half of this century. That objective cannot be achieved from a standing start. Well-functioning methods would need to be developed and rolled out at a rate unprecedented in human history. Yet to model what you want to happen, rather than what there is evidence could happen, is to lose the thread of reality. It is redolent of a defeated leader issuing orders to armies that have long since ceased to exist – not so much vision, as delusion.
Should modellers be able to model what they like? Of course. Scenarios allow us to undertake useful thought experiments that provide us with the means to assess potentially novel approaches.
But it is hazardous to rely on science fiction in the development of the scenarios that are used to inform policymakers. To include scenarios for avoiding dangerous climate change that employ entirely speculative approaches seems reckless in the extreme.
Some will defend the use of these technological imaginaries in IPCC scenarios by arguing that without them hopes of avoiding dangerous climate change are forlorn and that this would generate a degree of despair that would undermine the will to act.
But that is not the role of models. “Fake it ‘til you make it” may work as a tactic, but it is a lousy strategy. As the dust settles on the Paris Agreement and policymakers face up to the challenge of achieving the ambition set out by their leaders, we need to reflect on what actually needs to happen. Policymakers can only hope to develop realistic plans, if the basis on which they are making those plans is itself realistic. While the boundary between ambition and delusion may be not be entirely sharp, the inclusion of negative emissions amounting to 600-800 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (equivalent to 15-20 years of current annual emissions) is clearly more than a stretch goal. For this reason, negative emission techniques should be excluded from the mitigation scenarios used by the IPCC unless and until there is sufficient evidence to warrant their inclusion and then only on a scale that is demonstrably realistic.
The IPCC recently announced a Special Report on the 1.5 °C target. To be credible, this must include detailed assessment of proposed negative emission techniques, drawing on a wide range of expertise from natural sciences, engineering, social sciences and the humanities to assess to what extent, if any, such approaches could be deployed without creating countervailing side-effects.
On the basis of such a comprehensive assessment, policy makers will then have to make an explicit decision either to invest in the necessary research, development and demonstration of the technologies or to explain how they propose to meet their ambitious targets without such interventions. Policymakers cannot be allowed to hide behind the vague language of the Paris Agreement (“achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases”).
In the absence of comprehensive research and indications of political feasibility, it seems prudent to exclude from the models what is currently magical thinking. Only by undertaking research will it be possible to determine whether today’s science fiction could be transformed into tomorrow’s science reality.
Tim Kruger is a James Martin Fellow at Oxford University and manages the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. Oliver Geden is head of EU division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). Steve Rayner is James Martin Professor of Science and Civilization and Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at Oxford University.In this video of her interview with John Stosell, Ann Coulter says many objectionable things…
…but the worst is probably that we shouldn’t even talk about drug legalization until the welfare state is dismantled. That’s bad enough in and of itself, but it’s even worse given that conservatives don’t want to dismantle the welfare state, but rather merely to shape it in their image. Hence, on her approach, the gross injustices and dangerous police state engendered by the War on Drugs will go on and on forever.
Conservatives say the same in opposition to immigration reform too — with similar results. I discussed that view on the this February 2013 episode of Philosophy in Action Radio. If you’ve not yet heard it, you can listen to or download the podcast here:
The road to hell is paved with such conditional defenses of liberty, which are really just rationalizations for statism.Rasmus Ristolainen: 2013 First Rounders (And Where They Are Now)
Rasmus Ristolainen: 2013 First Rounders (And Where They Are Now) by Catherine Silverman
for big hits/contact that occur away from the head and neck.
The new rules also institute a broader use of video replay, including plays that may have been offside, as well as potential too many men on the ice penalties. Video review can also now be used to see if a goal was scored before a penalty was called.
The actual video’s that referees will be looking at will change as well, as they will now be allowed to review any video source made available to them, rather than just television broadcasts (so fans, bring your cameras and help your teams!)… (just kidding).
Here are the rest of the rule changes headed to college rinks this fall, courtesy of USCHO.comFinger drumming is an under-appreciated art. Any hip-hop head can plug notes into a beat machine. But it takes a true master to do it live — and do it well.
Jeff Logan, aka Jel, the 37-year-old co-founder of L.A.-based hip-hop label Anticon, has been tap-tap-tapping out beats in real time for over 20 years. He started out in the mid-'90s, spending a year and a half saving up to buy an E-mu SP-1200, a classic sampler first issued in 1987 that was adopted by everyone from RZA to Ultramagnetic MCs throughout the late '80s and '90s.
In the years since, he's honed his sound to the point where he's essentially become a Mr. Miyagi of the beat machine, balancing technical breaks with beautiful textures and lots of soul.
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“It is second nature, really,” he says. “I haven’t really practiced for a show in the past year or two. I just get up there.”
Jel is probably best known for his work with Anticon-affiliated groups like Subtle, 13 & God and Themselves, his duo with motor-mouthed rapper Doseone. But he’s also a prolific solo artist, and this week he’s celebrating the release of Greenball 5, the latest in a series of beat tapes he’s been putting out since 2002. The album — available for download on Bandcamp — offers up two original tracks, plus the instrumentals for remixes of artists as diverse as Brooklyn pop bruisers Sleigh Bells and Bay Area hip-hop group Latyrx.
For a remix of “Blurry Up the Lines” by choral rock group The Polyphonic Spree, Jel created his own robotic beat, replete with buzzing sci-fi movie synths. “I just chopped up all of his vocals and relayed them in a different rhythm, kind of half-timed everything,” he says.
“I usually just do whatever I want, unless someone has a specific thing in mind that they ask me to do,” he adds, explaining his remixing approach. “I just try to make it sound completely different from the original.”
Jel lives in El Cerrito, outside San Francisco, but Anticon is headquartered in downtown L.A. The collective came together in 1998 and has gone through major iterations over the years. But even with its niche specialty in avant-garde rap and experimental electronic music, it’s weathered the industry upheavals of recent years well. The 2010s have been particularly fruitful, with the label helping build the legend of Serengeti’s Kenny Dennis alter ego and propelling the career of local beatmaker Baths.
Anticon’s enduring success probably has something to do with the fact that it has always had a strong online presence, Jel says. He remembers spending hours on hip-hop message boards back in the day, connecting with other artists and partaking in endless shit talk while working a dead-end desk job at the Charles Schwab offices in San Francisco.
“I think we were ahead of the game in a way — online, pushing our shit. [That’s] the reason how most people found us, if it wasn’t through a tape trade or something,” he says.
After work, he’d spend hours honing his finger-drumming skills. He devoted himself to the craft while he was in college in Chicago, after getting some sobering advice from a girl he was dating. “I was playing a bunch of beats that I was making for these rappers, and she was like, ‘All of this sounds good but your drums all sound the same,’” he says. “I was like, ‘Oh, shit.’”
With his friend Mr. Dibbs, a Cincinnati hip-hop producer who led the 1200 Hobos turntablist crew, Jel would dig up breaks and samples and archive his finds, making lists and trading loops. The buttons on his SP-1200 started flying off from all his playing, so he moved to the Akai MPC, and it wasn't long before he was driving his roommate crazy with endless hours of tapping on the MPC's rubber pads.
“I’d be doing some weird breathing thing too, just humming shit when I was in headphones working on stuff,” he says. “He would be upstairs, like, ‘Come on, man! You’re fucking clicking and humming down there!’”
Today, the great sensei says it’s hard to explain his technique; he’s been doing it so long that it just comes to him. But for pupils who aspire to be finger-drummers themselves, he speaks highly of using a machine over software and simulators, and also encourages changing up styles if you sound like somebody else — which is all-too-common in this age of ubiquitous DJing and beat-smithery.
As for his final lesson, it's simple: “You gotta love your beats."
Jel celebrates the release of Greenball 5 with AWOL ONE, Giovanni Marks and Omid Walizadeh at The Satellite on Thursday, March 19. More info.
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The 20 Best Hip-Hop Songs in History
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Becoming Riff Raff: How a White Suburban Kid Morphed Into Today's Most Enigmatic RapperWhile the McCain-Palin Campaign continues to misrepresent Barack Obama's $1000 middle class tax cut proposal by falsely claiming that he will raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year, it was actually Sarah Palin who ran on a sales tax platform for her town of Wasilla while running for city council.
Palin supported a 2% city sales tax which hit every citizen including children anytime they purchased anything including candy or toys. And Palin grew the city budget from $4 million to $6 million for a town of just over 9,000 persons. When Palin planned to run for governor, she lowered the city sales tax to 0.5%. Since the state of Alaska does not levy a sales tax, Palin's city sales tax was the only one of it's type in the state.
Palin also lured low wage big box stores like Wal-Mart to the town. Generally these big box low wage stores tend destroy many small businesses and replace many higher wage jobs with minimum wage jobs. Because of the high cost of living, the average wage in Alaska state is $832. However in Palin's Wasilla wages lagged far behind at just $652, or around 25% less than the state average. How many families could survive with a 25% wage cut?
Another serious area of Palin failure as mayor was a crime rate in Wasilla nearly three times the statewide average rate.
Under Palin crime was high, as were taxes, and Wal-Mart helped to make wages about 25% below the statewide average. On paper it sure doesn't look very attractive at all. This is some record of achievement to run on? Is this how Palin would run the U.S. if she became president. The thought is chilling and the facts sobering.
It is little wonder that Palin is ducking from reporters and has so far only allowed just one interview to a reporter. Palin is the most closely controlled vice presidential candidate in the history of the U.S. Palin sold the state jet at a $600,000 loss to the taxpayers. Palin continues to confuse voters over two different "bridge to nowhere"projects.
And Palin's performance as mayor of tiny Wasilla wasn't stellar either. No wonder the McCain Campaign is keeping her under wraps in tightly controlled appearances only. Palin is a mythical entity just like the unicorn.Paul Krugman (Screenshot)
New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman believes there are only two ways Donald Trump’s presidency can end: Either with his resignation, or the death of democracy.
In a tweet storm posted on Tuesday morning that analyzed the events of the past few days — such as the anti-immigration executive order that sparked chaos last weekend and the president’s continued assault on media outlets who don’t give him positive coverage — Krugman said that there was simply no way that a president with Trump’s authoritarian tendencies can coexist with our constitutional republic.
In other words, writes Krugman, either Trump goes or our democracy does.
“Given the rate at which things are coming to a head, “President Trump” — the sort-of legitimate head of a republic — won’t last long,” Krugman writes. “Either he or the republic, in any meaningful sense, will be gone quite soon. I have a hard time seeing one year, let alone four.”
What this means, Krugman says, is that absolutely no one should collaborate with Trump — even if they happen to agree with him on a particular issue. The threat to democracy that Trump represents, according to Krugman, is too great to risk giving him legitimacy.
“Anyone considering working for or with this White House — Senators, officials, businessmen — shouldn’t,” he concludes. “Either you’re going to go down with a disgraced president, or you’re going to be complicit in the death of democracy. Just say no.”
The whole tweet storm follows below.
Either he or the republic, in any meaningful sense, will be gone quite soon. I have a hard time seeing one year, let alone four 2/ — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 31, 2017Three researchers have decided to honor Edward Snowden by naming a newly discovered species of crayfish after him.
© AP Photo / dpa,Wolfgang Kumm Oliver Stone to Release Movie Based on First Book in Snowden Trilogy
The newly identified species hails from the West Papau region of Indonesia, and is exported to Europe, East Asia, and North America, as a popular pet for crayfish enthusiasts. Due to the color of its pinchers, many have referred to the crustacean by the name "orange tip," or "green orange tip."
According to German researcher Christian Lukhaup and his two colleagues, the crayfish has been frequently misidentified as a similar species, and so they decided to give it a new name: Cherax Snowden.
"The new species is named after American freedom fighter Edward Joseph Snowden," they wrote in a study published in the journal ZooKeys. "He is honored due to his extraordinary achievements in defense of justice, and freedom."
Lukhaup, who has named other species before, told the Washington Post that the motivation behind the name came from his support for the former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower.
"After describing a couple of news species, I thought about naming one after Edward Snowden because he really impresses me," he said. "We have so many species named after other famous people who probably don’t do so much for humanity. I wanted to show support for Edward Snowden. I think what he did is something very special."
© REUTERS / Glenn Greenwald/Laura Poitras/Courtesy of the Guardian NSA Whistleblower Snowden Has No Plans to Leave Russia
Aside from a name, the crayfish shares no resemblance to the NSA whistleblower. According to the ZooKeys article, it is about 3-4 inches in length and has distinctive orange and green pincers that made it a popular pet for crustacean enthusiasts.
However, not unlike Snowden who is currently living in asylum in Moscow to avoid prosecution, the crayfish also faces serious risks. The study warned that species’ popularity may pose a serious threat, as its population has greatly decreased in recent years.
"According to local collectors, the populations of the species have been decreasing in the last few years," the study found. "Clearly, the continued collecting of these crayfish for the trade is not a sustainable practice, and if the popularity of the species continues, a conservation management plan will have to be developed, potentially including a captive breeding program."Sales Tax On Precious Metals
With the prevalence of online precious metals dealers these days, people often wonder if they are required to pay sales tax on precious metals purchases, especially purchases made online. Here we will outline some information on this issue for informational purposes only. Nothing contained here should be construed as tax advice, and any questions relating to any tax matters should be directed to your CPA or tax adviser.
Whether or not one must pay sales tax on a precious metals purchase depends on where you are located. Some states require the collection of sales tax while others do not. Some states also may charge sales tax up to a point, and there may be exemptions beyond that point.
For example, a purchase of less than $1,000 may be subject to sales tax but above $1,000 may not be subject to the tax. It is important to also keep in mind that tax laws can change and, therefore, the information contained here is believed to be accurate, but no warranties are being made as to the accuracy. One should always conduct their own due diligence.
At the heart of the matter is whether or not gold, silver and precious metals should be viewed as an investment or even as a currency, or if they are simply just like any other physical property such as clothing, automobiles or furniture. Although it seems that the notion of gold, silver and other precious metals purchases being viewed as an investment and thus not be subject to sales tax may be gaining some traction, many states do, in fact, still charge sales tax on precious metals.
It is important, therefore, to determine if your state charges sales tax on precious metals. The best way to find out about your specific location is to consult your CPA or tax adviser. One can also look to your state’s department of revenue for answers regarding these issues.
Here is a basic guide that outlines some of the states and their policy on precious metals sales tax. For more information, you can view this helpful state by state breakdown.
All Market Updates are provided as a third party analysis and do not necessarily reflect the explicit views of JM Bullion Inc. and should not be construed as financial advice.We all know that art movements come and go; many are clearly pointless and awful (hello, Outer-Art?), some we’re just indifferent to (you know the ones), and then there are the movements that define a generation with their profundity. De Stijl (Dutch for style), without a shadow of a doubt, falls into the latter category.
In 1917, at a time in the post-World War I era when architects and designers were turning their backs on old forms and new and abstract ideas were coming into play, including the incorporation of inspiration from the emerging industrial era, a group of Dutch artists formed De Stijl. The key to De Stijl was creating art that scales down formal components – using only primary colors, plus black and white, and straight lines. The main intention in doing so was to express new artistic ideals of order and harmony by way of reduction to the absolute essentials. De Stijl was a reflection of the emerging trend of the 20th century – the joining of the art and design worlds – that had previously been separated since the Renaissance. The leader of the De Stijl movement was Theo van Doesburg, an eclectic and energetic Dutch painter and designer whose early work is often compared to Vincent Van Gogh’s. Widely considered today as one of the most daring artists of the avant-garde era, in hindsight it’s easy to see how his devotion to pure, abstract art led him to found De Stijl. Doesburg’s artist peers including Piet Mondrian, Vilmos Huszar and Gerrit Rietveld, followed in his footsteps, creating profound pieces that have stood the test of time and influenced subsequent movements in art, design, literature and music. In the modern era for example, Jack White, lead singer of the now defunct band White Stripes, has made it known that he is a huge fan of De Stijl art – so much so that he named the band’s second album after the movement.
You only need to check out Theo van Doesburg’s Arithmetische Compositie, Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair, or The Rietveld Schröder House — the only existing building that adheres to the principles of De Stijl – to see why the movement has been so influential.If your job is to promote tourism in a relatively off-the-radar destination, it helps to have the most successful animated movie of all time on your side. And a free promotional opportunity by the Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) never hurts.
Norway has long had to compete for visitors with more fashionable European locales, but tourism is booming this year in the wake of Disney’s enormously successful “Frozen,” whose fictional snowy setting was inspired by the Scandinavian country. According to Innovation Norway, which promotes tourism in the country, travel to Norway from the United States jumped 37 percent between January and March, compared to the same period last year. Website traffic to VisitNorway.com has tripled since the film’s release in November, and the number of people searching for flights to Norway skyrocketed 153 percent, according to Flight Tracker.
Loosely based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (a Dane, by the way), “Frozen” centers on the relationship between a fearless princess and her estranged sister, and its popularity has been supercharged by the best-selling soundtrack and the hit song “Let It Go.” But Innovation Norway says American viewers are also smitten by the film’s stunning art direction, which presents digital renderings of Norwegian life, including charming stave churches, traditional “bunad” costumes and a sweeping mountainous backdrop.
“It put Norway on the map,” Beate Gran, Innovation Norway’s digital media manager and marketing coordinator, told International Business Times.
Like all things Disney, the destination synergy was more marketing foresight than serendipity. Disney’s guided-tour division, Adventures by Disney, first approached Innovation Norway about a partnership in May 2013, six months before the film’s U.S. theatrical release. Although few could have predicted the runaway phenomenon “Frozen” would become, Hege Barnes, director of Innovation Norway’s New York branch, said her organization didn’t need to wait for box-office numbers before jumping at the chance to align with the Mouse House.
“We saw the opportunity right away,” she said in a phone interview. “Norway is a tiny little destination, relatively unknown in the U.S., so for us to be tied to a world-renowned brand such as Disney was huge.”
Barnes, who grew up in northern Norway, and who claims to have seen “Frozen” too many times to count, said it was clear from advance clips of the film that the filmmakers had done their research. Michael Giaimo, the movie’s art director, traveled to Norway in 2011 and gained much of his inspiration from the city of Bergen, on Norway’s west coast. Barnes said that attention to detail boosted her confidence that the promotion would be a success.
And it is, in almost every measurable sense. Since the “Frozen” landing page was launched on the Visit Norway website in November, it has received more than 270,000 visits, which Barnes said is 10 times what a typical page receives. The movie has also boosted business for Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA, a low-cost carrier with routes from the United States to Oslo. In March 2014, the airline’s passenger traffic increased by 52 percent compared to March 2013.
Photo: Robin Strand/VisitNorway.com
Add it all up, and you have a big win for Norway’s tourism industry, particularly when you consider that Innovation Norway didn’t have to pay a licensing fee to Disney. Barnes characterized the partnership as more of a barter agreement. “They don’t get a dime from us, actually,” Barnes said. “Upon approval, we’re allowed to use the creative elements from ‘Frozen’ in our advertising. We spend a lot of money on advertising, and wherever we put that out, they get a promo for the film.”
Amanda Adler, a spokeswoman for Destination Disney, declined to discuss the terms of the agreement, and Disney does not disclose figures on how well its tours preform. But Adler said there has been “huge interest” in the Norwegian tour, correlating with the runaway success of the movie, which is now the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time, according to Box Office Mojo.
Adventures by Disney, part of Disney’s Parks and Resorts unit, runs guided tours to some 27 destinations, but the Norway package is only the second one tied specifically to a Disney release. The first was a tour to Scotland that centered on the 2012 Disney/Pixar film “Brave,” a fantasy epic set in the Scottish Highlands. Adler called it an experiment of sorts, one that proved so successful that it warranted consideration for future tie-in opportunities.
Photo: Hanna Sender/IBTimes
Although Disney’s animated films begin their development process years before tours are planned, the success with “Frozen” in Norway -- and the possibility of replicating that outcome -- is likely to play at least a small role in choosing future animated projects. Disney’s next Pixar release, “Inside Out,” is set in San Francisco. The film is due out next summer, but Adler would not say if a tour tie-in is being considered.
The future of Innovation Norway’s involvement is also uncertain. The group’s agreement with Disney expires at the end of this month, and Barnes said its continuation will depend in part on whether or not Disney offers to extend it, which so far it hasn’t. But in many ways, the promotion has already served its purpose. “Frozen” is only beginning its life in the Disney-franchise canon. A sequel, while not technically in development yet, is all but inevitable, and a coming stage musical is destined for an extended run on Broadway and in regional theaters across the country. Barnes said if people continue to associate those incarnations with the country that inspired it, then she and her colleagues have done their job. “Our goal was to tie Norway into that,” Barnes said. “We wanted people to see this beautiful movie and Norway together.”
Got a news tip? Email me. Follow me on Twitter @christopherzara.A press release was published this morning on Yahoo! News with a provocative headline declaring that an “Intelligence Institute Study shows Fox News viewers have an IQ that is 20 points lower than the U.S. National average.” The article went on to assert that “Americans who watch Fox News have an average IQ of 80.”
The underlying conclusions of this “study” are affirmed by research conducted by a number of reputable organizations including the University of Maryland, NBC/Wall Street Journal, and the Sunlight Foundation. Unfortunately, this study, and the “Intelligence Institute,” appear to be figments of some prankster’s imagination. There is no evidence that the institute exists and the sole source for the Yahoo! item is a press release that contains no verifiable identifying data.
Nevertheless, the perpetrator of this hoax seems to have a solid grasp on the cognitive capacity of Fox News viewers even if no study was conducted to document it. As noted above, plenty of other real studies arrived at the same conclusions. Here are some key “findings” by the imaginary Intelligence Institute:
The results of a 4 year study show that Americans who obtain their news from Fox News channel have an average IQ of 80, which represents a 20 point deficit when compared to the U.S. national average of 100.
One test involved showing subjects a series of images and measuring their vitals, namely pulse rate and blood pressure. The self-identified conservatives’ vitals increased over 35% when shown complex or shocking images. The image that caused the most stress was a poorly edited picture of President Obama standing next to a “ghostly” image of a child holding a tarantula.
Lead researcher, P. Nichols, explains, “Less intelligent animals rely on instinct when confronted by something which they do not understand. This is an ancient survival reaction all animals, including humans, exhibit. It’s a very simple phenomenon, really; think about a dog being afraid of a vacuum cleaner. He doesn’t know what a vacuum is or if it may harm him, so he becomes agitated and barks at it. Less intelligent humans do the same thing. Concepts that are too complex for them to understand, may frighten or anger them.” He continues, “Fox News’ content is presented at an elementary school level and plays directly into the fears of the less educated and less intelligent.”
The allegation that Fox News exploits their audience’s tendency to voraciously consume absurdly spun tales driven by fear has been documented by researchers at the University College London Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (and yes, that’s real). Conservatives regularly demonstrate their proclivity for barking at the outrageous falsehoods proffered by Fox and other conservative fabulists. Among the university’s findings were that the brains of conservatives are more likely to have an enlarged amygdala which is associated with greater inflexibility, emotion |
While I have no insider information how the Jets feel now, I know for a fact that there was a time where each of the Finns had their group supporters in the organization.
But as the year went on things started to change.
U20 World Juniors
The World Juniors last winter is when the shift first started to happen. Both players played extremely well.
As advertised, Puljujarvi was the better playmaker, with his 8 primary assists, and played a more complete two-way game, while Laine brought on the shot volume and goals.
Puljujarvi lead the tournament in points and assists, was nominated to the All-Star Team, won Best Forward, and Movst Valuable Player, and Top 3 Player for Finland. Laine lead the tournament goals, was tied for second in shots on goal, and was also nominated to the All-Star Team while winning the Top 3 Player for Finland.
Liiga Regular Season
Puljujarvi had a pretty exceptional season. He was one of the top young scorers, played on a dominant team with dominant linemates, posted his team’s best Corsi percentage and 14th best Corsi percentage in the league, and directed 3.5 shots at the oppositions net per game.
Laine though was on a whole another level. Laine point pace was about 28 percent higher. He lead the league for rookies in goals and points, by a significant margin. He also directed a full two more shots at the net than Puljujarvi. While Laine’s Corsi percentage was not as exceptional as Puljujarvi, Laine played on a far weaker team in shot differentials, and his Corsi relative to his team’s average is much higher.
Liiga Post-Season
Interestingly, the two are quite a lot more comparable in the post-season despite the playoffs being where scouts and fans started to separate the two even further. A large part of this was due to Laine’s “big game” moments.
It is true that statistics only show a portion of the story, although a fairly important part of the story. The eye-test though was fairly slanted to the SM-Liiga Champion’s lead goal scorer.
After the combination of the regular and post-season performance, Laine went home with the grand prize while also winning Liiga’s Rookie of the Year and Best Player in Playoffs. Puljujarvi went home with the bronze medal.
Summer Tournaments
Puljujarvi went to Grand Forks to win gold at U18 World Championship. He was a decent player who scored at the fourth highest point per game pace and generated a few shots against his peers. He even was nominated to the All-Star Team from his performance.
Laine, however, lead a men’s tournament in goals, came fourth in points, and first in shots on goal, playing against NHL talents ranging from Pavel Datsyuk, Connor McDavid, Taylor Hall, Gustav Nyquist, Artemi Panarin, Ryan O’Reilly, and Mark Scheifele.
Laine went home with a silver medal instead of the gold, but also was nominated to the All-Star Team, while being named Top 3 Player for Finland, and wining both Best Forward and MVP for the tournament.
Closing thoughts
Both players have been something special, and getting either player would a big long-term addition, of the sort that no already-pretty-decent 5-on-5 side would typically have. Yet here we are. Some bad goaltending and special teams mixed in with a bit of bad luck in the regular season and a lot of good luck in the draft lottery.
Puljujarvi looks to be a potential elite two-way winger that can drive play, setup your goal scorers, and add some secondary scoring himself. Laine looks to be a level above, though, as a game breaking goalscorer and potentially the best shot-volume goalscorer since Alex Ovechkin.
The Jets could use a good player, no matter which one of the two big Finnish winger that may be, but a pure goalscorer is something else altogether. Not only do all indications suggest Laine is the best player available, but the better fit for the organization in terms of their on-ice product.
Looking at prospect models, whether that may be pGPS or the remnants of PCS that I still carry with me, Puljujarvi had a season that makes him out to be a bonafide top-round talent and someone that will likely help his team for a long while. Laine, on the other hand, cannot be described by these models as he is simply too good. He has no statistical comparisons, as he has been too exceptional of a performer with too much size to compare with any players who have come out of Finland before him.
Players in the Liiga like Puljujarvi tend to be great players. Players like Laine have never existed before.
More on Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi:Federal authorities have banned Capital BlueCross from enrolling new customers into its Medicare plans, saying the health insurance company denied some seniors coverage for emergency services and access to prescription drugs, and overcharged about 3,000 enrollees for medications.
In a letter sent last week to company President and CEO Gary D. St. Hilaire, officials from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said an April audit found "widespread and systemic failures" that presented a "serious threat to enrollees' health and safety."
In some cases, for example, CMS said Capital BlueCross failed to collect enough information from enrollees or their doctors to make informed clinical decisions. In other cases, the company — the sixth-largest health insurer in Pennsylvania — failed to explain why it denied coverage to enrollees.
In addition, it said Capital BlueCross failed to perform timely retroactive claims adjustments, resulting in more than 3,000 enrollees being overcharged $27,667 for their medications.
CMS also is prohibiting Capital BlueCross from marketing its Medicare plans, says the letter, issued May 28. The sanctions are immediate and apply only to Capital BlueCross' Medicare operations.
They will remain in place until CMS is satisfied that the problems are addressed and not likely to recur, said the letter's author, Gerard J. Mulcahy, director of the Medicare Parts C and D Oversight and Enforcement Group at CMS.
Capital BlueCross spokesman Joe Butera said the company will not appeal CMS' decision. The company, he said, "is working closely with CMS to remediate the issues as quickly as possible to best serve our members and to have the sanctions lifted.
"We take these matters very seriously and a focused team is working on this important matter. Much work has already been done to remediate some of the audit findings we had expected. We will continue to work to make improvements as expeditiously as possible, putting all the necessary resources of our company behind this effort to help ensure we can meet the needs of our Medicare members and deliver quality and effective coverage."
The sanctions to prohibit new enrollments are infrequently imposed. According to CMS records, the agency has ordered a suspension of enrollment only 18 times in the past five years.
Lorraine Ryan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CMS, said the penalties do not affect current Capital BlueCross customers. She said more than 37,000 people are enrolled in Capital BlueCross' Medicare plans, almost all of whom live in Pennsylvania.
The violations involved appeals and grievances of denials to provide coverage or prescriptions using Medicare Parts C and D. Medicare Part C is usually referred to as Medicare Advantage, which is private coverage separate from traditional Medicare. Part D is Medicare's prescription drug benefit.
According to the letter:
Capital BlueCross inappropriately delayed or denied coverage to seniors at the "point of sale," and when those customers appealed the denial. Those problems forced seniors to pay an undetermined and inappropriate amount of out-of-pocket costs.
Delaying appeals and making improper decisions could keep customers from getting "medically necessary or life-sustaining services or drugs.These failures pose a serious threat to the health and safety of enrollees."
Many of the problems, the letter goes on, "stem from a complete ineffective monitoring and oversight of CBC's Pharmacy Benefit Manager … which is responsible for CBC's coverage determinations."
CVS Caremark is the Pharmacy Benefit Manager for Capital BlueCross.
"We are assisting Capital BlueCross as it works with CMS officials to address the areas of concern," said CVS spokeswoman Christine K. Cramer, noting that the pharmacy supports select components of the Capital BlueCross Medicare Part D drug plan.
As the pharmaceutical benefit manager, CVS Caremark processes prescriptions for Capital BlueCross and negotiates with drug makers and pharmacies on drug prices.
CMS ordered Capital BlueCross to submit a corrective action plan this week. After it submits the plan, the company will have to attest to CMS that the deficiencies have been corrected. Once that happens, Capital BlueCross will have to hire an independent auditor to review its operations, which then has to report to CMS. Only then will CMS consider lifting the sanctions, the letter says.
In the meantime, CMS said it will closely monitor the company and impose additional sanctions — which could include monetary fines or even terminating its contract to provide Medicare coverage — if problems remain.
According to the Pennsylvania Health Law Project, current members of a Capital Blue Medicare plan wishing to change to a different plan can contact Medicare at 800-633-4227 or APPRISE, a free Medicare counseling agency, at 800-783-7067 to see if they qualify for a special enrollment period or other exception that allows them to change their Medicare coverage.
Capital BlueCross merged in 1985 with Blue Cross of the Lehigh Valley and now serves 21 counties in central and eastern Pennsylvania.
[email protected]
Twitter: @timdarragh
610 778-2259In honor of our conspiracies week that we just did on Facebook, and the anniversary of 9/11, we did a big conspiracies discussion! It got blown so out of proportion that we had to officially make it a two part episode! This week is “Conspiracies!” Part 1: 9/11 was or was not an inside job. Melting steel, thermite paint, WTC 7, Jesse Ventura; it’s all here in our glorious, moronic attempt to intelligently debate the subject! Mike is on one side, Ben is on another, Josh is the perfect devil’s advocate to everything, and Iah completely checks out of the conversation due to frustration. It’s everything we wanted it to be! And to top it all off, Mike and Josh brought a supply of Moxie energy drinks and Thai Red Bull, so the discussion gets giddy and stupid from over-stimulation. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hate at least one of us! And make sure you listen to part 2 of the conspiracies conversation, episode 15!
[fb_button]TweetVeterans in Cape Breton say they're disappointed the city has decided to change the venue of a Remembrance Day ceremony.
Nearly 4,000 people attended last year at Sydney's Centre 200, but this year the arena will be home to a Christmas craft show, sending veterans to a much smaller venue.
“It's disappointing to lose Centre 200,” said Stephen MacLellan, president of Branch 128. “It was a perfect venue for everybody. It keeps everybody out of the weather and more people attended to pay thanks to the legion members and vets.”
Veterans will be moving from the 5,000-seat arena to the Joan Harris Cruise Pavillion, which seats 1,300. The smaller venue means fewer people paying tribute on a day dedicated to the men and women who fought for freedom.
Neeta Kumar Britten of the Cape Breton Flags of Remembrance believes veterans’ concerns should be put first.
“Anybody planning events, athletics, crafters, all things I love, we have to remember as Canadians Nov. 11th is about our veterans. It has to be from the start of the day to the end of the day,” said Britten.
With Nov. 11 falling on a weekend for the next two years, there's already bookings at the rink.
“Whoever was doing the planning to bring business into Centre 200 was booking based upon multiple day events happening over a three-year period and it just so happened it coincided with Remembrance Day,” said Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke.
MacLellan says the legions were not charged for using Centre 200 and he understands the need to make money, but also feels the ceremony will suffer because of the change.
“It takes away from the event, but we are going to make the best of it and try to put on a good show for the vets on the 11th,” he said.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.Ottawa Fury Captain Richie Ryan is expected to join Scottish League One outfit Peterhead F.C. on a short term loan. Ryan, native of Ireland, previously had a stint in Scotland playing with Dundee United.
It is rumored that Ryan has had talks with Peterhead manager Jim McInally about the possibility of joining the club on a training basis, and that these talks have developed into a short term loan deal.
McInally said “Richie got in touch via a contact and I told him to join us. If we could get a short-term deal sorted out I would be very interested in seeing him in action.”
Ryan is currently spending his off season in Ireland and Scotland where he is enjoying time with his family and new baby. He has been taking in Scottish football matches during his trip, enjoying Dundee vs Inverness at Dens Park a few weeks ago.
Peterhead Manager Jim McInally himself was a Dundee United legend back in the late 80’s and early 90’s as he played over 250 games for the Tannadice club. He has been managing Peterhead since 2011, earning them promotion from League Two last year. McInally also played for and coached Sligo Rovers in 1999, a club Ryan spent a lot of time with from 2008-11.
It is no surprise that Fury players are looking for short term contracts in the off season, especially back in their native countries. Tony Donatelli has been playing indoor soccer in Baltimore with former Fury striker Vini Dantas, while it has been rumored that Oliver is seeking a short term loan in Brazil. Players will be looking to stay physical and active over a long winter break and playing soccer, (or even training with a professional team) will allow them to stay at the top of their game.
Peterhead currently sit 6th in Scottish League One with a 5-5-5 record. If Ryan does join the team on a short term loan, he will be one of the highest skilled players on the team. The loan is expected to run up until the Fury spring training commences.
Original story: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/peterhead-fc/426324/sdfg-3/
AdvertisementsOn average, someone in the U.S. has a stroke every 40 seconds; it is the third leading cause of death in the country, killing more than 140,000 people annually and leaving hundreds of thousands more with long-term disabilities that cost the healthcare system billions.
One of the reasons strokes are so deadly and debilitating is that they’re hard to diagnose, and time is of the essence when the occur.
One startup — backed to the tune of $2.5 million by former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt’s investment firm, Innovation Endeavors, and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang’s AME Ventures — thinks it has found a solution, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.
Viz, a San Francisco-based startup launched by London-educated neurosurgeon Chris Mansi, is using artificial intelligence to more rapidly identify stroke victims in order to ensure treatment faster, potentially saving lives and millions of dollars in medical expenses.
Mansi, who worked at Queens Square and Kings College Hospital in London, which houses the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery, had long believed that artificial intelligence could improve first responders’ and emergency room doctors’ abilities to diagnose illnesses. That initial diagnosis could ensure faster treatment and potentially mean the difference between death, a lifetime with a disability or a recovery.
While at Stanford pursuing an MBA, Mansi met David Golan, who had similar ideas. The two founded Viz and have been developing its technology ever since.
Viz uses machine learning to identify anomalies in brain scans that even physicians have a hard time spotting, Mansi says. There aren’t that many highly trained neuroscientists in the world, and the artificial intelligence from Viz puts their knowledge at the fingertips of doctors anywhere, he said.
Viz chose to start with neurological conditions, in part because it’s the field that Mansi knows best, and it’s an instance where time does matter.
Every 15 minutes that a stroke goes untreated means significant ramifications for a patient. “It’s the difference between walking rather than being in a nursing home,” says Mansi.
That’s a critical difference. Stroke patients cost the U.S. healthcare system $74 billion in medicare payments. That’s a hefty number for what is a treatable condition, if recognized in time. And there’s the problem, according to Mansi.
Only three in every 100 patients are being treated properly for stroke. The conditions aren’t diagnosed properly and victims aren’t able to reach hospitals where proper care is available, he says.
The technology was persuasive enough to convince Innovation and AME to commit capital. “We’ve been looking for really smart teams that have the right domain expertise abut what they’re trying to do,” says Dror Berman, a co-founder of Innovation Endeavors and a director on the Viz board. “Viz is solving a really big problem that no one else is solving, given how hard it is to look into brains scans and the very limited expertise of physicians.”The Oscars are nearly upon us and tension is building.
No, not for who might win the big awards on Sunday night.
But over which star can win the most coveted prize for Best Celebrity Trump Hater on the Planet.
This is the big one for all those hysterical Hollywood liberal snowflakes who’ve been frothing at the mouth since Donald Trump became President.
They’ve got live TV, a billion or more people watching around the world, and a room full of 3,500 largely like-minded souls all waiting to roar on every Trump-bashing speech from the podium.
Celebrities at the Oscars have got live TV, a billion or more people watching around the world, and a room full of 3,500 largely like-minded souls all waiting to roar on every Trump-bashing speech from the podium
All eyes, of course, will be on Meryl Streep, the Queen of Tinseltown and self-designated Chief Trump Hater, who has spent most of this awards season making ever more dramatic denunciations of her President.
I have no doubt that Ms Streep is beavering away right now on some more headline-grabbing anti-Trump bile.
But it’s worth remembering her words at the Golden Globes:
‘The instinct to humiliate when it’s modelled by someone in the public platform,’ she said, tearfully, ‘filters down to everybody’s life. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence.’
Does it, Meryl?
OK, well forgive me if I don’t now examine the way your fellow stars have used their own public platforms when it comes to discouraging disrespect and violence in relation to the President?
Who will win Best Celebrity Trump Hater at the Oscars? All eyes will be on Meryl Streep, the Queen of Tinseltown and self-designated Chief. Meanwhile Judd Apatow just said that after election night he felt ‘like a person about to get raped but I didn’t know how bad it would be'
This week, Judd Apatow, high profile producer of movies like 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, told a Los Angeles audience that after election night he felt ‘like a person about to get raped but I didn’t know how bad it would be. Now, I feel like I’ve just been raped. I just don’t know if I’m going to get murdered.’
The crowd wildly applauded.
Many of them, I suspect, had been on the recent Women’s March.
Yet they were happy to cheer a sickening rape analogy from a man who has repeatedly attacked Bill Cosby over claims that he raped women, and who just 18 months ago was even honoured by the Rape Foundation.
The audience cheered again when Apatow crudely mocked Melania Trump: ‘Every day she’s not in the White House, is a day she’s not getting f***ed by Donald Trump.’
And they whooped yet again when Apatow turned his tormenting turrets on Trump’s 10-year-old son, Barron: ‘He f**ing gets it. He knows his dad’s a f**ing a**hole!’
Nice stuff, right? Going after a president’s wife and young child in such a foul-mouthed, deeply unpleasant manner is, I’m sure, exactly what Michelle Obama had in mind when she said, ‘When they go low, we go high..’
During the recent disgraceful riots at UC Berkeley, just as protestors were seen on TV smashing windows, throwing smoke bombs and flares and setting fires alight, Apatow tweeted: ‘This is just the beginning. When will all the fools who are still supporting Trump realise what’s at stake?’
The coward then deleted his tweet, explaining: ‘I never support violence..’
Yes, you do, Mr Apatow. Just as you use rape as a shameful prop for your vile humour.
He wasn’t the only celebrity encouraging violence on the night of the Berkeley riots.
Comedian Sarah Silverman called for a coup, tweeting: ‘WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE! ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE.’
Indeed, violence seems to be a running theme of these ‘peace-loving’ celebrity liberals.
At the Women’s March in Washington DC, Madonna shrieked: ‘Yes I’m angry, yes I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought a lot about blowing up the White House!’
Robert De Niro has repeatedly said of Trump: ‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’
Last night, at the BRIT awards in London, Katy Perry had two giant skeletons of President Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May dancing on stage and then set them on fire.
On Wednesday, at the BRIT awards in London, Katy Perry had two giant skeletons of President Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May dancing on stage and then set them on fire
‘Rise up! The Revolution is coming!’ Hillary-adoring Ms Perry tweeted after the election.
I think we can now see how that revolution would manifest itself.
Many celebrities have raced to brand Trump the new Hitler, one of the world’s worst genocidal dictators who murdered 12 million people, including six million Jews in the Holocaust.
Cher, who demanded Trump be ‘thrown in a volcano’, said his presidency would be like ‘Germany was in the ‘30s.’
Louis C.K. agreed: ‘The guy is Hitler.’
Richard Gere preferred a different dictator comparison: ‘He’s a guy who’s obviously Mussolini.’ Yes, obviously – because Mussolini was only responsible for 400,000 deaths.
Some celebrities who profess to be appalled by the disrespectful way Trump talks, have no such qualms when it comes to their own rhetoric.
‘I think he’s the f**ing most vile person on the planet,’ said model Chrissy Teigen. ‘A monumental a**hole.’
Andy Cohen concurred, calling Trump a ‘f**ing a**hole’.
Margaret Cho said Trump was ‘like no ply toilet paper.’
Amanda Seyfried called him a ‘snorting piece of garbage.’
The aforementioned De Niro said Trump was ‘a punk, a dog, a pig, a con…a fool, a bozo.’
Miley Cyrus branded him a ‘f**ing nightmare.’
Elizabeth Banks said he was a ‘fat old orange P.O.S.’
Rihanna stated he is an ‘immoral pig.’
Jennifer Lawrence had warned, ‘If Donald Trump becomes president, that will be the end of the world,’ and now says the only two words she’d want to say to him are, ‘F**K YOU!’ Robert De Niro has repeatedly said of Trump: ‘I’d like to punch him in the face.’
Jennifer Lawrence, who had apocalyptically warned, ‘If Donald Trump becomes president, that will be the end of the world,’ now says the only two words she’d want to say to President Trump if she meets him are, ‘F**K YOU!’
Johnny Depp, with a comical lack of self-awareness, said Trump is a ‘brat’. Well you should know, Johnny boy!
Much of the absurdly hypocritical hysteria surrounding Trump is driven by the fact that all these celebrities loudly backed Hillary Clinton and never imagined she’d lose, so they’ve gone into some kind of anaphylactic shock.
John Legend said before the election: ‘It’s pretty clear that Trump’s brand of politics is not a winning brand of politics.’
That complacent confidence turned into sneering arrogance, best summed up by Hillary herself when she branded Trump supporters a ‘basket of deplorables.’
An attitude that Chris Kelly, head writer for Saturday Night Live, embraced with this stunningly offensive comment after Trump landed the Republican nomination: ‘Donald Trump is winning because everyone you’ve ever been on a bus with gets to vote too.’
In the end, it wasn’t a bus these self-satisfied luvvies needed to worry about, it was the Trump Train.
Hillary and the Hollywood elites got run over by a candidate who tapped into real America’s cares and concerns, not the ones dictated from mansions in Malibu or the Hamptons.
What is truly laughable is that all these Trump-loathing stars would still have you believe they stand for liberal values of fairness, tolerance, peace, respect, equality and democracy.
Yet when confronted with their preferred candidate losing, they’ve resorted to exactly the kind of profane, ugly trash-talking and violence-encouraging nonsense that they claim to hate in the guy who won.
And anyone who dares to say anything moderately favourable or reasonable about Trump, even if they didn’t vote for him or particularly agree with his politics, must be vilified, banned, boycotted, firebombed and shunned into silence.
Their faux outrage is…outrageously sanctimonious.
Perhaps, though, the real reason so many celebrities hate Donald Trump is that he is now more famous than all of them put together.
Yesterday, the New York Times drew this conclusion after reporting evidence from data firm mediaQuant, which counts all mentions of a particular brand or personality in just about every outlet from mainstream media to blogs and Twitter, and then estimates what those mentions would cost if someone were to pay for them.
In January, Trump broke mediaQuant’s records, receiving $817 million in coverage.
This was more than the next 1000 of the world’s best-known figures - including Hillary Clinton, Kim Kardashian, Vladimir Putin and Tom Brady - COMBINED. (Their total came to $721 million.)
Given the fact there are now many people on the planet than ever before, and most of us now have access to the internet and social media, the Times declared that Donald Trump is now the most famous and talked about person in history.
So when Hollywood, the most fame-hungry, egotistical place on Planet Earth, rises to denounce him on Sunday night, just bear in mind that their fury might not be entirely unconnected to this one simple fact.
Trump, until recently a mere reality TV host, is now getting all their A-list celebrity oxygen and the only way La La Land can get a piece of the action is to attack him.
As H.G. Wells put it: ‘Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.’Story highlights Gary Johnson once again replied to a foreign policy question with awkward, dead air
His running mate said it was the format, not his lack of prowess
Washington (CNN) Libertarian vice presidential hopeful Bill Weld spent part of Thursday cleaning up comments his running mate, Gary Johnson, made the previous night when he struggled to name a single foreign leader he respected.
Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, told CNN's Randi Kaye that Johnson was a "deep person," but that the format of the MSNBC town hall where the embarrassing moment occurred had not played to Johnson's strengths.
"He's a deep person in terms of his thinking and he thinks through things in a way that many other people don't," Weld said. "Pop quizzes on television are obviously not his forte but depth of analysis and surprising lines of analysis are his forte."
The moment came when MSNBC host Chris Matthews transitioned to what he called a "lightning round" and asked Johnson to name his favorite foreign leader. Johnson sighed and admitted after a moment that he was having another "Aleppo moment," in reference to his previous gaffe several weeks earlier when he was unable to recognize a city at the heart of the Syrian civil war.
JUST WATCHED Jake Tapper: This is Aleppo Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Jake Tapper: This is Aleppo 02:47
Read MoreBreaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
April 15, 2017, 10:25 AM GMT / Updated April 15, 2017, 10:25 AM GMT By Alastair Jamieson
A 5-year-old died Friday after being crushed between the floor and the wall of a rotating restaurant in Atlanta, police said.
The boy suffered serious head injuries after being caught in a space no bigger than 4-5 inches, Atlanta Police Department spokesperson Warren Pickard, told reporters, and was taken to the Grady Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
He was with his mother and father having lunch at the Sun Dial, a popular tourist attraction at the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel.
The boy was no more than 4 or 5 feet from his parents, Pickard said.
“Words cannot express the depths of our sorrow,” hotel manager George Reed said in a statement according to NBC station WXIA. “Our thoughts remain with the family.”This is a conversion of ASL scenario J60 Bad Luck from ASL Journal #3.
SCENARIO NAME: J60 – Bad Luck
DATE: November 21, 1944
LOCATION: Western Front, Merzig, Germany
SITUATION: As part of the Third Army’s encirclement of Metz and attack on the Saar Heights, Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division was ordered to strike eastward towards the Saar River at Merzig to secure the Army’s flank. Although attacking a lightly defended sector, the Americans advanced cautiously until they eventually held the hills overlooking the river and the approaches to Merzig. Fearing that this was the main attack to roll up the Saar Region, the Germans took advantage of the Americans’ slow advance and launched a quick counterattack.
FORCES:
American: Squads, MMG, BAZ, Lt. MTR, AFV
German: Squads, LMG, PSK, Lt. MTR, AFV, Halftrack
SCENARIO SPECIAL RULES:
*- None
MAPS: Two maps (Sector’s 1×2) with only the upper portion of the map being used.
TERRAIN: Open, Some hills
SCENARIO LENGTH: 7 Turns
VICTORY CONDITIONS : The side with the most Victory Points at the end is the winner. Both sides get VPs for controlling Victory Objectives.
SCENARIO DESIGNER: Double Deuce
(A ‘Combat Campaigns’ conversion of ASL scenario J60 Bad Luck from ASL Journal #3)
Version 1.0
Download the scenario by clicking this link s_CC-03 - J60 Bad Luck (419 downloads)Big Indie vs. Small Indie At PAX East
The PAX East show floor is home to a wide assortment of games- it’s where the latest offerings from Nintendo and Bethesda can share a space with artsy puzzlers created by individuals working out of their bedrooms. Though they share the floor, not all floor space is created equal- some areas receive significantly more traffic than others. A hierarchy of sorts exists between the differently sized publishers and developers.
At the top of the food chain are the big studios and companies- their booths attract the most people thanks to their strategic placement, tremendous scale, and the fact that the games being shown off there are often from a franchise- in 2017, Bethesda was showing off the hotly-anticipated Quake Champions, which drew plenty of players.
A bit beneath the AAA developers are the mid-sized publishers; tinyBuild for instance, has a pretty substantial presence at the show, and their booth offers enormous visibility for the games showcased within, which tended towards being more unusual than the AAA offerings- for instance, they showed off the game Hello Neighbor, an upcoming stealth game about sneaking into a neighbor’s house to figure out what he’s doing in his basement.
Beneath these medium sized publishers, there are the indie developers and the small publishers. There tends to be the greatest variety of games among the indies (though there’s a bit of an overabundance of platformers). These games from smaller developers often have minimal marketing budgets; they live and die based on how well they stand out from the crowd. Indie devs aren’t without recourse, however, as there exists a support network for these smaller producer: the Indie Megabooth. A major part of the PAX East show floor, the Indie Megabooth is a carefully curated, hand-picked collection of games. In 2017, the Megabooth was composed of 54 booths, 75 video games and ten board/card games in a dedicated tabletop area. Thanks to the Megabooth, a substantial number of indie games receive more attention from players and coverage from gaming outlets than if they hadn’t been organized.
The Megabooth included such games as the satirical The American Dream, a VR game set in an idyllic 1950s America in which guns are used to solve everyday problems- right next to The American Dream was Graceful Explosion Machine, a candy-colored shmup currently in development for the Nintendo Switch. A mere few booths away from these two was the game The Gardens Between, a slow-paced nostalgia-driven adventure game about the memories of a childhood friendship. There is undeniably a wide variety of games in the Megabooth.
Let’s not forget, however, that there are other indie games outside the Megabooth- indie games on the periphery of the show, struggling to be noticed. Naturally, there are only so many games that can be featured in a showcase- the Megabooth has become a brand of sorts- is it an exclusive clique? Is being included in the Megabooth some some golden seal of quality that guarantees a game will be great? Are developers feeling pressure to make a certain sort of game from a thematic or aesthetic standpoint in order to become part of the Megabooth? These questions in mind, I hit the PAX East show floor and spoke with any developer willing to talk.
What the Developers Said
“I guess it’s a mixture of everything- how unique are you? How interesting? How different?” So said Rand Miller, creator of Myst, when asked his thoughts on what it takes to get into the Megabooth. Miller was showing off Obduction, a sci-fi adventure game that felt much like an old-fashioned adventure retooled with some modern trappings for virtual reality.
Though Mr. Miller is an industry veteran, it seems that other developers shared his sentiments- that the Megabooth was helpful and full of great games, but how they wound up there wasn’t entirely clear.
“I don’t know anything about difficulty getting in- I guess if you can pay, you can get in.” – Joakim Sandberg, developer of Noitu Love and the upcoming Iconoclasts.
“I feel like they are about diversity and trying to bring new ideas, so I really appreciate them including us, but I don’t think they really have a mentality of this is what an indie game is.” – Jordan Hemenway, developer of Distance and the upcoming Nitronic Rush.
“I think the games in the Megabooth can afford to be a lot more experimental than the things outside and around it- AAA, traditionally, likes to keep it safe and make something they know is going to sell where things in the Megabooth, they’re all indie developers so there are opportunities to take risks.” – Josh Manricks, developer of VR bullet hell game Blasters of the Universe.
Generally speaking, developers seemed to view acceptance into the Megabooth as a mark of quality. “Getting into the Indie Megabooth, they have a high standard of quality, and we’re very pleased to meet that,” said Josh Bradbury, artist on The Gardens Between when asked about getting into the Megabooth. I asked him the nagging question- did he feel as though games had to conform in order to enter the Megabooth?
“To get into the Megabooth, you really need to have a really strong… Presentation. I think that’s the most important thing. You can be a large team, and get lots of specialists, and be really good at your individual things, and every part of your game is going to be beautiful, but there are solo indies in the Megabooth- and particularly in the Minibooth- and they’re just as good. The mechanics and the core gameplay, it might not look as glossy as some of the larger indies, but budget and time aside, there’s no real difference.”
As I explored the Megabooth, I couldn’t find games that didn’t seem original. I wandered away from the carefully curated indies of the Megabooth to the see the games on the show floor’s periphery, where I met Jamie Holub, developer of the platformer Xenno the Rogue; he was attending PAX East for the very first time and wasn’t part of the Megabooth. I asked him if he felt that there was a difference between the games on the periphery of the show floor and those in the Megabooth
”No, not necessarily.”
“There’s no pressure to make a certain sort of game for the Megabooth?”
“No, I didn’t get that impression at all.”
From the way that things were shaping up, a few things became clear: the Indie Megabooth brand was respected by developers, most developers didn’t feel pressured to make a game pander to thematically or stylistically for inclusion in the Megabooth, and in general, Megabooth inclusion was a mark of quality.
As I walked away from the show floor, I met a team of developers who going in the other direction- in more ways than one.
Indie studio Blue Drop Games is currently working on top-down brawler B.C.E., a game about cavemen fighting each other; their game was rejected from the Megabooth, but this rejection didn’t keep them |
night, near the border.
“Naruto, I wonder…” Sai said, “do you never tire of employing your byakugan eye?”
“Uh, what do you mean?” Naruto asked.
“Surely it must be exhausting to sustain it perpetually, as you do,” he replied. “Even to watch through the night, while your shadow clones sleep—not even the Hyuuga themselves are so fond of it. I presume there is some limit to its use?”
“Oh, uh… it can be difficult…” Naruto hedged. “How can you tell I’ve been using it?”
Sai smiled. “I am a ninja, aren’t I?”
Naruto swallowed.
“Perhaps it would be wise to let yourself rest tonight,” Sai continued. “We may face combat, soon.”
“Oh—no, I can hold it,” Naruto said. “It’s no trouble,”
“Nevertheless.” He inclined his head, politely. “I would feel better if you were fully rested. Will you trust me to handle our surveillance tonight?”
What else could he say? No?
“S—sure…”
Sai looked pleased with himself as Naruto deactivated the eye. He didn’t know how Sai could even tell he was using it, covered up behind the forehead-protector, but Naruto might as well have been blind without it—those bugs could be anywhere. And Sai had been so insistent about deactivating it—he was almost convinced, now. If Sai meant to kill him, he meant to do it tonight.
“Sasuke,” Naruto said, “…let’s go spar a bit, before bed.”
“No thanks,” Sasuke said. “Too close to Mist. Gonna save my chakra.”
“We haven’t really fought since before the exams. Don’t you want to see who’s stronger?” Naruto said, mentally urging him to just go along with it.
“I’ll fight you on the way back then,” he said. “Should have asked when we were still in the village, if you cared. Besides, aren’t you always the one telling me how dumb it is to try to compress a ninja’s strength down to a ‘single dimension’? I’m good at some things and you’re good at others. Rock paper scissors.”
“So you’re scared of me, then,” Naruto said.
Sasuke looked at him, confused. “What?”
“You think I’m stronger than you, and if you still can’t even beat me, you haven’t got a chance against your brother. You’re still weak.”
“The fuck are you even talking about?” Sasuke said. “Did you forget how to communicate? Start with ‘I feel’.”
“I feel you’re holding us back, and you’ll be a liability to the team in foreign territory,” Naruto said. “You copied my answers on the written exam, I literally carried you like a baby through the forest, and then you didn’t have to fight a single person in the tournament—even during the bell test you didn’t actually do anything to help against Kakashi. You’re barely a genin, you’re still untested, and you shouldn’t be here.”
Sasuke looked him over for a moment. “…Sai, do you know of any genjutsu that could turn a teammate into a moron?”
“Ah…” Sai smiled, uncertain. “Perhaps we should all, just… get some rest?”
“He’s, um—he’s not under any genjutsu,” Hinata stammered. “My byakugan would see.”
“Be quiet, Hinata,” Naruto said, wincing inside. But Sasuke still wasn’t going for it—he had to press harder.
“I’ve wanted to say this for a long time, Sasuke. A real ninja would have offered me one of those eyes by now. That sharingan of yours is the only value you have; you know you’d be worth nothing without it.”
“Did you forget the part where I won the qualification round against the Cloud girl?” Sasuke said. “How many times do you think I’d have to break your neck before it’d sink in?”
Naruto stood up. “Maybe you’d know if you had the balls to try.”
“Shit, you want to fight so much, I won’t stop you,” Sasuke said, standing up to meet his eye.
“There’s a clearing, past these trees,” Naruto said. “Let’s go.”
Naruto headed off into the trees, reactivating his byakugan now that he had an excuse. He could see one of Sai’s bugs following close behind, but the fact that he’d let them go at all was further evidence that conserving their chakra wasn’t really that much of a priority, for him.
Naruto summoned out a pack of clones as they faced each other across the grass.
Sasuke brushed a knuckle across his forehead. “Ready when you are.”
***
Pein regarded his subordinates from above in a conscious attempt to accentuate his new authority.
They were nervous. He could tell. They knew that he had matured, and that with experience and time he had only been growing further from enacting the will of their master.
“I have decided to seize power for myself,” he said. It was a plain and clear statement—he was a lord, and speaking to inferiors, now.
Tobi’s reaction was unclear behind the mask, but Zetsu began to shake all over, in some strange semi-human display of emotion.
“Perhaps this role of ‘leadership’ has gone to your head…” Tobi said. “Do not forget your obligations. You are bound by your word, and our lord is not known to be forgiving…”
“I do not fear a corpse who without me is powerless,” Pein replied. “I once had some sympathy for his simplistic proposals, but I intend now to heal this fractured world through my own strength. You two may continue henceforth as my subordinates, in appearance and in fact.”
They looked at each other, and he could tell they would not abandon their dead master so easily. He had expected as much.
The weight of the rinnegan’s gaze forced them to their knees before they could move against him.
“Very well then,” he said. “You have chosen this fate.”
Next chapter >
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There are many reasons why Donald Trump is dangerous. His egotism, his authoritarianism, his disregard for facts, his bigotry towards women, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled people… There’s quite a few contenders. But arguably his most dangerous quality is his views on climate change. Because this is an area where he can damage the whole world, and that damage can reverberate for centuries. Scary, huh? All through Trump’s campaign he promised to pull the USA out of the Paris Climate Deal, and sure enough, after a period of intense um-ing and ah-ing, he confirmed he would do so. Cue an impressive display of horror and condemnation from leaders around the world.
I was all prepared to be severely depressed about this, but then something amazing happened.
American business leaders, city mayors, state governors and university principals, stood up and said ‘no, we’re not going to put up with this shit’. (I’m not sure that’s a direct quote, I’m paraphrasing). This unprecedented alliance – known as the ‘We Are Still In coalition’ has formed around support for the Paris Agreement and recognition that climate action is their obligation to the world, and is good for America anyway.
More than 1,200 tech companies, states, cities and universities just said #wearestillin the Paris Agreement https://t.co/VLngG9MjBs — Climate Central (@ClimateCentral) June 18, 2017
This is incredibly powerful, for two main reasons: the science and the symbolism. By that I mean the physical direct impact on the carbon emissions of America and the world, and the psychological, cultural and political impact that such a move has on the rest of the world, and the indirect climate effect of that.
But before we dive into these two main points, let’s just recap on why the USA’s response to climate change is so crucial for the world, and what this new American climate alliance actually is.
Quick note on why USA is so crucial to climate action
The USA has by far the biggest historical carbon emissions and one of the highest emissions per person in the world. This means they are one of the countries most responsible for causing this climate crisis. Quite frankly, it’s amoral to walk away from your responsibilities. If you make a mess, you should at least help clean it up.
Even if the USA wasn’t a heavy polluter, there would be a strong argument that they should be a key player in sorting out the mess anyway, just because they have the power to do so. They are the richest country in the world and are routinely regarded as the most powerful, due to immense wealth and military might and ‘cultural power’ – a more fuzzy concept that includes everything from having the most UN diplomats to Hollywood movies dominating the global media market.
Cumulative carbon emissions…something to think about as the USA decides to reject global cooperation on #ParisClimateAgreement pic.twitter.com/8iMBGdVVnF — Robert Richardson (@ecotrope) June 1, 2017
Check your facts. USA carbon emissions per person is at the top spot. But China overall has way more people. pic.twitter.com/5Sq4l1r8eH — GooRee (@GooRee) June 2, 2017
So what is the We Are Still In coalition?
The We Are Still In coalition is a loose voluntary group of city mayors, state governors, CEOs, investors and university principals who have signed a pledge, on behalf of their communities and organisations, and an open letter to the UN, stating that they are still committed to the Paris Agreement. They have promised to use their respective powers to lead climate action in their communities and businesses, aiming to meet or exceed the USA’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. (Which by the way is a 26-28% cut in emissions compared to the 2005 level by 2025, and even under Obama they were likely to miss that target).
So who’s actually signed up?
The pledge has 1219 signatories so far, and growing. This includes:
9 states : California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington
: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington 125 cities. Including Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh…
. Including Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh… 902 businesses and investors. Including Amazon, Apple, Google, Gap, Mars, Nike…
and investors. Including Amazon, Apple, Google, Gap, Mars, Nike… 183 universities and colleges.
You can check out the full list of signatories and their open letter here.
The cities and states represent 120 million Americans and a GDP of $6.2 trillion. The businesses together have combined revenue of $1.4 trillion. This means 38% of the American population and at least 35% of their GDP is covered by this new alliance. If just the 9 states were a country, that country would be the fifth richest and sixth highest polluter in the world. So it’s a pretty big deal.
The philanthropist, business investor and former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg has been instrumental in coordinating this alliance, and he has even pledged to donate $15million from Bloomberg Philanthropies to the UN, to replace funding from Washington they’ll now miss out on thanks to Trump. Although he’s certainly been a leader, it has also been a collaborative effort between 21 nonprofit groups, including C40 Cities, CDP (who I am starting a new job with next month!), WWF and others, who really pushed this forward.
The coalition wants to participate in the Paris Agreement, but there is currently no formal way for them to do so on America’s behalf, as it is an agreement between sovereign nations. However the Accord does call for ‘non-state actors’ to be involved. How this would work in practice is still being worked out.
Okay. Now into the real tofu and potatoes of this post.
The two big reasons why this is so incredible
The science
As this Alliance covers 38% of the American people and at least 35% of their GDP, they have significant power to influence the carbon emissions of the country. Due to the USA’s federal structure, states and cities have fairly extensive powers. The large companies have huge power through their supply chains.
However, even under Obama, the USA was not on track to meet its climate targets. With Trump’s hostile regressive stance and deregulation of pollution, it’s going to be even tougher to meet them.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t. I’m fairly optimistic about their chances, as it looks like the hostility of the federal government is actually acting as an effective motivator to people who would have just sat back and done little otherwise. There really is a huge groundswell of support for the Paris Agreement emerging from the bottom up, and it’s not clear how far that momentum will go.
It’s difficult to estimate what percentage of the USA’s carbon emissions are represented in this coalition, because many of the members are overlapping – so you can’t just add up all their emissions. But the nine states alone represent 17% of USA emissions – and that’s without all the major cities and businesses outside of those states.
Way to go Pittsburgh! It's planning to power itself with 100% renewable energy by 2035: https://t.co/qn3B9bEbQt pic.twitter.com/LaVonYOtRu — 350 dot org (@350) June 2, 2017
The symbolism
Direct cuts in carbon emissions are not even necessarily the most influential thing about the We Are Still In coalition. The symbolism is incredibly powerful. Here are cities, states and businesses directly defying Trump by saying: ‘You made the wrong decision. You do not speak for us. We are still in the Paris Agreement’.
The fact that Washington and New York were two key signatories will be a particular slap in the face for Trump. The small city of Pittsburgh is also notable because in his speech he declared ‘I was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris’. The mayor of Pittsburgh resented his city being used as an excuse like this, especially considering they already had a climate action plan to go 100% renewable powered. He publicly disagreed with the decision to leave the Paris Agreement, and joined the We Are Still In coalition instead.
The President also argued that climate action is bad for business and he would prioritise business. And what response did he get? Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger promptly quit his presidential advice council in protest. The ‘climate vs business’ position has become more discredited than ever, as over 900 businesses have joined the coalition. Many of the most outspoken members are American-based tech giants, like Google, Apple and Amazon. They argue that in the short term, there are great business opportunities to be had from clean energy and greener products – and in the long term all business depends on a stable climate.
Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2017
When Trump said he was going to exit the Paris Agreement, a real worry was that other countries would lose motivation and think ‘if the richest most powerful country, that has some of the highest emissions, is going to walk away, then there’s no point me doing anything. Screw it, I’m out’. For some, that was an even bigger problem than the USA’s actual emissions. Because it posed the threat of unravelling the delicate international consensus that had been pieced together –finally, painfully- on this global issue.
Luckily, other national leaders were keen to reconfirm their support and to condemn Trump’s decision. (Even Kim Jong-un, who called the move “the height of egosim”, with zero self-awareness).
What this coalition does, is it assures the international community that America is still at the table. Even if the central government pulls out, America will still be informally committed to the Paris Agreement, through this broad and growing coalition.
Conclusion – Thank you America!
It’s imperative for the whole world’s future that America does not walk away from tackling climate change. Despite Trump’s damaging and regressive decision, it now looks like this will not be the case. Where the government steps down, leaders from local government, business and civil society will step up.
This has given me hope for the future. Thank you to everyone involved – thank you to the signatories, the organisers, and to all the everyday Americans who support it.
0 Shares[2018] Buy Bitcoin Without a Bank Account
Andrew Lee Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 22, 2015
Everyone wants to buy bitcoin.
But not everyone has a bank account.
Here are a few quick ways for anyone to buy bitcoin without a bank account:
Purse.io — At Purse you can buy bitcoin just by shopping for others on Amazon.com
All you do is create an account, select a wishlist, place your order and when the items arrive, you get paid in bitcoin.
You can use your credit card or Amazon gift credit to buy bitcoin on Purse by shopping for others. It’s really just that easy.
LocalBitcoins.com — At LocalBitcoins you can buy bitcoin by finding someone to trade with, meeting them in person, and then buying bitcoin.
It’s a pretty simple system, if you are interested in buying bitcoin face to face.**Please Note: Both Purse and LocalBitcoins use an escrow system to guard against fraud. As long as you do not release the escrow, you can cancel your order for a refund.**
Bitcoin ATM — To buy bitcoin from your local Bitcoin ATM, just locate one on the Bitcoin ATM Map.
Be sure to check the hours of operation and contact the operator to ensure the machine has some bitcoin in it. Bitcoin ATMs are popular and known to run out of coins. Bitcoin ATMs come in two basic varieties:
Two Way ATM’s which allow you to buy and sell Bitcoin, but usually require an ID and self portrait.
which allow you to buy and sell Bitcoin, but usually require an ID and self portrait. One-Way ATM’s which only allow you to buy Bitcoin, but do not require identity documents.Just so long as there’s a bitcoin ATM near you, buying Bitcoin from a Bitcoin ATM is probably the simplest way to buy bitcoin without a bank account.
However, there are many other ways to buy bitcoin without a bank account, can you share any other ways to buy bitcoin in the comments section?
And remember, once you’ve bought bitcoin you can use it to Shop on Purse where you can Save 20% off Amazon.com!
Just for spending bitcoin!
Wow, You Read It All…
As a thank you for reading, here’s $10 on Purse after your first purchase when you signup to Purse below.
Signup for Purse, Save on Amazon, Get $10 on Us
What did you think of what you read? Tell us…As part of continuing GDC 2014 coverage, Cymatic Bruce and myself had our first opportunity to experience Sony’s new Project Morpheus, the PS4 VR dev kit, earlier today.
How Does it Feel to Wear?
Brian: I found it a little awkward to figure out how it fits on your head. The design of it looks very well polished, but it’s a little less intuitive to place onto your head than the Oculus Rift, and it’s less obvious how to make adjustments for fit. The Sony rep giving the demo worked with me to achieve a comfortable fit. Since the Sony Morpheus sort of sits on top of your head instead of being strapped on, I did have the impression a few times that it might fall off, but that was unfounded as it stayed securely in place once I started whipping my head around.
Bruce: Comfortable in some ways, uncomfortable in others. Overall the unit was less stifling than the Rift, with more airflow around the face. The sweet spot seemed to be quite loose (which is a good thing), however after several minutes of play, near the end of the second demo (Eve: Valkyrie), it was definitely bearing down on my glasses, causing pain on the bridge of my nose. I’m not sure if it was a design issue or an adjustment issue.
What Were the Demos?
Brian: Two demo experiences were shown today. The first, called The Deep, puts you underwater in a shark cage, which is similar to the Game of Thrones experience put on recently at SXSW in Austin in that they both take place in confined spaces, so they don’t have to account for player movement. As an experience, it was ok. The game itself was well done, and the shark looked amazing, but I think I was just looking for a different kind of experience… which I definitely got in the second demo, the unreleased-but-already-famous Eve: Valkyrie. I won’t review the game here, but it’s a terrific game in its own right right, and a great showcase of Morpheus’ strengths. Eve offers the same advantage as The Deep in that you’re sitting in a cockpit, a confined space.
Bruce: Both demos were solid. The first demo, The Deep, was definitely playing to the strengths of the hardware. It was passive; not much to do but experience it. I can understand their choice of demo given the type of consumer they’re targeting. Eve was great as always but seemed to be missing some graphics components that were in the Oculus Rift version. The targeting reticle was simplified and there were some panels missing from the cockpit.
How is the Hardware?
Brian: Positional tracking didn’t work at the beginning of my demo of The Deep, but the rep made some adjustments and it started. After that, I was able to look down and see my knees, and when I bent down in real life, I could see my avatar’s knees bend and I crouched closer to the bottom of the cage. I was also able to pitch forward and my torso would move closer to the edge of the cage. In Eve, I was able to lean forward to look more closely at the cockpit, and, hilariously, was able to detach my head from my torso from leaning way back.
The image quality was, frankly, stunning. As mentioned, the games themselves are very well done, and I had to concentrate hard to break the illusion and try to see individual pixels, and this is with me whipping my head around like a crazy person trying to make the image skip or blur.
I did experience slight disorientation in Eve, and it was only in certain cases where a ship was passing very close to me at a high rate of speed. Even now I’m not able to put my finger on what the issue was, but I felt ‘unsettled’ somehow by something I couldn’t consciously perceive. It would be interesting to record that at a high frame rate and play it back to see if there’s something going on.
Bruce: The positional tracking was solid for the most part. I did encounter occasional hiccups and jumps in my position, but when it worked, it worked very well. I would say the DK2 still has more precise positioning. The controller tracking was also very good in the The Deep demo. The controller only rotated the hand; the arm’s position wasn’t tracked. It was kind of cool that the crouching made the avatar crouch.
The screen was very clear, with the screen door effect hardly noticeable. There was still quite a bit of motion blur with rapid head movement, especially with the neon lettering in Eve Valkyrie.
Road to VR has been invited back tomorrow for two new experiences. Please respond with what else you’d like to know in the comments, and we’ll try to address them in tomorrow’s demo.Maybe I’m just naive. Maybe it’s that based on earlier actions, I believed Ruben Amaro Jr. had finally, finally seen the light. This Phillies squad wasn’t going anywhere, and after years of denial, Ruben finally knew it. He made it known to the press and rival executives that the Phillies were preparing to sell at the non-waiver trade deadline, and by God, we were all so excited that we believed that something good was going to happen in the City of Brotherly Love. Especially when he said that ace Cole Hamels was available, in addition to sought-after pieces like Marlon Byrd, Antonio Bastardo, and Carlos Ruiz.
How could we have been so stupid? How could we have believed that the man often derided as one of the worst executives in all of baseball would actually swallow his pride? Perhaps it was a matter of hype. Hype can raise expectations to unfathomable levels, which in this case was one of competency. We heard the words from Amaro himself, and we all went bananas. It’s like when those amazing trailers for Man of Steel came out. The movie looked gorgeous, and had a heck of a cast. Zack Synder had made some great films in the past, and sure, he had his fair share of duds. But those trailers were remarkable! And then we got, well, Man of Steel. We forgot to remember that the writer of the screenplay involved wasn’t any good, and that Warner Brothers and DC were scrambling to shove something, anything, out the door so that they could start catching up with the runaway train that is Marvel Studios.
What I’m trying to get at with my extended superhero film metaphor is that we forgot to look at the architect of Philadelphia’s plan when we got caught up in the hype. Ruben Amaro Jr. said he was going to sell, and we got so excited that we believed it. We (unless you’re a fan of an NL East team and like watching the Phillies suffer, that is) then got a very rude awakening at 4:01 PM, EST last Thursday. The deadline had come and gone, and the Phillies, minus Cliff Lee’s elbow, were still perfectly intact. Nothing had happened. Absolutely nothing.
Once the initial shock of the whole day (David Price! Jon Lester!) dissipated, the first question on everyone’s mind was most likely “What the heck?” That’s an entirely valid question. So, what the heck didn’t happen?
Well, easily the most movable of Ruben Amaro’s pieces was Marlon Byrd. The righty outfielder has reinvented himself as a slugging power bat after nearly falling out of baseball in 2012. Everyone remembers his renaissance with the Mets and Pirates last year, and looking to put a bit more thump in what he saw as a contending lineup, Amaro signed him to a multi-year contract. It was a risk to devote two years of $16 million and a vesting option into a 36 year-old comeback player, but it’s paid off. Coming into Thursday’s action, Byrd has hit.269/.320/.473. He’s also struck out a ton, but you take that when it also comes with 21 homers in early August. That’s the kind of righty power that can help a team looking for some pop at the deadline. It’s perfect for a team like the Yankees, who desperately needed a right fielder and right-handed power when Alfonso Soriano finally ran out of pixie dust. Indeed, Brian Cashman was on the phone with Amaro last week, and tried to go after Byrd. Amaro’s asking price? Outfield prospect Aaron Judge.
For those of you unfamiliar with Judge, here’s a brief rundown. Judge was one of New York’s three (three!) first round picks last year, coming in at 32nd overall. Judge is a monster of a man. The 22-year old is listed at 6’7”, 230 lbs. And he’s got as much power as you’d expect an Adam Dunn-sized mountain to have. There were concerns Judge would strike out way too much, but still generate a lot of long balls and play some good defense. Well Judge has exceeded those expectations. In fact, he’s shown remarkable plate discipline thus far. Between Low-A Charleston and High-A Tampa, Judge has walked 74 times and struck out 94 times, which isn’t bad at all for what many expected to be an all-or-nothing slugger (oh, and he’s hit 15 bombs between the two levels). Right now in Tampa, he’s hitting a strong.294/.426/.471 after hitting.333 in Charleston.
That’s what Ruben Amaro wanted for his 36-year old with a bad contract. When this deal obviously didn’t materialize, Amaro explained to reporters who asked him why nothing had gotten done that potential buyers “weren’t being aggressive enough.” It’s not as if there haven’t been aggressive trades done by teams who want to win this year. Billy Beane has traded away both super prospect Addison Russell and star Yoenis Cespedes this year in his quest to strengthen his pitching staff and win the World Series. Ben Cherington sold off any pitcher that wasn’t nailed down, and landed Cespedes, Allen Craig and Joe Kelly as part of his rebuilding effort. Milwaukee traded away two pretty decent prospects for a declining Gerardo Parra. And St. Louis’ John Mozeliak traded away the aforementioned Craig and Kelly for John Lackey, as well as a good outfield prospect for less than half a season of an injured Justin Masterson. (Full trade deadline coverage here).
The trades that went down this year were nothing but aggressive. To accuse prospective buyers of not being aggressive enough in trade negotiations is not only incredibly laughable on Amaro’s part, it also displays that despite the fact the team has finally been truly awful enough to him to finally realize that the current business model isn’t working, Amaro still overvalues his aging and declining core, many of whom are attached to bloated contracts that even further drag down their value.
It stands to reason that Byrd was the most sought-after player last Thursday. Despite the excellence of Hamels, he is more likely an August waiver wire deal due to his contract (indeed, news broke on Wednesday that a team has claimed Hamels off waivers. It remains to be seen if a deal will be brokered). Chase Utley, despite his excellent performance this year, has a full no-trade clause. It was speculated that either San Francisco or Oakland could snatch him up, as they both need second base help, and Utley makes his home in the Bay Area. But again, he is more of an August trade candidate. Yes, Byrd was definitely the flavor of the week.
As mentioned earlier, Amaro had the perfect suitors for Byrd on the phone. He demanded Judge, and that was the end of it. While Judge is a laughably high price, it’s almost customary to demand high-end prospects when the buyer is in a position of desperate need and all the chips are on your end of the table. And does Brian Cashman not have the reputation of selling off prospects? Austin Jackson, Ian Kennedy, Danny Farquhar, and to a much lesser extent Jesus Montero have all made names for themselves elsewhere.
You’ve just made the same mistake as Ruben Amaro. And that’s fine; as the odds are extremely high you’re not currently a major league GM. Ruben Amaro is a major league GM, though. He’s also not doing his job by himself, one would hope. Major league front offices are usually just that, offices. There’s plenty of analysts and scouts running about in there, all of them reporting to the GM. The choice on whom to pursue and for what cost are, of course, is the GM’s to make in the end. What apparently the entire front office failed to realize, or what Amaro may have not cared to think and/or care about, is that Cashman has not traded away a single blue chip prospect this season. Yes, the Yankees received Brandon McCarthy, Chase Headley, Stephen Drew, and Martin Prado for basically nothing.
For McCarthy, the Yankees gave the Diamondbacks an incredibly below average starter in Vidal Nuno. For Headley, they sent over two-month sensation Yangervis Solarte and a fringe pitching prospect. For Drew, they gave the Red Sox injured utility man Kelly Johnson, who has been awful this year. And for Prado, they gave up catching prospect Peter O’Brien, who despite hitting heaps of home runs has no real defensive home and probably has the celling of being the next Mark Reynolds. Cashman has been brilliant about preserving what has the potential to be the next great swath of Yankee prospects, while still making the big team better. You can imagine how the conversation went when Amaro asked for Judge.
It’s that kind of demand that makes Amaro hilariously out of touch with not only the way the market is functioning, but reality itself. Only after not moving a single piece and placing the entire team on waivers did he admit in an interview that the team “may not contend in 2015 or 2016.” In other news, water was reported to, in fact, be wet. Breakthrough stuff, really.
Oh, and Philadelphia’s farm system? It isn’t particularly pretty. There are only four prospects of real note in the system, one of which (Aaron Nola, a young pitcher whom I actually like quite a bit) was only just drafted this year. They’re lucky he’s already reached AA, because they’re going to need pitching help desperately. They’re going to need everything desperately, which is yet another reason for the Phillies to have sold everything that wasn’t nailed down. If you eat some of the owed salary, a player like Hamels can bring huge dividends. That’s especially the case at the trade deadline, when teams can get desperate in their attempts to outbid contenders. Who can forget the Matt Garza trade?
This doesn’t surprise Phillies fans, and frankly the rest of the world shouldn’t be surprised either. Could Amaro redeem himself with some waiver trades? Of course. He’s already made one, sending starter Roberto Hernandez (formerly known as Fausto Carmona) to the Dodgers for… two players to be named later. Hernandez isn’t worth a whole lot, but that’s still a disappointing return for a team whose farm is starving for talent. And honestly, the return on these trades probably won’t be near what he could have gotten at the trade deadline, as the outbidding factor likely won’t be a factor. It’s a pity that a once great franchise is subject to this kind of neglect. I’ll admit, I drank what I thought was the cool Kool-Aid. But in the end, that drink has just given us a nasty hangover.
For more on sports injuries, check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on twitter @StelliniTweets, and our department, @MLBFB. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport – and “liking” our Facebook page.For Matt Kurth, the essentials of life have come through his love of the outdoors and organic gardening. And cannabis.
When he tried to blend two of these passions and grow marijuana one year, he found that he had his work cut out for him.
“I wanted to be a grower and then I tried it and it’s a ton of work,” he said. “People who don’t grow don’t realize how difficult it is.”
So after Humboldt County created a commercial medical marijuana market this year, Kurth, 33, decided to combine cannabis with his experience in the outdoor recreational industry to create what could be the county’s first cannabis tourism company — Humboldt Cannabis Tours.
The seven-year Humboldt County resident, whitewater raft guide and Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center employee said he is sure that he won’t be the only person to open a cannabis tourism business in the county, which have been able to expand in other weed-legal states like Colorado and Washington.
With the potential end to California’s prohibition on recreational cannabis now before voters in November, it poises to open Humboldt County up to an even larger market.
“I think the time to figure out what we want cannabis tourism to look like is now,” Kurth said. “If we wait, it’s not going to happen the way we want.”
Risks and rewards
As the federal government views marijuana as a Schedule I narcotic, other local tourism agencies like the Humboldt County Convention & Visitors Bureau are taking a watchful approach to the cannabis market.
“There are so many unanswered questions,” the bureau’s Executive Director Tony Smithers said. “We are being careful about what our brand is and what it stands for.”
Smithers said their bureau exists to put “heads in beds” at local hotels, with the vast majority of those they market to coming to the county to see the redwood forests. One of Smithers’ unanswered questions is whether there will even be a tourism market in the local marijuana industry or whether it will remain business as usual.
“We still don’t know whether that is going to result in any travel demand,” he said. “A lot of that depends on what the industry does to provide tourism experiences to people.”
Kurth said Humboldt County’s international reputation as a center for all things marijuana will be a draw on its own, but curiosity will be another.
“Most people have never been to a farm, even if they have lived in Humboldt County their whole lives,” he said.
While areas in the state like Oakland are working to expand their footprint in the state’s marijuana market, Kurth said that Humboldt County has other amenities like its redwoods, local breweries and scenic beaches and parks that compliment the region’s longstanding cannabis history.
But Smithers said they will be looking for any conflicts in the cannabis industry that might jeopardize their base market of family travelers.
“On one hand, we have our eye on it, but we are very cautious,” Smithers said.
Another issue Smithers sees is how they would market the industry, especially to other states, and whether they would risk federal sanctions by doing so.
While the county passed an ordinance allowing for a commercial medical marijuana market and for growers to obtain “artisinal” status for marketing purposes, county 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell said they can only go so far.
“To actually develop a market and all of that including tourism and those things, I think that will be up to the legal industry itself,” she said.
Creating a tourism market
Getting his tourism business up and running has been a slow process so far for Kurth.
He submitted his application to the county in February and it’s still under review. Kurth said this is understandable due to the workload that the new marijuana programs have created for county departments. And there are other issues to consider with bringing a bus load of tourists into the currently quiet rural foothills such as road safety, infrastructure at the farms and impacts to neighbors.
Kurth said he already has growers and concentrate manufacturers from across the county who are willing to welcome tourists, but he said that they must have both a county and state license before he would stop there.
Kurth also sees tourism as a way to help preserve small farms that are characteristic to Humboldt County.
“One thing we can all |
favor.
But guess what else is perfectly legal? The windfall profit tax. In fact, it has historically been used in circumstances just like this. Excuses like "it will be too arbitrary" is ridiculous -- we are already making plenty of much worse arbitrary decisions in deciding who pays for this theft. Just because fairness is hard to achieve doesn't mean that we should let our leaders off the hook in working towards that goal. It's time to tell these bankers that if you can change rules to steal money from the taxpayer, we can the change rules to take it back.
2. Get Out Of Iraq And Afghanistan
We've recently found out that there are only 50-100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and there is more proof that our presence there and in Iraq is putting America in more danger rather than less. Is there any question that we are getting a terrible value for the money we are spending on these two fronts, not to mention the lives lost?
3. Slow Medical Spending
Our medical spending is out-of-control in this country, especially considering that it doesn't seem to make us any healthier. Right now, current Medicare recipients will have paid in their lifetime for a mere 44 percent of the benefits they receive. That means the rest of us are floating the cost for their healthcare, which in many cases is unnecessary and even potentially harmful.
In my opinion, we need healthcare reform that puts more of the medical decision-making in the hands of the people instead of the government and employers, much like we do with Social Security. I believe that government can and should have a huge role researching, vetting and suggesting medical solutions to the population, but only with a more educated patient making self-interested choices can we have a more efficient system.
These are my top three and I would like to hear from all of you for yours. Later this week, we will be tackling Energy, Education, the Wars and then the overall Political Process. Hopefully we can help change the dialogue in this country from merely Lefty v. Righty into an open competition of the best ideas on how to solve these pressing problems.On July 1, 1971, the United States adopted the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing the right of those 18 years and older to vote. The amendment was one of the least controversial in our nation's history. It was passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, ratified by the states in record time and signed by President Richard Nixon, who told the new young voters of America, "You will infuse into this country some idealism, some courage, some stamina, some high moral purpose that this nation always needs." In a separate statement when the last state ratified the Amendment, Nixon urged young people "to honor this right by exercising it -- by registering and voting in each election."
In the first presidential election after the 26th Amendment passed, young Americans exercised their new right in great numbers. Then, for over two decades, youth participation in elections fell. But since 1996, young people have turned out at the polls in steadily increasing numbers, culminating in the 2008 presidential election, which saw one of the highest youth turnout rates since 1972. Last year, young voters made up an even greater percentage of the electorate than they did in 2008.
Rising civic participation among young voters should be greeted with the same bipartisan joy with which the 26th Amendment passed. But instead, it's been met with the opposite: a barrage of state-level laws meant to make it harder for young people to vote.
Last week in North Carolina, conservative legislators introduced a set of bills meant to make it harder for many progressive-leaning groups to vote. One of the hardest-hit groups under the legislation would be young people. The bill specifically goes after college students by sticking a tax penalty on the parents of students who register to vote at an address other than their parents'. Students have long had the right to vote in the town where they go to school if it is their principal residence. Penalizing them and their families for doing so would essentially amount to an unconstitutional poll tax.
But it's not just the attack on college students that would hurt young people in North Carolina. These legislators also hope to impose a voter ID requirement, which would disproportionately hurt students, in particular young African-American and Latino voters, who are less likely to have a state-issued photo ID and more likely to be asked for one at the polls. They also hope to eliminate same-day voter registration, an important tool for young people who may be registering to vote for the first time.
North Carolina's attack on youth voting is just the latest of many. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, in just the first three months of this year, legislators in 30 states introduced 75 bills meant to restrict voting. In the two previous years, legislators in 41 states introduced 180 restrictive voting bills. Fifteen states passed restrictive laws in the period leading up to the 2012 elections. Most of these laws aim squarely at traditionally disenfranchised groups: people of color, low-income people, and the young.The Washington Redskins are just nine days away from the deadline to use the franchise tag to retain a would-be free agent. They are just 17 days away from the start of free agency, and every day between then and now holds intrigue.
The Redskins approach free agency with quarterback Kirk Cousins, receivers DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon, and defensive lineman Chris Baker as four of Pro Football Focus’ top-50 free agents. Because of the talent and leadership at stake, the Redskins risk getting worse in free agency instead of taking an important step forward.
Cousins lands at No. 2 on the list because he is the most talented quarterback going into free agency. There are few doubts that he has earned a long-term contract from someone, but the Redskins reserve the right to tag him again and proceed on a one-year, big money deal.
What once seemed like a certainty now carries a degree of doubt, as general manager Scot McCloughan has not addressed the media in months. In his place, team president Bruce Allen has expressed optimism, but no hard deadlines to get a deal done. If McCloughan is no longer in control of the roster, does the decision fall to Allen, or perhaps team owner Dan Snyder? If so, a long-term deal seems less likely.
The other three players are less important than a franchise quarterback, but could shed some light on the team’s strategy this offseason.
Baker (No. 22) is called “anonymous quality,” meaning that few star players get less attention than Baker. A former undrafted free agent in 2009, Baker spent time with three other teams, including a stint in the UFL, before working his way up from the practice squad in Washington.
As PFF suggests, Baker could get the name recognition he deserves based on the size of his contract, either with the Redskins or elsewhere.
Jackson (No. 29) was a big free agent acquisition before the 2014 season and has performed well in his role. However, the team has young receivers like Jamison Crowder who could benefit from Jackson’s departure, and at a much more affordable price.
If Jackson enters free agency, some team will pay handsomely for his services. Even if the Redskins believe he is a luxury, does he provide a skill set that they can still win without?
Garcon (No. 32) is no longer the fringe WR1 he was when he came to Washington, but has moved into the true possession receiver stage of his career. In other words, expect his strong routing running, physical play and sound mechanics to attract a host of suitors. One team that has been linked to Garcon is a short trip of I-95 in the Baltimore Ravens.
Follow Brian Tinsman and 106.7 The Fan on Twitter.It was a big Saturday for the offense, especially the running backs, in LSU’s second scrimmage of preseason camp.
Derrius Guice broke off a 60-yard run on the first play, finishing with 102 rushing yards on nine carries, according to the stats provided by the university. But Guice wasn’t the only running back with a big day. Darrel Williams also racked up a solid 4.75 yards per carry and a pair of touchdowns.
“We just completed a fantastic preseason game No. 2,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “I thought our guys were highly spirited and prepared. I thought our coaches prepared our guys well and it showed.
“Our offense dominated most of the day today. I thought they came out with a great physical mindset. Darrel was a dominant player today and Derrius continues to have a fantastic camp.”
Though Orgeron said the offense dominated, the quarterback completion and turnover numbers leave a lot to be desired in the passing game. It does appear that the Tigers’ quarterback competition is down to Danny Etling and Myles Brennan. And it also appears that Brennan had the better day of the two Saturday. He threw for 107 yards and one TD, while Etling threw for 114 yards with two INTs. Brennan hit Mannie Netherly on a 60-yard TD pass.
While Etling is still the leader, Brennan did get some first-team snaps and will be a factor. How big of a factor remains to be seen.
“Danny (Etling) is our starting quarterback right now,” Orgeron said. “Nobody has beaten him out. Myles (Brennan) did practice a couple of snaps with the first team today and did well.”
Coach O complemented the Tigers offensive line, which consisted of KJ Malone at LT, Garrett Brumfield at LG, Lloyd Cushenberry at OC, Ed Ingram at RG and Toby Weathersby at RT.
“I thought the offensive line blocked very well,” Orgeron said. “This is the first time that Toby has scrimmaged and gone full speed all camp, and you could tell the difference in our blocking. I was very pleased with the way the offensive line performed today.”
Here are the final scrimmage stats:
Rushing
Darrel Williams: 16 carries, 76 yards, 2 TDs
Derrius Guice: 9 carries, 102 yards, TD
Nick Brossette: 13 carries, 54 yards
Passing
Danny Etling: 8-18, 114 yards, 2 INTs
Myles Brennan: 4-8, 107 yards, TD
ReceivingMost economists still reject Professor Leontief’s analogy, but the conventional economic consensus is starting to fray. The productivity figures may not reflect it yet but new technology does seem more fundamentally disruptive than technologies of the past. Robots are learning on their own. Self-driving cars seem just a few regulations away from our city streets.
As the idea sinks in that humans as workhorses might also be on the way out, what happens if the job market stops doing the job of providing a living wage for hundreds of millions of people? How will the economy spread money around, so people can afford to pay the rent?
What if, say, the bottom quarter of the population in the United States and Europe simply couldn’t find a job at a wage that could cover the cost of basic staples? What if smart-learning machines took out lawyers and bankers? Or even, God forbid, journalists and economists?
If you read my column last week you know the dim view I take of the Universal Basic Income — a minimum level of money offered to every citizen — as a tool to combat poverty in a country like the United States where there is still plenty of work for most people to do. Paying for it would require either shredding the safety net as we know it or raising taxes to Scandinavian levels.
Image The economist Wassily Leontief, in a 1975 photograph. Credit Associated Press
On Sunday, an overwhelming majority of Swiss voters apparently agreed, voting down a proposal to give every adult roughly $2,560 a month, regardless of their work status, and $640 for each child under 18.WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is traveling to Jordan on Friday to visit Syrian refugees at a United Nations-run camp, according to media reports.
Carson, a top-tier candidate in public opinion polls, has faced increased scrutiny over his foreign policy credentials amid comments about China’s role in the Syrian crisis, as well as remarks likening some Syrian refugees to rabid dogs.
The retired neurosurgeon will visit a Syrian refugee camp in the northern Jordan town of Azraq, according to the New York Times, which first reported the surprise trip. While there, he will visit a clinic and hospital, the newspaper said.
Representatives for Carson’s campaign could not be immediately reached for comment. NBC News also confirmed the trip.
U.S. Secret Service agents, along with several campaign aides are traveling with Carson, the Times said, adding that the candidate will return to the United States on Sunday.
Carson and other Republican presidential candidates have criticized U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next year, citing the possible risk that militants could slip through. The Obama administration has emphasized the refugee program vetting process.
Last week, Carson likened refugees fleeing the nearly five-year civil war in Syria to “rabid dogs.”
He also faced questions over his comments at a recent debate about China’s role in the conflict.
A political outsider, Carson has acknowledged he faces a “learning curve” when it comes to foreign policy. According to the Times, Carson’s advisers said his trip to Jordan was part of an effort to enhance his understanding of the refugee crisis.
“I want to hear some of their stories, I want to hear from some of the officials what their perspective is,” Carson said, according to the paper. “All of that is extraordinarily useful in terms of formulating an opinion of how to actually solve the problem.”"La belle Dame Sans Merci" by Walter T Crane (1885)
I had the good fortune recently to be able to attend the fourth annual Tolkien lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, delivered by the inspiring writer, editor, artist, and my dear friend, Terri Windling. There can be few if any who are better read in fantasy literature both old and new, and her lecture, “Reflections on Fantasy Literature in the Post-Tolkien Era” developed into an eloquent and heartfelt plea for “slower, deeper, more numinous” fantasy.
Terri set a challenge to all those of us who write, read, review and love modern fantasy: Tolkien’s themes of epic conflict between forces of good and evil echoed the two great wars of the 20th century; his work was at the time both ground-breaking and relevant. Can we writing today find themes relevant to the problems our 21st-century world now faces, such as the ecological and social disasters triggered by climate change?
You can watch Terri’s full lecture here:
What does this mean? Should we be hunting for a theme and wrapping some fantasy around it? Of course not. You can’t fake sincerity. Message-led fiction of whatever variety is rarely successful. Where there are exceptions (I’ll give you Black Beauty) it’s when such books emerge from long-held inner meditations and conviction. But as John Keats said, “if poetry come not as naturally as the leaves to the tree, it had better not come at all.” By this he didn’t mean “don’t write unless you’re inspired”; he means that the words you write must spring from the truth within you. It can’t be forced. But if there’s no truth, you are short-changing the reader and cheating yourself.
So—can fantasy say anything true or profound? This sort of doubt levelled at fantasy was once levelled at all fiction. What makes a writer choose one genre over another, anyway? Why are some drawn to contemporary fiction, others to historical fiction, fantasy or thrillers? I know and admire a number of authors who can handle a variety of forms, but there are many like myself who stick to a single last. I began writing fairy tales when I was ten, and I’ve been faithful ever since. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had qualms. I’ve asked myself, in the past, what relevance tales of magic and fantasy have or can have to the problems of life. Can they ever really be serious? Shouldn’t I— shouldn’t I? —be writing something more meaningful?
I do find meaning in fairy tales. They offer the kind of metaphorical, personal, elusive meaning that poetry affords; and I have come to the conclusion that what is done with a whole heart, with love, and with as much truth as I can personally muster, must be good enough. More than that is out of my control. I have no choice. There is in writing, as in all art, something that feels remarkably like outside inspiration, a fierce compulsion that grasps you by the hair and demands and absolutely requires: this is what you will write about. This, and this alone. If you disobey it you feel restless, haunted. You can’t forget or ignore it. You can’t turn your back and decide to write about something else. (If you try, it’s likely to go dead on you.)
The problem is that the divine or daemonic impulse only takes you so far. It sets you going and then leaves you to stumble along on your own, as best you can. If you’re lucky you’ll get occasional vivid flashes to light your path, but for the rest, you need to learn the craft. You need technique, patience, persistence and the ability to learn from criticism. This applies no matter what type of fiction you happen to have fallen in love with.
But it’s good to be aware of the particular pitfalls of your chosen genre. I wouldn’t like to speak for others, but in the early stages of my career as a fantasy writer I was anxious about the possibility of getting carried away by colourful but superficial effects, and forgetting or neglecting emotional truth. Fairies are after all notorious for their cold hearts. John Keats, something of a touchstone of mine, warns us in “La Belle Dame sans Merci” that playing with magic is perilous. The faerie lady’s kisses may suck the living soul out of you; the magic casement opens on faerie seas “forlorn”, and: “Forlorn! the very word is like a bell/That tolls me back from thee to my sole self…” Fancy, says Keats, is a “deceitful elf”. Fantasy needs to keep faith with reality, to have at least one foot on solid ground while at the same time leading us away, lifting our eyes to the blue horizon, the edge of the known world, the white spaces on the map. That sense of never-attainable mystery, as Terri reminds us in her lecture, is one of the things which brings us back again and again to breathe the air of Narnia, Earthsea, and Middle-earth.
Characters, too, need space to breathe and live. I don’t know about you but I’m far more interested in Aragorn as Strider, the weatherbeaten ranger from the North, than I would be if I only knew him as the heroic King of Gondor. Ulysses is more than a hero island-hopping from one marvelous adventure to another; he’s a war-weary veteran desperate to get home. Malory’s Lancelot isn’t just the best knight in the world and a hero sans reproche, he’s a breathing, fallible man torn between his honour and his sense of sin, his love for Arthur and his love for Guinevere. He knows he’s unworthy of the Holy Grail—so when he’s finally allowed to perform a miracle of healing, he reacts with uncontrollable tears, weeping “like a child that has been beaten”.
“Slower, deeper, more numinous fantasy”? Yes, please.
This article originally appeared on Katherine Langrish’s blog, Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, on June 17th.
Katherine Langrish is a British fantasy writer whose books include Troll Fell and The Shadow Hunt (HarperCollins). She is the creator of the blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles which discusses fairy tales, folk-lore and fantasy.[van id=”politics/2017/12/14/bernie-sanders-trump-resignation-sot-ac360.cnn”]
Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined the list of lawmakers calling on President Donald Trump to resign.
“Yes, I do think he should resign,” Sanders said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” citing the multiple allegations against Trump and comparing them to those that resulted in Sen. Al Franken’s resignation.
“You’ve got a president who has been accused by many, many women of harassment, to say the least. This is a guy who was on a tape seen by everybody in America essentially bragging about his sexual assault of women. Do I think under those considerations of Al Franken resigning, do I think the President should resign? I do. Do I think he will? I don’t,” the Vermont independent told Cooper.
In the past few days, Sanders had said Trump should “think about” resigning in the wake of the allegations.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand calls on Trump to resign
Sanders’ comments echo those of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, from earlier this week, when she told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the President should resign over sexual assault allegations.
“President Trump has committed assault, according to these women, and those are very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity, and he should be fully investigated and he should resign,” Gillibrand said Monday in an exclusive interview.
Trump faces a wide range of accusations of sexual misconduct by multiple women, a group of whom shared their alleged encounters with him at a news conference on Monday.
Monday also brought calls from Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon for Trump to resign.
“These women are right. If @realDonaldTrump won’t resign, Congress must investigate allegations by many, many women that he sexually assaulted and harassed them. No one is above the law,” Wyden tweeted.
On Sunday, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that any women who come forward with allegations of inappropriate sexual misconduct “should be heard,” including those who have accused the President.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders responded to Haley’s comments on Monday.
“As the President said himself, he thinks it’s a good thing that women are coming forward but he also feels strongly that a mere allegation shouldn’t determine the course,” Sarah Sanders said.
“And in this case, the President has denied any of these allegations, as have eyewitnesses … several reports have shown those eyewitnesses also back up the President’s claim in this process, and again the American people knew this and voted for the President and we feel like we’re ready to move forward in this process,” she added.Today is Election Day Eve, and I am tired. Not physically tired, mind you (coffee keeps me running), but instead, I am both emotionally and mentally drained. I am certainly not alone in this feeling, either. This presidential race feels like its been going on forever, and I cannot wait for it to end. God willing, tomorrow evening, we should have a definitive victor. Of course, there is always the possibility of a tie or other voting drama, but I digress.
If you have needed assistance with any aspect of tomorrow's election, Google has been offering help. Between its famed search engine and its YouTube video platform, many folks have gotten information about candidates, policies, polling places, and more. In other words, the search giant is positively altering the election results by helping voters stay informed. It has supplied valuable information to voters. Today, Google highlights just how many people are leveraging its tools for these needs.
"For the past several months, Google has helped people find information about the democratic process: our search results have helped voters register and explained the voting process with information on how to vote, who’s on their ballot, and how to find their local polling place in both English and Spanish. Since releasing these in-depth search results, we've seen millions of people engage with these tools on Google -- there's even been a startling 233 percent increase in traffic for 'how to vote' compared with 2012. In addition to 'how to vote', Americans are actively searching for 'where to vote' -- particularly in battleground states", says Shashi Thakur, VP Engineering, Google.
Thakur further says, "over the past few weeks viewers spent over 20 million hours watching -- and rewatching -- the presidential debate live streams on YouTube. Tomorrow, YouTube will be live streaming election results coverage from more news organizations than ever before".
There you have it folks, Google will have successfully altered election results by keeping voters informed through both search and YouTube. Not only has the search giant helped voters stay up-to-date on the candidates, but it has assisted them to register to vote and find their polling places too. Google is getting more people to the polls, but more importantly, they are better prepared to vote.
It is quite possible that the overall outcome of the election could be changed by Google's efforts, but this is not a negative. The search giant has merely empowered voters by giving them tools. Knowledge can never be a negative.
Are you excited to vote tomorrow? Have you leveraged Google to help make your decisions? Tell me in the comments.
Photo credit: Steve Heap / ShutterstockThe guy who's filling his notepad with drawings in the meeting? The coworker whose leg is running like a jackhammer? It's possibly more than boredom or caffeine powering them. Some researchers suggest such activities actually help focus on a task at hand.
Photo by Patrick Hoesly.
Researching the spectrum of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders, Fraser Smith at edexpat.com, a site focused on education of expatriate children, came across some surprising ideas from researchers about the nature of nervous movements. It covers pen tapping, idle drawing, and all the other stuff you've done at one time or another during a long phone call:
The theory is that nobody can focus 100% of their working memory and attention to a single task, there is always a little bit of floating attention keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings. This floating attention is a safety feature that probably dates back to prehistoric times when the ability to focus 100% on a single task was not entirely desirable and would result in a person missing the large ravenous beast hiding in the bushes, the result being that the ravenous beast would become somewhat less ravenous... Researchers have found that one way that ADHD children cope with these distractions is to unconsciously give their floating attention a nice mindless task, like fidgeting, swinging and fiddling to keep it occupied allowing the rest of their working memory to get on with the task at hand, learning, uninterrupted.
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It might be hard to consciously make yourself start fidgeting to pay attention, but it does give you some sympathy for those who seemingly can't help themselves. Maybe they're just honing in on something that you're a bit more apathetic about.
Fidgeting for Focus [edexpat]Today's strip is about how we see ourselves. It's a treatise on man's idealised image of himself, and how that image clashes with the harsh truth of objective reality.
It's also about the fact that Modern Wafare 3's killcam seems to be making things up as it goes along. What I see as a tense, close-cut gun battle in which my opponent narrowly grasps victory, the game often chooses to interpret a kind of effortless execution. In the game's eyes; I stagger around, unaware of my surroundings, drool pooling on my silenced assault rifle. Occasionally I fire my gun. Into the ground. I'm fairly certain I'm not actually that terrible. Perhaps it's a product of the infamous lag everyone's been talking about - a leftover product of Black Ops deviant netcode, apparently - there's been some noise about that. It brings the whole game into question. Are those videos of players dominating the competition - what's the current word for that by the way? 'Beasting' or 'grizzling' or some such nonsense? We gamers do speak a lot of wank, don't we? - products of genuine skill, or were they just that day's lucky winner on the wheel of latency? Are there dozens of other players out there, watching themselves being humiliated on Youtube and thinking, "Wait a second. It didn't happen like that?" Lag has always been an unavoidable bugbear when it comes to gaming over the internet, but I don't recall people shooting around corners in Quake 3.
Regardless, I think I'll stick to the latest Elder Scrolls effort for now. Of course, Skyrim can be an unforgiving place too, but at least when a giant crushes my skull out of fear that I'm about to molest his mammoths, I can be fairly certain that it's actually my fault for not getting out of the way.But there was another equally remarkable, though admittedly quieter, moment in the first five minutes of the show that you might have missed: Stewart, for the first time ever, publicly used the word “gay” in reference to herself (see the above video at the 2:26 mark).
To her credit, Stewart wasn’t exactly secretive about her relationships. In a 2016 interview with Elle UK, the actress used the word “girlfriend” to refer to Cargile, her partner at the time. She also said that “dating a girl” forced her to be more open about her relationships than she was when she was dating a guy. “To hide this provides the implication that I’m not down with it or I’m ashamed of it, so I had to alter how I approached being in public,” she said, adding, “It opened my life up and I’m so much happier.”
But for all of her candor, Stewart had never used the word “gay” ― or any other label ― to identify herself until last night. And really, that’s fine. In fact, it’s very much on trend with how other young people think about their sexuality. A 2016 survey found that 35 percent of millennials identify as something other than exclusively heterosexual (and a whopping 52 percent of individuals between the ages of 13 and 20 reported the same) but didn’t necessarily use a term like “gay” or “bisexual” or “lesbian” in reference to themselves.
Many people find these labels to be less necessary than they once were. As queer people become more and more integrated into mainstream society, thanks to changing cultural norms triggered by things like marriage equality and higher visibility in the media, many feel less of a need to identify as any one thing ― or to talk about it in any kind of public way, like a splashy tell-all interview. But labels can still be hugely useful, not only for individuals to orient themselves within a community, but also as a way to continue to increase that aforementioned visibility and push the LGBTQ movement forward, especially in times of political and cultural uncertainty, like now.
When one of the biggest movie stars of the last 10 years refers to herself as “so gay” on one of the most-watched late-night television shows on the air, it forces people to reconfigure how they think about what it means to be “gay” and who and what that term includes. Suddenly, anyone who only knew Stewart as “that girl from ‘Twilight’” and “Robert Pattinson’s ex girlfriend,” is confronted by her sexuality in a new and startling way, and it upends assumptions about the community, which is exactly why coming out is still so crucial.
It should be noted that Stewart’s “so gay” comment was made in reference to ridiculous tweets President Donald Trump once sent about her relationship with Pattinson:
Robert Pattinson should not take back Kristen Stewart. She cheated on him like a dog & will do it again--just watch. He can do much better! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2012
And, yes, the phrase was delivered with more than a hint of sarcasm and a certain degree of exasperation, which seemed to be leveled at Trump but also maybe at the world’s obsession with her sexuality. And that’s fair. It can’t be fun having your every move photographed and dissected. But in an era when LGBTQ rights are currently at risk in new and frightening ways, public acts of solidarity with the community, including coming out, are more important than ever.
It should also be noted that Stewart’s “so gay” comment doesn’t necessarily mean that she literally identifies as gay. She did date Pattinson, someone who, as far as we know, identifies as male, which may mean she identifies as bisexual or pansexual or sexually fluid or in some other way than “gay,” which is traditionally thought of as being sexually attracted to someone of the same gender. Perhaps she chose that phrase because it packed the most punch and would be the most instantly recognizable to those watching the show ― and because it’s probably the term most people have used behind her back ever since she started dating women. But she also may have decided at this point in her life that it’s the term that feels the most appropriate. We just don’t know.
Regardless, I had to catch my breath when I heard her say it last night. I’m proud of Stewart for standing up and joining the community in a way she hadn’t before, especially at a time when our community is hurting and scared. Coming out doesn’t happen just once and it’s rarely easy. Because heterosexuality is still the assumed default orientation in our society, every time a queer person meets someone new, there’s the chance they’ll be required to explain who they truly are, and in that moment exists the radical opportunity to challenge and change minds. Last night I believe Stewart probably did both, and I think we’re all a little bit better off because of it.Donald Trump was visibly seething as Hillary Clinton and her pet journalists “moderating” the second presidential debate piled on. In what was turning into more of a roast than a debate, it looked like we were going to get 90 minutes of Trump being hammered for talking bawdy in a private conversation more than a decade ago.
And then Trump unleashed. In a performance his supporters have been begging him for, he rescued his campaign with a savage attack on Hillary Clinton’s corruption, incompetence, and enabling of her husband’s sexual misdeeds by attacking his female victims. The visual of women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault was a powerful optic to counter the faux outrage about Trump’s dirty talk [Trump wanted to put Bill Clinton’s accusers in his family box. Debate officials said no., by Robert Costa, Dan Balz, and Philip Rucker, Washington Post, October 10, 2016].
It was what Trump needed. But it’s not enough to secure victory. Once again, incredibly, immigration was not the dominant issue at the presidential debate. Trump can hardly be faulted for failing to bring up the subject more than he did: he was forced to counterattack in every direction. The responsibility for suppressing the immigration debate lies with the Lying Press.
Which is especially unforgivable in light of last weekend’s revelations from Wikileaks that Hillary Clinton does in fact favor explicit “open borders.” She can hardly be expected to admit this, because, as we also learned in these documents, she openly says it’s important to have both a “private and a public position” [‘Honest Abe never lied. That’s the difference between him and you.’ Trump’s explosive attack on Clinton over her leaked speech about different ‘public and private positions,’ by Geoff Earle, Daily Mail, October 10, 2016].
The Clinton campaign is trying to claim that Hillary’s Open Borders remark really applied to “energy policy,” but this questionable claim will not bear up under even slight scrutiny. And, of course, she’s already endorsed, if only to black and Hispanic journalists, the Full Merkel.
It seems like ages ago, before the revelation of the Trump tape, but it was actually only late last month when the Clinton campaign seemingly committed itself to the radical position that the entire world has the right to move to the United States:
Donald Trump had said, "We want people to come into our country, but they have to come in legally, through a process… No one has a right to immigrate to this country. It is the job of a responsible government to admit only those who expect to succeed and flourish here and really be proud of what they've done and where they came from. They have to love our country." In that quote was the fundamental principle: There is no right to immigrate to the United States. Shortly after Trump's speech, the Clinton campaign in Ohio tweeted out the story of a Libyan who came to the Unites States on a student visa in 1994, was not able to renew it, and simply stayed in the country illegally. He didn't exactly live in the shadows, settling in Dayton and founding the Islamic Federation of Ohio and the Islamic Center for Peace. After two decades, he received permanent residency in 2015. In the story, headlined "Donald Trump would have kicked my family out of the country," the man's son, whose name was given as Mohamed G., wrote, "There was no way that I could let a person that disrespects my father and other immigrants win the White House." On Monday, the Clinton Ohio campaign tweeted Mohamed G.'s picture with Trump's quote, "No one has the right to immigrate to this country." The campaign added the comment: "We disagree." [Clinton campaign: Yes, world has ‘right’ to immigrate to U.S., by Byron York, Washington Examiner, September 22, 2016]
But Clinton does not have to worry about the Main Stream Media. Not only was she never questioned on her immigration policy, “immigrants” were only brought up as one of the official victim groups Donald Trump had supposedly insulted.
The only real discussion of immigration policy came up when Trump managed to attack Clinton’s proposed expansion of the Syrian refugee program. Trump explained his proposed ban on Muslim immigration (which should obviously take place) as simply “extreme vetting” of refugees coming from places like Syria.
“People are coming into our country, we have no idea who they are, where they are from, what their feelings about this country is, and she wants 550 percent more,” Trump said. “This is going to be the great Trojan horse of all time. We have enough problems in this country.”
Trump also slammed the Gulf States for doing nothing to solve the problems even though they have “nothing but money.”
This led to one of the few challenging questions Clinton received during the event: moderator Martha Raddatz (who was openly arguing with Trump at other points in the debate) asked Hillary Clinton why she was willing to “take the risk of having those refugees come into the country” even though Clinton knew the vetting system wasn’t perfect.
Incredibly, Clinton said it was because she saw a distressing picture:
Well, first of all, I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us. But there are a lot of refugees, women and children — think of that picture we all saw of that 4-year-old boy with the blood on his forehead because he'd been bombed by the Russian and Syrian air forces. [Everything that was |
a bind.
“If we weren’t in the position we were in, I would definitely have gotten the surgery,” McCann said. “Being in the position we were in, the chance to win a World Series, I was going to delay the surgery until we found out what was happening (with the team).”
He knew, everyone knew, that the Braves needed him. McCann’s backup at the time, David Ross, was not an everyday player. The next option after Ross, J.C. Boscan, had begun the season with only two games of major-league experience.
The problem was McCann said he couldn’t attack the baseball the way he normally does while protecting his front shoulder, and he couldn’t extend his swing without feeling a painful pinch. He ended up batting only.201 with two home runs in his final 39 games.
His shoulder did not bother him when throwing. He still felt he could contribute, mixing in singles, handling the pitching staff. But all the while, he sensed that surgery was inevitable.
“I knew,” he said. “I knew in August. Professional athletes know their body. They know what they’re feeling.
“Over my career, I’ve dealt with soreness. I can distinguish between the two. It wasn’t just one of those things that was going to go away. I felt like it was only going to get worse.”
And then his differences with the Braves began.
The Braves, after McCann underwent an MRI in August, said the catcher had a shoulder subluxation, or partial dislocation. McCann called that diagnosis “false” in an interview with David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, saying he had a cyst and a frayed labrum. A Braves official told O’Brien that the cyst and frayed labrum were directly related to the subluxation.
The day after the season ended, the two sides still couldn’t agree on how McCann should proceed. McCann said he was “pretty sure” he would need surgery, while Wren said, “from what we know, it would not be a surgical repair.”
Wren, however, allowed that a contrast MRI might reveal a greater problem. McCann waited to undergo such an MRI until after the season because it required an injection and would have sidelined him for too long.
As it turned out, McCann had a tear in his labrum, a larger tear than even the contrast MRI revealed.
“There was just no way of knowing,” Wren said.
Medicine isn’t an exact science; it isn’t unusual for a player and team to take different views on a player’s condition. But the Braves, by downplaying the possibility that McCann would need surgery, may have created the perception — however unwittingly — that McCann’s injury was less serious than it turned out to be.
That was one rub, according to McCann’s friends. Another was the Braves’ decision to start Ross over McCann in the wild-card playoff game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The decision was entirely justified, given the way the two catchers were playing. Ross gave it further credence by going 3-for-4 with a two-run homer in the Braves’ 6-3 defeat. But two of McCann’s former teammates called it “the final straw,” given McCann’s sacrifice and past accomplishments.
Five months later, McCann does not endorse that view.
“I’m not here to say I should have played in that game or shouldn’t have played in that game,” he said. “We had by far the best backup catcher in the game. I couldn’t have been happier for Rossie. He’s one of my best friends in the game.
“It was just a mix of emotions. Did I want to be out there and play in that game? Absolutely. At the same time, the guy who was playing for me was playing unbelievable. I can’t argue with the decision.”
The Braves obviously value McCann, a six-time All-Star with a.279 lifetime batting average and.826 OPS. Wren said the team rejected trade overtures from the Rangers before exercising McCann’s $12 million option at the end of October, explaining, “We were not in that mode.”
Of course, how much the Braves value McCann beyond this season remains to be seen.
“We haven’t made any determination one way or the other — we’ll see how this season plays out,” Wren said. “Mac has been so good here for so long, we want to be open-minded and see how it can work for both of us.”
McCann, in turn, said, “I grew up (in Duluth, Ga). I went to high school 20 miles north of the stadium. This is where I spent my life. I grew up a Braves fan. I love it here.”
But...
“I also know that it’s a business, and that it’s out of my control,” McCann continued. “All I can control is getting my shoulder back healthy, getting back to being better than I’ve ever been.”
He’s working on that. The rest will take care of itself.Elaine Davidson
Elaine Davidson is the "Most Pierced Woman" according to the Guinness World Records.[1]
When examined by a Guinness World Record official in May 2000, Davidson had 462 piercings, with 192 in her face alone. By August 9, 2001 when she was re-examined she was found to have 720 piercings.[1] Performing at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, the Guardian reported that she now had 3,950 body piercings.[2] She has more piercings in her genitalia than in any other part of the body - 500 in all, externally and internally.[3] The total weight of her internal piercings is estimated to be about 3 kilograms.[4] As of Feb. 2009 her piercings totaled 6,005.[5]
She was born in Brazil and is a former nurse.[6] She now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.[3] On June 8, 2011, Davidson married Douglas Watson; at the time of her wedding, news reports claimed her total number of piercings was 6,925. The couple later divorced in 2012.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Portable and truly reliable external hard drive.
I got this at a great price here on eBay. Totally worth it. If you happen to be using this for the PS4 game console then make sure you have it plugged directly into the front console USB port. It will not work if you plug it in through a USB hub as I first tried. Then when you go to hard drive settings you choose to use it for apps. It will fairly quickly format and you will be good to go with more than enough space you will ever need. I transferred some games from my internal to this drive. You can then use the internal to save games and game capture pictures. The transfer rate is actually pretty decent although it might not be quite the fastest. There never isn't any delays in load times for any games. I would say it's not much different or different at all than from loading up a game from the internal. This hard drive fit nicely next to my console under my television stand. Seagate is one of the best brands you can get for a portable hard drive. I trust it the most. This is definitely a good investment for either using it to store videos, pictures and music from your PC (I use a red 1TB Seagate for that. I may consider upgrading one day to a 3 or 4TB.) or storing your games and apps from the Xbox One or PS4. No need to go through the trouble of taking apart the PS4 console to install a bigger hard drive in. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference in loading times. Comes highly recommended.
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Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: freez-25“I AM not Chinese, I am Korean,” cried a frightened young woman as she was led away from demonstrators chanting anti-Chinese slogans near Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. Ultra-nationalists and Islamists were marching in solidarity with China’s Uighurs, who are Muslims and ethnic Turks, following reports of deadly clashes between students and police in Xinjiang province.
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The incident is the latest in a spate of anti-Chinese protests egged on by media coverage of the plight of the Uighurs. Across Turkey, protesters have burned China’s flag and effigies of Mao Zedong. (Mao died nearly 40 years ago, but is better known than China’s current president.) Last week a Chinese restaurant in Istanbul was vandalised to cries of Allahu Akhbar. It later emerged that the “Happy China” was run by Turkish Muslims and that its chef was Uighur. “We don’t even serve booze,” griped the owner.
Turkey’s government echoes the protesters’ complaints, albeit more diplomatically. The foreign ministry said that news of Uighurs being “banned from fasting and fulfilling other acts of worship had been received with sadness by the Turkish public.” Devlet Bahceli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Action Party, asked crudely: “How does one distinguish between Chinese and Koreans? Both have slanted eyes.”
China denies that it has banned the fast, but it certainly does curb Uighur culture and it tells bureaucrats, teachers and students not to observe Ramadan.
Still, Turkey’s ruling Islamists want to remain on good terms with Beijing. Unfazed by objections from NATO partners, Turkey is mulling the purchase of Chinese long-range surface-to-air missiles. The Turkish government has denied Rebiya Kedeer, a campaigner for Uighur independence, a visa. Ironically though, Uighurs travel via Turkey to join Islamic State jihadists in Syria, as Firdevs Robinson, a Turkish blogger, observes.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, sees high strategic stakes. He says he would ditch efforts to join the European Union if Turkey were accepted by the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), formed in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The SCO “is better and more powerful, and we have common values with them,” Mr Erdogan declared.
If those values include squashing dissent, he has a point. At least 105 people have been indicted over the past year for alleged rudeness about the president. Mr Erdogan’s nervousness over a scandal implicating his son and sundry political allies has led to a shake-up in the judiciary and the police and to internet curbs.
He is expected to travel to Beijing on July 28th. And if this upsets any pious supporters, he can respond with a saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad: “Seek knowledge, even in China.”Report: Aerial Imaging Market Will Thrive With Rising Popularity In Precision Agriculture
Technavio analysts forecast the global aerial imaging market to grow at a CAGR of close to 13.28% during the forecast period, according to their latest report.
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The research study covers the present scenario and growth prospects of the global aerial imaging market for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the following:
The retail price of aerial imagery
The revenue generated from aerial imagery in business sectors, including oil and gas, mining, agriculture and forestry, building and infrastructure, government, sustainable energy, and military and defense
The revenue generated from leasing equipment (drones) for aerial imagery and aerial surveying in commercial applications
Technavio ICT analysts highlight the following four factors that are contributing to the growth of the global aerial imaging market:
High adoption in urban planning
Rising popularity in precision agriculture
Remote sensing and GIS in disaster management
Low-cost sensor drone technology
Here is a look at two of those factors related to precision agriculture:
Rising Popularity In Precision Agriculture
Geospatial technologies are used in precision agriculture to map spatial variations in crop and soil conditions. They match inputs related to water, seed, and fertilizers to the variations by applying them at variable rates.
Aerial photography gathers the necessary information for crop analysis and management. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) can be measured using aerial imagery, which indicates the green vegetation levels of crops. Aerial imagery can be used to monitor crops, forests, and ecosystems for subtle changes in visible and near-infrared radiations.
“Due to technological advances in aerial imagery, farmers and ranchers worldwide are showing increased interest in aerial photography services. Aerial thermal photography helps determine crop temperatures, and along with NDVI, it provides comprehensive information on plants that need to be irrigated,” says Rakesh.
Low-cost Sensor Drone Technology
Innovations in drone technology have facilitated the transition from high-cost fixed wing aircraft to cheaper and more efficient UAV LiDAR models. Low-cost UAV LiDAR systems find applications commercial, government, and environment and conservation sectors.
Inexpensive drones with advanced sensors and imaging capabilities enable precision agriculture, which helps farmers reduce crop damage and increase crop yield. Low cost of technology, along with the easy integration of multiple technologies, provides surveyors and consulting engineers a significant opportunity for development. The cost of a high-end GPS-controlled drone with a camera is around USD 6,000. Military agencies can replace older warships and aircraft with low-cost drones to handle the intelligence aspects. This replacement will help reduce costs related to upgrading obsolete war equipment.
Learn more about the report here.Newtown seventh grader Max Goldstein and his brother have started a movement to rid the United States of violent video games. (Photo: handout)
— Violent video games are drawing new scrutiny in the wake of the Newtown elementary school tragedy. Some gamers are already giving them up … voluntarily.
CBS 2’s Lou Young met one seventh grader in Newtown on Thursday who was gathering a selection of his personal video games. He was getting rid of them for one reason and said he wants you to get rid of yours as well.
“All of it is kill, just kill as many people as you can without dying,” Max Goldstein said.
Each one is what they call a “first-person shooter,” a game in which the player looks at a digital landscape through the sights of a weapon and uses it on enemies.
EXTRA: Remembering The Sandy Hook School Shooting Victims
They are among the most popular games on the market; violent, engaging, and, some say, addictive. In the aftermath of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Goldstein and his brother decided it was a digital world they could no longer embrace.
“I really think it’s rude and disrespectful to the families, who lost children, to play these games,” Goldstein said.
With his parents help he’s created a group called “Played Out” that uses the slogan “We choose not to play.” It urges fellow kids to ditch their violent games as well. Bins will be going up in Newtown on Friday.
“We hope people will drop off … and destroy them,” said Jackson Mittleman, Goldstein’s brother.
The adults are wondering why they didn’t think of it first.
“It’s just great. I think it’s just great the kids thought of something,” said Roberta Mittleman, the boys’ mother.
Goldstein said his goal is to reduce violent video games by a third in American homes. You can start by dropping them off Friday. The first of the bins will go up at the Newtown Sports Academy.
Please offer your thoughts in the comments section below …Constable David Wynn died on duty, but it didn't have to be that way.
It happened in January 2015, when Wynn and Auxiliary Constable Derek Bond were at a casino in St. Albert, Alta., confronting a suspect about a stolen vehicle. The suspect, Shawn Rehn, shot both officers and fled the scene, later committing suicide. Bond survived his injuries; Wynn did not.
Rehn never should have been at the casino that night, much less out on the streets. Months earlier, he was released on bail despite facing 29 outstanding Criminal Code charges. Rehn was a poster boy for the "revolving door" criminal, with a record spanning 20 years and 206 charges. Yet the court consented to his release on a cash bail and a number of conditions, which he subsequently broke. We know how that ended: with a widow, three children without a father and a family changed forever.
Risk assessment 101
The problem was that the court never heard Rehn's criminal history during his bail hearing — an oversight that makes entirely no sense. Indeed, risk assessment 101 dictates that past negative behaviour is the best predictor of similar future behaviour. But courts can't make proper assessments unless they actually hear about a bail applicant's past criminal activity.
That's where Bill S-217 comes in. Proposed by Conservative Senator Bob Runciman, the bill proposes a simple amendment to the Criminal Code that would change the word "may" to "shall." That move would require the prosecutor or police representing the Crown to put an accused's criminal record, recent charges and/or "breach of trust" offences before the court. The judge still maintains absolute independence, and the decision to release or detain remains his or hers alone.
Yet for some unconscionable reason, the Liberals seem determined to kill the bill.
In June of 2016, I testified before the Senate in support of the legislation, the same day as Constable Wynn's widow, Shelley MacInnis-Wynn. Her presentation was thoughtful, heartfelt and emotional. Her courage was inspiring. The bill received majority, non-partisan passage in the Senate and is now before the House of Commons.
Shelly Wynn, widow of Const. David Wynn who was gunned down at a St. Albert casino, spoke before senate Thursday to fight for a bill she says could have saved her husband's life. 1:30
The Liberals have made it clear they will not support the bill. During second reading, Liberal MP Sean Casey, parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, launched into a monologue, describing the bill's supposed problems, including possible court delays, resource issues and even constitutional concerns.
But court delays, if they occur, would be measured in minutes, maybe hours — not days or months. A criminal record is a computer keystroke or phone call away.
As for resource issues, every police station and all courthouses have access to electronic police records. Extra equipment is not required.
And what about those constitutional concerns? Well, this bill does not compromise judicial independence. Criminal records are already documented, recorded and accessible. This bill just ensures they will be presented to the court before a person is put back on the streets.
A 'no-brainer'
During debate, Alberta Conservative MP Michael Cooper, who introduced the bill in the House, pithily noted the legislation was a "no-brainer." My straw poll of a handful of ordinary Canadians provided a similar response. The only people who don't seem to get it are those in the Liberal government.
So why kill the bill? Is it philosophical? Is public safety not a priority? Could it be partisan politics? Who knows.
For many Canadians, criminal justice reform is more than legalizing cannabis and the desire to undo much of the tough-on-crime agenda of the Harper government. It's about common-sense changes that keep everyone safe. But if the Liberals can't act in a non-partisan manner on such a simple amendment, I see red flags ahead for important future public safety reform — on issues that need attention such as lax sentencing of sex offenders, parole shortcomings, expanding the DNA databank and improvement of high-risk offender release orders.
Had Bill S-217 been in place when Rehn came before the court, there is a good possibility Constable Wynn would still be alive today. And maybe, so too would Rehn.
Second reading of the bill is not yet completed, but without Liberal support, it cannot proceed. Bill S-217 will save lives. The government should do the right thing, and see to its passage.
This column is an opinion. For more information about our commentary section, please read this editor's blog and our FAQ.The best part of this segment about rational, sane gun laws is Matthew Dowd, centrist extraordinaire, taking a stand firmly against the usual gun argument that the answer to mass shootings like Sandy Hook is to simply arm everyone, including teachers, doctors, preachers and Santa. Dowd made an apt analogy to schoolyard bullies that's quite clear:
When there's a kid in the school yard with a baseball bat, we don't give everybody else baseball bats and say go to deal with it and defend yourself. What we do is we take the baseball bat away from the bad kid or the bully and then we sit down and say what can we do to make sure this doesn't happen -- we've got to take the baseball bat away from the bully.
When Matthew Dowd is the sanest voice, aside from Katrina VandenHeuvel who is always sane, progress is being made.
Grover Norquist plays the Tea Party hand as usual, claiming that this is just lefties ginning up lefty arguments for purely political purposes, which is the typical argument being advanced by gun nuts. I would like to remind Grover that he had no objection to two wars being started or passage of the Patriot Act because of 9-11. Is there no greater and more clear example of using tragedy to advance policy?
That's how it works, Grover. Things happen. People respond. Policy is made in response, for better or for worse. It sounds lovely to try and minimize it by saying "oh, you're just using this tragedy to advance your long-held beliefs." But that's how it works. It's time to stop saying that's a bad thing.
As for Mayor Cory Booker, he is playing the middle against the ends here, as usual. Since he's declared his intention to run for the Senate, he has made the political calculus that "sticking to the pragmatic center" is his safest and best pathway to that office.
Props to Dowd for leaving the safe zone and saying the right thing. Booker could take a lesson from him.
Full transcript below the fold.The rabbi said he supported Chris Christie, but didn’t formally endorse him. Rabbi focus of 'traffic' jokes
Aides and allies of Gov. Chris Christie joked last year about causing “traffic problems” for a New Jersey rabbi, newly unredacted text messages show.
The messages were released Thursday as part of state lawmakers’ investigation of the Bridgegate scandal, in which Christie supporters are alleged to have orchestrated traffic jams near the George Washington Bridge as political payback against a Democratic mayor.
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The text messages were between David Wildstein, whom the Republican governor appointed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and Bridget Kelly, a former deputy chief of staff to the governor.
( Also on POLITICO: Christie faces new uproar in state's largest city)
Emails released in January showed that Kelly had told Wildstein last August that it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” That message came ahead of paralyzing traffic jams in the New Jersey town, where the Democratic mayor had not endorsed Christie for reelection as governor.
The unredacted material suggested that the rabbi, identified as Mendy Carlebach by The Record (N.J.) newspaper, had apparently annoyed Wildstein.
“He has officially pissed me off,” Wildstein texted Kelly on Aug. 19, according to the documents released by the Democratic-led state panel investigating the traffic scandal.
“We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?” Kelly texted to Wildstein.
“Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,” replied Wildstein. At the time, he was still working at the Port Authority, which oversees area airports.
Wildstein also sent Kelly a photo of the rabbi appearing to pose with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Wildstein called the rabbi the “Jewish Cid Wilson.” Wilson, who ran for state Assembly in 2007, told The Record he has been mocked by Wildstein in the past for, in the newspaper’s words, “having celebrity Facebook friends.”
( PHOTOS: Who’s who in the Christie bridge flap)
Carlebach has served as a Port Authority police chaplain, according to The Record, which reported on the messages earlier Thursday. Carlebach told the newspaper he had “no idea” why Wildstein and Kelly were talking about him.
Carlebach also said he supported Christie, a potential presidential contender in 2016, but didn’t formally endorse him for reelection as governor and can’t remember if Christie’s campaign asked him for an endorsement, according to The New York Times.
Christie has denied any personal involvement in the Fort Lee traffic scheme and fired Kelly in January. Wildstein had already resigned from the Port Authority in December.
( Also on POLITICO: Christie decries media 'hysteria')
Lawyers for Wildstein and Kelly did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The Democratic leaders of the state panel investigating the traffic jams said the redactions were lifted after they consulted with Wildstein’s attorney.
Other information in Wildstein’s messages remains redacted because “the material was outside of the subject matter or date range requested,” the leaders said in a statement.Back in 2007, id Software came up with the idea of Quake Live, a browser-based first-person shooter that preserved the spirit of the popular Quake III Arena video game. In 2008 the project entered an invitation-based closed beta stage, and an open beta was available starting with February 2009. The only problem was that the browser plugin allowing the game to be played only supported Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox, running under either Windows XP or Vista.
Things are about to change, as id Software President Todd Hollenshead announced during the QuakeCon 2009 press conference that Quake Live would soon be adding support for Linux and Macintosh systems. Users who want to catch an early glimpse of the enhancements can do that at QuakeCon, since both versions of the plugin are available for testing on the show floor. Non-attendees will have to wait for the update that is scheduled to come on August the 18th, this Tuesday.
About Quake Live:
Quake Live is a browser plugin-based first person shooter video game developed by id Software, which first appeared in 2007. It is a variant of its predecessor, Quake III Arena, running a slightly updated version of this game's engine. The focus is on usability enhancements rather than graphical upgrades, including the plugin that runs compile code on the user's processor and a more streamlined heads-up display. Notably, this game doesn't make use of Adobe's Flash technology to run. Quake Live is free to play, as financial backing for this project comes from in-game advertising.
Don't expect any graphical wonders from this game; based on a title released in 1999, it's meant to have a quick and simple installation procedure for casual gaming or maybe aid team-bonding through lunch break tournaments.
Check out Quake Live on Softpedia.Currently based in Hong Kong, Li Ka-Shing is a Chinese investor, philanthropist, and business magnate with an estimated net worth of $30.6 billion in January 2019. Sir Ka-shing Li is currently seated as the Chairman of the Board of Cheung Kong Holdings and Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL). He is also considered as the largest operator of container chemicals in the world. In addition to that, he was named as the world's largest retailer of health and beauty products.
In 2001, he was hailed by Asiaweek as one of Asia's most powerful men. In September 2006, he became a recipient of Forbes' magazine's first ever "Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award".
Apart from being a successful businessman, Li Ka-shing is also known as one of the most generous philanthropists in Asia. In fact, to date, he has already spent more than $1.41 billion for his philanthropic works.
At age 22, Li Ka-shing was able to put up his own company. From plastic manufacturing, his family grew and developed into one of the leading real estate companies based in Hong Kong today. In 1979, he acquired Hutchison Whampoa. Six years later, he purchased Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited.
At his current age of 84, Li Ka-shing continues to supervise his business empire that currently hires 26,000 employees working in 52 countries. He is known to be an investor in Spotify, Hola.org, Kaiima, Stevie, Everything.Me, and Facebook.One afternoon last week in downtown Hamilton, elementary kids and preteens born in Somalia and elsewhere were asking for help spelling words connected to their favourite holidays and festivals like Eid and Ramadan:
"B-o-u-n-c-y c-a-s-t-l-e," came the help, provided by a volunteer.
"S-p-o-n-g-e B-o-b," was the answer given to another.
As many as 40 kids on Tuesdays and Thursdays come to the Immigrants Working Centre on Rebecca Street after school for help with their homework and to work on other reading and math skills.
It's called the Homework Circle and its numbers keep growing, organizers said, so much so they worry about being overwhelmed. They are anxiously anticipating a fundraiser in March that they hope will help them meet the rising demand.
Last week, the kids were filling out a survey about designed to assess their reading level, interest in various subjects and background.
Six-year-old Fartun grabbed the attention of a volunteer while she filled out her survey.
Fartun, 6, completes a questionnaire at an after-school homework club designed especially to help newcomers bridge the gap between school and home. (Kelly Bennett/CBC)
"So it asks, why is your favourite subject math? So why do you like math? Maybe because it's easy?" asked the volunteer, Frederick Mertz.
"Yeah, because it's easy," Fartun said.
"There you go, so you can write, 'It's easy," he said.
"But sometimes it's not," she said as she started writing.
'A lot of these parents are illiterate... in their own native languages'
"We can hopefully bridge that gap between school and home. Because often a lot of the immigrants, their parents don't speak English," said Ann-Marie Anie, a teacher who is working with local nonprofit Empowerment Squared on the Homework Circle project.
"And on top of that a lot of these parents are illiterate as well in their own native languages," Anie said. "So putting a new language on top of that, English, it can be just an added stress."
Sheiknoor, left, and Sideilal, right, get help with an assignment from Adiba Ahmed, a McMaster student and volunteer with Empowerment Squared's Homework Circle after school. (Kelly Bennett/CBC)
When kids and their parents find out what the club can help them do, many are sold.
"It's not just exclusively newcomers," said Leo Johnson, founder and executive director of Empowerment Squared. "We have a lot of kids who come because they're struggling in school, period."
They're especially drawn in by success stories like this:
A student who came to Canada as a refugee from Congo started with the club in Grade 7, Johnson said, and last year graduated and became a nurse at Hamilton Health Sciences.
Volunteer Frederick Mertz helps students with a questionnaire designed to assess their reading level, interest in various subjects and background. (Kelly Bennett/CBC)
'When you grow up... the first thing you have to know is math'
Zainab, an 8-year-old who who has lived in Somalia and Kenya, said she can often get help with easy assignments from her brother at home.
But when something is hard, she comes to the club for help.
Math is also her favourite subject, she said.
"I like math because that's important because when you grow up you want to be something like a teacher, like the first thing you have to know is math," she said."
I had a great time meeting kids like Zainab at a homework club for newcomer kids last week. My story about the club: <a href="https://t.co/sQg3sKBB8Z">https://t.co/sQg3sKBB8Z</a> <a href="https://t.co/1GoCoZOpJ3">pic.twitter.com/1GoCoZOpJ3</a> —@kellyrbennett
Eight-year-old Sheikhnoor, who was born in Somalia and moved to Canada in 2013, said he comes to the club to get help with his printing.
"Because I print messy," he said.
Last Thursday, about 25 students attended an after-school homework club designed for newcomers and other kids having trouble in school to get help with their assignments and literacy. (Kelly Bennett/CBC)
'Our resources are really scarce'
Kids come to the Homework Circle through word of mouth. Johnson said the organization isn't really advertising the program – "on purpose."
Leo Johnson, founder of Empowerment Squared, helps Nimo, 12, with an assignment at the after-school homework club at the Immigrants Working Centre. (Kelly Bennett/CBC)
"Because we've been worried about being overwhelmed – our resources are really scarce," Johnson said. "We are a small organization, but the group has been growing."'
The group already receives funding from the Hamilton Community Foundation. But Johnson hopes the organization's fundraiser in March will help make it possible for the program to keep growing.
[email protected] | @kellyrbennettNRL match review committee coordinator Michael Buettner has outlined the reasons behind the committee's decision not to charge Storm winger Marika Koroibete and Souths forward Nathan Brown for separate incidents in Round 13.
Koroibete looked to have used his shoulder to force Panthers winger Dallin-Watene-Zelezniak into touch, but the committee didn't see the challenge as a typical shoulder charge.
"You can see Koroibete making his way across at great speed. When you look at the incident no charge was applicable," Buettner explained.
"It was a desperate tackle or bump on the Panthers winger and while there was no wrapping of the right arm by the defender on this occasion, you can see clear separation between the upper arm and the body, and the fact that he was also going in the same direction… we felt that there was an element of football in this and no charge applicable for Koroibete."
There was also plenty of focus on Nathan Brown's apparent stomp on Titans counterpart Agnatius Paasi during Gold Coast's golden point win in Perth, but the committee deemed the pressure not to be "forceful".
"One of the other key aspects here is that due to the contact area there wasn't an unacceptable risk of injury to the player on this occasion," Buettner said.
"Whilst some people might see it as being a deliberate action, we saw a careless action on the part of Brown, and a formal warning will be sent to the club in relation to this issue."
More from Buettner in this week's NRL HQThe way the Bengals' defensive line has been sacking quarterbacks, you're waiting for some comparison to the Fearsome Foursome or another memorable defense from the past. You probably weren't expecting a reference to a young adult novel about a fight to the death.
“We treat it like the Hunger Games,” Bengals defensive end Carlos Dunlap told reporters. “Whoever gets there first. Especially when we know its a pass, me, Geno (Atkins) and Mike (Johnson) are licking our chops like we hadn’t eaten all day, ate at like breakfast, now we got to eat.”
This quarterback feast could give the Bengals their first NFL sacks title. Cincinnati currently leads the league with 39, which is one more than the Broncos. The Bengals have never finished higher than fourth in the NFL in sacks, and that was in 1973 and 2011. The key to the Bengals' pass rush this year is how it's generated by the defensive front. Atkins (9.5 sacks), Johnson (eight) and Dunlap (four) have accounted for 55 percent of the team's sacks.
The Bengals are also on pace to break the franchise record in sacks, which was set in 2001 (48 sacks). This year's defense is averaging 3.2 sacks per game and is projected to finish with 52.
Cincinnati is looking to add to its total Sunday against the Cowboys. Tony Romo has been sacked 28 times this season, eighth-most in the NFL.Coming off a hotly-contested series at home against Indiana, the University of Hawai'i baseball team (11-8) are looking to bounce back with Mountain West Conference foe San José State (9-9) coming to Les Murakami Stadium. The Rainbow Warriors and Spartans will face off in a four-game series, running Thursday, March 23 through Sunday, March 26.
Hawai'i San José State Thursday: RHP Brendan Hornung
(1-2, 2.15 ERA, 37.2 IP, 3 BB, 44 SO) RHP Jake Swiech
(2-2, 6.39 ERA, 25.1 IP, 19 BB, 19 SO) Friday: RHP Neil Uskali
(3-1, 2.84 ERA, 31.2 IP, 8 BB, 20 SO) RHP Cameron Keup
(1-2, 6.35 ERA, 11.1 IP, 7 BB, 8 SO) Saturday: LHP Dominic DeMiero
(3-1, 2.10 ERA, 34.1 IP, 5 BB, 21 SO) RHP Matt Brown
(2-0, 2.08 ERA, 13 IP, 12 BB, 10 SO) Sunday: RHP Jackson Rees
(2-0, 4.18 ERA, 28.0 IP, 12 BB, 13 SO) LHP Graham Gomez
(0-0, 5.71 ERA, 17.1 IP, 7 BB, 19 SO)
University of Hawai'i Games 20-23
#HawaiiBSB
HONOLULU – Coming off a hotly-contested series at home against Indiana, the University of Hawai'i baseball team (11-8) is looking to bounce back with Mountain West Conference foe San José State (9-9) coming to Les Murakami Stadium. The Rainbow Warriors and Spartans will face off in a four-game series, running Thursday, March 23 through Sunday, March 26.The Rainbow Warriors and Spartans renew an old WAC series that will see its 98th game in the series opener. UH leads the overall series 57-40, UH winning 58.8 percent of the series contests. The teams last met in 2012, and UH won nine of the last 11 meetings.The Spartans are fresh off a sweep of MW counterpart Nevada – which Hawai'i will face next week at home. SJS |
financial loss while restoring the database.
Iran denies the attack has been much of a problem so far, but after the drumming it received from Stuxnet, it's unlikely it'll admit to having its guard down yet again. It's also unclear who's behind the virus—other than some party that wants to hurt Iran's financial sector. When a country has as many enemies as Tehran's up against, that's a long list. [Symantec]
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Image via SymantecCINCINNATI — Yankees players absorbed most of the All-Star Game buzz in both 2013 and 2014, even as the team toiled on the edge of the playoff race. This year, the Yankees barely made a peep in the Midsummer Classic, yet the team leads the American League East.
Think the Yankees likes that trade?
Dellin Betances and Brett Gardner made their All-Star Game debuts Tuesday night at Great American Ball Park, Betances more promisingly than Gardner, while Mark Teixeira appeared in his third such showcase. While they played small roles, they can reap great dividends from the American League’s 6-3 victory over the National League, as the Yankees will own homefield advantage if they advance to the World Series.
“I was in the All-Star Game when we won. I expected us to be in the World Series in ’09, and we needed that win,” said Teixeira, who replaced starting first baseman Albert Pujols in the sixth inning and went hitless in two at-bats. “I’m hoping to be there again this year.”
The victory allowed Teixeira to laugh off his ninth-inning strikeout against Cincinnati’s hard-throwing closer Aroldis Chapman. Four of the five pitches in the at-bat registered at 100 mph or faster, according to MLB.com.
“This guy’s throwing 102 miles an hour, and he’s just coming right at you. It’s power vs. power,” Teixeira said. “Pitchers usually win that battle, but I did my best.”
Asked whether he peeked at the radar gun readings on the scoreboard, Teixeira smiled and said, “Absolutely.”
Betances, who was selected to the 2014 AL team but didn’t pitch, threw a scoreless seventh inning, walking one and striking out one.
“It was a lot of fun,” Betances said. “Hopefully, I continue to work hard and make some more of these.”
Gardner, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Baltimore’s Adam Jones in the fifth inning, went to left field in the bottom of the inning and switched to center field in the seventh, struck out looking twice, first against the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw (on a killer curveball) and then in the eighth inning against former Yankees prospect Mark Melancon of Pittsburgh.
“All in all, I had a lot of fun, and we won the game,” Gardner said. “That’s what we were shooting for.”
Last year at Minneapolis’ Target Field, retiring Yankee Derek Jeter started at shortstop and wound up in the center of controversy when he doubled off NL starting pitcher Adam Wainwright of St. Louis, only for Wainwright to claim he threw Jeter a “pipe shot” as a salute.
And in 2013, at Citi Field, retiring Yankees closer Mariano Rivera won the game’s Most Valuable Player honor by throwing a shutout eighth inning.
Though there has been some talk of possibly shortening the season Orioles center fielder Adam Jones doesn’t see that ever happening because of simple economics.
“I think people’s pockets are happy keeping it the way it is,” Jones said. “You realize, you take away eight games per team (5 percent). They always said when I got called up to the big leagues, 162 is telling the truth. They never say 154. Always 162.”
Long ago it used to be 154 games, Jones was told.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t even born yet,” he said. “[Ronald] Reagan used to be the president. I wasn’t born yet. Everybody is making money. There’s too much money. What they need to do is stop the other sports from having such a long-a—playoffs.”
The oldest All-Star here was a first-timer — former Yankee A.J. Burnett of Pittsburgh, 38, who announced before the 2015 season this would be his farewell campaign.
In fact, the right-hander credits the decision for his success; he has a 2.11 ERA in 119¹/₃ innings pitched, with 100 strikeouts and 33 walks.
“I kind of wish I had taken that approach a long time ago: Enjoy every day,” Burnett said. “You don’t want to say I don’t worry, but I’m just going out there and pitching until Skip [Pirates manager Clint Hurdle] takes me out. Just lay it out there.”
Burnett said he still intends to retire, despite his success.The latest wraparound jacket band for Takuma Morishige's Tonari no Seki-kun comedy manga revealed that an anime has been green-lit. In addition, a website titled “t-sekikun.jp” was registered under the name Shin-ei Animation last month.
The original manga revolves around a girl named Yokoi who sits next to a boy only known as “Seki-kun.” During class, Seki-kun continues to not pay attention and instead creates amazingly throrough little distractions, such as a detailed golf course with the course's hole being a dent in his desk, or an entire dramatic war being played out by paper shogi pieces.
Morishige began his manga in Media Factory's Comic Flapper magazine in 2010. The manga was nominated in the 5th Manga Taisho Awards last year. A set of live-action commercials were aired in Japanese bookstores and trains in 2011.
[Via Yū[email protected]ūgi, 0takomu]
Update: Typo fixed. Thanks, TheAncientOne17. November 2014
A priorized project of eGovernment Switzerland
Usage and exchange of geodata is fostered by geo.admin.ch in a significant way. The Federal geoportal is operated by the Federal Office of Topography, swisstopo, on behalf of the coordinating body for Federal geographical information with the aim to implement the Geoinformation Act. The purpose of this Act is to ensure that geodata relating to the territory of the Swiss Confederation is made available to the Federal, Cantonal and municipal authorities, to industry and commerce, to academic and scientific institutions and to society at large, for the broadest possible use, in a sustainable, up-to-date, rapid and easy way, with the required quality and at reasonable cost.
Main features are:
single point of entry for all spatial data portals and services of the federal authorities of Switzerland
Multilingual : five languages
fast and user friendly map viewing interface via map.geo.admin.ch with high performance of information retrieval
OpenSource + OpenStandards + CloudComputing = Innovation
The combination of an open source software framework with an innovative cloud computing architecture resulting in an attractive cost / benefit ratio. Furthermore, geo.admin.ch was an early innovator in Switzerland using cloud computing as infrastructure solution for authorities.
With a commitment to open source and open standards, the initial map viewer version could be brought to readiness for market within just 3 months of time. Our choice had an impact on other portals worldwide and has been reused several times. Based on the success of map.geo.admin.ch, a public private partnership, with international members, was initiated by geo.admin.ch to extent an existing open source mapping framework to support mobile devices / smartphones and enable the development of OpenLayers3.
A well-documented set of services enables the reuse of geodata for other needs: besides offering OGC WMS and WMTS services, the web community is also served with RESTful services. Approximately 400 official geo datasets covering topics from leisure/hiking to cadastral maps can now be used by the broad public and private industry.
So far, the federal portal received twelve awards and nominations, on national and international level, for its success in fields such as webmapping technology, cloud computing, mobile and eGovernment.
Unleash the mapping potential within a web browser
Reducing the access requirements for the federal spatial data infrastructure to a web browser is the first step to open access. Using the web not only for linking and exchanging data but also to view data in a browser was a key decision on the launch in 2010.
Advanced mapping functions like import of external data sources, measure, compare, draw, export, simple queries and permalinks are possible using standards like HTML5 CSS3 in combination with modern web frameworks as OpenLayers3, AngularJS and bootstrap. A public API api3.geo.admin.ch enables third parties to create mashups and create new, value adding services. One of the outcomes is the propagation of storymaps.geo.admin.ch especially in the educational field: www.geo.admin.ch/edu
Latest feature: Offline maps in a browser with map.geo.admin.ch
Accessing maps in areas without network coverage is possible with the mobile mode of map.geo.admin.ch/?mobile=true. A recently released function allows the download and local storage of a predefined map extent for offline usage. This feature meets the needs of individual users and provide opportunities to extend application possibilities.
With the ability to store map data locally on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets, maps can now also be used without internet connection in a browser window. Positioning via GPS in real time is enabled. The use of an additional app is not necessary.
Maps including thematic overlays of a selected screen section can be stored locally depending on the available free space on the device and are thus accessible offline. The availability of the functionality itself and the amount of storable thematic maps is OS and web browser-dependent. The function allows initially the local storage of an area of 10×10 km.
New web standards allow the use and management of spatial data in the browser cache: no plug-ins are required but existing web standards are used. This recent version of the offline function includes various improvements based on user feedback of the BETA – version.
How it is done? – get the code at github: https://github.com/geoadmin/mf-geoadmin3/pull/1292
Further information
geo.admin.ch www.geo.admin.ch
map.geo.admin.ch map.geo.admin.ch mobile: map.geo.admin.ch/?mobile=true
Twitter: http://twitter.com/swiss_geoportal
map.geo.admin.ch code on github: https://github.com/geoadmin
get engaged: RSS, SocialMedia and dev forums: http://www.geo.admin.ch/internet/geoportal/en/home/services/social_media.htmlWomen in Tehran will no longer routinely face being locked up or prosecuted for failing to observe strict Islamic dress codes in force since the 1979 revolution, the Iranian capital's police chief has said.
General Hossein Rahimi said those who do not observe the code "will no longer be taken to detention centres, nor will judicial cases be filed against them", the reformist newspaper Sharq reported.
However, women found to be in breach of the rules will instead be made to attend classes given by police, semi-official news agency Tasnim said.
It added that those repeatedly doing so could still be subject to legal action.
General Rahimi did not say when the new guidelines had been introduced.
But he said nearly 8,000 people had been "educated" over rule breaches in more than 100 centres in Tehran province.
The police chief's comments, following his appointment in August, are being seen as marking a softening in approach compared to that of his predecessor, General Hossein Sajedinia.
Image: Iranian policewomen warn a woman about her clothing and hair during a crackdown
In April 2016, General Sajedinia announced there were 7,000 undercover morality police reporting on matters such as "bad hijab" - a blanket term usually referring to alleged un-Islamic dress by women.
Figures on enforcement of the rules are scarce, though in 2015 Tehran's traffic police said his officers had dealt with 40,000 cases of bad hijab in cars, where women often let their headscarves drop around their necks.
Those cases generally led to fines and the impounding of vehicles.
Mandatory head coverings have been a key symbol of Islamic rule since the revolution nearly four decades ago, and are fiercely defended by hardliners.
But some Iranian women have long been pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable under the hardline regime, for example by wearing loose headscarves that do not fully cover their hair and painting their nails.
President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 promising a more moderate stance, has said it is "not the police's duty to enforce Islam".
Though his comments attracted criticism from clerics and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, there have been fewer reports of Iran's morality police stopping women.
The force has still reportedly been active in recent days, arresting more than 200 people at winter solstice celebrations in Tehran where men and women were said to have been dancing together and drinking alcohol.==============================================
Ohhhhh, I can't believe I spend the whole week to draw only one picture!
Need to improve my drawing speed~
One interesting thing I noticed while I drawing is that hirez took out one important part of her clothes to show her cleavage,
oh my god, in ancient Chinese, female showing cleavage is blasphemy!!!!
Well, hmmmm, I think I will get used to it
==============================================
Add Smite characters to the LOL x DOTA2 Crossover series?
Actually, they are gods, but heroes/champions from DOTA2/LOL are mortals, what will happened when gods meets mortals? One interesting thing is that there is a "Zeus" in DOTA2, and according to his lore, he is actually the god of Olympus, but his wife (I believe she is Hera) turned him into a mortal! www.dota2.com/hero/Zeus/
So, if I add Smite to the LOLxDOTA2 crossover, Zeus would probably be the main character And according to my knowledge about Greek mythology, the other Greek gods will try to kill Zeus while he is mortal, and Riven & Rylai needs to protect him until he gets his Lighting technique back! I'm not sure, I have some funny story ideas for them, but if I do this, that means the story will being very big
SMITE is the online battleground of the gods. Players choose from a diverse cast of deities and use their unique powers to triumph over the opposition in 5v5 team matches!Nope, no scandal here. It was just last week that the Washington Post editorial board argued that it was time to let Hillary Clinton’s “minor email scandal” go and focus instead on Donald Trump and his fitness to hold office. The House Oversight Committee disagreed, fortunately, and went ahead with a hearing Tuesday during which members of Clinton’s tech team were supposed to testify.
"This is one of the biggest breaches in the history of the State Department." – Rep. Jason Chaffetz #ClintonEmails pic.twitter.com/2QKhyeiqkA — Fox News (@FoxNews) September 13, 2016
We would have expected Bryan Pagliano, the former State Department staffer who worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and who set up Clinton’s homebrew email server, to plead the Fifth (again), but he didn’t have the opportunity since he didn’t show, despite having been subpoenaed to appear. Chaffetz said that Pagliano would face (unspecified) consequences for “thumbing his nose at Congress.”
Rep. Chaffetz: "Mr. Pagliano has chosen to evade a subpoena." #ClintonEmails pic.twitter.com/WSK3Wt9Dw7 — Fox News (@FoxNews) September 13, 2016
Clinton IT guy Bryan Pagliano, who has asserted 5th in past, is no-show at House Oversight cmte hearing. — Byron York (@ByronYork) September 13, 2016
Bryan Pagliano, former Clinton staffer who helped setup private email server, fails to appear at House Oversight hearing, despite subpoena. — NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) September 13, 2016
Wow: ignoring a Congressional subpoena? Pagliano really doesn’t want to talk.
Neither did Platte River Networks technicians Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton. Combetta, who has been granted immunity from prosecution, is apparently the technician who had that “oh sh*t!” moment recounted in the FBI’s interview notes and deleted Clinton’s email archive — and then obliterated it with BleachBit — despite a protection order from Congress.
Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton–Secretary #Clinton aides who used BleachBit to erase her emails–plead the Fifth before Oversight Committee — Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) September 13, 2016
BREAKING: Paul Combetta, technician who used BleachBit to erase Clinton's email AFTER Congress sent subpoena, pled the 5th @GOPoversight. — Ron DeSantis (@RepDeSantis) September 13, 2016
Clinton email tech contractors take 5th before House Oversight Cmte. — Byron York (@ByronYork) September 13, 2016
Witnesses take the Fifth at the House Oversight Committee hearing into #ClintonEmails pic.twitter.com/lfyndLd1Mz — Fox News (@FoxNews) September 13, 2016
Nothing suspicious there. The only person who did feel chatty was Justin Cooper, the former White House aide to President Bill Clinton and employee of the Clinton Foundation who purchased Hillary Clinton’s first email server and registered the clintonemail.com domain. Cooper admitted that, no, he had no security clearance at the time he was performing IT work on the Clinton server, which had more than 2,000 classified documents on it.
.@jasoninthehouse: Mr. Cooper has described his role in managing Sec. Clinton’s private server as the “customer service face.” — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) September 13, 2016
.@jasoninthehouse: When Mr. Cooper needed help upgrading the server for better service, he turned to Bryan Pagliano. — Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) September 13, 2016
Not only didn’t Cooper have security clearance; he also testified that he wasn’t an expert in communications security either.
Justin Cooper at House Oversight Hearing says attempts to hack Clinton's email server occurred with "some frequency." #MAMA #NeverHillary — Jikary Jack (@JikaryJack) September 13, 2016
Listening to Mr Cooper's testimony to House Oversight Committee makes it CRYSTAL CLEAR that Clinton's private server was not for convenience — Hillary for Prison (@HRC4Prison) September 13, 2016
Mr. Cooper is going to accidentally commit suicide after his testimony today at the House Oversight Committee. 100% he does not live. — Hydria News (@Hydria_News) September 13, 2016
So much for Clinton’s claim that she always took security seriously, even if she couldn’t recall that (C) stood for confidential.
Excerpts of the hearing have been posted to YouTube, but if nothing else, watch Rep. Jim Jordan declare, “No regular American can get away with the kind of behavior Secretary Clinton gets away with.”Paul Manafort with Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller Drew Angerer/Getty Images
President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort surrendered to the FBI on Monday, three days after reports surfaced that special counsel Robert Mueller had issued the first indictments in the Russia investigation.
Manafort's longtime business associate and protege Rick Gates was also indicted and told to surrender.
The charges against Manafort and Gates are still sealed, but they reportedly include tax fraud, according to the Wall Street Journal.
President Donald Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Manafort's former business associate Rick Gates were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller and told to surrender to federal authorities on Monday.
Manafort walked into the FBI's field office with his lawyer Kevin Downing in Washington, DC at around 8:15 a.m. on Monday morning. An FBI agent greeted him and his lawyer as they entered the building.
Manafort is perp walked through the front door of the FBI field office pic.twitter.com/LQdppFwTeW October 30, 2017
The charges against Manafort and Gates are still sealed. But the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that they include tax fraud. NBC also reported that the charges were tax-related.
Manafort has been at the center of Mueller's investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election. The indictments against Manafort and Gates are the first since former FBI Director James Comey launched the probe over a year ago. Mueller took over the probe after Comey was fired in May.
Manafort was forced to step down as Trump's campaign chairman in May, but Gates stayed and worked on Trump's transition team. He was ousted from a pro-Trump lobbying group in April amid questions about Russia's election interference, and continued to visit the White House as late as June, according to The Daily Beast.
Legal experts speculated over the weekend, after news of the sealed indictments broke on Friday, that Mueller would arrest Manafort in an effort to get him to "flip" against Trump.
The FBI conducted a predawn on Manafort's home in July. Manafort was told at the time that he would be indicted, according to his longtime friend Roger Stone. I nvestigators were looking for tax documents and foreign banking records that are typically sought when investigating violations of Bank Secrecy Act.
Bank Secrecy Act was passed "to deter and detect money laundering, terrorist financing, and other criminal acts and the misuse of our nation's financial institutions," according to the Treasury Department. Thewas passed "to deter and detect money laundering, terrorist financing, and other criminal acts and the misuse of our nation's financial institutions," according to the Treasury Department.
Manafort has been associated with at least 15 bank accounts and 10 companies in Cyprus, dating back to 2007, NBC reported in March, and the FBI has issued grand jury subpoenas to several banks for Manafort's records. The name of his longtime business associate Rick Gates appears on documents linked to many of those Cyprus companies, according to the New York Times.
BuzzFeed reported on Sunday that the FBI was looking at 13 suspicious wire transfers made by Manafort-linked offshore companies between 2012-2013.
Manafort has been cooperating with investigators' requests for relevant documents. But the search warrant obtained by the FBI in July indicates that Mueller managed to convince a federal judge that Manafort would try to conceal or destroy documents subpoenaed by a grand jury.
The indictments isued on Friday were sealed, and Manafort's attorneys did not receive a target letter, raising similar questions about whether Mueller thought Manafort would have tried to flee or destroy evidence if he were notified of his impending arrest three days beforehand.
Legal experts saw the July raid as a sign that something very serious was coming.
A former Department of Justice spokesman, Matthew Miller, said a raid coming months into an investigation when the subject's attorneys had been speaking with, and presumably cooperating with, the DOJ "suggests something serious."
"Manafort's representatives have been insisting for months that he is cooperating with these investigations, and if you are really cooperating, DOJ typically doesn't need to raid your house — they'll trust you to respond fully to a subpoena," former Department of Justice spokesman Matthew Miller said at the time.
. Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, had advised the party and its former leader Viktor Yanukovych for nearly a decade. Manafort's ties to Russia came under scrutiny last August, when The New York Times discovered that a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine designated him $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments. Manafort, a longtime Republican operative, had advised the party and its former leader Viktor Yanukovych for nearly a decade.
reported that Manafort was paid $10 million from 2006 to 2009 to lobby on behalf of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, using a strategic "model" that the AP said Manafort wrote would "greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success." On March 22, the Associated Press$10 million from 2006 to 2009 to lobby on behalf of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, using a strategic "model" that the AP said Manafort wrote would "greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success."
, and then transferring those properties into his own name for no money and taking out large mortgages against them. Manafort has insisted that he has never received any illicit cash payments. But he has a "pattern" of using shell companies to purchase homes "in all-cash deals," as WNYC has reported, and then transferring those properties into his own name for no money and taking out large mortgages against them.
Manafort's tendency to form shell companies to purchase real estate is not illegal. But it has raised questions about how much Manafort has been paid throughout the decades he's spent as a political consultant, and by whom.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was recruited to help investigate Manafort for possible financial crimes and money laundering last month, and the IRS's criminal-investigations unit was brought onto the investigation to examine similar issues.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Manafort was the subject of a new money laundering investigation in New York.By Dan Sanchez
Iran has freed four dual-nationality prisoners, including an American/Iranian pastor and an American/Iranian Washington Post reporter who had been accused of working for the U.S. to foment regime change in Iran. The release was part of a prisoner swap, in which seven Iranians imprisoned in the U.S. over sanction violations were also freed. A fifth American was freed by Iran outside of the swap.
Within hours of the release, devastating international sanctions on Iran were lifted after international inspectors verified its compliance with the terms of last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers.
Taken together, the prisoner swap, Iran’s compliance with its nuclear-deal commitments, and the sanction relief mark what may be a historic thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran. This, however, should not be exaggerated, as the U.S. continues many belligerent policies directed at Iran, especially in the realm of proxy warfare (see below).
The developments at least mark a short-term political triumph for the chief negotiators of the nuclear deal: the administrations of U.S. President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani was elected on the basis of his campaign promise to negotiate detente with the U.S. and to accomplish economic relief from sanctions for the Iranian people. Parliamentary elections in Iran will be held late next month, making the lifting of the sanctions exceedingly well-timed for Rouhani’s political party.
Conversely, the thaw is a supreme setback to Rouhani’s political rivals, the hardliners in Iran who have strenuously opposed the nuclear deal.From politicians and CEOs to athletes and scientists, the news is filled with stories of people living double lives. The city mayor/ drug user. The investment banker/ mastermind of fraud. The golfer/ serial cheater. The nuclear physicist/ Russian spy. The aviator/ husband and father of a shadow second family. The list goes on and on.
What drives people to create and a hide an alternate persona? Why would they subject themselves to the psychological and emotional stress of sustaining a complicated web of lies over decades? How do they get away with it? And what happens when they don’t?
Born to Lie (and Cheat)
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To answer these questions, we have to go back—way back—to that moment when, as kids, we first realized we didn’t have to come clean. Broken vase? The dog. Empty cookie jar? Your sister. Humans, it seems, are hard-wired to deceive. Studies have found that lying is actually a cognitive skill connected to higher-order thinking and reasoning—in other words, you have to know how to lie in order to know how to tell the truth. The ability to lie plausibly at an early age can actually be an asset: According to a study by the Institute of Child Study at Toronto University, children who lie as early as age two may grow up to be more successful than later liars.
And sneaking around? Well, that may be hard-wired, too. Recent studies have shown that even monkeys have "affairs" and try to hide them. While statistics vary according to sources, the number of men and women who cheat on their spouses could be over 50%. A key factor is power, which, according to recent research, enhances people’s faith in their ability to successfully attract potential sex partners. This could be why cheating seems to be so rife in hothouse environments with clear power hierarchies: Political offices, for example, or a scientific think-tank like the Manhattan Project.
Secrets Vs. a Secret Life
Once we master the skill of lying, we get to experience the power of keeping secrets. We learn to withhold information to make people happy (like a birthday gift), to get out of trouble, to experience excitement, to avoid feelings like shame, to protect other people and to get what we want. We learn that sometimes we get caught and sometimes we don’t—and we figure out the behaviors, words and strategies that will tip the scales in our favor. The motivations for keeping secret lives are the same as for keeping simple secrets. The difference, psychologists say, is just a matter of degree.
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Lying for the Cause
What about those those who don’t seem to be motivated by personal gain—like the Nazi industrialist who risked his life and fortune to shelter his Jewish factory workers? Consider the Manhattan Project scientists, who remain committed to working for years in an atmosphere where, as a chemist’s daughter put it, “One of the things you never knew… [was] exactly was what your father did.” Security was said to be so tight at Los Alamos that when one physicist got married, neither his or his wife’s parents were permitted to attend.
The answer, as reported by Slate, could be that people who endure danger in support of their beliefs may be less risk-averse, more adventurous, less driven by a need for security and more empathetic than the general population. Experts divide lies into three categories: those we tell for our own benefit, those that benefit someone else and those that benefit both ourselves and others. For example, while members of the Manhattan Project team were earning an income from their work, they were also driven by scientific curiosity and a desire to contribute to the common good by preventing the globalization of fascism.
Getting Away With It
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Lying—and lying chronically for years—can have serious mental and emotional consequences. The act of trying to suppress a secret actually makes it harder to do—in the way that telling yourself not to think of a pink elephant makes you immediately think of a pink elephant. The minds of people leading double lives may be increasingly flooded with constant unwanted thoughts, leading to stress, anxiety and tension. While some people are able to manage the stress by disassociating from, repressing or rationalizing their behavior, for many, the dual lifestyle unravels when the pressure becomes so great that they reach a boiling point and confess their deception—or the lies become so complex that mistakes are made and their secrets are exposed.
Detecting Lies
In reality, most of us are more likely to read about people leading double lives than to come face-to-face with them ourselves. But since we do hear as many as 200 lies a day and we detect them with just 54% accuracy, it can’t hurt to watch out for these signs of untruth.This is a story about a man who decided to turn a roll of tape into a makeshift cockring, which then became stuck when he couldn’t lose his boner.
This post is brought to you by AdamMale, the sex toy and lube superstore. Get 35% off sex toys and lube when you use code GRIND here.
Last week, an anonymous 4chan user apparently got his erect penis stuck inside a roll of tape and then asked the experienced masturbators of 4chan’s /b/ for help in removing the makeshift cockring in a post titled ““I can’t lose this boner! I’ve had it for about 20 minutes, WTF do I do?”
Click here to view the NSFW uncensored pictures.
DailyDot has the painful breakdown:
/b/ replied with the usual blend of constructive advice (“Run some water over it!” and “Call an ambulance!”) and the requisite anarchy (“I legit hope your dick falls off”) for the rest of the thread. Our hero provided incremental updates. Apparently the cold-water thing just made the squeeze tighter, and the chaos eventually spilled over into a new thread. Here’s another censored image.
Eventually the man took the advice and called an ambulance. But before he left the thread, he drew a little smiley face on his shaft. Sadly, Tapedick stopped posting updates in the forum, so the fate of his boner remains an unsolved mystery.
Check out the uncensored version here (NSFW).An Olympiad (Greek: Ὀλυμπιάς, Olympiás) is a period of four years associated with the Olympic Games of the Ancient Greeks. During the Hellenistic period, beginning with Ephorus, it was used as a calendar epoch. Converting to the modern BC/AD dating system the first Olympiad began in the summer of 776 BC and lasted until the summer of 772 BC, when the second Olympiad would begin with the commencement of the next games. By extrapolation to the Gregorian calendar, the 3rd year of the 699th Olympiad began in (Northern-Hemisphere) mid-summer 2019.
A modern Olympiad refers to a four-year period beginning on the opening of the Olympic Games for the summer sports. The first modern Olympiad began in 1896, the second in 1900, and so on (the 31st began in 2016: see the Olympic Charter).
The ancient and modern Olympiads would have synchronised had there been a year zero between the Olympiad of 4 BC and the one of 4 AD. But as the Gregorian calendar goes directly from 1 BC to 1 AD, the ancient Olympic cycle now lags the modern cycle by one year.
Ancient Olympics [ edit ]
An ancient Olympiad was a period of four years grouped together, counting inclusively as the ancients did. Each ancient Olympic year overlapped onto two of our modern reckoning of BC or AD years, from midsummer to midsummer. Example: Olympiad 140, year 1 = 220/219 BC; year 2 = 219/218 BC; year 3 = 218/217 BC; year 4 = 217/216 BC. Therefore, the games would have been held in July/August of 220 BC and held the next time in July/August of 216 BC, after four olympic years had been completed.
Historians [ edit ]
The sophist Hippias was the first writer to publish a list of victors of the Olympic Games, and by the time of Eratosthenes, it was generally agreed that the first Olympic games had happened during the summer of 776 BC. The combination of victor lists and calculations from 776 BC onwards enabled Greek historians to use the Olympiads as a way of reckoning time that did not depend on the time reckonings of one of the city-states. (See Attic calendar.) The first to do so consistently was Timaeus of Tauromenium in the third century BC. Nevertheless, since for events of the early history of the games the reckoning was used in retrospect, some of the dates given by later historian for events before the 5th century BC are very unreliable. In the 2nd century AD, Phlegon of Tralles summarised the events of each Olympiad in a book called Olympiads, and an extract from this has been preserved by the Byzantine writer Photius.[3] Christian chroniclers continued to use this Greek system of dating as a way of synchronising biblical events with Greek and Roman history. In the 3rd century AD, Sextus Julius Africanus compiled a list of Olympic victors up to 217 BC, and this list has been preserved in the Chronicle of Eusebius.[4]
A relief of the Greek Olympiad.
Early historians sometimes used the names of Olympic victors as a method of dating events to a specific year. For instance, Thucydides says in his account of the year 428 BC: "It was the Olympiad in which the Rhodian Dorieus gained his second victory". [5]
Dionysius of Halicarnassus dates the foundation of Rome to the first year of the seventh Olympiad, 752/1 BC. Since Rome was founded on April 21, which was in the last half of the ancient Olympic year, it would be 751 BC specifically. In Book 1 chapter 75 Dionysius states: "...Romulus, the first ruler of the city, began his reign in the first year of the seventh Olympiad, when Charops at Athens was in the first year of his ten-year term as archon." [6]
Diodorus Siculus dates the Persian invasion of Greece to 480 BC: "Calliades was archon in Athens, and the Romans made Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius Tricostus consuls, and the Eleians celebrated the Seventy-fifth Olympiad, that in which Astylus of Syracuse won the stadion. It was in this year that king Xerxes made his campaign against Greece." [7]
. It was in this year that king Xerxes made his campaign against Greece." Jerome, in his Latin translation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, dates the birth of Jesus Christ to year 3 of Olympiad 194, the 42nd year of the reign of the emperor Augustus, which equates to the year 2 BC.[8]
Start of the Olympiad [ edit ]
An Olympiad started with the holding of the games, which occurred on the first or second full moon after the summer solstice, in what we call July or August. The games were therefore essentially a new years festival. In 776 BC this occurred on either July 23 or August 21. (After the introduction of the Metonic cycle about 432 BC, the start of the Olympic year was determined slightly differently).
Anolympiad [ edit ]
Though the games were held without interruption, on more than one occasion they were held by others than the Eleians. The Eleians declared such games Anolympiads (non-Olympics), but it is assumed the winners were nevertheless recorded.
End of the era [ edit ]
During the 3rd century AD, records of the games are so scanty that historians are not certain whether after 261 |
rapidly change the world. So… why stay?
That mentality makes sense for pure scientific work like genome sequencing, but now Chang is pushing into the business world. The main challenge isn’t to create working scientific methods (though that will be part of it), but selling an application of those methods to investors and, eventually, real consumers. It’s a paradigm shift that has stymied many a high-powered intellect, and it will be foremost in investors’ minds as they decide whether Chang’s idea has the potential to succeed where several others have failed.Concept for an East Coast Matterhorn! Newly-created concept art created by Imagineering Disney.com
I was talking with my pal Hoot the other day about how a Matterhorn mountain would fit perfectly in Magic Kingdom's Fantasyland. Disney talked about the idea decades ago. It was intended to go where Toontown is today. The latest rumors about the 'new Fantasyland' or 'Fantasyland Forest' say that some people at Disney are rethinking the whole thing- minus The Little Mermaid ride and the Be Our Guest Beauty and the Beast restaurant.
I Say Give Us a Matterhorn!
Wouldn't that make everyone happy?? The thrill-seekers and the nostalgic-minded alike? The 20K (or former 20k) property is ginomous. It can fit a mountain, a few dark rides, and a whole lot more. Hoot says he wants a Pinocchio dark ride and I agree.
A Boat Ride and Swiss Village
In the concept above (drawn on a napkin this afternoon) you'll see the old classic Matterhorn taken to a new level. Not only is there the Matterhorn mountain much like you see at Disneyland, there is a boat ride going through the lower caves of the mountain and through a Swiss Village. The Swiss Village would include a full-service restaurant with the boat ride through the middle. There will be a quick-service restaurant and a bakery full of swiss cheeses and pastries (at the request of my wife).
Two Tracks?
Also unique to this design--- Not only is there a regular bobsled track through the mountain, the concept includes 'Junior Bobsleds' for the little ones. I ran this idea past Lilly and she said to make the tracks begin and end at the same time. That way younger riders and older riders can can load and unload together, both experiencing the'same' attraction at the same time. This way the little riders get to ride the Matterhorn AND have a more thrilling ride to look forward to when they are older. The junior track would go through lower caves of the mountain but mostly traveling through smaller hills outside the mountain.
I say the bobsleds on both tracks should not only depart next to each other but they parallel each other for the first little while before going their own separate ways. THEN they meet up next to each other at a couple points along the way THEN end at the same unload dock. Now you can ride the same attraction three ways: regular, junior, and by boat.Piles of dead oysters at the Khairan beach
KUWAIT: The rate at which oysters are dying at the Khairan beach has doubled since the incident was first reported last Wednesday, an environmental organization warned in a statement yesterday in which they demanded extensive investigation to find the reasons behind this phenomenon. "The Kuwait Dive Team found piles of dead oysters in numbers that vastly exceed those first reported on Wednesday", team leader and President of the Environment Voluntary Foundation Waleed Al-Fadhel said yesterday. He further indicated that other marine species such as crabs were found dead at the same site.
This comes as a government body rejected concern about a potential environmental phenomenon behind the massive number of dead oysters reported recently at the Khairan beach. "The dead oysters were likely disposed by people who caught them for consumption or to look for pearl", said Dr Muna Husain, head of the biodiversity protection department at the Environment Public Authority. She further added in a statement Thursday that "dead oysters naturally do not float to the surface, but remain attached to the seafloor or rocks near the beach".
Newspapers had quoted Al-Fadhel who insisted that what happened was not a result of human intervention. "Dead oysters were opened by 45 degrees whereas a person looking for pearl would open the shells by 180 degrees", he explained in statements to Al-Watan daily. Al-Fadhel further indicated that three types of shellfish, in addition to squids and algae where recorded in the death site, which he says further supports the argument that what happened was a result of pollution or natural phenomenon.
The Green Line, meanwhile, seems to agree that the dead oysters were washed ashore after being first caught then dropped back in the sea. "According to eyewitnesses and scientific indicators compiled by marine specialists, there is no doubt that the oysters were first removed from the seafloor and then thrown back to the water by perpetrators looking for pearl", Green Line President Khalid Al-Hajri said in a statement Thursday.
He further indicated that his group "managed to identify people suspected in this crime" through an "environmental inspection method that the Green Line exclusively adopts". Al-Hajri also took the opportunity to criticize the EPA for "failing to protect the Kuwaiti shores as shown evident by the recent incident", and also blamed "a voluntary organization which hosts a traditional pearl diving ceremony every year".
Harvesting pearl oil is illegal in Kuwait's territorial waters as per a Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources decision made in 2007 to protect the marine species from overfishing. The dead oysters were found near a location known historically as the "best spot to fish for pear oyster in Kuwaiti waters", according to Al-Fadhel.
"The spot located in front of Al-Khairan at depths ranging between 1 and 4 meters is considered the best pearl diving spot for the past 300 years for producing the most expensive kinds of pearl in the world", said Al-Fadhel who called for procedures to protect "the national wealth". Meanwhile, Al-Fadhel revealed that the Kuwait Dive Team recorded red tide in Al-Fentas Thursday, but did not connect between this phenomenon and the oyster deaths.DURHAM, N.C. -- Advanced high-speed gene-sequencing has been used in the clinical setting to find diagnoses for seven children out of a dozen who were experiencing developmental delays and congenital abnormalities for mysterious reasons.
"I thought if we could obtain even a couple of relatively secure diagnoses out of the 12 patients, that would prove the value of deploying sequencing approaches systematically in patients with unknown but apparently genetic conditions," said David Goldstein, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation and professor of molecular genetics and microbiology.
"Few sequencing studies have approached the problem as we did, taking a very heterogeneous group of patients," Goldstein said. "Getting a likely diagnosis about half of the time is quite stunning and strongly motivates next-generation sequencing for all patients that fail to get a genetic diagnosis through traditional testing."
The research team used next-generation sequencing, a new technology that can rapidly read a person's entire genome or just their exome, the sections of DNA that make the proteins, which direct physiological activities. The cost of such sequencing is becoming lower, making it feasible to do the study in a clinical setting.
The work was published online on May 8, in the Journal of Medical Genetics.
"There are up to 50,000 live births in America each year with the children having features of developmental delays, intellectual disabilities or congenital abnormalities similar to those we studied," said Vandana Shashi, M.D., co-author and associate professor of pediatrics in the Duke Center for Human Genetics. "Many of these children remain without diagnoses and we could systematically try to help identify a cause."
Shashi said families involved with the study often expressed relief just to have a diagnosis, even when a condition remained difficult or impossible to treat.
"Just knowing what was causing the problem took away the mystery, which gives families some comfort," Shashi said.
Goldstein said that simply studying more patients with sequencing tools would facilitate discovery by searching for similarities among patients that have mutations in the same or similar genes.
With time, this would also reveal more diagnoses, said lead author Anna Need, Ph.D., who works in the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation.
"Despite the fact that we ended up with a short list of gene variants for each person we studied and ran other tests, we had no real evidence of a related disease because there haven't been other reported conditions or people with mutations in those genes," Need said. "Some of the people we had no results for yet may get answers as their variants become associated with diseases through other sequencing."
The results of this study also are important for genetic counseling, Goldstein said.
For example, some of the likely diagnoses are due to new mutations that happened in the children, known as de novo mutations. In these cases, the parents would be less likely to pass it on through a subsequent pregnancy, for example.
Another lesson of the study was that some of these individuals may have multiple genetic conditions. Shashi noted one child received a diagnosis for only one of several conditions she had.
"We may not find all of the genetic causes, but over time the success of this type of testing and the information we learn will only grow," Need said. "Out of the genes we found, two have been found to be associated with disease through recent studies by other researchers."
Goldstein said it is imperative to set up large genetic databases in tertiary medical centers, which have the doctors and scientists who can evaluate patients who might benefit from next-generation sequencing. They would also have the team to do the genomic sequencing, and then, to follow up with biological tests that show the function of the gene.
Goldstein said that hospitals with the right systems in place can note a patient's clinical features and then examine a patient's cells or do a relatively general protein localization assay in cells to get an idea about gene function.
"This is a generalized follow-up system for any of the candidate genes, and the work can be done at a tertiary hospital center for virtually any candidate gene, but not by the diagnostic companies, which don't do any functional testing," Goldstein said. "That's why I see a role for this effort being grounded in an academic research environment."
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Other authors include Yuki Hitomi and Kevin Shianna of the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation; Kelly Schoch of the Duke Department of Pediatrics, section of Medical Genetics; and Miriam H. Meisler of the Department of Human Genetics, University of Michigan.An airline already flying out of Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport says it will start offering 18-minute flights to and from Waterloo Region next month.
FlyGTA Airlines says its flights will be priced at $129, including all taxes and fees, and will use twin-engine planes with seating capacity for eight people.
Flights will be available Monday to Friday, with the initial schedule calling for flights leaving the Region of Waterloo International Airport at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and flights leaving Toronto bound for Waterloo Region at 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.
The announcement of the flights – and similar new service between Toronto and the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport near Barrie – was made Tuesday morning, in a press conference at Billy Bishop Airport.
“I think that this particular service is going to be well-utilized by the knowledge industry and others in our community,” Coun. Tom Galloway said, noting that Toronto-bound transportation alternatives to Highway 401 have long been seen as a major goal for local economic development.
FlyGTA CEO Chris Nowrouzi told reporters that the airline is also planning to move ahead with flights to and from London in the near future, and hopes to announce additional destinations this winter.
Before long, he said, the airline will wind down its cargo operations and concentrate solely on moving passengers.
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, FlyGTA had been flying a 12-minute route between Toronto and the Niagara District Airport for a little more than one year.
Robin Garrett, the vice-chair of that airport, said that service was so successful that FlyGTA doubled its offerings within a few months, and added weekend service as well.
“We have nothing but good things to say about FlyGTA,” she said.
“It’s really doable to have a business meeting in the morning and be back in your office at noon.”
The first FlyGTA flights to and from Waterloo Region are scheduled to take off on Nov. 6.
With reporting by Krista SimpsonAfter eight consecutive provincial and federal defeats for their side, are Canada's conservatives poised to make a comeback in 2016?
Two provinces are heading to the polls in April, and in both cases the main right-of-centre party on the ballot is expected to win: the opposition Progressive Conservatives under Brian Pallister in Manitoba and Premier Brad Wall's governing Saskatchewan Party in Saskatchewan.
Both parties hold wide leads over their nearest rivals and look set to bring the losing streak of conservative parties in Canada to an end. But the comeback may be short-lived.
Another win for Wall?
The safest bet in the two provincial contests may be on the re-election of Brad Wall. He is Canada's perennially most popular premier, scoring an approval rating of 60 per cent in the most recent survey from the Angus Reid Institute.
And in the last poll to come out of the province, conducted in mid-November by Insightrix Research, the Saskatchewan Party garnered 54 per cent support, against just 25 per cent for the opposition New Democrats.
Though these are the lowest levels of support that Wall or his party has managed since his landslide victory in 2011, they're still numbers that any premier facing re-election in less than four months' time would gladly take. The biggest obstacle for the NDP may simply be that public opinion has hardly budged in the province in years.
Monthly provincial political polling averages in Saskatchewan, 2010 to 2015. (Saskatchewan Party dark green, NDP orange, Liberals red, Greens green) (ThreeHundredEight.com)
The performance of the Conservative Party in Saskatchewan in October's federal election also bodes well for Wall. Though the Conservatives took their lowest share of the vote in the province since 2004, their 48.5 per cent tally would be more than enough for Wall to secure victory. The federal New Democrats took 25 per cent of the vote, equal to the provincial party's standing in the latest poll.
Justin Trudeau's Liberals took 24 per cent of the vote, but the provincial party will have trouble getting anywhere near that level of support. It stood at just 14 per cent in the Insightrix poll, a score the Saskatchewan Liberals haven't managed in any election since 2003. In 2011, the disorganized party nominated only nine candidates in the province's 58 seats, and took just 0.6 per cent of the vote.
But considering Wall's personal approval ratings, he is unlikely to need a division of the vote to his left in order to give Canada's conservatives its first victory in almost three years.
Unpopular Manitoba premier
In neighbouring Manitoba, however, Brian Pallister's Progressive Conservatives will be looking to benefit from a divided vote.
The results of the 2011 provincial election demonstrated the party's inefficient vote. Despite the gap between the PCs and the NDP decreasing by eight points compared with the previous election in 2007, the New Democrats actually increased the size of their majority government. This was partly due to new riding boundaries, but also to the Tories' weakness in Winnipeg and the over-abundance of its support in the rural parts of the province.
The rigidity of the PCs' support in Manitoba has also been a bit of an obstacle. The party's support has hardly budged since the last campaign, and with the exception of one election since 1981 the PCs have always taken between 38 and 44 per cent of the vote. The latest survey from Probe Research, taken in mid-December, put the PCs at 43 per cent.
Monthly provincial political polling averages in Manitoba, 2010 to 2015. (PCs blue, NDP orange, Liberals red, Greens green) (ThreeHundredEight.com)
So the fall in support for Premier Greg Selinger has been a blessing for the Progressive Conservatives. While Wall is Canada's most popular premier, Selinger is the country's least. The latest survey from the Angus Reid Institute put his approval rating at just 22 per cent, with his disapproval rating standing at 65 per cent. His New Democrats trail in the Probe poll by 21 points, putting them in third place with 22 per cent.
The Liberals, under Rana Bokhari, have been polling much higher than they have for a very long time, with 29 per cent support in the latest poll. The Liberals haven't taken that much of the vote in a provincial election since 1988.
But with most of that support coming from Selinger's New Democrats, it improves the odds that Pallister can give the Manitoba Tories their first win since 1995 — even if he takes no more of the vote than he did in 2011.
A brief comeback?
If the immediate future for conservative parties is looking bright, the longer term forecast is cloudier.
Next on the electoral calendar in 2017 is British Columbia, where the right-of-centre B.C. Liberals will be seeking re-election to extend what will be 16 years in office. Nova Scotia may also go to the polls in 2017, and the Liberals there, who will only be asking for re-election for the first time, are currently leading by a country mile.
In fact, Saskatchewan and Manitoba may be the only reasonably likely bits of good news for some time. Conservative parties are at one of their lowest ebbs in Atlantic Canada, are divided in Alberta, and are unlikely to breakthrough in Quebec any time soon. The Ontario Liberals may be vulnerable in 2018, but they have defied expectations on numerous occasions, often aided by the political choices of the Ontario PCs.
With Saskatchewan and Manitoba being the only provincial elections scheduled for 2016, the year might go to conservative parties. But the euphoria may not last very long.
The poll by the Angus Reid Institute was conducted between Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, interviewing 1,054 Saskatchewanians and 801 Manitobans via the Internet. As the poll was conducted online, a margin of error does not apply.
The poll by Insightrix Research was conducted between Nov. 10 and 12, 2015, interviewing 803 Saskatchewanians via the Internet. As the poll was conducted online, a margin of error does not apply.
The poll by Probe Research was conducted between Dec. 3 and 15, 2015, interviewing 1,000 Manitobans via the telephone. The margin of error associated with the survey is +/- 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.Thanks to listener Ed K, we were put in touch with Writer/Producer for FX's Justified, Taylor Elmore. Mr. Elmore was kind enough to give us about an hour of his time for a wide ranging interview that touches on his history with the show, the process for creating Justified, his thoughts and opinions on the plot, writing, and production of the show, and a few tidbits about up coming plot points for the second half of season three!
Special thanks goes out to our listeners who contributed some of the questions; Sandy, Michael G, Lucas, Daniel M, and redditors TheGreatNinjaYuffie, sniffles_snort, and notonekind. It was fun, we'll have to do it again, sometime, maybe as a season three wrap up?
As always, if you like what we do, give us a shout out! You can email, Tweet, or Facebook us. Starting up another show, we really need our fans help on iTunes with reviews and subscriptions to help us get the word out. You can help directly support the show by signing up for Club Bald Move. It's the only way we're able to make great podcasts for your favorite shows.
Intro: Long Hard Times To Come by GANGSTAGRASS, ft. T.O.N.E-zCarl Robinson has traveled to some remote outposts in his quest to transform Vancouver Whitecaps into championship contenders. As the affable Welshman describes it, he has been forced out of his comfort zone, the necessity of pragmatism superseding what might otherwise have led to a more accessible approach.
Robinson’s first year in charge of the Whitecaps was moderately successful, resulting in a narrow, controversial defeat to FC Dallas in the one-game Western Conference knockout round last October. At the close of the previous campaign, the club was at a low ebb. They had just missed out on the playoffs and their well-thought-of head coach, the Scotsman Martin Rennie, had paid the price with his job. Robinson looked on as an assistant. He was there during the mini rollercoaster ride of the previous two campaigns. Where 2013 had represented failure, 2012 had brought a brief playoff appearance, the solace of which was the fact Vancouver had become the first Canadian club to make the post-season.
But Robinson saw what had occurred. These were early days for his coaching career. Notes were duly taken. Managers often opt for what they know, he says. Yet in that scenario, innovation can die.
“You’re only as good as the players you’ve got,” Robinson tells the Guardian. “I was lucky enough to work here three, four years ago as an assistant and Martin, the old manager at the tim – what you tend to do as a manager is bring in players that you like, have got the characteristics you like, players that you know – he went with players that he knew, good players. I wanted to go with players who probably had different characteristics.”
He may have a point. It was perhaps a penchant for accessibility that helped seal Rennie’s fate, with aging Scottish players such as Kenny Miller and Barry Robson among his charges.
Vancouver were at a crossroads. Robinson seemed an unlikely – if convenient – candidate to replace Rennie. What followed was curious. Former national team coach Bob Bradley and now Chicago Fire head coach Frank Yallop were mooted for the role. When it became clear those options would not materialize, the job fell into the then 37-year-old’s lap. But he didn’t want it. He was two years into a seven-year plan to remain an assistant. He didn’t think he was ready. Until luminaries from back home, including his former boss on the Welsh national team, John Toshack, convinced him otherwise.
There began his traverse along an unfamiliar path toward a quite different player recruitment schema. He took in lesser traveled locales in Chile, Uruguay, Honduras and Costa Rica. He placed himself in what he describes as scary surroundings, “getting into the trenches, getting his hands dirty,” as he puts it. The man who brought him down in last year’s playoffs, FC Dallas head coach Oscar Pareja, attracts ample praise for his ability to unearth hidden gems in Latin America. But for a Colombian steeped in the language, culture and history of the Latin game to do so is one thing. It pales somewhat when a relative youngster from deep in the heart of Wales starts to eek out more than a hint of success doing the same. Uruguayan attacker Octavio Rivero was plucked from Chilean outfit O’Higgins FC. Chilean playmaker Pedro Morales arrived by way of Malaga in Spain. Uruguayan winger Cristian Techera came in on loan from River Plate Montevideo. And Kendall Waston was signed from Costa Rican side Saprissa.
The fruits of progress are in further evidence this year. To a certain extent, Vancouver have been the surprise package of 2015 while flying somewhat under the radar. Going into Wednesday night’s clash with Colorado Rapids, the Whitecaps sat second in the Western Conference a point behind LA Galaxy. The carrot was obvious. And while teams further down the table, such as Sporting Kansas City and FC Dallas have played fewer games, Robinson believes his approach is starting to see tangible rewards.
“I wanted to go with players who probably had different characteristics. But when I took the job 18 months ago, because of the way the league is structured, it’s impossible to totally revamp your team in one year because of the cap and guaranteed contracts and things like that,” explains Robinson, now just a month shy of his 39th birthday. “I had to do it step by step.”
By the time he took the reins, he had already built up a memory bank of talent. Despite seeing management in his distant future, he was observing youngsters playing alongside him in his waning years at Toronto and New York Red Bulls, mentally noting the types who ticked the boxes for the type of players he wanted to meld into a team.
“I’ve gone for the Central American, South American routes, as Oscar has, because, one, there is better value,” says Robinson. “And if you look at the background of these players – players from Honduras, players from Uruguay, players from Costa Rica – they’re from good countries but they want the chance to try to progress themselves, get out of that country to maybe get to North America or to Europe.
“Whereas if you go for European-based players – Kenny Miller, Nigel Reo-Coker, two close friends of mine, when I got the job they were here – they’ve been there done that and sometimes it seems the mindset is it’s a step backwards. If I was going to be successful as a young manager, I wanted hunger in my team. So I thought if I get players who need to prove something rather than players who have been there and done that is the best way for me to start on my managerial career.”
Elsewhere, Robinson also points to the youthful make-up of his squad. “One of my main things here was to not just build a team but build a football club,” he says. “I wanted to create pathways for younger players. We’ve got the youngest squad in Major League Soccer. That’s 18 months on from me taking the job, we went from being in the top third of having the oldest squad to be youngest now. For us to do that with all the turnover and win our first cup in the Canadian Championship and be in with a shout for the playoffs for the second consecutive year is nothing short of a fantastic achievement for these players.”
An August blip saw points dropped against Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City, the latter a key contender and a conference rival the Whitecaps have struggled against this season. On the flip side, Vancouver took all three points against another playoff rival in the shape of Dallas. Robinson’s side had a busy August schedule of eight games, including the two-legged Canadian Championship final against Montreal. Squad rotation became crucial. Key players were rested. With nine games to go, Vancouver’s close to the season promises to be almost as busy. At this stage, they appear well primed. But MLS has not been kind to the triumvirate of Canadian clubs. In a collective total of 15 seasons of play between them, only twice has a club from north of the border made it to the post-season playoffs.
So could this year be the breakout year for the Canadian clubs? Or a Canadian club? Toronto, at present safely inside the play-off spots, have had an indifferent season. Yet with the likes of Sebastian Giovinco, the resurgent striker Jozy Altidore and the cool head of Michael Bradley, they look likely to bring an end to their sorry record. How deep they can go remains uncertain.
“I’ve worked for two of the Canadian clubs, and for Toronto not to get into the playoffs for eight years is bizarre with the money they’ve spent there. Hopefully this is the year because they have got the best player in the league in Giovinco,” Robinson muses, reflecting on the gulf in finances between clubs like his and their Canadian rival to the east. “But I really hope it is the year because the interest in soccer in Canada is huge. It’s about being successful over a period of time. It’s not about doing well one year then terrible the next year, in and out the playoffs.”
The benchmark in that regard, Robinson adds, is LA Galaxy, another free-spending outfit bustling with high-priced imports. “That’s the target you’ve got to aim for but it’s not going to happen overnight.”With the addition of Super Black Racing to the 2015 roster it seems like the perfect time to go back and investigate the other New Zealand teams who have competed in the V8 Supercars Championship over the years.
Since the inception of the current series in 1997 a wealth of New Zealanders have made their names in the sport. While many drivers have competed in the series only a handful of Kiwi teams have tried their hand at beating the Australians at their own game. The following is a list of teams that fought for victory while representing Australia’s oldest rival, New Zealand.
Stone Brothers Racing
Run by Kiwi brother Ross and Jim Stone, Stone Brothers racing joined the V8 Supercars in 1998 and wasted no time in achieving success. Their Pirtek Falcon came home first in the 1998 Bathurst 1000 with Jason Bright and Steven Richards at the helm.
The team’s crowning glory however will still be the stretch of three consecutive championship victories from 2003 to 2005. Marcos Ambrose won six of the thirteen rounds in 2003 on his way to the championship and continued this form to win the 2004 championship ahead of teammate Russell Ingall.
Ambrose was unable to complete the hat-trick with Russell Ingall taking the honours for 2005. Ambrose was able to wrap up second place, cementing Stone Brothers Racing’s status as the dominant force in V8 Supercars.
Stone Brothers Racing were unable to replicate these successes in the following years with the team eventually being sold and transformed into Erebus Motorsport for the 2013 season.
Team Kiwi Racing
While Stone Brothers Racing was the first team to be run by Kiwis, Team Kiwi Racing was the first to have its headquarters in New Zealand. The team’s liveries also proudly displayed their heritage with a silver fern and black background aligning them with the country’s various national sports teams.
The team ran its first full season in 2001 with the late Jason Richards piloting a Holden Commodore. Richards stayed with the team for the 2002 season until fellow countryman Craig Baird took over in 2003.
Despite the addition of touring car legend Paul Radisich in 2005, the team was never able to achieve consistent success. Team Kiwi Racing eventually sold its license to the Fiore family in 2009 without a race win to its name. The team’s highest race finish was third while 14th was the best they could manage in the driver’s championship.
Tasman Motorsport
Despite being bankrolled with Australian money at the hands of Kevin Murphy, Tasman Motorsport had a fair amount of Kiwi flavour to them when they competed in the series. The all New Zealand driver line-up of Jason Richards and Greg Murphy for the 2007 campaign produced solid results with the highlight being a fourth at that year’s Bathurst 1000.
Tasman also opened a base of operations in New Zealand in 2007, adding to the strong Kiwi influence in the team. The team continued to produce solid results throughout the 2008 and 2009 seasons but was forced to sell its Racing Entitlement Contracts due to funding issues. The late Jason Richards nabbed the team’s best result back in 2006 with a race win at Winton.
Paul Cruickshank Racing
New Zealander Paul Cruickshank owned the team that bore his name and first competed in the series in 2006. Former Australian Touring Car Champion John Bowe raced his last full season in the sport with the team in 2007. An expansion to two cars for the 2009 season failed to produce any stellar results and the team left the championship at the end of the season without standing on the top step of the podium.
Super Black Racing
The first team to bear the colours of New Zealand since Team Kiwi Racing, Super Black Racing will join the championship in 2015 for its first full season. Super Black Racing will run one Ford Falcon under the guidance of Prodrive Racing Australia who backed the team for its successful wildcard entry in the 2014 Bathurst 1000.
Driver Andre Heimgartner has already painted himself as one to watch with a mature Bathurst drive that saw him finish eleventh alongside Ant Pedersen in 2014. The result was especially notable as the two rookies navigated one of the most incident packed races in recent years to finish without a scratch.
Super Black also bring some serious pedigree behind the scenes with V8 Supercars veteran Paul Radisich acting as team manager for the season. The team brings financial backing from established businessmen Tony Lentino and Andrew Hiskens and will join the rest of the field on the grid at the Clipsal 500 from February 27 to 1 March.Photos: Photos: William and Kate visit Far East William and Kate visit Far East – Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, are carried as they bid farewell in Tuvalu on Wednesday, September 19. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge -- on a tour marking the diamond jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II -- are visiting Singapore, Malaysia, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. See more of CNN's best photography Hide Caption 1 of 61
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Photos: Photos: William and Kate visit Far East William and Kate visit Far East – Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, visit Assyakirin Mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Friday, September 14, Day Four of the royal couple's tour of the Far East. Hide Caption 24 of 61
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September. Eyewitness reports of regime helicopters indicate that the Syrian government carried these attacks out.
U.N. program suspends food program for Syrian refugees
She also pointed to "serious concerns" that the OPCW has been unable to verify whether Syria has declared all of its chemicals, munitions and facilities associated with its weapons program. The U.S. is "profoundly skeptical", Gottemoeller said, of Syrian claims that no records exist to corroborate the declaration that they have made.
"Indeed, chemical weapons capabilities may very well remain in the hands of the Syrian government," she said.
As for the ongoing inquiry into the weapons that Syria has publicly declared, U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW Robert Mikulak said more monitoring is needed. He said that the destruction of 12 weapons production facilities is "limping along" and is now significantly behind schedule.Last week, MSNBC took first place in the cable-news ratings war for the first time since the network debuted 21 years ago. They not only defeated Fox News in the key 25-54 demographic, but also in total viewers. In fact, FNC didn’t even come in second in prime-time. They finished third behind CNN — something that hadn’t happened since the year 2000.
The primary reason for the newfound success of NBC News’s decidedly progressive cable-news branch was described by Bernie Goldberg in a recent piece. Bashing President Trump over his often embarrassing and controversial antics is good for business.
Trump’s crassness and almost daily displays of dishonesty throughout the election convinced much of the American public that he simply can’t be trusted, and that it is especially important to hold him accountable, now that he is our president. Thus, troublesome allegations against him (even baseless ones) are immediately entertained and exploited. And there is no one more enthusiastic (and often less responsible) about doing it than far-left members of the mainstream media.
Fox News has obviously gone a different route, largely establishing itself as a pro-Trump outfit (at least on its editorial shows). The movement in that direction began about two years ago, when several of Trump’s personal friends (including Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, and Laura Ingraham) used their FNC platforms to effectively promote his candidacy. When the novelty and outlandishness of the Trump campaign turned into television gold, and Fox’s obsessive (and increasingly positive) coverage of it acted as a ratings sugar-rush for the network, more on-air personalities fell in line.
Over time, a re-branding effort of sorts softened the network’s emphasis on conservatism. Instead, Trump-normalization became the central theme. Even Bill “No Spin” O’Reilly was firmly on board, carrying water for his buddy, Trump, to the point of absurdity.
For a while, Fox’s new direction proved to be quite profitable. In fact, 2016 was the network’s most-watched year to date. Even the first quarter of 2017 still had the Fox on top (though steadily losing ground). But with Trump (now as president) continuing to feed his critics ammunition to pummel him with, the network’s tone evolved again. The shift was noticeable even before Fox unexpectedly dropped O’Reilly, a longtime ratings juggernaut.
Rather than pro-Trump commentators devoting all of their time to defending the indefensible (an exhaustive practice with this president), political deflection became the new theme. Taking a page out of Trump’s campaign playbook, hosts began using the “counter-punch” strategy as the basis for their analysis. Tucker Carlson (who took over O’Reilly’s time-slot) has led the charge, focusing his nightly efforts almost exclusively on examples of liberals acting horribly or hypocritically. This includes a nightly segment where he mercilessly wails away on a liberal guest who doesn’t seem to understand why they were asked onto the show in the first place.
Sean Hannity has taken things a few steps further, expanding his show beyond Trump sycophantism, and into the realm of hair-on-fire conspiracy theories. In fact, for the past several weeks, Hannity has been trying to convince his audience that the unsolved murder of DNC staffer, Seth Rich, was carried out by Democrats trying to silence Rich from leaking information to Wikileaks. This theory was debunked soon after it began, but Hannity has continued on with it, much to the dismay of Rich’s family who has been pleading with him to stop politicizing their deep loss.
On The Five, any criticism of something Trump did is immediately answered by one or two of the hosts with an example of a liberal doing something similar in the past. The shtick has gotten quite stale.
With the notable exceptions of Special Report and Fox News Sunday (which remain two of the best news programs on television), Fox News shows have become more about going after Trump’s detractors than they have about analyzing the Trump presidency and world events. This may be perfectly fine with our president’s base, and also with a good chunk of conservatives, but it doesn’t draw in (or enlighten) a broader audience.
That’s not to say that the Left’s hypocrisy and clear media biases aren’t legitimate issues worth exploring and exposing. They are indeed. But they shouldn’t be the primary focus of a serious news network. If you’re negligent in actually covering the news, people are going to go looking for it in other places (even if they’re not entirely happy with the alternative product).
Can Fox News recover? Absolutely. In fact, the network’s ratings are still historically quite strong. And being that they lost three of their top stars over the past several months (Bill O’Reilly, Megyn Kelly, and Greta Van Susteren), one would think they’d be in much worse shape. But executives at the network can’t ignore the rising success of their competitors. Fox News is losing the appeal it once had with viewers who aren’t deeply partisan, and they’re losing that appeal quickly.
The tribal sugar-rush has about run out. It’s time to start thinking about a long-term plan for renewing interest and trust among viewers whose appetite for red meat isn’t their primary motivation for turning on the news.Like this stuff? Get it delivered to your email inbox daily!
Archives | Subscribe | Share: My cousin Marc is shaving his head to raise money for pediatric cancer research. His goal: Raise $1,500. If everyone who receives this email donates a dollar today, he'll achieve that goal. Please consider donating a few dollars. -- Dan
Sounds From The Deep
During the Cold War, the United States built fence from Greenland, through Iceland, to the United Kingdom -- an underwater fence, that is, comprised of listening posts called hydrophones. The goal of this innovation: to detect Soviet submarines as they entered the North Atlantic -- which the hydrophones successfully did beginning in the early 1960s. But as technology advanced in the half-century following, their military importance waned. In 1991, their data and listening tools were made available to civilian researchers.
Since then, researchers, particularly those at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ("NOAA"), have deployed hydrophones throughout the Earth's oceans. And they started listening -- for anything and everything.
Sound waves captured by hydrophones are visually mapped into something called a spectrogram, an example of a special one (explained below) is pictured right. As one researcher noted, the " sound waves are almost like voice prints. You're able to look at the characteristics of the sound [as visualized as a spectrogram] and say, 'There's a blue whale, there's a fin whale, there's a boat, there's a humpback whale and here comes an earthquake.'"
Except not all sound waves are easily identifiable -- if identifiable at all.
On May 19, 1997, the hydrophones picked up a sound, dubbed "Slow Down," which lasted seven minutes and produced the spectrogram pictured above-right. (You can listen to the sound, sped up to 16 times its original speed, here.) The exact location of the sound's source is unknown -- but it's believed to be, roughly, in the South Pacific. What caused the sound? We don't know. And we may never know, because, as NOAA states, the "signal has not been heard before or since."
This makes "Slow Down" interesting, but hardly unique. There are about a half dozen others which, thus far, defy explanation. One of which, named "Bloop," also occurred in 1997. But unlike "Slow Down," "Bloop"'s spectrograph resembles that of a sound made by an animal. One problem: "Bloop" was several times louder than any (other?) animal has made before.
Bonus fact : The giant squid lives at depths of roughly 3,000 feet below the water's surface, making it incredibly difficult to get a picture of. In fact, almost everything we knew about the creature came from dead or dying specimines found from commercial fishing boats, and even then, the first time a live (captured, and dying) squid was photographed was in the late 1990s, as seen here. That changed in 2004, when a team of Japanese scientists succeeded where many before them failed -- by successfully taking pictures (over 500 of them!) of a live giant squid in the wild. You can view some of the photos here.
Archives | Subscribe | Share:2017 Africa Cup of Nations Coupe d'Afrique des Nations 2017 Tournament details Host country Gabon Dates 14 January – 5 February 2017 Teams 16 (from 1 confederation) Venue(s) 4 (in 4 host cities) Final positions Champions Cameroon (5th title) Runners-up Egypt Third place Burkina Faso Fourth place Ghana Tournament statistics Matches played 32 Goals scored 66 (2.06 per match) Top scorer(s) Junior Kabananga
(3 goals) Best player(s) Christian Bassogog Fair play award Egypt 2015 2019 →
The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, known as the Total Africa Cup of Nations, Gabon 2017 (also referred to as AFCON 2017 or CAN 2017), was the 31st edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's football championship of Africa organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The tournament was scheduled to be hosted by Libya,[1] until CAF rescinded its hosting rights in August 2014 due to ongoing war in the country.[2] The tournament was instead hosted by Gabon.[3] This event was also part of the Africa Cup of Nations 60th Anniversary.
Cameroon won their fifth title after defeating seven-time champions Egypt 2–1 in the final.[4]
As champions, Cameroon qualified for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. Tournament hosts Gabon and defending champions Ivory Coast were both eliminated in the group stage after failing to win any of their three group games.
Host selection [ edit ]
First bidding [ edit ]
Bids :
CAF received 3 bids before 30 September 2010, the deadline, to host either the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations or 2017 from DR Congo, Morocco and South Africa. All three bids were originally put on a shortlist.[14] CAF then began an inspection procedure, on November and December 2010, intending to visit each bidding country to view stadiums, infrastructure, and football interest. They inspected the DR Congo first.[15] Shortly after the inspection, DR Congo informed CAF that they would be withdrawing their bids for both the 2015 and 2017 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments.[16] Morocco was the next country to be inspected, with CAF visiting the country in early November 2010.[17] South Africa was inspected in December 2010.
On 29 January, during the 2011 CAF Super Cup, the CAF executive committee decided that Morocco would host 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, while the 2017 edition would be held in South Africa. However, due to the Libyan Civil War, Libya and South Africa traded years with South Africa hosting in 2013 and Libya hosting in 2017.[1]
Second bidding [ edit ]
Bids :
After Libya was withdrawn as the venue on 22 August 2014, the CAF announced that they would be receiving applications for the new hosts until 30 September 2014.[18]
Algeria, Egypt, Gabon, and Ghana, were determined by the CAF to be compliant with the host criteria.[19][20] Later, Egypt withdrew.[21]
Other countries which expressed an interest but did not bid included Ethiopia,[22] Mali,[23] and Tanzania.[24] Kenya discussed a joint bid with neighbors Rwanda and Uganda,[25] but eventually bid alone.
On 8 April 2015,[26] CAF President Issa Hayatou announced Gabon as the replacement hosts following votes by the CAF Executive Committee.[3]
Results Nation Votes 9 4 0 Withdrew Total votes 13
Qualification [ edit ]
Qualified Failed to qualify Withdrew or did not enter Not part of CAF
The draw for the qualification stage took place on 8 April 2015, immediately after the announcement of the host nation.[26] The host nation team were also drawn into a group and would play games against those in that group; however, those matches would only be considered as friendlies and not counted for the standings.
51 nations entered the qualifying stage with Eritrea and Somalia declining to enter and Chad withdrawing.
Due to the cancellation of Morocco being hosts of the 2015 edition, the national team of Morocco were originally banned by CAF from entering the 2017 and 2019 Africa Cups of Nations.[27] However, the ban was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, allowing Morocco to enter the tournament.[28]
Three-time champions Nigeria did not qualify.[29]
Qualified teams [ edit ]
The following 16 teams qualified for the final tournament.[30]
Venues [ edit ]
Map all coordinates using: OpenStreetMap Download coordinates as: KML · GPX
The four venues were confirmed in October 2016.[31]
Squads [ edit ]
Each team can register a squad of 23 players.[32]
Match officials [ edit ]
The following referees were chosen for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations.
Referees
Assistant referees
Format [ edit ]
Only the hosts received an automatic qualification spot, the other 15 teams qualified through a qualification tournament. At the finals, the 16 teams were drawn into four groups of four teams each. The teams in each group play a single round robin. After the group stage, the top two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals. The quarterfinal winners will advance to the semifinals. The semifinal losers will play in third place match, while semifinal winners will play in final.[32]
Draw [ edit ]
The draw took place on 19 October 2016, 18:30 UTC+1, in Libreville, Gabon.[33][34]
The seedings approved by the Organising Committee of the Africa Cup of Nations at its meeting on Monday, 26 September 2016 at the CAF headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, was determined taking into account the performance of the qualified teams during the following competitions:[35][36][37]
Africa Cup of Nations final tournaments (2012, 2013, 2015)
Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers (2013, 2015, 2017)
FIFA World Cup (2014)
FIFA World Cup qualifiers (2014)
Group stage [ edit ]
Group winners and runners-up advance to the quarter-finals.
All times are local, WAT (UTC+1).[38]
Tiebreakers [ edit ]
The teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers are applied in the following order (Regulations Article 74):[32]
Number of points obtained in games between the teams concerned; Goal difference in games between the teams concerned; Goals scored in games between the teams concerned; If, after applying criteria 1 to 3 to teams concerned, two or three teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between these teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 7 will apply; Goal difference in all games; Goals scored in all games; Drawing of lots.
Group A [ edit ]
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Burkina Faso 3 1 2 0 4 2 +2 5 Advance to knockout stage 2 Cameroon 3 1 2 0 3 2 +1 5 3 Gabon (H) 3 0 3 0 2 2 0 3 4 Guinea-Bissau 3 0 1 2 2 5 −3 1
Group B [ edit ]
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Senegal 3 2 1 0 6 2 +4 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 Tunisia 3 2 0 1 6 5 +1 6 3 Algeria 3 0 2 1 5 6 −1 2 4 Zimbabwe 3 0 1 2 4 8 −4 1
Group C [ edit ]
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 DR Congo 3 2 1 0 6 3 +3 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 Morocco 3 2 0 1 4 2 +2 6 3 Ivory Coast 3 0 2 1 2 3 −1 2 4 Togo 3 0 1 2 2 6 −4 1
Group D [ edit ]
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Egypt 3 2 1 0 2 0 +2 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 Ghana 3 2 0 1 2 1 +1 6 3 Mali 3 0 2 1 1 2 −1 2 4 Uganda 3 0 1 2 1 3 −2 1
Knockout stage [ edit ]
In the knockout stages, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time was played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by kicks from the penalty mark to determine the winner, except for the play-off for third place where no extra time was played (Regulations Article 75).[32]
Bracket [ edit ]
Third place play-off [ edit ]
Final [ edit ]
Winners [ edit ]
2017 Africa Cup of Nations Champions
Cameroon
Fifth title
Statistics [ edit ]
Goalscorers [ edit ]
3 goals
2 goals
1 goal
Own goals
Awards [ edit ]
The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament:[40]
Total Man of the Competition
Top Scorer
Fair Play prize
CAF Team of the tournament
Tournament team rankings [ edit ]
Champion Runner-up Third place Fourth place Quarter-finals Group stage
As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Final result 1 Cameroon 6 3 3 0 7 3 +4 12 Champions 2 Egypt 6 3 2 1 5 3 +2 11 Runner-up 3 Burkina Faso 6 3 3 0 8 3 +5 12 Third place 4 Ghana 6 3 0 3 4 5 −1 9 Fourth place 5 Senegal 4 2 2 0 6 2 +4 8 Eliminated in
Quarter-finals 6 DR Congo 4 2 1 1 7 5 +2 7 7 Morocco 4 2 0 2 4 3 +1 6 8 Tunisia 4 2 0 2 6 7 −1 6 9 Gabon (H) 3 0 3 0 2 2 0 3 Eliminated in
Group stage 10 Algeria 3 0 2 1 5 6 −1 2 11 Ivory Coast 3 0 2 1 2 3 −1 2 12 Mali 3 0 2 1 1 2 −1 2 13 Uganda 3 0 1 2 1 3 −2 1 14 Guinea-Bissau 3 0 1 2 2 5 −3 1 15 Zimbabwe 3 0 1 2 4 8 −4 1 16 Togo 3 0 1 2 2 6 −4 1
In July 2016, Total secured an eight-year sponsorship package from the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to support ten of its principal competitions, including the Africa Cup of Nations (renamed the Total Africa Cup of Nations).[41]
Mascot [ edit ]
The official mascot of the tournament was "Samba", a black panther.[42]
Controversy [ edit ]
Website attack [ edit ]
On 21 January, Russian hacking group New World Hackers claimed to have taken the official CAF website down in response to CAF's decision to choose Gabon as host nation. "We did this in protest against Gabon", the person claiming to be one of the hackers wrote in an email. "They are running the Africa Cup in a country where the dictator Ali Bongo is killing innocent people!"[43]
Media [ edit ]
Broadcasting [ edit ]
^1 - Available in the following countries: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and MacedoniaIt was perhaps the darkest point of Shawn Springs’ life. His father, Ron, a former Cowboys great, was in a coma in a Dallas hospital, resting motionless, with almost no hope of ever regaining normal activities. Springs was separated from his wife and away from his 1-year-old son at the time, contemplating retirement from the Washington Redskins, spending hours by his dad’s bedside considering not only his own football mortality, but the very concepts of life and death and what it means to be healthy in mind, body and soul.
The summer of 2008 is one that Springs, a former first-round pick of the Seahawks out of Ohio State and one of the better cornerbacks of his era, will never forget. Congress was launching inquires into the NFL’s concussion epidemic around that time and while Springs mulled whether or not to keep playing, he found himself consumed by what life after football would bring him. Always inquisitive, with a mind drawn to business, science and investing (as a rookie, Springs would seek out Seahawks billionaire owner Paul Allen to ask about the early days of Microsoft), it was then that Springs first began to seriously evaluate what his next calling might be.
Springs would go on to play one more season in Washington (he was an All Pro there in 2004), before wrapping up his 13-year playing career with the Patriots in 2009. His father passed away from a heart attack in 2011 at age 54 after battling for four years in a coma after losing oxygen during what was expected to be a routine surgery to remove a cyst in 2007. By the time Springs paid his last respects to his hero -- a man beloved by NFL legends like Tony Dorsett, Everson Walls (who donated a kidney to Ron Springs), Tom Landry and Ed “Too Tall” Jones -- he was already well on his way to charting a venture that would form a unique nexus for his varied interests. His passion for football, cognitive science, concussions, business opportunities, innovation, health and safety led to Windpact, the startup he founded in 2011, that was recently recognized as one of the leading companies in its field by winning a $50,000 grant from the NFL in Houston during Super Bowl weekend.
Springs is the CEO of the startup today, spending the first three years in the venture studying the helmet industry intimately, determining which PHDs and researchers were at the top of the field. He gradually assembled a team that Springs believes is poised to continue to make significant breakthroughs in head-trauma-reducing technology that is being applied not just across various sports (football, girl’s lacrosse, equestrian, hockey, biking) but with the military, in the construction field, and in the automotive industry as well. He took a thorough and patient approach, resulting in a patent for his Crash Cloud technology that has shown to absorb and disperse impact energy more effectively in helmets than others. Springs incorporated elements of infant car seats into the technology for his protection foam, with Crash Cloud a system of soft, lightweight airbags that disperse energy upon contact, and then rapidly re-inflate to protect the user from a second blow.
“It really started with my dad, and seeing him in a coma and that really made me start to think about the brain and the science of that stuff,” Springs told me this week before jetting off from his Virginia headquarters to take part in a Harvard forum on cognitive science this weekend. “And back in 2007 Congress called manufacturers to The Hill and the NFL got called in and concussions went from a new issue, to ‘The Death of Football,’ and people saying it won’t be around anymore and a lot of hysteria out there.
“I grew up in football. I literally grew up in the Cowboys locker room with my dad, and I was like, ‘I have to do something.’ I was fascinated with the science behind this and I’ve always been interested in companies and how they got their start and I remember when I first got out to Seattle the first thing I asked Paul Allen was: ‘Did you know you were going to be a billionaire?’ And he said, ‘No, I was just trying to do something good for the world.’ That always stuck with me, and that’s basically what we’re trying to do here. So while some guys were looking at investing in barbershops or stores, I always knew I wanted to be involved in real estate and technology. I wanted to be the most innovative athlete ever.”
Shawn Springs played 13 seasons in the NFL, including five with the Redskins. Getty Images
This is all fairly heady stuff, to excuse the pun, and something Springs -- affable and laid-back in nature -- takes quite seriously. He’s done well with other business and real estate entities since leaving the playing field, but poured much of that equity into this company as an angel investor, fueled in many ways by his own memories of growing up immersed in this game, recalling days at training camp literally carrying the helmets of his favorite Cowboys’ stars to the practice field.
“I took a big a risk and the initial start-up was all me,” Springs said, “and then I eventually raised some capital.” He’s now reached a point where Windpact is respected by major helmet manufactures like Riddell and Schutt, and it already has its technology on the market in the girl’s lacrosse field and has already partnered with Under Armour and Hummingbird Sports (which uses Crash Cloud technology in lacrosse helmets).
“When you start thinking about it, it kind of threw me off at first,” Springs said. “I was like, ‘Why is the helmet my dad wore in 1981 (when Ron Springs totaled 12 touchdowns for the Cowboys) the same one I wore in my last year in New England (2009)? I was kinda confused at first, like, ‘Why haven’t helmets changed more?’ Think how much a Honda Accord has changed in that time. So I started thinking about that, without trying to throw anyone under the bus. Why hasn’t it changed more?”
Springs, 41, was clearly proud to have been one of three companies to win the grant from the NFL at the league’s second annual “1st and Future” event on Super Bowl weekend. Besides the financial prize, the grant also allows Windpact, which is based in Leesburg, Virginia, about a pick-six away from the Skins training facility in Ashburn, to gain entry to the Texas Medical Center Accelerator to further develop their technology. Springs literally built this company, taking it from an arcane concept into reality, prying some of the best young minds from leading research schools like Virginia Tech, building relationships with research facilities, identifying a legal team to procure trademarks, and ending up with upward of 70 employees including researchers based at outside facilities.
“How long would you think it takes to build a team that wins?” Springs said when asked about his vision for his company. “Think about it in terms of football. I know I need a QB and a LT and a couple of corners and a 3-technique, and I built it like that. I took everything I knew from football and built an organization and put a smart team around me -- a good GM and head coach. It ain’t that hard, you’ve just got to think about it. I used common knowledge.
“I was like, ‘Why is the helmet my dad wore in 1981 the same one I wore in my last year in New England? I was kinda confused at first, like, ‘Why haven’t helmets changed more?’ Think how much a Honda Accord has changed in that time.” Shawn Springs
“I knew first and foremost I needed a great team of engineers, so I started researching and studying who were the top engineers in industrial science. It’s not that hard. When you were in class you could figure out pretty quickly who the smartest guys were, right? So you find the best engineering firms and watch them work, and you could tell, ‘OK, this dude is a rock star.’ And so you start recruiting them and plucking them off. ‘You work on infant car seat air bags? You were the innovator of the year? Okay, hmm.’ We went and got rock stars.”
This company, while deeply rooted in the structure and culture of football, is about much more than that sport. The game is embedded in Springs’ heart and he’s passed it on to his twin sons. Samari is committed to play at Richmond in the fall, while Skyler is committed to Georgetown. Both are defensive backs, like their father. But Springs spends as much time worrying about a teenager suffering a concussion on a skateboard ramp, or a middle-school kid being bucked off a show-jumping horse, as he does dwelling on the inherent head trauma in football. He intentionally set about finding a system that would function across all platforms, and notes that football is actually a small part of his overall business model, though obviously one near and dear to him.
“I’m not out to compete with the big boys, I want to work with Riddell and Schutt,” Springs said. “I think that the best way to think of it is, I’m like BASF (Springs says referencing the commercials for the German-based chemical company) -- I don’t need to make the product, I want to make the product better. Ultimately, I want there to be a better helmet for sports, the military, construction, and for our technology to be spread into a lot of the top brands.”
That vision drew him to airbags and child car seats, looking to adapt the principles that make them safe to concussion-reducing helmets. Springs also saw inefficiencies with how helmet testing was done, in a slow and repetitive sequence, dropping helmets time and again and logging the impact data. Instead, he wanted to replicate progress in the auto industry where computer-generated models can work out complex changes before manufacturing of the prototype begins.
“What industry changes super fast,” Springs said, speaking himself even more rapidly than usual, his passion pouring through. “Automotive. When I went to the sporting industry, they would put foam in the helmet and keep dropping it to test the results. That’s slow. I was like, ‘What if the guys who do the car modeling could bring that kind of thinking to the sports world?’ If they can do it for cars and jet engines, I know they can do it for helmets. So we took the airbag science -- that is my secret sauce -- and added foam and some really, really smart guys figured out a way to create this airbag model for me.”
Springs shuttles between testing facilities and meetings with giants in the helmet industry, attends conferences, and functions as the face of the company. He made sure he was an expert of sorts in the field before making attempts to bring his technology to others, and that slow and steady approach could pay off with some lucrative arrangements soon enough as he is in regular discussions with top brands, some of whom, only naturally, would prefer Springs’ patented technology be proprietary to their company in a particular helmet field.
He’s built a team with a common desire to make helmets safer for kids engaged in everyday activities, like bike riding, roller skating, and he is particularly excited about a catcher’s face mask Windpact is working on for all levels of baseball. Springs estimated he suffered at least two concussions during his playing days, but this was still the era where “they’d give you smelling salt and send you back into the game.” He is as concerned about trying to mitigate the repetitive trauma of repeated small blows to the head as he is the obvious knock-out shots you see in the NFL.
“In the last five years what we’ve learned is the impact of the cumulative effect; it doesn’t have to be big blow,” Springs said, pointing to Luke Kuechly’s situation in Carolina last season.
He is enthused by the NFL changing, he believes, to more of a speed and explosion game, with plays like Julio Jones’s amazing sideline catch in the Super Bowl exemplifying the NFL now more so than the “Jacked-Up” highlights of the past. Also giving Springs hope that football will be around a long time? The league’s rule changes, players being more aware of brain trauma, a trend to more flag football for youngsters, and the progress being made in innovation give Springs. In his own way, he aims to improve it -- and make headgear safer for all those who require it across various walks of life -- while acknowledging that concussions won’t be likely be solved in his lifetime.
“In years past we might not have understood it, but today we have a better understanding of brain trauma,” Springs said, “and the game is getting safer than ever, I really believe that. I love this game. I grew up in the Cowboys’ locker room and if anybody is a true football guy, it’s me. My pedigree, I grew up with Tony Doresett, Mike Ditka, Dan Reeves, Tom Landry, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, those are the guys I’m getting water for at 7 years old. And then to have Mike Holmgren, Joe Gibbs and Bill Belichick as my coaches when I played the game in the NFL for 13 years. It makes you smart enough that you really understand the game and the problems we have with it, and just crazy enough to think you can change it.”Australian developed solar technology that aims to tackle the dominance of diesel generators in the temporary power market will be tested at the 1MW scale in New South Wales, off the back of a new grant from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
The modular, mobile solar power solution was developed by the Australian arm of UK-based builder Laing O’Rourke, initially as a way to cut diesel fuel costs at the company’s own remote construction sites.
Obviously, the idea paid off, and a new subsidiary, called SunSHIFT, was born, along with plans to target the multi-billion dollar large-scale, short-term power market, including mining projects, off-grid applications and remote communities.
The technology combines solar PV and control systems together with a conventional diesel or gas generator, with the potential to add battery storage, and – crucially – can be set up and packed down in just days.
Laing O’Rourke said on Wednesday that the design of SunSHIFT’s 1MW Block had reached a stage where large-scale demonstration was needed “to satisfy the overwhelming interest from the domestic and international entities in the temporary power market.
ARENA – which has supported the technology from its inception to manufacturing and pilot scale demonstration – said on Wednesday that it had committed $2.1 million of recoupable funding support to deploy a 1MW Block of the SunSHIFT in Rutherford, in the Hunter region of NSW, which is scheduled to take place in the second half of 2017.
ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht said the project would provide proof that SunSHIFT could be deployed at scale then effectively packed up and redeployed. It will also need to prove that the system can be delivered at the specified quality within tested timeframes and budget.
If this is successfully proven and the technology commercialised, ARENA will earn a royalty from the proceeds.
“Quick set up and pack down, along with sizing flexibility, presents several advantages for different applications.
The megawatt-scale technology was particularly well-suited to construction and mining operations that that only last a handful of years, Frischknecht said, allowing them to tap solar power quickly, and without the typical 20-plus year payback period for installations.
“You can start small – with a single 1MW block alongside your existing generation facility – and as you become comfortable with the approach and the economics improve, you can add more solar blocks.
SunSHIFT general manager, Will Rayward-Smith, said that the new ARENA funding would bring its 1MW Block solar PV product one step closer to commercial deployment.
“After three exciting years in partnership with ARENA, ABB and SunPower, we can now showcase our megawatt-scale modular and moveable solar PV product to the market,” Dr Rayward-Smith said.
“Off the back of this demonstration, we will be ramping up manufacturing to meet the strong demand for our product from mining companies, independent power providers, and infrastructure investors active in emerging markets and developing economies.”
Laing O’Rourke Australia managing director, Cathal O’Rourke, said ARENA’s support had been key to the the development of the technology, taking it from research, to demonstration and now pre-commercial deployment.
“The ongoing collaboration with ARENA has kept the SunSHIFT team intently focused on technical and commercial innovation to overcome the barriers limiting use of renewable energy generation for large-scale, short-term power,” he said.
“What started out as an idea to reduce diesel fuel consumption for power generation at our own remote construction sites has evolved into an entirely new type of power generation asset ready for uptake in the multi-billion dollar global temporary power market.”Former Tottenham star David Ginola is planning to run for the FIFA presidency
David Ginola: Hunting the top job in world football
David Ginola is set to unveil plans to challenge Sepp Blatter to be president of FIFA.
The former Tottenham and Newcastle winger, 47, will outline his plans when he launches his campaign in London on Friday |
of them (IEM Katowice not considered due to coach Bjorn "threat" Pers being unable to help in advance). That novelty will have worn off by the time ELeague begins, but does it matter? NiP have won three large tournaments in 2016, including two in the past three months. But Astralis are trending upward, besting SK in ELeague's group stage and barely losing to them in the IEM Oakland semifinal. The tide could turn in Turner studios.
When SK bullied Astralis by vetoing Nuke instead of Cache, the Danes let the world know they had not prepared for the latter. That does not hurt here, though, as it remains NiP's best map, but they also do not play Cobblestone, a good map for Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund's team. NiP will pick Cobblestone -- and almost definitely win it -- meaning they only need one more win. Their veto will be Mirage, and with Astralis likely vetoing Nuke out, the series should be decided on Train, a strong map for both.
The decider will be Fireworks, but after NiP's grind in California, they are slight favorites. Astralis will not be under heavy pressure, and that can only help their case.
Prediction: NiP > Astralis 2-1
mousesports versus OpTic (Thursday, 2 p.m. ET)
What on earth happened here? Nikola "NiKo" Kovac's mousesports stole Group A over Cloud9 and Immortals in best-of-ones, and now find themselves facing OpTic, the North American team who survived Group D versus a Fnatic team playing with their coach in star player Dennis "dennis" Edman's stead. And yet mousesports are not necessarily even favored to win this matchup, given their recent 0-5 performance at IEM Oakland.
One of these teams will be making top four at ELeague Season 2, and will act as yet another example in a future article of mine explaining why random seeding going into playoffs should not be tolerated any longer.
The two sides met at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals in Sao Paulo, where Oscar "mixwell" Canellas's OpTic fell short 10-16 on Cache, with Tarik "tarik" Celik having a horrible showing for the North American side. The problem in predicting this series is neither team has made it far enough in recent tournaments to be properly analyzed in-depth. OpTic had perhaps been more consistent, but with lower peaks. On the other hand, mousesports's peak level is head and shoulders above what we have seen from OpTic so far. In addition, NiKo is fresh off of his career's second-worst offline showing, surely prompting the Bosnian to show up to Atlanta in top shape. That alone can be enough to swing the series.
If OpTic win, they can officially be considered a dangerous team to the top 10 sides, but a loss makes them vulnerable to falling back into relative obscurity.
Prediction: mousesports > OpTic 2-1
Finn "karrigan" Andersen is the in-game leader for FaZe Clan. Provided by Turner Sports/ELEAGUE
Virtus.pro versus FaZe (Thursday, 2 p.m. ET)
The Polish side were ranked No. 1 in the world until SK's top two placing at IEM Oakland bumped the Brazilians above them (they're also the defending ELeague Season 1 champions). In addition, they topped their ELeague group and won both DreamHack Open Bucharest while placing second at both ESL One New York and EPICENTER: Moscow. In comparison, FaZe only has promises and flashes of top-tier play, having just finished top four at IEM Oakland with a perfect 5-0 record in group B, featuring wins over names like SK, NiP and Cloud9. They have indeed shown promise, but this series is a tough task nonetheless.
Whereas most teams have been attending events every week in recent months, Virtus.pro have actually turned down a last-minute spot at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals in Brazil, and withdrew from IEM Oakland. They should be better prepared for ELeague playoffs than FaZe, who were just in California for nearly two weeks, and only have about a week at home before traveling back to the United States for their date with the Poles. Now adding that together, Virtus.pro have better results, have had some time to breathe and should be better practiced, so where do you go if you want to reason a way for FaZe to win this series?
Filip "NEO" Kubski's side do not play Dust2, and the international team boasting players from four different European nations will veto Cobblestone. Of the remaining maps, I would favor the Polish side on every single one -- though the margins are not so large that FaZe could not steal a map, or even win -- if the Poles are not playing well. FaZe are a good team under karrigan, and trending up, but they need more time to practice. Meanwhile, ELeague is exactly the kind of event Virtus.pro normally thrive at.
This should be a routine win for Virtus.pro, all things considered, though there have been bigger upsets in 2016.
Prediction: Virtus.pro > FaZe 2-0Here’s a word from a journalist to those in politics whose world has gone totally nuts: welcome to bonkersville. We don’t have a constitution that lays out our rules (though we do have the Constitution assuring that we can do what we do). But for quite a few years now the bedrock ethical principles of our profession have been challenged by new models that have altered both the process and content of journalism. Some of this has been a wonderful tonic. And some has been toxic. We’ve been trying to sort out things for a while.
Which brings us to the controversial publication of a strangely produced “dossier” involving our president-elect and the Russians. Buzzfeed published it this past week, 35 pages long. It had red-hot but unverified allegations, and it apparently was the subject of intelligence briefings given to Donald Trump and the current president. Those briefings were the subject matter of a CNN story this week. CNN did not print the dossier, which included a mind-boggling sexual escapade. And other publications had the opportunity to print the dossier but did not. Buzzfeed did, later explaining that its move was appropriate in today’s climate.
In its short history, Buzzfeed has done some absolutely terrific journalism — great investigative reporting, sharp political work, and some superb tech writing, under the guidance of my former Wired colleague Mat Honan. But it also has broken questionable new ground in muddying the distinction between news and distraction. It was kind of cool that Buzzfeed got about nine hundred billion hits or so from messing with our minds with The Dress, that picture of wedding garb that may have been blue or may have been white? But when I read Buzzfeed’s editor-in-chief Ben Smith triumphal, congratulatory note to his staff where he spoke of a story involving the ambiguity of a dress color as if it were a scoop with the impact of Watergate and the cultural import of the Enlightenment, I couldn’t get out of bed for a week.
Still, I am not paralyzed with cognitive dissonance by the fact that Buzzfeed has a light side and serious side. This week’s controversy dealt squarely with its serious side. Standard journalistic ethics dictate that such a dossier, including scabrous accusations of questionable veracity, should be held, or at the least described warily. But Smith justified the move in a note to his staff, a sort of mini-manifesto as to why this was OK in the internet age. The note, which he publicly circulated in a tweet (ah, 2017!), is a gutsy step in redefining the right thing to do in journalism today.
I actually have more of a problem with this explanation than I do with the actual publication of the dossier, for which there are reasonable arguments for and against. The line about always erring on the side of publication is a particularly hard one to swallow. It actually makes me a little wobbly because I generally dread situations where something I publish gets all tied up with the word “err.” So much so that I, like most “traditional” journalists, actually take the opposite tack, choosing to forgo the positive consequences of publishing edgy but unverified stuff so we can lay our heads on the pillow knowing that our errors of omission hurt ourselves more than errors of publishing can harm subjects of inaccurate, damaging information.
In the context of an anything-goes internet, I can understand why he says it. The sentiment really was best expressed by Nick Denton of Gawker, who was the king of the err-on-the-side-of-publishing ethos, at least until it bankrupted him. Smith and Denton both seem to chafe at the idea that insiders are privy to information when the general public is not. Readers should be free, Smith believes, “to make up their own mind” on the subject.
In this case, I’m not sure what we’re making up our minds about. Readers did not have a certain scene in a Moscow hotel room in their minds before Buzzfeed published a paragraph that was guaranteed to go viral in a way that would rival The Dress. Now those images — even though they come with the caveat that they may be total fabrications — are dancing in our heads and have launched ten thousand lousy jokes on Twitter. Personally, I think what CNN did in this case — reporting the news that the dossier was the subject of intelligence briefings but withholding the salacious, quite possibly fictional, details — was just right.
That’s not to say that Buzzfeed should be sanctioned for publishing the dossier. Every publication should be free to publish whatever it thinks appropriate, as long as it’s legal. (Remember that Constitution I mentioned? And by the way — no publication should be banned from a press conference or denied credentials because a public official is unhappy with its editorial choices. Just sayin’.) Even in the age of “fake news,” I believe that readers will ultimately determine the credibility of the publications that they consume. Story by story, day by day, publications construct their reputation, and big choices like that have an oversize impact. Buzzfeed now owns its choice, and its leaders seem to be happy with it, so more power to them.
Backchannel hasn’t been faced with this kind of situation, so I’m not going to second-guess Buzzfeed. But I do think it’s important to convey to our readers that our content is determined by the worth of our stories rather than their potential to release dopamine. The stories that give us satisfaction are those that appear nowhere else on the Internet and feature deep reporting or original thought. These are high standards and sometimes we may not hit the mark, but that’s what we go for every day.
We will try to err on the side of accuracy. More than ever, we believe that must be a reporter’s job in 2017. If we fall short, please let us know.
This week provided some examples of how Backchannel works.
The Inside Story of BitTorrent’s Bizarre Collapse. Jessi Hempel originally was going to write a short piece for our Follow Up Friday series about this company — for the first Friday in December. But as she kept uncovering details about what happened when the creators of a great technology tried to build a company around it, the story got more ambitious.
Phil Schiller on iPhone’s Launch, How It Changed Apple, and Why It Will Keep Going for 50 Years We knew that lots of places would be writing about the iPhone’s 10th anniversary, but since I was there, and actually spoke to Steve Jobs at the event, we figured that the piece would clear our bar for uniqueness. When we landed an interview with Apple senior vp Phil Schiller — the only on-the-record session that Apple conducted for this milestone — we knew our story would stand out from the pack, which is exactly where we want to be.
How Netflix Lost Big to Amazon in India. I bet you never heard about the battle between Netflix and Amazon in India. We hadn’t either, so we were immediately interested in this story. Hey, more people are on India’s internet in that country than in the United States, so here is a significant subject and a well-rendered tale that reflects on a global streaming-video competition between those familiar giants.
And from last week…
Oscar is Disrupting Health Care in a Hurricane. Oscar is a health insurance startup that wants to pull an Uber on the industry. Behind a family drama — one brother is co-founder of a company whose customers all come from Obamacare, the other brother is the top advisor of the president-elect who wants to repeal the law — is an even more dramatic question of whether it is possible to disrupt in such a heavily regulated field, especially in this pivotal moment for health insurance. In this fragile moment for the company, Oscar trusted us to do the deepest dive yet on its effort.
One other note: Last week, Medium CEO Evan Williams announced layoffs and a vow to develop a new business model for content on its platform. Though we are now part of Condé Nast, Backchannel was created inside Medium, and some people who lost their jobs were our former colleagues, so the news was particularly saddening to us. But our business team at the Wired Media Group had already been selling ad content, so this does not affect us, anymore than a layoff at WordPress would affect a publication using that content management system. We’re still wide open for business and are anticipating 2017 will be a great year here.At the High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in Beijing today, China announced its intention to contribute to the Investment Plan, as well as closer cooperation with the EU on investment issues in general.
Today during the High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in Beijing, Vice-Premier Ma Kai informed Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen that China will contribute to the Commission's €315 billion Investment Plan for Europe. China is the first non-EU country to announce its contribution to the Plan.
As well as this announcement, the two sides agreed to set up a joint working group to increase cooperation between the EU and China on all aspects of investment. The working group will include experts from China's Silk Road Fund, the Commission, and the European Investment Bank (EIB). The EIB, the Commission's strategic partner in the Investment Plan, was also represented at the HED in Beijing.
The European Commission and the Chinese government also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the EU-China Connectivity Platform to enhance synergies between China's "One Belt One Road" initiative and the EU's connectivity initiatives such as the Trans-European Transport Network policy. The Platform will promote cooperation in areas such as infrastructure, equipment, technologies and standards. This will create multiple business opportunities and promote employment, growth and development for both sides, and it will be done in cooperation with the EIB.
Finally, the EU encouraged deepened collaboration between China and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), including the examination of a possible membership in the EBRD in line with its rules.
Vice-President Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said: "After a very constructive dialogue with Vice-Premier Ma Kai today, we have produced some real results for the future of EU-China cooperation in investment. This is the right moment to invest in Europe, and I am delighted that China has announced its intention to contribute to the Investment Plan. I am confident that other institutional investors will follow. We want to deepen our economic relations with China in the context of the Investment Plan, as well as the One Belt One Road initiative, to promote connectivity between EU and China."
EU Commissioner for Transport VioletaBulc added: "I very much welcome the establishment of the EU-China Connectivity Platform. I am confident that it will bring significant benefits to both sides by exploring synergies beteen our respective infrastructure and investments plans and policies, as well as by providing business opportunities that will promote employment, growth and development in our countries".
The High Level Economic and Trade Dialogue in Beijing follows the EU-China Summit which took place in Brussels on 29 June at which the two sides agreed to cooperate closely on investment, connectivity, the digital economy and low carbon investment. The HED advanced on the Summit commitment to converge on the scope of the bilateral investment agreement negotiations and produce a joint draft text by the end of the year. In Beijing, Vice-President Katainen was joined by Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner in charge of Digital Economy and Society, who successfully concluded a new agreement on 5G; and Commissioner Bulc, who held talks on transport infrastructure investment cooperation.
Background
The Investment Plan for Europe has three objectives: removing obstacles to investment by deepening the single market, providing visibility and technical assistance to investment projects, and making smarter use of new and existing financial resources. According to European Commission estimates, the Investment Plan has the potential to add at least €330 to €410 billion to the EU's GDP and create 1 to 1.3 million new jobs over the coming years. It aims to address the current situation where the EU has sufficient liquidity, but private investors are not investing at the levels needed. For more information, see this factsheet.
On 28 May, just four and a half months after the Commission adopted the legislative proposal on 13 January, EU legislators reached a political agreement on the Regulation for European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) which is the heart of the EU's Investment Plan. On 22 July, the Commission agreed on a package of measures that will allow the EFSI to be up and running by early autumn.
In line with the European Council conclusions of December 2014, which invited the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group to "start activities by using its own funds as of January 2015", the EIB has already approved several projects to be pre-financed in the context of the Investment Plan for Europe, in which it is the Commission's strategic partner.
To date, nine EU Member States have announced contributions to the Investment Plan: Germany (€8 billion), Spain (€1.5 billion), France (€8 billion), Italy (€8 billion), Luxembourg (€80 million), Poland (€8 billion), Slovakia (€400 million), Bulgaria (€100 million) and the UK (£6 billion/around €8.5 billion).
Vice-President Katainen has travelled to 27 of the 28 EU Member States on the Investment Plan roadshow (Slovenia is the final stop on 9 October).
Useful links:
Investment Plan for Europe – Questions and Answers
Factsheet on HED EU-China Investment Cooperation
Press release on 5G agreement
Investment Plan Website
#investEU on TwitterVerizon Wireless has updated its customer agreement with new conditions related to early termination fees. Effective today, new customers that purchase a device on contract will be required to pay a full $350 early termination fee during the first seven months of the contract if it is broken. The fee is reduced by $10 per month between months 8-18, $20 per month between months 19-23 and $60 in the final month of the contract term…
Verizon previously reduced the $350 early termination fee (ETF) by $10 per month for each full month of a contract that was honored, meaning that its delay in reducing the fee until the eighth month makes opting out of a contract up to $70 more expensive for customers. Verizon’s new ETF policy does not apply to customers that purchased a device on contract prior to November 14th.
Verizon Customer Agreement via Droid Life:
“If you cancel a line of Service, or if we cancel it for good cause, during its contract term, you’ll have to pay an early termination fee. If your contract term results from your purchase of an advanced device on or after November 14, 2014, your early termination fee will be $350, which will decline by: $10 per month in months 8–18, $20 per month in months 19–23, and $60 in the final month of your contract term.”
The new ETFs apply only to the purchase of “advanced devices,” including the iPhone.Rules GothiComp 2014.
The Goal
The Deadline
The Categories
The Single Ship/Squadron entry
One-Hit Category
The fleet category
The Prizes
The Pictures
The Submission
The Voting
Additional Rules
Hi all,Perhaps beyond expectations but it is that time of the year again:Following are the rules for GothiComp 2014, feedback appreciated:This is theannual GothiComp, and will be run in a similar way to last years events.The general aim of this competition is simply to encourage players to get painting and show off what they can do. I encourage people to enter no matter how good or bad their painting and converting skills are.This competition will open may 1, 2014, and the deadline for submissions is Wednesday 31st August 2014.General note: we encourage new ships not been shown in a previous edition of GothiComp. Of course vessels that have been completely repainted are allowed again.Each separate entry should consist of a single miniature (being capital ships) to be used for Battlefleet Gothic (however, note that conversions, scratch builds and even vessels from outside manufacturers are welcome). The only exception to this is:- If the vessel is a light cruiser or equivalent, one or two vessels may be submitted as a single entry in the same photograph. Space Marine Strike Cruisers can be treated as light cruisers.Aside from this stipulation, the entry is largely down to the participant.The community will vote on the entries as usual.This category consists of all 1 hit-point structures & vessels in the game of Battlefleet Gothic. Entries may consist from 1 to 6 models.The community will vote on the entries as usual.In addition, there will be a 'conversion prize' chosen from single ship & one hit category. This will be a token prize for one entry based on the skill and style of any conversion work which has gone into the vessel, in an effort to encourage creativity in modelling as well as painting. This will be judged by a select panel. All entries are automatically submitted into both competitions simultaneously. The judges for the conversion prize are myself, Cybershadow and a third person.Each separate entry should consist of a fleet worth at least 500 and a maximum of 2000 points following the standard BFG list or equivalent (the 2010 drafts are allowed even if GW has not uploaded them by then).The community will vote on the entries as usual.Honour!Mangazoc has created a pool of prizes for every category. The winners will be surprised by what it actually will be, but knowing the quality of his resin work it will be worth it.You should submit a single picture per entry, no more. Each photograph should be no more than 3 megabytes large. The pixel width should not exceed 1024 x 768.To submit a picture of your vessel to this competition, you simply mail it at: [email protected] Make sure the header of the email contains the following: ship name / class nameNote that you do not have to be a member of theboards to enter this competition but in order to vote you will have to sign up.We will compile a gallery of the entrants which will be available online. This gallery will remain as a permanent fixture to the site, and so you will be able to browse the pictures in the future. Please note, I am sure that there will be a rush in the last 24 hours before the end of this competition, therefore please don't wait until the last few hours if you can avoid it.Voting will take place here on these boards. Entries will be split into heats. The winner of each heat will go through to the next round until a winner is determined. Please note that entries will be placed into heats in the order in which they are submitted here. Note: having multiple entries from one participant will be spread.The voting period lasts 7 days.The voting results will be shown after the poll ends.Possible tiebreakers depend upon number of entries.Note that the ship and/or class name will be shown, anonymous upon request otherwise name will be shown.All decisions are final, any prizes are non-negotiable and the competition organizers reserve the right to remove competition entries or request that they are resubmitted or altered. We will hopefully never need this stuff, but just in case...That is it. Feel free to email me with any questions that you may have. Now, what are you doing still reading this? Get painting!Have fun!HorizonA local microbrewery has been letting patrons BYOD — Bring Your Own Dog — into its beer tasting room, but was told recently by Alberta Health Services to stop the practice.
Since opening about three months ago, Inglewood's Cold Garden Beverage Company had become a popular, pet-friendly hangout, welcoming people in for a cold one with their canines at their side.
"It was well received by everyone rolling by. The whole function was for people to fill your growler and bring your kids and dogs," Dan Allard, co-owner told the Calgary Eyeopener on Wednesday.
The microbrewery then expanded its offerings, allowing people to stay and taste beer samples. "Everyone latched onto it."
Cold Garden's pet-friendly policy made it one of the most popular microbreweries for dogs like Mowgli, pictured above. (@pauliepervert/Instagram)
Initially, Allard says AHS didn't seem to care about the dogs being on the premises, because the establishment was in a "grey area," and it wasn't a "food-permitted facility."
The only food around were snacks like bags of potato chips, required by the Alberta Gaming Licence Commission when an establishment serves alcohol.
As Cold Garden's popularity grew, people started bringing in take-out food from neighbouring restaurants. Allard believes AHS found out through a complaint and that's when the brewery was told no more dogs inside while AHS assessed the situation.
One of the former patron pooches at Cold Brew microbrewery in Inglewood, which can no longer let dogs on the premises. (Cold Garden)
'Old, archaic rules'
"The nice thing is, individually, everyone that's dealt with us in those regulatory bodies, they love the concept and want to see it move in that direction, but they have to enforce these old, archaic rules," says Allard.
Allard is in the process of making a proposal that includes a "waiver of regulation" to the AHS that can work for both parties. He wants to label the brewery a non-food preparation area. The beer is prepared in the back of the facility, but dogs don't go there.
In a statement, AHS explained the decision.
"Cold Garden brewery was not originally a food-permitted facility," the statement reads.
"Because the scope of its operations have changed/expanded from what was originally approved by AHS and the City of Calgary, it is now considered an operation requiring a food permit, and therefore, the allowance for any live animal must be approved by AHS."
Read the full AHS statement below
But Allard says there are already precedents in Calgary for this type of business.
A visiting dog gets lots of love during a visit to Cold Garden. (Cold Garden)
Locally, the Regal Cat Cafe in Kensington will allow cats once it opens. It has approval for food to be prepared in a separate building next door and brought in and consumed in the area where the cats will hang out.
Allard points to several American cities that have recently adopted BYOD policies in cities like San Francisco and Scottsdale, Ariz. The practice has been common in European countries like France and Germany for decades.
Until Cold Garden finds a solution with AHS, dog-owning customers will have to hitch their dogs outside.
With files from the Calgary EyeopenerBrussels prosecutors said in a brief statement on Wednesday that the file had been taken on by their federal counterparts, who normally intervene in cases of organised crime or terrorism.
According to public broadcaster VRT, one officer was stabbed in the neck and another in the stomach. The attacker then broke the nose of a third policeman who had arrived at the scene.
The attacker was shot in the leg and taken away by ambulance, VRT said, adding that the police officers' wounds were not life-threatening.
Federal prosecutors were not immediately available to comment on why they were handling the case.
Brussels is on high alert after bombings in March killed 32 people at the city's airport and inside a subway carriage.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, the city's Gare du Nord railway station was closed for an hour because of a bomb alert. Rail operations resumed after bomb disposal teams had checked the area.The Facist Farmer Strikes Again
Rand and I drove down to Portland a few weeks ago for his birthday. It’s a drive we do often, and one that’s so familiar to me, one that so rarely changes, even our jokes have become recycled.
And believe me, the jokes are terrible.
When we pass the exit labeled “Toledo / Vader” it always goes something like …
“That’s where Darth’s cousin from Ohio lives!”
What? I told you – the jokes are terrible.
And nothing ever changes, save for the messages on the billboard between exits 72 and 73. It will occasionally have a different message on it, though most of them lean heavily towards the right (and well beyond it, into no man’s land.). We’ve dubbed the gentleman who owned the billboard “The Fascist Farmer”. Here’s a brief analysis of the political spectrum and his location therein …
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You can see a larger version of this graphic here.
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For years, Rand and I braced ourselves for the billboard, delighting in its ever-changing, ever-conservative, occasionally enigmatic sayings. Sometime around exit 68 we’d grab the camera and anxiously wait. For years, information on the Fascist Farmer was scarce. I knew only that he had put the billboard up decades ago, and that he was getting progressively older.
Still, the messages changed semi-regularly, so we assumed that all was well with the Farmer. And while I agreed with not a single idea expressed on his billboard, I still found it comforting to see. It was like an old, hateful, crazy relative: they’re mean and racist and homophobic, but you’re stuck with them. The fight you’re about to have is a familiar one, and you’re ready for it, long before they’ve opened their mouths to unleash their particular brand of stupidity.
I only recently found out that the man behind the billboard is Alfred Hamilton, and that he passed away in 2004. Since then, one of his sons has taken up the role of updating the billboard. I’m sure the “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” tagline that was posted in response to rumors that Obama wasn’t a U.S. citizen would have made dad proud.
I learned a little about Hamilton, too – it’s hard for journalists to avoid editorializing about him, especially since his views were so pronounced … (note: I don’t consider myself a journalist, so I can editorialize all I want.).
In 2008, the Seattlest blog wrote:
Like many of his politically like-minded brethren, Hamilton couldn’t be troubled to bother actually going to war, despite the fact that later in life he had plenty to say about those who didn’t “support” the troops.
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In 2004, after Hamilton’s death, The New York Times described the billboard thusly:
It has been a kind of grouchy chronicle of one man’s one-sided take on things.
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I learned that the billboard is in Chehalis, WA (I had incorrectly assumed Centralia, since that’s the next exit), that Hamilton was a tall man who left college without graduating to avoid fighting in WWII, and that, looking back on the entire legacy of his billboards, it’s likely I’ve never agreed with a single thought he’s chosen to express (he was particularly hateful towards homosexuals, putting up such taglines as “AIDS turns fruits into vegetables” and “Evergreen State College – Home of Environmental Terrorists and Homos?” on his billboard).
And now he’s gone.
But the damn billboard still waits for us, and every time we approach it, my camera is pulled out. A few weeks ago, we were treated to these messages, presumably written by one of Hamilton’s sons, and much more delicate in nature than what his dad composed …
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The billboards are stupid, poorly constructed, and more than a little crazy, but they’re part of my home. I loathe them more than anything – and I love doing so.
Share this Post Google+The Nat Geo limited series, executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, will shift its focus from science to art for its next installment.
National Geographic has announced who its next “Genius” might be, and the choice moves the ongoing drama series from the world of science to art.
Following its well-received exploration into the life of Albert Einstein, Season 2 will dig into the complex life of artist Pablo Picasso. The artist, who lived from 1881 to 1973, is famed for his skewed looks at the world, which created not just a lifetime’s work of unforgettable art – but an entire movement that made us reassess what art could be.
READ MORE: ‘Genius’: Hear the Song That Foreshadowed Johnny Flynn’s Breakout Role as Young Einstein
“Genius” is executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, the latter of whom directed the first episode of Season 1. Executive producer and showrunner Ken Biller will return for Season 2. Other executive producers include Gigi Pritzker and Rachel Shane from Madison Wells Media’s OddLot Entertainment.
There is no official word yet as to who will play Picasso, but in the first season of “Genius,” Geoffrey Rush and Johnny Flynn played the older and younger versions of Einstein (respectively). Producers said they plan to court a similar level of talent for the next season.
Prior to “Genius,” on screen Picasso has been portrayed on screen about 40 times, with portrayers including Marcial Di Fonzo Bo in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” and Anthony Hopkins in the film “Surviving Picasso.”
Also, Picasso mingled with plenty of other historical figures of his time we might look forward to seeing depicted — from the official release:
His passionate nature and relentless creative drive were inextricably linked to his personal life, which included tumultuous marriages, numerous affairs and constantly shifting political and personal alliances. He lived most of his life in the vibrant Paris of the first half of the 20th Century and crossed paths with writers and artists including Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Gertrude Stein, Georges Braque, and Jean Cocteau.
“What we were looking for, as with Albert Einstein, was someone who saw the world in a completely different way,” Biller said during a conference call this morning tied to the announcement. “One in scientific realm and one in art realm. This is a declarative statement, that ‘Genius’ is not only about scientists, [but people] who are iconic figures in history who changed the world. Pablo Picasso came to mind among many figures for Season 2.”
Picasso was the first name the producers considered for the project, Biller said, and after discussing several names, “we circled back to that idea and felt that his story, which is rich and emotional and passionate and controversial, would not only allow us to expand the palette, but his life was so turbulent and interesting. It’s a fascinating story.”
Howard said many men and women were considered for the project, and the producers used the success of depicting Albert Einstein’s life as a guide in finding a story subject with similar breadth.
“We wanted to try to live up to an achievement we were very proud of, with Einstein’s life, and we needed to know the drama was there,” Biller said. “Talking to friends, family, and kicking it around, his name stimulates curiosity in people. He’s famous, a household name, but you don’t really know the story of his life – how through the turbulence, he achieved artistic greatness in many ways and over many years.”
Biller said the producers considered a female subject for Season 2, and are “hoping to do a woman for Season 3.”
“Unfortunately the way history works, when you Google ‘geniuses’ online, history doesn’t remember a lot of [women],” Biller said. “The pool from them to choose is smaller. We explored ideas of people in science, politics, the arts. It’s a fun parlor game. There are probably very few people you could mention that we didn’t discuss on some level.”
Biller pointed out that although Season 1 was about Einstein, it spent time on the women characters surrounding him, including his first wife, physicist Mileva Maric.
“We did feel a responsibility to explore this other brilliant scientist we didn’t know, Mileva,” Biller said. “You’ll see also in Picasso’s story that there are many fascinating women in his life who inspired him and were artists in their own right. We will give them their due and explore what it was like to be a woman not only in that time but also in Picasso’s life.”
Given the subject matter, Howard said he expects to be able to play with visuals in Season 2. Like Season 1 of “Genius,” Season 2 will cover different stages of Picasso’s life and include two actors portraying the artist.
“We have no casting in mind yet but we’re hoping to attract that same level of talent to the project,” Biller said.
Biller defended the idea of portraying Einstein’s sexuality. “The idea of seeing Einstein with his pants down wasn’t designed for titillation,” he said. “One of the truths of Einstein is that most of the world didn’t know about was he had many sexual relationships. He was not faithful to his wife. He had an unorthodox view of sexuality and monogamy. If we were going to spend ten hours exploring character, the audience wouldn’t be interested in watching him at a blackboard for ten hours.”
“We’re in heavy development of the show,” he added. “We have some of the same writers from the first season, and some new ones. Our intention is to be in production before the end of this year in the fall.”
The Season 1 finale of “Genius” aired Tuesday, June 20. The 10-episode second season is expected to air in Spring 2018.
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(Photo: steve lyon / Flickr)Madison, Wisconsin – The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released a new report, “EXPOSED: America’s Highest Paid Government Workers.”
The report shows that, contrary to misinformation |
. With Napoleon, it was to end feudalism. Marx sought the centralization of power so that the German working class could rise to global preeminence.
Different excuses for different time periods, but the same concept – power – was sought by all in the drive for centralization of political authority.
In our time, as in Marx’s, it has been the relentless and pervasive influence of nationalism on public life that has served as the subconscious harbinger of the centralization of power. Even Marx, who deceitfully claimed to be an internationalist, was captivated by the idea of a Prussian military victory over the French, so as to ensure that the French intellectuals and French people became subservient to German ideas and German social organization. I want to pull a quote from Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf, and challenge the reader to see if he or she can find any connection between Hitler’s thought on political organization and Karl Marx’s.
Hitler, a party member of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party and a major benefactor of Bismark’s drive for centralization of political power, had this to say about political organization:
“National Socialism, as a matter of principle, must lay claim to the right to force its principles on the whole German nation without consideration of previous federated state boundaries [i.e. a decentralized power structure – BC], and to educate in its ideas and conceptions. Just as the churches do not feel bound and limited by political boundaries, no more does the National Socialist idea feel limited by the individual state territories of our fatherland. The National Socialist doctrine is not the servant of individual federated states, but shall some day become the master of the German nation. It must determine and reorder the life of a people, and must, therefore, imperiously claim the right to pass over [state] boundaries drawn by a development we have rejected.”
Again, we must be aware of the difference between the superficial messages that are espoused by adherents of political doctrines (like religion, nationalism, class, etc.) and the underlying concepts of what it is exactly that such a message would likely bring about structurally to political institutions. The horrors of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party were accomplished because opposition to centralized political control was crushed.
We must also remember the idea of unintended consequences, and how even the best-intentioned plans can go awry very quickly. Karl Marx may have sought the centralization of political power to further the interests of the German working class in order to launch a worldwide worker’s revolution. The National Socialist German Worker’s Party was just one of many results of Marx’s desire to remake man in his own image. By focusing on the limited and narrow interests of just one faction among many, a wide array of so-called great thinkers have lent credence to the cause of tyranny.
Just look at the case of Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan author of Open Veins of Latin America, the now-famous book given to President Obama by the Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. Mr. Galeano is an ardent Marxist. That is, he believes that a state’s resources are best used when a centralized authority – run by an elite of highly educated men and women – can distribute all of a state’s resources in the most equitable manner to those who reside in a given state. Thus he also a nationalist. And an isolationist, for if a state’s resources are controlled by the state and to be divied up among a state’s members, there is no possible room for other states in the Marxist equation of equitable redistribution. Listen to the praise he heaps upon one of Latin America’s most vicious rulers:
“The long, iron-fisted dictatorship of Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia (1814-1840) had incubated an autonomous, sustained development process in the womb of isolation. The all-powerful paternalist state filled the place of a nonexistent national bourgeoisie in organizing the nation and orienting its resources and its destiny. Francia had used the peasant masses to crush the Paraguayan oligarchy, and had established internal peace by erecting a cordon sanitaire between Paraguay and the other countries of the old La Plata viceroyalty. Expropriations, exilings, jails, persecutions, and fines had been used – not to consolidate the internal power of landlords and merchants, but for their destruction. Political liberties and the right of opposition neither existed nor would come into being later, but in that historical stage the lack of democracy only disturbed people who were nostalgic for lost privileges. There were no great private fortunes when Francia died […]”
Again, we can see that the centralization of power seems to be an integral part of not only redistributing wealth, but of isolating a state’s people from the outside world, just as an abusive spouse seeks to isolate his or her partner from friends and family. If you look at the date of Francia’s reign of terror, you can see that his regime was just before Marx’s time. Ideas are very old, but the way in which they are espoused change with the times.
Now observe Friedrich Hayek on how socialism inevitably leads to “violent nationalism”:
“It may, indeed, be questioned whether anyone can realistically conceive of a collectivist program other than in the service of a limited group, whether collectivism can exist in any form other than that of some kind of particularism, be it nationalism, racialism, or classism. The belief in the community of aims and interests with fellow-men seems to presuppose a greater degree of similarity of outlook and thought than exists between men merely as human beings […] Collectivism on a world scale seems to be unthinkable – except in the service of a small ruling elite […] One of the inherent contradictions of the collectivist philosophy is that, while basing itself on the humanistic morals which individualism has developed, it is practicable only within a relatively small group. That socialism so long as it remains theoretical is internationalist, while as soon as it is put into practice, whether in Russia or Germany, it becomes violently nationalist, is one of the reasons why ‘liberal socialism’ as most people in the Western world imagine it is purely theoretical, while the practice of socialism is everywhere totalitarian […] It is a necessary consequence of this view [that the ‘community’ or the state is prior to the individual] that a person is respected only as a member of the group, that is, only if and in so far as he works for the recognized common ends, and that he derives his whole dignity only from this membership and not merely from being a man. Indeed, the very concepts of humanity and therefore of any form of internationalism are entirely products of the individualist view of man, and there can be no place for them in a collectivist system of thought […] The definitely antagonistic attitude which most planners take toward internationalism is further explained by the fact that in the existing world all outside contacts of a group are obstacles to their effectively planning the sphere in which they can attempt it […] The nationalist and imperialist propensities of socialist planners, much more common than is generally recognized, are not always as flagrant as […] some of the other early Fabians, with whom enthusiasm for planning was characteristically combined with the veneration for the large and powerful political units and a contempt for the small state.”
Hayek’s lengthy exposé on socialism (including Marxism) and its inevitable connection with nationalism should help to clarify why Marxist regimes everywhere, once violently put into practice, immediately turned to domestic tyranny and foreign antagonism as general policies until their top-heavy regimes crumbled in on themselves. I hope that it also serves as an example of how centralizing political power leads to the erosion of individual liberty both domestically and abroad.
So now let us turn our attention to domestic American politics. Currently our central legislators are attempting to maintain a system of collectivist policies that are falling apart as we speak. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, national education policies, national agricultural policies, national financial policies, national environmental policies, national trading policies, a bellicose foreign policy, etc., etc. Now let us also hearken back to my musings on what I think to be a comprehensive social theory. Do any of these national policies take into account the social whole? Or do they more resemble Marx’s pleading for central political power in the name of narrow special interests?
Do the advocates of these national planning policies harbor a healthy respect for decentralized political institutions (i.e. republicanism)? Or do they despise it?Norway recently unveiled artist Jonas Dahlberg’s "Memory Wound" as the winning entry in a memorial design competition to commemorate the country's deadliest massacre since World War II. The terror attacks, which took place on Utoya Island and Oslo three years ago, claimed 77 lives in total. The first of the two memorials will be located near the Utoya campsite and will poetically slice the landscape in two to create a void symbolizing the country’s colossal loss of life.
Swedish artist Dahlberg designed two national public art memorial sites: one located on the Sørbråten island north of Utoya Island with the second located in Oslo. The design proposes cleaving Sørbråten’s rocky promontory into two parts as an “acknowledgement of what is forever irreplaceable.” The man-made void in the landscape will create separate landmasses divided by a channel of water with visitors on one side and the engraved names of the victims on the other. The gap between the landscape will be made wide enough so that visitors will not be able to touch the names engraved on other side of the headland.
The landmass excavated from the Sørbråten will be used construct the foundation of the second memorial site located at the Government Quarter in Oslo. Dahlberg’s proposal also specifies that trees and plant material be transplanted from the Sørbråten landscape to the center of Oslo in order to reinforce the connection between the two memorial sites. The Oslo memorial will also feature an open-air amphitheater that will gently carve itself into the earth.
“The memorial amphitheater will be an open, relational space that offers conditions for dialogue and interaction that is not directed or prescribed,” writes Dahlberg in a statement. “The space itself will convey the specific topography that exists as a reflection of life amidst loss, healing, memory and a future to behold.”
+ Jonas Dahlberg
Via GizmodoA former U.S. attorney violated Department of Justice (DOJ) policy, executive branch ethical standards, and possibly the Hatch Act when he hosted political fundraisers for Democrats at his home, a new DOJ Office of Inspector General (IG) report found.
James Santelle — as the top law enforcement official for the Eastern District of Wisconsin — compromised the integrity of his office when he invited potential donors to his home on behalf of then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke and then-Democratic candidate for Attorney General Jon Richards in 2013 and 2014, according to the IG.
“Santelle’s actions exhibit a disregard for safeguarding the department’s role as a non-partisan institution,” the IG said. “Santelle’s deliberate indifference to the effect his actions could have on the U.S. Attorney’s Office was particularly concerning, given that he was a 30-year career employee and the recipient of clear and repeated guidance from the department on such matters.”
Santelle retired from the DOJ in July, 2015, during the IG’s probe of his political activity and his alleged misuse of a government credit card. No charges have been filed against him and he has not received other employment-related penalties.
Burke was in a tight race against Republican Gov. Scott Walker when Santelle hosted her fundraiser in November, 2013. (RELATED: Court Orders End To ‘John Doe’ Investigation Into Scott Walker)
The IG said Santelle possibly violated the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act is the primary federal law prohibiting government employees from political activity. The IG referred that determination to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), the “sole” decider of Hatch Act violations.
Santelle clearly did violate the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch governing partisan political fundraisers and endorsements. He also demonstrated a “lack of candor” to the IG when he claimed the Richards event was not intended to be a fundraiser, the IG said.
The IG found Santelle violated DOJ policies prohibiting the following:
Using one’s official authority to affect the outcome of an election
Soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions
Organizing or actively participating in an event or fundraiser for a candidate for partisan office or allowing one’s name to be used in connection with the event
Participating in a political event without prior approval from designated DOJ personnel
Santelle consulted no ethics advisers at DOJ about the events, which the IG found “particularly troubling. Santelle could have easily avoided all of these violations by reading the department’s policy or seeking ethics advice. Either way Santelle would have learned that since the Burke event was a partisan campaign event, he was prohibited from participating actively in the event.”
Santelle cancelled the April, 2014, Richards event at the instruction of someone within the DOJ who learned about the event from one of Santelle’s subordinates Santelle had invited to attend. But Santelle had already violated department policy by planning the event, the IG found.
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Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected] the Startup Rules of Josh James, founder and CEO of Domo, the all-star executive who also co-founded Omniture and took it from inception to IPO to sale for $1.8B to Adobe:
“Rule 45: No Unemployed Candidates. Always an Excuse. Too Risky. Top-Rated, Currently Employed Candidates Who Won’t Leave… PERFECT.”
With all due respect for your accomplishments, Josh, I disagree.
Our own company, Fishbowl, is neither public nor for sale, but we’ve achieved record growth (currently more than 70% through the last three tumultuous years), regional and national awards for product and management quality, and negligible turnover (under 2%) since we began in 2001. We’ve done all of this by doing the exact opposite of the strategy our Utah neighbor, Josh James, has described.
Consider the strong case for the traditionally “unqualified” hire. Not every company, particularly in the early stages, can afford to hire an established “superstar.” I maintain that most any company, particularly in the growth phase, is better off by discovering potential stars (we call them Champions) in the making and creating a healthy holding environment that allows and encourages them to grow.
But our approach requires the right core ingredients. I’ve honed my skills in identifying the traits we describe as the 7 Non-Negotiables: Respect, Belief, Loyalty, Commitment, Trust, Courage and Gratitude. I’ve previously written about the “7 NN’s” with my paired leadership partner, Mary Michelle Scott (Fishbowl President) in Forbes and in HBR.
We’re looking for candidates who exhibit these characteristics, and we’re watching the way they interact—their body language, eye contact, whether they are articulate—a good listener—and whether they can express what they feel without feeling nervous. Can they demonstrate strong character traits when asked how they would handle various situations in former jobs or in life? I can sense an individual’s work ethic. We look for someone eager and hungry to learn, which has generally been a good barometer of the individual’s work ethic as well. In 30 minutes, I can judge a prospective hire with pretty much 99% accuracy. Our managers (we call them our “Captains”) have honed these sensibilities as well.
Consider our recent new hire in accounting last week. She came to us from a minimal position at Blimpie’s. She’s a lady who’s smart—highly qualified—was formerly the CFO of a small hospital. But then she got really ill. Then the economy caused her to lose her home. The short sale of her house left her with a little money to work with, but the only job she could obtain was as the manager of a Blimpie’s store for $9 an hour.
I sensed her capabilities from the moment we met. She’d never used QuickBooks (our inventory control software integrates with QuickBooks, and we run our own company on the same products and functionality we sell). Most everything we do (other than our basic financial/accounting principles) was new.
She embraced the challenge. She learned our system (eagerly) and made suggestions that within four days produced the most accurate financial reports in her area of stewardship our company has ever seen. Today she initiated a new process with our Controller that will cause our past due accounts receivable to diminish and possibly disappear. When someone is this eager and excited to excel, and is given the environment to thrive in, miracles transpire.
This is not a rare occurrence for us. Out of 18 developers (yes, our software product developers) only 2 had ever had any serious programming experience before. More typically, these individuals came with prior experience in dealing with inventory. They dealt with playground equipment, electrical or plumbing warehouses and many came from our customer support and training department. They know things about inventory beyond what engineering or even marketing could teach them. The programming skills they were able to learn.
We employ 50 individuals in support who had never worked in customer service before. The majority of our sales people came with little or no prior experience in sales.
Could this approach work for other companies? Consider the following advantages our philosophy gains:
Less-established employees have room for growth. They are fresh and eager, not fatigued or scarred.
They have no bad habits to break; only good habits to learn. You don’t have to un-train them on the paradigms they’ve put in place somewhere else. They can blossom into anything.
They have the right attitude. With attitude, as they say, the aptitude will come.
New blood, whether young or old, can bring fresh ideas and perspectives to old problems. Their enthusiasm can be infectious. Their naiveté is some of the gold that they bring. They're not afraid to ask, “ Why do you do it this way?” From the most innocent questions, we may go back to our roots and say, “That’s a good point. Why do we do that?” The newest employee may be the one who prompts a positive change.
You can build lifelong relationships. Some of our employees are young; some are older. But when your company is the place an employee has been permitted to blossom and shine, they will love working with you, most likely forever. Thus, turnover is low.
Many companies will argue that the cost of taking someone on with no experience is prohibitive. We disagree. We employ the concept of agile programming through our entire organization. We use paired leadership and paired teamwork. Each new hire has someone to coach and train him or her, and within a few months, or weeks in some cases, they’re fully up to speed and online.
Could this approach work for you? At a minimum, I hope I’ve given you the reason to consider these possibilities as you make your next set of new hires. I maintain there are many all-star/champion employees within every company’s reach. You just need to recognize their potential, and then create and maintain an environment that allows them to be nurtured, developed and then to shine.
Sorry, Josh!
Additional reporting for this article was provided by Fishbowl President Mary Michelle Scott and copywriter Robert Lockard.
Author: David K. Williams | Google+
Editor's Note: In response to this article, Josh James, Founder and CEO of Domo, has provided a statement as well. You can read his guest post in David K. Williams' next column posted here.A DeKalb County man was being sought by police Friday in connection with the fatal overnight shooting of his 16-year-old stepson.
The shooting happened late Thursday night at the Estuary Apartment Homes on Evans Road near Henderson Mill Road.
Channel 2 Action News reported that the victim, identified by family members as Andreas Arais, was allegedly shot multiple times by his stepfather, who was arguing with his mother over a sibling.
According to the victim’s sister, Fabiola Arais, the argument broke out when her mother tried to stop her stepdad from taking the 2-year-old from the home.
“My brother got in between them and my stepdad went and pulled the gun out and shot him four times,” Fabriola Arais told Channel 2. “My brother, he always tries to be the brave one.”
The station reported early Friday that the stepfather, whose name has not been released by police, was still at large.A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie delivers new ear candy on his TBA EP, premiering exclusively on Billboard before its formal release on Friday, Oct. 28.
The 20-year-old Bronx rapper/singer born Artist Dubose follows up his Artist mixtape, which dropped in February, with the six-track offering that caters to both the hustlers and the ladies. "Baecation" is a smooth number made for quality bae time while "Timeless" and "Ransom" provide the score for 24-hour paper-chasing. He also airs out the thoughts weighing on his mind in "99 Problems & Messages" while assuring he could "turn your girl into a demon" on the anti-phony anthem "Macaroni."
His breakout hit "My Shit" earned him a spot at No. 14 on Billboard's Twitter Emerging Artists chart in August. That month, he also served as an opener for three spot dates on Drake and Future's Summer Sixteen tour.
Boogie with A Boogie on TBA below:27th May 2016
Donald Trump vows to end climate change funding
At the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference on Thursday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised to end climate change funding and to greatly expand U.S. fossil fuel production.
After clinching the GOP nomination for President, Donald Trump outlined his energy and environmental policies yesterday to thousands at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota. During his speech, for which he received many standing ovations, Mr. Trump emphasised the need for an "America First" agenda.
"We're going to rescind all the job-destroying Obama Executive Actions including the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the United States Rule," Trump said to applause from the audience.
"We're gonna save the coal industry," he said. "And other industries threatened by Clinton's extremist agenda. And it is indeed an extremist agenda. Perhaps even worse than Obama. I'm going to ask trans-Canada to renew its permit application for the Keystone Pipeline."
In December 2015, a global climate change pact was agreed at the UN COP21 summit. This represented a consensus of the 196 parties attending and included measures to reduce the global temperature rise from 4.5°C to 3.5°C by 2100. While far from adequate, it was the biggest milestone to date in terms of halting climate change, with nations around the world promising to curtail their greenhouse gas emissions and pursuing efforts to limit the rise to 2.0°C or below.
The United States pledged emission cuts of nearly 30% by 2025 (relative to 2005 levels) and claimed it was on track for an 80% cut by 2050. One of the main ways in which this goal would be achieved was through stricter regulations on power plants – the single largest source of emissions – to be introduced by the Obama administration.
In addition to boosting renewables, lowering their costs, and increasing the energy efficiency of homes and workplaces, the plan would also create tens of thousands of new jobs, improve air and water quality, prevent 3,600 premature deaths, prevent 90,000 asthma attacks in children and prevent 300,000 missed workdays and schooldays. Consumers would save an estimated $155 billion from 2020-2030.
However, in his speech yesterday, Trump made it clear that he would "cancel the Paris climate agreement" and "stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to UN global warming programs." He also criticised the Endangered Species Act for being used to limit oil and gas operations and promised to "revoke policies that impose unwarranted restrictions on new drilling."
Interestingly, Trump recently applied for permission to erect coastal defences at his seaside golf resort in County Clare, Ireland. A permit application for the wall specifically refers to erosion caused by rising sea levels and extreme weather as a result of global warming. This is despite him calling it "pseudoscience," "bullshit" and "a total hoax."
Real Clear Politics' national polling shows that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now almost level, following a sharp decline in the latter's popularity over the last two months. Their average scores now stand at roughly 43% each. The full speech at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference is available on YouTube.
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Comments »The highest human emotion in Novilla is “goodwill,” or a clement disposition toward one’s fellow beings. Sexual desire is a lower thing, which citizens prefer to philosophize away. (When Simón visits a brothel he strikes out; it has exacting regulations and generates only stacks of paperwork.) But love endures, and a third of the way through The Childhood of Jesus, Simón takes David around the city on a hunt for the boy’s mother. They have no leads—David lost a letter identifying his parents on the journey, and the bureaucrats at the city’s resettlement office can’t help them—but nevertheless Simón is convinced that the boy will know her when he sees her. “You may think you are washed clean,” he tells him, “but you aren’t.” At a mysterious stately home called La Residencia they see a woman, Inés, playing tennis, and in an outlandish, intense, beautifully drawn scene Simón convinces her that she is his “one and only mother.” She thinks he is proposing an adoption, but he’s not; on the contrary, Simón wants Inés to acknowledge that she is the “true mother” of David. With little resistance she does so, leaving La Residencia for Simón and David’s drab socialist flat.
So this strange episode, we think, is the anunciación coetzeeano, with Simón standing in not for Joseph but for the archangel Gabriel. (Inés even wears Marian blue.) But if you’re looking for allegorical clarity or even a passing resemblance to the Gospels, The Childhood of Jesus will frustrate you at every turn. None of the characters seem especially Christian; Coetzee’s philosophizing stevedores, who do pointless work for its own sake even when Simón discovers that rats are devouring the grain, sound more like Buddhist renunciates than apostles. Names and events are laced with allegorical possibility (a dog is named Bolívar, and one character named Juan feels a little like John the Baptist), but any this-for-that correspondence always collapses under examination. At one point, David goes missing for a spell, and Inés wails to Simón: “He told me he would give me a child. He didn’t tell me … he didn’t tell me he would take my child away.” Which sounds a little like something that a heartbroken Mary might say after the crucifixion—but then again, the “he” refers not to God but to a shady unemployed guy, and David is only off watching a Mickey Mouse cartoon.
Coetzee is an inveterate frustrator, and while the books have only grown murkier in his Australian era, the author has been preparing his obstacle course from the very first page of his very first book. “There remains the matter of getting past Coetzee,” begins Dusklands, Coetzee’s 1974 debut—the speaker is an American researcher producing propaganda for the Vietnam war, and “Coetzee” is his supervisor—and ever since then, the author has deployed a giant arsenal of metafictional ploys, self-contradictory symbols, unreliable statements, and unresolved narrative threads. Even the more philosophical novels of the Australian phase never state with any precision what Coetzee might believe, or how their increasingly knotty construction might be unraveled. The character of Elizabeth Costello, who appears not only in two novels but in short stories such as “As a Woman Grows Older” and “The Old Woman and the Cats,” is given to bold if not absurd claims—that to eat animals is to be complicit in a crime worse than the Holocaust, for example—but Coetzee then ducks responsibility for them by having other characters undercut and contradict her. The best way to read The Childhood of Jesus, then, is to accept it as to some degree an irresoluble tangle. It won’t be long before this book, like all his others, has an entire critical apparatus trailing it thanks to the ever increasing number of “Coetzee studies” scholars. Best to enjoy it now
The New Testament, of course, contains almost nothing about the childhood of Jesus, and despite all the biblical imagery of this newest novel I don’t believe Coetzee has any interest in rewriting the Gospels. The Childhood of Jesus does not ask how a Jesus figure would be received today; Novilla is too far removed from our world for that. It asks instead: Might the ideals that many of us advocate—ideals of freedom and resistance to hegemony—necessitate an epistemological rupture as profound as that of early Christianity?
David, the five-year-old at the center of this novel, does seem like a kind of prophet at times—when a teacher tries to discipline him, he goes to the blackboard and writes Yo soy la verdad, “I am the truth.” But if he is a savior, he’s an utterly self-centered one, advocating an anarchistic individual liberty free not only of bureaucratic regimentation but of logic itself. Simón tries to teach David to read via a tattered children’s book adaptation of Don Quixote, but David rebels. “I hate Spanish,” the boy says. “I want to speak my own language.” (Indeed The Childhood of Jesus, with its Hispanophone setting, is as much a response to Cervantes as to the Bible; David fancies himself a knight errant, and characters are frequently debating whether things are as they appear or double.) He’s even more resistant to numbers and arithmetic, and his resistance becomes a central feature of the second half of the novel. “I know all the numbers,” David proclaims, and rattles off random integers. But when Simón responds that numbers are ordered and systematic, David lashes out. 889 is bigger than 888, Simón tries to explain. To which David retorts: “How do you know? You have never been there.”
David’s gospel is not one of total illogic or irrationality; he actually can read and count. Rather, it recalls Elizabeth Costello’s antihumanist proclamations that imagination must be privileged over reason, or, even more closely, an argument in Diary of a Bad Year in which Coetzee writes that mathematics “may equally well be a private language … in which we doodle on the walls of our cave.” The Childhood of Jesus continues in this vein, but it does so through a much more dramatic lens. David sees numbers as “islands in a great black sea of nothingness,” and he seems to offer a rupture from Novilla’s rigid, bloodless organization, in which everything functions well enough but nobody seems truly alive. Yet the petulant, mystical David hardly seems like an ideal redeemer for the passionless socialists of Novilla. Even Simón, who chafes at Novilla’s bloodlessness, implores David to count like “a normal boy.” The bureaucrats of Novilla’s educational apparatus demand David be sent to a reformatory, which Inés refuses, and the conclusion of the book, featuring something like the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt, details the perils that the increasingly oracular David poses to the system and to his soi-disant parents.
As I said, it’s bizarre—so bizarre in fact that after multiple readings I still can’t puzzle out exactly what its goals are. Is it a rewriting of a canonical text for contemporary purposes, or are the biblical references just a put-on? Why, in this fictional or ideal or hereafter world, do we find such endless bureaucracy? Why is the children’s version of Don Quixote the only literature in the library, and why is its putative author not Cervantes but Cidi Hamete Benengeli, the fictional Moorish author whom Cervantes pretended to be translating? Why does David recite Goethe at one point, and why does he think it’s in English? What’s with the dog—and for that matter, the horse? The Childhood of Jesus provides no easy answers, perhaps no answers at all, and undoubtedly this is a book that you can only get away with writing when you’ve already made your name as the most honored living novelist in the English language. Yet it is Coetzee’s unexpected accomplishment that, for the first time in a decade, his quizzical and grandly philosophical book feels not like a derogation of literature, but a triumph of it.
Jason Farago is a writer living in New York. Follow him @jsf.Adam Jones made his Wales debut in 2003 and won Grand Slams in 2005, 2008 and 2012
Adam Jones is leaving Cardiff Blues to join Harlequins at the end of the season.
The former Wales and British and Irish Lions prop has signed a deal with Quins who are eighth in the Premiership.
The 34-year-old retired from international rugby in January after being left-out of Wales' squad for the Six Nations Championship.
Jones joined Blues in August 2014 after spending more than 10 seasons with Swansea-based Ospreys.
He penned a one-year deal at the time, but it is understood it will not be extended.
Harlequins have secured his services from the start of the 2015-16 season.
Since his switch to the Blues, he has been undisputed first choice tight-head, making 20 appearances so far this season.
Jones has played in 100 Test matches, made up of 95 for Wales and five for the British and Irish Lions.
The ex-Neath player became an Osprey when they were formed for the launch of regional rugby in 2003 and stayed with the region until signing for the Blues in August.
Jones is expected to be involved in Blues' Pro12 match in Ulster on Friday, as will most of their returning Wales Six Nations players.Our FB page: This article: Tweet
What can China do to improve the Western media coverage?
Otto Kolbl
The huge majority of the Chinese are outraged by the way in which the Western media report about their country. Some tried to get their voice heard, but generally without much success. This lack of success is probably due to a large extent to cultural differences, which make communication about sensitive topics difficult.
The Chinese use mainly three different arguments:
The Western media report only about the negative aspects in China, they don't live up to their standard of balanced reporting.
The Western media have made obvious errors, especially in their coverage of the unrest in Tibet in March 2008.
When talking about "human rights abuses", the West is not in a position to criticize China, because the Western countries have got various problems with their human rights standards too. Furthermore, human rights are an internal affair, and "meddling in the internal affairs" of another country is explicitly prohibited by international law.
However, Western journalists will not accept these arguments, for reasons related to basic Western values and to the Western concept of the role of the media. On the other hand, there are other arguments which are much more likely to inflect the Western journalistic methods in a durable way. They are based on a fact-based critical comparison of the actual reporting with the Western ideal of good journalistic practice.
"Only bad news is good news"
The Western media consider themselves to be a countervailing power (see our article The Western media – Power without countervailing power?). This role consists in closely watching each move of the authorities and other powerful actors, in order to report all possible abuses. This role is considered to be fundamental to the good functioning of democratic as well as authoritarian societies. Therefore, reporting about problems and abuses is fundamental to the self-understanding of our media, whereas reporting about things which work well is not considered to be vital.
Another factor is the commercialization of the Western media. Western consumers tend to be more interested in reports about abuses than in reports about nice progress and positive development. This has not always been the case. In the 1950ies and 1960ies, Western newspapers and magazines had a much more optimistic tone, and this was generally appreciated. Things started to change with the 1968 movement, the 1973 oil shock and with the various economic crises which followed. More recently, the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the recent loss of Western influence in the world have amplified this tendency.
Therefore, Western media reports are generally more "negative" in their tone and in the selected subjects than Chinese media. This does not justify the abuses of recent Western media reporting about China, because even criticism must be fair. However, only a systematic comparison between solid data and a large quantity of newspaper articles can allow us to point out problems.
Amnesty International, a well-known human rights defense organization, publishes every year a report denouncing human rights abuses in almost every country on earth. This report is not exactly part of what we call the "media", but it has a great influence on newspapers and TV news, and its structure makes it especially suitable for such an example. There is one article per country; they have got all the same structure. This makes a systematic comparison much easier.
The 2010 report mentions among others the "lack of access to adequate health care" in the article about China (p. 104). The only other country where access to health care is described as a general problem for the whole population is Afghanistan. This is in obvious contradiction to the data provided by the World Health Organization and the Child Mortality Estimate organization.
According to their figures, China ranks 60th out of 156 in terms of infant mortality relative to the standard of living (in all the rankings, rank 1 stands for the positive end of the scale, i.e. here for a low infant mortality rate). It does even better in the recent decrease in infant mortality, where it ranks 17th out of 156 (see our article The right to health – how can we hold the governments accountable?). Infant mortality is generally considered to be a good indicator of general access to health care.
These good results in recent years are confirmed by a series of articles in the prestigious medical periodical The Lancet. The volume 372 (November 2008) was dedicated to the recent health reforms in China. Therefore, Amnesty's accusation that China shows a "lack of access to adequate health care" is totally unfounded, the contrary is true: China provides a far better access to health care to its population than the international average.
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the general population.
In 2011, 17.5% of Travellers had one or more disabilities compared with 13% for the State as a whole.Magnolia Village South Main Village
FREE EVENT
Vendor Registration will open for ArtsGoggle in March. Registration will be announced via email, social media, and this website.
Since its inception in 2003, ArtsGoggle has become Fort Worth’s premier festival of local arts. This free-to-the-public, family-friendly event attracts a crowd as diverse as the neighborhood itself. Each fall, Magnolia Avenue is closed to traffic and transformed into the centerpiece of an outdoor art and music festival that hosts more artists and musicians than any festival in the region.
ArtsGoggle started 17 years ago as the Near Southside's own indoor gallery night exhibition and remained almost exclusively indoors for the first decade before spilling out onto the street. In 2018, in tribute to ArtsGoggle's unique start, South Main Village businesses opened their doors in an all-day open house to show off the work of a wide array of local artists. This new ArtsGoggle feature expands the event to include more of the Near Southside and showcases fine art, music, experiential art, and unique programming inside each of the participating businesses ranging from breweries, bars and bakeries to creative firms, historic preservation projects and theaters.
Attracting a crowd of 50,000+, ArtsGoggle offers live music, artistic displays of every kind, food, drink, and fun for everyone. Unlike any event in Fort Worth, it exclusively focuses on highlighting the work of local artists, musicians and performers of all mediums and experience levels. ArtsGoggle prides itself in hosting a casual, approachable and vibrant environment to appreciate art and learn about the talents within our own community. For almost two decades, ArtsGoggle has been the launch pad for many artists showing their work for the first time. ArtsGoggle provides a supportive setting for both aspiring and professional visual artists to display, sell and seek comment on their artwork.
Embracing all arts, the event also boasts an impressive program of performance art and music. The 2018 ArtsGoggle featured more than 50 bands, many of which have members who live or work in the Near Southside. The entertainment at ArtsGoggle is diverse and showcases music from a variety of cultures and styles.
__________________________________________________
EVENT PRODUCER
ArtsGoggle is presented by Historic Southside, Inc. and Near Southside, Inc., the non-profit redevelopment organizations working to revitalize this important urban neighborhood.
TAX INFORMATION
Historic Southside, Inc., managed by Near Southside, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Sponsorship contributions made to Historic Southside, Inc. are deductible as charitable donations. W-9 forms will be provided at your request.
Near Southside, Inc. is a private, member-funded, non-profit 501(c)(4) development organization dedicated to the revitalization of Fort Worth’s Near Southside. NSI began as a small coalition of Near Southside businesses and community leaders and has grown dramatically over the last two decades. We invite you to join us as we promote the redevelopment of Fort Worth’s Near Southside as a vibrant, urban, mixed-use neighborhood.
__________________________________________________
CONTACT
Megan Henderson Director of Events & Communications
[email protected](Reuters) - A Russian court on Thursday upheld a decision to block the website of social networking company LinkedIn Corp., Interfax news agency reported, setting a precedent for the way foreign internet firms operate in the country.
The logo for LinkedIn Corporation is shown in Mountain View, California, U.S. February 6, 2013. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith/File Photo
Russia’s Roskomnadzor communications watchdog has said LinkedIn, which has more than 6 million registered users in Russia, was violating a law requiring websites which store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so on Russian servers.
Moscow has said the law, introduced in 2014 but never previously enforced, is aimed at protecting Russians’ personal data. Critics see it as an attack on social networks in a country which has increasingly tightened control over the Internet in recent years.
Moscow’s Tagansky District Court ruled in August that LinkedIn’s site should be blocked, but the decision had not yet come into force pending a company appeal.
“The decision of the Tagansky District Court has been upheld, the appeal by LinkedIn Corporation is unsatisfactory,” Interfax quoted a court decision as saying.
Russia will take action to block LinkedIn’s website within the next week, RIA news agency cited a Roskomnadzor spokesman as saying.
“LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. The Russian court’s decision has the potential to deny access to LinkedIn for the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses,” a LinkedIn’s spokesman told Reuters.
“We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.”
Roskomnadzor did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
While some companies such as online reservations site Booking.com have said they will transfer the necessary data to Russian servers, it is unclear whether others, including Facebook and Alphabet unit Google, will comply with the law.The Army has released photos captured by combat photographer Spc. Hilda Clayton showing a mortar tube explosion that claimed the lives of Clayton and four Afghan soldiers.
Nearly four years ago, on July 2, 2013, Afghan soldiers were conducting a live-fire training exercise in Qaraghahi in eastern Afghanistan when the accidental blast occurred, according to the Army's Military Review Journal. Clayton, a visual information specialist attached to 4th Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, deployed to Forward Operating Base Gamberi, was capturing images as part of the Army training mission of certifying the Afghan soldiers on mortar operations.
U.S. Army Spc. Hilda Clayton Photo Credit: Army
Clayton, 22, was training an Afghan combat photographer while documenting the mortar training. Clayton and the Afghan photographer were up close getting pictures of the mortar operations when a mortar tube accidentally exploded right in front of their lenses. The following gallery includes the images captured by Clayton and her Afghan Army trainee of the fatal explosion:For Jeffrey Epstein it was a moment for quiet satisfaction, a chance to show off his new friend. The occasion was a charity pro-am tennis match in February 2000, and the great and good of Florida society were out in strength. The friend introduced himself as Andrew York but that fooled no one. Epstein, a Wall Street financier, self-made adviser to billionaires and collector of important people, had bagged himself a member of the British Royal family.
Eleven years later, and the friendship between Epstein and the Duke of York appeared undimmed. The fourth in line to the throne was a house guest of the American in New York as recently as December, when the two were photographed strolling through Central Park. The fact that Epstein is a convicted sex offender with an industrial-scale appetite for young girls appeared not to offend the Duke, who has been only too ready to accept his hospitality. Even to the extent of accepting massages at Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, scene of lurid happenings involving girls recruited locally to serve as “erotic masseurs”. There is, however, no suggestion that the Duke was involved in any form of sexual exploitation.
One of those girls, Virginia Roberts, has this week lifted the lid on life in the Epstein zoo, describing how, at the age of 17, she was flown to London to meet the Duke, spending time with him alone after a night on the town. In a civil claim filed against Epstein in Florida – one of a dozen claims by alleged victims settled out of court – she describes how, from the age of 15, she was “continually exploited to satisfy [Epstein’s]) every sexual whim” and “sexually exploited by [Epstein’s] male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and other professional or personal acquaintances.”
Andrew, not exactly the sharpest knife in the royal drawer, enjoys a reputation for collecting the wrong kind of friend, be it a Kazakh oligarch accused of corruption or a Libyan businessman convicted of smuggling a machinegun. But his relationship with Epstein, judged by the State of New York to be a Level 3 sex offender, meaning that he is a continuing “threat to public safety”, promises damage on a bigger scale.
“You or I would spot somebody like Epstein and his habits and run a mile,” says a former royal aide. “But Andrew just doesn’t see it. He sees himself as above it all. Perhaps he doesn’t care. He is the worst combination of arrogance and stupidity. He seems to think the respect people have for the institution is respect for him.”
The Duke’s network of friends may span continents but they enjoy one thing in common: money. Some were met during his travels as Britain’s roving ambassador for trade and investment, a job he has held since 2001 and another source of vulnerability. He makes much of the fact that the role is unpaid when justifying the large amount of taxpayers’ money spent ferrying him and his retinue around the world.
Less emphasis is placed on the personal benefits that have accrued to him, particularly in regard to Sunninghill Park, his former marital home near Windsor. The Duke is said by a diplomatic source to have used an official trip to the Persian Gulf in 2005 to push the sale of Sunninghill, with the blessing of the Foreign Office. The disclosure, following on from revelations about his relationship with Epstein, has prompted the Labour MP Chris Bryant to call for his resignation from the ambassadorial role.
Epstein, 58, was introduced to the Duke by Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late mega-fraudster Robert Maxwell and a friend of Andrew and his wife, Sarah, Duchess of York. Following her father’s suicide, Miss Maxwell turned her attentions to New York, where she became a fixture on the social scene. A one-time partner of Epstein, she remained close to him after their parting and, according to witnesses, played a key role in organising, and sometimes participating in, his secret sexual life.
Born in Coney Island, the son of an official in the local parks department, Epstein was talent-spotted while working as a teacher and recruited to the investment bank Bear Stearns. In 1982 he decided to go it alone, building an offshore business supervising the assets of billionaires. The developer Donald Trump, law professor Alan Dershowitz and former president Bill Clinton were counted among his circle. Epstein may or may not be a billionaire himself, but he is certainly very rich, owning the biggest house in Manhattan, a ranch in New Mexico and houses in Palm Beach, London and Paris.
In 2005, the mother of a 14-year-old girl contacted the police in Palm Beach, alleging that her daughter had been molested by a local man. The resulting investigation, which involved the FBI, uncovered a world in which girls, some poor and vulnerable, were recruited to satisfy the needs of Epstein and certain friends.
Miss Roberts was recruited by Miss Maxwell while working as country-club changing room assistant, and spent the next four years supplying him with sex. She described being flown to various locations to service the needs of men of widely differing ages, including a head of state. Her encounter with Andrew occurred in early 2001. After dinner in London with Epstein and Miss Maxwell, she and the Duke were said to have been left alone. Buckingham Palace says the Duke denies absolutely that anything improper occurred.
Giving evidence in a videoed deposition, Juan Alessi, a former employee at Epstein’s home in Palm Beach, said the Duke visited the house four or five times a year, enjoying daily massages during his stays.
Describing a constantly changing cast of characters, including European models, Mr Alessi observed: “Miss Maxwell was the one that recruits. I remember one occasion or two occasions she would say to me: 'Juan, give me a list of all the spas in Palm Beach County.’ And I will drive her from one to the other one. And she will go in, drop business cards, and she come out. She will recruit the girls.”
On June 30, 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to “felony, solicitation of prostitution and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution”. In doing so, he escaped charges, including statutory rape, that could have resulted in a life sentence. In return for Epstein pleading guilty to the lesser charge, the authorities also agreed not to prosecute alleged conspirators. Sentenced to 18 months in jail and house arrest for a year, Epstein will be registered as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.
Lawyers for his victims have been appalled at such leniency. From October 2008, he was allowed out to his Palm Beach office for 16 hours a day, and was released in July 2009. One of the lawyer for the victims told The Telegraph: “The deal stinks to high heaven but the mechanics of how it was arrived at, we’re still looking at.”
A royal source said yesterday that the Duke had severed his connections with Mr Epstein. “There is recognition that the December visit [to Epstein] was a mistake and I think you’ll find that there will be no repetition of that visit. In regard to Miss Roberts, the Duke denies absolutely that anything improper occurred.”
Questions concerning the Duke’s fitness to serve as trade ambassador remain however, not least in regard to Sunninghill. The Duke, who receives £249,000 a year from the Queen and a £20,000 naval pension, may earn nothing as trade ambassador but his ambassadorial globe-trotting does not come cheap. He and his entourage cost the government body UK Trade and Investment £154,000 in hotel and other bills in the 2009-10 financial year. Travel costs are met from the travel grant paid by the Government to the Royal family. Last year, flights by the Duke and his staff, using mostly chartered aircraft, cost the taxpayer £475,000; and that does not include trips costing less than £10,000. He made 12 trips to 19 countries in 2009-10.
A former British diplomat with experience of the Duke describes how in 2005 he used a visit to the Persian Gulf to hawk Sunninghill, which he had left in 2004. “His [Andrew’s] private secretary was under no illusions that they were going to mention it during meetings in the Gulf,” says the ex-diplomat. “They had got clearance from head of the Foreign Office to do so. He was, as everybody knows, desperate to sell this Sunninghill place and obviously you don’t miss an opportunity when you are going round the so-called 'rich Gulfies’.
“There are formal meetings but also private chats with the king or crown prince et cetera, so presumably he would have raised it himself. I know it was on the agenda because the staff talked about it. It just came up in conversation that, 'You know, one thing we’re doing is having to talk about his property while we are here. We have special permission.’ The Permanent Under-Secretary had exceptionally given permission for this issue to be raised.”
In 2007, Kazakhstan, another of the Duke’s happy hunting grounds, came to the rescue. Timur Kulibayev, the billionaire son-in-law of the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and a friend of the Duke, bought Sunninghill for £15 million, £3 million above the asking price.
Considering how much he paid for the decaying pile, Mr Kulibayev seems to be in no hurry to enjoy it. Ben Hindle, of Bracknell Forest Council, said: “At present, there are no pending planning applications at Sunninghill Park and to our knowledge, the house is still uninhabited. After writing to the owners raising concerns, new security systems were put in place and since then, we have had not further matters arise.”
Still, the Duke pocketed a tidy sum. “He keeps saying 'I’m doing this for Britain’ and 'I’m not being paid’ but it’s the cost of the trips – they are phenomenal,” says the diplomat. “Not just the staff who go with him but the recce visits that go on ad nauseam, even to places he visits regularly.
“When Charles or the Queen goes, there is very little so-called down time. Everything is scheduled. But with Andrew there is this whole grey area outside official engagements. On one occasion he actually brought a financial adviser with him. She attended lots of meetings and we never knew what her role was.”
One former royal aide is even less complimentary. “I’ve seen him treat his staff in a shocking, appalling, way. He’s been incredibly rude to his personal protection officers, literally throwing things on the ground and demanding they 'f------ pick them up’. No social graces at all. Sure, if you’re a lady with blonde hair and big boobs, then I bet he’s utterly charming.”
Or rich."Welcome my friend, glad you could join us! Balthasar's the name, and you've arrived just as my two wise friends and I are preparing for a trip. I expect you are interested to hear about what we expect to see on our travels? Well, we're not sure yet, but no doubt we'll come across many shiny new structures and well-crafted architecture. Probably we'll find some relics of past civilisations too and possibly even a few fossils."
"When are we off to the Holy Lands you ask? Oh no, it's not that trip - we leave for there in a couple of weeks. No, today we're venturing into the Umbraco code base! It might take us a bit of time but we're hoping for an epiphany at the end of it."
I was going to push that analogy further but to be honest it's already rather forced! However, that's the plan for today's page of the Umbraco advent calendar; to take a whistle-stop tour through the Umbraco code base, which will hopefully be useful for anyone considering contributing code to the project, or simply wanting to understand a little more about what goes on under the covers.
Why contribute?
Umbraco has always been an open-source project and - particularly since the move to Github for the code hosting - has had a number of people in addition to the core team contributing everything from minor fixes to sizeable features.
Why are they doing this? Well, some might be doing it to "scratch an itch" and fix something that is troubling them or their clients. Others see it as one way to contribute to the success of the project that we all benefit from in different ways. When it comes to more direct benefits, there's a lot to learn from seeing how a project of this size is architected and managed. And last but not least - we're all geeks here of course - it can be rather fun. For most, I guess it's probably all of the above.
Can I contribute?
There's no doubt that seriously smart people are working with or as part of the HQ on the development of Umbraco and there are some major changes that have been and continue to be made that require long-term planning from a tightly organised team. But that still leaves plenty of scope for others to contribute. The open issue tracker contains many smaller scale feature requests and bug reports that they'd welcome solutions too.
I'd suggest that any competent developer willing to take a bit of time to get stuck into an issue will make valuable progress - whether alone, or in collaboration with others such as at the recent UK Festival hack day.
So the answer is almost certainly yes.
Getting started
The first step is to register or log in to a GitHub account, find the Umbraco page and click to fork the repository. This gives you your own copy to work in and, when ready, submit a pull request back to the core project.
As the name suggests, GitHub supports the Git distributed source control system which you can either use from the command line - there's a only a small sub-set of instructions you generally need to use - or an application with a GUI wrapper such as Git Extensions.
There are excellent guidelines provided by Github and Umbraco themselves as to the process of forking, creating pull requests and keeping your working fork up to date with changes made by others.
Once submitted, your pull request will be reviewed by a member of the core team and either accepted as is or with modifications, or feedback provided.
Cracking open the code
Having forked the repository and cloned a local copy, despite the encouraging words above it can be a little daunting when you first open the solution (found in src\umbraco.sln) in Visual Studio.
There are quite a number of projects - many of which are retained for legacy and backward compatibility reasons rather than undergoing active development. Down the line - perhaps at Umbraco 8 or 9 - many of these will likely be removed. But clearly this has to be done with careful consideration and having given developers using the CMS plenty of time to be aware that methods they are using are obsolete and will be at some point be retired.
The Umbraco development guidelines gives a good summary of the important projects for ongoing development and a discussion in the developer group provides a some further detail on the legacy ones.
Umbraco.Web.UI.Client
Starting at the most client facing end of the application, within the Umbraco.Web.UI.Client project we find the AngularJS based JavaScript application that provides the user interface for the back-office.
Umbraco make use of many of the features available in the AngularJS framework but even if you aren't particularly up to speed on that it's fairly straightforward to see what's going on. Starting from what is rendered on the screen, each component is made up of a view (the template) and a controller (the logic behind the view). So taking the shiniest new example, the Grid editor has a grid.html file associated with a grid.controller.js (found in src\views\propertyeditors\grid\).
If you open up this or any other of the controllers, you'll see it's defined as a function that is called with various parameters. The objects passed via parameters are all used by the controller in various ways, and are provided to it by a means of dependency injection by the AngularJS framework.
These dependencies are of various types. One example is a resource - an encapsulation of a particular object with methods to allow it to be created and saved via HTTP requests. The grid controller for example has a dependency on a media resource defined in media.resource.js (in src\common\resources\).
Other dependencies may be services. These provide encapsulations of logic that are used across many controllers. An example here is the dialog service defined in dialog.service.js (in src\common\services\) which provides common functionality for handling various modal and overlay dialog boxes.
The views themselves will also have reference to another class of component which are directives. These again encapsulate functionally that is shared across multiple UI elements (and are found in src\common\directives\).
Last point to note here is to make sure to check out the Readme.md file found in the root of the project. This explains how to set up the various components needed to run the task runner grunt which will bundle up the JavaScript, process the.less files to.css and copy them to the web application.
Umbraco.Web.UI
This project will be most familiar to Umbraco developers as it's the main web application that actually runs the software. It's where your custom views, master pages or XSLT files are created and also contains the files related to the back-office itself.
Digging into the umbraco folder you'll come across a few things that you might have thought had been left behind - web forms and user controls? Well yes, it's not all shiny AngularJS and MVC yet! Although much of the back-office has been rebuilt to use these technologies - particularly the content, media and member sections - there is still some parts of the software still running using legacy web forms technology.
This is seamless to the end user due to some clever work that allows the re-use of these pages and controls within the AngularJS single page application implementation of the back-office - and effectively allowed Umbraco 7 to be released sooner than it would otherwise had been. No doubt in time though these will be obsoleted and the rest of the back-office rewritten to use the newer and consistent technologies.
Umbraco.Web
The Umbraco.Web project contains all the Umbraco C# class files related to the web application, such as controllers, models and web APIs. You'll also find here the various classes that provide flexibility in the request pipeline. So there's a lot in here in other words, but let's trace one small route through this layer of the solution.
Going back to the AngularJS resources, I mentioned that they are able to retrieve and save details of a particular type using AJAX based HTTP requests. So for example content.resource.js contains a method called getById(), that retrieves a specific content node for a given Id. This translates to a controller method in ContentController (found in the Editors folder).
In turn this makes a request to a method in a service class in the core project, which will look rather familiar to many. It's exactly the same ContentService that's publically available and used when we are working with the database in our own Umbraco applications. This is one reason why the service APIs are so reliable and well thought out - they've been dogfooded in a sense as they are used throughout the Umbraco back-office itself.
Umbraco.Core
The Umbraco.Core project contains some fundamental features of the content management system, in particular those that don't rely on being used in a web application context. The services mentioned previously are defined here, as are the classes involved with persisting data to the database. We can also find code involved in the saving and retrieving of files as well as various common helper classes used throughout the application
Following our example further the ContentService (found in the Services folder) also has a GetById() method which instantiates an instance of the ContentRepository (found in Persistance\Repositories). In turn, the Get() method of the repository is called within the context of a unit of work, passing through the node Id we want to retrieve content for.
Tracing further we get to the actual data access methods themselves, which utilise PetaPoco, a light-weight object relational mapper (ORM) that is used to generate the necessary SQL statements to pull back the required information from the database and instantiate an object of the type we want to return.
Umbraco.Tests
Last but not least, we come to the Umbraco.Tests project. As the name implies, this contains unit and integration tests providing coverage for many of the methods in the Umbraco.Core and Umbraco.Web projects.
The tests utilise NUnit and mostly inherit from common on some base classes that will instantiate the necessary contexts and dependencies that the tests require.
Rounding off our example, we can find tests that check the service and repository methods for retrieving a content instance by its Id, in ContentServiceTests and ContentRepositoryTest respectively.
Summing up
Well, we got there. I hope that was a useful, albeit very top-line, introduction to some of the highways and by-ways of the Umbraco code base. Who knows, maybe it'll even inspire a new year's resolution or two and there'll be even more pull requests coming in 2015!The New York Jets begin training camp in three days, and their first-round pick -- Darron Lee -- remains unsigned. He's an outlier in this era of rookie slotting. In fact, he's one of only three first-rounders who hasn't signed a contract.
The sticking point is believed to be the fourth-year guarantee. The players chosen from one to 19 received fully guaranteed salaries in the fourth year, according to Pro Football Talk. The exception is the San Diego Chargers' Joey Bosa, who has yet to sign. Once he signs, his fourth year will be fully guaranteed because of his draft position (third overall).
Lee, drafted 20th overall, no doubt wants his fourth year (about $1.8 million) to be guaranteed. The player picked after him, Houston Texans wide receiver Will Fuller, received a fully guaranteed $1.836 million, according to ESPN salary data. Fuller is represented by CAA's Todd France, who also reps Lee. Naturally, he's trying to do the same for Lee.
The Jets see it this way: The 22nd pick, Washington Redskins wide receiver Josh Doctson, received only a partial guarantee ($1.2 million of $1.8 million), as did the 20th pick in 2015, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Nelson Agholor ($1.1 million of $1.7 million).
So, basically, the Jets and Lee's reps are battling over $600,000. Chances are, he'll get the money anyway because first-round picks usually don't get cut.
Eventually, Lee will sign because he doesn't have much leverage. When he does, it'll be a four-year deal for $10.2 million, plus a fifth-year team option.SEATTLE-- Things just got a little grayer in Seattle, but not in the way many would expect.
This past weekend marks the start of the gray whale migration to Puget Sound.
Sarah Hank with the whale tour company Puget Sound Express says the beloved whales are now in the Puget Sound, feeding on ghost shrimp off the Snohomish Delta near Everett in very shallow water, about 10 feet deep.
Hank says the whales are about 45 feet long and weighs around 40 tons. Given the whales are in a small body of water, Hanke says people from the shore can generally see their blows, which can reach ten feet in the air.
Puget Sound Express, originally based out of Port Townsend, has been around for 32 years and opened a new location in Everett just three years ago.
Hank says the company follows environmental rules during their tours, and they strive to respect the whales’ environment.
“We’re just stewards of the water, watching their livelihood and their environment," she said.
To sign up for a tour, visit pugetsoundexpress.com or call them at (360)385-5288. Tickets for adults range around $85, and children at $65.
PHOTOS: Gray whales around Puget Sound
Gray whales around Puget Sound <p>Gray whale in Seattle's Ballard Locks. (Photo Credit: yiliphoto) </p> <p>Back of Saratoga Gray Whale (Photo Credit: janineharles) </p> <p>Gray whale at Seattle's Ballard Locks (Photo Credit: Amy Anderson) </p> <p>Gray whale breaching off Whidbey Island Smuggler Lagoon (Photo Credit: Ladams531) </p> <p>Can you spot the whale tail? (Photo Credit: Makenna Taggart) </p>
Copyright 2017 KINGBy: Stefan Schindler
In the late 17th century, Isaac Newton synthesized the European scientific discoveries of the previous two hundred years. This scientific revolution had been built on the scientific method formulated by Francis Bacon, who insisted that nature’s secrets could be unveiled through a combination of rational theorizing and rigorous empirical testing. This was called the experimental method. All previous knowledge was thrown into question in what Descartes called “methodical doubt.”
The point was to establish science on a firm foundation. Assumptions and superstitions were to be replaced with certainties. Accordingly, mathematics was the language for the formulation of the laws of nature.
In the background of Newton are the towering figures of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. Descartes, too, made a contribution with his invention of Cartesian coordinates. Other major figures also played a part in making Newton’s bold new synthesis possible. Among these major players, those recording astronomical observations provided physics with the data necessary for Newton’s breakthrough.
In the early 16th century, Copernicus suggested that the earth revolves about the sun. This reversed the geocentric cosmology of Aristotle which had ruled the European worldview for more than a thousand years.
The heliocentric suggestion was profoundly influential because it largely solved the mathematical problems inherent in the astronomy of the day. It thus made possible a consistent calendar, which even the Church appreciated.
A major mathematical conundrum still left by the Copernican theory resulted from the Aristotelian assumption that the circle is the perfect paradigm for understanding nature. Copernican planetary orbits were assumed to be circular. The mathematic computations of Copernican orbits were still inconsistent with the mathematics of astronomical observation.
After ten years of agonizing intellectual endeavor, Kepler had an insight which Kant later called one of the greatest illuminations in history. Kepler himself describes his insight as a “revelation.” Kepler suggested that planetary orbits were elliptical, not circular. This immediately resolved a host of mathematical inconsistencies still haunting Copernican heliocentrism.
Galileo’s telescopic observations played a minor role compared to his formulation of the theory of inertia.
Again refuting Aristotle, and convinced by the results of innovative experiments, Galileo postulated that objects in motion would stay in motion – at the same velocity – unless opposed by countervailing forces.
He also showed that heavier objects did not “by nature” fall faster than lighter objects.
Newton’s invention of calculus, his experiments with refracted light, his consideration of Galileo’s suggestion that the moon effects the tides, his employment of Cartesian coordinates, his embrace of the elliptical theory of planetary orbits, his use of the new Galilean theory of inertia, his blending of astronomical data with bold new experiments in chemistry and optics – all contributed to his formulation of the laws of thermodynamics, his postulation of the theory of gravity, and his collapse of the Aristotelian divide between the earthly and the celestial. Newton’s laws of nature were “universal.”
These laws were so rigorous, coherent and convincing – shown to be true by experimental testing – that Newtonian science became the ruling paradigm in the thought of European intellectuals in the 18th century Enlightenment.
A chief concern of both 17th and 18th century philosophy was how to find room in a universe of mechanistic determinism for psyche, soul, ethics and free will.
In the 1780s, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason launched a “second Copernican revolution.”
This revolution in philosophy – showing that the mind is an active participant in the shaping of perception, and therefore experience – laid the foundation for early 19th century German idealism: the positing of mind as primordial in the scheme of nature.
Kant’s philosophy is called “critical idealism.” The subsequent “speculative philosophies” of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel illustrate “absolute idealism.” Absolute idealism posits the primacy of mind over matter.
Matter is the mind’s self-alienation for the “working out” of its own self-realization.
We should briefly mention the historical context.
The American and French Revolutions – 1776 and 1789 – climaxed four hundred years of socio-political ferment: the democratization of ideas through the Gutenberg printing press, the breaking of class barriers, the rise of a newly prosperous merchant class, challenges to the dogmatism and authority of church and state, and the translation of philosophic, scientific and religious freedom into political freedom.
Many philosophers continued to concentrate on the mind-body problem inherited from Cartesian dualism.
Cartesian dualism leaves the question: How can mind and body (spirit and matter) interact if they are two completely different kinds of “substance”?
Other philosophers, including Voltaire and Rousseau, were more concerned with advancing free thought and social equality.
After Kant, the vitality and focus of European philosophic discourse moved from England, Holland and France to Germany. Germany was not yet a nation-state, being mostly a loose confederation of power centers: regional, rural, agrarian, often feudal; largely Protestant, but mixed with a mystic peasant Pietism inherited from Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme.
Supplementing theological studies, German philosophy began to bloom in urban universities. In Konigsberg, Immanuel Kant was the first German to receive a university position in philosophy. In Tubingen and Berlin, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel soon followed.
Kant’s “critical idealism” opened the door to a new way of thinking in Fichte and Schelling. Instead of trying to fit mind, soul, ethics and free will into a universe of material, mechanistic determinism, Fichte and Schelling turned the conundrum inside out, chartering a course toward the primordiality of Spirit. In German, the word Geist means both mind and spirit.
As metaphysicians, Fichte and Schelling attempted to do what Aristotle, Aquinas, Spinoza and Leibniz had done: provide a theory of everything. Fichte began by doing away with Kant’s noumenal ding-an-sich: the unknowable thing-in-itself behind what Kant said is all we can know, namely, appearance.
What Fichte loved about Kant was that Kant had rescued science from Humean skepticism by showing that nature – perceived appearance – necessarily conforms to the intuitions and categories that make up the grid-structure of the human mind. The two intuitions are space and time, and the categories include number, matter and causality.
For Kant, the human mind is an active co-creator of perception, not simply a passive recipient. Mind as agent, not mere spectator, is the key. This key opens the passage from critical to absolute idealism.
Fichte and Schelling lift Kant’s conception of human mentality to a cosmic level. Reality itself is Geist – Mind or Spirit – creating nature out of itself, in opposition to itself, in order to evolve to a full understanding of itself. This move, called dialectic, launched the process movement in philosophy climaxing in Hegel. It was, of course, a temporary climax, with variations emerging later in Bergson, James and Whitehead.
What Hegel makes clear is that the movement of human history is the Self-realization of Geist. Geist achieves self-understanding through progressive epochs of human understanding.
For Hegel, the embodied human mind, interacting with nature in always social situations, gradually achieves self-understanding through those interactions. Hegel made the unfortunate claim that this process culminated in Hegel’s philosophy and the Prussian state: the yin and yang of Geist’s self-realizing fulfillment.
Humans, interacting with nature and other humans, progress over the course of history. Understood properly, says Hegel, this is the history of Spirit; the vehicle for Spirit’s creative evolution.
Spinoza, the 17th century Dutch philosopher, provides the primary backdrop for the neo-Kantian move made in Fichte and Schelling and climaxing in Hegel. For Spinoza, mind and matter are simply two modes of God’s being. Loosely speaking, and echoing the 14th century mysticism of Meister Eckhart, humans are a part of nature, and nature is God’s self-expression. However, in Spinoza, who still ironically argues for ethics, nature operates with mathematical precision and mechanistic determinism. Events occur, as with Newton, but, as also with Newton, there is no sense of evolutionary becoming.
The |
afternoon in front of the Wells Fargo Bank on Bullsboro Drive after a deputy identified a motorist with outstanding warrants.
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During the stop, the suspect got out of his car and began running. When deputies yelled at the man to stop, the suspect pulled out a gun and fired six shots at the officer, according to Maj. Tony Grant of the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect then ran into a wooded area near the Toyota car dealership. Authorities were able to create a perimeter and corner the man.
When the suspect began firing again, deputies returned fire, killing the man.
According to Grant, the suspect left a woman and baby in the car when he fled.
The GBI is currently working with the sheriff’s office on the investigation.
All officers involved in the incident were uninjured, according to Grant.Relations between the U.S. and Russia become "frozen," according to a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman. ( Reuters photo )
The latest attempt to resolve the five-year-old Syrian Civil War diplomatically involves several key players in the region—Russia, Turkey and even Iran—but it won't include anyone from the United States.
Now we know why.
In a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said:
"Nearly all levels of our dialogue with the U.S. have been frozen. We do not talk to each other. Or we do it to a minimum."
It's been implied the relations are "frozen" until the new Trump administration is installed next month. Russia has said it would prefer to work with the president-elect and that it sees him as a negotiation partner they might work better with.
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This week, the U.S. imposed new sanctions against Russia over its actions in the Crimea region of Ukraine. Peskov said those sanctions "seriously harm our bilateral relations." But the U.S.-Russian rift goes much deeper than that.
The two nations blame each other for the humanitarian crisis that has developed in Aleppo, Syria. But U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, took the conflict to a new level when she blasted the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran, asking, "Have you no shame?"
Additionally, U.S. allegations of hacking meant to influence the 2016 presidential election have further frosted over international relations with Russia. But the Department of State refutes reports it has been locked out of discussions about Syria.
Spokesman John Kirby said Secretary of State John Kerry had spoken with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday. Kirby also noted that while the U.S. and Russia have a number of issues of disagreement, "dialogue has not been broken."
"Yes, we weren't in the meeting in Moscow, but it's not as if we haven't had communication with them before and then right after that meeting," he added. "There's been no exclusion of the United States with respect to the issue of Syria."
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Great Resources to help you excel in 2019! #1 John Eckhardt's "Prayers That..." 6-Book Bundle. Prayer helps you overcome anything life throws at you. Get a FREE Bonus with this bundle. #2 Learn to walk in the fullness of your purpose and destiny by living each day with Holy Spirit. Buy a set of Life in the Spirit, get a second set FREE.
See an error in this article? Send us a correction"I can tell when he's online and from there I can jump on to my laptop and start watching what he's doing," Stevenson said in a phone interview. "We were watching him for a little while but, because he was logging on at really random times like really late at night, we set up some scripts to capture [screenshots of] what he was doing on the screen every 30 seconds, and that was then uploaded to our server." On top of that, Stevenson installed a keylogger on the laptop "so we were able to log all of his keystrokes and passwords and websites that he visited". Stevenson said it was a few weeks before the user first began browsing the web with the laptop on June 24. The screenshots, seen by this reporter, allegedly showed the thief browsing for porn videos for the first few weeks. He allegedly sourced the racy clips by conducting Google searches for terms such as "porn" and "porn videos".
But Stevenson knew that, if he bided his time, the user would slip up eventually. It wasn't possible to identify him immediately because the stolen laptop did not have a webcam. Towards the end of July, the teen logged in to his Facebook account and, within an hour, he was arrested and charged with the theft, Stevenson said. "From his Facebook account we managed to get his date of birth and school that he went to, and from there we were able to track him down," Stevenson said. This reporter saw the screenshots of the Facebook account but these, along with the alleged thief's name, cannot be revealed for legal reasons. Victoria Police confirmed the incident and said the teen was charged with theft but had yet to face court.
Stevenson said the police told him that, thanks in large part to his detective work, they were able to get the alleged thief to admit to a string of car thefts in the area. He also dobbed in two of his accomplices, Stevenson said. "They [police] weren't impressed with the amount of paper work they had to fill out so I'd say they managed to retrieve quite a lot," he said. Stevenson's high-tech vigilante detective work is one of the first cases of geek justice found in Australia but it follows a string of similar cases overseas. In June, an Apple tool called "Find My iPhone" helped a US iPhone user track down his stolen phone without needing to place a single call to police. In April, a US woman checking her video surveillance system from the internet while she was at work caught four people robbing her house. She was able to watch while 18 officers surrounded the house and nabbed the looters.
Last year in New York, US police arrested two men and recovered almost $6000 worth of stolen computers and electronic devices after the owner of one of the stolen laptops was able to connect remotely to her Apple MacBook and photograph the thief. Similarly, when an engineering student's house was burgled in Philadelphia in March last year, he published the clues on a discussion website and an army of volunteer sleuths were able to track down the thieves and seize back two of the three stolen goods. But Stevenson said such high-tech sleuthing tools weren't always foolproof. "We had another laptop that was stolen over in America but as soon as the cops went to confront the thief they ended up throwing it in the river."Thomas Piketty is a French economist who has done something rare: publish a dense tome on economics that has rocketed to the top of bestseller lists around the world. Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a 700-page book whose central argument is that capitalism is flawed because the rate of economic growth (most people's incomes) normally rises much more slowly the rate of return on capital, most of which is held by the wealthy. The result is rising income inequality. I spoke to Mr. Piketty by phone in Paris.
To solve the problem of rising inequality, you propose small worldwide taxes on capital transfers and on wealth, and prohibitive taxes on extreme incomes and inheritance. But such taxes are not popular today, and there is little sign they will catch on. Does this make you pessimistic?
I believe in the power of ideas, I believe in the power of books, but you have to give them time. Books have a very long-term impact, and it's never a deterministic impact – you can never say "this book has had this particular impact on policy." It's much more complex.
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The kind of policy conclusions I derive in the book are already in the public debate. For instance, we have this talk about tax havens. Five years ago, people were saying that nothing would ever happen; Swiss banks would keep their accounts secret and would never accept having automatic transmission of information. And then suddenly there were U.S. sanctions against Swiss banks and things began to change. I think these general moves will continue.
It's not an all-or-nothing approach. We don't need a fully global wealth tax to make progress. I think a lot of progress can be made at the U.S. level, at the European level, through intergovernmental cooperation. Even in China, everyone is talking about wealth inequality… People right now are talking a lot about introducing property taxation in China.
During the past decade, both China and Brazil saw decreases in inequality at the same time as very strong economic growth. Does this contradict your hypothesis?
The main force pushing toward reduction in inequality has always been the diffusion of knowledge and the diffusion of education. That's a basic force that also allows for convergence within a country. This requires quite inclusive educational institutions. I think Brazil has been making progress in this. And certainly one of the reasons for the success of China, if you compare it to India, for example, is that China has much more inclusive educational institutions than India – a much bigger fraction of the population has access to school and skills.
Now, are we really sure that inequality in income and wealth has been going down in Brazil and China in recent years? There is a lot we don't know. The data we have for these two countries is far from perfect. Inequality may have reduced if you compare the upper-middle and the bottom, or the upper-middle and the lower-middle, but if you compare the top and the middle, I'm not so sure inequality has reduced in China – the top wealth holders have been rising faster than the average.
During the past 30 years the world has seen the greatest decline in absolute poverty in human history, the proportion in poverty going from nearly 40 per cent down to 25 per cent of the world population. Should it matter that a few people got really rich?
You do need some level of inequality to get the right incentives and generate growth. But if people feel that a disproportionate share of growth only goes to the top-wealth minority, then a large fraction of public opinion in European countries or in North America might turn against globalization. So I think it's important to ensure that inequality remains within limits that can be understood and accepted, and indeed are in the common interest.
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So inequality, up to a certain point, is in the common interest, but when it gets too extreme, it's just in the interest of the people at the top but not in the common interest any more. When you look at the United States over the past 30 years, you have between two-thirds and three-quarters of the aggregate growth and primary income going to the top 10 per cent and mostly to the top 1 per cent. If the growth rate during that period had been very good – 4 or 5 per cent per year — then rising inequality would not have been a problem because there would be a lot left for everybody. But the problem is that the growth performance has not been particularly good. Per capita GDP has risen by only perhaps 1.5 per cent per year. So if you have two-thirds or three-quarters of that going to the top, there is really very little left for the middle class and the bottom group.
Some of your critics in the United States say you have an overly simple definition of the rate of return on capital and believe it would look different if you separated simple rentier investments – such as sitting on real estate or bonds – from risk-taking uses of capital that create growth in the economy. Are you failing to take into account the use of risk?
I certainly agree that capital is not a one-dimensional object, and that the return on capital takes very different forms for different assets or different people. I emphasize the fact that financial deregulation has probably increased the inequality in rates of return, so the very large portfolios have access to financial products and rates of return which the middle class doesn't have access to. And real-estate bubbles and housing prices of course have played a very large role on their own in the evolution of rate of return.
The point is that even if there were only one form of asset, even if you had perfect capital markets with perfect financial information, where everybody would have access to the best return in diversified portfolio – even if these perfect conditions were met, which of course will never be the case – you would still have this problem of rising concentration of wealth. Perfect competition per se, perfectly functioning markets per se, are actually not a solution to this problem. In recent years, we've been asking too much of creative monetary policy, so you have very low rates of return on some assets, like public debt and short-term financial assets, and at the same time you have bubbles on other assets, like real estate. Some people are making huge profit in-between these rates of return. This huge volatility across different rates of return shows that we've been asking too much of creative monetary policy and too little of fiscal policy.
What do you say to anti-capitalists who read your book and say, "Well, if capitalism inevitably causes rising inequality, why not abandon capitalism and have some other kind of economy?"
Oh, that would be a very bad solution. Private property and the market system are good not only to promote innovation and to promote growth; private property and the market system are good for our personal freedom. Private property goes together with the possibility to move to a different place. Every command economy in the world in history not only was a disaster in terms of economic growth, but was also a disaster for personal freedom – because if you do away with private property, usually you end up with an internal passport system where you decide where people should live and where they should not live.
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Nobody should ever think of that. I belong to the post-Marxist generation, if you wish – I turned 18 in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall; I travelled to Eastern Europe to see those countries after the fall of their communist dictatorships, and I've never had any temptation for that. Anti-capitalists should read the history books.
I want to keep private property and the market system. But I want to make private property and the market system the slave of democracy, rather than democracy the slave of private property and extreme inequality.How Will It Actually Work?
The sporting industry is about to change radically, and SportyFi will take a huge part in that shift by providing the wider global community with new ways to invest in sport. And how will we achieve that?
SportyCo Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 27, 2017
Today we will focus on the first pillar of our ecosystem: the SportyFi Smart Manager platform.
The Smart Manager Platform (the “Platform”) is a blockchain-based sports investment platform, acting as an intermediary connecting those with an active need for funding with contributing crowds on a micro level. The Smart Manager Platform can be used by anyone connected with sport, whether an athlete, a team, a club or any other sports organization.
The Platform will have two main modules: a cryptocurrency-based donations platform (Donations Module), and a cryptocurrency financial reward-based platform (Investment Module).
The Donations Module will offer athletes a blockchain-based donations platform where they are able to raise funds by creating profiles, listing their current achievements and plans for the future, and their specific crowdfunding goals. For example: an athlete or a club can turn to their fans and supporters for donations, enabling them to continue with training and competing.
The second module of the SportyFi Smart Manager Platform, the Investment Module, will enable detailed sponsorship smart contracts of various types, and most importantly, complex investment smart contracts, where an athlete, club or other sports organization can offer a long-term deal to financiers by committing a share of their future income or other revenue stream in exchange for an upfront investment. For example, they can acquire a stake in the career path of a talented young tennis player by supporting them financially as they progress, with the aim of possible future returns.
The Smart Manager Platform will give both fans and potential investors the tools to directly participate in one of the biggest and fastest growing industries. By disrupting the existing model of sports participation financing, SportyFi will allow the sports community to raise funds independently across the world, creating brand new strategies for investment into sport.
Need more details? Check out the SportyFi Website or read the SportyFi Whitepaper. And come chat with us on Telegram.I never look at the past.
"OpenBSD is an elistist OS, it is too hard to use."
# pkg_add gnome # echo'multicast_host=YES' >>/etc/rc.conf.local # echo 'pkg_scripts="${pkg_scripts} dbus_daemon avahi_daemon gdm"' >>/etc/rc.conf.local
Just make sure no Display Manager other than GDM is configured to start at boot. That is all there is to it really, so reboot and enjoy.
To make it easier for people to automatically use removable media, like USB sticks and CD/DVD-ROM, I wrote a small application called toad(8) (Toad Opens All Devices). This application talks to ConsoleKit to detect the currently active user and uses this information to mount devices with proper ownerships. It mounts them under /run where GMount (GLib) can see them so that GVFS applications like Nautilus can be used to unmount and/or eject them with a single click (aka Joe-user friendly). toad(8) uses the OpenBSD devices hot plugging monitor daemon: hotplugd(8).
# pkg_add toad
The pr0n:
Since an image is worth a thousand words, here's a short webcast showing GNOME 3.10.2 running on OpenBSD-current (soon to be OpenBSD 5.5):
https://www.bsdfrog.org/tmp/undeadly-gnome.webm
The future:
There is some more and more awareness in the GNOME community that at least two major BSDs (OpenBSD and FreeBSD) have people actively working to make GNOME a viable option for them and I think it can benefit all sides.
As far as my little person is concerned, I am currently working on setting up a buildbot infrastructure with JHBuild to be able to run continuous builds of the GNOME HEAD repository (which the FreeBSD folks are doing already). "JHBuild is a tool used to build the whole GNOME desktop from the version control system". That will help us catch portability issues very early. It will also help OpenBSD fix some of its tools (I am looking at you libtool!).
We spent the last couple of years pushing a maximum number of local patches upstream and as of today, most of then got accepted. But there is obviously still work to do...
The upcoming most challenging task will certainly be to develop compatible APIs provided by systemd and that GNOME uses (timedated, localed, hostnamed and logind). Some parts are trivial, some others not as much.
A special "thank you" goes to Ryan Lortie from the GNOME project who has been an enormous help pushing us to move forward as well as Koop Mast from the FreeBSD-gnome team who has included me in their regular chats and with whom we share most of the same issues.Advertisement Brevard deputy faces murder charges after fatal road rage incident Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Authorities said a 32-year-old Brevard County sheriff's deputy faces murder charges after a road rage incident in Palm Bay early last week.According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Yousef Hafza, of West Melbourne, was off duty at the time of the incident, did not identify himself as a law enforcement officer and was not acting in a law enforcement capacity.The FDLE said Hafza's vehicle and another vehicle nearly collided on June 19 just after 11 a.m. The driver and a passenger followed Hafza’s car. Hafza and the victims stopped their vehicles and exited. Authorities said during their interaction, Hafza fired his weapon, resulting in the death of the other vehicle's passenger, Clarence Howard. The driver of the vehicle was not injured.On Tuesday morning, Hafza was arrested and taken to the Brevard County Jail, where he's being held without bail."Cases involving a member of your own agency are best facilitated with complete transparency that ensures public trust while also protecting the integrity of the investigation," Sheriff Wayne Ivey said. "As such, from the very beginning of the incident, I asked FDLE to conduct an independent investigation and present their findings to the State Attorney's Office for a full review of the facts. Following their review, the state attorney authorized an arrest warrant, which resulted in Yousef Hafza being charged today by FDLE."Ivey said Hafza was immediately suspended without pay pending an administrative review of the incident.An arrest warrant affidavit said Hafza's car almost hit the one in which Howard was a passenger. The driver of that car followed Hafza until both stopped and the three men got out. According to the affidavit, Hafza said he tried to apologize, saying, "Dude, I swear I'm good. I'm sorry. I didn't know what I did." Hafza said the two men came at him and that he was in fear for his life, so he fired."We encourage our deputies to always be armed. Most of them do," Ivey said.The affidavit also gives the other driver's side of the story: "Hafza asked, 'Why are you chasing me?' Montanez replied, 'I'm not chasing you. I just want to know why you almost hit me.' Hafza then said, 'Oh yeah, (expletive)' and began shooting."The medical examiner said Howard was instantly paralyzed by one of six shots fired by Hafza. He fell 50 feet from Hafza's shell casings. Based partly on that, Hafza was taken to jail and charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. His attorney visited him in jail Tuesday.WESH 2 News asked Hafza's attorney, Martin White, if Hafza is innocent."As it stands right (now), yes, he's innocent," White said.Hello and welcome to the 46th installment of the SWD.
Military events are listed below by the governorates:
Hama:
First to get out of the way everything that was wrongly reported as captured yesterday by both sides. SAA didn’t capture Tell Bizam located northeast of Souran and rebels didn’t capture Buraydij west of Kernaz which means that Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Sham attack on Kernaz was met once again with fierce resistance and was repelled for the 3rd time, only minor gains were achieved on this axis so far.
At one point yesterday SAA withdrew from Tell al-Samam north of Qomhane which meant that front line was once again at the outskirts of Qomhane. It was reported today that SAA recaptured both Tell al-Samam and checkpoint “point 50”.
Southwest of Qomhane SAA and allies were able to break through rebel lines and have captured Arzeh, Balahseen, Zawr al-Balah and Zawr al-Qusayyah. West of Qomhane, Khirbat al-Hajamah was also captured meaning that Qomhane’s surroundings are now SAA controlled and the city can’t be attacked by rebels anymore.
After these advances Khattab is surrounded by SAA from east and south with reports that SAA is already trying to capture the city. However, to show that not everything is going so smoothly for SAA in Northern Hama today, Jaysh al-Nasr issued a statement claiming to have killed six SAA soldiers while they were trying to advance on Khattab and in a later statement they claimed to have repelled SAA ‘s attempt to capture the city.
Situation in Northern Hama after today’s SAA advances, HD version of the map can be found here. Source: Peto Lucem
Damascus:
FSA managed to fully capture IS pocket south of SAA controlled Al-Seen Airbase, this comes after IS retreated from Eastern Damascus and Northeastern Al-Suwayda governorates a couple of days ago. Even though majority of this territory is inhabited, it gives FSA more influence in Eastern Damascus countryside.
Now that IS is expelled from the area rebels are in position to endanger SAA -held Al-Seen area and even encircle it. One even bigger unlikely possibility that rebels have is to try and break the siege of East Ghouta, however, without additional manpower and armor this almost seems impossible.
FSA and SAA have been in some kind of ceasefire and “alliance” in the area in order to fend off IS threat, but now that the IS is gone “friends” could turn to enemies. FSA is now left with two options, either reconcile with Syrian government and be incorporated in some unit or open a new front, not necessarily against SAA in Damascus, they can advance towards Deir al-Zour governorate or Palmyra from the south.
Situation in eastern Damascus and Al-Suwayda after rebel advances in the region by a rebel group participating in the offensive against IS. Source: Jaysh Usud al-Sharqiya
Iraq:
Iraqi Army backed by PMU advanced west of Badush towards Tel Afar, villages of Al-Rayhana and Al-Sabouna were liberated from IS.
Last night Baghdad was targeted by another SVBIED attack unfortunately, the culprit didn’t use a standard vehicle for this attack but rather a tanker. “Arch” Checkpoint in Al-Yousifia district south Baghdad was the intended target and the death toll from the attack was reported at 14 killed and 20 wounded, possibility exists that the number of casualties may rise over time.
Thanks to Iraqi Army today’s Daily doesn’t have to include two now foiled IS suicide attacks in east Mosul, suicide bombers reportedly reached the east part of the city by crossing TIgris river from west Mosul.
Latest map of west Mosul. Source:NinevehMC
On the 29th of March 2017 CJTF-OIR has conducted 22 strikes in Syria. CJTF-OIR ‘s main focus in Syria at the moment is Tabqa-Raqqa region where they did 20 strikes supporting SDF ‘s operation against IS destroying nine IS wellheads, two pump jacks, a barge, seven fighting positions, four oil tanker trucks, two front-end loaders, a mortar system and a vehicle; and damaged a supply route.
Other areas where two strikes occurred are Abu Kamal and Shadaddi destroying an IS oil inlet manifold and an IS tactical vehicle, respectively. Full report on CJTF-OIR strikes conducted in both Syria & Iraq can be found here.
Intellectual credited property used may vary from an edition to edition.
Feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section below, constructive criticism is welcomed.
For those of you interested, you can follow us on an official Twitter account @SyrianWarDaily, or me personally on my biased twitter @joskobaric where I occasionally tweet some things.
AdvertisementsFootage of the first playable demo of Psychonauts 2 was released, showing off some of the first looks at gameplay.
In an update by developer Double Fine, they discuss the purpose of the demo. The demo will allow them to test their new pipeline and workflows across their art, animation, tech, design, cinematics, and other departments. While a lot of that was figured out during pre-production, this is their first big attempt at creating a fully playable part of the game with all of the art assets, tech, and everything else. They still have a lot of work to do but the demo represents all of the elements necessary for a level of the game including enemies, combat, movement, and more. The area the demo takes place in is based off of one of the first pieces of concept art from Peter Chan – the Quarry surrounding the Psychonauts base. They also explain how characters like the goat in the demo are made.
The update also said to expect more information on backer rewards soon for those who backed the game on Fig. They’re working with iam8bit and Fangamer to bring the rewards to life.
They also said that they are working on saving a few of their games lost to Apple’s recently updated iOS. However, the free Psychonauts Vault Viewer, which contained all of the Vault Viewer reels from the original Psychonauts along with commentary from Psychonauts Creative Director, Co-Writer, and Designer Tim Schafer and Art Director Scott Campbell, will no longer work. So they decided to turn the app into a YouTube video.
Psychonauts 2, the follow-up to the cult classic Psychonauts, was announced on December 2015. It raised over $3,800,000 from over 24,000 backers during its crowdfunding campaign. The game is planned for release in 2018. A virtual reality spin off, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, was released in March 2017.Coming Soon
The Spy
This drama series tells the astonishing true story of Israel's most prominent spy, Eli Cohen, who infiltrated the Syrian government in the 1960s.
Juanita
Burdened by troubles in life and love, a mother of three grown children searches for hope and healing on an impromptu trip to Paper Moon, Montana.
Cannon Busters
With a maintenance robot and a deadly fugitive tagging along, friendship droid S.A.M searches for its best friend, the heir to a kingdom under siege.
ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads
Robert Johnson was one of the most influential blues guitarists ever. Even before his early death, fans wondered if he'd made a pact with the Devil.
The I-Land
In this sci-fi adventure series, ten people wake up on a treacherous island with no memory and soon discover this world is not as it seems.
Madam C.J. Walker Project
This limited series chronicles the incredible true story of Madam C.J. Walker, who was the first African-American self-made millionaire.
V-Wars
After a mysterious disease begins transforming people into vampires, Dr. Luther Swann is pitted against his best friend, now a powerful vampire leader.
Mixtape
This romantic musical drama follows the love stories connecting an eclectic group of people in modern-day Los Angeles.Introduction
Nvidia has laid siege to the high-end desktop graphics market in recent months, with the GeForce GTX Titan X, GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 all largely unchallenged at the top of the consumer GPU hierarchy. Hoping to continue its dominance in high-end laptops, the graphics giant is now flexing its muscle with the launch of mobile variants of the GTX 1080, 1070 and 1060 GPUs going by exactly the same names.
To find out the how the middle-of-the-pack GTX 1070 fares, Asus sent in a last-minute, pre-production sample of an upcoming 17in behemoth, the ROG G752VS.
Look familiar? That'd be because Asus isn't going all-out with a new chassis design. Rather, it's repurposing the enclosure that was recently used to house the ROG G752VY. The manufacturer sees no need to change a design that works, and for users who know what to expect from an extreme 17in laptop, the ROG G752VS fits the bill.
Generous 416mm x 322mm x 49mm proportions appear to be at odds with a portable PC - as does the near-4.5kg weight - yet if performance is the name of the game, the chassis gives Asus room to squeeze-in everything but the kitchen sink. The left side of the unit is home to a Blu-ray optical drive, an SD card reader and dual USB 3.0 ports, while on the right edge you'll find a trio of audio jacks, USB 3.1 Type-C, two more USB 3.0, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet and a connector for the external 230W power supply.
There's more than enough space for a full-size backlit keyboard and a spacious trackpad with dedicated buttons, and Asus is likely to offer two matte display panels in the initial run; full-HD IPS (1,920x1,080); or 4K UHD IPS (3,840x2,160). Both are said to offer G-Sync support, and though a touchscreen option isn't available, the latter is rumoured to offer 100 per cent Adobe RGB coverage.
Intel's Core i7-6820HK is the quad-core CPU of choice and it's joined by 64GB of DDR4-2400 memory as well as a fast 512GB Toshiba NVMe M.2 SSD. Sounds tantalising, but Asus is keen to point out that the final UK configuration may change prior to a Q4 release, and given that the specification is yet to be finalised, there's no word on MSRP. You don't, however, need us to tell you that the ROG G752VS will fetch a pretty penny.
What's really of interest here is the GeForce GTX 1070 GPU that's lying in wait. Following in the footsteps of last year's mobile GeForce GTX 980, the latest addition to Nvidia's mobile line-up appears to be the same chip used on the desktop graphics card. Gone is the 'M' suffix that has historically been used to identify mobile parts hamstrung in comparison to their desktop equivalents, yet the GTX 1070 is intriguing insofar as there's more to the latest GTX 10-series GPU than first meets the eye.
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 - Desktop vs. Mobile Usage Desktop Mobile Model GeForce GTX 1080 GeForce GTX 1070 GeForce GTX 1070 GeForce GTX 980 GeForce GTX 980M Launch date May 2016 May 2016 Aug 2016 Sep 2015 Oct 2014 Codename GP104 GP104 GP104 GM204 GM204 Architecture Pascal Pascal Pascal Maxwell Maxwell Process (nm) 16 16 16 28 28 Transistors (bn) 7.2 7.2 7.2 5.2 5.2 Die Size (mm²) 314 314 314 398 398 Full Implementation Yes No No Yes No SM Units 20 15 16 16 12 Shaders 2,560 1,920 2,048 2,048 1,536 Texture Units 160 120 128 128 96 ROPs 64 64 64 64 64 Core Clock (MHz) 1,607 1,506 1,443 1,064 1,038 Boost Clock (MHz) 1,733 1,683 1,645 1,216 1,127 Peak GFLOPS 8,873 6,463 6,738 4,981 3,462 Memory Size 8GB 8GB 8GB 4GB / 8GB 4GB / 8GB Memory Bus 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit 256-bit Memory Type GDDR5X GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 GDDR5 Memory Clock 10Gbps 8Gbps 8Gbps 7Gbps 5Gbps Memory Bandwidth 320 256 256 224 160 TDP (watts) 180 150 TBC 145 100
As the above table illustrates, the 16nm Pascal GP104 die that made its debut as the GeForce GTX 1080 has been reimagined in a couple of different ways. As we already know, five SMs were disabled to enable the creation of the lower-cost desktop GeForce GTX 1070, and though we'd expected the same configuration for the mobile part, Nvidia has added a twist to proceedings by raising the SM count from 15 to 16.
This surprising development gives the mobile GTX 1070 a total of 2,048 shaders allied to 128 texture units, representing a seven per cent increase over its desktop counterpart. Don't start jumping for joy just yet, though, as the benefit of the additional SM unit is countered by lower shipping frequencies. Core and boost clocks are set at 1,443MHz and 1,645MHz, respectively - down four per cent against the desktop - yet peak gigaflops is up from 6,463 to 6,738.
Why Nvidia has chosen to go with 16 SMs in the mobile GTX 1070 is unclear, and it does result in an unexpected performance advantage: the GTX 1070 in laptops is going to be faster than the desktop Founders Edition. Some of that advantage will be mitigated by less potent mobile CPUs, yet the lines are definitely blurred and it's clear to see why Nvidia is moving away from mobile branding - going forward it expects there to be hardly any perceivable performance trade-off between high-end mobile and desktop parts.
And don't expect the frequency downgrade to be a stumbling block, either. Citing the efficiency of the Pascal architecture, Nvidia reckons its latest mobile GPUs are prime candidates for overclocking. Asus is only too willing to oblige, as it has the GTX 1070 base clock ramped-up from 1,443MHz to 1,583MHz, while boost clock climbs from 1,645MHz to 1,785MHz. A healthy out-the-box increase and, as pictured above, the ROG G752VS's Core i7-6820HK processor is also overclocked to 3.8GHz by default.
We had expected the heightened speeds to be an optional extra, but Asus has confirmed that the G752VS will ship overclocked as standard and will only revert to reference frequencies when running on battery power. Mobile gaming, it seems, is about to get a significant injection of speed, so let's fire up our array of benchmarks and see what GTX 1070 has in store.Watched by more than 80 million people, last night’s first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had the feel of a heavyweight title fight. Donald Trump the boisterous, blustery, mean, undisciplined, heavy-hitting and much-hyped brawler has destroyed all his previous foes.
He is a bully who embraces his role as a destroyer of men. Across from him stood Clinton, an uninspiring, uninteresting and yet undeniably talented pugilist. Trump is a political bar fighter. Clinton is the measured political technician. Styles make fights.
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The introductions would be made and the bell would ring. Trump threw haymakers and huge lazy punches. Clinton dodged and counterpunched. Trump became frustrated and angry. He desperately clinched. Clinton toyed with him. Trump looked to Lester Holt, the referee, for help. Little assistance would be forthcoming. Trump became increasingly flustered and angry that Clinton would not do him the kind favor of allowing herself to be hit.
Clinton would score punch after punch on the flummoxed Trump. She smiled and grinned. He sniffled; his skin possessed an unhealthy pallor. At a certain point in the |
brought it to me and said, 'Did you withdraw this money?' No, of course not," Longacre explained.
According to investigators, a woman filled out a withdrawal slip at the SunTrust Bank on Northside Drive March 24, presented a driver's license, and walked out with cash.
"Depending on what the detective finds out in the case, it cold be felony charges," said Sandy Springs Police Sgt. Sam Worsham.
Longacre did not recognize the woman captured on bank surveillance, but police believe it is likely she has a connection to PAWS.
"It may be a person that they know--another worker there--that would understand the ins and outs of the business, they would know how to withdraw the money, the account numbers," Sgt. Worsham said.
The bank credited the money back into the PAWS Atlanta account, but Longacre said $4,800 is a significant amount.
"It's just heartbreaking," said Longacre. "At any given moment here at PAWS, we're a no-kill animal shelter, and we have anywhere from 175 to 185 animals on our property. $4800--we can feed all of those animals for two months. That's a lot. That's a lot of money. So, just to walk in and just feel as though you can take it from us? We work very hard for that."
Police ask anyone who recognizes the woman in the surveillance video to call them at 770-730-5600.The Spain international has struggled to establish himself at Camp Nou and is now hoping to head back to his former employers on loan in January
Aleix Vidal appears destined to be on his way out of Barcelona during the winter transfer window, with a return to Sevilla considered to be one possibility for the defender.
Goal understands that a loan switch is the most likely option for the 27-year-old, with a lack of playing time at Camp Nou making it difficult to generate interest in a permanent transfer.
Goal 50: The best footballers of 2016
Barca are eager to recoup as much of the €18 million they paid Sevilla for Vidal in 2015 as possible, but are aware that they may fall a little short.
In order to boost his valuation, though, the Catalan outfit need the defender to get games.
He has not figured under Luis Enrique since September - one of only two outings this season - with much of his time having been spent on the bench.
A loan move could now be beneficial to all concerned - allowing the player to get important minutes under his belt, while putting himself in the shop window for a summer switch in 2017.
According to Radio Marca Sevilla, Vidal has already been in touch with Sevilla’s sporting director Monchi regarding a possible January return.
Messi sources refute deal snub claims
Fans at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan would certainly be open to welcoming him back, with his reputation having been enhanced during a productive 2014-15 campaign that saw him help the club to Europa League glory.
Jorge Sampaoli is also understood to be in the market for defensive reinforcements as Sevilla emerge as possible La Liga title dark horses, so all parties could get their wish and seal a deal benefitting all.Jordan Henderson has stated his desire to become Liverpool’s new captain, insisting he wants to “take more responsibility” at the club.
Henderson has long been touted as the man who will take the armband on a long-term basis from Steven Gerrard having been vice-captain last season and established himself as a key member of Liverpool’s midfield.
Ings and Milner look a better fit for Liverpool than the 2014 vintage Read more
However, Brendan Rodgers has yet to confirm who his new captain will be, with suggestions circulating that the manager may hand the role to James Milner having signed the 29-year-old from Manchester City. But Henderson has made clear he wants to follow in the footsteps of Gerrard following his departure to Major League Soccer from Anfield.
“I’ve always wanted to take more responsibility, especially at the stage of my career I’m at,” the 25-year-old told Goal.com. “I feel I’m getting a bit older now, a bit more mature and of course I want to take more responsibility for the team but, at the same time, I think it’s up to all of us as a team to take more responsibility on the pitch and make sure we put in good performances.
“When I’ve been vice-captain I’ve just tried to do my best for the team as I always have and to learn as much as I can from Stevie, like I have from when I first came to the club. But we’ve got a lot of captains and a lot of leaders in the dressing room so I’m sure whoever he [Rodgers] picks, the lads will be right behind him.”Republicans on Capitol Hill are digging in their heels, insisting that the FBI’s investigation into alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia won’t slow down the president’s legislative agenda.
Only the day before, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee warned that the probe would cast a “dark cloud” over the administration. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called it “the worst day of Donald Trump’s presidency.”
If the probe proceeds like most counterintelligence investigations, it could dog the White House for months, even years — casting a pall of uncertainty over the fledgling administration’s efforts to push through its ambitious wish list.
But on Tuesday, GOP lawmakers were working to brush aside the notion that the investigation could haunt President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says Kim not responsible for Otto Warmbier's death: 'I will take him at his word' Trump: I 'trust' Kim's promise he won't resume nuclear, missile tests Trump blasts Cohen, but 'impressed' with collusion comments MORE.
“He’s got the trust of the American people at this point. Politically, I don’t think it’s going to have an effect,” said Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.).
Like other Republicans, he focused his ire on leaks about the investigation to news organizations, describing them as “acts of treason... targeting the sitting president of the United States.”
“No, no, no, no,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz Jason ChaffetzTop Utah paper knocks Chaffetz as he mulls run for governor: ‘His political career should be over’ Boehner working on memoir: report Former GOP lawmaker on death of 7-year-old migrant girl: Message should be ‘don't make this journey, it will kill you' MORE (R-Utah) said when pressed on whether the probe would damage the president’s authority to govern.
FBI Director James Comey on Monday leveled two blows against the White House, confirming the Russia investigation and debunking the president’s claim that former President Obama put Trump Tower under surveillance during the campaign.
In another remarkable moment during his appearance before the House Intelligence Committee, Comey refuted a presidential tweet that said he had concluded Russia’s meddling in the election did not affect the outcome. “It certainly wasn’t our intention to say that today,” Comey said.
The rebukes threatened to intensify questions about Trump’s credibility at a time when he is suffering from shaky poll numbers. Gallup’s daily tracking poll on Tuesday showed Trump with a 39 percent approval rating, a historically low figure this early in a president’s first term.
Even Trump’s supporters are exhibiting some signs of nervousness.
“The problem is, so long as Comey can’t talk publicly about the investigation, it creates an issue,” Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) said.
Trump and his allies repeatedly used the FBI’s probe into Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonTrump blasts Cohen, but 'impressed' with collusion comments Sanders’ first 2020 campaign rally will be in Brooklyn Hillicon Valley: Cohen stuns Washington with testimony | Claims Trump knew Stone spoke to WikiLeaks | Stone, WikiLeaks deny | TikTok gets record fine | Senators take on tech over privacy MORE’s use of a private email server while secretary of State to argue she was unfit to serve as president.
“Can this country afford to have a president under investigation by the FBI?” Sen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission Schumer urges GOP to reject Trump's 'destructive' national emergency MORE (R-Fla.) said at a campaign rally in November. “Think of the trauma that would do to this country.”
Other Trump backers believe the president will still be able to count on his core group of supporters as he seeks to win ObamaCare’s repeal and tax cuts from Congress.
“These are issues that are popular with the winning coalition that elected President Trump … and they expect the president and Republicans in Congress to pass them,” said Republican strategist Greg Mueller, who predicted members could face backlash from constituents if they cut bait on Trump’s legislative agenda.
“Yet another wishy-washy testimony from Director Comey is not going to change that political dynamic,” he added.
Comey’s decision to publicly confirm the investigation may have come as a surprise to many in the White House, which was not told in advance that the Justice Department cleared him to discuss it.
But publicly and privately, White House officials have shrugged off the explosive nature of the revelation, doubling down on their assertion that there is no proof Trump’s campaign team coordinated with Russia to interfere in the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
“This investigation has been going on for eight months. We know very little about it — no connection, no fruits,” senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News. “Donald Trump’s been president for two months, and he has a lot more to show for it.”
Trump has chosen to forcefully push back against the Russia inquiry, beginning with a tweetstorm on Monday dismissing alleged ties between his team and Moscow as “FAKE NEWS” and blaming the matter on Democrats “as an excuse for running a terrible campaign.”
The tweets made Comey’s rebuke even starker, while helping deflect attention from the week’s two other big stories: healthcare reform and confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
Trump notably did not comment on the FBI director, wiretapping or Russia later Monday night during a campaign rally in Louisville, Ky., and he also refused to answer shouted questions about it Tuesday at the White House.
Trump allies concede the Russia investigation is a distraction from the president’s broader agenda but argue that might not be a bad thing in the short term.
Republican strategist John Feehery said the media’s focus on Russia has made it difficult for Democrats to gain traction with their efforts to tar Gorsuch, whose confirmation hearings began this week.
“I see the reason Republicans are nervous about this, but it’s largely a sideshow, and sometimes sideshows serve a purpose,” said Feehery, who is also a columnist for The Hill. “I’m not prepared to say it’s a complete disaster for Trump, because I don’t think it is.”So, I had heard of Blackbird Cosmetics, but never actually tried Maleah’s products. I’d read some really positive reviews, but my list of places to try is so long! But then I posted on reddit asking for the community’s advice on where I should purchase some nice indie makeup to give to one of my amazing friends who has been battling cancer for the past few years. She’d just had another surgery, and I wanted to do something to help her feel special, so I was looking to see if anyone had any suggestions that I hadn’t thought of.
So, I had posted, just looking for ideas. And instead, I had an amazing response. I had the owners of Darling Girl (who you guys now that I love) and Alog Cosmetics (who I will definitely be ordering from soon) send over some goodies for her, as well as some samples from another indie lover. So generous! I see her this week. Can’t wait to give this to her.
Maleah from Blackbird Cosmetics also sent over a sample set for her. As a thanks for helping my friend and because I wanted to support her business, I purchased my own set of neutral matte eyeshadows: volume 1.
This set includes: (all swatches have Kiss My Sass ivory primer on the left and NYX white eyeshadow base on the right)
Dim Tradition – This is described as a really light neutral beige. To me, this is a slightly grayed beige color, which makes it very unique! I really love it.
Immortals – This is a very beautiful light pink. This is going to be very versatile.
Thirteen – This is a slightly rosy brown, but only very slight. It’s a light brown gorgeous neutral color!
Imogen – Blackbird describes this as a “dark, devious pink.” I’m not sure how devious this color is, but it is a beautiful dark dusty rose.
Dog Days – This is described as a “medium neutral toned brown eye shadow,” which is very accurate. Another very nice neutral. Love it.
Gravity – Blackbird’s description of this as a “medium, complex toned plum” is completely accurate. This is beautiful.
Beau – For me, this is a warm dark brown. It’s not super reddened to me, but it is very bark-y.
Fire Pledge – Maleah describes this as a red-orange. Yep. That’s exactly what it is. I’m not sure how I’ll wear this one. I’ll be honest, it intimidates me a bit. But I know when I get the guts to play with this one, I’ll be very glad I did.
Fiction – This is a perfect gray eyeshadow to me. It’s a slightly cool-purple dark gray. Absolutely lovely!
Lucid – This is a black matte. I am going to have to figure out how I use this one… I’m not a big black eyeshadow user.
I also got two free samples with my order:
Straight to Hell – Blackbird describes this as an electric purple, but, I wouldn’t really call this an electric purple. It’s more of a red-purple violet with red shimmers. Still, it’s very beautiful. I can see myself wearing this often.
Wren – Maleah says this is a “metallic lilac-taupe shimmer eyeshadow,” which is a super accurate description. To my eye, it’s more purple than taupe, but honestly, that could have been the lighting. This is one of those complex colors that I so love.
A bonus look!
Dim Tradition, Thirteen, and Gravity with no primer. Gorgeous.
Overall, I was really pleased! The eyshadows are very easy to apply, have great color payoff, and look awesome. Neutral matte indies are not super common, so I’m very excited to have these now!
Also, one side note. I know her product descriptions say that they are slightly water resistant, which I didn’t see until after this experiment. After swatching a full arm, I decided that I needed to take a shower. So, I decided to leave my swatches on and hop in the shower. And they lasted through shaving my legs, washing my hair, conditioning! Seriously! And that takes a long time for me, given that I have mile-long hair. The colors hadn’t budged, not even the bare spots with no sort of primer. Wow. That was damn impressive. With the loofah, they came off easily enough. Seriously, that is damn impressive. Next time it rains, you’re damn right I’m wearing Blackbird, since I know it will make it through the rain!
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ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center announced it has received a grant to develop an emergency response plan in case of a hate-related emergency in the Lehigh Valley.
The center said it will lead a team of LGBT community-based organizations, local law enforcement and clergy to develop the response plan.
Additionally, the center is providing 14 weeks of free individual counseling sessions and support groups to address the emotional support needs of the local LGBT community. This is a response to the increased violence and hateful rhetoric in the LGBT community since the 2016 election.
"Recently we've seen LGBT community centers and statewide equality organizations in six states targeted with violence and anti-LGBT hate," said Adrian Shanker, executive director of Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. "We must change the current narrative that is normalizing hate and we must push our society toward viable solutions."
The Center received the grant from Open Society Foundations Communities Against Hate Initiative.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday reinforced the ability of corporations to write their own rules for resolving disputes with customers, finding that a group of merchants were bound by an arbitration agreement with American Express even if the terms made it prohibitively expensive to pursue some types of claims against the company.
Businesses generally regard arbitration as a cheaper and more efficient way to resolve disputes. Consumer advocates say the terms of the agreements can allow companies to escape accountability. The courts increasingly have sided with the companies, steadily limiting the circumstances in which customers can pursue claims outside of the arbitration process.
Thursday’s 5-to-3 ruling limits the ability of customers to pursue class actions. The conservative majority held that companies could require individual arbitration even if a class action is the only way to make the claim economically viable. The law, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, does not “guarantee an affordable procedural path to the vindication of every claim.”
Business groups hailed the ruling as the end of a long legal battle.
“The Supreme Court today eliminated the last significant obstacle to adoption of fair, efficient arbitration systems that increase access to justice for consumers while reducing transaction costs for everyone,” Andrew J. Pincus, a lawyer at Mayer Brown who won a related Supreme Court arbitration case in 2011, said in a statement after the announcement.On January 2, 2012 by Aaron Meehan
Earlier this year it was revealed that the PS2’s Final Fantasy X would be coming to PS3 and Vita and it was assumed it would be a HD remastering; well apparently that assumption was wrong.
It was revealed by Square Enix producer Yoshinori Kitase (producer on the original FFX) to German Magazine “M! Games” that FFX would be a remake and not a HD remastering as he told the magazine “the quality of the new edition of the model is just”.
For those wondering the difference between a remake and remastering then look at Halo CE Anniversary. Halo CE Anniversary was a HD remastering which meant the game got a graphics improvement and no changes to the story or mechanics of the original from 2011. Now you know what a remastering I’m guessing you can guess what a remake is. A remake is exactly what it says on the tin; it is taking something old and changing it at a deeper level than a remastering so this could mean anything from story or character change etc.
The most likely change if there is to be any in my opinion would likely be a change of the battle system to something like Final Fantasy XIII’s or XIII-2.
Source: The Gaming LibertyIBM Australia is in the midst of axing up to 1500 Australian staff in a reshuffle that will send many jobs offshore to Asia and New Zealand, according to sources.
Affected staff said between 1200 and 1500 local jobs are being made redundant this year in several waves. These figures rival the minimum 1200 jobs that Ford announced it would cut when it exits Australia in 2016.
Global restructure: A sign marks the entrance to IBM headquarters in Armonk, New York. Credit:AFP
IBM refused to confirm the figure or deny it is sending Australian jobs offshore, saying that for competitive reasons it does not discuss the details of staffing plans. Fairfax Media understands the jobs that are sent offshore would continue to service Australian clients.
Local executives were told of the redundancies in a March teleconference, one source said, ahead of a global restructuring plan announced in April. Executives were told by the company's New York office they needed to cut about 10 per cent of the local workforce this year following disappointing global first-quarter results. The company is estimated to employ between 12,000 and 14,000 staff in Australia.New research details how scientists are moving closer to embedding vascular networks into thick human tissues, which could result in tissue repair and regeneration — and ultimately even replacement of whole organs.
A team at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and the Harvard John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has invented a method for 3-D bioprinting thick vascularized tissue constructs. The vasculature network enables fluids, nutrients, and cell growth factors to be perfused uniformly throughout the tissue.
The advance was reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“This latest work extends the capabilities of our multi-material bioprinting platform to thick human tissues, bringing us one step closer to creating architectures for tissue repair and regeneration,” says the study’s senior author, Jennifer A. Lewis, who is a Wyss core faculty member and the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at SEAS.
Printing vessel vasculature is essential for sustaining functional living tissues. Until now, bioengineers have had difficulty building thick tissues, lacking a method to embed vascular networks. Credit: Lewis Lab/ Wyss Institute at Harvard University
In the study, Lewis and her team showed that their 3-D printed, vascularized tissues could thrive and function as living tissue architectures for upwards of six weeks.
To date, scaling up human tissues built of a variety of cell types has been limited by an inability to embed life-sustaining vascular networks. Building on their earlier work, Lewis and her team have now increased the tissue thickness threshold nearly tenfold, setting the stage for future advances in tissue engineering and repair. The method combines vascular plumbing with living cells and an extracellular matrix, enabling the structures to function as living tissues.
As an example of what can be done with the technology, Lewis’ team printed 1-centimeter-thick tissue containing human bone marrow stem cells surrounded by connective tissue. By pumping bone growth factors through supporting vasculature lined with the same endothelial cells found in human blood vessels, the scientists induced the cells to develop into bone cells over the course of one month, according to the study.
“This research will help to establish the fundamental scientific understanding required for bioprinting of vascularized living tissues,” said Zhijian Pei, National Science Foundation program director for the Directorate for Engineering Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, which funded the project. “Research such as this enables broader use of 3-D human tissues for drug safety and toxicity screening and, ultimately, for tissue repair and regeneration.”
Lewis’ novel 3-D bioprinting method uses a customizable, printed silicone mold to house the printed tissue structure. Inside this mold, layers of vascular channels made of pluronic (a material that liquefies at refrigerator temperature) and living stem cells are interdigitated like locking fingers. A cellular matrix is poured around this structure, and solidifies. The entire device is then refrigerated until the pluronic turns to liquid and is sucked out by a vacuum. This creates channels through which liquid containing endothelial cells, oxygen, nutrients, and growth factors — basically, simulated blood — can flow.
The bioprinted material can be used to create living tissue cultures as well as to drive directed tissue growth such as differentiating stem cells. To achieve a variety of tissue shapes, thicknesses, and composition, the shape of the printed silicone chip can be customized and the printable cellular material can be tuned to include a wide variety of cell types. In other words, this new method creates a fully controllable, living 3-D tissue environment, researchers say.
“Having the vasculature prefabricated within the tissue allows enhanced cell functionality at the deep core of the tissue, and gives us the ability to modulate those cell functions through the use of perfusable substances such as growth factors,” said David Kolesky, a graduate researcher at the Wyss Institute and SEAS and one of the study’s first authors.
“Jennifer and her team are shifting the paradigm in the field of tissue engineering based on their unique bioprinting approach,” said Wyss Institute Director Donald Ingber. “Their ability to build living 3-D vascularized tissues from the bottom up provides a potential way to form macroscale functional tissue replacements that can be surgically connected to the body’s own blood vessels to provide immediate perfusion of these artificial tissues, and thus, greatly increase their likelihood of survival. This would overcome many of the problems that held back tissue engineering from clinical success in the past.”
Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the vascular biology program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and professor of bioengineering at SEAS. In addition to Lewis and Kolesky, other team members on the new study include co-first authors Kimberly Homan, research associate at the Wyss Institute, and Mark Skylar-Scott, postdoctoral fellow at the Wyss Institute.
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
Publication: David B. Kolesky, et al., “Three-dimensional bioprinting of thick vascularized tissues,” PNAS, 2016; doi:10.1073/pnas.1521342113I’ve forgotten how to write hits, says Alex Turner
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 21 December 2011
Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner seems to be suffering a slight crisis of artistic confidence, having told The Sun he doubts his ability to write hit songs any more. And he’s not too certain about his ability to sing them either.
Asked about the band’s debut single, ‘I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, he said: “I have fucking forgotten how to do that. I don’t know what that is any more, it’s a different landscape these days”. Turner then appraised his voice, which, despite it maturing markedly since the Arctics’ early career, he’s still not satisfied with. Says Alex: “I was never a singer. I have had to practice at that and writing melodies is something that didn’t come naturally. I was more comfortable writing lyrics”.
He adds: “I am still working on it but I think we are getting there with the singing thing”.
These perfectionists, what to do with them? Presumably this all came about after he’d written ‘Piledriver Waltz’. Though not necessarily a ‘hit’ in the traditional, chart-topping sense, it’s unarguably beautiful. Here it is accompanying the ‘Submarine’ trailer.WeTab GmbH, a joint venture between Neofonie GmbH and the 4tiitoo AG, are preparing their WeTab tablet for a September launch.
According to the company's events scheduler, the mass delivery of the WeTab tablet is slated for next month in Germany.
The tablet comes with a 11.6-inch touch screen display (1366 x 768 pixels resolution) and is powered by a 1,66 GHz Intel Atom N450 Pineview-M processor.
Further, it features support for native, Java, Linux, Adobe AIR and Android applications. It also comes with 1 GB RAM and 1.3-megapixel webcam.
WeTab has a magnesium-aluminum build, it measures 295 ×195 ×15mm and weighs 800g (850g for the 3G version).
Other highlights of the tablet include: 2xUSB ports, card reader for SD/SDHC-formats, SIM card slot, support for eBook, music and video formats, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n), built-in GPS receiver (only the 3G version).
The sales package of the tablet includes various accessories, such as: dock, case and sleeve, wireless keyboard, as well as broad support for standard PC peripherals.
WeTab Android tablet will be available in two versions: the basic version with 16GB+ and WLAN, and upgraded WeTab 3G, which features 32 GB+, WLAN, 3G, GPS, and full HD 1080p through HDMI.
While the standard WeTab tablet will be shipping for 449 Euro, the WeTab 3G model will be available for no less than 569 Euro. Still, it seems that the manufacturer has some subsidies planned from various media and telecommunication partners.
Although the events scheduler of the company is listing the device as being available for mass delivery only in September, the product's data sheet states the following availability calendar: Pre-ordering – April 27th, Roadshow – May 2010, Soft-launch – July 2010, Mass availability – August 2010.
The above calendar is only available for Germany, so the rest of the European countries will probably get the tablet in September. There's no word on a possible overseas launch, but I think it's still premature to talk about it.*Correction appended
Charles Butt, the chairman and CEO of H-E-B and one of Texas’ most prominent philanthropists, made another splash Monday, pledging $50 million to a program that will train public school teachers.
The donation comes in the form of a new scholarship program, Raising Texas Teachers, which will be run by the Butt-founded Raise Your Hand Texas Foundation. Ten schools, including the University of Texas at Austin and the University of North Texas at Dallas, will receive funding this year for student scholarships. Eventually, the program will give 500 college students $8,000 per year to help them pursue teaching certifications.
“To improve academic achievement, it is critical that Texas elevate the status of the teaching profession, strengthen the existing pool of aspiring teachers, and inspire our most talented high school graduates to consider a career in teaching,” Butt said in a news release.
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Earlier this year, Butt, the billionaire leader of the Texas-based grocery chain, pledged an additional $100 million to the creation of the Holdsworth Center, a nonprofit that works with state school districts to strengthen their leadership programs.
Thea Ulrich-Lewis, a research and program associate for Raise Your Hand Texas, said Raising Texas Teachers will also help universities that don’t receive scholarship money improve their teacher prep programs.
The announcement of the $50 million commitment came on the day that Gov. Greg Abbott formally called legislators back to Austin for a summer special legislative session. Previously, Abbott had advocated for a $1,000 raise for Texas teachers. He tweaked that language Monday, calling for an increase in average salaries and “legislation to provide a more flexible and rewarding salary and benefit system for Texas teachers."
Mark Daniels, a UT-Austin math professor and the co-director of the school’s UTeach teacher prep program in natural sciences, said although state-funded salary and benefit increases would be nice for teachers, Butt’s gift shows that there is more than one way to make teaching in Texas more enticing to students.
“If we can’t directly raise teacher salaries, perhaps we can relieve some of the burden in paying for undergraduate education and loans that have to be paid off after graduation,” he said.
Daniels spoke with reporters Monday at UT-Austin while a UTeach student taught Austin-area middle schoolers as part of a summer program.
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Cinthia Salinas, chair of curriculum and instruction at UT-Austin's College of Education, said both increasing funding — and providing other support like more planning time — are important when it comes to generating interest in teaching among college students.
“Teachers are the fundamental building block that determine whether schools are going to be successful,” she said.
Disclosure: H-E-B, Charles Butt, Raise Your Hand Texas and the University of Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors is available here.
Correction: A previous version of this story gave an incorrect title for Cinthia Salinas and misspelled her name.Jeffrey Toobin writes this week about an unpublished dissent to Citizens United by retired Justice David Souter
Photograph by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.
The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin this week revealed juicy bits from the Supreme Court’s deliberations as it considered Citizens United, the thunderous case in which the court allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums on candidate elections, paving the way for big-spending super PACs. Toobin told of a secret draft Citizens United dissent by Justice David Souter that has never been released—a draft that Souter, who has since retired, should now make public.
Here’s the backdrop: Before Citizens United, the court twice upheld corporate spending limits, requiring that for-profit corporations spend money on elections only through political action committees funded by executives and shareholders. The court heard the Citizens United plaintiff’s challenge to those spending limits, on free-speech grounds, in March 2009, with a decision expected at the end of the term in June. In late April, Justice David Souter announced his retirement after the term’s end: Citizens United would be his last huge case. The court had an easy way to rule narrowly, without overturning the longstanding federal law barring corporations from spending their money on elections. But at the end of June, the court handed down no ruling, instead asking for more briefing on whether it should overrule the older cases that had upheld corporate spending limits. On the day the court issued that order, I wrote a Slate column speculating on the motivations: Maybe Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, who had not yet spoken on those earlier cases, did not want to overrule them on Justice Souter’s last day on the court, since he’d been an ardent defender of campaign finance laws.
Toobin’s reporting, based upon unnamed sources, tells a different story: That spring, the court’s conservative majority of five was ready to overturn the earlier cases upholding limits on corporate money in elections. In response, he reports, “Souter wrote a dissent that aired some of the Court’s dirty laundry. By definition, dissents challenge the legal conclusions of the majority, but Souter accused the Chief Justice of violating the Court’s own procedures to engineer the result he wanted.” Toobin doesn’t give details, but one point Souter was likely making was that the court was violating its rule against deciding issues the parties didn’t raise and the court didn’t ask them to address. Roberts, worried that Souter’s “bridge-burning farewell” would “damage the Court’s credibility,” maneuvered to have the case rebriefed and reargued the following term, which would remove the objection that the conservative majority was sandbagging the moderate-liberal minority.
Supreme Court watchers Tom Goldstein and Jonathan Adler have justifiably asked whether Toobin overreached in criticizing Chief Justice Roberts’ handling of the case, but the more interesting question is about the status of Justice Souter’s still secret and apparently blazing draft dissent. No law prevents retired Justices from releasing whatever papers they want, and they have adopted varying stances. Justice Souter has been among the most conservative, barring release of his papers for 50 years. Here’s why Souter should nonetheless release the dissent now—and if he won’t do it, why Justice John Paul Stevens (who has not been shy about speaking out about the wrongheadedness of Citizens United), and who has also since retired, should do so.
To begin with, the dispute at the heart of Citizens United is back before the court in a case out of Montana. The justices have already stayed a ruling by Montana’s highest court that thumbed its nose at Citizens United by holding that Montana could bar corporate money from elections, given the state’s history of corruption. The stay was accompanied by a condemnation of big money in elections from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A decision on whether the justices will hear the Montana decision or simply reverse it without argument is expected soon. Justice Souter was one of the court’s most passionate and articulate thinkers about campaign finance, and his dissent in Citizens United likely makes a top-notch argument for the constitutionality of corporate spending limits—an argument that’s directly relevant to the Montana case. Airing his dissent could help arguments against Citizens United we already have, in the published dissent of Justice Stevens, which is somewhat meandering and ineffective—not one of his best. Souter’s retirement is no reason for him to keep quiet. Justice O’Connor, after all, has been crusading against state judicial elections since she left the bench. Justice Souter cares deeply about campaign finance—why not make this his continuing cause?
The Souter opinion also might reveal just how far the conservative justices on the Supreme Court were willing to go to reach out and grab Citizens United. The court is decidedly not a place in which justice-umpires simply call balls and strikes, and Souter could remind us of that in the run-up to June’s rulings on health care reform and Arizona’s immigration law. Better to have a clear understanding of how ideology plays into some of the court’s decisions than to preserve an illusion of pure lawyerly analysis.
The chances that Souter, an intensely private person, will do as I’m suggesting are admittedly low. Stevens probably won’t publish Souter’s dissent either. But they should, because this isn’t about airing the court’s dirty laundry. It’s about telling the truth about how the court handed down Citizens United and making the best argument for why it should be overturned—and that would be a real public service.Winners announced for Ontario Brewing Awards 2015
Toronto, ON – The annual Ontario Brewing Awards were announced at a gala hosted this evening at Corus Entertainment spanning 29 beer style categories.
North American Light Lager
Gold: Cool Beer Brewing Co. – Stonewall Light
Silver: Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery – Antigravity
Bronze: Laker Brewing Company – Laker Light
North American Lager
Gold: Triple Bogey Brewing Co. – Premium Lager
Silver: Laker Brewing Company – Laker Lager
Bronze: Sleeman Breweries – Original Draught
Pilsner
Gold: Steam Whistle – Pilsner
Silver: Creemore Springs Brewery Ltd – Lot 9
Bronze: Kichesippi Beer Co. – Donny’s Dort
Amber Lager
Gold: Old Flame Brewing Co.- Red
Silver: Hop City Brewing Co.- Barking Squirrel
Bronze: Cool Beer Brewing Co. – Millennium Buzz
Dark Lager
Gold: Silversmith Brewing Company – Black Lager
Silver: Hop City Brewing Co. – 8th Sin Black Lager
Bronze: F&M Brewery- StoneHammer Dunkel
Bock
Gold: Lake of Bays Brewing Company – Crazy Eyes Darcy Tucker
Silver: Creemore Springs Brewery Ltd – UrBock
Bronze: Cameron’s Brewing Co. – Rye Pale Ale
Honey / Maple Beers
Gold: Haliburton Highlands Brewing – Honey Brown Ale
Silver: Railway City Brewing Co. – Shambock
Bronze: The 3 Brewers – Maple Ale
Hefeweizen
Gold: Side Launch Brewing Company – Wheat
Silver: Smithworks Brewing Company – Hefeweizen
Bronze: Muskoka Brewery – Summer Weiss
Witbier
Gold: Mill St. Brewery – Belgian Wit
Silver |
. Harry managed to save Ginny and destroy the diary (CS17). At the time, he didn’t understand what the implications of this were, but Dumbledore began to suspect that Voldemort had used the book as a Horcrux. Dumbledore began to investigate this possibility (HBP17).
The hatred aimed at him by Professor Snape was explained to some extent during Harry’s third year. His new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin, turned out to have been a close friend of James Potter. Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, was suspected of trying to kill Harry, but was in fact trying to protect him from Peter Pettigrew, in disguise as a rat. In a dramatic confrontation, Pettigrew was revealed and nearly executed by Lupin and Sirius, but Harry spared his life (PA18, 19). The story of his father’s friendship with Sirius and Lupin and his hatred of Snape came out. Snape, it appeared, had transferred his hatred of James to Harry.
In his fourth year, Harry found himself part of a nefarious plan aimed at getting him away from the protection of Dumbledore; Voldemort thought he needed Harry’s blood to regain his body. Harry was startled to find himself the unwilling fourth champion in the Triwizard tournament (GF16), the last prize of which had been transformed into a Portkey. He was whisked away to a lonely graveyard where he was tied up and his blood used in a ritual that resulted in Voldemort’s rebirth (GF32). The Dark Lord called his Death Eaters to him and then dueled Harry. Unexpectedly, Harry and Voldemort found that their wands, when used against each other, created a strange effect where phantom forms of the people Voldemort had killed appeared. These included James and Lily, and they gave Harry the strength he needed to break the effect and run. He managed to grab the Portkey and return to Hogwarts, where he revealed that Voldemort had returned (GF33, 34).
When he came back to Hogwarts for his fifth year, Harry discovered that no one believed him about Voldemort’s rebirth. In fact, the Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge was actively trying to discredit Harry by making it seem that he was mad or seeking glory. Fudge assigned his assistant, Dolores Umbridge, to Hogwarts (OP12) and Harry quickly ran afoul of her. She stopped him playing Quidditch, she tried to force him to admit that he was lying about Voldemort, and refused to allow students to learn to use offensive and defensive spells, preferring them to simply read about the theory. Harry gathered a group of students called Dumbledore’s Army and trained them himself (OP18). All through that year, Harry found that his scar was giving him a painful connection to Voldemort’s thoughts. Voldemort realized this as well, and used that connection to invade his dreams and draw Harry to the Ministry of Magic to retrieve a recording of the Prophecy about the two of them which was stored there (OP34). Voldemort had only heard part of it and wanted to know the rest to try to understand what went wrong in the graveyard battle. Harry went to the Ministry and fought with the Death Eaters there, but in the end it is Dumbledore who battled Voldemort, and the Dark Lord fled once again (OP37).
Harry had to face the reality of his situation. Because of various circumstances, he and he alone could defeat Voldemort. He came out of his horrible fifth year determined to do whatever he had to do to make that happen. Dumbledore began to teach Harry more about Voldemort’s past (HBP9). Together they learned that Voldemort had created a series ofHorcruxes to split his soul into seven parts and thereby gain immortality. Harry would have to destroy the Horcruxes before he tried to kill Voldemort. Harry accompanied Dumbledore on a quest to find one of the Horcruxes and Dumbledore was seriously injured by a potion (HBP26). When they returned, the found a battle underway as Death Eaters had infiltrated the castle. Dumbledore flew to the topmost tower where a Dark Mark was burning and was killed there by Snape (HBP27). Harry prepared himself for what was to come.
The Horcrux hunt and the Deathly Hallows
Harry never returned to Hogwarts for his seventh year; the Ministry fell to Voldemort during the summer, and Dumbledore had told him that he urgently needed to find the four remaining Horcruxes. Ron and Hermione spent next nine months in hiding trying to locate and destroy the Horcruxes. First they found the locket Horcrux by infiltrating the Ministry (destroyed by Ron with Gryffindor’s Sword) (DH13, 19). The second, Hufflepuff’s cup, was obtained by breaking into a vault in Gringotts (DH26). The remaining Horcruxes were Voldemort’s snake Nagini, and some unknown object possibly associated with Ravenclaw. Along the way they learned about the Deathly Hallows, three powerful magic items which would supposedly make a person the master of death (DH21). The thought of all that power within reach threatened to distract Harry from the Horcrux quest, but after Dobby died, Harry was able to see what needed to be done more clearly. The trio left for Hogwarts.
But time was running out. Voldemort had finally discovered that Harry was seeking his Horcruxes, and decided to trap Harry at the school (DH31). As the battle began, Harry searched for and found the unknown Horcrux, the Diadem of Ravenclaw (DH30, 31). With Ron and Hermione’s help (and inadvertently Crabbe’s), he destroyed the Cup and the Diadem (DH31); only the snake was left. Harry sought Voldemort, knowing Nagini would be nearby, and arrived in time to witness Voldemort’s murder of Severus Snape and collect the memories Snape released to him. Snape’s memories were shocking. Harry learned of Snape’s unrequited love for his mother Lily, his reason for his loyalty to Dumbledore, and that he himself contained a Horcrux. Harry realized that he had to die if Voldemort was ever to be killed, and so willingly went into the Forest to sacrifice himself (DH34) where he stepped in front of Voldemort and was killed.
But he didn’t die (DH35), because of the blood they shared during Voldemort’s rebirthing three years ago. Voldemort had unknowingly protected the one person who could kill him. Voldemort also did not realize that his attempt to become the master of the Elder wand was still unsuccessful. Unbeknownst to the Dark Lord, it was Harry who was now the master of that wand.
Voldemort approached the castle with Harry’s supposedly dead body and demanded that all surrender. Not surprisingly, no one did. Neville Longbottom, who at one time it seemed the prophecy may have been referring to, stood boldly in front of Voldemort and defied him, then killed the snake. That was the last Horcrux to go. The battle raged into the Entrance Hall and from there to the Great Hall, where Harry finally faced Voldemort. Harry offered him one last chance, that he feel some remorse. Voldemort refused and tried once again to kill Harry. Harry cast a disarming charm and the Elder wand, recognizing its master, flew to him. Voldemort’s spell rebounded back on himself, and he was killed (DH35).
Harry married Ginny Weasley and they had three children; James, Albus Severus, and Lily (DH/e). Harry became an Auror at the age of 17 and eventually became head of the Auror Office in 2007 (BLC, JKR).
BIRTHDATE & NAME MEANINGS
Birth name: Harry James Potter.
First name: Harry, possibly named after Henry “Harry” Potter, a relative who served in the Wizengamot from 1913 to 1921 (Pm).
Middle name: James, after his father (Sch2, OP8).
Other names: ‘The boy who lived;’ ‘Saint Potter, the Mudblood’s friend’ (–Draco, CS12); ‘the Chosen One’ (HBP3) ‘Parry Otter, the Chosen Boy’ (–Horace Slughorn, HBP22), ‘Undesirable Number One’ in 1997 and 1998 (DH16).
Birthdate: 31 July 1980, the same birthday (not year) as Rowling.
Citations: Harry is mentioned in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century (PS6).
JKR’s Wizard of the Month for October 2007 (JKR). APPEARANCE
Eye color: Brilliant green, the same as his mother’s; his green eyes are all that keeps him from looking just like his father (OP3).
Hair color: Black; perpetually messy, sticks up in the back, same as his father’s.
Other characteristics: Round glasses; at the age of 11 he was short and thin, with knobbly knees. Lightning-bolt scar on forehead.
From the books: “Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. … Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape …. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.” (PS2)
Tattoo? Nah. During Harry’s sixth year it was rumored that he had a Hippogriff tattooed on his chest. Ginny had a laugh on them by telling them it wasn’t a Hippogriff, it was a Hungarian Horntail (HBP25). THE SCARS
“Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even — but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yer famous, Harry.” (PS4) Dumbledore looked very intensely at Harry for a moment, and then said, “I have a theory, no more than that … It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred.”
“But … why?”
“Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed,” said Dumbledore. “That is no ordinary scar.” (GF30) New scar: Ever since his fifth year, Harry has also had a self-inflicted scar: “I must not tell lies” is now permanently etched on the back of his right hand (HBP16). HOGWARTS
First year: 1991.
House: Gryffindor.
Yule Ball date: Parvati Patil.
Earned 7 OWLs (9 attempted): Astronomy A; Care of Magical Creatures E; Charms E; Defense Against the Dark Arts O; Divination P;Herbology E; History of Magic D; Potions E; Transfiguration E. (HBP5). These grades qualified Harry for a career as an Auror.
Quidditch: Seeker for Gryffindor House team 1991 – 1997 (youngest player for a House team in a hundred years). Captain of the team during his sixth year (HBP6).
Awards, etc.: Quidditch Cup; Special Award for Services to the School (CS18); Triwizard Tournament Champion.
Other schools: Before he was admitted to Hogwarts, Harry was to attend Stonewall High, the local public school (PS3). Later, the Dursleys explain Harry’s absence during the school year away by telling people that he attends St. Brutus’s Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys, a “first-rate institution for hopeless cases.” (PA2, GF1). SKILLS, MAGICAL DEVICES, ETC.
Wand: Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple; an unusual combination. It is the “brother” to Lord Voldemort’s wand (PS5), in that both contain a feather from Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes (GF36). This wand was broken during the escape from the Bathilda Bagshot’s house, and Harry was wandless until Ron returned with a blackthorn wand he had captured from snatchers. The blackthorn wand was noticeably clumsy and less powerful. Luckily Harry was able to win Draco’s, Bellatrix’s and Womtail’s wands during the escape from the Malfoy mansion. Of the three, Draco’s (hawthorn and unicorn hair, 10 inches, reasonably springy), was the friendliest (DH24) so Harry used this one until he could fix his original holly wand (DH36).
Broomstick: Nimbus 2000 (1991-3), Firebolt (1994-97).
Other devices: Invisibility cloak, Marauder’s Map, Pocket Sneakoscope, two-way mirror (OP), two-way mirror shard (DH), Sword of Gryffindor, Resurrection Stone, Elder Wand (DH). See also Christmas gifts chart below for other devices that Harry owns.
Socks: Socks with spiders on them (PS2) ; Dobby gave him red (with broomsticks) and green socks (with Snitches) for Christmas (GF23).
Organizations & affiliations: Gryffindor Quidditch Seeker and team captain; Dumbledore’s Army; Slug Club.
Career: While in school, Harry decided he wanted to be an Auror (OP), and his wish came true. After Voldemort was killed, new Minister of Magic Kingsley Shacklebolt asked Harry to become an Auror. Harry reformed the Auror Department and became its Head in 2007 (JKR).
Skills: A “natural” Quidditch player (PS); a Parselmouth until 1998 (CS, BLC); can cast spells without a wand; senses the presence of others;prescient dreams; particularly skilled in Defense against the Dark Arts; appears to be resistant to the Imperius Curse and Veelas. Had difficulty learning Occlumency, but finally figured it out in 1998.
Patronus: Stag, clearly referring to his father’s Animagus form.
Worst fear/memory: Harry relives the death of his parents when dementors are close by.
Boggart: A dementor.
Amortentia (love potion) smells: “treacle tart, the woody smell of a broomstick handle, and something flowery he thought he might have smelled at the Burrow” (HBP9).
Criminal? Harry was named “Undesirable Number One” by the Death Eater-controlled Ministry. A ten-thousand-Galleon reward was set for his capture (DH16). PROPHECIES
“It Will Happen Tonight.”
“The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight … the Servant will break free and set out to rejoin his Master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant’s aid, greater and more terrible that ever he was. Tonight … before midnight … the servant will set out to rejoin his Master …” (Trelawney, PA16) Harry will “live to a ripe old age, become Minister for Magic and have twelve children.” (Trelawney, OP26) “The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches … Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … And the Dark Lord will mark him as equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.” (Trelawney, OP37) [More on Sybill Trelawney] [JKR on Prophecies (Madam Scoop’s Index)] [List of all Trelawney’s known predictions] HARRY’S DREAMS [more on Harry’s dreams…] A flying motorcycle (PS2).
Harry wears Quirrell’s turban which tells him he must transfer to Slytherin because it is his destiny. Malfoy, Snape and green light too (PS7).
On show in a zoo, labeled “Underage Wizard.” Wakes up from the dream to see Ron at the window in the Ford Anglia (CS2).
Quidditch dream where he is late to a game and the Slytherin team arrives riding dragons. He is flying at a high speed when he realizes that he forgot his Firebolt and falls through the air (PA15).
Mermaid from the bathroom torments Harry with his own broomstick (then Dobby wakes him up) (GF26).
Riding on an eagle owl soaring toward Riddle house to a room where there are two men speaking, and a snake. Overhears conversation between LV and Wormtail about someone being killed to cover up Wormtail’s blunder (GF29).
“Many-legged creatures” with cannons for heads cantering up and down the stairs at Weasley house. Hagrid tells him they’ll be studying weapons this term (OP6).
Dreams about the corridor in the MoM Department of Mysteries begin in August when he is staying at 12 Grimmauld Place. (OP6; hereafter referred to as “the corridor dream.”)
Mrs. Weasley sobs over Kreacher’s body watched by Ron and Hermione, who are wearing crowns (then corridor dream again) (OP10).
“He was not going to share his dreams with anyone. He knew perfectly well what his regular nightmare about a graveyard meant.” (OP12).
Harry dreamed he was back in the Room of Requirement. Cho was accusing him of luring her there under false pretenses; she said that he had promised her a hundred and fifty Chocolate Frog cards if she showed up. Then the dream changes when Harry dreams he is Nagini and “witnesses” the actual attack on Arthur Weasley (OP21).
Neville and Professor Sprout waltz around the Room of Requirement while Professor McGonagall plays the bagpipes. Turns into the corridor dream (OP).
Ron chases him with a Quidditch bat (HBP14).
Dreams of Ginny (HBP15, 22).
Malfoy turns into Slughorn, then Snape (HBP21).
Cups, lockets and other objects that are just out of reach; Dumbledore gives him a ladder but it turns to snakes (HBP30).
Harry initially thinks his visions of Voldemort are dreams (DH).
Nagini, the cracked stone in the Peverell ring, and a wreath of Christmas roses (DH19).
Family Ancestry: Half-blood.
Mother: Lily (Evans) Potter; killed 31 Oct 1981 by Lord Voldemort at Godric’s Hollow.
Father: James Potter; killed 31 Oct 1981 by Lord Voldemort at Godric’s Hollow.
Grandparents: Fleamont and Euphemia Potter
Aunts, Uncles: Petunia Dursley, Vernon Dursley.
Cousins: Dudley Dursley.
Siblings: None.
Childhood: Raised by the Dursleys, his mother’s Muggle sister Petunia and her husband Vernon.
Location of childhood home: four Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey.
Spouse: Ginevra "Ginny" Weasley (DH/e).
Children: James Sirius, Albus Severus, Lily Luna (DH/e, YL), and godfather to Remus's son, Teddy Lupin.
Godfather: Sirius Black; he does not have a godmother (EBF2004).
Pet: Hedwig the owl, killed in the Battle of Seven Potters in July 1997 (DH4). He also owns Buckbeak (renamed 'Witherwings'), but the Hippogriff is cared for by Hagrid.
House-elf: Kreacher, who was inherited from Sirius Black (HBP3).The Atlanta Braves have been in the market for a new spring training home for a couple of years. It appears they my have finally found a match. Sarasota County announced on Tuesday that exclusive negotiations are ongoing between the county and the team, with the Braves targeting a 2019 move-in date according to club Chairman and CEO Terry McGuirk. The new complex is pending a final agreement.
The prospective site is located in the City of North Port, which is along Florida’s Gulf Coast, and would be part of the West Villages development project. The complex would be built off West Villages Parkway and U.S. 41, near the State College of Florida. The city will also play a role in the negotiations and eventual construction should the project be approved. The Braves have been in talks with Sarasota County since March of last year.
“We appreciate the patience of all parties during this process,” McGuirk said in the official release from the county. “This is the perfect location for our team and we couldn’t be more excited to be part of Sarasota County and West Villages.”
Zach Murdock of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports that the current proposal for the complex includes a 6,500 seat stadium, additional practice fields and a sports medicine academy on a 70-acre plot, all at a projected cost of $75-80 million. Murdock adds that McGuirk as well as Braves Vice Chairman John Schuerholz will be in town to meet with Sarasota County and City of North Port officials next week.
County Administrator Tom Harmer has handled the negotiations with the Braves. An agreement could come within the next few months. The county is planning a public update next week with Braves officials in town.
“There’s still a lot of work to do to finalize the terms, agreements and approvals necessary, but this announcement is a major step forward in the efforts to bring the Braves to our area,” Harmer said in the release. “Continuing to expand sports tourism is high on the county’s list, and the opportunity to bring a major sports anchor to the City of North Port could have a significant impact in south county.”
Renderings of #Braves new ST complex from @SRQCountyGov. Would be in the city of North Port, FL, just minutes from Rays in Port Charlotte. pic.twitter.com/gAGLDwHMDA — Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) January 17, 2017
This move would end a two decade stay in the Orlando area for the Braves, who have trained at the Disney Wide World of Sports complex since 1997. In recent years, the team has explored relocation following the exit of many other teams from the immediate area. Sarasota County, Palm Beach County, Collier County and St. Petersburg have all been discussed as prospective spring training sites for the Braves.
Most recently, the Nationals and Astros moved into a joint-complex in West Palm Beach which opens this year, leaving only the Tigers within an hour’s drive of Atlanta’s spring home. If the Braves move to North Port, they would be nestled in an area with favorable commutes to the Rays, Pirates, Red Sox, Twins, Yankees, Phillies, Blue Jays and even the Tigers to a lesser extent.
Grant McAuley covers the Braves and MLB for 92-9 The Game. You can subscribe to the “Around The Big Leagues” podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher. Follow Grant on Twitter.Last week, Nintendo surprised everyone with the announcement of Metroid: Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid II. Here’s another surprise: It’s basically finished. And a fact that’s probably not so surprising: It looks and feels fantastic.
At E3 in Los Angeles last Thursday, in a private room within Nintendo’s VIP booth, I sat down with a copy of Metroid: Samus Returns and played through the first 20 minutes of the game alongside three of the people who worked on it: Yoshio Sakamoto, longtime producer of the Metroid franchise; Jose Luis Marquez, a director at MercurySteam, the company behind the game; and Tim O’Leary, a veteran translator and member of Nintendo’s Treehouse.
A few things stand out. One is that development on the game is complete, according to O’Leary, although we’ll have to wait until September 15 to play it. Another is that it feels more like a brand new 2D Metroid than it does a remake of a Game Boy game. MercurySteam, a studio previously responsible for the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series (which included Mirror of Fate, a sidescrolling 3DS game directed by Marquez), has done an excellent job making Metroid: Samus Returns smooth and satisfying. Samus’ animations are spectacular, her gun feels sufficiently blasty, and the new abilities—which include a visor that lets you spot hidden walls—seem like they’ll be rad. It has been roughly 4,000 years since the last 2D Metroid game, so I am very stoked for this one.
Here’s some footage from Nintendo’s E3 livestream:
And now, some brief thoughts from Yoshio Sakamoto, as translated by O’Leary (and lightly edited for clarity by me):
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On how this whole thing came together:
Sakamoto: It started about two years ago. I’ve been wanting to make a 2D Metroid game for quite a while, and I’ve been thinking about what sort of team I’d like to work with when creating such a game. At some point during all of this, I heard from our folks over at Nintendo of Europe that this developer MercurySteam was interested in making a remake of a classic Metroid game.
I heard MercurySteam and I knew they’d made some Castlevania titles, so I thought it was possible there was an affinity for our title as well. I said, ‘Well, man, I gotta meet these guys, let’s go to Spain.’ So we flew to Spain. MercurySteam had created a small prototype for me to take a look at. I looked at it, talked to them, got a sense of what their team was about, and said, ‘Yeah, let’s see what we can do together.’
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Why it’s on the 3DS and not the Switch:
Sakamoto: That was really my decision. One of the big reasons for that is the 2DS/3DS family have two screens. That lent itself so well to the map screen functionality that I’ve been wanting to put into the game that we hadn’t seen before, the ability to have the map screen always on. So it was a very obvious choice.
I wanted to be able to have that free-aiming mechanic, and the analog stick allowed for us to do that. And Metroid, that series, that world-building, that feeling of where you’re at... that level design, all those things combined really make great use of the glasses-free 3D functionality.
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So if I take that: the 3D functionality, analog stick, second screen, put that all together, and the 3DS [is the best fit].
On why it’s taken so long to make a new 2D Metroid game:
Sakamoto: I’m working on other titles outside of Metroid, of course. I’ve been fairly busy with stuff. There’s a lot of timing involved when all the pieces fall into place, and we have the ability to do some of these things we’ve been thinking about for a long time. I guess for us the timing was two years ago. Or now.
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On how criticism of Metroid: Other M has affected the depiction of Samus
Sakamoto: To be honest, as far as wanting to change that depiction of Samus, I made what I wanted to make. It did give me some momentum, I guess, and the ability to look at Samus from a new viewpoint, and maybe reconsider what I wanted to show about her.
On how 3D and 2D Metroid games are handled at Nintendo:
Sakamoto: There’s no close proximity to those things. We’re not really in communication. Obviously we talk about, ‘Hey what’re you guys doing, this is what we’re doing, let’s not release these [games] all at the same time, or hey maybe we should release these at the same time.’ There’s that level of communication.
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Of course [veteran Nintendo producer Kensuke] Tanabe worked on the Metroid Prime series. And he comes and says, ‘Hey this is what we’re going to be doing,’ and lets us know what’s going on [with his team].
On Sakamoto’s final thoughts:
Sakamoto: I just want people to be able to play it as soon as possible. I think once they play it they’ll understand a lot of the things we’re trying to present this time. They can look forward to having an orthodox Metroid experience, plus new stuff.5 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell apart and could only nervously laugh as Meet The Press host Chuck Todd called him out on not allowing a vote on Obama Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.
Video:
Mitch McConnell cannot answer why he refused to allow even a vote on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee. pic.twitter.com/iOuE9e14fS — Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 2, 2017
Chuck Todd opened this clip with a whopper of an opportunity for McConnell to see where the interview was going and try to find a shred of integrity with which to save himself. Todd asked, “Do you have any regrets on how you treated Merrick Garland (President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee) last year?”
Instead, McConnell chose to double down on an already debunked lie, “No, the tradition had been not to confirm uh vacancies created in the middle of a presidential year. You’d have to go back 80 years to find the last time that happened. It goes back to 1880s to find the last time it happened.”
Then McConnell claimed that everyone knew if the shoe had been on the other foot, Democrats would not have filled a Republican seat in a presidential election year, which not only is inaccurate and nothing but hopeful projection, but is quite a joke considering how eager Democrats were under Obama to roll over and let Republicans stab them in the back just to help the people. McConnell mixed up his words here and was already showing signs of tripping over his lie.
This is typical McConnell, dishing out his already debunked lie to a usually willing press who rarely if ever call him out on the spot.
But Chuck Todd wasn’t having it this Sunday. Chuck Todd called McConnell out. And it is a thing of beauty.
Todd charged, “Well, I understand that, and that’s a rationale to vote against his confirmation. Why not put him up for a vote?”
McConnell expressed his shock at being called out on the specific way his lie doesn’t hold up, even if it were true (and it’s not). “Really?” McConnell asked.
Todd, “Look I”m just asking -”
McConnell again, “Really?” Nervous laugh.
Todd, “Any senator can have a rationale not to vote for a confirmation. Why not put Merrick Garland on the floor and if the rationale is, ‘you know what, too close to an election’, then vote no.”
Mitch McConnell tried his pompous laugh, the one he uses when he tells reporters that he won’t be talking about that topic today, “huh huh huh.”
But it went nowhere, and it sounded nervous.
Taking a deep sucking breath, McConnell launched into a sputterfest, ” Look, ah, I-ah, wa- we were we litigated that last year. The American people decided they wanted Donald Trump to make the nomination, not Hillary Clinton, and what’s before us now Chuck is not what happened last year but the qualifications of Neil Gorsuch.”
McConnell listed off why there were supposedly no principled reasons to vote against Gorsuch.
That’s an interestingly bad choice of defenses, because people got to hear Neil Gorsuch’s qualifications because he was given a hearing, unlike Merrick Garland. And this was exactly Chuck Todd’s point.
Todd explained that it has not actually been litigated according to many Democratic Senators who believe Merrick Garland was mistreated. McConnell tried his laugh again but Todd didn’t leave it.
“Again, what was wrong with allowing Merrick Garland to have an up or down vote?” Todd pushed.
McConnell dug himself back into his old debunked lie, the one where he points at Joe Biden for something Biden said (not did) and cries, “He did it first, mommy!”
Todd ignored the lie and put McConnell in the corner of his own making, asking him if he was prepared to make that a Senate rule, that no Supreme Court nominee would be confirmed in election years, and pointing out how ridiculous it was, he asked if we were headed to not confirming in any even numbered year.
McConnell fake laughed again, attempting to sound condescending, but once again fell short.
McConnell’s exact claim was debunked over a year ago by PolitiFact, and pretty much anyone with a working brain. There is no “longstanding tradition” of not filling a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year.
In March of 2016, PolitiFact ruled on this exact McConnell dodge, and gave it a “false”.
The truth is the Republican Party broke 230 years of precedent by refusing to even let Justice Garland have a hearing, and this was Chuck Todd’s point.
Mitch McConnell led the charge in this ridiculous, unprecedented obstruction and denial of the power the people had given President Obama, not once but twice- with a much larger win than President Trump, and unlike Trump, there were no concerns about illegitimacy hanging over Obama’s head, except by those conspiracy mongers like now President Trump. On the other hand, Trump is under multiple investigations for possible collusion against the U.S. with the Russian government.
Mitch McConnell is rarely called to account for his gross mistreatment of Merrick Garland and indeed the entire Senate and three branches of government system. It was a big moment to watch Chuck Todd call McConnell out, and when McConnell trotted out his usual lies, Todd swerved expertly around the lies to bring them home to their naturally ridiculous conclusion.
The real situation here is McConnell has no legitimate reason for his unprecedented obstruction of Merrick Garland, and he can hardly cling to the rules or tradition as his life jacket since he has been destroying tradition and rules since Obama took office.
Now facing the possible obstruction of a much less qualified and less reasonable person than Merrick Garland, who is a moderate and respected across the aisle unlike the right wing extremist Neil Gorsuch, McConnell will say and do anything to try to bully Democrats into finishing his dirty work. But Democrats are set to filibuster. A candidate is supposed to earn the votes the actual traditional way for good reason and if they can’t, the candidate should be changed – not the rule.
McConnell is desperate to hand Trump a win with Gorsuch, but he doesn’t have a leg to stand on given his own behavior last year. And so it’s nervous laughter topped off with some old, moldy sputtering lies for McConnell.
Image: Screen grab via NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd Mitch McConell
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:Mercedes technical chief Paddy Lowe has backed up Williams Pat Symonds' comments that F1's 2016 challengers will be noticeable louder due to the new exhaust regulations.
Since the new generation of Formula 1 began in 2014 with the introduction of V6 turbo engines with hybrid technology the powertrains have continually been criticised for a lack of noise compared to its predecessors.
Last week Chief Technical Officer at Williams Symonds explained due to the revised exhaust regulations he expects the engines to be a little louder. The change in technical regulations means the engines must include two wastegate pipes in its exhaust system rather than just one.
Lowe has supported his rival's comments and is expecting to have similar levels of volume increase with both teams using Mercedes power units.
"In the last two years we've had a situation where the main exhaust goes through one tailpipe," Lowe explained. "Then we have a thing called the wastegate, which is a way of spilling out any extra pressure from the exhaust system.
"[Now] we have to duct that air separately through an extra tailpipe intended to make more noise. It will work, and we'll see how much louder they'll be. Some measurements have been made in labs and they've seen some significant increases.
"The reason for that is the wastegate was causing a sort of silencing of the main exhaust pipe, so by removing it from the main exhaust pipe we have less silencing."Nextbit recently announced that it plans to ship a Verizon version of the Nextbit Robin and, following that announcement, it said it heard from a lot of Sprint customers that they, too, wanted a CDMA option. Nextbit on Wednesday officially announced that it will indeed cater to Sprint customers with a Sprint SKU of the smartphone.
Nextbit said that “clearly, operators are excited about this, not just our Kickstarter backers,” which suggests that perhaps Sprint had a roll in getting this to the table. “They are letting us ship an open phone and want to be part of a cloud-based future,” a spokesperson told TechnoBuffalo in an email announcing the news.
The phone will be priced at $349 and backers will have the option to choose it at the end of the Kickstarter campaign, when GSM and CDMA models will be available for selection. Wondering about those bands? Here’s a look, as provided by Nextbit:
GSM (AT&T and T-Mobile)
GSM 850/900/1800/1900
WCDMA 850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100
LTE Bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/28
CDMA (Verizon and Sprint)SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Police officers portrayed as pigs in a student art exhibit at Sac State is gaining attention.
Jacob Lewis is a senior art student and said there’s more than meets the eye in his paintings.
“There’s a lot of deeper meanings in there,” he said.
Lewis said it’s his political avenue to express feelings of injustice.
“I need to send a message with my work rather than paint something that looks cool,” he said.
ALSO READ: Berkeley Loosens Rules On Police Pepper-Spraying Protesters
Which is why he started painting pigs in uniforms last year during the controversial police brutality.
One is seen shooting aimlessly with a bandana around his eyes and another depicted as a slob. He even painted “F— the police.”
“Not all cops are to blame for the situation, but I’m basically just trying to bring attention to the fact that there are a lot of bad cops out there,” Lewis said.
But others believe it’s offensive and not art, especially Arianna Perez who’s a grad student going into law enforcement.
“Police officers |
And I gave you all the money I had!
It makes no sense to leave you alive if that’s all you got!
Better kill him. Perhaps it is better business.
Nothing personal, you see? Simple economics.
Ahhh!
hears! Do you know who we are?
yes, they are dead …
Pg 2
And I am Masacre!
Pg 3
Thanks stranger.
I’m not a stranger. I am Masacre!
III ya-ya-ya, I can not hear, stranger!!!
And definitely I do not catch your name!
I saw it already. you worry the leader of a local gang
the skull of jade. eh … I mean I do not know what you’re talking about stranger.
Yep, that one. do not worry. I’m on my way to pay him a little visit.
What…? are you serious?
Do you think I’m famous for my jokes?
But … even kill the skull of jade, uh … is a criminal who is linked with the police, and they take orders from federal, and do not forget the Illuminati!
All out there!
the night is young…
do not go out and close the door well.
Pg 4-5
Good night, Inspector Gordon.
see you tomorrow, Ed.
Curse.
Again.
Puff
Pant
The police station had to be the tallest building in the city …
Puff
Pant
There are stairs inside, Masacre
Ahem … me. Sorry if I scared you, James Gordon, that was not my intention. Because I am like the wind.
You didn’t scare me, Masacre, your contraption can be heard a kilometer away. you have to learn to be more cautious.
lucky that my contraption, as you call it, can not hear you.
I think I heard gunshots a while ago
Have you been drinking (really not sure how this bit should read) Do you want to talk about that, partner?
We are not partners! You’re a maniac!
And you’re my maniac policeman. Do you have what I need?
Uou risk everything with this crusade. Not only your life, but mine and those of many innocents.
So I have to get the location of the skull of jade on the other side?
Pg 6
Is that your black book containing the data of all the criminals of the city in your front pocket, or are your genitals flat and square.
It’s my job, I’m a detective for now. what’s your story? Why are you crazy for criminals? Did organized crime kill your parents?
You ask a lot of questions.
I’m not laughing. Why can’t you be serious? I can’ hide you any longer.
And you don’t have to. First step: I will kill all the criminals of our city. step B: you stay well and straighten out the police. I see no problem.
So: You will not give me the address … how much you are paying jade skull, Inspector Jaime Gordon?
I know you will not kill me
you know me very well …
but I will hurt you
AHH!!!
Pg 7
massacre, I have glass in my ass.
Language! Sorry, I didn’t know you had installed a projector. The holes for my eyes are too small.
The light is the sign to warn when we need you. I was going to show you tonight …
What did you say, my friend? I did not hear you. I think my ears are ringing…
Maybe … once … your last trip on a motorcycle?
Now I have the address. Sleeping the sleep of the just, my friend. And forgive what they did to your buttocks.
Mmm
It might get loud.
Pg 8
Once again, I bring justice.
Crime is everywhere.
Deadpool, my friend, we meet again. I remember that day, not so long ago, which changed my life, and I promise …
… That after I return to Mexico, I will travel to the United States and I will offer my machetes to the man who inspired me when I gave up my life to fight for the weakest.
For justice!!!
Yes, for justice!
For justice!!!
Now, to take my enemies by surprise!
Pg 9
Look at this place.
The excess.
Mmm, I must be careful with the guards. They will be alerted with an almost inaudible sound
Deeper julita!
AHH!
Pg 10
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining me this evening.
We are here to solve our problem.
The helicopter is coming, jade skull!
I took all threats seriously to get where I am. I bargained in order to receive the help of a specialist from the north.
Soon, our problem with the righteous will be just a problem with a corpse.
But sir … say that Masacre is a bloodthirsty demon!
Nobody will die today and everyone will live forever.
Viva!
Pg 11
What kind of idiot calls himself Masacre?
Welcome to Mexico, organizer.
Here’s the brute, as you asked. Courtesy of your friends in “The Company”
I’d be surprised if the righteous appeared now!
Cowabunga!!! I am an American surfer like Bart Spicolli.
Well, Bart Spicolli … came to die!
No, you first.
Dare to attack us?!
Pg 12-13
To battle!
This moment could not be more timely. Release the assassin.
You heard him. Time to go to work, specialist.
All fine dining. Oh my God! Is that crab salad?
You didn’t give me any! You didn’t give me any!
By the skull!
My steel is still thirsty!
Graaargh!
You cannot dodge bullets forever!
Agreed! So now you’re disarmed.
Agggghhhhh!!! This is not how it should go!!!
Thanks for the hand!
Corndogs!!!
Pg 15
I am the specialist and no bullet can hurt.
I’m not impressed
Neither is my steel!
Be quiet!
I’m your Yoko Ono and Mr. Mark David Chapman!
O-only mariachis.
You’re wrong, were mariachis.
Honestly, I did not want to hurt the band. If you’re going to play a song by Radiohead …
I guess that “creep” is applicable.
Yesss!!!
Roast … for one!
Did you forget your worst enemy?!
Of course not!
Yesss!!!
This ends now, Masacre.
Pg 16
That’s what I said.
Fool. This will cost you more than you could know. Do you think that the skull of jade operated alone?
Yea, so, Kitty? So that’s how I’m going to die?
That would be a way to end all this. You could kill me, the antihero, the just avenger of this story …
Or you could attack the well dressed gringo …
… you know, for justice.
What the hell?
Pg 17
Do not let this cat kill me.
I feel sorry for the spoiled gringo now, big kitty.
Thank you, my new friend of mine. I will call you…
Quiet, Masacre, or my men will shoot!
Quiet, Masacre is a horrible name for a cat.
How did I get here? My friend I want to do the right thing, but after what I went through I do not want to.
I want to continue the Deadpool wave.
If I get into trouble whenever I wonder: who would kill Deadpool?
Pg 18
Not just the typical American idiot. He’s an idiot American CIA!
Coff Coff He’s right. The CIA will publicly deny that they knew anything about this, and disown the "wayward” agent you killed, but privately they’ll avenge me.
But … I can make it right, if you take me to a hospital.
I know a good hospital …
… with a very good morgue!
…fool! sometimes it’s better not to kill!
Pg 19
Our society is ended.
That’s what I said from the beginning.
I know I’ve asked for too much, but. Could you deliver this box to the local church? I would do it, but I need to make one last stop before leaving town.
Of course, if you promise you’ll go.
And never come back! It’s very dangerous.
I thought you’d never go away! Funerals will last for several days. There’s not enough people to clean the blood off the streets.
What is this abberation?
Goodbye to more false or worst priests in history. You are now America’s problem.
Pg 20
Now we head north. Ready Justice?
I will go to America! I will use my machetes to serve Deadpool!
.
To be continued … in the pages of Deadpool, the upstart foreign publisher Marvel comics!HB Studios: No licenses, no problem The huge cost of licensing has seen many sports neglected by big publishers - HB Studios is working on the solution
Matthew Handrahan Editor-in-Chief Monday 23rd June 2014 Share this article Share
Companies in this article HB Studios
The small town of Lunenberg has a population of 2,300 people. In the summer, when its transient residents return to occupy their second homes, that number might hit 5,000. It's a small, verdant, strikingly picturesque place, and it's the home of HB Studios, an independent console developer of 14-years standing, which looked beyond more obvious Canadian locales to make its home in this remote stretch of Nova Scotia's coastline.
In case you're out of the loop, the last decade or so has been particularly tough on independent studios whose revenue depended on the market for packaged console games. The list of companies that either sold up or burned out in that period is both long and distinguished, so it's heartening to encounter a survivor like HB. According to Peter Garcin, an executive producer at the studio, that ability to "weather the storm" can be attributed to a range of influences - including a long and mutually beneficial relationship with EA - but its unlikely location has played a pivotal role.
"How, as a smaller independent developer, can you make sports games in a more accessible way?"
"It's a way of life thing," he says. "You're close to the beach, there's a ton of outdoor activities, the cost of living is really low, it's naturally beautiful, no traffic, no gridlock every morning. Those are really, really big positives.
"We have people who've been here for ten years. Most people, once they come, they don't leave. Retention is not usually a challenge. It's visibility - making sure people know that we exist."
When I talked to Frontier's David Walsh recently - who, incidentally, played a key role in establishing Frontier's Nova Scotia outpost - he emphasised the importance of people to surviving and succeeding as an independent developer; building your team carefully, and keeping everybody happy and fulfilled enough to stay. The games industry has a reputation for doing just the opposite, particularly on console releases with big budgets and rigid release schedules. HB is a veteran of just that kind of product, and yet Garcin and producer Anthony Kyne seem to be anything but stressed out game developers.
When it comes to winning the fight against crunch and burnout, being away from busy, expensive cities like Montreal and San Francisco can be a great asset. According to Kyne, it's easier to take the odd late night when you have Lunenberg just outside the window.
"Before I spoke to HB I didn't know there was a [development] community in Nova Scotia," says Kyne, a veteran British developer who joined the studio in 2011. "After living in London, where I commuted for an hour each way every single day, being able to drive three minutes to get to work, pop home at lunchtime, and get out of the office at 4.30 and play a round of golf. It's a really nice place to work. On the golf game we're doing, I can go home for dinner and come back to the office to get more work done."
That "golf game" is The Golf Club, HB's most ambitious self-published game to date, and an attempt to remedy an unfortunate side-effect of the way game development has changed. HP spent a decade working on franchises for the likes of EA, Konami and THQ, often on niche sports like rugby and cricket. As rising costs pushed publishers towards fewer, bigger games the audience for those sports no longer justified the investment, and so the niche franchises dried up. The way Garcin sees it, an independent studio like HB is well placed to fill the gaps left by that trend.
"We didn't need licenses. I remember putting George Courtney, the football referee, on the front of a box and nobody said a word"
"That's what we're trying to figure out: How, as a smaller independent developer, can you make sports games in a more accessible way? We're finding a way to do those well, even though they can't support the budgets that FIFA and Madden have. That's really important to us. As a creative studio, as a business, how do develop titles of that scale effectively, sustainably, and in a way that's still compelling to players as well."
A big problem with sports games for any company without vast resources at its disposal are licensing costs, which Kyne says have spiralled upwards since his earliest work in the genre, on games like Kick Off, Championship Manager and Player Manager. Today, if you want to tackle a specific sport and you aren't EA or Take Two the general rule is to abstract as much as possible; back then, it was anything goes.
"We didn't need licenses," Kyne says. "I remember putting George Courtney, the [football] referee, on the front of a box, and nobody said a word. We had Andy Gray on Kick Off 2. I mean, it was wrong, and it's better now that people are earning some money out of it, but it's just become stupid in terms of the expense.
"Look at a sport like Formula One. I had a friend who worked at Sony on that franchise, and Formula One basically owns the game. They [Sony] couldn't do anything to it without them having final say. You're restricted in development and it's costing you millions, so even breaking even is really hard."
Neither Kyne or Garcin argue the impossibility of official licensing as a good thing, exactly, but they do believe it can be turned to the studio's advantage. HB doesn't want to tread the same fanciful path as Mario Golf and Everybody's Golf, but it's also very aware of the subtle creative impact all those brands and likenesses have on a series like Tiger Woods PGA Tour - HB has worked on several entries in the series, after all, and it had assembled a team to work on Tiger Woods 15 before the project was cancelled by EA.
Guided by the huge investment in licensing deals, the biggest sports franchises all tend towards a presentation and structure that mimics broadcast TV. This is'realistic' in terms of the way people tend to see the sport at its highest level, but it's still an abstraction of what sport is actually like to play. With The Golf Club, HB wants to capture the experience of being out on the course, rather than the experience of an ESPN broadcast.
"That's what we try to focus on," Garcin says. "What's the actual game? What do people really like to do? How do we make that the core loop, and make that as good as possible?"
"These smaller sports can't sustain an annual release, but they can sustain ongoing content and continual community engagement"
The direction The Golf Club will take when it's released later this year - HB is aiming for the summer - will largely be decided by its community, but Garcin and Kyne are keen to avoid another quality associated with sports franchises: annualised releases. Golf, in particular, has never been well suited to justifying a new $60 purchase every 12 months, so HB is building The Golf Club to be a service; a rock solid game as the platform, with a broad range social features and regular updates to sustain the interest of its audience. With total freedom from the details of the professional sport and effective use of its community, there isn't much of a reason that we'll ever see The Golf Club 2.
"That's almost exactly how we see Golf Club. It's not an annualised thing that we're looking to do," says Garcin. "We're committed to supporting this post-launch. These smaller sports can't sustain an annual release, but they can sustain ongoing content, and ongoing updates, and continual community engagement. It offers up so many possibilities, as well: persistence of play across seasons and years. That's the direction we're going.
"It's an evolutionary thing for us. We want to get it out there and see how it evolves within the community, and really respond to the content and modes that people want to see in the game. We'll take it from there, but it's exploratory.. It's new for us. No other sports games are really doing this."The world of football was plunged into mourning on Monday following the death of Mexican player Antonio de Nigris, who suffered a heart attack at his home in Larissa, Greece. The striker had joined local club Larissa FC from Turkish side Ankaragucu in August.
FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter expressed his deepest condolences in a letter to Justino Compean, President of the Mexican Football Association (FMF). “It is with great regret that I am writing to you today having heard the sad news about the sudden death of the football player Antonio de Nigris,” wrote Blatter.
The FIFA President also asked his Mexican counterpart to pass on his most sincere condolences to all the player’s team-mates in the national side, to the fans and, most importantly, to his family, friends and loved ones. Blatter ended by saying: “I would be extremely grateful if you could let them know that the entire global football community is with them. I hope that our words of comfort can in some way bring them a little peace at this difficult time.”
A genuine football fanaticAntonio de Nigris was born on 1 April 1978 and showed a passion for sport from a very early age. As a youngster he played tennis and football, but when the time came to choose one or the other he opted for the latter, making his league debut for Monterrey in 1999. The young striker made an instant impact with his prowess in the air and goalscoring instinct.
Two years later Mexico coach Enrique Meza called him up for the qualifiers for the 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan™, though his debut came in a friendly against Brazil in March 2001. The game ended in a 3-3 draw, with De Nigris opening his international account with perhaps one of the finest goals of his career, a superb volley on the half-turn.
After earning hero status at Monterrey, he decided it was time to move on, becoming something of a footballing wayfarer and turning out for 11 different clubs over the next seven years. The tireless adventurer enjoyed spells at Spanish side Villarreal, Santos of Brazil, and Colombian outfit Once Caldas, for whom he appeared in the final of the Toyota Intercontinental Cup in 2004. He also played for a number of teams in Mexico and Turkey, and even had a stint with Shandong Luneng in China.
During his professional career De Nigris played 264 games and scored 74 goals, including 16 appearances and four goals for Mexico. Although he had only been at his new club Larissa FC for a few short months, he had already established himself as a valuable first-team regular, appearing in six games for the Greek side.
His ultimate objective was to force his way into the Tricolor squad for South Africa 2010 and then return home to play for his beloved Monterrey. Sadly, however, De Nigris’s dream will remain unfulfilled although his commitment, eye for goal and undoubted talent will live on in the memory of the many fans who saw him give his all on the field of play.We host the best Nerf Gun Party in Los Angeles. We bring the Nerf Party and our awesome battlefield to you, and we provide 1 free Nerf Gun to keep for a guest of yours.
Our Nerf Gun Party uses Nerf Guns that do not jam. You'll get a variety of these Nerf Guns, a lot of Nerf Darts, protective eyewear, and a Nerf Battlefield made with obstacles.
Our Nerf Gun Party provides options: Nerf Elites and/or Nerf Rivals.
Nerf Rivals are high impact guns that shoot round foam balls at 70 feet per second and are ideal for Nerf Wars in the office or a Nerf War Party for 12+.
Nerf Elites are guns that shoot darts and are great for a Nerf Birthday Party for 6-11 year olds.
You'll get a Nerf Captain who will stay with you and host your Nerf Party. All you have to do is relax and watch your kids have a blast.
We have 9 Nerf Games: Nerf War, Team Deathmatch, Medic, Capture the Flag, Zombies vs Humans, Free for All, Behind Enemy Line, Retrieval, and Defend the President.
We'll bring the Nerf War to you. All you have to do is find a location.
Forget the hassle of finding a location?
Ask us about our Indoor Nerf Arena in Los Angeles or securing a venue on your behalf.“The book you wrote may not be the book people read.” — Michael Lewis
Frequently after an entrepreneur has built the first version of their product I get the question: now what?
This is usually coupled with another question: why aren’t users doing what I wanted them to do?
I usually try to answer these questions with a design philosophy I call: Get Out Of The Way. It’s the philosophy that helped Path 50X DAU in a single release.
When we started building the first version of Path, it was in the year 2010 and everyone was very excited about mobile. Similarly, there was a lot of focus in the industry around public networks leading to what seemed to be a broad shift away from privacy.
Path 1
Dustin and I, both coming from small towns and being passionate about photography, were focused on the idea that too many of the best photos were imprisoned and forgotten in the Camera Roll. Often these were the best photos to be shared with close friends and family, but rarely did they find a way there.
Because the only places to share photos on the internet were becoming broadly more public, rather than less, we thought it was important to focus on privacy. Especially in the context of mobile, where your typical mobile use cases beyond taking photos were calling, texting with your close friends and family.
So, we set out to build the best way to share the photos of your life with your close friends and family.
In late 2010, we released the first product into the wild, and quickly achieved about 10,000 daily active users coming into early 2011. Whereby, the growth plateaued and we quickly started asking ourselves: now what? Followed up by: how do we unlock more growth?
An online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges.
I was reminded by a story from early Facebook. Early on, Facebook did not have a photo sharing feature. It was simply an “online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges”. Meaning the core functionality was profiles, the ability to connect to friends, and then browse the profiles of your friends and other people in your college. One key feature of the Facebook Profile was the Profile Picture. Which, users were passionate about. So passionate, in fact, that users were changing their profile picture multiple times per day.
Users were changing their profile picture more times
than they were changing their clothes.
Furthermore, over 70% of outbound links from the “About Me” section were to Webshots. Which, at the time was one of the favorite photo sharing apps on the web along with Flickr. The rest, as they say, is history.
Perhaps most famously, Twitter started out as “an idea to make a more ‘live’ LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it.”
An idea to make a more “live” LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it.
The key constraint of the medium was 140 character status updates. But as time went on, users started to hack it in order to add things that made the experience better, first with adding the @ symbol to usernames, and then second with the #hashtag to organize tweets into topics or groups.
As time went on, Twitter took these ideas and incorporated them into the product. The rest is history.
Often times when you are building the first version of a product, you develop strong, dogmatic, thinking around what the initial use case might be. This thinking colors your interpration of what you think users think your product should be used for. Often times, users think about your product in very different ways, and indeed use it in fascinating and curious ways. Users hack your product to make it do what they want it to do. You have to search deeply for these behaviors and hacks, unlock them, and then, Get Out Of The Way.
At Path, as we went on through 2011, we spent most of the year at around 10,000 DAU. As the months went on it became harder and harder to figure out how to unlock the growth we so desired. Our fears set in: would we ever figure it out? We searched deeply for interesting user behavior, and finally struck gold while we were doing primary user research into what types of content users were posting to their Paths.
Users were posting more than just photos, they were posting screenshots of their favorite apps: music album covers, the yellow notes app, Nike+ Running maps, health apps and more.
We had the realization that users saw their “Path” as more than just photos, they saw it as a way to journal their everyday life, and to ultimately share life with close friends and family. Because of the private nature of the network, users were willing (and wanted) to share much more than we had originally intended.
Path 2
This insight intimately colored our redesign for Path 2. We focused in on the core cases we saw occuring most in the research: photos, music, locations, thoughts, health. We even had the incredible luck to collaborate with some friends at Nike who believed in our vision, leading to a custom integration with Nike+ Running based on this research.
We launched Path 2 in November of 2011 at which point we had 10,000 DAU. Within 2 weeks we grew 50x to over 500,000 DAU and we were off to the races.
In times where you are wondering where next to go to unlock your vision, look to your users and be open with your thinking. Don’t let dogma stand in the way of giving the users what they want. And then, Get Out Of The Way.A man who was naked when he violently attacked a 75-year-old woman and her small dog while they were out for a walk in Irvine, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office reported on Friday.
Craig Andrew Ledbetter, 52, was sentenced to 10 years in state prison after he pled guilty to one felony count of attempted murder, one felony count of elder and dependent adult abuse, one misdemeanor count of animal cruelty, one misdemeanor count of resisting and obstructing an officer and sentencing enhancements for great bodily injury.
According to police, on the afternoon of Sept. 29, 2015, Sara Hurtado was walking her small dog on Rockwood Street in Irvine when Ledbetter screamed at her and pushed her to the ground.
Ledbetter got on top of Hurtado and punched her in the face and chest, and repeatedly kicked her in the head, prosecutors said.
Ledbetter then attacked Hurtado’s small dog, grabbing the dog’s leash and swinging the dog over his shoulder.
Witnesses called 911 and officers from the Irvine Police Department responded to the scene.
Ledbetter resisted officers, but was subsequently arrested after officer used a Taser to take him into custody, officials said.
Hurtado suffered several injuries including bleeding in the brain, a dislocated arm and eye injuries, prosecutors reported.
The dog was not injured in the attack.
Police said Ledbetter and Hurtado did not appear to have known each other.
A motive for the assault was unknown.Everybody poops. But not everyone has access to a toilet.
"It's shocking that this basic necessity is unavailable to nearly half of the world," said Jasmine Burton, founder and president of Atlanta-based Wish for WASH.
Burton, 23, was a freshman at Georgia Institute of Technology when she learned that as many as 2.5 billion people don't have access to a toilet.
It bothered her even more that this sanitation problem disproportionately affects women and young girls.
"Young girls in the developing world frequently drop out of school because there isn't a toilet," she said. "It angered me as a woman in higher education and as a product designer."
Just 18 at the time, Burton channeled her feelings into a mission: She would design a toilet.
While at Georgia Tech, she collaborated with three other students to invent an inexpensive, eco-friendly mobile toilet that could convert waste into renewable energy. They called their sanitation system SafiChoo Toilet.
Related: 5 startups that are reimagining the world
Made of plastic, the toilet is designed for sitting or squatting, which is a common practice in some countries. It can be placed directly on the ground, or it can be elevated by adding an attachable base. It can also function with or without water.
The system features a waste collection unit (that can go above or below ground), which separates the waste into liquids and solids. There's also a manually-operated bidet that can be attached.
Burton said these features are intended to help curb contamination and the spread of diseases.
The SafiChoo toilet costs about $50. "That's the highest price point we want it to be," she said
Related: These startups are heading to Richard Branson's private island
In 2014, Burton and her team won first place and $25,000 at the Georgia Tech InVention competition, the nation's largest undergraduate invention competition.
"We didn't think we'd win because products at the contest were always high-tech with super sexy designs," she said. "Ours was a simple toilet."
The win enabled Burton to pilot SafiChoo (which means clean toilet in Kiswahili) at a Kenyan refugee camp. She also launched Wish for WASH, the parent company of SafiChoo.
Related: She's $10 million closer to replacing plastic bottles
John Zegers, director at Georgia Center of Innovation for Manufacturing, contacted Burton after her InVention competition win. "We thought it was a great product that needed a little bit more development," he said.
The Center gave a grant to Georgia Tech to develop a SafiChoo prototype and helped Burton's team find an Atlanta-based manufacturer.
Zegers said he hopes that Wish for WASH is able to keep the toilet a Made in America product.
Burton is currently living in Lusaka, Zambia, as she tests the toilet there. The company is also running an Indiegogo campaign to support the Zambia pilot.
She hopes to begin selling the toilet to U.S.-based customers and to NGOs in 2017.
"It's amazing when you see how many people have never used a toilet before and what [the SafiChoo Toilet] could mean for them," she said.Sound
I love the sound signature of these headphones when the ANC is on. The bass is full and deep, with good extension; the mids are rich and vocals present with good clarity and centering; the treble is bright and sparkly without being sibilant or painful. Overall, it’s very musical. However, when the ANC is turned off, it’s almost as if a veil has been dropped over the headphone. The bass drops out considerably, the mids become distant and a little bit grainy, and the treble loses its presence and recedes, heavily.
I had a major issue with these in terms of portability: for closed, mobile over-ears, these leak a ton. A friend next to me told me that he could easily distinguish lyrics in a song I was listening to, and I was only around comfortable listening volume, nothing obscenely loud inside the cans.
The soundstage on these is reasonably small, as they are closed. In binaural recordings, space is still very distinguished, but was slightly claustrophobic. These headphones don’t image or separate too well, so there was a little muddying of space when listening specifically for it.
The below commentary on sound signature is with the ANC on.
Bass
Songs used: Three Ralphs by DJ Shadow, The Entangled by Noisia, and Side B (Dope Song) by Danny Brown
The bass in these is full and satisfying. It extends well in the sub-bass range, although the mid-bass is noticeably more present than the sub-. Their bass didn’t overpower or reach into any other ranges, and was reasonably un-bloated. It’s not the fastest, but only got muddy and sloppy in the fastest-paced (bass-wise) songs that I could find (particularly in “I Never Woke Up in Handcuffs Before”, but only in that the bass basically formed a pretty solid floor, where I’ve found that headphones with extremely fast bass can distinguish more rhythm and dynamics in that regard).
Key descriptors: full, engaging, and grippy
Mids
Songs used: Ugly Cherries by PWR BTTM (live), Did We Live Too Fast by Got a Girl, and Gay Bar by Electric Six
The mids are a highlight for me. They are forward and detailed, lush and well-rounded. Male and female vocals both come through the mix very well and with good distinction. These made it very easy for me to focus on the vocals of any genre. I found that while it certainly is tolerable, separation and imaging could be better, as instruments tend to blend into each other a little bit. Not to the point that a track sounds mono-mastered from one location, but enough that it felt more like regions of an instrument than distinct placements.
Key descriptors: lush, detailed, and musical
Treble
Songs used: Time by Pink Floyd, Ageispolis by Aphex Twin, and From Kinshasa to the Moon by Mbongwana Star
Treble is very detailed ans bright without being particularly sibilant. I had no comfort issues in terms of listening to any songs with considerable treble emphasis. The detail was much appreciated and very noticeable. I also feel the necessity to point out that once there is an incredibly noticeable pull-back of the treble that is extremely dissatisfying. But again, I never listened to these for more than an hour without ANC on, and with it on, they were very enjoyable.
Key descriptors: bright, sparkly, and airy
Minutia and Miscellaneous
The noise cancelling on these i very good. They take a plane environment and turn it basically dead silent. You'll still hear if someone calls out your name, and the isolation, aside from of ambient noise, isn't particularly notable, but they do do active noise cancelling extremely well.
I really can’t overstate how weird the leakage was to me. For fully closed, (what looks to me to be) unported headphones, they leak a whole bunch. If you’re in a reasonably noisy environment or have a considerable distance from others in a quiet environment, it shouldn’t be an issue, but if you’re in close proximity to other people in a reasonably quiet environment, you’ll probably annoy them a little bit.If you think that NFL players should be taking punishing hits to the head because “that is part of the game” this article is probably going to hurt your feelings. If you’ve ever taken a hard helmet to helmet shot, I find it hard to believe you would wish that on anyone else, but maybe you do. Maybe you think since you had to bear it, all football players should.
Helmet to helmet hits happen, but they are NOT supposed to happen often.
It has been thirteen years since my last helmet to helmet hit, and I still remember never wanting to go through it again. I didn’t sustain a concussion on the hit that I know of, and still remember vividly what happened. I was playing the strong-side end position, and was given a free release off the line of scrimmage. I thought I had a clear shot at the ball carrier and got excited, but right at that moment, I forgot to look for the pulling guard, and he got me with the crown of his helmet right in my earhole.
The shot took me out of the play, but I did get up and rejoin the huddle afterwards without coming off the field. I remember the pressure building up in my forehead, and the ringing in my ears that lasted for the next five minutes or so. My vision was slightly blurred, but eventually refocused. When we got off the field I found some relief in an icepack to the side of my head and on the back of my neck. The pain didn’t go way in the side of my neck for days, but naturally I played through it. It was a neck stinger, and any who has ever had one knows how uncomfortable that is.
After a few days the pain subsided and I was fine. I don’t think I have suffered any long term effects from it, though I am still young, and did not take very many of those hits playing as a defensive lineman. I also don’t remember dealing any out. From the moment I began playing football, my coaches stressed proper tackling technique.
Square up to the ball carrier with your arms out Get your head up and across his body, or “on the ball” Slam your arms shut around his waist to “wrap up” Drive your legs through the tackle, don’t leave your feet.
Thomas Davis is one of the best tacklers in the NFL. You could show any young athlete the following clips as a quick clinic on the EXACT way to tackle a ball carrier.
Notice in the above clip that even though the ball carrier has a full head of steam, Davis meets him in the hole with perfect technique and superior leverage, stopping him for no gain. The impact on the ball carrying arm causes a fumble, and the Panthers take over. Points 1 through 4 played to perfection.
Here, Davis is in an extremely disadvantageous position. He is one-on-one with one of the most elusive players in the NFL, Darren Sproles. Regardless of Sproles perfectly timed spin move, which makes Davis miss in getting his head across the football... thanks to Davis’ ability to square up, widen out his arms and use his momentum, he is able to wrap Sproles up |
TC, Durst arranged the Condé Nast deal. According to a Democracy Now report, that crony arrangement earned Douglas Durst a $25 million kickback.
Besides Condé Nast, 1 WTC will also be the new home to the China Center, an organization dedicated to the advancement of Chinese cultural and business interests in the United States. Although international cohesion is an important goal, the China Center’s presence in what has been heralded as an icon of American resilience and independence is more than ironic. The Chinese firms promoted by the China Center will unfairly compete with American businesses thanks to the subsidies provided by the Chinese government. Such an advancement of Chinese business interests is an inappropriate goal, considering America’s own uncertain economic recovery.
In fact, this context high unemployment and a faltering economy underscores the need for increased manufacturing in America. Despite the need for new American jobs, major materials for the new tower were manufactured abroad. Much of the tower’s structural steel, as well as its elevators, are being produced by a German firm. Blast-resistant glass on the lower floors of WTC was produced in China after a Pennsylvania-based firm was outbid.
Recovering from September 11 has been about promoting America’s best traits. That mission failed when it came to One World Trade Center. Instead, 1 WTC reveals some of our worst national qualities; crony capitalism at the expense of taxpayers, and the pursuit of the lowest cost over national interest. The tower should serve not only as a reminder of our progress in the last decade, but also as a demonstration of the deep societal flaws that we have yet to address.THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ANNOUNCES 2016 BLOSSOM MUSIC FESTIVAL, PRESENTED BY THE J.M. Smucker Company
Blossom Summer Season Presents Musical Weekends of Family-Friendly Programming from Fourth-of-July through Labor Day Weekend
July 9 Concert with Music Director Franz Welser-Möst features Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”)
July 17 Concert commemorates Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s Celebration of the Centennial of the National Park Service
“Under 18s Free” continues for every Blossom Music Festival concert
Subscription Renewals currently underway; premier subscriptions and Create-Your-Own now available for purchase
Popular Lawn Ticket Books available now: $160 for a book of ten Lawn passes, with two FREE Pavilion upgrade coupons in each book
Blossom Pre-sale single tickets for current Cleveland Orchestra subscribers go on sale on April 25 and individual tickets for the general public go on sale May 9
Release Date: February 7, 2016
CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Orchestra has announced the 2016 Blossom Music Festival season. Festival highlights include Cleveland Orchestra Music Director Franz Welser-Möst conducting Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) as well as works by Adès and Strauss (July 9); Blossom’s traditional, star-spangled celebration with the Blossom Festival Band, A Salute to America (July 4); Michael Feinstein with The Cleveland Orchestra performing Broadway hits and classic songs by Ellington, Berlin, and Gershwin (July 31); The Silk Road Ensemble with cellist Yo-Yo Ma (August 13); the Blossom Festival Orchestra in a concert featuring The Music of Led Zeppelin: A Rock Symphony (August 20); and the Blossom Music Festival debut of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2, 3, 5, and 6 (August 27) – all at Blossom Music Center from Fourth of July weekend through Labor Day Weekend (July 2 – September 4, 2016).
Details of the 2016 Blossom Music Festival season, including Festival as well as Cleveland Orchestra soloist and conductor debuts, are available in the Calendar section below and online at clevelandorchestra.com. Concert schedules and series renewals are being mailed to subscribers of last year’s Festival, and new series packages are available for purchase now. Lawn Ticket Books are also on sale now. Individual tickets for the entire season go on sale to the general public on Monday, May 9, 2016.
Franz Welser-Möst Conducts
Music Director Franz Welser-Möst conducts the Orchestra on July 9 in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”) alongside Thomas Adès’s Overture, Waltz, and Finale fromthe provocative opera Powder Her Face. Strauss’s vivid tone poem, depicting the reflections of an artist’s life as he lies dying, Tod und Verklärung [Death and Transfiguration] completes the program.
Orchestral Masterworks
The Orchestra takes the spotlight with performances of great orchestral masterpieces from the classical, romantic, and twentieth-century periods. Highlights include: Johannes Debus returns to the Blossom Festival to lead performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade on July 2 and 3 in a program that also features Shostakovich’s Suite for Variety Orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s “1812” Overture. Conductor Michael Francis and pianist David Fung make their Cleveland Orchestra debuts in a July 16 concert that features Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and Orchestra, and Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 2 (“A London Symphony”). On July 23, former Cleveland Orchestra Associate Conductor Jahja Ling leads the Orchestra and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a program of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, Stravinsky’s Four Norwegian Moods and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1. Cleveland Orchestra Assistant Principal Oboist, Jeffrey Rathbun, makes his Blossom Festival solo debut with Benjamin’s Divertimento on Themes by Gluck in an August 7 program led by conductor Nicholas McGegan featuring Haydn’s Symphony No. 99 and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.3 (“Scottish”).
National Park Service Centennial Celebration
The July 17 Cleveland Orchestra concert commemorates Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s celebration of the National Park Service Centennial. Blossom Music Center was planned and built by The Cleveland Orchestra on 800 acres of rolling hills now surrounded by Cuyahoga Valley National Park. In 2011, with the final purchase of land surrounding Blossom, the Trust for Public Land and National Park Service completed the Blossom Music Center conservation project ensuring the future of the Blossom Music Center. The July 17 performance, led by conductor Bramwell Tovey and featuring pianist Javier Perianes (who makes his Cleveland Orchestra debut) will include Aaron Copland’s Suite from Appalachian Spring alongside works by Gershwin and Ravel. This performance will coincide with the opening of the 2016 Republican National Convention, which takes place in Cleveland July 18-21.
Popular Music
A popular Northeast Ohio tradition for more than four decades, the July 4 concert features the Blossom Festival Band, conducted by Loras John Schissel, celebrating Independence Day with A Salute to America. The program includes a mix of patriotic Sousa marches, Broadway favorites, an Armed Forces salute, and Tchaikovsky’s explosive “1812” Overture, followed by fireworks.
Michael Krajewski conducts The Cleveland Orchestra and soprano Capathia Jenkins on July 24 in a tribute to the music of Hollywood, featuring familiar melodies from Titanic, Back to the Future, Goldfinger, and Star Wars.
The Blossom Festival Orchestra perform The Music of Led Zeppelin: A Rock Symphony which features Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones’s brilliant and innovative music, now heard with the vivid colors and sheer power of a symphony orchestra on August 20 with conductor Brent Havens, who makes his Blossom Music Festival debut.
To close the 2016 Blossom Music Festival season, Raiders of the Lost Ark is shown on the big screen to a live orchestral accompaniment by The Cleveland Orchestra with Associate Conductor Brett Mitchell at the helm on September 3 and 4.
Guest Ensembles
The Silk Road Ensemble and cellist Yo-Yo Ma bring together innovative performers and compositions representing traditions from around the worldon August 13.
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra makes its Blossom Music Festival debut on August 27 performing Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 6.
Family-friendly “Under 18s Free” tickets continue at every Blossom Music Festival concert
“Under 18s Free” is a program of The Cleveland Orchestra’s Center for Future Audiences. The Center, created with a lead endowment gift from the Maltz family Foundation, was established to fund programs to develop new generations of audiences for Cleveland Orchestra concerts in Northeast Ohio. “Under 18s Free” continues to develop young audiences by making attending Orchestra concerts affordable for families, offering free tickets to young people, 17 and under, for every Blossom Music Festival concert again this season. Over 90,000 young people have attended Blossom Music Festival concerts since the Center for Future Audiences was inaugurated.
Kent/Blossom Music Festival (June - July) / Blossom Music Festival Performance July 30
Celebrating its 49th season in 2016, the Kent/Blossom Music Festival began when The Cleveland Orchestra and Kent State University launched a partnership in 1968, the year the Blossom Music Center opened. For five weeks in June and July, Kent/Blossom Music Festival’s advanced training program brings musicians from around the world to Ohio for professional training in chamber music and orchestral studies with members of The Cleveland Orchestra and other elite faculty. On July 30, participants will come together, under the direction of Brett Mitchell, as the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra to present a pre-concert program prior to The Cleveland Orchestra’s evening performance. Conductor Hans Graf leads the evening program, which features Hindemith’s Overture to Cupid and Psyche, Pinchas Zukerman playing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 (“Turkish”), and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique.” The Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra will join The Cleveland Orchestra in a side-by-side performance of the Tchaikovsky Symphony.
2016 TICKET, SERIES, AND SPONSOR INFORMATION
Subscription Renewals are currently underway with premier subscriptions and Create-Your-Own series now available for purchase. Blossom Pre-sale single tickets for current Cleveland Orchestra subscribers go on sale on Monday, April 25 and individual tickets for the general public go on sale Monday, May 9.
Tickets start at $24. Individual tickets go on sale by telephone, in person at the Severance Hall Ticket Office, and online at clevelandorchestra.com on Monday, May 9. The Blossom Box Office opens for the season beginning on Saturday, June 4, and will be open throughout the summer on Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. through intermission on concert days.
PREMIER SUBSCRIPTION SERIES
The 2016 Blossom Music Festival features two four-concert “Classics” series, a four-concert “Celebrations” series, and a four-concert “Pops” series. Ticket packages, on sale now, offer approximately 20% savings off individual-ticket prices. Ticket package prices start at $84, which includes free Lot B parking and access to Kulas Plaza. Box-seat ticket packages include complimentary parking in First Energy Lot A behind the main Box Office in addition to access to Kulas Plaza.
CREATE-YOUR-OWN SERIES
A Create-Your-Own Series package is being offered again this season. When purchasing 4 or more concerts, there is a savings of approximately 10% off the individual ticket prices. There is no limit to the number of Create-Your-Own Series purchases. All subscribers receive free parking in Lot B.
LAWN TICKET BOOKS INCLUDE TWO PAVILION UPGRADES AND QUALIFY FOR THE “UNDER 18S FREE” PROGRAM
Lawn Ticket Books of ten vouchers are now available for $160 (a savings of up to $100). Lawn vouchers qualify for youth admission as part of the “Under18s Free” program. Youth admission tickets can be requested after individual tickets go on sale. Contact the Box Office or visit clevelandorchestra.com for information about this program.
GROUP TICKET SALES
Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. Call the Cleveland Orchestra Group Sales Office at Severance Hall at 216-231-7463 for more information.
Blossom Music Festival Presented by the J.M. Smucker Company
The J.M. Smucker Company is in the second season of a three-year sponsorship as the Season Sponsor of the Blossom Music Festival, extending through the 2017 Festival. The J.M. Smucker Company has supported The Cleveland Orchestra for decades with annual contributions as well as capital gifts for improvements at Blossom Music Center. The company’s ongoing, generous support has been recognized through concert sponsorship at Blossom for the past decade, and has earned them recognition as a member of the Orchestra’s John L. Severance Society — a group of the Orchestra’s most dedicated and generous corporate, foundation, and individual supporters.
The Cleveland Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the following generous organizations whose support is recognized in connection with the Blossom Music Festival:
The J.M. Smucker Company Blossom Music Festival Presenting Sponsor
BakerHostetler
Blossom Women’s Committee
The William Bingham Foundation
The Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation
Mary and Dr. George L. Demetros Charitable Trust
Eaton
FirstEnergy Foundation
Forest City
GAR Foundation
Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, Inc.
NACCO Industries, Inc.
KeyBank
The Lehner Family Foundation
Littler Mendelson, P.C.
The Lubrizol Corporation
The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation
M.G. O’Neil Foundation
Medical Mutual of Ohio
PNC Bank
Polsky Fund of Akron Community Foundation
The Charles E. and Mabel M. Ritchie Memorial Foundation
The Sisler McFawn Foundation
Lloyd L. and Louise K. Smith Memorial Foundation
Timken Foundation of Canton
The Welty Family Foundation
2016 Blossom Music Festival Calendar
(listing as of May 3, 2016)
SCHEHERAZADE
Saturday, July 2, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.*
Sunday, July 3, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.*
The Cleveland Orchestra
Johannes Debus, conductor
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade
SHOSTAKOVICH Suite for Variety Orchestra, No. 1
TCHAIKOVSKY “1812” Overture
* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting.
A SALUTE TO AMERICA
Monday, July 4, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.*
Blossom Festival Band
Loras John Schissel, conductor
Great music, fireworks, and fun for the whole family! Blossom’s traditional, star-spangled celebration with the Blossom Festival Band, featuring a mix of patriotic Sousa marches, Broadway favorites, an Armed Forces Salute, and more – ending with the “1812” Overture and fireworks!
* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting.
BEETHOVEN’S HEROIC SYMPHONY
Saturday, July 9, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.*
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor
ADÈS Overture, Waltz, and Finale from Powder Her Face
STRAUSS Death and Transfiguration
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”)
* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting.
LONDON SYMPHONY
Saturday, July 16, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Michael Francis, conductor – Cleveland Orchestra debut
David Fung, piano – Cleveland Orchestra debut
ELGAR Introduction and Allegro for String Quartet and Orchestra
MOZART Piano Concerto No. 21
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No. 2 (“A London Symphony”)
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Sunday, July 17, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Bramwell Tovey, conductor
Javier Perianes, piano – Cleveland Orchestra debut
RAVEL Rapsodie espagnole
COPLAND Suite from Appalachian Spring
RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major
GERSHWIN An American in Paris
Celebrating the National Park Service Centennial
THIBAUDET PLAYS GRIEG
Saturday, July 23, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Jahja Ling, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano
STRAVINSKY Four Norwegian Moods
GRIEG Piano Concerto
SIBELIUS Symphony No. 1
MAGIC OF THE MOVIES
Sunday, July 24, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Michael Krajewski, conductor
Capathia Jenkins, soprano
The greatest film scores live!
A blockbuster tribute to the most memorable music of the movies. Enjoy your favorites from Titanic, Back to the Future, Goldfinger, Star Wars, and more.
PINCHAS ZUKERMAN PLAYS MOZART
Saturday, July 30, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.*
The Cleveland Orchestra
Hans Graf, conductor
Pinchas Zukerman, violin
with the Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra
HINDEMITH Overture to Cupid and Psyche
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5 (“Turkish”)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”)^
* Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Brett Mitchell performs at 7:00 p.m. The Cleveland Orchestra’s concert (program listed above) begins at 8:00 p.m.
^ The Kent/Blossom Chamber Orchestra will join The Cleveland Orchestra for a side-by-side performance of the Tchaikovsky Symphony.
MICHAEL FEINSTEIN’S BROADWAY
Sunday, July 31, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Jack Everly, conductor
Michael Feinstein, vocalist
Back by popular demand!
Michael Feinstein on the Blossom stage for an unforgettable evening of Broadway hits and classic songs by artists such as Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and many more.
MENDELSSOHN’S SCOTTISH
Sunday, August 7, 2016, at 7:00 p.m.
The Cleveland Orchestra
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Jeffrey Rathbun, oboe
HAYDN Symphony No. 99
BENJAMIN Divertimento on Themes by Gluck
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 3 (“Scottish”)
SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE WITH YO-YO MA
Saturday, August 13, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.
Silk Road Ensemble
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Embark on a musical journey around the world with the Silk Road Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma.
This eclectic group brings together distinguished musicians, composers, and performing artists from more than 20 countries around the world to celebrate, explore, and experiment with a wide variety of cultural approaches to musical performances.
THE MUSIC OF LED ZEPPELIN: A ROCK SYMPHONY
Saturday, August 20, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.
Blossom Festival Orchestra
Windborne’s Music of Led Zeppelin
Brent Havens, conductor
Randy Jackson, vocalist
The Music of Led Zeppelin: A Rock Symphony
performed live by the Blossom Festival Orchestra
The mega hits of one of rock’s most legendary supergroups—like you’ve never heard them before! Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones’s brilliant and innovative music now heard with the vivid colors and sheer power of a full symphony orchestra. Featuring 16 classic Zeppelin tunes, including “Good Times Bad Times,” “All My Love,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and “Kashmir.”
ORPHEUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA PLAYS BACH
Saturday, August 27, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra – Blossom Music Festival debut
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No. 2
MOVIE NIGHT: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
Special 35th Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, September 3, 2016, at 8:30 p.m.*
Sunday, September 4, 2016, at 8:30 p.m.*
The Cleveland Orchestra
Brett Mitchell, conductor
See this classic movie shown on the big screen at Blossom – with the score performed live by The Cleveland Orchestra!
It’s the film that introduced one of the greatest movie heroes of all time. Now, relive the magic, as Indiana Jones, armed with only his hat, whip, and wits, travels the world to recover the lost Ark of the Covenant – before it falls into the wrong hands.
Raiders of the Lost Ark licensed by Lucasfilm Ltd and Paramount Pictures. Motion Picture, Artwork, Photos © 1981 Lucasfilm
* Denotes fireworks following the concert, weather permitting.
All programs, artists, and prices are subject to change.A car weighing a mere 2,400 pounds and having a custom-built S54 motor ought to be enough to make most people salivate. Better yet, it’s one of the best bargain racers around—the E36 M3. Of course, the E36 is no new kid on the block, but its balanced platform and linear power delivery make it a track scalpel that can’t be easily bested for the money. So when the motor from an E46 M3 is added, the track widened, and some monstrous rubber planted at each corner, the result is something that can take down much more expensive machinery with apparent ease.
Built for the NASA GTS4 series, which features a variety of heavily-modified BMWs and Porsches, mainly, this German Touring Series takes the best the Fatherland has to offer and puts them in close competition. To stay competitive against modern GT3 Cups and the like, these cars are largely based around open power-to-weight rules. In this case, the 3.5-liter S54, tuned by Randy Mueller/Epic Motorsports, makes a whopping 347 horsepower and 297 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels—and it’s all delivered in that lovely, soaring, smooth fashion.
Therefore, the massive rear Hoosier slicks can put the power down quite easily, and even in slow corners, the motor is howling and the car moving forward. It’s also stable in the faster corners, reassuring, and predictable; the driver never looks taxed or caught out. Those reasons are part of why I recommend these cars—albeit in mostly stock trim—to guys just getting started on track days. The other reasons revolve around my preference for screaming six cylinders and rear wheel-drive cars, but that’s more personal preference than anything.Police charged Florida State quarterback De’Andre Johnson with battery last month after he allegedly punched a woman in the face at a Tallahassee bar. Legally, it’s still “alleged,” but today the state attorney’s office released a portion of the surveillance footage. It does indeed appear to show Johnson punching a woman in the face.
The Tallahassee Democrat has a five-minute video on its site; the punch occurs about two minutes in. You can find it below:
Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
According to records, the woman was waiting to order at the bar when Johnson tried to push past her. When she confronted him, he grabbed her arm, she swung, and he punched her in the face.
Florida State placed Johnson on indefinite suspension when the initial report came out.
Update (9:45 p.m.): Florida State has dismissed Johnson from the team.
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[Tallahassee Democrat]Leach: Pa. GOP Senators Support Legal Pot – On The QT
Quiet support for full marijuana legalization reaches across both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, State Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery) told an audience on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus last Saturday.
Keynoting a Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana laws, Leach said private reactions by his colleagues to his proposal to legalize, tax and regulate the sale of marijuana in Pennsylvania (SB 528) are unprecedented. Numerous conservative Republicans have told him they agree with him completely, but are afraid to go public with their beliefs.
There are 27 Republicans in the 50-member Senate. “If a vote could be taken by secret ballot, I am certain 15 of them would vote for it,†Leach said. However, since Senate votes are a matter of public record, he expects none of them will dare to vote for it.
This doesn’t faze Leach, who believes it is time to press for complete legalization of marijuana, in the wake of successful ballot initiatives to end prohibition in Colorado and Washington state last fall. Other states, including neighboring New Jersey, have introduced legalization for medical marijuana.
Leach’s measure would utilize the existing Liquor Control Board to sell recreational marijuana in much the same way it now sells beverage alcohol. Age limits, driving restrictions and other restraints on legal marijuana would follow the model of similar laws governing strong drink. Leach estimated the Commonwealth would gain hundreds of millions of dollars in sorely needed revenue this way.
The end of marijuana prohibition is a generational change that is only a matter of time now, Leach maintained.
JOIN OUR NEWSPAPER Join over 3.000 visitors who are receiving our newsletter and learn how to optimize your blog for search engines, find free traffic, and monetize your website. We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.By Lorinda Brandon, Quality Evangelist
Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
If you're anything like me, you've spent the majority of your adult life having your family members describe your career as "something in software." I've shaken many a hand, with a plastic smile on my face, nodding politely after my relatives say, "This is Lorinda. She does something in software." And that's OK – despite the fact that we are surrounded by software and professionals who build it, the reality of how it gets built is still a mystery to most people.
Some concepts are easier for people to get – when I was a program manager, it seemed to make sense to non-techies because there are program managers in just about every industry. And I suppose if I were a developer, it would make sense to people too (in some vague nerdy way, based on what they’ve heard about basement-dwelling Red Bull addicts).
But when I tell them I am a software tester or manage a testing team, I can see them trying to translate what they know of testing (banging car doors or putting test tubes in a centrifuge) to software. Imagine then trying to explain that I used to do those things and now I am a Software Quality Evangelist… ah, the blank stares.
Well, until recently. While several “software glitches” have been featured on the evening news, I can’t recall any that have caused a national conversation about the process of building and testing software until the Healthcare.gov debacle. Suddenly, Americans are sitting at their kitchen tables – in suburbs, in cities, on farms – and talking about quality issues with a website and who might be at fault.
The average American was given nightly tutorials on load testing and performance bottlenecks when the site first launched, then crumbled moments later. We talked about whether the requirements were well-defined and the project schedule reasonably laid out; we talked about who owns the decision to launch and whether they were keeping appropriate track of milestones and iterations. After that came the public discussions about security holes, which is not an unfamiliar concept to most people. But with those discussions came a healthy dose of encrypted passwords, third-party information sharing, and authentication protocols. School children and grandparents alike are worried about whether their passwords are being passed in the clear now. Imagine. There was even a major congressional hearing about the site, much of which focused on whether it was tested well enough.
It got really interesting when the media went from talking about the issues in the website to the process used to build the website. This is when software testers stepped out of the cube farm behind the coffee station and into the public limelight. Who were these people – and were they incompetent or mistreated? Did the project leaders not allocate enough time for testing? Did they allocate time for testing but not time to react to the testing outcome? Did the testers run inadequate tests? Were there not enough testers? Did they not speak up about the issues? If they did, were they not forceful enough?
Then there was the grassroots movement – testers and developers around the country performing their own tests and doing their own code reviews and releasing fixes after the code was released to GitHub. Testers like Ben Simo got their 15 minutes of fame because they devoted their own personal time to testing the site and blogged about the issues they found. Now the average Americans not only learned what we do for a living but what we’re made of – this is not a 9-to-5 job. This is a lifestyle; this is a belief system; this is just how we tick.
And, while tempers flared and accusations were flung about, I couldn't help sitting off to the side and gloating a little, because finally my family understands what I have spent my career doing and maybe so do the people they introduce me to.
---
About Lorinda
For almost 30 years, Lorinda Brandon has worked in various management roles in the high-tech industry, including customer service, quality assurance and engineering. She has worked at some of the leading companies in the industry, including SmartBear, RR Donnelley, EMC, Kayak Software, Exit41 and Intuit, among others. She specializes in rejuvenating product management, quality assurance and engineering teams by re-organizing and expanding staff and refining processes used within organizations. Follow her on Twitter @lindybrandon.As expected on his Friday night HBO program, Bill Maher attempted to poke holes in Ann Coulter’s new book, “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama,” by offering quotes and expecting her to defend them.
However, as she has done in numerous appearance promoting her book, Coulter instead broadly spoke about how she believes liberals have invented and pushed racial inequalities in modern society.
“Real racism was over, but racial demagoguery became huge as liberals started fighting ghosts, because they were AWOL during the real civil rights battle,” Coulter said.
Later, Maher claimed that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney had lived up to his reputation as a flip-flopper earlier in the week, when he clarified his feelings on abortion.
“He flipped on it twice this week,” Maher said. “First he said, ‘I will not sign any bill that would be anti-abortion.’ Then he said, ‘I would sign every bill that would be anti-abortion,’ the next day, I mean.”
“Well, that was obviously a slip of tongue,” Coulter replied. “I mean, on your description of it, he would not sign any bill and then he would sign it. I didn’t see it, but on your description — no, he has been solidly pro-life for a decade.”
Maher said he and Coulter must have been “watching completely different people.”
COULTER: Yeah, you’re watching MSNBC. And I would not trust them to give you the truth.
MAHER: I’m watching people speak English on the debates. I’m just watching English.
COULTER: They’re watching MSNBC, too, and that’s why you don’t know what Mitt Romney believes, because the motto of MSNBC is “In other words,” and they’ll tell you what they think Romney believes.
That’s why people liked him so much in the debates: Because we saw him and he said the same thing. And I supported him in 2008. I ran off with a biker. I came back to him, and there’s only one thing he’s ever flipped on.
Follow Jeff on TwitterJapanese shipping company K Line appeals the prosecution for cartel charges in Australia. The company was accused by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that alleged cartel conduct in relation to the way it shipped cards to Australia in the period July 2009 – September 2012. The company will look for legal appeals and contesting the criminal cartel charges against the authorities, despite that K Line and its exclusive director Takashi Yamaguchi were found guilty in the US for the same practices. K Line denied to plead guilty and to ease the resolution of the problem, which might cost less for the shipper.
“Criminal charges have been laid against Japanese-based company Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K-Line) in relation to alleged cartel conduct concerning the international shipping of cars, trucks and buses to Australia between July 2009 and September 2012”, said the official statement of Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The Japanese shipper NYK Line was also accused for cartel charges in Australia, but the line decided to plead guilty and pay the fine to local authorities.
Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, also referred to as K Line, is one of the largest Japanese transportation companies. It owns and/or controls large cargo ships, including dry cargo ships (bulk carriers), container ships, container terminals, liquefied natural gas carriers, ro-ro ships and tankers.The Best Thrift Store Find... SCORE 65
The Ghost Of Richie Rich SCORE 208
Worth it. SCORE 221
A gym called "Resolutions." SCORE 221
Ceiling art in smoking room. SCORE 175
A bunch of flowers. SCORE 128
Somebody Enjoys Their Job SCORE 125
If you ever feel bad about your mistakes SCORE 89
Green ones, not so much. SCORE 126
Sage advice. SCORE 124
Sometimes All You Need Is Love SCORE 133
Not again! SCORE 69
Om nom nom. SCORE 113
Meet Walter my friend's baby duck SCORE 135
My mom said this to me this morning SCORE 125
Movie problems. SCORE 70
An accurate summary of some of my favourite bands SCORE 124
It's funny because it's true SCORE 67
Chivalry isn't dead SCORE 62
Break it up! SCORE 219
Why choose? SCORE 210
Richard Hammond Is A Cool Dude SCORE 190
Thank you, kid. SCORE 325
oh SCORE 92
Flirting SCORE 121
Slice of Meteorite SCORE 127
A difficult task. SCORE 91
I love Sideshow Bob SCORE 193
I'll just be a nice guy and let the kid have it... SCORE 78
A baby dolphin SCORE 125
How I imagine everyday in Australia is. SCORE 203TORONTO — At the highest levels of hockey, most head coaches are loathe to talk at length about the opposition. The focus, especially at the podium, is on what goes on in our dressing room. We need to take care of our side of the puck.
At its extreme, this line in the verbal sand is drawn in sharp tones and can border on the ridiculous or the hilarious.
Like when Team USA’s 2016 World Junior Championship coach Ron Wilson said he did zero research on Team Russia’s roster in advance of that tournament’s elimination game.
Working on a Scott Hartnell profile in 2012, back when he was part of the Philadelphia Flyers’ top line, I had the silly notion that John Tortorella, then bench boss of the New York Rangers, might provide a good quote on Hartnell’s pesty play.
“I don’t talk about other teams’ players,” Tortorella snapped, shutting my lips. This was at the love-in that is the NHL All-Star Game, where Hartnell was, albeit temporarily, on Tortorella’s team.
But Jon Cooper is not most coaches. He seemed fine with talking about the youth movement of the last-place Toronto Maple Leafs, even after they defeated his worlds-better-on-paper Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 Wednesday night.
“They work hard. Just because they’re not in the National Hockey League on a regular basis [doesn’t mean much]. A lot of those guys are going to be National Hockey League players. They’ve done the right thing playing in the minors, and now they’re getting their chance,” Cooper said.
After the defending Eastern Conference champs suffered a blow to their pride, Lightning veteran Brian Boyle praised the Leafs’ defensive discipline. Ryan Callahan was impressed with the young players’ raw talent and hunger.
The under-24 Leafs with nine games in the uniform — Zach Hyman (three goals), William Nylander (two goals), Nikita Soshnikov (two goals), Connor Carrick (three points) — have all made an impact in a small window of opportunity. And Toronto is doing its best to improve the Edmonton Oilers’ lottery odds by winning three of its last four games.
“They’re getting to play a little more relaxed hockey because they’re learning right now, and it’s a short season for them. They’re not going through the 82-game grind that can get guys,” Cooper observed.
“I like what they’re doing. They’re working real hard. They came in to win a hockey game. It doesn’t matter who you’re playing or who the names are on the back. They came to win.”
Considering Cooper himself was a late-season call-up from the American League, replacing fired Guy Boucher in late March of the 2012-13 season, he speaks from experience.
The 2013 Lightning had long played themselves out of contention. It was then that they called up well-groomed rookies from a strong Syracuse Crunch group for an end-of-season look. Tyler Johnson wet his feet with 16 games. Ondrej Palat got in for 14. Two years later, they were essential to the Lightning’s run to the Stanley Cup final.
While he faulted his own club for a blown opportunity Tuesday, Cooper — the only opposing NHL coach to have faced Nylander & Co. twice — sees the promise in a rebuilding Leafs team.
“They just went into Detroit and beat a desperate Detroit team 1-0. They’re playing hard. They’ve got some structure to their game, and if you’re not going to work for it, it’s going to be hard to score,” Cooper said. “Their goaltender [Jonathan Bernier] is playing well. They’re feeling good about themselves |
fell much further than gold did, as I predicted.
Oil's price also fell dramatically. But nobody blamed manipulators for the fall in the price of oil.
So, whenever gold falls, and especially when silver falls, the perma-bulls start screaming about manipulators in the futures market who are selling off gold and silver. They do not admit to their readers that the futures market is a highly risky market in which nobody in his right mind sells a commodity that he does not own, and that he cannot get a hold of unless he enters the futures market to cover his position, unless he thinks the market is close to a top.
Manipulators would have to have access to enormous quantities of money, supplied by somebody else, which enables them to short a position against the movement of the price of the commodity in the physical markets. It is possible to have manipulation for very brief periods of time, but only because individuals shorting the market believe that the market has peaked temporarily, and that by shorting it they will terrify newcomers, who are not strong holders in their positions, and who will then sell their positions. That will drive down the price of the commodity. But this lasts only for as long as there are no buyers coming into the futures market, who, sensing that the bottom is here, begin to buy futures. This reverses the market, and the price goes back up.
LEVERAGE
The commodity futures market, like any other futures market, is highly leveraged. It is always dominated by the market in the physical commodity. Individuals believe that they have a better understanding of what the future of that market will be, and they enter the futures market, either to buy or sell. For every contract to buy, there has to be a contract to sell. For every person who thinks the price is going down, there is somebody else who thinks the price is going up. Always, the markets are equal. For every futures contract, there is a long and a short.
Never do the gold bugs and silver bugs go into the details of exactly how these markets work. Never do they tell the buyers what I am telling you now, namely, that for every long there is a short. For every person who thinks a commodity's price is going up, there is a person who thinks it is going down. For every person who promises to make delivery of the commodity in the future, there is a person who promises to take delivery in the future.
If the person who is either long or short in a commodity in a futures contract is incorrect, he will suffer losses. The losses are imposed by the real world of physical commodities. There are vastly more contracts out there than there are physical commodities to deliver. This is why only about 3% of commodity contracts are ever executed in terms of physical delivery. The entrepreneurs are interested in price changes; they are not interested in physical delivery.
PURVEYORS OF BULL
When silver bulls and gold bulls tell you that prices have to go up, because of underlying conditions, they misinform their readers. Nothing has to go up. Lots of things fall that are supposed to go up. All kinds of interventions can take place that are outside the ability of people to forecast. So, anybody who is a perma-bull is full of bull if he tells you, or even implies, that there will not be wild fluctuations in the price of the commodity between the day you buy it and the day you sell it (probably for digital money). The suckers are anybody who believes these purveyors of bull.
When the purveyors of bull see the price of the commodity going in the opposite direction, they frantically tell their deluded victims, who believed these silly people, that manipulators have entered the market to push down the price of the commodity. This is conceivable over very brief periods of time, but it is a highly risky transaction. At 10-to-1 leverage or greater, anyone who bets wrong is going to have his head handed to him. If these short-sellers get caught by high demand for the physical commodity, the price reverses, and they will lose lots of money.
The bull purveyors never tell you that the people who go long can be manipulators, too. Why should shorts have more power in the market than longs? Why should shorts be more favored than longs when it comes to manipulation? Why cannot people who want to make money from a market go long in a market? Why is manipulation always on the short side?
For example, why cannot central bankers who plan to sell gold to other central banks start spreading rumors about an imminent move on the part of other central bankers to buy gold? Then the suckers will buy gold, and the central bank that wants to sell gold will pocket the difference when it sells. Why don't we ever hear this kind of manipulation? If it doesn't happen, why doesn't it happen? If you can make money shorting a commodity, you can make money by going long. If someone can manipulate a market down, then someone else can manipulate a market up. This is obvious, but it is not obvious to the gold bug manipulators who manipulate their victims.
THE VICTIMS
The victims are naïve investors who do not understand economics. They do not understand how the commodities markets work. They do not understand that the physical market dominates the futures market. They do not understand that supply and demand for a real commodity in a real market are what ultimately triumph over speculators who bet wrong in commodity futures markets.
Maybe they understand this with respect to oil, which is actually consumed, but they do not understand with respect to gold and silver.
The real manipulators are the gold bugs and silver bugs who invoke the myth of hidden manipulators in the futures markets. They impose losses on their naïve victims, who believe the nonsense about the inevitable rise of the price of silver and gold. The rise of prices is not inevitable, although it is probably likely. But a straight-line increase is unlikely to the point of impossibility. So, the bull purveyors in the gold and silver markets frantically send out their newsletters and e-mails telling their people not to panic. The readers would not be in panic mode if they had been well-informed. But the bull purveyors have gotten them into the market on the assumption that gold and silver are going to go straight up, and that there will not be substantial losses along the way, not because of manipulators of the precious metals futures markets, but because of underlying realities in the physical goods markets.
The victims of these bull purveyors cannot get it into their heads they have been suckered by real manipulators, namely, the purveyors of bullish predictions regarding gold and silver. In no other commodity markets do you have these constant e-mails telling you "manipulators, manipulators, manipulators." Investors in all the other commodities markets know that none of this is likely. They know that the physicals market goes up and down irrespective of supposed manipulators in the futures market.
The reason why the purveyors of bull in the gold and silver markets are able to get away with it is that they are dealing with naïve investors who do not know anything about commodity futures. They are suckers, and the manipulators who manipulate them make money from them. I have watched this for over 40 years.
The endless quest for the hidden manipulators who inflicted losses on the suckers who believe the bull purveyors is endless. It is endless because they will not admit to themselves that they have been sucked in by people who have no particular insights into the markets.
I realize that it is never going to end. There is always somebody on my mailing list who has been sucked in by these purveyors of bull, and who really believes it. They do not understand that these people are the real manipulators. They manipulate people's opinions, and the people they manipulate are uninformed, naïve, and trusting. The victims are buying because some guru tells them to buy, and if the market moves against them in the interim, because they hesitated to buy when they should have bought, they get frantic because they think, maybe, that they have bet on the wrong guru. They do not blame themselves for being hesitant to get in when they should have gotten in, so they go looking for reasons why they were really, truly smart for getting in late, and they want to find out why their investment has turned sour. The reason why they have lost money on paper is because they did not have enough sense to get in when they should have gotten in. Then they got manipulated to get in by some guru who is the real manipulator, not the hidden manipulators of the commodity futures markets.
EXCHANGE TRADED FUNDS
I was asked by a subscriber: What about ETFs (exchange traded funds)? Nobody in an ETF managerial position is going to short the market against the desires of buyers if the ETF buyers are going long. There is nothing to motivate a manager of an ETF to go against the movement that he is experiencing in his ETF. If people are buying the ETF, because they want to own promises to pay digital money based on the movement of prices in the physicals market of a particular commodity, the manager of the ETF buys the promises. If, on the other hand, people are mostly selling the ETF, the manager is going to sell the promises.
The ETF makes money on the difference between the cost of investing and the cost of issuing promises. It makes it on the spread between buy and sell. It does not make it on market investments that are opposed to the demands made by investors to buy or sell his ETF. The manager of an ETF is not a speculator. He is selling an asset for which he makes a commission.
CONCLUSION
Markets go up or down long-term based on supply and demand in the physicals market, not based on supply and demand in the futures market. The futures market is a temporary phenomenon, because leverage is high, and because anyone who stays in a market in which he has gone on the wrong side of the contract is going to lose all his money.
It is possible for a manipulator like Gordon Brown to force down the price of gold, but it only lasts for as long as he can get his hands on gold to sell. When Brown ran out of gold to sell, it was time to buy gold. But hardly anybody did. That was because their confidence in gold had been broken, because Brown kept selling gold, and the price kept falling.
Do not look for manipulators in the futures market. Instead, look for manipulators in the gold and silver newsletter market. These are the people who are the real manipulators, because they manipulate people's opinion. I think they are right about the long-term implications of gold, but they are utterly wrong in not telling their subscribers from the beginning that the physicals market for gold and silver is dominant, and will persevere over whatever happens in the futures market. Meanwhile, conditions change in the physicals market, due to the business cycle and lots of other reasons, and these changes are going to produce paper losses for people who have bought gold and silver on the basis of long-term movements, but who suffer losses on paper because of changes in supply and demand in the physicals market.
Do not forget this. If you are leveraged ten to one in the futures market, and you are on the wrong side of the trade, you are going to lose your shirt if you do not cover your position. This is why there cannot be long-term manipulation of the metals market, or any other market, unless somebody has access to enormous amounts of money that he is willing to lose, irrespective of the movement of prices in the physicals market.
Here is reality: if a market can be manipulated on the short side, it can be manipulated on the long side. Never believe anybody who tells you that the price has moved because of manipulators on the short side, but who never, ever tells you that the prices have gone up because of manipulators on the long side. Anybody who plays this game should not be believed if he tells you that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow. If he says his mother loves him, check it out.Police car (Shutterstock)
Missouri lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday to restrict the public’s access to police camera footage, nearly two years after the slaying of a black teen in a St. Louis suburb fueled demands across the country for more police accountability.
The measure would block the public from accessing footage collected by cameras worn by officers and mounted inside patrol vehicles while investigations are ongoing.
Once an investigation is over, footage would remain restricted if recorded at locations where “one would have a reasonable expectation of privacy,” such as inside schools, homes and medical facilities.
Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, was considering whether to sign the proposal, an aide said.
The legislation was passed almost unanimously by the state’s House of Representatives on Tuesday after winning unanimous support in the state Senate. Both chambers are Republican-led.
Police in Ferguson, Missouri, were not wearing body cameras in August 2014 when a white patrolman fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. The incident sparked months of sometimes violent protests and demands for police reforms, including mandatory body cameras. Ferguson police use cameras now.
Many U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Detroit and Seattle have also moved toward supplying patrol officers with body cameras following protests over what critics see as police use of indiscriminate force against unarmed civilians, particularly racial minorities and the mentally ill.
So far in 2016, Florida, Indiana, Utah and Washington state as well as the District of Columbia have enacted laws governing the use of body cameras, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Twenty-three states have passed laws for body cameras, the group said.
Lawmakers and the Missouri Sheriff’s Association that backed restricted access to police videos cited privacy issues, such as when officers rush into a home to help a victim of domestic violence.
While the measure restricts access to footage gathered at schools, homes and medical facilities, some people would be able to obtain copies of the recordings, including those whose images or voices are contained in the video, their attorneys or certain relatives, and insurers.
The general public including journalists would have to seek a court’s permission to access videos taken from the designated non-public places.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Peter Cooney)Wounded Knee occupation, 1973.
By Mike Ely
Join in demanding freedom for Leonard Peltier, so that at long last simple justice be done for him and the Indigenous peoples of North America. Sign this petition urging his release. Petitions are also being circulated urging clemency and urging US Congress to investigate FBI misconduct on Pine Ridge and the “reign of terror” that existed between 1973 and 1976. This article was first written in 1998.
It is infuriating that, today, more than 10 years later, this freedom fighter is still locked in prison, instead of walking the streets among us. It was originally published in the Revolutionary Worker, issue #949. It has been updated and re-edited by the author and posted at Kasama Project website in 2009. It is posted with permission at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal to mark the 35th anniversary of the "shootout at Oglala" on July 26, 1975.
* * *
For over 36 years the Indian freedom fighter Leonard Peltier has been a target of government attack. He’s been set up by FBI Cointelpro “dirty tricks”, attacked by federal SWAT teams on Indian land, subjected to a national manhunt, illegally smuggled across international borders, railroaded with manufactured evidence, denied religious rights, targeted for assassination in prison, denied basic medical attention and tortured with extreme isolation.
Leonard Peltier has now spent 33 hard years in prison – for the “crime” of defending Indian people from violent government attack. Though it was proven that the FBI manufactured the “evidence” that convicted Leonard of the death of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation, each court appeal ended in new denials and new insults.
The US government insists that there are, officially, no political prisoners in its dungeons. (Just as they insist “The US does not torture.”)
The US insists there are no political laws that target and punish speech, political activity, dissidents and rebels. But the truth is that the US government has always targeted those who rise up against injustice — they massacred the Native people relentlessly, they assassinated key Native leaders, they have framed and persecuted those who dare to rise up and speak. And this story of Leonard Peltier is a living example of the techniques used to protect this system from exposure, resistance and revolution.
Leonard recently wrote:
“If my case stands as it is, no common person has real freedom. Only the illusion until you have something the oppressors want.”
In December 1993, at Peltier’s first parole hearing, the Parole Board deliberated for only 10 or 15 minutes and then announced that Peltier must wait another 15 years until his next hearing in 2009. It is now 2009. That hearing will be on July 27, 2009.
The military conquest of the Great Plains
The story of Leonard Peltier takes us back to Wounded Knee.
More than a hundred years ago, on December 28, 1890, the great resistance wars of the Plains Indians ended with a brutal massacre. On windswept flats of South Dakota, at the town of Wounded Knee, 500 soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry used artillery and rifles to massacre 350 Sioux.
For 20 years, the Plains Indians had fought the US government to hold on to their land. Led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, they defeated Custer at the famous battle of Little Big Horn. But the forces of rising industrial capitalism and its armed enforcers proved too strong.
The US government carried out a vicious genocide: they deliberately wiped out millions of buffalo to destroy the food base of the Great Plains Indian cultures. They assassinated or imprisoned the great war leaders of the Plains people. US cavalry attacked Indian villages in mid-winter – killing the people by destroying their shelter and food supplies. Soldiers disarmed the people. Government agents criminalised Indian culture, including the great Ghost Dance rituals. And the government finally herded one Indian people after another onto tiny reservations – stealing their land and breaking many treaties.
Wounded Knee was supposed to be the final shot. The murdering soldiers received 20 Medals of Honor to celebrate the massacre. The Indian people were now decisively conquered – it was said. Now they were supposed to disappear from the land and from history. During the 20th century, official America treated the Native peoples as “relics of a dying past”.
In towns surrounding the reservations, sheriffs and Klan-like rednecks enforced anti-Indian discrimination with murderous violence. They were always backed by state and federal authorities. Missionary programs stole Indian children and suppressed the Native languages. Indian people lived in bitter poverty.
But the struggle continued. Some Native people, called “traditionalists”, pulled back into distant rural pockets to keep their ways alive. Others drifted into urban ghettos where they mingled with proletarians of other nationalities.
And finally, after generations, a new opportunity for combative mass struggle arose. In the 1960s, Black people started shaking the United States with powerful rebellions. In Oakland, the Black Panther Party picked up the gun to challenge the system’s pig police. A new generation of Indian youth woke up and formed the American Indian Movement (AIM). Like the Panthers, they worked day and night to bring hot, radical, anti-system politics out to new sections of the people. Urban Indian radicals linked up with the rez youth and whole communities of “traditionalist” people.
Leonard Peltier was a leading activist in that radical new generation.
In the spirit of Crazy Horse
“I don’t consider myself an American.”
-- Leonard Peltier, My Life Is My Sun Dance
Leonard Peltier was born on Turtle Mountain reservation in North Dakota in 1944. His family came from the Anishinabe (Chippewa) and Lakota (Sioux) peoples.
“During harvest season, …my whole family – grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children – would migrate from Turtle Mountain to the Red River Valley to work in the potato fields. In those days, potatoes were picked by hand, and Indians would be hired to pick spuds at three to four cents a bushel, while Mexican Indians worked the sugar beets. When I was old enough to go into the fields, I would work ahead of the pickers, shaking the potatoes loose, which made it faster.”
Carolina Saldaña writes:
“Leonard tells us that when he was nine years old a big black government car drove up to his house to take him and the other kids away to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) boarding school in Wahpeton, Dakota del Norte. When they got there, they cut off their long hair, stripped them, and doused them with DDT powder.”
Leonard remembers:
“I thought I was going to die…that place…was more like a reformatory than a school…I consider my years at Wahpenton my first imprisonment, and it was for the same crime as all the others: being an Indian… We had to speak English. We were beaten if we were caught speaking our own language. Still, we did….I guess that’s where I became a ‘hardened criminal,’ as the FBI calls me. And you could say that the first infraction in my criminal career was speaking my own language. There’s an act of violence for you….The second was practicing our traditional religion.”
As a teenager he went to live with relatives in the Pacific Northwest, far from his home reservation.
In 1970, a group of Native people in Seattle occupied an abandoned army base, Ft. Lawson. Peltier joined the action and then he joined the newly formed American Indian Movement. Meanwhile, AIM was growing quickly by answering the many outrages surrounding the reservations with struggle – they organised people to militantly confront the rednecks, cops and courts in towns surrounding the reservations.
In the mid-1960s, I spent part of a summer bailing hay on a Montana ranch, not far from the Missouri River. One of things most stark and shocking to me was the raw racism toward Indian people expressed by the ordinary ranchers I met. Several of them I talked to felt, without a blink, that it was necessary to crush any expression of Indian culture, language and religion — and that Indian people should not have the right to simply wander around off the reservations, go freely into town,or hang out. One guy my age, who I just met at a coffee counter, explained soberly,
“You have to understand, and they have to understand, that they are a conquered people. We beat them. And we now get to decide.”
And reflecting those ugly views and those unjust power relationships, the cops of the towns ringing the reservations routinely brutalised and arrested Indian youth — for just being there, for just being Indian.
When I interviewed Leonard in 1994, he talked about the conditions that brought his generation into AIM,
“Poverty, discrimination. The injustices that people were receiving in the courtrooms. The violations of the Indian treaties made between two sovereign nations–the United States government and Indian nations. The bigotry that exists around Indian territories. The unemployment which brings in the high alcoholism rate and disease rate of the reservations. In them days, it was just still not illegal to kill an Indian. If you killed an Indian, you’d be very unfortunate if you got probation–most of them were released immediately.”
By 1972, AIM felt ready to take on the federal government. Peltier was prominent in the week-long occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building in Washington D.C.
At that point, the FBI decided to destroy AIM by any means necessary. Their COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) targeted leading activists of AIM for jail and assassination. Infiltrators worked to gather information about AIM’s organisation, to create divisions in the organization, and to set up its activists for “neutralisation”. One FBI document recommended that “local police put leaders under close scrutiny, and arrest them on every possible charge until they could no longer make bail”.
Peltier was one of the activists targeted after the BIA takeover. He was attacked in a restaurant by two off-duty cops, badly beaten and charged with attempted murder. One cop’s girlfriend testified that, before the incident, the cop had waved around a picture of Peltier, saying his job was “catching a big one for the FBI”.
Wounded Knee 2 and the need for armed self-defence
On the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Indian reservations in South Dakota, the AIM movement had developed deep roots among the masses who were hungry for change.
In opposition to AIM, tribal chair Dick Wilson, with federal backing, organised vigilantes and reservation police into a secret Klan-like force called the GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). Wilson banned political meetings on the reservation. Anyone who opposed the system risked death from the GOONs. The people call these times “The Reign of Terror”.
The masses and AIM activists rose up in struggle. In February 1973, hundreds took over the buildings at Wounded Knee to publicise their grievances. They were blockaded by GOONs and federal forces – including US Marshals, FBI SWAT teams, troops, armored vehicles, sharpshooters and even some phantom jets. The firefights lasted over two months and brought AIM’s struggle worldwide attention.
After a negotiated “settlement”, the FBI flooded their agents into the area. And by 1975, western South Dakota had the highest ratio of agents to citizens in the U.S.
The people faced a death-squad campaign – presided over by the FBI. During the 36 months after Wounded Knee, more than 60 AIM supporters died violently on or near the Pine Ridge reservation. People simply showed up dead on the side of the road or died in sudden shootouts at nighttime GOON roadblocks. Over 300 Native people suffered violent physical assaults. The per capita rate of state murder on Pine Ridge Reservation was as high as in Chile – where a CIA-military coup was conducting a famous bloodbath.
William Janklow, then South Dakota deputy attorney general, said:
“The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to American Indian Movement leaders’ heads and pull the trigger.”
The FBI, which occupied the reservation like an army, did not solve even one of these murders. But they compiled more than 316,000 separate investigative file classifications, including on all Native people with military training. Agents arrested 562 AIM members and supporters for participating in Wounded Knee. Another 600 people were charged with supporting the defenders. There were 185 indictments. One of the army’s commanders at Wounded Knee later wrote, “AIM’s most militant leaders are under indictment, in jail or warrants are out for their arrest… the government can win, even if no one goes to jail.”
These attacks after Wounded Knee 2 brought Leonard Peltier onto the Pine Ridge Reservation.
With many of Pine Ridge’s core activists on the reservation underground, in jail or dead – elders asked AIM members to organise self-defence camps to protect the people from GOON killers. In the spring of 1975, the Northwest AIM group, including Leonard Peltier, set up a defensive camp near the town of Oglala, a strongly pro-AIM area. Their camp was on the land of elders Harry and Cecilia Jumping Bull.
A secret June 6, 1975 FBI memo says:
“There are pockets of Indian population that consist almost exclusively of American Indian Movement (AIM) and their supporters on the Reservation. It is significant that in some of these AIM centers the residents have built bunkers which would literally require military assault forces if it were necessary to overcome resistance emanating from the bunker.”
The shootout at Oglala
On July 25, 1975, two FBI agents, Coler and Williams, arrived at the Jumping Bull compound. They said they were seeking a young Indian who had stolen some boots. One AIM member summed up: "The agents showed up to serve a warrant they didn’t have, on someone who wasn’t there, for a crime outside their jurisdiction."
By the next morning, July 26, it was clear these feds had been scouts for a military operation. Combat-armed police started massing near Oglala village – GOONs, BIA police, state troopers, US Marshals and FBI SWAT teams. Warned, the Indians, including Leonard Peltier, prepared to defend themselves. FBI documents claim 35 activists were involved.
Around noon on July 26, the same two FBI agents – Coler and Williams – drove past the Jumping Bull family buildings and straight for the AIM camp. It is not clear how the shooting started. Agents Coler and Williams got out of their car and began firing. Members of the AIM camp fired back. Coler and Williams called for reinforcements – it was the prearranged signal for all-out federal assault.
Three Indian youth, hiding behind trees and houses with.22 squirrel rifles, shot out the tyres of the first reinforcements. The whole police assault froze. Coler and Williams were caught in their own trap.
AIM rifles kept the feds at bay all afternoon – as the people of the camp, including Peltier, slipped away through the brush of White Clay Creek. After the firing stopped, the feds gathered enough courage to storm in. The place was abandoned. Their pointmen, Coler and Williams, lay dead. An Indian, Joe Stuntz Killsright, was also dead. Everyone else had escaped into the vastness of Indian Country.
The authorities went berserk after this shootout at Oglala. They unleashed a massive manhunt over the whole region – the largest in FBI history. The FBI created a “task force” of 180 SWAT-trained agents, supported by GOONs and BIA police. They launched military sweeps across Pine Ridge, equipped with full combat gear, jungle fatigues, assault and sniper rifles, grenade launchers, plastic explosives, helicopters, spotter planes and tracking dogs. For three months, this federal “task force” ran amok–storming into homes, holding people at gunpoint and ransacking everything.
Norman Zigrossi, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge, explained the FBI actions repeated almost the exact same words I had heard over coffee in Montana:
“They are a conquered nation. And when you are conquered, the people you are conquered by dictate your future. This is a basic philosophy of mine. If I’m part of a conquered nation, I’ve got to yield to authority.”
Even an official US commission would later say this was “an overreaction which takes on aspects of a vendetta… a full-scale military invasion”.
This vendetta failed to capture anyone. A series of grand juries was convened in Rapid City – hoping to force Indian to testify against Indian. The loyal media spread FBI lies about so-called “AIM terrorism”.
In the middle of this hysteria, the authorities charged three Northwest AIM members – Leonard Peltier, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler – with killing the two FBI agents. They wanted to portray the whole AIM movement as a plot by “violent outside agitators” stirring up local Indians.
The making of a railroad
Peltier fled to Canada, where he continued to organise. Meanwhile, Butler and Robideau were tried in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in July 1976. An all-white jury found them not guilty, saying they had acted in self-defence. The all-white jury was shocked to hear of the large-scale FBI and GOON terrorism facing people on Pine Ridge.
After this setback, a 1976 FBI memo called for directing “full prosecutive weight of the federal government…against Leonard Peltier”. Peltier was captured and illegally smuggled back into the United States by orders of then US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The trial was moved to the anti-Indian community of Fargo, North Dakota. The trial judge announced:
“Leonard Peltier is on trial, not the FBI. I will hear nothing derogatory about the FBI.”
The authorities had no evidence linking Peltier to the killing of the FBI agents. So they manufactured it. And the trial judge stopped the defence from exposing the prosecution lies.
The FBI used gestapo tactics to frame Peltier. One Indian woman, Anna Mae Aquash, was pressured by the FBI to betray the movement. When she refused, she was found dead from a bullet wound. The FBI showed Anna Mae’s severed hands to a mentally ill woman, Myrtle Poor Bear. This so badly frightened Poor Bear that she signed three different (and contradictory) statements implicating Peltier. In fact, Poor Bear didn’t know Peltier and had not witnessed anything.
At Peltier’s trial, an FBI agent swore that he had personally seen Peltier near the two dead agents. FBI lab experts claimed a shell casing at the scene came from Leonard Peltier’s AR-15 rifle. FBI witnesses claimed that this was the only AR-15 rifle in the shootout. All these “facts” were deliberate lies. The Court of Appeals later wrote: “[The prosecution's] theory, accepted by the jury and the judge, was that Peltier killed the two FBI agents at point blank range.”
Leonard Peltier was convicted of two counts of first degree murder on April 18, 1977. Judge Benson immediately ruled that Leonard should serve two life sentences consecutively. It was a complete railroad.
The government case unravels — the railroad continues
“As warriors of our nation we must show our people the spirit of Crazy Horse so they may rise off their knees… Raise up with me and resist the terrorist attacks of genocide against our nation!”
Leonard Peltier from prison, 1978.
In 1979, the FBI tried to assassinate Peltier in prison – pressuring other Indian prisoners to participate in their plot. One of those prisoners, Standing Deer – who suffered from extreme spinal pain – was denied medical treatment unless he helped to set up Peltier. Standing Deer exposed the plot at great personal risk. He was transferred to a prison hospital for surgery, after an FBI agent threatened him, saying,
“What you need is a good lobotomy.”
Revenge was not the only reason the FBI wanted Peltier dead. Secret documents were being forced into the open – proving that the FBI manufactured the “evidence” against Peltier. A secret 1975 memo to the FBI director revealed that the firing pin of the AR-15 rifle connected to Peltier had not matched any shell casing supposedly found at the scene.
By the late 1980s, even prosecutor Lynn Crooks was forced to admit that the government did not know who shot the two FBI agents. Crooks said,
“We did not have any direct evidence that one individual as opposed to another pulled the trigger… What we argued to the jury was quite simply that this man was a guilty participant in a murder….The facts available did not give us direct evidence as to who did the coup-de-grace…. there was no direct evidence upon which we could make a factual argument. We argued inferences…but that’s not the same thing as saying that we had direct evidence…that Mr. Peltier was the one that squeezed off the final rounds.”
In other words, the government never had any evidence that Peltier shot anyone.
However, after years of hearings, the court system has still not released Leonard Peltier from his unjust imprisonment. On October 5, 1987, the Supreme Court refused to review the case. In 1993 the federal courts denied Peltier’s appeal again. They argued that even if there’s no evidence of “close-up killing”, Peltier was guilty of “long-range aiding and abetting”. A few months after the December 1993 hearing where the parole board denied his parole and said he would have to wait until 2009 for another hearing. Leonard told me over the phone from Leavenworth:
“The government has admitted in two courts of law at the Appellate Court level that they don’t know who killed the agents….And now the government on their most recent decision is claiming that I am an `aider and abettor.’ Basically, that was their theory–I was aider and abettor at 15 to 20 feet or 200 yards, about two football fields away. They don’t know where I aided and abetted–but I was on the reservation.”
In other words, the federal court says Peltier must spend life in prison for being present as the AIM encampment defended itself. The system believes that someone has to pay for the armed resistance at Oglala.
The system has tried to make Peltier a symbol of government revenge and power. They have failed. Instead, Leonard Peltier has continued the struggle –with his words, his paintings and his organisng efforts. The support of literally millions of people all over the world has made Leonard Peltier a symbol of today’s Native resistance and US government injustice.
Free Leonard Peltier!Police officer Phil Ryan via Facebook
Writing on Facebook, a Texas cop and police academy instructor explained to his followers that they can legally shoot and kill anti-racism protesters if they attempt to pull down a Confederate monument on their private property.
According to Phil Ryan, who self-identified as a cop in his post, he was issuing a “public service announcement,” justifying legal homicide.
“Criminal Mischief (Vandalism) is a crime,” Ryan wrote, “So, let’s say someone is defacing or destroying a monument or a statue, not that it happens, just a hypothetical. That would be Criminal Mischief under Texas Penal Code.”
Ryan then outlined the legalities of shooting a person on private or public property by citing Texas statutes on “Criminal Mischief, “Protection of a Third Person’s Property,” and “Protection Of One’s Own Property,” before getting down to the right to shoot someone.
“Chapter 9.42 states: DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property,” Ryan wrote, noting that deadly force is justified after dark.
He then added, “Bottom line, if someone is destroying a monument or statue that isn’t theirs, you can defend it by force during the day with deadly force at night,” before quipping, “Just a little tip, from your Uncle Phil…”
You can see his Facebook post below:fullscreen continue view fullscreen close
Governor Cuomo introduced a more expensive fine for littering with a press conference in a subway station last night, in which he demonstrated his hatred for trackbed garbage by climbing down there and vacuuming some of it up himself.
An increased focus on littering enforcement was part of MTA Chairman Joe Lhota's plan to improve subway performance, since litter on the tracks is a cause of track fires, which lead to delays which then lead to snide headlines on your favorite websites. Cuomo, on a tour of the subway tracks in Union Square, picked up the trash ball from Lhota and announced that the fine for littering in New York would go from $50 to $100.
Introduced as the "Keep it Clean" initiative, a press release from the governor's office |
Comedian] is highly developed and highly crafted, a chiseled, evolved character that Gregg has been at work on,” the director says. “And we took that and put it in a very particular context. We let it do exactly what it does onstage.”
What it does is wake audiences out of their easy-to-digest entertainment malaise. Along with his touring partner Eddie (Tye Sheridan), a clown-nose-wearing, jig-dancing jester, the Comedian pushes entertaining to a breaking point, a juvenile nadir that’s deprived of substance. At two distinct points in the film, the Comedian and Eddie both resort to extended fart noises to get a rise out of their zombie onlookers. Alverson happily admits that the film is designed to create problems in the viewer. “That’s where its vitality comes from. That’s actually contributing to a person’s perspective. That’s what we want when we see something. We love that restless feeling that a movie could give you. That restless kind of uncertainty is difficult to pin down. It feels alive.”
Why does E.T. love Reese’s Pieces? Because they have the same flavor that cum does on his own planet.
Like Hamburger’s act, Entertainment preys on tropes. The erudite Alverson talks of the American West, a picturesque vision known from the movies. If John Ford or Howard Hawks shot today’s Mojave Desert, it would look like Entertainment’s grimy exteriors, seen rapidly decaying around the Comedian. The film’s wide, symmetrical frames tether it to that history and comfort the mind — the ideal state to upset with uncertainty and vulgarity.
Entertainment’s images can be taken quite literally. Because Alverson really, really, really hates metaphors. In his mind, they’re a cheap misdirect, a way for two people to avoid communication and convince themselves of understanding. “We go on our way and nothing’s fucking accomplished,” he says. It all goes back to an archaic literary narrative, one that’s still providing Hollywood’s commercial films with a backbone. People ask, What is this about? and What does it mean? and cower when movies try to batter them around. “They’re thinking in a literary sense when really they’re having this sensorial experience. They’re hearing things and seeing things, all of these formal elements that are really affecting them.” A key scene in Entertainment sees the Comedian sitting in on a talk on color psychology, the idea that red could anger a person, blue could calm them. Alverson plays with his palette throughout, poking us with a silent spectrum while Turkington screams profanity in a dimly lit bar.
Avoiding literary laziness means rejecting scripted dialogue. Turkington’s prewritten stand-up, plus key lines for costars John C. Reilly and Michael Cera, bumped Entertainment’s script up to 47 pages. Compare that with The Comedy’s 16 pages and Alverson’s latest starts looking like Mamet. Improvisations allow Entertainment to ebb and flow, building off energy easily stunted by mechanical dialogue. In scenes where Hamburger performs, three drinks and a microphone always in hand, Alverson asked his faux audience extras to react naturally. It’s like America’s Funnyman with the blank space intact. “The jokes are very funny to some people, problematic to other people, but their absolute insistence on repetition and merciless repetition is really where the change occurs in the audience,” says the director. “I saw [Turkington as Hamburger] perform for an hour in Richmond, Virginia, and the longevity of that thing just increased the joy and discomfort.”
No one expects a Saturday Night Live movie to placate the audience to the point of introspection. Wayne’s World nailing a “Bohemian Rhapsody” lip-sync is just fine. But Saturday Night Live movies, and a majority of character vehicles, even the funny ones, ignore the core of their characters. Neil Hamburger is a mining drill built to penetrate the walls between happiness and truth. His declarations often involve semen, but it works because Turkington never lets up. Both Turkington and Alverson compare Entertainment’s style to a filmmaker whose films involve far less excrement: Robert Bresson.
Turkington relates to Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar, specifically the film’s second lead: a donkey exploited by cruel masters. “I thought, This is one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen out of anyone,” he says. “[Bresson] managed to get it out of a donkey. The donkey doesn’t have to say anything. He just somehow frames it in these ways that you feel so moved by this donkey’s acting. And sometimes when we were doing another one of these scenes where I’m sitting there with a blank look on my face, I’d start feeling like that donkey, or start picturing myself as that donkey being directed by Bresson.”
What’s the worst part about being gang-raped by Crosby, Stills, and Nash? No Young.
Sundance doesn’t serve a movie like Entertainment. Few viewing experiences do. A film festival forces an audience member to catch a film, pass a judgment, jump on a bus, and catch another, often juxtaposing radically different styles before anything can marinate. Reactions from those who stuck out Entertainment’s 98-minute running time skewed negative. People felt bad. They didn’t get it. They knew the movie aimed to piss them off and it worked — end of story.
To “enjoy” Entertainment is to soak it up, then stand back from it. Step one: Allow the combined forces of Neil Hamburger’s repugnant humor and washed-out American vistas to knock you upside the head. Step two: Swap “Why?” for “How?”
Or you can just imitate Hamburger’s catchphrase: “Whhhhhhhhhy?” Because like the best and worst of sketch-character movies, Entertainment is a riot. And quotable even in its darkest moments.
Matt Patches (@misterpatches) is a writer and reporter in New York whose work has been featured on Vulture, VanityFair.com, and The Hollywood Reporter.Former premiership coach Mark Thompson has confirmed he is back in the frame to coach Essendon next season, just weeks after conceding he had lost the passion for the job.
Thompson said the club would soon announce who will coach in 2014 while James Hird serves his 12-month suspension, but said he didn't know who it would be.
Essendon's Mark Thompson with fans at training. Credit:Sebastian Costanzo
Thompson, who was fined $30,000 for his role in the supplements scandal, was initially the first choice of the club and Hird, however the Bombers were forced to look elsewhere after the former Cats mastermind withdrew from the race.
However it appears Thompson has had another change of heart, revealing on Monday he would be willing to do the job if required.The twenty-first century is offering up plenty of reasons to fret about the nation, the world, and perhaps our own individual lives. There is one very significant trend, though, that has been heading in the right direction for a good, long time. More so than ever before, we can live the life that is most consistent with who we really are.
No longer does everyone have to be, or pretend to be, or pretend to want to be, heterosexual or monogamous or married or interested in having children or a detached single-family home in the suburbs or a car or a high-powered. We get to write our own life scripts. And thanks to the internet, we can usually find other people who share our interests and maybe even understand us at a deep level. Taking the path less chosen (or less celebrated) is not as lonely as it once was.
But not everyone is happy about our expanding options. There are those who would like to cram us all back into the prescribed boxes and tape them all shut. They like the idea of the one true and worthy path through life. Those of us following a different road – especially those of us who are happy doing so – are threatening the special status of the one and only celebrated way to live. And so they offer us advice, gratis, for how to get back on track.
A particularly off-putting example is an essay in The Book of Life, “I wish I was still single.” (No authors are listed.) It begins with a recitation of some of the positive aspects of living single – not the profound benefits of single life, for the most part, but mostly just the small stuff such as getting up when you want to and eating what you want without having to justify your choices to anyone else. The unidentified authors don’t want us to think about those things, though, because remembering what we appreciated about our single lives might make us “snappy and bitter” in our. (Note the use of the “bitter” stereotype.)
If you are in a romantic relationship and thinking those forbidden thoughts about what you liked about your single life, the authors want to remind you of what observers of your single life would see: “They’d capture our face at 5:30 pm on a winter Sunday afternoon, as the sun begins to set and we know we’ll be alone till we reach the office on Monday morning. They’d observe us looking across the room at someone at a party and not having the courage to do more. They’d capture us spending a lot of time at our ’ house, and growing increasingly tetchy in their company.” And so on.
The authors seem to think that all single people are truly miserable, and any objective observer would see that. In the United States alone, there are more than 109 million people who are not married, but the authors apparently cannot fathom that any of them are like me. At 5:30 on most Sunday afternoons, I revel in the hours of solitude that are still about to unfurl – or I head out to a reading at a bookstore or dinner and a movie with a. No one would ever find me looking longingly across the room at a party. If there is someone I want to talk to, I’ll approach them, and not because I hope they will become a romantic partner. I would not be “tetchy” in the company of my parents; I would be profoundly to see them alive once again. (They both died long ago.)
The essay ends with this embarrassingly bad piece of advice: “Imagine that a documentary maker had made a film about you being single. What would some of the most distressing scenes be?”
I think it is probably true that if you typically love being coupled and you find yourself wishing you were single only occasionally, then you probably would do best as part of a couple. When your yearnings to be single are the exceptions, then maybe you are just in the wrong relationship or there is something off about it at the moment.
But that’s not what these authors are talking about. They are simply assuming that everyone should be coupled, and that anyone in a romantic relationship who is thinking fondly about what they loved about living single should stop it immediately. Instead, they should try to imagine “the most distressing scenes” from single life.
The essay is not an even-handed cautionary tale about romanticizing whatever life you do not currently have. There is no admonition to single people who are fantasizing about being coupled to imagine the most distressing scenes from coupled life. No, these authors want all 109 million single Americans, and the zillions more all around the globe, to realize that our lives are inferior. We should all be romantically coupled. And perish the thought that single life might actually be the very best life for some of us – our most authentic, fulfilling, and meaningful way to live.
Don’t listen to them. They don’t know you. You know you. You have a greater opportunity to live the life that is right for you than any cohort in history – not just with regard to relationship status, but other big, important parts of your life, too. Don’t let the Book of (a very, very narrow) Life take that away from you.Wired’s Weird Propaganda and the Most Dangerous Man in the World
Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani, Wired writer Robert Beckhusen
The wizards of Wired‘s Danger Room blog have posted a year-end click-bait listicle identifying who they – Spencer Ackerman, David Axe, Nathan Shachtman, and Robert Beckhusen – believe to be “The 15 Most Dangerous People in the World.”
While Paul Broadwell starts the list for some strange reason, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan clocks in at number four (with entry author Ackerman studiously avoiding any mention of Brennan’s rampant lies over the murderous drone program he oversees, or the staggering civilian death toll for which Brennan and his boss are personally responsible) and Bashar al-Assad at number two, the Danger Roomers peg Iranian Brigadier General Ghasem Soleimani (they write it as Qassem Suleimani) – head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Qods Force – as the single most dangerous man on Earth.
Beckhuser, who wrote the final entry for Wired, begins with a truly bizarre formulation. “As the country most likely to spark a world war,” he writes, “Iran has to be considered the most dangerous country on the planet.”
Let’s read that again and then unpack it. Iran – in Beckhuser’s estimation (one that he seems to think is a pretty uncontroversial assumption) – is “the country most likely to spark a world war.” (emphasis added) In fact, United States intelligence has long held that Iran maintains defensive capabilities and has a military doctrine of self-defense and retaliation, but will not begin a conflict.
In April 2010, Defense Intelligence Agency director Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess told the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services, “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external threats, particularly from the United States and Israel. Its principles of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare.”
Burgess’ intelligence report, delivered in conjunction with his testimony, also included the assessment that Iran maintains a “defensive military doctrine, which is designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities,” and that “Iranian military training and public statements echo this defensive doctrine of delay and attrition.” The identical position was reaffirmed by Burgess’ testimony in March 2011, during which he explained that, if attacked, “Iran could attempt to block the Strait of Hormuz temporarily with its navy, threaten the United States and its allies in the region with missiles, and employ terrorist [sic] surrogates worldwide. However, we assess Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack.”
This year, Burgess repeated these conclusions (which have been the consensus view of U.S. intelligence for years), reiterating that the Defense Intelligence Agency “assesses Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict.”
So what does Beckhuser mean when he claims that Iran is “the country most likely to spark a world war”? While an unprovoked attack on Iran is widely seen as a terrible, “stupid” idea (and a war crime of obvious and unequivocal illegality) by those not of the neoconservative persuasion, and one that could potentially lead to a global conflagration, the idea that Iran would start such a war is not actually a consideration. Even former Israeli Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy warned, “An attack on Iran could affect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years.” Note how the potential attack suggested by Levy is on Iran by an unmentioned aggressor, and not by Iran on any other country.
Maybe that’s why Beckhuser wrote “spark” rather than “start.”
In so doing, however, the Wired writer is effectively – in this warped thought experiment – blaming Iran for getting itself attacked by Israel or the United States. He appears to be saying that if Iran responds to a foreign military assault, it would somehow be culpable for “sparking” a global conflict, the instigator of a new world war. The twisted logic of such an assertion reveals a very specific perception of Iran as a perennial provocateur of violence visited upon itself.
It is apparently irrelevant to Beckhuser that Iran’s wholly legal nuclear energy program is thoroughly monitored by the IAEA, an organization that continually confirms that its program has not been weaponized and admits it has no evidence Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program, or that the United States intelligence community and its allies have long assessed that Iran is not and never has been in possession of nuclear weapons, and is not currently building nuclear weapons. All indications are that Iran’s leadership has not even made a decision to build nuclear weapons and Iranian officials have consistently maintained they will never pursue such weapons on religious, strategic, political, moral and legal grounds.
Beckhuser doesn’t explain how Iran – a country with no modern military history of invading or attacking any other nation, a demonstrated refusal to respond in kind to chemical weapons attacks on its own citizens, and with a military budget of roughly 4% of what the United States spends annually, dwarfed by U.S.–backed states in the region – would be responsible for sparking a military conflict were it to be attacked. Does Beckhuser think that by consistently offering to curb and cap its enrichment program, accepting international cooperation in its energy sector and taking significant scientific and technological steps to reduce its medium-enriched uranium stockpile in an effort to allay fears of possible militarization of its program, Iran is acting provocatively?
Are we to believe that, in the event the United States or Israel initiates a war of aggression against Iran – thereby committing the “supreme international crime” as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal – that Iran should be seen as “the most dangerous country on the planet“?
For decades, headlines around the world have routinely speculated and asked, “Will Israel Attack Iran?” Not the other way around.
Who is currently terrorizing civilian populations and killing an extraordinary number of children in at least six foreign countries with flying robots; has an arsenal of over 5,100 nuclear warheads; is responsible for three-quarters of the global arms market, flooding the world with weapons to the tune of $66.3 billion last year alone; is itself the gun violence capital of the world; maintains the most sophisticated and lethal military on the planet and a global empire with more than 1,000 military bases and installations all over the world, and whose legislative body stridently works to literally outlaw diplomacy and lay the groundwork for more war forever and ever?
Who begins reelection campaigns by murdering over 160 people in an aerial bombardment of an impoverished, caged, blockaded and besieged refugee population; constantly violates ceasefire agreements to commit war crimes; threatens to attack sovereign nations on a regular basis; continues an over four-decade-long illegal military occupation in order to fulfill its century-old founding settler-colonial ideology and displace, dispossess and disenfranchise its indigenous population; has been found to be the world’s most militarized nation for nearly 20 years in a row?
Who do the majority of people living in Iran’s neighboring and regional nations fear the most?
It is not Iran.
Iranian officials consistently speak out against the possibility of a new war. The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, in a recent report suggesting that direct negotiations with the United States could resolve the standoff over the Iranian nuclear program and begin to lift decades of Western-imposed sanctions, stated, “One way to fend off a possible war is to resort to diplomacy and to use all international capacities,” adding that, as the risk of war appears high, “it is an unforgiveable sin not to prevent it.”
Meanwhile, the threats against Iran continue unabated.
Beckhuser also fails to note that in the past few months, the United States led a massive naval war game exercise in the Persian Gulf, amassing the floating firepower of nearly 30 countries just off the southern coast of Iran, and is rapidly arming its dictatorial Gulf allies with more and more weapons while replenishing the stockpiles of Israel after its eight-day bombardment of Gaza in late November.
The Washington Times recently reported, “The largest infusion of U.S. arms ever for Persian Gulf allies has shifted more toward offensive weapons at the same time that President Obama’s military strategy says it will rely more on allied firepower in any future war,” and added that due to “U.S. sales of air defense-penetrating F-16s and F-15s, satellite-guided bombs and a pending order for ordnance that can burrow deep and then explode, analysts say Gulf nations could participate in a U.S. air campaign to strike Iran’s nuclear sites.”
Business Insider reports, “This week the U.S. Department of Defense notified Congress of a $647 million agreement to provide the Israel Air Force with 10,000 bombs — more than half of which are bunker-busters — along with 6,900 joint direct attack munitions (JDAM) tail kits, which convert unguided free-fall bombs into satellite-guided ‘smart’ weapons.”
Yet it is not Iran that is flying drones in American airspace; it is not Iran that is engaged in cyberwar and industrial sabotage against the United States; it is not Iran that is murdering American scientists on the street in front of their families; and it is not Iran that is collectively punishing the civilian population of foreign countries in an effort to force their governments to relinquish their inalienable national rights and attempt to instigate regime change.
Beckhuser’s attempt to establish Iran as the most dangerous place on Earth (a formulation lifted wholesale from Netanyahu talking points) reflects a perpetual and practically pathological predisposition in the mainstream narrative – both liberal and conservative – to view the Islamic Republic of Iran as a sinister domain of unadulterated violence and malevolence; or, as the common refrain goes: “Iran poses the greatest threat to the stability and security of the Middle East and the entire world.” Never mind that a majority of knowledgeable foreign policy and security experts consider such a statement to be not only a gross exaggeration, but a total absurdity.
Naturally, Beckhuser doesn’t elaborate on his opening statement, but assumes his readers agree and moves on from there. In making the assumption that Iran is the “most dangerous country,” Beckhuser then seeks to identify “the most dangerous man in that most dangerous country,” and (taking his cue from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute) hits upon General Soleimani, whom he describes as “ruthless and mysterious,” just like all caricatures of nefarious Orientals.
Why is he so dangerous? Beckhuser explains,
…if Barack Obama or Bibi Netanyahu were to strike Iran’s nuclear program, it’ll be Suleimani and the Quds Force in charge of taking Iran’s counterattacks beyond its borders, as Iran launches waves of commando and terrorist strikes against the U.S. and its allies across the region and the world.
Yes, you read that correctly: if the elected leaders of the United States and Israel defy the wishes of their own citizens by launching an illegal military adventure against Iran, the “most dangerous man” in the world is the guy who would be tasked with retaliating, not the ones who actually launched the attack and started a new war.
That’s like saying you consider the polar bear at the Central Park Zoo to be the most dangerous animal in New York City because, if you punch it in the face, it might bite your hand off.
One would be hard-pressed (to use Beckhuser’s verbiage) to explain how responding to an unprovoked assault (a war crime in international law) by targeting the heavily-armed, uniformed soldiers of the world’s only superpower stationed halfway around the world could reasonably be considered terrorism, by any stretch of that politically manipulated term’s increasingly irrelevant definition.
So, to sum up: Starting a world war? Whatever. Responding to a military attack on your country? DANGEROUS!
By perpetuating fear-mongering propaganda about Iran, it appears that the most dangerous thing in Wired‘s Danger Room might actually be its own staff.
Benjamin Netanyahu, not dangerous according to Wired’s Danger Room.
Related articlesWoman Pleads Guilty in Fiancé’s Kayak Death on Hudson River Share on Facebook
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Mail Image Angelika Graswald being arraigned in State Supreme Court in Orange County, N.Y., in May 2015, on charges that she killed her fiancé, Vincent Viafore. She pleaded guilty on Monday to criminally negligent homicide. Credit Pool photo by Allyse Pulliam By Rick Rojas July 24, 2017
A woman accused of killing her fiancé by tampering with his kayak and then leaving him to drown in the cold and choppy waters of the Hudson River pleaded guilty on Monday to a reduced charge of criminally negligent homicide.
The case drew attention far beyond the area just north of New York City where the death occurred, as prosecutors described how a seemingly doting partner desperately called 911 for help after her fiancé disappeared only to tell investigators later that it “felt good knowing he was going to die.”
The woman, Angelika Graswald, 37, was awaiting trial for second-degree murder and faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. She was charged in April 2015, after her fiancé, Vincent Viafore, 46, vanished after his kayak capsized during a trip on the Hudson River. The authorities said that Ms. Graswald had removed a plug from the boat and knew that a locking clip that kept the paddle in place was missing.
The couple was returning on the evening of April 19 to the western shore of the Hudson from Bannerman Island, several miles north of West Point. The wind picked up, and Mr. Viafore, who was not wearing a life jacket or a wet suit, fell into the water. (His body was recovered in May.)LA Galaxy II head coach Curt Onalfo confirmed on Tuesday that forward Jack McBean will serve as the captain for Los Dos throughout the 2016 season.
Speaking on a conference call previewing the upcoming USL campaign, Onalfo confirmed that the five-year professional will captain his squad. McBean, 21, has scored nine goals this preseason after notching six goals and five assists in 26 regular season appearances last season.
Having kept a close eye on McBean throughout his progression from 16-year-old professional to Los Dos captain, Onalfo believes that the forward is ready for the challenge.
"I've coached Jack for six seasons since he was a 16-year-old, that's when MLS had a reserve league that only had 10 games, and he didn't get the games that he needed to develop. He had a stretch with the first team where he did really well then he got injured, and for whatever reason fell out of favor. Last year, he was with us all last season and having that full season, he established himself, he established a rhythm... He really grew as a player," Onalfo told reporters.
"Going into this season, he's our captain; he's scored nine goals this preseason, and he continues to get better. You can see that if he gets that consistent play that he can grow like the other guys like Daniel Steres and Ari Lassiter, who are playing with the Galaxy. I'm really pleased with how he's progressed.... he's moving in the right direction."× Expand East Side Motel, present day
The large white sign by the driveway of the East Side Motel near Kingston Road and Mason looks as if it’s lit by a 60-watt bulb, its tantalizing offer of “LOW, LOW DAILY WEEKLY RATES” barely illuminated.
The long, one-storey L-shaped building shows several signs that basic standards of upkeep have long been abandoned. But at the bottom of the sloping driveway are unexpected signs of life: a broken-down car jacked up for repairs, BBQs, lawn chairs and tables and potted plants. Religious symbols mark the motel’s doors and windows.
Through the open blinds of one unit we see what appears to be a hospital bed in the middle of the living room, as if we’ve stumbled upon the Company headquarters from John Frankenheimer’s Seconds. It belonged to a woman who was terminally ill, who lived here with her husband. She was a citizen of the United States and the bed had been donated, her husband caring for her in that unit until she died.
It’s clear that people have been living here for extended stretches of time. Our mild curiosity about an unknown stretch of road leads to many subsequent visits and a full-fledged history lesson on the rise and fall of a storied neighbourhood – and some troubling insight into the current state of Toronto’s shelter system.
× Expand Paragon Motel
***
Kingston Road, also known as Highway 2, has been integral to the Scarborough area since it was established in 1817, its name signalling that it was the sole route connecting Toronto and Kingston. What was then a post road for mail coaches turned into a bustling thoroughfare for automobiles moving between Toronto and eastern Canada.
Like Route 66 in the U.S., Kingston Road was marked by the 50s and 60s heyday of motor hotels. Cars were relatively inexpensive, easier to drive and safer than ever before. The newly introduced options of air conditioning and power steering made the prospect of a road trip more appealing for young couples and families looking for a little adventure. You could cruise through Pickering and have a refreshing cocktail in the grassy courtyard of the Lido Motel, enjoy the soda fountain and in-room television at the Avon, grab a medium-rare hamburger in the spacious dining room of Andrew’s Motel or take a dip in the outdoor pool at the Roycroft.
The Paragon Motel boasted 42 fully modern units, a convention hall, restaurant and children’s playground. Built in 1949, it became the Wellington Motel in 1973 and the East Side Motel in 1987. The east half of the property is now the Comfort Inn.
But completion of Highway 401 changed the way Canadians travelled by car. And while Kingston Road still stretches to Pickering, the motels that lined the street became more redundant with each passing decade as chain hotels and service stations popped up along the former superhighway. The amorality of development means that the prosperity of one area may force another to flounder, and by the 80s the Kingston strip had noticeably decayed.
× Expand Aerial view of Kingston Road, 1950s
× Expand Avon Motel, 1950s
***
Forty-six years after the final stretch of the 401 opened in 1968, we’re standing in the Roycroft’s parking lot exactly where the swimming pool used to be. It’s June 2014, and we’re fishing for a lighter to join Jennifer in a cigarette.
Jennifer isn’t a tourist. She’s a former law clerk who’s suffered a series of personal misfortunes and, at the time of our conversation, calls the Roycroft home. She and several others at this location, and hundreds along Kingston Road, are clients of Toronto’s Hostel Services program, which uses such motels for temporary shelter.
Toronto began contracting motels for social services in the late 80s as an emergency solution to growing demand. Between 1988 and 1999, the number of homeless children grew by 130 per cent, changing the model of motels-as-shelters from provisional to ongoing.
At the peak of this period, Kingston Road motels were supplying 700 beds for the homeless, with an additional 200 provided by the Toronto-operated Family Residence shelter at Kingston and Galloway. By 2000, an overwhelmed shelter system coupled with a rapid rise in illicit activity caused the city’s community services department to adopt a three-year proposal that would reduce the total number of motel beds to an ideal range of 150 to 200, depending on municipal and provincial financial participation.
At the time of that report, the principal motels used for shelter were the Guild Inn and the Lido Motel. Since then, the former is being converted into a banquet hall, while a drive through the parking lot of the latter confirms that the Lido is still home to the transient class of the homeless and refugees awaiting permanent shelter.
Back at the Roycroft, Jennifer says she and her husband have been living at the motel for the better part of three months. Behind us, kids nine or 10 years old play hide-and-seek between three open doors on the motel’s second level. Jennifer can be moved at any time, depending on demand.
About two weeks later, we get a call from an irate Jennifer, who’s been packed up and moved to another room across the parking lot. She claims the new space is unlivable, with broken appliances and bed sheets that appear never to have been washed.
Most residents share her frustration with conditions on Kingston Road. Refugees and other homeless people who rely on Toronto Hostel Services want adequate living conditions for their families, accessibility to schools for their children and the chance to live within a community where they can remain once they’ve achieved economic sustainability.
Then there are the area’s long-term residents, whose comfortable homes contrast sharply with the run-down strip motels. The 2000 report mentions a city effort to kick-start development to revitalize Kingston Road with condos and new businesses. Haven on the Bluffs, a 250-unit condo project overlooking Lake Ontario that’s currently under construction in the Cliffside neighbourhood, includes the Andrews Motel, which was sold in 2012 to VHL Developments.
× Expand Andrew’s Motel, 1960s
Some owners of the more dilapidated motels further east on Kingston that aren’t involved in housing the homeless are likely hoping for a similar rescue. One owner we spoke with who declined to go on the record complained that falling property values have forced her to keep her motel’s nightly rates low, which in turn attracts prostitution, drug dealing and a steady police presence.
Would-be room renters at the Hav-A-Nap, for example, are greeted by a thick plane of bulletproof glass and closed-circuit surveillance. Not exactly the most reassuring welcome for a newcomer.
In January, Mayor John Tory announced the opening of an additional 90 beds at motels along the strip to free up space in the city’s shelter system. So while plans for condo development in the near future remain unclear, what’s certain is that 25 years later, motels on Kingston Road continue to be the backup plan for Toronto’s overwhelmed shelter system.
***
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon when we make our way back to the East Side. In daylight, it makes a much different impression. Beat up, yes. Eerie? Not at all.
Of three women sitting on plastic chairs, one says she’s been here three months, another four, the last six. None of them expect to be here much longer. Asked if they know anyone who’s had to live at the East Side for an extended period, they point to a unit five rooms down. We walk over and knock, and about 30 seconds later the door opens.
That’s when we meet Donald Gillis.
Gillis is a 76-year-old plumber who moved into the East Side about three years ago. He’d been the motel’s maintenance man for many years, and was tired of living alone and commuting to work every day. His children are grown up, his two wives had died, and he was more than happy to spend his time around those who depend on him.
He grew up in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and joined the many postwar Maritimers who migrated to Toronto looking for work. He tells us about hitchhiking across eastern Canada and jail-keepers kindly putting him and his buddy up for the night.
At 17, he arrived on Kingston Road in the summer of 1956, during a period when the area was arguably at its best. Gillis and the street have slowly grown older together. He’s emblematic of Kingston Road: resilient, blue-collar and with a rich history.
[email protected] | @nowtorontoThe X10 Programming Language
X10 is an interesting and relatively new language from IBM being developed as part of [[DARPA]]’s High Productivity Computing Systems program. X10 is designed for high-performance parallel programming using a [[partitioned global address space]] model. To my mind, I see X10 as being a modern [[Fortran]] … but perhaps that’s a bit disingenuous. Anyway, what got me looking at this was the following paper:
Constrained Types for Object-Oriented Languages, N. Nystrom, V. Saraswat, J. Parlsberg and C. Grothoff, OOPSLA, 2008. [DOI] [PDF]
Constrained types (which are a form of dependent type) are quite interesting to me, since Whiley supports something similar. A simple example from the paper is this:
class List(length:int}{length >= 0} {... }
This is a constrained list type whose constraint states that the length cannot be negative. I find the notation here is a bit curious. X10 divides fields up into two kinds: properties and normal fields. The distinction is that properties are immutable values, whilst fields make up the mutable state of an object. Thus, constraints can only be imposed over the properties of a class. This implies our constrained list cannot have anything added to it, or removed from it. But, I suppose we can still change the contents of a given cell.
Constraints can also be given for methods, like so:
def search(value: T, lo: int, hi: int) {0 <= lo, lo <= hi, hi < length}:...
The first question that springs to mind here is: what can we do inside a constraint? Obviously, we’ve already seen properties, parameters and ints being used … but what else? In particular, can we call impure methods from constraints? Unfortunately, I don’t have definite answer here. As far as I can tell, X10 has no strong notion of a [[pure function]]. The spec specifically states that X10 functions are “not mathematical functions”. On the other hand, I haven’t seen a single constraint which involves a method invocation, so perhaps you simply can’t call methods/functions from constraints. Sadly, the spec is rather brief on this point.
An interesting design choice they’ve made with X10 is to rely on “pluggable constraint systems”, which presumably stems from work on “pluggable type systems” (see e.g. this):
The X10 compiler allows programs to extend the semantics of the language with compiler plugins. Plugins may be used to support different constraint systems.
Now, let’s be clear: i’m not a fan of this. The problem is really that the meaning of programs is no longer clearly defined, and relies on third-party plugins which may be poorly maintained, or subsequently become unavailable, etc. I think the problem is compounded by the following:
If constraints cannot be solved, an error is reported
To me, this all translates into the following scenario:
“I download and compile an X10 program, but it fails telling me I need such and such plugin; but, it turns out, such and such author is not maintaining it any more and I can’t find it anywhere.”
I’m assuming here that it will be obvious which plugins you need to compile a given program. If |
’s emerging middle class stopped buying cars, Europe never exited its recession, and emerging markets like Brazil and India stayed in the doldrums, then the Saudis might be able to undermine fracking. But that’s not the world we live in. Much more likely, this period of low oil prices will be temporary, causing a wave of buyouts and perhaps a few small bankruptcies among shale producers that ultimately produce a stronger industry. Weaker firms will be absorbed, and marginal plays outside the “sweet spots” will be mothballed — at least until prices rise again.
Now consider the geopolitical case. The animosity between Saudi Arabia and Iran, longtime rivals for preeminence in the Middle East, kicked into high gear after the Iraq War. The Saudis viewed the replacement of Saddam Hussein, a reviled but largely defanged Sunni dictator, with a pro-Iranian Shiite regime in Baghdad as a strategic disaster. The outbreak of civil war in Syria, and the overt support provided by Iran and Russia for President Bashar al-Assad’s government, was the last straw. Iran’s subsequent support to the Shiite Houthi tribe as it toppled Yemen’s government was icing on the cake.
The Saudi decision not to try to arrest the slide in oil prices, meanwhile, avoided a bigger strategic disaster for Riyadh. Had they made the attempt, they risked providing evidence that such an act is now beyond even the Saudis, undermining their claim of being the most important player in global energy markets. By deciding not to act, Saudi Arabia has not only inflicted severe economic pain on its rivals, but it has also deftly reinforced Riyadh’s centrality as the only oil producer truly able to influence global oil markets on its own.
The Saudis likely consider this a particularly important message to deliver now, given their fears that a successful conclusion to the nuclear talks with Iran will cause Washington to cozy up to Tehran. But the idea that the conclusion of a verifiable nuclear proliferation treaty will mean the end of 40 years of pragmatic power politics between Washington and Riyadh is fanciful: Remember, even when the Shah was in power, the Saudis managed to purchase AWACS airborne radar planes and eventually F-16s, M1A1 Abrams tanks, and a lot else besides. Being the world’s main source of spare oil production capacity has its perks.
Whether or not their concerns are valid, it’s these geopolitical questions swirling around Iran and Russia that Saudi Arabia is concerned about — not launching a plot to “find the bottom” of the shale revolution. The Saudi imperative today, as it has been for decades, is to reinforce its importance as a U.S. ally and bolster its claim to leadership of the Arab world and stewardship of Sunni Islam. And it just might work: When it comes to the relationship with Washington, nothing says “we love you” like undermining the Russians. It worked in Afghanistan, and it’s working again now. If the “shale revolution” hits a bump in the road as a result, that’s an extra bonus for the world’s biggest oil producer. But it’s hardly the main point.
*Correction, Dec. 25, 2014: U.S. oil production is more than 9 million barrels per day. An earlier version of this article mistakenly said U.S. production is more than 9 billion barrels per day.
FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty ImagesYou must enter the characters with black color that stand out from the other characters
— Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford has spent the last two months making calls, trying to land a top-line forward.
The Canes have the No. 8 pick in next week's NHL draft, an asset other teams would love to acquire via trade.
The question: How much have you looked into possibly dealing that pick?
Rutherford’s answer: "It's not something we really want to do because we're building our team piece-by-piece with young players. But at the same time, we have a real priority this year to get a player to play with Eric Staal. It may take that pick as part of the deal to do that. But when you get into some of these names that could be available, it's going to take more than just that pick."
The top forwards on the trade market include Staal's brother, Jordan, of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Rick Nash from Columbus. The top free agent forwards, like the Devils' Zach Parise, will carry too heavy of a price tag.
"Free agency is going to be difficult for us,” Rutherford said. “I think we're going to have to fill the holes through trades."
Free agency begins July 1. The Canes' only unrestricted free agents are defensemen Bryan Allen and Jaroslav Spacek.
"Spacek and Allen will test the market, and we'll see if our paths cross again in that first 24-48 hours,” Rutherford said. “That's what happens lots of times."
Before that is the draft, which begins Friday, and the talent pool is loaded with defensemen. Rutherford says he'll pick the best player on the board, unless he gets that trade offer he's looking for.
"I feel if we can add that one player to play with Staal, with all the other good pieces we have here, then we can take that next step," Rutherford said.
Fans can join in on the Carolina Hurricanes draft party at Rudino's Sports Corner on Friday night beginning at 6:30 p.m. The party will have appearances by Canes TV play-by-play voice John Forslund, Stormy, the Storm Squad and more. There will also be the annual Draft Challenge where one fan will go home with a Hurricanes jersey.Seahawks punter Jon Ryan says he has no idea if or when he will revive his Twitter and Instagram accounts, and doesn't regret the testy exchange about Orlando that led to his decision to take himself off social media.
RENTON — Someday, punter Jon Ryan might bring back his Twitter account, which ESPN recently called the best to follow of any Seahawks player.
But Ryan, who deleted his Twitter and Instagram accounts over the weekend following a testy exchange on Instagram regarding the Orlando shooting, has no idea when that will be.
“I don’t know,’’ he said Wednesday after the Seahawks’ minicamp practice at the team facility. “Right now it’s like it feels like I just got out of a bad relationship and now I’m free. … It’s nice to be off of there right now.’’
In what could maybe be called 21st century irony, Ryan’s social-media interaction regarding the Orlando tragedy and decision to delete his accounts have gone viral.
The situation began Sunday when Ryan made a post on Instagram referring to the tragedy in Orlando, in which 49 people were killed at a gay nightclub.
The post was a rainbow photo with the words: “more love #orlando”
Among the responses was one asking: “Where in the bible does it say it’s ok to be homo sexual? (sic).”
Ryan responded in turn: “Please unfollow me. You’re a terrible human being … please stop cheering for the Seahawks. We don’t want piece of (expletive) fans like you. Thanks.”
Shortly after, Ryan deleted his accounts.
The decision, he said, was his own.
“I think if the team had told me to take it down then I would have kept it up, to be honest,’’ he said. “That’s how I react to stuff like that. The team definitely had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t trying to hide what I said by any means. I will come forward and say that again, and I will stand up to anyone who is trying to oppose equality for sure. So I wasn’t trying to hide what I said by any means.’’
Instead, he said, “I was just angry. I just didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. I felt like if my page was helping breed hate among people, I didn’t want to be a part of that. And it was one of those things, make a bit of a stance. I don’t know if it really does or not, but I think we are in a position (as athletes) where we can kind of have our voices heard. And sometimes saying nothing is saying the most, and I felt that was kind of what it was by taking the page down.’’
Does Ryan regret the tone of his response?
“I think my only regret is that I didn’t respond more harshly,’’ said Ryan, who has been with the Seahawks since 2008, making him the longest-tenured member of the team. “I don’t want bigots to be fans of this team. I think in the Pacific Northwest we are pretty progressive in a lot of equality issues, and anything that holds that back, people like that can move on in my opinion.
“And the thing that saddened me even more is that this one particular guy that was very angry and people came to his defense, which disgusted me even more. And teenage kids were coming to his defense, which scared me, scared me about the future. So I definitely don’t regret it whatsoever.’’
Ryan is engaged to comedian Sarah Colonna, who also is active on social media and confirmed via Twitter that Ryan had taken down his accounts “because people are defending a terrorist, a murderer.’’
Ryan said most of the reaction he has gotten has been through Colonna.
“I think everything I have gotten has been very positive,’’ said Ryan, a 34-year-old native of Regina, Saskatchewan. “People have reached out to Sarah and sent me notes through her, people thanking me. It’s been pretty good. Hasn’t been many haters out there.’’
Ryan said he knows he has a platform to make a statement on issues such as bigotry, intolerance and hoping for civil discourse on social media, but they are the same ones he would have made if he were not a Seahawk.
“I’m not really doing things like that because I’m an athlete but because I’m a human being,’’ he said. “I’m not opposed to the Second Amendment and all this stuff that people get worked up about, and I don’t believe they should oppose the Second Amendment. But something needs to be done. Even one life is too many.
“ … So I’m not trying to stand up as a football player or someone who is in that position. I’m just trying to voice my opinion as a human being.’’bah a guest Aug 27th, 2013 7,493 Never a guest7,493Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 0.47 KB We were invited by YouTube to show the GameChild movie in the screening room at their London offices for some of their creative staff. We were to answer questions afterwards. We were met outside the building and shown up to the screening room. In the room there was a technician ready to show the film. But there was nobody from YouTube there to watch it - literally not a single person. Nobody knew why. We left. Eight of us went. Two of us traveled over 100 miles.
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We were invited by YouTube to show the GameChild movie in the screening room at their London offices for some of their creative staff. We were to answer questions afterwards. We were met outside the building and shown up to the screening room. In the room there was a technician ready to show the film. But there was nobody from YouTube there to watch it - literally not a single person. Nobody knew why. We left. Eight of us went. Two of us traveled over 100 miles.Game Informer previewed Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World this month, providing some new details in the process. The magazine also put out a one-page preview on Mario Sports Superstars. We now have a little bit of extra information on this game as well.
In case you haven’t heard, Mario Sports Superstars features five different sports: soccer, baseball, tennis golf, and the surprise inclusion of horse racing. Game Informer notes that single matches and tournaments can be played. You start out by choosing a couple of captains comprised of the bigger characters such as Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser. The rest of the team is then filled in with less prominent characters like Goombas, Magikoopas, and different costumed Toads.
Arcade elements will naturally be a part of the Mario Sports Superstars experience. Game Informer mentions special moves and abilities. The magazine also says that when pitching in baseball, it’s timing-based.
That was mostly it. Not quite as much here compared to Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World, but some extra tidbits. Since these previews are starting to appear, maybe we’ll see more hands-on impressions (and hopefully footage) from other outlets soon.
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PocketDr. Jeff Meldrum and his 3D printed Bigfoot skeleton project has really created a lot of debate in and around the Bigfoot community.
The 3D Bigfoot skeleton was featured in the docu-fiction show “Bigfoot Captured” on History channel which didn’t get a very favorable response from the majority of Bigfooters including Dr Meldrum. Although the show itself may not have hit a good note with most Bigfooters the 3D skeleton created by Meldrum and the team has really gained a lot of interest. The huge skeleton took over three months to create included the 3D scan of a Neanderthal skeleton which had its proportions adjusted to match feature of the Bigfoot from the Patterson-Gimlin footage from Bluff Creek.
The 3D Printed Bigfoot skeleton is a hypothetical facsimile of what Bigfoot may actually look like according to Meldrum, who has been studying the elusive cryptid for over 20 years now. Here is part of an article done by the Isubengal on the development of the skeleton:
Medrum Said: “First and foremost, it turns out there were other things that we can start to work with on that scale. Instead of starting from scratch we took an existing hominid skeleton, the most complete being a Neanderthal.” The printing started after Dr. Meldrum agreed to make an appearance on the History Channel, talking about Bigfoot. While studying the Patterson-Gimlin film, researchers took the remains they were permitted to use by the archaeological corporation, Bone Clones, which collects natural history artifacts, and proportioned them to the exact specifications a Sasquatch ought to be. “They gave us permission to do a 3-D scan on a Neanderthal skeleton they found,” Meldrum said. “We compared that to the Patterson-Gimlin film. We had to widen the shoulders and increase the thickness in the torso. The hips are as wide as the shoulders; the body was built like a tank.” The model skeleton used in the research was that of a Paranthropus boisei, another type of primate. According to several witnesses of possible Sasquatch sightings, the creature has no neck; this is why researchers analyzed these specific remains. As it turns out, a Paranthropus boisei has a large jawline and chin, and therefore, covers the neck. However, before there was printing, there was scanning. The Idaho Virtualization Lab (IVL) located in the Idaho Museum of Natural History completed the scans. “Their staff, with these expert technicians, is able to use some state-of-the-art equipment to create 3-D models and create a digital model that allows all sorts of manipulation and space to do all sorts of analysis,” Meldrum said. “You can show the animation, the variation, the position of the reflection, extension, or split and the traceability of the foot rather than the imprint of the static prosthetic leg or fake foot.” The IVL scanned the footprint casts, which revealed the proportions of the body to the feet. It became conclusive that the size of Bigfoot is about eight and a half feet tall.
This is without a doubt one of the coolest looks into what Bigfoot may actually look like. Beyond all of the Bigfoot videos, Bigfoot sightings and reports, footprints and other types of Bigfoot evidence we have seen throughout the years, this new technology offers us a whole new take on this mysterious creature. Is this really what Bigfoot looks like?When was the last time you were tempted, even briefly, to do something a little immoral? To lie, betray a friend’s confidence, cut in line, or take a little more than your share? I’m willing to bet it was today. Maybe in the past hour. Larger temptations hound us too, especially those involving sex or money. And yet, perhaps to a shocking extent, we often rise above these temptations and act morally nonetheless. But how does the inner struggle with temptation affect how our actions are viewed by others? Who is the better person: the one who acts morally while tempted or the one who is never tempted at all?
There are two strands of moral philosophy that, loosely speaking, make opposite predictions about which kinds of actions will be seen as most moral. One argument, associated with Aristotle, is that a truly moral person will wholeheartedly want to do the right thing, and no part of her will be tempted to act immorally. Another argument, associated with Immanuel Kant, is that an action is truly moral only if it is not something you want to do – otherwise, a person is just acting on her own desires, and although the result might be positive, it should not be considered especially moral. These philosophers are arguing about which actions we should see as most moral. But which of these views best captures how ordinary people actually do reason about morality?
To answer the question and uncover how people reason about overcoming temptation across a lifespan, my team recruited more than 250 children, aged three to eight years, and nearly 400 adults. Each participant was asked to consider several child-friendly scenarios depicting two characters who both acted morally. One story, for example, described two children who had each broken something of their mother’s. Both ultimately told their mother the truth about what they had done. And both children wanted to tell the truth, and wanted to do the right thing. But one child was also tempted to lie to avoid punishment, yet told the truth even though she found it difficult. The other child found it easy to tell the truth, and wasn’t tempted to lie, because she wasn’t concerned about the punishment. We then asked which of the two truth-tellers was more morally praiseworthy.
We found a striking developmental difference: three- to eight-year-old children judged that someone who does the right thing without experiencing immoral desires is morally superior to someone who does the right thing through overcoming conflicting desires – but adults had the opposite intuition. And these judgements showed up across a number of different immoral temptations, including lying, not helping a sibling, and breaking a promise. They appeared whether we asked about which character should be rewarded for her actions, which character was ‘more good’, or which character was most likely to act morally in the future.
That adults favoured the conflicted character was somewhat surprising, because plenty of previous research has found that adults judge negative intentions and desires to be morally blameworthy. Yet here we have identified situations in which adults award more moral credit to people who have some negative desires, rather than only positive desires. This may be because, like Kant, adults see the desire to act immorally as an essential component of what makes a truly moral act instead of an enjoyable action that happens to have a positive result. In this view, it’s only when we want to be bad that we have the ability to choose good.
Of course, there are other kinds of immoral temptations that adults might judge just as harshly as children. For example, a person who is tempted to molest a child but overcomes that temptation is unlikely to be seen as more moral than someone who was never tempted to molest a child in the first place. Uncovering the characteristics of temptations that lead to moral praise and those that lead to condemnation is something we are looking more closely at in continuing studies.
Meanwhile, our findings to date suggest that children start out with an Aristotelian moral psychology, judging individuals who don’t struggle with moral decisions as more moral than those who do. But sometime after age eight, they transition to a more Kantian framework, judging the worth of moral actions according to how difficult the actions were for the actors.
So what changes as we age?
One possibility is that children lack firsthand experience with inner conflict. At first blush, this seems odd – children certainly misbehave frequently, and so it might seem like they must be experiencing the temptation to act immorally all the time. But it might be that kids don’t often simultaneously experience both the desire to be bad and the desire to be good, and that gaining experience with this kind of personal inner struggle as they grow older helps them to value it, or at least not to condemn it, in others. A related factor might be a growing appreciation of willpower itself.
Finally, and intriguingly, it might be that children inherently prefer people with a unified self. As we grow older, though, we come to appreciate the nuances of a more complex character that allows for both temptation and the willpower to overcome it.
So the next time you find yourself guiltily experiencing immoral temptations, relax. It might even earn you some extra praise from your adult friends, so long as you do the right thing in the end. Your children, on the other hand, will be judging you quite harshly!Apparently Kevin Williamson at National Review has jumped over that deadly lemming cliff, along with millions of Trump-maddened New York liberals.
My own view is that Donald and Ivanka and Uday and Qusay are genuinely bad human beings and that the American public has made a grave error in entrusting its highest office to this cast of American Psycho extras. That a major political party was captured by these cretins suggests that its members are not worthy of the blessings of this republic...
Apparently, N.R. editors didn't read this piece, or worse, they read it and approved it.
That high-pitched grinding sound you hear is William F. Buckley drilling his way out of the grave to keep his beloved National Review from being kidnapped by a hysterical mob of establishment cons.
Uday and Qusay Hussein infamously dropped screaming human beings into industrial plastic shredders to kill them. Either Mr. Williamson is ignorant of that fact, or he has secret information about Barron and Eric Trump and Ivanka that we are not privy to. If so, I would like to ask Mr. Williamson and his neglectful editors to provide the evidence to the world. I am looking forward to Mr. Williamson's next N.R. column, which will no doubt show us the cellphone pics.
It may be time for mass hara-kiri at the National Review, for descending into blithering idiocy on Christmas 2016.
Mr. Williamson wrote this N.R. column to argue for a return to civility in politics...and, in his next breath, committed what Jonah Goldberg has called "argumentum ad Hitleram."
As a fan of Buckley's magazine, I'm shocked and saddened.
Tell me it ain't so, please!
Editor's note: It is not clear if Williamson meant Barron and Eric. He could have meant Eric and Donald, Jr.Chew is an upcoming American animated crime film directed by Jeff Krelitz. The film stars Steven Yeun, Felicia Day, and David Tennant. The film is based on the 2009 comics of same name by John Layman and Rob Guillory.
Cast [ edit ]
Steven Yeun as Tony Chu
Felicia Day as Amelia Mintz
David Tennant as Mason Savoy
Production [ edit ]
On April 22, 2014, it was announced that the 2009 comic Chew would be getting an animated feature film to be produced by Jeff Krelitz and David Boxenbaum through their company Heavy Metal. Jeff Krelitz would also be directing and John Layman would write. The executive producers would be John Layman, Rob Guillory, and Scott Boxenbaum. Steven Yeun of The Walking Dead would be voicing the lead character Tony Chu and Felicia Day would be voicing his love interest Amelia Mintz.[1] On June 19, 2015, David Tennant was set to voice the character Mason Savoy, which Robin Williams was previously attached to provide.[2] The project was put on hold the previous year due to Williams' death. Yeun and Day already recorded their parts before Williams' death but Tennant started work after the announcement.[2]
As of January 1, 2019, all information about Chew had been removed from the Internet Movie Database, leaving the film's status in doubt.
References [ edit ]
Chew on IMDbMadison - Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.
Democrats who controlled the Legislature in 2009 changed the law so that same-sex couples could sign up for domestic partnership registries with county clerks to secure some - but not all - of the rights afforded married couples.
Wisconsin Family Action sued last year in Dane County circuit court, arguing that the registries violated a 2006 amendment to the state constitution that bans gay marriage and any arrangement that is substantially similar.
Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen refused to defend the lawsuit, saying he agreed the new law violated the state constitution. Then-Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, hired Madison attorney Lester Pines to defend the state.
Walker, a Republican, replaced Doyle in January and fired Pines in March. On Friday, Walker filed a motion to stop defending the case.
"Governor Walker, in deference to the legal opinion of the attorney general that the domestic partner registry...is unconstitutional, does not believe the public interest requires a continued defense of this law," says the brief, filed by Walker's chief counsel, Brian Hagedorn.
Hagedorn told Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser that if he could not withdraw from the case, he would like to amend earlier filings to reflect Walker's belief that the registries conflict with the state constitution.
Even if Walker is allowed to withdraw from the case, the law would still be defended in court because gay rights group Fair Wisconsin intervened in the case last year.
Fair Wisconsin attorney Christopher Clark said the governor's move raises legal questions.
"It's not clear to me that a defendant in a lawsuit... can simply walk away from a lawsuit or withdraw," he said.
Pines said Walker's aides never gave him an explanation when they told him to stop working on the case. He said he was troubled by the latest court filing.
"The governor of this state has an obligation to defend laws he doesn't like. And for that matter, so does the attorney general," Pines said. "This shows an utter disrespect for the rule of law."
Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie disagreed.
"We don't believe it is in the best interest of the state and its taxpayers to spend additional time and resources defending the legislation," he said in an email.
In 2006, 60% of state voters signed off on changing the constitution to ban gay marriage and a "legal status identical or substantially similar to marriage" for same-sex couples.
Wisconsin Family Action advocated for the amendment. The group first sued the state over the same-sex registries shortly after they were created in 2009, taking its case directly to the state Supreme Court in hopes of getting a quick verdict.
The high court declined to hear the case, and the group then filed a lawsuit last year in Dane County circuit court.
The registries allow same-sex couples to take family and medical leave to care for a seriously ill partner, make end-of-life decisions and have hospital visitation rights. But according to Fair Wisconsin, they still confer only about a quarter of the rights associated with marriage, lacking provisions to allow couples to file joint tax returns or adopt children together.
As of August 2010, about 1,500 same-sex couples had registered with counties.Saboor Farha is a bit jealous her husband could donate blood, and she couldn't, at the Canadian Blood Services donor clinic on the weekend.
Farha and husband Mohammad Mateen Akhtar were part of a Hamilton group who gave blood on Saturday as part of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at Canada's "Muslims for Life" campaign.
The local Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at community is represented by the 700-member Baitun Nur Mosque at King Street East and Parkdale Avenue North.
Farha wanted to donate in the past but didn't know the process, she says. Her mosque's initiative made it comfortable for her to try it at the regular donor clinic on Stone Church Road in Ancaster.
"Now the community is doing it and making all the arrangements. So okay, that's easy (I thought). Let's do it, even though I'm not sure I can give…If I can help the community, why not."
She was not sure because of her anemia two years ago — and in the end, she was indeed turned down out of concern that giving blood wound made her anemic again. So she was a bit jealous that her husband could donate, she said.
Rehan Tanvir, 27, is used to giving. Although this was his 16th time donating, he was there specifically Saturday for his Ahmadiyya Muslim group.
"In the holy Qur'an, it states that anyone who saves one life, it's like you've saved mankind," Tanvir said while giving blood. "And given what's going on in the world today, it's a good gesture."
Tanvir, of Stoney Creek, says it's wonderful that his mosque was doing this as a group.
"Not only does it create brotherhood and sisterhood and team-building, you also get something good out of it. You save lives."NBN Co will expand its fixed wireless footprint by up to 72,800 premises as the balance of its multi-technology mix continues to shift.
Minister for regional communications Fiona Nash said in a statement that fixed wireless towers will now "serve up to six percent of Australians”.
NBN Co’s corporate plan no longer breaks out the percentage of premises to be served by fixed wireless, instead noting that both fixed wireless and satellite will reach a combined eight percent of premises.
However, during recent technology trials, NBN Co’s CEO Bill Morrow said that fixed wireless was destined to service 600,000 premises. Based on the old 11.9 million total premises number, that is equal to 5.04 percent of the footprint.
One complication is last week’s confirmation that the total premises in the NBN footprint is now 11.2 million, not 11.9 million. On that re-calculation, about 5.35 percent of premises had been in the fixed wireless footprint to date.
The minister’s declaration that “up to six percent” of premises will now be served by fixed wireless isn’t conclusive but does suggest an expansion of “up to” 72,800 or 114,240 premises – depending on whether the revised or original NBN total premises count is used.
This is unlikely to be confirmed until NBN Co hands down its revised corporate plan in about six weeks' time.
iTnews has previously revealed the effects of shifts in NBN Co’s multi-technology mix, tracking the fortunes of 62 towns that were originally slated for fibre-to-the-node connections, instead being transferred into the fixed wireless footprint.
Labor senator Anne Urquhart and former Greens senator Scott Ludlam both questioned the shifts – citing iTnews’ research - at a recent senate estimates hearing.
But they were largely rebuffed in their attempts to get more information on what caused towns to be put onto another technology.
“NBN Co uses an iterative network planning process to determine which technology is deployed to premises in a rollout region and this plan is continually optimised as the rollout progresses,” the network builder said in a response filed after the hearing.
“This means there will, from time to time, be areas that move from one technology to another.”
Due to the way NBN Co publishes rollout information, those shifts are now largely hidden from view.
To that end, it was unclear at the time of writing where the extra premises now added to the fixed wireless footprint were coming from.Prince was the soundtrack of our lives, the inspiration for a generation of musicians. He was one of us. He was all of us.
And now he’s gone.
Hailed worldwide as a versatile musical genius, Prince Rogers Nelson died Thursday morning at his Paisley Park recording studio complex in Chanhassen. He was 57.
After a frantic 911 call from an unidentified man who said Prince appeared to be dead and that the people at the scene were “distraught,” emergency responders found the musician, unresponsive, in an elevator, the Carver County Sheriff’s Office reported. He was pronounced dead at 10:07 a.m. They performed CPR but were unable to revive him.
The cause of death was not known. An autopsy will be conducted Friday beginning at 9 a.m. by the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office in Anoka County. But final results could take days or weeks, and the office does not plan to release any preliminary results, a spokeswoman said.
The news of Prince's death stunned fans from the Twin Cities to the nation’s capital, spreading around the globe within minutes. Mourners from President Obama to Mick Jagger paid respects and shared their sentiments, many awash in purple.
All day and well into the night, Minnesotans poured onto streets and into clubs to remember him. They huddled and cried in the rain outside his studio and at the First Avenue music club in Minneapolis, sharing stories about their personal encounters with the international superstar who still called Minnesota home.
Late into the night, thousands filled the streets outside First Avenue, hugging, weeping, laughing, and dancing and singing. Local artists, including Lizzo and Chastity Brown, performed covers of his song with the crowd singing along. Around 11 p.m., people clustered near the doors of the club, where an all-night dance party was about to begin.
“Prince was a child of our city, and his love of his hometown permeated many of his songs,” Mayor Betsy Hodges said. “Our pride in his accomplishments permeates our love of Minneapolis. … Prince never left us, and we never left him.”
Condolences flooded social media, and at evening Amy Schumer and Mumford & Sons shows in the Twin Cities, spoken and musical tributes were offered. Legislators paused for a moment of silence at a hearing. Sports teams and corporations turned their social media pages purple. Maplewood-based 3M turned its logo purple and added a tear. Buildings and structures from the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River to Duluth’s Enger Tower were bathed in purple light Thursday night.
“Our hearts are broken,” First Avenue said on Facebook. “Prince was the Patron Saint of First Avenue. He grew up on this stage, and then commanded it, and he united our city.”
At the club, where Prince not only filmed the movie “Purple Rain,” but recorded the song of the same name and several more in concert, his influence on other musicians was still apparent. He was so closely tied to the club, many fans believed (erroneously) that he owned it.
Nate Kranz, the club’s general manager, recalled Prince’s last show there — on July 7, 2007 — coming together at the last minute. Prince often called the venue to ask if he could perform, Kranz said, and told them he was interested in putting on a late-night show just a few days before.
“I think he felt very comfortable here, in a way that he could try out new music,” he said. “He could come down and do his thing in front of an appreciative audience.”
As Kranz worked to put together the evening’s tribute, he said wryly, “In perfect Prince fashion, [it’s] very short notice and hectic.”
The news of Prince’s death came less than a week after his private plane made an emergency landing early last Friday in Illinois as he was returning to the Twin Cities from two shows in Atlanta.
Afterward, a source close to Prince told the Star Tribune that the musician was dehydrated on the flight home. Prince himself sought to clarify the situation on Saturday, saying, “Wait a few days before you waste any prayers.”
Publicist Martin Keller, who covered Prince as a journalist from the time the artist was 17, called him a “great inspiration for African-American kids anywhere, growing up in a broken home, pursuing what you want to do, becoming successful at it, building a wide world following.”
Keller said Prince was a “severe introvert” who grew from barely getting words out early in his career to becoming more articulate and media-friendly as he got older.
“Minnesota has never produced anyone like him and is not likely to again,” Keller said. “You just don’t get that in one artist.”
Growing up in Minneapolis
The son of a social worker mother and jazz pianist father, Prince Rogers Nelson grew up playing music at home. His father, John Nelson, led the Prince Rogers Trio. His mother, Mattie Shaw, sang, as does his younger sister, Tyka Nelson.
Prince formed his first band with friends at age 13 and over time became the driving force behind the “Minneapolis sound,” a hybrid mix of funk, rock, pop and new wave.
He became known for shunning interviews, creating his own mystique and controlling his image with a team of stylists, publicists and lawyers. Even after becoming a global superstar, he stayed close to home, recording at Paisley Park and appearing often at late-night concerts and dance parties there.
Born on June 7, 1958, Prince had a thing for the number 7. On 7/7/7, he held three concerts at three venues in downtown Minneapolis, telling the crowd at one show, “Minneapolis, I am home.”
He married Mayte Garcia in 1996, and the two had a son who died at one week old of a rare birth defect. The couple later divorced. Prince was married again in 2001, to Manuela Testolini. Their marriage lasted until 2006.
Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001. In 2003, an Eden Prairie woman told Star Tribune columnist C.J. that she was stunned when Prince and former Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham knocked on her door. Prince introduced himself as Prince Nelson and spent 25 minutes at the woman’s house talking about his faith.
He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and three years later played the halftime show for the Super Bowl. His performance is considered one of the best in the game’s history.
Signed to a Warner Bros. deal in 1977, Prince famously battled with the company for control of his music. A year or so after signing a $100 million deal in 1992, he started writing “slave” on his cheek to protest his lack of ownership of his master recordings. He eventually abandoned the label and, since the record company owned his name, performed using a glyph of his own making that mashed up the symbols for male and |
Cube, Devin the Dude (part of his Facemob clique), Too $hort, Redman, and countless others, including the legendary 2Pac. Scarface is not just a legend of the South but a a rap legend period, and one that "can't be stopped" with the release of his latest LP Deeply Rooted. The album is due on September 4: Look for Face to team with names like Nas, Z-Ro, and Rick Ross, and watch the first video from it here.
The prewash pen during the album ranking
But with such a large discography, it can be hard to get to the center of what Brad Terrence Jordan is all about. So the legend discussed his career, the sheisty game known as the rap industry, and just where each of his records would rank personally. The results were highly unconventional but still very enlightening.
8. All Geto Boys albums, The World is Yours, The Last of a Dying Breed, Balls & My Word, My Homies Part 2
Scarface physically ranking his records
NOISEY: Let’s start with your least favorite album, whether that is with the Geto Boys or during your solo career. What do you think comes last and why?
SCARFACE: I don’t like any of the Geto Boys albums at all. Not one. There isn’t a Geto Boys album that I like. I didn’t learn anything from it, and it was a bad time in life for me too. With the label, with life, whatever… it’s a point in my life where I was the most miserable. Everybody else was happy but I wasn’t. I did all of this shit for everybody else and nothing for me. So I cant even lie, I don’t like none of the Geto Boys albums.
Not even We Can’t Be Stopped?
No, I don’t even like that motherfucker because I feel like I was forced to make that album. There is not one album that I like. Do I like songs by the Geto Boys? Fuck yeah! “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” or “Mind of a Lunatic” were great songs. As far as my favorite Geto Boys album? None of them impress me.
But to be fair, I’d imagine that making those albums were colored by your business experiences around them. You were young and probably very green with respect to the music industry.
I was very fucking green with that shit. Dummy, dummy, dummy.
Do you think that has more to do with it than the content?
I don’t know. I don’t like it. I don’t like the Geto Boys at all. I don’t like none of the albums, I don’t like none of the songs. I'm done with that group, and I’m never going to be a part of it again. It's just a part of my life that I want to forget. The Geto Boys and I can’t get no more money together. None. No more money.
Does any of this have to do with the chemistry between the three of you?
Oh no, we had the best chemistry ever.
It was just everything else surrounding you?
It was just everything else that was around that really fucking just changed the way I felt about shit. Just terrible.
As far as some of the records are concerned, The Foundation is an album that I made regretfully. The Good The Bad The Ugly was a fucking trash album. It didn’t have Bushwick on it. That was a time when Master P was taking over the airways, so J Prince wanted to Master P the game. I was like “wow like we fucked up so bad trying to do Master P when we should’ve just continued to do us.” I feel like that was the fall of Rap-A-Lot Records to me. A lot of people may not see it like that, and some people might have gotten paid but from a creative stand point, trying be like Master P and put out albums every six or seven minutes fucked up our brand. I think greed fucked up the brand. So everybody, stay where you at. Don’t go trying to be like somebody else. Just cause somebody shit on their record, don’t go shit on yours. Don’t do that. And I totally stand by that.
Some solo records I don’t like either. The World is Yours is forced, so that’s no comment. The Last of a Dying Breed was forced. Balls and My Word was cut and paste material that I never used, and so was My Homies Part 2. Like the mass majority of the motherfuckers on the My Homies 2 album… I don’t know who the fuck they were, so they couldn’t have possibly been my homies. They were Rap-A-Lot's homies!
So a lot of the artists on there were forced on to you.
I mean, I didn’t even record that shit. I didn’t even know that shit existed until it came out. That’s how disrespectful this guy was with your material.
Thats unbelievable.
He put my name on My Homies 2! If anything, I feel like he was trying to ruin my career with cut-away material that never ever made the album. Just a totally disrespectful dude when it came to your shit. J didn’t give a fuck about you, he gave a fuck about him. He didn’t give a fuck about your family, he gave a fuck about his. He didn’t give a fuck who you fed, he only fed his people. That’s real shit, I'm not making this shit up.
7. Emeritus (2008)
You were free from your contract with Rap-A-Lot following the release of Emeritus. What about the agreement was kind of tough for you?
Emeritus was my last album under my slave agreement. You do this for me and give me all of this, and in return you get nothing. I’ll crank the motherfucking crank, and you’ll be the monkey clapping the cymbals for peanuts. And that’s just how the music business is. And the statues of limitations end up expiring in so many years that you can't go back and get your money. Shit, every time you ask about it: “yeah man we got a new accountant let's see what we can do with this” and then two years pass, and its “well yea man we switched up again we’re trying to get those statements to you.” Two turns to five, five turns to ten, and so on. Then at some point they won’t even answer your phone call. So that’s just a lesson that we all have to learn. Anyway, this album was the day that I got away from those slave agreements. Those “give me all of this for nothing.”
That’s reflected in the title?
Yep. Emeritus, to retire from but still hold a position. Walk away with those honors. I walked away and still hold the position of being one of the best fucking lyricists ever. One of the best producers, one of the greatest musicians of all time. I’ll take that. But I ain’t going to be under these fucking slave agreements no more.
6. My Homies (1998)
My Homies is sort of the album where you stepped out the hardest as a producer. As far as that role is concerned, obviously Ready Red was an influence, but were there other guys that you looked up to? Houston is a small scene.
Houston is gonna always be a small scene. Because the people in Houston won't stick behind the people from Houston. You can get a Drake or a Wayne or a whoever to come into town, and they’ll pack the fucking house. But if you took every fucking artist in Houston and put him or her on the same stage in the biggest platform that you could possibly put them, the entire city won't show up. That’s bullshit to me, especially when Jay Z or Outkast or fucking Snoop and Dre can go to their hometown, and they’ll have a three or four night stand. So from that aspect, Houston is a fucked up town with regards to music because we don’t support our own. That’s not a myth, that’s not something I’m thinking, that’s something I know for a fact.
Do you feel that way about guys like Z-Ro maybe?
So fucking dope. So dope. What a great artist with a wasted ass career 'cause he’s not as big as he should be. I feel like he is one of the best artists that I’ve ever heard. He is a man. He is the epitome of the word pain. And he's not ashamed to talk about it. You know a lot of people are ashamed to talk about shit that goes on and he talks about it and I respect him for it.
5. Mr. Scarface Is Back (1991)
You’ve said that Mr. Scarface is Back is you trying to find yourself. Did you feel like at that time? Not knowing where to take your freedom after working as part of a unit? What was the reason for the solo record?
I didn’t have another choice. Willy left the group, so I had to do a solo album. Willy left when James was putting We Can’t Be Stopped together if I can recall correctly. Ready Red had left the group, but I also know that I didn’t really need Ready Red to do my production because I was a producer myself. I was recording my solo album right around the same time as We Can’t Be Stopped. Now imagine We Can’t Be Stopped without “Mind Playin Tricks on Me.”
I can’t even imagine that.
That was my record. That record was going on my solo album. My two verses and then the verses that Bushwick raps is the song. That was the song. Willy put a verse on it after James came back from Priority, and they said they liked that song. J was playing my record and the Geto Boys record, and they said that they wanted to put that song on the Geto Boys LP. Would that song have been as big if Willy and Bushwick would’ve got on it? That remains to be seen.
On another note, I did the record and I shared it, I’m a team player. I’m a team player, so I did team shit. Fuck it, no big deal.
Do you feel like that record suffered in any way because it lost that song?
My album? Nah.
4. M.A.D.E. (2007)
What are your thoughts on Made?
I think that album was slept on. Lyrically, I was at my best. The production I think that I was at my best. From a getting paid standpoint, from a deal standpoint, I feel like that was the best deal that I could’ve made. It was always something when it came time to get paid, but Made is probably one of my best albums.
3. The Untouchable (1997)
Tell me about where you were when you were making The Untouchable.
Untouchable was the album where I was experimenting with a lot of drugs, so if it’s sounds like that, it’s because that’s what I was doing. Also, I was listening to a lot of that Smashing Pumpkins record Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness while I was recording Untouchable. I don’t know why.
Are there any conscious looks towards what you're listening to at the time within the LP? Like maybe you quietly added a Smashing Pumpkins reference? What do you get out of a record like that and how does it funnel into your music, either consciously or subconsciously?
I think that every genre, song, group, band, whatever that I listen to is an inspiration because I don’t listen to a lot of shit. So when I do listen, I listen to learn—it’s like watching a fighter that can’t fight, you can't learn nothing from this fighter. When I listen to musicians like Hendrix or B.B. King or Stanley Jordan, I am learning. When I listen to Smashing Pumpkins, especially back in those days, it was like I was learning something. When I listened to Pink Floyd it was like I was learning something. Parliament, George Clinton, Bootsy, you learned something about music. Fuck the theory of music, fuck the music education—you can't teach music in my opinion, you gotta feel it. So with that said I hear shit to sharpen what I do, what I feel.
We talked a lot about rock bands and rap. Are there any other bands that you’d love to tell your fans that you like?
I love Stanley Clark. I love George Duke and Stanley Clark. I just grew up enough to understand Marvin Gaye and how far ahead he was. He was way ahead of his time, and we probably need to study Marvin and catch him. Parliament and George Clinton were way ahead of their time. Dr. Dre, he’s ahead of his time, and we’re still trying to catch him.
Any fond memories of recording The Untouchable?
Fucking Tupac coming to the studio with me was the highlight. I mean everybody knows he was a fucking horse. He worked his ass off. He was always in the studio trying to create. He created music like he knew he was gonna be gone.
That why everyone insists that guy must be still alive. Too damn prolific.
If he is alive, I’m gonna beat his ass up. For real. Me and Pac are gonna fight. If he’s alive, everyday I’m gonna fight him. I’m gonna cry so hard then I’m gonna beat him up. He was a very good friend of mine bro.
He was really devoted to the craft. Do you feel like you—what do you feel like you learned from him?
It's not about learning from him, it's like we fed off of each other. We’re peers. I learn a lot from Ice-T or I learned a lot from Ice Cube or Dre or somebody, but me and Pac grew up together so we kind of fed off of each other.
2. The Diary (1994)
Why is The Diary so close to the top, but not all the way?
That’s like my Dark Side of the Moon, when I was feeling the most creative. Those were my weed-smoking days. Mr. Scarface Is Back and The World is Yours, those were me trying to find myself. This is when I came into me, The Diary.
1. The Fix (2002)
And finally, The Fix. Possibly your most successful LP both on a critical and commercial level. What do you think was the magic that made the album so special?
I think that my favorite album has to be The Fix because I was in a very comfortable place. Mentally, financially… I was in a great place. Def Jam really took care of me, Lyor Cohen took care of me and that’s why that great. Kanye West was just starting off and being the great producer that he is— it came out incredible.
The final results of Rank Your Records: Scarface
Fred has a minute to pray and a second to die. Follow him on Twitter.Five teams are willing to bid over $70 million for Cuban infielder Hector Olivera, according to Peter Gammons of GammonsDaily.com. However, Olivera is not officially a free agent by Major League Baseball, but he will be very soon.
Many teams see him as a second baseman who can also play shortstop, but the Los Angeles Dodgers would rather play him at third base during 2015. Speaking of the Dodgers, they are the favorites to sign the Cuban.
According to Baseball America, the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants and Dodgers had a "notable presence" at his showcase on Feburary 11. He will continue private workouts with teams through the coming weeks.
Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports that the Los Angeles Angels are "looking at" Olivera. However, Fletcher says that it is "too early to say" how serious the Angels interest is.
The 29-year-old has a very good chance of breaking Rusney Castillo's record six-year, $72.5 million deal with the Boston Red Sox last season.
In Cuba, Olivera batted.316/.397/.464 during his entire career.
At age 18, he had a.319/.367/.455 batting line and never looked back. He has value with his bat, but has been versatile on the field. Olivera has played first base, second base, shortstop, third base and left field during that rookie season. After a new coach stepped in, Olivera became the regular second baseman. He hit.326/.362/.454 in his second season.
He was selected as an All-Star in 2007-08. He slashed.353/.467/.542 with 11 home runs and career-high 21 steals over 96 games.
From then on, he became a dangerous hitter and one of the best in Cuba. Over the next four seasons, he averaged a.331/.428/.579 batting line and hit a total of 65 home runs.
In 2014, the veteran slashed.316/.412/.474 over 73 games. He added seven home runs and walked 38 times. Since then, the infielder has defected from Cuba.
Regardless of what happens, Olivera will be making a ton of money playing in the MLB. It will be intresting to see who he signs with, but only time will tell.Best Xbox One Deals: Whether you’re after intense 4K gaming or a low-cost console bundle, we’ve found the best Xbox One deals across a range of major retailers.
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As you may already know, there are two Xbox One models currently available in stores, the Xbox One X and the Xbox One S. In case you’re unaware as to how they differ, we’ve included a short description of both models further down to help you out. Regardless of which model you go for, you’ll still be able to enjoy the now huge library of Xbox One games, and play DVDs and Blu-rays to boot.
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Should I buy an Xbox One S? – Despite what you might think, the Xbox One S is actually slightly bigger than the Xbox One X. With that small caveat aside, the One S still offers a sleek design and it’s the cheapest way to jump on the Xbox bandwagon – saving you nearly £200 when compared with some One X bundles. The One S still offers 4K support, but not for HDR.
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We may earn a commission if you click a deal and buy an item. That’s why we want to make sure you’re well-informed and happy with your purchase, so that you’ll continue to rely on us for your buying advice needs.(CNN) A deal to prop up British Prime Minister Theresa May's government could come at the cost of peace in Northern Ireland, politicians have warned.
Speaking in London Thursday after a meeting with May, prominent Northern Irish politician and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said he had told May she was "in breach" of the Good Friday Agreement -- the peace treaty which ended 30 years of deadly sectarian violence known as "The Troubles."
Peace at risk
Following a bruising election result in which her Conservative Party squandered a 12-seat majority in Parliament and found itself struggling to form a government, May has attempted to form an alliance with the far-right Democratic Unionist Party
Under the Good Friday agreement, unionists and Irish republicans like Sinn Fein entered into a power-sharing government. The UK government, which at that point gave up direct rule over Northern Ireland, was intended to be a neutral arbitrator between the parties.
By forming a government with the DUP, many commentators have argued the Conservatives would undermine this arrangement and risk the peace process.
"There's a level of incompetence... and lack of understanding by this government on Northern Ireland that is very troubling," Peter Hain, former Labour Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, told CNN.
JUST WATCHED Fmr. UK minister: May has lost control of Brexit Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Fmr. UK minister: May has lost control of Brexit 10:37
"A fundamental part of that peace process is that the UK government needs to be impartial between all the competing interests in Northern Ireland," he told the BBC. "And the danger is that however much any government tries, they will not be seen to be impartial if they are locked into a parliamentary deal at Westminster with one of the Northern Ireland parties."
"The peace process, which was very hard earned over very many years by a lot of people, people shouldn't regard it as a given. It isn't certain, it is under stress. It is fragile," he said.
A woman walks past a loyalist mural, depicting an Ulster Freedom Fighter (UFF) in Belfast.
What were 'The Troubles'?
More than 3,600 people died in sectarian violence between 1968 and 1998 as unionist and republican terrorist groups carried out bombings, assassinations and other crimes.
The fighting had its roots in a centuries-old dispute between the UK and the Republic of Ireland over control over the northern part of the island.
Britain colonized the entirety of Ireland beginning in the 1600s, and it was incorporated into the UK in 1801. In 1920, guerrilla warfare between what became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and unionists led to the partitioning of Northern Ireland and the future Republic of Ireland.
Unionists are typically Protestants, who want to keep Northern Ireland as a part of the UK, while republicans are mostly Catholic and favor a united Ireland.
Republican protesters throw stones at British soldiers in 2002.
Republicans in Northern Ireland, around 35% of the population at the time, did not accept the partition and some adopted armed struggle as a way to break away from the UK.
Militant activity by the IRA and other republican groups sparked a rise in Unionist paramilitary and terrorist organizations, as well as a forceful and often brutal response by the British Army, which sent thousands of troops to occupy the country.
Bloody Sunday -- a January 1972 shooting in Derry of 14 unarmed republican activists by the British Army -- was a flashpoint in the conflict.
In 1985, the IRA attempted to assassinate then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a time-delay bomb planted at the hotel she and her cabinet were staying at in Brighton. Thatcher escaped injury, though five people were killed including a sitting Conservative MP.
The IRA also carried out a large-scale bombing campaign targeting major cities throughout the UK mainland, including deadly attacks in London and Birmingham.
Ceasefire negotiations began in the 1980s, eventually culminating in the Good Friday Agreement, which was negotiated by the governments of the UK, US and Ireland, as well as representatives of Northern Ireland groups.
Flames leap from Westminster Hall at the House of Commons in London after an IRA bombing in 1974.
Political chaos
Both Sinn Fein and the DUP have their roots in "The Troubles."
Sinn Fein, a left-wing liberation party modeled on similar movements in South Africa and the Palestinian territories, was originally formed as the political wing of the IRA.
The DUP are a far-right Christian party founded by Protestant preacher Ian Paisley in 1971. The party has historical links to unionist paramilitary groups, and during the 2017 election campaign some of its candidates were endorsed by the Loyalist Communities Council, which is supported by several militant organizations.
Under the Good Friday Agreement, unionist and republican parties are supposed to form a power-sharing administration that governs Northern Ireland.
However, in January, Sinn Fein pulled out of the government over a corruption scandal involving DUP leader Arlene Foster, who is currently negotiating with May.
That has left the region without a government for five months. Sinn Fein and others have argued that any deal in which the DUP formed part of a UK government would worsen the current situation.
Rule over Northern Ireland is due to revert to London if parties fail to reach a deal on a power-sharing government, but what that means for the country if the DUP is a part of that government at Westminster remains to be seen.Franklin Barbecue, known for tender brisket and long lines, has banned all line holders and order takers effective immediately. This includes the kid genius behind BBQ Fast Pass, Favor, and other similar businesses. Earlier this summer, the barbecue spot forbade single line waiters for groups. Nowadays, the morning wait for Franklin Barbecue can stretch up to five hours.
"We owe it to the rest of our faithful customers to not allow the distraction," Aaron and Stacy Franklin wrote in an email to Eater. They added, "We prefer to serve our customers in house, and not to have a second party representing our food and brand."
Desmond Roldan started BBQ Fast Pass this spring as a way to earn money for a car and donate to Austin Dog Rescue. Craigslist currently features many listings advertising line waiting services.
For those who have to start waiting for themselves now: there’s Twitter account Franklin BBQ Line, which gauges how long the line will be. Franklin also offers a limited number of preorders, which can be placed on Monday, October 5.
Update, October 5: Desmond Roldan of BBQ Fast Pass chimed in on Twitter about the new ban.
I am sad to hear that @FranklinBbq has banned professional line sitters. — Desmond (@BBQFastPass) October 5, 2015
I respect the decision and I'm grateful for the opportunity to make BBQ wishes come true. — Desmond (@BBQFastPass) October 5, 2015
Eater Video: American Barbecue Styles Explained in 2 MinutesKeith Srakocic/Associated Press
The United States Department of Justice announced Tuesday that fraud and corruption charges have been brought against 10 people related to college basketball, including four coaches.
According to ESPN's Jeff Borzello, Oklahoma State's Lamont Evans, Auburn's Chuck Person, Arizona's Emanuel Richardson and USC's Tony Bland are the assistant coaches who have been charged.
The U.S. Department of Justice also announced that those charged include "managers, financial advisors, and representatives of a major international sportswear company."
Per ESPN.com, it is alleged that the arrested coaches bribed recruits in an effort to steer them toward certain agents and financial advisors.
NCAA President Mark Emmert released a statement:
James Gatto, the director of global sports marketing at Adidas, was also charged Tuesday, per ESPN.
Adidas later released a statement, via Darren Rovell of ESPN, saying the company was "unaware of any misconduct and will fully cooperate with the authorities to understand more."
"The investigation has revealed several instances in which coaches have exercised that influence by steering players and their families to retain particular advisers, not because of the merits of those advisers, but because the coaches were being bribed by the advisers to do so," the criminal complaints stated, per ESPN.
The announcement of the charges also appears to reference the University of Louisville, describing "payments of $100,000 from a company to the family of an unnamed player to secure his commitment to the school, which is described as a public research university with enrollment of 22,640 located in Kentucky."
Thomas Novelly of the Courier-Journal noted that the description matches Louisville's enrollment figures.
Louisville would later confirm that its facing an investigation, per Jason Riley of WDRB.com:
Louisville coach Rick Pitino released a statement on the investigation, per William Joy of Wave 3 News:
The Courier-Journal later noted that the player, identified as "Player 10," was said to have committed to the school "on or about June 3, 2017." The report noted the only prospect that fits that description is five-star recruit Brian Bowen.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Bowen’s mother Carrie Malecke, told the Courier-Journal. “I don’t know anything about that. I’m not aware of anything like that. Not me. I had no idea.”
"We have no idea about any of this stuff," Louisville spokesman Kenny Klein told Novelly. "This is the first I've heard of it. Nobody in basketball is aware of any of this."
In a press conference held after the charges were announced, acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim discussed some specifics surrounding the case.
Per Ben Roberts of the Lexington Herald-Leader, Kim said that reading the documents related to the case reveals the "dark underbelly of college basketball."
At one point, Kim discussed an alleged conversation between a coach and a financial advisor, both of whom have been charged, according to Pat Forde of Yahoo Sports:
Kim also said the results of the probe are "not pretty" and that those involved were "circling blue-chip prospects like coyotes," per Matt Porter of the Palm Beach Post.
According to Scout.com's Jeff Rabjohns, Kim said money was secretly funneled to top recruits, and that it was upwards of $100,000 in some cases.
Kim called the bribes a "business investment" and noted that there was a great deal of money to be made by coaches and advisors if the players involved made it to the NBA, per Jeff Greer of the Courier-Journal.
Evans was named Oklahoma State's associate head coach in March after spending 2016-17 as the Cowboys' assistant coach and recruiting coordinator and the previous four seasons as an assistant at South Carolina.
"We were surprised to learn this morning of potential actions against one of our assistant basketball coaches by federal officials," Oklahoma State said in a statement, via Mark Cooper of OSUSportsExtra.com. "We are reviewing and investigating the allegations. We are cooperating fully with officials. Let it be clear we take very seriously the high standards of conduct expected in our athletic department. We will not tolerate any deviation from those standards."
Oklahoma State later decided to suspend Evans with pay, per Cooper.
The 53-year-old Person is a 14-year NBA veteran who has been an assistant at Auburn under head coach Bruce Pearl since 2014 and is currently the Tigers' associate head coach. Auburn announced in a statement, via Bryan Matthews of Rivals.com, it has suspended Person, calling the news "shocking," adding the university is "saddened, angry and disappointed."
Richardson is a longtime college basketball assistant who served under Sean Miller at Xavier from 2007 through 2009 before following him to Arizona.
Arizona has chosen to suspend Richardson in a press release provided by Brian Hamilton of The Fieldhouse.
Bruce Pascoe of the Arizona Daily Star reported Richardson faces 60 years in jail and a fine of up to $1.5 million.
Bland played collegiately at Syracuse and San Diego State. He was an assistant coach for two seasons at San Diego State and has been USC's associate head coach since 2014-15.
"We were shocked to learn this morning through news reports about the FBI investigation and arrest related to NCAA basketball programs, including the arrest of USC assistant coach Tony Bland," USC athletic director Lynn Swann said in a statement. "USC Athletics maintains the highest standards in athletic compliance across all of our programs and does not tolerate misconduct in anyway. We will cooperate fully with the investigation and will assist authorities as needed, and if these allegations are true, will take the needed actions."
USC's Vice President of Athletic Compliance, Mike Blanton, released a statement noting the school will hire former FBI director Louis Freeh to conduct an internal investigation.Athens, Ga. – An immune system that helps bacteria combat viruses is yielding unlikely results such as the ability to edit genome sequences and potentially correct mutations that cause human disease.
University of Georgia researchers Michael and Rebecca Terns were among the first to begin to study the bacterial immune system. They now have identified a key link in how bacteria respond and adapt to foreign invaders.
The new study, authored by the Terns and postdoctoral research associate Yunzhou Wei in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of biochemistry and molecular biology, was published recently in Genes & Development.
A bacterium gains immunity against a virus through a sophisticated process of acquiring a fragment of the viral DNA and incorporating the sequence into its own genome. This virus identification sequence is kept in a locus commonly known as a CRISPR, short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.
CRISPR-associated proteins then use the sequence to recognize and destroy viruses.
A CRISPR-associated protein known as Cas9 destroys invading viral DNA and has been co-opted as a tool for programmable genome editing. This new tool provides a way to make gene deletions, corrections of mutations and additions of new genes in any genome.
The UGA study highlights the discovery of a new role of the Cas9 protein in the initial acquisition of the invader sequence.
“The recognition that this enzyme functions both in capture and in killing provides us with a link between those two processes that we think is involved in ensuring that the process is specific for the virus and avoids potential damage to its own genome,” said Rebecca Terns, a senior research scientist in biochemistry and molecular biology. “Our findings implicate Cas9 in the recognition of a secondary, invader-confirmation signal called a PAM.”
In the study, the team describes the basic set of machinery that is required to obtain a specific fragment of viral sequence and insert the fragment in a specific location.
“That Cas9 is involved in both processes represents a major step forward in understanding how bacteria discern which DNA to cut and how the enzyme confirms the decision,” said Michael Terns, Distinguished Research Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
Though biologists have studied bacteria for nearly a century, this immune system was only discovered in the last 10 years. The field of CRISPR-CAS bacterial immunity has become the focus of intense interest in biotechnology and biomedical research.
“Cas9 is a component of the immune system that can be engineered by programming it with an RNA of your choice, to go and cut a piece of DNA of your choice,” Michael Terns said. “It’s an enzyme that we can give a sequence and tell it to go cut a DNA that matches.”
The breakthrough illustrates the importance of fundamental research: By investigation of a basic biological pathway—virus defense by bacteria—scientists have developed an unanticipated reagent that could cure genetic diseases in humans.
“Computational biologists looking at the sequences of bacterial genomes made the observations that led them to hypothesize that this system existed. We started doing experiments to test the hypothesis and discovered this immune system,” Rebecca Terns said.
“The way that this immune system captures invader sequences is amazing—and unprecedented in biology.”
The study is available at http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/29/4/356.As if to signal his awareness that there’s a gaping void in the GOP’s midterm election strategy, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus did something a little unusual for a party chairman, and gave a speech about policy.
Republicans have made little secret of the fact that they hope to recapture the Senate in November by exploiting President Obama’s unpopularity rather than pitting their substantive agendas against their opponents. When Priebus says, “People know what we’re against. I want to talk about the things we’re for,” what he means is that his candidates’ conspicuous silence on substantive matters has become a little too conspicuous.
To combat that, he has laid out a list of eleven “Principles for American Renewal.” Most of these will be familiar to students of Republican politics. Some contradict each other, or previous iterations of the Republican agenda. The first principle holds that “Our Constitution should be preserved, valued and honored,” while the third proposes a Constitutional amendment that would force Congress to shred government spending. The eleventh calls for a secure border, whereas the GOP’s 2012 post-mortem called for comprehensive immigration reform.
But the main problem is that Priebus isn’t on the ballot anywhere. The implication is that he’s speaking on behalf of his candidates, but in recent weeks the GOP has worked assiduously to orient those campaigns around trivia. Some of these efforts have been more effective than others, but the playbook has been remarkably consistent. As a counterpose to Priebus’s 11 principles, below are five of the most trivial stories Republicans have seized on in order to define campaigns around issues other than, well, issues.Now that Windows XP has been officially discontinued there are a huge number of Windows XP laptops for sale on eBay. Many of these run really well with a light Linux distro, such as Linux Mint XFCE.
At my public library job, I installed Linux Mint 16 XFCE on someone's Windows XP laptop and was amazed at how much faster the laptop ran. So, my curiosity got the best of me, and I searched eBay to find that particular laptop model: a Dell Latitude C640, manufactured in 2002. Someone was selling such a laptop on eBay for $20. The description of the laptop was that it was in perfect working condition, so I bid $20.
I was indeed surprised when I won the auction! No one else had bid on the laptop.
After installing Linux Mint 16 XFCE, I felt compelled to make this YouTube video showing how well this laptop works.
While there are not a lot of $20 laptops to be bought on eBay, there are a lot of Windows XP laptops selling in the $50 to $100 range. After installation of Linux, these could be ideal for a high school or college student.
Here is the big question to wonder about: Who will be the intermediaries to rescue Windows XP laptops for the benefit of those members of society who can't afford a new laptop?. I do that kind of volunteer work on a small-scale, piece-meal fashion. However, can we afford to have a future society built in a piece-meal fashion? Someone needs to give some deeper thought to this topic. I'm hoping the YouTube video I made can spur such thought.
I should mention, too, that there are a huge number of Windows Vista laptops that are also for sale on eBay. These sometimes run Linux three times faster than Windows Vista. It can be instructive for a public library, school, or makerspace to install Linux as a dual-boot on these laptops so that members of the public can have hands-on experience to see how much faster Linux runs on the same hardware as Windows Vista.
Seeing is believing.
Ninety-nine percent of the public has never experienced using the same computer with both Windows Vista and Linux. People should be afforded that opportunity, don't you think? If you have expanded knowledge, then you |
Cameron County Commissioner’s Court will have a special meeting this morning to continue discussing the county’s incentive package and economic development agreement with SpaceX, or Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
The commissioners are actually double-booked this morning, as a second meeting with a separate agenda is also slated to begin at 8:30 a.m. on the second floor of the DancyBuilding on East Monroe Street.
The second meeting agenda was prepared Aug. 18., reportedly to address issues ahead of a meeting of the Cameron County Spaceport Development Corporation Board of Directors.
That meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. today, where board members will discuss the state’s spaceport trust fund, an agreement between the board and SpaceX and the county’s economic development agreement with SpaceX.
The Commissioners’ Court agenda is similarly structured as county officials will discuss the agreement and tax abatement for the company, which aims to build the world’s first commercial launch pad at BocaChicaBeach.
Both items have been included in county agendas for months now as commissioners are placing the final touches on their tax abatement and economic development agreements.
CountyJudge Carlos Cascos said last week that the tax abatement agreement could be approved as early as today, though he said there was still work to be done on the development agreement.Essendon Football Club is pleased to announce Nick Kommer has signed a new two-year contract, securing the lively forward until at least the end of the 2016 season.
The 23-year-old was drafted from East Perth, and played 19 games in his debut season last year.
Kommer said he was thrilled to extend his contract, after initially being drafted as a mature-age recruit in 2012.
“I’m really excited to sign on with the club for two more years and hopefully as a team we play a good, exciting brand of football this year,” Kommer said.
“We have a pretty strong midfield so I will keep working up forward and try to have more of an impact on the scoreboard, but hopefully I can push through there over time.”
Senior coach Mark Thompson said Kommer was rewarded for an excellent debut season.
“To play 19 games in his debut season is a credit to the way he attacks his football and he has become an important part of our forward line structure,” Thompson said.
“Nick knows he has a lot to build on, but he has shown glimpses of his potential and we’re really excited about his future.”
To celebrate the announcement the Bomber Shop is offer fans a free number 38 heat press on all guernsey's purchased in the next 24 hours.
Don't drop the ball when it comes to your career. You could become a Personal Trainer with Dyson Heppell, Mark Baguley, Tayte Pears and Michael Hibberd at Australian Institute of Fitness. Contact the Institute on 1300 669 669 or visit www.fitness.edu.au
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DisqusMusic is an essential part of basketball. Pre-game. Post-game. Even mid-game: When the Knicks experimented with total silence during a regular season game against the Warriors this year, it was universally trashed.
Every player has his own individual taste in music, which can range from hometown hip-hop to house music. But what about the communal space of an NBA locker room? How does a player earn the power of the AUX cord? And is it a democracy or a dictatorship when it comes to a team’s playlist?
At the outset of the 2016-17 NBA season, we made it our mission to find out who controls the music in each of the 30 NBA locker rooms. So, who is the locker room DJ for each team? Scroll through the gallery above to find out, according to the players themselves.
Related
The 50 Best Songs Named After NBA Players
WATCH: The Ultimate NBA Player Rap MixtapeA West Palm Beach man put a gun to a woman's head after she wouldn't give him $5 and asked him to leave her apartment, police said.
Just after 7:30 p.m. Monday, police got a call about a domestic disturbance in the 300 block of 20th Street. A 25-year-old woman said a friend who was staying with her for a few days put a gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger, though the gun misfired, according to West Palm Beach police.
She said her friend, Omar Graham, 21, had come over to stay with her while he and his fiancee were going through some issues. She told police Graham had been a friend of hers for years and she wanted to help him out while he was working out his problems.
But then, according to a police report, the woman noticed Graham acting strangely. She thought drugs might be to blame and when she confronted him, he became argumentative. Police said the woman told Graham he could either stop arguing with her or leave, according to an arrest report.
The two later got into another argument over $5 at a local laundromat when she refused to give it to him.
He left and waited for her at the apartment, police said, and when the woman came back she told him to pack his things and go.
A neighbor heard the arguing and saw Graham throw the woman up against the refrigerator and point a pistol at her forehead, according to the report.
Graham shot once, but it misfired, and the woman grabbed a frying pan to defend herself. He ran into the bathroom and waited for police to arrive.
Police found Graham with a fully loaded, black revolver in the bathroom.
Graham is charged with attempted felony murder, burglary and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail without bail.
[email protected], 561-243-6547 or Twitter @katejacobsonOne of the best ways to stay productive is to use the right tools. Whether it’s desktop apps, web apps, or browser extensions, the right equipment can save a lot of time and frustration.
In this article I’m going to talk about browser extensions. More precisely, about extensions that make a designer’s or front-end developer’s life much easier. Enjoy!
BrowserStack Local lets you test local servers & HTML, CSS and JS files in 700+ real desktop and mobile browsers, across 11 OSes. Get it!
Just write Markdown and see what it looks like as you type. And convert it to HTML in one click. Get it!
Palettab is a chrome extension to help you discover new fonts and awesome color collections every time you hit the new tab button. Get it!
Fontface Ninja is a plugin you can install in your browser to recognize, try and buy any fonts on the Internet! Get it!
This extension measures the dimensions from your mouse pointer up/down and left/right until it hits a border. So if you want to measure distances between elements on a website this is perfect. Get it!
Local terminal in your browser. Get it!
Quickly preview your responsive website designs at the dimensions they will be seen on popular mobile devices. Get it!
The easiest way to identify fonts on web pages. With this extension, you could inspect web fonts by just hovering on them. It is that simple and elegant. Get it!
Provides Chrome browser integration for the official LiveReload apps (Mac & Windows) and third-parties like guard-livereload and yeoman. Get it!
This extension re-sizes the browser’s window in order to emulate various resolutions. It is particularly useful for web designers and developers by helping them test their layouts on different browser resolutions. Get it!
Page Ruler lets your draw out a ruler to any page and displays the width, height and position of all elements in it. Get it!
Easily extract CSS and HTML from selected element. Then send it to CodePen, jsFiddle or JS Bin with one click. Get it!
For web developers who wants to make sure they follow best practices. This extension allows you to very easily discover problem areas in your website. Get it!
Type Sample is an extension for identifying and sampling webfonts. Once it’s installed, click the extension and hover over text on a webpage to identify the font being used. Get it!
Eye Dropper is open source extension which allows you to pick colors from web pages, color picker and your personal color history. Get it!
Muzli brings you the freshest design, UI, UX and interactive news and shots from around the web. Get it!
Lets you choose a font from the Google Font API directory, and apply that font to the entire page or a specified CSS selector to see how it looks. Get it!
PerfectPixel allows developers to put a semi-transparent image overlay over the top of the developed HTML and perform per pixel comparison between them. Get it!
Selector Gadget is an open source Chrome Extension that makes CSS selector generation and discovery on complicated sites a breeze. Get it!
A neat little browser extension that makes it ridiculously easy to experiment with CSS on a website. Get it!
Validity can be used to quickly validate your HTML documents from the toolbar. Get it!
This extension allows you to view any web page, local or on the web, with a wireframe overlay. Get it!
When you’re editing a web page that has lots of links, with this extension you are able to quickly check that all the links on the page are working. Get it!
An extension for developers to test web pages in different screen resolutions, with an option to define your own resolutions. Get it!
Browse images galleries with ease: move the mouse cursor over thumbnails to view images in their full size without loading a new page. Get it!Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images For Roc Nation
Last night, Kanye West tweeted a photo of a computer monitor with the main window set to the YouTube audio for Sufjan Stevens' "Death with Dignity." However, there was also a tab open pointing to the notorious file-sharing site the Pirate Bay, as well as one that seemed to indicate that the synthesizer plugin Serum was being illegally downloaded. Serum is sold by Xfer Records, which was co-founded by Deadmau5. Last night, Deadmau5 took notice, tweeting "What the fuck @kanyewest... Can't afford serum? Dick. Let's start a Kickstarter to help @kanyewest afford a copy of Serum. He needs a small loan of 200$ #prayforyeezy." Update (2:36 p.m.): Kanye's camp has confirmed to Pitchfork that the laptop in question is not Kanye's. He posted the tweet as a joke, referring to the rampant piracy of The Life of Pablo. Update (6:22 p.m.): Deadmau5 has responded to West's tweets.
Now, Kanye has fired back with a series of tweets. Read them below.
Both Kanye and Deadmau5 are founding co-owners of TIDAL. That photo above is from the TIDAL launch.
Kanye's instigating tweet:
Deadmau5's tweets:
West responded:
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said Kanye had tweeted out a photo of a Samsung computer. In fact, the photo shows an Apple laptop hooked up to a Samsung monitor.(I wrote this in 2012, but the situation has only gotten worse. I feel even more strongly than I did then.)
It’s an election year, apparently. I’ve noticed the sprouting yard signs and the increasing emotional urgency in political conversations. The internets buzz with people making their case and stomping their virtual feet.
As a follower of Jesus this season makes me tired. Everyone seems to have expectations and obligations for me; commitments that I have never signed up for.
In the course of a single week, for example, I had two different Facebook friends make essentially the same claim. One was lamenting an action of the President that they disapproved of, commenting that they couldn’t imagine how any Christian could vote for a Democrat ever again. My other friend, frustrated with a bill that was passed in congress, declared that it was inconceivable how anyone who took the Bible seriously could possibly vote for a Republican.
I’m told there’s a culture war on. Also a war on Christians. Possibly a war on women. Certainly a war against Our Way Of Life. As a Christian, and as a pastor, I am expected to march in this war.
Wave the flags as much as you like. This is a war I’m not coming to. I am officially declaring my status as a Conscientious Objector in the culture war.
A Conscientious Objector?
What’s that, you ask? A Conscientious Objector is someone in the military who objects to violence on religious or moral grounds. In certain circumstances they can serve in non-combatant roles. Growing up in the Seventh-Day Adventist church, I heard a lot about Desmond Doss, an Adventist Conscientious Objector who served as a medic. Through heroic and self-sacrificial service, he won the Congressional Medal of Honor.
I have no illusions that I will be heroic, but I will being doing my best to follow Jesus. I’m tired of having people co-opt Jesus for their political agendas — both on the left and the right. Jesus said and did things that were profoundly political, but He was not the founder of a political party.
As a follower of Jesus my actions are also political, but my loyalty is not to any cultural agenda. My loyalty is to Jesus. Not only to Jesus as my Lord, but also to Jesus as my guide. That means that the way I follow is just as important as the One I follow.
To remind myself, I wrote this declaration. Some people in my community have found it helpful, and so I share it with you.
My Declaration
I claim Conscientious Objector status in the culture war.
I will not see people who disagree with me or believe differently from me as the enemy. They may be innocent bystanders. They may be victims. They may be prisoners. They may even be acting against me–but they are not my enemy. (Ephesians 6:12)
I will not be tricked into thinking that anything they can do to me will do me irreparable harm. My security has nothing to do with other people. (Romans 8:28-39)
I will not accept the lie that I must fight back when I am attacked, or else I am letting them win. In fact, I know that if I fight back, I will lose what really matters. (Matthew 5:39)
I will not fall into the trap of using power in any form to compel people to believe or to behave. God has chosen not to do this, and I cannot cross that line. I will not manipulate, or lie, or misuse politics, with the agenda of forcing others to conform to my way of being or thinking. (Matthew 4:1-11)
I will, however, be aware of the real battle going in people’s hearts and souls. (James 4:1)
I will watch for what God is doing in the lives of people I come across. (John 6:44 & 2 Peter 3:9)
I will give God access to them through me and through my prayer. (1st Samuel 12:23)
The real enemy is selfishness and greed and every other satanic manifestation of pride, that leads to rebellion against God, whether in me or in others. (Romans 8:7)
Against this I choose humility, service and every other form of love, which I have learned from Jesus and which I able to live out through His sustaining power in me. (1st John 4:8)
I know that God’s plan for impacting culture is to change people’s hearts. I give Him access to change mine, and ask His grace that nothing I do would harden the hearts of people around me. (Ezekiel 36:26)
I give myself to be an avenue through which God’s love can brings about transformation in other people’s hearts. (Matthew 28:19-20 & Matthew 25:34-40)
God, change me first.
* I shared this declaration along with some other ideas about how Christians can engage in and think about politics in a recent message at Bridge City Community Church. If you’d like to watch that video you can do so:
* If you’d like a nicely formatted version of this declaration for yourself, you can download a.pdf here.Bourdain travels to Singapore, known to some as “Disneyland with the death penalty.” He keeps coming back for the food, he says—only here does one find the singular, exquisite mix of Chinese, Indian, and Malay dubbed “indigenous fusion” by local chefs. Over several meals in homes and at hawker stalls, the conversation turns to Singapore’s government; here residents seem to have traded civil liberties for a booming economy. Bourdain asks an unavoidable question: “Is free speech overrated?”
“One could be forgiven for thinking it’s a giant, ultramodern shopping mall. An interconnected, fully wired, air-conditioned nanny state. Where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. And those things are … kind of true, especially if you read the papers or the carefully monitored internet. You look around the litterless streets, where everything seems to work just fine, and you think—or you could be forgiven for thinking—‘Gee, maybe a one-party system is just what we need.’ You look at all the social problems and ethnic strife, street crime, drugs that Singapore has managed to avoid and you could think, ‘Is this the life we want?’ It ain’t my system, it’s not the world I want, but damn—it has its appeal.”Residents in parts of Dallas, in Melbourne's north, are being evacuated after a massive fire at a recycling plant has sent smoke and ash falling across neighbouring suburbs.
Key points: Emergency warning in place for parts of Dallas due to smoke
Fire crews working to control smoke with foam
Blaze broke out in a large pile of paper and plastic
About 50 trucks were earlier on the scene battling the blaze which broke out in a large pile of paper and plastic at the factory in Maffra St, Coolaroo just before 9:00am.
Just after 8:00pm, emergency services put out an emergency warning to residents in parts of Dallas after the state's Environment Protection Authority said air quality near the plant was "very poor" due to smoke.
Incident controller Mark Swiney said there were about 115 houses in the evacuation area.
"The fire is burning pretty profusely and giving off a lot of smoke. That smoke is heading in a southerly direction and we've actually activated an evacuation to the south of Barry Road in Dallas," he told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"[Residents] can evacuate themselves or they can wait for police and SES to doorknock the area and they can assist with evacuation.
"People will be out of their houses tonight and we'll re-assess the situation tomorrow."
A relief centre has been established at the Broadmeadows Aquatic Centre.
Emergency services said the warning affected residents in the following areas:
Barry Road between Dallas Drive and Doy Street
Washington Street between King and Doy streets
Edmund Street between King and Doy streets
Doy Street between Barry Road and Edmund Street
Dallas Drive to Sale Court, including Sale Court
Earlier Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) commander Ken Brown told those at a community meeting in Broadmeadows this afternoon that it could take crews up to three days to put out the blaze.
"The first estimates were that this fire would go for 24 hours," he said.
"Once I've had a good look at this fire it could be up to three days before we extinguish [it].
"It's a very deep-seated fire. That brings about a complexity within itself.
"The only way you're going to put that out, once you control the smoke, is to pull the piles apart. It's a limited space area so that makes it difficult to manoeuvre stuff around."
Residents reported ash falling as far as away as Kensington, about 15 kilometres away in Melbourne's inner west.
A watch and act warning is in place for Broadmeadows, Campbellfield, Dallas, Fawkner, Glenroy, Jacana, Westmeadows and some businesses in Maffra St have been closed.
"Anyone located in affected areas should take shelter indoors immediately," the warning message said.
"Close all exterior doors, windows and vents and ensure that heating and cooling systems are turned off."
Commander Brown said the priority of fire crews was to control the smoke.
"We're going to introduce foam into the system to try [to] knock the smoke down so the impacts on the community are minimal," he said.
The fire is not under control but is not threatening any surrounding properties.
The smoke could been seen as far away as in the CBD.
Commander Brown said the MFB would work closely with business owners so "ideally" they could return to work on Friday.
Plant site of several recent fires
Commander Brown said there had been a number of fires at the site in recent times, including one about 5:00pm on Wednesday, and the large blaze crew were now battling 12 hours later.
He said fire investigators would look at the cause of the blaze.
"We've got to look at why this has happened," he said.
Earlier in the day, Commander Brown said crews were having problems with the water supply at the blaze.
One nearby resident reported getting ash in his eye when he wound down his car window.
Another, an asthmatic, said she was struggling with the smoke.
"The ash and smoke is very bad," she said.Seven or eight years ago, we put up four Eastern Screech Owl boxes all around our house, hoping a pair would choose one and nest in our wooded yard. We followed the specs found on the Audubon page by Kenn Kaufman, and were very excited to have owls sporadically roosting in one of the boxes, and then nesting a few summers ago. Of course the squirrels have claimed one of the boxes, and have raised many more offspring than the owls, but they are entertaining also. This fall, this little guy, only 6-9 inches long, began roosting in the box in our front yard. He is a gray-phase, rather than the less commonly seen red-phase screech owl, and is well-camouflaged against the tree bark.
Unlike the owls of previous years, he is not at all timid, and will roost in the opening of the box in spite of cars going up and down the road behind him, our garage door opening, and the dog going outside for some exercise. He even watched me decorate the front porch for Christmas! He pays no attention to the songbirds that harass him, and last night he continued to vocalize loudly in the back yard while the dog was taken out for a midnight walk.
A previous blog post shows the local bluebirds and nuthatches fussing over the screech owl roosting inside. Blue jays are our most vocal protesters, and are heard almost daily chastising the owl inside.
Video of Eastern Screech Owl
Yesterday, I was able to videotape him through the window while he looked around early in the rainy morning, and I caught him dropping down into the box for the day. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see his little talons hanging on to the opening of the box. Near the end of the video, he turned, and hopped down into the bottom of the box showing part of his wing.Using NATS Messaging with some of your favorite Golang tools
Quick Intro to NATS, and Why We Love Go!
For those of you who have been reading GopherAcademy for a while, you may already be familiar with NATS via last year’s post, or you may have known about NATS for a while before that - NATS was one of the earliest production applications written in Golang. NATS is a very, very simple messaging system (just like Go is a simple to use development language), and shares many of the same characteristics developers like about Go. For anyone building cloud native or microservices based applications, some (if not all) of your stack these days is likely Golang, and NATS should make your life quite a bit easier.
In this blog post, we want to take a look at two things: 1) What do we love about Go on the NATS team? 2) How are Go developers using NATS with other tools in the Go ecosystem?
What are some things we love about Go, and how are we using it in NATS?
We like the performance Go provides across the major platforms (Linux, OSX, Windows). While other technologies support multiple platforms like Go, they do not compile down to native binaries, sacrificing performance and requiring a larger footprint with additional runtime components to be installed.
Goroutines eliminate the need to manage threads and thread pools - they are very simple to use, extremely lightweight, and performant.
Built-in facilities like Channels and WaitGroups make it really easy to use a variety of concurrency patterns.
The consistent formatting style enforced in Go facilitates development in a team environment.
The rich and portable “net” package lets us focus on the important things, rather than low-level and traditionally error prone socket code.
In addition to being a great development language (obviously) that comes with all sorts of great primitives, Golang also comes with a community and ecosystem second to none. That is the focus the remainder of this blog post - we’ll delve a bit further into some of the interesting things happening in the NATS community this year, and how developers are implementing NATS alongside a variety of popular Go-based projects in their infrastructure
What’s new in 2016 with NATS?
From a product standpoint, there have been quite a few important updates. The most important was the launch of NATS Streaming this past summer. NATS Streaming adds big data and IoT semantics such as message replay, persistence, and durable subscriptions, if this is something you require. This was implemented as a separate library rather than baked into the core NATS Server to maintain the simplicity we all enjoy with NATS. Subject based authorization was also added to NATS this year, and the team is also in the process of delivering clustering for NATS Streaming - you can look forward to that in the first half of 2017.
Quite a lot has also been going on with the growth of the NATS community, as any of you present at GopherCon this year may remember. Our team got to meet dozens of you at Hackday thanks to a packed room and excellent workshop put on by the one and only Bill Kennedy.
A few doors down, while the NATS Workshop was unfolding, the team at Gobot.io were holding their own Hackday session, where Cale Hoopes submitted a winning entry using NATS, GoBot, and ReactNative:
Since GopherCon, there have been some excellent talks at Meetups about using NATS with Go tooling.
Wally Quevedo, who maintains the Python Asyncio NATS, and Ruby NATS client libraries (as well as the monitoring utility nats-top) gave an overview on how to use NATS with Docker’s 1.12 Release at the Docker meetup in October:
You may find the slides on creating a NATS Cluster in Swarm mode particularly interesting.
In November at the Phoenix Golang Meetup, Cesar Gonzalez of Bolste gave an overview on using NATS for Event Handling:
If you’re hosting a Golang Meetup in your area and want to include NATS in a talk let Brian on our team know; we’d be happy to get you some swag and support you how we can!
NATS as the glue for the new Go-based Microservices Stack
Kubernetes
Using NATS with Kubernetes is a breeze, and as our development community like to remind us, almost ‘too easy’:
In a few hours we set this up & configured our architecture for messaging in #k8. Almost too easy… #natsio #tbe https://t.co/wAo4fOJZxL — Effectively Bo (@theBoEffect) November 18, 2016
Paulo Pires has been a member of the Kubernetes and NATS development communities for quite a while. He’s a very active contributor to both projects. He’s done a variety of ‘clustering on Kubernetes made easy’ tutorials and repos: Elasticsearch, Hazelcast, and of course NATS: https://github.com/pires/kubernetes-nats-cluster
Next up we hear Pires plans to implement an operator-based model (Controllers + TPR i.e. Third Party Resources) to allow you to manage NATS clusters from within Kubernetes in programmable manner vs the current recipe-driven method so we’re looking forward to that, as well!
Docker
NATS Server has been an Official Docker Image available on DockerHub for approximately a year and a half now. The simplicity, performance, and scalability of NATS make it a natural fit for anyone developing a container-based architecture. The Docker Image is just 6MB and a few layers, making it one of the smallest Official Images around. The image has now been pulled over a million times and is a popular Golang developer tool for anyone working with Docker infrastructure.
NATS Streaming has now also joined NATS Server as an Official Image. You can pull NATS Streaming via DockerHub.
The talk we’ve already mentioned above from Wally gives some very practical examples of how to get started with NATS and Docker, and you can also try this example.
We’ve also recently contributed a logging driver for Docker. If you’d like to take a look, you can see some examples in the pull request and we would be interested in your feedback or opinion on if this is useful.
Minio
Minio is a Go based Amazon S3-Compatible Object Storage Server that many of you will be familiar with. Like NATS, they also sponsored GopherCon and several other Golang community events this year. Much like NATS, Minio emphasizes simplicity and is a common choice for Golang developers. Minio recently added NATS as an event notification target, joining AMQP, Elasticseach, Redis, and PostgreSQL. You can make use of this using the events command in Minio, and more flags for this and how to use it are available via their documentation.
Prometheus
Prometheus has become a very popular monitoring solution for cloud native applications, and chances are many of you reading this have tried it or are actively using it. There are several community developed integrations for exporting metrics from NATS to Prometheus available you may want to have a look at:
https://github.com/lovoo/nats_exporter https://github.com/markuslindenberg/nats_exporter https://github.com/SLASH2NL/nats-prometheus
Micro
If you read the NATS.io blog regularly, you may have already seen a guest post by Asim Aslam on Micro - a Go-based microservices framwork. It does an excellent job explaining what Micro is, and how Micro uses NATS - definitely worth checking out here.
If you were at GopherCon UK this year, you may also have seen the talk about Micro:
Here's me speaking about simplifying #microservices with Micro at @GolangUKconf last month. I just want to pin this! https://t.co/woInK3hhMC — Asim Aslam (@chuhnk) September 30, 2016
There is plenty more we could share about the good things happening in the Go/NATS Community - more than fit into a blog post so we had to wrap it up somewhere for this article…
We’d like to sign off by saying thank you to all of you in the Go Community for your ongoing feedback, trying things out, and the rapid pace of innovation. We are excited about 2017 and where you all take Golang next - it’s an exciting time to be learning and working in Go!
If you’d like to get take a look at NATS or get involved in the NATS Community, you can:
Find us on GitHub Follow us on Twitter Join the Google Group Join our Slack Community Check us out on Reddit18 May 2001: Link to CIA description of the biological and chemical warfare program at Ft Detrick, Maryland, redacted from the report below: http://nl.cryptome.org/mkultra-0004.htm
17 May 2001
Source: MKULTRA digital files from IntellNet.org
Original 41 TIF images, Zipped: http://nl.cryptome.org/mkultra-ig63.zip (3.8MB)
This report was extensively used for questioning CIA officials in two US Senate hearings on MKULTRA in 1975 and another by the Senate in 1977.
See also a shorter 1957 report by the CIA Inspector General on MKULTRA: http://nl.cryptome.org/mkultra-0001.htm
xxxxx indicates redactions. EYES ONLY derived from another description of this document.
[41 pages.]
[EYES ONLY ]
xxxxxxxxx 185209/1
26 July 1963
MEMORANDUM FOR: Director of Central Intelligence
SUBJECT: Report of Inspection of MKULTRA
1. In connection with our survey of Technical Services Division, DD/P, it was deemed advisable to prepare the report of the MKULTRA program in one copy only, in view of its unusual sensitivity.
2. This report is forwarded herewith.
3. The MKULTRA activity is concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior. The end products of such research are subject to very strict controls including a requirement for the personal approval of the Deputy Director/Plans for any operational use made of these end products.
4. The cryptonym MKULTRA encompasses the R&D phase and a second cryptonym MKDELTA denotes the DD/P system for control of the operational employment of such materials. The provisions of the MKULTRA authority also cover xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [probably chemical and biological warfare research with the US Army]. The administration and control of this latter activity were found to be generally satisfactory and are discussed in greater detail in the main body of the report on TSD.
5. MKULTRA was authorized was authorized by then Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. Allen W. Dulles, in 1953. The TSD was assigned responsibility thereby to employ a portion of its R&D budget, eventually set at 20%, for research in behavioral materials and xxxxxxxxxxxxx under purely internal and compartmented controls, (further details are provided in paragraph 3 of the attached report). Normal procedures for project approval, funding, and accounting were waived. However, special arrangements for audit of expenditures have been evolved in subsequent years.
6. The scope of MKULTRA is comprehensive and ranges from the search for and procurement of botanical and chemical substances, through programs for their analysis in scientific laboratories, to progressive testing for effect on animals and human beings. The testing on individuals begins under laboratory conditions employing every safeguard and progresses gradually to more and more realistic operational situations. The program requires and obtains the services of a number of highly specialized authorities in many fields of natural science.
7. The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and outside the Agency to be distasteful and unethical. There is considerable evidence that opposition intelligence services are active and highly proficient in this field. The experience of TSD to date indicates that both the research and the employment of the materials are expensive and often unpredictable in results. Nevertheless, there have been major accomplishments both in research and operational employment.
8. The principal conclusions of the inspection are that the structure and operational controls over this activity need strengthening; improvements are needed in the administration of research projects; and some of the testing of substances under simulated operational conditions was judged to involve excessive risk to the Agency.
9. Attached for the signature of the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence is a memorandum transmitting the report to the Deputy Director/Plans requesting a summary of action taken or comments on the recommendations contained herein.
[Signature]
J. S. Earman
Inspector General
Attachments - as stated
[Typed at first page bottom:]
Declassification Review E.O. 12065
Conducted on 17 June 1981
Derivative Classification by 531025
Review 17 June 2001
Derived from C9c.2; C9e
Downgrade xxxxxxxxxxxxx 61140
[EYES ONLY ]
xxxxxxxxx - 185209
Cy 2 See D
REPORT OF INSPECTION OF MKULTRA/TSD
I. Introduction
1. Technical Services Division (TSD), (the Technical Support Staff). received authorization from the then Director of Central Intelligence, Mr. Allen dulles, on 3 April 1953 to develop and maintain continuing operational capabilities in the fields of a) [one line reacted] and b) chemical and biological materials capable of producing human behavioral and psychological changes, (see Tab A). The cryptonym MKULTRA was assigned to encompass TSD's research, development and equipment activities in these two fields. The cryptonym MKDELTA had already been assigned by DD/P Notice No. 229-1 on 20 October 1952 (since revised - see Tab B) as the indicator covering DD/P policy and procedure for the use of biochemicals in clandestine operations.
2. The MKULTRA charter provides only a brief presentation of the rationale of the authorized activities. The sensitive aspect of the program as it has evolved over the ensuing ten years are the following:
a. Research in the manipulation of human behavior is considered by many authorities in medicine and related fields to be professionally unethical, therefore the reputations of professional participants in the MKULTRA program are on occasion in jeopardy. b. Some MKULTRA activities raise questions of legality implicit in the original charter. c. A final phase of the testing of MKULTRA products places the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in jeopardy. d. Public disclosure of some aspects of MKULTRA activity could induce serious adverse reaction in U.S. public opinion, as well as stimulate offensive and defensive action in this field on the part of foreign intelligence services.
3. In recognition of the sensitivity of MKULTRA, TSD was authorized exclusive control of the administration, records, and financial accountings of the program. Simple statements of certification were all that were required of TSD to obtain advances of funds from Finance Division. The DCI's memorandum also exempted MKULTRA from audit, but this provision was modified to permit limited audit before the end of the first year. Funding of MKULTRA was eventually stabilized at 20 percent of TSD's annual research and development budget. It has fallen in the neighborhood of xxxxxxxxxx per year over the ten-year history of the program, of which about 30 percent has been allocated to support of the xxx |
charm that is Bill, nor does anyone put Alcide’s ex out of her misery. She’ll be back.
Eric is just as curious about Sookie. He bullies one of Sophie-Anne’s minions for the answer. He picked the right one: Sookie’s cousin Hadley, who reveals Sookie’s secret value in a whisper we can’t hear.
Body Count: Two. Lorena dies in a geyser of blood, leaving behind a lake of viscera. Cooter’s death was less spectacular.
How’d You Know I Was a Tiffany’s Girl?
Just as the Magister is about to pierce Pam’s eyelids with some nice silver rings, the royal couple and Eric show up. Russell mocks the Magister’s allegiance to the Authority and declares himself the new authority — but he still makes the Magister marry them. And then he kills him. We might be be more interested in Russell’s thoughts on the law of nature and the need to take the planet back from humans before they destroy it — and in unraveling why he wants the Authority’s matrimonial blessing when he’s engineering a putsch, not to mention whether the ceremony counts with the Magister dead — but this is just not the heart of the episode.
Body Count: One. The Magister’s beheading is almost as beautiful as Lorena’s staking.
I Never Really Thought I Was Smart Enough to Get Depressed
People keep accusing Jason of being smart or responsible; he keeps fondling his billy club. In an effort to figure out whether Crystal is named after the Champagne or the drug that keeps the town afloat, he interrogates a jailed drug dealer, who happens to be her cousin. Jason appeals to his love of family and of meth — and just might get some information in return.
Hoyt has his own woman problems: Summer wants him to taste her biscuits. Jason reckons she’ll make a great grandmamma some day, but Hoyt’s used to a little more excitement.
Booty Count: That’s not what this episode is about. Let’s move on.
Look at the Size of the Balls on That Son of a Bitch
Unable to talk Willie Nelson’s brother (not really, but have we talked about Patrick Swayze’s brother as a werewolf?) into pointing him to the dogfights, Sam does the obvious: disguises himself as a pitbull. He releases the other dogs, stares down a riled-up Rottweiler, calls his father out as a scared old man in saggy underpants, and saves his little brother. Tommy doesn’t quite want to go, and they don’t want to let him go. This isn’t going to end well. But let’s get back to Sookie.
There Is Only One Great Thing
Tara and Alcide bond in the cab of their escape truck while Sookie nurses Bill in the back. Has Tara finally found a decent guy? If only Alcide had the charisma to match his good looks and good heart.
When Sookie resuscitates Bill by sawing her arm open, he loses control and nearly drains her. Tara’s had enough. She kicks him out into the sunlight. And something weird happens: Daylight doesn’t kill him.
And then something weirder happens: Rather than relying on the never-fail home remedies of human or vampire blood, a True Blood character goes to the hospital. Unlike Jason — who knows he’s AB-negative “because I’m always cutting myself with power tools and what-not” — Sookie doesn’t have a blood type, just blood that vampires covet because it protects them from the sun. Her transfusion sends her into a coma.
Lafayette leads Sookie’s loved ones in prayer — last week’s reminder of his interest in Santeria and Yoruban religion was a nice bit of foreshadowing. He offers an Inuit saying: “I think over again my small adventures, my fears, those small ones that seemed so big, those vital things I had to get and to reach, yet there is only one great thing: to live and see the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the world.” (We’ll consider it an homage to another HBO hospital scene, when Tony Soprano found a note with an Ojibwe saying.)
He Will Steal Your Light
Sookie has a dream that could suggest how close death has come, but is clearly related to her strange powers. She drinks from a pool of light with her guide, Claudine — and all of this is familiar to her. They’re interrupted by an approaching darkness, and their white-clad companions dive into the pool. When Sookie is afraid to follow them, Claudine assures her that it wasn’t the water that killed her parents. She doesn’t explain what did kill them, just asks Sookie to promise not to let “him” steal her light.
Bill has hooked himself up to Sookie’s IV to save her. When she comes to and sees him, she pauses — then screams.
More Recaps:
Ken Tucker says the blood-sucking scene was a metaphor for rape and the dream was like a butter commercial.
IGN lauds Russell and calls Alcide a neutered, self-loathing man-beast.
The AV Club is glad we didn’t have to see too much dog-fighting — and that Lorena is gone.
Speakeasy waxes poetic on blood fountains.You are not logged in. Login or Signup
*insert pedestrian wank fantasy here*
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:52, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:52,
at least you didn't say "enter pedestrian"
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:41, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:41,
tickle me, elmo
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:53, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:53,
that tickles my 'elmo'
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:53, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:53,
mind the piss
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:54, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:54,
Best thing EVER
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:56, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:56,
haha
edit: well deserved insta-fp (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:56, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:56,
Her lips are moving!
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:58, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 22:58,
gracious me!
Hahahahahahhahaha (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:00, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:00,
Russell Brand won't be happy at this...
... but I am :D (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:01, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:01,
She's wasted on him....
he's not even worth her poop. (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:22, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:22,
this is an improvement on her face
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06,
she's got tits for a face and a big titface
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:25, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:25,
It's been a long time since something has really made me laugh out loud...
*clicks* (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06,
Pfffft...I have a feeling this is missing some huge glasses
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:06,
I tried putting her face over the t-shirt
but it didn't work out (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:08, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:08,
I see how that wouldn't
;) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09,
oh my
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09,
LOOK ME INTHE EYES WHEN YOU TALK TO ME!
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:09,
Good lord.
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:12, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:12,
She's risking a serious loss of face there.
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:13, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:13,
New on Channel 5
The woman with a cleavage for a face. (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:14, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:14,
Makes a change from their usual programming
The woman with cleavage and a face (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:27, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:27,
Trisha?
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:31, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:31,
Kiss ma teef.
/bumblesquat (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:33, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:33,
I like this
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:19, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:19,
Hahaha
Christ (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:24, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:24,
congrats on FP, and sorry ;)
archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:46,
*stands to applaud subtle eyebrow action* (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:57, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:57,
yup
hard to spot with all that jiggling (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:58, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:58,
I always look at his eyes, cos he always looks like he's gone a month without sleep.
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:03, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:03,
the bros never sleep
they just stay up all night feeding off childrens brains. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:11, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:11,
(from Tom Waits' "Singapore")
We sail tonight for Singapore
Don't fall asleep while you're ashore
Cross your heart and hope to die
When you hear the children cry.
Let marrow bone and cleaver choose
While making feet for childrens' shoes
Through the alley
Back from Hell
When you hear that steeple bell
You must say goodbye to me. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:19, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:19,
FUCK YES
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:37, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:37,
Hahahahaha
he just wants to be liked (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:36, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:36,
Girls, they will experiment
(, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:47, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:47,
Katy Perry
was an inside job
I know! Not again this conspiracy.
I'm only joking! Take it easy and wank! (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:50, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:50,
what is that
thing on her shoulder???
Its not a travel packed russel brand is it? (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:55, archived) (, Mon 27 Sep 2010, 23:55,
Bugadah Huguhda... 'onk 'onk! (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:13, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:13,
hot (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:37, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:37,
Hooray for SNL!
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:57, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 0:57,
Is that where it's from?
Dude I've just stopped watching. I've seen probably 4 or 5 in the last couple of years and not enjoyed them. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:11, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:11,
I just like the ones with Christopher Walken
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:16, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:16,
I always knew
it would be the ferns! (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 2:17, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 2:17,
.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy1q-qpQAGA archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 2:19,
ahhhahh delightful
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 2:47, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 2:47,
I've started watching again in the past 2 years...
There are some gems in there.
And some melons on occasion. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:40, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:40,
Yes!
This past weekend was the season premiere, and one of the best in a long time. (, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 15:28, archived) (, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 15:28,
Genius.
*clicks*
:D*clicks* archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:25,
I jizzed my pants and I liked it!
...though I quickly lost my post-splodge erection when I saw that Millaband version. And I think I'll need therapy to get over seeing that. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:31, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 1:31,
Hahahahahaha tit fuck face
:DD (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 6:31, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 6:31,
that is making my face melt.
bravo, you. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 6:51, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 6:51,
Jiggle me, Elmo.
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 9:09, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 9:09,
archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:03,
arf!
:D (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 23:25, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 23:25,
Oh dear me
That is absolutely LOL-inducingly funny.
Click! (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 11:28, archived) (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 11:28,
Love it
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:06, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:06,
'shopped only please
:D (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:34, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:34,
pfft!
like some kind of sexy nightmare (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:45, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 10:45,
Genius!!
And strangely sexy, didn't realise her bangers were so big!!
Massive *click* (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 11:32, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 11:32,
I find this strangely mesmerizing.
Woo... *click* (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:05, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:05,
FUCK
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:29, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:29,
Who is this person
and why the cunting fuckery is she on MY internet? (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:35, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 12:35,
I think you'll find
that I claimed the internet in the name of France in 1987 (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 15:26, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 15:26,
Hahahaha!
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 13:02, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 13:02,
I love the hysterisis on that/those
(, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 13:32, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 13:32,
My first thought when I saw this:
Preacher (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 17:56, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 17:56,
That reminds me
Must go and buy some jelly for tea (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 19:44, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 19:44,
This is brilliant and terrifying in equal measure.
I suppose it does a good job of stopping me from checking b3ta every 10 mins at work though. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 20:58, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 20:58,
I must have seen this about 43 times today
... and it still fails to get old and die. I don't know if I prefer chestboobs or faceboobs. (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 23:51, archived) (, Tue 28 Sep 2010, 23:51,
:O
(, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 0:08, archived) (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 0:08,
Well done you!!
Luckily I hadn't taken a mouthful of tea yet...but I shall do so and spit it out on my keyboard!! That is excellent! (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 5:42, archived) (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 5:42,
that is
hypnotically fantastic (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 20:58, archived) (, Wed 29 Sep 2010, 20:58,
christ.
(, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 1:46, archived) (, Thu 30 Sep 2010, 1:46,
Hahaha, found this while t'internet browsing.
Splendid.
All gets back to b3ta in the end. (, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 4:08, archived) (, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 4:08,On March 2, 2015, a New York Times article publicly reveals Clinton’s use of a personal email account and private server to conduct government business. The FBI’s Clinton email investigation will later identify an increased number of login attempts to her server and its associated domain controller just after this article comes out.
According to the FBI in September 2016, “Forensic analysis revealed none of the login attempts were successful. [The] FBI investigation also identified an increase in unauthorized login attempts into the Apple iCloud account likely associated with Clinton’s email address during this time period.” (Clinton’s email address, which had been publicly revealed in March 2013, was still used as the user name for the account.) “Investigation determined all potentially suspicious Apple iCloud login attempts were unsuccessful.”
Despite all this, Clinton does not simply turn the server off. Instead, Platte River Networks (PRN) employees, who are managing the server, make some security improvements around March 7, 2015.
PRN staff also discuss the possibility of conducting penetration testing against the server to highlight vulnerabilities, so they can be fixed. However, the penetration testing ultimately doesn’t happen. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)nice score on the free 8350.if you're taking requests for benchmark suites, think you can run these? i understand you've run a couple already.CINEBENCH 11.5 x64Fritz Chess Bench 4.3 x32Geekbench2.3.4 (32bit trial version)MaxxMEM v1.99 x32 (only able to find download link on ru forum site)wPrime 2.09 x32know you've already done this one, but score looks off. my 1100 @ stock scores better than the 9.2sec you got. for 1100 i got 9.034secs. check that the thread count = 8.Super PI / mod 1.5 x32WinRAR 4.2 x64x264 HD Benchmark 5.0.1 (not sure if x64 tho it's a cmd exe if that matters)to run the benchmark, AviSynth 2.5.8 needs to be installed.if you have the time and inclination, run the bench at a few different settings;probably a lot to ask so no biggie if you can't be arsed. be nice to have a preview of this chip tho.Military vehicles used in Afghanistan may make their way into Iraq for use against the Islamic State group. Paul Shinkman for USN&WR
Since June, the U.S. military has been slowly stockpiling massive amounts of its gear coming out of Afghanistan at a depot in Kuwait adjacent to a bustling commercial port, in preparation for ultimately shipping it across the border into Iraq for an allied offensive against the Islamic State group.
The facility's warehouses and large asphalt yards now are home to roughly 3,100 vehicles, most of them MRAPs – the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles that have been ubiquitous in America’s prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also some electronic equipment and other supplies at the depot, located at Kuwait's Shuaiba port, defense officials say.
The gear, primarily from the Army, will be fixed up and held as top U.S. planners in Iraq determine what they’ll need to defeat the Islamic State group in the coming months, says Air Force Maj. Gen. Rowayne “Wayne” Schatz, the director of operations and plans for U.S. Transportation Command.
“From June to December, we’ve worked a lot on moving items into Kuwait,” he says. “The Army is holding the gear there, and it has room to hold it, as the mission fleshes out.”
The U.S. military and its allies are reportedly planning for a massive spring offensive to help Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga fighters retake territory from the Islamic State group, particularly traditional Sunni Muslim bastions such as Anbar province west of Baghdad and the key city of Mosul.
Since 2012, the Defense Department has been destroying, selling or shipping out its gear in Afghanistan as the military neared its current number of 9,800 troops left behind to help the fledgling Afghan forces in 2015. The subsequent rise of the Islamic State group – also known as ISIS, ISIL or by the Arabic acronym “Daesh” – has forced the military to reroute some of that equipment back toward Iraq.
It represents a full circle for the protracted Middle East wars the U.S. continues to be drawn into: Much of the equipment taken out of Iraq during America’s complete withdrawal in 2011 was sent to nearby Afghanistan, where it had to be retrofitted to be effective in the rural mountains of the Hindu Kush and deserts of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, as opposed to the urban environments of Baghdad and Mosul. Now, as the war winds down in Afghanistan, the Islamic State group's sweeping incursion toward Baghdad has forced the U.S. to again focus its attention there.
U.S. Central Command ultimately will make the decision on how much of the equipment in Kuwait will be shipped into the newly ravaged war zone. The rest will be disposed of or sent back to the U.S.
The command did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
When asked about the strategy to defeat the Islamic State group on Thursday, the top U.S. general overseeing the campaign declined to offer specifics.
“I don’t want to disclose any timelines,” Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, said during a news conference at the Pentagon. The task force is focusing on supporting, rebuilding and training Iraq's fractured military and National Guard forces to prepare them to take on the vicious extremist army.
Terry cited Mosul and Anbar province, along with the cities of Ramadi and Baiji, as key areas his forces will try to wrest away from Islamic State group control.
While the military stands by President Barack Obama’s repeated pledge that he will not put U.S. combat forces on the ground, an increasing number of U.S. troops has slowly trickled back into Iraq.
On Friday, the Pentagon announced Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had ordered 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division to join other advisers and trainers at headquarters in Baghdad and Irbil, as well as facilities elsewhere in the country. Roughly 1,700 troops are in Iraq already, with as many as 1,300 more to deploy.
The U.S. originally had planned to destroy, sell or give away as much as $7 billion worth of equipment it had in Afghanistan supporting the war effort there.
Since 2006, it has turned more than 1.1 billion pounds worth of equipment into scrap materials, according to documents provided to U.S. News by the Defense Logistics Agency. The steady destruction of gear viewed as useless or too expensive to move peaked in 2013, when the agency oversaw the destruction of 422 million pounds of equipment.
Some of the scrap is sold to Afghans to recoup costs. The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a congressionally created watchdog, has raised concerns about what it believes at times has been wasteful destruction of military equipment.
The military also conducts de facto yard sales to sell to Afghans some of its excess “white goods,” like power tools, air conditioning units, tractors, construction machinery, or mobile shower and bath units.
Those sales have brought in $2 million so far.
As of this summer, there was roughly $36 billion worth of equipment slated to return to the U.S. after being extricated from Afghanistan either by air and to nearby transfer facilities like the one in Kuwait, through a complicated land route north of Afghanistan, or through border crossings into Pakistan and on to one of that country's ports.
The latter two options have become less and less viable, says Schatz, whose command is tasked with moving military equipment and troops around the globe.
The U.S. drone campaign in Pakistan contributed to widespread political protests, prompting top leaders to occasionally close the main border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan at Torkham.
“We frankly found out at the start of the year we had major issues,” Schatz says. Delayed convoys coming out of Afghanistan also made for juicy targets for the Taliban, which has been conducting a surge in attacks as the U.S. withdraws its forces. “We had a backup early in the year of roughly 1,600 trucks waiting to get out.”
The land route to the north, known as the Northern Distribution Network, also is limited by some countries’ restrictions on combat equipment, such as armored vehicles, traveling over their land.
Transportation Command decided, as a result, to fly equipment from its main Afghanistan bases at Kandahar and Bagram to hubs in nearby countries like Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait for processing and ultimate shipment back to the U.S.
This year alone, the command has moved 140,000 people and 333,000 tons of cargo shipments that have included thousands of vehicles and 20-foot shipping containers – moves that would require the rough equivalent of 9,000 C-17 cargo plane flights or 36,000 tractor-trailer trips.(Repeats item to additional subscribers with no changes)
Jan 4 (Reuters) - Middle-aged adults whose memories have grown hazy can’t blame occasional pot smoking or other light illicit drug use for their forgetfulness, according to a British study, although experts warn heavy, prolonged use could harm mental functions.
The study, carried in the American Journal of Epidemiology, tested the mental function and memory of nearly 9,000 Britons at age 50 and found that those who had used illegal drugs as recently as in their 40s did just as well, or slightly better, on the tests than peers who had never used drugs.
Marijuana was by far the most common indulgence for the participants — who were surveyed at age 42 about current or past drug use, then tested at age 50 — with six percent saying they had used it in the past year, while one-quarter said they had ever used it.
Other drugs they were asked about included amphetamines, LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, cocaine and ecstasy — with anywhere from three percent to eight percent of study participants saying they’d ever used those drugs.
“Overall, at the population level, the results seem to suggest that past or even current illicit drug use is not necessarily associated with impaired cognitive functioning in early middle age,” said lead researcher Alex Dregan, of King’s College London.
“However, our results do not exclude possible harmful effects in some individuals who may be heavily exposed to drugs over longer periods of time.”
A small subset of participants who said they had ever been treated for their drug use, which could suggest heavy or addicted drug use, did not fare as well cognitively at 50, but there were too few of them to draw meaningful conclusions, the study authors noted.
Dregan’s team used data on 8,992 42-year-olds participating in a UK national health study, who were asked if they had ever used any of 12 illegal drugs. Then, at the age of 50, they took standard tests of memory, attention and other cognitive abilities.
Overall, the study found, there was no evidence that current or past drug users had poorer mental performance. In fact, when current and past users were lumped together, their test scores tended to be higher.
But that advantage was small, the researchers said, and might just reflect another finding — that people who’d ever used drugs generally had a higher education level than non-users.
“In a Western population of occasional drug users, this is what you’d expect to see,” said John Halpern, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, who has studied the potential cognitive effects of drug use.
“In some ways, this is not surprising. The brain is resilient.”
Though some studies have found that drugs like marijuana and cocaine may cloud thinking, memory and attention in the short term, the current findings support the notion that those effects may be temporary, Dregan’s team said.
Halpern noted that work focusing on people who have smoked pot regularly for years showed that once they stop the drugs, their deficits on cognitive tests improve after a month.
Still, he said this should not be taken as an endorsement of drug use, noting that the current study did not rule out the possibility of lasting negative cognitive effects from heavy, prolonged drug use. (Reporting from New York by Amy Norton at Reuters Health; Editing by Elaine Lies and Yoko Nishikawa)American actress
Jessica Phyllis Lange /læŋ/ (born April 20, 1949) is an American actress. She is the thirteenth actress in history to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting,[1] winning two Academy Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, one Tony Award and five Golden Globe Awards. Additionally, she is the second actress in history to win the Academy Award for Best Actress after winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress;[2] the third actress and first performer since 1943 to receive two Oscar nominations within the same year;[3] the fifth actress and ninth performer to win Oscars in both the lead and supporting acting categories;[4] and is tied as the sixth most Oscar-nominated actress in history.[5] She is the only performer ever to win Primetime Emmy Awards in both the supporting and lead acting categories for the same miniseries. Lange has also garnered one Screen Actors Guild Award, one Critics Choice Award and three Dorian Awards, making her the most honored actress by the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association.[6] In 1998, Entertainment Weekly listed Lange among the 25 Greatest Actresses of the 1990s.[7] In 2014, Lange was scheduled to receive a star on The Hollywood Walk of Fame, though she has yet to claim it.[8]
Lange was discovered by fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez in Europe in 1974. While modeling part-time for the Wilhelmina modelling agency, she auditioned for and later made her professional film debut in Dino De Laurentiis' 1976 remake of the 1933 action-adventure classic King Kong, for which she also won her first Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year. In 1983, she won her second Golden Globe Award and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a soap opera star in Tootsie (1982) and was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the troubled actress Frances Farmer in Frances (1982). Lange received three more nominations for Country (1984), Sweet Dreams (1985) and Music Box (1989), before winning her third Golden Globe Award, and the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as a manic depressive housewife in Blue Sky (1994).
In 2010, she won her first Primetime Emmy Award for her portrayal of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' famed aunt, Big Edie, in HBO's Grey Gardens (2009). Between 2011 and 2014, she won her first Screen Actors Guild Award, first Critics Choice Award, fifth Golden Globe Award, three Dorian Awards and her second and third Emmy Awards for her performances in the first, second and third seasons of FX's horror anthology series, American Horror Story (2011–2015, 2018).
In 2016, Lange won her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her critically acclaimed performance in the Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey into Night.[9] She also had a supporting role in Louis C.K.'s Peabody Award-winning web series, Horace and Pete. In 2017, she received praise for her portrayal of legendary Hollywood actress Joan Crawford in the television series Feud, for which she received her eighth Emmy, sixteenth Golden Globe, sixth Screen Actors Guild Award and second TCA Award nominations.
In addition to acting, Lange is a photographer with four published works.[10] She has also been a foster parent[11] and currently holds a Goodwill Ambassador position for UNICEF, specializing in HIV/AIDS in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Russia.[12][13]
Her most ardent and notable supporters in the film industry include renowned film critic Pauline Kael[14][15] and actress Meryl Streep.[16][17][18][19][20][21]
Early life and education [ edit ]
Lange was born in Cloquet, Minnesota, on April 20, 1949. Her father, Albert John Lange (1913–1989), was a teacher and traveling salesman, and her mother, Dorothy Florence (née Sahlman; 1913–1998), was a housewife. Third of four children, she has two older sisters, Jane and Ann, and a younger brother named George.[22] Her paternal ancestry originates in Germany and the Netherlands, while her maternal ancestry originates in Finland.[23][24][25] Due to the nature of her father's professions, her family moved over a dozen times to various towns and cities in Minnesota before settling back down in her hometown, where she graduated from Cloquet High School.[26]
In 1967, she received a scholarship to study art and photography at the University of Minnesota, where she met and began dating Spanish photographer Paco Grande.[11] After the two married in 1971, Lange left college to pursue a more bohemian lifestyle, traveling in the United States and Mexico in a minivan with Grande.[11][26] The couple then moved to Paris, where they drifted apart. While in Paris, Lange studied mime theatre under the supervision of Étienne Decroux, and joined the Opéra-Comique as a dancer.[11]
Career [ edit ]
1970s |
Senate seat on the line and open seats for every statewide Florida office, this is a potentially game-changing election cycle. Florida Democrats won't have an opportunity like this for at least eight more years, and they can't afford to wait to build the kind of campaign machinery that wins close races in battleground Florida.
Consider the challenges ahead:
• U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Sunshine State's last remaining statewide Democrat, is likely to face a re-election challenge from Gov. Rick Scott — a far stronger candidate than Nelson faced in 2012 with then-U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV or in 2006 with then-U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris.
• Democrats are poised to hold their first competitive gubernatorial primary in decades. That could help drive up interest and attention for Democrats, but it also means scarce money will be spent bruising one another in the primary.
• Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, the Republican front-runner for governor, could draw a tough primary, but so far he is raising five to 10 times more money than any of the Democrats — Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, former U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham and Winter Park businessman Chris King. Not to mention, Putnam is a much more talented and less polarizing politician than Gov. Scott, who narrowly won both his races.
• The state Democratic Party is rebuilding, virtually from scratch, since self-made millionaire Bittel was elected chairman in January without much sense of what's involved in running a party and hired a new executive director from Idaho. He has yet to live up to predictions that he would be a dynamo money-raiser and has little experience organizing and mobilizing voters, let alone stroking the egos of elected officials and local party officials.
• The party's bench remains so weak, it's a wide-open question whether strong candidates will emerge for every open statewide seat and the potentially competitive legislative seats.
The Tampa Bay Times surveyed nearly 200 veterans of Florida politics, including campaign operatives, fundraisers, lobbyists and grass roots activists, for its latest Florida Insider Poll and found strikingly widespread skepticism about Democratic prospects in 2018.
Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed (41 percent of them registered Democrats) predicted Republicans would win the governor's race in 2018, as well as the three Cabinet offices of agriculture commissioner, chief financial officer and attorney general. Fewer than 1 in 4 were confident the state Democratic Party would raise enough money to wage effective campaigns in 2018, while 86 percent predicted the state GOP would be fine on that front.
The unscientific Florida Insider Polls reflect conventional wisdom among people most familiar with the state's political landscape.
• • •
The good news for Florida Democrats? Two-thirds of those surveyed expect President Donald Trump to be a drag on the Republican ticket in 2018, and 70 percent expect higher Democratic turnout than usual in midterm elections.
"Donald Trump is going to be a lead balloon for Republicans this cycle, and if we can get some good candidate recruitment with a solid message and give voters a reason to vote for us, we will be in good shape," said Ashley Walker, who ran Barack Obama's Florida campaign in 2012. "We just have to keep our heads down and not be distracted."
Reggie Cardozo, a veteran political operative who helped lead Hillary Clinton's 2016 Florida campaign, said the national political landscape is likely to put some wind at Democrats' backs in 2018, but no one knows whether those winds will be 20 mph or 70. State party leaders understand they must raise money quickly — to start registering voters, recruiting, organizing and building a vote-by-mail program — to capitalize on however strong those gusts prove to be.
"We have a climate and an atmosphere where the perfect storm is coming together, and we're going to have opportunities to get some wins in Florida," Cardozo said. "We've just got to make sure we're putting ourselves in position to take advantage."
One key opportunity may be in candidate recruitment, said Steve Schale, another top Democratic consultant.
He led the Democrats' Florida House campaigns in 2006, as the public was turning hard against the wars and George W. Bush's administration. He saw how community leaders normally averse to entering politics can become more receptive when they feel their country or state is in real trouble.
"There are going to be a lot more places that are going to be functionally in play in 2018 than in 2016 or 2014, but to win those races you're going to have extraordinary candidates," said Schale, suggesting that the state party also needs to work hard to "turn all these activists and protesters into volunteers."
• • •
Bittel, 60, was elected Florida Democratic Party chairman in January, thanks largely to support from Nelson, and he now leads a party that has seen tremendous turnover in leadership at the local level. Bittel has been traveling throughout the state talking to activists, donors and elected officials. He hired an energetic executive director, Sally Boynton Brown. They are building what they hope will be a permanent, community-driven organizing infrastructure aimed at nationalizing the 2018 Florida campaign.
"Our 2018 election started the day that chairman Bittel took office. Since then, we've expanded FDP staff and released our 2018 election plan during our Leadership Blue events," Boynton Brown said, referring to the party fundraiser in South Florida last weekend. "The plan lays out a path to engage the newfound energy across our state. The permanent grass roots infrastructure we are building will allow us to make positive impacts in our communities that will last beyond Election Day."
The Florida Democratic Party's primary obstacle is lack of money.
Donors to the state party are dominated by special interests eager to shape government policy. Republicans overwhelmingly control the levers of power in Florida so they tend to overwhelmingly lead Democrats in fundraising. Republicans running for statewide office routinely outspend Democrats by at least 2-to-1, and the advantage is often far greater for Republicans running for the Legislature.
Amid that stark reality, Bittel's fundraising ability remains to be seen. He boasted that he has raised about $2 million to date, but that's about even with four years ago at this stage of the gubernatorial election cycle.
Bittel's background as one of Florida's top Democratic donors enabled him to draw former Vice President Joe Biden to Florida's Leadership Blue dinner, raising an estimated $1 million, though that was overshadowed by the argument he had with state legislators over a last-minute program change.
Among the nearly 200 people participating in our Florida Insider Poll, about 85 percent said Bittel is not a strong and effective leader. Fifty-six percent said the same about Florida GOP chairman Blaise Ingoglia.
Still, Bittel is winning strong marks from local parties for his energy and outreach.
"He's spent six months putting the infrastructure in place, and now I think you're going to see things start to take off," said Hillsborough Democratic chairwoman Ione Townsend.
Optimism remains high among grass roots Democrats because of Trump.
"Just as I start to think this level of enthusiasm can't be sustained, along comes another tweet just as vile and offensive as ever," said Orange County Democratic Party chairman Wes Hodge.
"We have a very heavy lift," Townsend said, "but we also have a lot to be hopeful about. Thank you, Donald Trump."
Contact Adam C. Smith at [email protected] Follow @adamsmithtimes.Thank you!!! I got a very sweet present that really was very thoughtful and fun to get. I got some really nice extender sticks that can be used to roast marshmallows over an open fire -- which is awesome. I also got a delicious ice cream topping seasoning. I really want to post photos but my camera phone isn't working. I do find it really touching that I was sent such a sweet gift. It does make reddit seem more like a community and it was really nice to be able to reach out and feel it's presence more. I have always been a bit of a lurker, but this makes it all seem as though there is a huge support network there. It's nice to reach out and participate in it a bit.
Merry Christmas!!
NicoleFrom Gates of Vienna:
@ Dymphna: “My, you do sound like a Nodrog sock-puppet.”
I had to google “Nodrog”. That’s a hell of a way to speak of your offspring.
Sharia law is barbaric but it’s not here in America…yet. Talmudic law is being put in place, piece by piece, in America. A rabbi, one Dov Zakheim, was the DoD’s and the Pentagon’s CFO in the runup to the Iraq/Afghanistan invasion. Because of Rabbi Zakheim’s intimate involvement with the financing of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions, one could easily make the case for thousands of dead innocents as a result of halachic implementation. That’s on top of Bush’s rationalization for his decisions based upon some crackpot interpretations of Biblical history.
Michael Chertoff, if not a rabbi, is descended from a long line of rabbis. There’s even a prize in Talmudic scholarship, the Professor Paul Chertoff Prize (established in 1941), named after his grandfather at the The Jewish Theological Seminary. I think I recall telling you these things back in 2003-04 and being called an anti-semite by Ms. Dymphna and being called insane/psycho by Mr. Baron, but I still don’t see any imams running the money for the Pentagon or any imams authoring the Patriot Act or running Homeland Security.
What are the differences between Jews and non-Jews in halacha? Can anyone guess?
By way of illustration, let’s look at Rahm Emanuel for a minute. There he is lighting the national Menorah in front of the White House. And he’s with Rabbi Levi Shemtov. Shemtov’s mentor, Rabbi Schneerson (the Rebbe…I met his right-hand man’s son in NYC when said son was in his rebellious phase) had this to say about non-Jews:
“The Seven Laws must be explained in a way that the nations can relate to and, because non-Jews do not possess genuine free will, they will be willing to change more quickly and easily than a Jew.”
–Hisvaduyos 5748 3:183, cited in “The Deed is the Main Thing,” Kol Boi Ha’olam, p. 385-386.
This Schneerson gets a holiday by Congressional and Presidential decree every year and has since Carter’s administration.
The larger point is that any law – sharia, halacha, etc. – that differentiates between Believer and non-Believer is immediately unjust.
I expect you’ll delete this post for ‘security’ purposes. I hope you at least save it for future reference. Let’s close with a reading from Rabbi Abraham Kook, named largest contributor to the shaping and building of the State of Israel (and icon to the settler movement) by Israelis in a poll a couple of years ago:
“The difference between the Jewish soul, in all its independence, inner desires, longings, character and standing, and the soul of all the Gentiles, on all of their levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the soul of a man and the soul of an animal, for the difference in the latter case is one of quantity, while the difference in the first case is one of essential quality.” Gentiles in Halacha
The quickest way to ensure the future implementation of sharia in America is to ignore the current corrosion of American jurisprudence by halacha. Then again, I’m just a paranoid anti-semite. Pay no mind to me.
peace,
your oldest and boldest
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Like this: Like Loading...Nearly 450 former Environmental Protection Agency employees Monday urged Congress to reject President Trump’s nominee to run the agency, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, even as current employees in Chicago sent the same message during a noon rally.
“We retirees, we tend to like to lay low. But this has gotten a bunch of us quite concerned,” said Bruce Buckheit, whose three decades in government included working in the EPA’s enforcement division under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
Republicans have defended Pruitt as a capable leader who will return the agency to its core mission of protecting the environment while rolling back what they see as years of regulatory overreach that has unnecessarily burdened industry. A coalition of nearly two-dozen conservative advocacy groups has backed his nomination, insisting that Pruitt has “demonstrated his commitment to upholding the Constitution and ensuring the EPA works for American families and consumers.”
Buckheit was among the former agency officials who signed onto Monday’s letter imploring senators to vote against confirming Pruitt because of his opposition to the EPA in recent years. In lawsuits, Pruitt has challenged the agency’s legal authority to regulate toxic mercury pollution, smog, carbon emissions from power plants and the quality of wetlands and other waters.
“Our perspective is not partisan,” the group wrote, noting that many of the 447 names on the letter had served as career employees under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “However, every EPA administrator has a fundamental obligation to act in the public’s interest based on current law and the best available science. Mr. Pruitt’s record raises serious questions about whose interests he has served to date and whether he agrees with the long-standing tenets of U.S. environmental law.”
The former officials said Pruitt “has gone to disturbing lengths to advance the views and interests of business” — a reference to his close ties to the fossil fuel industry, with which he often has sided in his cases against the EPA. “By contrast, there is little or no evidence of Mr. Pruitt taking initiative to protect and advance public health and environmental protection in his state.”
The controversial nomination advanced out of a Senate committee last week after Republicans used their majority to suspend committee rules and approve Pruitt despite the absence of all Democrats, who boycotted the nomination vote partly because of his anti-regulatory bent. He could be approved by the full Senate as early as this week.
[Senate Republicans suspend committee rules to approve Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA nominee]
Opposition to Pruitt from environmental groups and congressional Democrats has only grown more vehement since his confirmation hearing last month, in which he declined to say whether he would recuse himself from his ongoing cases against the EPA if confirmed as the agency’s new leader. In addition to those legal attacks, opponents have pointed to his substantial financial support from the oil and gas industry and his views on climate change as reasons he should not lead the agency charged with protecting the air and water of all Americans.
Even though the EPA was created under Richard Nixon, the agency’s employees have clashed in the past with Republican leaders, particularly under the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. But the prospect of Pruitt’s arrival has particularly shaken many employees, current as well as former, who fear that the agency’s authority could be undermined, its workforce slashed and important regulations weakened under his watch.
In an unusual move, EPA employees in the agency’s Region 5 office, headquartered in Chicago, participated in a downtown rally during their lunch hour on Monday and called on the Senate to reject the nomination and any efforts to roll back the agency’s authorities.
Some Chicago EPA employees speaking out against nomination of Scott Pruitt to direct agency, as @SenatorDurbin announces his opposition pic.twitter.com/EcUCIR9ttR — Paris Schutz (@paschutz) February 6, 2017
AFGE rally to reject Pruitt #ScienceNotSilence pic.twitter.com/nxE4NH9zas — Afge Local 704 (@704afge) February 6, 2017
Although it was unclear exactly how many current employees attended Monday’s rally, both career employees and members of two advocacy groups, the Sierra Club and People for Community Recovery, demonstrated at the city’s Federal Plaza. More than 100 people showed up for the event, carrying signs that read, “Save the EPA,” “Science is Real” and “We want clean air and clean water!”
Organizer Nicole Cantello, chief steward of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, said employees are alarmed by Pruitt’s nomination and Trump’s environmental rhetoric overall.
“People are worried about losing their jobs because administration is interested in dismantling, or downsizing in the extreme, the EPA,” she said. Agency officials had sent out an ethics advisory that gave current employees guidance on what they could and could not do “when acting for their free speech rights,” Cantello added.
Judith Enck, an Obama appointee who recently left her post as head of the Region 2 office, said she had never seen “the level of concern at EPA that I’m seeing today.” Enck signed Monday’s letter because Trump’s choice of Pruitt “is an unprecedented assault on environmental protection,” she said, “not just on EPA as an agency, but on our country’s ability to enjoy clean air, clean water and a logical agenda on climate change.”
President Trump himself has said the environmental regulations put in place under President Obama are “a disgrace.” A key official helping with the Trump transition has suggested the agency’s workforce be cut from about 15,000 employees to 5,000. And a bill introduced by a freshman Republican congressman from Florida last week would dissolve the EPA altogether.
Read more:
Trump taps climate-change skeptic to oversee EPA transition
EPA nominee has long sought to scale back the federal government
Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish
For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here and follow us on Twitter here.New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr has been fined $12,154 by the NFL for his dog-like touchdown celebration last Sunday.
The talented receiver had just scored the first points of the day against the Eagles on Sunday, making a good fourth-quarter catch in the end zone, when he got down on all fours, lifted his leg, and pretended to pee.
'I was in the end zone. I scored a touchdown,' Beckham told the New York Daily News. 'I'm a dog, so I acted like a dog.'
He was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct for the celebration, and met a few days later with co-owner John Mara, who was unhappy with Beckham's behavior.
New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has been fined $12,154 by the NFL for his dog-like touchdown celebration last Sunday
The talented receiver had just scored the first points of the day against the Eagles on Monday, making a good fourth-quarter catch in the end zone, when he got down on all fours, lifted his leg, and pretended to pee
'I was in the end zone. I scored a touchdown,' Beckham told the New York Daily News. 'I'm a dog, so I acted like a dog'
He was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct for the celebration, and met a few days later with co-owner John Mara, who was unhappy with Beckham's behavior
Also in that game, Eagles running back LeGarrette Blount was fined $9,115 for taunting.
Jets rookie safety Jamal Adams and Minnesota cornerback Xavier Rhodes were docked the same amount for taunting.
Jets linebacker Darron Lee drew an $18,231 fine for a late hit on Miami quarterback Jay Cutler.
Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman was fined $12,154 for unnecessary roughness, while Denver's Will Parks was docked $9,115, also for unnecessary roughness.
Beckham earlier this week hinted that his colorful touchdown celebration was a jibe at President Donald Trump after he called any player who failed to stand for the national anthem a'son of a b***h'.
On Tuesday, Beckham responded to a tweet by CNN's AJ Willingham, suggesting that his '"I'm a dog" display/comment was in reference to (Trump's) "son of a b***h"' (i.e. dog) line?'
On Tuesday, Beckham responded to a tweet by CNN's AJ Willingham, suggesting that his '"I'm a dog" display/comment was in reference to (Trump's) "son of a b***h"' (i.e. dog) line?'
'If u seen that, I have to tip my hat to u for thinkin outside the box,' Beckham wrote back. '#URRIGHTONPOINT impressed.'
'I didn't know if the rule book said you can't hike your leg,' he told the Daily News.
'(The official) said I peed on somebody. So I was trying to find the imaginary ghost that I peed on, but I didn't see him.
'But either way it goes, you play football. I wear red and white. I don't wear black and white with stripes on it. I don't make calls. I just play football.'
The wide receiver scored again a couple of minutes later, but this time, he chose to celebrate the touchdown with a power fist salute.
Hundreds of NFL players took the knee, locked arms or refused to turn up during the national anthem in defiance of Trump after he called for 'disrespectful' players who refused to stand'sons of b***hes' that should be fired.
Beckham earlier this week hinted that his colorful touchdown celebration was a jibe at President Donald Trump (seen above in Morristown, New Jersey, on Friday) after he called any player who failed to stand for the national anthem a'son of a b***h'
Trump says he's spoken to 'numerous' NFL team owners about the national anthem, including Dallas Cowboys proprietor Jerry Jones.
'I really think it's coming together. I noticed last night, or I was told, I didn't see it, but I heard everybody stood for the national anthem,' Trump said Friday, in reference to the Packers-Bears game the night before.
'I'm very happy. I heard that, and they should stand. You have to stand, It's our national anthem. You have to stand.'
Trump would not tell reporters which other National Football League owners he's talked to aside from Jones, answering vaguely with, 'I have many friends.'
He said earlier this week that he'd spoken to a couple others. He did not name names.
Trump tweeted about his call with Jones on Wednesday morning, following the Cowboys kneel-then-stand during the anthem approach to their Monday evening game.I heard you started critical role Please tell me your thoughts on Molly bc he is my favorite
Hm, that one is actually an interesting question! I have really only just started Critical Role, as in I am an episode and a half in. The art I posted was done in real time :P
So on one hand, Mollymauk is actually probably the character that most compelled me to start listening? I love the art of him. A lavender tiefling? Who is a performer? And a sarcastic little shit? Wearing the most ostentatious coat imaginable? Man, it’s like that character was personally designed to appeal to me specifically, holy shit man. His name is Mollymauk, how can I not love him?
But at this point, I don’t actually think I know him well enough for him to be my ~favourite~ if that makes sense. Him and Yasha joins the party a little later than the others and honestly… I have a really hard time telling Mollymauk’s voice from Caleb’s voice ^^;; if I’m not watching the stream to see who’s talking it takes me a moment, so that’s made it a bit harder to click with him. I’m sure I’ll get them straight soon, but man it’s eight new voice actors to learn and I’ve only been watching for a day so far.
But the shit I’ve seen from him? Him trolling Jester and bro’ing with Yasha and the other members of the circus? Excellent. His ridiculous lie about his fucking swords? (TALIESIN: That would be deception. All right. I’m
lying like a motherfucker. TRAVIS: Well thank you for sharing that
honest story with me. It means a lot.) Holy shit. This fucking snide comment:
MARISHA: Help. Help help help. Help help. Help
help help. (laughter) MARISHA: Help. I’m with you, I’m with you. Help
help. LAURA: Oh, I thought you didn’t like jails. MARISHA: (clears throat) Help. TALIESIN: Is this part of the show by the way? I
was just curious. TRAVIS: Unfortunately, no.
Blessed. Amazing. I love this sarcastic dick who’s gonna take potshots at the person who was taking potshots at him when his fucking show was being over run by zombies.
TL;DR? Give me like… another episode and a half TOPS and then ask again. I’ll have probably have sworn my allegiance to Molly and have put him on the podium of Favourite Character by then. For the moment though, Nott’s my favourite ;) her voice is GREAT and her dynamic with Caleb delights me.$45 Billion in Foreign Investments Pledged For Egypt
Egypt’s state media has reported that as of noon on Saturday, $US 45 billion in foreign investments had been pledged for Egypt at the Egyptian Economic Development Conference (EEDC).
Among the investors are $US 13 billion from the Gulf States of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman.
Egypt also announced its largest ever single foreign investment in its history, with Egypt and British Petroleum signing an energy deal worth $US 12 billion over four years, according to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.
Meanwhile, German multinational conglomerate Siemens and Egypt signed a separate power plant deal worth $US 10 billion. Siemens’ CEO also promised to donate $US 210 million “to the Egyptian people” after meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-sisi.
On Saturday, it was also announced that US-based companies PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have pledged $US 500 million each in investments in Egypt.
The conference, held to boost foreign investment to restore Egypt’s economy, has attracted delegations from the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Japan, China, India and more.
Among those in attendance are the US Secretary of State John Kerry, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah II, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Desalegn, Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir and other high level officials.
The conference will see 2,000 delegates from 112 countries come to Sharm El-Sheikh amid tight security.
Subscribe to our newsletterThe Request Network team is committed to create a financial platform with the potential to become the standard for invoices, accounting, auditing, and payments in cryptocurrencies and fiat assets. You can learn more on our website and on our blog.
Over the last two weeks, we were focused on the development of Request Colossus, the first version of our product, and were creating relationships with potential business partners. Those two points are our priority for the weeks to come.
The first visuals of Request Colossus
As announced in the last project update, we are ahead of the roadmap and will deploy the website to create, display, and interact with Request in Q4 2017 instead of Q1 2018 as initially planned.
This website will be open source and entirely on the client side (such as myetherwallet) to act as the foundation for many future projects.
Here’s a sneak peek of the interface:
Create a request
To create a request, the payee selects an account, then enters an amount in ETH and the payer’s ETH address if available. He can add a note (not mandatory).
The request is created and sent within seconds.
This design describes a standard request. The advanced mode will allow you to enter additional information which are mandatory for invoices or other financial flows. We didn’t introduce it yet, Request not only allows you to do your invoicing but we can apply it to manage every financial flow such as salaries, expenses, loans, donations, and more.
Manage your requests
Request allows you to track the payment status in real-time. All parties know whether the request has been accepted, declined, or paid by the payer.
Receive and pay a request
In Colossus, the payer receives the request via a URL (in the next versions, the payer will be able to detect a request automatically). He can decline the request or pay it, partially or fully.
On the visual above, his request contains the additional information that the payee has put, such as his name and address.
Here, Google Inc. is the payer. Once connected with their wallet, they simply have to click on “pay now” to pay.
For the first version of the working product, a Request will be:
payable only in ETH
without extensions (such as escrow or late fees)
created by the payee only
The next versions will include:
multi-currencies (starting with ERC20 tokens)
extensions
a way for both the payee and the payer to create and send requests
Offline transactions (ECDSA signed but not broadcasted to optimize speed and cost)
Identity management
Manage refunds and additionals (such as tips, discounts…)
Alerts to detect new requests
Risk management
We were not using Parity and are unaffected by the bug discovered this week.
For security reasons, we will convert some of our Ethers and diversify our wallets in order to manage expenses and limit the risks.
Communication
We give a special attention to our project updates and will often use them to give exclusive news. Be sure to subscribe to our blog or to one of the channels where we communicate these (Telegram, or Twitter).
Q&A
The Request Foundation needs to be as transparent as possible. We will make sure to keep the community updated. We would like to thank the community for all the submitted questions and especially adm for organizing the Q&A session this week.
We decided to answer the questions in this blog post as the questions were asked via different channels and the project update usually has the best visibility (between 10’000 and 30’000 views thanks to people sharing it)
Feel free to raise your questions about the project and the way we’re leading it during those sessions, or simply keep supporting us the way you are. We really appreciate it.
Request Network AMA (Update on 10/11/2017)
Hiring / current team — How many people are working on Request full time? Have any new people joined? If so, who? What skills do they have? Are you planning on hiring? How can people apply for jobs?
6 people who have been working together for 1 to 5 years are working at Request full-time. Nobody new has joined since the fundraising. We plan to expand our dev team (at least one Full-Stack developer and one Back-end/Solidity developer) in the short term. Every person who joins will be properly assessed as we look for people who are both highly competent and share our values.
See this article from YC on how and when to hire: https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-hire
Our main scaling strategy will go towards decentralization. We will fund projects which build on the ecosystem.
Learn more about about our scaling strategy here: https://blog.request.network/request-network-project-update-october-27th-2017-1cd981fe131a
ING + YC Partnership breakdown — is there potential for internal partnerships through YC, are you in contact with any? What role do they play? How will they help? How much have they invested? When will public info come from ING’s side about the relationship? Are they actively advising? How often do you meet with both companies? Was Request accepted into YC? Do both companies know about Request?
ING and YC are early backers and advising us frequently. There is no partnership or proof of concept going on at the moment. We discuss often and share the same interest in the space.
YC made us part of an important and strong network of more than 1,000 startups. They also advise us and we are regularly in touch with them.
We entered YC with Moneytis and like many other startups from our batch, we started pivoting there. They focus on teams more than ideas, more info here: https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/.
About ING, we had a meeting this month, will have another one next month. We share common interests and we will see if the executive department of ING is interested in working with Request in the future.
FIAT and the request network — how will it work? What will the flow be like? How will you keep fees competitive? How will credit cards work? In what order will the currencies be added?
Any currency can be added to Request as long as someone can build an oracle which proves that a transaction happened.
Such an oracle can be created through partnerships (i.e. SWIFT/ChainLink, many others will come), with a tokenized version of these currencies or with a mix of both (a bank could participate in the Oracle by moving tokenized currencies but it would be transparent for their customers)
About the fee:
The most costly part of the payment flow in today’s world is to manage the invoice (PayPal will invoice 1.5 to 5% and the credit card processor will receive 0.5% to 1%). We decentralize this part.
Also, by creating an interoperable system, we increase the competition which tends to decrease the fees.
As credit cards can have chargeback and can only be processed by third parties, this is not our main focus but a payment provider such as Stripe or Adyen could plug in Request and manage this part.
Flow :
Business A creates a request asking Business B to pay 100EUR
Version A: Business A shares a link to this request on the Request website (website to explore Requests that we will release this year).
Business B goes to the website, selects its payment processor and country.
The Request is updated.
Version B: Business B uses a system which screens the blockchain, detects the request and its application (compatible with blockchain) and suggests to pay (immediately or at the due date).
Technical Questions
How will proof of stake work in conjunction with the “token burn”?
The burning mechanism is the most important between those two when it comes to the Request project. Proof Of Stake is one of the side effects that could come from the result of the use of a scaling technology such as Plasma.
About the question: Is burning compatible with Staking and would we need to mint new tokens:
In a plasma environment, the proof of stake replaces the ether gas fee. Stakers would be rewarded by fees and not newly minted tokens. As a side note, this is why Ethereum could potentially stop minting new tokens completely one day and work on fees only.
How would the Request Network integrate into current systems? Is there a special software needed? How would it work with businesses that don’t use Request?
Any invoicing software will be able to create the invoice on the blockchain instead of only creating it on their database. They can have a duplicated one on their database if needed.
Accounting software can synchronize and import/export invoices and financial flows with the protocol.
Payment providers can screen the blockchain and detect Requests as an additional feature for their clients.
Auditing companies can start analyzing data of their clients in real time in addition to the other invoices.
And companies who use software which is not connected with Request will be able to use our open source websites.
Through its ICO Request has set the standard of what should be considered ICO best practices. A lot has also been developed to that aim (vesting contract…) Will you be developing this angle further?
We will keep developing what we need and open source as much as we can. (ie the vesting contract).
Our token sale contracts can be reused by anyone and everyone will be able to use directly Request for some part of the sale (presale management…).
We expect marketplaces to develop and help new projects to launch. This is by itself a really big project.
From my experience, a lot of big businesses throw around their weight by purposely paying invoices late, to take advantage of float. What benefits would Request provide to them to encourage them to be a part of the Request Network.
Big businesses do it but they also suffer from it with their own providers, we are fixing the game.
If they pay late within Request, they will get penalized by the reputation, and might also have to pay extra late fees (if this extension is chosen).
What guarantees that the network will be currency agnostic? What Cryptocurrencies will be supported? Is being currency agnostic reliant on 0x for example?
Request can handle any currency as long as it can obtain a proof from an Oracle that the payment was completed.
=> works great with ETH/ERC20
=> works also well with other blockchains using relayers (we still have to deep dive into special blockchains such as Monero, but from a first glance, this seems to be working fine)
=> works with other systems not on the blockchain if they are disincentivized to cheat the system.
We don’t depend on 0x for this part.
What is the status on the oracle question? Is Request Network going to be using a decentralized oracle network like ChainLink or a centralized one like Oraclize? Is there any reason why Request wouldn’t go with decentralized oracles?
Oracle security is really important. At the moment ChainLink decentralized oracles seem like a good solution. We are in regular contact with them.
How is security managed in the Request Network? In the whitepaper it’s stated there’s no opportunity for falsification. However, couldn’t someone make up phony invoices from phony companies for phony purchases, like what currently happens? Huge business don’t have time to verify each purchase is legit, which would still be needed for an audit, or at least a sample used. Also, couldn’t someone hack a user’s side to send phony payments to themselves? There’s no way to refund the money if it’s already withdrawn right away, which the current systems of ACH and credit cards have, which is part of the reason of their fees.
We’ve been working on international transfers for a while, KYC and AML are an important point which could be improved in the FIAT world (and even more in the crypto world at the moment).
Request has decentralized KYC and AML endpoints.
The decentralized KYC is by giving the possibility to plug the requests with identity systems. One day, the administration you work in could push one system. It can work with Civic, with uPort or with EIP 725 and EIP 735 (that we are following very closely).
The decentralized AML endpoint gives the possibility to create Smart Audits algorithms running on the blockchain, analyzing your transactions and detecting irregularities in real time.
How is this part stated in the whitepaper different than accounting software used today: “instead of having double-entry accounts, where the information regarding a purchase appears in the purchase account and in the bank account separately, one can see within the blockchain a purchase account, linked to the supplier, linked to the payment, and linked to the bank account”. Even QuickBooks has a feature where you can drill down and see all this relevant information about a transaction. Accounting software has audit trails where you can see where things get changed, when, by who, etc.
Automatically linking the invoices and the payments without using a third party such as PayPal is still very hard and |
. Revolutionary socialist feminism is distinguished from social welfare or social-democratic feminism in that, whether implicitly or explicitly, revolutionary socialist feminists are unwilling to allow capitalism to set the horizon for what can be envisioned or struggled for.
Over the past two decades, women have entered the global political stage in an astonishing array of movements. In the global south, sparked by the capitalist war on the working class, the enclosures sweeping peasants and farmers off the land or devastating their livelihoods upon it, and the consequent crisis in patriarchal social relations, these movements are creatively developing socialist feminist politics. In the US, the crash of 2008 opened the door for the Occupy movement, new political discourses challenging the neoliberal consensus and a radicalisation of young people.
We have seen both in the global north and global south new sorts of working-class women’s organising linking workplace struggle to community grass-roots organising. This is not surprising, given women’s responsibilities for caring labour.
Historically, working-class women were at the forefront of movements that addressed basic human needs – whether these were urban rebellions against the price of bread or in demand of city services. While these political mobilisations could be very radical, they tended to be based in a ‘maternalist’ politics, through which women make claims based on their responsibilities to care for their children, families, and community.
In the 20th century, there was, especially in the global south but to a certain extent in the global north as well, a tension between feminist organising around sexual politics and bodily rights and these working-class women’s movements. In the global south, I think this tension is being overcome, partly through transnational feminist organising that has been more sensitive to these tensions and partly because of the extreme economic dislocations that have disrupted older patriarchal forms of social and family life. While this disruption has spawned reactionary backlashes on the part of conservative movements, it has also created more space for women to challenge patriarchal power within their families and communities.
A good example of this is Via Campesina, an international coalition of peasants, farmers, farm workers and indigenous agrarian communities from a wide diversity of locations and cultures. At its founding in 1992, Via reflected the patriarchal norms and political outlook of its member organizations – for example, all of the regional coordinators elected at the first international conference were men. The formation of a Women’s Commission in 1996 created the space for women within Via Campesina to organise to challenge patriarchal practices and policies. In October 2008, La Via Campesina’s 3rd International Assembly of Women approved the launch of a campaign targeting all forms of violence faced by women in society (interpersonal as well as structural). In 2013, the organisation adopted the following resolution:
We demand respect for all women’s rights. In rejecting capitalism, patriarchy, zenophobia, homophobia and discrimination based on race and ethnicity, we reaffirm our commitment to the total equality of women and men. This demands the end to all forms of violence against women, domestic, social and institutional in both rural and urban areas. Our Campaign against Violence towards Women is at the heart of our struggles.
It is important to note the difference between the liberal politics of mainstream LGBT and anti-violence movements, and the statement by Via Campesina where women’s equality is seen to be necessary for successful collective struggle. In contrast to ‘law and order’ feminism, the women of Via Campesina, like radical women of colour activists in the US, link interpersonal and structural violence. Their defence of LGBT rights is inserted into a collective vision of transformation that is also anti-racist and anti-capitalist.
In the global north, we see also a transformation of working-class organising, led by women activists. In the US women trade unionists, especially teachers and nurses, have encountered the assault on the public sector by organising not only themselves but also the people who depend on their services. As militant teachers have claimed, ‘our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions.’ The California nurses’ association organised a broad coalition to pass legislation mandating nurse-patient ratios in hospitals. Perhaps, most unexpected, Domestic Workers United, an organisation that began with women of colour nannies and housecleaners organising in New York City, won not only a domestic workers’ ‘bill of rights’ for the city and then in the New York state legislature, but encouraged the expansion and establishment of other domestic worker organising projects. This national movement recently won a ruling from the Federal Government that, for the first time, domestic workers would be covered by federal laws regulating hours of work, health and safety, overtime pay, and the right to time off.
Across the differences among nurses, teachers, and domestic workers, these projects share two central strategies: 1) organising in and beyond the workplace and 2) raising awareness of and support for the dignity and importance of caring work. They enact social solidarity, remind us of our inter-dependence, and defend social responsibility for care. In these ways, they represent a fundamental challenge to neo-liberal ideals of entrepreneurship, individualism, and ‘self-sufficiency.’
In what ways has the current crisis affected the institution of the family? From this, could you define what you mean in your work by the term ‘utopian family’? How we should understand it? What are the historical cases in which you draw upon in order to build your argument on this issue?
I wrote about ‘utopian’ families as part of a book on ‘real utopias,’ and then I wrote a longer piece about how we would re-organise family life for a collection on imagining socialism. Historically, socialist-feminists have been quite critical of the ‘bourgeois nuclear family household’ and proposed various collective alternatives. But living in such a non-revolutionary moment, as we are now, the horizon of political possibility is so terribly narrow that not very many people are thinking about or discussing utopian visions. We tend to focus on perfecting the couple-based family household; yet as I point outed before, even the most democratised two-earner nuclear family household cannot meet its care responsibilities alone without over-working its own members and/or exploiting an army of low-paid workers in the service industries. Under current conditions of austerity – with no end in sight – our experience of family includes the exploitation of paid and unpaid labour, distress and overwork, fears for our old age, worry about our kids, and intimacy strained by the burdens of caregiving.
So what would we put in place of the family as we know it? I argue for the importance of building democratic caring communities. These, I think are a more progressive grounding of relational life than family households (although I’m not opposed to family households being one part of such communities). Enlarging our affective bonds beyond a small circle whether defined by blood and kinship or otherwise is an essential part of any liberatory project.
From the early 20th century onward, feminist urban planners, architects, and academics have challenged urban policies that assume a male breadwinner household and the privatisation of care work. They have envisioned new kinds of built environments that offer more collective alternatives for caring labour. In the 1950’s there were experiments with public housing that incorporated child-care centres, laundries, dining rooms and play spaces in order to meet the needs of working-women heading households. Instead of trying these sorts of models, after a long period of disinvestment, public housing in many US cities was actually demolished. Ironically, while public housing came under attack, professional-managerial class pioneers were organising to create a new kind of built environment-cohousing projects that encourage caring community. Co-housing offers promise as a strategy for socialising care, because adults share caregiving in reciprocal relationships among an extensive group of people. While most co-housing projects in the US involve upper-middle class homeowners, co-housing could be part of the affordable housing policies that many cities are pursuing. For example, in 2013, the City of Sebastopol California built the first all-rental co-housing project for low-income seniors and families. The non-profit developer, AHA, funded a community organizer who worked for two years with tenants as they developed their community guidelines and norms and their consensus decision-making skills.
Beyond the built environment, we also need to create community-based, participatory, and democratically run institutions providing care across the life cycle. When we talk about socialising responsibility for care, we need to think about how public services are organised. Just expanding current bureaucratic, centralised, and top-down forms for organising public services will not be sufficient either to really meet people’s needs or to create lasting social bonds and community ties. I think we are all pretty aware of the ways in which Thatcherite, Reaganite, and other neoliberal discourses about ‘consumer choice’ through the market have been so effective in attacking the welfare state precisely because of people’s often alienating experiences with bureaucratic public services.
I would argue for locally-controlled institutions based on participatory decision-making. Through these institutions, such as schools, childcare centres, parks and recreation centres, neighbourhood centres that offer classes, activities, and support for people of all ages, cooperatives of home care workers, social workers and other care givers, the work of caregiving can be both collective and democratic.
Talk about ‘socialising’ caring labour makes people quite nervous. Who will set the rules? What kind of choices will we have about how to care and about who will care? What does it mean to make caring work a ‘public good’? These are really important and complex questions. I think we should approach these questions with three guiding principles: 1) flexibility, variety and choice; 2) universal participation in the work of care; 3) recognition that the right to give care is a basic human right.
Flexibility, variety and choice are important values because we must appreciate the complexity of human relationships and be willing to let people experiment with different strategies for living together, so long as these strategies are based on certain core values – of mutuality, respect, shared power and decision-making. We need to move away from the domination of experts, many of whom operate out of world views based in their particular class locations. Rather than always seeking the ‘best’ approach, we should acknowledge that there are more than one ‘good enough’ strategies for caregiving.
If everyone is expected to contribute to the work of caregiving and daily maintenance of life, then we will value the skills necessary for doing at least a ‘good enough’ job in this work. If all or most people are capable of giving care and providing for daily maintenance then this work can be easily shared and weighs less heavily on any one group or individual.
The right to give care is just as important as the right to receive care. We are perhaps well aware that the right to be cared for is a right that capitalism denies to many. Perhaps because caregiving is so devalued or because it is simply assumed to be a natural expression of femininity, we don’t tend to talk about it as an essential human activity that in contemporary capitalism is increasingly put out of reach or that people engage in only at great cost to themselves. The particular capacities and abilities that people develop through doing this work are essential to their own full humanity. Moreover, there are unique pleasures that are associated with caregiving and everyone should have the opportunity to experience those pleasures.
From this starting point, then, I think locally controlled institutions are best because they allow for and encourages a variety of approaches and experiments with different ways of organising daily life. However, local solidarity can too easily turn into parochial loyalty unless communities are put into contact in meaningful ways with each other.
Moreover, the distribution of resources among communities is a matter for the broader society. Local projects can be linked up and decision-making broadened through a council-type system of public governance, where local groups send representatives to regional decision-making institutions.
For example, day-care cooperatives, rooted in neighbourhoods, connected to housing complexes, drawing on volunteers from every child’s caring community and employing highly skilled and well paid childcare workers, would send representatives to a city-wide day-care cooperative association. Decision-making about care giving at the level of the co-op would be made jointly by the children’s caring community and the day-care teachers. And through their representatives, who would regularly report back, they would also engage in the discussion and dialogue about policies and resource allocation on the regional level. Control over as many decisions as possible would stay locally rooted but, on the other hand, active participation would be expected at broader levels and would be a condition for receiving societal resources.
We have already seen some models for this kind of participatory governance developed – for example, participatory budgeting in Puerto Alegre, Brasil, which flourished for a time under the newly elected Workers Party. Another example is Quebec’s publicly funded childcare centres. Unionised workers and parents cooperate in administering the centres that are run by boards in which two thirds of the members are parents elected to serve.
Do you agree with those on the Left that say the Democratic Party can’t be reformed to act in the interest of working people? What is your take on the recent Sander’s electoral campaign?
Bernie Sanders’ campaign showed precisely how and why the Democratic party cannot be reformed in the interest of working people. The Party organised to defeat his challenge and nominated Clinton who was deeply implicated in the neoliberal economic policies pursued by the Obama administration. Money in politics is a problem in the US, but an even bigger problem is the winner-takes-all electoral system that makes building a third party challenge to the Democrats so difficult. One route toward creating a path outside the corporate-controlled national party is to begin at the local level with broad coalitions that run candidates on programs rather than simply endorsing individuals who seek endorsements from social movement organisations and trade unions.
Many activists counter-pose movement politics to electoral politics. I think this is a mistake. Here in Portland, we have fairly dense and successful social movements that since the crash and Occupy have done better at working together in coalition. But we have made little progress in shifting the neoliberal policies of city government. I think we need our own political instrument with candidates emerging from our movements and office holders who have gotten into office based in grass-roots fundraising and committed volunteers.
In the long run, only an ‘on-the-ground’ activist organisation ready to build and lead movements – organisations that educate, mobilise, and disrupt – will shift the political balance of forces. But I’m not convinced that it undermines grassroots movements when they organise their own electoral expression. It depends on how that electoral organisation works, how it draws its horizon of possibility, and how it seeks to penetrate and open up government once its members are in office. (For instance, participatory budgeting established by the Workers Party in Sao Paulo; or the experiments in democratising governance by radicals engaged in the London Council Government headed up by Ken Livingstone).
An organisation capable of mounting an effective and principled electoral campaign will not be built overnight. It will not be built through immediately going out to run individual candidates for office. Instead, we on the left could help to establish urban coalitions that are based in existing grassroots organising where activists from the base run for election – not as individuals with the right politics but as representatives of a platform that they pledge to implement in office. There are several efforts we can learn from. Two that inspire me are Richmond Progressive Alliance in Richmond CA, and Guanyem Barcelona in Spain.
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The Palm Beach Post report last night that a Florida Republican Party contractor turned in at least 106 “questionable” registration firms, with “similar signatures” and wrong addresses, doesn’t seem like a national news story. But it has unwoven a somewhat concealed effort by Republicans in several states to deploy a firm with an ugly history of allegedly destroying Democratic voter registration forms and other acts of fraud. Ad Policy
The contractor in Florida is called Strategic Allied Consulting, a business entity created a few months ago and registered online by a former Arizona Republican Party director named Nathan Sproul.
Sproul, a consultant based in Tempe, is infamous for accusations that his firms have committed fraud by tampering with Democratic voter registration forms and suppressing votes. Sproul was hired by the Romney campaign for a period of five months that began last November and ended in March. But now there’s evidence that the payments continued, only to a different name.
As Greg Flynn of BlueNC pointed out earlier this month, Strategic Allied Consulting recently put up a proxy to hide the fact that its website was registered by Sproul; but not before Flynn took a screen shot. Flynn notes that the firm has been aggressively hiring in Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida. He flagged two large payments to the firm from GOP committees in Florida and North Carolina.
I found a few more payments, like this one from the Colorado Republican Committee: $140,000 to the Sproul-connected firm on July 6, 2012. (UPDATE: I also found the California Republican Party making $430,840 in payments to "Grassroots Outreach, LLC" this cycle for voter registration and petition gathering. According to this disclosure, Grassroots Outreach shares the same address as Sproul’s office in Tempe, Arizona. Craigslist job postings in California and Colorado use identical language as Strategic Alled Consulting’s listings in North Carolina.)
Brad Friedman has put up a history of Sproul’s companies, and their work for Republican interests. They range from antics like gathering signatures to put Nader on the ballot and being banned from Walmart for partisan voting drives to more serious offenses, like allegedly destroying Democratic registration forms in several states while on the payroll of the RNC.
I called Sproul’s firm in Arizona to ask about its connection to Strategic Allied Consulting. “I am not at liberty to discuss that,” the reception answered bluntly, before transferring me to another employee who gave a similarly coy response. I e-mailed my questions over, and will post a response if they send it. It’s also worth noting Sproul hid his tracks in 2008.
For the 2008 campaign cycle, Sproul changed his company’s name from Sproul & Associates (an earlier iteration was called Voter Outreach of America) to “Lincoln Strategy Group,” and McCain’s campaign used a California affiliate to hire him.
It’s possible that Romney, like McCain, wanted to utilize Sproul without becoming publicly associated with him. The type of fraud Sproul has been accused of is fairly breathtaking, and seems to dwarf the trumped-up charges by Republicans that Democrats have engaged in widespread voter fraud (claims that have been widely debunked).
In 2004, a voter registration worker in Nevada hired by Sproul’s firm told reporters that he had witnessed his surpervisors chucking registration forms signed by Democrats. “They were thrown away in the trash,” he claimed. Sproul’s canvassers in Oregon confessed to doing the same thing, and other reports emerged across several swing states. In Minnesota, workers said they were actually fired for bringing in registration forms signed by Democrats. CBS News obtained faxes showing that Sproul’s firm had even impersonated the left-leaning America Votes! to organize voter registration drives at libraries.
One of the mysteries with Sproul that I had wondered about while covering this story in the past is why there had never been a serious investigation.
As I pointed out in a blog post earlier this year, Sproul’s alleged activities were uniquely worrisome. “So the difference between ACORN and Sproul is that ACORN doesn’t throw away or change registration documents after they have been filled out,” remarked Chris Cannon, a Republican lawmaker from Utah, who later lost his seat because of a right-wing primary challenge, during a congressional hearing on voter suppression. Indeed, many voter registration groups (including ACORN) have paid per-registration form turned in, thus incentivizing fake signatures—i.e., Mickey Mouse registering to vote. But this type of thing doesn’t actually result in fraudulent votes because Mickey Mouse doesn’t show up at the polls and try to cast a ballot. Destroying registration forms, on the other hand, means citizens who believed they were registered show up and could have been denied their vote.
Sam Stein reported that in 2004, Senators Patrick Leahy and Ted Kennedy had demanded an investigation in light of the many reports of Sproul’s firm destroying registration forms. But the Department of Justice sat on its hands. “Sproul & Associates clearly merited a full investigation by the Justice Department; and yet the DoJ did nothing,” said New York University law professor Mark Miller at the Cannon hearing.
Perhaps Sproul’s ties to prominent Republicans helped him escape an investigation.
As Congress and ethics experts loudly called for investigations into Sproul’s voter suppression, the Bush administration literally welcomed Sproul and his wife into the White House for a Christmas party in 2006. The administration instead chose prosecute groups associated with registering low-income and poor Americans to vote.
UPDATE: Around 2:30 pm EST on Thursday, WRAL News in North Carolina reports that the NC GOP is dropping its contract with Strategic Allied Consulting. Last night, the Florida Republican Party said it would be ending its contract with the firm as well. What about the Colorado Republican Party, the California Republicans Party, and what appears to be GOP contracts in Virginia and Nevada?
UPDATE: NBC News is reporting that the national Republican Party is cutting ties with Strategic Allied Partners. They’ve also confirmed that the company is run by Nathan Sproul. Sproul was hired for a multimillion dollar contract to recruit 4,000-5,000 people to help register Republican voters in swing states (at $12-$16/hr, according to the Craigslist posts we reported). Given the size of this contract, the abrupt way that the party dropped Sproul might raise some eyebrows. Maybe they were worried the Palm Beach incident wasn’t isolated?
For more on the GOP’s election strategy, check out Lee Fang’s latest on the Koch brothers.There's an arms race brewing between Activision's Guitar Hero series and MTV's Rock Band brand. These week, Guitar Hero 5 adds another armament to their stockpile of dead rock stars.
Kurt Cobain, former guitarist and singer from the grunge band Nirvana, will appear in Guitar Hero 5 as a playable character. With the singer comes two Nirvana songs – a previously unreleased live version of "Lithium" and the anthem "Smells Like Teen Spirit." According to Activision, this is the first time the latter tune has been licensed for an entertainment property.
Cobain joins departed country legend Johnny Cash, who will return from the afterlife to play "Ring of Fire" in Guitar Hero 5. Activision's actions are in direct response to moves by rival MTV, who have been long known to have the technology, permission and willingness to leverage the likenesses of deceased Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon in their forthcoming game The Beatles: Rock Band.
Despite this recent escalation, neither firm has threatened to take the nuclear option: Neither has made public plans to put Michael Jackson in one of their music games.
Image courtesy Activision
See Also:By: Ben Robinson and Andy Kryza and Matt Lynch
Credit: Jennifer Bui
It’s a great time to be drinking beer in America. Not that it was ever, you know, a BAD time to be doing that necessarily, but with craft breweries multiplying like rabbits who’ve been drinking beer, you can literally find some serviceable (if not downright tasty) local brews in all 50 states. Which made the process of ranking them all the more difficult, but we were up to the challenge, especially since it meant drinking and thinking about beer for weeks straight.
Here they are, all 50 states in the Union, ranked according to their beer. A couple notes about our criteria. Quantity and quality are both important, but quality’s a bit MORE important. If you’re a small state turning out a disproportionate amount of great beer, it did not go unrecognized. We also gave a boost to states who played a historical role in American beer as we know it today. We also argued a lot, so if you want to do that as well, please join us in the comments!
More: Every State In The USA, Ranked By Its Food/Drink
50. Mississippi
There’s a reason that Mississippi’s the home of the blues. It has a lot to do with the fact that the state’s got fewer breweries than Blind Willie Nine Fingers has digits.
49. West Virginia
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye. Note: the teardrop is because there isn’t enough good beer to drink here.
48. Rhode Island
‘Gansett. That’s about all there is to say. ‘Gansett!! Luckily it’s really fun to say.
47. North Dakota
You’d think that two decades of enduring wood-chipper jokes would drive more North Dakotans to drink, but noh… noh, there’s not much brewing going on here, though a can of Fargo Brewing Co.’s Iron Horse Pale Ale is a mighty fine treat.
46. Nevada
Booze is a big business in the Silver State, but with respect to brewers like Great Basin, most of that silver is in Bullet form… given out for free. At the nickel slots.
More: 23 American Beers To Drink Before You Die
Credit: Jennifer Bui
45. South Dakota
When every biker from Portland, OR to Portland, ME comes rolling into Sturgis, they probably drink more beer than the collective frat population of the US. But they subsist on a diet of tallboys and Kid Rock. And while you’ll find local beer on many taps throughout the state, those taps are probably gathering dust next to a fresh macro keg. I frequent SoDak, and when I do, I subsist mainly on Crow Peak’s excellent 11th Hour IPA. There’s a beer scene lurking in the Black Hills, but it needs some nourishment. And support.
44. Nebraska
Luckily, the Cornhuskers’ 22 spot in the preseason AP poll is the only ranking this state really cares about.
43. Hawaii
People tend to vouch for the tastiness of the local beer they tried while in Hawaii, which is probably because THEY WERE IN Hawaii. Kona and Maui and the like make some solid beer, but it gets a bit of a perception bump from the Hawaiian mystique.
42. New Jersey
All sorts of silly laws, plus a statewide Red Bull-vodka addiction, stonewalled the development of Jersey breweries for years, but even though things have freed up a bit, they still don’t make Taylor Ham beer. Someone make Taylor Ham beer! If anyone answers that ridiculous plea, it’ll be ballsy up-and-comer Carton.
41. New Hampshire
Every person in New Hampshire is never more than two hours away from one of the top six beer states in the nation (gotta keep reading to figure out which!). So while the lack of an established scene aside from venerable Smuttynose is surprising, we don’t feel that badly for those who must choose daily between living free and dying.
More: 11 Things People Don’t Understand About Being A Bartender
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Credit: Jennifer Bui
40. Wyoming
The combination of locals having a lot of time to hone their crafts and the influx of tourists — skiers, Dads who’ve been penned up in an RV with three kids who could care less about Old Faithful — has made this sparsely populated wilderness a solid beer spot, with Snake River and Black Tooth brewing some seriously delicious beers that collectively pack more IBUs than the state has residents.
39. Connecticut
Not a ton happening here, but Olde Burnside makes a uniquely sessionable Scottish Ale, and also sells longswords on its website.
38. Arkansas
Last year, the Arkansas Times — whose research we trust, because they obviously weren’t drinking 11% stouts while writing, unlike some people — reported that the number of breweries jumped from four to 19… and it’s growing. That, friends, is a renaissance, with breweries like Core Brewing and Ozark Beer Co. leading a serious charge from the South. In 10 years, after the brewers get more comfortable, expect to see Arkansas as a real contender.
37. South Carolina
South Carolina has 1) many respectable brewpubs, 2) not very many breweries whose wares make it outside state lines, and, perhaps best of all, 3) a border with North Carolina.
36. Kansas
Tallgrass makes some solidly enjoyable brews for sipping out of a cold aluminum tallboy. The rest of the state’s beer is kinda just… there. Much like Kansas.
35. Arizona
Stick to iced tea! What’s that? Arizona Iced Tea isn’t even made in Arizona? Fine. You know what is? Actually some decent beers (Four Peaks, SanTan), but, hey, things are getting competitive.
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Credit: Jennifer Bui
34. Iowa
If Ray Kinsella had started a hop farm instead of a corn farm, brewing in Iowa would probably be… exactly the same, since he plowed over the bulk of said farm so he could have a catch with Ray Liotta. The bright side? Toppling Goliath, which five years ago brewed a half-barrel at a time, and now has road-trippers from all over the Midwest stopping by their taproom to drink that much in a sitting.
33. Tennessee
Whiskey, yes. Country music? Yep. Connie Britton’s charismatic turn as fading Nashville star Rayna Jaymes? Oh hell yes! Beer? Meh. That’s not to say that there’s not great beer — what up, Nashville’s Yazoo and Memphis’s Boscos — but the drop from great to mediocre is steeper than a Smoky Mountain cliff face. Plus, ain’t nobody — not even Rayna Jaymes — ever wrote a classic country song while drinking a fancy porter.
32. Kentucky
Look, bourbon will always be Kentucky’s first and greatest love, but breweries like Against the Grain are really giving it something to be proud of when it comes to certain other alcoholic beverages. Of course, those bourbon barrels have gone a long way to helping breweries all over the country make your beer more delicious. Although oddly, Kentucky Bourbon Ale (the state’s most high-profile barrel-aged beer) is just okay.
31. Georgia
Georgia loses points for not requiring each and every one of its breweries to make a brew called Sweet Georgia Brown, but it really lands in the middle by a couple dozen middle-of-the-road breweries, but no truly great ones. A C+ average might be passing, but it’s hardly excelling.
30. New Mexico
No, we’re not going to make a Breaking Bad joke. But we are going to ding New Mexico for being hot as balls, which makes drinking a thick, delicious microbrew extra difficult. Also making it difficult is the fact that, despite the efforts of great brewers like La Cumbre and Chama River, nobody thinks of beer when they think of New Mexico. Except maybe Schraderbrau. And… DAMMIT!
29. Idaho
For a state best known for potatoes and, um, potatoes, Idaho’s throwing some serious clout around courtesy of ballers like Grand Teton, Sockeye, Laughing Dog, and the incredible Selkirk Abbey. But the scene isn’t fully formed yet, thanks in large part to the fact that lite beer tastes better while muddin’.
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Credit: Jennifer Bui
28. Virginia
Virginia is for beer lovers. Or at least it’s getting there fast. Another state where weird laws (these ones involving how much food you needed to sell, for some God-awful reason) held brewing back for a while, VA’s got some real action going now, from entrenched favorites like Legend, Star Hill, and Devil’s Backbone, to new kid Smartmouth, whose canned IPA and Saison are (somewhat) specifically designed for you to drink on a boat. But they’re really good on land too! And all this leads to an interesting and telling halo effect: two of its cities — Richmond and Norfolk — are amongst the three finalists for Stone’s newest super-brewery/blissful outdoor drinking compound.
27. Louisiana
Louisiana’s another state where the joy to be had drinking beer there outstrips the actual quality of anything produced in-state. Obviously the beer discussion here starts with Abita. Purple Haze sounds more exciting than it tastes, but some of their less widespread releases make up for their more average flagships. If you’re looking for an intriguing up-and coming outfit to keep an eye on, Parish Brewing Co. merits your attention.
26. Oklahoma
Truth be told, a few years ago Oklahoma wouldn’t have placed nearly this high, but the meteoric rise of Prairie Artisan Ales as one of those “holy crap have you tried this” breweries that people cover some serious distance to visit has really raised its profile.
25. Alaska
Hey, it’s cold there. Often. Which leaves plenty of time to stay inside and brew. And they do, routinely rating as one of the top states in terms of barrels of craft beer produced per capita. But enough boring stuff! Get your hands on excellent brews like Midnight Sun Berserker, Alaskan Barley Wine, and Anchorage Bitter Monk.
24. Maryland
So yeah, it’s a little odd that Maryland’s most prominent craft outfit (Flying Dog), is a Colorado transplant, but the fact remains that the vast majority of the brewery’s tasty beer comes out of the Old Line State these days. They’re far from the only game in town, however. Stillwater is doing some seriously impressive work, like a damn-near-perfect Gose collab with Westbrook. Of course, old habits die hard, so the state still consumes plenty of Natty Boh, too.
23. Montana
Big Sky Brewing might be the ambassador for Montana brewing — Moose Drool being an essential brown, and Ivan the Terrible being a badass of a Russian Imperial — but with rising stars like Flathead Lake and Bozeman Brewing pouring high-quality wares, Montana’s becoming formidable on the scene. Bozeman will one day be a destination for beer lovers, provided you can deal with the requisite bluegrass music that accompanies your drinking.
22. Alabama
Homebrewing, the essential root of all the damn beautiful stuff in this story, has been legal in Alabama for barely over a year. So that’s crazy. Before that, a noble band of beermen toiled under the banner Free The Hops for almost a decade to get the legal ABV limit for any brewery raised from 6%. But after all that, the boom’s finally on, with the number of breweries doubling basically every year. One of the big deals: Good People, which has really cool cans, and fills them with a splendid double IPA called Snake Handler that would’ve gotten them all very arrested three years ago.
21. Utah
Utah! Get me two! That’s what you used to have to say when you ordered a beer in Utah, because it was mad weak. But outfits like Uinta (13.2% Labyrinth Black Ale) and Epic (11%, damn raisin-y barley wine) are saying eff that, except without cursing, because it’s still Utah. Plus, the 3.2 beer legend isn’t even true — for one, it’s actually 3.2% by weight, which means it’s in fact a whopping 4% by volume, and, for two, you just have to avoid the gas station and hit the government-run package store for the real stuff. Or, like, be in another state.
20. Texas
The only state to declare its own separate national beer and the home to venerable Shiner, craft beer has truly been exploding in Texas in recent years. Well, that’s been happening basically everywhere, but it’s Texas, so the explosion FEELS bigger. The Sours and Saisons coming out of Jester King are no joke. Wordplay! But for serious, they’re legit. Houston’s Saint Arnold, one of the OG’s of the Texas craft scene, continually turns heads with its special releases. Deep Ellum has been steadily making waves in DFW. Whether or not you’re drinking a Lone Star, it’s a good time to be drinking in the Lone Star State.
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Credit: Jennifer Bui
19. Delaware
It feels a little crazy to put a state this high basically on the strength of a single brewery, but it feels less crazy when said brewery is Dogfish Head, which has thus far managed the tricky balancing act of becoming an absolute powerhouse while maintaining serious quality and a distinct lack of the “they’re too big now” cliche that beer snobs sometimes fall into. For a state with a lack of glitz and glamour that made for arguably the best joke in Wayne’s World, Dogfish Head gives them some cache and a top 20 ranking to boot.
18. Indiana
The NASCAR set might account for beer drankin’, but it’s hard to overlook the presence of Three Floyds, whose Dark Lord Imperial Stout, Zombie Dust, and Dreadnaught IPA represent some of the Midwest’s most beloved beers. Throw in Shoreline’s bourbon-barrel stout and Upland’s lambics, and you’ve got enough powerhouse brewing to make it impossible to ignore Indy.
17. Florida
When you live in Florida, you have to deal with all the other people who live in Florida, not to mention the people who visit. So it’s nice that the rest of the normal, beer-loving folk have some excellent options to calm their nerves. Rapp and 7venth Sun represent some intriguing rising stars, and Funky Buddha’s Maple Bacon Coffee Porter is rightfully an object of obsession. But the shining-est star of Florida’s beer scene is Tampa’s Cigar City, which can go beer-to-beer with anyone. Hunahpu’s is about as flawless a rendition of the “people will line up to get this” imperial stout as you’ll find anywhere.
16. Minnesota
The most famous beer-beard in Minneapolis belongs to the guy |
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The byline of the 1985 article by Luckett V. Davis for The Ring reads, “Boxing has always bounced back in the past, and we’re sure it always will.”This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.
by Adam Herriott / Deep Green Resistance UK
It is difficult to find a clear, well-reasoned list of arguments against resistance movements using “violence” or force. Some critics argue that it’s authoritarian, but then list only authoritarian revolutions as examples. [1] Others argue that the use of “violence” or force gives the state an advantage over resistance movements. Therefore it’s best to use nonviolence, which states may find more difficult to violently repress (more on this in future posts). [2]
Another common critique of “violence” or the use of force is that the end never justifies the means. Sharp argues that “violent” struggles against dictators have rarely won freedoms, and have resulted in brutal repression. [3] Saul Alinsky makes some useful points on this in chapter two of his book Rules for Radicals.
The most comprehensive list of arguments that pacifists articulate against the use of “violence” or force is in Endgame Volume II: Resistance by Derrick Jensen. [4] Jensen includes his response and counterargument to each one:
Love leads to Pacifism, violence implies a failure to love You can’t use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house It’s easier to make war than peace We must visualise world peace If someone wins someone loses Schiller’s line: “peace rarely denied to the peaceful” The end never justifies the means Violence only begets violence We must be the change we wish to see If you use violence against exploiters you become like them If you use violence the media distorts our message Every act of violence sets back the movement 10 years If we use violence the state will come down hard on us The state has more capacity to inflict violence than us Violence never accomplishes anything
To conclude, in the last three posts I’ve attempted to clarify the vague concept of violence. I have listed a number of categories and definitions of violence. I’ve also stated that we need to consider the intention of those involved and the context of the situation. It is important to consider if a violation is taking place and instead of thinking in terms of violence, frame things in terms of how much justifiable force is need to defend humans, non-humans or the earth. I have described structural, subjective and objective violence and the concepts of state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Finally, I’ve listed the problems with violence. The aim here is to move away from the binary thinking of violence vs nonviolence and to appreciate the complexity of this topic. In the next post I will explore nonviolence and pacifism.
This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.
Featured image: A Palestinian hurls a stone towards Israeli police during clashes in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem and home to the victim of a suspected revenge killing for the murder of three Israeli teenagers. By Baz Ratner/Reuters
Endnotes
Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Mark Kurlansky, 2007 Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanise Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World, Srdja Popovic, 2015, page 86 Dictatorship to Democracy, Gene Sharp, 1973, page 4 For a thorough critique see pages 675-757 in Endgame Vol II or incomplete versions here and here
To repost this or other DGR original writings, please contact [email protected] Churchill never once flinched in the face of the Third Reich.
Fifty years ago this Saturday, former British prime minister Winston Churchill died at age 90.
Churchill is remembered for his multiple nonstop careers as a statesman, cabinet minister, politician, journalist, Nobel laureate historian, and combat veteran. He began his career serving the British military as a Victorian-era mounted lancer and ended it as custodian of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
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But he is most renowned for an astounding five-year-tenure as Britain’s wartime prime minister from May 10, 1940, to June 26, 1945, when he was voted out of office not long after the surrender of Nazi Germany.
Churchill took over the day Hitler invaded Western Europe. Within six weeks, an isolated Great Britain was left alone facing the Third Reich. What is now the European Union was then either under Nazi occupation, allied with Germany, or ostensibly neutral while favoring Hitler.
The United States was not just neutral. It had no intention of entering another European war — at least not until after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor a year and half later.
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From August 1939 to June 1941, the Soviet Union was an accomplice of the Third Reich. Russian leader Joseph Stalin was supplying Hitler with critical resources to help finish off Great Britain, the last obstacle in Germany’s path of European domination.
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Some of the British elite wished to cut a peace deal with Hitler to save their empire and keep Britain from being bombed or invaded. They understandably argued that Britain could hardly hold out when Poland, Denmark, Norway the Netherlands, Belgium, and France all had not. Yet Churchill voiced defiance and vowed to keep on fighting.
After the fall of France, Churchill readied Britain’s defenses against a Nazi bombing blitz, and then went on the offensive against Italy in the Mediterranean.
As much of London went up in flames, Churchill never flinched, despite the deaths of more than 40,000 British civilians.
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By some estimates, the Soviet Red Army eventually killed three out of four German soldiers who died in World War II. The American economic colossus built more military ships, aircraft, vehicles and tanks than did any other country during World War II.
In comparison to such later huge human and material sacrifices, the original, critical British role in winning World War II is often forgotten. But Britain was the only major power on either side of the war to fight continuously the entire six years, from September 3, 1939, to September 2, 1945. Britain was the only nation of the alliance to have fought Nazi Germany alone without allies. Churchill’s defiant wartime rhetoric anchored the entire moral case against the Third Reich.
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#page#Unlike the Soviet Union or the United States, Britain entered the war without being attacked, on the principle of protecting independent Poland from Hitler. Unlike America, Britain fought Germany from the first day of the war to its surrender. Unlike Russia, it fought the Japanese from the moment Japan started the Pacific War to the Japanese general surrender.
Churchill’s Britain had a far smaller population and economy than either the Soviet Union or the United States. Its industry and army were smaller than Germany’s.
Defeat would have meant the end of British civilization. But victory would ensure the end of the British Empire and a future world dominated by the victorious and all-powerful United States and Soviet Union.
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It was Churchill’s decision that Britain would fight on all fronts of both the European and Pacific theaters. He ordered strategic bombing over occupied Europe, a naval war against the German submarine and surface fleets, and a full-blown land campaign in Burma.
He ensured that the Mediterranean stayed open from Gibraltar to Suez. Churchill partnered with America from North Africa to Normandy, and he helped to supply Russia — even as Britain was broke and its manpower exhausted.
In the mid-1930s, Churchill first — and loudest — had damned appeasement and warned Europe and the United States about the dangers of an aggressive Nazi Germany. For that prescience, he was labeled a warmonger who wished to revisit the horrors of World War I.
After the end of World War II, the lone voice of Churchill cautioned the West that its former wartime ally, the Soviet Union, was creating an “Iron Curtain” and was as ruthless as Hitler’s Germany had been. Again, he was branded a paranoid who unfairly demonized Communists.
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The wisdom and spirit of Winston Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich, but Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when there was no other nation willing to take up that defense.
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Churchill was the greatest military, political, and spiritual leader of the 20th century. The United States has never owed more to a foreign citizen than to Winston Churchill, a monumental presence 50 years after his death.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals. You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected]. © 2015 Tribune Media Services, Inc.Further to yesterday's exciting launch of our latest New Series Doctor Who adventures, we can confirm earlier release dates for River Song's Big Finish debut stories.
It can now be revealed that Doctor Who: The Diary of River Song, which had a mysterious release date of 'TBA' up until this morning, is to be released in January 2016. Only six months away! (Naturally, we know you can work that out for yourself, we're just a bit over-excited about it all.)
Also, the Eighth Doctor box set Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2, can now be confirmed for a March 2016 release, brought forward from May.
The bottom line is that you'll be getting to hear River Song in Big Finish audio action a lot sooner than you might have been expecting.
You can hear more about these and other New Series Doctor Who releases in the latest Big Finish Podcast here.
Doctor Who: The Diary of River Song
An epic four-hour adventure that takes River Song across space and time, seeking out the secret rulers of the universe.
Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2
The Doctor’s past is catching up with him. And so is his future… As a dark chapter dawns for the universe, a friend is at hand. But how can River Song help the Doctor if she can’t meet him?Quoting King technically put Warren in violation of Senate rules for "impugning the motives" of Sessions and top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell was quick to invoke the chamber's arcane rules.
Rising star
Democrats were quick to rally to the defence of Mrs Warren, whose star has been rising since the 2008 financial crisis.
During that time, she was instrumental in setting up a government watchdog agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect customers from unsuitable bank lending practices as well as serving as the chair of a programme for asset relief.
The 67-year-old is one of the country's leading bankruptcy experts and is known for being a vocal champion for middle class Americans facing financial pressures, particularly those who have fallen victim to predatory lenders. Mrs Warren has often spoken of how her own parents' financial struggles as a child have influenced her politics.
Ms Warren was vocal in her criticisms of Mrs Clinton's ties to Wall Street and big business. Significantly, she did not endorse Mrs Clinton until the party's primaries were nearing an end.A significant change to the US law that dictates overtime payment for employees across the country will represent a boon for postdoctoral researchers. The new rule increases the salary threshold for overtime pay from $23,660 to $47,476 (£16,200 to £32,500), effective 1 December 2016.
The US National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) deputy director for extramural research, Mike Lauer, called the update of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) a ‘historic change’, and said his agency is fully supportive of the increased salary threshold for postdocs.
These revisions to the FLSA will make more than 4 million currently exempt US workers eligible for overtime pay – unless their salary rises – including between 37,000 and 40,000 junior scientists working in biomedical research, according to an opinion piece co-authored by NIH director Francis Collins and US labour secretary Thomas Perez.
Government officials noted that the average annual pay for a postdoc in the US is currently around $45,000, although the figure varies by region and funding source. They note that under the new FLSA overtime threshold, universities, teaching hospitals and other institutions that employ postdocs may either carefully track their fellows’ hours and pay overtime, or they can raise their salaries to levels above the threshold and thereby exempt them.
Despite concern about how this change will affect the US’s ability to carry out cutting edge research efficiently and cost-effectively, Collins and Perez expressed confidence that the transition can be made smoothly. However, Lauer acknowledged that the transition could be tricky. ‘Given the current challenging funding situation, we recognise that increased salaries will impact other financial and staffing operations at grantee institutions,’ he warned.
Chris Cramer, a chemistry professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, US, is supportive of the changes to the law. He says that there are ranges of postdoc salaries in chemistry that reflect the culture of the area.
However, Cramer notes that whenever you supress salaries in any part of a profession, you suppress salaries across the board. Given that the average postdoc works 60 hours a week, he says the maths works out to about $15 an hour. ‘[The employment law changes] reflect the value of many years of doctoral training – they are basically doing in an academic lab what instead they could do in industry and get substantially more money for it.’Super PACs Having Negative Impact, Say Voters Aware of ’Citizens United’ Ruling
Overview
As campaign advertisements funded by Super PACs dominate the airwaves in the lead-up to the South Carolina primaries this Saturday, 54% of registered voters say they have heard about the 2010 Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and individuals to spend as much money as they want on political advertising as long as it is not coordinated with candidate campaigns.
Fully 65% of those who are aware of the new rules on independent expenditures say they are having a negative effect on the 2012 presidential campaign. And among those who have heard a lot about these new campaign finance rules, 78% say the effect has been negative.
There is no substantial partisan divide in awareness and opinions of the new campaign spending rules. Roughly half of Republicans, Democrats and independents alike have heard about the court decision allowing unlimited independent expenditures. And among those who have heard about it, comparably wide majorities in each group say it is having a negative effect on the campaign this year.
Men are more likely than women to say they have heard at least a little about the Supreme Court decision and its effects, and awareness is also higher among college graduates. There is little difference in awareness across age or region of the country. Among those who have heard about the decision, majorities of all groups see the impact on the 2012 presidential campaign as negative.Comment: Early Protestant thinkers were obsessed with Islam as the Reformation broke down barriers between Christian and Muslim nations, writes Usman Butt.
Islam played a huge role in shaping the European Reformation. It was also being shaped by the Reformation at the same time.
The effects of the Reformation on Europe and the wider world are relatively well known, concepts like "religion", "sectarian", "secularism" and "capitalism", to name a few, were born during the Reformation and exported during the age of European empires.
But Europe was not an isolated continent without any outsider influence before this age of empires; medieval Europe was a crossroads of different peoples, religions and ideas. Islam featured prominently in the thoughts of Protestant and Catholic thinkers, priests and monarchs.
On the 500th anniversary of the start of the European Reformation it is time to remember the complex history that binds Islam and Christianity together in Europe.
The Reformation began on 31 October 1517, when a Catholic theologian and vicar named Martin Luther wrote an angry letter to Pope Leo X (1475-1521), denouncing his Catholic Church selling "indulgences" to notables and the general public in order to finance the re-construction of St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Indulgences were payments made by "sinners" to the church to reduce the punishment they will receive for their sins in purgatory, after they die. Pope Leo X was from the wealthy Medici trading family, which only angered Martin Luther further - as, to his mind, the pope could have paid for the re-construction himself.
Martin Luther was still obsessed with the question of Islam. He insisted on translations of key Muslim texts into European languages, and even had the Quran translated into Latin
According to some versions of the story, Martin Luther was so enraged by all of this that he took 95 theses and nailed them to the door of his church in Wittenberg, Saxony-Anhalt, in what is now Germany.
This came to symbolise the corruption of the Catholic Church and became the basis of the Reformationist movement.
But even as trying to reform the Catholic Church took on a life of its own, Martin Luther was still obsessed with the question of Islam. He insisted on translations of key Muslim texts into European languages, and even had the Quran translated into Latin to learn more about Islam.
In 1528, he wrote the pamphlet, On War against the Turk, in response to Ottoman attempts to seize Vienna, in which he called on Europeans to resist the Turkish invaders. While he viewed Islam as evil, Martin Luther seems to have viewed Islam as less evil than the pope, who he called the anti-Christ, and the Jews, who he referred to as the devil's incarnation.
He would make statements in On War against the Turk that were favourable to the Ottomans, "a smart Turk makes a better ruler than a dumb Christian", he writes. More importantly, he called on fellow Christians to see the good as well as the bad in the Turks and Muslims, and emphasised that the fight against the Ottomans was "self-defence" and not a holy war.
The rupture within the Catholic Church would result in the creation of a new religious sect, the Protestants. While Martin Luther was indispensible in the eventual creation of Protestantism, he died a Catholic. The first Protestants were a group of dissenting or "protesting" princes and rulers who petitioned the Imperial Diet at Speyer, the judicious arm of the Holy Roman Empire in Germany, to lift the ban on Martin Luther preaching in 1529.
It would take a century after the petition for Protestantism to become a fully-fledged sect with its socio-political identity. Even so, those inspired by Martin Luther began to look at reconciliation between Islamic and Protestant teachings. Some Christian thinkers of the time believed the Sunni Islam of the Ottoman Turks was closer to Protestant beliefs than it was to Catholic belief.
The ban of imagery in places of worship, not seeing marriage as a sacrament and rejecting monastic orders was picked up as areas of commonality by the Protestants.
Blog: Speaking music to power - a study in Reformations
Besides doctrinal similarities, many Protestants saw the Ottomans as a useful ally against the Catholic Church. Istanbul became a seat of refuge for Protestants fleeing Catholic persecution, where they were tolerated and allowed to set up their own church under the Sultan.
French Protestant preacher Jean Bodin (1530-1596), wrote glowingly about his Ottoman exile: "The great emperor of the Turks does with as great devotion as any prince in the world honour and observe the religion by him received from his ancestors, and yet detests he not the strange religions of others; but on the contrary permits every man to live according to his conscience: yes, and that more is, near unto his palace at Pera, suffers four diverse religions viz. that of the Jews, that of the Christians, that of the Grecians, and that of the Mahometans."
The theme of Ottoman Muslim tolerance was a consistent theme in Protestant writings from the period; this was usually contrasted with Catholic Spain's intolerance towards the movement.
The Ottomans viewed the Protestants favourably; Sultan Suleiman (1494- 1566), wrote an open letter to the Lutherans of Flanders in which he declared his closeness to them "since they did not worship idols, believed in one God and fought against the Pope and Emperor".
Throughout the period of the Reformation, a number of alliances were forged between the Ottomans and Protestant rulers, although, despite claims of similarities, this does not mean the Ottomans were exclusively pro-Protestant in foreign policy terms - they would work with Catholic powers when their self-interest required them to do so.
Nonetheless, the Reformation changed the face of Europe in many ways; one was breaking the taboo about allying with a Muslim power against other Christians.
Perhaps the best example of this is the Anglo-Moroccan alliance. In 1551, Thomas Wyndham, an English naval officer and explorer, set sail for Morocco with the hope of establishing trade between England and Morocco. His mission came at a sensitive time, as Catholic Spain had emerged into the most powerful country in Europe. The Protestant English were fearful of Spanish power and were looking for possible allies to help curtail the Spanish threat.
He received a favourable reaction in Morocco and English traders were soon sailing to north Africa, much to the dismay of the Spanish crown. Trade grew and Queen Elizabeth created the Barbary Company in 1585, which formalised the expansion of trade with North and West African states, particularly Morocco.
The European Reformation disrupted Christian discourse in a number of areas. Islam was part of this disruption as the Reformation made it acceptable for Christian powers, rulers and thinkers to align with Muslim powers
Morocco caught the English imagination and Shakespeare captured the enchantment with the Moroccans in his play Othello. The character of Othello the Moor is believed to be based on Abd el-Ouaheed ben Messaoud, the Moroccan envoy sent to London to deepen ties between the two countries. General Othello is brave, honest, intelligent, moral and upright - and marries a Venetian woman, Desdemona, the daughter of a power Venetian politician.
However, Othello is tricked by his manipulative and Machiavellian right-hand man, Iago, into believing his wife has been unfaithful. Othello kills Desdemona but upon learning of the deceit kills himself. What makes Othello interesting is not only that a Moor was made into the hero, but the fact the antagonist was named Iago - Iago is a derivative of Sant Iago (Saint James), the Catholic patron saint of Spain.
Whether or not Shakespeare was engaging in propaganda remains a matter of debate, he was surely reflecting the mood of Elizabethan England. A political and military alliance between England and Morocco was actively explored and attempted. Numerous letters were exchanged between Queen Elizabeth and Sultan Ahmad al Mansur; plans for military expeditions aimed at curtailing Spanish power were made.
In the 1580s, Portugal underwent a dynastic crisis as Spain made claims to the Portuguese throne, but Don Antonio, a Portuguese prince, claimed his sovereign right to rule. Don Antonio was weaker than his adversary, King Philip II of Spain, but he found an ally in England. However, the English were limited in the support they could offer and so turned to the Moroccans to help keep Don Antonio in place.
This initially failed and Don Antonio fell too quickly for either England or Morocco to do anything. However, attempts to return Don Antonio to power were attempted by both the Moroccans and the English - but each time one side could not meet the requirements of the other. Nonetheless, the significance of the Anglo-Moroccan alliance not only included bringing a Muslim and Christian power together against another Christian power, but it was also the beginning of a new way of thinking in England that would give rise to the British Empire.
The European Reformation disrupted Christian discourse in a number of areas. Islam was part of this disruption as the Reformation made it acceptable for Christian powers, rulers and thinkers to align with Muslim powers.
Islam has, since its emergence, been a part of the scene in Europe; it has influenced European thought and predates both the European colonial encounters with Islam and Muslims as well as the post-second world war immigration boom from Muslim-majority countries into Europe.
Studying the history of the Reformation teaches us that Islam, Christianity, Europe and the West are not homogenous solids that we inherit today, and trying to find commonality is nothing new - nor is the invention of liberal multiculturalists, but a continuous historical process that takes on new forms each decade.
Usman Butt is multimedia television researcher, filmmaker and writer based in London. Usman read International Relations and Arabic Language at the University of Westminster and completed a Master of Arts in Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter.
Follow him on Twitter: @TheUsmanButt
Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.Part II: Live Sets from EDC Las Vegas 2011
This is what you’ve all been waiting for. Live sets from EDC Las Vegas 2011!!
Afrojack – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Afrojack – Bangduck (Afrojack’s Intro Version) w/ The Partysquad ft Afrojack – Amsterdam (Acapella)02. Afrojack – Polkadots (Oliver Twizt Remix) w/ The Partysquad ft Afrojack – Amsterdam (Acapella)03. Afrojack & Quintino – Selecta04. Steve Angello – KNAS w/ ID (Acapella)05. ID06. Afrojack feat. Eva Simons – Take Over Control07. Diplo & Afrojack – How I Like It w/ Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Hello (Afrojack Bootleg)08. ID w/ Daft Punk – Technologic Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Acapella)09. Daft Punk – Aerodynamic (ID Remix) w/ Silvio Ecomo & Chuckie – Moombah (Afrojack Remix)10. Afrojack & Rehab – Aces High w/ Axwell, Ingrosso & Angello feat. Laidback Luke – Leave The World Behind (Acapella)11. Swedish House Mafia – Save The World (ID Remix)12. Swedish House Mafia – Save The World (Zedd Remix)13. Angger Dimas – Hey Freak!14. Afrojack – Vancouver15. Bloody Beetroots feat. Steve Aoki – Warp 1.916. Steve Angelo & Laidback Luke – Be w/ Afrojack – Pacha On Acid17. ID18. Afrojack – Replica w/ Adele – Rolling In The Deep19. Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer – Everything Give Me (Tonight)
Alesso – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Cirez D – Full Stop02. Third Party – Release03. LMFAO – The Party Rock Anthem (Alesso Remix)04. Dune – Heiress Of Valentina (Alesso Remix)05. Swanky Tunes vs. Wolfgang Gartner – I’ll House Space Junk (Alesso Bootleg)06. Starkillers & Alex Kenji feat. Nadia Ali – Pressure (Alesso Remix)
Avicii – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Avicii – Summerburst Intro ID (Don’t Give Up On Us)02. Henrik B – Acid Rocker w/ Justice vs. Simian – We Are Your Friends (Acappella)03. Diddy, Dirty Money feat. Skylar Grey – Coming Home (Dirty South Remix) w/ Green Velvet – Flash (Nicky Romero Remix)04. ID05. Summerburst ID (Papa Was A Rollin Stone)06. Avicii – Sweet Dreams (Swede Dreams Mix)07. Avicii – Levels08. Avicii – Nothing Without You (Instrumental Mix) w/ Adele – Rolling In The Deep (Acappella)09. Avicii & Sebastien Drums – My Feelings For You10. Avicii – Penguin (Fade Into Darkness)11. Tim Berg feat. Amanda Wilson – Seek Bromance (Avicii’s Arena Mix)12. Tom Hangs feat. Shermanology – Blessed (Avicii Edit)13. Armin van Buuren feat. Laura V – Drowning (Avicii Remix)14. Nadia Ali – Rapture (Avicii New Generation Remix)15. Robyn – Hang With Me (Avicii Remix)16. Tiësto feat. C.C. Sheffield – Escape Me (Avicii Remix At Night)
Benny Benassi – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Benny Benassi – Automatic B02. Benny Benassi feat. T-Pain – Electroman (Congorock Remix)03. DJ Dank – Step Right Up04. Katy Pery – E.T. (Benny Benassi Dub)05. Bassjackers – Mush, Mush06. Chris Brown feat. Benny Benassi – Beautiful People07. Benny Benassi feat. Gary Go – Close To Me08. Far East Movement feat. Snoop Dogg – If I Was You (OMG) (Disco Fries Remix)09. ID10. Benny Benassi – House Music11. ID12. ID13. AutoErotique – Turn Up The Volume14. ID15. Benny Benassi feat. Gary Go – Cinema (Skrillex Remix)16. ID17. Cyberpunkers – Cabala18. ID
Chuckie – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. David Guetta & Estelle vs. Chuckie & Gregori Klosman – One Love Mutfakta (Chuckie Bootleg)02. Chuckie & Hardwell – Move It 2 The Drum (Chuckie Edit)03. Tiesto & Hardwell vs. Adele – Zero 76 vs. Rolling In The Deep (Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike Bootleg)04. Swedish House Mafia – Save The World Tonight (ID Remix)05. Daft Punk – Aerodynamic (ID Bootleg)06. Bassment Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At (Chuckie Cold Blank Mash Up)07. Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk (Laidback Luke Remix)08. Kanye West & Rihanna – All Of The Lights (Laidback Luke Edit)09. Tommy Trash vs Jeremih – Down on The End (Chuckie Bootleg)10. Avicii – Sweet Dreams (Gregori Klosman Remix)11. ID – ID (Chuckie Remix)12. Robbie Rivera feat. Fast Eddie – Let Me Sip My Drink (Chuckie Remix)13. Ferry Corsten – Punk (Sidney Samson Remix)14. Mohombi – Bumpy Ride (Chuckie Remix)15. Gregori Klosman vs. Jim X Prods – Low Battery vs. Renegade Master (Chuckie Bootleg)16. Steve Angello & Faithless – Knas & Insomnia (East & Young Bootleg) vs. Steve Angello vs Dirty South & Axwel – Knas it Go (Gregori Klosman Tool)17. Blur – Song 2 (Chuckie Bootleg)18. ID19. Manufactured Superstars – Take Me Over (Bingo Players Remix)20. Red Carpet – Alright 2011 (Marcus Schossow Remix)21. Tim Mason – The Moment (Steve Angello Edit)22. RHCP vs Diddy & Dirty South – Otherside Coming Home (Chuckie Bootleg)23. Erick Morillo & Eddie Thoneick ft. Shawnee Tylor – Stronger (Chuckie & Gregori Klosman Remix)24. Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Hello (Sidney Samson Remix) vs Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Say Hello To Rave ‘n Roll (JB Mashup)25. Setrise – Kernkraft 400? (Mario Ramirez Rewok)26. Congorock vs. Laidback Luke & Jonathan Mendelsohn – Babylon Till Tonight (Chuckie Private Bootleg)27. SHM – One (Congorock Remix) vs. SHM – One (Chuckie White Stripes Edit) w/ Robin S – Show Me Love (Acapella)
Cosmic Gate – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Red Carpet – Alright 2011 (Marcus Schossow Remix) (Intro Mix)02. Arty – Around The World03. Marco V – Unprepared (Marcel Woods Remix)04. Cosmic Gate – Barra05. Motorcycle vs. Sander van Doorn – As The Daisy Comes (Azotti Mashup)06. Ferry Corsten – Punk (Cosmic Gate Remix)07. Jurgen Vries – The Theme (Remix)08. Above & Beyond feat. Richard Bedford – Sun & Moon (Club Mix)09. Cosmic Gate feat. Jan Johnston – Raging (Alexander Popov Dub Mix)10. Cirez D’s On Off vs. Empire Of The Sun’s We Are The People ( Thomas Gold Rerub)11. Cosmic Gate – Fire Wire (Cosmic Gate Back 2 The Future Remix)12. Beat Service – Outsider13. Cosmic Gate – Exploration Of Space (Cosmic Gate Back 2 The Future Remix)
Dash Berlin – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Dash Berlin – Till The Sky Falls Down (Dash Berlin 4AM Intro Mix) (03:34)02. ID – ID (03:19)03. First State feat. Sarah Howells – Reverie (Dash Berlin Remix) (04:15)04. Judge Jules vs. Deadmau5 – The Greater Good vs. Raise Your Weapon (Dash Berlin Mashup) (05:45)05. Cygnus X & Rank 1 vs. Faithless – Superstring vs. Insomnia vs. We Come One (Dash Berlin Mashup) (02:43)06. Armin Van Buuren feat. Sophie Ellis Bextor – Not Giving Up On Love (Dash Berlin 4AM Remix) (04:42)07. Filo & Peri feat. Audrey Gallagher – This Night (Dash Berlin Remix) (04:28)08. ATB & Dash Berlin – Apollo Road (04:27)09. Dash Berlin feat. Emma Hewitt – Disarm Yourself (03:48)10. Above & Beyond vs. Dash Berlin – Sun And Moon vs. Disarm Yourself (Dash Berlin Mashup) (03:19)11. Justice vs. Simian vs. Fei-Fei – We Are Your Friends vs. Mosh Pit (Dash Berlin Mashup) (02:32)12. Dash Berlin & Matt Cerf & Shawn Mitiska feat. Jaren – Man On The Run (03:59)13. Dash Berlin – Earth Hour 2011 (04:51)14. Dash Berlin feat. Emma Hewitt – Waiting (05:01)
Ferry Corsten – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Ferry Corsten – Fire02. Ferry Corsten – Made Of Love03. Ferry Corsten – Beautiful04. ID05. Gouryella – Ligaya06. Armin van Buuren vs. Ferry Corsten – Minack07. Coldplay – The Scientist (Maarten de Jong Bootleg)08. ID09. Ferry Corsten – L.E.F10. Ferry Corsten – Radio Crash
Hardwell – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. Tiësto & Hardwell – Zero 76 [Musical Freedom]02. Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk (Laidback Luke Remix) [Big Beat]03. Hardwell – The World [Revealed] w/ Justice vs. Simian – We Are Your Friends (Acappella) [Ed Banger]04. Calvin Harris – Awooga [Fly Eye]05. Steve Angello & Laidback Luke feat. Robin S – Be [Mixmash] w/ Afrojack – Pacha On Acid [Size]06. Steve Angello & Laidback Luke vs. Robin S – Show Me Love vs. Be (Hardwell Bootleg) [White Label]07. ID08. Chuckie & Hardwell feat. Ambush – Move It 2 The Drum [Dirty Dutch]09. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Otherside (Benny Benassi Remix – ID Edit) [White Label]10. R3hab – The Bottle Song [Wall]11. Bassjackers – Mush, Mush [Musical Freedom]12. Blur – Song 2 (Chuckie Edit) [White Label]13. Tiësto & Diplo – C’Mon [Musical Freedom]14. Hardwell – Encoded (Dada Life Remix) [Revealed]
Laidback Luke – Live Set @ EDC Las Vegas 2011
Live Set: Download Link (Right Click > Save As)
01. MSTRKRFT feat. John Legend – Heartbreaker (Laidback Luke Remix) w/ Angger Dimas – Hey Freak!02. Laidback Luke & Diplo vs. Aloe Blacc – I Need A Hey (ID Mash Up)03. ID04. Chris Brown feat. Lil Wayne & Busta Rhymes – Look At Me Now (Gusto Bootleg) w/ Diplo & Afrojack – How I Like It05. Kanye West feat. Rihanna – All Of The Lights (Mata vs Laidback Luke Edit)06. Robin S – Show Me Love (Hardwell Remix)07. Ferry Corsten – Punk (Sidney Samson Remix) w/ Wynter Gordon – Dirty Talk (Laidback Luke Remix)08. Richard Vission & The Violator – 2 To The 309. Tiesto – Lethal Industry (Van Toth Bootleg)10. Blatta & Inesha feat. Doc Trashz – Daddy’s Home (2 Guys In Venice Remix)11. Congorock & Mr Lexx feat. Cassius – Babylon I Love U So (Laidback Luke Bootleg)12. Benny Benassi feat. Gary Go – Cinema (Laidback Luke Remix)13. Sander van Doorn – Koko (Bingo Players Remix) w/ Laidback Luke ft. Jonathan Mendelsohn – Timebomb (Acapella)14. Laidback Luke – Blau! |
then froze it.
Since they couldn’t serve the meat at the bar for health issues, they kept the animal on a spit and allowed customers to partake in an unusual photo op before the meat gets shipped back to Wisconsin.
The Chicago Bears didn’t fare much better, losing 21 to 14 to the Packers.
wikimedia commonsWhen you take into account the unthinkable faux pas Ted Cruz committed this week when he called a basketball rim a “basketball ring”—in the setting of one of the most iconic basketball movies of all time, no less—it makes sense that he’s tried to change the narrative in the past few days.
Did you think the timing of his announcement that Carly Fiorina would be his vice presidential candidate on Wednesday was a coincidence? Did you imaging former House Speaker John Boehner’s comments that Cruz is “Lucifer in the flesh” and a “real miserable son of a bitch” weren’t welcomed wholeheartedly by the Cruz campaign on Thursday?
No, the Fiorina announcement wasn’t a coincidence, and yes, the Boehner comments were a breath of fresh air for Cruz. Because on Tuesday night in Knightstown, Indiana—in a state that Cruz desperately needs to win in order to stay relevant in the Republican presidential candidate race, and in the same gym where the movie Hoosiers was filmed—Cruz made men laugh and children shout.
But there was no joy in Knightstown on that day, because…
The mighty Cruz struck out. Struck out badly.
And one woman’s reaction said it all.
I’m sure Cruz was in the process of articulating some great cliché about how basketball rims—they’re basketball rims, goddammit—are the same height all across the great county, and how this land is your land, and ask not what your country can do for you, and all that political drivel.
And the woman, who isprobably a basketball fan—like all true Indianans—is ready to eat it up. But then Cruz drops “basketball ring,” and in that split-second you can see her realize that maybe Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders isn’t such a bad choice after all.
This, after all, is the face you make when your biggest heroes have let you down (not unlike, say, the face Mary Pat Christie pulled behind Trump).
And the ramifications for Cruz’s slip-up? Disastrous.SF supervisors OK first affordable building with extra height
Supervisor Hillary Ronen talks with volunteers outside of the San Francisco Tenants Union as she campaigned last October. Supervisor Hillary Ronen talks with volunteers outside of the San Francisco Tenants Union as she campaigned last October. Photo: Amy Osborne, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Amy Osborne, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close SF supervisors OK first affordable building with extra height 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
San Francisco supervisors unanimously approved a nine-story building to house low-income seniors in the Mission District on Tuesday, rejecting an appeal by some neighborhood residents who criticized the project as being too tall, for lacking any parking spaces, and being out of character with the neighborhood.
The project at 1296 Shotwell St. is the first to take advantage of legislation by Supervisor Katy Tang passed last year that allows 100 percent affordable housing projects in San Francisco to have three extra stories.
About a dozen people came to the board hearing to express opposition. Mission resident Erica Levin criticized the proposed building as “uninspired, bunker-like, and not in keeping with the architecture of the area.”
Another Mission resident, Albert Pastine, said “the planners of this proposal have some cockeyed notion that if there are no parking spaces these people would choose healthy options” like biking and walking.
But the opponents were dwarfed by dozens of people who showed up to speak in support of the project, which is being developed by the Mission Economic Development Agency and the Chinatown Community Development Center, and its approval by the supervisors never seemed much in doubt.
Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who represents the Mission, said parking would not be an issue because seniors are less likely to drive, the project is in a transit-rich area, and the developer would offer shuttle service for residents.
“We need to build taller and denser when it’s more affordable housing in any appropriate spot in San Francisco,” Ronen said.
Charles Minster, a Mission resident, said he constantly worries that his landlord will throw him and his wife out of their rent-controlled apartment. He said there needs to be more housing for seniors like him.
“We have to change. If this city is going to remain a vibrant and growing city, it is going to have to build up,” Minster said.
Despite the supervisors’ unanimous support for the project, the law that allowed it to gain three extra stories was controversial. When the bill came before the board last year, Supervisor Aaron Peskin pushed a counterproposal that would have subjected those projects to a more rigorous and time-consuming approval process.
One of the next debates before the board will center on whether to allow developments that are not 100 percent affordable, but provide a certain threshold of low-income housing, to exceed zoning limits and become taller and denser.
Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @emilytgreenMeasurement harmony on Earth has obvious advantages. Governments all around the world have standardized units of measure in our era of globalization and international trade. The International System (SI) of units makes use of standardized symbols for length, volume, and mass. These symbols transcend language. In other words, these symbols are the same in every language.
It would be wonderful if every language could share a standardized spelling of international units, but not every language uses a Latin-based script. Chinese does not even use an alphabet. A meter is spelled metro in Italian, Spanish and Basque. A meter is spelled metar in Croatian and mita in Igbo. The spelling variation list goes on and on. So you see, employing unit symbols for product labeling transcends language differences.
The Human mind is keen on finding patterns in Nature, so it is no surprise that some people insist that the spelling of metre / meter and litre / liter be standardized in English. That’s not gonna happen. American English has evolved many variations across a wide ocean. We are lucky enough on the rare occasion that an American even uses the word meter. By the way, Americans and Brits spell many words differently. Here is a short list: theater / theatre — color / colour — flavor / flavour — center / centre — maneuver / manoeuvre. For heaven’s sake, we cannot even standardize / standardise the word standardize / standardise!
The primary SI unit is spelled meter in at least ten non-English languages. Those languages are:
The primary SI unit is spelled metre in only three non-English languages: Catalan, Turkish and French. So it can be argued that Earthlings tend to prefer the spelling meter over the metre.
Then there is the argument that the word meter already has a meaning, so we must spell metre the British way in order to avoid potential confusion. Well that argument falls short too. In this sentence — They were too close to the door to close it — the word close has two different meanings, yet it is spelled the same way. Languages are loaded with heteronyms, so the fact that the word meter can have different meanings is not a big deal. Do not desert me here in the desert! Do you know what a buck does to does? I did not object to the object. We must polish the Polish furniture. He thought it was time to present the present. OK. You don’t need more examples. You get the idea.
Please stop arguing about how meter / metre and liter / litre are spelled. This spelling issue serves only to distract us from our goal of measurement harmony on Earth.
AdvertisementsA Binghamton University student representative was forced to resign after joking about “tar and feathering” two candidates for campaign violations, which one of the subjects deemed a “racialized threat.”
Jeremy Rosenberg, a member of the the Student Association (SA) Planning, Research, and Elections committee (PRE), made the joke in a GroupMe message while the committee was deciding how to deal with two candidates for SA Vice President of Academic Affairs who had posted about their campaigns on Facebook earlier than election procedures allow, Pipe Dream reports.
“I see the comment by Jeremy as a death threat.”
[RELATED: ‘Triggered’ UCI students demand senator resign over joke]
“Did you guys make a verdict about them? Like what for Raul [Cepin] and Julia [Townsend]?” asked one member of the committee’s private group chat, to which PRE chair Jesse Wong replied “yes.”
“What are the penalties?” the questioner then asked, at which point Rosenberg jestingly responded “Tar and feathering” before excusing himself with another message saying, “Sorry I’m losing my mind.”
A screenshot of the message was taken by a PRE member, and soon appeared on Cepin’s Facebook page, where he alleged that the comment was a “racialized threat.”
“The historical legacy of the term has placed me in a place of fear and uncertainty regarding my safety on campus…I see the comment by Jeremy as a death threat, which has been affirmed by the silence of the rest of PRE, specifically the chair of the PRE committee Jesse Wong who should have immediately reported it to the authorities and the appropriate channels within the Student Association Inc,” Cepin rants in the November 22 post.
“The history of tar and feathering is a particularly problematic one for African Americans,” he adds, noting that the practice “was an essential part of the institution of slavery and the periods of Lynchings that followed after.”
Just a few hours later, Cepin proceeded to leave another post stripping away what little ambiguity suffused his original screed, implying that he was only targeted by the elections committee because of his race.
“The elections committee accused me (the only black candidate) of breaking a rule that didn't exist,” Cepin asserts, while neglecting to acknowledge that the other candidate being investigated for the same violation was a white woman.
“I believe that the university should fund a Black leadership conference to train current leaders and rising leaders as a sign of good faith,” he concludes, declaring, “this isnt about me[;] this is how people treat Black leadership at Binghamton University.
Over 200 people showed up at a Student Congress meeting Monday evening to protest the “tar and feathering” message, as well as the alleged lack of action by student government executives.
[RELATED: Impeachment threats: a trendy way to silence campus conservatives]
“One of my jobs is to make sure that students on our campus feel safe, and when we have death threats and when we have hate speech on our campus, that prevents students from being able to do so which is very problematic,” lamented Jermel McClure, the SA vice president for multicultural affairs.
“The SA did not send an email out until they found out [people were coming to the congress meeting], and Nicholas Ferrara…was saying that this comment was not that serious,” Cepin alleged during the meeting, referring to his contention that Ferrara, the SA president, had described the controversy over Rosenberg’s joke as “foolish” during a previous student government meeting.
Wong, however, assured the large audience that Rosenberg had already resigned from the committee, and issued a formal apology on behalf of the entire organization.
“I, the PRE chair, have accepted the resignation [of Rosenberg], and he will no longer be a member of congress or PRE,” Wong said. “I sincerely want to apologize on behalf of PRE for what has been going on. Myself and the current members of PRE do not condone this racism.”
“I’m very, very sorry that this happened, as myself, as Nick, but also on behalf of the Student Association and I want to work diligently to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” Ferrara concurred, reiterating that “I am going to do everything in my power to make sure something like this doesn’t happen ever again.”
Although Rosenberg’s resignation apparently accrued to Cepin’s benefit—the sanctions against him were dropped in a lopsided 21-1-1 vote—but he nonetheless pressed forward with legislation calling for the “black leadership conference” he had mentioned in his Facebook post, which was passed by a 25-2 vote, with four abstentions.
Campus Reform was unable to reach Rosenberg for comment.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @amber_atheyMANILA, Philippines -- A Department of Environment and Natural Resources audit of coal-fired power plants to ensure compliance with environmental standards is set to start within the month.
Environment Undersecretary Leo Jasareno said the department is already crafting the guidelines and criteria for the audit of coal-fired power plants, with a focus on the conditions that they were granted environmental compliance certificates (ECCs).
"We'll start to audit coal-fired power plants. We are just finalizing the guidelines and we’ll start within this month," Jasareno said.
Although applications for new coal plants are coursed through the Department of Energy, they must secure an ECC from the DENR before commencing operations.
Coal accounts for about a third of the country’s current total energy mix. Currently, there are 13 operating coal-fired plants. Twelve more are under construction and there are 13 new applications.
Environment Secretary Gina Lopez has been firm on her stand against coal projects and continues to push for a change in direction towards renewable energy for the country's base load.
First on Lopez’s hit list is the Consunji-led Semirara Mining and Power Corp., the country’s largest coal mine, which has been given a show-cause order to explain alleged violations or face possible suspension.
Meanwhile, the DENR continues its separate audit on all mining firms to ensure responsible mining in the country.
To date, the DENR has suspended 10 mining companies and is on track to finish the audit of all 42 metallic mines within the month.
"When the smoke clears, after the review, what we will have is a roster of responsible miners," Jasareno said.blackjewobamafan a guest Nov 9th, 2009 991 Never a guest991Never
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rawdownloadcloneembedreportprint text 2.19 KB Nothing is impossible. Nothing is out of reach. That's the lesson we take away from today, boys and girls (and men and women). Not long after we switched to Gazelle, and instituted the request bounty system, a request popped up for Microsoft COFEE - a forensic tool supplied by Microsoft to law enforcement offices around the world. You can Google it for more details, but the gist is that the tool was developed and distributed solely to law enforcement agencies. Sounds tempting, right? And it was. So much so that user after user voted for the request, adding to the ever-increasing bounty. Everyone seemed to have a good laugh with it, figuring that no one would ever get their hands on it and actually upload it. That was the staff consensus, at least. Several imitators were uploaded and removed, users were warned, and the bounty remained. Then, today, a user actually did it. They got a copy of COFEE and uploaded it here. The resourcefulness of our users never ceases to amaze us. Suddenly, we were forced to take a real look at the program, its source, and the potential impact on the site and security of our users and staff. And when we did, we didn't like what came of it. So, a decision was made. The torrent was removed (and it is not to be uploaded here again.) Just to be clear: we were not threatened by Microsoft or any law enforcement agency. We haven't been contacted, nor has our host. This was a decision made by the staff based on our own conversations and feelings about the security impact of having the software here. We know some of you, perhaps the majority of you, won't agree with it. To those that feel that way, we can only offer an apology and the explanation that we removed it for your security, and ours. This is not an indication of any policy or rule changes going forward. This is a one-time decision, for a unique situation. This is not something we will do with other torrents or requests. At this point, the software can probably be found elsewhere, for anyone who wants it. We hope you all understand, and will continue searching out those rare items which attract huge request bounties. Feel free to discuss this here, but this decision is final. Thank you, all. /The What.CD Staff
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Nothing is impossible. Nothing is out of reach. That's the lesson we take away from today, boys and girls (and men and women). Not long after we switched to Gazelle, and instituted the request bounty system, a request popped up for Microsoft COFEE - a forensic tool supplied by Microsoft to law enforcement offices around the world. You can Google it for more details, but the gist is that the tool was developed and distributed solely to law enforcement agencies. Sounds tempting, right? And it was. So much so that user after user voted for the request, adding to the ever-increasing bounty. Everyone seemed to have a good laugh with it, figuring that no one would ever get their hands on it and actually upload it. That was the staff consensus, at least. Several imitators were uploaded and removed, users were warned, and the bounty remained. Then, today, a user actually did it. They got a copy of COFEE and uploaded it here. The resourcefulness of our users never ceases to amaze us. Suddenly, we were forced to take a real look at the program, its source, and the potential impact on the site and security of our users and staff. And when we did, we didn't like what came of it. So, a decision was made. The torrent was removed (and it is not to be uploaded here again.) Just to be clear: we were not threatened by Microsoft or any law enforcement agency. We haven't been contacted, nor has our host. This was a decision made by the staff based on our own conversations and feelings about the security impact of having the software here. We know some of you, perhaps the majority of you, won't agree with it. To those that feel that way, we can only offer an apology and the explanation that we removed it for your security, and ours. This is not an indication of any policy or rule changes going forward. This is a one-time decision, for a unique situation. This is not something we will do with other torrents or requests. At this point, the software can probably be found elsewhere, for anyone who wants it. We hope you all understand, and will continue searching out those rare items which attract huge request bounties. Feel free to discuss this here, but this decision is final. Thank you, all. /The What.CD StaffYou can track every change made to your AWS account with CloudTrail. Did you know that you can also monitor your AWS account in near real time with custom rules specific to your use case?
By combining CloudTrail, S3, SNS, and Lambda, you can run a piece of code to check the API activity in your account. Because of the reporting frequency of CloudTrail, this will happen approximately every 5 minutes. This post explains how to deploy a solution to monitor your EC2 instance tags for suspicious behavior.
The following figure shows how this works on a high level.
Let’s look at a concrete example.
What is suspicious behavior?
CloudTrail is recording a lot of API activity. Your job is to determine which activities are suspicious. Here are a few ideas:
A security group was changed to open a port to the outside world (0.0.0.0/0).
An IAM user was created outside of regular business hours.
An EC2 instance was started without following your company’s tag schema (for example, you may mark technical ownership, cost ownership, and so on).
The example that follows implements the idea of EC2 instance tag monitoring.
Each time CloudTrail has new data for you, a Lambda function is triggered. The Lambda function needs to do the following:
Understand the input data generated from SNS. Download the compressed CloudTrail files from an S3 bucket. Uncompress the files. Iterate through the API activities, looking for EC2 tag-related events: RunInstances, CreateTags, and DeleteTags. Alert violations of the tag schema.
Fortunately, the code is implemented already so that we won’t dive into Node.js code this time. Instead, we’ll focus on deploying this solution.
Deploying the solution
Deploying Lambda is possible almost entirely with CloudFormation. A few steps are required to prepare everything you need:
Choose an AWS region you want to monitor (referenced as $region in the following). Create an SNS topic in $region, and subscribe to the topic via email. The system will send alerts to this endpoint. Download the code by running wget https://github.com/widdix/aws-tag-watch/archive/master.zip in your terminal. Run unzip master.zip in your terminal. Change dir by running cd aws-tag-watch-master/. Run npm install in your terminal to install Node.js dependencies. Edit config.json, and set region to $region and alertTopicArn to the ARN of your SNS topic from step 1. Execute./bundle.sh in your console. Upload aws-tag-watch.zip to S3 (the bucket must be in $region ). Create a CloudFormation stack based on template.json.
Now your AWS account in $region is monitored. Whenever you run a new EC2 instance or change the tags of an existing EC2 instance, the Lambda function will check whether you’re sticking to the tag schema.
Room for improvement
Raising an alert via email isn’t that helpful if you are working on a team. You may want to look at OpsGenie, which integrates nicely with SNS.
This blog post has been translated into German: Beobachte deinen AWS Account in echtzeit um verdächtige Aktivitäten aufzuspüren.
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Michael Wittig I’m the author of Amazon Web Services in Action. I work as a software engineer, and independent consultant focused on AWS and DevOps. You can contact me via Email, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Hire meJUST IN: Wilmer Murder Suspect Blames Illuminati Conspiracy for Arrest Copyright by WKRG - All rights reserved Video
WILMER, AL (WKRG) -- A suspect in the murder of a Georgia teen found dead in Wilmer last year has been arrested.
Matthew Ryan Howard was apprehended by Mobile County Sheriff Deputies after barricading himself inside his home in Wilmer on Wednesday afternoon.
Copyright by WKRG - All rights reserved Matthew Ryan Howard (left), scene of the murder in Wilmer (right)
Copyright by WKRG - All rights reserved Matthew Ryan Howard (left), scene of the murder in Wilmer (right)
Howard is a suspect in the murder of Eric Wood, an 18-year-old from Georgia, who was found dead in December. Wood's body was discovered near the railroad tracks north of Moffett Road before Glenwood Farms Road in Wilmer.
The body was so badly decomposed that authorities had to use the victim's clothes to help identify him.
Copyright by WKRG - All rights reserved
Howard has a criminal history that includes arrests for burglary, criminal trespassing, theft of property, and unlawful breaking and entering into a vehicle.
News 5 will have more on this story coming up on News 5 at 5:00 & 6:00.ABC officials confirmed at recent Senate estimates hearings that politicians have made both formal and informal complaints about ABC Fact Check verdicts. ABC fact check presenter John Barron. Credit:ABC Independent Senator Nick Xenophon described the unit as a "thorn in the side" of politicians of all sides who make dubious claims. "Politicians might be happy about this outcome but voters should be outraged," he said. "This is a backward leap for accountability.
"I believe the fact check unit was a small price to pay to keep politicians on their toes." The unit, launched in August 2013 with around 10 staff, was championed by recently departed managing director Mark Scott. The Fact Check segments have been presented by ABC veteran John Barron and the unit has been led by former senior Fairfax journalist Russell Skelton. Researchers, producers and social media staff were also hired specifically for the unit. At the time, Mr Scott said it would provide "dispassionate analysis" and "enrich" the ABC's journalism.
Editorial director Alan Sunderland said the unit - which assesses the truthfulness of politicians' statements - would help the broadcaster serve the public interest. "There is a great demand out there for people saying, 'Look, there's an endless discussion about the NBN or climate change or about tax polices or surpluses," he said in 2013. "We need a basic set of agreed facts, what we all know about the situation to assist us to understand and interpret what is going on in the media, what comments and statements are being made.' " But the unit has been controversial since day one within the ABC, where many saw it as draining resources from more traditional newsgathering. The Fact Check unit was funded through a three-year, $20 million a year funding deal with the previous Labor government that also supported new positions in regional and suburban bureaus.
The Turnbull government renewed the Enhanced Newsgathering Initiative in the May budget with a reduced annual allocation of $13.5 million. New ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie told staff at the time: "ABC News will seek to maintain as many of the Enhanced Newsgathering initiatives as possible, with storytelling from regional and outer-suburban areas a priority. "However, there will necessarily be some changes to staffing and programming in line with the reduced allocation of funds." Recent Fack Check verdicts include a ruling of "nonsense" for union movement claims that building workers have fewer rights than ice dealers if the Australian Building and Construction Commission was restored. Coalition frontbencher Christopher Pyne was found to be "wrong" for saying the government was not in caretaker mode while Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was "misleading" for claiming the budget took money from single mothers and gave it to millionaires.
The unit has also run a promise tracker on the Coalition's 2013 election commitments. Loading ABC Fact Check was competing against PolitiFact - a US import run by former Sydney Morning Herald editor Peter Fray - but it quickly proved financially unviable and was shut down. Follow us on Twitter© Paul Smith/AFP Photo Captain Steve Smith. Steve Smith says well-timed strokes rather than wild slogging will be the key to him scoring freely at the World Twenty20.
Australia's top order is packed with some of the most powerful batsmen in the world, including Shane Watson and David Warner.
Smith can not bludgeon the ball the same way as the likes of Warner but the skipper says there is more than one way to skin a cat.
"For me, hitting sixes is about trying to keep my shape as much as possible," Smith said.
"When I try to hit the ball too hard I probably lose a lot of that and probably bring myself down.
"So for me it's about making sure my shapes are good in my strokeplay and if I hit the ball out of the middle then it's generally going to go."
Australia's World T20 campaign starts on Friday, when they face New Zealand in mountainous Dharamsala.
Smith fired with the bat recently in Cape Town, top-scoring with 44 as Australia completed a 2-1 T20 series win over South Africa.
The 26-year-old's dig came after nervy knocks in Durban and Johannesburg, where he lacked rhythm and tried to force the tempo too much.
"It was nice to score a few in the last game," Smith said.
"It would have been nice to get the team home but it was nice to spend a bit of time in the middle.
"I think that was kind of what I needed so I felt really good and hopefully I can take that form into this tournament."
Australia have been pooled with New Zealand, Pakistan, India and the winner of the Group A qualifying event - either Bangladesh or Oman.
It means they are likely to require three wins in the pool stage to progress to a semi-final.
"You've got to start the tournament really well at a World Cup, that's going to be really important for us," Smith said.
"It's the one trophy that's eluded us. We want to win every tournament that we play in.
"We've all certainly played a lot of T20 cricket. We know how to play the game and if we do it to the best of our ability we're going to be a tough side to beat."CLOSE Jets quarterback Josh McCown reacts to the Giants' decision to bench Eli Manning as starting quarterback, ending Manning's streak of 210 consecutive games started. On Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, in Florham Park. Andy Vasquez/NorthJersey.com
Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87) stiff-arms his way past Broncos safety Bradley Roby (29) during the second half. (Photo: Denny Medley, USA TODAY Sports)
Chiefs at Jets
At MetLife Stadium
Sunday, 1 p.m.
TV CBS
Line: Chiefs by 3.5
What's at stake
Jets: This is a young, developing team that has shown flashes of a potentially bright future. But the Jets need a win in the worst way to prove that they're building something tangible. They've lost five of the last six games, including three blown leads in the fourth quarter. If the Jets can get a win this week, it would be a sign that they're learning how to close out games against good teams. And it would allow them to believe, for another week, in their slim playoff chances. But if they keep losing, coach Todd Bowles' seat will start to get hot. Yes, ownership has said that Bowles will be judged on showing progress, not wins and losses. But if the Jets keep losing winnable games with late meltdowns, it will be hard to argue that is a step in the right direction.
JETS: Matt Forte's status uncertain for Jets as they prepare for Chiefs
Chiefs: The bad news is that Kansas City has also lost five of its last six games. But the Chiefs (6-5) started so well that they're still in control of the AFC West. It's impossible to overstate the importance of this game for Kansas City, which is playing its second game at MetLife Stadium in the last three weeks -- two weeks ago the Chiefs lost to the Giants, 12-9 in overtime here. Now they return with their season at a crossroads. A win and the slump is over and the Chiefs are two games over.500 and in good shape to win the division heading into the final quarter of the season. A loss drops them to.500 and puts them in a dogfight with a Chargers team that seems to have found itself in the second half of the season.
Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce celebrates a fourth quarter touchdown in a 42-27 win over the New England Patriots. (Photo: Greg M. Cooper, USA TODAY Sports)
Key matchup
Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce vs. Jets safeties Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye: Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye have played their rookie season with the poise of veterans. They insist they no longer feel like rookies. And they're about to get a massive test in slowing down Travis Kelce. Adams and Maye will likely combine on coverage against Kelce, who leads the Chiefs in targets (87), receptions (62), receiving yards (777) and receiving touchdowns (5). Kelce has lived on chunk plays this season, with 14 catches of 20 yards or more. It will be especially important to keep him in check early; Kansas City's offense has been struggling and a big play early by Kelce could get things jump started.
JOSH MCCOWN: Struggling Jets have no plans to bench McCown to get look at younger QBs
How they'll win
Jets: If the defense continues to play the way it did against Carolina last week, the Jets should have a good chance in this game. The Jets have given up only three touchdowns to the opposing offense in the last two games. If they can hold Kelce and running back Kareem Hunt in check (he's second in the NFL with 890 rushing yards), they'll be right there. The big question mark is the offense. After the debacle in Tampa, the Jets showed big improvement offensively against Carolina last week. But there was still too much inconsistency -- especially in the red zone. Look for the Jets to test former cornerback Darrelle Revis, who returns to the Meadowlands for his Chiefs debut -- especially on a deep ball if he's lined up against Robby Anderson. If the Jets make a few big plays and capitalize on their scoring chances, they'll likely win.
Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Tyreek Hill returns a punt against the Buffalo Bills in the first half at Arrowhead Stadium. (Photo: Jay Biggerstaff, USA TODAY Sports)
NO COMMENT: Jets' Todd Bowles didn't want to talk about Geno Smith
Chiefs: The Chiefs need to find a way to make a big-time play, something they've failed to do too often during this midseason malaise. That spark could come from special teams. The Jets are coming off a bad week, giving up a back-breaking, fourth-quarter punt return to the Panthers. And the Chiefs have one of the best weapons on the NFL in Tyreek Hill. A big play by Hill could change everything. Also, the Jets' offensive line has been disappointing lately and starting right guard Brian Winters his banged up (listed as questionable with an ankle injury). If the Chiefs, led by Justin Houston (8.5 sacks) can put pressure on McCown, they should be able to disrupt the Jets' offense enough to have a chance.The Government has passed ground-breaking marijuana legislation in Australia to allow cultivation for medical research and help those suffering from serious illness.
On the 24 February, Health Minister Susan Ley announced that amendments to the Narcotic Drugs Act had successfully passed the Senate.
“This is an historic day for Australia and the many advocates who have fought long and hard to challenge the stigma around medical cannabis products so genuine patients are no longer treated as criminals,” Ley said in a statement.
“Under this scheme, a patient with a valid prescription can possess and use a medicinal cannabis product manufactured from cannabis plants legally cultivated in Australia”.
Products such as cannabis oil have successfully been used in the treatment of nausea during chemotherapy, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and other neurological conditions.
What does the legislation actually mean?
The new laws mean some growers will now legally be able to cultivate and produce cannabis locally for medicinal and scientific purposes in Australia. The legislation allows for a series of licensing and permit schemes to be established, governing how this takes place.
Prior to the laws, raw cannabis could be imported into Australia in certain situations, but cultivation of the plant was not allowed locally. This system was considered inadequate as it could not “properly manage the risks associated with the potential for diversion of medicinal cannabis products and other narcotic drugs.”
How will it work?
The scheme introduces two categories of cannabis licences: one authorising the cultivation of cannabis for medicinal products, and another which allows research into the cannabis plant for medicinal purposes.
Licence holders are required to ensure their crops are carefully secured and accounted for. Substantial penalties apply for breaches and for undertaking unauthorised activities, such as diverting plants for illicit use.
The process will be regulated by various state and territory government agencies. Additionally, the Secretary of the Department of Health will have the power to order the destruction of cannabis produced by a licence holder, in order to control the level of production and prevent unnecessary accumulation.
The laws will have no effect on the cultivation of recreational cannabis and its use, which remains illegal.
Who gets the products?
Under the scheme, patients with a valid prescription will be able to possess and use medicinal cannabis manufactured under the licensing scheme, provided the supply has been authorised under the Therapeutic Goods Act and relevant state and territory legislation.
This is consistent with research by the National Drug and Alcohol Centre Research Centre, which found that Australians suffering from chronic pain felt more relief from cannabis than conventional medicines. Additional studies have shown medicinal marijuana to be significantly safer than traditional opioid-based painkillers, which are associated with addiction and overdose.
What is missing from the bill?
According to Greens leader Richard Di Natale, although the law is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough to clear the confusion surrounding the use of medicinal cannabis.
“Ironically, medicinal cannabis is still an illegal drug,” Di Natale told media. “[The bill] doesn’t do anything about the distribution, supply, prescription of the drug… there’s no legislation around how doctors will prescribe it.”
Di Natale, whose own medicinal cannabis bill was pulled last year, said his party would wait to see how the bill works in action, but reserved the right to reintroduce his legislation if progress was too slow.
The Greens bill, which had won approval from a cross-party legislative committee, would establish a new Commonwealth body, the Regulator of Medicinal Cannabis, with responsibility for regulating the production, transport, storage and usage of cannabis products for medicinal purposes.
What does this mean for recreational cannabis users?
Very little. Although several international governments have decriminalised or legalised the use of recreational cannabis, it still seems that this will occur here in the foreseeable future.
On announcing the amendments, Minister Ley made the Government’s position on recreational cannabis clear: “This is not a debate about legalisation of cannabis. This is not about drugs. This is not a product you smoke. This has nothing to do with that.”
However, there is growing parliamentary support for the general legalisation of cannabis in Australia. During the debate Senator David Leyonhjelm argued that:
“Legalising recreational cannabis use would deprive organised crime, whether Middle Eastern crime gangs, Asian triads, bikie gangs or relatives of Darth Vader, of a major source of income, and relieve police of the cost of finding and destroying illicit crops. Of the $1.5 billion spent annually on drug law enforcement, 70% is attributable to cannabis. That’s an expense we do not need.”The Crystal River rises in the Maroon Bells Wilderness high in the Rockies and flows for more than 30 miles, down from mountain forests and alpine meadows and through red-rock canyons and lush green valleys. Prime habitat for rainbow trout and mountain whitefish, it is one of the last remaining free-flowing rivers in Colorado.
But the Crystal is also in danger – its future clouded by two proposed dams and a water-diversion project that would transform its rushing waters. The conservation group American Rivers last month listed the Crystal as one of the top 10 Most Endangered Rivers in the U.S. (it was number 8) and called on local officials to reject the dam proposals and support permanent protection of the Crystal as a federal Wild and Scenic River.
Filmmaker Pete McBride grew up along the banks of the Crystal River. In this Yale Environment 360 video, he captures the breathtaking beauty of the Crystal and shows why it should remain wild and free.Illustration: Luo Xuan/GT
Home prices and |
for one of the Premier League’s less glamorous clubs. He and Jack Wilshere are alike in the way they carry the ball forward directly, with Delph averaging 1.7 successful dribbles per game last season (Wilshere made 1.9).
Delph also suffers from a lack of end product. It took him until last season – his fifth at Villa Park – to score his first league goals, though they were impressive strikes. His two assists last season were also his first for the club in the league. With Wilshere’s development stagnating, it is refreshing to see Delph, who makes more tackles (2.9 per game last season) and interceptions (1.7) than Wilshere (1.3 and 0.4, respectively), given his chance. Delph isn’t quite at Wilshere’s level on the ball – and he is two years older – but if he is given a chance to play with better players he could emulate the Arsenal man. He breaks up play brilliantly – better than any of the England midfielders who played at the World Cup – and he could be a success at international level.
Jack Colback started life at Newcastle fairly well in their opening weekend defeat to Manchester City. That performance had Alan Pardew waxing lyrical about the former Sunderland player, and the attention he was given probably alerted Roy Hodgson. Since then, though, Colback was severely below par in a limp, goalless draw at Aston Villa, and then he was one of their worst players in the 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace.
Tongue-in-cheek murmurs of his “Ginger Pirlo” nickname are clearly ridiculous, even if Hodgson expressed his pleasure at the comparison. Whereas Pirlo’s effectiveness is clear to see, Colback’s greatest strengths are fairly difficult to highlight. Technically he is adept but little more, though he does work hard and has a great attitude, so it is easy to see why English managers such as Hodgson and Alan Pardew like him. Quite what he will bring to England is unclear, and it is not at all obvious that he will improve the squad.
Calum Chambers and Danny Rose also enjoyed bright starts to the season before fading in recent appearances. Chambers was lauded for stepping up so valiantly to play at centre-back in the absence of Per Mertesacker, despite having played at right-back for Southampton. He did well in difficult surroundings at Besiktas, but struggled at Goodison Park, where he dived into tackles too rashly, perhaps explaining his high tallies for tackles per game (2.3) and the number of times he is dribbled past per appearance (1.3) this season. He is a great prospect but opponents have already exploited his lack of experience this season. He is probably only ready to play out wide for the time being.
Rose did well in Spurs’ opening victories against West Ham and QPR, picking up an assist in the second game, but he was found out in a catastrophic defeat to Liverpool. No player should be judged on one poor performance but Rose has struggled against the better sides before. Though he wins the ball back well – averaging two interceptions per game since the start of last season – he struggles in possession. He has completed 80.2% of his passes this season and is rarely the player to start attacks with an incisive ball forward. Given that Spurs also signed Ben Davies over summer, it was a surprise to see him start every league game so far, let alone seeing him called up to the England squad.
For the players new to England, these are exciting times. After the disappointment of the World Cup in Brazil, England needed renovation and reinvigoration, with new players taking over the mantle before their qualification campaign for Euro 2016. These four debutants, however, are unlikely to inspire the team to much greater success than an underperforming England team have managed in the last few decades.
All statistics courtesy of WhoScored.com, where you can find yet more stats, including live in-game data and unique player and team ratings.
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Nathan Cullen
I’ve had the distinct pleasure to be the Member of Parliament Skeena-Bulkley Valley for 12 years this June. It is a place that grounds me both personally and in my work. I always try to remember the discussions I’ve had with the people of Northwestern BC when I’m facing dilemmas and decisions in Ottawa. And one of the recurring conversations I’ve had over the years, with folks of all political leanings, is the condition of our democracy and how our voting system doesn’t reflect their voices at the national level.
It’s not a new charge that the first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system too often produces false majorities. Our current voting system is broken. Too many Canadians simply feel their vote does not count. Something is deeply wrong if our very voting system encourages people to tune out of our democratic process.
However, if there was one thing that Jack Layton left with me, it was to tackle problems with an open mind, a sense of optimism and, most importantly, a desire to find solutions.
Earlier this session I proposed a solution in the hopes of inoculating against some of that cynicism. My proposal was to tweak the process that will be used to consult Canadians about how we fix our voting system. By default, it would be driven by a Parliamentary committee made up of MPs from recognized parties in the House of Commons. This process would leave the Greens and Bloc out of the discussions in effect silencing the 1.4 million Canadians that voted for these parties.
I suggested that the composition of the committee should reflect how Canadians voted in the 2015 federal election – five members of the Liberal Party, including a committee chair, three members of the Conservative Party, two members of the New Democratic Party, one member of the Bloc Quebecois, and one member of the Green Party. In short, a committee that would represent the true voting intentions of Canadians in the last election.
The Liberals have not yet indicated if they will agree to this proposal or what process they do favour.
I hold out much hope that the process can produce constructive results. This is an historic opportunity to engage Canadians in our democracy and empower particularly disenfranchised groups to re-engage with their civic role.
Our role, as the progressive opposition, is to remind the new Liberal government of the more progressive commitments they made to Canadians. Moreover, it is our duty to hold them to account.
After ten long years of a destructive Conservative government, progressives must repair the damage done. With the Conservative leadership searching, Canada needs a strong and unified NDP team in Ottawa ensuring progress is measured with action not words. That means pressing the new government at every opportunity to bring the fairness and justice that has eluded too many Canadians for the last decade. New Democrats have our work cut out for us – we can’t afford to spend the next year in the wilderness allowing a new government to go unchecked.
Our task is to reverse the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, make meaningful steps towards reconciliation and renewal with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, and to close the gender gap in all aspects of our society. These are the very themes NDP leader Tom Mulcair touched on at our recent caucus retreat. His clear and principled path forward is the reason why I am supporting Tom as our leader.
Bringing fairness to Parliament is a serious undertaking that faces a monumental set of hurdles. Every effort I make towards that goal I am reminded of the conversations I have had with folks who have given up on our voting system. I’m reminded why I’m doing this. And I am reminded of the dedication I share with Tom in achieving this goal, and the support he has lent to me in its pursuit.
Leadership is about setting a path, building a team, and trusting that team to do their job. It is about understanding the urgency of changing Canada for the better – including how we elect governments in our country for generations to come.
Nathan Cullen is the NDP critic for Democratic Reform and the Environment. He has been the Member of Parliament for Skeena-Bulkley Valley since 2004.Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam Photo by Dan Henry /Times Free Press.
NASHVILLE - Gov. Bill Haslam today urged a congressional committee to pass legislation requiring sales-tax collections by out-of-state online retailers with no physical presence in states.
"Let me be clear," Haslam told U.S. House Judiciary Committee members this morning. "I am a Republican governor that does not believe in increasing taxes."
But, he said, "this discussion isn't about raising taxes or adding new taxes. This is about states having the flexibility and authority to collect taxes that are already owed by their own in-state residents."
He also called it "an issue of fairness" involving online retailers and brick-and-mortar businesses.
"Comparable businesses that sell the same things are not being treated the same," Haslam said. "Most people I talk to understand that and agree that isn't fair."
Traditional businesses with a physical presence in a state can be required by states to collect state and local sales taxes from customers.
The House Judiciary Committee is considering the Tax Equity Act, which addresses a two-decade-old U.S. Supreme Court decision on catalogue sales. The court held states can collect sales tax from out-of-state sellers only if the seller has a store that's physically located within their borders.
With the rise of the Internet, states and traditional retailers say the ruling, which the court left to Congress to address, is creating a government-imposed advantage for online retailers, which don't have to collect taxes that they are compelled to collect.
The tax is owed and is supposed to be paid by consumers but rarely is, officials say.
States say they are losing billions annually because of the current "loophole." In response to questions, Haslam said he would "probably" use some of the estimated $400 million in Tennessee sales taxes that currently go uncollected annually to reduce other taxes.
For complete details, see tomorrow's Times Free Press."Everyone's doing it" is not generally considered a great argument in regards to our health and yet when it comes to Photoshop and other advertising tricks a lot of people are saying that if we can't beat them, join them. And, surprising even myself, I think I agree. I use photo-editing software on my pictures for my fitness site, in fact. But in my opinion it's all a matter of scale. For instance, I crop and color-correct nearly every picture that I post (my camera sucketh mightily when it comes to lighting). I also have removed red eye, fuzzed out stranger's faces and -- my personal fave -- erased crotch sweat off of gym buddies who forget what a betraying fabric cotton is which frankly is the modern equivalent of not letting your girlfriend leave the restroom with her skirt tucked into her tights. (And let me tell you, nothing makes you feel close to a person like spending 15 minutes zoomed in at 200% to her lady business.) However, I have never used it to change my body (nor anyone else's) in any way -- not even to remove a zit. That's my line in the sand I guess. And I'll be honest, that's also my line of technical acuity. I'm not the world's greatest photo-editor.
But there are plenty of people who don't share my compunctions. Take, for instance, the trendy knock-off store H&M who recently admitted that they only use "completely virtual" bodies to model the clothes on their site. Don't worry though, they paste a real girl's head on there to help you know what that dress will look like on a real person. Unless they forget, like this time (images via Jezebel & H&M):
Granted, creating bodies out of whole cloth (pixels?) is pretty extreme. On the other end we have my sister's Christmas card from a few years back. As soon as I got it in the mail, I had to call her immediately. "What did you do to your teeth??" I squealed. "They are so perfectly white! I'm jealous!!" There was an uncomfortable silence before she answered. "Are my teeth really the first thing you noticed about our family picture?" I hemmed, "Uh, yeah." Her reply: "Oops." It turns out she'd thought her teeth looked a little dingy and since this card was going out to all her friends and loved ones she figured she's just digitally scrub them up a bit. A bit turned out to be a lot however, turning her adorable family pic into a toothpaste ad. We laugh about it now but since then I've seen a lot of holiday card pictures come through my mail from other folks that have obviously had a lot more than teeth whitening done to them.
How is a person able to decide what's real and what's not if even my neighbor's dog has been digitally cute-ified? Science to the rescue! Reports The Economist, "Professor Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and his PhD student Eric Kee, have been investigating photo retouching. They have developed a mathematical expression to quantify ballooning bosoms and winnowed waists. Their paper, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describes how they use mathematical models along with subjective human responses to produce a score of how radically a person's image has been modified from an original photograph." So theoretically all images could now be labeled with a number telling where they fall on the reality scale, with Christmas cards on one end and H&M on the other.
What's your opinion on Photoshop and the like? Do you touch up your pics at all or do you prefer to stay au naturel? If such a "reality" scale number existed, do you think it would help to label photos with it? Are completely virtual models are brilliant business model or insanity?Someone call the dog-tor: The giant Schnauzer who helps children to walk as he does his hospital rounds
When Ralf the giant Schnauzer does his hospital rounds, he is sure to give patients a new leash of life.
With his shaggy coat and floppy tongue, the dog has gained a reputation as something of a miracle worker since joining Royal Children's Hospital, in Melbourne, Australia.
The selfless pooch walks the wards and looks in on his young patients every Monday. He even sits with some during gruelling chemotherapy therapy sessions.
Healer: Ralf brought a smile to 15-month-old Zeke Harrison, who has a rare genetic disorder where his body is unable to break down protein and too much can kill him
Ralf got two-year-old Claire Couwenberg to walk for the first time in the five days since her surgery to remove a cancerous kidney.
And he brought a smile to 15-month-old Zeke Harrison, who has a rare genetic disorder where his body is unable to break down protein and too much can kill him.
Ralf is one of a handful of dogs to visit the RCH each week in a program that has been boosted so more pooches are popping in on more little patients.
Miracle: Ralf also got two-year-old Claire Couwenberg to walk for the first time in the five days since her surgery to remove a cancerous kidney
Claire's mother, Marie McPhee, told of her amazement when her daughter stood up and walked of her own accord when Ralf came into the room.
'As soon as she saw him, she stood up, and she very slowly, very wobbly, got on her feet started to walk, and now you can't stop her,' Ms McPhee told the Sydney Herald.
'I'm lost for words. In a way, I can't believe it.'
Official: Ralf is an important member of staff at Royal Children's Hospital, in Melbourne, AustraliaWhile traditional food markets have been the mainstay of countries in Europe and Asia for centuries, residents of North America have been able to hold their own with some truly world-class venues offering artisanal products and fresh, heirloom produce. Here are 10 of the most famous, historic or unique markets in North America.
1. Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, Boston
Faneuil Hall grew out of the older Quincy Market as the city’s food choices expanded. Today both locations offer visitors and Bostonians alike a veritable food playground. Faneuil Hall has dozens of sit-down restaurants with cuisine as varied as sushi, pizza, seafood and ethnic choices such as Greek, Indian and Chinese. There are also food stalls with produce, grocery items and homemade food, as well as specialty shops selling one-of-a-kind items.
2. South Street Seaport, New York City
This Manhattan institution is the location of little cafes, shops and engaging street performances. Historically, it supplied the city with freshly caught fish, but now entertains tourists and locals alike with its variety, as well as being an excellent place to catch a harbor tour. A small town-style farmer’s market is held here on weekend days, providing fresh produce, meats and dairy products. There are also special events such as cultural festivals and concerts.
3. Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market, San Francisco
This market is held near the waterfront every Saturday and reflects the Asian influence on the city in the ready-made street foods on offer. Customers will find delectable Korean and Japanese finger foods in addition to the more commonplace hamburgers and hot dogs. Unusual produce from foreign countries can be found in more than thirty vendor stalls. Mushrooms, pomelos, squash blossoms and cactus pears head the list of unusual ingredients.
4. La Merced Market, Mexico City
A bustling and vibrant microcosm of the city itself, this market offers the very best of fresh produce, as well as ready-to-eat food items as it has for hundreds of years. Extending for several blocks, the market is covered and protected from the elements. There are hundreds of stalls with dozens of different blends of mole sauce, handmade gorditas and sopes, exotic herbal ingredients and even housewares and clothing.
5. Pike Place Market, Seattle
This world-famous market is a century old and encompasses nine acres in total area. Customers will find antiques, clothing, flowers and artisan-made craft items, as well as superb and unusual produce and a dazzling array of seafood. Storefronts offering traditional Chinese medicine and handicrafts can also be found. Customers should plan to arrive early in order to have their pick of the finest items, as this market is popular and fills quickly with avid shoppers.
6. Crescent City Farmer’s Market, New Orleans
Held on Saturday mornings in New Orelans’s warehouse district, this farmer’s market focuses on fresh produce and locally caught seafood. Expect to find unusual ingredients such as goat meat sausages and heirloom fruits and vegetables, as well as freshly caught catfish and crawdads. There’s always fresh bread to be found, as well as artisanal goat cheese, pastries and even potted varieties of heirloom plants, so customers can grow their own fresh ingredients.
7. Union Square Greenmarket, New York City
Union Square is the city insider’s go-to place for finding bargains of all kinds, and this farmer’s market held Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday is no exception to the rule. Nearly 1,000 different varieties of seasonal produce are on offer, grown only a few hours north of the city and harvested, in some cases, only a few hours before arriving at the market. Unusual cheeses, cider, Amish-made butter, obscure produce varieties and dozens of different ready-made street foods will keep shoppers enthralled.
8. Jean-Talon Market, Montreal
Located exactly in the center of the city, this public street market offers fresh local produce as well as top-notch imported items. Expect to find fresh cheeses, maple syrup and poutine right next to prime Venezuelan chocolate and olives from Greece. Vendors thoughtfully offer free samples so customers can make an informed decision. The market is located near Montreal’s Little Italy, so there are many Italian ingredients on offer as well.
9. Green City Market, Chicago
This seasonal market moves indoors during the frigid winter months, but spring through fall is the perfect time to sample some fresh and unique items in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. The organic produce here is purchased by some of the city’s top chefs, and customers will find items as widely varied as steaks or sausages made from elk meat and artisanal cheeses. In the winter, look for the market in the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, where the market’s 55 vendors continue to sell their excellent wares.
10. St. Lawrence Market, Toronto
This market is housed in two buildings that each have their own distinct purpose. St. Lawrence Market North is the site of the weekly antiques and farmer’s markets, while St. Lawrence Market South specializes in vendor stalls that house delis, bakeries, fishmongers and meat shops. An endless array of produce and food items is on offer daily at the market. There are also special events hosted by the market that seek to educate customers in cooking techniques and ingredient preparation.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Merced_Market,_Mexico_City
http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/americas-best-farmers-markets/6
http://www.montrealfood.com/jtalon.html
http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/
http://www.southstreetseaport.com/
http://www.grownyc.org/unionsquaregreenmarket
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quincy_Market
http://www.faneuilhallmarketplace.com/
http://www.stlawrencemarket.com/
http://www.yelp.com/biz/crescent-city-farmers-market-tuesday-market-new-orleans
If you are looking to compare trip and vacation insurance quotes from competing insurers, you should visit Kanetix.ca to do an online quote comparison. By doing a comparison, you’ll be able to see which insurer can offer you the best deal on your travel insurance. If you are planning to travel to Canada, you should do a quote comparison on this page.Merry Christmas everyone!
A little fun trivia about Iris is that the name of the 6th volume of the series is named ‘Princess of the Six Flowers’ which is a reference to ‘Braves/Heroes of the Six Flowers’ series (Rokka no Yuusha). There are many other references to be found in the titles of each volume as well!
Also, the first second version of the ENG patch for KonoSuba! In the Life! game has been released! Click here! (for those that have downloaded the first version of the patch and started a save, you’ll need to redownload the ‘Data.zip’ file and make a new save file for the combat pop-up dialogue to work).
Editors: Deus-ex-Machina, Ruzenor
Chapter 3: Punishing this Insolent Fiancé!
Part 1
This is what this nation is called by others.
The great nation of casinos, Elroad.
Arriving at the capital of the neighboring nation of Elroad, we were overwhelmed by the bustle and activity on the streets.
“Hey Kazuma, the amount of people here are pretty much at the level of Axel during festival time! I mean, where do they get all these people from!?”
Our carriage moved along the main road at walking speed, and Aqua, who had gotten excited after seeing the amount of people, moved to the driver’s seat of the carriage. She turned her eyes everywhere whilst making a big fuss, and giggled to herself as she saw the people passing by.
<Insert Image>
“Oi Aqua, we’re travelling incognito here, so could you not draw so much attention? Don’t forget what we came here for alright?”
I reminded her just in case, but Aqua was already absorbed by the stalls along the streets.
But it’s not like I didn’t understand how she felt.
Using Japan for comparison, I would say that this place was as busy as Shibuya’s Scramble crossroad.
Compared to Earth, the population of this world was considerably lacking.
If there are still so many people here despite that, that means…
“This is an advertising strategy to make the capital appear as though it’s bustling with activity. Look, you see that guy over there by the corner? I’m pretty sure he turned the corner and came back, which means he’s just an actor. I’m pretty sure he’s being hired to walk around pointlessly.”
“As expected of your observational skills Kazuma-san. I thought this was a little weird as well, I mean, if this was real, then isn’t the place where we set our base, Axel, practically the countryside?”
As Aqua and I chattered amongst ourselves, Darkness seemed to blush a little.
“Stop saying dumb things and be quiet you two. I can’t bear being thought of as a country bumpkin.”
Well, it can’t be helped that Darkness thinks of us as some country bumpkins.
After all, the stalls on the road were lined with foods we’ve never seen before, and the traders and shoppers raised their voices so that they would not be drowned out by the others.
It also seems that our lodgings were prepared in advance. Our carriage stopped in front of a giant building that faced the main street.
“Now, this is the hotel that’s been prepared for us. Everyone should go to your rooms and sort your luggage. Iris will meet with the prince tomorrow, so for today, we can take our time to go sightseeing and take a rest from our travels.”
After leaving the carriage to one of the hotel workers, Darkness explained as such.
Whilst the rest of us were in high spirits, Iris shook her head a single time.
“I need to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting… since this is my first time meeting the prince, I’m feeling a bit nervous. Perhaps this is the reason I’m feeling stressed. I’ll be resting at the hotel, so everyone should feel free to go sightseeing.”
Saying that, she took her own luggage.
“Iris-sama, weren’t you looking forwards to coming here? Since we’re your bodyguards, leaving you behind is a bit…”
“Y-, You can’t! Please go and relax. Since we’ve come all the way to the nation of casinos, I wouldn’t be able to rest with peace in mind if I keep you holed up in the hotel!”
“Come on Darkness, Iris has said this much, so let’s just go vent our stress and relax ok?”
“u….. A, Alright…”
As Iris showed a friendly smile, Darkness, who was hesitant to leave her behind, seemed to be compelled by the hidden but powerful determination behind Iris’ gaze, and meekly nodded her head.
After arranging our luggage in our rooms—
“Casinos! Let’s hit the casinos first! After we win big, we can take the money and go on a feast! I’m sure that they’re selling super expensive saké here as well!”
“No, we should go to the weapons and armor store here first! I’m sure that we’ll find a super powerful staff that can match up to me!”
We immediately took to the streets.
“Mmpf, is it really fine for us to leave Iris-sama alone like that…”
Only Darkness seemed to feel uneasy.
To me, it seemed that Iris was eager for this meeting to be a success.
In order to prepare for tomorrow, she skipped out on playing around. She’s probably running simulations on her own at this very moment.
Worrying too much about it would probably have the reverse effect. I’ll go buy a gift for her later.
However, even if I say that…
“As usual, neither of you guys can agree on one thing. Since we came all the way here, why don’t we go sightseeing first? There was a lot to see in the Village of Crimson Magic, so I’m sure that this town…”
Would have a lot of rare sights, of course.
––Just as I was about to say that.
“Oho? What beautiful adventurers. Hey, blonde-haired onee-san over there, why don’t you leave that boring guy alone and come with us?”
“It’s true, they’re super pretty! I prefer that blue-haired onee-san!”
“As for me, it would be that pretty black-haired red-eyed girl…”
To put it shortly, they were a group of superficial-looking carefree group of three guys.
From the looks of it, they were about one or two years older than me.
Dressed in the attire that that was unique to the big city, the three of them looked toward us with grins plastered on their faces.
They physiques seemed pretty terrible, so they gave off the impression of being spoiled brats who came to the city to play around.
As for my three companions that had been called out to by those guys…
“““?”””
They looked through their surroundings, searching for girls who met the traits the guys mentioned.
…Finally, they noticed that the guys had probably been talking about themselves.
“““!?”””
The three of them began to act all flustered and suspicious.
Darkness hurriedly turned her back and played with her hair, and Megumin began to pat the dust – that had accumulated during our journey – off her robes.
And then Aqua said.
“Hey you guys over there, did you just call us pretty? Did you just call us beautiful? Say it one more time!”
…………
There were no guys in Axel that were benevolent enough to say such things to them huh.
So I suppose that they wanted people to praise their appearance once in a while huh…
Seeing how bewildered they were when they were mistaken for top-class pretty ladies, I was moved to tears.
“Eh…. You onee-sans are beautiful and uh… would you like to come with us, um…”
Said one of the three. Were they the ones that were bewildered by Aqua’s reaction instead?
Hearing that, Aqua and co. huddled together to form a ring.
And then, they began to chatter amongst themselves.
Finally, Megumin – who appeared to be the representative for the three – stepped forth.
“Basically, the three of you are saying that – ‘If we could go on a date with a super beautiful girl like you and these two beautiful girls, we’re willing to put our assets and life on the line. That said, why don’t we go on a date?’ – Is that what you wanted to say?”
“““Not to that extent.”””
The three guys immediately rebutted.
…………!
I noticed.
I’ve noticed.
This is the capital of the kingdom of finance, the nation of casinos.
Of course, I want to go here and there to relieve my stress.
But what if these three problem children were following me around?
Think Satou Kazuma, think. There’s no way that these three wouldn’t cause trouble.
And at the end of it all, the burden of dealing with it will be placed onto me.
However, what if I wasn’t there when they caused the problems, but rather, these three guys?
…………
“Hey… Could it be that we’ve tried to hit on a weird bunch?”
“Oi… doesn’t this seem a bit bad? We came all the way here to go sightseeing, but aren’t we spreading our wings a bit too far with this?”
“N-, No, but although they a bit weird, they’re THAT pretty you know?”
As the three guys began to chatter amongst themselves, Aqua and co. walked up to me.
Their prideful triumphant expressions made me feel a tad uncomfortable.
“Hey Kazuma, what are you going to do? I’m feeling quite troubled by this you know? I was called a pretty lady, and they even asked us out for dates as well. Although Kazuma, who was called ‘boring’ by the three of them is probably already used to it, right? Well, I hope that you’ll come to realize that it’s truly a blessing that you’re able to be in a party with pretty ladies such as ourselves, because if you don’t, your important party members might just go along with these guys you know?”
“Please go ahead.”
““““““Eh””””””
Hearing me say ‘go ahead’, not only Aqua and co., but even the three boys froze in place.
“…Uhm, hey Kazuma. Just now, what…”
Insecurity could be felt behind Aqua’s voice.
These people are high-level adventurers.
I don’t think that their ability falls behinds that of a couple of ordinary onii-chans. Either way, I don’t have the right to say anything about who these guys wanted to date.
Rather, I’ve already shoved them over to the three guys for today. I said happily.
“I said ‘please go ahead’. I mean, it’s not like I’m your mom or anything. I don’t want to spend all my time babysitting you. I’d much rather take some time to relax by myself. I honestly don’t think that it’s a crime for me to want to do that every so often.”
“““Huh-”””
Hearing my unexpected words, Aqua and co. released strange voices.
“…Oi, that guy just said ‘babysitting’ didn’t he?”
Hearing that, one of the guys murmured to himself.
And, Megumin, in a somewhat panicked manner—
“Wait Kazuma, what are you saying all of a sudden! Listen closely alright? I will… No, we will go and play around with those people. Are you not going to feel jealous or depressed…?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“He said it like it was nothing!”
Megumin seemed to be shocked. Well, we’ve had a good atmosphere here and there, but it’s not like we’re dating each other or anything.
Either way, I didn’t have the right to say anything about it since all that ever comes out of my mouth is Iris and Iris.
Then, Darkness firmly put her hand on Megumin’s shoulder.
“Wait a moment Megumin. You should know that this man is not the honest-type, right? Fufu, yes, he’s definitely a classic tsundere.”
She then showed a bargaining smile in my direction.
“Hey Kazuma, why don’t you be a bit more honest in situations like this? You’ll be going with a pretty lady like me who’ll be hit on like this all the time you know? Would you like to lock arms with me? You might even get a chance to ‘accidentally’ nudge my chest…”
“I’ll pass. I mean, you’re entire body is just muscle and your chest is probably hard as well.”
“Ehh-!?”
Ignoring Darkness, who seemed to have received a terrible shock, the guys discussed amongst themselves.
“Oi, what do you guys think? That man is a terrible person, but I can’t help but get a bad feeling about this.”
“Let’s stop. Since we came all the way here to sightsee, I’d rather we not do anything weird…”
“Y-, You’re right. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’… there’s such a saying, so let’s give up… ah, even though they’re so pretty, what a waste…. U-, Uhm! We have somewhere we need to…”
Before the three of them could escape, I vigorously pulled them back.
“You said that you wanted to go on a date with my companions right?”
Hearing what I said, one of the men’s faces twitched, and moved his body to fling my hand aside…
…But It didn’t work.
“Huh? Ah-… O-, Owowow…! Hey, I’m sorry, I was lying. It was my bad for trying to hit on your company! It was my bad for saying that you were a boring man! We’ll be going so-!”
I was an adventurer with a considerable level.
Since my status had risen, my strength won’t lose to that of a normal person.
“No no, it’s fine, it’s all fine. My three acquaintances are quite beautiful right? Mhm, mhm, I understand, I really do.”
“H-, Huh…”
The three of them gazed at me as though I was some shady, strange man, and were unable to hide their unease.
Speaking in low voice, I continued.
“You see that blonde-haired armored onee-chan? She’s even more amazing without her armor you know? I mean, just what are those hips man!”
Hearing what I said, the guys gulped on their saliva.
Towards the three, I continued.
“The blue-haired onee-chan over there really likes saké you know? If you say that you’ll buy her saké, she’ll be really happy.”
And then, I looked them straight in the eye, and said.
“As for the black-haired girl… Uhm, you know, she raises a cat, so she probably likes cute things. She might be happy if you bring her somewhere with cute animals to see.”
The three of them nodded their heads in unison.
“““Th-, Then, we will take you up on your kind offer……”””
Turning away from the three of them, who began to laugh amongst themselves, and whose attitudes softened tremendously, I waved ‘bye’ to Aqua and co.
“Well then you guys, see ya later. Go all out today and have some fun and vent your stress, ok? That said, don’t cause any trouble for me starting tomorrow alright? After all, you can do whatever you want for today.”
“““Eh-”””
Hearing what I said, the men’s unease returned.
Aqua and co. turned to them and said.
“Listen up okay? I didn’t bring any spare change with me alright? However, the great Aqua-san will not take any cheap saké ok?”
In response, one of the three pounded their chest with the hand.
“P-, Please leave it to me! The three of us have a lot of money, after all, our relatives are all from upper-class society. If need be, you can leave all your expenses in this town to us!”
He said it.
I, who heard that loud and clear—
“Well then, please enjoy yourselves, you guys. I’m gonna go and relax as well, so I’ll leave them to you. Don’t try to ditch my acquaintances, or escape from any responsibilities, alright?
Said that, I turned my back to leave…
“J-, Just how far are you going to push my expectations… The part where you don’t seem to be putting up a front, but rather, sound completely serious, is really unbearable. I can’t help but feel a chill down my spine… This is just another one of his tricks right? Just a facade, right? …Oi, you guys, just a warning, but don’t try to do anything strange to us. Otherwise, who knows what that man who’s called ‘the brute’ in the town of beginners, Axel, is going to do you?”
“““Eh”””
Darkness said some rather disrespectful things about me from behind my back.
“That’s right. Judging by his attitude that allowed |
]
Bees collect pollen in a pollen basket and carry it back to the hive, where after undergoing fermentation and turning into bee bread becomes a protein source for brood-rearing.[58] Excess pollen can be collected from the hive; although it is sometimes consumed as a dietary supplement by humans, bee pollen may cause an allergic reaction in susceptible individuals.
Bee brood [ edit ]
Bee brood, the eggs, larvae, or pupae of honey bees, is edible and highly nutritious. Bee brood contains the same amount of protein that beef or poultry does. Bee brood is often harvested as a byproduct when the farmer has excess bees and does not wish for more.
Propolis [ edit ]
Propolis is a resinous mixture collected by honey bees from tree buds, sap flows or other botanical sources, which is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive.[59] Although propolis is alleged to have health benefits (tincture of Propolis is marketed as a cold and flu remedy), it may cause severe allergic reactions in some individuals.[60] Propolis is also used in wood finishes, and gives a Stradivarius violin its unique red color.[61]
Royal jelly [ edit ]
Royal jelly is a honey-bee secretion used to nourish the larvae and queen.[62] It is marketed for its alleged but unsupported claims of health benefits.[63][64] On the other hand, it may cause severe allergic reactions in some individuals.[65]
Genome [ edit ]
As of October 28, 2006, the Honey Bee Genome Sequencing Consortium fully sequenced and analyzed the genome of Apis mellifera, the western honey bee. Since 2007, attention has been devoted to colony collapse disorder, a decline in European honey bee colonies in a number of regions.
The European honey bee is the third insect, after the fruit fly and the mosquito, to have its genome mapped. According to scientists who analyzed its genetic code, the honey bee originated in Africa and spread to Europe in two ancient migrations.[5] Scientists have found that genes related to smell outnumber those for taste, and the European honey bee has fewer genes regulating immunity than the fruit fly and the mosquito.[66] The genome sequence also revealed that several groups of genes, particularly those related to circadian rhythm, resembled those of vertebrates more than other insects. Another significant finding from the honey bee genome study, was that the honey bee was the first insect to be discovered with a functional DNA methylation system since functional key enzymes (DNA methyltransferase-1 and -3) were identified in the genome. DNA methylation is one of the important mechanisms in epigenetics to study gene expression and regulation without changing the DNA sequence, but modifications on DNA activity.[67] DNA methylation later was identified to play an important role in gene regulation and gene splicing.[68] The genome is unusual in having few transposable elements, although they were present in the evolutionary past (remains and fossils have been found) and evolved more slowly than those in fly-species.[66]
Hazards and survival [ edit ]
European honey bee populations face threats to their survival increasing interests into other pollinator species, like the common eastern bumblebee.[69] North American and European populations were severely depleted by Varroa mite infestations during the early 1990s, and U.S. beekeepers were further affected by colony collapse disorder in 2006 and 2007.[70] Improved cultural practices and chemical treatments against Varroa mites saved most commercial operations; new bee breeds are beginning to reduce beekeeper dependence on acaricides. Feral bee populations were greatly reduced during this period; they are slowly recovering, primarily in mild climates, due to natural selection for varroa resistance and repopulation by resistant breeds. Insecticides, particularly when used in excess of label directions, have also depleted bee populations[citation needed] as bee pests and diseases (including American foulbrood and tracheal mites) are becoming resistant to medications.
Environmental hazards [ edit ]
Africanized bees have spread across the southern United States, where they pose a slight danger to humans (making beekeeping—particularly hobby beekeeping—difficult). As an invasive species, feral honey bees have become a significant environmental problem in non-native areas. Imported bees may displace native bees and birds, and may also promote the reproduction of invasive plants ignored by native pollinators. Unlike native bees, they do not properly extract or transfer pollen from plants with pore anthers (anthers which only release pollen through tiny apical pores); this requires buzz pollination, a behavior rarely exhibited by honey bees. Honey bees reduce fruiting in Melastoma affine, a plant with pore anthers, by robbing its stigmas of previously deposited pollen.[71]
Predators [ edit ]
Insect predators of honeybees include the Asian giant hornet and other wasps, robber flies, dragonflies such as the green darner, the European beewolf, some praying mantises and the water strider.
Arachnid predators of honeybees include fishing spiders, lynx spiders, goldenrod spiders[72] and the St Andrew's Cross spider.
Reptile and amphibian predators of honeybees include the American toad, anoles, the American bullfrog and the wood frog.
Specialist bird predators include the bee-eaters; other birds that may take bees include grackles, hummingbirds, summer tanagers, and tyrant flycatchers. Most birds that eat bees do so opportunistically, however, summer tanagers will sit on a limb and catch dozens of bees from the hive entrance.[73]
Mammals that sometimes take bees include bears, least shrews, opossums, raccoons, honey badgers and skunks.
Close relatives [ edit ]
Apart from Apis mellifera, there are 6 other species in the genus Apis. These are Apis andreniformis, Apis florea, Apis dorsata, Apis cerana, Apis koschevnikovi, and Apis nigrocincta.[74] These other species all originated in South and Southeast Asia. Only Apis mellifera is thought to have originated in Europe, Asia, and Africa.[75]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
Do you know what an “extremist” is? In the wake of the horrible terror attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in France, Barack Obama is speaking very boldly about the need to win the war against “extremists”, and he has announced plans to host a major global summit on “extremism” next month. And on the surface that sounds great. But precisely how are we supposed to determine whether someone is an “extremist” or not? What criteria should we use?
As you will see below, your definition of an “extremist” may be far, far different from the definition that Barack Obama is using. When you do a Google search, you will find that an “extremist” is defined as “a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, especially one who resorts to or advocates extreme action.” According to Wikipedia, “extremism” is “an ideology (particularly in politics or religion), considered to be far outside the mainstream attitudes of a society or to violate common moral standards. Extremism can take many forms, including political, religious and economic.” Please notice that neither of those definitions uses the word violence. In this day and age, you can be considered an “extremist” simply based on what you believe, and as you will see later in this article there are now tens of millions of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” and “potential terrorists” according to official U.S. government documents.
When you use the word “extremist”, you may have in your mind a picture of ISIS fighters or the terrorists from the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
But for elitists such as Barack Obama, the word “extremist” has a much broader meaning. In recent years, it has become a code word for those that do not have an “enlightened” view of the world. If your views on politics, religion or social issues are extremely different from the liberal, progressive views of “the mainstream” (as defined by the mainstream media and by “mainstream” politicians such as Barack Obama), then they consider you to be an extremist.
Early in the presidency of George W. Bush, we were told that Islamic terrorists were the enemy. And so most of the country got behind the idea of the War on Terrorism. But over the years that has morphed into a War on Extremism. In fact, the Obama administration has gone so far as to remove almost all references to Islam from government terror training materials…
Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive. “I recently directed all components of the Department of Justice to re-evaluate their training efforts in a range of areas, from community outreach to national security,” Cole told a panel at the George Washington University law school.
Now, much of the focus in law enforcement training materials is on “domestic extremists”. We are being told that “domestic extremism” is just as great a threat to our national security as terror groups overseas are.
But exactly who are these “domestic extremists”?
Well, the truth is that you may be one of them.
I want to share with you a list that I have shared in a couple of previous articles. It is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” or “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. This list will really give you a good idea of what Barack Obama means when he uses the word “extremist”. Each of these 72 items is linked, so if you would like to go see the original source document for yourself, just click on the link. As you can see, this list potentially includes most of the country…
1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
10. “Anti-Gay”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
15. Members of the Family Research Council
16. Members of the American Family Association
17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”
18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol
19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition
21. Members of the Christian Action Network
22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”
23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”
24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21
25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps
26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”
27. The militia movement
28. The sovereign citizen movement
29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”
30. Anyone that “complains about bias”
31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”
32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”
33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”
34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”
35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”
36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”
37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”
38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”
39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”
40. “Militia or unorganized militia”
41. “General right-wing extremist”
42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”
44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”
45. Those that are “anti-global”
46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”
48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”
49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”
53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”
54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”
55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”
56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”
57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”
58. “Rightwing extremists”
59. “Returning veterans”
60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”
61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”
62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”
63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”
64. “Anti-abortion activists”
65. Those that are against illegal immigration
66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner
67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations
68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”
69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)
71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies
72. Evangelical Christians
Do you fit into any of those categories?
Personally, I fit into a couple dozen of them.
That is why alarm bells should go off whenever Barack Obama speaks of the need to crack down on “extremism”.
If Barack Obama wants to denounce Islamic terror, he should do so. But because of his extreme political correctness, he goes out of his way to avoid any connection between Islam and terror. Instead, he speaks of the need to recognize “Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings” and he insists that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
Meanwhile, our liberties and freedoms are being eroded a little bit more with each passing day. In the name of fighting “terrorism” or “extremism”, our government is constructing a Big Brother police state control grid all around us. I like the way that Ron Paul described what is happening to us just the other day…
If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all Americans will continue to deteriorate. All liberties in America today are under siege. It didn’t happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised — physical and economic — the less liberty was protected. With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security and prosperity has been sacrificed. It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to gain a better life. The trap was set. At the beginning of a cycle that systematically undermines liberty with delusions of easy prosperity, the change may actually seem to be beneficial to a few. But to me that’s like excusing embezzlement as a road to leisure and wealth — eventually payment and punishment always come due. One cannot escape the fact that a society’s wealth cannot be sustained or increased without work and productive effort. Yes, some criminal elements can benefit for a while, but reality always sets in. Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of the world. The piper will get his due even if “the children” have to suffer. The deception of promising “success” has lasted for quite a while. It was accomplished by ever-increasing taxes, deficits, borrowing, and printing press money. In the meantime the policing powers of the federal government were systematically and significantly expanded. No one cared much, as there seemed to be enough “gravy” for the rich, the poor, the politicians, and the bureaucrats.
The country that our forefathers founded is dying.
Now, individuals and organizations that attempt to restore the values that our founders once believed in so strongly are regarded as dangerous “extremists” that need to be watched carefully.
Sadly, most Americans don’t even realize what is happening to this nation. As long as they are fed a constant diet of mindless entertainment, most Americans are perfectly content to let “the experts” do their thinking for them.
We are steamrolling toward oblivion, and most of the country is dead asleep.
So is there any hope for us?"I Just Broke Into A House And The Owner Came Home," Intruder Tells 911 Operator Share
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After breaking into an Oregon residence last night, Timothy Chapek, 24, barricaded himself in a bathroom after the owner unexpectedly arrived home. Chapek, you see, was worried that Hilary Mackenzie might be armed (or that her barking German Shepherds could prove problematic).
So he called 911 seeking help. “I just broke into a house and the owner came home,” Chapek told a police operator. “You broke into a house?” the surprised operator responded. “I think she’s got guns,” Chapek added.
Simultaneously, Mackenzie called police to report that there was an intruder in her Portland home (she told an operator that Chapek had reported he was taking a shower). The pair’s dueling 911 calls can be listened to here:
Chapek's 911 call:
Mackenzie's 911 call:
According to a Portland Police Bureau report, Chapek told cops he was “taking a shower, nothing more.” Mackenzie reported that none of her belongings were out of place and that Chapek had “earlier made some utterance…that ‘Mexicans’ had kidnapped him and put him in the bathroom.”
Chapek, pictured in the above mug shot, was arrested and charged with criminal trespass.Beaten Giants fan Bryan Stow at critical juncture LOS ANGELES
The Los Angeles Police Department has released sketches of the suspects involved in the beating of the Giants fan, Bryan Stow, at the Dodger Stadium Opening Day March 31, 2011. The first suspect is listed as a Hispanic Male with a bald head, between 5'6"and 5'10" and 160-170 lbs. He is approximately 20-25 years of age with a mustache and goatee. He was wearing a Dodger jersey, dark shorts, and a blue hat with "LA" in white. He has possible tattoos on his neck and a mole on the left side of his face in the area of his cheek. less The Los Angeles Police Department has released sketches of the suspects involved in the beating of the Giants fan, Bryan Stow, at the Dodger Stadium Opening Day March 31, 2011. The first suspect is listed as a... more Photo: Los Angeles Police Department Photo: Los Angeles Police Department Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Beaten Giants fan Bryan Stow at critical juncture 1 / 4 Back to Gallery
(04-15) 18:03 PDT LOS ANGELES --
Doctors will be carefully watching the reactions this weekend of Bryan Stow, the San Francisco Giants fan severely beaten outside Dodger Stadium last month, after reducing the medication Friday that kept him in a coma.
The next two or three days are critical, Rosa Saca, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, said Friday.
"It is very hard to predict how people will react" after being removed from a medically induced coma, Saca said. "Some people wake up and are OK. Some people wake up and are not OK. And some don't wake up.
"We're all hopeful that he will be OK," she said.
Stow, a 42-year-old Santa Cruz paramedic, remains on life support. His breathing tube was removed from his mouth and inserted into his trachea, Saca said. He remains surrounded by his parents and other family members and friends.
"Contrary to our hopes and news reports, Bryan has not opened his eyes," read a posting Thursday signed by "The Stows" on support4bryanstow.com, a website that is a clearinghouse of support information about the father of two. "Keep the prayers coming!"
Los Angeles police released more specific information Friday about the people believed to be connected to Stow's beating in the Dodger Stadium parking lot after the Opening Day game March 31.
Police described one attacker as a "stocky" Latino male, between 5 feet 6 and 5 feet 10 and 160 to 170 pounds. He was 20 to 25 years old and had a mustache and goatee. He may have tattoos on his neck and a mole on his left cheek. He was wearing a Dodgers jersey, dark shorts and a blue hat with "LA" in white on the front.
The second attacker was described as a 6-foot-1 man, either white or Latino, with short hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing dark clothing, possibly jeans and a black tank top. He may have tattoos on his shoulder.
Police describe an accomplice - believed to be driving their getaway car - as a Latina, about 5 feet 2 and around 20 years old. She had brown hair pulled into a ponytail. She was accompanied by a boy about 10 years old and was driving a white or off-white four-door, newer car, possibly a Mitsubishi or Acura with tan interior.
Anyone with information should call the Los Angeles Police Department at (213) 847-4261.Sarah Ann Henley (8 July 1862 – 31 March 1948) was a barmaid from Easton, Bristol, who became famous in 1885 for surviving a suicide attempt by jumping from the Clifton Suspension Bridge, a fall of almost 75 metres (246 ft).[1]
Attempted suicide [ edit ]
On Friday, 8 May 1885, Thomas Stevens, resident inspector for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, reported that Henley had climbed over the railings and on to the parapet. Before anyone could reach her, she had thrown herself off. Witnesses claimed that a billowing effect created by an updraft of air beneath her crinoline skirt slowed the pace of her fall, misdirecting her away from the water and instead toward the muddy banks of the Bristol side of the Avon River.[2] Although there is no evidence that the wind or the skirt saved Henley from the fall, the story has nevertheless become a local Bristol legend.
An article dated 16 May 1885 in the City Notes of a local newspaper, the Bristol Magpie, reports as follows:
The rash act was the result of a lovers quarrel. A young man, a porter on the Great Western Railway, determined to break off the engagement, wrote a letter to the young woman announcing his intention. This preyed on the girl's mind, and she, in a state of despair, rushed to end her life by the fearful leap from the Suspension Bridge.
After her landing in the thick mud of low-tide, two passers-by, a John Williams and George Drew, rushed to her assistance.[3] They found her in a state of severe shock, but alive, and escorted her to the refreshment rooms of the nearby railway station, where she was attended to by a Doctor Griffiths and a Detective Robertson, who had also observed the incident. Despite her being conscious and able to answer questions, the doctor insisted that she be escorted to the Bristol Infirmary urgently.
Detective Robertson sought the assistance of a local cabman, who refused on the grounds that transporting her covered in filth would make his cab dirty. Despite an offer of payment and stressing that she could die if she was not treated urgently, he stubbornly refused stating "I don't care – let her die".
With no other option, a stretcher was sought from the local Clifton Police Station. Though it was a journey of more than an hour, she was carried to the Infirmary, where she was treated for severe shock and internal injuries. While she was in hospital slowly recovering, the story of her misfortune and survival quickly spread and numerous proposals of marriage and fame were offered.
The cabman later defended his actions in a letter to the Bristol Times & Mirror, stating that he had only just had his cab cleaned and repaired, during which it was off the road and he was unable to earn a living. He called for a fund to be set up to assist cabbies in these circumstances and pointed out that the corporation should have had an ambulance available for incidents like this.
Later life [ edit ]
Sarah Ann never went back to the Rising Sun in Ashton where she was working as a barmaid. On the 26 January 1900, she married Edward Lane, who worked at a Bristol wagon works.[4]
With the passing of time, Henley ceased being self-conscious about the affair. She even kept as souvenirs the photographs of the two children, Ruby and Elsie Brown, who in September 1896 survived being thrown off the bridge by their deranged father.[5]
Living to be 85 years of age, she died on 31 March 1948, and was buried 6 April 1948 at Avon View Cemetery.[6]
Poem [ edit ]
The whole episode was serenaded in verse by a William E. Heasell, who called it An Early Parachute Descent in Bristol.
Once in Victoria's golden age
When crinolines were all the rage
A dame in fashionable attire
Would change her life for one up higher
So up to Clifton Bridge she went
And made a parachute descent
But though, 'twas not the lady's wish
A boatman hooked her like a fish
And thus a slave to fashion's laws
Was snatched from out of Death's hungry jaws
This story's true I'd have you know
And thus it only goes to showThis week’s North American Nintendo Downloads are as follows:
Wii U Download
Steel Lords – $14.99
Tap Tap Arcade 2 – $2.99
Wii U Virtual Console
Baseball Simulator 1000 – $4.99
Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll – $4.99
New 3DS Virtual Console
The Legend of The Mystical Ninja – $7.99
3DS Themes
The Legend of Dark Witch 2 Rudy Theme
The Legend of Dark Witch 2 Sola Theme
The Legend of Dark Witch 2 Zizou Theme
eShop Sales
Wii U / 3DS
– Gardenscapes, Murder on the Titanic and more games from Joindots are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 14.
Wii U
– Hold Your Fire: A Game About Responsibility and Explody Bomb are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 28.
– Color Zen, My Style Studio: Hair Salon and more games from Cypronia are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 29.
– Totem Topple is 80 percent off (reduced from $5 to $1) until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 14.
3DS
– Mercenaries Saga 2, GLORY OF GENERALS THE PACIFIC and more games from CIRCLE Ent. are on sale until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 28.
– Dan McFox: Head Hunter is more than 30 percent off (reduced from $2.99 to $1.99) until 8:59 a.m. PT on July 21.
Source: Nintendo PR
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PocketMedical tourism taking over the market
It is foreseen a growth up to $ 143,8 billion by 2022 for “travel across international borders with the purpose of availing medical treatment of some form, which may or may not be available in the travellers‘ home country”, namely medical tourism as defined by the Allied Market Research Report, released in the first quarter of 2016.
Main motivations to travel for a medical treatment are poor quality of the service, high costs and/or long waiting lists in the home country. The most relevant segment will continue to be the cancer treatments.
According to OCPS-SDA Bocconi, in Europe the market is 12 billion euro worth, but size can be larger as EU citizens are allowed to be cured in every country of the Union. Major destinations are France, Germany, Turkey and the UK.
In other continents Thailand, India, South Korea, Barbados, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel, Iran and South Africa are leaders.
The report underlines that every Country has its own specialisation. For example, Singapore is well-known for stem cell and cancer treatments. As reported by The Forbes, Dubai is making a strong effort to become one of the leaders of this sector by investing in private healthcare, which allows specialisation and improvement of the services. In 2015, the number of international tourists for medical purposes rose up to 300.000 units compared to about 107.000 in 2012. The most popular services Dubai offers are orthopaedics and ophthalmology.
Medical tourism generates the major revenue for developing countries such as India, South Africa, Thailand and Mexico. These nations provide medical treatments at a lower price if compared to developed nations. Notwithstanding, excess of medical tourists could represent a serious threat for limited healthcare capacities, to the detriment of the residents. The major part of the medical travellers towards developing nations comes from the U.S. and from Europe.
Source: Allied Market Research, 2016
Even though destinations such as the USA, Japan and the UK offer high quality services, their cost is usually very high and, by consequence, international tourists demand medical treatments only for those which are not available in their country of origin.
International Medical Travel Journal reported how North Cyprus‘s struggling to promote itself as a medical tourism destination. Improvements in services, hospitality capacities, safety and security, and in advertising could help to attract more visitors, beyond the failure with the Turkish tourists.
Medical tourism, as every sector of this industry, is not immune from the current international situation. As reported by the IMTJ, recent bomb attacks in Thailand and Turkey represent a threat.
At Twissen we observed how medical tourism is influencing the healthcare systems of certain countries. In fact, it has an impact on the development of expertise in specialty treatments and it attracts important investments. In addition, it allows a rich exchange of medical techniques, healthcare practices and information.For being wacky, strange and indulging in smug, post-modern humour, Hideo Kojima is lauded in the gaming industry as a pioneer. But he's a terrible writer. For every rehashed philosophical ponder he airlifts into his scripts, there's a convoluted plot-line, reams of sexist rubbish, a twist just for the sake of having one.
Play the Metal Gear Solid series 10 times then sit down and try to recount, in detail, the story. Try to explain the contradictions and the myriad non-sequiturs. Attempt to describe, with a straight face, the fact that in Metal Gear Solid 2 Revolver Ocelot's mind is controlled by a grafted-on arm, but then in Metal Gear Solid 4 it's explained that actually he'd hypnotised himself to make it look like the arm was in control of his mind, so that government spies wouldn't think he was a threat.
Tell me about how, in the last five minutes of Metal Gear Solid, the colonel pops up on the radio to say everything – the entire terrorist action – was the American Secretary of Defence "acting alone," and how that plot thread is never mentioned in the series again. Look at the bloke who craps his pants in every single game. Imbibe the 90-minute cutscene between the third and fourth acts of MGS 4. Witness the gratuitous shots of the dying Beauty and the Beast members, clad in skin-tight latex.
It's just... garbage. Hideo Kojima's writing and direction are so utterly, utterly bad that they bely authentic criticism – dismantling his work, page by page, feels like trying to apply Kantian or Brechtian theory to Tommy Wiseau's The Room. But at least with The Room you can sit back and laugh. You can enjoy that film as a weird, fun corner of film-making.
Kojima is our Lord and Saviour. Hungry for auteurs – starved of anything resembling personality or idiosyncrasy – the gaming industry has elevated Kojima to the status of a leading light. We praise him in our own defence. To make Metal Gear Solid and, by proxy, video games in general seem more than they are, we take sexism, stupidity, plagiarism and trash and rebrand them stylish, personal, homage and Japanese. We incrementally and imperceptibly lower the bar for this already struggling culture.
Metal Gear Solid 4 is the worst of them, and the most poorly written game I've ever played. Every narrative strand is undone by a ludicrous plot twist, executed only in the name of a masturbatory flourish. Every exchange between characters is impenetrable and turgid – at best, the dialogue is a hamstrung emulation of Hollywood films. Kojima drops token references to 2001, The Great Escape and the Bond series, seemingly to fool us into believing his work is on par with that of his influencers. Or perhaps we're supposed to say he's a kind of cultural disc jockey, blending chunks of movies, books and TV shows to create his own remix. But it's all just empty copying.
Kojima doesn't seem to have grasped the nuance of anything he's ever seen or read, just the characters' names and a few of the cool action bits. So when Snake and Otacon go back and forth on the question of individuality versus conformity, or discuss society's susceptibility to received information, it's all shoehorned in, cribbed from some book and dropped wholesale into a monologue. It's obvious. It's bland. It's brute force philosophising over sophomoric questions. And it comes from a guy who posts on Twitter about how his eggs benedict look like boobies.
Could Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain be any better? If Kojima stopped deleting every single plot strand with a needless twist, if he let go of jargon, if he had the moxie to kill characters off instead of bringing them back like Eva, Big Boss, Major Zero, Vamp and Naomi, and if he stopped approaching women like a kid looking at candy in the window, then maybe. But that feels like asking a shark to share its dinner.
Seeking vicarious validation – if the industry we write about is run by artists, we are critics of art – the gaming press has let Hideo Kojima go consistently unchallenged. He has no reason to make his work better. We seem to either gobble it down without tasting or season it with desperate praise until it becomes palatable.
Play Metal Gear Solid 4 again. Watch the scene where Johnny tells Meryl he loves her while fighting off the Outer Haven troops, or the wedding sequence at the end, or the epilogue where Big Boss returns to try and explain the entire series' plot. If that is what good writing in video games looks like – if that's what we're prepared to lend even the slightest amount of credibility, or mitigated praise - then games are in a very, very unfortunate state, one that even the greatest sequel ever made would struggle to rectify.
For all the latest video game news follow us on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.Canonical launches software-defined storage solutions with cloud-style pricing
Ubuntu Advantage Storage delivers a range of supported software-defined storage technologies
Initial portfolio includes Ceph, NexentaEdge, Swift and SwiftStack
Share of support revenues goes to upstream open source storage projects
Plans include option for metered pricing based on data stored, independent of total storage capacity deployed
Vancouver – OpenStack Summit – 18 May 2015. Canonical today announced a new software-defined storage support service, offering a range of storage solutions. Metered support plans are available and priced based on the amount of data written, not the number or size of disks or the number of machines used to provide the service. Support is provided by Canonical with optional L3 escalation to a range of specialist partners.
The portfolio will include both open source technologies such as Ceph and Swift, and vendor solutions from Nexenta, Swiftstack and other third-party providers. Plans from multiple partners may be offered for the same technology.
The Ubuntu Advantage storage offerings enable enterprises to deploy scale-out storage technology onto their commodity hardware infrastructure, distinguishing between supported and unsupported clusters, and routing support calls to a wide range of specialist providers through Canonical as the common L1 support provider.
With Ubuntu Advantage Storage, customers can dynamically increase storage capacity simply by adding more machines or disks to the cluster. By contrast, NAS and SAN arrays require up-front commitment to large amounts of capacity and are difficult to scale incrementally. Canonical works with vendors to integrate leading software-defined storage capabilities into a single deployment and management framework, and into OpenStack clouds built on Ubuntu and the Canonical OpenStack distribution. Scale-out management, RDMA transport enablement, support for SSD & NVMe acceleration, and flexible cache tiering are key features requested by end-users which are now available from open source SDS technologies. Canonical meets customer demand for production delivery by backing them with a commercial support commitment.
“We are privileged to support some of the world’s largest open storage |
industry, after Jeb and his partner negotiated a settlement with the regulators to repay only $505,000 to retain the building.
Profligate spending
On Page 5, Stone and Hunt cite the Cato Institute’s analysis of Jeb Bush’s term as Florida governor from 1999 to 2007. Cato documented that Florida general fund spending increased from $18 billion to $28.2 billion, or 57 percent, and total state spending increased from $45.6 billion to $66.1 billion, or 45 percent.
“There is no reason to think his appetite for big spending would be any different in the White House,” Stone and Hunt argue.
Stone and Hunt note that while Florida governor, Jeb Bush directed $150 million of the public employee’s pension fund to an alternative investment fund run by Goldman Sachs while Bush’s cousin, George H. Walker IV, ran the firm’s alternative investment division.
Jeb Bush directed another $250 million of the public employee’s pension fund to Lehman Brothers. Then, when he left office in 2007, Lehman hired him for $1.3 million a year, paid to his consulting firm Jeb Bush and Associates. Two months after Jeb joined Lehman Brothers, the firm sold Florida hundreds of millions of dollars of toxic, mortgage-backed securities on which it lost more than $1 billion after the securities defaulted.
Supporting the argument Stone and Hunt make, the Washington Post reported July 2, 2015, that more than a third of the $33 million in proceeds made by Jeb Bush and Associates from 2007 to 2013 came from banking giants Lehman Brothers and Barclays. Bush was paid a combined total of about $12 million for his work as a senior adviser, plus an additional $8.1 million in speaking fees.
“Bush has denied playing any role in Lehman’s sale of toxic securities to the state pension – as should be expected,” Stone and Hunt write on Page 48. ”He has not commented publicly about Florida’s initial investment in Lehman while he was governor. But the sequence of events with Lehman is par for the course with Jeb.”WASHINGTON, June 10, 2014 — The Federal Communications Commission Net Neutraility rule change would give internet service providers the authority to willfully discriminate against internet content, effectively ending Free Market politics on the web.
The plan, proposed by Tom Wheeler, would make it perfectly acceptable for an internet service provider (like Comcast, or Verizon, or AT&T) to charge a media content company (like Google or Netflix) for the privilege of faster download times and less content delay.
READ ALSO: FCC puts net neutrality at risk
The impacts of such a policy would be no less than the end of free market capitalism online.
Suppose you have an internet start-up company. You want to provide media online and you think that people are going to be really excited to check out your site.
The only catch?
You are a startup, so you don’t have the leverage to afford yourself a trip in the internet Super-Speed lane that was recently constructed by the FCC and the internet companies. As a result, nobody can buffer your content. That means nobody goes to your site. That means your company goes under.
Not because of a problem with what you are providing, but because of irresponsible government regulation.
The implications of the new rule would be detrimental to every aspect of 21st century life. Slowed connection, no connection at all, an inability to send a text message or email, websites suddenly not working: All of these could be in our near future if this rule goes through.
And the worst part?
Over the last several years the internet companies have set themselves up with a nice cushy monopoly on all of our business. Almost all Americans have access to 2 or fewer internet service providers, which means that if you don’t like the policies of the company in your area, you can’t do anything about it. Even if you are one of the lucky Americans who can chose between two different ISPs in your area, since they’ll all be playing by the new rules, it won’t matter.
Net Neutrality means that the Internet should enable and protect free speech.
ISPs should provide only one thing, an open avenue through which to communicate.
But these new rules would be one more brick in the growing wall that ISPs are building to cut off free speech.
The same way your phone company should have no say in who you call or what you say to them, your internet provider should have no control over what content you can view or post online.
READ ALSO: True Detective, Marvel, Fargo: Anthology TV is the new black
But the FCC does not agree. The worst part of all this is that, nobody seems to care. Possibly because of a perception that it is overly complex, people have steered away from the issue while the FCC and the ISPs get ready to fundamentally change how we live our lives.
Unless there is an immediate response by the people, demanding Open Internet freedom and true Net Neutrality, everything is going to change for the worse.
The FCC is, because of legal obligation, taking comment on this issue on their website for the next few days.
They will then decide how to vote on the issue. If you do not want to live in a world where giant mega-corporations get to decide what you look at and what you post online, go and comment.
If you don’t want to live in a time when we shift from the internet as a bastion of free speech to a place where- it just so happens- your politically motivated Tweet “could not be sent” go and comment.
If you think there is something wrong with the government conspiring with companies to make regular folks’ lives harder, go and comment. The great thing about the internet is that, right now, you can still go and comment. You can let your voice be heard.
You can rail against the political positions of your ISP and nobody can do anything about it. So go to the FCC’s website, or email them at [email protected] and let them know how you feel.
Because if you don’t, you’ll wish you still could.The 718 name will also be used for the Cayman once the coupe gets its update, but until that happens, let’s have a closer look at the revamped Boxster in the review below.
Although new to the Boxster, the "718" denomination isn’t new to Porsche. The Germans used the same nameplate for a lightweight sports car built between 1957 and 1962. The fact that Porsche decided to revive the name with the Boxster is no coincidence, as the 718 also used four-cylinder engines. On top of that, the original 718 was quite a successful race car, winning the Targa Florio, European Hill Climb championship, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (class win), so it’s natural for the automaker to want to exploit its motorsport heritage.
Much like the new 911 Carrera, the Boxster has ditched its naturally aspirated engine in favor of turbocharged units, as part of Porsche’s new strategy to reduce emissions and improve efficiency. More importantly, the said turbo mills use a different, flat-four configuration instead of the traditional flat-six, making the Boxster the first Porsche sports car to use a four-cylinder in several decades. The facelift also brings a name change to the lineup, with the Boxster to be sold as the 718 Boxster from now on.
The 1997-2004 Porsche Boxster was introduced in 1996 as an entry-level, mid-engined sports car. It was Porsche’ s first road-going roadster since the 550 Spyder. Although it was received with mild criticism and was seen as a departure from Porsche tradition, the Boxster quickly grew on enthusiasts to become the company’s biggest volume seller until the Cayenne SUV was launched in 2003. Twenty years have passed since its debut and the roadster received the most important facelift of its life.
The Porsche Boxster has received its most comprehensive facelift yet, gaining a new name, a more aggressive design, and turbocharged, flat-four engines.
Exterior
Porsche says that every body panel of the Boxster, except for the luggage compartment lids, the windshield, and the convertible top have been redesigned, hinting that the 718 is more than just a facelift. However, the resculpted body panels are still very similar to the previous model, keeping the 718 recognizable as a Boxster.
Major modifications include a slightly wider front end with a new bumper section.
Major modifications include a slightly wider front end with a new bumper section. The side intakes are now wider and slightly thinner. As a result, the LED daytime running lights, also thinner than the previous model, are no longer integrated into the vents, but mounted as separate pieces. The center grille underneath the license plate has also been reshaped. Another important change is the addition of Porsche’s new bi-xenon headlamps and the optional units with four-point DRLs. The latter are available for the Boxster for the very first time and give the roadster a striking appearance.
From a side view, the 718 doesn’t seem to be that different compared to the Boxster, but some new features catch the eye upon closer inspection. For instance, the wings that define the side intakes are more pronounced and almost run into the front fenders, while the side skirts are beefier. The intakes are also slightly larger, while the doors no longer have handle recess covers. The 718 also gained revised side mirrors and new 19-inch standard wheels. Optionally, customers can order 20-inch rollers.
More changes are noticeable around back, where Porsche redesigned both the taillights and the decklid.
More changes are noticeable around back, where Porsche redesigned both the taillights and the decklid. The new taillights stand out thanks to the brand’s 3D LED technology and four-point brake lights, but the real highlight is the black strip with integrated "Porsche" lettering between them. The "718 Boxster" badge has been moved from the engine lid between the new strip and the bumper. The apron is also new and features a revised diffuser. The mid-mounted exhaust configuration remained unchanged. The base model has a rectangular outlet, while the Boxster S sports a pair of round pipes.
Porsche has yet to release details about exterior colors and other options, but the official photos suggest the roadster will be available in the stunning Lava Orange hue seen on the 911 GT3 RS.
Exterior Dimensions
Height 50.4 Inches Width (w/ mirrors folded) 70.9 Inches (78.5 Inches) Wheelbase 97.4 Inches Length 172.4 Inches Curb Weight 2,944 LBS
Interior
Inside, the 718 Boxster sports a new dashboard with revised A/C vents and an updated instrument cluster.
Inside, the 718 Boxster sports a new dashboard with revised A/C vents and an updated instrument cluster. Although it remained about the same as far as size and shape go, the steering wheel received new spokes and a new center section. It now looks more upscale and bears a closer resemblance to the one seen in the 911.
Everything else was carried over pretty much unchanged, but Porsche made some updates in the technology department. The standard Porsche Communication Management system features cell phone preparation, audio interfaces, and a 110-watt Sound Package Plus, and it can be enhanced with a navigation module with voice control. Porsche also offers the Connect Plus module for access to a wide array of online services.
Drivetrain
This is where Porsche made radical changes to the Boxster by dropping the previous flat-six engine and replacing them with brand-new, flat-four units. The new powerplants were developed with improved performance and efficiency in mind and both the Boxster and Boxster S benefit from significant enhancements in those areas.
The base 718 Boxster received a turbocharged, 2.0-liter producing 300 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque
The base 718 Boxster received a turbocharged, 2.0-liter producing 300 horsepower and 280 pound-feet of torque, which is a 35-horsepower and a whopping 74-pound-feet improvement over the previous model. The impressive torque is the result of turbocharging, which is also expected to make the 718 about 14 percent more efficient.
The extra oomph enables the base model to hit 60 mph from a standing start in 4.9 seconds with the manual and 4.7 ticks with the PDK. Adding the Sport Chrono Package takes the benchmark down to 4.5 seconds, making it 0.7-seconds quicker than its predecessor. Top speed has also increased to 170 mph, eight mph more than last year’s Boxster.
Charging from 0 to 60 mph takes four seconds, a half-second quicker than before, while top speed is rated at 177 mph, five mph more than the pre-facelift Boxster S.
Moving over to the Boxster S, its 3.4-liter flat-six has been replaced with a turbocharged, 2.5-liter, flat-four. The new four-banger sends 350 horsepower and 309 pound-feet to the wheels, which accounts for a 35-horsepower and 43-pound-feet improvement over the previous model. Charging from 0 to 60 mph takes 4.4 seconds with the manual and 4.2 ticks with the PDK. When equipped with the Sport Chrono Package, the Boxster S hits 60 mph in four seconds flat, a half-second quicker than before. Top speed is rated at 177 mph, five mph more than the pre-facelift Boxster S.
Just like the previous model, the new Boxster comes standard with a six-speed manual transmission, while the PDK gearbox is available as an option.
To further improve performance, customers will be able to equip both the Boxster and Boxster S with the optional Sport Chrono Package. Just like in the 911, the bundle now includes the Individual program in addition to the three settings, which are Normal, Sport and Sport Plus. In models equipped with PDK, the Sport Response Button has been added. When activated, it sharpens the responsiveness of the engine and the transmission to enhance acceleration.
Drivetrain Specifications
Porsche 718 Boxster Porsche 718 Boxster S Cylinder layout / number of cylinders Boxer engine / 4 Boxer engine / 4 Displacement 2.0 liters 2.5 liters Engine layout Mid-engine Mid-engine Horsepower 300 HP @ 6,500 RPM 350 HP @ 6,500 RPM Torque 280 LB-FT 309 LB-FT Compression ratio 9.5 : 1 9.5 : 1 Top Track Speed 170 MPH 177 MPH 0 - 60 mph 4.9 sec/4.7 sec (4.5 sec w/ Sport Chrono) 4.4 sec/4.2 sec (4.0 sec w/ Sport Chrono)
Suspension
The facelift also brings an update to the suspension system, which has been recalibrated for great agility. For instance, the electric steering system is now ten percent more direct, while the suspension is stiffer. Optionally, the Boxster can be had with the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), which lowers the roadster’s ride height and offers the perfect balance between ride comfort suitable for long road trips and stiffness necessary for spirited driving. The PASM lowers the ride height by 10mm (0.4 inches) for the 718 Boxster and 20mm (0.8 inches) for the 718 Boxster S.
Prices
Pricing for the new 718 Boxster starts from $56,000, while the 718 Boxster S retails from $68,400, not including the $1,050 destination charge. Compared to the previous models, Porsche added a $3,900 premium to the base model and a $3,500 premium to the S.
Model Price Porsche 718 Boxster $56,000 Porsche 718 Boxster S $68,400
Competitors
Newly launched in the U.S., the 4C is Alfa’s first mass-produced car in North America in a very long time, and a strong competitor for Porsche’s Cayman and Boxster. The 4C Spider, which comes with the same unlimited roof feature as the Boxster, sports a turbocharged 1.7-liter, four-cylinder that sends 240 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque to the wheels through a TCT automatic transmission. But, while it’s not as powerful as the new base-model Boxster, the Italian roadster is nearly as quick to 60 mph, needing only 4.7 seconds to hit the benchmark. Pricing-wise, the 4C Spider is as expensive as a Boxster S, starting from $63,900. Decisions, decisions...
Find out more about the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider here.
Comparing an Audi to a Porsche and an Alfa Romeo is like comparing apples to oranges and mangos, but the TTS Roadster is quick and sexy enough to give its competitors a run for their money. It might not benefit from the same brand cachet as Porsches and Alfas, but the Audi is a good alternative for at least two reasons. First, it uses a 2.0-liter four-pot rated at 310 horsepower and 280 pound-feet. If you’re a big fan of numbers, you’ll enjoy the fact that the TTS outguns both the base Boxster and the 4C. It’s also pretty quick to 60 mph, covering the distance in 4.9 seconds. Second, it’s more affordable than both the Boxster S and 4C. Pricing is not yet available in the U.S., but given the TTS coupe starts from $51,900, the Roadster shouldn’t cost more than $56,000.
Read more about the Audi TTS Roadster here.
Conclusion
Exactly 20 years since its introduction, the Porsche Boxster changed rather dramatically. The new turbo-four engines mark the beginning of a new era for Porsche’s entry-level convertible, one that sees flat-four engines return into Stuttgart-built sports cars after many, many years. And, while the prospect of a turbocharged GTS is worrying to GTS fanatics, the new Boxsters will undoubtedly make enthusiasts concerned about hiking gas prices a lot more happy.
Love it Significantly improved fuel economy due to turbocharging Quicker and more powerful More aggressive design Iconic "718" badge
Leave it Some enthusiasts will miss the flat-six Strong competition from Alfa Romeo GTS model may no longer be naturally aspirated
Updated History
Updated 05/11/2016: Porsche dropped a new video in which it outs the new 718 next to the original 1960-winning 718 RS 60. Hit "play" to watch it.
Updated 04/11/2016: Porsche dropped a new video in which it highlights the everyday usability in its latest 718 Boxster. Hit "play" to watch it!
Updated 02/26/2016: Porsche dropped a new video in which it shows the new 718 Boxster in action at the company’s Experience Center in Silverstone. Hit "play" to watch it.
Updated 02/23/2016: Porsche dropped a new video in which it highlights the design features in the new 718 Boxster. Hit "play" to watch it.
Updated 02/05/2016: Porsche dropped a new video in which it highlights its latest 718 Boxster. Hit "play" to watch it!
Updated 01/27/2016: Porsche dropped the official details and specs on the new 718 Boxster. The model will be put on sale in late June.
Updated 09/28/2015: The guys over Gumbal caught the upcoming Boxster facelift out for a testing session on the Nürburgring and what an amazing exhaust sound it has! Enjoy!
Updated 08/06/2015: Our spy photographers caught the facelifted Boxster testing again, this time completely free of camouflage. This way it gets pretty easy to spot all the changes the new model received: new front and rear fascias, plus updated headlights and taillights. Porsche also enlarged the side air intakes, to feed the new flat-four engine with its 395 horsepower output.
Updated 07/29/2015: British magazine CAR reports that the upcoming Boxster will be offered with a couple of turbocharged, flat-four powerplants.
Video
Spy Shots
August 6, 2015 - Porsche Boxster caught totally free of camouflage
August 3, 2015 - Porsche Boxster caught testing near Stuttgart factory.
July 7, 2014 - First Testing Session"We are living in a visual age," proclaimed the Metropolitan Museum of Art director Francis Henry Taylor in 1941. "We hope the day might not be far off when we can telecast our great treasures into every home and classroom." The occasion was the launch of a CBS TV series about the museum's painting collection, the first of many broadcast efforts to expose the public to fine art, from a network partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in the 1950s through the apotheosis of Sister Wendy in the 1990s. An ambitious new Jewish Museum exhibition showcases the first few decades of this story, as well as the influence of modern art on television shows of the '50s and '60s.
Though Taylor's optimism is shared by the Jewish Museum, the relationship between modern art and television was actually rarely felicitous. The collective effort of museums and networks to prey on middlebrow pretenses with educational programming reeks of cultural elitism. (It didn't help to have the male power structure targeting housewives as their prime audience.) At the opposite extreme, the set designs for The Ed Sullivan Show took visual inspiration from Minimalism and Op Art – a boon for Ed Sullivan that trivialized avant-garde aesthetics as mere decoration. (Minimalism and Op improved the eye appeal of television, but TV contributed nothing meaningful to either movement.)
Nevertheless television occasionally did contribute to art. The most mutually beneficial relationship was between TV and Pop. Sharing a populist sensibility and savvy for consumer psychology, TV and Pop Art could interact as equals, each exploiting the other with invigorating results for both.
Compelling for totally different reasons is television's great contribution to Surrealism: The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling, who created The Twilight Zone and wrote and directed the majority of episodes, was avowedly influenced by the Surrealists. Yet in the process of adapting the Surrealist pursuit of paradox for TV, he managed to disburden Surrealism of its gravest problems, and to realize the potential that eluded the Surrealist poets and painters: Serling's midcentury American TV series was free of André Breton's oracular inscrutability and Salvador Dalí's academic aesthetics.
Straightforwardly strange, The Twilight Zone made Surrealism modern. There was no need to telecast Surrealist pictures from the Met when the real thing could be encountered on CBS.
Follow me on Twitter, find my latest book, Forged: Why Fakes Are The Great Art Of Our Age, on Amazon, and read this Boston Globe review of his new deep time photography exhibition at the Mead Art Museum.Thanks to the release of Rare Replay today, Xbox One owners will now be able to play seven Nintendo 64 classics on Microsoft’s console. Nintendo’s current console, the Wii U, only sells people the chance to play six.
While there is an asterisk to this—Wii U owners can buy and play 15 more N64 games through the Wii U’s last-gen “Wii Mode”—this is another sad indictment of Nintendo’s paltry support for its incredible back catalog.
The Rare Replay compilation runs the following games, which originally were published by Nintendo on the N64:
Killer Instinct Gold
Jet Force Gemini
Blast Corps
Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
Perfect Dark
The first four of those games run in an N64 emulator. The last three are presented in the form of their Xbox 360 remakes, which improved the graphics but kept the level design largely intact.
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Over on the Wii U’s Virtual Console shop, you can buy and download the following Nintendo 64 games:
Paper Mario
Donkey Kong 64
Super Mario 64
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Mario Tennis
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
That’s seven for Xbox One, six for Wii U.
Enterprising Wii U gamers who click the Wii icon on their Wii U GamePad can turn their Wii U into a Wii, then load the Wii’s shopping channel and click through to a list of 21 Nintendo 64 games, five of which are also offered on the Wii U’s much easier to access eShop.
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It’s not much of a loophole. Wii Virtual Console games are indeed available for Wii U users, but their functionality is substandard. They can’t be controlled by the Wii U GamePad and won’t even show up as application icons on the Wii U’s menu. You can play them, but Nintendo is making little effort to sell them to you and has all but hidden them in a nearly-obsolete last-gen marketplace.
Back to the matter at hand, that’s seven original N64 games running in all their glory on Xbox One and only six presented for sale by Nintendo on the Wii U’s downloadable store. And there’s more (or less, depending on your perspective). Nintendo charges $10 for each of its N64 games on Wii U. That’s $10 for all-time great Ocarina of Time and $10 for, forgive me, all-time not-great Donkey Kong 64. Microsoft, by contrast, is offering all seven of its N64 games along with 23 other games from the former Nintendo partner studio Rare in one bundle for $30 total.
If you’re a Nintendo business person, you might argue that Nintendo clearly knows the premium value of its classic games. You might suggest that, if people will buy copy after copy of Super Mario 64 for $10, then that’s what you sell it for. You might even have a justification for only offering six N64 games in the three-year existence of your new console, or 21 in the entire lifespan of the Wii, for that matter.
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If you’re someone who loved playing Nintendo 64 games, however, you might simply shake your head at Nintendo’s apparent disinterest in letting you play a library of games that its new console can clearly run and that Nintendo clearly can sell but that it chooses not to offer. It’s no wonder people hold onto their old systems or start using emulators.When companies do well, male executives reap the rewards at a far greater rate than their female counterparts. But when business turns bad, it’s women who suffer the greatest financial consequences.
That’s the conclusion of new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Three economists looked at more than a decade’s worth of data to figure out why women in business — even those able to break into the executive suite — still earn far less than men on average. The key factor, according to their analysis: performance pay, a theoretically meritocratic system that, in practice, ends up rewarding those already in charge.
That finding could have implications beyond the executives suite because performance pay is becoming more common at junior levels. In an interview with Bloomberg, author Stefania Albanesi said that means companies need to start tackling pay disparities early, before they have the chance to start adding up.
“The accumulation is going to be there even when women get promoted, and also possibly if you move to another firm, because usually your past compensation is used in some degree,” Albanesi said. “These differences can be very, very persistent.”
Albanesi and her co-authors looked at compensation data for more than 40,000 executives at publicly traded companies in the U.S. between 1992 and 2005. Of those, just 1,312 — 3.2 percent — were women. And the typical woman in the group earned 14 percent less than the typical male executive. (The gap is even wider when looking at average rather than median pay.)
The vast majority of that gap is explained by so-called incentive pay, compensation linked to a company’s performance, such as bonuses and stock options. The disparity adds up over time: Since men get granted more stock than women, they benefit more when a company performs well. The authors refer to these accumulated gains as an executive’s “firm-specific wealth”; a $1 million increase in a company’s value adds $17,150 to a male executive’s wealth, but just $1,670 to a woman’s.
But while male executives benefit more when their companies do well, it’s women who suffer more when their companies do badly. If a firm loses 1 percent of its value, women’s firm-specific wealth falls 63 percent, while men’s falls just 33 percent.
That may seem paradoxical: If men’s pay is more closely linked to their companies’ success, then they should be more exposed to bad news as well as good. But the authors argue that logic misunderstands how executive pay works. Incentive pay is often billed as “pay for performance,” but in practice, executives have lots of ways to game the system. For example, chief executives often play a major role in choosing members of the board of directors, who in turn set the CEO’s pay.
For various reasons, women are at a disadvantage in the corporate-pay game. “The fact that female top executives perceive limited access to informal networks, gender stereotyping, an inhospitable corporate culture, jointly with their younger age and lower tenure, suggests that they might be considerably less entrenched and exert lower control on their own compensation than their male counterparts on average,” the authors write. In other words: Executive pay practices are inefficient, and inefficient in a way that benefits men over women.
One common criticism of gender-gap analyses is that they fail to account for differences between male and female workers that have nothing to do with sex. Female executives are, on average, younger and less senior; they are also more common in certain industries or types of companies, which might tend to pay less. But in this paper, the authors control for age, title and the company where the executives work.
The other possibility, of course, is that women earn less incentive pay because they don’t perform as well. But the researchers looked at that too: “There is no link between standard measures of firm performance and female representation in the team of top executives,” they write.Michael Todd's body was found on Snowdon
Michael Todd profile
Mr Todd, 50, was found dead about 100m from the summit of Snowdon on Tuesday afternoon, his body covered in snow.
There was no sign of trauma on his body and the north Wales coroner said a post-mortem examination had found "no obvious cause of death".
The inquiry into his death is looking at the possibility of suicide.
Mr Todd had been off-duty on Monday and had spent the day walking in the Welsh mountains.
The alarm was raised after he sent the messages to various people, which caused concern for their safety and his own, the BBC has learnt.
The search for him began in the early hours of Tuesday but it was later in the day that hill walkers reported seeing a body near the summit of Snowdon.
His body was found on part of the mountain called Bwlch Glas at about 1500 GMT, with some of his outer clothes missing.
Sources said Mr Todd was found lying down on a sloping track next to a bottle of spirits.
Tests have found no obvious signs of trauma, suggesting he did not jump or fall to his death.
Further tests are being carried out to determine if any alcohol or drugs were in his blood.
Coroner Dewi Pritchard Jones said the post-mortem examination took place on Wednesday morning.
He added: "We're hoping to have the toxicology done by tomorrow morning."
A number of letters addressed to his loved ones have since been found but police said no letters were found at or near the scene of his death.
As a force we feel a huge loss with Michael, but it pales into insignificance to the loss his family are facing
Assistant Chief Constable David Thompson
Officers' tributes
An inquest into Mr Todd's death is to open on Thursday.
The father-of-three, who lived in a flat in Manchester city centre, was known to have previously separated from his wife.
The BBC has also learnt that Mr Todd suffered from bouts of depression, and had previously threatened suicide.
On Wednesday, a series of front line officers gave their tributes to their former chief, while Assistant Chief Constable David Thompson described Mr Todd as one of the "world's best police leaders".
"He put the Great back into Greater Manchester by his charismatic leadership, the trust and confidence he placed in all our staff and the new and innovative thinking he brought to the challenges we face and, of course, his unique sense of fun," said Mr Thompson.
He said crime was down in Greater Manchester since 2002 when Mr Todd joined the force, which he had turned into an "effective crime fighting organisation".
But he added: "As a force we feel a huge loss with Michael, but it pales into insignificance to the loss his family are facing. And we're offering them all the support we can at a really terrible time for them."
One officer - 32-year-old Pc Geoffrey Hince - described Mr Todd as a great leader whom he was honoured to work for.
"He was just a copper's cop. He wanted to get out there, he wanted to feel people's collars, he got out there in the thick of it," said Pc Hince.
Books of condolence have been opened at Manchester Cathedral and online at the Greater Manchester Police website.If Khamis Adam had been born in Ireland or England, he would probably be running his own accountancy business - or in politics, in television or on the stage.
“Welcome to the White House!” he laughs with a sense of the theatrical, as he gestures to the makeshift hut decorated with flowers.
The Calais camp sprawling over several acres of sand dunes has been the 30-year-old’s home since he left Darfur in Sudan, spent 11 days crossing the Mediterranean and travelled through Europe, walking the last stage from Paris to Calais on foot.
Adam studied accountancy and economics at El-Neleen University in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
Falling foul of tensions between the two countries after South Sudan seceded in 2011, he was one of many arrested and detained in Khartoum.
He says he spent 22 months in the high security Kober prison.
He hasn’t seen his wife since he left Darfur, but is determined to reach Britain, find a job and send for her.
“She is about to graduate in medicine this week,” he says with a big smile. “And you know my main issue is seeing and being with my wife.”
Fighting on board
“You have to be adaptable,” he says, recounting how he worked for six months in Libya to earn his sea fare, and how he and his friends made their own kitchens to cook food and built homes out of pallets and plastic provided by French non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
“Middle-class European executives pay large amounts of money to learn the sort of bushcraft and survival skills that these people have here,” one NGO volunteer remarks, shaking his head.
Adam has his health, but many of his friends and others he has met since arriving in France are not so lucky.
Dr Andy Young is a trainee in paediatric medicine based in Somerset, England, who has just spent a week of his annual leave as a volunteer with Médecins du Monde/Doctors of the World, which runs a clinic in the Calais Jungle.
Injuries
“There have been injuries as a result of police brutality during nightly skirmishes,” he says.
This includes use of CS gas by police, which is a severe irritant to the eyes and skin, and pepper spray.
“Some of the pepper spray has been fired at very close range, causing burns to the skin,” Dr Young says.
The war wounded - for they resemble that - are carried back by friends to the camp after the nightly trek from the camp to the Eurotunnel entrance.
After the 5pm hot meal provided at the Jules Ferry Centre by the French authorities in the Pas-de-Calais prefecture, groups of young men with nothing more than a phone and the clothes on their backs stream out on to the motorway.
It takes two to three hours to travel the 13km.
“The gas, the dogs, are the worst,” Elias Ali, an Ethiopian law student who has experienced CS gas, says.
Dr Young says that he and his colleagues have been treating an outbreak of scabies at the camp in the past week and he has seen a number of people with respiratory diseases.
“Then you have the people who have arrived with chronic conditions that they may have had, or have developed en route, ranging from tuberculosis to epilepsy, HIV/Aids and diabetes,” he says.
“One man with diabetes hadn’t had access to insulin for several days, and his blood sugars were just off the charts.”
Young men in their prime who should not be getting sick are presenting with a high proportion of injuries and other conditions, because of the risks they have taken so far and the conditions they are living in now, he says.
Genuine refugees
The UNHCR has urged France to improve conditions in Calais, expedite asylum applications and ensure that there is a procedure for “humane and dignified return to countries of origin” for those whose applications fail “in accordance with international human rights standards”.
Auberge des Migrants volunteer François Guennoc believes there are immediate practical measures that governments could take, even as Europe stalls - and before winter sets in and causes further misery in Calais.
“The reality is that 70 per cent of the people I have met here want to go to England and most have families and friends there,” Guennoc says.
“They have come from former English colonies like Sudan or Pakistan, and there are Syrians who are 100 per cent recognised as being entitled to asylum because of the conflict there.”
“So why doesn’t Britain set up an asylum application centre here for those who don’t want to apply in France? Mothers should not be so desperate that they are trying to put little children over large wire fences.”
Camp’s migrant women face unique challenges
“We are not dangerous - we are in danger” reads the poster erected on a makeshift building, close to a shop set up by migrants in Calais.
The poster highlighting the situation of more than 3,000 migrants has already caught attention on social media, with writer Caitlín Moran posting it on Twitter - eliciting responses such as “in danger, what in France? How can that be?”
Now that traffic on both sides of the Channel Tunnel is moving again, many thousands of holidaymakers could navigate the ring roads of Calais without witnessing the conditions in which migrants are being forced to live.
Police have endeavoured to keep the port’s centre clear by ensuring those without papers are moved out to the industrial zone known as “ |
. Fiona Desland, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
1122. Marissa Jarosinski, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
1123. Michael Fu, Stanford University School of Medicine
1124. Jecca R Steinberg, Stanford School of Medicine
1125. Daniel Mason, Harvard Medical School
1126. Maria Pollack, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
1127. Julie Davidson, Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest
1128. Allison Merz, Harvard Medical School
1129. Alisha D. Berry, Oregon Health and Science University
1130. Shanna Tucker, Harvard Medical School
1131. James O’Brien, The Ohio State University
1132. Jacob Deberry, University of Washington School of Medicine
1133. Kevin Gutierrez, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1134. Christine Mcintosh, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1135. Katrina Lettang, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1136. Tatum Sohlberg, Oregon Health & Science University
1137. Drew Harkins, University of Illinois College of Medicine
1138. Jenna Conway, Robert Larner College of Medicine, University of Vermont
1139. Graham Ives, University of Michigan Medical School
1140. Zoe Teton, Oregon Health and Science University
1141. Afia Khan, Pritzker School of Medicine
1142. Sara Edwards, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
1143. Tara Davidson, University of Washington School of Medicine
1144. Kristin Harrington, Emory University School of Medicine
1145. Kyle Barbour, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine
1146. Yu-Jin Lee, Stanford University School of Medicine
1147. Alexandra Highet, University of Michigan Medical School
1148. Robert Reed, University of Illinois: College of Medicine
1149. Benji Dossetter, Tufts University School of Medicine
1150. Cindy Zamudio, University of California, Davis School of Medicine
1151. Kia Byrd, Harvard Medical School
1152. Ashley Scott, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
1153. Isabelle Nawaz, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1154. Genna Braverman, Stanford University
1155. Maribel Patiño, University of California San Diego
1156. Taman Hoang, University of California Davis School of Medicine
1157. Emily N Ahadizadeh, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
1158. Kellen Sullivan, Ohio State University College of Medicine
1159. Sara Coomes, University of Minnesota Medical School
1160. John Barbaro, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1161. Emily Regier, Boston University School of Medicine
1162. Sheun Aluko, Stanford University School of Medicine
1163. Alexis Ball, Harvard Medical School
1164. China Byrns, University of Pennsylvania
1165. Meera Thakkar, University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine
1166. Michal Mcdowell, Harvard Medical School
1167. Jacob Williams, Ohio State University
1168. Robert Zarajczyk, Western University — COMP-NW
1169. Amanda Nelson, Boston University School of Medicine
1170. Lauren Fryling, university of califonia san francisco
1171. Amanda Nemecz, Thomas Jefferson University
1172. Palak Shah, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
1173. Halea Meese, University of Colorado School of Medicine
1174. Ajay Koti, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
1175. Sabena Vaswani, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
1176. Alisha Tolani, Stanford University School of Medicine
1177. Pavitri Dwivedi, West Virginia school of osteopathic medicine
1178. Danielle Yin, Indiana University School of Medicine
1179. Clay Cooper, Penn State College of Medicine
1180. Stacy Jones, Harvard Medical School
1181. Helen Chen, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
1182. Yongsoo Joo, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
1183. Alex Pelliccione, New York Medical College
1184. Raymond Koopmans, University of Washington School of Medicine
1185. Celine Sparrow, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
1186. Nicole Nevarez, University of Michigan Medical School
1187. Ron S Gejman, Weill Cornell Medical College
1188. Jennifer Mogi, University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine
1189. Philip M Nussenzweig, Weill Cornell Medical College
1190. Ezra Lichtman, Yale School of Medicine
1191. Michelle Han, Stanford University School of Medicine
1192. Zachary Wettstein, University of California San Francisco
1193. Jennifer O’Connell, Oregon Health & Science University
1194. Patrick Fink, Oregon Health and Science University
1195. Matthew O’Brien, Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
1196. Frank F. Yang, Stanford School of Medicine
1197. David Corner, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1198. Laura Duncan, University of California, San Francisco
1199. Gopika Krishna, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1200. Leandra Barnes, Stanford University, School of Medicine
1201. Aditya Suresh, Saint Louis University School of Medicine
1202. Taryn Wassmer, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1203. Colin Crilly, Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine
1204. Samantha Heywood, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
1205. Alex Warr, University of Washington School of Medicine
1206. Alex Spacht, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1207. Harlan Linver Pietz, Weill Cornell Medical College
1208. Aravind Addepalli, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1209. Emily Graber, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
1210. Mangala Patil, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1211. Ella Christoph, New York Medical College
1212. Anne Marie Williams, Harvard Medical School
1213. Dagnie Howard, Oregon Health & Science University
1214. Aaron Williams, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1215. Megan Gorman, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1216. Rayna Sobieski, The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
1217. Rachel Ekaireb, University of California San Francisco
1218. Sally Trout, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
1219. Laurel, Harvard Medical School
1220. Ethan Balgley, Harvard Medical School
1221. Hilary Rogers, Tufts University School of Medicine
1222. Prihatha Narasimmaraj, University of California San Francisco, School of Medicine
1223. Arjun Prabhu, University of Pittsburgh SOM
1224. Harshika Satyarthi, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
1225. Daniel Kim, Stanford University School of Medicine
1226. Ruth Tangonan, University of Illinois at Chicago
1227. Patrick Finan, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
1228. Natasha Abadilla, Stanford University School of Medicine
1229. Julia Ruby, Oregon Health and Science University
1230. Lilli Flink, Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University
1231. Nneoma Adaku, Weill Cornell Medical College
1232. Alex Lei Qin, Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine
1233. Shaunte Butler, Yale School of Medicine
1234. Emily Brown, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1235. Megan Winkelman, UCSF School of Medicine
1236. Henry Tait Keenan, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
1237. Kara Mclaughlin, Harvard Medical School/ Harvard School of Dental Medicine
1238. Nicolas Muñoz, Yale School of Medicine
1239. Kathryn Brubaker, Harvard Medical School
1240. Anja Frost, The George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences
1241. Elizabeth Shepard, University of Washington School of Medicine
1242. Christopher Magoon, Perelman School of Medicine
1243. Santiago Lombo, University of California, Davis
1244. Megan Schmit, University of Minnesota Medical School
1245. Vivek Gulati, Saint Louis University School of Medicine
1246. Rebecca Howe, Frank H Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
1247. Danly Omil-Lima, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1248. Hasib Yousufzai, University of Washington School of Medicine
1249. Jacob Mooney, Stanford University School of Medicine
1250. Joseph Lalli, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
1251. Jessica Pullen, Stanford School of Medicine
1252. Chris Montoya, Temple University School of Medicine
1253. Jocelyn Wascher, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1254. Emily, Harvard Medical School
1255. Tanya Gentry, Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest
1256. Ashley Duhon, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine — New Orleans
1257. Jennifer Liang, Boston University School of Medicine
1258. Eileen Brady, University of Washington
1259. Ramon Lorenzo Labitigan, Stanford University School of Medicine
1260. Charlotte Ter Haar, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago
1261. Kelly Smucker, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
1262. Artin G, The George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences
1263. Brendan Cohn-Sheehy, UC Davis
1264. Jennifer Wooley, University of Washington School of Medicine
1265. Sandhira Wijayaratne, Harvard Medical School
1266. Jacob Charny, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1267. Tara Skorupa, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
1268. Kayla Conover, UC Davis School of Medicine
1269. Joris Ramstein, UC Berkeley — UCSF Joint Medical Program
1270. Forrest Wells, Oregon Health & Science University
1271. Anna Conley, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1272. Emma Robson, University of Washington School of Medicine
1273. Louise Lu, Yale School of Medicine
1274. Surabhi Nirkhe, University of Washington School of Medicine
1275. Erin D’Agostino, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
1276. Elizabeth Reed, University of Washington
1277. Catie Havemann, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
1278. Alix Melton, Oregon Health and Science University
1279. Abraham Khan, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
1280. Alexandra Dembar, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
1281. Lucy Chen, Harvard Medical School
1282. Kerry Cadambi, Oregon School of Massage
1283. Sharwat Jahan, Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University
1284. Teagan Settelmeyer, Oregon Health and Science University
1285. Erik Eckhert, University of California, San Francisco
1286. Adrianna Oh, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
1287. Nick Deslauriers, University of Minnesota Medical School
1288. Leah Timbang, University of California, Davis
1289. Mark Morales, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1290. Sofia Vaccarino Gearty, Weill Cornell Medical College
1291. Alessandra Hirsch, University of Illinois at Chicago
1292. Sean Udell, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1293. Vidya Viswanathan, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1294. Michael J. Gustin, Boston University School of Medicine
1295. Ryan Nesbit, Oregon Health & Science University
1296. Richard Newcomb, University of Chicago
1297. Sarah Ho, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
1298. Karishma Kodia, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
1299. Pedro Alvarez, University of California Irvine School of Medicine
1300. Sarah Peters, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1301. Jeremiah Locquiao, University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine
1302. Nora Loughry, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1303. Wendelyn Oslock, Ohio State University College of Medicine
1304. Jordan Seto, Unversity of Washington School of Medicine
1305. Paul Montgomery, Oregon Health & Science University
1306. Petrina Lafaire, University of Michigan
1307. Hasan Rashid, Rush Medical College
1308. Vincent Peng, Washington University in St. Louis
1309. Kelsey Sholund, University of Washington School of Medicine
1310. Katherine Partyka, Rush Medical College
1311. Emily Ager, Oregon Health & Science University
1312. Samer Muallem, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1313. Nathan White, Robert Larner, MD College of Medicine at The University of Vermont
1314. Mackenzie Cater, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine
1315. Elizabeth Beaty, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
1316. Elizabeth Joyce, Sidney Kimmel Medical College
1317. Catherine Gliwa, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
1318. Kathryn M. Linder, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1319. Hannah Barney, AU/UGA Medical Partnership
1320. Amy Steinberg, UCSF School of Medicine
1321. Sameera Vangara, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine
1322. Astrid Marshall, Weill Cornell Medical College
1323. Ashley Tatro, Drexel University College of Medicine
1324. Kevin Byrne, Boston University School of Medicine
1325. Emily Pierce, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1326. Christopher Veal, Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont
1327. Christina Garcés, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
1328. Zofia Kozak, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1329. Hannah Stone, University of California San Francisco School of Medicine
1330. Olivia Hayostek, Albany Medical College
1331. Yao-Chieh Cheng, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
1332. Jordan Emont, Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University
1333. Walaa Abdelfadeel, Temple School of Medicine
1334. Maxwell Witt, University of Michigan
1335. Kathleen Herring, Medical College of Georgia
1336. Alexander Ajeto, University of Washington School of Medicine
1337. Ari Morgenstern, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
1338. Kristin Prewitt, University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine
1339. Sunny Kung, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1340. Samuel Gordon, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine
1341. Juan Michael Spinnato, Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania
1342. Graham Tooker, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1343. Adam Kraus, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
1344. Erin Baum, Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine
1345. Jessica Keesee, University of Washington School of Medicine
1346. Alissa Campbell, Harvard Medical School
1347. Carly Blatt, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1348. Quinn Jackson, Tulane University School of Medicine
1349. Michelle Urman, Albany Medical College
1350. Evan Baum, Alpert Medical School
1351. Vikas Kotha, George Washington university school of medicine
1352. Zoe B, George Washington university school of medicine and health sciences
1353. Gabriel Erion, University of Washington School of Medicine
1354. Cara Zimmerman, Albany Medical College
1355. Kristian Georgiev, Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1356. Taylor Rosenbaum, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1357. Alyssa Hummel, University of Washington School of Medicine
1358. Emily Norkett, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry
1359. Rebeca Lee, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1360. Benjamin Smith, Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont
1361. Caitlin Felder-Heim, University of Colorado School of Medicine
1362. Tatiana Moylan, Boston University School of Medicine
1363. Frances Gill, Tulane University
1364. Abderhman Abuhashem, Weill Cornell Medical College
1365. Jesse Passman, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
1366. Nawoo Kim, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School
1367. Darshan Patel, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
1368. Chloe Summerland, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1369. Nicole Naiman, University of Washington School of Medicine
1370. Rohan Rastogi, Boston University School of Medicine
1371. Lauren Wagener, Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
1372. Alexandre Mason Sharma, Boston University School of Medicine
1373. Kelsi Chan, Oregon Health and Sciences University
1374. Ryan Lebuhn, Oregon Health & Science University
1375. Isaac Lichtenstein, George Washington University school of Medicine
1376. Matthew Klebanoff, Yale University School of Medicine
1377. Brooke Henderson, Wayne State University School of Medicine
1378. Abigail Kerson, Weill Cornell Medica College
1379. Raphael Rabinowitz, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1380. Melissa Gabler, Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest
1381. Mary Biglin, Wayne State University School of Medicine
1382. Sandra Giraldo, University of Illinois college of medicine at Rockford
1383. Hanh Tran, Harvard Medical School
1384. Stephanie Teeple, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
1385. James Winebrake, Weill Cornell Medicine
1386. Henry Nguyen, Touro University Never College of Osteopathic Medicine
1387. Sara Lever, University of Maryland School of Medicine
1388. Garret Johnson, Harvard Medical School
1389. Erin Plews-Ogan, Harvard Medical School
1390. Jessica Feldman, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
1391. Thomas Earle Plate Iv, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
1392. Ryan Alward, University of California, San Francisco
1393. Britta Stjern, University of North Dakota
1394. Brian Lentz, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
1395. Marvee Turk, Harvard Medical School
1396. Liza Brecher, Tufts University School of Medicine
1397. Amy Hasson, University of Washington School of Medicine
1398. Leif-Erik Schumacher, University of Miami Miller SoM
1399. Madeline Grade, Stanford University School of Medicine
1400. Eric Torkelson, University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences
1401. Benjamin Robison, Stanford University School of Medicine
1402. Andrew Wilbur, University of Massachusetts
1403. Mamta Shah, Western University of Health Sciences
1404. Christine Orser, The Ohio State University College of Medicine
1405. Gabriel Spieler, University of Alabama School of Medicine
1406. Siri Erickson, Oregon Health and Sciences University
1407. Ariel Hart, Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science
1408. Caitlin Thomas, University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine
1409. Caroline Gorka, University at Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
1410. Justin Thompson, University of Washington School of Medicine
1411. Lindsay Chun, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine
1412. Ivy Le, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University
1413. Sorna Kamara, University of Kentucky College of Medicine
1414. Marvin Ambriz, Charles R. Drew University & David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
1415. Rafaela Izurieta, University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore l
1416. John Damianos, Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
1417. Laya Varghese, Rowan School of Osteopathic Medicine
1418. Molly Brazil, Oregon Health & Science University
1419. Dana Tower, University of Washington School of Medicine
1420. Matthew Hill, Oregon Health and195,140 votes in total.
Fighting child exploitation should not be a partisan issue!
Previously on Red Pilled World we reported on how anti-Trumpists were so blinded by their hate for Donald Trump that incredibly, his declaration to end human trafficking received 18,000 downvotes1 on reddit! What sort of twisted individual is against ending human trafficking?The same sort of person who is against fighting child exploitation, apparently.Trey Gowdy recently warned that anyone who interfered with his child exploitation investigation will be forced to show up and explain publicly why they are obstructing it.You would think that would be an uncontroversial thing to say, wouldn't you? You would think fighting child exploitation would be something everyone could support, wouldn't you?You'd be wrong.The anti-Trumpists have been out in even bigger force this time, and at the time of writing the post has received over 87,000 downvotes on reddit! The statistics are available to anyone who uses reddit enhancement suite, and you can verify the total number of upvotes and downvotes using the following calculations.- - - - - - - - - -Just how poisoned do you have to become to downvote a post talking about fighting child exploitation? These are people who have been indoctrinated to the point that they would rather child exploitation continue than see President Trump's government succeed.One of the incidental benefits of having Donald Trump as president is seeing the most poisoned people exposed for what they really are. Even if you don't agree with some of Trump's policies, fighting against child exploitation should be something that everyone should support.This shouldn't need to be said, but for the benefit of those who have had their brains poisoned with hate so badly that they oppose everything Trump says and does, here's a reminder of the obvious...Every one of those child-exploitation sympathizers who downvoted this post are doing more than just undermining efforts to fight child exploitation. They are hurting America, and they are also undermining their own political party.How do they think it looks when anti-Trumpists portray themselves to be child-exploitation sympathizers? It is actions like this which is highlighting how crazy and poisoned the extreme left has become. It is actions like this which is slowly driving moderate left-leaning people away from their party. It's thanks to actions like this that moderates are starting to wake up.I've heard people joke that even if Trump cured all diseases, the extreme left would complain that he was putting doctors out of work. Sadly, it's becoming more and more apparent that this is not a joke. The fringe element of the extreme left are genuinely that poisoned.- - - - - - - - - -When he wasn't posing for a magazine in his underwear, shaving his head and getting sunstroke, or turning up late for practice because of a "flat tyre", Lewis could touch the heights few in the county game can reach. His fast-medium seamers were propelled by an athletic, high action, his batting was full of exquisite onside drives and fierce cuts, and his fielding could be sensational. But, apart from some excellent bowling in the 1992 World Cup, he rarely delivered when England needed him most, and his many critics got stuck in. He started at Leicestershire, then had spells at Notts and Surrey, where he helped win the Sunday League in 1996 and the B&H in '97, before returning to Grace Road. All the time he was in and out of the Test side, despite going on six consecutive tours and hitting a hundred in a lost cause at Madras in 1992-93. But Lewis was never fully accepted by his peers, and he was ostracised further when, in 1999, it emerged that he had passed on the names of three England cricketers allegedly involved in match-fixing to the ECB. He drifted out of the game an unfulfilled talent. He returned to Surrey in 2008, aged 40, when he signed a surprise pay-as-you-play contract for the Twenty20 Cup but it didn't prove a success as injury brought it to an early end. But he struggled out of the limelight and in late 2008 he was arrested at Gatwick Airport and subsequently found guilty of smuggling cocaine into the country. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. "I suppose this highlights how difficult it can be for players to cope once they stop playing cricket," former team-mate Angus Fraser reflected.
Lawrence Booth May 2009It has been over half a year since we first downgraded the industrial recession to an all-out global depression by using Caterpillar retail sales data, which have been so counterintuitive to what the company's earnings have been reporting that last September we had to ask "What On Earth Is Going On With Caterpillar Sales?."
Today, we must admit that something simply does not compute.
On one hand, CAT stock has soared by over 30% from its 2016 lows....
... despite warning just yesterday that the pain will continue after the company guided even lower to already depressed expectations.
But what makes no sense at all is that according to the just released CAT retail sales data, the industrial recession since downgraded to a depression, just fell out of the bottom, when the heavy industrial equipment company reported that February world sales crashed by 21%, after falling "only" 15% in January, led by double digit drops in every single market:
US down 11% after sliding 7% in January
China and Asia/PAC down 26% after being down 22%
EAME down 23% after sliding 14% the month before
Latin Marica imploding by 45% after a 36% drop one month ago, and one of the worst monthly drops on record.
Visually, this is as follows:
And what is more confusing is that CAT has not only not had a positive monthly increase in retail sales in a record 39 months, or more than double the length of the Financial Crisis' 19 months and the longest in history, but the February drop was the biggest one month decline in 5 years!
Of course, on its face, this data would explain why over the past month first the BOJ, then the PBOC, then the ECB and finally the Fed all surprised with not only more dovishness but much more outright easing as central banks panic to halt what at least according to this one indicator confirms the global economy has not been worse in nearly half a decade.
SourceIngs has pledged to help, starting with a trip to the zoo and to Turf Moor
Harlee-Jae Procter is trying to get tick off items from her bucket list
Danny Ings has shown his kind side by vowing to help a little girl with a life-threatening illness to complete her bucket list, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Burnley striker Ings arranged to meet Harlee-Jae Procter, four, and her family, after reading about her story on Twitter.
Harlee-Jae suffers from a rare genetic condition and is a huge fan of Ings' team Burnley.
Danny Ings poses with four-year-old fan Harlee-Jae Porter as he attempts to help her with her bucket list
Ings and his 'new best friend' pose together while meeting at Burnley's training ground and making plans
The striker, tipped as a future England international, was so moved by her plight that he met her at his club's training ground and promised to help her tick off as many of the items on her wishlist as possible.
Ings said he had made 'a new best friend' after meeting with the schoolgirl.
The Clarets hotshot has now promised to take Harlee-Jae to the zoo, to Turf Moor as his mascot and even joked he would dress as Elsa from the film Frozen to entertain her.
Harlee-Jae became a fan of Ings after playing the video game FIFA.
During their meeting, she told him about her hopes to be a cowgirl, ride an elephant and eat breakfast with Barney the Dinosaur.
Ings told the M.E.N.: 'It's a nice feeling for me to meet her. Hopefully we can work together and tick off as many things as we can. I think we can do most of them.
Ings has been excellent for Burnley recently and his form earned him a kiss on the cheek from his super-fan
Burnley beat Manchester City 1-0 at Turf Moor last weekend and the fight against relegation is still alive
'We're going to contact the zoo and see if we can go there for the afternoon and we're going to see some animals so I'm really looking forward to that.
'I've never been to a zoo so I'm looking forward to it just as much as she is. I'm really excited for it.
'I've got myself a new best friend. And she gave me a kiss on the cheek as well which was nice.'
Thorn Primary School pupil, Harlee-Jae suffers from microdeletion 17 q12, which causes her health problems including kidney disease.
She is likely to need liver and kidney transplants before adulthood.
Mum Sasha Procter, 25, said Danny's efforts to help Harlee-Jae were overwhelming.
She said: 'All she's said all weekend is "Danny Ings". We never ever expected him to do anything like this – she just wanted to meet him.
'You don't see many Premier League footballers doing something like this. Hopefully we can tick off some items from the list together.'
Since creating her list, Harlee-Jae has flown in an airplane cockpit, travelled in a police car with Bacup officers and is due to visit the Lancashire Police Mounted Section.Quantum computing has been making big promises for a number of years now, but there is still very little in the way of practical applications for the technology. Sweet physics will only take you so far, which is why a new discovery from John Morton at the University of Oxford is so interesting. The record time for maintaining quantum computing bits, or qubits, in a solid material has been broken in spectacular fashion. Researchers have pushed the limit from a few seconds to a full three minutes.
As engineers continue sparring with the physical limits of Moore’s law, quantum computing becomes more attractive. A traditional computer bit can represent either a 1 or a 0. A qubit in a quantum computer is capable of being both 1 and 0 at the same time. This is possible thanks to the property of superposition, which holds that a physical system can exist in all its theoretical states simultaneously. It also has the potential to make quantum computers incredibly fast, but if qubits can’t be maintained longer than a few seconds, you can’t do any meaningful work with them.
The trick used at the University of Oxford has to do with coaxing the computational particles into superposition and keeping them there in two different spin states simultaneously. Researchers used a form of extremely pure silicon-28 (which is non-magnetic and non-reactive) as the medium for the test. A number of phosphorus atoms were suspended in the silicon, and scientists found that the particles behaved as if they were in a vacuum. That is, there was very little interaction with the medium.
Reducing interference is essential in building solid-state quantum computers. Even the tiniest effect on the spin of a particle can disrupt its quantum state. The key to prolonging the qubits in this experiment was the use of radio frequency pulses. Researchers determined the necessary radio pulse intensity to flip the particles’ spin 180 degrees. The isolated phosphorus atoms were bombarded with pulses that were exactly half that intense. This left the phosphorus in a superposition of being both flipped and not flipped. Therefore, we have a qubit.
By pinging the system they devised at regular intervals with the right radio pulses, the researchers were able to successfully maintain the superposition of the atoms for 192 seconds, or a little over three minutes. The pulses prevent the phosphorus from interacting weakly with the silicon, and since there are no contaminants to exert some magnetic force on them, the qubits remain active.
What’s really fascinating about this, is that silicon is a material actually used in computers. Previous efforts at retaining qubits for this length of time required operating in a vacuum, or sometimes in liquid or gas phase mediums. These approaches are fine for research, but they don’t get us any closer to a practical quantum computer. Getting long-lived qubits to operate in a material that can be used outside a lab is a big step, and that’s just what Morton and his colleagues at Oxford have managed.
Read more at Science (paywalled)AUSTIN, Texas - Texas is still sorting out where firearms are allowed a year after the state vastly expanded gun rights, which included allowing openly holstered weapons.
Lingering disputes over whether public places including zoos and county courthouses are gun-free zones frustrate advocates on both sides of the debate. The state's Republican attorney general warned community and junior colleges this week not to impose blanket bans on firearms, even though children are sometimes on campus.
Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in July against Austin because the city refused to allow guns inside city hall.
Gun-rights activist Terry Holcomb says the uncertainty in some places has created a "big mess." A county near Houston sued Holcomb over the right to keep guns out of its courthouse after he filed a complaint.
Texas surpassed 1 million licensed concealed carry holders this year. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott legalized concealed firearms on college campuses last year.High heels at work petition
The inquiry was triggered by a petition started by Nicola Thorp, after she was sent home from work for refusing to wear high heels. The Government has said that the dress code imposed on Nicola Thorp was unlawful—but the Committees heard that requirements for women to wear high heels at work remain widespread. The report concludes that the Equality Act 2010 is not yet fully effective in protecting workers from discrimination.
Urgent action needed to improve effectiveness of the law
The report calls for the Government to take urgent action to improve the effectiveness of the Equality Act. It recommends that the Government reviews this area of the law and, if necessary, asks Parliament to amend it. It calls for more effective remedies—such as increased financial penalties—for employment tribunals to award against employers who breach the law, in order to provide an effective deterrent.
It also recommends that the Government introduce guidance and awareness campaigns targeted at employers, workers and students, to improve understanding of the law and workers' rights.
The Committees' report
Key areas covered by the report include:
Health impact of wearing high heels, including medical evidence
"Dress codes which require women to wear high heels for extended periods of time are damaging to their health and wellbeing in both the short and the long term."
Compliance with the existing law
"The Equality Act is clear in principle in setting out what constitutes discrimination in law. Nevertheless, discriminatory dress codes remain commonplace in some sectors of the economy."
Increasing awareness
"It is clear that many employees do not feel able to challenge the dress codes they are required to follow, even when they suspect that they may be unlawful. We therefore recommend that the Government develop an awareness campaign to help workers to understand how they can make formal complaints and bring claims if they believe that they are subject to discriminatory treatment at work, including potentially discriminatory dress codes. It is clear to us that, in many cases, employers who impose dress codes on their workers simply are not asking themselves what legal obligations they might have to protect their employees’ health and wellbeing and to avoid discrimination against their employees, because they are not recognising the potential harm which their dress codes might cause. The Government Equalities Office should work with Acas and the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that detailed guidance for employers is published, to help them to understand how discrimination law and health and safety law apply to workplace dress codes."
Enforcing the law
"It is clear that there are not currently enough disincentives to prevent employers breaching the law. […] The Government must substantially increase the financial penalties for employers found by employment tribunals to have breached the law. Penalties should be set at such a level as to ensure that employees are not deterred from bringing claims, and to deter employers from breaching the legislation."
The petition make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work now has over 152,000 signatures, and will be debated in Parliament on Monday 6 March.
Chair's comments
Helen Jones MP, Chair of the Petitions Committee, said:
"It's not enough for the law to be clear in principle—it must also work in practice. The Government has said that the way that Nicola Thorp was treated by her employer is against the law, but that didn’t stop her being sent home from work without pay. It’s clear from the stories we’ve heard from members of the public that Nicola’s story is far from unique. The Government must now accept that it has a responsibility to ensure that the law works in practice as well as in theory. By accepting our recommendations, the Government could help employers and employees alike to avoid unlawful discrimination."
Maria Miller MP, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said:
"This inquiry reinforces the point that many employers do not see it as a priority to be aware of their legal obligations in this area and in practice individual employees are not in a position to take action to ensure their employers comply with the law. Whilst the level of tribunal fees is one factor, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission also needs to find new ways to make the law bite. Employers appear to risk non-compliance because the likelihood of any serious consequences are minimal. The EHRC must find new ways to support anti-discrimination test cases and appeals, so that the burden does not fall too heavily on individual women—especially those who already feel their employment position is precarious."
Nicola Thorp: I am in full support
Nicola Thorp, who started the petition, said:
"I am in full support of the recommendations within the Committees' report. This may have started over a pair of high |
long period since this offence."
He was sentenced to two and a half years jail, which will be suspended after he serves eight months.
A woman in the gallery was visibly upset with the sentence, yelling "you sleaze" at Harvey.
The Daily News contacted the church for comment but have yet to receive a response.Christians living in conflict-torn Syria are afraid that their community would fall victim of religious extremism if President Bashar al-Assad regime collapses and Islamists come to power.
Christians living in conflict-torn Syria are afraid that their community would fall victim of religious extremism if President Bashar al-Assad regime collapses and Islamists come to power.
“I am afraid that we will suffer bad times,” a member of Damascus’s Christian community, who identified himself as Jorge, told RIA Novosti.
A full-fledged civil war will break out in Syria if Assad’s enemies and their western supporters continue efforts to topple the president, he continued.
“If the regime falls…, Islamists will come to power,” Jorge said, adding that Islamists “wrongly believe that we support the current regime,” and for that reason they will complicate the life of Christians.
“Sunni Muslims who predominate Syria think that if President Assad’s regime representing the interests of the Alawi minority falls, they will live better. But I personally think that they are wrong. Syria is a secular state and its people, including Muslims, will not like it if the new power starts thrusting orthodox Islamic norms of moral and behavior on them,” he added.
According to Jorge's opinion, extremist forces rather than liberals would come to power in Syria.
Another Syrian, an engineer from Homs, said on conditions of anonymity that he is sure that if Assad’s regime falls, Christians will be “expelled from the country in one day.”
Presently, the situation in Homs is quite complicated, almost all of the local Christians have moved away. Their homes have been occupied by militants and their families, and the shops have been looted. Refugees are temporarily living in other regions of the country.
Jorge said Islamists are trying to show that if the regime changes, Christians would not come under attack. “They do it to appease them [the Christians], attract them thus losing their support of the regime,” he said.
Muslim leaders put messages on social networks saying that Christians and Muslims have for centuries lived together in Syria; they also try to distance themselves from the damage that has been inflicted on Christian homes and churches in Homs.
The engineer from Homs said that government forces could have "pushed out" Islamist militants from Homs if they continued shelling the city for at least three more days. “But then they adopted [UN and League of Arab States Ambassador] Kofi Annan’s plan and gunfire was terminated. But this does not bring anything good to us. Our homes remain occupied by militants.”
He said the majority Christians do not consider emigration a possibility. “This is our homeland. Christians have been living in Syria long before the Muslims. Why should we move away?”
Christians make up about ten percent of Syria’s 23-million population. Approximately half of Syria’s Christians belong to the Antiochian Orthodox Church.Fire Pro Goes 3D, Features Grandmas at PAX East
We sat down at PAX with Microsoft Japan’s Taro Hiwatashi and got a demo of the upcoming Fire Pro Wrestling for Xbox Live Arcade.
Don’s Thoughts: This being the first 3D game in the Fire Pro franchise (we’ll pretend 1996’s Iron Slam never happened), there were some tweaks to the grappling engine. For example, instead of an automatic grapple, you press B to engage in a close grapple, or LT+B for a far grapple. In that respect, it’s similar to the AKI engine that drove the Virtual Pro Wrestling series WCW vs. nWo World Tour and WWF No Mercy. And while Hiwatashi seemed taken aback when I suggested that, it is probably one of the few things that isn’t Fire Pro about this game. The animations and wild moves are still there – case in point, Ken and I traded Spiral Bombs and forward Russian Legsweeps during our brief time with the game. The game’s signature humor is there as well; in much the same way as the anime schoolgirls were the toughest characters in Fire Pro’s CPU Logic modes, Hiwatashi informed me that one of the toughest NPCs in this game is a grandmother.
Of all the Fire Pro games this is probably going to be the easiest for a newcomer to pick up and play, simply because there is a ton of on-screen feedback to tell you what to do. Given that this is an avatar-based game meant for quick play, this isn’t a surprise. Case in point: our own Charles Moran and Dave Trainer, neither of whom has played Fire Pro before to our knowledge, did a pretty good job for themselves against Hiwatashi and another player.
Ken’s Thoughts: Don Becker and I are the pro wrestling guru’s of Team Unwinnable, so when we heard that Xbox Live Arcade had a playable version of Fire Pro Wrestling, we moonsaulted at the opportunity to play it. When I got to the booth, Don was already embroiled in a fierce competition with Microsoft Japan’s Taro Hiwatashi. And yes, he did seem taken back by Don’s comparison to the great AKI wrestling games, but I understood where Don was going with his reference.
I am eagerly awaiting this game for a number of reasons. First and foremost, there hasn’t been a good wrestling game since the AKI days. I’m sure a lot of people will give me flack for that comment, but how can you take the THQ arcade wrestling fighters seriously? While the new Fire Pro may not be the successor to the AKI games, for hardcore wrestling fans it will give THQ a run for its money.
The game has been revamped from 2D and is the first 3D title in the Fire Pro series. It is easy for a casual gamer to pick up and have fun, but also boasts some cool features for the experienced player. As Don said, it uses avatars and Hiwatashi made sure to tell us that it will also use your avatar’s prop in its entrance to the ring. It also has RPG-like features that enable you to gain experience points and distribute them to your character’s different abilities.
Fire Pro is also known for its ridiculous amounts of hidden wrestlers. Previous games have boasted over 600 wrestlers from all over the world and have even included guys like Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. While I didn’t get any info on who would be appearing in the game, Hiwatashi did go in depth about the Create-A-Wrestler mode. Essentially, you can build anyone, albeit in avatar form.
With Kenneth J. Lucas
~
@UnwinnableDonB and @UnWinToyHunter are going to headline Fire Pro Wrestlemania in scenic Nutley, NJ someday. Tickets available whenever you see them.for a one click look up of words you don't understand click the link
STRAIGHT LINE ACTION
forever,
going somewhere new
forever,
becoming someone new
forever,
becoming somethin g new
the overwhelming freedom of unrestricted movement in an endless expanse that makes us continually re-model our motions to a type that complies with reality... an ever-increasing expansion of all characteristics
our feelings of love struggling to keep abreast as infinity pulls us irresistibly onward and outward
beckoning and coaxing us with the ever growing demand that we enact evermore space-consuming acts
and we move...
effortlessly... dynamically... flawlessly... magically...
transcendental permutations for individuals... pairs... groups... and collective action
unimagined thoughts, senses, emotions...
unguessed at shapes, sizes, structures...
increasing levels of pleasure accelerating
increasing levels of pleasure decelerating
increasing levels of pleasure cruising
increasing levels of pleasure combining
increasing levels of pleasure separating
increasing levels of pleasure being
the endless indifference transformed into a qualitative state and being enriched through compelling, inventive and sacrificially creative love with pluralism
multi-faceted, multi-hued, linear shapes... beings who are, both at once, translucent and reflective 100 000 000 020 lights of love/life seemingly spanning the breadth of heaven
forever beings acting their forever parts in love/life's presentation of reality...
M A T H E M A T I C A L E N T I T I E S F E E L I N G Q U A L I T A T I V E L Y T H E I R R E C I P R O C A T I N G M O T I O N S T H R O U G H F L A T, P A N D I M E N S I O N A L, I N F I N I T E S P A C E
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whatever it was their clients hated and wanted to be changed.
When the Iraq war rolled around, some of them were part of the President’s daily briefing. We couldn’t have had the Iraq war without them. Mainstream media was inundated with material from these sources that were employed by lobbyists to get the USA to go to war.
Here we go again, same story, their story.
The Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on Russia and the 2016 elections couldn’t have come at a better time for me. A quick look at the experts testifying shows they can be traced back to an out of work web-designer, a pornographer suffering from toxic black-mold induced delusions, a gift shop employee, a stay at home dad whose last job was selling underwear, and a man that heard coded intel messages in fax transmission beeps. Unfortunately, this still isn’t a joke. These are the Intel experts that provide most of the Intel available in media today.
According to CNN, Clint Watts, the terrorism expert that gave the expert testimony to the Senate got involved in cyber almost by accident in 2014. With Aaron Weisburd, he is a senior fellow at the Center For Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University.
Starting with no experience in Intel or Russian Influence Operations Watts was able to “watch and track the rise of Russia’s social media influence operations starting in 2015 and witnessed their update of an old Soviet playbook known as Active Measures.”
Clint Watts great breakthrough moment came when he got incensed that a Kardasian look-alike Syrian girl spoke against Obama’s Syrian policy. He just couldn’t have that. It was…anti-American.
Watts and Weisburd(out of work web designer) both work as consultants and do training and research programs for a range of military(US Military, NATO, and NATO partners- Latvia, Ukraine, et al), intelligence(ODNI, CIA, FBI,NSA, et al) and law enforcement entities.
We are going to define the big WHO that was on trial at the Senate hearing. Let’s look at how credible the track record has been for this group of experts. Starting with election interference, we’ll look at other major international events that shaped US policy. This group shaped the news narrative of the past few years providing stories including the Russian influence and election interference, the Syrian gas attacks (past and present), and the MH-17 disaster. You won’t be surprised to know that most of the MSM information only comes from these select sources.
When the Washington Post first introduced propornot with Clint Watts it was signaling the beginning of a new information policy. The problem is other than RT or Sputnik, Russia doesn’t publish the news, opinion, and analysis the websites listed on propornot covers. The list itself was a copy and paste of Aaron Weisburd’s list at aktivnye.com and the websites are American.
From liberal to conservative, Sanders to Trump, if you didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton the Senate hearings is all the trial by peers you are entitled to. You are on trial and like Joseph K, no one else is going to tell you why.
What is interesting from the above image is that redstate.com is decidedly anti-Trump conservatives. According to Weisburd and Watts, both redstate.com and Trump are on Putin’s payroll along with globalresearch.ca. They don’t even need to be consistent.
According to Senator Mark Warner said in the latest case, “the paid trolls apparently focused on swing states in an attempt to influence votes there — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where people were “reading during the waning days of the election that “‘Clinton is sick,’ or ‘Clinton is taking money from whoever for some source’ … fake news…Warner said it’s crucial that investigators determine if voting results were actually affected. Each of the three states narrowly fell to Trump.”
Someone, please enlighten the poor Senator that you can’t carpet bomb a large voting bloc’s families and then expect their vote. There was a good reason Clinton stayed away from the states Warner mentioned. The information he is quoting comes from Weisburd protege Jessika Aro, whose fabrication was included in the ODNI report in January.
How does the Senator know what people were reading? Warner tried to describe botnets. In reality, the confused man was describing the websites that make up the propornot list. Quite recently propornot added Rollingstone’s Matt Tiabbi to the list. He is again referring to Weisburds work on websites and geolocating readers to find out where media influence is.
The Senate hearings and follow-ups are about controlling what information the general public has available to it starting with the propornot list. What they are after isn’t just to control what you read or the facts you know, this time they want to control how you think. As information policy starts to sanction these sites new domestic enemies will found in larger publications.
How do I know this? I’m taking an industrial view. Screw the politics. Both sides of the aisle are playing this game. All the pigs are sucking at the same lobbyist tit and selling Americans and the world out in the process.
If Sanders won the nomination and ran against Jeb Bush, the climate today would be the same. Both sides of the aisle cater to large blocs that first get them through the primaries. In a Sanders vs Bush run, these same blocs would have voted Republican. A Sanders win would have similar consequences as Trump but for different reasons.
Commie, commie, commie, commie…is the one thing a nationalist hates more than life itself or Russians, for that matter. Sanders would have been painted red to lose. At his victory, many of the moneyed people deep frying Donald Trump would have done it to him too.
The point is this problem is on both sides. It started years ago on the Republican side of the aisle. The activist groups are the largest and most well-heeled that exist in the world today. Yes, it includes George Soros (Hungarian nationalist). At the street level, they are the most active and they can’t be touched in terms of contributions to campaigns.
The propornot story started out as a paid or placed article by these same activists. It did its job by igniting a shitstorm of anti-Russian media fallout. The same people that provided the websites on the list, testified as the experts before Congress this time, as well as multiple times before.
Reacting to this Google has started fact-checking articles, sites, and journalists. Guess who has the fact checking job? The same experts, fact finders, ultra-nationalist related groups and paid private Intel that testifies in the Senate hearings are now deciding what fake news is and who is responsible for it. That’s right, a former underwear salesman gets to decide if your website is paid for by Vladimir Putin.
RINF.com is finding this out now. Over the course of 2 days, Google’s ultra-nationalist fact checkers decided that a teaser portion of an article reprinted from TruthOut and an article by Eric Zuesse needed to be taken down or the publisher would lose access to AdSense. Adsense provides the ads that many sites earn a portion of their income with. RINF complied with the first one and the next day the demand came to take the second one down.
Mick Meaney who started RINF in 2004 took a principled stand and re-published the articles. According to Meaney, neither one violated Google’s TOS. He will keep publishing substantial articles regardless of the fallout. Every publisher is going to need to make a similar decision soon.
Once a Clint Watts has been paid for finding an enemy, he needs to find another to get paid again. And again. And again. This week it’s RINF, OpedNews.com and the Alex Jones media empire. Next week it will be the Nation, the National Interest, or the National Review.
In part 1, I showed finding the enemy was the reason for the no-fly lists growing so fast in the 2000’s. It is the same today as it was then. You are once again getting called the potential enemy of the state by the same people that make money by creating threats. The linked publication StopFake is a Ukrainian propaganda site and a Google fact checker.
Because you didn’t accept the “facts” they laid out in MSM with no proof, you are on Putin’ payroll. Because they are the experts that MSM goes to now, you are challenging their authority and possibly their potential income.
Your news organization, website, or reputation as a journalist is as easy to destroy as one single mention of it in front of Congress. Guess what? That’s exactly what they did.
Right now the US Congress is deciding how to legislate away the right Americans have to factual information without looking like they are trampling free speech and freedom of the press. Yes, that’s being done and you are sitting there like a lump watching it happen.
Your politics don’t matter. This time everyone got Berned. Everyone conveniently forgets that Sanders was the first one labeled as the Kremlin candidate running against Hillary Clinton. Thanks to Aaron Weisburd work and Clint Watts testimony, the average American looks like Vladimir Putin to the US Congress. It’s called Information Policy.
The importance of both men in today’s news cycles can’t be overestimated. Watts and Weisburd provided the substance to Russian election interference. Watts and Weisburd’s work provided the Propornot list. Watts and Weisburd’s circle provided the information that went into the ODNI report in January on Russian 2016 election interference without proof.
The reason is simple. You are the Russian interference. If you wrote about or supported, Sanders, Jill Stein, or Donald Trump, you are the UNNAMED agent responsible. Weisburd has gone as far as geo-locating where the more vocal Russian agents work and live. And those are just engaged readers. There you are baby!
Since 2015 Watts and Weisburd have been working for a foreign government trying to incite US policy against Russia. Their circles which include the Atlantic Council make up the 18th Intelligence Agency the US has at its disposal. The only difference is they are for hire by anyone who wants to prove anything. Want to prove Thailand is plotting a US takeover? Give them a call.
In a lot of cases, this private sector Intel is the same unnamed Intelligence community planting stories in the press. They create the new round of experts. They provide most of the Intel facts/fictions for hotspots such as Syria and Donbass that US policy has been built on. They provided all the proofs in January’s ODNI report. As ludicrous as it sounds, they are the go-to experts on Russian interference for both the MSM and the US Congress.
They have determined that you were the Russian interference in the 2016 election cycle.
Let’s look at Syria. In 2013 according to @bellingcat, Syrian president Assad used chemical weapons against his own people. This Bellingcat Intel information was part of what caused Obama to draw his red line in Syria and became widespread across the MSM.
“Based on the latest findings of two prominent experts, which appear to confirm other reports and investigations, it would have been impossible for the Assad dictatorship to have perpetrated the chemical attack outside Damascus as outlined by Obama and other Western officials. Instead, it seems that the more likely culprits of the attack were foreign-backed “rebel” groups hoping to overthrow the relatively secular regime and install an Islamist dictatorship based on Sharia law. Estimates suggest almost 1,500 people died in the attack, including more than 400 children.
The new report, entitled “Possible Implications of Faulty U.S. Technical Intelligence,” was published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Science, Technology, and Global Security Working Group. It was written by former United Nations weapons inspector Richard Lloyd and MIT Science, Technology, and National Security Policy Professor Theodore Postol. Among other major concerns, the two experts in the field found that despite official claims and “intelligence,” the August 21 nerve-agent attack in East Ghouta “could not possibly” have come from the center or even the Eastern edge of regime-controlled territory.”
That’s a large problem for Bellingcat which will become evident in their work on Ukraine. Why couldn’t they place the origin of the attack? Isn’t that their claim to fame? Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh further destroyed the “underwear man” @bellingcat story which was corroborated by Turkish police.
MIT professor Theodore Postol then pulled the carpet out from under Elliot Higgins by explaining to him that Bellingcat’s smoking gun evidence (hexamine) wasn’t unique to chemical weapons. The composition is found on any battlefield because it is common in most explosives.
Elliot Higgins and Bellingcat information dominated the headlines even though he struck out on the facts.
On April 4th 2017, Bellingcat and the Atlantic Council once again scooped the world, delivered the headlines and the Intel the US government acted on. Assad had once again used chemical weapons on the Syrian people on April 4th 2017. And they even covered their tails in case they were wrong. Their expert report was based on assumptions they think are true. This happens when you need to grab a headline the same day from thousands of miles away based on relevance instead of substance.
From Bellingcat’s report- “Another issue is that, if the Syrian regime actually did believe that the warehouse stored chemical warfare agents, then striking it deliberately was an act of chemical warfare by proxy.”
According to the victims, Higgins shouldn’t have given up his day job. Testimony from victims points to the Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood insurgent coalition as the culprits. Leading member of the UN commission of inquiry Carla Del Ponte told Swiss TV that there were “strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof” that ISIS did it..
“Patrick Lang — a former DIA(Defense Intelligence Agency) Colonel — does not mince words about the US attacks on Syria. Lang claims that Donald Trump’s decision to launch cruise missile strikes on a Syrian Air Force Base was based on a lie.” @INTEL_TODAY
According to the experts at Swedish Professors & Doctors For Human Rights (SWEDHR) the chemical attack in Syria was staged.
“Nothing about what was going on outside the room and other evidence that would have been important in order to evaluate the correspondence between the life-saving procedures and the agent that was producing those injuries… It is absolutely necessary for an expert to examine that evidence – what is a fact, what is a fantasy, what is a fake and trying to deceive the public with the political purpose of establishing a no-fly zone in Syria which would have enormous consequences in geopolitical terms.”
The images of the White Helmets in action show scenes that are beyond absurd for treating people that have Sarmin poisoning. Without gloves, respirators, and wearing sandals the White Helmet show must go on.
The problem with the story is that Syria’s president Assad didn’t have chemical weapons to use. He is trying to free his country from foreign Salafists, Al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood. He isn’t fighting a rebel insurgent coalition. The link above interviewing former DIA Chief Mike Flynn makes that painfully clear.
Even publications that are against Assad don’t understand the logic of a chemical attack by him. He is winning the war and defeating ISIS. It looks like they’ll be on the propornot list soon. And it looks like the second strikeout for Bellingcat in Syria. Assad is trying to save his people, not kill them.
What is Weisburd and Watts reaction to this? Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, and Ron Paul are all working for Vladimir Putin because of their principled stand on Syria.
Now if you’ve been paying attention, you are witnessing a buildup of facts. YOU are not on Vladimir Putin’s payroll and neither are 65 million other Americans. American and other western news sites and journalists are not on Vladimir Putin’s payroll. Assad did not attack his people with chemical weapons in 2013. All evidence is pointing to the fact he didn’t attack his people with non-existent chemical weapons in 2017.
We’ll get to why this is happening shortly. First, let’s look at Bellingcat involvement in Ukraine.
On July 11th, 2014 an event happened that shook my world, literally. Bellingcat reported that the Russians attacked Ukrainian armed forces from across the border in Zelenopillya. The Ukrainians suffered traumatic losses. Once again, Eliot Higgins provides the data for determining this. Once again Bellingcat was wrong about the origin of the attack.
This single battle marked the turning point for the entire war. The Donbass militia went on a large offensive for the first time and destroyed a big Ukrainian encampment with a rocket attack.
How can I afford to be so assertive? At 4:30 in the morning on July 11th every house in my town started shaking because of the massive explosions going on at Zelenopillya. I did say it shook my world, didn’t I?
I was between the Russian border and the camp. We could see the smoke from the rockets and the sky was lit with the explosions. The explosions were loud enough to wake the dead that morning. There were no rockets flying over my head. For Russia to fire them, that’s exactly where they would have been.
At that point, we were under Ukrainian occupation for a couple of months. Two days before the attack on Zelenopillya happened, a Ukrainian army officer told the postmaster to get the children out of town within 2 days. The army was pulling out and a cleansing battalion (Donbas battalion) was coming in to weed out “separatists and supporters.” That was when I came face to face with Mark Paslowsky, the American nazi. The article gives his background and tells what was going on.
Bellingcat misidentifies the weapon as artillery. Grad rockets were fired at Zelenopillya by the Rovenki militia that day. I spoke with the militia that fired them about 1 week after the fact. In the linked articles the Ukrainians state plainly that it was militia using Grad rockets.
The Ukrainians took some of their wounded across the border to Russia. It’s not quite something you do if Russia was really attacking you. The worst injuries were treated locally. Donbass people ran there after the battle to help the wounded and the Ukrainian soldiers were treated at local hospitals. Ukraine abandoned them.
The story got a lot of play in the west in the west as a Russian attack on Ukraine thanks to this event. It was added to the list of reasons to sanction Russia. If the attack on Zelenopillya didn’t happen, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this.
For the third time on an important event, Bellingcat shows it cannot identify the origin or firing location of a weapon and misidentifies both the weapon type and the direction of fire in media.
Getting the facts straight about the MH-17 shootdown is the difference between hundreds of families getting justice and closure for those deaths or never seeing it. Convict the wrong party and justice is never served. New victims are made with false or erroneous evidence.
Bellingcat’s importance to the JIT (Joint Investigative Team) investigation of MH-17 is apparent through all the media Higgins and Toler are quoted in media as the independent experts.
That last statement should grab your attention. Bellingcat and its founders Elliot Higgins and Aric Toler’s credibility rests on the fact that they are independent researchers. If they are working for an interested party in any investigation, Bellingcat’s credibility is destroyed and their research means nothing. After all, it’s been paid for.
Bellingcat really grabbed the public’s attention and imagination after the shoot down of flight MH-17 over Ukraine. Independent researchers Higgins and Toler went to work to find the missile launch site and the responsible parties, or did they?
As early as February 2014, Higgins showed the beginning of a clear pattern regarding Ukraine. In the tweet below this OSINT expert researcher was linking to a 1 month old blog started by Sviatoslav Yurash. What’s special about Yurash at this time is that he was Ukrainian ultranationalist Dimitry Yarosh’s English language spokesman. If that well-known fact wasn’t enough to caution Higgins, what was?
In the next article to follow, starting with Yurash as the first example, I’ll show you how all these volunteer experts including Higgins get paid. The article will further cement and establish the relationships between Bellingcat, Weisburd, Watts and other intel and news headline providers with each other as well as their employers.
For now, the admission made by the Ukrainian Information Ministry and Aric Toler will have to be enough.
“September 29 and November 19, 2015 in Kharkov Crisis Infocentre Information Policy Advisor to the Minister Dmitry Zolotukhin conducted training on the search for information in open sources for journalists and bloggers in Kharkov.
In addition, already 21 November Dmitry Zolotukhin met with his US counterpart, team representative Bellingcat Arik Toler, who conducted a similar training for journalists in Kyiv on the invitation of Media Development Foundation. They also discussed the possibility of holding a conference in Kiev on thematic instruments OSINT-use techniques in the modern media.”
One of the Media Development Center’s sponsors is NATO. It is a project of the US Embassy in Kiev because of the association with the embassy’s diplomatic paper, the Kyiv Post.
If that isn’t enough, let’s see how close Bellingcat’s Aric Toler views the relationship.
According to both Information Policy Advisor Dmitry Zolotukhin and Toler, they are partners. Eric Toler and Eliot Higgins(Bellingcat), along with Aaron Weisburd, Clint Watts, and Joel Harding have been working with the same Ukrainian Information Ministry that started the “Mytorovyets” or Peacekeeper website.
They help the SBU geo-locate people in Ukraine. As shown above, they also train people to geo-locate anyone considered anti-Maidan or anti-nationalist in Ukraine. They didn’t disappoint.
The Ministry of Information has been targeting journalists in Ukraine by geo-location for arrest or murder. The first public case was the Ukrainian journalist Oleh Buzina in May 2015. This was one month after my first article about Peacekeeper showed clearly that this was its purpose.
I think this pretty well sums up how independent Bellingcat’s investigation has been. To add insult to injury, Higgins and Toler work directly with previously identified Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and Pravy Sektor members (ultra-nationalist Ukrainians) to get Bellingcat “independent research” information.
InformNapalm and its hackers are Ukrainian Intel agents working for the Information Ministry. In their own words- The main activities of the project are collecting and analysing OSINT-information, found in open sources, including social networks. InformNapalm’s investigation of 53rd Artillery Brigade commander colonel Sergei Muchkayev, suspected of killing the MH17 passengers, was used in the report of the Bellingcat research team.
Who was the information source for independent researchers at Bellingcat? Dimitry Yarosh’s best friend, Valentyn Nalivaychenko was one of them. In the spring of 2014, he replaced SBU(Ukraine’s Security Service) personnel with ultra-nationalists because they had the right ideology. Another was Anton Gerashchenko who is responsible for persecuting the press in Ukraine.
“In few days and hours after the crash of MH17 Ukrainian officials widely publicly discussed all that data (except the photo of “Paris Match”) anonymously downloaded by someone to social nets. For example on July 17 Gerashchenko (The ministry of internal affairs) showed the photo of Buk at Torez; on July 18 Avakov (The ministry of internal affairs) showed the video of Buk at Luhansk; also on July 18 Nalivaychenko (the chief of Ukrainian security service) showed the video of Buk at Snizhne, and on July 19 Vitaliy Naida (Ukrainian security service) showed shot fragment of video frame (not the video itself) from Zugres.”
Under the best circumstances, Bellingcat’s research can only be seen as a Ukrainian Intelligence production. If neither Higgins or Toler were actively engaged with Ukrainian operations on the many levels that they are, their source material is still very tainted. When all your research material comes from a party under investigation, you are no longer a neutral party. You can’t pee in a blood sample and call it evidence. Are Higgins and Toler credible? You decide.
Max van der Werff has become a go-to resource for understanding information about MH-17. I have spoken at length with Max and his fellow researchers. This linked article shows the strength of research these REAL volunteers have brought to the MH-17 investigation. I had to ask Max the great who-dun-it question. His response was after thousands of hours of research, he didn’t know. Too many people were withholding information and remaining uncooperative on all sides.
What he was sure of is that Bellingcat’s research is shoddy and a lot of the evidence appears fabricated. Max van der Werf has been interviewed by the JIT investigative team on 4 occasions, given over 6 hours of recorded interviews with them, as well as over 14GB of data.
Examples of this include the fact that all of the images and videos are such low quality and resolution, it’s impossible to make definite determinations from them.
One of the chase vehicles (jeep) in Bellingcat’s BUK convoy is driving with the door open. In another image of the BUK transport supposedly taken by a local resident, the apartment was not occupied in the summer of 2014. There was no one there to take the image. It was again so grainy and low quality that even a military vehicle substitution was not noticeable. None of the neighbors that were there saw a BUK on a trailer.
The route of travel according to Bellingcat would have taken the BUK launcher toward the conflict zone twice while battles were being fought across the region. Anyone familiar with the area or that had a map would take a direct route which would have made it much less noticeable driving through unpopulated areas.
Images taken after the shoot down are just as bad. Some unimportant parts of the image are in focus while it’s almost impossible to make out the BUK even though it’s right beside the photographer.
The so-called wire-tapped conversation was proven to be a Ukrainian SBU production. How is it still a part of the evidence chain?
What van der Werff has proven unequivocally is that another investigation needs to take place that looks for real evidence. The JIT, for their part, had the impossible task of investigating a hostile shoot-down of a jetliner with no previous airline disaster investigation experience in a war zone that was active. The problem with it is objectivity was thrown out the window as soon as Ukraine got the right to reject evidence and control what would be made public.
What has looking for Ruskies done? In the eyes of Congress, it made you and every publication that strives for neutral information or even writing from their political slant a Ruskie. You work for Vladimir Putin.
It has taken away any hope of justice for people in Syria and the families of MH-17 victims unless real neutral investigations take place.
It’s taken away real news from the masses and replaced it with policy pieces from people that get paid to hate you. You are, after all, the Russian interference that they talk about.
It’s time to stop this bs.Students and campaigners from Stop the War Coalition repeat call for former prime minister to be tried for war crimes
Tony Blair was jeered by anti-war protesters at University College London on Tuesday.
Students and campaigners from the Stop the War Coalition repeated their demand that the former prime minister be tried for war crimes.
Blair was speaking in London Bridge at the launch of the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies (ISRS) – a research institute which shares an address with UCL – alongside former defence secretary John Reid and education secretary Michael Gove.
UCL says it is independent from the ISRS however protestors point out professor Malcolm Grant, who is president and provost of UCL, appears on the ISRS's advisory board.
Students say the event's organisers behaved in an underhand manner by failing to advertise where the speech would take place, and by charging £700 for tickets.
Chris Nineham, vice-chair of Stop the War Coalition, which organised the protest at UCL says: "It is completely insane for a man who lied to parliament to be speaking at a conference supported by one of Britain's premier educational institutions. It is an absolutely mad situation."
UCL student Ollie Sutherland, one of dozens who protested, agreed that Blair was not welcome on campus: "Universities need to make the world a better place and inviting people like Tony Blair runs contrary to that."
UCL, however, has defended its position, saying: "The event is being held under the auspices of the ISRS, an independent research institute and not-for-profit company.
"They are responsible for the conference, and no funding, facilities or accommodation for the conference have been requested or are being provided by UCL.
"The conference is not taking place at UCL. As an institute devoted to learning, UCL values freedom of speech highly and encourages the widest possible expression of differing views, within the law. We do not operate a policy of barring speaker with controversial views."
Earlier this week, Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell said they were "appalled" by the news that Blair was to appear at the event, and called on UCL to "reconsider its position in hosting this institution and instead protect its own academic independence".
• This article was amended on Wednesday 14 November. The original story suggested Tony Blair was appearing at UCL. This has been corrected. It was also added that ISRS shares the same address as UCL, and that the university's provost appears on the ISRS advisory board.The mainstream penalty-driven approach to drugs control is both morally and intellectually flawed. Morally, it ignores the use and, in some cases, promotion of drugs such as alcohol and tobacco that are much more harmful than most "illicit" drugs. Intellectually, it ignores the reasons people choose to take drugs, and why they value them. One of the most important motivations for taking drugs, which cannot easily be acknowledged by the authorities, is personal pleasure.
The UK government position seems predicated on the view that all drug users are addicts, enslaved to their drug of choice by virtue of a lack of moral fibre. In fact, we know that even for the most addictive drugs – heroin, crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine – most users do not become addicted. And of course at the initiation of use people are not addicted, with almost everyone who tries out a drug doing so through personal choice rather than being made to by dealers; so there is clearly a lot of choice in the use of drugs.
There are several reasons for people choosing to try drugs. For "legal" drugs particularly alcohol and tobacco, that most people find unpleasant to start with, the choice to use is largely driven by fashion, manifesting through peer pressure. With alcohol, the drinks industry has marketed less aversive mixtures (alcopops) to help people overcome the taste of alcohol. It also engages in massive sexually orientated advertising to induce use, much of this illegally targeted at underage drinkers via social media sites.
In the UK last year half of all 15- to 16-year-olds were intoxicated on alcohol at least once a month, despite the drinking age being 18. This behaviour is de facto "illegal" though the government turns a blind eye, which means that many are addicted to alcohol before they are able to legally purchase it. For "illicit" drugs the choice to use is more complex, as the risk of being caught and getting a criminal record needs to be taken into consideration. Yet up to 50% of young people break the law to use these at some stage in their lives. To better deal with the consequences of this use – for example up to 5% of regular cannabis users may be dependent — we need better information about the reasons for use.
In some cases illicit drug-taking is about challenging authority, but in most cases it's about psychological exploration, often driven by positive comments and encouragement from friends. Then, once the hurdle of "breaking the law" has been overcome, the value of the drug in terms of personal pleasure and positive social engagement can be weighed against the risks of being caught. For a sizeable minority of users "illicit" drugs are taken to reduce pain and suffering (eg cannabis for multiple sclerosis, psilocybin for cluster headaches). Similarly, alcohol is often used to reduce anxiety and deaden sadness.
The fact that there are so many users of "illicit" drugs such as cannabis, MDMA and ketamine means that the pleasures must often be seen to outweigh the pain, just as they do for alcohol and tobacco. Until we properly understand the personal value of all drugs (including alcohol and tobacco), harm- and use-reduction policies are bound to fail.
In some countries even admitting that there might be a value in drug use is effectively barred from public discourse. In order to start an honest dialogue with people who use drugs we need to balance the focus on drugs-related harms by exploring pleasure, which is what motivates most people who use drugs, including alcohol.
The new web-based Net Pleasure Index, part of the 2013 Global Drug Survey is an attempt to gather this information for a wide range of drugs. It is aimed at the recreational rather than addicted user of alcohol and other drugs (tobacco users rarely admit to any pleasure, as they are mostly dependent).
Along with questions on drug policy and prescription drug use, the data it generates will help decision-making by government and individual users about the relative likelihood of new "legal highs" becoming a problem and help us better understand what motivates the use of different drugs. It will also guide advice on websites such as the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and aid harm-sation educational approaches such as the Global Drug Survey drugs meter.
If you are one the 90% of the UK population who use some sort of drug then please take the time to join the 13,000 people who have already taken part in this year's Global Drug Survey and give us your insights.Distance runners might be putting their health in serious jeopardy by taking over-the-counter painkillers before races, according to German researchers.
A study on the use of common analgesics including diclofenac, ibuprofen and aspirin by participants in the Bonn Marathon and Half Marathon in 2010 suggested that those taking the painkillers were far more likely to get cardiovascular, intestinal and kidney problems. It did not prevent post-exercise pain or make athletes retire from the events early, according to a study published in BMJ Open, the online medical journal.
Nine runners who took painkillers said they had ended up in hospital, three for temporary kidney failure after taking ibuprofen, four for bleeding ulcers after taking aspirin, and two after a heart attack after taking aspirin. One of these had taken 500mg for mild foot pain.
None of the runners who competed without taking painkillers was admitted to hospital. The research was based on more than 3,900 questionnaires returned to researchers in Bonn and Erlangen and did not take into account possible confounding factors including body mass index and use of other drugs. There were also differences in age, sex and training.
The study authors said that despite these limitations, their work had shown a "worrying lack of education" among runners about possible health risks. This might highlight a larger problem among endurance sport enthusiasts and further research was needed as to whether the use of painkillers before and during sports should be avoided altogether, they said.One of the advantage of using Linux is that you can choose the graphic environment you want to use and you can customize it as you want. This article offers you a list of the 25 best screenshots, found on the Internet, and which will give you inspiration to customize your desktop.
Dust maxxed out by BilliShere
GTK & Metacity: dust gtk
Wallpaper: indian summer 08
Other: screenlets, snackr (adobe air app) and conky
Source
Linux Desktop - 3 apr, 2008 by ebupof
GTK & Metacity: Shiftie Black
Icons: Si
Wallpaper: Holland Dream
Source
Linux Desktop - 20 mar, 2008 by ebupof
GTK & Metacity: Shiftie
Icons: Si
Wallpaper: Leafie PRO
Source
Linux Desktop - 20 sep, 2007 by ebupof
System : Fluxbox
Wallpaper: Sunday
Source
Vorta Conky and Tint by Kshegzyaj
Desktop: XFCE
Theme: Vorta suite
Other: Compiz, Emerald, Conky
Source
KDE 4.1 by white-dawn
OS: Debian GNU/Linux
Theme: Glaze theme for Plasma
Other: KRunner in the middle
Source
Arch Linux Openbox by JoePhantom
OS: Arch
Desktop: Openbox
Other: Sonata, Conky, Xcompmgr, Pypanel
Source
No manual entry for life by KingCam
GTK & Metacity: ASN
Icons: Micro
Dock Icons: Handelgot_Icons
Wallpaper: Raw
Pic: Iridescence
Source
AXONKOLOR for Beryl by thrynk
GTK & Metacity: Mire v2 Gtk themepack
Wallpaper: Dove at
Desktop: Fluxbox (theme is AXONKOLOR for Fluxbox)
Source
Back with a stupid shot by FrostTyrant
GTK & Metacity: Elegant Brit
Desktop: XFCE
Other: Thunar
Source
Debian 30 oct, 2008 by hadret
GTK & Metacity: Alun Dark
Icons: Meliae & hydroxygen
AWN Icons: ecqlipse 2
Wallpaper: Debian Grass 2
Other: AWN, Conky, GNOME-MPlayer, Iceweasel, Nautilus
Source
Djarum by Opeth115
Desktop: Fluxbox
Wallpaper: The Ragged
Source
Arch Openbox by Froli
OS : Archlinux
: Archlinux GTK & Metacity: Nova-Blue
Icons : ALLBLACK
OpenBox Theme: arch.blue
Wallpaper: 73999-arch_openbox.png
17.05.08 by bybyly
GTK & Metacity: mookid
Icons: ALLGREY
Conky: by lyrae
Source
19.05 by lynucs
Desktop: Xfce4
GTK & Metacity: clearlooks Darkcoffee2
Icons: area04
Wallpaper: ASEN by VisionsofArt
Other: gqview, xchat, konqueror, firefox, xterm, fbrun, cal (calender for term), sonata
Source
Bliss by lynucs
OS: Fedora 9
Desktop: Xfce4
|
continuous transformation process leading from late Antiquity to the Islamic period. Early research into the area regarded the early Islamic architecture merely as a break with the past, from which apparently rose a distorted and less expressive form of art,[24] or a degenerate imitation of the post-classical architectural forms.[25] Modern concepts tend to regard the transition between the cultures rather as a selective process of informed appropriation and transformation. The Umayyads played a crucial role in this process of transforming and thereby enriching the existing architectural traditions, or, in a more general sense, of the visual culture of the nascent Islamic society.[26]
Paradise garden [ edit ]
Gardens and water have for many centuries played an essential role in Islamic culture, and are often compared to the garden of Paradise. The comparison originates from the Achaemenid Empire. In his dialogue "Oeconomicus", Xenophon has Socrates relate the story of the Spartan general Lysander's visit to the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger, who shows the Greek his "Paradise at Sardis".[27] The classical form of the Persian Paradise garden, or the Charbagh, comprises a rectangular irrigated space with elevated pathways, which divide the garden into four sections of equal size:
One of the hallmarks of Persian gardens is the four-part garden laid out with axial paths that intersect at the garden's centre. This highly structured geometrical scheme, called the chahar bagh, became a powerful metaphor for the organization and domestication of the landscape, itself a symbol of political territory.[28]
A charbagh from Achaemenid time has been identified in the archaeological excavations at Pasargadae. The gardens of Chehel Sotoun (Isfahan), Fin Garden (Kashan), Eram Garden (Shiraz), Shazdeh Garden (Mahan), Dowlatabad Garden (Yazd), Abbasabad Garden (Abbasabad), Akbarieh Garden (South Khorasan Province), Pahlevanpour Garden, all in Iran, form part of the UNESCO World Heritage.[29] Large Paradise gardens are also found at the Taj Mahal (Agra), and at Humayun's Tomb (New Delhi), in India; the Shalimar Gardens (Lahore, Pakistan) or at the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, Spain.[22]
Courtyard (Sehan) [ edit ]
The traditional Islamic courtyard, a sehan (Arabic: صحن), is found in secular and religious structures.
When within a residence or other secular building is a private courtyard and walled garden. It is used for: the aesthetics of plants, water, architectural elements, and natural light; for cooler space with fountains and shade, and source of breezes into the structure, during summer heat; and a protected and proscribed place where the women of the house need not be covered in the hijab clothing traditionally necessary in public. A sehan—courtyard is in within almost every mosque in Islamic architecture. The courtyards are open to the sky and surrounded on all sides by structures with halls and rooms, and often a shaded semi-open arcade. Sehans usually feature a centrally positioned ritual cleansing pool under an open domed pavilion called a howz. A mosque courtyard is used for performing ablutions, and a 'patio' for rest or gathering.
Hypostyle hall [ edit ]
A Hypostyle, i.e., an open hall supported by columns combined with a reception hall set at right angle to the main hall, is considered to be derived from architectural traditions of Achaemenid period Persian assembly halls ("apadana"). This type of building originated from the Roman-style basilica with an adjacent courtyard surrounded by colonnades, like Trajan's Forum in Rome. The Roman type of building has developed out of the Greek agora. In Islamic architecture, the hypostyle hall is the main feature of the hypostyle mosque. One of the earliest hypostyle mosques is the Tarikhaneh Mosque in Iran, dating back to the 8th century.[22]
Vaulting [ edit ]
In Islamic buildings, vaulting follows two distinct architectural styles: Whilst Umayyad architecture continues Syrian traditions of the 6th and 7th century, Eastern Islamic architecture was mainly influenced by Sasanian styles and forms.
Umayyad diaphragm arches and barrel vaults [ edit ]
Qusair 'Amra
In their vaulting structures, Umayyad period buildings show a mixture of ancient Roman and Persian architectural traditions. Diaphragm arches with lintelled ceilings made of wood or stone beams, or, alternatively, with barrel vaults, were known in the Levant since the classical and Nabatean period. They were mainly used to cover houses and cisterns. The architectural form of covering diaphragm arches with barrel vaults, however, was likely newly introduced from Iranian architecture, as similar vaulting was not known in Bilad al-Sham before the arrival of the Umayyads. However, this form was well known in Iran from early Parthian times, as exemplified in the Parthian buildings of Aššur. The earliest known example for barrel vaults resting on diaphragm arches from Umayyad architecture is known from Qasr Harane in Syria. During the early period, the diaphragm arches are built from coarsely cut limestone slabs, without using supporting falsework, which were connected by gypsum mortar. Later-period vaults were erected using pre-formed lateral ribs modelled from gypsum, which served as a temporal formwork to guide and center the vault. These ribs, which were left in the structure afterwards, do not carry any load. The ribs were cast in advance on strips of cloth, the impression of which can still be seen in the ribs today. Similar structures are known from Sasanian architecture, for example from the palace of Firuzabad. Umayyad-period vaults of this type were found in Amman Citadel and in Qasr Amra.[30]
Iberian Peninsula [ edit ]
The double-arched system of arcades of the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba is generally considered to be derived from Roman aqueducts like the nearby aqueduct of Los Milagros. Columns are connected by horseshoe arches, and support pillars of brickwork, which are in turn interconnected by semicircular arches supporting the flat timberwork ceiling.
Arcades of the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba
Arcades of the Aljafería of Zaragoza
In later-period additions to the Mosque of Córdoba, the basic architectural design was changed: Horseshoe arches were now used for the upper row of arcades, which is now supported by five-pass arches. In sections which now supported domes, additional supporting structures were needed to bear the thrust of the cupolas. The architects solved this problem by the construction of intersecting three- or five-pass arches. The three domes spanning the vaults above the mihrab wall are constructed as ribbed vaults. Rather than meeting in the center of the dome, the ribs intersect one another off-center, forming an eight-pointed star in the center which is superseded by a pendentive dome.[31]
The ribbed vaults of the mosque-cathedral of Córdoba served as models for later mosque buildings in the Islamic West of al-Andaluz and the Maghreb. At around 1000 AD, the Mezquita de Bab al Mardum (today: Mosque of Cristo de la Luz) in Toledo was constructed with a similar, eight-ribbed dome. Similar domes are also seen in the mosque building of the Aljafería of Zaragoza. The architectural form of the ribbed dome was further developed in the Maghreb: The central dome of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, a masterpiece of the Almoravids built in 1082, has twelve slender ribs, the shell between the ribs is filled with filigree stucco work.[31]
Iran (Persia) [ edit ]
Because of its long history of building and re-building, spanning the time from the Abbasids to the Qajar dynasty, and its excellent state of conservation, the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan provides an overview over the experiments Islamic architects conducted with complicated vaulting structures.[31]:66–88
The system of squinches, which is a construction filling in the upper angles of a square room so as to form a base to receive an octagonal or spherical dome, was already known in Sasanian architecture.[32] The spherical triangles of the squinches were split up into further subdivisions or systems of niches, resulting in a complex interplay of supporting structures forming an ornamental spatial pattern which hides the weight of the structure.
The "non-radial rib vault", an architectural form of ribbed vaults with a superimposed spherical dome, is the characteristic architectural vault form of the Islamic East. From its beginnings in the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, this form of vault was used in a sequence of important buildings up to the period of Safavid architecture. Its main characteristics are:[31]:66–88
Four intersecting ribs, at times redoubled and intersected to form an eight-pointed star; the omission of a transition zone between the vault and the supporting structure; a central dome or roof lantern on top of the ribbed vault.
While intersecting pairs of ribs from the main decorative feature of Seljuk architecture, the ribs were hidden behind additional architectural elements in later periods, as exemplified in the dome of the Tomb of Ahmed Sanjar in Merv, until they finally disappeared completely behind the double shell of a stucco dome, as seen in the dome of Ālī Qāpū in Isfahan.[31]:66–88
Dome of the Fire temple of Harpak in Abyaneh
Non-radial rib vault in the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan
Dome of the tomb of Ahmed Sanjar in Merv
Upper dome of Ālī Qāpū, Isfahan
Adina Mosque, West Bengal, India
Domes [ edit ]
Based on the model of pre-existing Byzantine domes, the Ottoman Architecture developed a specific form of monumental, representative building: Wide central domes with huge diameters were erected on top of a centre-plan building. Despite their enormous weight, the domes appear virtually weightless. Some of the most elaborate domed buildings have been constructed by the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan.
When the Ottomans had conquered Constantinople, they found a variety of Byzantine Christian churches, the largest and most prominent amongst them was the Hagia Sophia. The brickwork-and-mortar ribs and the spherical shell of the central dome of the Hagia Sophia were built simultaneously, as a self-supporting structure without any wooden centring.[33] In the early Byzantine church of Hagia Irene, the ribs of the dome vault are fully integrated into the shell, similar to Western Roman domes, and thus are not visible from within the building.[34] In the dome of the Hagia Sophia, the ribs and shell of the dome unite in a central medallion at the apex of the dome, the upper ends of the ribs being integrated into the shell: Shell and ribs form one single structural entity. In later Byzantine buildings, like the Kalenderhane Mosque, the Eski Imaret Mosque (formerly the Monastery of Christ Pantepoptes) or the Pantokrator Monastery (today: Zeyrek Mosque), the central medallion of the apex and the ribs of the dome became separate structural elements: The ribs are more pronounced and connect to the central medallion, which also stands out more pronouncedly, so that the entire construction gives the impression as if ribs and medallion are separate from, and underpin, the proper shell of the dome.[35]
Mimar Sinan solved the structural issues of the Hagia Sophia dome by constructing a system of centrally symmetric pillars with flanking semi-domes, as exemplified by the design of the Süleymaniye Mosque (four pillars with two flanking shield walls and two semi-domes, 1550–1557), the Rüstem Pasha Mosque (eight pillars with four diagonal semi-domes, 1561–1563), and the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne (eight pillars with four diagonal semi-domes, 1567/8–1574/5). In the history of architecture, the structure of the Selimiye Mosque has no precedent. All elements of the building subordinate to its great dome.[36][37][38]
Schematic drawing of a pendentive dome
Central domes of the Hagia Sophia
Dome of the Kalenderhane Mosque
Selimiye Mosque
Muqarnas [ edit ]
The architectural element of muqarnas developed in northeastern Iran and the Maghreb around the middle of the 10th century. The ornament is created by the geometric subdivision of a vaulting structure into miniature, superimposed pointed-arch substructures, also known as "honeycomb", or "stalactite" vaults. Made from different materials like stone, brick, wood or stucco, its use in architecture spread over the entire Islamic world. In the Islamic West, muqarnas are also used to adorn the outside of a dome, cupola, or similar structure, whilst in the East is more limited to the interior face of a vault.
Design of a muqarnas quarter vault from the Topkapı Scroll
Muqarnas in the necropolis of Shah-i-Zinda, Samarqand
Muqarnas in the Alhambra
The muqarna of a mosque in Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Ornaments [ edit ]
As a common feature, Islamic architecture makes use of specific ornamental forms, including mathematically complicated, elaborate geometric and interlace patterns, floral motifs like the arabesque, and elaborate calligraphic inscriptions, which serve to decorate a building, specify the intention of the building by the selection of the textual program of the inscriptions. For example, the calligraphic inscriptions adorning the Dome of the Rock include quotations from the Quran (e.g., Quran 19:33–35) which reference the miracle of Jesus and his human nature.
The geometric or floral, interlaced forms, taken together, constitute an infinitely repeated pattern that extends beyond the visible material world.[39] To many in the Islamic world, they symbolize the concept of infinite proves of existence of one eternal God. The repetitiveness, simplicity contrasted with complexity and percision suggests that our complex universe is only one of the many manifestations of the infinitely obvious and present Allah, the one God. Furthermore, the Islamic artist conveys a definite spirituality without the iconography of Christian art. Non-figural ornaments are used in mosques and buildings around the Muslim world, and it is a way of decorating using beautiful, embellishing and repetitive Islamic art instead of using pictures of humans and animals (which some Muslims believe is forbidden (Haram) in Islam).
Instead of recalling something related to the reality of the spoken word, calligraphy for the Muslim is a visible expression of spiritual concepts. Calligraphy has arguably become the most venerated form of Islamic art because it provides a link between the languages of the Muslims with the religion of Islam. The holy book of Islam, al-Qur'ān, has played a vital role in the development of the Arabic language, and by extension, calligraphy in the Arabic alphabet. Proverbs and complete passages from the Qur'an are still active sources for Islamic calligraphy. Contemporary artists in the Islamic world draw on the heritage of calligraphy to use calligraphic inscriptions or abstractions in their work.
Geometrical tile ornament (Zellij), Ben Youssef Madrasa, Maroc
Calligraphic inscription on the dome of the Mevlana mausoleum
Dome of the Shah Mosque in Isfahan with calligraphic inscription
Bengali Islamic terracotta on a 17th-century mosque in Tangail, Bangladesh
Architectural forms [ edit ]
Many forms of Islamic architecture have evolved in different regions of the Islamic world. Notable Islamic architectural types include the early Abbasid buildings, T-Type mosques, and the central-dome mosques of Anatolia. The oil-wealth of the 20th century drove a great deal of mosque construction using designs from leading modern architects.
Arab-plan or hypostyle mosques are the earliest type of mosques, pioneered under the Umayyad Dynasty. These mosques are square or rectangular in plan with an enclosed courtyard and a covered prayer hall. Historically, because of the warm Mediterranean and Middle Eastern climates, the courtyard served to accommodate the large number of worshippers during Friday prayers. Most early hypostyle mosques have flat roofs on top of prayer halls, necessitating the use of numerous columns and supports.[40] One of the most notable hypostyle mosques is the Mezquita in Córdoba, Spain, as the building is supported by over 850 columns.[41] Frequently, hypostyle mosques have outer arcades so that visitors can enjoy some shade. Arab-plan mosques were constructed mostly under the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties; subsequently, however, the simplicity of the Arab plan limited the opportunities for further development, and as a result, these mosques gradually fell out of popularity.[40]
The Ottomans introduced central dome mosques in the 15th century and have a large dome centered over the prayer hall. In addition to having one large dome at the center, there are often smaller domes that exist off-center over the prayer hall or throughout the rest of the mosque, where prayer is not performed.[42] This style was heavily influenced by the Byzantine religious architecture with its use of large central domes.[40]
The interior of the Mezquita in Córdoba, Spain
A sample of modern Islamic architecture - The mosque of international conferences center - Isfahan
Specific architectural elements [ edit ]
Plan view of Bab al-Barqiyya along Ayyubid Wall. Located close to one of Cairo's main modern traffic arteries, al-Azhar Street, the Fatimid-era Bab al-Barqiyya fortified gate was constructed with interlocking volumes that surrounded the entrant in such a way as to provide greater security and control than typical city wall gates. Laser scan data from an Aga Khan Foundation CyArk research partnership.
Islamic architecture may be identified with the following design elements, which were inherited from the first mosque buildings (originally a feature of the Masjid al-Nabawi).
Minarets or towers (these were originally used as torch-lit watchtowers, as seen in the Great Mosque of Damascus; hence the derivation of the word from the Arabic nur, meaning "light"). The minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia is considered as the oldest surviving minaret in the world. [43] It has the shape of a square massive tower of three superimposed sections. [43]
, meaning "light"). The minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia is considered as the oldest surviving minaret in the world. It has the shape of a square massive tower of three superimposed sections. A four-iwan plan, with three subordinate halls and one principal one that faces toward Mecca
Mihrab or prayer niche on an inside wall indicating the direction to Mecca.
Domes and Cupolas. In South East Asia (Indonesia and Malaysia), these are very recent additions.
Pishtaq is the formal gateway to the iwan, usually the main prayer hall of a mosque, a vaulted hall or space, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open; a Persian term for a portal projecting from the facade of a building, usually decorated with calligraphy bands, glazed tilework, and geometric designs. [44] [45]
Iwans to intermediate between different pavilions.
Qibla [ edit ]
The Qiblah (Arabic: قِـبْـلَـة) is the direction in which Mecca is from any given location, and within Islamic architecture it is a major component of both the features and the orientation of the building itself.[46] Ancient Islamic cities and the Mihrab in mosques were meant to be built facing in this direction, yet when actually observing the layout of such areas they do not all point to the same place.[46] This is due to discrepancies in the calculations of the Islamic scientists in the past who determined where Mecca was from their individual locations. Scholars note that these differences come about for a multitude of reasons, such as some misunderstanding the meaning of Qibla itself, the fact that the geographic coordinates of the past do not line up with the coordinates of today, and that the determination of this direction was more an astronomical calculation, rather than a mathematical one. Early mosques were constructed according to either the calculations of what direction Qibla was approximately, or with the Mihrab facing south, as that was the direction that the Prophet Muhammad was facing when he prayed in Medina, which is a city directly north of Mecca[46]
Towns and cities [ edit ]
Urban and nomadic life according to Ibn Khaldun [ edit ]
During its history, the society of the pre-modern Islamic world was dominated by two important social contexts, nomadic life and Urbanism. The historian and politician Ibn Khaldun thoroughly discusses both concepts in his book Muqaddimah. According to him, the way of life and culture of the rural bedouin nomads and the townspeople are opposed in a central social conflict. Ibn Khaldun explains the rise and fall of civilizations by his concept of Asabiyyah ("bond of cohesion", or "family loyalty"), as exemplified by the rule of the caliphs. Bedouins, being the nomadic inhabitants of the steppe and the desert, are interconnected by strong bonds of asabiyyah and firm religious beliefs. These bonds tend to slacken in urban communities over some generations. In parallel, by losing their asabiyyah, the townspeople also lose the power to defend themselves, and fall victims to more aggressive tribes which may destroy the city and set up a new ruling dynasty, which over time is subject to the same weakening of power again.[47]
Experiments with the hellenistic ideal city [ edit ]
The antique concept of the architecture of a Greek polis or Roman civitas is based on a structure of main and smaller roads running through the entire city, and dividing it into quarters. The streets are oriented towards public buildings like a palace, temple, or a public square. Two main roads, (cardo and decumanus) cross each other at right angles in the center of the city. A few cities were founded during the early Islamic Umayyad Caliphate, the outlines of which were based on the Ancient Roman concept of the ideal city. An example of a city planned according to Hellenistic concepts was excavated at Anjar in Lebanon.[48]
Transformation of conquered towns [ edit ]
More often than founding new cities, the new Islamic rulers took over existing towns, and transformed them according to the needs of the new Islamic society. This process of transformation proved to be decisive for the development of the traditional Islamic city, or Medina.[49] The principle of arranging buildings is known as "horizontal spread". Residencies and public buildings as well as private housing tend to be laid out separately, and are not directly related to each other architectonically. Archaeological excavations at the city of Jerash, the Gerasa of Antiquity, have revealed how the Umayyads have transformed the city plan.[50]
Urban morphology of the Medina [ edit ]
The architecture of the "oriental"-Islamic town is based on cultural and sociological concepts which differ from those of European cities. In both cultures, a distinction is made between the areas used by the rulers and their government and administration, public places of everyday common life, and the areas of private life. Whilst the structures and concepts of European towns originated from a sociological struggle to gain basic rights of freedom – or town privileges – from political or religious authorities during the Middle Ages, an Islamic town or city is fundamentally influenced by the preservation of the unity of secular and religious life throughout time.[51]
The fundamental principle of the Islamic society is the ummah, or ummat al-Islamiyah (Arabic: الأمة الإسلامية), the community of Muslims of whom each individual is equally submitted to Allah under the common law of sharia, which also subjected the respective ruler, at least nominally. In Abbasid times, some cities like the Round city of Baghdad were constructed from scratch, set up to a plan which focused on the caliph's residence, located in the very centre of the city, with main roads leading radially from the city gates to the central palace, dividing individual tribal sections with no interconnection, and separated from each other by radial walls. However, these efforts were of short duration only, and the original plan soon disappeared and gave way to succeeding buildings and architectural structures.
In a medina, palaces and residences as well as public places like mosque-madrasa-hospital complexes and private living spaces rather coexist alongside each other. The buildings tend to be more inwardly oriented, and are separated from the surrounding "outside" either by walls or by the hierarchical ordering of the streets, or both. Streets tend to lead from public main roads to cul-de-sac byroads and onwards into more private plots, and then end there. There are no, or very few, internal connections between different quarters of the city. In order to move from one quarter to the next, one has to go back to the main road again.[51]
Within a city quarter, byroads lead towards individual building complexes or clusters of houses. The individual house is frequently also oriented towards an inner atrium, and enclosed by walls, which mostly are unadorned, unlike European outward-oriented, representative facades. Thus, the spatial structure of a medina essentially reflects the ancient nomadic tradition of living in a family group or tribe, held together by asabiyya, strictly separated from the "outside". In general, the morphology of an Islamic medina is granting – or denying – access according to the basic concept of hierarchical degrees of privacy. The inhabitants move from public space to the living quarters of their tribe, and onwards to their family home. Within a family house, there are again to be found common and separate spaces, the latter, and most private, usually reserved for women and children. In the end, only the family heads have free and unlimited access to all rooms and areas of ther private home, as opposed to the more European concept of interconnecting different spaces for free and easy access. The hierarchy of privacy thus guides and structurizes the entire social life in a medina, from the caliph down to his most humble subject, from the town to the house.[52]
Frontier fortresses and towns [ edit ]
Mosque in Qasr al-Hallabat
Entrance courtyard of Qasr al-Hallabat
Misr, Ribat [ edit ]
In the frontier area of the Arabic expansion, military forts (Misr, Pl. Arabic: أَمْـصَـار, amṣār), or Ribāṭ (Arabic: رِبَـاط, fortress) were founded. The structure and function of a misr is similar to an ancient Roman Colonia.[53] Like a frontier colony, the fortress served as a base for further conquests. Arabian military forts of this type were frequently built in the vicinity of an older town from Antiquity or from Byzantine times. They frequently were of square format.[54]
Rather than maintaining their original purpose to serve as a military base, many amṣār developed into urbane and administrative centers. In particular, this happened in the case of the Iraqi cities of Kufa and Basra, which became known as "al-miṣrān" ("the [two] forts"), but also with Fustat and Kairouan in North Africa.
Qaṣr [ edit ]
Qaṣr (Arabic: قَ،صْـر'; Pl. Arabic: قصور, quṣūr) means palace, castle or (frontier) fort. Fortresses from Late Antiquity often continued to be in use, whilst their function changed during time. Some quṣūr were already used as Castra during Roman times, and were part of the fortifications of the North African Limes. Already during the Ancient Roman times, castra did not only serve as fortifications, but also as markets and meeting points for the tribes living beyond the border.
Smaller quṣūr are found in modern Jordan, and include Qasr Al-Hallabat (located 50 km (31 mi) east of Amman), Qasr Bushir (15 km (9.3 mi) north of Lajjun), the castle of Daganiya (45 km (28 mi) north of Ma'an) and Odruh (22 km (14 mi) east of Wadi Musa). After the Limes Arabicus was abandoned by the Roman Empire, many of the castra continued to be in use.[55] This continuity was subject to archaeological investigations in the fort of Qasr al-Hallabat, which at different times served as a Roman castrum, Christian cenobitic monastery, and finally as an Umayyad Qasr.[56] Qasr Al-Kharanah is one of the earliest known Desert castles, its architectural form clearly demonstrates the influence of Sasanian architecture.
According to a hypothesis developed by Jean Sauvaget, the umayyad quṣūr played a role in the systematic agricultural colonisation of the uninhabited frontier areas, and, as such, continue the colonisation strategy of earlier Christian monks and the Ghassanids.[57] The Umayyads, however, increasingly oriented their political strategy towards a model of Client politics, of mutual interdependence and support.[58] After the Umayyad conquest, the quṣūr lost their original function and were either abandoned or continued to serve as local market places and meeting points until the tenth century.[55] Another type of Islamic fortress is the Qalat.
Early history [ edit ]
Section of the Umayyad-era Mshatta Facade, now in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, from a palace near Amman
There are few buildings dating from the era of Prophet Muhammad, but one example is the Jawatha Mosque in Saudi Arabia. The Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) was the first state to use Islamic Architecture.[citation needed]
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) combined elements of Byzantine architecture and Sassanid architecture, but Umayyad architecture introduced new combinations of these western and eastern styles. The horseshoe arch appears for the first time in Umayyad architecture, later to evolve to its most advanced form in al-Andalus. Umayyad architecture is distinguished by the extent and variety of decoration, including mosaics, wall painting, sculpture and carved reliefs with Islamic motifs. The Umayyads introduced a transept that divided the prayer room along its shorter axis. They also added the mihrab to mosque design. The mosque in Medina built by al-Walid I had the first mihrab, a niche on the qibla wall, which seems to have represented the place where the Prophet stood when leading prayer. This almost immediately became a standard feature of all mosques.
The Abbasid architecture of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1513) was strongly influenced by Sassanid architecture, and later by Central Asian styles. The Abbasid mosques all followed the courtyard plan. The earliest was the mosque that al-Mansur built in Baghdad. since destroyed. The Great Mosque of Samarra built by al-Mutawakkil was 256 by 139 metres (840 by 456 ft). A flat wooden roof was supported by columns. The mosque was decorated with marble panels and glass mosaics. The prayer hall of the Abu Dulaf mosque at Samarra had arcades on rectangular brick piers running at right angles to the qibla wall. Both of the Samarra mosques have spiral minarets, the only examples in Iraq. A mosque at Balkh in what is now Afghanistan was about 20 by 20 metres (66 by 66 ft) square, with three rows of three square bays, supporting nine vaulted domes.
Construction of the Great Mosque at Córdoba (now a cathedral known as the Mezquita) beginning in 785 CE marks the beginning of Moorish architecture in the Iberian peninsula and North Africa (see Moors). The mosque is noted for its striking interior arches. Moorish architecture reached its peak with the construction of the Alhambra, the magnificent palace/fortress of Granada, with its open and breezy interior spaces adorned in red, blue, and gold. The walls are decorated with stylized foliage motifs, Arabic inscriptions, and arabesque design work, with walls covered in glazed tile. Their other, smaller, survivals such as the Bab Mardum in Toledo, or the caliphal city of Medina Azahara. Moorish architecture has its roots deeply established in the Arab tradition of architecture and design established during the era of the first Caliphate of the Umayyads in the Levant circa 660AD with its capital Damascus having very well preserved examples of fine Arab Islamic design and geometrics, including the carmen, which is the typical Damascene house, opening on the inside with a fountain as the house's centre piece.
Fatimid architecture in Egypt followed Tulunid techniques and used similar materials, but also developed those of their own. In Cairo, their first congregational mosque was al-Azhar mosque ("the splendid") founded along with the city (969–973), which, together with its adjacent institution of higher learning (al-Azhar University), became the spiritual center for Ismaili Shia. The Mosque of al-Hakim (r. 996–1013), an important example of Fatimid architecture and architectural decoration, played a critical role in Fatimid ceremonial and procession, which emphasized the religious and political role of the Fatimid caliph. Besides elaborate funerary monuments, other surviving Fatimid structures include the Aqmar Mosque (1125)[65] and the Al-Hakim Mosque, as well as the monumental gates for Cairo's city walls commissioned by the powerful Fatimid emir and vizier Badr al-Jamali (r. 1073–1094).[66]
The reign of the Mamluks (1250–1517 AD) in Egypt marked a breathtaking flowering of Islamic art which is most visible in old Cairo. Religious zeal made them generous patrons of architecture and art. Trade and agriculture flourished under Mamluk rule, and Cairo, their capital, became one of the wealthiest cities in the Near East and the center of artistic and intellectual activity. This made Cairo, in the words of Ibn Khaldun, "the center of the universe and the garden of the world", with majestic domes, courtyards, and soaring minarets spread across the city.
Regional styles [ edit ]
Persian [ edit ]
The Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century availed the Muslims with the vast wealth of architectural innovation developed over the centuries, from the great roads, aqueducts and arches of the Roman Empire, to the Byzantine basilicas and Persian horseshoe and pointed arches, and the Sassanian and Byzantine mosaics. The Islamic architects first utilized these native architects to build mosques, and eventually developed their own adaptations. Islamic architecture thus is directly related to Persian and Byzantine architecture.
In Persia and Central Asia, the Tahirids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, and Ghurids struggled for power in the 10th century, and art was a vital element of this competition. Great cities were built, such as Nishapur and Ghazni (Afghanistan), and the construction of the Great Mosque of Isfahan (which would continue, in fits and starts, over several centuries) was initiated. Funerary architecture was also cultivated.
Under the Seljuqs the "Iranian plan" of mosque construction appears for the first time. Lodging places called khans, or caravanserai, for travellers and their animals, or caravansarais, generally displayed utilitarian rather than ornamental architecture, with rubble masonry, strong fortifications, and minimal comfort.[67] Seljuq architecture synthesized various styles, both Iranian and Syrian, sometimes rendering precise attributions difficult. Another important architectural trend to arise in the Seljuk era is the development of mausolea including the tomb tower such as the Gunbad-i-qabus (circa 1006-7) (showcasing a Zoroastrian motif) and the domed square, an example of which is the tomb of the Samanids in the city of Bukhara (circa 943).[68]
The Il-Khanate period provided several innovations to dome-building that eventually enabled the Persians to construct much taller structures. These changes later paved the way for Safavid architecture. The pinnacle of Il-Khanate architecture was reached with the construction of the Soltaniyeh Dome (1302–1312) in Zanjan, Iran, which measures 50 m in height and 25 m in diameter, making it the 3rd largest and the tallest masonry dome ever erected.[69] The thin, double-shelled dome was reinforced by arches between the layers.[70] The tomb of Öljeitü in Soltaniyeh is one of the greatest and most impressive monuments in Iran, despite many later depredations.
Iranian architecture and city planning also reached an apogee under the Timurids, in particular with the monuments of Samarkand, marked by extensive use of exterior ceramic tiles and muqarnas vaulting within.
The renaissance in Persian mosque and dome building came during the Safavid dynasty, when Shah Abbas, in 1598 initiated the reconstruction of Isfahan, with the Naqsh-e Jahan Square as the centerpiece of his new capital.[71] The distinct feature of Persian domes, which separates them from those domes created in the Christian world or the Ottoman and Mughal empires, was the colorful tiles, with which they covered the exterior of their domes, as they would on the interior. These domes soon numbered dozens in Isfahan, and the distinct, blue- colored shape would dominate the skyline of the city. Reflecting the light of the sun, these domes appeared like glittering turquoise gem and could be seen from miles away by travelers following the Silk road through Persia. This very distinct style of architecture was inherited to them from the Seljuq dynasty, who for centuries had used it in their mosque building, but it was perfected during the Safavids when they invented the |
Motion Capture Editor: Hiroki Inazuka Motion Capture Editor: Miho Shimamori Akane Kurosawa Motion Capture Line Manager: Kosuke Chiba Motion Actors: Neo Agency Co.,Ltd. Katsuyuki Yamazaki Yasunari Kinbara Asuka Yoshikawa Akemi Hirota Megumi Ohashi Sound Cooperation: U.S. Voice Recording: PCP Production Executive Producer: Keith Arem Talent Director: Valerie Arem Dialogue Engineering: Matt Lemberger Dialogue Editorial Supervisor: Matt Lemberger Dialogue Editorial/Location Sound Austin Fisher Matt Lemberger David Kehs Adam Harr Paden James Henry Emerson Jake Shankman Production Coordinator: Casey Boyd Sound Strings Performance: 1st Violin: Koichiro Muroya Tomomi Tokunaga Aya Ito Rina Odera 2nd Violin: Yuya Yanagihara Hanako Uesato Kyoko Ishigame Emiko Ujikawa Viola: Gentaro Sakaguchi Tomoko Shimaoka Cello: Masami Horisawa Yoshie Furukawa Chief Project Manager: Akiyasu Yamamoto Project Manager: Masyoshi Koike Assistant Project Manager: Kayo Okuzawa Rike Schmalz Production & Business Relations: Hirohito Shindo Atsushi Yagi Kenji Shinoda Overseas Business Promotion Team: Manager: Hiroyuki Tanaka Promotion: Hirohito Shindo Junichi Mori Tadayoshi Ishihara Jasmine Webb Administration: Yuki Shindo Maki Kurokawa Yoshiko Ota Consumer Software Division: General Manager: Naoto Hiraoka U.S Localization: Atlus U.S.A., Inc. Executive Producer: Naoto Hiraoka General Manager: Mitsushiro Tanaka VP Production: Bill Alexander Project Lead: Yu Namba Assistant Project Lead: Mai Namba Translators: Mai Namba Minoru Iwasaki James Kuroki Dan Sunstrum Madoka Ueno Damian Mougakos Editors: Michael Manzanares Jamie Ortiz Jon Riesenbach Cianar Cabas Chris Holzworth Allie Doyon Lauren Woodward John Moralis Localization Support: Shigeto Sammy Matsushima QA Manager: Carl Chen QA Lead: Scott Williams Elwood Cruz QA Testers: Allie Doyon Steven Kawafuchi Joan Kim Danny Le Darryl Le Jason Osborne Gerald Rempis Sandy Rojas Lauren Woodward Brent Gutierrez (Media) VP Sales & Marketing: Tim Pivnicny Senior Marketing Manager: Robyn Mukai Koshi Marketing Associate: Sara Chan PR Manager: John L. Hardin (Gone but not forgotten) PR Associate: William Chan Promotion & Marketing Associate: Ann Namie Graphic Designers: Ayami Haruno Amy Shimoshige Web Developers: James Kaneshiro Voung Nguyed Media Producer: John Tubera Media Associate: Alex Limon Community Associate: Emanuel “EJ” Rivera Sales Administration Manager: Nathan Harris Sales Administrator: Connie Chinn MiraeSoft Co. Project Coordinator: Minki Kim ENSIDE Co., Ltd. General Manager: Jae-Min shin Project Leader & Lead Programmer: Se-Wong Kim Graphic Designer: Dong-Hun Kim In Cooperation With: AKG Calbee, Inc. SEGA ENTERTAINMENT Co. Ltd., ENTERTAINMENT DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION NEWTON Lawson HMV Entertainment, Inc. TOKYO TOWER Special Thanks: Tomomi Isomura Kazuki Adachi (ANIPLEX, Inc.) Ryuta Konuma RYU’S OFFICE CORPORATION Masahito Ishii (FPI, Inc.) Shu Shinkawa (FPI, Inc.) Haruka Ishigami (Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia) Yu Urata Tamari All Persona 5 Players Executive Producer: Naoto Hiraoka Creative Producer: Katsura HashinoBack in March, when the Saudis were in the early stages of executing Operation Decisive Storm (the air campaign aimed at routing the Iran-backed rebels who had recently taken control of Yemen prompting President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to flee to Riyadh), the world began to get very nervous after the Houthis entered a military base at the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Bab el-Mandeb is a key chokepoint for global crude and needless to say, just about the last thing Saudi Arabia (or the West for that matter) wanted to see was an Iranian proxy army taking control of one side of the corridor.
At the time, Aden was a veritable warzone as a loose confederation of troops still loyal to Hadi battled to keep the Houthis from overrunning the historic port city. Just as hostilities reached a crescendo, unidentified troops showed up, disembarked, and rescued dozens of foreign nationals trapped in the escalating violence. As it turns out, those troops were Chinese.
At the time, the rescue mission took virtually everyone off guard. China had inexplicably sailed a warship into the middle of a Mid-East proxy war, calmly strolled ashore, picked up some folks and left.
While the bold display of naval power came as a surprise in April, it's now easy to put the maneuver in context. Since then, we've seen Beijing project its maritime capabilities on a number of occasions. The PLA's man-made islands in The South China Sea are the most notable example, but don't forget that China also sailed warships within 12 nautical miles of Alaska's coast and is also readying patrols by a nuclear submarine. In other words, China's impromtu appearance in Aden was part and parcel of a wider effort to make it clear that Beijing is set to build and maintain a true blue-water navy.
In that context, consider another map showing the Bab al-Mandeb:
On one side is Yemen, on the other, Djibouti. As we outlined back in May, China is negotiating a military base in the strategic port of Djibouti. Why Djibouti? So China can have a bird's eye view of everything that happens at the Bab el-Mandeb Strait: one of the top 5 oil choke points in the world (from the EIA):"An estimated 3.8 million bbl/d of crude oil and refined petroleum products flowed through this waterway in 2013 toward Europe, the United States, and Asia, an increase from 2.9 million bbl/d in 2009. Oil shipped through the strait decreased by almost one-third in 2009 because of the global economic downturn and the decline in northbound oil shipments to Europe. Northbound oil shipments increased through Bab el-Mandeb Strait in 2013, and more than half of the traffic, about 2.1 million bbl/d, moved northbound to the Suez Canal and SUMED Pipeline."
Six months later, it looks like those plans are on track. As WSJ reports on Friday, "China plans to build its first overseas naval installation in the East African nation of Djibouti, expanding the geographical reach of its armed forces as Beijing seeks to protect its growing economic and security interests around the globe."
True to form, China is attempting to downplay the effort, calling the installation a "support facility." "This facility will better ensure that the Chinese military can carry out responsibilities such as international peacekeeping, naval escorts in the Gulf of Aden and Somali waters, and humanitarian assistance,” a defense ministry spokesman said.
As WSJ goes on to note, "China has often cited its lack of foreign bases as evidence of peaceful intentions, but has been rapidly expanding its military capabilities in recent years to defend its regional territorial claims and project power far into the Pacific and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean."
The US - which also has a base in Djibouti - is adopting Washington's trademark condescending paternalism in discussions with the country's government. "We definitely have concerns and parameters that were communicated in terms of how we think they should manage Chinese or anyone else entering into what is already a fairly congested space."
Here's a bit of useful color from The New York Times:
China announced on Thursday that it would establish its first overseas military outpost and unveiled a sweeping plan to reorganize its military into a more agile force capable of projecting power abroad. The outpost, in the East African nation of Djibouti, breaks with Beijing’s longstanding policy against emulating the United States in building military facilities abroad. By establishing an outpost in the Horn of Africa — more than 4,800 miles away from Beijing and near some of the world’s most volatile regions — President Xi Jinping is leading the military beyond its historical focus on protecting the nation’s borders. Together with the plan for new command systems to integrate and rebalance the armed forces, the two announcements highlight the breadth of change that Mr. Xi is pushing on the People’s Liberation Army, which for decades has served primarily as a lumbering guardian of Communist Party rule. A presence in Djibouti would be China’s first overseas logistics facility to service its military vessels since the Communists took power, said David Finkelstein, director of China studies at CNA, an independent research institute in Arlington, Va. “In the grand sweep of post-1949 Chinese history, this announcement is yet another indicator that Chinese policy is trying to catch up with national interests that have expanded faster than the capacity of the People’s Republic of China to service them,” Mr. Finkelstein said. The new facility would enable the navy to live up to a strategy laid down this year by the Communist Party in a major defense document, known as a white paper, that outlined its ambitions to become a global maritime power. China has invested heavily in Djibouti’s infrastructure, including hundreds of millions of dollars spent upgrading the country’s undersize port. It has also financed a railroad extending from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, to Djibouti, a project that cost billions of dollars. The country has a population of about 900,000, many of whom live in poverty. Strategically, Djibouti offers an excellent place from which to protect oil imports from the Middle East that traverse the Indian Ocean on their way to China, military experts say. From Djibouti, China gains greater access to the Arabian Peninsula.
Indeed they do, and that means not only will Beijing be able to keep a close eye on seaborne crude, they'll also be better prepared to intervene in Mid-East affairs should the situation call for it.
As we discussed in "Here Comes China: Xi 'Vows Terror Fight' After ISIS Executes First Chinese Hostage," it seems unlikely that Beijing will be able to stay out of Mid-East affairs forever. Although one dead Chinese hostage likely won't be enough to make Xi commit to a full fledged military campaign in Syria, China did send several warships to the Mediterranean in 2013 as the standoff between Russia and the US hit a crescendo and Beijing is already engaged in a fight to curb radicalization among Uighurs in Xinjiang. As Michael Clarke, an associate professor at the Australian National University’s National Security College told Bloomberg earlier this week, "It appears that events are dragging China further into the Syrian crisis. On one level, Russian intervention and the Paris attacks have raised the stakes and made Beijing’s preferred option of a political resolution much less likely. The killing of a Chinese national will certainly inject a new variable into Beijing’s calculations about its position on the conflict."
Of course China isn't going to build a naval base in a week (although they did just build a bridge in 43 hours), so it's not as if the PLA will be sailing from Djibouti to Latakia next month, but the point is that we're seeing a strategic shift from Beijing in line with everything we've observed over the past nine months from the rescue operation in Aden to the construction of some 3,000 acres of new sovereign territory in the South Pacific.
Xi is branching out and China is projecting its military prowess. The new naval base has implications both for global energy markets and for the Mid-East balance of power. If Moscow and Tehran do indeed pull off a coup wherein Russia replaces the US as the Mid-East's superpower puppet master and Iran supplants Saudi Arabia as regional power broker, China will now have a base within shouting distance of its allies (recall that China generally votes with Russia on the Security Council with regard to Syria).
We'll close with the following quote from Andrew Erickson, an expert on the Chinese military at the U.S. Naval War College:The po-boy was created during the transit strike, when 1,800 unionized streetcar drivers and motormen left their jobs and protested in the streets.
1929: The po-boy was invented during a transit strike 7 Gallery: 1929: The po-boy was invented during a transit strike
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Spending months on the picket line with no pay, the Martin brothers vowed to serve the strikers free of charge, and they concocted a hearty meat sandwich, on a new thinner and crispy bread, which was easier to cut into equal slices. They called it the "poor boy."
Today, it is the staple sandwich of New Orleans.
But in 1929, Bennie and Clovis Martin, owners of Martin Bros restaurant and former streetcar operators, would offer their free sandwiches to the crowd.
Although there is some dispute to the origin of the sandwich, we do know the Martin brothers asked local baker, John Gendusa to create a new type of French bread with even ends, which would become one of the main components of the po-boy.
Tomorrow, 1930: Dillard University forms in New Orleans.Scientists announced the launch of another large HIV vaccine efficacy study, fuelling hopes for a protective shot against the virus that causes AIDS, despite past disappointments.
The start of the new trial involving 2,600 women in southern Africa means that for the first time in more than a decade there are now two big HIV vaccine clinical trials taking place at the same time.
RELATED READING Calls to approve HIV home testing kits on World AIDS Day
The new study is testing a two-vaccine combination developed by Johnson & Johnson with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first vaccine, also backed by NIH, began a trial last November.
Both studies aim to build on the modest success of a previous trial in Thailand in 2009, when an earlier vaccine showed a 31-per cent reduction in infections.
"We're making progress," said J&J Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels, who believes it should be possible to achieve effectiveness above 50 per cent.
"That is the goal. Hopefully, we get much higher," he told Reuters.
The new vaccines require one dose to prime the immune system and a second shot to boost the body's response.
Significantly, J&J's latest vaccine uses so-called mosaic technology to combine immune-stimulating proteins from different HIV strains, representing different types of virus from around the world, which should produce a "global" vaccine.
One reason why making an HIV vaccine has proved so difficult in the past is the variability of the virus.
Although modern HIV drugs have turned the disease from a death sentence into a chronic condition, a vaccine is still seen as critical in rolling back the pandemic, since the number of people infected is still growing.
Some 37 million individuals around the world currently have HIV and around 1.8 million became newly infected last year.
For the new study, sexually active women in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be given the experimental vaccine or a placebo and then followed for three years to see if it prevents infections.
Initial clinical results reported at an AIDS conference in Paris in July showed the mosaic vaccine was safe and elicited a good immune response in healthy volunteers.Greece is sliding into a full-blown national crisis as the final cash reserves of the banking system evaporate by the hour and swathes of industry start to shut down, precipitating the near disintegration of the ruling coalition.
Business leaders have been locked in talks with the Bank of Greece, pleading for the immediate release of emergency liquidity funds (ELA) to cover food imports and pharmaceutical goods before the tourist sector hits a brick wall.
Officials say the central bank will release the funds as soon as Friday, but this is a stop-gap measure at best. "We are on a war footing in this country," said Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister.
The daily allowance of cash from many ATMs has already dropped from €60 to €50, purportedly because €20 notes are running out. Large numbers are empty. The financial contagion is spreading fast as petrol stations and small businesses stop accepting credit cards.
Constantine Michalos, head of the Hellenic Chambers of Commerce, said lenders are simply running out of money. "We are reliably informed that the cash reserves of the banks are down to €500m. Anybody who thinks they are going to open again on Tuesday is day-dreaming. The cash would not last an hour," he said.
"We are in an extremely dangerous situation. Greek companies have been excluded from the electronic transfers of Europe's Target2 system. The entire Greek business community is unable to import anything, and without raw materials they can't produce anything," he said.
A banner reading 'no to austerity and fear' atop Lycabettus hill in Athens
Pavlos Deas, owner of an olive processing factory in Chalkidiki, told The Telegraph that he may have to shut down a plant employing 250 people within days.
"We can't send any money abroad to our suppliers. Three of our containers have been stopped at customs control because the banks can't give a bill of lading. One is full of Spanish almonds, the others full of Chinese garlic," he said.
"We don't know how we are going to execute and export an order of 60 containers for the US. We don't even have enough gas. We asked for 10,000 litres but they are only letting us have 2,000. It's being rationed by the day. Factories are closing around us in a domino effect and we're all going to lose everything if this goes on," he said.
The fast-moving events come amid signs of deep dissension within the coalition over the wisdom of the country's referendum this Sunday. The vote was originally intended to secure a stronger negotiating mandate for a showdown with Europe's creditor powers, but it is rapidly turning into an "in-or-out" decision on euro membership and the survival of the Syriza government.
Four members of the nationalist Independent Greeks party (Anel) - the junior partners - said they would break ranks and vote "Yes" to creditor demands - though no offer is now on the table - admitting that they were aghast by the closure of the banking system and the drastic events of recent days.
The party's hardline chief and defence minister, Panos Kammenos, dismissed them contemptuously. "We are at war and there will be no backing down. Whoever does not have the stomach for war, be gone," he said.
Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's finance minister, said he would resign is the Greek people voted "yes" on Sunday
Mr Varoufakis vowed to resign if the Greek people voted yes. "I prefer to cut off my own arm rather than sign an agreement without debt restructuring," he told Bloomberg TV.
He said there is not a "smidgeon of an iota of possibility" that the terms on offer can lift the Greek economy out of a deflationary tailspin, insisting that the talks broke down because the creditors refused to face up to the fact that Greece's debt is unpayable.
The International Monetary Fund has tacitly endorsed his claims, admitting that the country needs large-scale debt relief and €50bn of fresh funds over the next three years to give the economy time to recover.
Mr Varoufakis said acceptance of the creditors's proposals would merely mean another bruising fight in a few months' time and a permanent cycle of hostility.
The mood within the Syriza movement is increasingly bitter and polarized. One MP appeared to have lost confidence in the party leadership. "We have had months of childish tactics. They thought they could blackmail Europe into making concessions instead of going to the root of the problem facing this country and accepting that we have to break free altogether. They don't know what they are doing," he told The Telegraph.
Private citizens have requested an injunction from Greece's top court to halt the referendum, claiming it is unconstitutional. Yiorgos Kaminis, the mayor of Athens, said the vote on a creditor package that no longer even exists - and with a question that nobody understands - reduces the country to ridicule.
"We are facing a national catastrophe, it is so self-evident. If Greece votes 'no' we will be obliged to go back to the drachma immediately, and sooner of later we may be forced to leave the EU as well. I don't want my children to be part of North Africa," he said.
The mayor said the whole structure of the Greek state was falling apart as the political crisis grinds on into its sixth month. "Nobody is paying any taxes any longer. The state has no money. We're facing a disaster," he said.
Mr Kaminis, a law professor and an independent politician, is widely-deemed more credible than politicians from the establishment parties and has emerged as the preferred figurehead of the "yes" movement.
Yet he admitted having "no contact" so far with the other groups in favour of a deal, a power structure known as the "inner Troika" in the demonology of the Greek Left. It is a sign of how fractured the "yes" camp still is with just two days left to put out their message, and polls showing the vote too close to call.
"We have to explain in a very determined way what is at stake. People seem to think that it was the EU that closed our banks," he said.
Mr Michalos, from the Hellenic Chambers, said a five-man committee at the Greek treasury is rationing foreign funds for companies on a top priority basis but it is entirely overwhelmed. "They can't possibly deal with thousands of requests," he said. The net effect is total paralysis.
His own two companies are still hanging on but the danger is mounting. One produces latex for kitchen gloves and the teats on baby bottles. "If I can't import gum from Malaysia I am going to have a serious problem. I have four weeks' inventory," he said.
His other company imports meat for supermarkets and restaurants. That is in dire straits already.
"I can't import anything. Restaurants are starting to close down because they can't obtain food and we are going straight into the peak tourist season. It is going to be utterly horrendous if this goes on," he said.About Tracey Meredith
Tracey lives in the west of England and has done so for the last 30 years or so. She started writing to encourage her son to read something other than train magazines- the idea being that he would tell her what would happen next and then she would write it for him, ready to read at bed time. Yes, you're quite right- it never happened.. The unfinished manuscripts were found during a decorating session and determinedly finished over a four year period- four in all. Growned was the first one finished and edited. Others now published are The Angel in Towerhouse Wood and (as Beryl C Jones) a token Romantic adventure called A Foreign Land, which seems to have gone down quite well. Finding Richard was the last of the four to be published.
New stuff is on the way, and this time she is determined to finish it in less than 8 years. She has done the final edits to Barry & the Dinosaur King, which is released 6th April 2017. There are, as you will see, also a couple of free short stories on her Smashwords page. You can also read the first part of Barry at http://traceygb1.blogspot.co.uk/p/blog-page_8.html.A California woman sued her former employer, the online real estate firm Zillow, after supervisors allegedly harassed and propositioned her for sex and subjected her to what she described as “sexual torture,” the Recorder reported.
The suit by Rachel Kremer, filed in Orange County on Monday, accuses supervisors at the company’s Irvine office of cultivating an “adult frat house” culture and refusing to take action when she reported the offensive behavior. Kremer also accuses the Seattle-based company of firing her for bringing the harassment to light.
“Privately, Zillow executives bragged that the office culture led to more sexual encounters than Match.com, and referred to the internal office directory as ‘Zinder,’ named after the dating application Tinder,” the suit states.
Kremer began working for the company’s sales department in June 2012. Her attorneys enclosed copies of lewd messages she received between December 2012 and her termination this past August.
“I have a great opportunity that just opened up on my face in the 92660 market,” sales manager Cody Fagnant told her in a text message. “Call me if you are interested. This is an executive position and won’t last long. Haha. Goodnight Rachey.”
Less than two months later, Kremer’s supervisor, Gabe Schmidt, invited Kremer to an event after working hours with a message saying, “Call me. Matt is showering. Thinking 333 dinner drinks and your smooth vagina.” Not long after that, Schmidt sent her another text directly asking her, “Wanna blow me and have sex tonight?”
The harassment allegedly continued into this year, when Schmidt sent her a picture of his genitalia in another text message and refused to discipline another employee after Kremer told him he was watching explicit videos at work. The suit also states that Schmidt referred to another female employee as “Rachel 2.0,” saying she had “bigger breasts and less miles on her” than Kremer.
Kremer’s attorneys argue that she felt she had to take part in the company’s culture out of fear of being “outcast” and fired.
“Zillow attempted to cover up their conduct by having Ms. Kremer sign a confidentiality agreement and release,” the lawsuit states. “Ms. Kremer brings this action based on the sexual torture endured, and for the other women who have been silenced at Zillow, and remain exposed to horrific and unthinkable acts.”
The company told Kremer at the time of her firing that she did not meet her sales goals for July and August 2014. But the suit argues that, besides not being alerted to any performance issues beforehand, that Kremer’s productivity was “nearly identical” to that of another employee hired around the time of her termination.
A company spokesperson, Jill Simmons, said in a statement that Zillow is taking the allegations “very seriously.”
“When this allegation was first made, we immediately investigated these claims and, as a result, took quick action and terminated a sales employee in our Irvine office,” Simmons said. “The allegations in the complaint do not reflect Zillow’s culture or workplace and are completely inconsistent with our values. We don’t tolerate harassment of any kind.”
Zillow currently operates an online real estate directory in conjunction with Yahoo. The company says on its website that it has listings for more than 110 million properties around the country.
The lawsuit, as posted by ValleyWag, can be seen below.
Zillow Sexual Harassment Suit
[h/t Valleywag]by Eric Striker
There is great commotion on social media in the wake of the recent “White Privilege Conference” in Philadelphia. The complaint, chiefly, is that the events centered around organizing and agitating “people of color” were actually dominated by “white” people. While the coordinators are coming up with a number of empty explanations for this, they are only lying to hide the truth: this “White Privilege” non-sense has nothing to do with empowering black and brown people, and everything to do with Jews seeking to maximize and rationalize the current climate of violence and disenfranchisement aimed at white workers and youth.
In the first phase of their plan, Jewry advocated “color blindness” to a whole generation of young idealist college students. Despite the fact that blacks are dozens of times more likely to victimize whites in most crimes, the system urged people to swallow their instinctual inhibitions against their better judgement. This isn’t completely wrong per se, as there are black and other individuals who are indeed decent people that deserve to be treated fairly out there, but the goal here was never to induce greater understanding or harmony between the races. Rather, this social prescription drummed into the heads of Baby Boomers was meant to prepare whites for the forced integration and immigration agenda that has claimed the lives of untold thousands and brought about a demographic crisis. The fact that in the 1960’s whites were the overwhelming majority of America meant that the scope of this project was somewhat limited, and thus, the message of color blindness mostly put into practice only against vulnerable working class communities in the South, Northeast and urban areas of the Midwest, who suddenly were unable to use the public facilities they depend on, like schools, parks or swimming pools, or even walk around in their neighborhoods past sundown, due to minorities making them violent, destitute and uninhabitable.
It’s not a coincidence that while whites were maliciously reared in false conjecture and passivity, the parallel black subcultures devised almost exclusively by Jews (such as gangsta rap) sought to intensify irrational negro violence beyond even its organic trajectory. Biological omissions aside, Conservatives often talk about the “crisis of the black family” and lack of fathers, but hardly ever go into the cultural dynamics of this phenomenon beyond boilerplate about unions and liberals, or chalking up the impact of the anti-social message of Jewish engineered popular culture to a decline in religion or lack of parental supervision. For this reason, the conservative is a penny on the track of the speeding Zionist railroad train: they get bent out of shape, but ultimately are run over by a force they can’t (or won’t) comprehend.
Today, whites are on the cusp of becoming minority, and the Jewish war on the West is entering a new acute stage. Now it is not enough to be color blind and treat blacks as individuals, even when at your own detriment. In the fresh vehement rhetoric, you have “White Privilege”–you’re born guilty and need to be put on trial before colored mobs, with a Jew standing as judge, forming the ethical parameters of justice as they go along.
Today, the homicidal Talmudic vermin are outright calling for non-whites, with the full support of our capitalist and government establishment, to attack, censor, and discriminate against whites, while simultaneously tearing down the monuments of the people who built this land. The recent announcement by the Jewish Secretary of Treasury Jack Lew to replace the famous champion of the white rural and working poor, Andrew Jackson, with some media created, historically irrelevant myth such as Rosa Parks or Harriet Tubman on the $20 dollar bill is not just mere symbolism–but a carefully orchestrated and politically loaded socio-racial attack that should serve as a warning shot for the encroaching zeitgeist being forced through, under the thin veneer of academic discourse, by a criminal network loaded with Jewish ringleaders.
White Privilege: Jews Push Teacher Indoctrination
The intention of the White Privilege Conference, judging from its program, is two-fold: to indoctrinate young and impressionable (and usually female or low testosterone male) educators in the construct for use in their predominately white classrooms, along with organizing a coalition of young blacks, homosexuals, and other real or fake (transsexuals) minorities in a terroristic front intended to bully, suppress and even physically harm every day white people as a class. The evil genius of this is that with the first group, they transfer methods for gradually opening the natural guard of white children as young as five, while training the latter group to plunge the knife into them.
At $225 dollars a ticket, the 2,500 “educators” and administrators traveling from across the country to attend LollaJewlooza were looking at quite a big financial hit. To mitigate this problem, public school districts footed the bill for them at the expense of white taxpayers, generally due to administrative infiltration and lobbying pressure from organizations like the American Federation of Teachers.
The AFT is a teacher’s union founded by New York Jew Albert Shanker, who utilized it to push for a number of anti-white agendas using labor grievances as a mirage for recruitment. The Jew Shanker had little interest in black self-determination or betterment, his main passion was to put white teachers and students in harms way through mandatory integration, while also ensuring Jewish teachers could indoctrinate black students in urban hotspots filled with racial tension. This can be seen in the “European Socialist civil rights activists” fight to suppress the will of the black community in the late 1960’s. During this time, there was a movement by black parents against mandatory integration and “white” (Jewish) teachers, due to the fact that black students were declining in academic performance after the Civil Rights Act. These black parents fought to run their children’s schools themselves independent of Jews, and decided to transfer out the “white” (Jewish) teachers from the predominately black Ocean Hill, New York school district. According to a New York Times piece on Shankar’s legacy in putting down this movement, the blacks were well-aware they were being used as pawns in a race war by the AFT:
During the days when schools were open, union teachers had to endure angry crowds outside many schools. Inside the Ocean Hill schools, members of the Black Panthers and militant local leaders like Robert (Sonny) Carson, who had been invited in by Mr. McCoy, delivered antiwhite diatribes and threatened the teachers’ families. The atmosphere was also poisoned by anti-Semitism directed at the many Jewish members of the U.F.T. Anti-Semitic catcalls were shouted by protesters and appeared in newspapers put out by the Afro-American Teachers Association. A student’s anti-Semitic poem was read on the radio.
It’s tempting to fume at the simple negro and his many faults, but one thing nationalists should keep in mind is that whenever they seek to go their own way (which is good whites), Jews strike them down (Stokely Carmichael, Marcus Garvey, Louis Farrakhan) with the exact same pulverizing force they use on white dissent, for the integration agenda is not about civil rights, it is about creating racial chaos and incoherence in order to protect and distract from Jewish political power.
Fast-forward half a century later, and the AFT is today controlled by rug-munching sheeny Randi Weingarten, who has been named one of the most powerful women (not just in education, but in general!) in all of New York (not an easy feat). This Jewish thug is an active member of a congregation and considers herself well-versed in Talmudism.
Chutzpah not withstanding, said racist Zionist Jew pro Israel propagandist–who has at one time or another been president or leader of virtually all Education related national unions and lobbies– is one of the leading voices for encouraging and facilitating young white 20 something female teachers across America to be brainwashed in “White Privilege Theory”. At a St Louis AFT conference, Weingarten stated:
“Those of us that are white [sic], we have to internalize and understand our own racism. Not just your own privilege, but our own racism and our own biases.”
According to the same article that covered this conference, Weingarten’s subhuman neanderthal face does not betray her personality. Weingarten’s anti-white, violent Zionist diatribes have an impact on the young idealist women forced to attend–the exact impact as is intended:
“Some of the teachers come out of the workshops sobbing. It’s classic brainwashing. As we’ve seen in St. Paul and Baltimore and Portland and Los Angeles and Philly and other school districts, PEG’s race-based programs are backfiring.”
White Privilege Conference: April 15-17
The White Privilege Conference has been going strong for 17 years now, and is an event started and hosted by a non-governmental organization called “The Privilege Institute” which is chaired by a certain “Dr” Dena Samuels, but publicly represented by a negro hustler, Eddie Moore Jr.
Dena Samuels is by no means a nominal Jew. According to her profile she studied at Brandeis University, where one out of every two students is a Jew, and has been the faculty advisor for the anti-Palestinian and anti-white Hillel Jewish organization at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.
Of course, since the times of the classical Cynic movement, there has always been a minority of intellectuals and thinkers who renounce the Westphalian State and choose to identify themselves with the gooey feel-good cosmopolitan platitude of being a “citizen of humanity. Such individuals may truly seek to escape identity of nation, race, etc in the name of creating universal moral maxims.
But this does not apply to obviously tribalistic Jews like Samuels, or the myriad of other Jews generating unwarranted hatred and resentment against specifically non-Jewish whites.
Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack of Jewish Malevolence: The Anti-Semitic Statistics
Here is a list (page 7) of the names of speakers at the White Privilege Conference–accused of being “too white” by colored attendants–with words denoting those who are of Jewish stock. Note that most of these Jews and Cultural Marxists have corresponding NGOs and “consulting” firms that, just like the Privilege Institute Inc, are financed by grants given by large global capitalists, local governments and typical Jewish (generally used to finance anti-white racism, abstract “art”, promote sexual deviants, etc) misanthropy-philanthropies :
Eddie Moore- Negro
Jacob Swindell Sakoor- Negro
Paul C. Gorski –Jew
Kathy Obear – Lesbian
Beth Applegate- Jewish lesbian (and a member of Randi Weingarten’s congregation, it’s a small world after all)
Jennifer Chandler- White Liberal
Debby Irving – Wealthy New England WASP
Susan Naimark – Jew
Dara Silverman– Jew
Pippi Kissler – Hardline Zionist Jew
Heather Hackman- Almost certainly Jewish, her organization claims to fight alleged oppression against Jews
Dena Samuels – Jew
Jamie Washington- Negro
Jondou Chase Chen- Asian
Gail Cruise-Roberson- Too little info, but most likely white liberal
Tanya O. Williams – Negro
Jasiri X- Negro
Natania Kremer – Zionist Jew
Daniel Escalante- Mexican
Stephanie Baran- Purple Haired Jew
Ali Michael – Jew, and married to Talmud “scholar” and Rabbi, Michael Ramberg
Shemariah Arki – Negro
Amer Ahmed- Arab
Darlene Flynn – White Liberal
Johanna Eager- White Liberal
Jada Monica Drew- Negro
Wade Colwell-Sandoval – Likely Puerto Rican/mixed race
Jesse Phillips-Fe |
able to use his long legs more frequently as of late with effective front kicks. This type of variety in striking would be something different than what Miocic has faced so far in UFC.
There’s also the Greg Jackson element to a bout with Browne.
Despite being trained by Jackson, Browne hasn’t used much of a ground game in his bouts thus far. However, anyone who follows the sport knows that if a fighter is trained by Jackson, he possesses some kind of an effective ground game.
It can’t be a secret weapon if it isn’t a secret, but Browne’s minor usage of wrestling and takedowns means that there isn’t as much film of it to study as is the case with most of the fighters Jackson trains.
Finally, Hunt possesses more of a certain something than any of the other potential future opponents for Miocic: one-punch knockout power.
All of the previous fighters I mentioned do have the ability to knock opponents out, but Hunt’s one-punch KO power is unrivaled among the likes of Browne, Silva, Overeem and Barnett. Miocic has faced several heavyweights with heavy hands that use a lot of power in almost everything they throw, but none with the ability to instantly turn out the lights like Hunt.
Whatever lies next for Miocic, it appears his future is a bright and wide-open one.
Aside from his one defeat, Miocic has been a dominant heavyweight against the competition he has been given. It is time for UFC to really test Miocic and find out if they have a new force in the heavyweight division on their hands.Senate will engage in ‘lively discussion’ prompted by province’s new differentiation policy
Photo by Adam Feibel
It’s time for the University of Ottawa to decide “what it is we’re going to be known for,” according to university president Allan Rock.
In the coming months, the Senate will discuss the areas in which the university can focus its programming. According to Rock, the U of O may soon see further specialization in certain programs of study, particularly health, science, and public policy.
The discussion was prompted by a Government of Ontario framework proposal that was leaked in late September, which urged universities to specialize or risk losing provincial funding.
The document, entitled “Ontario’s Proposed Differentiation Policy Framework: Draft Discussion Paper” and marked confidential, urged universities to choose particular areas of focus and narrow their programming to become more specialized and differentiate themselves from other universities.
“There are 20 universities in Ontario, and what they don’t want to do is have 20 identical universities,” said Rock.
This year, the U of O was ranked eighth place overall among the top 50 research universities in Canada by Research Infosource. Within that field of research, there are a few areas in which the university stands out.
“There are themes emerging around the campus where we are best in class,” he said. “I think focusing on those areas … and making those the defining characteristics of the university in the years ahead, I think that’s the direction in which we’re going to be moving.”
Rock called the U of O a “powerhouse” in health education and said it will “clearly be one of our areas of focus.” The U of O is currently ranked second in Canada in health research, behind the University of Toronto.
“In health, we do things that are not done anywhere else,” he said. “Our focus in neurosciences, in stem cell, in areas like cardiology with the Heart Institute, are some of the best in the country, and indeed some of the best in the world.”
The Heart Institute is Canada’s largest cardiovascular health centre and, along with the Ottawa Hospital, recently moved to fourth place from sixth in the national Top 40 Research Hospital Rankings, published by Research Infosource. The university is also in talks about instituting a new school of pharmacy.
Rock also emphasized the university’s research in science, particularly its “fabulous team” in photonics that includes Paul Corkum, Canada Research Chair in attosecond photonics, and Robert Boyd, the university’s new Canada Excellence Research Chair. The five-storey, 14,000-square-metre Advanced Research Complex, which will house the Centre for Advanced Photonics, is scheduled to be completed as early as the summer of 2014. The U of O also has a joint lab with the Vollmer Lab of Nanophotonics and Biosensing at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany.
Additionally, the U of O boasts the largest law school in Canada. In the 2013 Maclean’s Canadian Law School Rankings, the U of O’s common law school was ranked 10th in Canada out of 16 and the civil law school was ranked third out of six. This summer, Rock also announced plans to introduce Canada’s first school of government at the U of O as early as 2015.
These three areas have been highlighted in the Senate’s long-term agenda. Rock said the Senate will have to engage in “lively discussion” and make difficult choices regarding specialization in the months to come.
Interestingly, the U of O’s journalism program has also come up in the conversation.
After an internal report to the Senate in May 2012 revealed the program to be “profoundly troubled,” a university committee decided to suspend admission to the program for the 2013–14 school year in order to make improvements to the program.
Rock used the journalism program as an example of a program that may get the cut in order to allow another university to take the lead while the U of O focuses its attention elsewhere.
“If somebody else does journalism best, maybe they should be left to do journalism,” said Rock.
Just across town, Carleton University is regarded as one of the top universities in Canada for journalism.
“What about if we do pharmacy, they do journalism,” he said. “They’ve got architecture, we’ve got health sciences.”
However, Rock pointed out that Carleton doesn’t offer journalism training in French. He said the U of O could think about offering a French journalism program in partnership with La Cité collégiale—the only one offered in Ontario—but limiting it to that.
“That’s the kind of discussion the province is encouraging,” he said.
“Maybe some things have to fall away while we focus on the things we do best.”281
1707 N Las Palmas Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028
(323) 462-7888
I love this place. One of the best places around Hollywood Boulevard to eat normal and healthy food. I don't even know what else to say. I live in Hollywood and first though that comes into my mind when I wake up or fly around is to have breakfast (or brunch) at Berry Que. And believe me I'm really picky to the places where I eat. From my point of view the price is affordable to everyone who wanna eat some good fresh food. The stuff is always welcoming so I took a picture with them.
Veggies sandwiches are inedible. The Bread is super hard. Make sure you have Teeth of steel. But the buffalo sandwich is good. Normal human teeth is good enough to eat it. Buffalo sandwich: 8/10 Veggie sandwich : 5/10. No heartburn after eating either sandwich.
take out option on yelp is great! food was ready on time & i like that they verify the correct food is going to the correct person. i sent my friend to pick up my order & he had to call me & i had to talk to the employee to reiterate my order & allow my friend to pick up my food. sandwiches were mediocre. smoothies were refreshing but reminded me more of a juice.
I feel like I'm in a minority here when it comes to their avocado toast so I'm assuming I simply got the short end of the stick, but this was the most lackluster avo toast experience I've had at a restaurant so far. I came in one day at lunch after seeing lovely photos from fellow yelpers of their avocado toast and overall cafe atmosphere. I walked in to find the atmosphere opposite of what I expected. It was poorly lit (almost dark) inside and a bit crowded. Regardless, the place appeared popular as there were many people eating and waiting for their food. After being ignored at the ordering area by two employees, another came and took my order. I got an order of two avocado toast with a sunny side up egg and hard boiled egg and an order of cucumber juice. It took about 20 minutes to get my order but I wasn't too bothered since I ordered knowing it was a bit busy. That was until I got my order and my hopes of a lovely avo toast breakfast were crushed. What I got was basically sad plate of egg toast featuring a little bit of avocado. The small amount of avocado was almost almost completely hidden by the egg and it almost looked like plain bread. The taste was bland and definitely didn't make up for the presentation. The only ok thing was the cucumber juice. Although I want to try out Berry Que again to see if this was a fluke, I also reaaaally don't want to come waste more money on a poor experience. Hopefully my experience isn't simply a recent downgrade in their quality.
I ordered a protein smoothie 4 and avocado toast (plain with just chili flakes). I had been craving avocado toast and let me tell you I was not disappointed. It was delicious. It's served with more options but my taste buds are simple. The smoothie was yummy too. And the counter girls were pleasant.
Coffee shop located right of of Hollywood Blvd. Strong coffee, nice pastries. They also serve salads. Few table available outside.
Quaint cafe in Hollywood. The smoothies, juices, and sandwiches here are... phenomenal! This is one of those places I don't really want to share with people unless I'm bringing them here, but since I'm also a dedicated Yelper I'll share... Prices are very reasonable and did I say the sandwiches are phenomenal? To be fair I haven't tried all their sandwiches, but I've tried at least 3 and they know how to make their sandwiches-- good sauce, the right balance of ingredients, and the bread used pairs well with everything else. The bread (depending on what you order) is also either toasted or is chosen to be firm and not get soggy with the sauce and other ingredients. Anyways, atmosphere is very nice, quality of food is great, and at a reasonable price. Hits all the check marks for 5 star.
Great experience with Berry Que! I never seen a service like here - delicious sandwiches and smoothies. Highly recommend to others.
I love grabbing breakfast here. The food is amazing and the staff is very friendly. They already started to remember my orders and always greet me with a smile. I suggest to try their California Avocado Toast! It's amazing.
This place may not be easy to notice, walking down Hollywood Blvd. The area is a mix of styles: tourist-oriented, super sketchy, and nice. This place is just around the corner and worth the 50 steps to get there. It's clean, nicely furnished although small. They seem to make everything from fresh ingredients by hand, artisan-style. Reasonable prices, friendly service and yummy good. The tuna salad sandwich was frankly the best I've had -- some kind of rustic toasted bread, very fresh veggies, well done!
Stopped in here early on a Saturday morning. Before 9am. The Boulevard was quiet and this hidden gem is really worth checking out. According to the lovely staff member who served us, the cafe used to be an Audrey Hepburn cafe - and it still looks super cute. We ordered an iced mocha, latte and a croissant which was warmed up for us. We didn't try any other food but the menu and prices looked reasonable. Would definitely recommend and will update the review if we do more than enjoy a quick coffee here in the future.
This place is ridiculously over priced for the kind of food you're getting and the service. The moment we walked in the girl at the register stared us up and down, clearly it is our first time here since we are unsure of what to order. She was rude, impatient, and when I asked to substitute something in the middle of my order- she got mad. The wait was awful. For eggs and ham it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. There was people sitting down before we even got here and they were also annoyed and kept asking where was their food, so I know I wasn't the only one with the bad experience. The food was not....bad. But not worth the money or wait. I don't usually leave bad reviews but I genuinely felt like I had to after this morning.
Tried it first time. Very simple menu. Qulity of the food is great with great flavours. Great job
Eat here almost every day for lunch and it's consistently really good. Friendly capable staff, fresh food, good atmosphere. There's tons of bad restaurants around the area, skip them, come here.
Best. Sandwiches. EVER. Came here for lunch on a Saturday after finding this place on Yelp, and I was blown away. Coming in, my expectations weren't that high because I'm not really a big fan of sandwiches and salads, but I gotta say, this place has me hooked on their sandwiches. First, I ordered the ultimate breakfast sandwich. As soon as I took the first bite, I literally said "wow" because I was in shock from how good it was. The combination of pesto, creamy goat cheese, and avocado stood out the most to me, and those ingredients are what really made the sandwich amazing. So I finished that sandwich and knew I had to get another. I opted for the farm club. This sandwich had a combination of crisp apples, creamy goat cheese, sweet cranberry jam, chicken, peppery fresh arugula, and some other things. But wow, these ingredients were truly a match made in heaven. Like the first sandwich, the depth of flavor in this sandwich was so complex, and all the ingredients complimented each other perfectly. Another plus was that both of the sandwiches had really good structural integrity. As loaded as they were, they never fell apart while I was eating them. Aside from the food, everything else was awesome too - the service, the atmosphere (really cute decor, good for studying and working), the drinks (had a sip of my friend's mocha and it was incredible), all of it. This is everything you want in a cafe. Although I live an hour away from this place, I would gladly make the commute just for their sandwiches.
Such a great find!! I was 40 min early for an appointment and decided to try this lil cafe out. I ordered the "Avocado Toast" which I have found @ most places to be rather basic - NOT THE CASE HERE!! Definitely making this place a morning staple. :)
Not a lot of good options in the area in terms of healthy, tasty, and/or reasonably priced. In fact, throw out the usual "pick 2" mantra and in Hollywood you'd be lucky to nail just one. Berry Que hits the trifecta. Wouldn't be that special in other neighborhoods, but then again, it isn't in other neighborhoods.
I usually don't do this but but that's crazy. Nothing against quality of food or drinks. I work next door and I come every day to get a juice and a sandwich. Today I went there and there was a line and I really had to use the bathroom, I asked for a key and the lady told me very rudely that I need to buy something first, even though she knows me. I told her that I was going to buy a juice later I just REALLY need to use the bathroom (pregnant women will understand), there was like 5 people in front of me, I even offered to give her money but she didn't give me the key. That's ridiculous, reminds me of the STARBUCKS scandal over the bathroom use as well. You guys should work on your customer service:)
Order the Santa Fe warp and by far exceeded my expectations. Very fresh and the right heat! I'll definitely come back for the Nutella iced coffee!Welcome to the Survivor: Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers preseason! THR's Josh Wigler reports from his exclusive visit to the show's shooting location in Fiji, where he interviewed host Jeff Probst, as well as the 18 new castaways battling it out for the $1 million prize.
Click here to make sure you're all caught up on our stories from the island, including our weekly podcast series "First One Out," an in-depth look at all of the new players, culminating in an interview with the first person voted out of the season.
In Survivor, second chances are typically reserved for individual castaways who made a big enough impact that they're invited to return to the show. But in the case of the show's upcoming 35th season, Survivor is giving an entire tribe a second chance — in a manner of speaking, at least.
For the second time in Survivor history, fans are about to meet a blue-buffed group known as the Heroes. It's an untested tribe, certainly compared to the tribe of the same name featured on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, the show's landmark 20th season featuring some of the most memorable returning players in the game's history. While the season is often considered one of the very best in Survivor lore, the Heroes tribe itself was a disorganized mess, losing challenge after challenge until a streak of good fortune toward the end of the tribal portion of the game. Once the merge hit, however, the Heroes tribe went down in a blaze of glory.
Listen to the podcast below for the second episode of "First One Out," all about the Heroes tribe:
How will the Heroes of season 35 fare? Fair question! In order to get those predictions rolling, here's a quick overview of the Heroes, formally known as the Levu tribe: • Alan Ball, a 31-year-old NFL player from Detroit, Michigan;
• Ashley Nolan, a 26-year-old lifeguard from Satellite Beach, Florida;
• Ben Driebergen, a 34-year-old marine from Boise, Idaho;
• Chrissy Hofbeck, a 46-year-old actuary from Glen Gardner, New Jersey;
• John "JP" Hilsabeck, a 28-year-old firefighter from Los Angeles, California;
• and Katrina Radke, a 46-year-old Olympian from Excelsior, Minnesota Over the next week, we'll take a closer look at each of the Heroes in greater detail. For now, read on for host Jeff Probst's thoughts on the six contestants.
Tell me about the Heroes tribe, broadly. What are your thoughts on this group?
Broadly, I think they may have the most work to do as a group. It would take me a moment to figure out why. When I think of them as a group, they're all very accomplished. I could see a lot of ego coming into play. All of them have been successful at something. Sometimes, that's hard, when you have that many leaders in a group. Everybody thinks they're right. I'm impressed with all of them, individually. Ironically, I would say the Heroes tribe may have the toughest time gelling.
What are your thoughts on Alan?
Alan came in the room and told us his story. First of all, his smile and the way he talks about his wife really charmed us. He jokingly talks about, "Hey, man. Happy wife? Happy life." But when you go a little further, you realize that he means it: "I want my wife to be happy. She has good advice for me. She always tells me things to look out for, tendencies that I have." I found that very charming. Then when I heard his story about how much work it took for him to get into the NFL? He's already super good, but now he's trying to get to great, the highest level. He thought it was going to be easy, and it wasn't. He had to work. He was humbled. He got back in, dug in, and said, "I'm good enough to get there." I really like that story. I think you see that play out a lot on Survivor. People go, "I wonder if I'm capable of this," and then they find out that they are.
I was very impressed with Ben after talking to him. Ben has the aesthetic of a Keith Nale, who I love dearly as a Survivor player, but I wouldn't accuse Keith Nale of being a Survivor super-fan. One of the things I really loved about Ben is that on Wednesday nights, it's movie night for his kids, but it's Survivor night for him and his wife. He's clearly a fan of the show. What's your take on him?
I love Ben. He walked in with a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt and big boots and a pair of jeans. He sat down and said, "Well, what do you want to know?" We said, "Well, who are you?" He said, "Well, I've done a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I was in the service for a little while. I did a couple of tours." He made it sounds like he was out in the backyard mowing his lawn, you know? And then he also shared, really honestly, that he's not doing something he loves. He said, "I'm working to make a living for my family. I want more. I see this game as something that can change my life. There's a million dollars [on the line]. I don't care how hard it is. I've done hard. I want this for my kids and my wife." Man, it's a hard story to not move you. That's what Survivor offers a lot of people: 39 days, you have to be strategic, you have to be savvy about human nature, you have to be willing to endure sometimes some extremely tough situations — but you could come home with a million bucks, and a sense of pride that you did it. You beat everyone else in this game.
What about JP? Aside from the fact that he shares your initials, so clearly he's an instant favorite...
(Laughs.) JP... my opinion about him is changing a little bit. When he first came in [for casting], he was very confident. He's a very likable guy. He's a fireman. He's clearly chosen a profession that's dangerous and heroic. But when I saw him on the boat this morning, I did have a feeling... is this a guy who is still young enough that he's used to being the alpha? He's good-looking. He probably gets lots of attention from women. He's charming; guys want to be around him. He's a fireman. That will open a lot of doors. And on Survivor? No one cares. In fact, those are three reasons to get rid of you. I felt I saw a little bit of JP going, "OK! This is... this is going to be full-on. I'm pretty cool in my world, and I have 17 other people who couldn't care less."
What are your thoughts on Ashley? She's a lifeguard, an ocean rescue captain...
I love Ashley. I don't know if this makes sense and I hope it's respectful, but she can throw down. Ashley is a lifeguard, so first of all, she sits down out there and says, "I'm so aware. People think lifeguards just sit out there on a tower and don't do anything, but I'm exhausted at the end of the day because all I'm doing is watching human behavior. That guy is in trouble. I can tell by the way he's walking that he's heading into the water and look! There he goes! He's taking off!" But Ashley is also the woman who says, "Yeah, I'll throw a beer back with you, or four." She's not afraid to get hurt. She's not afraid to get dirty. Those women tend to do very well on this show. They saddle up next to a guy and say, "You and I can do this. I might surprise you out here." I think she could do really well.
I was a little surprised that you have Chrissy on the Heroes tribe. Why is she a Hero?
The reason Chrissy is a hero in my eyes? It's a list. She's one of the most amazing women I've ever met. She broke the glass ceiling in terms of business. She's extremely successful in her career. She makes a lot of money. Über smart. Stops. Decides to have a family. Has kids, raises them, and then says, "Okay! I'm ready to go back in [to work]," goes back in, then kicks ass again. That's a hero on so many different planes. Pick one. What I thought was interesting about Chrissy is that going into the game, she said, "My biggest fear is that I'm going to be the oldest person out there." It reminded me: "Man, I see you as this über superwoman, and you find your one Achilles' heel and that's what you're focused on." I hope that doesn't do her in, because I was looking at her going, "OK, you have an Achilles' heel, but you have like 50 assets to use." I'm really curious if it's just an initial fear and she'll get to the beach and her instincts and brain will take over, or if she'll crush herself.
What do you think about Katrina, who is a very accomplished person, and also a very kooky person — which I love! I love the kooky players. What's your take on her?
Katrina is a big personality. She knows it. She likes it. She revels in it. But also, she's an Olympic swimmer. Come on! You're talking about the highest level of swimming, and she did it. She doesn't want to share that [information], which is going to be tricky, as more questions come out about how she maneuvers around that. What I like about Katrina is she owns her big personality and those people seem to do OK, because they're not pretending to be something they're not. Katrina will tell you, "I'm all over the place. I'm nutty. I'm crazy. I'm whacky. But I'm also more accomplished than you know. Swimming is only one of the things I've pulled off." I think for Katrina, it's going to be about those early moments. Will people go, "What's with the nutty blonde chick?" Or do they go, "Wow, did you see her in the water?"
Click through the gallery below for photos of the Heroes, as well as the Healers and Hustlers.
Keep checking THR.com/Survivor for more coverage of the Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers preseason.Why can’t today’s mainstream media deal with anti-establishment politicians?
Alireza Naraghi Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 20, 2015
In case you missed it, Britain has a new leader of the opposition. The news media doesn’t know quite what to make of him, even though the major political story in the UK seems to reflect a resurgence from the left. Consider this: when Jeremy Corbyn threw his hat into the ring for the leadership of the Labour Party, the British media and even the liberal news outlets initially wrote him off as a fringe anti-establishment leftist candidate, out of touch with the political mainstream. He then proved all the experts wrong and won on the first ballot. In the US, another candidate largely dismissed by the media for being too liberal, Bernie Sanders, continues to draw huge crowds to his rallies. Meanwhile media outlets seem transfixed by the shiny empty object that is the Donald Trump campaign, not to mention the never-ending saga of Hillary Clinton’s email. The populist trend also consumes European countries like Greece and Spain, where leftist anti-corporate movements that have plenty in common with Corbyn and Sanders have burst onto the scene, not because of, but despite their treatment by mainstream news media.
One cannot blame the British news media for failing to predict Jeremy Corbyn’s victory. Even Corbyn himself, the slightly rumpled, unabashedly leftist candidate in a party that has grown more centrist in recent years, said that he did not expect to become the leader of Britain’s official opposition. In the immediate aftermath of his victory, Corbyn said that much of the media — and even the MPs — were out of touch with most voters’ daily lives.
“MPs are a bit cut off. But if I may say so, some of the editorial rooms in some of our broadsheet newspapers are even more cut off. They simply do not understand what’s going on out there. They just don’t get it.”
Jeremy Corbyn has a strong hand and has won a massive mandate, yet he is actually in a weak position when it comes to political capital, because he now finds himself surrounded in Parliament by the Labour Party, most of whom are quite despondent about the fact that he is their leader. He is also being scrutinized by the journalistic culture of Westminster, which will hold him to the same standards as other senior politicians who are more seasoned in the rules of the media game and the British political establishment. To say the least, he has a small margin for error in the realm in which he operates.
Corbyn’s success however comes about in part because of his slightly antagonistic relationship with the media. It appears that Corbyn has no media strategy at all; he simply appears to be disinterested in the press, and does not feel obliged to talk to them. By treating them so carelessly, he manages to expose their irrelevance to substantive reporting. The people who support Jeremy Corbyn are the same people who are distrustful of both the media agenda and the prevailing political culture in the UK. The fact that he did not try to placate the media right from the start built a certain level of respect for his platform, establishing his credibility in the eyes of the many people who are forming a new powerful voting bloc that fundamentally distrusts these institutions. British news consumers are left to wonder how much of Corbyn’s meager press coverage so far comes down to his lack of conventional media savvy in a country that has produced polished soundbite machines like David Cameron and Tony Blair. And how much of it comes down to plain old political ideology? Approximately forty percent of the British newspaper market is still controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. Seventy percent of all newspapers sold in the UK are considered right wing, and their influence goes well beyond newsstands.
Many young voters are saying that the media is obsessed with delivering the news in the old way: focusing only on the binary opposition between left and right without any consideration for the larger scope of issues they really care about. This attitude is rendering the old-fashioned media out of their list of news options. News media is molded to reward the confrontational candidate, and Corbyn or Sanders in their seemingly disarming approach are forcing the media to rethink the way it reports. It is through its traditional formality that media seeks to preserve its credibility. But in the larger picture of journalistic ethics, candidates like Corbyn and Sanders are stripping the credibility from mainstream news organizations by ridiculing the robotic formalities that serve their shallow analyses of the issues. They are forcing journalists to accept that some of the rules they assumed were an indispensable part of the game are no longer applicable in an anti-establishment political environment. Some of the conventional practices about polish, soundbite preparedness or political correctness need to be thrown out, at least when dealing with these candidates.
Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator trying to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for the White House, has a hill to climb, media-wise. His speeches are laden with socialist policies designed to bridge the expanding gap between the rich and poor in America. From the outset, despite attracting the largest crowds of all the other candidates, Sanders could not attract a proportionate amount of media attention. He is not just running against Hillary Clinton’s grandiose brand, he is also competing for media coverage against the Donald Trump campaign on the Republican side. Sanders constantly complains of the media obsession with, and addiction to, conflict and entertainment instead of the real policy issues that the country faces.
How does Sanders compare? He has only gotten a shocking total of 8 minutes on network news (about 1.5 percent). This is equivalent to the amount of time the news has devoted to Gov. Chris Christie (who is polling below 4 percent) and far less than the 43 minutes of coverage devoted to Jeb Bush, who is polling less than 10 percent.
The US media is infatuated with Donald Trump. The always-quotable billionaire is all over American airwaves and he is showing well in the polls, which might not be a coincidence given the overwhelmingly disproportionate coverage he has received. Trump is a polarizing figure, but he is just one of thirteen Republicans in a race for the White House, not to mention the Democrats and their candidates. There is no journalistic justification for the amount of attention the US media is giving The Donald other than, well, reality TV entertainment. I must admit I find it hard to stop watching the circus myself. Donald Trump is the poster boy for the relationship between the mainstream media and the entertainment culture, which rewards intellectual laziness and erodes political awareness. The one positive aspect about Donald Trump’s candidacy is that with his outrageous language and views (and his over-proportionate coverage because of both), he has made clear how much the culture of journalism has lost its engagement, journalistic integrity and ability to meaningfully dissect the monumental issues and policy challenges confronting the United States. As Bernie Sanders points out,
“The media is giving up to a large degree any pretense at serious journalism, and you’re moving into the trend of the USA Today — simple, and stupid, and color pictures,”
Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn have much in common. Both are old-school socialists whose policies are being reflected through the lenses of media outlets looking for a neo-liberalist approach to economics and more accustomed — even addicted — to the bombastic, theatrical brand of politics that a candidate like Donald Trump delivers. The members of the media find themselves explaining why these candidates are so popular and then dismissing their ideas as “fringe,” which is not an easy thing to do. It is in our nature to gravitate towards confirmation bias and sensationalism. It takes a certain force of will to consume information that might be boring, even if it is critical for making intelligent and informed political choices. We know why news works like this. Balance ratings, viewership and profit margins dictate that priority be given to topics that generate more buzz. Controversial candidates get more attention simply because they are damn good entertainment, but I’m afraid it is only just that. This is also why alternative sources of news media and other platforms are becoming much more important to an electorate that is looking not just to be entertained, but to be informed.George Sterling (December 1, 1869 – November 17, 1926) was an American poet and playwright based in California who, during his lifetime, was celebrated on the Pacific coast as one of the great American poets, although he never gained equivalent success in the rest of the United States.
Life and career [ edit ]
Sterling was born in Sag Harbor, New York, the eldest of nine children. His father was Dr. George A. Sterling, a physician who determined to make a priest of one of his sons, and George was selected to attend, for three years, St. Charles College in Maryland. He was instructed in English by poet John B. Tabb. His mother Mary was a member of the Havens family, prominent in Sag Harbor and the Shelter Island area. Her brother, Frank C. Havens, Sterling's uncle, went to San Francisco in the late 19th century and established himself as a prominent lawyer and real estate developer. Sterling eventually followed him to the West in 1890 and worked as a real estate broker in Oakland, California. With the publication of his small volume of poetry in 1903, The Testimony of the Sun and Other Poems, he quickly became a hero among the East Bay literati and artists, some of whom included Joaquin Miller, Jack London, Xavier Martinez, Harry Leon Wilson, Perry H. Newberry, Henry Lafler, Gelett Burgess, and James Hopper.
In 1905 Sterling moved 120 miles south to Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, an undeveloped coastal paradise, and soon established a settlement for like-minded Bohemian writers and other children of the counterculture.[3] A parallel colony of painters was also developing in this enclave. Carmel had been discovered by Charles Warren Stoddard and others, but Sterling made it world-famous. His aunt Mrs. Havens purchased a home for him in Carmel Pines where he lived for nine years.[citation needed] In addition to the Bay Area residents mentioned above, Sterling managed to attract, as either visitors or semi-permanent residents, the satirical iconoclast Ambrose Bierce, novelist Mary Austin,[4] art photographer Arnold Genthe, writer Clark Ashton Smith, and poet Robinson Jeffers. When a firestorm of controversy followed Sterling's publication of A Wine of Wizardry in the Cosmopolitan magazine of September 1907, other rebels flocked to Carmel, including Upton Sinclair and the MacGowan sisters. What attracted so much attention in the press were the stories (both fictional and true) of nude beach parties, free sex (including homosexual), wife swapping, opium dens, and the spate of suicides.[citation needed] The most notorious was the painful and prolonged suicide by poison of the popular poet Nora May French in Sterling's own home. Reports of French's nymphomania and the numerous male lovers just prior to her death scandalized the public.[5][6][7][8] The suicide of Sterling's wife by cyanide only added fuel to the flames. Sterling's own diaries and correspondence reveal a more sedate, but still Bohemian community.[9] He often volunteered at Carmel's Forest Theatre and once played a starring role in Mary Austin's play The Fire.[3] He is depicted twice in Jack London's novels: as Russ Brissenden in the autobiographical Martin Eden (1909) and as Mark Hall in The Valley of the Moon (1913).
Sterling, posing with caricatures of himself at the Bohemian Grove, 1907
Kevin Starr (1973) wrote:
The uncrowned King of Bohemia (so his friends called him), Sterling had been at the center of every artistic circle in the San Francisco Bay Area. Celebrated as the embodiment of the local artistic scene, though forgotten today, Sterling had in his lifetime been linked with the immortals, his name carved on the walls of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition next to the great poets of the past.[citation needed]
Joseph Noel (1940) says that Sterling's poem, A Wine of Wizardry,[10] has "been classed by many authorities as the greatest poem ever written by an American author."
According to Noel, Sterling sent the final draft of A Wine of Wizardry to the normally acerbic and critical Ambrose Bierce. Bierce said "If I could find a flaw in it, I should quickly call your attention to it... It takes the breath away."
Sterling joined the Bohemian Club and acted in their theatrical productions each summer |
the field, but circumstances prevented such an eye catching prospect. Bruno’s battery caused problems in qualifying and prevented the Brazilian from leaving the pits at the start of his qualifying slot, Mahindra working hard to fix the issue and get Senna out on track. While they succeeded in doing so, Bruno’s efforts to set a time resulted in him making an error at the first chicane, and he aborted his lap, resulting in a grid position of 19th place.
At the start, Bruno gained a few positions and was battling with the squabbling Amlin Aguris. While there was slight contact with Takuma Sato, it was heavy contact with the sausage kerbing on the inside that broke the Mahindra’s suspension, leaving Bruno stranded out on track and causing the unnecessarily long safety car period.
Karun’s race ran quite smoothly throughout. Lining up 4th, the former HRT & Lotus F1 driver lost a position at Turn 1 to Nick Heidfeld, but held 5th spot until Lap 12 when Franck Montagny got past. Karun lost a position to Sam Bird during the pitstops but reclaimed it on track in a great move on Lap 20. A battery problem was to strike on the final lap though, and Karun fell to 8th spot behind Bird & Charles Pic, but jumped to 5th after the last lap dramas and penalties.
Fastest Lap: Karun Chandhok (1-0 to Karun Chandhok)
Qualifying: Karun Chandhok (3-0 to Karun Chandhok)
Race: Karun Chandhok (5-0 to Karun Chandhok)
Mahindra Racing: (9-0 to Karun Chandhok)
Trulli:
The feared Trulli train was never given an opportunity to make an appearance in Beijing. The fastest vintner in motorsport had a solid morning, finishing 10th and 6th in the practice sessions, before an error in qualifying resulted in no time and needing to change his gearbox. This meant starting from the very back of the grid, something he barely managed on the formation lap. While he succeeded in getting his car going on that occasion, the race start itself saw the car conk out completely, probably as a form of protest against the musical backdrop accompanying the race start.
Michela Cerruti had a fraught day as well, breaking her gearbox in practice and resulting in a grid penalty of ten places. Added to her woes was the fact Trulli’s mapping of her car meant that she was unable to use all of her available power throughout the day, something that went unnoticed until after the race. The race itself saw Michela lapping slowly throughout, with her setting the slowest personal best lap of the race. When she made her pitstop to switch cars, the display unit on her car for minimum pit stop time failed. With her mechanics manually counting, they were too trigger happy releasing her back onto the track, and this resulted in a ten second penalty. She finished in 14th spot with plenty of battery power remaining, thanks to the mapping problem.
Fastest Lap: Michela Cerruti (1-0 to Michela Cerruti)
Qualifying: Michela Cerruti (3-0 to Michela Cerruti)
Race: Michela Cerruti (5-0 to Michela Cerruti)
Trulli: 9-0 to Michela Cerruti
Venturi:
Almost a dream start for Venturi Racing, but Heidfeld’s feisty and strong drive will encourage the Monegasque team. A 5th place qualifying effort from Nick Heidfeld quickly became 4th, when the German driver pounced around the outside of Karun Chandhok at the first corner. Nick bided his time nicely then, slowly falling back from the leading trio of Prost, di Grassi & Abt, but a clever pitstop strategy saw Nick elevated to 2nd spot. Nick swapped cars quickly, and re-emerged into the pit lane quickly. Instead of accelerating to the pit speed limit, Nick took advantage of the narrow pit exit to block Di Grassi, Montagny & Abt in behind him while driving slowly to ensure he didn’t exceed the minimum pit stop time.
He emerged about four seconds behind Prost, and slowly eased his way up to the back of the Frenchman. While he didn’t attempt a serious move until the final lap, Quick Nick loomed threateningly for several laps before ramping up to a move at the final corner. Getting alongside Prost, Nick was blameless in the resulting collision and crash, which will be of little consolation after arguably being the strongest driver during the race.
Nick’s self control was as impressive as his car control. After hunting down Prost, lining up his move before being swiped into the barriers in a scary crash, Nick scrabbled out from under his wrecked Venturi and ran across the track to confront Nicolas. While the pair remonstrated with each other, how Nick managed to restrain himself from physically squaring up to Prost was admirable. Formula E may be the ‘clean, green’ and slightly sterile cousin of Formula One right now, but an old-fashioned passion and adrenaline filled punch-up would have convinced even the most staunch critic of its racing credentials.
Stephane Sarrazin’s race was solidly unspectacular by comparison. Lining up at the back after crashing in qualifying, Stephane crept his way forward in the race and ended up in 9th spot.
Fastest Lap: Nick Heidfeld (1-0 to Nick Heidfeld)
Qualifying: Nick Heidfeld (3-0 to Nick Heidfeld)
Race: Nick Heidfeld (5-0 to Nick Heidfeld)
Venturi: 9-0 to Nick Heidfeld
Virgin Racing:
A day of mixed fortunes for both drivers at Virgin Racing. Jaime Alguersuari’s qualifying went well, ending the session just 0.4 seconds off pole position and 0.3 seconds faster than Sam Bird’s best effort. Bird moved up to 11th spot after Buemi took his ten place grid penalty. At the race start, Sam was one of the main movers, leaping up to 8th spot behind Jaime & Franck Montagny. When Franck made his dive up the inside of Alguersuari on Lap 5, Sam took advantage of his team-mate being wrong-footed and managed to sneak up the inside of the last corner and set about pulling away.
Sam then tried a slightly alternative strategy to his closest competitors. While Jaime pitted on Lap 13 and emerged down the order after a slow stop, Sam stayed out a lap longer than the leaders. His pitstop time of 1.51 was completely average, but he emerged in 6th spot with slightly more battery power available towards the end of the race. While Sam dropped to 7th behind Chandhok in the closing.Sp5rl!47rs, the Indian driver’s battery overheated on the final lap and Sam got ahead, before being elevated to third after the leaders collided and Abt received his 57 second penalty. Alguersuari’s second half of the race was hampered by the Spaniard not enjoying the handling of the second chassis, and he finished in 11th spot almost a full minute behind his team-mate on track, and two minutes behind after also receiving the same penalty as Abt for overusing his battery energy.
Fastest Lap: Sam Bird (1-0 to Sam Bird)
Qualifying: Jaime Alguersuari (3-0 to Jaime Alguersuari)
Race: Sam Bird (5-0 to Sam Bird)
Virgin Racing: 6-3 to Sam Bird
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook to keep up to date with every Team Mate Battle this season!Federal prosecutors, facing accusations that they’re lying about how the FBI accessed Silk Road’s servers, have an interesting argument: If we did hack the Deep Web black market, it was perfectly legal because it was a “blatantly criminal” hive and the server was foreign, so constitutional Fourth Amendment protections wouldn’t apply.
One year after Ross Ulbricht was arrested and charged as Dread Pirate Roberts, the notorious leader of the Silk Road, the FBI is claiming that trivial but profound configuration mistakes by Ulbricht led to his capture, Wired reports. Experts have widely criticized the FBI’s explanation, however, saying the Bureau attacked and hacked into Silk Road by forcing the server to mistakenly give up its location.
Speculation surrounding the case has ramped up leading up to the trial, which is scheduled to begin in a month.
The prosecution’s newest filings don’t do much to disprove the critics’ theories; they say the hacking argument is factually wrong but avoid any details.
Instead, prosecutors walked a legal tightrope: They didn’t admit that any hacking took place while simultaneously arguing that if it did, hacking would not have violated the law:
“Given that the SR Server was hosting a blatantly criminal website, it would have been reasonable for the FBI to ‘hack’ into it in order to search it, as any such ‘hack’ would simply have constituted a search of foreign property known to contain criminal evidence, for which a warrant was not necessary.”
Silk Road’s server was located in Iceland, meaning “the Fourth Amendment would not have required a warrant to search the server, whether for its IP address or otherwise,” the prosecutors argued. On top of that, because Ulbricht allegedly broke his Icelandic host’s terms of service, prosecutors argue they had no obligation to protect his privacy.
Judge Katherine Forrest said Ulbricht’s defense has until the end of Tuesday to decide if it will argue that Ulbricht had a proper expectation of privacy. Prosecutors say that would mean an admission of guilt, but Ulbricht could instead claim to have been a user of the site, potentially affording him similar legal protections.
You can read the filing in its entirety below.
Prosecution Response to Horowitz Declaration
H/T Wired | Photo via Jeffrey Beall/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0) | Remixed by Fran BerkmanIn August last year, the Ministry of Railways assured a Rajya Sabha MP from Mumbai that the provision of five new foot overbridges (FOBs) in the city, including at the Elphinstone Road station, had been “sanctioned in 2016-17”. The MP was Sachin Tendulkar.
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However, the government’s assurance remained on paper. And on Friday, 22 people were killed in a stampede on the existing foot over bridge at Elphinstone Road.
It’s not just Tendulkar. Last year, following repeated requests from Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant, the then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu had sanctioned work for an upgrade at the Elphinstone Road station under Passenger Amenities for Rs 11.86 crore.
ALSO READ | Huge mismatch: 1972 bridge, 2017 crowd 1 lakh a day
The tender, valued at Rs 12.8 crore, is set to open in November — over a year after the work was sanctioned in the 2016-17 Rail Budget.
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In his question, Tendulkar had asked if the Railways had “identified high-density stations which have only one single bridge like Mumbra, Parel and others, for additional bridge construction to enhance safety during peak hours”.
On August 12, 2016, the Railways Minister of State Rajen Gohain responded to the cricket legend by stating that the need for provision of additional FOBs at stations on Mumbai sub-urban section “is regularly examined and if found justified and feasible, suitable action is taken”.
READ: Elphinstone Road station stampede live updates: Let PM Modi take over Railways, prove himself, says Congress after deadly accident
Accordingly, Gohain stated, the provision of five new FOBs, one each at Bhayandar, Elphinstone Road, Kandiwali, Khar Road and Virar railway stations on Western Railway had been sanctioned.
Gohain also stated that two FOBs had already been made operational at Mumbra and Parel stations while the construction of an additional — third — FOB has been taken up at Mumbra station “in connection with fifth and sixth lines”.
In December 2015, Tendulkar had asked another question in the Rajya Sabha that resonated in the wake of Friday’s stampede. He had sought to know the steps taken by Railways to provide critical first-aid and ambulance access to people injured while using suburban and long-distance services across the country.
The Railways’ response, provided by Minister of State Manoj Sinha, was that “first aid boxes containing essential drugs and dressing materials are provided with the guards of all passenger carrying trains and Station Masters of all Railway stations”.
ALSO READ: Papa you go ahead, I will come: Last words of Mumbai stampede victim
Rajya Sabha records show that Tendulkar raised a number of questions linked to Railways in the House — eight out of 22.
Sawant, meanwhile, said he got a “favourable reply” on February 20, 2016 after writing letters to the zonal railways and Railway ministry, and taking the issue up personally with Prabhu in Parliament.
Speaking to The Indian Express over phone on Friday from the stampede site, Sawant said, “This was waiting to happen. I have been telling Railways for years now. Railway officers here are slow and find all ways to delay the work.”
In his reply to Sawant, Prabhu wrote: “It has been one of the toughest years for Indian Railways because of the adverse effects of the global slowdown. Even in these challenging times, the following works in your constituency is in our positive consideration.” Prabhu also listed the construction of a 12-m parallel foot over bridge at Elphinstone after extension of platforms 1 and 2 by 100 metres.
ALSO READ: Mumbai horror: At least 22 dead, 39 injured in rush hour stampede at Elphinstone foot overbridge
Sawant said that he has been raising the issue of overcrowding on rail foot over bridges for a number of years.
“I got the zonal railway general managers and divisional railway managers to inspect the site to see for themselves the extent of the problem. More such bridges are there and the Railway needs to just give permission to the civic body to start construction, but they are not doing that. I have been chasing them and raising these issues,” he said.
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According to Sawant, Prabhu’s predecessor Sadananda Gowda had also assured him that he would “look into it”.Bruce Arena steps down as USA head coach
Decision comes days after Stars and Stripes failed to reach Russia 2018
*Arena: "Greatest privilege for any coach to manage their country" *
Bruce Arena has stepped down from his role as USA head coach, the United States Soccer Federation has confirmed. Arena’s decision to resign as national team manager comes after the country failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™.
A 2-1 defeat away to Trinidad & Tobago on Tuesday, combined with Panama and Honduras recording victories over Costa Rica and Mexico respectively, meant the Stars and Stripes finished fifth in CONCACAF’s Hexagonal standings.
It is the first time USA have failed to qualify for the World Cup since Mexico 1986.
“It is the greatest privilege for any coach to manage their country’s national team, and as I leave that role today, I am honoured and grateful to have had that opportunity twice in my career,” said Arena, who coached USA at Korea/Japan 2002 and Germany 2006 during his first stint as national team manager.
“When I took the job last November, I knew there was a great challenge ahead, probably more than most people could appreciate. Everyone involved in the program gave everything they had for the last 11 months and, in the end, we came up short. No excuses. We didn’t get the job done, and I accept responsibility.”Cops are distributing paper masks of horror characters and United States President Barack Obama to remind the public of safety tips for the upcoming Halloween season.
Members of the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s community relations arm have started handing out horror-themed masks, including that of Obama, with safety tips printed at the back in different establishments and train stations in Metro Manila.
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But Senior Supt. Gilbert Cruz, director of the PNP Police Community Relations Group (PCRG), explained that the inclusion of Obama in the police’s Halloween masks was not intended to shame the US commander in chief even after President Duterte’s recent announcement of severing ties with America.
In fact, Cruz said they decided to use Obama masks “in a good way” as it would pique the public’s curiosity.
“We’ve been getting many requests to produce Obama masks so I thought, there’s no problem with that. So we used their curiosity to relay our objective of teaching them crime prevention tips,” Cruz said in an interview with INQUIRER.net on Friday.
Cruz, who led the distribution of masks in Quezon City on Thursday, added that they also made a mask of President Rodrigo Duterte, but it was only worn by one of the cops in the group.
LOOK: ‘The Punisher’ masks offered for Halloween
Asked how the people reacted upon receiving the spooky masks, Cruz said he was glad none of the masks went straight to the trash.
“Kapag flyers, ‘yung iba tinatapon nila (They just throw away flyers). So ngayon (Now) they keep the masks, they bring it home and give to their children. Ayaw kasi naming masayang ‘yung project namin. Kung anong mas makakapukaw ng atensiyon nila, ‘yun ang gagamitin namin (We don’t want our project to go to waste. We will implement projects that will catch the people’s attention),” he said. IDL/rga
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MOST READMegan Smith is currently the Chief Executive Officer at Shift7. Previously, she served as the United States' third-ever Chief Technology Officer. In her role, she helped guide the Obama Administration's information-technology policies and initiatives. Prior to assuming her role at the White House, Smith served as VP of Google[x], a Google facility that develops the company's "moonshots," or high-achieving technological advancements. She was Vice President of Business Development at Google for nine years and also served as general manager of Google.org, the company’s social impact arm. She's the former CEO of Planet Out, an entertainment company focused on LGBT communities. In 2012, Smith co-founded The Malala Fund, an organization dedicated to impacting girls education and empowerment around the world. Smith currently serves on the board of MIT, her alma mater.A page from a zine distributed at the event. Photos by the author
Quebec's most militant student federation isn't fucking around.
The women's committee of l'Association pour une solidarite syndicale etudiante (ASSE) brought together at least 100 people from around Quebec for a two-day feminist training camp last weekend, packed with workshops ranging from theory ("Intersectionality") to practical knowledge (introductory self-defence).
'"The fight will be feminist, or there will be no fight," promised the event's description.
I headed to the pre-university host school in the city of Longueuil with a few left-wing feminists from Concordia University. We arrived at a stark grey concrete building and followed the signs to a cafeteria that had a distinct '90s industrial vibe.
Sitting in the rows of pastel-coloured lunch tables were seated sleepy-eyed, green-haired feminists. Some were rallying around the (ostensibly militant) tubs of Nutella and Cheez Whiz, and we quickly joined them.
Over chocolatey breakfast sandwiches and some anti-capitalist chit-chat, we flipped through the preparatory notebook an organizer had given us. Apparently, the women's committee had been hard-pressed to find the host school.
"Our reputation is starting to precede us," the notebook stated. "At the last ASSE training camp, some participants conducted themselves in an unacceptable way (vandalism of the host school, vandalism of the host student association, theft from certain hosting activists)." Yikes.
ASSE is known for being one of the principal organizations that mobilized against the tuition hikes in 2012, during a wave of protests now known as the Maple Spring. They may have earned a certain notoriety, but women in the Quebec student movement have bigger things to worry about.
"There's a lot of insidious misogyny [in the militant sphere]," anti-feminism workshop coordinator Marie-Soleil Chretien told me.
"The [gendered] division of work is very visible in the activist milieu in general and also in ASSE. The patriarchal system can be seen even in the feminist struggle."
Frustration with the ever-present patriarchy gave rise to the Montreal Sisterhood. A handful of radical feminists from punk and counter-cultural spheres, the Sisterhood formed in 2010 after the members realized that even in the leftist and anti-fascist circles in which they ran, they were subjected to oppressive patriarchal attitudes. The groups has focused on "popular education" to change attitudes.
And the education they offered was popular indeed—around 40 people came to their women-only workshop on self defence.
An orange-haired, tattooed Sisterhood member called for everyone to sit in a circle for the preliminary segment. Though the organizers and many of the attendees wouldn't have looked out of place at a stereotypical hippie commune or punk rock concert, the vibe was very summer camp: we went around the circle introducing ourselves and giving our reasons for being there, laughing understandingly at the most ridiculous tales of street harassment.
After a discussion on the importance of self-confidence (sometimes attackers just want to see the fear in your eyes, one workshop coordinator warned), we broke into groups and waited for a turn to practice kickboxing moves on Sisterhood members wielding hand-held practice pads, posing as would be attackers.
An adolescent with fluorescent-pink hair and a red-laced corset waited her turn behind an enthusiastic 51-year-old matron who had come to check out the camp with her daughter, pearl necklace and all.
The diverse range of attendees wasn't always dealt with so smoothly. An afternoon workshop on lesbian feminism went nearly two hours over schedule, as attendees and coordinators argued over the role of trans women in feminism.
When the discussion turned to the ASSE women's only congress, and someone asked if they believed trans women should have a place there, the coordinators inhaled sharply.
Radical lesbian feminism is based around abolishing gender, the coordinators responded. According to them, men who choose to become women reinforce the patriarchal system of oppression.
After she spoke, you could hear a pin drop. Several people in the audience were visibly upset, including Concordia student Madelaine Sommers, who voiced emotively through broken French that hundreds of trans women were killed every year.
Over a post-discussion smoke, workshop coordinator Stephanie Paradis elaborated.
"I think trans politics are used to prevent feminist organizing. It hurts and takes away from the feminist struggle. They co-opt spaces where women who are born women can organize," she told me.
"For example, the Centre for Gender Advocacy at Concordia used to be a non-mixed women's centre. Now it's become for [trans people]. So it contributed to the loss of a space which was just for women."
I asked Gabrielle Bouchard, director of the Centre for Gender Advocacy, what she thought of the analysis.
"[Trans-exclusionary feminists] will exclude trans women because they were not'reared as women' yet also exclude trans men on the base that they are now identifying as men," she pointed out.
"They are also assuming that all women live the same intersection of oppression the very same way and that's also very shallow understanding of oppression. It's so early 20th century."
Ironically, the workshop on lesbian feminism took place directly after a conference on the LGBTQ movement in feminism—a stark juxtaposition, as the queer movement puts a huge emphasis on the inclusion of trans and non-binary-identified people.
Another hot topic, according to Gabriel Velasco, a soft-spoken, gangly legged ASSE delegate, is male overrepresentation in leadership roles.
For instance, even though ASSE had two official spokespeople in the Maple Spring, only the male, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, became well-known. He's now a minor celebrity, while no one even remembers the name of the female spokesperson (it's Jeanne Reynolds).
Several camp attendees told me that right after a big mobilization, people tend to realize that women were underrepresented and there's a resulting surge in female leadership—right now, seven out of the eight ASSE executives are female.
"When it's very politicized and you can earn privilege from your activism, many more men implicate themselves," Jeanne Reynolds, the purple-haired coordinator of the "ABCs of Feminism" workshop, told me. Informal habits of exclusion are common even within mixed-gender executive committees, such as male-only breakfasts or smoke breaks where strategy is discussed.
She didn't seem overly optimistic about smashing the internal patriarchy, adding that while women currently make up a majority of ASSE's leadership positions, in a few years, activists may realize retrospectively that the same oppressive attitudes of society at large were replicated within the movement.
So, what did I learn from going to a militant feminist training camp? That there is no singular "feminism," but also that the scary image of "radical" feminists is far overblown. They're polite, and eat Nutella, and just want to get paid as much as their dick-wielding compatriots—hardly an unreasonable demand.Greens' popularity soars to record high
Updated
Support for the Australian Greens has surged to a record high as voters turn away from the major parties.
The latest Newspoll shows the Greens have jumped six points in six weeks to score 16 per cent support.
They usually poll around 10 per cent of the primary vote and were at 12 per cent in the last poll.
The Greens' gain was Labor and the Liberals' loss.
They both lost two points, taking Labor down to 35 per cent of the primary vote and the Liberals to 41.
Labor is hanging on to government with a razor-thin majority on the all-important two-party preferred vote. The ALP leads the coalition 51 to 49.
The federal election is expected later this year.
The political debate has been dominated in recent weeks by a pitched battle between Labor and the Liberals over the Government's proposed tax hike on mining profits.
The poll appears to indicate that neither side is winning over the voters as the issue dominates the airwaves.
Thirty-six per cent of those polled said they were in favour of the resource super profits tax, with 41 per cent opposed.
The survey says 22 per cent of people think they will be better off under the tax, while 31 per cent think they will be worse off.
The Newspoll was published on The Australian newspaper's website on Monday night.
- AAP/ABC
Topics: greens, government-and-politics, political-parties, alp, liberals, australia
First postedIf you’ve followed Cristian Roldan’s performances in 2017, it’s clear that the 22-year-old Seattle Sounder is emerging as one of the premier midfielders in MLS.
Playing primarily alongside Osvaldo Alonso in central midfield, Roldan’s box-to-box role finds him making plays all over the field. Currently ranked 26th in the Audi Player Index Award rankings, Roldan tallied a game-high 843 points in May’s Cascadia Derby match against the Portland Timbers.
Part of Roldan’s brilliance rests in his distribution. Compared to other midfielders, Roldan averages more successful passes in the opposition half and the final third than the MLS average. He also bests the league average for assists, key passes and even crosses—a remarkable stat, considering he plays as a central midfielder.
In the Portland match, Roldan racked up 60 completed passes, including 35 in Portland’s half of the field. Each of those passes is worth 5 Audi Index points, giving him a total of 175 points for completed passes in the opposition half.
The numbers show that Roldan’s also doing it on the defensive side of the ball. He currently generates 187.6 defensive points per match, the third-best mark for a midfielders – more than heralded defensive midfielders such as Dax McCarty, Will Johnson and his teammate Alonso.
In his third professional season, the former University of Washington player has cemented himself into Brian Schmetzer’s lineup, playing every minute in 2017. He’s also been willing to fill in at right back, including a May 13 start against the Chicago Fire.
Roldan’s next chance to impress comes against New York City FC (1 pm ET; ESPN and ESPN Deportes in US | MLS LIVE in Canada), one of the top teams in the East.
Despite only being in sixth place in the Western Conference, the Sounders have dominated the Audi Index Award rankings -- Osvaldo Alonso (3), Nicolas Lodeiro (7) and Clint Dempsey (10) all find themselves in the Top 10.
We’ll see if Seattle can turn these rankings into points on Saturday in a tough road trip against NYCFC, which boasts two Audi Index stars of its own – David Villa (No. 1) and Maxime Chanot (No. 4).Updated for clarity 8/30/16
My previous article addressed the issues with chain of custody and documentation of the bone evidence. The issues don’t stop there. The testimony and DNA reports contain even more serious concerns about the validity of the bone evidence. Recently Reddit contributor, Amber Lea pointed out major red flags with the way the DNA evidence was presented at trial. Her research indicates that the only bone fragment found with intact tissue was purportedly processed simultaneously in two separate locations at the same time.
Special Prosecutor Ken Kratz displayed this photo during opening arguments and stated that Teresa Halbach’s shin bone was the large bone on the left.
That’s what Kratz asserts, but is there proof that this shin bone was identified as Teresa’s? Two witnesses testified about this key piece of evidence — Dr. Leslie Eisenberg (Forensic Anthropologist) and Sherry Culhane, lab analyst with the Wisconsin crime lab. The photo above was referenced as Exhibit #150 during the Brendan Dassey trial.
First, let’s begin with Dr. Leslie Eisenberg’s testimony about Exhibit #150. Dr. Eisenberg testified that she examined the bone specimens at the Dade County Morgue on November 10, 2005 and discovered the bone with the tissue.
Q All Right. And what is, um, Exhibit 150?
A One-five-zero is a portion of burned human bone that was recovered with other smaller burned human bone fragments and fragments of dried or desiccated human muscle tissue.
Q All right. And is the a fragment that you transferred to the crime lab for DNA analysis?
A That is one of the fragments that I transferred to the Federal Bureau of Investigations for DNA analysis.
During the Avery trial, Dr. Eisenberg testified more affirmatively that she packaged and sent the items directly to the FBI when asked if she sent the items to the crime lab.
Q Now the one we’ve been examining more closely here, is that the bone that you arranged to be sent to the FBI, or excuse me, to the crime lab for further analysis?
A No, the contents of all of the items you see on this screen, this larger bone, which is about two and a half inches long, and some of these other bone fragments and this muscle tissue was packaged by me and transferred directly to the FBI in November of 2005.
So she was clear that the specimens did not go back to the crime lab and that is important.
Note that the FBI referenced the specimen as “charred remains“, rather than “bone fragments“, even though they referred to several subsequent samples that were sent by Dr. Eisenberg as bone fragments.
**Also very important is the evidence that the shin bone referenced in exhibit #150 is referenced as Q1 Charred remains in the FBI document.**
The trial testimony revealed a contradictory claim about the shin bone fragment. Sherry Culhane testified that she received the bone fragment into her lab on November 11, 2005 and removed a portion of tissue that she believed was suitable for DNA testing.
A Item BZ was taken into the laboratory on November 11th, 2005.
Q And when you examined this, was it a combination of bone and tissue?
A It appeared to be, yes.
She referenced it in her report as “charred tissue” and labeled it BZ.
Item BZ was the same specimen that Dr. Eisenberg claimed to have shipped to the FBI. How do we know that? This PowerPoint slide which was shown to the jury during Sherry Culhane’s testimony is proof.
Q When you examined this, was this a combination of bone and tissue?
A It appeared to be, yes.
Q And what is shown on the big screen here, which we will later get an exhibit for and mark it, is that the bone and tissue fragment that you examined?
A Yes, it is.
Sherry Culhane testified that she removed tissue from the very bone that Dr. Eisenberg packaged and shipped directly to the FBI.
A Um, this is a bone fragment here with a piece of charred tissue attached to it. When I sampled this, I took a portion of the tissue that appeared to be least burned towards the bone and that’s what I used for my examination.
Q And did you assign a crime lab designation to this?
A Yes, I did.
Q And what was that?
A Item BZ.
Q And did you conduct DNA testing on this tissue portion of this burned bone fragment?
A Yes I did.
What does this mean?
The shin bone photograph was used twice at both trials to illustrate how they were able to obtain testable material from a fire that caused such extensive damage that the crowns of the teeth were completely burned; yet the timeline and circumstances of the handling of the only tissue found on that single bone do not add up. Dr. Eisenberg stated that she sent it directly to the FBI. How could that be? Did Culhane receive the tissue/bone specimen before Dr. Eisenberg even identified it as human? If Culhane removed a section from it before Dr. Eisenberg received it, she would have been doing so with no confirmation that the bone was even human. She would have also been altering evidence before Dr. Eisenberg would have had a chance to examine it. It wouldn’t make sense.
Both the Wisconsin Crime Lab and the FBI characterized the specimen as “charred tissue/remains,” even though it was described by Dr. Eisenberg as a “two-and-a half inch fragment of shin bone with intact tissue”. This is very suspicious in light of the fact that there are already obvious issues with the handling of the bones alleged to have been discovered on the Avery property.
Once again we are left with an enormous question mark related to the bones, the DNA and the identification of the victim. In fact, the absence of any characterization of a bone fragment in the lab reports could indicate that there were no bones at all! Perhaps the prosecution felt they needed to present solid proof that a bone from the pit was definitively identified as Teresa’s, and if there were no bones, maybe they had to get creative. Maybe there is nothing more than the photo of the shin bone of unknown origin and the box of bones, which by the way look very similar to pig bones.
One has to wonder where the tissue came from. Did the crime lab and FBI in fact test sections of the golf ball sized tissue alleged to have been discovered by Agent Pevytoe?
Summary of the bone discovery, collection and processing:
MTSO Deputy Jost finds 1 inch object believed to be a bone (11/8/05)
⇓
Investigators dig up the burn pit, transfer everything to the Calumet SO (11/8/05)
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Box of bones are transferred to Dr. Eisenberg (11/9/05)
⇓
Agent Pevytoe finds golf ball sized piece of charred tissue while examining debris at Calumet Sheriff’s Office (11/10/05)
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Dr. Eisenberg examines bones at Dade County Morgue, identifies shin bone with charred, attached muscle – sends it to FBI (11/10/05)
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Sherry Culhane claims to somehow receive same shin bone with charred, attached muscle, labels it item BZ (11/11/05) and reports that a partial profile was obtained and that seven markers matched Teresa Halbach’s profile.
There’s a lot of confusion and misinformation about the bone/tissue DNA evidence and exactly which types of tests were performed. There were three separate sets of specimens submitted for DNA identifications — one went to the Wisconsin crime lab, and two separate sets of specimens went to the FBI.
We really don’t know where item BZ came from. We do however know that the reported result of the STR DNA test was grossly misstated. The reported “partial profile” — 7 of 16 locations should have been recorded as “inconclusive” because it was an indication that the test didn’t work — the sample was too degraded to trust the result. Instead, it was reported that since seven alleles matched the standard profile, statistics indicate that only one person of a billion would have that partial profile in a Caucasian population. It was suggested that although it was not a conclusive match, it was very unlikely that the specimen could have originated from anyone beside Teresa. This was very misleading, but the defense never refuted it.
2. The FBI received charred remains purportedly from the shin bone on 11/16/05 and performed mitochondrial DNA testing. They compared it to DNA from Karen Halbach’s buccal swab. It is unclear why no one sent the FBI Teresa’s DNA to compare to the charred material (designated as Q1 by the FBI). Since the MtDNA database is small, the report only concludes that Teresa cannot be ruled out as the contributor. No one from the FBI testified at either the Avery or Dassey trials.
To avoid confusion, the designation of the same shin bone/charred tissue specimens from Exhibit #150:
BZ – Wisconsin Crime Lab
1B2 – Dr. Eisenberg
Q1 – FBI
3. In January, 2006 Calumet County Sheriff Jerry Pagel incorrectly informed the media that the FBI confirmed the bones were Teresa’s, even though the FBI report clearly stated simply that she could not be ruled out.
On January 19, 2006, Calumet County Sheriff says bones found at the family auto salvage yard of a man charged with murder match those of a freelance photographer.Sheriff Jerry Pagel says |
ash at lower elevations, observatory scientists have said.Fnatic's addition of top laner Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek earlier this week and Yeong-Jin "Gamsu" Noh's subsequent release seemed to happen rapidly.
In a French-language interview with Corbier et Callystoo, Bora "YellOwStaR" Kim confirmed the truth of that observation, but added that he felt that management had properly considered the factors involved.
"I don't think that they made this change impulsively, but...In terms of the players, we didn't really have a say because it happened so quickly," YellOwStaR said in the interview.
RELATED: Gamsu Out, Kikis In: Fnatic strengthens their weakest link
Making a change like this partway through the season can have serious implications for a team, he continued, but he likes what he's seen so far from Kikis.
"The management took the responsibility for the replacement, and given that we're already well into the split, it's potentially risky, but Kikis played very well against H2K for his first performance," he said.
In the interview, YellOwStaR also discusses his perceived differences between EU and NA, the impact of the best-of-two format on the region and their Week 7 match against H2k-Gaming.
You can watch the entire French-language interview from Corbier et Callystoo on their YouTube channel.
Josh "Gauntlet" Bury is a Pokemon Master. You can find him on Twitter.JAN. 20: Hank Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Aoki’s $5.5MM club option will become a mutual option if he reaches 550 plate appearances (Twitter link).
JAN. 19: The Giants and outfielder Nori Aoki have officially agreed to a one-year contract with an option for the 2016 season, as first reported by John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle (Twitter links). In the club’s announcement, the option was described as a club option that can vest into a mutual option.
Aoki, a client of CAA Sports, receives a $4.7MM guarantee plus performance bonuses, via Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (Twitter links). He’ll earn $4MM in 2015, and his 2016 option contains a $700K buyout, according to Heyman, who adds that the contract can max out at $12.5MM over two years. Shea tweets that Aoki’s option is valued at $5.5MM, adding that he can earn up to $1.5MM worth of incentives in each year of the deal.
Aoki gives the Giants additional outfield depth and should slot into their starting left field spot, shifting Gregor Blanco into a fourth outfield role, although the two do have relatively similar skill sets. The 33-year-old Aoki should be plenty familiar with the Giants, having received an up-close look at the club in what was an excellent, seven-game World Series between the Giants and Aoki’s former club, the Royals, in 2014.
In his lone season with Kansas City, Aoki batted.285/.349/.360 with 17 steals but just one home run. Aoki has consistently hit for a solid average (.288,.286 and.285) in three years with the Brewers and Royals since coming over from Japan, and his OBP has steadily floated between.349 and.356 — all solid marks. However, after hitting 10 homers as a rookie and eight in his sophomore campaign, Aoki’s home run swing went absent in 2014, which likely hurt his market considerably. Some of the drop in power may be attributable to moving from Miller Park to Kauffman Stadium, but a move to the pitcher-friendlt AT&T Park doesn’t figure to bolster his home run output much.
Nonetheless, Aoki is a consistent source of on-base percentage and solid defense, creating a rather low-risk deal for the Giants. Aoki has graded out well in right field over his career, posting a UZR/150 mark of +5.3 and +13 Defensive Runs Saved in the Majors. That will represent a substantial upgrade over the poor defense of the departed Mike Morse, although Aoki clearly comes with significantly less offensive upside than the slugging Morse.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.Getty Images
Cardinals coach Bruce Arians says he’ll fight it if the NFL tries to force his team to appear on Hard Knocks. But 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh says he’d welcome it.
“There’s going to be teams that are going to be on Hard Knocks and that seems like a popular thing and something people want to see,” Harbaugh said. “So, I don’t see it going away. You could stamp your feet and say I don’t want to do it, but I don’t know how productive that is for anybody concerned.”
This week the NFL adopted a rule saying the league office can force a team to appear on Hard Knocks if no team volunteers. However, that rule says any team that has made the playoffs in either of the previous two seasons cannot be forced to appear on the show. The 49ers made the playoffs last year, so Harbaugh knows the 49ers won’t be forced to appear on Hard Knocks next year.
The rule also exempts teams that have been on Hard Knocks in any of the last 10 years from being compelled to appear, and also exempts teams with new coaches. None of those rules would help the Cardinals if they don’t make the playoffs this year, however, so Arians might find himself forced to appear on Hard Knocks next year. In which case Harbaugh would tell him not to stomp his feet and say he doesn’t want to do it.This is a computer stuffed into an Imperial AT-AT toy by case modder/creator ASPHIAX (links to build page with a ton more shots of the entire process). It, uh, looks pretty impressive. I'm not sure what kind of plugs they used to connect all the liquid cooling components inside, but from the closeups they look like the same ones they used to connect Neo to the Matrix. That's some future tech right there. My computer? My computer's no frills. "You're using a public terminal at the library, aren't you?" I think the guy next to me is masturbating.
Hit the jump for some worthwhile closeups of the Ewok and Wampa stomping goodness.
Thanks to Terry, who also sent me a bunch of pictures of his personal computer case, which he mounted to the wall and glows blue. I responded with a pic of a dude's wiener that I found online.Patrick Englebert (60) started his career building nuclear power plants, but switched to the maritime and offshore industry in the early eighties. He built offshore vessels and cargo ships for almost three decades, before deciding four years ago to bet big on wind propulsion for large cargo ships. “I’m sixty now, I was in my mid fifties back then. It was now or never.”
Basically, his plan with Propelwind is to fit huge meter wingsails on cargo ships – in other words, a sail of about 80 meters, or 20 floors. Englebert thought he could improve on existing wind propulsion ideas by using techniques from sports sailing – specifically, the innovations in solid wingsails like those that Larry Ellison’s America’s Cup use. The advantages of wingsails don’t just work for sports boats, Englebert thought: they would also make it economically feasible to use them on large, seagoing ships.
The last few years Englebert has been living the startup rollercoaster. His ideas are disruptive and feasible, he says. But while his colleagues at software startups can launch a minimum viable product, test it and refine it, Englebert is faced with a trifecta of obstacles: a conservative industry, a field populated with “dreamers” who create credibility problems, and prototype costs that run well into the hundreds of thousands and even millions of euros.
As Propelwind states on its website:
“Backed by some of the world’s leading boat designers, racing skippers, shipbuilding engineers, aerodynamics and routing experts, Propelwind is applying sailboat racing technology to the propulsion of merchant ships (cargo and cruise).”
Patrick Englebert: “The idea of a wind propulsion revival was first explored during the first oil crisis of the seventies. There was a wave of panic, caused in part by the report of the Club of Rome of 1972 called “Limits to Growth”. According to those projections, we would all be riding bicycles today (grins).
It was essentially driven by the fear that the human population would just grow so large that the planet’s resources would just no longer suffice to sustain us. It was a time when many “post oil” concepts saw the light, and there were a fair number of projects looking into sails as a viable way to power ships.
One of the furthest advanced concepts was thought up at Cockeril Yards in Belgium: they were looking at rigging bulk carriers with masts – so called Dynarigs, just like in the old days, only automated, because of the cost and scarcity of personnel. But then the oil prices dropped again and all those concepts were forgotten.
But I was still fascinated by the idea, and to me it became a lot more relevant again with the rise of the multihulls in ocean sailing competitions. They were a lot faster, and they didn’t heel as much as monohulls – which is not only uncomfortable, but also very unsafe – there have been a few spectacular accidents with ships that heel, where the cargo just shifts and capsizes the ship. The Pamir comes to mind.
All these years, thinking of sailing technology for cargo ships became a bit of a hobby of mine, that I kept up next to my day job at the shipping company where I was in charge of offshore projects and innovations.”
It was about 4 years ago that Englebert finally decided to take his hobby to the next level, he says.
Patrick Englebert: “I decided to pursue the idea seriously in 2008, and after a year or two of preliminary calculations I asked input from sailing competition experts, to get a feel for the answer to the question: does it make sense, economically. The answer was: probably yes, but with some limitations.
The problem is wind, which is not constant, but which is easy to predict today. So I was very conscious from the beginning that this isn’t a universal solution. But still, it’s nice enough and it would have enough of an impact to try it anyway. Two years ago, I took the phone and called some friends: do you want to put some money into this idea? They are all established entrepreneurs, university professors, bank executives, lawyers. We got enough seed capital to put into a holding company based in Brussels, and went operational in june 2011 with a french company based in Lorient (Brittany), close to the sailing competition experts.”
On your site, you say you have seed backing from about 16 investors. Can you tell us how much seed money you put into the idea?
Patrick Englebert: “No I can’t. We’re currently talking to large investors to raise more money, so the issue is delicate. I can tell you that it’s definitely not a hobby project, the company’s valuation is in the half million to one million range, and we’re working with five potential industrial partners. That’s actually a big deal, because the maritime industry is very weary of dreamy projects: if something doesn’t feel “real” enough for them, they walk instantly.
But the industrial partners I’m talking to are not fleeing, on the contrary: I e-mail almost every day with one of them.”
The additional money will be spent to build a prototype, presumably?
Patrick Englebert: “Yes. With the seed money and substantial subsidies from teh Brittany region in France, we completed a consistent feasibility study program and the results are better than expected. Our next steps are: pour another half million euros into studies, then a million in a pre-prototype and a few million in a full scale prototype.
That’s a process that’s typical for the development of large offshore wind turbines, which is not a coincidence – we’re also at sea and we also catch wind. The difference is that we can move around and look for the places where the wind is. Also, we’re 2D whereas they are 3D – we catch wind with only one wing, they usually have three blades. The rest is very similar, in terms of rules and regulations, the sequence of the research and development from small scale model to prototype.”
Your goal is explicitly to build a product, not a concept.
Patrick Englebert: “That’s right. That’s one of the roadblocks for us to approach potential customers: their first impression is that we’re another one of the starry eyed dreamers who is trying to turn his hobby into his day job. It’s incredible how wind power fascinates people.
I don’t think I know anyone who says: a sail ship is ugly. Ships are already pretty, but if you put a mast on it, that really increases the attraction. So there’s a lot of dreamers out there with wild ideas that will never become reality.
Propelwind is in phase two of development, and we’re quite certain that we have an economically interesting solution. I made a list of all existing projects worldwide, and I can say that we’re probably in the top five, or even top three with everything that we’ve done – the simulations, the calculations, the planning and design, the market appraisal and all our discussions with ship owners and operational and technical people.
Of course we still have technical hurdles to clear, but at this stage I’m not ashamed to go in front of oil execs and explain them what exactly we’re building and how. I know a lot of projects that promise a lot – and that got a lot of subsidies to do so. I won’t name names, but a large shipping company introduced a concept about three years ago with all the bells and whistles and buzz words – zero emission, wind sails, fuel cells. It was very spectacular, but they had to admit that it was never their intention to build a ship like that. That’s greenwashing. A larg shipyard has a similar project, but if you enquire about it, they say it’s currently “on hold”. They called it a “projet de vitrine” – a showcase project.
I think it’s a pity so much tax money goes to those projects that were never intended to go to sea. So our first hurdle everywhere is usually to convince people that we’re actually serious, and that yes, we REALLY want to put a sail on your ship. With two other real project promotors, we started a worldwide wind ship association in September. Because our solutions are all different, but we do face the same credibility problem, which is easier to solve when you come out as a sector.”
What is the difference between your project and similar projects? Why do you think you’ll succeed where they failed?
Patrick Englebert: “Our starting point is the idea that offshore sailing and America’s Cup have seen huge innovations in the last two decades. Trimarans can cross the ocean at a speed of thirty knots. The boats in the America’s Cup achieve speeds of up to three times wind speed. That’s no improvisation, that’s the effect of innovations, very advanced project management and great weather forecasting. In a word: that’s the result of some very high tech. We want to use that hi tech for cargo ships. Competition sailing is our laboratory, and we work only with the winners.
The second difference is our access to senior and competent poeple in the shipping industry from three key disciplines: technical, operational and commercial. That’s essential for the credibility of the concept and its chances to become reality.
There’s more wind at sea than anywhere else. The only difficulty is that it’s not constant, and not everywhere. Of course, if there were no limitations, every ship in the world would have a sail on deck (laughs). Where we’re different is that we use techniques from competition sports, and the fact that we admit to these limitations. We don’t claim that we’re the be all end all.
But we promise that our solution will be useful at the largest possible spectrum, thanks to our wingsail technology – to be precise: an articulated wingsail, like those used in the America’s Cup 2010, and to be used again in 2013.”
See the BMW/Oracle wingsail in action:
(Propelwind is not affiliated with BMW and/or Oracle, the video is merely an illustration of the technology)
Patrick Englebert: “For our project, we worked with Van Peteghem Lauriot Prévost, the company who helped develop the wingsail for the winning America’s Cup team and designed their boat. They are real innovators behind the technology used on the Oracle boat. They’re yacht designers and sail makers, and they’re constantly looking for the bleeding edge in technology to make sailboats go faster.
They have no experience in building cargo ships - they design large yachts and winning ocean racing sailboats, but their technology, their experience, ideas: it’s a real pleasure to work with these pros.”
You say wingsails have been around since the sixties: why did the shipping industry wait until today to start thinking about using them on bigger vessels?
Patrick Englebert: “I think the main problem is that wingsails were used in sports. The shipping industry considers itself to be a very, let’s say, serious business. “We work, we don’t play.” I remember when I was working at a shipping company in the eighties, and in my department we had an Apple computer. They considered that toy stuff. I mean, it had icons, it didn’t look as stern and businesslike as an MS DOS computer. How can you work on that? I remember them calling us the toy department. Until everybody had a toy like it, of course (grins).
Another reason is that fuel was just very cheap – until recently. Fuel prices kept rising until March 2011. Now they’re going up and down, but around such a high price point that it makes fuel a very important cost for shipping companies.
And I guess they never took wind really seriously. There’s a very brave German firm called Skysails who have been promoting wind power for ten years – founded by a passionate kitesurfer, but they had a very rough time of it, and they’re still not out of the woods.”
Can you talk a bit about the technical challenges of fitting a large cargo ship with a sail? I suppose it’s not a matter of just rigging a mast to the deck?
Patrick Englebert: “No, absolutely not. You should think of a mast and a sail as a risk factor, really, especially in very strong winds. In sports, you can avoid irresponsible risk by reefing your sails. Or by just not going out on the water if the wind is too strong.
In an industrial setting, when you’re moving cargo, you don’t have that luxury. So we had to find a concept that would be able to keep going in any weather conditions. We do have a few ideas about that, but I will admit that we still need to solve a part of that puzzle. We will solve it, I don’t doubt it, but it’s a lot of work.
And we absolutely need to crack that nut, because otherwise, we won’t get the certifications we need to deploy. One of the ways we think we can solve it is by just adapting the dimensions. Some sports boats have 40 meter wingsails – that’s HUGE, and to simply scale those sails up to the dimensions of a cargo ship would be irresponsible and too expensive.
But I don’t doubt that we’ll find a solution. I mean: airplanes travel at 600 knots. If we can engineer wings to withstand those conditions, I’m sure we can find something that’s capable of resisting wind speeds up to 90 knots.”
How many masts are you going to put on these ships?
Patrick Englebert: “We think: one to three masts, of a reasonable height, say between 60 and 80 meters. Some of our partners don’t consider that very high – they’re used to working on offshore structures which can be very high. But of course, crews will have to work with these sails at sea, so you have to take that into account. Their perception and opinion is very important to us.”
What’s the worst thing that can happen to a mast of that height?
Patrick Englebert: “In the most extreme case, if the sail can’t turn anymore, and there’s too much stress on the structure, the mast could break. It’s one of the main differences with a sailboat – on a sailboat the mast is held up with rigging. We can’t use rigging, our mast has to be able to turn 360 degrees freely for safety reasons. It’s actually more like an offshore wind turbine.”
The wingsails in the America’s cup are made of layers of carbon, I believe. Is that what you’re using too?
Patrick Englebert: “No no, in the America’s cup the weight is very important. For us it’s less of an issue, we’re using steel and composite materials.”
Let’s say we go from Amsterdam to New York using a Propelwind system: how much money would I save?
Patrick Englebert: “(laughs) Unfortunately you picked the wrong direction – the better route would be from west to east, let’s say New York to Amsterdam. There’s basically two ways to use the Propelwind system: either you use it as the main propulsion with mechanical propulsion as a stand-by, or you use it to lower fuel consumption on a vessel that’s propulsed by an engine.
The first option is the most interesting. You would be able to sail close to the average speed of the wind, which is 15 knots. And we estimate your fuel savings at at least 90 percent, meaning you would only use a tenth of the fuel that you would normally use.
In the second option, where you use the wingsail on an existing ship to supplement the power of the engines, we think we can save you on average 20 to 30 percent of the fuel consumption.”
Of course, the wingsail would cost a few million to install too?
Patrick Englebert: “Yes. The yardstick we use is the payback period. We know from other industries that an innovation needs to be cheap enough to be widely adopted.
Payback times should ideally be around four or five years. It’s no coincidence that this is also the average stay of a manager in a company: managers love to see their decisions bear fruit, you know. We’re currently, at today’s fuel costs, at a payback period of six or seven years – this is for a one off build, so not factoring in the cost efficiencies we can create through mass production.
If we build thirty, forty wings a year, that cost should go down drastically – like solar panels from China, right? And if fuel costs rise again, of course our break even point moves up in time.”
You spoke about the competition a moment ago. How do you stack up at this moment?
Patrick Englebert: “I’d say SkySail is the furthest advanced at this time. They currently have kites fitted on three ships worldwide, and more coming online soon. But they don’t engender a lot of enthusiasm in the industry. The other competitors use Flettner rotors and Dynarigs – there’s currently one yacht rigged with a Dynarig, but no cargo vessels yet. Flettner rotors are fitted on a special cargo ship.
So in all I would put us in the top five, based on progress and substance. We could be further along thanks to three million in research grants that we could apply for, but I don’t want to spend that money now, because I want to use it when I can get commitment from industrial partners.”
I admire your entrepreneurial drive – it’s one thing to start an internet company, but a hardware solution where you need to line up so many different stakeholders, in a small and conservative market like the shipping industry. Did you never feel like just giving up?
Patrick Englebert: “No, I mostly thought: I should do it now, because it’s my last chance. The challenges just keep me going. I did hesitate a bit before I gave up my job and asked friends to invest in the idea. I carried out a consistent prefeasibility program at my own cost, asked for advice. But at some point I just decided to make this project my focus. It’s just something I wanted to do because it makes sense. There is no such thing as certainty in life, you know. And also, going to a job you don’t like every single day is certain to give you heart trouble and depression after a few years (laughs).”
Photo: The Vestas “sailrocket” breaks speed record on water using a wingsail
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Powered by Facebook CommentsThe Indian Premier League, or “Pepsi IPL” begins today with all the brash arrogance one has come to expect from the Indian cash-cow of world cricket. The razzmatazz and sheen of the competition is not to everyone’s taste but it is impossible to deny that it is the most significant annual cricket competition in the world, and as such the only requirement to watching it should be whether one is a cricket fan or not. As it is, at least in the UK, Rupert Murdoch has once again got his grubby paws on something that until this year had been available on free-to-air TV.
British cricket fans this year will see absolutely no live cricket without a Sky subscription which is ever more expensive. The money that comes in to cricket from TV deals has been important and has created the environment for much improved facilities up and down the levels of the game. However, this has come at the expense of an overall reduction in the interest of members of the public in this great sport, all formats thereof, and particularly among the young; the poorer young to be exact.
Those families that cannot afford access to Sky Sports (the number we do not know because Sky refuse to reveal the figures of subscribers to its sports packages) cannot see a single ball of live cricket this season. Test matches, ODIs, T20 internationals, the County Championship, Royal London One Day Cup, the T20 blast and now the IPL are all exclusively available to Sky customers alone. This kind of monopoly is unhealthy from a business point of view and disastrous from a perspective of inclusivity.
In summer’s gone by the Soldier’s Field at the beautiful Roundhay Park in Leeds would be full of youngsters from all backgrounds playing cricket, never more so than during the last test series to be aired on what was then called terrestrial TV – the now almost mythical 2005 Ashes. Now everyone is still playing football on top of the cricket pitches aside from a few Asian families holding the flame of cricket aloft in West Yorkshire.
The IPL is a further symptom of this malaise. What could be a perfect road for beginners to get in to cricket has been cruelly cut off to the public. ITV didn’t exactly utilise its contract well and the advertising could have been a lot better; but the BBC or Channel 4 who have experience of dealing with cricket would have made a much better fist of it. The greatest stars of the game now ply their trade behind a series of pay walls and monopolies which deny any potential fan of the pleasure their wealthier peers take for granted. Even a “match-of-the-day” style highlights programme isn’t a possibility because of the way the contract is designed – is it any wonder that some people resort to illegal streaming?
Cricket, and sport in general should be available to those who make those sports what they are. No sport would be anything without its fans and in chasing the evergreen dollar many sports in the UK, cricket being guiltier than most, are endangering the very future of their professional status. There is a tipping point and we are at it, we can still do something about the dwindling numbers of new, young, vital cricket fans but sadly, I fear the administrators at the ECB are too busy counting cash to care.
AdvertisementsA February photo shows Kim Jong Un meeting with army officials at an undisclosed location. (KNS/AFP/Getty Images)
Today, North Korea urged a number of foreign embassies in Pyongyang to evacuate their staffs because the country would, according to the U.K.'s reading of the warning it received, "be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organizations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10." In other words, North Korea is telling foreign diplomats, including that of nominally friendly Russia, "war might be coming, so you better skip town."
North Korea is known for issuing threats it doesn't see through and warning about wars that never come. Still, this move, potentially a first for North Korea, came as a big surprise.
But it wouldn't have been so surprising if you're a regular reader of the JoongAng Daily, a major South Korean broadsheet newspaper with a sizable readership and a reputation for leaning a touch to the right. Three weeks ago, JoongAng ran a story, citing a single, anonymous official with South Korean intelligence, predicting that this is exactly what would happen.
The South Korean intelligence official reportedly told JoongAng that North Korea would "inform foreign diplomatic missions in Pyongyang to pull out their citizens" as stage two of a three-stage process to push the Korean peninsula right up to, but not over, the brink of nuclear war. Stage one was "issuing war threats against the South and spreading the idea that a war is imminent." Check.
This is the scary part, if you believe the report: Stage three is "a terrorist attack on a public installation in the South such as an airport, or an armed attack like the sinking of the Cheonan."
The Cheonan, a South Korean naval ship, was attacked in 2010, killing 46 sailors on board; Seoul firmly believes it was sunk by a North Korea mini-submarine. But perhaps even more unsettling is the idea of a public terrorist attack; it's not clear whether this would be something along the lines of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, when gunmen killed 166 civilians.
Before we get too worked up about this story, though, it's important to note that the conservative South Korean press, for all its many virtues, has a bit of a reputation for hyping thinly sourced "scoops" about its mysterious Northern neighbor. This report also claims that Kim Jong Un narrowly survived an assassination attempt last year, an eye-popping assertion that has not been verified. So you should take it with a big grain of salt.
Perhaps what's potentially most significant about the report is not the question of whether the South Korean intelligence source is correct about what's coming next, but rather whether Seoul shares this one official's view and might act on the suggestion that a terrorist attack might be imminent. If that is Seoul's position — if South Korea believes that the North is on track to kill some number of its citizens and maybe its civilians — then will it feel compelled to do something to preempt that attack?
It seems unlikely North Korea really does want war, but it does appear to want to push everyone right up to the brink. The big danger is that some unexpected event will push the Korean peninsula over into a larger conflict that nobody really wants. As a number of analysts have warned, a preemptive strike from South Korea, perhaps meant to deter the Cheonan-style attack it might believe it coming, is exactly the sort of unwelcome event that might escalate things out of control.Narayana Kocherlakota, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, speaks at the ninth annual Carroll School of Management Finance Conference at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts June 5, 2014. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is creating “unacceptable” downside risks to U.S. inflation by signaling it will gradually remove monetary stimulus next year despite low inflation, Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank Narayana Kocherlakota said on Friday.
Instead, Kocherlakota said in a statement to be posted on the regional Fed bank’s website, the U.S. central bank should have pledged to keep rates near zero until the inflation outlook improves. He added that the central bank should also have signaled its willingness to restart its controversial bond-buying program if that pledge does not work to bring inflation expectations back to the Fed’s 2-percent target.
The U.S. central bank on Wednesday said it would be “patient” in deciding when to raise borrowing costs, a waiting period that as Fed Chair Janet Yellen clarified could open the door to a rate hike as soon as April.
Yellen said she expects a recent decline in market-based inflation expectations to be temporary, and suggested that the Fed could raise rates next year even if inflation remains below the Fed’s 2-percent target.
Kocherlakota dissented from the decision, in what was his last vote on the Fed’s policy-setting panel before he steps down from his post in early 2016. Kocherlakota began his term in 2009 as a one of the Fed’s most ardent inflation-fighting hawks; today he is one of its most vocal policy doves.
On Friday he said the Fed was putting the United States at risk of a growth-sapping drop in inflation.
“In my assessment, the (Fed)’s failure to respond to weak inflation runs the risk of creating a harmful downward slide in inflation and longer-term inflation expectations of the kind that we have seen in Japan and Europe,” Kocherlakota said. “I see this risk to the credibility of the inflation target as unacceptable, given how hard it would be for the (Fed) to respond successfully if this eventuality did indeed materialize.”
Kocherlakota said a decline in market-based inflation expectations has kept the Fed from asserting the stability of long-run inflation expectations, a bedrock of sound central banking, for three meetings running.Cyborgs might still be a ways away, but “biohybrid” bots might be closer than you think, according to an international team of researchers.
The term cyborg refers to any biomechanical entity that was born organic and later received mechanical augmentations, either to restore lost functionality or to enhance its abilities. It’s possible that cyborgs will become commonplace in the future, as people turn to robotic prosthetics to replace lost limbs, explore whole new senses through mechanical augmentation, or by plugging into a Neuralink-like artificial mind.
But there’s also a reverse to the cyborg coin, the biohybrids — robots enhanced with living cells or tissues to make them more lifelike. Biological systems can bring a lot to the biohybrid table, such as muscle cell augmentations to help the bots perform subtle movements, or bacterial add-ons to help them navigate through living organisms — and unlike cyborgs, biohybrids are coming on-line today, according to a new metastudy.
Meatbots
The paper, penned by an international group of scientists and engineers, aims to get an accurate picture of the state of biohybrid robotics today. The field, they report, is entering a “deep revolution in both [the] design principles and constitutive elements” it employs.
“You can consider this the counterpart of cyborg-related concepts,” said lead author Leonardo Ricotti, of the BioRobotics Institute at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, in Pisa, Italy. “In this view, we exploit the functions of living cells in artificial robots to optimize their performances.”
In recent years we’ve seen robots of all shapes and sizes bringing increasing complexity to bear in both software and hardware. They’re on assembly lines moving and welding heavy metal pieces, and sub-millimeter robots are being developed to kill cancer cells or heal wounds from within the body.
One thing robots haven’t quite gotten right in all this time, however, is fine movement. Actuation, the coordination of movements, proved itself to be a persistent thorn in the side of robotics, the team writes. Robots can handle huge weights with impressive ease and fluidity. Alternatively, they can operate a laser cutter with perfect accuracy each and every time. But they have difficulty coordinating subtler actions, such as cracking an egg cleanly into a bowl, or caressing. Unlike animal movements, which start gently on a micro scale and lead up to large-scale motion, robots’ initial movements are jerky.
Another shortcoming, according to Ricotti, is that our bots are quite power hungry. They can’t hold a candle to the sheer energy efficiency of biological systems, refined by evolution almost to its limits over millions of years — a problem that’s particularly relevant in micro-robots, whose power banks are routinely larger than the robot itself.
Mixing living ‘parts’ into robots can solve these problems, she adds.
The team writes that muscles can provide the fine accuracy actuation and steady movement that robots currently lack. For example, they showcase a group led by Barry Trimmer of Tufts University (Trimmer is also a co-author of the metastudy), that developed worm-like biohybrid robots powered by the contraction of insect muscle cells.
Co-author Sylvain Martel, of Polytechnique Montréal, is trying to solve the energy issue by outfitting his bots with bacterial treads. His work used magnetotactic bacteria, which move along magnetic field lines, to transport medicine to cancer cells. The method allows Martel’s team to guide the bacteria using external magnets, allowing them to target tumors or cells that have proven elusive in the face of traditional treatments.
Steel and sinew
Biohybrid robotics comes with its own set of drawbacks, however. Biological systems are notoriously more fragile than metal-borne robots, and they prove to be the weakest link in hybrid systems. Biohybrids can only operate in temperature ranges suitable for life (so no extreme heat or cold), are more vulnerable to chemical or physical damage, and so on. In general, if a living organism wouldn’t last too long in a certain place, neither would a biohybrid.
Finally, living cells need to be nourished, and that’s something we haven’t really learned how to do well in robots yet — so as of now, our biohybrids tend to be rather short-lived. But for all their shortcomings, biohybrid robots have a lot of promise. When talking about a manta-ray-like biobot developed by a team at Harvard last year, Adam Feinberg, a roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University, said that “by using living cells they were able to build this robot in a way that you just couldn’t replicate with any other material.”
“You shine a light, and it triggers the muscles to swim. You couldn’t replicate this movement with on-board electronics and actuators while keeping it lightweight and maneuverable.”
The paper Biohybrid actuators for robotics: A review of |
to see ourselves as separate and other”.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North has already sold an impressive 60,000 copies in Australia and publisher Random House will now rush out another 10,000. The Booker win also guarantees big sales in Britain.
This year’s prize was the first ”global Booker”, with the competition open to all writers writing in English, which saw the inclusion of two Americans on the shortlist.
Bill Shorten this morning congratulated Flanagan for his achievement, and described the “brilliance” of The Narrow Road as “its ability to stir something elemental in the reader’s soul.”
Greens leader Christine Milne said: “Richard Flanagan is one of Australia’s greatest writers. His win in the Man Booker 2014 with ‘the book he was born to write’ is a fantastic acknowledgment of his literary brilliance. This is a moment for the whole nation to celebrate.”
Flanagan is the first Australian to win since DBC Pierre for Vernon God Little in 2003.
Stephen Romei Literary Editor Sydney Stephen Romei is The Australian's literary editor. He blogs at A Pair of Ragged Claws and can also be found on Twitter and Facebook. When pressed, he nominates Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment as his favourit... Read moreSEOUL: South Korea's main opposition party won a surprise victory in Wednesday's (Apr 13) general election, ending the the conservative ruling party's 16-year parliamentary majority.
The vote, clouded by North Korean nuclear threats and a slowing economy, dealt a blow to President Park Geun-Hye and raised hopes for an opposition victory in the 2017 presidential election.
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With almost all ballots counted, Park's Saenuri Party won 122 seats in the 300-member National Assembly, while the main opposition Minjoo Party won 123, the most of any party.
Ballot boxes arrive to be counted at a gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea. (Ed Jones/AFP)
The splinter opposition People's Party bagged 38 spots, and another six seats went to a small opposition party, the Justice Party.
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"The Saenuri Party humbly accepts the election results and voters' choice," party spokesman Ahn Hyung-Hwan told journalists. "The people are deeply disappointed with us, but we've failed to read their mind," he added.
It marked the first time since 1999 the conservative party has lost control of parliament, with the three opposition parties garnering a combined 167 seats, well over the majority.
Voter turnout was 58 per cent, up 3.8 percentage points from the 2012 election, and final official results were expected Thursday morning.
'FED UP'
"This is a voters' judgement against President Park. Many voters are fed up with her authoritarian style of administration", Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.
Park has also fallen short on most of her key economic promises, a failure she puts down to legislative inaction. But critics accuse her of skewed priorities, poor decision-making and a dogmatic style of leadership.
"People punished Park for her poor performance in economy," Minjoo Party President Kim Chong-In said.
Political power in South Korea is firmly concentrated in the presidency, with incumbents limited to a single five-year term. Dissatisfaction is especially high among young people, with the jobless rate among those aged 15-29 at record levels.
The left-wing opposition sought to frame Wednesday's vote as a referendum on Park's economic policies. But it has suffered from factional infighting and breakaways that threaten to split the liberal vote.
Kate Kim, an unemployed 25-year-old college graduate, said crippling levels of joblessness had persuaded her and many of her previously apathetic friends to vote. "This is the first time I have voted... our country desperately needs change, especially for young and jobless people like me," Kim said.
TENSIONS WITH THE NORTH
Analysts had earlier predicted a majority for Saenuri, saying its prospects would be boosted by surging military tensions on the divided peninsula.
The North conducted its fourth nuclear test in January, followed a month later by a long-range rocket launch that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test. Tensions are also high over an ongoing major US-South Korean military exercise, which the North sees as a rehearsal for invasion.
Seoul businessman Chung Hae-young said he voted for Saenuri because of its hardline stance towards Pyongyang. "I like how the party handled the North, although it honestly hasn't done a good job with the economy," said the 60-year-old.
But the conservatives have also suffered from internal bickering, particularly over the process for nominating candidates, which led to a number of defections by MPs now running as independents.
The outcome of Wednesday's vote could have a significant impact on Park, who has less than two years left of her term.
Under her presidency, annual economic growth has averaged around 2.9 per cent compared to 3.2 per cent under her predecessor Lee Myung-bak. Exports, which account for more than half of GDP, have fallen for the past 14 months consecutively, while household debt has soared to a record US$1.0 trillion.There was a rather heated discussion about the 1.2.0 situation on the channel, and valid points were definitely expressed: while 2.0 is being written, 1.2.0 can't benefit from any of that work, and it's sad. We do need a working VyOS in any case, and we can't just stop doing anything about it and only work on 2.0. My original plan was to put 1.2.0 in maintenance mode once it's stabilized, but it would mean no updates at all for anyone, other than bugfixes. To make things worse, some things do need if not rewrite, but at least very deep refactoring bordering on rewrite just to make them work again, due to deep changes in the configs of e.g. StrongSWAN.
There are three main issues with reusing the old code, as I already said: it's written in Perl, it mixes config reading and checking with logic, and it can't be tested outside VyOS. The fourth issue is that the logic for generating, writing, and applying configs is not separated in most scripts either so they don't fit the 2.0 model of more transactional commits. The question is if we can do anything about those issues to enable rewriting bits of 1.2.0 in a way that will allow reusing that code in 2.0 when the config backend and base system are ready, and what exactly should we do.
My conclusion so far is that we probably can, with some dirty hacks and extra care. Read on.
The language
I guess by now everyone agrees that Perl is a bad idea. There are few people who know it these days, and there is no justification for knowing it. The language is a minefield that lacks proper error reporting mechanism or means to convey the semantics.
If you are new to it, look at this examples:
All "error reporting" enabled, let's try to divide a string by an integer.
$ perl -e 'use strict; use warnings; print "foobar" / 42'
Argument "foobar" isn't numeric in division (/) at -e line 1.
0
A warning indeed... Didn't prevent program from producing a value though: garbage in, garbage out. And, my long time favorite: analogous issues bit me in real code a number of times!
$ perl -e 'print reverse "dog"'
dog
Even if you know that it has to do with "list context", good luck finding information about default context of this or that function in the docs. In short, if the language of VyOS 1.x wasn't Perl, a lot of bugs would be outright impossible.
Python looks like a good candidate for config scripts: it's strongly typed, the type and object system is fairly expressive, there are nice unit test libraries and template processors and other things, and it's reasonably fast. What I don't like about it and dynamically typed languages in general is that it needs a damn good test coverage because the set of errors it can detect at compile time is limited and a lot of errors make it to runtime, but there are always compromises.
But, we need bindings. VyConf will use sockets and protobuf messages for its API which makes writing bindings for pretty much any language trivial, but in 1.x.x it's more complicated. The C++/Perl library from VyOS backend is not really easy to follow, and not trivial to produce bindings for. However, we have cli-shell-api, which is already used in config scripts written in shell, and behaves as it should. It also produces fairly machine-friendly output, even though its error reporting is rudimantary (then again, error reporting of the C++ and Perl library isn't all that nice either). So, for a proof of concept, I decided to make a thin wrapper around cli-shell-api: later it can be rewritten as a real C++ binding if this approach shows its limitations. It will need some C++ library logic extraction and cleanup to replicate the behaviour (why the C++ library itself links against Perl interpreter library? Did you know it also links to specific version of the apt-pkg library that was never meant for end users and made no promise of API stability, for its version comparison function that it uses for soring names of nodes like eth0? That's another story though).
Anyway, I need to add the Python library to the vyatta-cfg package which I'll do soon, for the time being you can put the file to your VyOS (it works in 1.1.7 with python2.6) and play with it.
Upd: since then, the Python library is a part of VyOS 1.2.0+ images and is in the default PYTHONPATH. Check out scripts in https://github.com/vyos/vyos-1x
Right now it exposes just a handful of functions: exists(), return_value(), return_values(), and list_nodes(). It also has is_leaf/is_tag/is_multi functions that it uses internally to produce somewhat better error reporting, though they are unnecessary in config scripts, since you already know that about nodes from templates. Those four functions are enough to write a config script for something like squid, dnsmasq, openvpn, or anything else that can reload its config on its own. It's programs that need fancy update logic that really need exists_orig or return_effective_value. Incidentally, a lot of components that need that rewrite to repair or could seriously benefit from serious overhaul are like that: for example. iptables is handled by manipulating individual rules right now even though iptables-restore is atomic, likewise openvpn is now managed by passing it the config in command line options while it's perfectly capable of reloading its config and this would make tunnel restarts a lot less disruptive, and strongswan, the holder of the least maintainable config script, is indeed capable of live reload too.
Which brings us to the next part...
The conventions
To avoid having to do two rewrites of the same code instead of just one, we need to make sure that at least substantial part of the code from VyOS 1.2.x can be reused in 2.0. For this we need to setup a set of conventions. I suggest the following, and let's discuss it.
Language version
Python 3 SHALL be used.
Rationale: well, how much longer can we all keep 2.x alive if 3.0 is just a cleaner and nicer implementation?
Coding standard
No single function shall SHOULD be longer than 100 lines.
Rationale: https://github.com/vyos/vyatta-cfg-vpn/blob/current/scripts/vpn-config.pl#L449-L1134 ;)
Logic separation and testability
This is the most important part. To be able to reuse anything, we need to separate assumptions about the environment from the core logic. To be able to test it in isolation and make sure most of the bugs are caught on developer workstations rather than test routers, we need to avoid dependendies on the global state whenever possible. Also, to fit the transactional commit model of VyOS 2.0 later, we need to keep consistency checking, generating configs, and restarting services separated.
For this, I suggest that we config scripts follow this blueprint:
def get_config():
foo = vyos.config.return_value("foo bar")
bar = vyos.config.return_value("baz quux")
return {"foo": foo, "bar": bar} # Could be an object depending on size and complexity... def verify(config):
result do_some_checks(config)
if checks_succees(result):
return None
else:
raise ScaryException("Some error") def generate(config):
write_config_files(config) def apply(config):
restart_some_services(config) if __name__ == '__main__':
try:
c = get_config()
verify(c)
generate(c)
apply(c)
except ScaryException:
exit_gracefully()
This way the function that process the config can be tested outside of VyOS by creating the same stucture as get_config() would create by hand (or from file) and passing it as an argument. Likewise, in 2.0 we can call its verify(), update(), and apply() functions separately.
Let me know what you think.Footage of Rick Santorum spouting off at a New York Times reporter indicates that the media could be wearing on the former Pennsylvania Senator.
In a back-and-forth with The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny aired on Monday’s “CBS This Morning,” Santorum challenges the premise of one of the reporter’s questions posed in a rope line in Wisconsin on Sunday. According to Zeleny, Santorum said his chief competitor for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is the “worst Republican” to run against President Barack Obama. Santorum, meanwhile, insisted that his comments about Romney had been taken out of context.
Transcript as follows:
ZELENY: You said Mitt Romney is the worst Republican in the country. Is that true?
SANTORUM: What speech did you listen to?
ZELENY: Right here up. Said he’s the worst Republican –
SANTORUM: Stop lying. I said he was the worst Republican to run on the issue of ObamaCare. And that’s what I was talking about.
ZELENY: You said he’s the worst Republican –
SANTORUM: For every speech I give, I said he’s uniquely disqualified to run against Barack Obama on the issue of health care. Would you guys quit distorting what I’m saying in?
ZELENY: Do you think he’s the worst Republican –
SANTORUM: To run against Barack Obama on the issue of health care because he fashioned the blueprint. I’ve been saying it in every speech. Quit distorting our words. If I see it, it’s bullshit. Come on man. What are you doing?
ZELENY: Who’s distorting your words?
SANTORUM: You just did by asking me that question.
ZELENY: You sound upset about –
SANTORUM: I’m upset when the media distort what is I say. Yeah I do get upset. You know exactly what I was saying and you’re misrepresenting it. What are you guys in the business of doing, reporting the truth or are you here to try to spin and make news? Stop it.
ZELENY: You don’t care –
SANTORUM: You don’t care about the truth at all, do you? You really don’t. Asking that question shows me you don’t care at all about the truth.
Zeleny maintained on “CBS This Morning” that he was “simply asking” Santorum to clarify his comments. However, Zeleny also had his own take on the motivations behind Santorum’s attack on the press.
“He can certainly do whatever he would like,” Zeleny said. “What he is trying to do is make his case to Republican voters here and it’s a very common tactic for Republican presidential candidates or even Democratic presidential candidates — use the media as a foil here. We’ve seen Newt Gingrich do it throughout the campaign. He clearly knew the cameras were rolling here.”
Follow Jeff on TwitterSaudi women drivers sent to 'terrorism' court: activists
RIYADH - Agence France-Presse
Two women's rights campaigners detained in Saudi Arabia have been transferred to a special tribunal for "terrorism", activists said on Dec. 25 after the women appeared in court.The ruling came at a hearing in Al-Ahsa, in the kingdom's Eastern Province, according to the activists who declined to be named.Loujain Hathloul has been detained since December 1 after she tried to drive into the kingdom from neighbouring United Arab Emirates in defiance of a ban.Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which does not allow women to drive.Maysaa Alamoudi, a UAE-based Saudi journalist, arrived at the border to support Hathloul and was also arrested.Activists did not provide full details of the allegations against the pair but said investigations appeared to focus on the women's social media activities rather than their driving."They will transfer her case to the terrorism court," said an activist familiar with Hathloul's case, adding that her lawyer plans to appeal.A second activist confirmed that Alamoudi's case was also being moved to the specialist tribunal.Hathloul has 228,000 followers on Twitter.Before her arrest she tweeted, sometimes with humour, details of the 24 hours she spent waiting to cross into Saudi Arabia after border officers stopped her.Alamoudi has 131,000 followers and has also hosted a programme on YouTube discussing the driving ban.In early December Saudi authorities blocked the website of a regional human rights group which reported the women's case.Reporters Without Borders, a watchdog, this year named Saudi Arabia as one of 19 countries where government agencies are "enemies of the Internet" for their censorship and surveillance.In October, dozens of women posted images online of themselves behind the wheel as part of an online campaign supporting the right to drive.In response, the Ministry of Interior said it would "strictly implement" measures against anyone undermining "the social cohesion".Activists say women's driving is not technically illegal but that the ban is linked to tradition and custom in the conservative kingdom.This article is about the U.S. state of Illinois. For other uses, see Illinois (disambiguation)
State of the United States of America
Illinois ( () IL-ih-NOY) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It has the 5th largest Gross Domestic Product by state, is the 6th-most populous U.S. state and 25th-largest state in terms of land area. Illinois is often noted as a microcosm of the entire United States.[6] With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in northern and central Illinois, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south, Illinois has a diverse economic base, and is a major transportation hub. Chicagoland, Chicago's metropolitan area, contains over 65% of the state's population. The Port of Chicago connects the state to other global ports around the world from the Great Lakes, via the Saint Lawrence Seaway, to the Atlantic Ocean; as well as the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River, via the Illinois Waterway on the Illinois River. The Mississippi River, the Ohio River, and the Wabash River form parts of the boundaries of Illinois. For decades, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport has been ranked as one of the world's busiest airports. Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms[6] and, through the 1980s, in politics.
The capital of Illinois is Springfield in the central part of the state. Although today the state's largest population center is in and around Chicago in the northeastern part of the state, the state's European population grew first in the west, with French who settled along the Mississippi River and gave the area the name Illinois Country. After the American Revolutionary War established the United States, American settlers began arriving from Kentucky in the 1780s via the Ohio River, and the population grew from south to north. In 1818, Illinois achieved statehood. After construction of the Erie Canal increased traffic and trade through the Great Lakes, Chicago was founded in the 1830s on the banks of the Chicago River, at one of the few natural harbors on southern Lake Michigan.[7] John Deere's invention of the self-scouring steel plow turned Illinois's rich prairie into some of the world's most productive and valuable farmland, attracting immigrant farmers from Germany and Sweden. The Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848) made transportation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River valley faster and cheaper. New railroads carried immigrants to new homes, as well as being used to ship commodity crops to Eastern markets. The state became a transportation hub for the nation.[8]
By 1900, the growth of industrial jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars. The Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in the state, including Chicago, who created the city's famous jazz and blues cultures.[9][10] Chicago, the center of the Chicago Metropolitan Area, became a global alpha-level city.
Three U.S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Barack Obama. Additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official state slogan, Land of Lincoln, which has been displayed on its license plates since 1954.[11][12] The state is the site of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, located in the state capital of Springfield, and the future home of the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
Etymology [ edit ]
"Illinois" is the modern spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers' name for the Illinois Native Americans, a name that was spelled in many different ways in the early records.[13]
American scholars previously thought the name "Illinois" meant "man" or "men" in the Miami-Illinois language, with the original iliniwek transformed via French into Illinois.[14][15] This etymology is not supported by the Illinois language,[citation needed] as the word for "man" is ireniwa, and plural of "man" is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also been said to mean "tribe of superior men",[16] which is a false etymology. The name "Illinois" derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa - "he speaks the regular way". This was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe· (pluralized as ilinwe·k). The French borrowed these forms, changing the /we/ ending to spell it as -ois, a transliteration for its pronunciation in French of that time. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, when French colonists had settled in the western area. The Illinois's name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms.[17][18]
History [ edit ]
American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. The Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation. Cahokia, the largest regional chiefdom and urban center of the Pre-Columbian Mississippian culture, was located near present-day Collinsville, Illinois. They built an urban complex of more than 100 platform and burial mounds, a 50-acre (20 ha) plaza larger than 35 football fields,[19] and a woodhenge of sacred cedar, all in a planned design expressing the culture's cosmology. Monks Mound, the center of the site, is the largest Pre-Columbian structure north of the Valley of Mexico. It is 100 feet (30 m) high, 951 feet (290 m) long, 836 feet (255 m) wide, and covers 13.8 acres (5.6 ha).[20] It contains about 814,000 cubic yards (622,000 m3) of earth.[21] It was topped by a structure thought to have measured about 105 feet (32 m) in length and 48 feet (15 m) in width, covered an area 5,000 square feet (460 m2), and been as much as 50 feet (15 m) high, making its peak 150 feet (46 m) above the level of the plaza. The finely crafted ornaments and tools recovered by archaeologists at Cahokia include elaborate ceramics, finely sculptured stonework, carefully embossed and engraved copper and mica sheets, and one funeral blanket for an important chief fashioned from 20,000 shell beads. These artifacts indicate that Cahokia was truly an urban center, with clustered housing, markets, and specialists in toolmaking, hide dressing, potting, jewelry making, shell engraving, weaving and salt making.[22] The civilization vanished in the 15th century for unknown reasons, but historians and archeologists have speculated that the people depleted the area of resources. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare. According to Suzanne Austin Alchon, "At one site in the central Illinois River valley, one third of all adults died as a result of violent injuries."[23] The next major power in the region was the Illinois Confederation or Illini, a political alliance.[24] As the Illini declined during the Beaver Wars era, members of the Algonquian-speaking Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, and other tribes including the Fox (Mesquakie), Ioway, Kickapoo, Mascouten, Piankashaw, Shawnee, Wea, and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) came into the area from the east and north around the Great Lakes.[25][26]
European exploration and settlement prior to 1800 [ edit ]
Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississipi by [27] Illinois in 1718, approximate modern state area highlighted, fromby Guillaume de L'Isle
French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored the Illinois River in 1673. Marquette soon after founded a mission at the Grand Village of the Illinois in Illinois Country. In 1680, French explorers under René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti constructed a fort at the site of present-day Peoria, and in 1682, a fort atop Starved Rock in today's Starved Rock State Park. French Empire Canadiens came south to settle particularly along the Mississippi River, and Illinois was part of first New France, and then of La Louisiane until 1763, when it passed to the British with their defeat of France in the Seven Years' War. The small French settlements continued, although many French migrated west to Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, Missouri, to evade British rule.[28]
A few British soldiers were posted in Illinois, but few British or American settlers moved there, as the Crown made it part of the territory reserved for Indians west of the Appalachians, and then part of the British Province of Quebec. In 1778, George Rogers Clark claimed Illinois County for Virginia. In a compromise, Virginia ceded the area to the new United States in 1783 and it became part of the Northwest Territory, to be administered by the federal government and later organized as states.[28] Connecticut ceded northern Illinois in 1786 (see Connecticut Western Reserve).
19th century [ edit ]
Prior to statehood [ edit ]
The Illinois-Wabash Company was an early claimant to much of Illinois. The Illinois Territory was created on February 3, 1809, with its capital at Kaskaskia, an early French settlement.
During the discussions leading up to Illinois's admission to the Union, the proposed northern boundary of the state was moved twice.[29] The original provisions of the Northwest Ordinance had specified a boundary that would have been tangent to the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Such a boundary would have left Illinois with no shoreline on Lake Michigan at all. However, as Indiana had successfully been granted a 10-mile (16 km) northern extension of its boundary to provide it with a usable lakefront, the original bill for Illinois statehood, submitted to Congress on January 23, 1818, stipulated a northern border at the same latitude as Indiana's, which is defined as 10 miles north of the southernmost extremity of Lake Michigan. However, the Illinois delegate, Nathaniel Pope, wanted more, and lobbied to have the boundary moved further north. The final bill passed by Congress included an amendment to shift the border to 42° 30' north, which is approximately 51 miles (82 km) north of the Indiana northern border. This shift added 8,500 square miles (22,000 km2) to the state, including the lead mining region near Galena. More importantly, it added nearly 50 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and the Chicago River. Pope and others envisioned a canal that would connect the Chicago and Illinois rivers and thus connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi.
The State of Illinois prior to the Civil War [ edit ]
In 1818, Illinois became the 21st U.S. state. The capital remained at Kaskaskia, headquartered in a small building rented by the state. In 1819, Vandalia became the capital, and over the next 18 years, three separate buildings were built to serve successively as the capitol building. In 1837, the state legislators representing Sangamon County, under the leadership of state representative Abraham Lincoln, succeeded in having the capital moved to Springfield,[30] where a fifth capitol building was constructed. A sixth capitol building was erected in 1867, which continues to serve as the Illinois capitol today.
Though it was ostensibly a "free state", there was slavery in Illinois. The ethnic French had owned black slaves since the 1720s, and American settlers had already brought slaves into the area from Kentucky. Slavery was nominally banned by the Northwest Ordinance, but that was not enforced for those already holding slaves. When Illinois became a sovereign state in 1818, the Ordinance no longer applied, and about 900 slaves were held in the state. As the southern part of the state, later known as "Egypt" or "Little Egypt",[31][32] was largely settled by migrants from the South, the section was hostile to free blacks. Settlers were allowed to bring slaves with them for labor, but, in 1822, state residents voted against making slavery legal. Still, most residents opposed allowing free blacks as permanent residents. Some settlers brought in slaves seasonally or as house servants.[33] The Illinois Constitution of 1848 was written with a provision for exclusionary laws to be passed. In 1853, John A. Logan helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state.[34]
The winter of 1830–1831 is called the "Winter of the Deep Snow"; a sudden, deep snowfall blanketed the state, making travel impossible for the rest of the winter, and many travelers perished. Several severe winters followed, including the "Winter of the Sudden Freeze". On December 20, 1836, a fast-moving cold front passed through, freezing puddles in minutes and killing many travelers who could not reach shelter. The adverse weather resulted in crop failures in the northern part of the state. The southern part of the state shipped food north, and this may have contributed to its name: "Little Egypt", after the Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt supplying grain to his brothers.[35]
In 1832, the Black Hawk War was fought in Illinois and current-day Wisconsin between the United States and the Sauk, Fox (Meskwaki), and Kickapoo Indian tribes. It represents the end of Indian resistance to white settlement in the Chicago region.[36] The Indians had been forced to leave their homes and move to Iowa in 1831; when they attempted to return, they were attacked and eventually defeated by U.S. militia. The survivors were forced back to Iowa.[37]
By 1839, the Latter Day Saints had founded a utopian city called Nauvoo. Located in Hancock County along the Mississippi River, Nauvoo flourished, and soon rivaled Chicago for the position of the state's largest city. But in 1844, the Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith was killed in the Carthage Jail, about 30 miles away from Nauvoo. Following a succession crisis (Latter Day Saints), Brigham Young led most Latter Day Saints out of Illinois in a mass exodus to present-day Utah; after close to six years of rapid development, Nauvoo rapidly declined afterward.
After it was established in 1833, Chicago gained prominence as a Great Lakes port, and then as an Illinois and Michigan Canal port after 1848, and as a rail hub soon afterward. By 1857, Chicago was Illinois's largest city.[28] With the tremendous growth of mines and factories in the state in the 19th century, Illinois was the ground for the formation of labor unions in the United States.
In 1847, after lobbying by Dorothea L. Dix, Illinois became one of the first states to establish a system of state-supported treatment of mental illness and disabilities, replacing local almshouses. Dix came into this effort after having met J. O. King, a Jacksonville, Illinois businessman, who invited her to Illinois, where he had been working to build an asylum for the insane. With the lobbying expertise of Dix, plans for the Jacksonville State Hospital (now known as the Jacksonville Developmental Center) were signed into law on March 1, 1847.[38]
Civil War and after [ edit ]
Embarkation of Union troops from Cairo on January 10, 1862
During the American Civil War, Illinois ranked fourth in men who served (more than 250,000) in the Union Army, a figure surpassed by only New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Beginning with President Abraham Lincoln's first call for troops and continuing throughout the war, Illinois mustered 150 infantry regiments, which were numbered from the 7th to the 156th regiments. Seventeen cavalry regiments were also gathered, as well as two light artillery regiments.[39] The town of Cairo, at the southern tip of the state at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, served as a strategically important supply base and training center for the Union army. For several months, both General Grant and Admiral Foote had headquarters in Cairo.
During the Civil War, and more so afterwards, Chicago's population skyrocketed, which increased its prominence. The Pullman Strike and Haymarket Riot, in particular, greatly influenced the development of the American labor movement. From Sunday, October 8, 1871, until Tuesday, October 10, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire burned in downtown Chicago, destroying four square miles (10 km2).[40]
20th century [ edit ]
At the turn of the 20th century, Illinois had a population of nearly 5 million. Many people from other parts of the country were attracted to the state by employment caused by the then-expanding industrial base. Whites were 98% of the state's population.[41] Bolstered by continued immigration from southern and eastern Europe, and by the African-American Great Migration from the South, Illinois grew and emerged as one of the most important states in the union. By the end of the century, the population had reached 12.4 million.
The Century of Progress World's Fair was held at Chicago in 1933. Oil strikes in Marion County and Crawford County led to a boom in 1937, and by 1939, Illinois ranked fourth in U.S. oil production. Illinois manufactured 6.1 percent of total United States military armaments produced during World War II, ranking seventh among the 48 states.[42] Chicago became an ocean port with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in 1959. The seaway and the Illinois Waterway connected Chicago to both the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean. In 1960, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines (which still exists as a museum, with a working McDonald's across the street).
Illinois had a prominent role in the emergence of the nuclear age. In 1942, as part of the Manhattan Project, the University of Chicago conducted the first sustained nuclear chain reaction. In 1957, Argonne National Laboratory, near Chicago, activated the first experimental nuclear power generating system in the United States. By 1960, the first privately financed nuclear plant in the United States, Dresden 1, was dedicated near Morris. In 1967, Fermilab, a national nuclear research facility near Batavia, opened a particle accelerator, which was the world's largest for over 40 years. With eleven plants currently operating, Illinois leads all states in the amount of electricity generated from nuclear power.[43][44]
In 1961, Illinois became the first state in the nation to adopt the recommendation of the American Law Institute and pass a comprehensive criminal code revision that repealed the law against sodomy. The code also abrogated common law crimes and established an age of consent of 18.[45] The state's fourth constitution was adopted in 1970, replacing the 1870 document.
The first Farm Aid concert was held in Champaign to benefit American farmers, in 1985. The worst upper Mississippi River flood of the century, the Great Flood of 1993, inundated many towns and thousands of acres of farmland.[28]
Geography [ edit ]
A map of the state of Illinois, showing major cities, roads, rivers and lakes
Illinois is located in the Midwest Region of the United States and is one of the eight states and Canadian province in the bi-national Great Lakes region of North America.
Boundaries [ edit ]
Illinois's eastern border with Indiana consists of a north-south line at 87° 31′ 30″ west longitude in Lake Michigan at the north, to the Wabash River in the south above Post Vincennes. The Wabash River continues as the eastern/southeastern border with Indiana until the Wabash enters the Ohio River. This marks the beginning of Illinois's southern border with Kentucky, which runs along the northern shoreline of the Ohio River.[46] Most of the western border with Missouri and Iowa is the Mississippi River; Kaskaskia is an exclave of Illinois, lying west of the Mississippi and reachable only from Missouri. The state's |
ankah’s insistence that he is not trying to condescend is as hollow as his argument.
This is the type of thoughtless tripe that can only be produced from inside the elite, rich, liberal bubble of coastal academia. He is so far removed from the average lives of average Americans he cannot conceive of a world in which people with differing views and even offensive views live side-by-side and still develop deep and lasting relationships that help each other thrive and succeed.
Yankah’s manufactured attachment to the value of one vote of one person in one election in one country on one continent in one year in one century of the whole of human history renders his New York Times piece ridiculous and deeply sad.
When God became man in the form of Jesus, he created a revolution. He didn’t socialize and live with the “righteous” and the “clean” of his day. He came close to the most undesirable people of his time. He broke bread with the most hated and reviled in the political class – Trump voters tax collectors. He elevated the status of women second-class citizens. He washed the feet and touched the faces of drug addicts those considered gross and unlovable. He deliberately sought out people who were looked upon with derision and revulsion and loved them in spite of their circumstances and decisions.
It costs us nothing to love people who are like us and who like us. It costs so very, very much to love people who aren’t like us…and don’t like us.
As I’m sure Yankah’s own parents told him at some point – nothing worth having is easy.
Yankah’s disappointing, sweeping judgmental ideology is not only a bigoted choice, it is the easy choice. What seems less easy is how on earth he will look his son in the eye one day and justify why it is acceptable to hate people because they are different.
And sir, in case you need some advice on addressing that issue, let me help you…
It isn’t.(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday that the country is facing the "most serious financial crisis in generations" and argued that rival Sen. John McCain would only make it worse.
"I certainly don't fault Sen. McCain for all of the problems we're facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to," Obama said in Golden, Colorado.
Obama said what's happened in the past few days is "nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed."
On Monday, Lehman Brothers -- the 158-year-old Wall Street giant -- filed for bankruptcy protection, and 94-year-old Merrill Lynch sold itself to Bank of America. Both developments sent shock waves through Wall Street.
While Obama was slamming McCain's economic policies, the senator from Arizona campaigned in Tampa, Florida, where he promised to "change the way Washington does business."
"We're going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed that has caused a crisis on Wall Street," McCain said.
Obama on Tuesday again blasted McCain for saying that the "the fundamentals of the American economy are strong."
McCain made the comments Monday but later tried to clarify them.
On Tuesday, he told CNN's "American Morning" that he meant American workers are "the fundamental strength" of the U.S. economy and that the country will rebound with their help.
"What I obviously was saying, and I believe, is the American workers, the most productive and the most innovative -- they are the fundamentals of our economy and the strength of it and the reason why we will rebound," he said. Watch McCain talk about his economic plan »
Obama said Tuesday that McCain's campaign "sent him back out to clean up his remarks... but we know that Sen. McCain meant what he said the first time."
Obama then went into detail about what he sees as the differences between his plan and McCain's economic policy, listing times when he said he took action and he said McCain did not.
"Make no mistake: My opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance," he said.
The McCain campaign said Obama's comments showed no respect for American workers.
"Aside from inflating his own resume, Barack Obama offered nothing new except for sharp criticisms of the most fundamental elements of the American economy and pessimism about genuine efforts to restore our country's prosperity," spokesman Tucker Bounds said.
"More important than understanding that raising taxes on small businesses during a struggling economy is a bad idea, is respecting the strength of American workers and ingenuity -- sadly Barack Obama demonstrates neither."
As part of his proposal to get out of the economic crisis, Obama said he is proposing a $50 billion Emergency Economic Plan to "jump-start job creation." Obama said the plan would save 1 million jobs by rebuilding infrastructure and repairing schools, among other things. Watch how the economic crisis is playing out in the campaign »
The senator from Illinois said the country also must continue to address the housing crisis and build a "21st-century regulatory framework." Obama vowed to "get serious" about regulatory oversight.
"If you're a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision," he said.
Obama said the United States needs leadership to get the country out of its financial problems.
"I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election," he said.
But Jeffrey Sachs, a renowned economist and special adviser to the U.N. secretary-general, said neither candidate will be able to stop continued financial woes in the near future.
"I think right now that this is a recession that's going to happen," he said."I don't see anybody being able to stop that giant wave. The question is how we get out if it."
Sachs said he thinks Obama's plan is "closer" to being on target, with his calls for regulation. McCain also has started talking about increased regulation, but Sachs said McCain has "reinvented himself in the last 24 hours" with such talk.
All About National Economy • Barack Obama • John McCainNBC continues the dumbing-down of America in earnest with…”A Very Gilly Christmas”
First, David Medsker sent a public memo to “Saturday Night Live,” pleading with them to stop Kristen Wiig from playing the most annoying characters imaginable, and although the show’s producers ignored him, the posting has received 76 comments to date, many of them completely behind Mr. Medsker’s position, so it clearly struck a nerve with readers. Then, two months later, John Paulsen got specific and called out Wiig’s then-new character, Gilly, as the unfunniest returning character ever. No word from the Wiig camp yet, but 65 readers have responded to it thus far, and while many of them are in full-on defense mode, it takes no more than a cursory glance at the comments to see that Mr. Paulsen is onto something with his premise.
* “Gilly should be put in juvenile detention.”
* “OMG, I want to break the TV when I see that stupid skit!”
* “Gilly keeps coming back for more and more and more and more and more. And it gets worse every time.”
* “The Gilly skits – and indeed, pretty much all the characters that Wiig does – are appealing to those lowbrow people who find catch-phrases funny.”
* “I know ‘to each his own’ and everybody’s taste is different, but I’m shocked that people are defending this really, really bad, really, really unfunny recurring character.”
And, of course, there’s my personal favorite:
“Like a fool, I kept watching, hoping the sketch could redeem itself somehow, that a punchline or a line delivery would come in making it somewhat funny. I mean, this is a comedy show, right? Right? But, alas, it was just painful. I have no idea what the audience was laughing at or why. Maybe SNL installed a live laugh track, or maybe they do pump in laughing gas. But what I saw no one could honestly find funny. NO ONE. Stock footage of starving children has equal comedic value as the Gilly sketch.”
To these discerning individuals, NBC is offering up the comedic equivalent of a lump of coal in their stocking on December 17th from 8 – 10 PM EST, when “Saturday Night Live” presents…wait for it…“A Very Gilly Christmas”!
The good news is that the two-hour special will include brand-new material with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, along with favorite holiday-themed sketches from the 35-year history of “SNL,” including “NPR’s Delicious Dish and the Schweddy Balls,” Martin’ famous “Holiday Wish,” and Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s “D**k in a Box.”
The bad news: it will also include new Gilly material.CLOSE The City of New Rochelle has installed “Soofa” bench at Ruby Dee Park at Library Green in New Rochelle Monday, Aug. 14, 2016.. The urban furniture is a combination of a modern park bench and a solar powered charging station. Carucha L. Meuse / The Journal News
Buy Photo New Rochelle resident Cesar Villanueva, 26, uses his smart phone next to a Soofa charging station. (Photo: Dan Reiner/The Journal News)Buy Photo
NEW ROCHELLE — Park-goers and commuters no longer have to worry about their mobile devices' batteries dying.
Three solar-powered charging stations have been installed at park benches around New Rochelle, and they allow pedestrians to stop and plug in a USB cord to charge their devices. A fourth station will be added this fall.
“This is one part of our broader efforts to position New Rochelle as a forward-looking city, ready to compete successfully for the residents and businesses of the future,” Mayor Noam Bramson said in a statement.
New Rochelle purchased the Soofa stations from Changing Environments, Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company. Soofa Core charging docks were added to existing benches in Ruby Dee Park and Flowers Park, while a new Soofa Bench was installed outside the Huguenot Children's Library. Each station contains two USB charging ports.
ARTS: New Rochelle's effort to attract millennials
BIKE SHARE: City planning bike program
"(Our goal) is to provide digital amenities and partner with communities to directly improve quality of life in a neighborhood," said Soofa Director of Sales Oliver Madden. "We saw the development and history of New Rochelle as a prime location."
Buy Photo A new Soofa Bench installed outside the Huguenot Children's Library in New Rochelle. (Photo: Dan Reiner/The Journal News)
Soofa Benches are the latest push for New Rochelle to develop and modernize the downtown area. In July, the planning board approved a $149 million proposal to transform the city center.
“We have to move into the 21st century," Councilman Ivar Hyden said. "New Rochelle has to position itself as a city that’s genuinely interested in technology."
The New Rochelle Corporation for Local Development funded the four benches for $10,000 total, Hyden said. Madden said the stations have the capability for upgrades of WiFi access, but for now they are for people who "expect the need to plug in."
“It’s perfect for nice days in the park," said New Rochelle resident Cesar Villanueva, 26. "I think now they need more in the city."
Twitter: @reinerwire
Read or Share this story: http://lohud.us/2bvp6FiIn a 10-0 vote Monday evening, Brampton council killed a staff proposal for an LRT tunnel under Main St. that would have cost between $410 million and $570 million. Instead, council decided to move forward on one of two alternative LRT routes north of Steeles Ave., either partially up Main St., then east to a new hospital under construction, on to Queen St. and over to the downtown GO Train station, or up Kennedy Rd. to Queen St., then on to the downtown GO station.
Hurontario LRT proposal at Brampton Shoppers World. In a 10-0 vote Monday evening, Brampton council killed a staff proposal for an LRT tunnel under Main St. that would have cost between $410 million and $570 million.
“We need to have a position... and then try to get government funding,” Councillor John Sprovieri said during a two-hour debate at Monday’s planning committee meeting. Council considered a staff report recommending the tunnel option under the previously rejected Main St. route, which council killed in October. Staff told council the tunnel option was brought forward even though council had rejected the route because only a “surface” option up Main St. to the downtown GO station was killed, before alternatives were asked for. “What if we don’t get funding?” Councillor Dhillon asked, regarding the only two options now on the table.
Article Continued Below
He pointed out that council, in killing the Main St. option in October, said no to the fully funded route. The province pledged last year to fund all of the $1.6-billion cost of the Hurontario-Main LRT (it will now stop at Steeles). Council’s goal is to have that route extended on the new corridor that will now be selected. Planning chair Elaine Moore told Dhillon that there was no funding in place when the Hurontario-Main LRT was first debated. “We now have a clear direction,” she said after the meeting. “We are going to have the two options studied and when we have our final choice we will go to both higher levels of government to get funding. We needed to move forward. The tunnel option, as you saw, was not feasible.”
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Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Belarus, Minsk Posts: 17,691
Oct. 30 / 31 multiplayer mass test Dear virtual pilots,
This Monday Oct. 30 at 17-00 GMT (20-00 MSK) we plan to make wide multiplayer test. Main goal is to catch server issues with A-A weapon use. Mission "1_Op_Armageddon_V13" from 104th server will be used (thanks to creators and server admins)
We invite all who has DCS World ver. 1.5.7.10872.388 (release or Open Beta). Mandatory conditions:
1. Pure client
2. Chat window should be opened all the time in READ mode. You can use chat in WRITE mode only in the last resort
3. You should comply with ED employee instructions (Server admin, BillyCrusher, Dzen, Nim, FrogFoot, USSR_Rik)
4. No other special rules. You can do what you want from aerobatics up to self destroy. Main task is wide use of guided air-to-air weapons. Being killed just change role and play again. Labels are ON, all views are opened.
In case of any issue (server crash, disconnect etc.) return to server list, wait for our test server appears and connect again. We will inform you about testing finish in game chat.
Date and time can be detailed here.
Server name: ED_Test.
TeamSpeak server: teamspeak.eagle.ru. TS channels - 'Mass_Test - English channel' and 'Mass_Test - Russian channel'
EDIT: 31 Oct
Gentlemen, looks like issue is fixed and we want to make the same test today evening. All conditions are the same as yesterday, please try to do the same actions as yesterday.
Time: 17-00 GMT (20-00 MSK), mission "1_Op_Armageddon_V13"
Server name: ED_Test.
TeamSpeak server: teamspeak.eagle.ru. TS channels - 'Mass_Test - EN' and 'Mass_Test - RU'
Welcome.
DCS World 2.5: Часто задаваемые вопросы
__________________ Last edited by BIGNEWY; 10-31-2017 at 06:35 PM.69 plays
Check out this.
You know the classic, familiar theme that the Grateful Dead kicked into at the end of Going Down the Road Feeling Bad? I would describe it as a flourish, a victory lap (not victory, but a lap of some sort) – and at the least it was the big wind down out of GDTRFB, usually into NFA or Good Lovin’. They included it all through the years, from early 70s onwards … classic element of a late second set GDTRFB during the 80s.
[Update: someone on Reddit pointed out the obvious, which I simply had never heard even though it’s right there. This is, of course, the “And we bid you goodnight” jam – albeit at a faster clip.]
Well, anyway, here’s an early example of that very jam. This one? From August 21, 1968. Right in the middle of an awesomely weird Alligator.
File under: esoteric notes on jam origins. GDTRFB ‘Goodnight’ theme first heard in Alligator? Cool.Ken Ham and wife Mally in front of theme park ark -- Ken Ham Twitter
After premiering one of the first commercials promoting his Ark Encounter theme park, creationist Ken Ham took to Twitter to rage at the secularists whom he thinks “want to suppress the wickedness of man” by making fun of his tax-funded religious entertainment center.
Ham, who heads up Answers in Genesis — a Christian ministry dedicated to disproving evolution by using the Bible to explain that Earth is only 6,000 years old — went off in a Twitter rant Monday morning complaining about non-believers making “moral judgments” that he believes mocks God’s words.
On Twitter, Ham wrote: “Secularists accuse God of being immoral as He judged at the Flood but ignore the fact they’ve no absolute basis to make any moral judgment,” before later tweeting, “Secularists mock at @ ArkEncounter because they want to suppress the wickedness of man and that we’re all under judgment by a Holy God.”
He continued, “Secularists mock @ ArkEncounter as they don’t want to acknowledge they are in need of the Ark of salvation–Noah’s Ark is a picture of Jesus.”
Never ones to be shy about sharing their opinions about the rural multi-million dollar Kentucky entertainment complex featuring a full-sized ark that will also showcase dinosaurs that Noah saved, Twitter users responded in kind.
A sampling below:
@aigkenham If someone kills 99 people but lets one go because he decided they weren't so bad he's not a saviour, he's a serial killer — Scott Johnson (@scottiej24) April 25, 2016
@aigkenham In Ken's world not only were infants "wicked" but even the animals were endowed with human personalities. That cray cray. — Mars Capone (@curvemudgen) April 25, 2016
@aigkenham @ArkEncounter Secularists mock the ark encounter because it's stupid and deserves mocking. — ædǝm (@adamk2012) April 25, 2016
@aigkenham @ArkEncounter does wickedness include wasting money on a stupid boat rather than feeding the poor? — greeniemax (@greeniemax) April 25, 2016
Nope. Lots of people, including Christians, mock @aigkenham and @ArkEncounter because they see right through your cynical money making scam. — Sionnach (@sionnachfionn) April 25, 2016
@aigkenham @ArkEncounter – so the price of salvation is $40, or $60 if you buy the combo ticket. Very reasonable outlay for eternal bliss. — Darren Adams (@darrenjadams) April 25, 2016
@aigkenham @ArkEncounter we don't need to pay to go on your silly boat to stop God from killing us Ken — BrendaDidn'tSeeJesus (@BrendaMadeItUp) April 25, 2016
No we think it's ridiculous because you e built a huge boat to honour a story about a flood cause by a sky wizard. @aigkenham @ArkEncounter — The One True Sceptic (@OneTrueSceptic) April 25, 2016
The park is scheduled to open July 7, 2016.
God willing.Firefight at its best: You’ve moved Squad 4’s stretchable/rotatable destination bar to the house at the end of the road and now you’re zoomed in, studying them intently as they advance towards their goal. Without prompting, your men shun the centre of the street, opting to hug walls and shelter in doorways as they move. When an undetected MG34 opens up, the only casualty is Sgt Pierce. Shot in the right foot he yells for a medic. Almost immediately a tiny khaki soldier sprite diverts, rushing to the wounded man’s aid…
…The machine gun silenced by a friendly mortar that flings ricocheting shrapnel against nearby facades, the squad pushes on. Near their destination, incoming fire intensifies, and individually-monitored heart rates begin to gallop. Reluctant to cross the last intersection, it takes a dab of the ‘MOVE IT!’ button to persuade them to brave bullet-lashed cobbles. Once across, the building is cleared in textbook fashion, white surrender flags blooming like daisies as your men gun and grenade their way from room to room.
Firefight at its worst: You’ve halted your lead Sherman between two houses because you know, having played the scenario twice already, that there’s a Tiger lurking round the next corner. As you bring up a Wolverine to flank the threat, there’s a loud explosion. The idiot M4 has decided to ignore your explicit instructions and wander into the open! Exasperation morphs into something more mutinous when the Wolverine, seconds away from bushwhacking the Tiger, decides to fixate on a fleeing enemy tank crew instead. No, don’t turn your turret that way, you clots! If you’re not careful, you’ll… Completely screw up the ambush, and sacrifice yourself while you’re at it. Give me strength!
The original Firefight was one of PC wargaming’s best kept secrets. A sleek yet plausible Close Combat alternative with simple random maps, elusive enemies, and an unusual approach to campaigning, it captured the feel of WW2 skirmishes every bit as successfully as its more famous peer. The confusingly titled sequel abandons computer-generated cartography and mortal player avatars (in Firefight 1, you were represented on every battlefield. When your sprite died, the campaign ended.) which is a little disappointing, but its scenario folder is fat (72), its nine handmade, zoomable maps are large and interesting, and – overlook a bit of vehicular indiscipline – the turnless battles still grip and please.
Tactical war fare really doesn’t come any friendlier. It’s possible to choose unit targets, but most of the time, you control the flow of an engagement solely through the blue, drag-and-drop destination bars. Make your way to this point, and face this way and spread out to this extent when you get there… one fluid mouse flourish and a squad or vehicle is on its way. Infantry can be trusted to exploit cover sensibly, scavenge ammo, and switch to AT weapons and grenades when the situation demands it. Close Combat’s notorious ‘crawl of death’ is nowhere to be seen. Only the fidgety AFVs evoke the Atomic titles at their worst.
Randomly generated battlefields underwrote Firefight 1’s long-term appeal. Removing this feature without offering players the opportunity to skirmish with random forces on hand-made maps seems rather short-sighted. Also somewhat baffling is the new Firefight’s offensive obsession.
All of the single scenarios appear to cast us as attackers, and involve very little in the way of enemy movement. Advancing into terra incognita dotted with static, hand-placed foes, you’re guaranteed challenge, but the odd ‘meeting engagement’ and defensive action would have provided a welcome change of pace.
Other areas ripe for improvement include post-battle debriefs (absurdly terse at the moment), vocal cues (the oft-repeated ‘medic!’ will drive you up the wall), Panzerfaust representation (they’re extremely rare), and LoF assessment (occasionally units don’t seem to realise there’s a friendly AFV between themselves and their target).
The latest version of Firefight justifies its modest asking price (£6 until July 18. £7 thereafter) by serving up small, easy-to-manage scraps that, at times, feel just as real as the tussles served up by fancier, fussier, titles like Combat Mission and Graviteam Tactics. However, unless flaws and omissions are addressed, and – ideally – editors are provided, this very promising engine is destined to remain an outsider, a second or third choice for wargamers fascinated by small unit tactics and savage, close range tank duels.
* * * * *
My copy of solitaire board game Smokejumpers gets fondled far more often than it gets played. Periodically I take it down from the shelf, prise open its dinky little tin, and, after a few minutes’ perusal of the slim manual, remember how laborious/confusing its fire propagation mechanics are.
When it comes to modelling the spread of large multi-limbed forest fires across complicated hilly terrain, CPU involvement isn’t just desirable, it’s downright essential. Simulated blaze battles should be dominated by tactical conundrums not counter chores. Where should I cut my next firebreak? Should my mighty Martin JRM Mars dump its bellyful of brine here or there? If the wind shifts, will I have time to helivac my sooty smokejumpers off Lightning Ridge before it’s too late? I want to focus on questions like these while the whirring box under my desk works out whether the flames leap the creek or are retarded by the retardant.
On paper, FireJumpers Inferno is the wildfire wargame I’ve been waiting for for more than twenty years. A Greenlit project from Redblox Games, a two-man Canadian outfit presently distracted by the development of FireJumpersPRO (a tactical training tool aimed at firefighting professionals), it promises to come with an impressive range of units including various types of water bombers, and enough sophistication to reflect the effects of slopes, humidity and tree type on fire spread and intensity.
Having dabbled with the demo of FireJumpersPRO, just about my only FJI concerns are aesthetic. Jason Thomas and Jan Richard seem rather attached to garish cartoon sprites and naked terrain grids. The wildfire wargame in my pipedreams is a much less stylised affair. With eerie lighting, skeletal tree sprites, and, here and there, fleeing fauna, it endeavours to capture the terrible beauty of forest fires as well as the tactical challenges.
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WEBVTT F@F@F@F@ACTION NEWS REPORTER PHIL GOMEZF@WAS IN COURT AND JOINS US LIVEFROM SANTA CRUZ.PHIL?PHIL:F@ THE PROSECUTION BELIEVESTHIS WAS A CONSPIRACY TO COMMITMURDF@ER OVER DRUG SALES.IT BEGAN AS AN ARGUMENT AND LEDF@TO VICTIM JOEY SHUEMAKERSMURDER.F@>> SHE IS PART OF ATTEMPTINGF@ TOMAKE ANF@ ALIBI THAT SUGGEST SHEIS A PART OF IT.PHIL:F@ NINO RUIZ POSTED A PICTUREOF HIMSELF AND JENESSAF@ KIC TOHIS FACEBOOK PAGE JUST HOURSAFTER THE MURDER.HE AND KIC ARE SITF@TING ON THESEAWALL AT CAPITOLA BEACH ANDTHE CAPTION READ, "WHAT A GREATNIGHT AND F@MORNING AT THE BEACHCHILLIN."F@THURSDAY MORNING, THE TWO MURDERSUSPECTS FF@OUND THEMSELVESCHILLIN IN COURT.F@F@>> IT'SF@ THEF@ PEOPLE'S PERSPECTIVETHAT WE CAN PROVE THERE WASCONSPIRACY.PHIL: COF@URT DOCUMENTS REVEALTHAT JENESSA KIC PROVIDED THEGUN, TOLD RUIZ WHERE THE VICTIMF@WAS, AND EVEN SHOWED UP AT THESCENE OF THE MURDER.F@>> INFORMATIONF@F@ THAT HAS CF@OME UPF@F@SUGGESTS DRUGF@ TERRITORY OR ATLEAST THAT PLAYS A [email protected]@>> SINCEF@ THE BEGINNING OF THESUMMER, IT HAS GONE UP A LOT.PHIL: FAVIANY SANTOS [email protected] SAYS DRUG ACTIVITY HASF@PICKED UP ALONG THE SANTA CRUZLEVEE THIS SUMMER.F@F@>> THEY ARE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUTDAYTIME AND NIGHTTIME.F@F@DAYTIME IS MET, NIGHTTIME ISHEROINE.PHIL:F@ THOSE ARE CODE WORDS?F@YEAH, HERE'S ALSO CHRF@IS, CRYSTALMETH.F@PHIL: SANTA CRUZ MAYOR CYNTHIAF@MATHEWS SAYS THERE HAVE BEENF@UNSAVORY ACTIVITIES GOING ONALONG THE LEVEE.>>F@ ALONG THEF@ RIVER, THERE IS AF@NONGOING ISSUE OF ACTIVITY THATPEOPLE FIND IT DISTURBING.F@THAT IS WHAT WE TF@RY AND MONITOR.F@F@F@CLEAN UP THEF@ SITUATION ANDENSURE PEOPLE CAN FEEL SAFE.F@F@F@PHIL: SANTA CRUZ COUNTYF@F@F@F@ALCOHOL-DRUG PROGRAM CHIEF BILLF@MANOV SAYS THERE IS AN UPTICK INDRUG USE.THERE IS ALWAYS A BIG F@DEMAND FORTREATMENT BUT NOT ENOUGH REHABCARE.THE COUNTY IS HOPING TO CHANF@GETHAT SOON THROUGH THE AFFORDABLECARE ACT.>>F@F@ ADDICTION CAN AFFECT [email protected] IT IS MOST VISIBLE IS ONTHE STREET AND WHENF@ PEOPLE GOTHE FURTHEST DOWN,F@ THEY MAY ENDUP ON THEF@ STREET BUT IT DOESN'TNECESSARILY START IN THE STREET.PHIL:F@ KEVIN SCHERP GOT INTO AFIGHT WITH JOEY THE NIGHT F@BEFOREHE WAS GUNNED DOWN.HE ISN'T SO SURE HIS DEATH WASF@ALL ABOUT DRUGS.>>F@F@ HE LIKES TO FIGHT AND I GUESSSOMEF@ONE JUST GOT SICK OF IT ORWHATEVER OR SOME RING.F@IT'S NOT REALLY ABOUT DRUGSF@,IT'S ABOUT THE DUDE IS GNARLY.F@PHIL: THE PROSECUTION REVEALEDF@THEY ARE ALSO LOOKING FORF@ADDITIONAL PERSON IN THE CASE,PERHAPS EVEN THE PERSON WHOSNAPPED THE ALIBI PHOTO.F@DAN: THE ARRAIGNMENT WASF@POSTPONED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 8.F@F@RUIZ'S BAIL REMAINS AT $2MILLION.F@JENESSA KIC'S BAIL WAS INCREASEDKenneth C. Brunner holds up a letter that was addressed to his wife from the Department of Veterans Affairs and sent to his Madison home, stating that he had died and she would receive a check for the month that he passed. Brunner, an 81-year-old Army veteran, says he tried to call the agency on Tuesday to deliver a few choice words, but the office was closed for Veterans Day. (Photo: Amber Arnold/Wisconsin State Journal/AP)
MADISON — An 81-year-old Army veteran from Madison wants the government to know he's alive and well, despite its information to the contrary.
Kenneth Brunner's wife, Julie, received a letter Monday from the U.S. Veterans Benefits Administration, expressing sympathy for his passing and directing her not to cash any more benefits checks. Kenneth Brunner said he tried to call the agency Tuesday to deliver a few choice words, but the office was closed for Veterans Day.
Brunner receives a monthly disability check because of serious injuries he received in 1955 while in the Army, he said. He was injured at a Texas Air Force base when a cable snapped on a piece of heavy equipment and struck him, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
"It broke me up pretty bad," Brunner said. "For the first few days in the hospital they told me they didn't know if I was going to live or die."
The letter from the agency said Julie Brunner could cash the check issued for the month in which her husband died, but none that may have been issued after that. It also said the agency would contribute $300 for funeral expenses.
"We are sorry to learn about the death of KENNETH BRUNNER and extend to you our deepest sympathy," the letter reads. "We understand that the transition period following the death of a loved one is difficult and we wish to offer our assistance and our appreciation for the honorable service of KENNETH BRUNNER."
Craig Larson, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs regional office in Chicago, said the error will be fixed. He said he wasn't sure how often similar letters have been sent out to veterans who are still alive.
"I do not have an exact number, but it occurs infrequently due to human error, such as incorrect data entry," Larson said.
Brunner said he planned to try contacting the government again on Wednesday.
"I'm going to set them straight," Brunner said. "I'm sure as hell alive."
Read or Share this story: http://post.cr/1qFtxKqBuy Photo Lewis Cass Technical High School principal Lisa Phillips, right, receives flowers and a hug from her husband, Ronnie Phillips after she was named Michigan Association of Secondary School Principal's Principal of the Year at Lewis Cass Technical High School in Detroit on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. (Photo: Romain Blanquart, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo
Principal Lisa Phillips thought her school, Cass Technical High in Detroit, was about to receive an award for academic success Wednesday as faculty, administrators and dignitaries gathered in the school's Grand Theatre. Boy, was she wrong.
An award was being presented, but not to the school. Instead, officials with the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals awarded Phillips the title of Principal of the Year for the state of Michigan. Phillips is the first Detroit principal to receive the honor.
“I honor my Savior,” Phillips told her well-wishers. “This is the work that I was put here to do. I follow the lead for the One who I praise, and He makes this OK for all of us."
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She also thanked her administrative team, saying team members help make dreams come true for students.
The Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals gives the award each year to a member. Phillips was one of 10 high school nominees and was chosen by a panel of judges.
Under her seven years of leadership as Cass Tech principal, the school was named an International Baccalaureate school; it is the only public high school in Detroit and Wayne County to earn the designation, according to the awards program.
“Lisa Phillips has been the true embodiment of an exceptional principal,” said Wendy Zdeb, executive director of the principals association. “Every day, she works to make the 2,500 students and staff members in this building feel like a family.”
Speaker after speaker heaped praise upon Phillips, who was visibly overcome with emotion.
Deborah Jenkins, principal of Martin Luther King Jr. Senior High School in Detroit and a member of the association's board, acknowledged the significance of a Detroit principal receiving the honor and congratulated Phillips on it.
“Not only have we had a long-standing professional career together for more than 20 plus years, but a friendship that goes much longer,” Jenkins said.
Phillips said that she was not only shocked to receive the award, but surprised to learn she was the first principal from Detroit to earn it.
“To be the first, it makes me so proud," she said. "Everything I do is a ‘we’ thing, it’s what we do here in Detroit."
Philips will be formally recognized at the association's annual conference in June in Traverse City.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/2nBQE0vIn the years immediately after Johnny Carson's decision to step down from the "Tonight" show, NBC executives fully expected that their signature star would become a latter-day version of Bob Hope -- providing a special here and there, something that would pull in the millions of fans who never got over missing him at 11:35 each weeknight.
But Mr. Carson had made a different decision. "He knew he had given everything he had on the show, and that's how he wanted to be remembered," said Peter Lassally, his long-time executive producer and close friend.
Still, there was one part of his former life he simply could not leave behind entirely. Having spent 30 years reading and watching the news every day and instantly conjuring the events into monologue jokes, jokes that provided a running commentary on the political and cultural scene, Mr. Carson found he simply could not give up the routine.
"He really missed doing the monologue," Mr. Lassally said. "So he started doing them for me."
Sometimes once a week, sometimes more often |
also had to resign as chairman of Tesla’s board of directors for the next three years.[1] At a global level, such a problem at work becomes minute. When you consider global and very real issues like famine, poverty, homelessness, and domestic abuse, problems at work can seem much smaller, and even a luxury, in comparison. What’s the worst thing that can happen to me because of this? Your colleagues may have a bad impression of you as they think that you’re not serious about your work or that you’re not very competent. This mistake may show up in your performance review for the year. In the worst case scenario, you may get fired. While each scenario isn’t ideal, it isn’t a life-or-death thing. If people think poorly of you, so be it — you don’t live your life for them, and you can always improve people’s opinions by improving on your work. If you lose your job, you can always get another — and possibly better — job. Life doesn’t end when mistakes happen at work, and what’s most important is that you reflect, learn, and improve from this experience. How is it going to impact my life in the next 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? While this incident feels painful right now, it’s because you just experienced it. One year from now though, it’s likely you won’t think much about it. 5-10 years later, it’s totally insignificant. Of course if you get dismissed from your job, it will create a significant impact, but you can easily brush up your resume and look for a new job.
Doing this exercise isn’t to undermine the problem or to disclaim responsibility. It’s to consider different perspectives so that you can act in a way that gets you the best results.
Most problems we encounter daily may seem like huge issues when they crop up, but most, if not all, do not have much impact on our lives. Don’t get too stressed up over them but focus on what can be done. Repeat the questions for your other problems and you will find that most of your problems don’t deserve so much stress and attention. Rather than feel stressed, it’s more constructive to spend your time taking action to solve your problems instead.
2. Vent if you have to but don’t linger on the problem
If you feel very frustrated and need to let off some steam, go ahead and do that. Talk to a friend, complain, or scream at the top of your lungs if it makes you happy. Don’t bottle up your frustration because it’s not healthy to do so. It’s like putting a lid on a pot of boiling water — the heat and pressure will only increase. Soon it’ll explode, and you don’t want that to happen!
However, don’t get stuck with venting. Some people are angry all the time and it makes them very unattractive. Venting may relieve yourself for now but it won’t solve the problem. You don’t want to be an energy vampire. Vent for 10 to 15 minutes, then move on.
3. Process your emotions
Processing your emotions means to gain awareness of your emotions and to deal with them appropriately. The opposite is to “repress,” which means to bottle up your feelings or even deny them.
When we face a setback, it’s normal to feel unhappy about it. It’s important to learn to process these emotions, because otherwise they will just build up in us. Over time, they weigh you down and create baggage. Some people ignore their (negative) emotions, thinking that doing so is to be positive. But it’s not. Negative emotions are part and parcel of the human growth experience, and it’s by processing them that we learn and grow.
So how can you process your emotions?
Journal. Write down your unhappiness in a diary. It doesn’t have to be anything formal — you can simply brain dump on paper or a word document. Delete after you are done. Audio taping. If you prefer to talk rather than write, record yourself as you say what’s on your mind. Most smartphones today come with an audio recording function, so use it to record a private chat with yourself. Just talking helps you gain awareness of your emotions. After recording, playback and listen to what you said. You might find it quite revealing. Meditate. Set aside five minutes and sit down and meditate. Observe your thoughts and emotions float by. These emotions have always been there — you are simply giving yourself the space to finally acknowledge them. Read: How to Meditate in 5 Simple Steps Talking to someone. Talking with someone helps you work through the issue. It also gives you an alternate viewpoint and lets you consider things from a different angle.
4. Uncover what you’re really upset about
Many times we are not upset with someone or angry at the world. You may start off feeling angry at someone or something, but at the heart of it, you are really feeling angry at yourself.
I used to get really angry whenever I lost my cards or keys, something which happened often when I was a kid and in my teens. The problem wasn’t the loss of that item, but that I had lost these things fairly often in the past. Furthermore, my dad’s repeated criticism whenever I lost these items (when I was young) compounded this pain.
When I dug into this anger, I realized that deep down, I was really angry at myself. I was pissed off by how careless I was — that I would lose things so easily, that I was a klutz and that I was an idiot. I was angry at how I couldn’t even get something small right.
Uncovering this anger helped me work through the issue, which included forgiving myself and letting go of my negative childhood stories regarding my dad’s criticisms. In the past, my dad was merely chiding me when I lost such items — and it was understandable since it would cost money to replace those things (and my family was poor). Yet as a young kid repeatedly listening to these comments growing up, it made me frustrated at myself. It falsely amplified the pain of losing my card / keys to a degree that had nothing to do with the item’s loss but rather based on the stories in my head. These frustration and negative association were things that I needed to let go.
One way to uncover your anger is to ask yourself, “What am I really angry about?” Keep probing until you reach the root reason of your anger, which is often to do with yourself (and not anyone else). I share a detailed guide on how to overcome anger in my 5-part anger series that you can read here.
After you uncover your anger, what can you do about it? How can you improve the situation? Go to Step 7 below to identify your action steps. Anger usually comes as a result of feeling out of control. Sitting there and feeling angry isn’t going to change the situation. By taking action, you regain control of the situation which helps put you back in the driver’s seat.
(Read my 5-part anger series here: How to Let Go of Anger (series))
5. Give yourself a break
If you are feeling very stressed out and the problem is not time-sensitive, then give yourself a break. Take a walk, listen to some music, watch a movie, or get some sleep. When you’re done, you should feel more energized to deal with the situation. A little self-care and love goes a long way. ❤️
6. See this as an obstacle to overcome
Helen Keller, an American author and political activist who was also the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree, once said:
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.”
Whatever you’re facing now, see it as an obstacle to overcome. With every worthy endeavor, there’ll always be countless obstacles that emerge along the way. These obstacles are what separate the people who make it and the people who don’t. If you’re able to push through these obstacles and overcome them, you’ll emerge a stronger person than before. It’ll be harder for anything to get you down in the future.
7. Focus on actionable steps
In a difficult situation, there may be things that can’t be reversed. For example, a business mistake that ended up costing you ten thousands of dollars. A work mistake that wound up costing you your job. A past career mistake that led you to waste years building your career in the wrong area. A friendship that has gone past the point of no return due to a silly misunderstanding.
Focus on the things that can be changed rather than things that can’t be changed. The only time when things change is when you act on the problem. Rather than cry over spilt milk, work through the problem:
What’s the problem you are facing? What’s frustrating you about it? What can you do to resolve it?
After identifying your action steps, act on them. The key here is to focus on what you can improve and change, not what you can’t change. We can spend all our time feeling upset about things that have happened and that we can’t change, or we can change our focus to the things we can change instead. It’s about regaining control of the situation and life through action.
8. Realize the situation could be a lot worse
No matter how bad the situation is, it could always be much worse. Let’s say you are going through a stressful period at work and you may be facing retrenchment soon. Do a pros vs. cons analysis:
What’s bad about the situation:
If I get retrenched, I will lose my income. I’ll be weighed down by my living expenses and I will feel like a let down to my family.
There is so much uncertainty in the air and it’s stressful going to work each day. Morale is low and everyone is feeling negative about everything.
I’m working late hours just to stay afloat in my job.
The upside:
While I may likely get retrenched, I haven’t lost my job yet. I can be proactive and start my job search right now by working on my resume, speaking to headhunters, and networking with other people in the industry for possible job openings.
A new job will present new learning and job opportunities. I should see this as a chance to think about what I want out of my life and to consciously shape my career path to fit my desired life direction.
I can work on my finances now and cut down unnecessary expenses. This way, I will have more savings if push comes to shove and I really get laid off.
When you do a pros vs. cons analysis like this, it helps you see the problem in a more objective light. Instead of thinking it’s all doom and gloom, you see the situation for what it is and act on it.
9. Identify learning points from the setback
Whenever we face a problem, there is always something to learn from it. In fact, the more painful a problem is, the more there is to learn, because it means the problem is currently bigger than you (for you to feel this much pain).
Here’s my question to you: What can you learn from this situation? How can you improve from it?
From my past experience with losing things for example, I learned
To be more careful with my personal possessions
To handle my emotions better
How to handle similar situations next time
That there is an upside to being careful with my personal belongings. In the past, I would think that it was pointless since I assumed that these things would be there all the time, which was exactly why I would keep losing things.
Maybe you’re going through a breakup now. Some possible learning points are
You are now aware of the things you don’t want in a partner.
You are now wiser about how to look out for your desired traits in a partner.
You learned how to better deal with conflicts and handle a relationship.
You are now ready to be a better partner to the next person who comes your way. 🙂
After identifying your learning points, think about how you’re going to apply them. With this simple exercise, you’ve clearly gained something from the encounter. It is not a wasted experience because you can now apply these crucial lessons in future situations and build a better life. 🙂
10. Do your best, but don’t kill yourself over it
Last but not least, always do your best to tackle the problem, but don’t kill yourself over it.
Back when I was in my previous corporate job (which was an intensely stressful managerial job), I was handling a huge amount of responsibilities. Every day felt like a firefighting session. Everyone was constantly stressed out and the atmosphere was sometimes high strung. I was the project manager of a series of multi-million-dollar business projects, interacting with 50 different people across multi-functional teams and external agencies on a weekly basis. Make one little oversight and a project could get jeopardized, which meant that you would have to explain yourself to senior management and have a ready set of solutions to address the issue.
After months of feeling intensely stressed out, I realized that no matter what happens, there is always a way to address it. There are always steps you can take to logically break down the problem, diffuse the situation, and get help. Even in the worst case scenario, you can simply quit your job, though this is almost never necessary. My point is not to diminish your responsibility in the situation but to highlight that even in the worst case scenario, things are rarely as bad as we think they are.
Hence, no matter how bad your situation may seem, do your best to address it but don’t kill yourself over it. Life is too short to worry so much about daily setbacks. Take a step back (Step 1), give yourself a break if you need to (Step 5), and do what you can to address the problem (Step 7). Everything else will unfold accordingly. Worrying too much about the outcome isn’t going to change things or make your life any better. But channeling your energy to the things you can do, this is much more constructive.
Check out my other articles on dealing with life challenges:
If you like this article, I’ve created a manifesto version that you can download here: [Manifesto] What To Do When Things Don’t Go Your Way 🙂The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) has launched a donation campaign and is calling on the worldwide climbing community to rally around its 2020 Olympic bid.
Update: Climbing's Olympic dream is on hold. Unfortunately Sport climbing has failed to reach the final shortlist of sports being considered for the 2020 Olympics.
By donating, not only will you be supporting the 2020 dream by helping the IFSC improve the quality of its events and worldwide communications, but you could win some great climbing gear!
Sport climbing is on a shortlist of sports in with a chance of joining the Olympic family. On May 29 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the IFSC and seven other International Federations will present their respective sports to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board. The very same day, the IOC Executive Board will decide which sports will remain on the shortlist to go through to the final vote in September. Only one of these sports will be included in the 2020 Olympic Games programme.
One way of looking at it is that sport climbing is in the semi finals and is counting on the climbing community to help it reach the finals. The dedication and enthusiasm of the bidding sport’s worldwide community is a key part of the IOC's decision making process, providing a tangible way to assess the popularity of the sport.
The IFSC is asking people to like the Facebook page and donate to the campaign.
Anne Fuynel, IFSC Director of Marketing & Communications, enthusiastically states: “The goal is to raise the symbolic amount of 20,200 euros. This donation campaign will be used to rapidly improve the quality of our events, broadcasting and communication around the world.”
Prizes to be won!
Each individual who donates a minimum of 5 euros to the campaign will be entered into a draw for a chance to win some outstanding prizes. The following prizes from Entre-Prises and Kailas are waiting to be won by 54 lucky winners at the end of the campaign:
10 Kailas Flash Quickdraws 16cm
4 Kailas Intuition Dry Ropes 9.4mm 50m
4 Kailas Insight Ropes 9.8mmm 50m
10 Kailas Beanies
4 Kailas Men’s Rock Climbing Pants (Blue Magic)
4 Kailas Men’s Rock Climbing Shorts
4 Kailas Men’s Rock Climbing Pants
10 Kailas Men’s Functional T-shirts Quick Dry
4 Entre-Prises Kineboards
What to do now to support the campaign:
Make a donation
Like the Facebook page
Remember to use the Twitter hash tag #climbing2020
Look out for a BMC petition to sign at your local climbing wall.
Fill in the iSportconnect Olympics 2020 poll to support your favorite sport.
« BackWaspzilla! The fearsome flying beast discovered in the jungle with jaws longer than its front legs
Creature found on remote island teeming with unknown species
It sounds like the stuff of nightmares - a wasp that supplements a vicious sting with jaws longer than its front legs.
But this is a very real newly discovered warrior wasp found on the remote Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Dubbed the 'Komodo dragon' of the wasp family, the males of the species measure two-and-a-half inches long.
The warrior wasp was found on the remote Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It has been named 'Garuda' after the part-human, part-eagle mythical beast
Where the wasps were discovered
Entomologist Lynn Kimsey of the University of California, Davis, encountered the wasps during a recent expedition to the island.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology said they picked the name warrior wasp because of its huge ninja-like mandibles.
Ms Kimsey, who is also director at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, said: 'Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male's front legs. I don't know how it can walk.'
Luckily the species prefers to dine on insects, but if threatened it could leave a sizeable mark on human flesh too.
The wasp has jaws longer than its legs
Ms Kimsey plans to name it 'Garuda' after the part-human, part-eagle mythical beast that is well-known as a national symbol in Indonesia.
The wasp was discovered in the Mekongga Mountains in south-eastern Sulawesi, a little-explored Indonesian island between Borneo and New Guinea.
Ms Kimsey described it as one of the world's top three islands for biodiversity alongside Australia and Madagascar.
Aside from gigantic wasps the island is also home to dwarf buffalo called anoa and colonial spiders whose webs can stretch for acres.
Ms Kimsey and a team of researchers have received a five-year, £2.5 million grant to study the island's rich biodiversity.
So far in her three trips to Sulawesi, she estimates that hundreds - maybe even thousands - of new species could be catalogued.
She hopes that the discovery of the warrior wasp and other surprising new creatures will help raise awareness about just how unique and precious the region is.
'There's talk of forming a biosphere reserve to preserve this,' she said. 'There are so many rare and endangered species on Sulawesi that the world may never see.'On Thursday, Google announced Android 4.4.1 and it began rolling out to various Nexus devices. We also posted the download links for the Nexus 7 2013 LTE and the Nexus 5 for those that are impatient for the OTA to come through. Now we've got our hands on the Nexus 7 2013 WiFi's update. This one is about the same size as the OTA for the Nexus 7 2013 LTE and the Nexus 5. Weighing in at about 52MB in size. We've got the download link down below as well as instructions on how to sideload it onto your device.
Download
signed-razor-KOT49E-from-KRT16S - Android Headlines Mirror
Installation
To install this update, all you need to do is simply download the update on your computer. Make sure you've got the Android SDK installed and open up a command prompt window inside sdk/platform-tools. First use the "adb devices" command to make sure your device shows up. You should see it show a serial number and "device". If it says "unauthorized", you'll need to go to your Nexus 7 and authorize it, which is very simple and easy to do. Then type in "adb reboot bootloader". Once you're rebooted, you will need to use the power and volume buttons to boot into recovery (you'll need to be rooted for this to work). On stock recovery, go down to "apply update from adb" and then from your computer type in "adb sideload <filename.zip>". Within a few minutes you should be on Android 4.4.1 and your device should be rebooting. Its just that simple.
Of course if you don't want to do all of that, you can simply wait for the OTA. And remember that clearing Google Services Framework hurts and doesn't help you get the OTA faster. Same with hitting the "Check for updates" button in "About Phone". Or in this case "About tablet".
For those that do attempt to sideload this update, be sure to let us know in the comments below how this works out for you.The present experiments were performed to study the effect of the flavonoid apigenin (20 mg/kg intraperitoneally (i.p.), 1 h before acquisition), on 24 h retention performance and forgetting of a step-through passive avoidance task, in young male Wistar rats. There were no differences between saline- and apigenin-treated groups in the 24 h retention trial. Furthermore, apigenin did not prevent the amnesia induced by scopolamine (1mg/kg, i.p., 30 min before the acquisition). The saline- and apigenin-treated rats that did not step through into the dark compartment during the cut-off time (540 s) were retested weekly for up to eight weeks. In the saline treated group, the first significant decline in passive avoidance response was observed at four weeks, and complete memory loss was found five weeks after the acquisition of the passive avoidance task. At the end of the experimental period, 60% of the animals treated with apigenin still did not step through. These data suggest that 1) apigenin delays the long-term forgetting but did not modulate the 24 h retention of fear memory and 2) the obtained beneficial effect of apigenin on the passive avoidance conditioning is mediated by mechanisms that do not implicate its action on the muscarinic cholinergic system."Mike has made tremendous contributions to our hockey club over the years and he will be one of several people we are going to internally lean on," Blake said. "He and his department have enjoyed success here both with the NHL Draft and the Ontario Hockey League in particular, and we look forward to additional success in the immediate future."
Futa most recently served as Kings Vice President, Hockey Operations and Director of Player Personnel. This upcoming season will be Futa's 11th season with the Kings.
Futa recently concluded his 10th full season with the Kings, and third in his most recent position. He was named VP of Hockey Operations and Director of Player Personnel in May of 2014 after serving as Director of Amateur Scouting, a position he assumed on June 5, 2007, when he originally joined the Kings.
Futa came to the Kings when he was appointed Co-Director of Amateur Scouting along with Mark Yannetti. Together, Futa and Yannetti rebuilt and retooled the entire Kings Amateur Scouting staff.
Futa came to the Kings after five successful seasons as General Manager of the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), where he was named OHL Executive of the Year in 2005. Futa also served as Director of Team Ontario's Under-17 program for three seasons.
Prior to his time with the Attack, Futa served as both an Assistant Coach and Assistant General Manager with the Oshawa Generals (OHL) for two seasons (1999-01). The native of Toronto also served first as an Assistant Coach and then as a Head Coach of Toronto St. Michael's Majors (OHL) from 1997-00. Prior to that, he served as Head Coach and General Manager of the St. Michael's Buzzers (Provincial Junior "A").
Before turning to the coaching ranks, Futa played four seasons of professional hockey in Europe (two seasons in Germany and two seasons in Denmark). The former left wing also captained his team at York University, where he was also honored as the student who best combined academics and athletics at the school during his senior season.A California high school basketball coach has been accused of poor sportsmanship after his team beat another 161 to … 2.
Arroyo Valley High girls’ coach Michael Anderson was suspended for two games following the rout against Bloomington High last week and now faces criticism for running up the score, CBS Los Angeles reports.
“The game just got away from me,” Anderson told the San Bernardino Sun on Friday.
“I didn’t play any starters in the second half,” he added. “I didn’t expect them to be that bad. I’m not trying to embarrass anybody.”
This isn’t the first time Arroyo Valley has so thoroughly dominated a matchup. The girls’ team has won its previous four games by 70 points or more. As for Bloomington? They had already lost a game by 91 points.
Still, Bloomington coach Dale Chung says Anderson crossed a line.
“People shouldn’t feel sorry for my team,” Chung told the Sun. “They should feel sorry for his team, which isn’t learning the game the right way.”
But Arroyo Valley parents disagree.
“I feel it’s very wrong. I felt like, what are you teaching these kids? To lose and not be rewarded,” parent Martha Vodinez told CBS Los Angeles. “Are you teaching them to be a loser?”
Adds another unidentified parent: “I feel like, if you lose, you just need to get out there and learn from that. Get better. Don’t down talk the next team.”
This article originally appeared on People.com.
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Contact us at [email protected] would never think that a single plant could solve most of the worlds problems, well it can. Hemp has over 50, 000 uses, why this plant remains illegal is causing confusion among many. Everything from clothes, medicine, fabrics, fuel and more, hemp is definitely a large threat to a variety of corporations that control energy, health and a number of other industries. Many corporations would see a decline in profit if hemp were to be legalized. One in particular this article will focus on is the automobile industry.
The worlds most Eco-friendly car, the Kestrel, was designed in Canada by Calgary-based Motive Industries INC. Unlike the United States government, the Canadian government is open to hemp farming and actively supporting the industrial hemp industry and it’s potential benefit for us and our environment.
It has a top speed of 90 km per hour and a range of approximately 100 miles before needing to be recharged. It’s powered by a motor made by TM4 Electrodynamic Systems, a Quebec based company.
It’s weight is approximately 2,500 pounds, and has a very affordable price given the fact that hemp is very easy to grow and requires nothing but the sun. It fits 4 passengers and the production version of it was supposed to be available this year. Since the unveiling of it a couple of years ago, everything all of a sudden has become quiet. You can contact the developers here for more information if you are interested or would like to get your hands on one.
The body of the car is completely impact-resistant and made entirely out of hemp. When we think of cars we think of gasoline, steel, pollution, etc. Even though we have had some innovative and visually pleasing cars on the road today, it is difficult to ignore the sheer environmental impact that modern cars create.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a hemp car making noise, did you know that Henry Ford spent more than a decade researching and building his Model T car? This was in the 1940′s, it was completely made from hemp. This car was 10 times stronger than steel and was also designed to run off of hemp bio-fuel! Whatever happened to this idea? Read more about that here.
To think that even one of the founders of a major car manufacturer was trying to give the world a vehicle that was safe, strong and clean for the environment is good to know. At the same time, his invention was so suppressed that it is somewhat disheartening. How did we go from such an obvious and intelligent discovery, to using gasoline, steel and other non-harmonious materials? It’s important to keep in mind that not only do we need to look at the pollution factor of material while in use, we should also be aware of the pollution caused from manufacturing and creating of cars from raw materials.
Looking at hemp, it complies with every Eco-standard that exists today; in fact, it blows them out of the water. The suppression of this technology is largely due to the fact that hemp was outlawed in the US in 1937 due to the potential damaging effect it would have on many powerful industries at that time. I highly recommend you check out the full story we wrote on how hemp became illegal.
The Kestrel’s hemp composite body shell passed its crash test in strong form, unlike steel, the panels bounce back into shape after impact. Hemp also has the same mechanical properties as glass. It is even lighter than glass and these properties help boost fuel efficiency.
The oldest known records of hemp farming go back 5000 years in China. For thousands of years, 90% of all ships sails and rope made from hemp. Hemp is an unlimited, forever lasting resource. For that reason alone it is a threat to our current financial and economic systems. It seems the systems we have in place are used to justify why products like this cannot be mass marketed and mass distributed. It’s time for a change, and it’s time for us to implement new methods and technologies that are more harmonious with the planet.Sporting Kansas City announced on Wednesday that the club has loaned forward Kei Kamara to Norwich City F.C. (English Premier League) through May 6, pending Kamara receiving authorization for a work permit. Sporting Kansas City will receive two-thirds of the substantial loan fee to use as allocation money^ per MLS rules. If Norwich City elects not to acquire the player on a full transfer by May 6, then Kamara will rejoin Sporting Kansas City, where he will be available to play immediately for the club. As part of the agreement, Kamara’s contract with MLS has been extended.
"Our club continues to get a lot of attention throughout Europe," Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes said. "As we do with all of our decisions, we always think about the long-term impact on our organization, as well as the short-term. Ultimately, this opportunity allows us to re-invest back into the club and solidify our core group of players.
"We understand that players are going to be sought after and that players aspire to fulfill personal and professional ambitions. We want to continue to help them achieve those goals and this helps us accomplish that objective, along with extending his contract. We have a very strong roster and this enables another player to step up."
In seven MLS seasons, Kamara has 45 goals and 21 assists in 178 appearances. He has led Sporting KC in scoring each of the last three seasons, including a career-high 11 goals and eight assists last year.
A 2012 MLS All-Star, Kamara has also been a finalist for MLS W.O.R.K.S. Humanitarian of the Year the past two seasons for his community efforts in Kansas City and his native Sierra Leone.
"It is a very bittersweet day as I am excited to achieve one of my goals, which was to play in the EPL," Kamara said. "Being such a positive person, I trust in this decision and am thankful for the opportunity to play at Norwich City through the end of their season. I am grateful for the coaching staff at Sporting KC and especially Peter (Vermes) for believing in me and helping me through this process."
Kamara is set to become the second player acquired by an English Premier League club from Sporting Kansas City during the January transfer window. Midfielder Roger Espinoza joined Wigan Athletic earlier this month after five years in Kansas City.
Sporting Kansas City, first place finishers in the Eastern Conference each of the last two years, will begin the 2013 season on March 2. Manager Peter Vermes' roster returns captain and MLS Goalkeeper of the Year Jimmy Nielsen, MLS MVP finalist Graham Zusi, MLS Defender of the Year Matt Besler and MLS Best XI selection Aurelien Collin, alongside new attacking additions that include Designated Player Claudio Bieler and U.S. Men's National Team midfielder Benny Feilhaber.
^In accordance with MLS Roster Rules and Regulations, allocation money does not count against a club's salary budget and can be used:Download Jon Taylor and Jonathan Koomey's new report, Comatose Servers Redux (April 2017).
30% of Servers are Sitting “Comatose”
According to Research Findings from Anthesis Group and Stanford University Researcher Jonathan Koomey. Findings underscore problem of data center provisioning and management resulting in more than $30 billion in data center capital sitting idle.
Emeryville, CA – June 3, 2015 – Anthesis Group (www.anthesisgroup.com), a global sustainability consultancy, announced today their findings about server utilization. The research was conducted with Jonathan Koomey (www.koomey.com), Research Fellow at Stanford University, using data from TSO Logic (www.tsologic.com).
The core findings are based on a sample of anonymized data and revealed that 30 percent of the physical servers were “comatose.” In this instance, comatose servers are those that have not delivered information or computing services in six months or more.
These findings imply that there are about 10 million comatose servers worldwide - including standalone servers and host servers in virtual environments. The findings support previous research performed by the Uptime Institute, which also found that around 30 percent of servers are unused. The 10 million estimated comatose servers translates into at least $30 billion in data center capital sitting idle globally (assuming an average server cost of $3,000, while ignoring infrastructure capital costs as well as operating costs).
“Far too many businesses have massive Information Technology (IT) infrastructure inefficiencies of which they are not even aware”, said Jon Taylor, Partner at Anthesis Group. “These preliminary findings support the idea that ongoing measurement and management of a business’s IT infrastructure is needed to optimize performance, energy use, and return-on-investment.”
Dr. Koomey, a researcher, consultant, and lecturer on the energy and environmental impacts of technology, says
“In the twenty first century, every company is an IT company, yet far too little attention is given to IT inefficiencies, and to the need for widespread changes in how IT resources are built, provisioned, and managed.”
Koomey adds
“removing idle servers would result in gigawatt-scale reductions in global IT load, the displaced power use from which could then support new IT loads that actually deliver business value. That’s a result that everyone should cheer.”
To read the full findings, click here.Anand Gopal writes frequently about the Middle East and South Asia. He is the author of “Welcome to Free Syria,” in the August 2012 issue of Harper’s Magazine. His book about the war in Afghanistan is forthcoming from Henry Holt.
Last month, video emerged from the Syrian town of Tremseh showing scores of blood-sodden bodies of children and adults, some with cracked skulls and slit throats, all of them purported victims of the Syrian army. As the camera panned across the grisly tableau, an anguished commentator read out the names of the dead and cried, “God is greater!” The Syrian National Council, an umbrella rebel group, announced that 305 people had been killed, making Tremseh the gravest massacre of the fifteen-month-long uprising. Hillary Clinton decried this “indisputable evidence that the regime murdered innocent civilians,” and the United Nations issued its strongest condemnation of Syria to date.
But there was a problem—no one had actually visited the town. The New York Times, for instance, reported the story from Beirut and New York, relying solely on statements and video from anti-Assad activists and the testimony of a man from “a nearby village” who visited the scene afterward. When the first U.N. investigators arrived two days later, they uncovered a very different story. Instead of an unprovoked massacre of civilians, the evidence pointed to a pitched battle between resistance forces and the Syrian army. Despite rebel claims that there had been no opposition fighters in Tremseh, it turned out that guerrillas had bivouacked in the town, and that most of the dead were in fact rebels. Observers also downgraded the death toll to anywhere from forty to a hundred.
The battles of the Syrian revolution are, among other things, battles of narrative. As I recount in “Welcome to Free Syria,” the regime has indeed committed grievous massacres, including one I saw evidence of in the northern town of Taftanaz. The Assad government also puts forth a narrative—the country is under siege from an alliance of criminal gangs, Al Qaeda, and the CIA—that is quite removed from reality. Yet there is also a powerful pull in the West to order a messy reality into a simple and self-serving narrative. The media, which largely favors the revolution, has at times uncritically accepted rebel statements and videos—which themselves often originate from groups based outside the country—as the whole story. This in turn provides an incentive for revolutionaries to exaggerate. A Damascus-based activist told me that he had inflated casualty numbers to foreign media during the initial protests last year in Daraa, because “otherwise, no one would care about us.”
Some in the West are equally uncritical in their skepticism toward the revolutionaries. Mike Rogers (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, recently declared that as many as a quarter of Syrian rebel groups may be inspired by Al Qaeda—which, according to those who have been inside and met the resistance, is simply not the case. Al Qaeda–style groups can be found among the revolutionaries, but they remain rare. Moreover, radical Islam is far more complex than Washington tends to appreciate. I’ve met beer-guzzling Syrian rebels who carried the black |
been part of the Canadian business community since 1786. Our family is proud of our deep Canadian roots and proud to celebrate those roots by giving Canadians a taste of one of our finest brews from the early 1900s. The rich story behind the 1908 brew, its unquestionable quality, and the craftsmanship that went into its restoration, are a lot of the same qualities that have helped us build some of Canada's most recognizable and successful beer brands," said Geoff Molson, Chairman of the Board of Molson Coors Brewing Company and seventh generation member of the Molson family.
As an unfiltered beer, each batch of the 1908 brew has its own unique qualities. The full-bodied flavour of the ale can be enjoyed cold, or even at warmer temperatures, bringing out flavour nuances with each sip.
John H.R Molson and Bros. 1908 Historic Pale Ale is now available in 625ml and 341ml bottles wherever beer is sold.
About Molson Coors Canada:
Molson Coors Canada is the Canadian division of Molson Coors Brewing Company, a global brewer with operations in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Asia. The company proudly offers some of the most popular brands in Canada with an award-winning brand portfolio that includes Molson Canadian, Coors Light, Molson Export, Rickard's and Molson Canadian 67.
Molson Coors Canada employs 3,000 Canadians, operates seven breweries, including boutique breweries Creemore and Granville Island, and invests in communities from coast-to-coast through its various charitable initiatives and sports and entertainment sponsorships. Molson Coors Canada is committed to promoting its products and events in a responsible manner as part of an active, healthy lifestyle.
SOURCE Molson Coors Canada
Image with caption: "John H.R Molson and Bros. 1908 Historic Pale Ale is now available in 625ml and 341ml bottles wherever beer is sold. (CNW Group/Molson Coors Canada)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160225_C4081_PHOTO_EN_629470.jpg
Image with caption: "John H.R Molson and Bros. 1908 Historic Pale Ale is now available in 625ml and 341ml bottles wherever beer is sold. (CNW Group/Molson Coors Canada)". Image available at: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20160225_C4081_PHOTO_EN_629472.jpg
For further information: Media only: For more information, or to request an interview, please contact: Warren McDougald at Citizen Relations at [email protected] or 416-306-6624.You will know her name…later this year.
Screen Gems has bumped the Carrie remake – starring Chloe Moretz – out of its March 15th release slot. The film is now slated to open on October 18th. So, for those that cry, “Horror movies should come out in October!” Well, you’ve got one more to look forward to. October is already populated by The Devil’s Rapture and Paranormal Activity 5.
I’m curious as to why there was a shift. Hopefully, director Kimberly Peirce can address this soon. I’ve heard positive responses from a recent test screening. Perhaps it needs more time to complete post-production, tinker around or pull off the FX? Or to stay out of the Oz the Great and Powerful‘s wake (it opens a week prior)? Or all of the above.
The quiet suburb of Chamberlain, Maine is home to the deeply religious and conservative Margaret White and her daughter Carrie. Carrie is a sweet but meek outcast whom Margaret has sheltered from society. Gym teacher Miss Desjardin tries in vain to protect Carrie from local mean girls led by the popular and haughty Chris Hargenson, but only Chris best friend, Sue Snell, regrets their actions. In an effort to make amends, Sue asks her boyfriend, high school heartthrob Tommy Ross, to take Carrie to prom. Pushed to the limit by her peers at the dance, Carrie unleashes telekinetic havoc.
Stay up to date with the latest horror news by “liking” Shock Till You Drop’s Facebook page and following us on Twitter!0 2 men shot near UCF say they do not want to press charges
ORLANDO, Fla. - Two men were shot near the University of Central Florida Thursday night in an area that has been plagued with crime in recent months, Orange County deputies said
Deputies are searching for the gunman after a 21-year-old and 22-year-old were shot in a residential area on Socrates Drive, across from the UCF campus.
Related Headlines Photos: Socrates Drive double shooting
The shooting happened in the same area where a man allegedly tried to rape a woman two weeks ago.
Photos: Socrates Drive double shooting
"In general, it's safe. I feel like the police department is doing whatever they can to make campus itself safe. But right across the street, I don't know how I'd feel about it," said UCF Student Vianca Rivera.
"You would think the areas would be safe because there are so many students who live around here," resident Laye McCoy said.
Deputies said the gunfire narrowly missed four children inside an apartment and the brazen shooter had no regard for residents' safety.
"Somebody did a drive-by shooting from here. Multiple rounds fired," said Lt. Paul Hopkins of the Orange County Sheriff's Office. "What worries us the most is the fact there were four young kids inside that apartment that these guys shot into tonight. Thank God those kids weren't hurt."
An apartment complex down the road from the shooting houses UCF students.
"It was pretty faint because I was at Sterling at the time. I didn't think anything of it. Then I saw a flash of cop cars, so it was pretty weird," said UCF student Tosh Pyakuray.
Hopkins said the shooters got away in a car, but no one got a good look at the vehicle.
"The fact it's so close is concerning. So we're just hoping things like this don't continue," said UCF student body president Cait Zona.
The men were rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center in critical condition. The victims are not students and told deputies they didn't want to press charges.
Zona and vice president Jarrell Jones said they want the university to seriously consider allowing campus police officers to patrol areas off campus.
"We are already talking to administration, police department, everything like that to set up meetings in the upcoming weeks," said Zona.
The chief of police said that UCF officers work with surrounding agencies, but enforcing beyond their jurisdiction could be difficult because it would need to hold up in court.Roma's chaotic summer is drawing to a close. After pursuing Edin Dzeko for months, managing to rescue Mohamed Salah from the Fiorentina-Chelsea tug of war and finally waiting for PSG to release Lucas Digne, the final pieces of Roma's summer transfer market should fall into place today, the transfer deadline day. While clubs can submit deals/contracts on September 1st, this is the final full day of madness, and we've got you covered.
Throughout the day, we will coalesce and update all Roma's deadline day rumors, and if Walter Sabatini manages a blockbuster deal, we'll address that one separately.
Sound good?
Rumors
Erik Lamela
He may not bring 12,000 fans to the airport, but chances are, if Roma has something up their sleeve, it's a reunion with Lamela. Gazzetta World believes that Sabatini will try at all costs to bring Lamela back to Rome before proverbial clock strikes midnight
Inter had previously been connected with Lamela, but thanks to their capture of Ivan Perisic, they're no longer involved, which has amped up Roma's pursuit
Our Spurs blog is tracking the Lamela story as well, reporting that Marseille are keen on his signature
Adem Ljajic
West Ham, having given up on Milan's Alessandro Matri, have turned their attention to the infinitely more talented Ljajic, though Inter are said to be keeping an eye on the situation as well
Okay, maybe not. Di Marzio is saying Inter are still going strong after Ljajic, possibly on loan
Victor Ibarbo
Di Marzio reports that Roma and working with Frosinone on a couple of fronts: As a possible trading partner for Ibarbo and a temporary holding place for some of Roma's Non-EU assets, namely Brazilian keeper Alisson and Paraguayan striker Sergio Diaz, each of whom could move to Frosinone to get some experience prior to switching to Roma, similar to the setups Roma used with Paredes and Sanabria. But hey, whatever you gotta do to get rid of Ibarbo, right?
Bruno Peres
Seems like we can kiss that dream goodbye, Torino has reportedly rejected Roma's latest overtures for the Brazilian rightback, though that link suggests it was only a €2 million loan with an €8 million additional buyout clause, much less than we discussed last week
Kostas Manolas
Roma rejected Chelseas's advances for the Greek centerback, and might I add, uh, duh.
Done Deals
William Vainqueur
Roma has officially signed the former Dynamo Moscow midfielder on a €1.5 million loan with an option to buy for a further €3.5 million. This is such a huge signing the club hasn't even put it up on the official site, nor given him a real scarf for the traditional airport photo.Super Smash Bros. has grown exponentially since sneaking onto the Nintendo 64 back in 1999. From its roots as a small-budget experiment to a grand, far richer experience in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the franchise has picked up many adoring fans over the years.
Now creator Masahiro Sakurai, his team and Namco Bandai return to the development table to produce not one, but two brand new titles - one for Wii U and the other for Nintendo 3DS. Brawl was practically the near-complete package, including a vast range of content on the disc, but there's still potential to expand certain areas and introduce new features for both consoles.
Cubed3's Jorge, Adam and Liam team-up to explore twenty potential ideas for the new Super Smash Bros. titles with accompanying mock-up designs.
All images are mock-up/example images and not official Super Smash Bros. screenshots.
1) Less Clones and More Unique Characters
2) Faster pace with Melee-esque Physics
3) Stage Editor with Advanced Options
4) Improved Online Stability and Options
5) Online Communities and Tournaments
6) Live Online Spectator Mode
7) Super Smash Bros. Community Sharing
8) Weekly Classic Challenges
9) Weekly Challenges with Leaderboards
10) Character Creator and Mii Support
11) Five Player Co-operative and Counter-Operative Adventure
12) Tag Battle Mode
13) Cross-Platform Play using Nintendo 3DS as Controllers
14) Assist Trophies/Pokémon Controlled by GamePad Player
15) Downloadable content packs
16) Cross Platform Free DLC Support
17) Upload Replay Videos to YouTube, Miiverse, etc.
18) Episodic story DLC updates
19) Traditional Mode
20) Touch Controls on the GamePad
Which of these ideas would you like to see included in the new Super Smash Bros. games - do you have any additional features you'd like to see included?After returning from his trip to Europe, the so-called president has literally nothing on his schedule. Meanwhile, his vice president is keeping very, very busy.
Upon returning from his second trip abroad as president, Donald Trump should have a full schedule.
He and his fellow Republicans are trying to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a disastrous plan that would gut Medicaid funding to give tax cuts to the rich.
Trump also boasted about the “excellent meeting” he had with Chinese President Xi, where they discussed trade and North Korea — two significant issues on which Trump has repeatedly vowed to be aggressive, if not downright threatening.
So what is on the president’s schedule for his first day back in the office?
Nothing. Literally nothing.
Nonetheless, Trump was up early Monday morning, watching his favorite TV show, “Fox & Friends,” and furiously tweeting about a range of topics — from accusing former FBI Director James Comey of illegally leaking classified information, to an utterly bizarre defense of his despotic decision to have his daughter Ivanka Trump sub in for him during a meeting with world leaders at the G20 summit.
If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother,as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2017
It’s unclear whether Trump intended to admit that he “gave our country away” during his trip, though by all accounts, including his own it certainly appears that way, given his decision to cooperate with Russia on cybersecurity.
While Trump’s scheduled is cleared for the day, freeing him up to watch Fox, Vice President Mike Pence has a much busier schedule.
According to the White House daily schedule, Pence is participating in not one, not two, but three separate meetings with the prime ministers of Greece, Macedonia, and Tunisia. He’s also joining right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham for an interview.
The media’s access to the actual president, on the other hand, is more limited. Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be holding a press briefing — off camera.
Pence is keeping a fuller scheduled in general, these days. He’s been traveling to swing states that Trump carried by single digits and has a fifth trip scheduled to Ohio later this month. He’s also been hosting private dinners at his home with powerful Republican donors.
Numerous outlets have reported that Trump is bored and dissatisfied with his job. All of his plans to “Make America Great Again” have thus far failed, as he has come to the realization that completely restructuring the country is harder than he had anticipated.
In February, for example, he stunningly announced that “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”
Meanwhile, Pence has been keeping himself busy and has issued no complaints about the job at all. In fact, it would seem that Pence is far more interested in the presidency — now, and in 2020 — than Trump is.NEW DELHI: Led by Narendra Modi, the BJP is all set to stage an impressive show in the general election, while Congress is headed for its worst performance.According to CNN-IBN-Lokniti-CSDS National Election Tracker, NDA may win 211-231 seats in the Lok Sabha election, while Congress-led ruling United Progressive Alliance will be a distant second with 107-127 seats.The poll shows BJP alone getting 192-210 out of a total 543 Lok Sabha seats. The Congress is projected to get 92-108 seats.With 34 per cent respondents voting for the BJP, the party is projected to record its best-ever performance. The Congress had the support of only 27 per cent people in the survey.Narendra Modi continues to be the top choice for the Prime Minister's post with the backing of 34 per cent respondents— much ahead of Rahul Gandhi who had only 15 per cent support, according to the survey.Sonia Gandhi is projected third on the PM ratings at 5 per cent. It shows AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal getting support of three per cent for the PM's post.According to the survey, in a direct face-off between Modi and Rahul, 42 per cent prefer Modi and only 25 per cent prefer Rahul as PM.At the coalition level also, UPA allies have just 1 per cent backing and BJP allies have just 2 per cent backing nationally.While the BJP-led NDA is inching steadily towards the half-way mark, the UPA is projected to go down by over 100 seats.Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress is projected to get 20-28 Lok Sabha seats. The survey shows Jayalalithaa's AIADMK getting 15-23 seats.Left is projected to get only 15-23 seats. The survey gives 6-12 Lok Sabha seats to AAP. It also projects dismal show by Samajwadi Party and BSP.According to it, Samajwadi Party is projected to get only 8-14 seats and BSP 10-16 seats.Congress is likely to be routed in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi, according to the survey.If the elections are held in January 2014, the UPA is expected get 28 per cent, NDA is expected to get 36 per cent and others are expected to get 36 per cent votes respectively.(With inputs from PTI)Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off in Las Vegas this week, with technology companies from around the globe descending on "Sin City" to showcase their latest gadgets and offer a glimpse into our digital future.
From the camcorder and the CD player to the Xbox and the plasma TV, some of the best-known technologies of all time have debuted at CES, and some of the most famous industry figures have given keynotes, including Bill Gates, Michael Dell and Elon Musk.
This year marks the show's 50th annivarsary. The first CES kicked off in 1967, with 250 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees gathered in New York City. Since then, CES has grown by more than 10-fold, and now encompasses both traditional and non-traditional tech industries.
In 2016, CES attracted 3,886 exhibitors and 177,393 attendees, and covered more than 2.48 million square feet of exhibition space - with highlights ranging from HTC's Vive virtual reality headset to Volkswagen's gesture-controlled dashboard.
2017's show promises to be even bigger. Although many technology companies such as Apple and Google now run their own events, consumer tech giants like Samsung, Sony, LG and Panasonic continue to use CES to unveil their latest TVs, smartphones and home appliances.
However, often the most surprising innovations come from small companies and Kickstarter projects, in categories such as wearable technology, smart home appliances and 3D printing.
Here’s everything you need to know about CES 2017:
Where is it?
(Image: Caters)
Las Vegas has long been the home of CES, with the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) acting as the focal point. Over the course of the week, events will take place across the city, in many of the famous casinos including Mandalay Bay, the Bellagio, and the Wynn.
When is it?
CES 2017 officially runs from Thursday January 5 to Sunday January 8. However, products will start to be unveiled from Monday January 2, with many of the big product announcements being made during the press days on Tuesday January 3 and Wednesday January 4.
Here are the times and dates of some of the key events at CES 2017. Times are in GMT:
Tuesday January 3
22:00 Honor New Product Launch Event
Wednesday January 4
01:00 CES Unveiled
02:00 Faraday Future Reveal Event
16:00 LG Electronics News Conference
18:00 Panasonic News Conference
20:00 Hisense News Conference
21:00 Toyota News Conference
21:00 Casio News Conference
22:00 Samsung News Conference
Thursday January 5
00:00 Intel News Conference
01:00 Sony News Conference
02:30 NVIDIA keynote: Founder, President and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang
16:30 Consumer Technology Association keynote: President and CEO Gary Shapiro
22:00 Huawei keynote: CEO of Consumer Business Group Richard Yu
Friday January 5
00:00 Nissan keynote: Chairman and CEO Carlos Ghosn
17:00 Qualcomm keynote: CEO Steve Mollenkopf
23:00 Under Armour keynote: Founder and CEO Kevin Plank
Who will be there?
The event will feature keynote speeches from prominent industry figures including Qualcomm chief executive Steve Mollenkopf, Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, Under Armour chief Kevin Plank and Richard Yu, head of Huawei's Consumer Business Group.
Many of the world's biggest consumer technology companies will also be unveiling their latest products at the event, including LG, Bosch, Huawei, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Toyota, Hisense, Samsung, ZTE and Sony.
Key themes
5G: It may feel like 4G technology still has a long way to go, but the future of 5G and its effect on the connected world will be a major focus at CES 2017.
Once considered a luxury, the demand for streaming services, social media and games has turned high-speed mobile internet into an essential utility.
(Image: Getty)
"From the Internet of Things, to virtual reality to self-driving cars and beyond, connectivity is at the core of emerging innovation," said Gary Shapiro, president and chief executive of the Consumer Technology Association, which runs CES.
Artificial intelligence: AI has made big strides in 2016 - from Google's AlphaGo beating the world champion of Go at his own game to the stratospheric success of the app Prisma that converts photos into incredibly realistic looking paintings using AI.
These computer "brains" are now giving humans the power to simulate virtual worlds and giving computers the intelligence to understand the real world.
Expect to see companies exploring new ways to use the technology in 2017, and developing apps that integrate with virtual personal assistants like Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Connected cars: Cars have become an increasingly prominent feature of CES in recent years, as the vehicles themselves become more and more high-tech. From eco-friendly electric cars to driverless vehicles, the "car of the future" is again expected to be a major theme of the show.
2016 has seen the first trials of driverless cars on British roads, while over in America, companies including Google, Uber and Ford are all at advanced stages of testing.
Meanwhile, the Autonomous Vehicle Marketplace at CES has grown by 75% since its inception in 2014, and more than a dozen conference sessions are dedicated to autonomous vehicles at this year's show.
Virtual reality: This year has seen the launch of several major VR headsets including the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR, as well as more low-tech options such as Google Daydream View.
Now that the hardware is there, the next big step will be to ensure there is enough VR content to keep consumers engaged - and enable compatibility across different platforms.
While the gaming industry is already hard at work on this, and film and TV companies are starting to dip a toe in the water, app developers have some way to go to catch up with the likes of Google Tilt Brush.
Sleep tech: For the first time this year, CES will have its own Sleep Tech Marketplace, sponsored by the National Sleep Foundation.
New technology promises not only to help consumers better understand their own sleep, but to help significantly improve their overall health.
"From sleep trackers and silent alarms, to bedroom lighting, white noise and even smart beds, sleep technologies are helping us take control of our nighttime routines and rejuvenate efficiently," said Shapiro.WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) -- If you believe a biblical prophecy from Christian numerologist David Meade, then you only have a couple of days left on this earth.
Meade says that the world is ending on Sept. 23.
His proof? Bible verses which he interprets to match the Great American Eclipse, Hurricane Harvey and flooding in Texas. The numerologist is referring to Luke 21:25-26.
Here is what the bible verses say:
There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
The date of Sept. 23 was chosen using codes from the Bible as well as a date marker believed to be found on pyramids in Egypt, according to The Sun.
Meade believes the world will end after a new planet named Nibiru crashes into Earth. NASA has denied the theory is true.
While scientists have found evidence that a Planet X, also known as Nibiru, may exist, it is only theoretical since no direct observation has been made.
"The possibility of a new planet is certainly an exciting one for me as a planetary scientist and for all of us," said Jim Green, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division said on NASA's website. "This is not, however, the detection or discovery of a new planet. It's too early to say with certainty there's a so-called Planet X. What we're seeing is an early prediction based on modeling from limited observations. It's the start of a process that could lead to an exciting result."
To further refute the prediction, NASA says that the catastrophe was initially predicted to happen on May 2003 before being moved to December 2012. On both dates, the supposed crash never transpired.
Meade expects tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to occur after Nibiru crashes into earth.A federal judge in Florida has made short work of a 30-page motion by the RIAA to dismiss a P2P defendant's counterclaims. The action comes in Atlantic v. Boyer, a Florida woman accused of copyright infringement by the RIAA earlier this year.
As has become typical in contested file-sharing cases, Eva Boyer has submitted a list of counterclaims along with her answer to the copyright infringement charges. Boyer accuses the RIAA of computer fraud and abuse, abuse of process, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and civil conspiracy—in short, claims similar to those made by Tanya Andersen, who is now pursuing a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the record labels.
The RIAA customarily moves to dismiss the counterclaims, with mixed results. In Atlantic v. Boyer, the judge's rejection of the RIAA's motion came stunningly fast. It was filed on May 5, and Judge Richard A. Lazzara dismissed it in a brief, two-page order. Judge Lazzara notes that Boyer's counterclaims were nearly identical to those in another Florida case involving the same two sets of attorneys, UMG v. Del Cid, and that the court allowed the counterclaims to stand.
In its motion to dismiss the Boyer's counterclaims, the RIAA argued that they were "heavy on hyperbole" and that the judge's decision in UMG v. Del Cid was incorrect. The labels also said that her computer fraud and abuse claim was improperly filed.
With the counterclaims upheld, the RIAA appears to be in for a bit of a tussle in this case. It's impossible to predict whether this case will head to trial, if Boyer will settle, or if the RIAA will ultimately drop the case. One thing is certain: Judge Lazzara seems disinclined to green light the RIAA's customary legal maneuvers, making the group's customary steamrolling of the legal process a bit more difficult.
Wherever the case ends up, it won't be handled by the same man who argued the RIAA's case in the Jammie Thomas trial. The record industry's lead counsel, Richard Gabriel, will be leaving private practice for an appointment to the Colorado Court of Appeals.
Further readingYou will initially need to install the Horizon Toolbox 2 If you do not already have this installed. You can find my installation guide here. When this is installed you will need to navigate to this website, please note you will need to be logged in to view this page. – https://HORIZONVIEWFQDN:18443/toolbox/static/ra/help.html
You will be presented the following page on how to setup Remote Assistance.
The method that I picked was using Solicited Remote Assistance, this allows for the user to request remote assistance and they will have to accept the invitation when you connect to the session. This provides a secure user experience and it will provide confidence in the user that they are working on a safe system and you can’t connect without their knowledge.
Click the ‘Download Horizon_Remote_Asssistance_Installer_v1035.exe’ button. This will download the required file for your Gold Image/VDI machine that you want to provide remote assistance.
When you have copied this to your Gold Image/VDI machine. You can proceed to start the installer. Again this is a very simple install, you need to select ‘Install for End User’
You will be presented with the following message half way through the installation. You will need to close MSRA when the dialog box appears.
When you have completed this you will see the following complete message.
You will need to connect to the VMware Horizon View Toolbox page. This can be found at the following location – https://[HORIZONVIEWFQDN]:18443/toolbox/Login
You will be presented with the following website asking you to login –
You will need to login using your usual Administrator credentials or the Administrator account.
Once logged in you will be presented with this website. There is useful information on this website such as Session Audit Reporting, IE How many people are logging on the system concurrently.
You will need to click the Remote Assistance Tab and then select the ‘Remote Assistance Requests’ tab. You should see the below when you have reached this stage.
At this point you will need to ask the User that you require to assist to click the ‘Horizon Remote Assistance’ icon that will be on the User’s Desktop.
This will look like the icon below –
When you click this Icon you will be presented with the following message –
You will need the user to click ‘OK’ to this request.
When this is completed they will receive the below to confirm the request has been sent to the Administrator.
You will need to navigate back to the Remote Assistance Requests tab and you will see the ‘Start Assist’ button as per the below screenshot.
Click the ‘Start Assist’ button. This will download an Invitation.msrcincident file that you will need to click to start the remote session.
When this is clicked the user will be prompted with the following prompt. They will need to select ‘Yes’ to allow the remote assistance request.
Once this is accepted you will be presented with the below remote assistance page. As you can see you can also Request for Control from the user.BroMontana Profile Joined January 2012 United States 39 Posts Last Edited: 2012-07-06 16:53:42 #1 https://www.facebook.com/events/250789628367330/
I want to thank LzGamer and Machine for coming out last time!!!!!!
Sunday, July 8th, 2012 11:00am
2625 W Baseline Rd Tempe AZ
***Room Reservation Pending***
POWER PROBLEMS RESOLVED!
Tourney 10$ Entry fee brackets will be created at the location.
Bring Your Own Computer ( Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, LAN Cable or Laptop )
WIFI Available
Please if you have power strips bring them ( the more the merrier )
( EXTENSION CORDS PLEASE IF YOU HAVE THEM )
Prizes: Cash Prize 1st 60%, 2nd 30%, 3rd 10% ( of pool )
ALL MONEY GOING TO PRIZES: MORE PEOPLE MORE PRIZES!
Tourney Play: Pool Play
We put everyone into pools of 4
And each person plays everyone else in that pool in a BO3 so that way, everyone is guaranteed X amount of BO3 matches
The Top 2 from each pool (depending on the size of the tourney) gets into the bracket rounds
The bracket rounds are a BO3
The semi finals are a BO5
The finals BO5
ALL WELCOME TO HANG OUT / WATCH
ALL WELCOME TO PLAY AFTERWARDS / REPLAYS
ALL WELCOME TO CAST GAMES as long as you are in a different room.
Hangout and play welcome as well. I want to thank LzGamer and Machine for coming out last time!!!!!!Sunday, July 8th, 2012 11:00am2625 W Baseline Rd Tempe AZ***Room Reservation Pending***POWER PROBLEMS RESOLVED!Tourney 10$ Entry fee brackets will be created at the location.Bring Your Own Computer ( Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, LAN Cable or Laptop )WIFI AvailablePlease if you have power strips bring them ( the more the merrier )( EXTENSION CORDS PLEASE IF YOU HAVE THEM )Prizes: Cash Prize 1st 60%, 2nd 30%, 3rd 10% ( of pool )ALL MONEY GOING TO PRIZES: MORE PEOPLE MORE PRIZES!Tourney Play: Pool PlayWe put everyone into pools of 4And each person plays everyone else in that pool in a BO3 so that way, everyone is guaranteed X amount of BO3 matchesThe Top 2 from each pool (depending on the size of the tourney) gets into the bracket roundsThe bracket rounds are a BO3The semi finals are a BO5The finals BO5ALL WELCOME TO HANG OUT / WATCHALL WELCOME TO PLAY AFTERWARDS / REPLAYSALL WELCOME TO CAST GAMES as long as you are in a different room.Hangout and play welcome as well.The statistics on poverty in America are stark—“Nearly 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 60 will experience a year in poverty at some point” and extreme poverty is on the rise—but there are positive signs, too—the number of people living in poverty dropped by 3.5 million in 2015. Hillary Clinton cites these numbers in a New York Times op-ed introducing her plans for tackling poverty, and as she points out, that last number makes clear that policy can make a difference.
And this is Hillary Clinton. She has policy ideas. Good jobs are first, of course—there’s no better way to make people not poor than to create jobs that pay above-poverty wages. Which also means raising the minimum wage, and making equal pay for women a reality. But there’s more. Affordable housing:
My plan would expand Low Income Housing Tax Credits in high-cost areas to increase our affordable housing supply, and fuel broader community development. So if you are a family living in an expensive city, you would be able to find an affordable place to call home and have access to the transportation you need to get to good jobs and quality schools.
The childcare program Clinton already unveiled, guaranteeing that no family will spend more than 10 percent of its income on childcare, is an important anti-poverty program. Paid family leave is on the list, too. But while those proposals would help a broad swath of American workers, from poor to upper middle class, Clinton also has proposals targeted more specifically at poverty:
Tim Kaine and I will model our anti-poverty strategy on Congressman Jim Clyburn’s 10-20-30 plan, directing 10 percent of federal investments to communities where 20 percent of the population has been living below the poverty line for 30 years. And we’ll put special emphasis on minority communities that have been held back for too long by barriers of systemic racism.
Donald Trump? Well, even if he wanted to take on poverty, he wouldn’t have a plan beyond making America great again and building a wall, because Trump does not do policy. But safe to say Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about poor people.
Can you spare $1 for a candidate who'll make sure more of us have more than $1 to spare?
48 days remain until the election. Click here to make sure you're registered to vote. And while you're at it, make sure your family and friends are registered too.As reports emerge to suggest the rewilding debate is widening to include wolves, the National Sheep Association is raising serious concerns.
The NSA understands a pack of wolf cubs has been imported to a wildlife park in Devon as the first step in ultimately introducing the animals into the wild. The cubs are being monitored by scientists in captivity but, as with the lynx, no release license has been applied for.
However, there are still big questions over the processes and proposals around releasing lynx to the wild, in areas including Kielder.
It is still not clear if and when the Lynx UK Trust will make an application for a release licence for Lynx, but NSA feels the necessary consultation process to support such an application has not been adhered to so far. Communication so far has not been transparent and Lynx UK’s local consultation meetings not publicised well enough to allow all stakeholders to attend.
Opinions from residents in Kielder were recently gathered by local MP Guy Opperman, with results of a small survey showing 97% of individuals in villages closest to the release site were opposed to the proposals.
Phil Stocker NSA chief executive, said: “The beauty of an area like Kielder already provides a stunning example of the countryside we enjoy in the UK that has been formed by centuries of farming, grazing and human activity. We stand to lose much more than just sheep if farm businesses cannot continue in the face of lynx introduction.”
Lynx UK’s website states: “We intend to apply for a licence in 2017 to trial the reintroduction of lynx to the wild for a period of five years; recognising that this is a significant step for both conservation and ecological science in the UK, we are currently carrying out a detailed and pro-active stakeholder consultation.”BAY ISMOYO / AFP / Getty Images Soldiers from Company A of the 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles and the Afghan National Army patrol near Nahr e Saraj village in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on June 23, 2010
Were the Taliban behind the actions of a rogue Afghan army soldier who allegedly killed three British servicemen overnight while they slept? The militants claimed that the episode, which included a shooting and a grenade assault, was a premeditated attack, part of a new strategy to push back against coalition forces spread out in record numbers across southern Afghanistan's battle zones. Although the inside-job claim remains unconfirmed, the killings cast a shadow on the quality and reliability of Afghan security forces deployed in a hostile region where they are being groomed to take the reins of their country's security and wean themselves from dependence on Western troops.
The assault took place at a British military outpost in Nahr-e-Saraj district, a Taliban stronghold near the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah. A senior Afghan National Army (ANA) officer identified the gunman as Talib Hussein, 23, a member of the ethnic Hazara minority from Ghazni province who had served for less than a year, mainly in remote swaths of Helmand province, far from home. After killing a major in his bed, the suspect fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the base's command center, killing a British lieutenant and Nepalese Gurkha and injuring four others, before he managed to flee outside |
within, and only 10.82% between the two clusters, equalling an F ST value of 0.11 (Supplementary Table S5).
The PCAs using microsatellite data (Fig. 4) are in line with the structure analyses in that the blue lineage (N. n. helvetica) was highly distinct from the yellow and red lineages, with some mismatches reflecting mitochondrial introgression mainly from helvetica into the eastern group. In contrast, the eastern lineages showed weak differentiation and massive overlap. The PCAs corroborate furthermore that our definition of admixed individuals is appropriate because hybrids were intermediate also in the PCA, independently from population affiliation, HWE or linkage equilibrium.
Figure 4 PCA axes 1–2 for microsatellite data. Samples are coloured according to mitochondrial lineages (top) or structure clusters (bottom). Admixed individuals were identified according to hybridlab results. PCAs for the yellow and red lineages correspond to the samples from Fig. 3c. Non-native samples were excluded. The oval outlines represent 95% confidential intervals. For helvetica and the eastern lineages (left) the x axis explains 16.6% and the y axis 4.5% of variation. For the eastern lineages (right) the x axis explains 3.8% and the y axis 2.9% of variation. Analyses along axes 1–3 produced nearly identical results (see Supplementary Fig. S4). Full size image
Cline analyses
The cline analyses revealed completely different patterns in the two contact zones (Fig. 5). For the western contact zone (contact zone I), the cline is concordant and very steep for both marker systems. For microsatellites, the cline centre was estimated to be located 639.9 km (95% confidence interval: 635.1–644.2 km) north-east from the starting point in southern France with a cline width of 39.4 km (24.4–59.6 km). For mitochondrial data, the cline centre was revealed almost at the same point, at 637.2 km (632.9–641.2 km), with a similar cline width of 37.5 km (27.3–53.6 km). A much smoother cline was found for the contact zone of the yellow and red lineages (contact zone II). The cline centre for microsatellites was located 518.7 km (454.5–590.4 km) distant from the reference site in northern Germany with a considerable cline width of 677.1 km (404.5–1,009.6 km). The width for the mtDNA cline was with 358.3 km (261.5–489.7 km) approximately half as wide as the microsatellite cline. The location of the centre was nearly identical at 503.8 km (474.6–537.0 km) from the reference site.Juniper has acquired Cyphort, a maker of security analytics software for large and midsize enterprises. The acquisition strengthens the capabilities of Juniper Sky Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP), giving security practitioners a consistent feature set for both on-premises and cloud solutions.
Juniper has added the Cyphort offering to its Software-Defined Secure Networks (SDSN) platform as the Juniper Networks Advanced Threat Prevention Appliance to help automate operations and provide unified visibility, enforcement, and mitigation across the cybercrime lifecycle. The appliance represents the on-premises companion to Juniper’s cloud-delivered Sky ATP service. Both offerings leverage Cyphort's innovative analytics and remediation technology to provide built-in threat behavior visibility and one-touch mitigation, accelerating incident response.
Ideal for organizations with strict data sovereignty requirements, the ATP appliance is ICSA-certified and can speed time to remediation from an average of two hours to just 10 minutes.
The Cyphort technology generally increases the efficiency and performance of Juniper’s Sky ATP platform. It allows Sky ATP to support a wider range of file types and new threat-detection functionality that draws from advanced machine learning and behavioral analytics.Your message has been sent successfully
In tonight's CNN town-hall, Anderson Cooper asked GOP front-runner Donald Trump about a photograph he re-tweeted which appeared to anyone with eyes to cast Texas Senator Ted Cruz's wife Heidi in an unflattering light.
Trump replied that despite it being fairly obvious that he was attempting to do just that, that wasn't his intent. "I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi," he said.
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Cooper replied, "Come on, you're running for president of the United States."
"Look," Trump replied, "I didn't start it."
"Sir, with all due respect, that's the argument of a five-year-old," Cooper said.
"It is not," Trump replied. "It is not!"
"The argument of a five-year-old is, 'He started it'!" Cooper said.
"You would say that. But he started it! The problem with our country -- that thinking, that's the problem with the country. He sent out a picture" -- Cruz did not, as Cooper noted, it was an anti-Trump group -- "it was Romney people, they were very embarrassed he did so poorly four years ago, he choked like a dog."
If you have trouble following his logic there, don't worry, nobody else any could either.
Watch a whiny Donald Trump interrupt Anderson Cooper 14 annoying times here:
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Watch the entire exchange below via CNN.Around the time Dragon Age came out, I bought an Xbox. It came with two games, and Dragon Age was one of them. I started it up and played through a few of the origins, and then I read John Walker's review in PCG 207. I couldn't believe it. 94 percent? For this? Sure, there's great talky bits (I'm a fan of talky bits) but the combat is just dull, and there's so much of it that I couldn't stand marching through any more of it just to get to five minutes of dialogue. I couldn't understand his review. I started to think he might have Bioware bedsheets. Of course, John Walker is one of our mightiest writers, and he wasn't wrong about Dragon Age - it just didn't match up to what I was playing. On Xbox, it's like eating your favourite meal on an economy class flight - it suffers from being crammed into a little plastic box.
On the Xbox, pausing the game to position my guys was an unwieldy wrestling match against the controller, the UI was a mess clustered around a radial menu, and I never did work out crafting. It felt like a fever dream. I stopped playing, I abandoned Ferelden to the blight, and I got on with Brütal Legend (which did that noisy black box proud, might I add).
Read more: Pathfinder: Kingmaker review
Almost a year passed, and I got my hands on a copy of Dragon Age: Origins for the PC. "I never did complete that," I thought to myself. "I'll take it home, see if I can finish it this time." I took it home. I played through the Dwarven Commoner Origin and thought it was great - no real fighting, the way I played it, and when I did have to face someone it was a one-on-one duel that would have been a doddle on any gaming platform. But there were still a few origins I hadn't tried, and I wanted to sample each one before I forged ahead to Ostagar and the main plot.
When I tried a Dalish elf character, I made a jaw-dropping discovery. The Dalish origin has you wind through a series of underground caves fighting giant spiders, skeletons, and Darkspawn (which are definitely not orcs), and it showcases the improved PC combat wonderfully - pause with the spacebar, click to select a party member, move the camera to a group of enemies, right click on that enemy to attack. You can move your rogues behind enemies for maximum damage, have your mage run to exactly the right place for an area effect spell, and really look at the battlefield. I could finally enjoy it, get behind it.
The UI makes more sense on a PC too. No holding the left trigger and paddling around with the analogues - just click 'inventory' and there it is. You can even press M to open your map. If you tried it on Xbox and wrote John Walker off as a maniac, like I did, you've made a terrible mistake. Ferelden is waiting for you, friends, and those Darkspawn aren't going to eviscerate themselves.Update 8/7/18 – I no longer recommend the Flowermate Swift PRO. There are better values to be found.
Vapor Quality & Taste
The Flowermate SWIFT Pro is the first FULLY CONVECTION portable vaporizer from Flowermate. At 4.3″ tall, 2.2″ wide, 1.1″ deep and weighing just 4.5oz, the SWIFT Pro is very pocketable. It is available NOW at Puffitup.com
Flowermate hit a home run in this department. Vapor from the SWIFT Pro is clean, smooth, and delicious. I tasted the most flavorful strains of indica and sativa at low and high temperatures. With the glass ring installed, the taste of each strain shines bright and clear, even at higher temperatures. Using the wooden rings takes the taste to another level, giving the vapor a slight woody undertone. Even cranking the heat up to 446 can produce some pretty good flavors if you like to achieve maximum extraction, or are aiming for a stonier type of high.
Customizable Vaping Experience
Ease of Use
The Flowermate SWIFT Pro features an interchangeable ring system. The rings serve as the herb chamber walls. Each ring has slightly different thermal properties, which allow the user to fine tune the way their vaporizer performs. The chamber itself threads into the unit and holds the ring in place. The unit comes with glass and wooden rings. The wooden rings don’t heat up very much, giving you the most pure convection. The glass ring will retain more heat, which increases the chamber temp and improves vapor production. The differences in vapor are hard to detect, the difference in flavor is not.
Loading and unloading the chamber is easy. The 12mm bowl is wide enough to load with your fingers, but the little funnel included with the vape is wonderful. It funnels your material into the chamber and blocks off the harder to clean surrounding area. Unloading the bowl is simple and pain free. No tools or brushes needed, just a shake or a tap into a mason jar and its empty and clean. I knock any abv stuck to the screen off with my fingers. Reloading a bowl can be done quickly and cleaning.
The interface is standard and easy as well. Five clicks to turn on/off, adjust temp with the up/down arrows. Hold the power button to wake up and start cooking again when the unit goes to sleep (every motherflipping 4 minutes…)
There’s no real learning curve. Load it, turn it on, start blowing clouds. The first pull will be softer, but cloud production improves as your material gets a bit of heat.
Stirring your material isn’t required, but it REALLY helps. I vape 4 minutes at 380 and 3 minutes at 420, with a stir at the temp change.
Airflow / Draw Resistance
The SWIFT Pro has some draw resistance. It’s definitely not free-flowing. This isn’t really a bad thing though. This is how the vape designer eliminates the learning curve and assures everyone is able to pull clouds. Pulling at the maximum flow allowed by the restrictive vapor path provides the perfect draw speed for the air to get heated as it passes through the heater.
Cleaning & Maintenance
Daily and even routine maintenance on the SWIFT is pretty easy. The ring and chamber just brushes clean. Once a week (if using daily) is all it takes, just unscrew the chamber, drop out the screen, brush the dust out and reassemble. About every month you’ll want to clean the screen. The inside will be gooey with honey-like residue. You can harvest this and vape it, or not worry about it. Cleaning the screen is as simple as unscrewing it from the mouthpiece and soaking in alcohol for a few minutes.
This vape is very easy to maintain. Just don’t get isopropyl alcohol on the exterior…
Build Quality, Ergonomics and Design
Battery Life
The Flowermate SWIFT Pro is made almost entirely out of plastic. The two heaters, battery, and screens are pretty much the only metal. It’s nice enough quality to NOT feel like a toy. It has a rubberized-feel to it, kind of soft and satin-like. The body is smooth and seamless, feels great in the hand, and slides effortlessly in and out of pockets.
Pure convection heating apparently consumes a lot of power, because I’m only able to get three double sessions out of a single charge. While this is fine for me because it has micro-usb charging and micro-usb is EVERYWHERE, it may not be convenient for some. A replaceable battery would be ideal. If you plan to use the SWIFT Pro on the go, pick up a portable battery for $20 on Amazon.
Final Thoughts
This is a really interesting vape. It’s ultra efficient – only cooking your material when you’re taking a draw. It’s even more efficient than truly on-demand units like the FireFly 2.
The vapor is great, super tasty and fluffy. It’s easy to use and ultra gentle on the throat. It’s awesome through a bong too.
At $220 I’d really like to get 4 full bowls out of it without having to re-charge, but the pure convection and kickass vapor make up for it.
Flowermate SWIFT Pro Gallerynovel by Dan Brown
The Lost Symbol is a 2009 novel written by American writer Dan Brown.[2][3] It is a thriller set in Washington, D.C., after the events of The Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters.[4]
Released on September 15, 2009, it is the third Brown novel to involve the character of Harvard University symbologist Robert Langdon, following 2000's Angels & Demons and 2003's The Da Vinci Code.[2] It had a first printing of 6.5 million (5 million in North America, 1.5 million in the UK), the largest in Doubleday history. On its first day the book sold one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the U.S., the UK and Canada, making it the fastest selling adult novel in history.[5] It was number one on the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction[6] for the first six weeks of its release,[7] and remained on the list for 29 weeks. As of January 2013, there were 30 million copies in print worldwide.[8]
Plot [ edit ]
Renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is invited to give a lecture at the United States Capitol, at the invitation apparently from his mentor, a 33rd degree Mason named Peter Solomon, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution. Solomon has also asked him to bring a small, sealed package which he had entrusted to Langdon years earlier. When Langdon arrives at the Capitol, however, he learns that the invitation he received was not from Solomon, but from Solomon's kidnapper, Mal'akh posing as Solomon's assistant, who has left Solomon's severed right hand in the middle of the Capitol Rotunda in a recreation of the Hand of Mysteries. Mal'akh then contacts Langdon, charging him with finding both the Mason's Pyramid, which Masons believe is hidden somewhere in Washington, D.C., and the Lost Word, lest Solomon be murdered.
Langdon meets Trent Anderson, head of the Capitol police, and Inoue Sato, the head of the CIA's Office of Security. Sato claims that Mal'akh poses a threat to the national security of the U.S. and that his capture is more important than Peter's rescue, although she refuses to elaborate. Examining Solomon's hand, they discover a clue leading them to Solomon's Masonic altar in a room in the Capitol's sub-basement, where they find a small pyramid lacking a capstone, with an inscription carved into it.
Sato then confronts Langdon with the security x-ray taken of his bag when he entered the Capitol which reveals a smaller pyramid in the package Langdon brought in response to the request by the kidnapper posing as Solomon. Langdon explains that he was unaware of its contents, but Sato, refusing to believe it, attempts to take Langdon into custody. Before she can arrest him, however, she and Anderson are assaulted by Warren Bellamy, the Architect of the Capitol and a Freemason, who then flees with Langdon in the confusion. He later explains to Langdon that he too has been in contact with Mal'akh and wants Langdon's assistance in rescuing Peter.
Mal'akh is revealed to be a Freemason with tattoos covering almost his entire body. He infiltrated the organization in order to obtain an ancient source of power,[9] which he believes Langdon can unlock for him in return for Peter Solomon's life. Several chapters also delve into Mal'akh's history with Peter Solomon: many years earlier, Peter bequeathed a large sum of inheritance money to his rebellious son, Zachary, who then fled the Solomon household and led a reckless life in Europe until he was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for smuggling drugs. Peter flew to Turkey but decided to have Zachary extradited in a week's time instead of getting him released immediately in order to teach him a lesson. Zachary was apparently murdered by his cellmate who got his hands on Zachary's fortune and fled to Greece to lead a luxurious life under the name Andros Dareios. Dareios, however, soon grew tired of his life. Apparently having spoken with Zachary about Solomon's life as a Mason, Dareios broke into Solomon's home to find the pyramid, but accidentally killed Peter's mother Isabel and was in turn shot and left to fall into a frozen river by a vengeful Solomon. Surviving the fall, Dareios nursed himself back to health, covered his scars and eventually his entire body with tattoos and set off on a mission to infiltrate the Freemasons and gain access to their secrets, adopting the name Mal'akh.
As Langdon deals with the events into which he has been thrust, Mal'akh destroys the Smithonsonian-sponsored laboratory of Dr. Katherine Solomon, Peter's younger sister, where she has conducted experiments in Noetic Science, in the process ambushing and almost killing Katherine in a cat-and-mouse chase, but Katherine manages to escape and meet up with Langdon and Bellamy. Eventually, when cornered by the authorities, Bellamy is forced to give himself up while Langdon and Katherine escape. Both are later apprehended by Sato's team. Following clues regarding Mal'akh's previous identity as Peter Solomon's psychiatrist, Dr. Christopher Abaddon, Sato allows Langdon and Katherine to rush to his mansion to confront him, but Mal'akh ambushes them and murders their CIA escort. Meanwhile, as he is being interrogated by Sato, Bellamy expresses belief that Sato is working with Mal'akh but Sato assures Bellamy that she is also pursuing Mal'akh in the interest of national security and displays evidence that visibly shocks Bellamy.
Mal'akh places Langdon into an airtight sensory deprivation tank, where he interrogates Langdon by slowly filling the tank with liquid. He is able to convince Langdon to decipher the code at the pyramid's base, but continues to fill the tank until Langdon drowns and apparently dies. Mal'akh then ties Katherine to a chair and inserts an open-ended transfusion needle into her arm and leaves her to bleed to death then flees with a weakened and wheelchair-bound Peter Solomon to the Temple Room of the Scottish Rite's House of the Temple. He uses the threat of not calling an ambulance for Katherine as further coercion for Peter's cooperation. Sato leads a team of agents to the mansion after Langdon and Katherine's escort fails to check in and are able to save Katherine's life. After a near-death experience, Langdon is revealed to have survived due to the "water" in the tank actually being breathable oxygenated liquid and the tank being a device for meditation. Sato, Langdon and Simkins race to the House of the Temple where Mal'akh threatens to release a heavily edited video showing government officials performing secret Masonic rituals (the same video that Sato showed to Bellamy), which without context, appears highly disturbing. Mal'akh forces the Word—the unpronounceable circumpunct—out of Peter and tattoos it on his head on the last portion of unmarked skin on his body. Mal'akh then orders Peter to sacrifice him, as he believes that it is his destiny to become a demonic spirit and lead the forces of evil. When Peter claims that he will do so without hesitation to avenge his son and mother, Mal'akh shocks Peter by revealing that he is actually Zachary Solomon himself, having conspired with the prison warden to fake his death by disfiguring the body of another inmate beyond recognition (at the same time, Katherine and Bellamy discover several photos of Zachary in Greece after his supposed death that show his gradual transformation into Mal'akh). With tears in his eyes, Peter prepares to stab Zachary but ultimately cannot bring himself to do so and drops the knife just as Langdon arrives and tackles him. Director Sato arrives at the Temple in a helicopter, which smashes the Temple's skylight, the shards of which fatally impale Zachary. The CIA then thwart Zachary's plan to transmit the video to several leading media channels using an EMP blast, disabling a cell tower in the network path leading from Zachary's laptop computer. Katherine arrives and she and Langdon then share a tearful reunion with Peter and mourn Zachary's death. Zachary is only briefly able to lament his body's mutilation before dying.
Later, Peter informs Langdon that the circumpunct Zachary tattooed on his head is not the Word. He also informs Katherine that he made back-ups of all of her noetic research data on his own computer, meaning her research can continue. Deciding to take Langdon to the true secret behind the Word, Peter leads him to the room atop the Washington Monument and tells him that the Word—a common Christian Bible, the Word of God—lies in the monument's cornerstone, buried in the ground beneath the monument's staircase. Langdon realizes that the symbols on the pyramid's base spelled out the words Laus Deo which translate to Praise God. These words are inscribed on the small aluminum capstone atop the Monument, which is the true Masonic Pyramid.
Peter tells Langdon that the Masons believe that the Bible is an esoteric allegory written by humanity, and that, like most religious texts around the globe, it contains veiled instructions for harnessing humanity's natural God-like qualities—similar to Katherine's noetic research—and is not meant to be interpreted as the commands of an all-powerful deity. This interpretation has been lost amid centuries of scientific skepticism and fundamentalist zealotry. The Masons have (metaphorically) buried it, believing that, when the time is right, its rediscovery will usher in a new era of human enlightenment.
Characters [ edit ]
Robert Langdon : A professor of symbology at Harvard University and the protagonist of the novel.
: A professor of symbology at Harvard University and the protagonist of the novel. Mal'akh : A Mason whose body is covered with tattoos and the novel's main antagonist. Formerly known as Zachary Solomon, the son of Peter, was arrested in Turkey for drug possession. During his incarceration he overheard a conversation between his father and the prison warden reaffirming that Peter would not pay for Zachary's release as he did not wish his son to believe that money was able to waiver all punishment, especially one of the magnitude of drug possession. Angered, Zachary conspired with the warden to have his cell-mate killed and proceeded to report Zachary dead. Zachary broke out under the name Andros Dareios for several years and took on a whole new life-style in Greece. After much growth hormones and steroid indulgence, he began to bore of this life-style and began to cultivate his mind in the Masonry ideals and practices. He renamed himself Mal'akh after an attempt to obtain the Masonic secrets from his father, breaking into their home, and killing his grandmother. Mal'akh sees himself as a physical manifestation of the angel Moloch, as he worshipped the Black Arts in order to grow stronger and he performed numerous aspects of black magic which allowed the angel to enter his body. Mal'akh is the Hebrew word for 'angel'. Throughout the book, he also uses the name Dr. Christopher Abaddon to gain his father's trust, and Andros Dareios, a name he used while hiding out in Greece before the book's events. Of note, he is the first antagonist in the Robert Langdon series who serves as both the killer and the mastermind of the events in the novel, with all other killers merely acting on behalf of the mastermind.
: A Mason whose body is covered with tattoos and the novel's main antagonist. Formerly known as Zachary Solomon, the son of Peter, was arrested in Turkey for drug possession. During his incarceration he overheard a conversation between his father and the prison warden reaffirming that Peter would not pay for Zachary's release as he did not wish his son to believe that money was able to waiver all punishment, especially one of the magnitude of drug possession. Angered, Zachary conspired with the warden to have his cell-mate killed and proceeded to report Zachary dead. Zachary broke out under the name Andros Dareios for several years and took on a whole new life-style in Greece. After much growth hormones and steroid indulgence, he began to bore of this life-style and began to cultivate his mind in the Masonry ideals and practices. He renamed himself Mal'akh after an attempt to obtain the Masonic secrets from his father, breaking into their home, and killing his grandmother. Mal'akh sees himself as a physical manifestation of the angel Moloch, as he worshipped the Black Arts in order to grow stronger and he performed numerous aspects of black magic which allowed the angel to enter his body. Mal'akh is the Hebrew word for 'angel'. Throughout the book, he also uses the name Dr. Christopher Abaddon to gain his father's trust, and Andros Dareios, a name he used while hiding out in Greece before the book's events. Of note, he is the first antagonist in the Robert Langdon series who serves as both the killer and the mastermind of the events in the novel, with all other killers merely acting on behalf of the mastermind. Peter Solomon : A Smithsonian secretary, billionaire philanthropist, Freemason, father of Zachary Solomon, and close friend of Robert Langdon. His kidnapping sets into motion Langdon's race to find the Mason's Pyramid and the Lost Symbol.
: A Smithsonian secretary, billionaire philanthropist, Freemason, father of Zachary Solomon, and close friend of Robert Langdon. His kidnapping sets into motion Langdon's race to find the Mason's Pyramid and the Lost Symbol. Katherine Solomon : Noetic scientist, sister of Peter Solomon, aunt of Zachary Solomon.
: Noetic scientist, sister of Peter Solomon, aunt of Zachary Solomon. Trish Dunne : Katherine's metasystems analyst. She is murdered by Mal'akh while in his Dr. Abaddon disguise, when he drowns her in the ethanol-filled tank preserving a Giant Squid.
: Katherine's metasystems analyst. She is murdered by Mal'akh while in his Dr. Abaddon disguise, when he drowns her in the ethanol-filled tank preserving a Giant Squid. Isabel Solomon : mother of Peter and Katherine Solomon and grandmother of Zachary Solomon. She was killed ten years before the events of the book by Zachary, disguised as Andros Dareios.
: mother of Peter and Katherine Solomon and grandmother of Zachary Solomon. She was killed ten years before the events of the book by Zachary, disguised as Andros Dareios. Warren Bellamy : Architect of the Capitol and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon. He aids Langdon and Katherine Solomon by helping them escape from Inoue Sato, briefly suspecting her of helping Mal'akh, but he later learns that he and Sato are on the same side.
: Architect of the Capitol and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon. He aids Langdon and Katherine Solomon by helping them escape from Inoue Sato, briefly suspecting her of helping Mal'akh, but he later learns that he and Sato are on the same side. Inoue Sato : the second-generation Japanese-American Director of CIA's Office of Security, from whom Langdon must flee after she accuses him of criminal acts.
: the second-generation Japanese-American Director of CIA's Office of Security, from whom Langdon must flee after she accuses him of criminal acts. Reverend Colin Galloway : Dean of Washington National Cathedral and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon and Warren Bellamy.
: Dean of Washington National Cathedral and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon and Warren Bellamy. Trent Anderson : Capitol police chief.
: Capitol police chief. Jonas Faukman : Langdon's New York editor (named for Brown's real-life editor, Jason Kaufman). [10]
: Langdon's New York editor (named for Brown's real-life editor, Jason Kaufman). Nola Kaye : CIA analyst, named after Elonka Dunin, Kryptos expert [11] [12] [13]
: CIA analyst, named after Elonka Dunin, expert Omar Amirana: A taxi driver
Publication details [ edit ]
The Lost Symbol had been in development for several years; originally expected in 2006, the projected publication date was pushed back multiple times.[14] When officially announced, the hardcopy book was on pre-order lists for months leading up to its release, being heavily ordered both in the United States and Canada.[15][16] The book was published on September 15, 2009 with an initial print run of 6.5 million copies, the largest first printing in publisher Random House's history.[17][18] Electronic versions such as eBook[19] and Audible book versions[20] were also made available on the same date.[21] The American release audio book was read by Paul Michael, who also performed the audio book for The Da Vinci Code.
The book immediately broke sales records, becoming the fastest selling adult-market novel in history, with over one million copies sold on the first day of release. By the end of the first week, a total of two million copies had been sold in the U.S., Canada, and UK.[22] According to the publisher, the rapid sales prompted the printing of an additional 600,000 hardcover copies to the 5 million initially printed for the US market.[5] On its first day the book became the #1 bestseller on Amazon.com,[23] and the Amazon Kindle e-reader edition became the top-selling item on Amazon.com, outselling Amazon's sales of the hardback copy of the novel, which is the sixth best selling book of 2009 on pre-publication orders alone.[24] The Lost Symbol also ranked as the #1 bestseller in Amazon's Canadian and British sites.[25][26] Both Barnes & Noble and Waterstone's reported the book has broken all previous records for adult fiction in the United Kingdom.[27][28] According to Nielsen BookScan data, 550,946 copies of The Lost Symbol were sold in its first week of sale, taking $7.49 million. By the end of the second sales week, Transworld intended to have 1.25 million copies printed.[29]
By September 25 the book ranked #1 in the New York Times Best Seller list for hardcover fiction.[6]
Reception [ edit ]
The New York Times praised the book as being "impossible to put down" and claimed Brown is "bringing sexy back to a genre that had been left for dead." Nevertheless, it noted the overuse of certain phrases and italics, as well as the lack of logic behind characters' motivations. It also likened Inoue Sato to Jar Jar Binks.[30] Los Angeles Times said, "Brown's narrative moves rapidly, except for those clunky moments when people sound like encyclopedias."[31] Newsweek called the book "contrived", saying that to get through The Lost Symbol, just like The Da Vinci Code, it was necessary to swallow a lot of coincidences, but the book was still a page-turner, and that Brown "is a maze maker who builds a puzzle and then walks you through it. His genius lies in uncovering odd facts and suppressed history, stirring them together into a complicated stew and then saying, what if?"[32] The National Post's review called it a "heavy-handed, clumsy thriller" and that the character of the villain (Mal'akh) "bears an uncomfortably close similarity" to the Francis Dolarhyde character in Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon.[33] The Daily Telegraph said the novel was "not quite the literary train-wreck expected."[34] TIME said the plot was fun, if bruising, but "It would be irresponsible not to point out that the general feel, if not all the specifics, of Brown's cultural history is entirely correct. He loves showing us places where our carefully tended cultural boundaries — between Christian and pagan, sacred and secular, ancient and modern — are actually extraordinarily messy."[35] Novelist William Sutcliffe's review in the Financial Times panned the book as "a novel that asks nothing of the reader, and gives the reader nothing back", adding that it "is filled with cliché, bombast, undigested research and pseudo-intellectual codswallop".[36] The digested read by John Crace in The Guardian ends with Robert Langdon begging Dan Brown "Please don't wheel me out again."[37] Slovene philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek described the book as "a candidate for the worst novel ever".[38]
Film [ edit ]
Following the worldwide successes of The Da Vinci Code in 2006[39] and Angels & Demons in 2009,[40] which were both based on Brown's novels, starring Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon and produced and directed by Ron Howard, Columbia Pictures began production on a film adaptation of The Lost Symbol.[41][42] Hanks and Howard were expected to return for the film adaptation of The Lost Symbol, along with the franchise's producers Brian Grazer and John Calley. Sony Pictures eventually hired three screenwriters for the project, beginning with Steven Knight[43] and then hiring Brown himself.[44] In March 2012, Danny Strong was also hired to collaborate on the adaptation.[45]
According to a January 2013 article in Los Angeles Times, the final draft of the screenplay was due sometime in February, with pre-production expected to start in the mid-2013.[8] In July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016[46] release date with Howard as director, David Koepp adapting the screenplay and Hanks reprising his role as Robert Langdon.[47]
See also [ edit ]
Institute of Noetic Sciences
Lynne McTaggart, cited in the novel as being a source of inspiration for Katherine Solomon
Almas Temple, a Shriner temple and location in the story
Kryptos, a sculpture by artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the CIA in Langley, Virginia
, a sculpture by artist Jim Sanborn located on the grounds of the CIA in Langley, Virginia National Treasure, a film with a similar plot
References [ edit ]In Silicon Valley, where wit and irony are far scarcer than venture funding, Aaron Levie is one of the few truly funny guys. Levie is the CEO of Box, a software company that makes online tools for businesses. That doesn't sound especially thrilling, as Levie self-deprecatingly acknowledged the other day at Box's annual conference in San Francisco, where he had just sat down on stage to interview Apple CEO Tim Cook.
"You know you're at an enterprise software conference, right?" Levie asked Cook, whose company is known more for its hypnotic command over consumers than businesses. "Your PR team told you?"
'You wouldn't say, let me go buy an enterprise car. You don't get an enterprise pen to write with.' Tim Cook
Cook was making his first public appearance since Apple reported selling more than 13 million of its new iPhones the previous weekend, a new record. An enterprise tech conference might seem like an odd place to crow about another crowning moment in Apple's reign over consumer tech. But Cook wasn't there to brag. His presence alone in front of an audience of thousands of business conventioneers signaled yet one more way Apple has forced a radical reconfiguration of the tech industry over the past several years. The heavens have shifted. Even in business, everyone orbits Apple now.
The theme of the Box conference was mobile technology, and Cook asserted that businesses still have only a halting grasp of mobile's potential. At the moment, he claimed, most businesses think of mobile tech as little more than a portable way to check email.
"To take advantage of it in a huge way you have to rethink everything that you're doing," he said. "There's no doubt in my mind the best companies will be the most mobile."
In the world of enterprise tech marketing, that's the dog-bites-man of banal pitches: it's utterly expected. But coming from the mouth of Apple's top executive, it takes on an extra dimension of significance. When Cook says "the most mobile," what he's really saying is "the most Apple."
Apple hasn't long been in a position to make such a claim credibly. The company's long resurgence under Steve Jobs originated in Jobs' genius for consumer products. The iMac, then the iPod, then the iPhone: Apple designed these devices for mass appeal—tech for generalists, not the specialized worlds of work.
But then a funny thing happened. Apple customers didn't start demanding new devices for work. They adapted their work to the Apple devices they already had.
"Who uses iOS?" Levie asked the crowd. A forest of hands shot up.
And by Cook's logic, that shouldn't be a surprise. Things that make Apple products great for business, |
If you’ve tried other things on the menu and seen positive reviews on the place from others, give the sushi a try. In good sushi that’s prepared with good nori, the taste is so mild and the texture so delicate you might not even notice it at all. What constitutes good nori? The truth is, I don’t know, but that’s never been an obstacle. When I purchase nori for homemade sushi I just go to the Asian market and ask the staff for recommendation. It works.
Another thing to do if you’re not quite on board with seaweed yet is to order uramaki, also sometimes referred to as an “inside out roll.” In uramaki, the nori wraps the filling, and rice wraps the nori, as opposed to the nori being wrapped around the rice. Check out this roll as an example of uramaki. In uramaki, the nori is tucked away on the interior of the roll, so there’s less of it, and it’s less detectable.
Finally, you might be able to skip the nori altogether. After getting some questions on nori alternatives concerning my past recipes, I decided to explore a bit. I discovered soy wrappers, which I’ve used in today’s recipe. The flavor was mild and the texture smooth, so these might be good choice for nori haters who wish to move on to making their own sushi.
If you can find a veggie friendly version, you could also order nigiri when dining out, which is a ball of rice with a topping draped over top (as opposed to maki, which is the rolled types of sushi we’ve been talking about up until now).
The other big variable when it comes to eating sushi is filling. This part is easy. For me, it’s pretty much a guarantee that the amount of enjoyment I get from eating any given type of roll is proportional to the amount of enjoyment I’d get from eating the filling on it’s own. Will I enjoy eating a cucumber roll? Yes, but to about the degree I enjoy eating a plain old cucumber. How about a roll stuffed with pan-fried spicy eggplant? Yup! Spicy eggplant on it’s own sounds pretty awesome, so spicy eggplant sushi probably will be as well. Obviously, there are exceptions, mainly pertaining to delicious foods that just wouldn’t go with sushi fixings, but you get the idea. So if you’ve tried a plain veggie roll and been unimpressed, consider seeking out a place that has some more interesting vegetarian rolls. I’m seeing more and more tempura-avocado-peanutty-pickled goodies stuffed into sushi. Go out and find some of that deliciousness.
Making Sushi
After an initial fail at sushi rolling, it took me forever to get up the courage to try again. It turned out that I didn’t need to be so nervous, because (1) rolling isn’t as hard as I thought, and (2) I didn’t actually need to roll anything.
Let’s start with not rolling. If you want to explore different sushi flavors at home without rolling, you’ve got options. The easiest would be a sushi bowl. I love this idea. You cook up some rice, stick it in a bowl with some sushi toppings and drizzle with dressing. Nothing scary about that! There’s a bunch of recipes for this type of thing, but if you need a place to get started try here, here or here.
Once you’ve got the sushi bowl down, try a few other options that don’t require rolling.
Try some layered sushi.
Or some homemade vegan nigiri.
Or get yourself a sushi mold, and use it to shove your ingredients for any sushi recipe into a neat little box. I have a friend that swears by these things.
Ready to roll but not ready to invest in a mat? Use a dish towel.
Once you realize how much you love DIY sushi, then get yourself a mat.
Okay, still with me? I taught myself to roll sushi with YouTube. That’s it. No classes, totally free, and it took a single attempt at rolling along with a video to get decent looking roll.
Here’s the video I used.
Then I moved on to the more challenging inside-out roll using this video.
Start with something simple. The first video demonstrates a cucumber roll, and that’s a great way to go. Fillings do make a difference, and you want to stick with firmer items for the most rollable sushi. I’ve tried no less than a half dozen times to stuff kimchi into sushi, and it always ends ugly. Know what’s great though? Even ugly sushi tastes good!
Today’s recipe is a good beginner sushi rolling recipe. The fillings are easy to work with and delicious and the soy wrappers are a bit sturdier than nori.
So there you have it. I hope my sushi journey helps make yours a little easier.Reports regarding emergence of a new terror group ‘Base Movement’ has been making rounds for some time. The ramifications, reach and consequences of this terror group, however has not been analyzed to any degree. Least to say, the ramifications are pernicious.
The Base Movement, which has been carrying out revenge blasts, came into existence in January 2015 at Madurai in Tamil Nadu. This group is affiliated to the Al-Qaeda.
It is pertinent to mention here that the Al-Qaeda continues to be the umbrella organization of all jihadi groups rooted in the Wahabi / Salafi philosophy. It includes outfits like Haqqani group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Jundulah, JMB, Al-Nusra, Boko-Haram etc. Hafiz Saeed was put in under preventive detention on 17 December 2008, this was a week before the US Security Council designated Jamat-ul-Dawa (JuD), the parent organization of LeT as an associate of Al-Qaeda.
The arrival of the Islamic State or the inroads by Al-Qaeda in India poses danger not only to the Hindu-Muslim fabric of the country but more grievously on the Shia-Sunni harmony.
Significantly, the Islamic State is also under the same umbrella. This is a loose conglomeration andmost jihadi groups do not necessarily take all the orders from the Al-Qaeda. To that extent they are autonomous.
The autonomy is imperative because respective groups have their respective catchment, and operational areas, given their local / regional expertise. For example, the catchment area of LeT is the Sialkot region and that of JeM is the Bhawalpur region. This architecture of global jihad cannot sustain without this arrangement. The Islamic State catchment area is the entire globe, wherein it attracts educated, English speaking, media and social network savvy youth, cutting across nationalities. Curiously a medical student from Hyderabad in Pakistan joined the Islamic State in Syria. She was in contact with a boy on social media for quite some-time, who transformed her mindset. Interestingly, two of Leghari’s friends were Hindus.
All jihadi groups in the world have some basic commonalities, i.e. opposition to the West, extremist narrative, designation of US and Israel as primary enemies, and the concept of Caliphate. The difference between the Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State on territorial issues is that the former has no immediate concern for ‘Caliphate’, while the latter has been insisting on its immediate establishment, and accordingly carved a territory for itself in Iraq and Syria. Also while the Al-Qaeda believes in large scale dramatic attacks to mobilize the Muslims of the world, the Islamic State seeks targets that are closer to home. The other major difference is that though both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State are anti-Shia, the Al-Qaeda believes in postponement of its anti-Shia agenda, but looks the other way when other affiliates like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi carries out terrorist attacks against Shias. On the other hand, the Islamic State believes in immediate and total annihilation of Shias.
The biggest beneficiaries of Hindu-Muslim clashes in India are the jihadi groups because it provides them a rich crop to harvest jihadis from.
It is instructive for Indians to know the mindset of the Islamic State. Significantly it was Jama’at al-Tawhidwal-Jihad (Al-Qaeda in Iraq), which had morphed into Islamic State. The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (killed in 2006) and later Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ignored the Al-Qaeda’s main leader Aymanal-Zawahiri’sadvise against killing of Shias. In a letter to Al-Zawahiri in 2004, Al-Zarqawi wrote that he would continue targeting the Shias to provoke them to retaliate against the Sunnis in order to compel the latter to gravitate to the fold of Islamic State. Till this day, the Islamic State follows the same strategy.
The arrival of the Islamic State or the inroads by Al-Qaeda in India poses danger not only to the Hindu-Muslim fabric of the country but more grievously on the Shia-Sunni harmony. The rise of the Islamic State has made the Shias in India restive to the extent that about 300 Shias had gathered in Lucknow clamoring for a special flight to Syria so that they could fight for the protection of Shia Shrines in West Asia.
Zakir Naik therefore not only posed the Wahabi menace in India, he was a serious threat to the sectarian balance amongst Muslims. Moreover, the Islamic State philosophy of provoking other sects / groups to draw Muslims to its brand of jihad may already have been tried in India manifesting in communal clashes. The biggest beneficiaries of Hindu-Muslim clashes in India are the jihadi groups because it provides them a rich crop to harvest jihadis from.
Coming back to ‘Base Movement’, this new terror group has carried out five blasts in different Court premises in southern part of India. These, as per the admission of its members were carried out in revenge against so-called victimization of Muslims in rest of India. The first bomb attack on 15-June-2016 was carried out in Kollam Court against the encounter killing of Ishrat Jahan. The second attack was carried on 01-August-2016 in the Mysore Court because of hanging of Yakub Menon and killing of eight terrorists of SIMI in Madhya Pradesh. The third attack was in Nellore Court on 12-September-2016 following the killing of Burhan Wani.
…this is the first time that the judiciary has been under threat as part of a comprehensive design. It adds a new dimension to India’s threat perception.
As per the NIA charge-sheet, the jihadis of the organization were asked to identify offices in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Mumbai. It indicates that the targets being explored by the Base Movement are not confined to South India but Mumbai and Delhi as well. In fact, the entire India for them is an arena of revenge. Also on their target is the French consulate in Bengaluru.
The NIA has very timely exposed this dangerous development of Base Movement. Earlier, the targets were parliament and legislative assemblies or security forces or infrastructure, but this is the first time that the judiciary has been under threat as part of a comprehensive design. It adds a new dimension to India’s threat perception. Also, on their hit-list are the Prime Minister, Home Minister, LK Advani and Gen VK Singh.
Significantly, it is not only the French Consulate in Bengaluru under threat, but the Embassies of US, Russia, France, Israel and Myanmar located in Delhi as well.
This jihadi threat to foreign embassies must be assessed in the backdrop of the massive bomb attack in the diplomatic area of Kabul on 31-May-2017 during Ramadan. More than 100 people lost their lives and more than 300 were wounded. Since the emergence of Islamic State, jihadi attacks during Ramadan has become an essential feature. An official Taliban spokesman said: “our fight is jihad and is an obligatory worship, reward for every obligatory act of worship is multiplied 70 times in Ramadan.” Islamic State has recently called for bloodshed during Ramadan exhorting its cadres ‘attack them in their homes’. The Islamic State emphasis on attacks abroad during Ramadan is to galvanize their followers and demonstrate their reach. In 2015, the ISIS killed nearly 400 people across the globe during Ramadan. In 2016, the figure ratcheted to nearly 480 and this year till today attacks attributed to the ISIS directly or indirectly include Britain (2 attacks), Kabul (2 attacks), Baghdad (2 attacks), Kashmir (4 suicide attacks), and Manila.
The threat to consulates and embassies by the Base Movement must draw lessons from recent attack in Kabul. Being a diplomatic area it was heavily fortified. The bombing was only 100 meters away from the Indian Embassy in Kabul. The French, German and Japanese embassy suffered damages. The jihadi group responsible for this attack has not been identified but its philosophy is no different from Base Movement.
If setback to jihadis in Kashmir or in Madhya Pradesh, has reverberations in the judicial courts in South India or foreign embassies or consulates, surely then we are in throes of global jihad. It is not merely Kashmir and Kerala (euphemistically speaking for South India) connection or pan-Indian phenomenon but the alignment is Kerala, Kashmir and Kabul, and other co-laterals of global jihad extending to West Asia, Southeast Asia and even Maldives.
The impact of a jihadi attack or incident in Kashmir is not limited to J&K region, it triggers chain reactions throughout India and of course amongst jihadi outfits in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
To these three ‘K’si i.e. Kerela, Kashmir and Kabul can also be added another one, i.e. Kokrajhar. In may be remembered that in the year 2012, communal clashes in the Arakan region of Myanmar, wherein the Rohingyas suffered had its ugly reverberations in Kokrajhar in Assam, which in turn incited communal violence in Mumbai and then there was a chain of communal incidents in Pune, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Boys and girls from Northeast had to flee the city of Bengaluru in fear, such is the pan-Indian and global dimension of jihad in the Indian context.
Therefore, it would be suicidal for India to treat jihadi terror in the perspective of ‘law and order’. It is a grave security problem, which has external and internal dimensions with the dividing line getting increasingly blurred. The impact of a jihadi attack or incident in Kashmir is not limited to J&K region, it triggers chain reactions throughout India and of course amongst jihadi outfits in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
It is thus, all the more pressing that Article-370 be removed.
If Indian Muslims from Kerala are travelling to Afghanistan to join the Islamic State and if Kashmir has reverberations on the Muslims of Kerala, then one is compelled to deduce that the global jihad in India has transcended all geographical, linguistic and cultural barriers.Mason jars, ball jars, canning jars, whatever you call them they are good for much more than just canning food. There are literally tons of mason jar crafts and practical uses that are fun and easy to make. Take a peek, I bet there are at least some you haven’t heard about.
Ball Jars are fun and unique containers, but what happens when you run out of things to do with the extra mason jars you got in that bulk order? Well after you see this list, you”ll realize what a silly question that truly is.
There are so many incredible ways to use mason jars that show off your crafty side and beautify your home at the same time. Check them out below!
1. Picture holders Mason jars make great pictures frames. See how to make these here.Get the biggest daily news 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
Once upon a time, Freddy Adu was a name on the lips of half the world's football fans.
If he wasn't being called "the next Pele", he was pulling off truly heroic feats for a whole generation of Football Manager fans. It hasn't really worked out for Freddy in real life, unfortunately - the former USA prospect has been through tens of clubs in an attempt to settle down somewhere, never really fulfilling his potential.
Now, however, he's given everyone a fresh glimpse of the quality which once captivated hearts and minds across the globe. Turning out for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the North American Soccer League, Freddy has pulled off a sweet assist of the highest quality - wowing his supporters in the process.
Playing in his side's league match up with the Ottawa Fury, Freddy picks up the ball in the opposition's final third. Skipping his way around a defender, he then lobs an inch-perfect ball over the Fury's defence - it falls beautifully and is swiftly prodded home for a goal.
Unsurprisingly, fans in the background go completely mental - several do roly polys down a little grass bank and one or two jump for acrobatic joy.
Nice to see Freddy still entertaining the crowds. Keep it up, dude.
We're testing a new site: This content is coming soonGlobal banking giant HSBC says it could move its headquarters out of the UK in the wake of regulatory and structural reforms put in place after the 2008 financial crisis.
The firm’s board has requested that management “look at where the best place is for HSBC to be headquartered in this new environment.
“The question is a complex one and it is too soon to say how long this will take or what the conclusion will be; but the work is underway,” the bank added.
While the question of where the under-fire financial behemoth will go is still open, experts predict a move to the Far East.
READ MORE: HSBC chief rejects direct responsibility for bank's criminal activity in Switzerland
READ MORE: Business as usual? HSBC must clean up its own affairs, says Chancellor Osborne
“The only even faintly credible option is Hong Kong,” according to banking analyst Alex Potter.
The move itself, however, may literally break the bank.
“HSBC will pay several hundred million dollars more in tax in 2015 [if it stays in the UK], but it would cost several hundred millions of dollars to move the bank to another country,” Potter told the BBC.
In a statement, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority welcomed the prospect of relocation.
“HSBC is the largest bank in Hong Kong and has deep historical links with Hong Kong,” it said.
It is not only the shifting economic mood which has made things difficult for the bank. HSBC has found itself politically isolated in the UK – even among traditionally staunch supporters.
Last month, following the recent HSBC tax dodging scandal and a drawn-out silence on the government’s failure to adequately address it, even free-market acolyte Chancellor George Osborne criticized the bank.
Osborne conceded he had been aware of compliance-related concerns regarding the HSBC group since 2010. He said he was under the impression the bank had been passively aiding its customers in avoiding tax.
He stressed, however, he knew nothing about HSBC’s complicity in tax evasion.
“The only thing that I was aware of was what the public was aware of,” he said.When Orlando City traded Luis Gil to Colorado for Dillon Powers, the Lions’ midfield was supposed to get a big boost. Gil featured often for Orlando City Head Coach Jason Kreis, making 17 appearances, and Powers plays in a similar role but adds a veteran presence to the team. Logically, Powers should have been a like-for-like change in the lineup. However, this has not been the reality.
With the Lions’ season slowly crumbling, the fact that Powers has played in just one game is not reassuring. The midfielder started his MLS career as one of the league’s best youth prospects, winning the 2013 MLS Rookie of the Year along the way, but the past two years have seen him drop in form.
Powers said that his role on the team will be as the No. 8 or 10, and it is time for Kreis to go all in on him. Obviously, Dom Dwyer and Yoshimar Yotún are the big-name signings this past transfer window, but the Notre Dame product should not take a back seat.
Kaká has been disappointing this season and should not be used as anything more than a super sub, especially with playoff hopes all but gone. Orlando has won just two games since April and so there needs to be some change. Powers may not have the chemistry with his new teammates yet, but the best way for him to get it is through game action.
It is now time for Kreis to make some changes, and benching Kaká for Powers should be the first one. The players on the field are not working, and Powers needs to be given a chance to prove himself this season.
It will also send a message to Kaká that he is replaceable. With the Brazilian at the end of his contract, and the season winding down, it’s time to start imagining the future without Kaká. If Powers can return to his 2015 form, not only will Kaká not be missed, but it will be an upgrade in the No. 10 position.ONE can read too much into the Liberal Democrats’ storming performance at yesterday’s by-election in Witney, the well-heeled Oxfordshire seat vacated by David Cameron’s resignation from the House of Commons. In interviews this morning a visibly ecstatic Tim Farron hailed the result—a rise in his party’s vote-share from 6.7% to 30.2%—as proof that his lot are “back in the political big time”. “We are the comeback kids!” he gushed.
Steady on, now. The Conservative vote was always going to fall: Mr Cameron had built up a huge personal vote and the flightier parts of it were unlikely to switch to Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, to a currently leaderless and shambolic UKIP or the still-marginal Green Party, even one fronted locally by Larry Sanders, brother of Bernie. That left the Lib Dems, who had lavished the seat with attention in a fashion impossible for such a small party in a general election: the only other by-election held yesterday was in Batley and Spen in Yorkshire, whose Labour MP, Jo Cox, was murdered in June, and where all the rival mainstream parties declined to stand candidates as a mark of respect (Labour duly won the seat with a landslide). So for weeks the entire Lib Dem machine could focus its attentions on Witney, where lucky voters received five visits from Mr Farron alone. Tellingly, in national polls the party’s rating lingers stubbornly around the 7% to which it fell early in the last Parliament.
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Still, the party is right to take some solace from the result. Firstly because the 19-point swing in its favour is the first solid sign that the party’s long slump, during and after its unpopular participation in the last coalition government, is bottoming out and perhaps easing off. A “comeback” in itself it is not, but it might herald the tentative beginnings of one.
Secondly—and more significantly—the result represents the first fruits of the party’s new strategy. When Labour was in Downing Street, the Lib Dems found a role as a pacifist, civil libertarian and slightly more left-wing alternative to the government. Under Nick Clegg, in power with the Tories, they often seemed like a split-the-difference party; offering merely to curb the excesses of the Conservatives to their right and Labour to their left (as he acknowledges in his recent memoirs). But the election of Mr Corbyn as Labour leader, the Brexit vote and Theresa May’s statist, sometimes authoritarian tone in her first months as prime minister have delivered the Lib Dems a three-fold opportunity to sharpen their liberal, centrist identity.
The thinking behind this is set out in a paper published last year by Mark Pack and David Howarth, two party strategists. They argue that the Lib Dems did so badly in last year’s general election, tumbling to eight parliamentary seats, partly because they lack an irreducible core of voters who identify with the party, whose allegiance is such that it can be mobilised even in tough electoral times. Labour, they point out, has the remains of the industrial working class to fall back on; the Tories have their own deep institutional network: churches, golf clubs and the like. The Lib Dems did not, so plunged through their previous electoral floor and kept on falling.
The task before the party, argue the two, is to build that sort of base: a core of perhaps 20% of voters—socially liberal, internationalist, pro-European, tech-savvy and well-educated—who identify with the party’s pro-openness reformism. Accordingly the Lib Dems should focus their research, campaigning and recruitment efforts more rigorously than in the past and in particular search out issues that appeal to and interest this group of voters (however little they rouse other parts of the electorate). Under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, this approach provides opportunities for the Lib Dems, in their reduced state, to concentrate resources on certain metropolitan constituencies where they could conceivably come first: prosperous enclaves of southern England, university towns and the more comfortable corners of the big cities. Mr Farron’s speech at his party’s main annual gathering last month, pledging to stand up for Britain’s role in Europe, was a sort of love letter to these places.
Hence the relevance of Witney, a rolling, well-to-do archipelago of smart villages and hi-tech business parks just outside Oxford; a place where most people voted to Remain in the EU on June 23rd. While the Lib Dems have been doing well in council by-elections in such places in recent months, this was the first parliamentary test. Their campaign focused heavily on Brexit. Residents were urged to reject Mrs May’s nativist overtures at her party’s conference and to send the government a message about the need to keep Britain in the single market and avoid a “hard” break with the European club. And while these messages did not propel Liz Leffman (pictured above, right), the local candidate, across the winning line yesterday, she obtained a larger-than-expected vote share (the Tories had warned it could reach 30%, which discounting the usual expectations management suggested they anticipated something nearer 20%). A similar swing in a general election would see the Lib Dems take 26 seats from the Conservatives.
So treat Witney as a proof-of-concept. A more starkly liberal personality, deftly conveyed through relevant issues and particularly the ongoing battles over Brexit, offers the Lib Dems a way—albeit a long and treacherous one—out of the political wilderness. One by-election does not a trend make and an early general election next year (publicly dismissed by Mrs May but not surely not impossible, given her vast poll leads over Labour) may come much too soon for a widespread revival. But they have made a start.When it was released, Windows 8 integrated cloud services were unmatched by any prior Windows version. Chief among its improvements was the Microsoft Account integration: sign in to Windows with your Microsoft Account credentials, and your settings will roam from machine to machine. Behind the scenes, this syncing all used SkyDrive.
Windows 8 also included a Metro SkyDrive app for browsing SkyDrive storage. This plumbed into the Metro APIs, enabling Metro apps to save and load files directly from SkyDrive. However, it left the desktop behind. The file-syncing desktop app had to be installed separately.
With the desktop app installed in Windows 8 (and below), SkyDrive offers the same kind of syncing and cloud storage that Dropbox and other services provide. Microsoft is more generous with the amount of free storage you get (7GB for SkyDrive, to 2GB for Dropbox, though Dropbox users can earn up to 18GB with referrals and other bonuses), but the experience is broadly similar regardless of which service you use.
This means that SkyDrive in Windows 8 suffers the same annoyance as these other services: what do you do when you don't want to sync all your files to a machine? There's a selective sync option, of course, but if you then want to use a file that's not in the synced set, you have to stop what you're doing and switch to the Web front-end to download them.
SkyDrive in 8.1 changes this up.
First of all, SkyDrive is a lot more prominent now, as it's exposed on the desktop by default. Explorer shows a SkyDrive folder. Libraries, the aggregated storage locations first introduced in Windows 7, aggregate SkyDrive storage by default. The Documents library even uses the SkyDrive location as its default write location, so any file saved to the Documents library will automatically go on SkyDrive.
On the Metro side, SkyDrive is now integrated into the settings app. From here you can configure most of SkyDrive's behavior, including which settings are synced, which quality photos are uploaded, and whether to upload on connections that are billed per byte. The Settings app also lets you buy more storage.
What is missing, both in the desktop and the Settings app, is control over selective sync. But that's because of SkyDrive's new feature, which is magical.
SkyDrive now shows all your files as if they had been synced locally. They just look like normal files. They have thumbnails, filenames, all the usual metadata. What they don't do is take up space on disk.
As soon as an app opens a file (and this applies to both Metro apps and desktop apps), SkyDrive pulls it from the server. Modifications are then synced back normally. The same occurs if a file is copied or moved; it gets automatically retrieved.
Instead of the normal selective sync options, folders can be right clicked (in both the Metro app and Explorer) and set as available offline, forcing files to be downloaded, or online only, removing local copies and doing on-demand downloads.
Behind the scenes, the first time a PC syncs with SkyDrive, it pulls down all the basic metadata: the tree structure, filenames, and so on. Then, it pulls down special metadata, such as thumbnails and full text. In many ways, this makes the files act like normal files. They can be found in searches; they have the right icons in Explorer.
The files themselves use the reparse point mechanism first introduced in Windows 2000. During that first sync, stub files ("reparse points") are created to mimic the directory structure stored on SkyDrive. Any operation on these files is intercepted automatically, allowing SkyDrive to download the file on-demand.
The use of this (rather low-level) mechanism makes SkyDrive in Windows 8.1 very transparent. Virtually any application should work correctly, with only a download delay disclosing that a file isn't stored locally. Even the command-line can work with SkyDrive files. The system should even work correctly with backup applications. Backup software should understand reparse points and treat them specially, so backing up your SkyDrive folder shouldn't cause the entire thing to be downloaded.
As a result, you can have tens or hundreds of gigabytes of files stored on a server, while still retaining pseudo-instant access. There's no long sync process.
The system still has a few areas where I think it could be improved. It would be nice to be able to set some kind of overall limit on how much disk space SkyDrive can use; on a small tablet (say, 32 or even 64 GB), I'd like to be able to say, "You can use up to 4 GB for offline storage" and have the software automatically remove local copies of files that I haven't used for a while.
There's also an odd asymmetry with SkyDrive Pro, the similar cloud storage feature that's part of Office 365. SkyDrive Pro shares a name, but appears to share none of the functionality. The magic, transparent access of online files is only found in the regular SkyDrive brand.
In Windows 8.1, SkyDrive becomes an elegant, easy to use cloud storage solution. The free storage alone makes it compelling; the deep integration into the operating system makes it better than its competitors.President Barack Obama speaks on climate change at Georgetown University on June 25. REUTERS/Larry Downing Today, President Barack Obama laid out an aggressive regulatory agenda to reduce carbon emissions, most of which won't require any approval from Congress.
Now, Republicans have two options.
They can respond to his plan with maximum political and legal resistance. This strategy comes intuitively to Republicans, and the conservative base would like it.
According to an April Gallup poll, 64% of Republicans think the threat of global warming is overstated and only 18% think it will pose a serious threat to themselves in their lifetimes.
But it's not likely to be an effective strategy for shaping policy. Obama is acting under legal authority he already has and a Supreme Court decision that forces the EPA to regulate carbon.
Republicans should instead do something they're not used to: Work with Obama to come up with a better alternative to his plan.
Obama has only taken a heavy-handed regulatory approach because that's what he can do without congressional action; if Republicans would agree to a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system, he'd gladly take that over the plan he laid out today.
The R Street Institute has been a lonely but relentless conservative voice on this issue. Senior Fellow Andrew Moylan wrote today:
Regardless of one's views on climate change, the simple reality is that federal policy is going to address the matter. That can happen through ill-advised regulations, like those proposed by the President today, or it can happen through a vibrant market with clear price signals attached to all fuels. Conservatives should seize the opportunity to once again emphasize the superiority of free markets over central planning.
He's right. But if the health care fight is any guide, Republicans are not likely to listen.
The Republican strategy of total resistance to health care reform led to a bill passing only with Democratic votes. That meant a bill that was less market-oriented than it would have been with Republican input.
Obama also had to buy off more constituencies than he would have needed with a broader coalition, so the bill contained costly accommodations to doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and more. If Republicans had played ball, we would have gotten a health bill that was both more aligned with conservative ideas and substantively better.
Of course, conservatives don't like to hear this observation: pointing it out is what got David Frum fired from the American Enterprise Institute. Three years after passage, Republicans still haven't come to terms with the fact that Obamacare is the law.
They shouldn't make the same mistake with climate change. But they probably will.Charles Sly (left) is the former anti-aging clinic intern at the center of the Peyton Manning scandal. YouTube and Justin Edmonds/Getty Images Peyton Manning found himself embroiled in scandal when an Al Jazeera documentary linked the Denver Broncos quarterback to shipments of human growth hormone (HGH).
Manning vehemently denied that he has ever used HGH and the source for that story, a former intern at an anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis, has since recanted the statements he made in a secretly recorded conversation with an undercover reporter.
That intern, Charles Sly, also spoke with Chris Mortensen of ESPN to explain why he made the entire story up.
First of all, Sly reiterated to Mortensen that he manufactured the entire story and confirmed that he was only employed at the clinic in 2013, two years after Manning was a patient.
As to why Sly made up the allegations about Manning and other athletes, this is where it gets confusing. It starts with the undercover reporter used by Al Jazeera, Liam Collins.
Collins, a former hurdler for Great Britain, spoke with Sly, and others, under the guise of an older athlete (he is 38) looking for something to help him reclaim his top form. According Mortensen, Sly was looking to get into the athlete supplement business and, through some mutual contacts, met with Collins believing he could help Sly contact top soccer players in the English Premier League.
"[Sly] wanted to get into the supplementation business and [Collins] had told [Sly] that there were a lot of prominent Premier League athletes, soccer players, that he could bring business to Sly and some other people he was working with," Mortensen said on ESPN Radio.
However, prior to going undercover for Al Jazeera — and after a stint as a dancer on "Britain's Got Talent" — Collins was caught in a scandal of his own in which he was accused of duping investors out of more than $1 million in a real estate scheme.
This may have led to Sly not trusting Collins as a potential business associate.
Liam Collins (left) with Richard Edmonds on "Britain's Got Talent." YouTube/Britain's Got Talent
"He really attacked Liam Collins, who was the guy who secretly taped him," Mortensen continued. "I asked, 'Well, why would you do that?' He said, 'I was trying to test him and press him, see if he would steal my information, because that is what he did with his investors over in Great Britain'
"He said he wanted to throw out different names, and whether they were treated at the Guyer Institute," Mortensen continued. "He said he was trying to use different names to test this guy's knowledge, Liam Collins' knowledge, on players. and he tried to change up each story with each guy just to see if this guy would try to gather any more information."
As for why he used Manning's name even though he was no longer a patient at the clinic at the time Sly was employed there, Sly says he simply learned that Manning had been a patient there through other employees.
"I said, 'How did you come up with this story of Peyton and Ashley Manning?,'" Mortensen said. "And he said, 'Well, when I was working there for those three months, somebody said that they used to be patients there.'"
Sly also says he never saw any documentation to support what he had said about Manning.
Sly's story still doesn't clear up the picture completely, with Mortensen saying that despite emails, phone conversations, and forwarded text messages, he "still can't put that puzzle together."
However, it sounds like Sly wanted to get into the athlete supplement business. He thought he had one potential client in Collins, and that this one athlete might be able to hook Sly up with some big-name soccer players. Sly then may have thrown out the names of big American athletes to either up his street cred or to test Collins (or maybe both). Sly may have used the names of athletes known to have been clients at the Guyer Clinic in case Collins tried to verify the stories, only instead of taking the info to soccer players in England, Collins took the secret tape recordings to Al Jazeera.
If this is indeed how the situation played out, it sounds like Peyton and his wife got caught in the middle simply because one overzealous former employee either oversold his own accomplishments in the business or just didn't trust a potential business associate who has a checkered financial history.
And if so, it is easy to understand why Manning is so upset.Copyright by W |
'Print from the PC, and hence it becomes Air print compatible.O'Print will print PDF documents and any other document.It is also not limited to a certain number of people or clients when connected to air print.There is much convenience with air print since no apps are required mainly for Windows devices. Any Printer can be used with air print, whether it is HP, EPSON, Panasonic, and Xerox among others. In the case of any issues with air print, it is advisable to check on your network connection ensuring that the two devices share the same network. It is also wise to do a network reset if network sharing is not working.“Where is the god of Ser Davos Seaworth, knight of the onion ship?”
“King Stannis is my god.”
Synopsis: Davos watches as Melisandre leads the burning of the Seven and Stannis pulls a sword out of the fire. He gets an update from Salladhor Saan about the war effort on his way to meet with Stannis, who’s finished his public declaration of his right to the Iron Throne and Joffrey’s bastardy, and the two discuss faith and proof.
SPOILER WARNING : This chapter analysis, and all following, will contain spoilers for all Song of Ice and Fire novels and Game of Thrones episodes. Caveat lector.
Political Analysis:
Davos Seaworth, Man of the People
I’m thrilled that my chapter-by-chapter analyses has finally gotten me to Davos, my favorite character and one of the most unique point-of-view characters in the series. Keep in mind that every single POV character in A Game of Thrones was, however else they may be affected by sexism or ableism or social prejudice, a noble. Here for the first time, one of the smallfolk is given room to speak on both the political conflicts he is at the very heart of, but also of his own life experience and his own hopes and dreams – because for Davos Seaworth, the two are inextricably linked. As Davos puts it:
“Davos Seaworth stank of fish and onions. It was the same with the other lordlings. He could trust none of them, nor would they ever include him in their private councils. They scorned his sons as well. My grandsons will joust with theirs, though, and one day their blood may wed with mine. In time my little black ship will fly as high as Velayron’s seahorse or Celtigar’s red crabs. That is, if Stannis won his throne…”
Throughout the chapter, and indeed throughout Davos’ entire storyline, this thread of upward mobility is right at the fore – almost uniquely in Westerosi history, Davos has managed to come up from the depths of poverty to the position of landed knight with a holdfast on Cape Wrath, and will throughout the series advance to the position of Lord of the Rainwood (which possibly makes him a liege lord to Houses Mertyns and Wylde) Admiral of the Narrow Sea (essentially Stannis’ Master of Ships), and Hand of the King. Davos is constantly aware of the possibilities and dangers he faces – with luck and with time, his family will acquire the social and cultural capital necessary to become true members of the nobility. However, they are constantly dogged by the prejudice of the more well-established highborn families (much as Littlefinger faces from the Lords Declarant). Just as Davos himself is scorned by and cannot trust the lords of Dragonstone, his older sons are defensive about their nouveau-riche status and lack their father’s acceptance of such scorn: “his sons were good fighters and better sailors, but they did not known how to talk to lords. They were lowborn, even as I was, but they do not like to recall that. When they look at our banner, all they see is a tall black ship flying on the wind. They close their eyes to the onion.”
In this sense, Davos’ family can be likened to an upwardly mobile working class family in which Davos is the generation that lived through poverty, Dale, Allard, Mathos, and Meric are the intermediate generation who enjoy superior material resources but who weren’t born to the life, and Daven, Stannis, and Steffon are the first college-bound generation. Alternatively, we could see House Seaworth through the immigrant story, with Davos as the first generation whose life is shaped by the old country; Dale, Allard, Mathos, and Meric as the “1.5 generation” who immigrated in their teens and who struggle with a tension of identities between old and new; and Daven, Stannis, and Steffon as the fully-assimilated second generation born or at least raised in the new country. We can see this most strongly in the way that Davos is almost nostalgic about his old life and the way in which his wrongdoing paid for his family’s change in status, the way in which the intermediate generation desires to forget yet cannot fully escape their origins, and the full assimilation of the youngest. Perhaps Davos’ grandsons will seek to rediscover their family’s smuggler heritage, much as many third generation immigrants seek to relearn the language and culture of their grandparents.
This enormous step upward for his family leads to Davos’ most important quality as a character: his absolute loyalty to Stannis. As I’ll explain in more detail as we go on, I see Davos as a parallel figure to that of Brienne of Tarth (and arguably Dunk as well). As part of a larger argument about the way in which the ideals of society are in constant tension with the structures of privilege and inequality of that same society, George R.R Martin makes the outcasts the true paragons: Brienne of Tarth is not a knight and yet she is the truest knight in Westeros (the same could be said for Dunk, and it’s by no means an accident that Brienne ends up carrying his shield and may well be related to him); likewise, Ser Davos is not a lord, and yet he is the most loyal lord in Westeros. Just as honor is Ned Stark’s guiding star, and devotion is Brienne’s (more on that later), it is loyalty that defines Davos Seaworth. [1]
[1] For more on this, see my argument on Game of Owns about the need to differentiate between the virtues. Stannis is not an honorable man, he’s a just man. Davos is not the most honorable of men, but he is the loyalest.
As the quote above suggests, part of Davos’ loyalty comes from straightforward enlightened self-interest: Davos’ rise depends on Stannis. As Davos thinks to himself: “everything I am, I owe to him…All this he had of Stannis Baratheon, for the price of a few finger bones.” And what Davos has gotten from Stannis is considerable – a “knighthood,” a “place of honor at his table, a war galley to sail in place of a smuggler’s skiff…a small keep on Cape Wrath, with servants…his own woods.” Davos bargained well for his family as well: the older sons, despite their rougher upbringing, have naval commisions (“Dale and Allard captained galleys as well, Maric was oarmaster on the Fury, Matthos served his father on Black Betha“); the younger sons have even brighter prospects (“the king had taken Daven as a royal squire. One day he would be knighted, and the two little lads as well.”) More importantly, Davos has the perspective to look backwards and see what would have happened to his family if Stannis hadn’t raised him up: “had I stayed a smuggler, Allard would have ended on the Wall. Stannis spared him from that end, something else I owe him.”
At the same time, there’s also clear evidence that there’s a genuine admiration for Stannis and, what’s more surprising, a shared set of beliefs. It is a rare kind of smuggler who would say of his own mutilation that “it was just, what he did to me. I had flouted the king’s laws all my life,” but as we see from Davos’ actions later in this book, in ASOS (especially his interactions with Stannis at his “trials”), and in ADWD (both at the Sisters and at White Harbor), that he genuinely seems to share Stannis’ beliefs about honesty, law and justice. For example, Davos’ statement that “Stannis is our rightful king, it is not for us to question him. We sail his ships and do his bidding. That is all,” absolutely echoes his king’s own beliefs (even if he tends to honor that one more in the breach than the practice).
Moreover, as we see when Stannis and Davos interact at the end of the chapter, it’s a loyalty based on mutual respect – “the Others take my lords,” Stannis says, speaking of the sicophantic lord Celtigar and the stating-the-obvious lord Velayron, “I’ll hear your words.” This trust in Davos’ opinion comes from that meeting of the minds discussed earlier; Stannis clearly admires that Davos shares his fondness for harsh truths, noting that “I did not make you a knight so you could learn to mouth empty courtesies. I have my lords for that. Say what you would say.” And as ACOK is in the business of evaluating monarchs, it could be argued that Stannis performs the best of any monarch when it comes to listening to his advisors even when they disagree with him, and taking in information from multiple sources, a key virtue of rulers.
A Religious Reformation Comes to Dragonstone
The first major political event of the chapter is the burning of the seven and Stannis drawing “Lightbringer” from the flames, a sign and symbol that Stannis has now committed himself to his new religion. This is a very important scene, but one that’s operating on many different levels and I fear is often misunderstood as a consequence. Part of this is a consequence of how compelling GRRM has made Davos’ point-of-view; as he comes to the conclusion that Melisandre is evil (even if he’s not ready to do anything about it yet), so does much of the audience – especially when Melisandre starts advocating for human sacrifices. And yet, there’s a reason why GRRM has said that Melisandre is the most misunderstood character in the series. As we learn from her chapters in ADWD, Melisandre is absolutely sincere in her faith in R’hllor, her belief that Stannis Baratheon is Azor Ahai reborn, and that while she shares Varys’ pragmatism in regards to means, she believes her actions are necessary to save humanity.
With this in mind, let’s take a second look at the burning of the gods:
“Dragonstone’s sept was where Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed. That had not saved it from the queen’s men. They had overturned the altars, pulled down the statues, and smashed the stained glass with warhammers…Ser Hubart Rambton led his three sons to the sept to defend their gods. The Rambtons had slain four of the queen’s men before the others overwhelmed them. Afterwards Guncer Sunglass, mildest and most pious of lords, told Stannis he could no longer support his claim. Now he shared a sweltering cell with the septon…the other lords had not been slow to take the lesson.”
On one level, to our modern 21st century eyes, this seems like a straightforward act of religious repression by a gang of militant fanatics. However, if we look more closely, the picture is more mixed: Melisandre’s followers intend harm to property rather than persons, and it’s the followers of the Seven who kill four men in the name of their Faith. The destruction of religious symbols have been part of almost every religious transformation in human history: the early Christian church pulled down the statues of the pagan gods and claimed their temples for Christ; Muslims converted Christian and Jewish religious sites into mosques (and then the reverse and the re-reverse happened during the Crusades); during the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Protestants “purified” Catholic churches and Catholics did the same to Protestant churches (often the same buildings). As I’ll talk about more in the historical section, the destruction of the Seven could equally be seen as a liberatory action by those who sincerely believe that R’hllor is the true god and the “seven who are one, and him the enemy,” and the same people who condemned the burning of the Sept would likely have cheered the burning of a godswood or the destruction of a temple to R’hllor.
Moreover, the response of the crowd points to a more complicated situation: while there are a few fervent believers on either side, the dominant response is a quiet muttering, with some disapproving of the burning of the Seven, others not knowing what to think, and some being genuinely swayed by the drama of the moment who are coming around to the new faith (“the old man had challenged the Lord of Light and been struck down for his impiety, or so the gossips told each other…somehow her god shielded her”). Indeed, it seems from the evidence that Davos’ feelings are close to that of the man in the street: “The gods had never meant much to Davos the smuggler, though like most men he had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith when he launched a ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with child.” For Davos, religion is a matter of custom and habit rather than genuine religious passion. He feels bad that the gods have been burned, but ultimately can’t come up for a better defense of the Seven than that “when I was a boy in Flea Bottom begging for a copper, sometimes the septons would feed me.”
The question of how the people will respond to this religious transformation is echoed later in the chapter, when Davos brings up the issue of Stannis’ public letter including a subtle statement of his new religious allegiance. “Your people will not love you if you take from them the gods they have always worshipped, and give them one whose very name sounds queer on their tongues,” he argues, and there is some evidence for this. Tyrion makes use of Stannis’ new religion through his High Septon, and the High Sparrow is certainly opposed to Stannis on religious grounds. On the other hand, the population of King’s Landing (as opposed to the rural Sparrows) are about to tear the High Septon limb-from-limb so religion is hardly their primary concern; likewise, the Antler Men appear to support Stannis despite his religious preferences. Finally, as Stannis points out, a strategy relying on public opinion was never going to work: “They will not love me, you say? When have they ever loved me? How can I lose something I have never owned?”
A final layer on religious appears when Stannis himself speaks on the topic, and here we see George R.R Martin commenting on the difference between the public uses of religion and the private nature of faith, in that Stannis remains an athiest even after the ceremony:
“It was wood we burned this morning…I stopped believing in gods the day I saw the Windproud break up across the bay. Any gods so monstrous as to drown my mother and father would never have my worship…the High Septon would prattle at me of how all justice and goodness flowed from the Seven, but all I ever saw of either was made by men.” “If you do not belive in gods-“ “-why trouble myself with this new one?…I know little and care less of gods, but the red priestess have power…The Iron Throne is mine by rights, but how am I to take it? There are four kings in the realm, and three of them have more men and more gold than I do. I have ships…and I have her…If she can do nothing else, a sorceress who can inspire such dread in grown men is not to be despises…and perhaps she can do more. I mean to find out.”
Just as Constantine was never a practicing Christian despite relying on the political support of the Christian Church, and just as William the Conqueror probably didn’t believe that God had willed a Crusade against Harold Godwinson (but found it quite useful all the same), Stannis is willing to use the power and symbolism of R’hllor to instill loyalty among his men even if he doesn’t share their faith (at this moment). The success of this can be seen in the fact that his men will charge across a bridge over a river of fire, attack an army 100,000-strong, and follow him along a freezing death march to Winterfell. And it should be noted that for all that he’s considered a merciless man, he merely imprisons bannermen who take up arms against him – no executions are ordered.
However, we can also see here GRRM building in the central ambiguity about Stannis: namely, did he knowingly use black magic to murder his brother? As I wrote earlier, the fact that Melisandre prophecies Renly’s death points towards a negative answer, as does his reaction in Davos II as I will argue later. However, I do think that Stannis’ utilitarian approach to religion and Melisandre specifically is evidence that points to the positive, given that he doesn’t make use of her powers after Storm’s End, which is oddly ambivalent for the man. And yet, as I’ll discuss in Davos II, I still don’t think it was a case of pre-meditated murder.
What Is Melisandre Game Here?
The big question here is what’s going on with Melisandre’s ritual – on the one hand, we have Word of God that Melisandre is a faithful servant of R’hllor and believes Stannis is Azor Ahai, which has been confirmed by her chapters in ADWD; on the other, the text of Davos I is thick with suggestions that the ritual is faked. To begin with, there are a number of signs of Melisandre stage-managing a magic show. Rather than making a genuine leap of faith, Stannis is outfitted with “a long padded glove..[and] a stiff leather cloak” to protect himself. More significantly, the blade once removed from the idol burns with “jade-green flames,” and then loses its impressive appearance: “thrust into the ground, Lightbringer still glowed ruddy hot, but the flames that clung to the sword were dwindling and dying…the burnt and blackened sword in the king’s leather cloak. The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess.” This description of a sword more “burned” than “burning” recalls Davos’ memory of Thoros of Myr (another priest of R’hllor) and his old party trick:
“A year ago, he had been with Stannis in King’s Landing when King Robert staged a tourney for Prince Joffrey’s name day. He remembered the red priest Thoros of Myr, and the flaming sword he had wielded in the melee…his blade writhed with pale green flames, but everyone knew there was no true magic in it.”
Given that a book later we’ll see a priest of R’hllor move from false fire to a genuine magic in which blood burns with living fire, I think the color of the flames is a sign that Melisandre has jury-rigged the sword with wildfire, and is using a glamour to give it its mystical appearance later on. So – if Melisandre is misunderstood and really believes Stannis to be Azor Ahai reborn, why this farce?
I think we have to understand this ritual as Melisandre’s attempt to get Stannis’ minimum buy-in as a convert of R’hllor as a stepping-stone to a future, genuine ritual, in much the same way that a door-to-door salesman will ask for a glass of water to get inside someone’s house and gain a minimum of good-will needed to start their pitch. This would fit in with Melisandre’s general policy of using underhanded means for what she considers to be good ends, and I think the necessity of this deception is shown in reflection through the story of the forging of Lightbringer:
“That sword was not Lightbringer, my friend…do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer?…it was a time when darkness lay heavy on the world. To oppose it, the hero must have a hero’s blade, oh, like none that had ever been. And so for thirty days and thirty nights Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fire…yet when he plunged it into water to temper the steel it burst asunder…the second time it took him fifty days…Azor Ahai captured a lion, to temper the blade by plunging it in the beast’s red heart, but once more the steel shattered…a hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife…know that I love you best of all there is in this world…Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer.”
This story is quite important in two ways; first, it confirms that the broad strokes of Melisandre’s ritual (R’hllor will send Azor Ahai during the next War for the Dawn, the hero will have a sword, etc) showing that there’s truth embedded amidst the lies; second, it fits in with our experience of magic in the world of ASOIAF as something that requires sacrifice (which in turn, helps to explain where. In the story, Azor Ahai first makes an offering of his own diligent labor and it’s not enough; next, he makes a show of courage and sacrifices a symbolic animal and it’s not enough. Only when Azor Ahai sacrifices what he loves “best of all there is in this world,” does the magic work and the world is saved.
I think Melisandre is well aware of these requirements, and is trying to commit Stannis deeply to the R’hllorite cause so that he’ll be willing to sacrifice what he loves most of this world (she does succeed in getting him to publicize his faith in his public letter) – and I have a feeling this is why Shireen was brought to the Wall – to bring the true Lightbringer into world. What this has to do with the stone dragon, I’m not exactly sure, because Melisandre hasn’t yet brought that element into her prophecy:
“In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him…Azor Ahai, beloved of R’hllor! The Warrior of Light, the Son of Fire! Come forth, your sword awaits you! Come forth and take it into your hand!”
A couple things to note here: first, the oldest prophecies of Azor Ahai come from Asshai, which may suggest that the church of R’hllor is centered in Asshai; the parallel between a people who dwell in the eternal darkness of the Shadow Lands and a religion that fears darkness and raises up the light in defense are quite strong. In turn, this might explain why the faith of R’hllor has such a presence in Essos and such a small foothold in Westeros. Second, as I mentioned, the stone dragon hasn’t yet entered the story – the key MacGuffin here is the sword. Third, we can see some common elements in the prophecies here that don’t change – the coming of the darkness, the bleeding star, and a champion chosen by the gods – which again suggests a core of truth underneath the stagecraft.
Finally, I’d note that as Melisandre is prophecizing, we get an ironic echo from Patchface, as he foretells the outcome of the Battle of the Blackwater: “under the sea, smoke rises in bubbles, and flames burn green and blue and black.” Only wildfire burns green and burns beneath the water, causing smoke from burning, sinking ships to rise from the depths. Thus, even as Melisandre pushes forward her religious mission, metaphysical events are happening below her nose that she cannot see coming.
The War of Five Kings: The Military Situation
Before Davos can move from the beach to meet with Stannis, he gets an update on the current status of the War of Five Kings. While this is little more than an exposition dump, it does answer some important questions. For example, Davos learns the current situation of the defenses of King’s Landing (Salladhor has some impressive sources, btw): “The walls are high and strong, but who will man them? They are building scorpions and spitfires, oh, yes, but the men in the golden cloaks are too few and too green and there are no others. A swift strike, like a hawk plummeting at a hare, and the great city will be ours.” This brings up a question that many people have been asking for some time: why didn’t Stannis immediately attack King’s Landing? Why the detour to Storm’s End?
Davos answers those questions in a way that’s completely intuitive in retrospect: “might be we could take King’s Landing, as you say…but how long would we hold it? Tywin Lannister is known to be at Harrenhal with a great host, and Renly…” With only 5,000 men, Stannis likely could overwhelm the defenders of King’s Landing at the moment (after all, as we’ll see, the shortcomings of the Goldcloaks are quite real), but the casualties he’d take would likely place him in a worse position than Tyrion is right now – and banking on some unlikely chances (Robb preventing Tywin from attacking Stannis, Stannis’ occupation of the Iron Throne creating a political cascade that wins him enough support to build an army) in order to survive.
Another question that comes up is what Renly’s strategy is here – as we’ll learn from Catelyn’s chapters, Renly is not exactly planning to storm King’s Landing with his “flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot.” Rather, I think the inclusion of “his fair young queen” is an early hint – part of GRRM’s three-fold revelations strategy – that Renly’s whole strategy is a political one. Margaery is being used (and given what we glean about her from later in the books and what we’re shown outright in the TV) and is using herself as a kind of totem of future stability via procreation. Renly’s fair young queen is a promise of a royal heir that will stabilize the realm for the next generation in a way that Stannis daughter can’t (given past precedent); makes you wonder why Renly didn’t announce a royal pregnancy to drive the point home. Given the chaos that a disputed succession has wrought, royal heirs are valuable symbols of themselves – there was a reason why the “three sons of York” and later Edward IV’s children were trumpeted by the Yorkists as proof of God’s favor.
At the same time, though, I think we can see here some of the limitations of the political strategy, which is based on creating the illusion of victory without the substance of it. Renly’s actions here prompt Stannis to move against Storm’s End, both to halt Renly’s physical progress to King’s Landing and as a symbolic counter-move (Renly is hardly the inevitable victor if his home can be taken in his absence; cf. Robb Stark and Winterfell), and it’s his very decision to take it slow on the Rose Road that allows Stannis’ strike to succeed.
The War of Five Kings: The Political Situation
And finally, we move to the second major political event of the chapter – Stannis’ public letter to the lords of Westeros that he is the rightful king of Westeros and that the Lannister-Baratheons of Kings’ Landing are bastards born of incest:
“All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. I declare upon the honor of my House that my beloved brother Robert, our late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. Done in the Light of the Lord, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms.”
I’ve discussed the letter in some detail here, because I really think there’s an enormous amount you can learn about Stannis’ political thinking, along with the brutal honesty that demands deletions of “beloved” and a grudging insertion of “Ser” in front of Jaime. To begin with, as I’ve said, Stannis is deeply concerned with hereditary succession: he begins the letter by listing his uncontested lineage, he stakes his claim “by right of birth and blood,” and the centerpiece of the letter is a crime against lawful procreation and inheritance. And as I argue in the essay, the hereditary principle is the foundation of all political and economic power in Westeros (such that undoing it risks the undoing of the social contract and returning to a war of all against all, even within the family) and thus the source of the order that Stannis prizes and thinks of in terms of natural law. To overthrow that principle is to unleash elemental chaos.
I would also argue that it shows an abiding obsession with truth – Stannis’ lineage is “true” because the community universally “knows” it, Stannis then leverages the “honor of my House” to lend weight to a sudden revelation of secrets pulled into the light, and then demands that “all true men declare their loyalty,” so that everyone’s cards are on the table. Looked at on its face, the public letter is an attempt by a man who has seen people murdered because of what they know again and again (both in the case of Jon Arryn’s investigation and the corruption inquiry against Janos Slynt) to blow the whistle against corruption in high office. Hence his decision to send out “one hundred seventeen copies of my letter to every corner of the realm” so that “a hundred maesters will read my words to as many lords,” but also his decision to send Davos (chosen specficially for both his honesty and his “smuggler’s tricks,” again playing with this theme of honesty) and his sons from White Harbor to the Arbor and “across the narrow sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities” with “a chest of letters, and you will deliver one to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can…[and] knights to do the reading.”
For all that Stannis is described as lacking in political skill, this shows an impressive grasp of the public face of politics. More than Robb, more than Cersei, and arguably more than Renly, Stannis understands that the War of Five Kings is ultimately a struggle for the hearts and minds of the whole of the realm. Very much a realist, Stannis knows that the letters he sends to the lords of Westeros “will like as not be consigned to the fires, and lips pledged to silence…I am their rightful king, but they will deny me if they can.” By making his accusations known to the whole of the community, he prevents a conspiracy of silence among the nobility (thus forcing their hand to either accept or reject the letter in the face of an informed public) and ensures that “the world will know of my claim, and of Cersei’s infamy.” Even more so than Robb Stark’s peace offer shifted the terms of the Stark/Lannister conflict from mere brute strength to one of identity, Stannis’ actions here transform the Baratheon/Lannister conflict from a struggle over mere force of arms to a struggle over legitimacy.
At the same time though, GRRM also calls into question the foundations of proof. For all that the readers know that Stannis’ accusations are true, the honest Davos reminds us that “you have no proof. Of this incest. No more than you did a year ago.” Among the many consequences of Eddard’s death, the fact that his carefully assembled proofs died with him will help to ensure that there is no easy way to bring the war to an end with an uncontrovertable display of truth. As Stannis says, there is only proof “of a sort at Storm’s End. Robert’s bastard…he is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder.” As with the beginning of his letter, proof and truth collapse back into what the political community knows and sees and believes.
Historical Analysis
In our own time, iconoclasm is seen as a disruptive, barbaric, and illiberal action, associated with terrorists seeking to eliminate the historical evidence of rival faiths or deranged individuals who seek to obliterate great works of art with paint, razors, or hammers. However, I would argue that iconoclasm historically has been a quite ambivalent action, equally capable of being seen as destructive and intolerant or as an act of liberation and enlightenment, and above all else, as an act of dramatic symbolic communication, a way to describe and create sweeping transformations in the order of things both mundane and sublime.
One of the first and best examples of iconoclasm in action came in the early Christian period of the 3rd century CE in which the hauling down and destruction of statues of the pagan gods was a way for militant Christians to prove that the pagan gods were false by showing that no vengeful bolts of lightning from Zeus were falling on the heads of those who destroyed his statues and defiled his temples, but also as a political demonstration, as the temples that had been the repository of civil and political virtue and the organizing centers for a whole class of Roman elites were now replaced by a Christian establishment drawing its legitimacy directly from the Emperor.
We could classify this as an example of aggressive iconoclasm (although the Christians would have disagreed) – but five centuries later, iconoclasm erupted as a controversy within the Eastern Church in ways that point to more complexity. To the iconoclast emperors Leo III and Constantine V and the iconoclast church Council of Hieria, Byzantium’s defeats at the hands of the Muslims and a number of natural disasters meant that the worship of Christian icons had crossed over into idolatry that had brought on the wrath of God; to them, the removal of icons from the walls of Constantinople between 726-730 CE was both in obedience to God’s Commandments and necessary for the salvation of the Empire. To the iconophiles, these icons were physical links to the divine and literally protected Constantinople from the infidel; to remove them was to risk the destruction of the Empire and the damnation of all those people cut off from their saints. When both sides took up weapons to slaughter those who disagreed with them, which is the extremist?
Iconoclasm during the Protestant Reformation often focused on the destruction of symbols of inequality and hierarchy, such as the rails that separated the clergy from the laity, or in the elimination of ornamentation seen by some as glorifying worldly wealth rather than spiritual simplicitly (glass windows allowing in natural light were seen as representing the purity of God vs. man-made stained glass; the destruction of church organs or choir stands was meant to pave the way for the more democratic singing of the congregation) or the physical transformation of the church from emphasizing the altar (and thus communion and the miracles that were believed to occur during this ritual) to emphasizing the pulpit (thus emphasizing preaching and reading from the Bible as a source of religious authority).
Likewise, during the French Revolution, iconoclasm could have many meanings. Churches could be burnt in order to destroy feudal deeds and contracts that denoted some farmers as free men and others as serfs or to demonstrate that ignorance and superstition were going to be replaced by a new world of reason and enlightenment. The Jacobin regime that sought to forcibly de-Christianize France in the name of the liberation of mankind (including the liberation of those who didn’t want to be liberated, and very much ignoring Article X of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen), preserved much of what it destroyed by creating art museums, on the grounds that what was dangerous to freedom in a church was safe to appreciate aesthetically in the Louvre.
The point here isn’t to take sides between the iconoclast and the iconophile, but to point out that iconoclasm can have deeply layered meanings and expressive intent. And I think GRRM is pointing in this direction when he has the religion that’s being iconoclasted in this chapter be the same religion that chopped down the godswoods in most of the southern Seven Kingdoms in an attempt to extirpate the Old Gods – rather than a situation with neat good guys and bad guys, we have a case of what goes around, comes around.
What If?
If Stannis doesn’t declare for the Iron Throne here, his plot pretty much stops, so there’s not much use in hypothesizing what would happen if he didn’t send the letter. Likewise, I don’t actually think there’s much impact to Stannis sending the letter “in the light of the Lord” versus “in the name of the Old Gods and New.” However, I do think there is one main hypothetical:
Stannis goes straight for King’s Landing? Given that Tyrion has yet to arrange for the boom chain or the hulks stuffed with wildfire, I do think that Salladhor Saan and Davos are correct in thinking that Stannis could take King’s Landing at this point in time. The question is what happens next: certainly Tywin could march from Harrenhal (which would please Catelyn although not without risk of being attacked en route by |
KB 3035583 back up and installed it, without the DisableGWX key set in the Registry. Sure enough, she got the whole GWX package, and the Get Windows 10 icon appeared in the system tray.
Josh Mayfield, the inventor of GWX Control Panel, tried running different combinations of the four mentioned Registry keys. He found that one of the keys, ReservationsAllowed, has apparently fallen out of favor -- in fact, one of the background tasks that KB 3035583 installs actually turns that bit in the Registry off. Mayfield surmises that's because Microsoft isn't taking reservations for Windows 10 anymore.
Mayfield has posted a video on YouTube that shows the extent of the infec -- er, installation. It tracks my experiences and PKCano's experiences precisely:
KB 3035583 creates a new folder, c:\Windows\System32\GWX, which includes five GWX programs. The folder contains about 30MB.
Seven processes get scheduled to run in the Task Scheduler. Microsoft/Windows/Setup/gwx contains launchtrayprocess, refreshgwxconfig, refreshgwxconfigandcontent, and refreshgwxcontent. Microsoft/Windows/Setup/GWXTriggers includes refreshgwxconfig-B, ScheduleUpgradeReminderTime, and ScheduleUpgradeTime.
Launchtrayprocess runs whenever you log on or when you create or modify the task (as would be the case if you installed a newer version of KB 3035583).
Refreshgwxconfigandcontent runs every day at 8:00 PM. It, too, runs when you create or modify the task.
Refreshgwxconfig-B runs at 8:00 PM, then every 12 hours for a duration of one day.
Mayfield found that the DisableGWX Registry entry merely prevents the Get Windows 10 icon in the system tray from appearing. "Having this entry in place does not prevent the KB 3035583 patch from being installed, and it doesn't prevent the other background tasks associated with the patch from running."
More damning, Mayfield found that the refreshgwxconfig-B task resets the AllowOSUpgrade setting every time it runs. We don't know the full impact of having AllowOSUpgrade turned off (of course, none of this is documented anywhere), but it appears to involve moving from Win7 or 8.1 to Win10 via Windows Update.
Although refreshgwxconfig-B does not appear on every computer, I found it on my freshly installed Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs. PKCano found it on hers as well. The task runs two programs, GWXConfigManager.exe/RefreshConfigAndContent and GWXDetector.exe.
Most damning: Uninstalling KB 3035583 doesn't uninstall any of the files in the GWX folder or remove the scheduled tasks. Uninstalling it merely rolls you back to an earlier version of KB 3035583.
In short, I've never seen such a robust "Potentially Unwanted Program."
Last October, Windows head Terry Myerson promised us, "You can specify that you no longer want to receive notifications of the Windows 10 upgrade through the Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 settings pages." Now, with Microsoft poised to start rolling out Get Windows 10 as a "recommended update," we need that protection more than ever. But give Win7 and 8.1 customers a chance to say, "I don't want Windows 10 now, please call off the dogs."
Confidence and trust -- at least among the cognoscenti -- is withering away.Audio: CPR's Megan Verlee Profiles Sanders Supporter TC Bell
TC Bell, a Bernie Sanders supporter, stands in his home in Denver's Overland neighborhood. He's holding his daughter Emma. (Nathaniel Minor/CPR News) TC Bell, one of Sen. Bernie Sanders' most fervent Colorado supporters, doesn't have the past you might expect.
Sanders is a self-described socialist. Bell, on the other hand, voted Republican for years.
But more recently, he's spent hours training Sanders supporters on the ins and outs of Colorado's caucus system.
Who makes that kind of a switch -- and why?
Bell works as a cashier and raises his two daughters in Denver's Overland neighborhood. In an interview in his living room last month, he told me a little detail that sort of perfectly illustrates how crazy he is about politics: His oldest daughter, 6-year-old Dagny, was named after the main character in the iconic conservative novel "Atlas Shrugged."
"At the time we were these libertarian anarchists and I was like, 'What’s the most libertarian name I can come up with?' But by the time my second daughter was born, she’s actually named after Emma Goldman, who was a communist organizer," Bell said.
An Ex-Ron Paul Foot Soldier
Bell describes himself as a contrarian by nature. He was raised by a single mother who was, and is, a passionate conservative. Reminiscing about his high school days, Bell describes himself as a long-haired, pot smoking, semi-hippy kid. At the same time, he founded a Young Republicans club and liked to read the National Review.
Bell said his conservative past was a period of intellectual idealism. By 21, he was a foot soldier in the Ron Paul Revolution.
"My girlfriend had ‘Google Ron Paul’ painted on her windshield for literally 12 months," Bell said.
But the 2008 election shattered Bell’s political idealism. He was disgusted with the Republican establishment and its treatment of young activists like himself. Bell dropped out of electoral politics completely, writing in "Nobody" for president in 2012. He considered himself a "libertarian anarchist" -- ready to drown government in the bathtub and let capitalism run free.
But during this same time, things were happening in Bell's life that challenged his conservative beliefs. After his daughter was born he and his girlfriend split up and she applied for food stamps.
"I could see just the instant benefit, the shift of not having to stress of where food is going to come from," he said. "It was in that moment when I kind of was like, 'Oh, wait a minute. Not all of these big government programs are equivalent.' "
Swayed By Sanders
Bell’s own economic situation this past decade hasn't been great either. He couldn’t afford college and has been stuck in low-paying retail jobs. Today he makes little more than he did at summer jobs as a high school student. So it’s no wonder Bell was drawn to Sanders -- he’s living a lot of the campaign’s talking points.
Bell likes Sanders’ concrete recommendations for free tuition and universal health care. But what resonates most is Sanders’ diagnosis of the problem.
"It was really the idea of the class issue," Bell said. "How are we going to live amongst ourselves, the rich and the multitudes of the poor, because we're not doing a very good job right now."
By the time Bernie Sanders arrived on the national political scene, Bell’s pivot away from Ron Paul libertarianism was complete. And it may be less surprising than it seems that both of these men, so ideologically distinct, could arouse a similar passion in him. Both Paul and Sanders have demographically similar bases: young, white, more socially liberal, lower-income men -- the TC Bells of the world.
Both candidates revolutions also held the same radical promise: the potential to blow up a major political party from the inside. And in Bell’s mind, the parties are a big part of the problem.
"They're two zombies that are feeding off of each other and feeding off the fear of the American electorate," he said.
Life After Bernie
Bell used his organizing skills to train hundreds of other Sanders supporters how to navigate the March caucus. And it paid off. Colorado went for Sanders by almost 20 points. He's spent the last few months lobbying the state's Democratic super delegates to switch their allegiance away from Hillary Clinton, with less success. But as Sander’s winds down his campaign -- Bell is coming to accept the inevitable.
"Even though you're not allowed to do it within the Bernie movement, I know the writing's on the wall," he said. "Bernie's not going to win the nomination."
Bell says he no plans to check out on politics again, like he did after Ron Paul’s defeat. But he can’t say the same for younger Sanders supporters.
"What I fear is millions of people, who haven't had the same experiences as me, dropping out. And it's at that point that we really do lose," he said.
Bell hopes to rally those troops. If they can’t have Sanders as their president, Bell says he’ll commit to electing more Sanders-like politicians for local office.COMMENTARY
“The Celtics are a better team without Isaiah Thomas.”
This is a real thing suggested somewhere on TV or radio this past week during the All-Star point guard’s extended absence.
The funny part is Boston hasn’t even played well without Thomas. Granted they’ve been competitive. Granted Al Horford kind of blew the Houston game. Granted the Rockets, Thunder and Raptors are a combined 50-24 on the year – but at least Jimmy Garoppolo was winning during the crazy “Are the Pats better without Brady?” talk. The Celtics are 1-2 since Isaiah tweaked his groin.
But regardless of record, if you asked Brad Stevens this afternoon: “Hey Brad, you have a game tonight. Would you rather have Isaiah Thomas in uniform or in a suit at the end of the bench?” He’ll take Thomas every time. Obviously. Isaiah’s an All-Star. He scores 26 points a game. Russell Westbrook is the only player in the league who scores more in the fourth quarter.
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Are the Celtics a better team without Isaiah Thomas?
No.
End of conversation.
So, let’s have a different conversation.
Let’s say we go back a few years to the start of the 2013 season. Brad Stevens’ first in Boston. And let’s say we pull the coach aside again and ask: “Hey Brad, you have a game tonight. Would you rather have Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Jason Terry in uniform or Kris Humphries, Gerald Wallace and Marshon Brooks?”
With apologies to the Hump Daddy, Brad probably would’ve chosen Door No. 1. The Celtics might have been just a little better with Pierce, KG and Terry. But in that case, at that moment in history, there was a distinction between “what makes the Celtics better” and “what’s best for the Celtics.” The franchise was at a crossroads where real time success might impede potential. And right now, despite Isaiah’s talent and inspiration, Danny Ainge is approaching another intersection. It’s time consider whether Isaiah Thomas, the Celtics best player, might be best served as an asset.
***
Before we do that, let’s get this disclaimer out of the way.
Isaiah Thomas is a boss. Whatever the highest level of respect you can have for an athlete is, Thomas deserves it. He’s earned it. This guy could have played for Red Auerbach. He could play for Bill Belichick. Hell, the Pats could probably use him right now to return kicks. Thomas is pretty much an ideal athlete/role model – and not only for everything he’s overcome but for how he still carries himself after overcoming it. He says the right things and does the right things. You know this. You’ve watched him these last few years and fallen in love with everything.
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But take emotion out of it and consider this question:
Do you think the Celtics, while keeping this core in place, can win a title in the next two years?
Can they build a contender?
And I mean a real contender.
For instance, from 2008-12 the Celtics were real contenders. That core could have won three titles. They were also lucky to win one. So much happens every season and even more every postseason to the point where all you can hope for is to be in the conversation among the handful of teams with a shot – and the Celtics aren’t there right now. They’re not Cleveland. They’re not Golden State. They’re not the Spurs. They’re not the Clippers. And really, that’s it. That’s the list.
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The Celtics are still a player short. They’re a star short. In order to be taken seriously they need another guy who is a better all-around player than Isaiah. A better all-around player than Al Horford. Preferably a three or a four or someone who can play and guard multiple positions. Someone who is ready now – like Ray Allen was, like Kevin Garnett was, like Al Horford is – to compete on the biggest stage under the brightest lights.
But who is that player?
Does he exist?
Is he available?
Hmm.
Well, you can hope something goes horribly wrong with the Warriors and Kevin Durant decides to move again. Or maybe Blake Griffin gets sick of life in LA and wants a fresh start across the country. The only other two names for me are Paul George and Jimmy Butler, but they’re only be available via trade. And looking at the standings (the Bulls are 13-10, the Pacers 13-12) it’s unlikely either would be available until this summer, if at all. And even then, only if the Celtics hit it big with Brooklyn’s pick.
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Who else is out there? Not Gordon Hayward. Not yet at least. Paul Millsap is nice but he and Horford already tried this once. DeMarcus Cousins is a star but he’s not ready. He’s his own rebuild. He’s never even played in the postseason.
So basically, in order for the Celtics to contend at some point over these next two seasons they need to catch lightning in a bottle. The same way they did with Kevin Garnett in 2007 and the way they came so close to doing last summer. Although really, not to sound defeatist, but it sure feels like last summer was that lightning.
After a full year of everyone laughing at Boston for even thinking about Kevin Durant, the Celtics got themselves a meeting. They got an invite to the Hamptons. The same day – in Horford – they found their Ray Allen. For that one insane Tom Brady-laden afternoon, the stars aligned. It felt real. In fact, you can contend that if not for a historic collapse in the Finals by the best regular season team in NBA history, Kevin Durant might have actually picked the Celtics. At which point, Boston could’ve have swapped Jae Crowder and picks for Jimmy Butler. At which point—ok, enough of that. The point is, Danny Ainge took his chance. Again. He played it right. Again. This time the horseshoe fell out of his ass at the last second and I don’t know, what do you want to do? Fire Danny Ainge? You want to bring someone else in to run this team? Of course not. This is Danny’s team. There’s no one better to see them through whatever the future brings. Even if we still don’t know what the future will bring.
However, we do know this:
In the summer of 2018, at the end of next season, Isaiah Thomas will be an unrestricted free agent.
Marcus Smart will be a restricted free agent.
These guys are both starting NBA point guards and will both expect to be paid like it. When the time comes, Marcus will be 24, thankfully more mature, presumably much improved and just entering his prime. He’s a 6-4 man-child who can defend three positions. He’s an ever-evolving playmaker and a born leader.
Isaiah Thomas will be 29. He’ll likely command more money than Marcus. Thomas relies so much on quickness and athleticism to compensate for his size. He’s out there killing himself every single night (not that Marcus is taking it easy) to the point where you wonder how he’ll hold up. Thomas could very well play deep into his 30s based on shooting alone, but it’s a little crazy to think he’ll sustain this production. Especially when you talk about paying him upwards of $30M a year.
So, who do you want to build around? Who is your point guard of the future? And if you don’t think Boston can slap together a contender before the end of next season, at what point does the future become the present? If you want to roll with Marcus, at what point do you wonder, out loud, on the phone, to another GM, what they might be willing to part with for a 26-year-old All-Star point guard who scores 26 a game and makes less than seven million a year.
Hey Tom Thibodeau. You need an upgrade at point guard. You need some veteran leadership. Is Zach Lavine driving you crazy yet? You want some defense? How about Avery Bradley and you throw us Gorgui Deng?
Hey John Hammond, you’re the GM of the Milwaukee Bucks and your point guard situation is a little shaky, too. And yeah, we know, you want Giannis to play point. But then why are you still running Matthew Dellavedova out there for almost 30 minutes a game? You need a point guard, John. You’re also among the worst three-point shooting teams in the league. So how Giannis and Jabari Parker get along? Jabari and Jason Kidd? Talk to us, Johnny.
Hey there, Rob Hennigan. So, Frank Vogel’s bringing Elfrid Payton off the bench now, huh? DJ Augustin is your starting point guard? OK, OK. Let’s talk about Aaron Gordon, Rob.
Oh, hi, Dennis Lindsey, GM of the Utah Jazz. It seems you only have George Hill for the rest of this year and he’s only played 11 games as it is. Meanwhile Dante Exum doesn’t look ready, so...
Who knows what would come from these conversations or what one thing might lead to another. I mean, you deal Isaiah then you might as well deal Al Horford. You might as well say, “OK, we’re not sniffing a title until LeBron breaks down or the Warriors break up, so let’s take Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, maybe Zach Lavine or Jabari Parker (we’re talking ideals here) not to mention a very likely Top 3 pick in a super stacked draft – and let’s get ready to contend with the next wave.
It’s not what anyone wants.
Not Danny. Not Brad. Not Wyc. Not Gino.
It won’t make these Celtics a better team.
But if Banner 18 is the name of the game, it may very well be what’s best for team.Ebenezer St John's in Ballarat. Credit:Lachlan Bence Days later, the couple were summoned to Mr North's office and were told he would no longer marry them, nor would they be allowed to hold their ceremony at the church. In a letter to the bride, provided to Fairfax Media, Mr North said the views expressed in the Facebook post had "practical consequences" for the wedding. "After the pre-marital counselling that you attended and the sermons delivered at Ebenezer on this subject, you must surely appreciate that your commitment to same-sex marriage opposes the teaching of Christ Jesus and the scriptural position practiced by the Presbyterian Church of Australia and by me," he wrote. "This conflict of views has practical consequences in relation to your upcoming wedding.
Minister Steve North, pictured in 2014, refused to officiate the wedding and banned the couple from getting married at his church. Credit:Jeremy Bannister "By continuing to officiate it would appear either that I support your views on same-sex marriage or that I am uncaring about this matter. As you know, neither statement is correct. "Also, if the wedding proceeded in the Ebenezer St John's church buildings, the same inferences could be drawn about the Presbyterian denomination. Such inferences would be wrong." Minister Steve North pictured outside the church in 2014. Credit:Jeremy Bannister Fairfax Media has spoken to the couple but has agreed not to name them, in line with their wishes. The couple did not seek media attention about the case – Fairfax Media was informed by a friend of the family.
Ebenezer St John's did not return multiple calls. John Wilson, clerk of assembly at the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, said decisions about officiating marriages were at the discretion of individual ministers. He did not wish to comment further. But Presbyterian ministers and churchgoers are under clear directions to oppose same-sex marriage. Mr Wilson, who is also moderator-general of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, published a blog post committing the church to the "no" case and calling on attendees to campaign actively. "There are many powerful voices clamouring to tear down what God declares to be holy. The church must not be silent on this," Mr Wilson wrote. However, other church sources suggested the Ballarat experience was uncommon. Darren Middleton, convenor of the Church and Nation committee and a Geelong minister, said it was the first such case he had encountered. "This is a decision for individual ministers to make. My guess is most probably would have let the wedding go ahead," he told Fairfax Media.
"It's not normally a requirement to get married that you subscribe to particular views. I would want to talk to them about their views … but that wouldn't be a bar to them getting married. That's a separate issue in my mind." David Burke, moderator of the Presbyterian church in NSW, also said these were matters for individual ministers but his approach would be to talk it through with the couple. The Ballarat couple had already sent wedding invitations to friends and family, but were able to find an alternative, secular venue for their November wedding. The ceremony will be officiated by a retired minister. In an emotive written response to Mr North, the couple said they would no longer attend Ebenezer St John's church as a result of the minister's decision. "We feel this decision is absolutely disgraceful and is a disgrace to you and all the church, especially when we have been loyal and valued members of this congregation for 10 years," they wrote.
"You were made aware from the beginning of our proceedings that we had gay friends and also that people in our wedding party were gay. How could you assume that we would abandon them or degrade them with regards to same-sex marriage? "We understand we did agree with the teachings of the church in our marriage counselling but just because we agree with that for our own lives, doesn't mean that we have to push those beliefs onto others." The church's decision had caused "a great deal of stress and upset" to both families, the couple wrote.LONDON: Sikhs in UK have announced a massive campaign to oppose Britain’s plan to build a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at London’s Parliament Square The Sikh Federation (UK) has written to Britain’s culture secretary Sajid Javid who is leading the project.Bhai Amrik Singh, chair of the Sikh Federation in his letter to Javid called Gandhi “a blatant racist, a sexual weirdo or worse a child abuser and someone discriminating on the basis of the Hindu caste system, which is now outlawed in the UK”.Singh said “it would therefore be totally inappropriate to have a statue of Gandhi erected in Parliament Square”.The Federation has also written to Philip Jackson, the British sculptor who has been approached by the British government to begin work on Gandhi’s statue asking him to boycott the project.The Federation is also writing to anti-racists groups, campaign groups opposed to paedophilia and organisations that have been working in the UK to have caste discrimination outlawed in the UK.They are being urged to unite to oppose the statue and write to all UK politicians that support their causes “highlighting the other side to Gandhi’s life that many choose to turn a blind eye”.The plan to have a Gandhi statue at Parliament Square in London was announced by British foreign secretary William Hague and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne on Tuesday.They intend to have the monument in place early next year. Once installed, the statue will provide a focal point for commemoration next summer of the 100th anniversary of Gandhi’s return to India from South Africa to start the struggle for self-rule, as well as the passing of 70 years since his death in 2018, and the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2019”.The memorial will stand alongside those to other international leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln.Hague said “Gandhi’s view of communal peace and resistance to division, his desire to drive India forward, and his commitment to non-violence left a legacy that is as relevant today as it was during his life. He remains a towering inspiration and a source of strength. We will honour him with a statue alongside those of other great leaders in Parliament Square”.Osborne added “As the father of the largest democracy in the world, it’s time for Gandhi to take his place in front of the mother of Parliaments. He is a figure of inspiration, not just in Britain and India, but around the world. New Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi invoked his memory in his inaugural speech to Parliament. I hope this new memorial will be a lasting and fitting tribute to his memory in Britain, and a permanent monument to our friendship with India”.The Gandhi statue will be the 11th statue to be erected in Parliament square.Has the West's war with Iran already begun? Mystery explosions at nuke sites, 'assassinated' scientists and downed drones fuel fears covert conflict is under way
Iran moves long-range missiles to prevent them being targeted in an attack
Follows mysterious blasts at military base and uranium depot in last month
Expert says 'assassinations, cyber war and sabotage already under way'
Advanced CIA drone crash lands in mountains
Think-tank warns efforts to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons could fail
UAE vice president insists Iran is not a threat to Israel or the West
U.S. insists Iran is becoming 'pariah' state for flouting international rules
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard today went on to a war footing as its commander upped his troops' readiness for operations.
The move by General Mohammed Ali Jaafari, coming after the shooting down of a U.S. drone and the ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran, will raise fears among citizens in the West that the Islamists are escalating towards major conflict.
But following on from mysterious explosions at Iranian nuclear sites, the kidnapping and assassination of scientists and possible sabotage of computers using a virus, an increasing number of experts are suggesting that combat has already broken out - a '21st century war'.
Operational status: Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been put on a war footing by the country's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over fears of an attack by the West on its nuclear facilities
The key area of dispute is Iran's rapidly expanding nuclear programme from which President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad insists he will not budge 'one iota'.
Sanctions and mounting international pressure appear to have failed to persuade the country to slow down its pursuit of uranium enrichment.
And many observers believe the blowing-up of facilities and targeting of key scientists is a more direct way of halting their ambitions.
Patrick Clawson, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said he was under no illusion as to what was occurring.
He told the Los Angeles Times: 'It looks like the 21st century form of war.
'It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage.' What is not clear is whose hand is behind the 'attacks' on Iran's nuclear sites.
Under attack? A satellite image of the Revolutionary Guard base near Bid Kaneh taken in September. A mysterious explosion destroyed many of the buildings last month
Sabotage? The same base after the explosion on November 12, which some have claimed was the work of U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies
One retired U.S. official, with up to date intelligence, told the National Journal: 'It's safe to say the Israelis are very active.'
He added about U.S. efforts: 'Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing - tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community - are all of the things we are actually doing.'
On November 12, a huge explosion flattened the Revolutionary Guard base at Bid Kaneh, killing 17 people including a founder of Iran's ballistic missile programme.
A separate blast last week badly damaged the uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan.
Two nuclear physicists were killed and Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, were wounded by bombs attached to their cars or detonated near them last year.
Advanced: Iran claimed yesterday to have shot down a U.S. high-tech RQ-170 drone. There are fears the regime could gain stealth technology information if they have secured the drone
Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment in Germany, said the intensity of the covert war indicated that this is where the U.S. and Israel are putting their energy for now.
He said: 'If the U.S. or Israel were determined to take Iran’s nuclear installations out they wouldn’t be wasting time pinpointing individual scientists like this.'
But, he pointed out, Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor was also preceded by assassination attempts on Iraqi scientists.
Hibbs said: 'Some of the concern in the expert community is that in going down this route we’re unleashing forces we cannot control.' That is seen as a reference to the Stuxnet computer worm which infected the nuclear facilities in 2010, and was believed to be the work of U.S and Israeli engineers.
But a source senior within the Obama administration indicated that the U.S. was not involved in every action. He added: 'I wouldn’t assume that everything we do is coordinated.'
Tensions: Protesters set fire to the British and Israeli flags during demonstrations in the Iranian capital Tehran last week
Anger: A protester breaks the emblem of the British embassy in Tehran after a mob of students attacked the building
Abbasi-Davani accused Great Britain, Israel and the U.S. of conducting attacks on him and other Iranian scientists.
He told a news conference at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna: 'Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children.'
It was the IAEA which produced a report detailing how close Iran was to producing the bomb that has racheted up tension between Washington and Tehran in recent weeks.
It culminated last week with the storming of the British embassy, during which time staff were held hostage and more than £1 million of damage caused, and led Britain to expel Iranian diplomats.
Seeing pictures of the Royal Family torn and historic paintings broken only served to fuel the enmity between the countries.
Dominick Chilcott, Britain's ambassador to Iran who lost his dog in the incident, accused the Iranians of supporting it. That theory appeared founded when the handful of protesters arrested were released without charge earlier this week.
Damage: A shattered window in the office of the British Embassy. Several other countries withdrew their ambassadors after the attack last week, which came in response to further sanctions on Iran's nuclear programme
Then, on Sunday, Bahrain's interior ministry announced that an explosion occurred inside a minibus parked near the British Embassy. However, there were no injuries.
Furthermore, a plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to Washington was uncovered and foiled in the U.S. with America blaming the Iranians, who were celebrating at the weekend the latest in the round of tit-for-tat propaganda victories with the downing on a U.S. drone so hi-tech that no pictures of it have ever been released.
'This is a big prize in terms of technology,' a senior U.S. military source said after the downing of the RQ-170 drone.
Defiant: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he country will not budge from its nuclear programme, which he insists is for peaceful means
The Iranian news agency said it was show down after illegally crossing the country's eastern border, although a U.S. military official said it had 'absolutely no indication' the drone was shot down.
Neither the Air Force nor manufacturer Lockheed Martin has released much information about the plane, which was dubbed The Beast of Kandahar in 2007 when its existence was finally confirmed.
Early reports suggested that the plane - which supposedly has a wingspan of about 65ft and can fly at around 50,000ft - would be made almost entirely without metal to help it dodge radar.
The White House declined to comment but officials did not seem unduly alarmed, suggesting that the drone's capture would not provide Iran with significant information about U.S. surveillance technology and techniques.
Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, said the build-up of incidents 'add up to a very worrisome picture'.
This was, he said, in part because 'the Iranians are absorbing all of these assassinations without seeing the pace of their nuclear program slow down to the extent it would be acceptable to the West.'
But if Iranian retaliations grow serious enough, he said, they could provide 'the pretext for a much larger war' in which the Israelis, and possibly the Americans, launch a full attack on Iran.
Gen Jaafari responded by ordering Revolutionary Guard units to move long-range Shahab missile to prevent them being targeted.
A protest slogan opposite the Houses of Parliament in London. Many fear Israel could take preemptive action to halt Iran's nuclear programme
The Iranian air force has also been carrying out exercises to respond to any attack from the air and says it will deal seriously with any further incursions into its airspace.
Amid all this comes a report today compiled by the American Enterprise Institute for Publc Policy Research (AEI) that suggested Western efforts to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons had a real chance of failing.
The report says the U.S. would have to 'lead an international effort to contain Iran and deter the Islamic Republic from using its nuclear capability'. The conservative think-tank will release its report, 'Containing and Deterring a Nuclear Iran', later today.
Vice President Danielle Pletka told Foreign Policy Magazine: 'The report is very much an acknowledgement of the very real possibility of failure of the strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and any responsible party should recognise that failure is an option.'
The report says Iran could realise its nuclear ambitions before the 2012 U.S. presidential election, with the Obama administration reticent to sanction action before the November ballot.
But other Middle East countries have insisted Iran does not represent a threat to the West.
UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum told CNN: 'I don't believe that Iran will develop a nuclear weapon. Will they hit Israel? How many Palestinians will die? And you think if Iran hits Israel, their cities will be safe? They will be gone the next day.'Introduction
The Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact is a rare breed - it's small on the outside, but big on the inside. Packed with all the latest hardware and having only a small screen to power, Sonys latest super-mini may very well be the performance champion to beat. But whenever there is a superhero, there is a villain lurking in the shadows. So yes, the Compact has its own battle to fight thats not all about size or speed.
Three years ago, the first Xperia Z1 Compact did the unthinkable, taking the then flagship apart and putting it back together into a smaller, nimbler package. Economy? Absolutely not. It was the performance package.
Sony eventually pulled the brakes with the X Compact last season but the XZ1 Compact is trying to make up for it and get back in the fast lane: the latest Snapdragon 835 chip, the flagship-grade Sony IMX400 camera with 960fps slow-mo vids, the elegant waterproof design, and Android Oreo right out of the box.
With a screen that size, the XZ1 has no business in the resolution race and the performance has the biggest gain. The XZ1 Compact is shaping up to be what the iPhone SE was to loyal Apple users and we can't wait to take this little beast out for a spin.
Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact key features
Body: 129 x 64 x 9.3mm, 140g of a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic unibody, Gorilla Glass 5 front, IP65/68 waterproofing
129 x 64 x 9.3mm, 140g of a glass-fiber-reinforced plastic unibody, Gorilla Glass 5 front, IP65/68 waterproofing Screen: 4.6" Triluminos display of 720p resolution (720 x 1,280px); 319ppi
4.6" Triluminos display of 720p resolution (720 x 1,280px); 319ppi OS: Android OS v8 Oreo with the Xperia launcher and Sony multimedia bundle
Android OS v8 Oreo with the Xperia launcher and Sony multimedia bundle Chipset: Snapdragon 835 chipset: octa-core Kryo 280 CPU (4x2.46GHz +4x1.9GHz); Adreno 540 GPU; 4GB of RAM
Snapdragon 835 chipset: octa-core Kryo 280 CPU (4x2.46GHz +4x1.9GHz); Adreno 540 GPU; 4GB of RAM Camera: 19MP, 1/2.3" Sony IMX400 camera, f/2.0 lens, predictive hybrid laser/phase detection/contrast AF, burst AF, IR sensor for white balance, LED flash, dedicated hardware shutter key;
19MP, 1/2.3" Sony IMX400 camera, f/2.0 lens, predictive hybrid laser/phase detection/contrast AF, burst AF, IR sensor for white balance, LED flash, dedicated hardware shutter key; Video recording: 4K video recording @30fps, 1080p @60fps, 720p @960fps, Steady Shot; Stereo audio recording;
4K video recording @30fps, 1080p @60fps, 720p @960fps, Steady Shot; Stereo audio recording; Selfie: 8MP, 1/4" front-facing ultra wide-angle camera with FOV120 and 1080p@30fps video
8MP, 1/4" front-facing ultra wide-angle camera with FOV120 and 1080p@30fps video Storage: 32GB of built-in UFS storage and a microSD card slot
32GB of built-in UFS storage and a microSD card slot SIM: Single and dual-SIM models (region specific)
Single and dual-SIM models (region specific) Connectivity: Cat. 15 LTE; Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, MIMO; GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo, Bluetooth v5.0; NFC, USB-C port with USB 2.0 support, 3.5mm headphone jack
Cat. 15 LTE; Dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, MIMO; GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo, Bluetooth v5.0; NFC, USB-C port with USB 2.0 support, 3. |
Try them freely, singly or in pairs. On for a month – off for a month – on for a month – off for a month, keeping a diary of symptoms. This is a time-consuming exercise, to be sure, but the potential benefit is huge. Don’t give up if the first few treatments that you try don’t seem to be working; that’s all in the nature of the game. We’re looking for the treatment that resonates with your metabolism, and you’ll know it when you find it if you can remain objective and scientific. (That’s the purpose of the diary.)5 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Reddit Tumblr Digg Linkedin Stumbleupon Mail Print
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I went to feed the parking meter with a friend and noticed a police car pull into a commercial loading zone and get out of the car (also known as parking). I took pictures because of the increasing number of cars they are towing in Austin and the attitude of the police to behave above the law.
I tried asking Sergeant Andreini #3429 with Austin Police Dept. about it and he yelled in my face that I was blocking the sidewalk. That’s when I started recording. He tried to explain this concept that police never park. This is of course nonsense, but he seems to know that as well, based on his inability to stop blinking and looking around.
APD Above the Law from VimeoATX on Vimeo.
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EPNBy Joe Veyera
A pair of ballot measures aimed to put Seattle’s new, phased-in $15 minimum wage law to a vote this fall failed to gather enough signatures and will not appear on the November ballot.
On Tuesday, King County Elections announced it had sent a letter of insufficiency to the City of Seattle for both Referendum Measure Nos. 2 and 3, neither of which had enough valid signatures for a measure to be placed on the ballot.
While 18,929 signatures were submitted by Forward Seattle for Referendum No. 3, only 14,818 were deemed valid, well short of the 16,510 needed to qualify for the ballot. The other measure, from Save Our Choices, submitted only 455 signatures that were valid out of 568 submitted and checked.
Back in June, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to approve a plan to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 over several years. Large businesses (those with 500 or more employees, either in Seattle or nationally) will reach $15 per hour in three years — four if they provide health insurance. Small businesses (businesses with fewer than 500 employees) will reach a $15 per hour minimum wage in seven years.
In a post on Forward Seattle’s Facebook page on July 15, co-chair Angela Cough said, “Even if we fall short once the count is complete, WE ARE NOT DONE.” It’s currently unclear how the group will proceed after the referendum’s failure to reach the ballot, but the post also noted that, “while a referendum is the best option for re-visiting this issue with the City, we have other options available to us to effect change in the near future and state-wide.”
Any questions about the referendum petitions can be directed to Monica Simmons, Office of the City Clerk, City of Seattle, at 206-684-8361.EVE Online turned 12 on May 6th, and in celebration of that monumental number, we’re going to be dedicating this weeks Final Frontier to looking back at some of our favorite moments in EVE‘s history.
If you’re an MMO, 12 years is a very long time to be alive. EVE Online is certainly up there with some of the grandfathers of the genre, like EverQuest, Ultima Online, and much more. What’s incredible, is that while many of these much older MMOs tend to dwindle in time, EVE Online has only grown. Each year the game manages to draw more and more players into it with its unique sandbox world and ongoing narrative that has become one of the most seminal pieces of science fiction of our time. You might not ever become The Mittani, but you can still understand that every day you play, you are a part of a living story—and that is something special.
With 12 years under its belt, there are simply too many stories to count, too many battles fought, too many changes to the game. And I’ll be honest, I wasn’t around for a lot of them. I was just a wee lad when EVE first launched, and though I’ve spent the last 5 years playing, I still have much to learn and understand about New Eden. Regardless, let’s take a look back at some of EVE Online‘s greatest stories.
The Bloodbath of B-R5RB
The greatest battle EVE Online has ever seen—any game has ever seen. Over 7500 characters, 717 corporations, and 55 alliances participated in the battle. It sent shockwaves through the EVE community, as the 20 hour conflict raged on, drawing the attention of major news outlets the world over. The reason? Unpaid rent.
Some of the biggest battles in EVE Online have been the result of human error. The Battle of Asakai, which took place a year before and was one of the largest at the time, was started because a single Titan pilot warped himself into enemy territory instead of his fleet. That one misclick became the catalyst that saw 700 billion ISK go up in flames (around $15,000 USD).
B-R5RB resulted in the loss of 11 trillion ISK ($300,000 USD). An unprecedented 75 Titans were destroyed, along hundreds of Capitals, and tens of thousands of sub-capital ships.
On January 27th, 2014, one year after the Battle of Asakai, H A V O C, a corporation within Nulli Secunda who belonged to the N3 Coalition, missed a payment in order maintain sovereignty over their station in B-R5RB. Enemy scouts noticed this when they witnessed H A V O C quietly trying to recapture their own station.
The Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC) and a coalition of Russian alliances decided to capitalize on the mistake, using the timezone to their advantage to field a Capital fleet and get it into B-R before N3 and Pandemic Legion could amount an effective defense. But as both coalitions began amassing their fleets, sending out call-to-arms across the expanse of New Eden, it became obvious this would be no minor conflict.
CFC decided to field their entire Capital fleet, while N3 and Pandemic Legion arrived on scene in their infamous Wrecking Ball, a formation that they had used to soundly defeat the CFC in an earlier conflict.
Within hours the battle had been joined in earnest, as thousands of players flooded into B-R to reinforce their respective allies. Meanwhile, thousands of smaller skirmishes were erupting across New Eden as both forces attempted to control the conflict in and around B-R.
Though N3 initially showed they had the upper hand, destroying several Titans and forcing a few more to flee, they made a crucial error when deciding to focus all firepower on the Russian fleet commander Sort Dragon. Sort Dragon’s Titan was equipped with incredibly high damage resist, and with his entire fleet working to keep him adequately repaired, the long grind to bringing him down allowed CFC to kill several of N3’s Titans in response.
As North America approached its primetime, N3 was simply not getting the numbers they’d need to maintain the conflict. Before long, the retreat was sounded. Spies within N3 alerted CFC of the retreat and preparations were made to prevent escape.
Well before the dust settled and wreckage counted, it was obvious that New Eden had just seen its biggest World War. The event sent ripples through news outlets both gaming and traditional, and CCP honored the battle with a monument to the Titans sacrificed in the name of unpaid rent.
The Guiding Hand Social Club Heist
Mirial, head of Ubiqua Seraph corporation, was not about to have a great morning. Flying her most prized vessel, a Navy Apocalypse that at the time made the wallets of just about every player in New Eden quiver, Mirial was coaxed into taking her shiny prize on a tour alongside her most trusted Lieutenant, Arenis Xemdal. The two flew through space, her in her Navy Apocalypse, and Arenis flying the even more breathtaking Imperial Issue Apocalypse.
Within minutes, it was over. MIrial was waking up in a fresh clone, hundreds of lightyears away from the smoking wreckage of her prized vessel. Ubiqua Seraph found itself destitute as every single asset it possessed was immediately taken from their hangars, and the Guiding Hand Social Club had just pulled off the biggest heist in EVE history. The whole ordeal was a year in the making and took minutes to execute.
When Istvaan Shogaatsu was approached by Mirial’s nemesis, the initial contract was to bring them Mirial’s frozen corpse in exchange for a billion ISK. But by the time Istvaan and his bandits made out, they had accumulated 30 billion ISK in stolen assets—keeping in mind that ISK back then was much more valuable.
For a whole year, Istvaan and his Guiding Hand Social Club planted spies within Ubiqua Seraph, and both he and Arenis climbed the corporate ladder to become some of the corporation’s most trusted members. When Arenis, in his shiny Apocalypse, unleashed his betrayal, Mirial never saw it coming. Upon uttering the code word “Nicole”, Arenis, Istvaan, and their spies robbed the corporation of everything, while Arenis finished off the helpless Mirial.
It went on to become one of the greatest stories in EVE history, with coverage spanning a horde of publications and news outlets. Istvaan himself was subject to no less than 9 death threats. It shattered one of the most influential corporations at the time, and caused every CEO in every corporation to think twice about who they trusted.
Band of Brothers Disbands
Speaking of spies, defecting has always been a common trope in spy fiction, but in 2009, that fiction became a reality when Band of Brothers, one of the largest alliances in EVE Online, was suddenly and violently dismantled.
At the end of one of the bloodiest wars in EVE Online, known as the Great War, the stage was set for Band of Brothers to vanish into oblivion. Haargoth Agamar, a senior director within Band of Brothers had placed an alternative character inside of Goonswarm, BoB’s sworn enemy and nemesis during the Great War. During the time he spent with Goonswarm, Haargoth realized that he was having a better time flying alongside the enemy than against them, and decided to defect.
Revealing who he truly was, Goonswarm’s leader, The Mittani, decided to put Haargoth to good use. What was initially intended as a smash and grab on assets within Band of Brothers became a full scale evaporation of one of the most powerful alliances in the game’s history. Haargoth, using his director powers, kicked every single corporation out of Band of Brothers, and initiated a series of heists stealing billions worth of assets across several stations in Brothers’ space. At every station he robbed, Haargoth left a visible beacon (called a bookmark) labelled “The Mittani sends his regards”.
To add further insult to injury, the name Band of Brothers, now vacant without an alliance to claim it, was stolen by Goonswarm so that the name could never be reclaimed by its former members. Scattered and defenseless, without the protective shield of sovereignty, the alliance was quickly crushed in the following months when Goonswarm invaded their space and swept them into the abyss. The Mittani sends his regards.
Burn Jita
Goonswarm has dominated the culture of EVE Online for almost as long as it has been around. Engaging in some of the largest conflicts, dismantling entire alliances in one fell swoop, and in 2012, burning the game’s largest player based trade hub to the ground.
Jita 4-4, the station in the heart of Caldari space, has long since been the capital of New Eden, at least in the minds of the players. It is their self-identified trade hub, a centralized place that sees thousands of players visiting it every day to sell and buy their materials, ships, modules, and more.
But in 2012, Jita was a pile of ash. The Goonswarm, coordinating with several other alliances, started an initiative aimed to bring the economy of New Eden to its knees. Piloting ships equipped for maximum firepower, thousands of pilots camped the gates of Jita, blowing up anything and everything that tried to approach them. It was carnage. It was suicide.
For every ship that aggressed a non-hostile vessel, CONCORD, New Eden’s invincible police force, would arrive to promptly destroy the hostile ship. The trick was to blow up the victim before CONCORD blew you up, an art perfected by years of suicide ganking. The image below shows a heat map of all of the ship kills within a 24 hour period during Burn Jita.
Burn Jita was a massive success, and a player-made event that CCP had no choice but to applaud and champion, seeing it as an opportunity to tout the game’s emergent storytelling. Billions of ISK was lost, thousands of ships were destroyed, and all because Goonswarm wanted to.
The Mara Gate Camp
Gate camping has become second nature to many of EVE‘s more combat-minded pilots. Acting as the funnels that ferry pilots from one system to another, they are a choke point in the otherwise open expanse of a solar system. Back in 2003, only months after EVE Online had launched, a corporation known as m0o began camping a gate leading to the Mara system, a bottleneck and popular travel route through New Eden. Destroying any ship that attempted to fly through Mara, these ex-Counterstrike pilots blockaded an entire section of space. Nowadays, gate camps will last for hours, sometimes days, but after weeks of diligent camping, M0o showed no signs of stopping. Players attempted to run the blockade and failed, they formed fleets and attempted to engage but were killed, and the EVE forums were filling with complaints hourly.
FInally, CCP decided to take action. Piloting their own fleet, something now regarded as a very poor decision and a rare infringement on their policy of not getting involved within the game, CCP engaged m0o. Recognizing that CCP was invincible, m0o ordered a hasty retreat. The moment that CCP left, they were back.
At one point, CCP even warped every member to distant and random sectors of space, another curious move by the development team to dissuade the pirates, but in the end all efforts were futile.
Mara was eventually liberated, not by players or by CCP, but by boredom. m0o moved on to greener pastures and CCP had the brilliant idea to install guns on the stargates.
The Yulai Incident
Just like the guns that attack hostile forces on stargates, many of EVE Online‘s mechanics weren’t built proactively by the developers, but as a response to events that happened within the game and abuses found by the players. The Yulai Incident is one such case, and notable for the extreme consequences it carried.
In 2004, Zombies, Inc. decided they wanted to have some fun. Their mission: infiltrate Yulai, one of New Eden’s biggest trade hubs at the time, and go on a rampage before escaping intact.
It might sound like a pretty understandable goal, until you realize that CONCORD, the forces I mentioned above, are unbeatable and will respond to any threat with extreme force. But Zombies, Inc. had a plan.
While CONCORD would exterminate any pilot who attacked another pilot, a major flaw in their logic prevented them from seeing pilots repairing a hostile pilot as any threat at all. Zombies, Inc. used this to their advantage when one of their members fit their Apocalypse with smart bombs, one of the only weapons capable of dealing area of effect damage. Taking this bomber Apocalypse into Yulai supported by a fleet of logistics ships ready to repair him, our anarchist began unleashing hell upon the unsuspecting pilots. CONCORD promptly arrived, but the damage they dealt was too little to break the tank of the Apocalypse and the fleet that repaired it.
The chaos reached a crescendo when the pilot turned his sights on CONCORD themselves, bombing the police force in an unprecedented act of aggression. CCP intervened, instructing Zombies, Inc. to immediately halt all attacks. Zombies didn’t listen.
When the attack was over, the forums exploded with players condemning or praising the alliance’s actions, but CCP, angered by the disobedience of their players, handed out bans to every member who participated in the incident and replaced every ship that was lost during the altercation.
The Yulai Incident was also the cause of sweeping changes to the way CONCORD worked. Pilots who repaired hostile pilots would be targeted, CONCORD ships were made to be invincible and dealt damage that was untankable. Another excellent example of CCP learning to create the game around the actions of the players.
So there it is, five of some of the most interesting and awesome stories that have spawned from EVE Online these last twelve years. Things have changed in dramatic ways, and everyday, stories just like these are being told by hundreds of thousands of pilots. EVE Online is only continuing to grow, and CCP has their sights set on reaching the next decade in better shape than ever! Happy Birthday EVE, and thanks for all the stories.
Related: AnniversaryChristine Paige Borrowdale will never win a Mother of the Year award. What did she do? In an attempt to get her boyfriend acquitted of abuse of her 16-year-old son, she allegedly created false Facebook postings. She now faces a warrant for perjury and tampering with evidence.
During the June 2013 trial of her boyfriend, in an attempt to exonerate LeBlanc who was on trial for abusing her teenage son, Borrowdale testified under oath that she had printouts that showed her son was engaged in a Facebook conversation at the time LeBlanc was accused of abusing him.
Perjury is not usually charged because it is difficult to prove that testimony is false. In this case, it is reported that computer forensics showed that Borrowdale had changed the time setting on her computer, thus altering both the computer registry and also the time and date stamp on her son's Facebook post.
You may read the entire Traverse City Record Eagle article here. [Last accessed October 9, 2013]While grocery shopping the other day I picked up a tube of ready-to-cook cinnamon rolls and thought hey, I wonder how these would taste with bacon. As I read the back of the package I was reminded that the rolls are actually un-rolled when you remove them.
I unrolled the first pastry and the length of the dough reminded me of something. Could it be? Yes indeed. Serendipity. The unrolled pastry was nearly identical in size to a strip of Boss Hog’s bacon. This was going to be interesting.
After assembling all the bacon cinnamon rolls I popped them in the pre-heated oven at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes. I then pulled the rolls out of the oven and drizzled the icing upon them as directed.
Right from the first bite I knew we had a winner. The Smaste™ rating alone was a jaw-dropping 51.93. The entire house was filled with sugary, cinnamony, bacony aroma. The taste was both sweet and salty, a perfect combination for a morning pick-me-up meal. Highly recommended for any bacon lover!
–Mr. B.WWE 2K18 Available Here!
Now on PC! Welcome to Suplex City, courtesy of cover Superstar Brock Lesnar! WWE 2K17 returns as the reigning, defending, champion of fighting video games! WWE 2K17 features realistic graphics, ultra-authentic gameplay, and the largest roster to date featuring your favorite WWE and NXT Superstars and Legends.
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Hard Space: 30 GBWhen you think about the biggest skunk in the Grand Ole Party, does Karl Rove’s eau de turdblossom spring to mind? It should:
We have recently learned that Rove has signed a mid-six figure consulting deal with billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to oversee the activities of the right-wing shadow group Freedom’s Watch. With the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) underfunded and in disarray this cycle, it has outsourced its work to Freedom’s Watch, a shady soft money group with ties to President Bush and Senator John McCain. If you ever wondered what the Bush political team is up to this campaign season, you need look no farther than the team behind Freedom’s Watch. Rove, along with former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, former White House Political Director Tony Feather, and a slew of Bush cronies have teamed up with the third richest man in the country, Freedom’s Watch’s sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson – to form this unprecedented swift-boat operation. Their goal is clear — to preserve Bush’s legacy by delivering a third Bush term…. Please take a moment to visit www.TheRealFreedomsWatch.org and sign our petition demanding the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican campaigns nationwide denounce Karl Rove’s new attack shop….
Funny thing about Rove: he’s been writing regular op-ed columns for the WSJ and Newsweek, and doing regular political commentary for Faux News. He also works both for Freedom’s Watch AND for the McCain Campaign. All at the same time. All with no regular public disclosure of his rampant conflicts of interest nor with much if any oversight of his pivotal role between McCain’s presidential campaign and Freedom’s Watch which, as a 501(c)(4), is supposed to have no coordination with McCain’s camp or any political campaign. And yet:
“Karl is up to his eyeballs in this,” says one prominent GOP consultant who has met with Rove a few times this year. “They’re trying to figure out who is going to do the presidential, who is going to do the Senate and who is going to do the House. They’re trying to assign resources to maximize the dollars and minimize duplication. Karl has taken it over.”
Anyone else getting that inevitable whiff of GOP corruption and flouting of the rules?
I’m sure Rove protege Steve Schmidt, newly installed at the McCain campaign’s helm, is shocked…shocked, I say…to learn his mentor Karl Rove might be involved in a rule-flouting scheme to game the 2008 election. Especially when you consider the timely roll-out of prior Freedom’s Watch campaigns which just happened to coincide directly with the McCain messaging roll-out of the week? (And with Congressional campaign strategy, which Blue America has already been fighting.)
Why is it that when we talk Republican corruption, all roads inevitably lead to Rove? And shouldn’t we all be asking if Grover Norquist is up to his old launder the Republican money and take a cut tricks again? Is this yet another "follow the money" scheme? Inquiring minds and all…given that after Jackie Boy Abramoff, none of these people ever again get the benefit of any doubt.LEEDS UNITED expects to record losses of just under £23m for the 2013-14 year after their revenue dropped to £25.3m and their wage bill climbed to more than £22m.
According to draft accounts sent to the Football League but yet to be signed off by auditors or United’s owner, Massimo Cellino, Leeds are in breach of Financial Fair Play rules limiting clubs in the Championship to a maximum annual loss of £8m.
A breach carries the punishment of a transfer embargo in the January window.
Cellino, who bought Leeds in April and is currently fighting an attempt by the Football League to disqualify him as owner of the club, was majority shareholder at Elland Road for fewer than three of the 12 months covered by the 2013-14 accounts.
GFH Capital, the Dubai-based arm of GFH, ran United for most of that period, though according to the draft accounts, a restructuring of its stake in the club left Leeds without a majority shareholder during the second half of 2013.
In the year to June 30, 2014, United’s income dropped across the board. Their gate receipts fell by more than £1m to £8.5m and cash generated by broadcasting fees and the sale of merchandise also decreased. Their remaining commercial revenue amounted to £6.6m, down from more than £8m in the previous 12 months.
The club’s operating loss climbed to £17.89m, an increase of around £5m, and the wage bill equated to 89 per cent of turnover. Reducing the cost of wages was one of Cellino’s priorities when he inherited what he called “a big mess” from GFH. Last week Cellino claimed that he and the Bahraini bank had agreed to restructure United’s debt and inject capital of £23.5m into the club, a deal which was due to be ratified at a board meeting at Elland Road today. That figure is fractionally higher than Leeds’ annual loss.
Other parts of the accounts show where portions of the money went. The results confirm that a loan of £1.5m given to the club by shirt sponsor Enterprise Insurance in 2012 was paid back in February of this year. Cellino was acting as de facto owner of United at that time, funding the club prior to the completion of his 75 per cent buy-out.
The lease of Leeds’ Elland Road stadium and Thorp Arch training ground cost £1.94m a year as of June 30 and increased again last month. The combined rent will clear £2m for the first time next year. Cellino failed to meet a promise to buy back Elland Road for £16m before the start of December but the expensive lease explains why Leeds are continuously anxious to free themselves of that burden.
The biggest liabilities laid out in the draft accounts are the money owed to the club’s shareholders, including both GFH and Cellino.
The accounts state that during 2013-14, Eleonora Sport Limited - the UK firm used by Cellino to purchase Leeds - loaned £8.42m to the club. Cellino himself made a personal loan of close to £1.3m and a company in Milan with connections to his family, Eleonora Immobiliaire, lent United a further £2.5m.
Leeds have not commented on the figures but sources close to Cellino say the money does not represent any of the £11m fee which he agreed to pay GFH for a stake in Leeds. They deny that his buy-out was in any way financed using debt incurred by the club. According to those close to him, the loans were used to pay debt and bills before and after his takeover on April 7. They claim the loans do not bear interest and could be converted into shares at a later date.
The accounts name United’s ultimate owner as Trust Sporting 2006, a Cellino family trust which is based in Italy and sits above Eleonora Sport in the ownership structure of Leeds. Under GFH United’s ultimate owner was LUFC Holding Limited, an off-shore company set up in the Cayman Islands. Shortly after buying Leeds, Cellino admitted that he planned to create a structure of companies based solely in the Italy and the UK.
United’s draft accounts say Trust Sporting 2006 holds an “88.3 per cent interest in Leeds United Football Club Limited” - significantly more than the 75 per cent which Eleonora Sport bought from GFH in April. Sources close to Cellino insist the split between Eleonora Sport and the bank is still 75-25, describing the accounts as a “snapshot” at a time of restructuring. United staged a rights issue on June 27, three days before the end of the last financial year.
GFH Capital, meanwhile, is owed a staggering sum of £20.91m by Leeds. Much of that debt was assigned to the company from other creditors, including Brendale Holdings and Berrydale Seventh Sport Holdings. Those firms - both of which are belong to GFH Capital - were owed £11.27m and £2m respectively. In the 2013-14 financial year, the interest earned on those loans came to more than £1.5m.
GFH Capital was also assigned £1.7m owed to Envest Limited, a company controlled by former Leeds chairman Salah Nooruddin and a minority shareholder at Elland Road.
GFH was asked to explain how the debt owed to it had reached such a high level and what the money borrowed by Leeds had been spent on. It was also asked to clarify whether the figure of £20.91m was included in, or in addition to, the £24m of short and long-term debt which Cellino agreed to service when he bought United eight months ago. The bank did not response.
Over the weekend, however, a GFH spokesperson told the Mail on Sunday: “As a result of the poor financial situation which they inherited at the club, GFH extended funding of around £20m of cash between July 2012 to November 2013 to keep the club solvent, acquire new players, give new contracts to existing players, pay down existing debt and meet other day-to-day liabilities as they fell due when the club’s revenues were insufficient to do this.”
A further sum of £3.4m claimed by GFH for “invoices” is in dispute, the accounts say.
UNITED’S FORTHCOMING 2013-14 ACCOUNTS - THE KEY FIGURES
Turnover: £25.29m (down from £28.56m in 2012-13)
Loss before tax: £20.35m (up from £9.44m)
Loss after tax: £22.93m (up from £9.55m)
Operating loss: £17.89m (up from £12.11m)
Gate receipts: £8.56m (down from £9.72m)
Commercial revenue: £6.68m (down from £8.08m)
Loans owed to Gulf Finance House: £20.91m
Loans owed to Massimo Cellino and connected companies: £12.24m
Invoices claimed by GFH but disputed by Leeds: £3.4mDietary supplements represent an increasingly common source of drug-induced liver injury. Hydroxycut is a popular weight loss supplement which has previously been linked to hepatotoxicity, although the individual chemical components underlying liver injury remain poorly understood. We report two cases of acute hepatitis in the setting of Hydroxycut exposure and describe possible mechanisms of liver injury. We also comprehensively review and summarize the existing literature on commonly used weight loss supplements, and their individual components which have demonstrated potential for liver toxicity. An increased effort to screen for and educate patients and physicians about supplement-associated hepatotoxicity is warranted.
Obesity has become an increasingly important public health problem in the United States. Recent data show that more than 30% of adults are obese and 65% overweight[ 1 ]. The use of dietary supplements for weight loss has become increasingly popular, as reflected by the $55.4 billion spent in the U.S. in 2006 for weight loss and diet control[ 2, 3 ]. Based on a study by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), 36% of adults are using some form of complementary or alternative medicine, which rises to 62% when including megavitamins or prayer. Although dietary and herbal supplements are governed under the DSHEA act of 1994, they are not presently regulated by the U.S. Federal Drug Administration, and the safety profiles of many are unknown. An increasing number of case reports have emerged which suggest causative supplement-associated liver toxicity. Hydroxycut is an herbal weight loss supplement that has been suspected to have possible liver toxicity. Herein we present two patients who experienced severe acute hepatitis in the setting of documented Hydroxycut exposure, and without alternative etiology after comprehensive serologic liver evaluation.
A 33-year-old female with a prior medical history of a pituitary adenoma presented to the Emergency Department with 1 mo of new-onset jaundice. She reported a flu-like illness of 2 wk duration with nausea and crampy abdominal pain and began to experience jaundice, acholic stools, dark-colored urine, pruritus, and profound fatigue. These symptoms appeared to be improving during the week prior to admission except for worsening jaundice and fatigue. She noted that during the month prior to admission, she had taken Hydroxcut supplements for 2 wk to help achieve weight loss, but discontinued this medication upon onset of symptoms. She additionally reported eating lobster during the month prior to admission, but could not recall other individuals who became ill. Her only medication was Ortho-Novum contraceptive, which she had been taking for 2.5 years. Her social history was unremarkable without regular alcohol ingestion, and the absence of risk factors for chronic viral hepatitis. She was afebrile with stable vital signs, and normal body mass index. Her exam was notable only for jaundice and scleral icterus. She had no liver enlargement and no stigmata of chronic liver disease. Her laboratory profile at admission was notable for acute hepatitis with AST 934 U/L and ALT 1 570 U/L, total bilirubin 20.9 mg/dL, direct bilirubin 14.2 mg/dL, alkaline phosphatase 112 U/L, INR 1.08, white cell count 9.2 × 10 3 /μL, hematocrit 42%, platelet count 414/μL, creatinine 0.8 mg/dL. Diagnostic evaluation was negative for hepatitis A, B, C, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and herpes simplex virus infections. Her autoimmune profile revealed low titer increase in anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) and anti-smooth muscle antibody (ASMA) suggestive of an immune-mediated drug-induced hepatitis. Her jaundice eventually resolved and her liver function normalized.
A 40-year-old female with a prior medical history notable only for hypothyroidism and diet-controlled hyperlipidemia presented to the Emergency Department with 3 d of new-onset crampy, mid-epigastric abdominal pain and non-bloody diarrhea. She noted subjective fevers and chills, and two isolated episodes of nausea and vomiting, anorexia and profound fatigue. She did not experience jaundice, icterus, pruritus, arthralgias, acholic stools or dark urine. One week prior to presentation, she began using Hydroxycut, 6 pills daily in preparation for a bodybuilding competition. Just prior to presentation she attended an office holiday party, although no other persons in attendance became ill. She did not smoke or drink. She otherwise does not take regular medications except for levothyroxine. She denied taking any other supplements or alternative medications. She was afebrile with stable vital signs, and normal body mass index. Her exam was notable only for mild mid-epigastric tenderness to palpation. She had no liver enlargement and no stigmata of chronic liver disease. Her laboratory profile on admission revealed an acute hepatitis with AST 1020 U/L and ALT 1150 U/L, total bilirubin 0.67 mg/dL, alkaline phosphatase 299 U/L, INR 0.96, white cell count 5.9 × 10 3 /μL, hemoglobin 11.9 g/dL, platelet count 228/μL, and creatinine 0.9 mg/dL. Diagnostic evaluation was negative for hepatitis A, B, C, cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus, autoimmune liver disorders (ANA, ASMA), alpha-1 anti-trypsin deficiency, and ehrlichiosis. On day 2 of admission, her transaminases decreased to AST 399 U/L and ALT 647 U/L. On day 3, she was clinically well and discharged from the hospital. Upon outpatient follow-up, she had returned to her usual state of health with normalization of transaminases with AST 46 U/L and ALT 48 U/L. She has not experienced any further recurrence of symptoms or liver abnormalities within 10 mo of follow-up.
DISCUSSION
The public’s increasing demand for alternative medicine, the newly found global interest in phytomedicine and herbal therapies, the rising cost of conventional prescription drugs, and a loss of faith in Western medicine, have led to a rapid rise in the use of unregulated herbal supplements and therapies. An estimated 80% of the world population uses herbal medicines, largely outside the U.S.[4]. In a study performed at an outpatient liver clinic, over 21% of patients were taking herbal supplements in the setting of chronic liver disease[5]. The FDA describes dietary supplements as a product taken by mouth that contains a “dietary ingredient” intended to supplement the diet. The “dietary ingredients” in these products may include: vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, and substances such as enzymes, organ tissues, glandulars, and metabolites. Most of these products have not been rigorously studied through placebo-controlled, blinded, randomized |
Gamaliel’s tirade easily flouted Wikipedia’s tight rules on off-site harassment. Nonetheless, both Wikimedia DC and Wikipedia’s arbitration committee have yet to take any action against Fernandez — or even disavow his comments.
Compare this case to item number 5 on this list, and the depth of Wikipedia’s malaise becomes apparent.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Guide To Building Tarrey Town
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Since The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has just been released, players are discovering all the vast features that the game offers. In Breath of the Wild however, players have the capability to build a town. One that would yield a lot fantastic rewards at the end that would save the player from a lot of hours of town hopping and from grief.
Tarrey Town
According to GameRant, the very first thing that the player would need to do is to purchase a house. Although it would cost a whole lot of Rupees, it would surely benefit the player later on and with the help of a solid strategy to earn Rupees, this can be earned in no time. Once done purchasing a home, there will be a crew hanging around the player's home, specifically around the cooking pot outside of the house. Players need to talk to Bolson, in which the NPC says that one of his men, Hudson, is going to leave soon for another project.
Hudson is the NPC who has a mushroom shaped hair amongst the crew. Once located, talk to him. He would reveal that there is a settlement expansion in the Akkala Region, which would soon be named Tarrey Town. After some conversation, Hudson decides to leave but he would first invite the player to find him there. This would start the quest, From The Ground Up.
Building Tarrey Town
Gamersheroes locates the said settlement expansion. The settlement can be found on a circular raised piece of land that is sitting in the middle of Lake Akkala, which is on the southern part of the Akkala region and north of Zora's Domain.
Upon reaching the settlement, players need to find Hudson. In doing so, he will ask for help from the player and would first ask them to gather 10 bundles of wood. After gathering and turning over the wood to Hudson, he will tell the player of the problem with rocks. The player is then asked to find a strong Goron, but this would not be any ordinary Goron as they need to have a name that ends in Son.
At this point, players need to go to the Southern Mine, which is just near Goron City. Once there, players need to find a Goron named Greyson and talk to him. Specifically, they can find Greyson at night near the cooking pot. Once talked to, he will agree to join.
After returning to the settlement, players need to talk to Hudson again, and this time he will ask the player to gather 20 bundles of wood. After providing the wood, Hudson will say that he needs a tailor and mentions that a Gerudo would fit the job nicely. Before leaving, players would now be able to see a new merchant on the settlement which sells rare ores.
Next, players need to go to the Kara Kara Bazaar and find a master tailor with the name Rhondson. She can be found during daytime under a canopy near the inn. Talk to her and eventually she will join the player as she needs a change of scenery. After returning to the settlement, players would see that Rhondson has set up a clothing shop that offers the Desert Voe Armor set.
After looking at Rhondson's shop, talk to Hudson and he will ask for the player to gather wood again and this time it's 30 bundles. Once done bringing the wood, Hudson will mention that he needs someone to run the town's general store and believes that a Rito would fit the job precisely.
To find the Rito, players need to travel to Rito Village. Here, they would need to find someone named Fyson. He can be found near the Inn and would be selling arrows in increments of 10. Once done talking to him, he will agree to join the player. Head back to the town and players would find a general store with Fyson heading it. Fyson would then offer arrows of all types in bundles, so players can just shop here for arrows as much as they need.
After going through the general store, players need to talk to Hudson and again, he will ask for wood, and this time it's 50 bundles of it. Once done getting the wood, head back to Hudson to give him the wood and in turn, he will tell the player that he is engaged to Rhondson and would need a priest to marry them.
To find a priest, players need to go to Zora's Domain, specifically the priest can be found near the ponds at the back of the domain. His name is Kapson, and in speaking to him, the player would know that he has a desire to meet newly engaged couples. Talk to him about Hudson and Rhondson, and he will join the player and would depart immediately.
Once back at the town, players would see that Kapson has opened the town's Inn. Players can stay here whenever they are in town and it's free of charge.
Before the wedding commences, Hudson will ask the player to invite his friends. So the player needs to head back to the house they bought and find Bolson and Karson, which are still near the cooking pot. Invite them to the wedding and head back to Tarrey Town.
Once the wedding is done, players need to talk to Hudson again. He will thank the player for everything they've done and would give them three diamond ores. At this point, players would have finished the quest, From The Ground Up, but there is one more thing to do.
After going through the town and checking the stores, players need to rest at the Inn for the night. Once done, players need to go upstairs and head to the outside deck. Here they will find Granté, who has established a store that sells rare items. Basically, Granté sells rare items that can only be obtained once. If the player manages to lose any rare item like armor sets or the Hylian Shield or the Tunic of the Wind, these can be purchased from Granté, provided that the player has a lot of Rupees to pay for the items.
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The Sepang International Circuit, which held its first F1 race in 1999, has slashed ticket prices by over 80% as it seeks to pull in over 100,000 fans to help celebrate 19 years of Formula One.
"Being the last one we want to have a good send off," Sepang International Circuit CEO Razlan Razali told Crash.net. "We have seen many circuits that left the championship without any 'bang' at all. Look at India, Korea, Germany even... We don't want to disappear just like that. We want to celebrate 19 years of F1 in Malaysia.
"One of the strategies that we are have embarked on is that, being the last race, we want everyone to come to Formula One. So we've reduced ticket prices by 82%. We're talking about 100 euros for a main grandstand seat. All three days!
"For Malaysians, this is the last opportunity we have made it really, really affordable for locals to come. Those who have not been coming before, thinking they would come some time in the future, now is the time because if you don't that's it.
"And for the international spectators, where else can you get this kind of ticket price? 100 euros to come and watch Malaysian F1, in the main grandstand. Even the main grandstand is not reserved seating any more. So for 100 euros fans can get various views from north and south of the grandstand.
"Being our last one we've also asked Formula One to give us a little extra. To make an exception for us. We want the drivers to be more involved, we want lucky fans to be involved with them. For example we've proposed that during the drivers' parade, in the classic cars, why can't we get lucky fans, one seated next to each driver?
"To give credit to the new owners of Formula One, they have also come up with a range of fan engagement activities for normal ticket holders. For example they have zip line across a grandstand, they have pit stop challenge - six cars - which we are excited about.
"We are also bringing in the F1 three-seater experience as well, for the fans to experience the Formula One thrills. Then we have XTrack which is basically every single motorsport experience. Go kart, rallying, drifting, ATVs and event sports activities for kids like the driving school. Each ticket holder can experience all of them. For free!"
The Sepang circuit is situated next to Kuala Lumpur airport, which has a direct train link to the city.
"One of the easiest options is to take the direct train from Kuala Lumpur Sentral station to the airport and get a shuttle from the airport to the circuit. We put on shuttle buses from the airport for both the MotoGP and F1 events," Razali explained.
"Then when you are at the circuit we have internal shuttles as well, so you can go from one stand to the other. All the shuttle buses are free. You can also buy a ticket at our KL Sentral ticket counter and take a bus directly from there to the circuit."
The sold-out Malaysian MotoGP round, which overtook F1 for attendance in 2014, will become Sepang's undisputed number one motorsport event from next season.Well, it happened. Congress compromised and our national nightmare is…postponed for another month, when this all happens again.
There are plenty of articles breaking down the gains and losses, like this great one from Mike Lux and this one from Bob Borosage. There’s plenty that has been accomplished, and plenty more that Congress still has to deal with in a month. And there have been plenty of reactions from both sides of the aisle on the deal. The one that caught my eye was from New Jersey Governor and fleece-pullover model Chris Christie, because he really hit the nail on the head.
America deserves better than just another example of a government that has forgotten who they are there to serve, and why.
Governor Christie, you took the words right out of my mouth.
There’s been more reporting on which side is winning the fiscal debate than there has been on how this will all affect working and middle class families. Every story is about Obama’s bargaining chips stacking up against Boehner’s, how Cantor is pushing on one side and Biden is pushing on another. There have been Plan As and Plan Bs, and talks and sequesters, and winners and losers.
And different senators and congresspeople have come forward to talk about how their side is winning, like this gem from Oklahoma Representative Tom Cole:
Again, I would prefer not to raise taxes on anybody. But we protected almost every American. We did it at a higher income level than the President campaigned on. And again, frankly, we’ve denied him I think his most important piece of leverage in any negotiation going forward. So I particularly like that part.
No mention of his constituents – just that he was really excited they denied President Obama leverage in arguing about these matters further.
Oh, Republican leadership. You haven’t made huge strides to include people, and this is a step further in that direction. In your quest to keep taxes down for top earners, you were holding your breath and being petulant children about this deal – even though you received far more concessions than you should have. I appreciate that everyone tried to make this deal happen, but it shouldn’t have. It’s the “fetch” of policy compromises. And instead of really sitting down and coming up with a deal that would benefit the most Americans and bring our economy back, you kicked the can to February, where we have to watch this nonsense play out again. So thanks a lot.The status bar on our Android phones usually become cluttered due to notifications and some apps that put icons on the status bar.
My status bar right now:
Notification Slider:
Purify XDA Thread
Download link from XDA
Purify is an app brought to you by the same guys who developed the KingRoot App, a staple in rooting mediatek and Chinese branded devices.
One of its features is “archiving” notifications and putting them under a single toggle in the notification drawer.
Click on it and you’ll see the app notifications archived.
Click on the settings icon and you’ll be able to see the apps “archived” and “unarchived”
You can choose which apps to archive which is handled by the app and choose “unarchive” to get the usual notifications from the app.
Click on app and you can see options of each one.
Important tip: For apps such as Music Players I suggest you to not “archive” music player apps since music players usually have a toggle on the notification drawer.
Those are operable notifications:
Final tips: Mess around with the settings and choose which apps to archive and which apps to keep the same (music players).
Enjoy your clutter free status bar and notification toggle!
AdvertisementsYELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wy. — The buffalo roaming out west got a frosty surprise to the start of the week. Yellowstone National Park got an unexpected summer snowfall.
The snowfall ranged from a couple inches to a light dusting in some spots, but still made for beautiful photos as visitors took to Instagram to share their views of the blanketed landscape.
The snow isn’t expected to stick around too long, as weather forecasts predict lows near freezing, with highs in upper 50s/low 60s later this week. But for now, nature lovers can still enjoy the views at Old Faithful (which you can watch livestreaming at the Old Faithful webcam anytime).
Summer snow continues to fall around Yellowstone Natl. Park https://t.co/NzeQcWq91q (Webcam/Yellowstone Natl. Park) pic.twitter.com/XPix6AxTI0 — AccuWeather.com (@breakingweather) September 12, 2016
Don’t expect any snowflakes around Kansas City any time soon! FOX 4’s weather team forecasts scattered thunderstorms this week, with highs in 70s.We've been saying for awhile now that the massive space exploration game No Man's Sky will be out on August 9. As it turns out, we may have been wrong. The situation isn't entirely clear at the moment, but the No Man's Sky website currently lists the release date as August 9 for the PS4 in North America, August 10 in Europe, and “on PC worldwide on August 12.”
Confusing the matter further is that Steam still says NMS will unlock on August 9. That's the date Hello Games cited when it delayed the game back in June, with no indication of separate dates for separate platforms. The Humble Store also lists August 9, while GOG is, judiciously, sticking with the non-committal “soon.”
This is mainly an FYI sort of thing, since three-days is a blip as far as game delays go. But it's certainly something to be aware of, especially now that the August 9 date is just a couple weeks away. Hello Games hasn't announced anything about a changed date, but if it has been pushed back—even this slightly—the good news is that the extra wait has nothing to do with the dispute over the planet-generating “superformula” that came to light last week.
“No Man's Sky doesn't actually use this'superformula' thing or infringe a patent. This is a non-story... everybody chill,” Hello Games founder Sean Murray tweeted over the weekend. “I wish Johan Gielis, the author, all the best in the future. We're going to meet and chat maths once the game is out.”
I've reached out to Hello Games to confirm the PC launch date.Multiple sclerosis (MS) imposes substantial economic burdens on patients, their families, and society. Until now, there are few therapies available, but often unattractive parenteral application or severe side effects are serious issues. This study highlights the use of circular peptides as orally active T-cell-specific immunosuppressive therapeutics against the MS model experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, without inducing major adverse effects. Our work provides a proof of principle that nature-derived cyclic peptides serve as oral active therapeutics, utilizing their intrinsic bioactivity and stable three-dimensional structure. Cyclotides are considered a combinatorial peptide library and they can be anticipated to complement the existing collections of natural products that are used in drug discovery.
Abstract
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system. It is characterized by auto-reactive T cells that induce demyelination and neuronal degradation. Treatment options are still limited and several MS medications need to be administered by parenteral application but are modestly effective. Oral active drugs such as fingolimod have been weighed down by safety concerns. Consequently, there is a demand for novel, especially orally active therapeutics. Nature offers an abundance of compounds for drug discovery. Recently, the circular plant peptide kalata B1 was shown to silence T-cell proliferation in vitro in an IL-2–dependent mechanism. Owing to this promising effect, we aimed to determine in vivo activity of the cyclotide [T20K]kalata B1 using the MS mouse model experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). Treatment of mice with the cyclotide resulted in a significant delay and diminished symptoms of EAE by oral administration. Cyclotide application substantially impeded disease progression and did not exhibit adverse effects. Inhibition of lymphocyte proliferation and the reduction of proinflammatory cytokines, in particular IL-2, distinguish the cyclotide from other marketed drugs. Considering their stable structural topology and oral activity, cyclotides are candidates as peptide therapeutics for pharmaceutical drug development for treatment of T-cell-mediated disorders.In a candid admission that has surprised many, Anushka Sharma has releaved that she is happy with her sex life only and only because of Virat Kohli. In an interview to a prime time program, she revealed that the only way her sex life could be better was if Virat Kohli practiced cricket even less, and spent more time with her in the bedroom.
“We are just a couple who are passionately in love. For us, every moment away from each other is torture. Whenever I am away from Virat, I am only thinking of his pack of magnum sized condoms, and what he keeps inside them - smaller sized condoms. And when Virat is away from me, he tells me he can’t focus on his game. That is what what love does to you, ” Anushka revealed. “It makes you lose all concentration”, she said, even as she was checking her phone for any new messages from Virat.
Not finding any messages, or any dick pictures from Virat, she continued, “Well, my friends say that it won’t last long. I mean, how much sex can two people have? To such people, I say, if Indian cricket team can play 200 days of matches in a year, why can’t we have sex that many times?” Obviously, they have never heard of a thing called stamina. It is stamina that allows a cricketer like Virat to play 200 matches in a year, and its only stamina that allows me to have continous sex with him whenever he is not playing any matches.“
This interview of Anushka has come in the backdrop of renewed interest in her love life from the celebrity hungry news media of the nation. The public wants to know what is it that Anushka has been doing with Virat, with the result that his cricket form has taken a drastic hit.
Anushka has this to say his cricket fans, "Well, his cricket form may have taken a hit, but let me tell you, his form in bed is better than ever. I have nothing to complain when it comes to the real test of a real man: in sexually satisfying a woman.”Questions about whether former Mississauga-area Liberal MP Bonnie Crombie violated elections law in her bid to join city council have exposed a glaring hole in the Municipal Elections Act, experts say.
Ms. Crombie, who was defeated in the May federal election only to announce her candidacy for Mississauga’s vacant Ward 5 seat months later, paid for a team to conduct advance polls to gauge her popularity in the region shortly before jumping into the hotly contested race.
“You want to go in so you can win,” she said in a July interview with the National Post, a couple of weeks prior to filing her nomination papers.
Ms. Crombie and her lawyer contend she broke no rules, even as other municipal law experts suggest she may have run afoul of section 76 of the Municipal Elections Act, which bars candidates from incurring election expenses outside the campaign period.
At issue is the definition of election expenses, referenced in the Act as “costs incurred for goods or services by or on behalf of a person wholly or partly for use in his or her election campaign.”
Toronto-based lawyer Chris Barnett said an electoral poll to gauge popularity would fit that definition.
“As a general rule, since a poll is likely to be ‘wholly or partly for use’ in a campaign, they would be considered expenses… strictly speaking, candidates should not be incurring expenses before they are nominated,” he said.
George Rust-D’Eye, a municipal law expert and Mississauga’s interim integrity commissioner, said the ambiguity of the Act makes it difficult to provide a definitive answer. If a political neophyte conducted a personal poll for the express purpose of deciding whether to enter politics, Mr. Rust-D’Eye said, that may well fall outside the purview of the Act.
But in a case such Ms. Crombie’s — where an individual has recently held public office and already has a team in place to survey the electorate — it would more likely constitute a violation, he said. Such a poll could also be used to zone in on specific addresses or areas where support is lacking.
“All of those factors would tend toward it being a campaign expenditure… In some cases, I would think a poll would be part of the campaign because it would be familiarizing the people that were polled of the fact that the person is running,” Mr. Rust-D’Eye added.
Ms. Crombie was adamant to the contrary, maintaining she was on “absolutely solid ground” legally.
“It’s research that I did. It’s absolutely not a violation. We researched that,” Ms. Crombie said, noting her poll was not designed to promote her candidacy, but rather to facilitate her decision on whether to engage in the campaign at all.
“It’s a battle of lawyers now, who says what,” Ms. Crombie fumed.
Her own lawyer, Jack Siegel, said while a survey to gauge what issues matter to the electorate may be an election expense since it could assist in tailoring a campaign, a “horse race” poll would provide no such insight. The debate, Mr. Siegel said, highlights severe inadequacies in the Municipal Elections Act.
“There are not spaces here where you could drive a truck through; you can take an entire convoy,” he said.
Even the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing could not confirm whether advance polling would constitute an election expense, with a spokesman noting it “does not provide legal interpretation.”
Mississauga’s Ward 5 byelection, which has drawn 27 candidates, is slated for Sept. 19.
National Post
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: megan_otooleYou’d think finding something as big as a school bus would be a cinch.
But large whale sharks—the biggest fish in the sea—seem to have vanished from the world’s oceans, scientists say.
Until a decade ago, adult whale sharks measuring an awesome 43 to 49 feet (13 to 15 meters) plied warm waters from India to Belize.
Today these biggest of the big are seen only in the eastern Pacific, a new study says. Animals elsewhere average a mere 23 feet (7 meters) and under, which are small fry too young to breed. (Read more about the incredible lives of whale sharks.)
"Where are they?” marine ecologist Ana Sequeira of the University of Western Australia says of the big guys.
“We urgently need to know.... We need to have the big mums and big dads to keep the species going," says Sequiera, who led a new study about the phenomenon.
But how whale sharks go about their business is a secret they keep to themselves.
Researchers still don’t know basic facts about the fish, such as its global population or why whale sharks gather in groups, called “coastal aggregations,” in shallower waters. (Related: "Secrets of Whale Shark Migration Revealed.")
Troubling Trend
Sequeira and her colleagues recently delved into the lives of whale sharks at western Australia's Ningaloo Reef, home to one of the world’s best-studied coastal groups.
After reviewing decades of observation data, the team found a troubling trend: The biggest animal spotted on the reef in the mid-1990s was 43 feet (13 meters long), but only 33 feet (10 meters) in the early 2000s, and an even more modest 26 feet (8 meters) a half-decade ago. (See amazing pictures of whale sharks worldwide.)
Watch: Putting a Camera on a Whale Shark Scientists put Crittercams on whale sharks to get a glimpse of their underwater world.
The average size of Ningaloo’s whale sharks also shrank. In the most recent study period, the animals averaged only 20 feet (6 meters) from snout to tip, the scientists report in this week’s Royal Society Open Science. That meant most of the sharks were just kids.
A search of whale-shark data from other sites turned up similar data.
Except for some big females recently recorded near the Galápagos and Mexico, most very large whale sharks were seen before 2008, the study found, and the sharks in coastal groups are mostly immature animals.
Sweating the Small Stuff
So why are they getting smaller?
It's possible the slow-growing animals, which live about 80 years, haven’t recovered from overfishing. Whale sharks are protected from hunting by some countries.
Or perhaps illegal or accidental kills are still jeopardizing the shark. In 2014, a nonprofit group provided evidence that a factory in southeastern China processes about 600 whale shark carcasses a year.
There are alternate explanations. Maybe whale shark gatherings have a youthful bias because big adults prefer to roam the deep ocean, says Eric Hoffmayer, a research fishery biologist at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (See "Biggest Whale Shark 'Swarm' Found.")
Whale shark measurements from groups other than Ningaloo aren’t totally reliable, adds whale shark expert Simon Pierce, of the California-based Marine Megafauna Foundation.
That makes it difficult to draw conclusions about whale sharks worldwide. Sequeira agrees: With the big kahunas MIA, it’s impossible to say whether the species—listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—is in serious decline.
But Pierce says other data from fisheries in Taiwan and mainland China suggest whale sharks have gotten smaller. And whale-shark sightings in several oceans have become less frequent.
“Whale sharks are definitely in a lot of trouble,” he says by email. “That's a valid take-home message.”Photo Essay: “The TV Is Yours, but Mexico Is Ours” Images of the Multitudinous June 10 March Against Big Media’s Imposition of a Presidential Candidate in Mexico
By Alejandro Meléndez Ortiz, Photojournalist
Words by Al Giordano “Hay luz, se ve una luz
Relámpagos que caen para alumbrar…
Hay voz, se oye una voz
Por las calles sin parar…” It was at 10:30 in the morning at the Monument to the Revolution that an artists’ contingent began rehearsing its song and performance for the day’s march. The lyrics were painted on sheets: “There is light, a light is seen/Lightning that falls to illuminate… There is voice, a voice is heard/Along the streets that does not stop.” A half-dozen drummers and twice as many singers worked through the rhythms and the harmonies. These lyrics don’t show up on any Internet search, so I presume they are original. But this was no “Occupy Wall Street drum circle.” The key word being, rehearsal! The idea was not to have an inward-looking “experience” but, rather, to use the drumsticks and the voices to call attention to a message: That this generation will not accept the imposition by the mass media of the return of a detested regime. On Sunday, June 10, a multitude converged on Mexico City for the march against presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and the media companies that are trying to impose him in the upcoming July 1 election. There is already a polemic over the Narco News report on Monday that estimates the crowd size at around 350,000 (the official police estimate was 90,000). However many people were there, we’d like our readers to be able to see it with your own eyes. More importantly than numbers, we’d like to share the quality of these folks and the clarity of their message. And in the best hour, our colleague and friend Alejandro Meléndez Ortiz, freelance photojournalist for Notimex and other agencies, came forward with these photos that we share with you today. This marcher may have been a child when the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI in its Spanish initials, ruled Mexico for seventy years of the last century, but does not want a return to “Jurassic PRI,” when Tyrannosaurs ruled the earth.
This marcher may have been a child when the Institutional Revolutionary Party, orin its Spanish initials, ruled Mexico for seventy years of the last century, but does not want a return to “Jurassic,” when Tyrannosaurs ruled the earth. The Paseo de la Reforma is six traffic-lanes wide plus a median. Your reporter stationed himself at one point along the route of Sunday’s march and remained from when the march arrived 1 p.m. to when the last marchers came through around 3:30 p.m. That’s 150 minutes. The official police estimate of 90,000 marchers would mean that only 600 people (or ten per second) passed per minute. Most of the crowd was as dense as this, and moved briskly. I would estimate that more like 2,000 passed per minute. That would bring the crowd count to 300,000. But who’s counting? Let’s get to know some of these folks up close…
The Paseo de la Reforma is six traffic-lanes wide plus a median. Your reporter stationed himself at one point along the route of Sunday’s march and remained from when the march arrived 1 p.m. to when the last marchers came through around 3:30 p.m. That’s 150 minutes. The official police estimate of 90,000 marchers would mean that only 600 people (or ten per second) passed per minute. Most of the crowd was as dense as this, and moved briskly. I would estimate that more like 2,000 passed per minute. That would bring the crowd count to 300,000. But who’s counting? Let’s get to know some of these folks up close… First, how old are they?
First, how old are they? Our friend Oscar Olivera of Bolivia, professor at the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism says that successful social movements are “joyful, like water.” It sure felt that way on Sunday.
Our friend Oscar Olivera of Bolivia, professor at the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism says that successful social movements are “joyful, like water.” It sure felt that way on Sunday. Of course, joy takes on many forms. Like this young fellow in the poster who says, “Peña Nieto, don’t even come to my kindergarten because if you do we will kick your ass ” He then signs off with the candidate’s campaign slogan: “I promise, and I comply.”
Of course, joy takes on many forms. Like this young fellow in the poster who says, “Peña Nieto, don’t even come to my kindergarten because if you do we will kick your ass” He then signs off with the candidate’s campaign slogan: “I promise, and I comply.” “Peaceful Resistance: Out in the Open” is what this marcher displayed on his back.
“Peaceful Resistance: Out in the Open” is what this marcher displayed on his back. Here’s another message written on a spine that won’t buckle: “Blooming Conscience.”
Here’s another message written on a spine that won’t buckle: “Blooming Conscience.” While their parents and older siblings were raised on “Telenovelas,” the trashy nightly soap operas of Televisa and TV Azteca, these youths have compiled a much broader range of information and entertainment from the Internet. They see the two big TV networks as a running joke. The black placard says “Mexico is not a soap opera.” And again, check out the density of the march!
While their parents and older siblings were raised on “Telenovelas,” the trashy nightly soap operas of Televisa andAzteca, these youths have compiled a much broader range of information and entertainment from the Internet. They see the two big TV networks as a running joke. The black placard says “Mexico is not a soap opera.” And again, check out the density of the march! June 10 also marked the 41st memorial of the massacre of 120 students who marched peacefully against the PRI regime in 1971. This marcher’s sign says “You can assassinate students but never their ideas.”
June 10 also marked the 41st memorial of the massacre of 120 students who marched peacefully against theregime in 1971. This marcher’s sign says “You can assassinate students but never their ideas.” Another long view of (part of) the crowd, with a caricature of Peña Nieto as “PRInocchio.”
Another long view of (part of) the crowd, with a caricature of Peña Nieto as “PRInocchio.” “Vote Now, and Always Demand a Useful Vote,” announces this recycler of useless daily newspapers!
“Vote Now, and Always Demand a Useful Vote,” announces this recycler of useless daily newspapers! “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” this sign announces with logos for the PRI and the current ruling PAN (National Action Party): “Enough with the repression.”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,” this sign announces with logos for theand the current ruling(National Action Party): “Enough with the repression.” “With Memory and With History the Future is Now.”
“With Memory and With History the Future is Now.” I would like the US Embassy and the State Department officials who think they can endorse an election fraud this year like they did so easily in 1988 and 2006: Do you really want to face these youths after a crime like that has been committed?
I would like theEmbassy and the State Department officials who think they can endorse an election fraud this year like they did so easily in 1988 and 2006: Do you really want to face these youths after a crime like that has been committed? There are also reinforcements coming up behind the #YoSoy132 generation. Or, as the Aimee Mann song goes, “It’s not going to stop, ‘til you wise up.”
There are also reinforcements coming up behind the #YoSoy132 generation. Or, as the Aimee Mann song goes, “It’s not going to stop, ‘til you wise up.” Our photographer, Alejandro Meléndez gave this photo to many Mexican press agencies. The graffito says “Press for Sale.” None wanted to publish it. But it was picked up by China’s Xinhua wire service and its flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, which with three million daily readers has a bigger audience than all Mexican dailies added together, and times three.
Our photographer, Alejandro Meléndez gave this photo to many Mexican press agencies. The graffito says “Press for Sale.” None wanted to publish it. But it was picked up by China’s Xinhua wire service and its flagship newspaper, People’s Daily, which with three million daily readers has a bigger audience than all Mexican dailies added together, and times three. Not all the press is ready to play along with the imposition of another election fraud. In the march a new group called “Free Journalists” joined as a contingent.
Not all the press is ready to play along with the imposition of another election fraud. In the march a new group called “Free Journalists” joined as a contingent. At the end of eight hours of marching many returned to the starting point – the central square in Mexico City known as the Zócalo – to watch the presidential debate on a wide-screen TV together. The #YoSoy132 movement had already succeeded in pressuring Televisa and TV Azteca to broadcast the debate on their major channels, something both failed to do during the first presidential debate.
At the end of eight hours of marching many returned to the starting point – the central square in Mexico City known as the Zócalo – to watch the presidential debate on a wide-screen TV together. The #YoSoy132 movement had already succeeded in pressuring Televisa andAzteca to broadcast the debate on their major channels, something both failed to do during the first presidential debate. Perhaps the official estimate of “90,000” marchers came only from this gathering, at dusk, of those who remained to watch the debate together?
Perhaps the official estimate of “90,000” marchers came only from this gathering, at dusk, of those who remained to watch the debate together? “Televisa: Dictator of Information” reads the top placard. Below it, “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid.”
“Televisa: Dictator of Information” reads the top placard. Below it, “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid.” Now, does anybody, after seeing these photographs, think this is going away anytime soon? Or is a generational paradigm shift upon us in Mexico? I see one that is disciplined, creative, unified, and building beyond the July 1 elections – whatever the government and mass media will say results were – for the long haul and the march that is not a mere protest, but an organized civil resistance. The TV – and its power to |
black smoke rose above the outskirts. Automatic gunfire rattled out from nearby fields.
Families fled the fighting through a barbed-wire checkpoint with only as much as they could carry. “It’s a mess,” sobbed a young woman as she clutched her husband’s arm. “It’s war.”
Andrei Bander left with his four-year-old daughter. “We are going. We don’t even know where. We will head to Russia though because it’s clear we need to leave Ukraine,” he said, waiting for a taxi in a small a no-man’s land between the two sides.
In support for the Ukrainian forces, acting President Oleksander Turchinov and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov paid an impromptu visit, clad in flak jackets, to another army roadblock on the far side of the encircled town on Wednesday.
A spokesman for government forces said two soldiers had been killed and 45 wounded since Kiev launched its offensive near Slaviansk with aircraft, helicopters and artillery.
POROSHENKO PLAN
Separatists controlling the town since early April denied the government’s casualty figures and claimed to have shot down an army helicopter - something denied in turn by Kiev.
“Losses to the Ukrainian side were more than ours,” said Aleksander Boroday, “prime minister” of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. He said nine had died and 15 were injured among separatists forces in Slaviansk.
Related Coverage Russia faces struggle to wean Crimea economy off Ukraine supplies
At a news conference in the regional capital Donetsk, he said separatists would mobilize forces and train volunteers to fight in Slaviansk and defend their positions in Donetsk.
President-elect Petro Poroshenko ordered the resumption of operations by government forces soon after his May 25 election to quell the rebellion by militia in the Russian-speaking, where people were largely unable or unwilling to vote in the poll.
In Warsaw, where he met U.S. President Barack Obama, he said he would unveil a plan for a “peaceful resolution” of the situation in the east after his inauguration next Saturday.
Kiev says the fighting was stirred up by Moscow, which opposes its pro-Western course, and accuses Russia of letting volunteers cross into Ukraine to fight alongside the rebels.
Moscow denies this and renewed calls on Wednesday for Ukraine to open dialogue with the separatists. But the separatists look to Moscow for help.
“When is (Russian President Vladimir) Putin going to come help us?” asked a young man in fatigues at a rebel checkpoint.
ANTAGONISM TOWARDS KIEV
A few kilometers away, a man from central Ukraine said he belonged to a separatist group called the Russian Orthodox army. “This is our land. We will stand here until the last,” he said.
Slaviansk, a separatist stronghold of 130,000, has strategic value since it sits at the center of the Donbass region at the cross-roads of eastern Ukraine’s three main regions.
Government forces appeared to be tightening their grip but it was too soon to predict the outcome. A government camp in Luhansk, further to the east on the Russian border, was evacuated after an attack by separatists on Monday.
The military operation has hardened antagonism against the present government that came to power when President Viktor Yanokovich was toppled in February after mass protests in Kiev.
Slideshow (5 Images)
“Our Ukrainian army is not protecting us, instead it is attacking us. Thanks to them I have to flee my own land,” said Larissa Zhuratova, a Slaviansk resident piling onto a bus full of refugees bound for Moscow.
Men were mostly not being let through the army checkpoint.
At a run-down dormitory in a village some 100 km south of the fighting, an eight-year-old refugee mimicked the sound of shelling. “It went ba-boom. We sat in the bathtub,” little Vitaly said, playing with toys gifted by local residents.Still-allegedly-running presidential candidate Donald Trump took questions from his audience Thursday at a New Hampshire rally, which predictably led to an unleashing of racist bile. But sprinkled in between the ignorance was Megan Andrade, a University of New Hampshire student who told Trump she volunteers for the League of Conservation Voters.
"I'm here to ask you what your plan is to reduce pollution that is driving climate change and endangering public health." she told the real estate man.
"Let me ask you a question, how many people here believe in global warming? Who believes in global warming? Who believes in global warming, raise your hand?" Trumps asks, getting precious little response.
"Wow. Not much, huh? Nobody? One person? Huh," says Trump. "Oh, you believe, huh?"
And that, for Trump, is that. He moves on. "We're going to do two more questions, two more questions," he says.
Republican believers in climate change may've just stayed mum. In a poll of New Hampshire Republican primary voters that the GOP polling firm American ViewPoint conducted for LCV and the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund, slightly more than half said there is solid evidence for climate change.
Trump has said in the past that he doesn't see climate change in a problem and has referenced the phenomenon of "global cooling," which is a go-to for deniers of the science.
LCV flagged the video for HuffPost and provided an earnest quote from press secretary Seth Stein in response.
It is outrageous that a candidate for President would bully a volunteer in an attempt to avoid her serious question about one of the greatest challenges of our time. Contrary to Trump’s rudely dismissive response, polls in New Hampshire show that a majority of Republican primary voters actually support action on climate. And 97 percent of scientists believe that climate change is happening and is man-induced. Despite Trump's taunting, we will continue to ask all presidential candidates about their plans on climate change and clean energy.
Watch the exchange between Trump and Andrade below.Paul Gipe in WindWorks:
…at the request of a reader, I am updating my charts on the electricity mix in Germany from 1990 through 2012. These charts are from public information, easily accessible with rudimentary German.
First, the total mix.
As can be seen, renewables continue their steady increase. No surprises there. Hard coal arrests its decline and there’s a slight uptick in brown coal generation.
Total generation of electricity in Germany remains relatively constant at 617 TWh in 2012.
In 2012 there was a slight uptick in coal-fired generation, mostly from brown coal. Generation from hard coal increased from 112 TWh to 118 TWh, about as much as the 117 TWh produced in 2010. Generation from brown coal increased from 150 TWh in 2011 to 158 TWh in 2012. Total coal-fired generation has increase about 25 TWh from a low of 254 TWh at the height of the Great Recession in 2009.
Despite a steady increase in gas-fired generation from the early 1990s through 2008, generation dropped dramatically in 2012 following a more gradual decline in 2011. Critics of the nuclear phase-out have charged that Germany is simply replacing nuclear with gas-fired generation. Apparently that’s not the case. Despite a slight increase in total generation in 2012, gas-fired generation dropped from 83 TWh in 2011 to 70 TWh. Gas-fired generation in Germany is now at the level last recorded in 2005 during the boom years prior to the Great Recession.
Now on to the oft-repeated but never substantiated charge that Germany may be phasing out its nuclear plants but it is just turning around and importing nuclear-generated electricity from France. There was concern that German electricity exports would continue their fall from 2011, but that appears unwarranted. German exports of electricity surged in 2012. Net exports reached 23 TWh in 2012 for nearly 4% of total generation.
German nuclear generation continues to fall. For the first time in at least two decades nuclear generation fell below 100 TWh. Nuclear generation is now well below generation by new renewables (wind, solar, and biomass).
Total renewable generation grew steadily to about 135 TWh, 35 TWh more than that from nuclear generation. Total renewable generation includes existing hydro about 20 TWh per year depending upon rainfall.
New renewable generation continued its remarkable growth in Germany in 2012, reaching nearly 115 TWh. Most growth has taken place since the country introduced a modern system of feed-in tariffs in the year 2000. New renewables now compares with the generation from hard coal and exceeds that from natural gas, nuclear, oil, and existing hydro.
Solar photovoltaics (solar PV) continued its meteoric growth in 2012. Solar PV generated 29 TWh in 2012 or nearly 5% of total generation. Wind accounted for a little more than 7% of generation and biomass provided nearly 6% of generation.
Renewable generation provided nearly 22% of total generation in 2012. Within a few years, renewables will account for one-fourth of all German electricity generation. New renewables accounted for nearly 19% of total German generation in 2012.
These comparisons are based on total generation and may not compare to other reports comparing the contribution of renewables to electricity consumption, 594 TWh.National Progressive Organizations Demand Trump-apologist Joe Manchin is Removed From Senate Democratic Leadership Team
Washington, D.C.— Today, CREDO, #AllOfUs, Democracy for America, Other98 and 350 Action called on Sen. Chuck Schumer to remove Trump-apologist Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia from Democratic Caucus Leadership. Manchin was the only “Democrat” who voted to confirm extreme racist Jeff Sessions as attorney general and foreclosure king Steve Mnuchin as treasury secretary. In a recent face-to-face meeting with Trump, Manchin reportedly remained silent while Trump launched a racist tirade against Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Several of the organizations, including CREDO, 350 Action and #AllOfUs, have launched petitions making the same demand of Sen. Schumer. Other organizations will be launching petitions in the coming days.
“Senator Schumer has the responsibility to stand up for progressive values and lead the Trump resistance in the Senate,” said CREDO Action Senior Campaign Manager Heidi Hess. “Joe Manchin’s constant refusal to stand up against Republicans’ racist, sexist and misogynist agenda disqualifies him from serving as a leader of the resistance party.” Hess continued, “Sen. Schumer should do the right thing and immediately remove Manchin from Democratic leadership.”
“Millions of Americans are marching in the streets with the Resistance because they know Donald Trump is a threat to our families and our democracy. Senator Schumer tries to align himself with the Resistance, but we’ve seen a lot of talk and not enough action,” said #AllofUs co-founder Yong Jung Cho. “ If Schumer wants to show that he’s with the resistance, he needs to remove Senator Joe Manchin, a man who proudly poses in photo-ops with Trump, and votes for the Republican party’s agenda and of hate and greed, from party leadership.”
“At a moment when Democratic party should be a firewall against Trump’s hateful, climate-wrecking agenda, Manchin has repeatedly thrown his weight behind the Trump administration,” said 350 Action Executive Director May Boeve. “The stakes are higher than ever before, and progressives deserve elected officials that put us first. Manchin is more loyal to fossil fuel billionaires than he is to the Democratic Party base. It’s time for Chuck Schumer to stand with the resistance by dropping Joe Manchin from the Democratic leadership team.”
“Joe Manchin has aided and abetted the Trump administration, constantly putting him at odds with Senate Democrats and the American people. If Democrats want to reclaim the Senate majority in 2018, leadership needs to be a unified force in fighting for the American people, who are in the streets resisting Trump’s hateful and corrupt agenda everyday“ said Democracy for America Executive Director Charles Chamberlain. “Removing Manchin from Democratic leadership is a no brainer.”
###The summer is a time of fun for NFL fans, which means fantasy football and Madden overall ratings as the popular video game series has made leaking the ratings of players before the game’s release a tradition as the popularity of the franchise has led to an obsession over overall ratings from both fans as well as the players themselves.
When it comes to the Raiders, rookie Khalil Mack is one of the players Raiders fans are most excited to watch on the real football field. However the rookie was excited for his video game rating as well, after all he famously gave himself his number at the University of Buffalo as a reminder of how low his first ever NCAA Football rating was. Eventually Mack became one of the best small school linebackers in recent memory, becoming the Raiders fifth overall pick in the process.
As for Mack’s first ever Madden rating, the rookie shouldn’t have much complaints as EA Sports has given the outside linebacker a rating of 81 overall for their latest instalment of the game.
Khalil Mack rated 81 overall in Madden NFL 15. pic.twitter.com/wZh84thV4B — Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) July 21, 2014
Mack’s rating is the second highest of the 2014 rookies as Houston’s Jadeveon Clowney came in at 83 overall as the first overall pick of the 2014 NFL Draft. Buffalo’s Sammy Watkins was tied for the second highest rating on Madden NFL 15 at 81 despite being selected one pick higher than Mack.
Madden ratings are a fun way of rating a player, and the game is undoubtedly popular amongst football fans who religiously purchase the game each year. Raiders fans will be hoping Mack is as good as his rookie overall rating on Madden indicates, if the rookie first rounder can make video-game like plays on the field the player that once was motivated by EA Sports low opinion of him will continue to be satisfied with his video game status.With no international rugby on tap this weekend, here’s a blast from the past to keep you entertained while the blog takes a couple days off. This is Canada’s second game of the 1996 Pan-Am Tournament, this time against the US Eagles. Both sides feature some names that would go on to have impressive careers, and some older hang-ons from the amateur era.
For Canada this was just the second cap for Balmy Beach pair Scott Hendry and Scott Bryan, and also former Rotherham no8 Mike Schmid. Replacements were still only made for injury at this point, with Brian McCarthy making his debut as a sub.
The Eagles featured one of their best second row pairings, Alec Parker and Luke Gross, who would go on to play more than 100 caps between them. Bob Lockrem makes his debut on the wing, with soon-to-be stalwart Juan Grobler in only his second appearance at centre. An uncapped Kevin Dalzell was on the bench, but didn’t make his debut just yet.
Broadcast on TSN via ESPN, with commentary coming from Tommy Smith and Mike Hill. Video source is VHS, just about good enough for YouTube viewing.
CANADA vs UNITED STATES
Wednesday, September 18, 1996, Hamilton
Referee: Santiago Borsoni (UAR)– The recent bankruptcy filing by Sports Authority has raised questions about possibly renaming the stadium the Broncos play in, and a marijuana company is one such interested buyer.
Native Roots is one of Colorado’s largest dispensaries. It expanded from one to 14 stores over the last year. The marijuana dispensary chain said they are fully ready to make a multi-million dollar commitment if the contract between Sports Authority Field at Mile High and Sports Authority ever ends.
They also acknowledged the poor timing of announcing the news on April Fools’ Day, but insisted that they are serious about the proposal.
“It’s not a joke, we’re very serious,” said founding partner Rhett Jordan.
The company released a rendering of possible new branding for the stadium, which they say is just preliminary. They’d be willing to forgo the marijuana leaf in favor of its more well-known symbol, a simple tree with roots.
Native roots says the affordability of the contract isn’t a problem, whatever it may cost. For Sports Authority, it’s at $6 million a year.
“We’ve always been huge fans of the Broncos, we felt like this was a great opportunity to bring two brilliant brands together,” said Jordan.
The company says it has begun the process of acquiring the naming rights. However, since the contract still belongs to Sports Authority, Native Roots says for now that process has consisted of internal meetings.
RELATED STORIES: Marijuana Legalization Story Archive
If everything were to go as planned and the naming rights approved, its founder says the stadium will be called Native Roots Field at Mile High.
“Native Roots was born and raised in Colorado and we are the natural candidate for this. I don’t see cannabis going anywhere but up right now so we are prepared for that,” said Jordan.
CBS4 reached out to the Broncos for comment and they shared the following statement: “Sports Authority has been a great partner for many years and we certainly hope to keep it that way.”
It’s likely they thought it was a prank.The world is aflame. Religious minorities are among those who suffer most from increasing conflict. Pakistan is one of the worst homes for non-Muslims. The U.S. government should designate that nation as a "Country of Particular Concern" for failing to protect religious liberty, the most basic right of conscience.
Religious persecution is a global scourge. Many of the worst oppressors are Muslim nations. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iraq and Egypt are all important international actors. All also mistreat, or acquiesce in the mistreatment of, anyone not a Muslim. A few of them even victimize Muslims -- of the wrong variety.
Islamabad is another frequent offender. The State Department's report on religious liberty in Pakistan noted that "The constitution and other laws and policies officially restrict religious freedom and, in practice, the government enforced many of these restrictions. The government's respect for and protection of the right to religious freedom continued to be poor."
Minority faiths face violent attack. Believers are killed, churches are bombed, buses are attacked, homes are destroyed, social gatherings are targeted. Warned the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its recent report: "In the past year, conditions hit an all-time low due to chronic sectarian violence targeting mostly Shia Muslims but also Christians, Ahmadis and Hindus." Last year the Commission cited a spike in violence against Shiites as well as "numerous attacks against innocent Pakistanis" of other religions.
Although Islamabad did not launch these assaults, it did little to prevent or redress them. Even when scores or more are killed at a time there often is no response. Indeed, top government officials have been gunned down for defending freedom of conscience with no one arrested, let alone convicted. Explained State: "The government's limited capacity and will to investigate or prosecute the perpetrators of increasing extremist attacks against religious minorities and on members of the Muslim majority promoting tolerance, allowed the climate of impunity to continue."
The most common tool of persecution may be a charge of blasphemy. Said USCIRF: "The country's blasphemy laws, used predominantly in Punjab province, but also nationwide, target members of religious minority communities and dissenting Muslims and frequently result in imprisonment." Two years ago a mentally handicapped 12-year-old Christian girl was charged; after an international outcry even the authorities became embarrassed and the case was dismissed, an unusual outcome.
The blasphemy laws are made for abuse. Explained the Commission, "The so-called crime carries the death penalty or life in prison, does not require proof of intent or evidence to be presented after allegations are made, and does not include penalties for false allegations." In fact, courts hesitate to even hear evidence, lest doing so also be considered blasphemy. With evidence unnecessary, the charge has become a weapon routinely used in personal and business disputes, including a means to exact revenge for imagined offenses.
Between 1986 and 2006 695 people were charged with blasphemy. Today 16 people are on death row and another 20 are serving life sentences. Three Christians have been sentenced to death in the last few months. Many other Pakistanis are in prison waiting for trial, including English professor Junaid Hafeez, accused of blaspheming the Prophet Mohammed. Penalties are not limited to the law. Explained the group Freedom House: "Regardless of the motives behind their charges and the outcome of their cases, those accused of blasphemy are subject to job discrimination, ostracism from their communities and neighborhoods, and even physical violence and murder at the hands of angry mobs, forcing many to live in fear." Since 1990 at least 52 people charged with blasphemy have been killed before reaching trial.
Judges who acquitted defendants and politicians who talked of reforming the blasphemy laws also have been assassinated. In May gunmen killed Rashid Rehman, a human rights lawyer who was defending Hafeez. Previously fellow attorneys threatened Rehman, "You will not come to court next time because you will not exist any more." A pamphlet circulated after the murder asserting that Rehman met his "rightful end." He was the first defense lawyer killed. He probably won't be the last.
Pakistan has jailed more people for blasphemy than any other nation, but it is not the only country which religious free speech. An incredible 14 of 20 countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa criminalize blasphemy. Nine of 50 in the Asia Pacific, seven of 45 in Europe and three of 48 in SubSaharan Africa also do so. Eleven of 35 nations in the Americas have blasphemy laws. In the U.S. several states, including Massachusetts and Michigan, retain blasphemy laws, though they do not enforce them.
The group Freedom House published a detailed report on the detrimental impact of blasphemy laws on human rights. Put simply, these measures "impose undue restrictions on freedom of expression" and are "prone to arbitrary or overly broad application, particularly in settings where there are no checks and balances in place to prevent abuses." Freedom House highlighted Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia and Poland, as well as Pakistan.
In March the Commission made much the same point, issuing a special report entitled "Prisoners of Belief: Individuals Jailed Under Blasphemy Laws." Victims include three atheist bloggers in Bangladesh, numerous Iranian Bahai's, Christians and Sufi and Sunni Muslims, 63 Sunnis and Christians in Egypt, an atheist writer in Kazakhstan, scores of Indonesians and a Saudi blogger. Even Greece and Turkey have charged people with blasphemy.
The Arab Spring was supposed to bring liberty to the Mideast, but it had the opposite effect in many countries. For instance, in Kuwait, perhaps the most liberal Gulf State, the Islamist-dominated Assembly elected in early 2012 voted to impose the death penalty on Muslims convicted of blasphemy. The Emir blocked the law and later changed the election rules, resulting in a more moderate legislature.
Blasphemy prosecutions were initiated in post-revolution Egypt and even Tunisia, viewed as the most successful participant in the Arab Spring. USCIRF commissioners Zuhdi Jasser and Katrina Lantos Swett wrote: "Rather than giving rise to greater individual liberty, this trend could turn the Arab Spring into a repressive winter, with forces of intolerance and tyranny dashing hopes for genuine freedom and liberal democracy."
Nevertheless, Pakistan remains a particular problem. The country's founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, emphasized the importance of religious liberty. But Pakistan became more Islamic over time, a process accelerated by dictator Mohammed Zia ul-Haq. His government not only criminalized blasphemy, but, noted Freedom House, enacted new laws which imposed "harsh Shari'a punishments for extramarital sex, theft and violations of the prohibition of alcohol."
The impact of such laws fell most heavily on religious minorities and liberals. Discrimination, intolerance and violence have become pervasive. Noted Freedom House: "it is clear that Pakistan's blasphemy laws are used politically and applied disproportionately to non-Muslims. Although many other countries have laws against blasphemy, the situation in Pakistan is unique in its severity and its particular effects on religious minorities." Intolerance has become the norm -- in a strategically placed nation possessing nuclear weapons.
Unfortunately, there are spillover impacts from abusive blasphemy prosecutions. Warned Freedom House, in practice the blasphemy laws have led to "extended arbitrary detention." The process also has undermined even limited due process, with convictions rendered on minimal to nonexistent evidence. Along the way defendants have suffered from official torture and private vigilante injustice.
Blasphemy laws threaten basic individual liberties around the globe. The measures are bad in Western nations. They are far worse in the Muslim world. The problem is particularly severe in Pakistan. Warned Freedom House: "Pakistan's blasphemy laws foster an environment of intolerance and impunity, and lead to violations of a broad range of human rights, including the obvious rights to freedom of expression and freedom of religion, as well as freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention; the right to due process and a fair trial; freedom from torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; and the right to life and security of the person."
Obviously, there is little the U.S. can do directly about policy in Pakistan. However, the International Religious Freedom Act allows the State Department to designate countries as Countries of Particular Concern. Noted USCIRF: "Pakistan represents the worst situation in the world for religious freedom for countries not currently designated" as CPCs. Unfortunately, in its latest designation announced last month State continued to leave Islamabad off of the list. The Obama administration should remedy that lapse.
For some, religious liberty is but an afterthought, an esoteric principle with little practical impact. However, the willingness of foreign governments to respect freedom of conscience acts as the famed canary in the mine. A state which fails to protect the right of individuals to respond to their belief (or unbelief) in God is more likely to leave other essential liberties unprotected. And a society in which life and dignity of the human person is not respected is more likely to become a hothouse to ideas and beliefs hostile to America.Arkansas fans aren’t the only ones calling out the Razorbacks offensive line these days.
Over the weekend, former Razorback All-SEC lineman Mitch Petrus spoke on a local FOX affiliate and chastised the Hogs line on the number of issues the unit had last weekend against Auburn. Specifically, Petrus singled out the effort of the group. Petrus went so far as to say the team’s woes were on the five offensive linemen up front and them alone.
Not to be confused for a simple angry alum, Petrus knows a thing or two about blocking after opening holes for Arkansas running backs Darren McFadden, Felix Jones and Peyton Hillis, among others, during his playing career from 2007-2009. The former walk-on was drafted in the fifth round of the 2010 NFL Draft following his playing career in Fayetteville.
With two weeks to prepare for Florida’s defensive unit, which ranks No. 2 in the nation in both scoring and total defense and No. 4 in rush defense in the SEC, Arkansas had better get things in order up front in a hurry. Otherwise, the 5-2 start could quickly turn the other direction in a hurry for the Hogs.New file system announcements don’t happen every day. While it seems like everything else in technology is on ever tightening cycles of iteration, file systems remain the fine wine that takes some time. A file system from Apple on the other hand is more like a comet sighting.
So the excitement around their new APFS file system seems justified for its rarity if nothing else. The biggest feature for most users will be snapshots, which APFS makes great use of. Sadly, it was not included in the APFS preview available to developers.
(Side rant: Apple File System? Really? That’s the best you could do Apple? Why not just go full egocentric and name is “File System”, like it’s the only one that exists. I guess it’s vaguely descriptive, in that only Apple devices will run it. But for a company supposedly known for creativity, it’s weak sauce.)
Adam Leventhal didn’t feel like waiting for snapshots in future MacOS updates, so he decided to find a way to take advantage of the fs_snapshot system call included in the most recent betas. He basically uses DTrace to reverse engineer how a snapshot is created. He then builds an app in an attempt to create an actual snapshot.
It’s a fascinating journey, with all the code, kernel processes and minor setbacks that you would expect.
Ars Technica comments:
Back in June, Apple announced its new upcoming file system: APFS, or Apple File System. There was no mention of it in the WWDC keynote, but devotees needed no encouragement. They picked over every scintilla of data from the documentation on Apple’s developer site, extrapolating, interpolating, eager for whatever was about to come. In the WWDC session hall, the crowd buzzed with a nervous energy, eager for the grand unveiling of APFS. I myself badge-swapped my way into the conference just to get that first glimpse of Apple’s first original filesystem in the 30+ years since HFS.
Read more at: Testing out snapshots in Apple’s next-generation APFS file systemPlace the phone face down to silence notifications and calls
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Hi everyone,If you are on Marshmallow and are rooted, then I have a new treat for you!Attached is a modified version of the new Moto Actions that allows you to use the new Moto G4 actions* as well as the Lift for Moto Voice action, this will allow you to...Download the modified Moto-Actions-Mod-02.037.02.zip to your phoneReboot phone into TWRPInstall the zipReboot phone and then open MotoClick the Stars, then Actions, then you should see the new actions!Enable it and click learn moreEnjoy the new actions previously only released for 2015/2016 and Verizon Moto X phonesDownload the modified MotoActions.apk to your phoneClear the MotoActions app cacheOpen your system\priv-app\MotoActions folder and rename the original MotoActions.apk to MotoActions.apk.bakOpen your system\priv-app\MotoActions\oat\arm folder and rename the original MotoActions.odex to MotoActions.odex.bakMove the downloaded MotoActions.apk to the system\priv-app\MotoActions folderEdit the permissions to be 0644 (rw-r--r--)Reboot phone and then open MotoClick the Stars, then Actions, then you should see the new actions!Enable it and click learn moreEnjoy the new actions previously only released for 2015/2016 and Verizon Moto X phonesDownload the Return To Stock Moto Actions.zipReboot phone into TWRPInstall the zipReboot phone*I am not sure if the new Moto G4 actions works for other Moto models, but I think these actions are not tied to specific new sensors, so it should work... you do need the Virtual Lift Sensor for the Lift for Moto Voice however...Giants running back Rashad Jennings was limited in the second half of Sunday's win over the Saints, but he is expected to practice later this week, head coach Ben McAdoo said.
Jennings "banged his hand up a little bit" in the second half against New Orleans, but he should work when the Giants resume practice Wednesday. McAdoo did say he expects Jennings to be limited in some capacity, however.
"We'll see how practice goes," McAdoo said Monday on a conference call with the Giants press corps. "We'll know more when we see him out there on Wednesday.... We'll know more when we see him."
Jennings told WFAN's Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton on Monday morning the injury would not hold him back, and that, "we'll be rocking it."
Jennings rushed for just 27 yards on 13 carries against the Saints after opening the season with 75 yards on 18 carries in a Week 1 win over the Cowboys. Entering Week 2's games, Jennings led the NFL in rushing yards dating back to Week 14 of the 2015 season, according to NFL Network.
How Giants can prove they're for real
If Jennings is healthy, he could be a strong fantasy play in Week 3 against the Redskins. Washington has yielded 124.5 yards per game on the ground so far this season.
McAdoo also said right tackle Marshall Newhouse (calf) is expected to miss practice to start the week, but the Giants are not sure of his status for the Washington game at this point.
"Right now, we're going to evaluate him as the week goes on," McAdoo said. "We'll see how he does, see how he recovers. We don't know how significant it is, or how long he'll be out at this point, or whether he'll be able to play this week."
Safety Mykkele Thompson is out "for a few weeks" with a knee injury, according to McAdoo. Sunday's game was Thompson's NFL regular season debut. He missed the entire 2015 season with an Achilles injury, and was inactive in the Giants' Week 1 win over the Cowboys.
James Kratch may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.It is “do or die” time for the Buffalo Bills and their defensive line. We know the story of the highly-rated defensive tackles, the pass rush specialist and the highest paid defensive player of all-time. But the story, and the contracts, just aren’t adding up.
Through five games this season the Bills rank dead last in footballoutsiders.com defensive efficiency ratings. When you go beyond the numbers to the tape you see the problem starts upfront with the men who were supposed to key the Bills defensive turn around. It began in week one when Mario Williams had a favorable match-up against a NY Jets right tackle making his first pro-start ever. Instead of taking advantage of the situation it was the Bills who were dominated as Williams was whipped up and down the field all day. The results have only declined from there as the Bills have failed to make a dent in the high-powered offense of the New England Patriots and the ground attack of the San Fran 49ers. The Bills four defensive line starters have failed to live up to expectations so far this season and if they can’t get the job done when the Bills travel to Arizona this week then it will be time to write them off.
I wrote about the Bills defense in the offseason. While I tried to be optimistic for the sake of Bills fans, I had to point out that the gathering of these D-line parts the Bills’ had assembled would not guarantee any success. Remember that in 2010, Houston had both Mario Williams and Mark Anderson and they were one of the worst defenses ever. I don’t believe all is lost for the Bills, however.
They have looked terrible lately, but keep in mind the level of competition they have faced. New England is a dominant offense that knows the Bills well and has studied how to attack them. Going on the road to San Francisco will be a tough match-up for any team this year, remember that last week was only San Fran’s second home game this year – the other being a dominant win over the Detroit Lions that ended a lot closer than it actually was at 27-19. It is clear that any good team would have put up a better effort in either of those games, but we are past the point of talking about the Bills as a good team, and now need to turn our attention to salvaging some respectability and possibly reach.500 against a weak remaining schedule.
It is understandable for a team to get crushed by that schedule, and it is happening elsewhere in the league right now, yet nobody is pushing the panic button in Denver. That’s right, in three games versus top flight competition (Atlanta, Houston, New England) Denver has fallen behind by nearly 20 points early in each game. Peyton Manning was able to claw his way back into the game and make them look respectable, but the final scores were much closer than the games. The problem for the Bills is that we now have the last 14 games of evidence that Ryan Fitzpatrick is not going to lead a high-powered Bills attack. Over that time they are only 3-11. Making matters worse for the Bills this season is their injuries at running back. What began the year a dynamic 1-2 punch has deteriorated into a back field of replacement level players. If the Bills are going to make any turnaround it will have to come from the defense.
What is important for Buffalo is that the defense continues to take care of business against the bottom feeders of the league – or risk joining them. The Bills own a 2-3 record because they have played Kansas City and Cleveland, two of the league’s worst teams, and they have looked good against them.
Make no mistake that Arizona is also amongst the worst the league has to offer. The Cardinals record of 4-1 is deceiving – in reality they have only outplayed one of their opponents – the Eagles in week 2. There is a reason the Cardinals were only a 1-point favorite over the lowly St. Louis Rams on the road last week, and there is also a reason why the Cardinals looked like they had no chance to win once they fell behind by 7-0 in that same game, because they really didn’t. Nobody is fooled into believing this is a legitimate 4-win team this early in the season. The main reason for this doubt is because of their horrendous offensive line.
The Cardinals lost both of their starting offensive tackles prior to the season and they have had to patch together their line with players nobody else wanted, and it has shown. Over the last two games the Cardinals have giving up a stunning 17 sacks. This seems bad, but their pass blocking is not nearly as bad as their run blocking has been. The Cardinals as a team have failed to break the lowly average of 3 yards per rush in all but one game this season. Against the Seahawks this season their leading rusher was a receiver who had only one rushing attempt all game – and it went for 15 yards! Futility like this is just what the doctor ordered for the Bills defense.
The Bills have their backs against the wall. Even though they sit at 2-3 their recent performances place an added emphasis on this weeks match-up. It feels like the Bills need to do something to change the momentum of the season or they will get lost in a seemingly endless string of 6-10 performances. If the Bills defensive line has any juice at all then Sunday against the Cardinals will be the time to show it. A failure by the Bills D-line to impact the game this week will mean it is officially time to label them overpaid, and then start looking on toward next season.
Tune into “NFL Sunday Night Blitz Package” on Last Word Radio. We’ll run down a busy Sunday in the NFL |
out against the absurd law about silencers."
"Threaten a veto if he must, and put an end to that bill," Schumer said on the floor. "I am also calling on President Trump to bring together the leaders of Congress and let both sides know he is ready and willing to address this issue of gun safety head on."
Trump suggested on Tuesday that he may address gun control at some point, telling reporters that "we'll be talking about gun laws as time goes by."
Last year, Democrats, led in part by Lewis, seized the House floor for 24 hours, refusing to relinquish control until Republicans agreed to vote on a gun control bill. That didn’t happen.
Several Democrats say they haven’t ruled out similar action in response to the Las Vegas shooting but aren’t planning to do that yet. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who became a leading gun control advocate after her own wounding in a 2011 mass shooting, plans to attend the House Democratic protest on Wednesday.
Lewis approached Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on the House floor Monday night to ask if he would attend the protest, and Ryan declined, according to multiple Democratic sources.
At a news conference Tuesday, Ryan said that "mental health reform is a critical ingredient to making sure that we can try and prevent" mass shootings like the Las Vegas attack.
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But Ryan also defended the GOP's February vote to roll back an Obama-era regulation that would have sent information to the national background check database on individuals deemed to be mentally impaired.
“There were people whose rights were being infringed, and that wasn’t just — it’s a little more complicated than you’re describing it," Ryan told reporters.
Ryan said little about the prospects for the controversial gun silencer bill, telling reporters that "I don't know when it's going to be scheduled." He then began touting the GOP's planned vote this week on a budget that paves the way for tax reform.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who represented the House district where 20 children and six teachers were killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in 2012, said Monday that he plans to introduce new background checks legislation following the Las Vegas shooting.
Murphy plans to spotlight the issue later Tuesday alongside Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), as well as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who has championed gun control since the 1978 assassination of two of her then-fellow San Francisco city leaders, is also expected to play a key role in Senate Democrats' push for action. Feinstein has authored a bill that would ban the "bump stocks" that this week's Las Vegas attacker used to boost his rate of firing.The Republican candidate scored his first victory in the state in the primaries, but now his nomination has been overshadowed by a growing list of allegations
Lifelong Republican Karen Porter paused for a moment at the mention of Donald Trump’s name, then said with a sigh: “I probably will vote against my party this year for the first time in my life.”
The retired teacher had just walked out of a fabric store in Manchester, the New Hampshire city where, in February, the Trump political bulldozer started flattening everything in its path.
Donald Trump tries to deflect attention to 'rigged election' – campaign live Read more
He scored his first victory here in the 2016 presidential primaries, but now that his nomination has been overshadowed by growing scandals over his attitude and behavior towards women, he is struggling to persuade voters like Porter to rally around his candidacy.
“I think it tells a lot about his character,” Porter said of leaked footage from 2005, in which Trump bragged about groping and kissing women without their consent.
“The way he treats women, or he talks about women, in such a vile way... I’m not sure I really want to trust someone like that, who doesn’t value people.”
At 57, Porter has never voted for a Democrat and felt as though she might stay home. But the avalanche of revelations detailing Trump’s behavior toward women, including a growing number allegations of sexual assault, appear to have pushed Porter over the edge – ready to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton.
“I can’t believe I’m saying that, but yes,” she said. Without suburban women like her, Trump’s route to the White House looks hard to navigate.
Since the recording of Trump emerged, Republicans and right-leaning independents everywhere have found themselves soul-searching as they vacillate between party and principle. But in the battleground of New Hampshire, a state that holds the distinction of being the first in US history to have an all-female delegation of congresswomen and senators, Trump’s latest controversy is, for some female voters, perhaps the final straw.
A number of women who spoke with the Guardian at the strip malls of the Manchester suburbs said they were deeply troubled by Trump’s remarks, even as they confessed to still being torn over their choices.
Hope Grugnali, a 38-year-old resident of Amherst, contemplated what effect Trump’s vulgar language might have on her three children.
“I’m a woman and I have a daughter, and I don’t want people to treat her disrespectfully,” Grugnali said, as she clutched a pair of children’s shoes in the aisles of a discount store.
“I also have sons,” she added, “and I don’t want them to think they can go around treating a woman like that, either.”
Grugnali identified herself as an independent who was initially drawn to the former Florida governor Jeb Bush but ultimately voted for the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the state’s open primary. She had not yet settled on voting for Clinton, but described the impact of the Trump tape as “terrible”.
“I think that Donald Trump is worse than anyone, so it’s anyone but him.”
Laura Rexford, 37, offered a similar response. “If we condone what he’s saying, what about that guy who raped an unconscious girl?” she said, invoking the sexual assault of an unconscious woman by a Stanford University swimmer outside a fraternity house last year. “Do Trump’s comments make that OK?”
Rexford, too, is an independent who views neither major-party candidate favorably but said it would be wasting her vote not to cast a ballot for one of them. In spite of her trust issues with Clinton, she said she was beginning to lean toward her: “I don’t think he has the ability to be president.”
Following numerous shakeups in his campaign, Trump hired as his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, a Republican strategist whose background was heavy in its emphasis on helping the party communicate with female voters. Briefly, he showed signs of message discipline, bound mostly to a teleprompter in August and September, and embarking upon what his campaign described as outreach toward minorities.
Republican operatives outside the Trump campaign said it was a shift in tone designed to make suburban women see past his inflammatory rhetoric and feel comfortable voting for him.
But then came the tape. Dozens of Republican elected officials rescinded their endorsements of Trump, with some even calling upon the nominee to step aside.
The New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, one of the more vulnerable Republicans facing re-election in November, was the first to withdraw her support for Trump after the tape emerged.
But her opponent, the Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, has cast Ayotte’s decision to renounce Trump as one of “political calculation”. “She stood by Donald Trump as he not only insulted women, but insulted a Gold Star family [who lost a son in the Iraq War], insulted people with disabilities,” Hassan said on Wednesday after touring a pin manufacturing plant in Ayotte’s hometown of Nashua.
Hassan also seized upon Ayotte’s response, in a debate just days before the release of the tape, when asked if Trump was a role model. After stumbling around her answer, Ayotte said he “absolutely” was – a characterization she immediately retracted, but not before the damage had been done.
Ayotte held her own conversation with reporters in Manchester on Wednesday, after attending a ceremony for fallen police officers. On a television screen behind her, an attack ad by Hassan tied her to Trump while featuring her “role model” comment.
Ayotte, who spent much of the last year condemning Trump’s statements, said she made the decision to revoke her support “as a matter of principle”. “That’s more important to me than winning an election,” the senator said.
Clinton holds a five-point edge over Trump in New Hampshire based on the Huffington Post’s pollster model, which takes an average of publicly available surveys.
A UMass Lowell/7 News poll released in the wake of Trump’s offensive tape found that more than four in five likely New Hampshire voters had either heard his comments or discussed them with others. While 66% said it did not make a difference, 30% said they were less likely to vote for Trump – with women more inclined than men to drop their support for the Republican nominee.
Trump has spent the past week waging scorched earth warfare against the Republican lawmakers who spurned him, while also seeking to discredit the women who have accused him of sexual assault. He has also insulted the physical appearance of some of his accusers and questioned their motivations for coming forward now.
While it’s improbable that Trump’s base would alone be enough to carry him over the finish line on 8 November, it may be all that he has.
As dusk fell upon the historic downtown of Nashua, Jean and Lise Parent, a married couple, were wrapping up the day inside their property management office. The window was adorned with Halloween cobwebs and spiders and a sign in support of the Republican nominee: “The silent majority stands with Trump.”
“If a woman waits 30 years to come and say a story like that …” Lise, 69, said of the sexual assault allegations against Trump.
“That’s bullshit,” her husband Jean, 73, interjected.
“There’s something wrong,” Lise continued. “She’s getting paid for it. She’s getting money somewhere.”
A timeline of Donald Trump's alleged sexual misconduct: who, when and what Read more
The couple was two doors down from the Trump campaign’s Nashua office, which had only a handful of volunteers despite just 21 days remaining until election day.
The Parents, who said they were tired of politicians, were drawn to Trump as a force of change. Like most of his supporters, they blamed Trump’s opponents for colluding with the media to sabotage his campaign.
“I think they’re trying to grab as much dirt as they can to eliminate him, because the establishment is not behind him,” Jean said. “The Republicans are so scared that he’s going to mess up. I call them chicken shit,” Lise said.
Were they not concerned by any of Trump’s incendiary comments? The response from Jean was simple: “Like what?”Jer
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Administrator [Log Add] 1994-1997 Tour Schedules Select Post
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Member Back to Top Post by Jer on 1994-1997 Tour Schedules
I recently had the ability to take a look at a compiled tour history of Silverchair from 1994 to summer of 1997, partly based off tour schedules supplied by John Watson in the pre - Chairpage days. Based on these schedules, I have made a series of adjustments to the Complete Log, which I will list below. Aside from these additions, some dates are still in question, and could use help from early fans.
The Complete Log posted here at www.silverchair.boards.net does not reflect these changes, or any changes in archived material since 2016. An updated version of the Complete Log will be made public within the next month, after the current batch of audio is archived. An updated copy of the Complete Log can be obtained upon request.
06-30-1994 has been changed to 07-30-1994
08-19-1994 previously had no venue name. It is now listed as Darling Harbour Pier.
10-06-1994 previously had no venue name. It is now Mature Fest at Newcastle Civic Park.
11-12-1994 now has a known audio source.
11-25-1994 has a better quality master of the circulating audio source. Listed as "master".
12-11-1994 is unlisted but still has a known audio source. Did this show actually happen? No log change.
12-16-1994 is changed to Long Jetty hotel from The Zoo.
12-23-1994 might not have actually happened. It stays in the log.
01-15-1995 Camp Shortland show was unlisted. Did it happen? It stays in the log.
01-26-1995 Big Day Out in Sydney was not listed. Did it happen? It stays in the log.
01-28-1995 previously had no venue name. It is now listed as Van Gogh's Earlobe. Not BDO.
02-17-1995 and 02-18-1995 were Melbourne Music Festival events.
03-23-1995 Sony Music Australia Conference was at The Rooftop (?) No log change.
04-16-1995 added location as Football Oval.
04-22-1995 added event name of Uni Stomp.
04-24-1995 has an partial FM audio source.
06-07-1995 added Australian air date.
06-08-1995 Wallace was not listed on the list. Did it happen? It stays in the log.
06-19-1995 Live At The Wireless was aired on the 19th. Recorded on the 17th. Changed in the log
06-26-1995 Sony Music Canada Conference not listed in list. Did it happen? It stays in the log.
06-27-1995 also had an interview segment.
07-11-1995 is changed to Exposure Rock Cafe in Birmingham UK.
07-15-1995 RAGE guest hosting. Was it live? Still not in log.
07-16-1995 changed from red to blue. Interview is missing in the archive.
08-25-1995 added location of Lowlands Paradise.
09-08-1995 added event name of CMJ Convention.
09-10-1995 changed to green. We now know a setlist.
09-15-1995 added radio station call letters for interview.
10-20-1995 remains correct ARIA date. Misprint on schedule (?)
11-26-1995 changed from unknown to Los Angeles. Removal of air date question.
12-14-1995 still unknown as an Alternative Nation rebroadcast or second show. No log change.
01-04-1996 is listed as 01-03-1996. Still in question. No log change.
02-09-1996 now has an added interview segment not yet in the archive.
03-30-1996 is a new log listing of Daniel guest hosting Triple J's Top 5 Countdown.
06-06-1996 has the added located of Darling Harbour Pier.
07-29-1996 unknown venue show was not listed in list. Did it happen? It stays in the log.
10-07-1996 added event named Homebush.
11-16-1996 Daniel at Push Over Festival is in question. No log change.
03-29-1997 Recovery House Band in question. Air date or performance date? No log change.Researchers already knew that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was the most common behavioral health diagnosis among children enrolled in Medicaid. A new study to be presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2015 National Conference & Exhibition in Washington, DC, found that children in foster care were three times more likely than others to have an ADHD diagnosis.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examined 2011 Medicaid outpatient and prescription drug claims from multiple states across the United States. Among their key findings:
More than 1 in 4 children between the ages of 2 and 17 who were in foster care had received an ADHD diagnosis, compared to about 1 in 14 of all other children in Medicaid.
Children with ADHD who were in foster care were also more likely to have another disorder, with roughly half also diagnosed with conditions such as oppositional defiant disorder, depression, or anxiety. This is compared to about 1 in 3 children with ADHD in Medicaid who were not in foster care.
Among children with an ADHD diagnosis, those in foster care were as likely as others to be treated with ADHD medication but were more likely to have received psychological services; About 3 out of 4 of the children with ADHD in foster care received some psychological care in 2011.
Lead author Melissa Danielson, MSPH, a statistician with the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, said findings that children in foster care experience high rates of ADHD along with other, simultaneous behavioral disorders as compared to their peers in Medicaid shows a substantial need for medical and behavioral services within this group. The high proportion of children with ADHD in foster care who receive psychological services was promising, she said, especially since behavior therapy is recommended as the first-line treatment for preschoolers with ADHD and is preferred in conjunction with medication as treatment for school-aged children with ADHD.
“As we work to improve the quality of care for children with ADHD, it will be important to consider the needs of special populations, including those in foster care,” Ms. Danielson said. “Working together, primary care and specialty clinicians can best support the health and long-term well-being of children with ADHD.”
Ms. Danielson will present the abstract, “The Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD among Children in Foster Care Using Medicaid Claims Data, 2011,” at 2:30 pm on Monday, Oct. 26 in the Washington Marriott Marquis Ballroom Salon 5. To view the abstract, visit https:/ / aap. confex. com/ aap/ 2015/ webprogrampreliminary/ Paper30570. html.Muslim daubs war memorial with 'Islam will dominate the world' - but walks free after CPS says he was NOT racially motivated
A Muslim protester who daubed a war memorial with graffiti glorifying Osama Bin Laden and proclaiming 'Islam will dominate the world' walked free from court after prosecutors ruled his actions were not motivated by religion.
Tohseef Shah, 21, could have faced a tougher sentence if the court had accepted that the insults - which included a threat to kill the Prime Minister - were inspired by religious hatred.
But - citing a loophole in the law - the Crown Prosecution Service chose not to charge him with that offence and he escaped with only a two-year conditional discharge and an order to pay the council £500 compensation after admitting causing criminal damage.
Yesterday the decision was attacked by politicians and veterans who were shocked by the desecration of the memorial in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.
Islamic message: Tohseef Shah's graffiti 'Islam will dominate the world' was not religiously motivated, according to the Crown Prosecution Service
Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Parliamentary Counter Terrorism sub-committee, said: 'This is an outrage against our war dead.'
Shah sprayed the words 'Islam will dominate the world - Osama
is on his way' and 'Kill Gordon Brown' on the plinth of the memorial in December.
He was arrested after his DNA was found on the discarded spray-can but refused to give an explanation for his actions or show any remorse, a court heard.
A file was sent to lawyers at the Counter Terrorism Division of the CPS in London to see if there was a racially or religiously motivated connotation.
However when Shah appeared before magistrates this week, prosecutor Andrew Bodger said: 'It was decided there was not enough evidence to prove this, and they decided it was politically motivated.'
Unrepentant: the court heard that Mr Shah had shown 'no remorse'
Defending, Mumtaz Chaudry said Shah did not hold extremist views. 'This is nothing to do with his religious beliefs, his family's beliefs or his cultural beliefs,' he said. 'He is just an ordinary guy.
'He is remorseful, but at the time of his interview he was simply answering questions and didn't realise that was the right time to show remorse.'
Local veterans reacted with horror last night. Roy Whenman, 78, who fought in the Korean War, said: 'If what he wrote on the memorial wasn't evidence of racial or religious hatred then what is?
'The memorial commemorates people of my generation who died for our freedom as well as those fighting in wars today.
'It's diabolical that someone could deface it in this way.'
Community leaders among Burton- upon-Trent's 4,000-strong Muslim population also slammed Shah's actions.
Khadim Thathall, a former president of a mosque in the town, said: 'This young man has clearly been radicalised by groups which are looking to cause trouble and it's a pity that the court hasn't been able to deal with him more strictly.'
Shah - believed to be a former student of De Montfort University in Leicester - uses as his Facebook profile photograph a flaming lion's head superimposed on crossed Kalashnikov rifles.
He lives with his parents in a £200,000 detached house and works at his father's car spares shop. Last night, he refused to discuss the case.
Instead he appointed Abdullah Ibn Abbas, who described himself as spiritual leader of a group called Road to Jannah, to speak on his behalf.
He said: 'It really doesn't concern us how the British people feel about the graffiti he wrote - the real outrage should be about the thousands of Muslims who are being killed and butchered as a result of British foreign policy.'
The CPS said Shah's offence could not be charged as a hate crime because the law requires that damage must target a particular religious or racial group.
It said: 'While it was appreciated that what was sprayed on the memorial may have been perceived by some to be part of a racial or religious incident, no racial or religious group can be shown to have been targeted.'
The case comes after a senior judge ruled on Thursday that Christian beliefs had no right to protection by the courts.
Lord Justice Laws told Christian counsellor Gary McFarlane he had no right to appeal after he was sacked for refusing to give sex therapy to a gay couple.
The judge said legal protection for views held purely on religious grounds would be 'irrational'.Reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier will run it back with former division kingpin Jon Jones at the upcoming UFC 214 pay-per-view (PPV) event on Sat., July 29, 2017 inside Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
While both “DC” and “Bones” have been making the rounds in recent days (sample), they’ll now have their official pre-fight press conference with the mixed martial arts (MMA) media to discuss this weekend’s big shebang.
The festivities get underway at 4 p.m. ET in the embedded player above.
Related UFC 214 Extended Video Preview
Elsewhere on the card, and also in attendance for today’s presser, will be reigning welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, who defends his 170-pound strap against jiu-jitsu ace Demian Maia.
Before they can throw down in the UFC 214 co-headliner, former Strikeforce and Invicta FC featherweight champion Cristiane Justino will collide with Tonya Evinger for the vacant 145-pound belt.
T-minus three days!
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 214 fight card on fight night (click here), starting with the Fight Pass "Prelims" matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET, then the remaining undercard balance on FXX at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET.
To see who else is fighting at UFC 214 click here.A grand jury in Portland, Oregon has charged FBI Agent W Joseph Astarita with three counts of making false statements, alleging that he lied when he claimed he did not fire his weapon during the attempted arrest of LaVoy Finicum, a key figure in the Oregon militia standoff at the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016.
Astarita, who pleaded not guilty in federal court in Portland, was assigned to arrest the leaders of the Oregon standoff in January 2016 when Finicum drove off the road and into a snowbank, before attempting to flee on foot. During the ensuing confrontation, some of which was captured on film, Oregon state police officers shot and killed Finicum, an Arizona rancher, who police say was reaching for his gun. Police later said the shooting was “justified”.
Here is the press release from the United States Attorney's Office:
The indictment alleges that Astarita knowingly and willfully made false statements to FBI Supervisory Special Agents, knowing that the statements were false and material to the FBI’s decision not to investigate the propriety of an agent-involved shooting. Specifically, Astarita falsely stated he had not fired his weapon during the attempted arrest of Mr. Finicum when he knew he had in fact fired his weapon. Astarita also knowingly engaged in misleading conduct toward Oregon State Police officers by failing to disclose that he had fired two rounds during the attempted arrest. Astarita was arraigned on June 28, 2017, in Portland. He entered pleas of not guilty to each county and was released pending future appearances. An indictment is only an accusation of a crime, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
For those who missed it, a portion of Finicum's confrontation with police was caught on film and clearly shows that the first shots were fired while his hands were up in the air...'ironically', no pop stars made a "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" video after this incident.
Last year, we covered the background on the incidents leading up to the Oregon standoff in a post entitled "Now Is The Time To Stand Up": Armed Activists, Militiamen Seize Federal Wildlife Refuge Office In Oregon. It all started when Oregon resident Dwight Hammond set fires on land he leased from the government, an effort he said was intended to fight back the intrusion of invasive plant species and prevent wildfires. Apparently the government did agree and threw Hammond in jail for arson.
On Saturday, militants seized a remote government outpost following a protest by hundreds of angry citizens. It all started back in 2001 when Dwight Hammond and his son Steven set fire to leased government land in what they said was an effort to beat back invasive plant species and - ironically - prevent wildfires. They set more fires in 2006 and were later convicted of arson. Both men served time in prison but a judge eventually determined that their sentences were too light and ordered them back to jail. Some folks were displeased with the ruling and staged a protest that saw some 300 people march through Burns, a city of around 3,000. The procession made a stop by the Hammond residence and proceeded to make an appearance at the local sheriff's office as well. Enter Ammon Bundy. Fast forward to November and Bundy's son Ammon was busy trying to come up with a way to keep Dwight Hammond and his son from going back to jail. "Ammon Bundy met with Dwight Hammond and his wife in November, seeking a way to keep the elderly rancher from having to surrender for prison," The Oregonian writes, adding that "the Hammonds professed through their attorneys that they had no interest in ignoring the order to report for prison." But while the Hammonds have apparently come to terms with their fate, Bundy hasn't and in a brazen move, he and an unspecified number of "outside militants" seized control of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge headquarters, which is a short drive from Burns (where the protest took place).
Of course, the standoff ultimately ended with multiple arrests and the death of LaVoy Finicum.For devotees of President Trump, the first gathering on Friday of his business council, which featured 17 executives, may have looked like a colorized version of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” but for those focusing exclusively on the rapport between the two leaders, it resembled “Goodfellas.”
Sitting alongside Mr. Trump was the head of the council, Stephen Schwarzman, the chief executive of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, wearing Washington’s newly obligatory red tie. Since its founding in 1985, Blackstone has accumulated more than $361 billion in assets and made Mr. Schwartzman a fortune estimated at $11 billion — a figure that no doubt dwarfs whatever it is that Mr. Trump is worth. In 2015, Mr. Schwarzman was paid $799 million.
Mr. Schwarzman has flourished during the four decades that the people Mr. Trump purports to represent have languished. In the pursuit once known as leveraged buyouts — before some marketing genius fastened on “private equity” as a way to disguise the fact that the business still rests on a mountain of debt — Mr. Schwarzman and his brethren have become symbols for the economic inequality that Mr. Trump deplored during his campaign. They are able to borrow billions and deduct interest payments from their corporate tax bills while $75,000-a-year wage earners in Ohio, Michigan or Pennsylvania are unable to secure a mortgage and get no tax break on their monthly rent.
Just like Mr. Trump’s real-estate business, groups like Blackstone rely on enormous debt to prop up their business. The playbook for any of their acquisitions is to gain 100 percent control by financing the purchase of a company with a small down payment and a heap of debt secured not (heaven forbid) by their own savings or houses, but by the business they are looking to acquire. They then cut costs — which almost always means making sizable layoffs at the company they’re taking over — and figure out a way to reward themselves financially.Park Kyung has taken to Twitter to clear up a misunderstanding about Block B’s upcoming track.
On January 26, the group shared a teaser photo for a new release entitled “Yesterday” that is due out on February 6 at midnight KST. It was later reported that the song will not be a comeback, but rather a special single written and composed by member Park Kyung.
One article that was retweeted by Block B’s official Twitter described the track as a “‘fan special song’ to be released ahead of the group’s fan meeting on February 11,” leading many readers to believe that the track was specifically written as a “fan song.”
On January 26, Park Kyung wrote a message to fans on his Twitter to clear up what he described as a misunderstanding that arose because of the article. He stated, “The new song ‘Yesterday’ is not a fan song, including the lyrics! I think the article took that direction because our fan meeting is coming up.”
“It’s a song that I’ve worked hard to create, so I’m upset that it’s being seen as though it’s an event song made just for the fan meeting,” he wrote. “Of course, while I was making it I was excited about having our fans listen to it, so it could be seen as a ‘fan song’ in that way, but still! It’s a super exciting song, so I think you can forward to it!”
His fellow group members Zico and Jaehyo have both retweeted Park Kyung’s message to fans.
Are you excited for Block B’s new track “Yesterday”?
Source (1)The quick arrival of my re-matched coffee exchange gift was a wonderful surprise. I was so excited to see a big box covered in Reddit logos and cupcake tape. Seriously, cupcakes and the Reddit alien, who wouldn't be excited? Anyway, I got the sweetest, most awesome array of coffee stuff ever. A big bag of freshly roasted Kona and some smaller bags of flavored coffee from a local shop near my sender, some chocolate covered espresso beans, TWO mugs (one with adorable birds and the other to-go), a wonderful coffee smelly candle, and the MOST FREAKING ADORABLE BUTTONS I HAVE EVER SEEN. These buttons are SO COOL. My santa took my profile pic of my bird Holly along with other pics of stuff I love and put the images on these buttons. Re-gifter you are the best. I'm glad I got blown off the first time because no way could it have come close to this fantastic gift. I will be brewing those beans first thing tomorrow. Your note was so sweet. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and personalization of my gift. You are the best!!!Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police chief: "Violence... probably worse than what we had in August"
The US town of Ferguson has seen rioting and looting after a jury decided not to bring charges over the killing of a black teenager.
Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, on 9 August, sparking protests.
A police chief said the latest violence in the suburb of St Louis, Missouri, was "probably much worse" than on any night since the teenager's death.
St Louis County police chief Jon Belmar said rioters had fired 150 shots.
Many in the African-American community had called for Mr Wilson to be charged with murder, but after three months of deliberation a Missouri grand jury - of nine white and three black members - made no recommendation of charges.
President Barack Obama joined the teenager's family on Monday in appealing for calm, urging Americans to accept the decision was "the grand jury's to make''.
At the scene: Joanna Jolly, BBC News, Ferguson
The sun's shining this morning on South Florissant, which saw some of the most violent demonstrations outside the Ferguson Police Department last night.
Local residents have been up since the early hours cleaning up the streets. Shopkeepers are boarding up shops. A small group of protesters is yelling at half a dozen police standing outside the department.
A group of residents is standing outside a beauty parlour which was looted last night. Its windows have been smashed in and they're hoping to stop anyone else coming in and looting.
"We're trying to come together and get past this", says Judy. Everyone's expecting more demonstrations tonight.
"They let our town burn," says Anastasia Knowles. "They sacrificed us for Clayton," she says referring to the choice to deploy the state national guard there and not in Ferguson.
Authorities said more than 80 people were arrested amid chaos in several areas of St Louis overnight. Sixty-one of those arrests were in Ferguson, with charges including burglary and trespassing.
The fabric of the community, Mr Belmar said, had been "torn apart" in Ferguson, which is a predominantly black community patrolled by a mainly white police force.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Demonstrators flooded on to the streets of Ferguson after the verdict, with several buildings set alight
Image copyright EPA Image caption Police were heavily armed but say they did not use their firearms during the rioting overnight
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Several cars were set on fire during protests in Dellwood, an area of St Louis close to Ferguson
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Many residents and business owners took to the streets early on Tuesday to begin the clean-up
BBC correspondent answers your questions
The BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan (@rajiniv) will be taking your questions on the grand jury decision and the violence that followed from 18:00GMT on the BBC News Facebook page - facebook.com/bbcnews
As protesters charged barricades, hurling glass bottles, police responded with smoke and tear gas.
One protester, Charles Miller, told the BBC that while he did not advocate violence, he understood why people were angry.
"You can't just go shoot an 18-year-old who's unarmed on the street, despite what the story may have been," he said.
Thousands of people also protested in other US cities, from Los Angeles to New York.
In Oakland, California, they blocked traffic on a major highway in the San Francisco Bay area.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Aleem Maqbool abandoned an interview as tear gas landed near him
Officer Darren Wilson's testimony
Mr Wilson said he tried to block Mr Brown and another man in the street with his police vehicle in connection with a robbery, but when he tried to open the car door, Mr Brown slammed it shut.
The police officer said he managed to reopen the door, pushing Mr Brown back with it, and then the teenager hit him in the face. In the struggle which followed, Mr Wilson said, the teenager tried to grab his drawn gun while insulting him.
Mr Wilson said he fired several shots during the struggle before Mr Brown ran off. When Mr Brown stopped running, the officer said, he ordered him to get on the ground but Mr Brown advanced on him instead, putting his right hand under his shirt in the waistband of his trousers. Mr Wilson said he then fired the fatal shots.
Read more of Darren Wilson's testimony (Warning: Explicit language)
The workings of the grand jury explained
'Y'all wrong!'
Much of the debate since August has centred on whether Michael Brown was attempting to surrender to Darren Wilson when he was shot, and protesters have adopted the chant "Hands up, don't shoot".
But state prosecutor Robert McCulloch, speaking after the grand jury decision, said physical evidence had contradicted some of the witness statements.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption State prosecutor Bob McCulloch: No "probable cause" for indictment
Police say there was a struggle between the teenager and the officer before the shooting.
Mr Wilson himself says that before the shooting, Mr Brown had pushed him back into his car, hit him and grabbed at his drawn gun.
The jury was made up of 12 randomly picked citizens from the state of Missouri. At least nine votes were needed in order to issue an indictment.
Image copyright AP Image caption Mr Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, is comforted by supporters in Ferguson
Image copyright Michael Brown's family Image caption An undated family snapshot of Michael Brown
Image copyright AP Image caption An photo of Darren Wilson undergoing a medical examination after the shooting in August
Mr Brown's family said in a statement: "We are profoundly disappointed that the killer of our child will not face the consequence of his actions."
But they also appealed for calm, saying: "Let's not just make noise, let's make a difference", and calling for all police to wear body cameras.
Mr Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden, wept at news of the jury's decision as she was comforted by supporters outside the police station in Ferguson.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Strong language as workers at a Ferguson barber shop react to the decision not to indict the police officer who shot black teenager Michael Brown
Mr Brown's family could yet file a wrongful-death lawsuit against Mr Wilson.
Meanwhile, a justice department investigation is still under |
. CP will also seek expressions of interest on 660 miles of track in the western portion of the DM&E, which he said has been “dead cash” since it was purchased.
CP will also be “taking a hard look” at the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, which CP purchased in 1991 and, he argues, has not earned a dollar since.
Somebody has to call a spade a spade, and you have to have a pair of balls to do it, and they were ball-less
“Expressions of interest is almost a ‘For Sale’ sign,” he said. “We’re open-minded here, if someone came to us and said, ‘let’s do something or do something joint,’ we’d listen.”
The railway wants to make a decision on both properties soon rather than “let it sit there and rot.”
Mr. Harrison would not say whether he thought the $1.48-billion acquisition of the DM&E was a mistake. But he did say: “I wish I had the option again.”
Dealing with those properties will allow CP to focus on several growth areas, including crude oil shipment and potentially finding a partner to help move goods to the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere through the Kansas City corridor.
Other opportunities will come from growing CP’s existing business, Mr. Harrison said.
Perhaps the most common criticism leveled against Mr. Harrison during his tenure at CN was that he would often put the fluidity of the company’s network ahead of customers’ needs. But he has argued that improved service, including faster transit times, is more important to both parties than a feel-good relationship with shippers. CP has already shaved transit times between Vancouver and Toronto or Chicago to four days from five, he said.
As at CN, Mr. Harrison said he won’t be “buying any business” at CP by reducing prices. Instead, he wants to offer a quality service people will pay for, and that, combined with a more streamlined leadership structure, will allow CP to scale back its 650-person customer service department — something he did years before at CN when he took over.
Mr. Harrison said he doesn’t believe you need a huge customer service department to deliver a quality service, and CP will no longer be held ransom by shippers who threaten to take their business elsewhere, despite the looming threat of new regulations from the federal Rail Freight Service Review this fall.
“You don’t create a customer service group of jillions of people to be nice to customers. All you got to do is go out there and shake their hands,” he said. “Somebody has to call a spade a spade, and you have to have a pair of balls to do it, and they were ball-less.”Palestinian sources reported Wednesday that a resident of the West Bank village of Naalin was arrested upon returning from Geneva, where he testified before a UN committee charged with investigating the IDF offensive in Gaza earlier this year.
Mohammad Srur, who was injured during a protest in Naalin in which two other Palestinian residents of the village were killed, testified before the Goldstone committee along with Jonathan Pollack of the Activists Against the Wall organization.
Upon returning from Switzerland two days ago, Srur was arrested by Israeli security officials at the Allenby Bridge crossing and is currently being held at the Ofer Prison.
His brother Moussa told Ynet that Mohammad had first contacted his family on Wednesday, and that he had not been questioned since his arrest.
Security sources claim Srur was detained for questioning on suspicion that he was involved in terror activity and that his visit to Geneva had no bearing on the arrest.There's nothing better than a new playlist for a fierce cardio session. The snappy beats inspire — especially up huge hills or in the last five minutes of a workout. If you can't get your heart pumping without quality music, then check out our ultimate workout playlist that includes a whopping 100 songs. Take a look at the first 10 tracks below, and then be sure to subscribe to the playlist to enjoy the rest!
"Call on Me" — Eric Prydz "Burn" — Ellie Goulding "The Rockafeller Skank" — Fatboy Slim "I Don't Like It, I Love It" — Flo Rida and Robin Thicke "On to the Next One" — Jay Z "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" — LCD Soundsystem "Cheers (Drink to That)" — Rihanna "Dark Horse" — Katy Perry "Don't Be So Hard on Yourself" — Jess Glynne "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" — C+C Music Factory
And remember: you will need to download the free Spotify software or app to listen to this playlist.To make Crispy Tofu: Cut tofu block into two broad slabs. Wrap tofu slabs in paper towels, and place between two cutting boards. Weight top cutting board with soup cans, and press 30 minutes. Unwrap tofu, and cut into 1-inch cubes.
Combine soy sauce, vinegar, mirin, oil, garlic, and ginger in resealable container. Add tofu, and toss to coat. Marinate 30 minutes, or overnight. (Tofu should absorb all liquid.)
Preheat oven to 350°F, and coat baking sheet with cooking spray. Sift cornstarch over tofu, and turn to coat evenly. Spread tofu on baking sheet. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, or until firm and crispy, turning several times to brown all sides.
To make Sauce: Whisk together broth, sugar, soy sauce, mirin, vinegar, sesame oil, cornstarch, tomato paste, and sambal oelek (if using) in small bowl. Set aside.
Heat vegetable oil in wok or large skillet over medium-high heat. Add green onions, garlic, and ginger, and stir-fry 1 minute. Add broth mixture, and cook 1 minute, or until thickened. Stir in Tofu. Serve with steamed broccoli and rice.One evening last week, as the Senate debated the merits of the Liberal government's assisted-dying legislation, a new senator stood with a profound question.
"When there is an impasse between the Senate and the House of Commons, and the Senate expresses its will clearly and the House of Commons maintains its position, does there not come a time when the Senate has to give in to the popular majority expressed by the House of Commons?" asked André Pratte, less than two months into his time as a member of the Red Chamber.
This is the question that now hangs over Bill C-14, passed last night by the Senate with seven amendments, including a rewriting of the bill's provisions for who is eligible to receive medical assistance in dying.
It is now for the House to decide whether to accept or reject those changes.
If rejected, it will be for the Senate to decide how strenuously it is willing to insist on its desired version of the bill.
Most simply and more generally, the question for the Senate is this: When should the appointed Red Chamber defer to the democratically elected House of Commons?
If one takes a dim view of the Senate's legitimacy, the answer to that question might be "always." If one is willing to accept that the Senate might exist for some practical purpose, the answer might at least be "not always right away."
It is not a new question, but it might be newly asked now if the Senate is embarking on an unprecedented era of independence and reduced partisanship.
When should the Senate intervene?
Testifying before the Senate's committee on modernization in April, Paul Thomas, the political studies scholar from the University of Manitoba, proposed that the upper chamber transform itself from "a house of political parties into a house of review," one that would enjoy greater freedom, but would still maintain a certain degree of legislative humility.
"The undoubted right of the Senate to defeat, delay or fundamentally modify bills … should be used sparingly, in exceptional cases when bills are considered dangerous, when they are fundamentally unsound and/or they are not easily reversed once put into action," he said.
The Salisbury convention, a British invention that suggests an appointed upper chamber should not overrule the elected House on bills related to the governing party's campaign promises, would take a great number of bills out of play.
But that would still leave bills like C-14, or C-7, the government's legislation on RCMP unionization, which a Senate committee amended on Tuesday. Looking forward, it might also give the Senate some basis to intervene on legislation to implement electoral reform. (The most philosophically fraught scenario: a chamber of political appointees insisting on a referendum before passing anything into law.)
The Senate must be "restrained and reasonable," Thomas adds via email, but he concedes that "reasonableness is to some extent in the eye of the beholder."
"If the House of Commons passes the identical bill twice, the Senate, almost without exception, should not seek to veto or further amend the bill," Thomas argues. "Only under extraordinary circumstances involving unconstitutional or highly dangerous bills should the Senate carry on a fight with the popularly elected House of Commons."
Of course, it is the constitutionality of the assisted-dying bill that is perhaps most at issue: the government insists the bill complies with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while various senators believe it does not meet the standard of the Supreme Court's decision in Carter vs. Canada.
But that raises the prospect of the two chambers deadlocked over competing guesses about what the Supreme Court might say.
Have MPs had enough time to debate the assisted dying legislation? 11:57
A complementary chamber, not a rival
"I think this is an important exercise for the Senate to exercise its role of review, thoughtful consideration and sending back advice," Frances Lankin, one of the newest senators, told CBC Radio's The House this past weekend. "That advice, in the end, could be rejected by the democratically elected Parliament."
"Advice" suggests a non-binding recommendation. Other senators might be less deferential.
"I do not think that this is a case where we simply make the amendments and the House just gives us the back of their hand, and we say, 'Well, we gave you our advice, you didn't take it, you're elected, we're appointed, we'll hold our nose and vote for it,'" says Liberal Senate leader James Cowan. "I'm not there. Yet."
Cowan says he views the Senate as a "complementary" chamber to the House, not a "rival." And, in theory, the Senate's appointed nature would impose a certain deference (one of the most significant knocks on an elected Senate is that it would increase the probability of legislative gridlock).
But Cowan also says he won't support a bill he doesn't think is constitutional. And, historically, the Senate's deference has not been total — on several occasions, the Senate has sent a bill back to the House twice — even if the outright defeat of legislation by the Senate is rare: the last instance of a government House bill being rejected in the Senate occurred in 1996.
In response to Pratte's question, Liberal Senator Serge Joyal seemed resolute. "The question is a very important one," Joyal said, "but my answer would be, not at the expense of the rights of citizens who have recently been granted that right and are in a condition of intolerable suffering. It would be cruel to leave them in that condition."
Of course, whenever the Senate attempts to impose itself, it risks being condemned for thwarting democracy by those who oppose the particular changes it seeks. And so the degree to which it is able to get away with standing in the way might depend on how well it is able to stay on the right side of public opinion.
Senators might not directly answer to the public, but for the sake of the institution's continued existence, senators might aim to keep the upper chamber from seeming to be an overly entitled impediment to democratic governance.
Every assertive act of the Senate is a potential test of the chamber's legitimacy.During the first quarter of 2009, more bicycles were sold in the US than cars and trucks. While the Great Recession is hurting bike sales, they didn't fall as fast as automobiles. Around 2.6 million bicycle purchases were made, compared to less than 2.5 million cars and trucks that left our nation's lots.
Bicycle Sales Still Hurt by Recession
I don't mean to say that bicycle sales are unfazed by the recession. They are actually down more than 30% from the first quarter of 2008. But that percentage drop is slower than the 35+% drop in sales for cars and trucks. Since nationwide gasoline prices are now rising above $2.40 per gallon at the pump, we may see another wave of US residents shifting to bicycles for their everyday trips. The large savings from riding a bike over short distances rather than driving can help consumer confidence and support economic recovery.
Even Long Trips Can be by Bike
Visionary activists are creating opportunities for cyclists to safely travel longer distances as well. For instance, the East Coast Greenway Alliance aims to connect greenways from Key West, FL, to Calais, ME, on a 3,000-mile long paved trail. For me, it's an exciting potential to visit family and friends in New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island (or even the longer trip to my native state of North Carolina!) via bicycle. So far, many corridors of the East Coast Greenway (ECG) are built. But gaps in the trail exist that we all can chip-in to connect. One important current opportunity is for us to show our elected leaders that we support the completion of the ECG and other trails throughout our country as part of the federal transportation bill to be deliberated this summer.
Climate Benefits of Bicycling
Not only are there cost savings from such local and intercity rides, but there are environmental benefits too -- especially in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. While an average solo car trip or airplane ride emits more than 1 pound of CO2 per mile, bicycling or walking emits close to zero. If we need to travel hundreds of miles, there are great low-carbon strategies for travel that include mass transit and carpooling, keeping our average emissions less than 1/2 a pound of CO2 per mile.
Infrastructure Development Crucial
For Americans to put these millions of new bicycles to use, government leaders from the federal to the local level need to give more support to the construction and maintenance of safe bike lanes and greenways. Such work can be a much-needed source of job growth. From neighborhood paths to an urban counterpart of the Appalachian Trail, bicycling has great growth potential.FREETOWN (Reuters) - Police in Sierra Leone have jailed a journalist in the capital Freetown under emergency measures introduced to help the West African country cope with the Ebola epidemic, a senior police source said on Tuesday.
David Tam-Baryoh was sent to the Pademba Road prison on an executive order from the president, according to Chief Superintendent Ibrahim Koroma.
“The powers were derived from the Ebola emergency regulations the country is currently under,” Koroma said, without detailing the charges against the journalist or specifying the length of his detention.
The arrest may be linked to comments made by Tam-Baryoh on his popular radio program MONOLGUE in which he appeared to challenge arrests made last week in the Kono district after Ebola-linked riots.
The Sierra Leone Association of Journalists condemned the arrest.
The country is one of the worst affected by the largest outbreak on record, with more than 1,500 victims.The 2013-2014 Asia League season started with four games this year. Thanks to the newly added Sangmu team out of Korea, all teams get to participate in this years opening weekend. Previously China typically joined in a week or two later in the schedule.
Sangmu is a team made up of Korean players performing their military service, they're not allowed any imports and can only use players in the military. Not all players are eligible, for example Geun-ho Kim and Seung-yup Lee have been shipped off to the military, but due to their grade, they get office jobs and can't play on the team. The defense minister has stated that they intend to keep the team going until 2018, but the team hopes to continue after that. They've retained Daemyung Resorts as a corporate sponsor to help fund the team.
Another big change in the league this year is the rule on imports. Previously various teams were allowed a varying number of imports, as many as seven for China and as little as two for most of the Japanese teams. Starting this year, the teams will each be allowed three imports, though not all are taking advantage of it showing a greater reliance on domestic players.
Also the increase in teams means an increase in games, and the season will become more balanced. Game counts by month, September 29, October 30, November 20, December 27, January 29, February 27, March 6 + playoffs. For a total of 162 regular season games. The new schedule removes the front-heavy schedule of past years where teams would play nearly half their games in the first two months then languish through a very relaxed schedule the rest of the year.
It is hopeful that the addition of another team might spur some further growth in the league. A boost in popularity in Korea with a run up to the Olympics might be enough to see the league grow further.
Saturday
Freeblades vs Cranes 1-2
Last year the Cranes struggled against the Freeblades, winning only a single regulation game and one in overtime. Despite a solid effort, a little bit of penalty trouble cost the Blades in this game. Tied 1-1 since mid-way through the second period, a delayed call against Kawamoto saw Obara score the winner for the Cranes. The Blades pulled the goalie for the last 90 seconds but couldn't manage to tie it before the clock ran out.
Eagles vs Icebucks 3-2
Last year the Eagles had very little trouble with anyone. They did have the most trouble with the Bucks. Tonight though, they had very little trouble. They outshot the Bucks by a healthy margin and maintained the lead throughout the game. The Bucks tried pulling Fukufiji with only four seconds left, but even with a face-off in the attacking zone, it's unlikely to have been fruitful in such a short time.
Halla vs Sangmu 6-1
This game marked Sangmu's debut game. It's normal to expect some opening game jitters, but Sangmu had the full-on shakes. Radunske scored just 18 seconds in and Halla kept rolling the entire night. Despite rapid fire shots in the second and third, Sangmu couldn't make any headway. They were given further assistance in the form of very lopsided penalty calls against Halla, including several 5 on 3s, but couldn't find the back of the net. Min-ho scored their lone goal on one of the 2-man advantages. Halla put on their typical flashy opening ceremony, and Sangmu broke with tradition at the end of the game. Rather than bowing as is common in the league, they saluted the fans and gave a military cheer.
Dragons vs High1 1-8
China had a Russian on their roster but he was absent from the line-up on opening night. There is no word on what happened to the Canadian contingent that was there last year. It was expected that they were going to stay for the long-term and help-out, but it seems to be yet another failed project involving China. As expected, High1 was all over them, but they showed discipline in taking just a small number of penalties through-out the game. High1 got goals from several players, but Swift had a four point night for the team.
Sunday
Freeblades vs Cranes 3-5
After the loss the day before, it would be expected that a team might be tense. The end of the first period saw a significant dust-up between the teams as 3 players went off on each time for high-sticking and roughing. The Freeblades actually held a 2-1 lead after the first, but after tying it in the second and then getting the lead back early third, the Cranes walked away with it. Hiroshi Sato tied it for the Cranes and Obara scored the winning goal. The Blades tried to pull the goalie again but this time it cost them as Nishiwaki scored on the empty net.
Eagles vs Icebucks 8-1
The Icebucks surely would have wanted to make up for the loss the night before, but instead they were routed. The game saw a lot more penalties and Fukufuji couldn't seem to get his groove going for the Bucks. He was lit up twice in the first minute and the Eagles just never stopped. Could the Eagles be poised for another record setting year? Time will tell. Lampe had a four point night for the Eagles.
Halla vs Sangmu 4-5
Bucking the trend, Sangmu made a statement in their second game: "They are not to be taken lightly". They might have fewer players than other teams, and no imports, but they can still play. After another quick goal to open the game, Halla may have thought it would be another walk in the park. This time though Sangmu tied it up and even took the lead. Halla took it back again quickly in the second, but Sangmu tied it with only three minutes to go. With the announcer still stumbling through the words, Min-ho Cho flew down the ice and scored his second goal in only 12 seconds giving Sangmu the lead. Halla tried to pull the goalie and with a wild scramble in front of the net, Park shut the doors and gave Sangmu their first victory in the Asia League. Halla was again heavily penalized in this game and Sangmu scored all but their final goal on the man-advantage. The second intermission was marked by a video marriage proposal and a suitably embarrassed fiance who said yes.
Dragon vs High1 1-8
This time it was Dong-hwan's turn to have himself a four point night. There is little to say about games against China. It's amazing it wasn't worse. High1 outshot China 25-1 in the second period. It speaks volumes about their goaltending, they just need the other people on the ice to do something. High1 outshot China 60-13 in the entire game. While the stats were in High1's favour on Saturday night, Sunday was out of control. Roman Pantyukhov was still nowhere to be seen on the line-up, so one wonders what China's plan is this season. Attemps have been made to contact the team, but no answer has been received yet.Corrections chief executive Ray Smith says he has learned another prisoner transferred this week from the Serco-run Mt Eden Prison arrived at another prison with injuries.
He said the prisoner had made serious allegations about his treatment.
Photo: RNZ / Kim Baker Wilson
Mr Smith said he had asked the Chief Inspector of Prisons to investigate these claims, and other allegations that have surfaced this week.
He said the Ombudsman would provide independent oversight of the investigation.
"The public has the right to know that their prisons, run by Corrections or by a private company, meet the standards that we've come to expect - the bottom line is that prisoners must be safe when serving their sentences," he said.
He said he was taking legal advice and considering the full range of options available to Corrections in its contract with Serco.
"I will be giving these options my full attention and intend to meet with [Corrections Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga] to discuss these options."
Mr Smith said he would comment further once he had made a decision.
Inspectorate reviews are already underway into two incidents - the death of a prisoner, Nick Evans, in June, and injuries to a second prisoner who fell off a balcony in June.
Serco is also under investigation after footage of inmates fighting, smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol was shared on social media.Bavaria: Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that strains between Russia and the West have plunged the world into a new Cold War.
With tensions high over the Ukraine conflict and Russia`s backing of the Syrian regime, Medvedev said: "All that`s left is an unfriendly policy of NATO against Russia".
"We can say it even more clearly: We have slid into a new period of Cold War," he said, speaking at the Munich Security Conference.
"Almost every day we are accused of making new horrible threats either against NATO as a whole, against Europe or against the US or other countries."
Medvedev criticised the expansion of NATO and EU influence deep into formerly Soviet-ruled eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War.
"European politicians thought that creating a so-called belt of friends at Europe`s side, on the outskirts of the EU, could be a guarantee of security, and what`s the result?" he said.
"Not a belt of friends but a belt of exclusion."
He added that "creating trust is hard... but we have to start. Our positions differ, but they do not differ as much as 40 years ago when a wall was standing in Europe."Farage to campaign for ghastly far-right German politician who said refugees should be shot
Despite years of complaining about Berlin’s influence over Britain, Nigel Farage sees no reason he shouldn’t meddle in German politics.
So he’s off to Berlin this week to campaign for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party ahead of the German federal election on September 24.
“Mr Brexit” – as he’s described on the AfD’s poster – will speak alongside Beatrix von Storch at a rally on Friday, it was announced today.
von Storch hit the headlines last year when she backed her party leader’s suggestion that German police should shoot refugees trying to enter the country “if necessary.”
Asked on her Facebook page whether that should include women and children, Farage’s speaking partner replied: “Yes.”
von Storch moderated her comments slightly amid the political shit storm that hit shortly afterwards, suggesting that children should be spared – but not their parents.
“The use of firearms against children is not permitted,” she said, “women are a different matter.” “The use of weapons against them can therefore be permitted within the narrow legal framework.”
The MEP was subsequently asked to leave the Tories’ group in the European Parliament and later joined UKIP’s group.
That’s just one item on the AfD’s long rap sheet of racism.
Björn Höcke, a leading member of the party, criticised Holocaust memorial events, saying they were making German history “appalling and laughable.” He said:
“These stupid politics of coming to grips with the past cripple us – we need nothing other than a 180-degree reversal on the politics of remembrance.”
And the party’s deputy leader last week said a German minister of Turkish descent from Angela Merkel’s centre-right party should be “disposed of” in Turkey.
That’s the kind of “ghastly” company Mr Brexit keeps…In her post, Gören wrote:
But what truly makes me feel sorry, are the circumstances by which the sexist and boundary-crossing acts that were inflicted on me, make it so that you [the refugee] are beset by increasing and more aggressive racism.
Local police have a matching record of a woman in her age and location reporting a sexual assault.
Gören is a left-wing activist who regularly spoke for the far-left Linksjugend Solid party, a recognized daughter party of Die Linke, an established Germant progressive party. In 2007 and 2008, both parties were noted for their far-left extremism by the Verfassungsschutz, a German government agency which monitors potential threats to German democracy.
Her full Facebook post, translated:
Dear male refugee,
presumably of my age. Perhaps a few years younger. A bit older.
I am so incredibly sorry!
Almost a year ago I saw the hell, which you escaped from.
I wasn’t directly in the center, but I visited the people in the refugee center in southern Kurdistan. I saw old grandmothers, who had to take care of too many orphaned children.
I saw the eyes of those kids, a few didn’t lose their light.
I also saw others, whose gaze was empty and traumatizing.
I was shown arabic writing in a math class of 20 Yazidi children and still remember how a little girl cried, only because a chair fell over.
I saw a bit of the hell, that you escaped from.
I didn’t see, what happened before that and didn’t have to live through your exhausting escape.
I am happy and glad that you made it here. That you left the IS and the war behind you and didn’t drown in the Mediterranean.
But I fear, you aren’t safe here.
Burning refugee homes, physical attacks on refugees and a brown [Referring to brown-shirts] mob that moves through the streets.
I always fought against it.
I wanted an open Europe, a friendly one. One that I can gladly live in and one in which we are both safe in. I am sorry. For us both I am so incredibly sorry.
You, you aren’t safe here, because we live in a racist society.
I, I am not safe here, because we live in a sexist society.
But what truly makes me feel sorry, are the circumstances by which the sexist and boundary crossing acts that were inflicted on me, make it so that you [the refugee] are beset by increasing and more aggressive racism.
I promise you, I will scream. I will not allow it, that this continues happening. I will not stand by idly and watch as racists and concerned citizens call you a problem.
You are not the problem. You are not a problem at all.
You most often are a wonderful human being, who deserves to be free and safe like everyone else.
Thank you that you exist, and glad to have you here.
#refugeeswelcome #sexismknowsnoplaceofbirthWhat if you could shoot old Polaroid film, Fuji's current Instax version, huge medium format negatives, large sheet film, and digital, all with the same camera? What if that camera could take any of the hundreds of amazing professional lenses that have been produced over the past century and longer? What if that camera were light, portable, and inexpensive? And what if it could be easily reconfigured and adapted to do just about anything? Welcome to the Mercury. The world's first universal camera. It's time to rediscover and redefine photography. Anywhere, anytime.
Side view of a Mercury showing one possible configuration (most Kickstarter rewards don't include the lens/shutter, strap, rangefinder, or film back; these are shown for illustrative purposes only).
The Mercury is capable of adapting nearly any lens ever made, can use numerous backs from numerous manufacturers (as well our own Mercury backs), and can shoot film or digital, in nearly any format from 35mm to 4x5". The following video demonstrates the various modules of the Mercury and how they work together:
The Mercury is also the best (and only) way to shoot Instax and Polaroid formats with a complete choice of lenses and fully manual controls. All designs will be open sourced and fully modifiable by Mercury users. A completely modular system, it is extensible in nearly every way, and will remain compatible with emerging technology well into the future, as well as technology from the entire history of photography.
Here are a few sample photos taken with different film backs:
Photo taken with Mercury prototype on Ilford HP5+ sheet film (4x5)
Photo taken with Mercury prototype on Kodak Portra 400 medium format roll film (6x9)
Photo taken with Mercury prototype on Instax Wide instant film
Photo taken with Mercury prototype on expired Kodak Tri-X medium format roll film (6x7)
Photo taken with Mercury prototype on Kodak Portra 400 sheet film (4x5)
Pinhole photo taken with Mercury prototype on Arista orthochromatic sheet film (4x5)
The Mercury is extremely light for maximum portability. Finally you can shoot medium and large format without a heavy, burdensome camera, or a specialty camera that can only utilize one lens, one format, etc. The Mercury's default configuration is 6x9, medium format. Its default "back adapter" is 2x3 Graflok, which accepts medium format (120) roll film backs from Graflex, Mamiya, Horseman, and Mercury, as well as (with slight adaptation) sheet film holders. We are developing a sophisticated 35mm panoramic back (the first ever made for a removable back) as well as simple, inexpensive roll film backs in 6x9 and 6x6 sizes. The Mercury also has a 4x5 Graflok back adapter, which accepts all 4x5 Graflok accessories, including instant film backs, Grafmatics, 6x12 roll film backs, and (with a slight re-configuration) sheet film holders. The Mercury is entirely modular, consisting of a Front (which accepts the “lens stack”) and a Back Adapter (which accepts film and digital backs of a certain format), as well as Front Spacers and Rear Spacers to extend the camera for various formats and lenses, the Mercury Focus Unit for view camera lenses, lens tubes, lens adapters, and a modular Sportfinder system that can be reconfigured for various lenses and formats. We also adapt Instax and Polaroid backs for use on the Mercury. Other back adapters will be available for Hasselblad V backs (film or digital), as well as digital backs for the Contax and Mamiya mounts (in the future).
Mercury prototype configured for large format (4x5)
Working prototypes of the Mercury have been 3D printed and machined. While many specialty parts (such as lens adapters and certain specialty backs) will continue to be 3D printed, the main body panels of the Mercury require injection molding in order to perfectly meet our specs with regard to dimensional fit, finish, strength, and mass-producability. This requires expensive tooling to be manufactured. The only way to raise the necessary capital for these basic parts is to crowdfund it. This will ensure the future availability of high quality Mercury components for the entire community. Kickstarter also allows us to create this community, which will be key to the future innovations and expansions of the Mercury system. By supporting this campaign, you not only get the world's coolest camera at a low introductory price, but you join our very special community of photography enthusiasts, and ensure that the Mercury system will be able to expand in the future. The crucial first step toward making a Universal Camera a reality is to back this campaign!
Our goal is not to make money on this campaign, but simply to pay off the significant costs of development thus far, pay for the injection molding tooling (which is very expensive to produce), and to actually make and ship these to you. If we actually bring in more money than we spend, it will go directly toward further development of the Mercury.
The goal of this project is to start a community of camera enthusiasts of all experiences levels who can utilize a non-corporate camera to do exciting and creative new things. Because the system will be open source, anyone will be able to modify and create parts for their own uses (and we'll help you do that!). Those parts will be shared throughout the community. Ideally, this camera will continue to grow in ways that we never even anticipated. This Kickstarter is mean to form that community and raise the money necessary to produce the camera with optimal materials.
In some ways it isn't easy to capture the essence of a universal camera. That's why we decided to cook up something a bit more creative as our campaign video: a narrative film that dramatizes the concept. We hope you enjoyed it! Many more technical details, photos, and instructional videos will be posted on the official Mercury website (www.mercurycamera.com) moving forward. Meanwhile, the Rewards offered via Kickstarter are based on the characters in the film.
Photo taken with a Mercury prototype on Kodak Ektar medium format roll film (6x6)
Anyone of any experience level who wants to get back to manual controls and rediscover photography (or discover it for the first time). We will produce a series of videos and fun suggestions for the many things you can do with your Mercury (hint: just about anything available in the world of photography). We think that this camera is more fun to use than any other camera out there.
Photographers who wish to shoot true medium format (up to 6x9cm) or large format (4x5”) for the absolute highest quality, but who also want their camera to be light, portable, and inexpensive. Few cameras exist that can shoot such huge negatives, and they all weigh so much that you wouldn't want to bring them very many places with you.
Connoisseurs of wide angle photography. The best wide angle lenses are true wide angles, not retrofocus lenses. Unfortunately, SLR-style cameras and most digital cameras can only accept retrofocus lenses. The Mercury is thin enough to accept legendary true wide angle lenses that were previously only usable on extremely expensive technical cameras.
wide angles, not retrofocus lenses. Unfortunately, SLR-style cameras and most digital cameras can only accept retrofocus lenses. The Mercury is thin enough to accept legendary true wide angle lenses that were previously only usable on extremely expensive technical cameras. Tinkerers who want a camera that is fully modular and can be modified to suit their needs, whatever they may be. This is the ultimate camera for experimentation and design. The community wants your ideas; we all benefit when new Mercury parts are designed and shared.
Photographers who want to free their components from proprietary camera systems. Use your Hasselblad lenses on an Instax camera, unlock the larger image circle of your Mamiya or Pentax 6x7 lenses, use a nineteenth century lens with a Hasselblad back, etc. Just about any combination is possible with the Mercury.
Anyone who wants to contribute to a fully open, non-corporate camera system designed (mechanically and conceptually) for the future.
Anyone who wants to shoot instant film (Polaroid/Impossible Project or Fuji Instax) but is tired of those horrible, fully automatic, flash-driven cameras that take such lousy photos. The Mercury is, without a doubt, the best camera for instant photography, allowing you to choose whatever lens is best for your style (super wide angle, portrait lens, etc.), have fully manual control over how your photograph is taken, and still retain the option of changing to other formats without having to lug around a completely different camera.
Photo taken with a Mercury prototype on Velvia medium format roll film (6x8)
Every Mercury package consists of components that are injection molded (such as the main body parts), components that are 3D printed (using only professional materials, no PLA or low-grade plastic), and components that need to be sourced from 3rd parties. The injection molded parts require time for the tooling to be made. Once we have the molds, we can start to manufacture these parts. We anticipate that these parts will be available by December 2016. Meanwhile, the 3D printed parts take a long time to manufacture. This, along with assembly work, dictates |
’s rising debt can be managed for quite a long time before it becomes a serious constraint, countries have near-infinite capacity for domestic debt when it is “backed” by even greater amounts of savings (this is an especially foolish conceit), China can easily monetize the debt at no significant cost, or the right solution is to improve productivity to the point at which economic growth can outpace credit growth (it is nearly impossible to find a trained economists who doesn’t think this last is self-evidently the only way to approach the problem of debt management).
A little over a year ago in the newsletter I send out to my clients I tried to explain how debt constrains growth. In that issue of the newsletter I discussed debt generally, as it affects any kind of macroeconomic balance sheet, but of course the focus was on China. In the newsletter I posited a number of rebalancing scenarios in order to try to work out the implications fro debt. I have made some small adaptations to these scenarios but most of the rest of this blog entry is taken from that newsletter. One obvious consequence or revisiting this one-year-old exercise is to make clear just how optimistic were the assumptions I made in designing the various scenarios.
Economists are trained with models in which the structure of the balance is barely relevant to growth except to the extent that fear of a debt crisis undermines confidence. Of course this completely circular reasoning cannot be true except if we assume that the fear of a debt crisis is totally irrational – as it must be if growth is not otherwise affected by the structure of the balance sheet. Still, the implications of these totally unrealistic models seem to dominate the kinds of reforms that policy-making advisors have proposed even since Xi Jinping has come to office, and if my suspicions are right, and Xi and those closest to him have become intensely frustrated by the advice both Chinese and foreign advisors have proffered, we may be in for a much needed change.
The first implication of the balance sheet approach to reforms is that given extremely high debt levels there really is no easy way to rebalance the Chinese economy. It is foolish to think that China’s adjustment will be anything other than extremely difficult, and it is in the best interest of China that the challenges facing the Xi administration are not minimized.
Examining China’s debt scenarios
To show why, I thought it might be helpful to summarize the various scenarios for rebalancing and non-rebalancing that I presented to my clients over a year ago. In the table below I look at three possible scenarios in which China is able to maintain current GDP growth rates of 6-7%, with three different amounts of government transfers to the household sector expressed as a share of GDP. This is followed by three possible scenarios in which GDP growth rates drop to 3-4%, with the same three different amounts of government transfers to the household sector expressed as a share of GDP.
I divide each of these scenarios into two time frames. The first is the next three years under President Xi Jinping, and the second is the last three years of his administration (assuming, of course, that Xi, like his predecessors, serves two five year terms).
These scenarios are very rough, and I have tried to select the most optimistic and least disruptive conditions and assumptions. I assume that debt is easily refinanced, that rising debt imposes no financial distress costs, that the amount of unrecognized NPLs is too small for their refinancing to have a significant impact on the growth in credit, and that the growth in household income is not highly correlated with investment growth. I think these assumptions are very optimistic, to the point of seriously underestimating the difficulty of the rebalancing, but they nonetheless help us frame the set of possible outcomes by pretending that all those costs that are hard to quantify are negligible, even zero.
In the first of these three scenarios I will assume that it is politically very difficult for the Xi administration to transfer significant amounts of wealth from the state sector to the household sector – either directly, in the form of transfers of assets to household or to the social safety net, or indirectly in the form of houkou reform, the sale of assets to pay down debt, and so on. In this scenario in other words I assume total transfers are negligible.
Growth remains at 6-7%
No government transfers
2016-2019
Debt growth is steady at 12-14%
Investment growth is steady at current levels
Consumption growth is steady at current levels
Growth in household income is steady and household share of GDP is unchanged
No rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with 25% higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption and investment account for roughly equal shares of GDP
Debt growth rises to 15-18%
Investment growth is steady at current levels
Consumption growth is steady at current levels
Growth in household income is steady and household share of GDP is unchanged
No rebalancing
This scenario posits no consequent changes in any of the main variables. Investment and consumption continue growing at current rates, with no change in overall GDP growth (I am ignoring possible changes in the current account). For this to happen, debt must continue growing at current levels of roughly 12-14% annually. I have argued many times before that China is now in a stage – similar to that of the late stages of every other country that has experienced a growth “miracle” – in which so much bad debt remains unrecognized within the banking system that credit growth must accelerate simply to maintain current levels of debt financing for economic activity.
This means that even maintaining current levels of investment, consumption and GDP growth implies accelerating credit growth. Since I sent out the newsletter last year I have already been proven vastly optimistic on this assumption because the latest data just one year later suggest that debt has been growing by 15-17% to maintain 6-7% GDP growth. I suspect that within another year debt will be growing by much closer to 20%.
But I want to be extremely conservative so as to give the optimists every chance for the arithmetic they implicitly use (but don’t seem explicitly to recognize) to work. I will assume, then, that there is no need to accelerate credit growth from levels at the beginning of last year and I will assume that the acceleration we have already seen this year was somehow an aberration that can be reversed (I assume this fir the sake of conservatism. Of course, and not because I think it is remotely likely). I also ignore the financial distress effects I discuss above, even though there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggests that as debt levels grow and create increasing uncertainty about their resolution, economic growth slows fairly automatically and rapidly.
The key point about this scenario is that if we maintain current levels of consumption, investment and GDP growth, at the end of three years even conservative assumptions imply that China’s already high debt levels rise, as the table shows, by at least a quarter (i.e. if debt is currently equal to 200-240% of GDP, it rises to 250-300% in 3 years). I don’t show in the table that at the end of six year, debt would rise again by at least one-third, so that it would amount to perhaps 330-400% of GDP.
Debt probably already amounts to more than the 200% of GDP recorded in the June 2015 release of the World Bank’s China Economic Update (pp. 23), with many claiming that it is closer to 250%. Whatever the actual debt ratio, it is hard to imagine that the growth in Chinese debt, already among the fastest ever recorded in the developed or the developing worlds, can be maintained at anywhere near current levels for more than two or three years. The same World Bank report suggests (pp. 6) that there may already be strains in Beijing’s ability to maintain credit growth:
Policy interventions are increasingly focused on unlocking new funding sources. Besides promoting public–private partnerships (PPPs) as a new funding model for infrastructure funding, there have been efforts to intensify use of policy banks. Further, in April the State Council expanded the use of the Social Security Fund to buy local government bonds and other financial instruments. The new rules allow it to invest up to 20 percent of its portfolio in local government debt and corporate bonds.
It may very well be that Beijing’s credibility is so strong that even substantially higher debt levels won’t matter, but I would argue that it will not be easy to manage another three years of debt rising much faster than debt servicing capacity, let alone six, and if this happens it must undermine confidence, even without more credibility setbacks, like the stock market panic earlier this month.
The new normal with government transfers
The “muddle through” scenario, in other words, in which current investment and consumption growth rates are maintained, and with them current GDP growth rates, is an extremely risky one and, in my opinion, makes the possibility of a hard landing as China runs into debt capacity limits very high. Debt capacity limits are reached, as I have long maintained, when debt cannot grow fast enough to cover its two main functions: First, it must grow at a geometric rate to roll over old bad debt as well as new bad investments whose principle and interest cannot be met by increases in productivity, and second, it must grow at a linear rate to invest into new projects that generate the targeted growth in economic activity. This will be made worse if rising debt uncertainty causes wealthy Chinese residents to disinvest locally and send money abroad at even faster paces than they have in the past, but as I point out above, I am ignoring this possibility so as to present the most optimistic scenario.
But Beijing can tray another strategy. Instead of simply muddling through, Beijing might try to maintain current growth rates while transferring wealth to the household sector to force up consumption growth. I posit two scenarios, one in which Beijing is able to transfer 1-2% of GDP every year, and a second in which Beijing is able to transfer 3-4% of GDP every year. The first scenario will be hard enough to pull off politically, and the second extremely implausible, but I include both to give a sense of the range of outcomes.
In the two transfer scenarios I assume that the decline in investment has no adverse impact on household income because its impact on employment is more than counterbalanced by the rise in consumption. With household income at a little more than half of GDP, the transfers would cause household income growth to rise by 2-3 and 6-7 percentage points respectively, and I assume that this translates directly into equivalent increases in the consumption growth rate (i.e. I assume, perhaps very optimistically, that rising debt does not create enough economic uncertainty in the minds of Chinese households to cause them to raise their savings rate).
Growth remains at 6-7%
Annual government transfers of 1-2% of GDP
2016-2019
Debt growth drops to 9-10%
Investment growth declines by 2-3 percentage points
Consumption growth rises by 2-3 percentage points
Growth in household income rises by 2-3 percentage points and household share of GDP rises slightly
Minimal rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with 10-15% higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption exceeds investment as a source of growth
Debt growth rises to 11-13%
Investment growth declines by another percentage point
Consumption growth is steady
Growth in household income is steady and household share of GDP rises
Gradual rebalancing
The key point to which I would want to draw attention is the impact on the country’s balance sheet. In both cases the surge in household income would allow Beijing to bring down investment growth much more aggressively and so to rein in debt growth.
Growth remains at 6-7%
Annual government transfers of 3-4% of GDP
2016-2019
Debt growth drops to 8-10%
Investment growth declines by 6-7 percentage points
Consumption growth rises by 6-7 percentage points
Growth in household income rises by 6-7 percentage points and household share of GDP is materially higher
Material rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with 5-10% higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption significantly exceeds investment as a source of growth
Debt growth rises to 6-8%
Consumption growth declines by 1-2 percentage points
Growth in household income declines by 1-2 percentage points and household share of GDP is materially higher
Material rebalancing
In both scenarios debt continues to grow, but in the second scenario it is now almost in line with the growth in GDP, which we are assuming is no higher than the growth in debt servicing capacity. While the first scenario implies that the debt-to-GDP ratio has increased by 10-15% (or, if debt is currently equal to 200-250% of GDP, it will rise to 220-290% of GDP in three years and 260-340% in six years), the second scenario implies a gradual rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio. The lower end of the estimate, I think, might be sustainable, although no developing country has managed to sustain such high levels of debt as the higher end, and it requires an implausibly high annual transfer of wealth from governments to households of 3-4% of GDP.
Adjustment with slower growth
What happens if Beijing reins in credit growth and forces down the investment rate much more aggressively, so that GDP growth rates drop to 3-4%? The decline in investment growth will cause growth in consumption to decline too, but not by as much, given that the decline in investment would affect the more capital-intensive public sector. I will assume that there is no significant rise in unemployment because Beijing will allow debt to rise to keep unemployment down while it manages the transition to a more consumption-driven economy, in which demand tends to be more labor-intensive.
Again I will consider three scenarios, the first of which involves no transfers of wealth from the government sector to the household sector. The second two will include a manageable transfer of 1-2% of GDP annually and a highly implausible transfer of 3-4% of GDP annually.
Growth remains at 3-4%
No government transfers
2016-2019
Debt growth drops to 6-8%
Investment growth declines by 4-6 percentage points
Consumption growth declines by 2-4 percentage points
Growth in household income declines by 2-4 percentage points and household share of GDP is slightly higher
Material rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with 10-15% higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption exceeds investment as a source of growth
Debt growth is steady at 6-8%
Investment growth is steady at current levels
Consumption growth is steady at current levels
Growth in household income is steady at current levels and household share of GDP is materially higher
Material rebalancing
As in the first three scenarios I would argue that the key point is what happens to debt, as this, more than anything else, determines the sustainability of the growth model and how much time Beijing has to manage the rebalancing. In this scenario the debt burden continues to rise, but after three years the debt-to-GDP ratio is likely to be only 10-15% higher than it is today.
Growth remains at 3-4%
Annual government transfers of 1-2% of GDP
2016-2019
Debt growth drops to 5-6%
Investment growth declines by 7-9 percentage points
Consumption growth is flat
Growth in household income is flat and household share of GDP is higher
Material rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with slightly higher debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption significantly exceeds investment as a source of growth
Debt growth is steady at 5-6%
Investment growth is steady at current levels
Consumption growth is steady at current levels
Growth in household income is steady at current levels and household share of GDP is materially higher
Material rebalancing
If Beijing is able to combine lower growth with government transfers equal to 1-2% of GDP annually, the growth in debt will barely exceed GDP growth (under admittedly optimistic assumptions), and finally, if Beijing transfers 3-4% of GDP annually, the debt-to-GDP ratio begins to fall almost immediately.
Growth remains at 3-4%
Annual government transfers of 3-4% of GDP
2016-2019
Debt growth drops to close to zero
Investment growth is zero
Consumption growth rises from current levels
Growth in household income rises from current levels and household share of GDP is materially higher
Substantial rebalancing
2020-2023
Period begins with lower debt-to-GDP ratio, and consumption significantly exceeds investment as a source of growth
Debt growth drops to well below GDP growth
Investment growth is steady at current levels
Consumption growth is steady at current levels
Growth in household income is steady at current levels and household share of GDP is substantially higher
Substantial rebalancing
Clearly the more wealth is transferred to the household sector, or the more Beijing is willing to allow the economy to slow, the more stable is China’s economic adjustment and the less painful economically over the long term. Greater transfers and slower growth, however, both come at the expense of the vested interests who oppose the reforms, and so it is politics, more than economic logic, that will determine the success of China’s rebalancing strategy.
I should note that there are so many moving parts to this analysis and so many simplifying assumptions, that the scenarios listed above should not be taken as predictions. There are important points, however, that I think emerge from this scenario analysis.
First, even after overwhelming the analysis with implausibly optimistic assumptions – discounting the disruptions caused by shifting strategies, for example, assuming financial distress costs are close to zero, and ignoring the impact on debt sustainability that results from rolling over a significant share of total loans that cannot be repaid – it is pretty clear that without a major change in policy or a tolerance for slower GDP growth it will be hard to prevent debt from becoming unsustainable. At some point, and my guess is that this would occur within the next two to three years at current growth rates, China runs the risk of a very disruptive adjustment as it reaches debt capacity limits, perhaps even the risk of negative GDP growth rates.
Second, any analysis of future growth that doesn’t tie changes in the growth rates of investment, consumption and government transfers to changes in debt levels misses out on perhaps the most important constraining factor. I think failure to understand this point explains, by the way, why over the past few years very few economists had expected GDP growth to slow as sharply as it has, and debt to rise as quickly, or allowed for either in their projections.
My guess is that the same economists will continue to make the same mistakes. To avoid doing so, as we continue to make projections about growth in GDP or in any of the drivers of GDP, we must estimate their impact on debt and how this further constrains our assumptions about growth in GDP or in its drivers. This requires a deeper understanding of how balance sheets affect growth.
What is inevitable and what is possible
Unfortunately, much of the analysis we have seen on China in the past two decades almost completely ignores the balance sheet. Four years ago one of my clients sent me a research report by Standard Chartered in which their China analyst warned that while Chinese debt levels were still easily manageabble, there was a chance, no longer insignificant, that credit growth could speed up sharply and debt eventually become a significant constraint for policymakers. Things were fine for now, the analyst seemed to suggest, but it was possible that Beijing could mismanage its way into a debt problem.
The overwhelming consensus at the time was that China’s growth model was healthy and sustainable, and would generate GDP growth rates for the rest of the decade that were not much lower than the roughly 10% we had seen during the previous three decades. My client sent me the report along with the comment that the sell-side was finally recognizing that the Chinese economy was at risk. A leading analyst who had long been part of that consensus was, he said, finally beginning to understand the Chinese economy and the problems it faced.
I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that those who understood the Chinese growth model would have also understood that its overreliance on investment to fuel growth, combined with the structure of its credit markets, extremely low interest rates, and wide-spread moral hazard, made soaring debt almost inevitable and that debt was already constraining policymaking.
To suggest that this might happen only if the new administration – that of Xi Jinping – mismanaged the process suggested to me that the analyst did not really understand the self-reinforcing relationship between rising debt and slowing growth and was underestimating how difficult it would be for the new administration to break out of this process. There is in other words a very big difference between acknowledging that China has a lot of debt and understanding how debt and debt creation are embedded within the financial system.
I think this was exemplified last year when the NBR’s journal for Asian economic research, Asia Policy, put together a roundtable to review Nicholas Lardy’s very detailed and carefully argued book, Markets over Mao. I was one of the five analysts who were asked to participate in the reviews. Lardy is one of the best informed and most knowledgeable of the economists covering China and so I was honored to be invited to review the book. In my review I praised his book for the quality of its analysis, and it well deserves that praise.
But there was a fundamental disagreement in how he and I interpreted the data. Lardy believes China is in good shape economically and concludes with very optimistic growth forecasts. Based on the same data and absorbing much of his analysis and interpretation of that data (I have been reading Lardy for many years) I expect growth to slow sharply. The current consensus for China’s long-term growth at the time, I think, was around 6-7%. Lardy thinks this is a low number, and has said that with the right reforms “China could grow at roughly 8% a year for another 5 or 10 years.”
I believe, however, that he is wrong. The reforms he means consists largely of productivity- or efficiency-enhancing reforms aimed at boosting growth by implementing what I refer to as “asset-side management”. But to me these asset-side reforms are barely relevant at this stage, although had they been implemented a decade ago China might not be in the difficult balance-sheet position it is in today. I have argued instead that without a massive and fairly unlikely transfer of wealth from the state sector to the household sector, the average Chinese GDP growth rate under Xi Jinping cannot exceed 3-4%, no matter how aggressively Beijing implements the standard grab-bag of orthodox reforms offered by orthodox economists.
These are the same reforms offered not just in the case of China today but during nearly every debt crisis in modern history, including to policymakers in peripheral Europe following the 2009 crisis. As far as I can tell there is not a single case in modern history in which the reforming country was able to grow its way out of its debt burden. Instead the debt burden has always increased until the country either engineers or is forced into explicit or implicit debt forgiveness.
That is why we disagree so strongly in our forecasts even though I largely accept his analysis of the Chinese economy. We disagree for the same reason I disagreed with the Standard Chartered China strategist who saw an unsustainable debt burden simply as an unlikely but possible result of policy mismanagement rather than an inevitable consequence of a structural dependence on debt. We disagree, in other words, not on the fundamental data but rather in our understanding of debt dynamics and the constraints the balance sheet can place on an economy’s “fundamental” operations.
As I see it there are at least two important disagreements here. The first is about the impact of balance sheet structures on exacerbating volatility. Neither Lardy nor the Standard Chartered analyst seem to recognize how the balance sheet might affect growth in the future and how it affected growth in the past. For me, however, this has been and continues to be a key component of the Chinese economic “miracle”, and indeed also of every previous growth miracle. As I said in my review:
Clearly the more wealth is transferred to the household sector, or the more Beijing is willing to allow the economy to slow, the more stable is China’s economic adjustment and the less painful economically over the long term. Greater transfers and slower growth, however, both come at the expense of the vested interests who oppose the reforms, and so it is politics, more than economic logic, that will determine the success of China’s rebalancing strategy.
I should note that there are so many moving parts to this analysis and so many simplifying assumptions, that the scenarios listed above should not be taken as predictions. There are important points, however, that I think emerge from this scenario analysis.
First, even after overwhelming the analysis with implausibly optimistic assumptions – discounting the disruptions caused by shifting strategies, for example, assuming financial distress costs are close to zero, and ignoring the impact on debt sustainability that results from rolling over a significant share of total loans that cannot be repaid – it is pretty clear that without a major change in policy or a tolerance for slower GDP growth it will be hard to prevent debt from becoming unsustainable. At some point, and my guess is that this would occur within the next two to three years at current growth rates, China runs the risk of a very disruptive adjustment as it reaches debt capacity limits, perhaps even the risk of negative GDP growth rates.
Second, any analysis of future growth that doesn’t tie changes in the growth rates of investment, consumption and government transfers to changes in debt levels misses out on perhaps the most important constraining factor. I think failure to understand this point explains, by the way, why over the past few years very few economists had expected GDP growth to slow as sharply as it has, and debt to rise as quickly, or allowed for either in their projections.
My guess is that the same economists will continue to make the same mistakes. To avoid doing so, as we continue to make projections about growth in GDP or in any of the drivers of GDP, we must estimate their impact on debt and how this further constrains our assumptions about growth in GDP or in its drivers. This requires a deeper understanding of how balance sheets affect growth.
What is inevitable and what is possible
Unfortunately, much of the analysis we have seen on China in the past two decades almost completely ignores the balance sheet. Four years ago one of my clients sent me a research report by Standard Chartered in which their China analyst warned that while Chinese debt levels were still easily manageabble, there was a chance, no longer insignificant, that credit growth could speed up sharply and debt eventually become a significant constraint for policymakers. Things were fine for now, the analyst seemed to suggest, but it was possible that Beijing could mismanage its way into a debt problem.
The overwhelming consensus at the time was that China’s growth model was healthy and sustainable, and would generate GDP growth rates for the rest of the decade that were not much lower than the roughly 10% we had seen during the previous three decades. My client sent me the report along with the comment that the sell-side was finally recognizing that the Chinese economy was at risk. A leading analyst who had long been part of that consensus was, he said, finally beginning to understand the Chinese economy and the problems it faced.
I wasn’t so sure. It seemed to me that those who understood the Chinese growth model would have also understood that its overreliance on investment to fuel growth, combined with the structure of its credit markets, extremely low interest rates, and wide-spread moral hazard, made soaring debt almost inevitable and that debt was already constraining policymaking.
To suggest that this might happen only if the new administration – that of Xi Jinping – mismanaged the process suggested to me that the analyst did not really understand the self-reinforcing relationship between rising debt and slowing growth and was underestimating how difficult it would be for the new administration to break out of this process. There is in other words a very big difference between acknowledging that China has a lot of debt and understanding how debt and debt creation are embedded within the financial system.
I think this was exemplified last year when the NBR’s journal for Asian economic research, Asia Policy, put together a roundtable to review Nicholas Lardy’s very detailed and carefully argued book, Markets over Mao. I was one of the five analysts who were asked to participate in the reviews. Lardy is one of the best informed and most knowledgeable of the economists covering China and so I was honored to be invited to review the book. In my review I praised his book for the quality of its analysis, and it well deserves that praise.
But there was a fundamental disagreement in how he and I interpreted the data. Lardy believes China is in good shape economically and concludes with very optimistic growth forecasts. Based on the same data and absorbing much of his analysis and interpretation of that data (I have been reading Lardy for many years) I expect growth to slow sharply. The current consensus for China’s long-term growth at the time, I think, was around 6-7%. Lardy thinks this is a low number, and has said that with the right reforms “China could grow at roughly 8% a year for another 5 or 10 years.”
I believe, however, that he is wrong. The reforms he means consists largely of productivity- or efficiency-enhancing reforms aimed at boosting growth by implementing what I refer to as “asset-side management”. But to me these asset-side reforms are barely relevant at this stage, although had they been implemented a decade ago China might not be in the difficult balance-sheet position it is in today. I have argued instead that without a massive and fairly unlikely transfer of wealth from the state sector to the household sector, the average Chinese GDP growth rate under Xi Jinping cannot exceed 3-4%, no matter how aggressively Beijing implements the standard grab-bag of orthodox reforms offered by orthodox economists.
These are the same reforms offered not just in the case of China today but during nearly every debt crisis in modern history, including to policymakers in peripheral Europe following the 2009 crisis. As far as I can tell there is not a single case in modern history in which the reforming country was able to grow its way out of its debt burden. Instead the debt burden has always increased until the country either engineers or is forced into explicit or implicit debt forgiveness.
That is why we disagree so strongly in our forecasts even though I largely accept his analysis of the Chinese economy. We disagree for the same reason I disagreed with the Standard Chartered China strategist who saw an unsustainable debt burden simply as an unlikely but possible result of policy mismanagement rather than an inevitable consequence of a structural dependence on debt. We disagree, in other words, not on the fundamental data but rather in our understanding of debt dynamics and the constraints the balance sheet can place on an economy’s “fundamental” operations.
As I see it there are at least two important disagreements here. The first is about the impact of balance sheet structures on exacerbating volatility. Neither Lardy nor the Standard Chartered analyst seem to recognize how the balance sheet might affect growth in the future and how it affected growth in the past. For me, however, this has been and continues to be a key component of the Chinese economic “miracle”, and indeed also of every previous growth miracle. As I said in my review:
I made a similar argument a few weeks later in a Wall Street Journal OpEd about why it is so important that Beijing maintain its credibility, which is the only way of ensuring that China’s substantial balance sheet mismatches can be managed and rolled over:
History suggests that developing countries that have experienced growth “miracles” tend to develop risky financial systems and unstable national balance sheets. The longer the miracle, the greater the tendency. That’s because in periods of rapid growth, riskier institutions do well. Soon balance sheets across the economy incorporate similar types of risk.
…Over time, this means the entire financial system is built around the same set of optimistic expectations. But when growth slows, balance sheets that did well during expansionary phases will now systematically fall short of expectations, and their disappointing performance will further reinforce the economic deceleration. This is when it suddenly becomes costlier to refinance the gap, and the practice of mismatching assets and liabilities causes debt, not profits, to rise.
Financial distress can be worse than a crisis
The second misunderstanding is about why “too much” debt matters. For most economists, the main and even only problem with too much debt is that it might lead to a financial crisis, and that the fear of crisis undermines confidence and so can cause spending to drop. But while these are important problems, these analysts are mistaken in limiting their concerns to these two issues. While a financial crisis is certainly a risk, the damage debt does to an economy occurs long before any crisis, and for debt to be terribly damaging to an economy’s long-term growth doesn’t even require a crisis.
In fact one can easily make a case that while a financial crisis may be spectacular, it nonetheless limits the damage caused by excessive debt by forcing a recognition of the losses, only after which does the system begin to allocate capital efficiently. Until this happens, the adverse impact of debt on growth can persist for decades. A case in point is Japan. Japan never had a financial crisis or a banking sector collapse, but from 1990 to 2010 the amount by which its share of global GDP has declined far exceeds the damage caused to any other country by a financial crisis. Or consider the heavily indebted countries of Europe, like Spain, Italy and Portugal, who have avoided crises without showing convincingly that they are better off economically today and over the rest of this decade than they might have been had they suffered a financial crisis in 2009 or 2010.
In my review of Lardy’s book I try to explain why debt constrains growth, whether or not it leads to a crisis:
The second way liability structures can constrain growth, while often poorly understood by economists, is actually well understood in finance theory. An economic entity will suffer from “financial distress” if debt has risen so much faster than expected, or growth is so much lower than expected, that economic agents become uncertain about how higher debt-servicing costs will be assigned to different sectors of the economy. This uncertainty forces these agents to react in ways that unintentionally but automatically intensify balance sheet fragility and reduce growth. This uncertainty is intensified if the debt burden rises and falls inversely with debt-servicing capacity, which almost always happens when economic growth is highly credit-intensive, and which seems to be happening in China.
Because this seems so counter-intuitive for many people, it bears repeating. The problem with too much debt is not just that it might cause a crisis. The problem is, first, that debt may be structured in a way that systematically enhances volatility, which means good times appear better and bad times worse. This automatic leveraging-up of volatility has seriously adverse impacts on long-term growth. Second, when debt levels are higher than expected and growth lower (one of the nearly inevitable consequences of highly volatility-enhancing balance sheets), if this divergence causes uncertainty about how the debt servicing will be resolved, the uncertainty itself forces agents to behave in ways that automatically reduce growth and increase balance sheet fragility further.
Lardy’s response to my discussion of debt indicates, I think, just how much confusion there is here and how easy it is for most economists to misunderstand the relevant issues – although in fairness it should be noted that he is responding to five separate reviews, and so this is unlikely to be his full response:
Contrary to Michael Pettis’s assertion, the book does give some attention to the liability side of the Chinese economy. I note the huge buildup of debt starting in the fourth quarter of 2008 and analyze the challenges this debt poses for financial stability. But in Markets over Mao I point out that China differs in several critical respects from other countries where rapid debt buildups have precipitated financial crises.
To begin with, China’s national saving rate, reflecting the combined savings of households, corporations, and the government, approaches 50% of GDP, significantly higher than any other economy in recorded history. Like households, countries that save more can sustain higher debt burdens. Second, the vast majority of this debt is in domestic rather than in foreign currency…Thus, its debt does not involve any significant currency mismatch, a major contributor to many financial crises. Third, the majority of this debt has been extended by banks, and China’s systemically important banks are financed entirely by deposits rather than through the wholesale market…Finally, the government has enormous scope to further increase bank liquidity should that become necessary. Other factors, too numerous to list here, also suggest that a banking crisis is far from certain in China.
But Lardy is not actually disagreeing with anything I said. In fact I fully agree with him that a banking crisis is unlikely, and have written many times that while it is possible, and the risk of its happening should not be dismissed out of hand, I do not think China is likely to have a banking collapse, any more than Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s was ever likely to have a banking collapse. This doesn’t mean however that China’s debt burden is irrelevant.
A system of interlocking balance sheets
Japanese GDP growth, after all, did indeed collapse as it was forced to rebalance its debt-laden economy, and this collapse in growth has lasted an astonishing 25 years, with, as I see it, still no end in sight. During the first wave of excitement over “Abenomics”, for example, I wrote in this newsletter and elsewhere that just trying arithmetically to work through the consequences on the country’s debt burden of the success of Abenomics made it hard for me to see how Abenomics could possibly succeed in generating inflation and real growth without an explosion in its current account surplus that the world would not be able to absorb.
It was precisely because of China’s debt dynamics that I began arguing in 2006-07 that China’s growth model was unsustainable, that its debt was rising too quickly and could not be reined in without a significant drop in growth, and that China had urgently to rebalance. The same logic made me argue in 2008-09 that China’s adjustment was going to be brutally difficult and would entail at least a decade of GDP growth that could not exceed 3-4% on average. And yet I have always also argued that China’s banking system is very unlikely to collapse, and if one excludes things like the credit crunch in June 2013 or this month’s stock market panic, we are unlikely to see a financial crisis unless GDP growth – and with it credit growth – remains at current levels for another 3-4 years at most.
It is neither enough to note the amount of debt a country has or to speculate on the probability of a debt crisis. What matters is the systemic role of debt in generating economic activity, the feedback processes that are embedded in debt structures, and the uncertainty that may arise about the resolution of debt-servicing costs. To summarize, there are at least four important issues to consider:
It is possible to structure an economy in such a way that excessive debt creation is not a “choice”, not even a bad choice, but is instead the automatic consequence of institutional constraints within the economy, and in fact it is very rare that a country experiencing many years of “ |
and usage:
cd : Change directory
exit : Exit session
ls : List files in the directory
Body: Complex Commands
Below is a small list of advanced commands:
ssh : Tunnel into another device
make package install : Used with Theos
find : Finds all files in the directory as well as any symlinked folders(not recommended in /var)
End: Conclusion
MTerminal and any other terminal prompt is a powerful tool, a warning should be given before any user tries to use it as it can be dangerous with certain commands. I hope you enjoyed this small article and enjoy using terminal. Thank you!DMC Global Inc. (NASDAQ: BOOM) Based in Boulder, Colorado, DMC serves a global network of customers in the energy, infrastructure and industrials markets through two core businesses: NobelClad and Oilfield Products. The NobelClad segment is the world’s largest manufacturer of explosion-welded clad metal plates, which are used to fabricate capital equipment utilized within various process industries and other industrial sectors. Oilfield Products refers to the business of DynaEnergetics, an international developer, manufacturer and marketer of advanced explosive components and systems used to perforate oil and gas wells. Quick Links April 2018 Stockholder Letter DMC Investor Presentation 10-K 10-Q Videos Upcoming Events Recent Events Email Alerts
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Phone: (720) 931-4000For years, whenever someone asked me if I thought testers had to know how to write code, I’ve responded: “Of course not.”
The way I see it, test automation is inherently a programming activity. Anyone tasked with automating tests should know how to program.
But not all testers are doing test automation.
Testers who specialize in exploratory testing bring a different and extremely valuable set of skills to the party. Good testers have critical thinking, analytical, and investigative skills. They understand risk and have a deep understanding where bugs tend to hide. They have excellent communication skills. Most good testers have some measure of technical skill such as system administration, databases, networks, etc. that lends itself to gray box testing. But some of the very best testers I’ve worked with could not have coded their way out of a For Loop.
So unless they’re automating tests, I don’t think that testers should be required to have programming skills.
Increasingly I’ve been hearing that Agile teams expect all the testers to know how to write code. That made me curious. Has the job market really shifted so much for testers with the rise of Agile? Do testers really have to know how to code in order to get ahead?
My assistant Melinda and I set out to find the answer to those questions.
Because we are committed to releasing only accurate data, we ended up doing this study three times. The first time we did it, I lost confidence in how we were counting job ads, so we threw the data out entirely. The second time we did it, I published some early results showing that more than 75% of the ads requested programming skills. But then we found problems with our data, so I didn’t publish the rest of the results and we started over. Third time’s a charm, right?
So here, finally, are the results of our third attempt at quantifying the demand for programming skills in testers. This time I have confidence in our data.
We surveyed 187 job ads seeking Software Testers or QA from across the 29 states in the US posted between August 25 and October 16, 2010.
The vast majority of our data came from Craigslist (102 job ads) and LinkedIn (69 job ads); the rest came from a small handful of miscellaneous sites.
The jobs represent positions open at 166 distinct, identifiable companies. The greatest number of positions posted by any single company was 2.
Although we tried to avoid a geographic bias, there is a bias in our data toward the West Coast. (We ended up with 84 job listings in California alone.) This might reflect where the jobs are, or it could be because we did this research in California so it affected our search results. I’m not sure.
In order to make sure that our data reflected real jobs with real employers we screened out any jobs advertised by agencies. That might bias our sample toward companies that care enough to source their own candidates, but it prevents our data from being polluted by duplicate listings and fake job ads used to garner a pool of candidates.
Based on our sample, here’s what we found:
Out of the 187 jobs we sampled, 112 jobs indicate that programming of some kind is required; an additional 39 jobs indicate that programming is a nice to have skill. That’s just over 80% of test jobs requesting programming skill.
Just in case that sample was skewed by including test automation jobs, I removed the 23 jobs with titles like “Test Automation Engineer” or “Developer in Test.” Of the remaining 164 jobs, 93 required programming and 37 said it’s a nice to have. That’s still 79% of QA/Test jobs requesting programming.
It’s important to understand how we counted the job ads.
We counted any job ad as requiring programming skills if the ad required experience or knowledge of a specific programming language or stated that the job duties required using a programming language. Similarly, we counted a job ad as requesting programming skills if it indicated that knowledge of a specific language was a nice to have.
The job ads mentioned all sorts of things that different people might, or might not, count as a programming language. For our purposes, we counted SQL and shell/batch scripting as programming languages. A tiny number of job ads (6) indicated that they required programming without listing a specific language by listing broad experience requirements like “Application development in multiple coding languages.” Those counted too.
The bottom line is that our numbers indicate approximately 80% of the job ads you’d find if searching for jobs in Software QA or Test are asking for programming skills.
No matter my personal beliefs, that data suggests that anyone who is serious about a career in testing would do well to pick up at least one programming language.
So which programming languages should you pick up? Here were the top 10 mentioned programming languages (including both required and nice-to-haves):
SQL or relational database skills (84)
Java, including J2EE and EJBs (52)
Perl (44)
Python (39)
C/C++ (30)
Shell Scripting (27) note: an additional 4 mentioned batch files.
. JavaScript (24)
C# (23)
.NET including VB.NET and ASP.NET but not C# (19)
Ruby (9)
This data makes it pretty clear to me that at a minimum, professional testers need to know SQL.
I will admit that I was a little sad to see that only 9 of the job ads mentioned Ruby. Oh well.
In addition, there were three categories of technical skills that aren’t really programming languages but that came up so often that they’re worth calling out:
31 ads mentioned XML
28 ads mentioned general Web Development skills including HTTP/HTTPS, HTML, CSS, and XPATH
17 ads mentioned Web Services or referenced SOAP and XSL/XSLT
We considered test automation technologies separately from programming languages. Out of our sample, 27 job ads said that they require knowledge of test automation tools and an additional 50 ads said that test automation tool knowledge is a nice to have. (As a side note, I find it fascinating that 80% of the ads requested programming skills, but only about half that number mentioned test automation. I’m not sure if there’s anything significant there, but I find it fascinating nonetheless.)
The top test automation technolgies were:
Selenium, including SeleniumRC (31)
QTP (19)
XUnit frameworks such as JUnit, NUnit, TestNG, etc. (14)
LoadRunner (11)
JMeter (7)
Winrunner (7)
SilkTest (6)
SilkPerformer (4)
Visual Studio/TFS (4)
Watir or Watin (4)
Eggplant (2)
Fitnesse (2)
Two things stood out to me about that tools list.
First, the number one requested tool is open source. Overall, of the number of test automation tool mentions, more than half are for free or open source tools. I’ve been saying for a while that the commercial test automation tool vendors ought to be nervous. I believe that this data backs me up. The revolution I predicted in 2006 is well under way and Selenium has emerged a winner.
Second, I was surprised at the number of ads mentioning WinRunner: it’s an end-of-lifed product.
My personal opinion (not supported by research) is that this is probably because companies that had made a heavy investment in WinRunner just were not in a position to tear out all their automated tests simply because HP/Mercury decided not to support their tool of choice. Editorializing for a moment: I think that shows yet another problem with closed source commercial products. Selenium can’t ever be end-of-lifed: as long as there is a single user out there, that user will have access to the source and be able to make whatever changes they need.
But I digress.
As long as we were looking at job ads, Melinda and I decided to look into the pay rates that these jobs offered.
Only 15 of the ads mentioned pay, and the pay levels were all over the map.
4 of the jobs had pay ranges in the $10-$14/hr range. All 4 of those positions were part time or temporary contracts. None of the ads required any particular technical skills. They’re entry-level button-pushing positions.
The remaining 11 positions ranged from $40K/year at the low end to $130K/year at the high end. There just are not enough data points to draw any real conclusions related to salary other than what you might expect: jobs in major technology centers (e.g. Massachusetts and California) tend to pay more. If you want more information about salaries and positions, I highly recommend spelunking through the salary data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And finally I was wondering how many of the positions referred to Agile. The answer was 55 of the job ads.
Even more interesting, of those 55 ads, 49 requested programming skills. So while 80% of all ads requested programming skills, almost 90% of the ads that explicitly referenced Agile did. I don’t think there’s enough data available to draw any firm conclusions about whether the rise of Agile means that more and more testers are expected to know how to write code. But I certainly think it’s interesting.
So, that concludes our fun little romp through 187 job listings. I realize that you might have more questions than I can answer. If you want to analyze the data for yourself, you can find the raw data here.Psychoactive Plants
Intro: On earth there are hundreds of thousands of species of plants feeding on the light of the sun. Of these only a few thousand yield food and medicine, only a mere hundred or so contain the compounds that transport the mind to distant realms of ethereal wonder.
A hallucinogen is any chemical substance that distorts the senses and produces hallucinations – perceptions and experiences that depart dramatically from ordinary reality.
The pharmacological activity arises from a small number of chemical compounds. Modern chemistry has, in many cases, been able to duplicate these substances, and to manipulate their chemical structures to produce novel synthetic compounds, nearly all such drugs have their origin in plants.
In the plant kingdom they occur most often in the flowering plants (angiosperms) and the more primitive spore-bearing fungi.
Psychoactive drugs
1. Psychoactive drugs affect the central nervous system in various ways by influencing the release of neurotransmitters (chemical messengers within the nervous system, such as acetylcholine, serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine), or mimicking their actions.
2. Psychoactive drugs are classified as stimulants, hallucinogens, or depressants based on their effects.
3. Stimulants
a. excite and enhance mental alertness and physical activity
b. reduce fatigue
c. suppress hunger
d. cocaine, caffeine, ephedrine are well-known, plant-derived stimulants
4. Hallucinogens
a. produce changes (distortions) in perception, thought, and mood that depart from ordinary reality.
b. often induces a dreamlike state
c. peyote, marijuana (Cannabis), and LSD are examples of hallucinogens
5. Depressants
a. dull mental awareness
b. reduce physical performance
c. induce sleep or trance-like state
d. opium and its derivatives, morphine and heroin are classic examples of depressants
6. Narcotic is a drug that induces central nervous system depression, resulting in numbness, lethargy, and sleep. This would include opiates, alcoholic beverages, and kava. In familiar use, narcotic is inferred to include psychoactive compounds that are dangerously addictive. By this definition, nicotine and the stimulant cocaine would also be included as a narcotic.
Chemistry and pharmacology of Psychoactive Drugs
Almost all chemicals that have psychoactive properties contain nitrogen, and most belong to one of the classes of alkaloids.
a. The most notable exception is the active compound of marijuana, delta-trans-tetrahydroicannabinol, or THC).
b. Alkaloids are a category of compounds that are considered secondary compounds, or secondary plant products.
c. Secondary because they are not directly related to the plant’s survival.
i. They were formerly believed to be simple wae products of plant metabolism.
ii. They are now believed to provide an important function to the plant.
iii. Some discourage herbivory, others inhibit bacterial or fungal pathogens.
d. Alkaloids share several characteristics:
1. they contain nitrogen.
2. they have a bitter taste.
3. they are usually alkaline (basic)
4. they affect the physiology of animals in several ways but their most pronounced actions are those on the nervous system.
e. Common alkaloids include caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, morphine, quinine, ephedrine (alkaloids mostly end in -ine).
Psychoactive compounds are found primarily in angiosperms and fungi. Angiosperm families especially known for having plants with psychoactive properties include: Solanaceae (nightshade),
Rubiaceae (coffee),
Papaveraceae (poppy),
Erythroxylaceae (coca),
Convolvulaceae (morning-glory).
Until recently, psychoactive compounds were unknown in the animal kingdom, but now have been discovered in toads. Hallucinogens are known to occur in all parts of the plant, from the roots, leaves, bark, stem, and seeds.
The drugs obtained from plants may be applied in various ways:
a. through the use of powders and snuffs (nasal membranes)
b. to external applications,
c. they may be taken orally (swallowed fresh or drunk in decoctions and infusions) or anally (as enemas), or via vaginal tissue.
d. smoked
According to Richard Evans Schultes, of Harvard U., the vast majority of drug plants are from the New world and are related to poisons and medicines. (the difference between the two been one largely of dose).
Abbreviated list of plant with known psychoactive properties
1. Atropa belladonna (belladonna), Solanaceae, hallucinogen
2. Cannabis sativa (marijuana), Cannabaceae, hallucinogen
3. Datura spp. (jimsonweed), Solanaceae, hallucinogen
4. Erythroxylon coca (coca), Erythroxylaceae, stimulant
5. Lophophora williamsii (peyote), Cactaceae, hallucinogen
6. Mandragora officinarum (mandrake), Solanaceae, hallucinogen
7. Nicotiana spp. (tobacco), Solanaceae, stimulant/depressant
8. Papaver somniferum (Opium poppy), Papaveraceae, depressant
9. Piper methysticum (kava), Piperaceae, depressant
10. Banisteriopsis sp. (ayahuasca), Malphiginaceae, hallucinogen
Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) Papaveraceae
1. The poppy, from which opium is derived, is not known from the wild; it has been domesticated for its seeds, which are used for oil and food, and for its dried sap, which produces opium.
2. For centuries, poppies have been bred for increased size of its capsules, wherein the nutritious seeds and opium-rich sap reside. The tender lvs have also been used as an herb.
3. Use of the opium poppy as an analgesic (pain relief) was well-known by early societies.
a. Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek writings, artifacts, and statuaries attest to the fact that opium was revered for it s analgesic and sleep-inducing properties.
b. the Ebers Papyrus, the Egyptian compendium of medical information from 1500 BCE (3,500 ys ago) mentions opium poppy as a remedy for head pains and as a sedative.
c. Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Galen leading contributors to Western science, all endorsed the medical use of opium.
d. The statue of Asclepias depicts him holding a bunch of opium capsules in his hand; opium poppies are on the backs of many ancient coins, both Roman and Jewish; Isis (Egyptian goddess of fertility) is sometimes depicted holding poppy heads; Demeter drank opium to relieve her sorrows.
Botany
1. Lg annual herb in the Poppy family. Papaver somniferum [somniferous - inducing sleep; soporific; Somnus - Roman god of sleep, analagous to the Greek god, Hypnos].
2. Native to Middle East ; now grown legally and illegally throughout much of the world, with India the leading legal grower. (Incidentally, a major supplier of opium to be processed into heroin for sale are the Taliban in Afghanistan. They and other Afghani warlords use the sale of opium and the taxes on opium to support military campaigns.
3. Stem topped with showy, solitary flower of white, pink, red, or purple petals. Often crepe paper-like.
4. Buds are pendulous until they are ready to open (anthesis). As buds open, stems straighten and become erect.
5. Petals are deciduous; they drop early and easily.
6. After pollination the ovary matures into a capsule.
7. Once the petals have fallen, opium is harvested from the whitish-green capsule
a. horizontal slits are made in the capsule, usually with a multi-bladed knife. (Professional harvesters in Asia and Middle East sometimes have 3 little blades set into a ring worn on their finger for lancing. Also - a razor blade wrapped with masking tape so that only 1 mm of the corner of the blade is exposed works. The tape forms a shoulder to prevent the blade from cutting deeper.
b. this is done about 2 weeks after petal drop. That’s when the morphine content reaches its maximum concentration.
c. care is taken not to cut thru the capsule entirely, for otherwise the sap will collect inside the capsule and the seeds cannot be harvested (they are spoiled).
d. short incisions can be made every few days, on opposite sides of the capsule, until the capsule on longer exudes latex.
7. The alkaloid, morphine, is produced in the laticifers (latex-secreting structure) in the walls of the seed capsules (pericarp). Laticifers produce latex, which is the “milk” of milkweeds, euphorbias (spurge), dogbane, and poppies.
8. Latex is generally creamy, white, and thick. (Latex comes from the Latin, ‘lac’ for milk). In Hevea tree, from which commercial rubber is extracted, the most important laticifers are in the bark; these are the ones tapped for rubber.
9. Harvesters judge maturity of capsules by their compactness and color. They change from green to whitish-green.
10. The latex is secreted onto the surface of the capsule, after slitting, and dries to a brownish color, and usually harvested the next day before 8 am (sunlight may transform morphine into codeine), with a curved scraper.
11. Crude opium is kneaded into balls, dried to reduce water content form 30%-10%.
12. It can then be smoked or refined further.
How is opium used?
1. Opium has been eaten, drunk, smoked for centuries.
Crude opium was dissolved in wine (mekonium) and flavored with cinnamon and cloves. Infusions of chopped poppy capsule was also imbibed. Ancient pottery vessels for opium wine, pipes for smoking opium, and other artifacts decorated with opium capsules have been dated back to ancient Cyprus.
2. In more contemporary times, opium smoking was rediscovered by the Chinese, with the encouragement of the British, who were trying to build up a trade surplus. Opium is smoked in a special pipe that facilitates vaporization of the tarry goo without actually burning it.
3. Opium may be eaten, and the effects are more diffuse.
4. A common method of preparing opium was to dissolve it in alcohol, and this tincture (infusion, extraction, solution), later known as laudanum, became a popular medication for centuries. (medications at that time were not so much administered to heal as they were to simply alleviate pain).
5. Laudanum use reached its peak in the 19th century when it was consumed not only as a medicine but also as a mind-expanding drug by many, including writers, artists, intellectuals of the day: British poets Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Samuel Coleridge, and John Keats were users, Thomas de Quincey (Confessions of an English Opium-Eater), the French poet Baudelaire and composer Berlioz, and the American writer, Edgar Allan Poe.
6. Paregoric was laudanum mixed with some other ingredients, including anise, and was given to children for the treatment of diarrhea.
7. Associated Press article, 8-8-02, entitled Archaeologists unravel ancient Mideast drug trade : refers to an apparently thriving Bronze Age drug trade throughout the eastern Mediterranean area used as balm for the pain of childbirth and disease, proving a sophisticated knowledge of medicines dating back thousands of years.
Ancient ceramic pots, most of them nearly identical in size and shape, found in tombs and settlements throughout Middle East, were dated back to 1,400 BCE. The find indicates that medicines used then, 3,500 years ago, are still being used today. When turned upside down, the thin-necked vessels with round bases resemble opium poppy capsules. The round bases have white markings, designs that presumably symbolized knife cuts made on the poppy capsules so the white opium base can ooze to the surface, and be harvested.
The Mycenaean ceramics were analyzed by gas chromatography and turned up traces of opium. Based on ancient Egyptian medical writings from the third millenium BCE, researchers believe opium and hashish, a smokable drug that comes from the concentrated resin of hemp flowers, were used during surgery and to treat aches and pains and other ailments. Hashish was also used to ease menstrual cramps and was even offered to women during childbirth.
Based on Egyptian writings, archaeologists believe opium was eaten rather than smoked.
Alkaloids - More than 30 alkaloids have been identified in opium, including morphine, codeine, thebaine, papaverine, etc.
1. Morphine was first isolated in 1806 by Frederic Serturner, a german scientist who named the compound after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. (It was the first active principle or alkaloid isolated from a plant).
a. It is a very powerful hypnotic and narcotic, with powerful analgesic properties. It is the most abundant component of opium, ranging from 4-21% by weight. Morphine is still unsurpassed in its ability to deaden pain. It is considered the most powerful naturally-occurring analgesic).
b. Originally, it was taken orally, but its full potential wasn’t realized until after the development of the hypodermic syringe in the middle of the 19th century. (Taken orally, morphine is rapidly inactivated and excreted).
c. Morphine depresses the areas of the brain involved in the perception of pain, and reduces the anxiety that accompanies pain.
d. It is a general CNS (central nervous system) depressant and, in overdose, can lead to death by completely suppressing the respiratory center in the brain.
e. Like opium, morphine is highly addictive. This became evident when thousands of injured Civil War soldiers became dependent on the extract after injections of morphine. The addiction became known as Soldier’s Disease.
f. Besides outright control of pain, morphine was frequently prescribed for:
1. diarrhea - it slows peristalsis in the digestive tract.
2. coughing - suppresses the cough reflex in CNS (antitussive)
3. severe burns and visceral pain during post-operative period.
4. used for radiation sickness, allegedly stockpiled for that contingency during the Cold War.
2. Codeine
a. 2-3% in opium
b. an analgesic antitussive (suppresses cough reflex), and used in cough syrup.
c. oral analgesic, but only 1/5 as potent as morphine. However, it works well in combination with non-opiate analgesics, such as aspirin.
d. almost all the legal morphine harvested from poppies is converted to codeine.
The study of opium led to the discovery of the first alkaloid, morphine. And the study of morphine has led to the discovery of the brain’s own painkillers, the endorphins, perhaps the most important advance in neurochemistry of the past half century.
Endorphins (endogenous morphines)
1. protein substances formed within the body that relieves pain.
2. similar chemical structure to morphine
3. endorphins are present at the same sites in the brain as morphine (opiate receptors).
4. in addition to analgesic effect, endorphins are thought to be involved in controlling the body’s response to stress, regulating contractions of the intestinal wall, and determining mood.
Heroin (diacetyl morphine)
1. In 1898, the Bayer Co. introduced heroin, which they believed to be a non-addictive opiate with analgesic properties superior to morphine, and cough suppressant properties superior to codeine.
2. The semi-synthetic derivative of morphine was widely dispensed in many over-the-counter medicines for about 2 decades, especially in cough syrups.
3. Heroin was also sold as a cure for morphine addiction.. and it was successful inasmuch as it substituted one addiction for another: heroin is 6 x more addictive than morphine.
4. The number of artists who have used and succumbed to the dangers of heroin are legion (staggering): Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, William Burroughs (Naked Lunch), John Lennon wrote Cold Turkey (refers to goose bumps prominent in a person going thru withdrawal symptoms), Leonard Cohen wrote Dress Rehearsal Rag. In the Wizard of Oz, was it merely coincidental that Dorothy goes to sleep in a field of poppies?
5. Heroin is no longer used medicinally in the U.S., nor is it legally manufactured here.
a. it is, however, used medicinally in other countries to control severe pain
b. India is the largest legal producer of both opium alkaloids and heroin for medical purposes.
c. Most illegal opium comes from Burma, Laos, Thailand (Golden Triangle), as well as Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan ( Golden Crescent ). Right now, the Taliban in Afghanistan and many of the war lords finance their military operations thru the sale and tax of heroin.
Addiction and tolerance to narcotic analgesics, such as morphine, heroin, etc. are thought to be due to suppression of the body’s production of endorphins; withdrawal symptoms are due to the lack of these natural analgesics.
Acupuncture is thought to produce analgesia partly by stimulating the release of endorphins.
Kava (Piper methysticum; Piperaceae)
1. Small shrub in same genus as black pepper.
2. Kava roots (rhizomes) are used to prepare an intoxicating beverage that has been consumed for thousands of years by peoples throughout the islands of the South Pacific.
3. Beverage is a depressant; a small quantity makes people relaxed and friendly and, unlike alcohol, it doesn’t impair alertness. It is, however, a powerful soporific and in large doses can induce deep sleep.
4. The principal social use of kava throughout the south Pacific Islands is to build community and avid conflict. The Polynesians ceremonially drink kava to welcome visitors to their villages and to help the villagers reach consensus on potentially controversial decisions affecting the community.
5. Preparations of kava beverage
a. Traditional - young, unmarried maidens would chew small pieces of the root until the fibers were completely broken down, and then would spit the remaining wad into a ceremonial bowl. After several wads were accumulated, water was added to the bowl, and the mixture stirred. When the desired potency was reached, the pulp was strained and the beverage consumed from a coconut shell.
b. Today - root is finely ground, mixed with water; mixture is coarsely strained. Kava powder is also available that requires no straining.
Components of kava
1. Plants must be allowed to grow for 2-3 years before roots can be harvested. (time is needed both to increase size of root system, and potency of roots). Best roots are those left in the ground for 20 yrs or so.
2. Active ingredients are kava lactones (ester - formed from the reaction between an acid and an alcohol, usually with the elimination of water). Kavain has a modest analgesic effect, about twice that of aspirin, and acts as a mild anaesthetic and tranquilizer.
3. There are a number of different kava clones with differing proportions of the major kava lactones; each produces a slightly different psychoactive effect: a Samoan clone, called “fellowship and brotherhood” makes one feel very friendly. Another, called “white pigeon” imparts a sense of heightened perception, as tho one were flying over the rainforest like a white pigeon.
4. The beverage is ideally served when vexatious matters such as land disputes are to be discussed, or at times of apprehension, as when strangers appear. Both the ceremony and the beverage seem designed to increase friendly feelings and reduce the possibility of hostility.
5. Kava ceremonies rival the Japanese tea ceremonies for intricacy of action and sophistication of rhetoric. In Samoa the taupou or village virgin was traditionally the only person allowed to prepare and serve kava to assembled chiefs on ceremonial occasions. This custom continues in many villages today.
6. Medicinal use
a. used as a tranquilizing elixir that produces relaxation and sleep. Used today as such - health food stores.
b. leaves, stem, and bark have been uses as muscle relaxant to relieve stiffness and muscle fatigue.
c. in Germany, extracts have been used as anti-anxiety medicine.
Ayahuasca, Vine of the Soul: Banisteriopsis caapi
1. The Quechua Indians of Ecuador say that ayahuasca has the ability to release the spirit and allow it to wander freely before returning to the body.
2. A vine native to the Amazon region of South America.
3. By boiling its stem in water, traditional peoples of the Amazon prepare a hallucinogenic beverage used for divination and telepathy. The decoction is bitter, and only a small amount is consumed.
4. Many of the alkaloids responsible for hallucinogenic activity share structural similarities with serotonin, a powerful chemical messenger found in the brain. Serotonin plays an important role in mediating mood and emotion.
5. The carefully controlled use of ayahuasca is embedded in the native religions, but its use outside of its traditional context can be dangerous. Ayahuasca has become a recreational drug in some Amazonian towns: some tourists are attracted by the possibility of a shamanistic experience, while some local people use it to divine the future or to manage their personal lives. There is considerable reason to believe that the use of hallucinogenic plants outside of their traditional religious contexts can produce sorrow rather than transcendence, confusion rather than enlightenment.
Ebena snuff
1. The Waiki shaman puts a small amount of ebena powder into a reedlike snuff tube and inserts one end of it into in his nostril. His assistant blows a strong blast on the other end of the 1-meter long tube, propelling the bioactive powder into the shaman’s nasopharyngeal airway, where it is absorbed into the bloodstream across the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract.
2. Within 60 seconds, the powerful alkaloids in the powder are distributed throughout the circulatory system by way of the bloodstream.
3. At once the shaman begins to scratch the top of his head with a circular motion and saliva pours uncontrollably from his mouth. Within a few minutes the shaman’s spirit leaves his body and enters the other world, a world controlled by the spirits who act as friend or foe.
a. Ebena snuff is a composite of 3 plants, each of which contributes compounds that enhance the bioactive power of the others.
How do traditional peoples discover that certain plants produce useful pharmacological benefits? How do they discover a means of extracting bioactive fractions that are useful as well as safe?
a. Indigenous people’s science, like our own, proceeds thru a process of trial and error during which it encounters both success and errors, then builds on these successes and failures in an iterative pattern of observation upon observation.
b. Traditional peoples may also employ classification systems for psychoactive plants on the basis of colors or types of visions they produce. One plant may induce red visions, another will include people in the visions; still another will make one fierce and strong.
c. Indians in the Northwest Amazon Valley of Colombia recognize some 14 forms of the stimulant plant Paullinia yoco (Sapindaceae).
Datura spp (Jimson weed) Solanaceae. Nightshsade family
1. Cosmopolitan distribution, used by many indigenous peoples for both medicinal and hallucinogenic purposes..
2. Generic name is based on a Sanskrit word dhatura, meaning poison, reflecting its toxic properties.
3. Datura stramonium is cultivated for its scopolamine content, used today for motion sickness and its sedative effects.
4. Common name, jimsonweed or Jamestown weed, refers to an incident of accidental poisoning of British sailors in colonial Virginia in 16786. They mistook Datura for an edible plant and suffered the consequences. Thornapple refers to its spiny, seed-bearing capsule.
5. Local plant is Datura wrightii. It’s a sprawling perennial with an enormous taproot, that may extend 2’ into the ground.
6. The whole of the plant contains tropane alkaloids: atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine
a. they affect the central nervous system
b. they relax smooth muscles
c. dilate the pupils of the eye (atropine: once considered to be a beautiful and mysterious look in Italian women – belladonna means “beautiful lady”, so named because sap from the closely related belladonna plant, Atropa belladonna, was used as eyedrops to dilate pupils.)
c. dilate blood vessels
d. increase heart rate and body temperature
e. induce sleep and lessen pain
f. stimulates and then depresses central nervous system
g. induce hallucinations
h. as a group tropane alkaloids are extremely toxic, capable of inducing coma and death due to respiratory arrest.
i. they can be absorbed thru the skin and mucous membranes (they are fat soluble).
7. Uses
In ancient India, priests ate the seeds of datura for hallucinogenic, prophetic and oracular states. European priest drank a concoction of datura for the same purpose.
Thieves in India and Europe used datura as “knockout drops” to rob stupefied victims.
In India and other parts of the world, it was used as an aphrodisiac – especially important in love potions and witches’ brew.
Salves and ointments were applied to various parts of the body.
Witches putatively rubbed their bodies with the hallucinogenic ointments of belladonna, mandrake, and datura.
Much of the behavior associated with witches is as readily attributable to these drugs as to any spiritual communion with demons.
A particularly convenient method of self-administering the drug is thru the moist tissues of the vagina – the witches’ broomstick being the effective applicator.
The common image of a haggard woman on a broomstick comes from the belief that the witches rode their staffs each midnight to the sabbat (orgiastic assembly of demons and sorcerers). It now appears that their journey was not thru space but across the hallucinatory landscape of their own minds.
Some aboriginal Indians in South America gave a datura-alcohol beverage to wives and slaves of dead warriors and chieftains: the powerful brew induced stupor before they were buried alive to accompany their dead husbands and masters on their long journey to heaven.
Probably the best know use of datura among the North American Indian tribes (Algonquin) was the puberty ceremonial dances involving the drinking of a “toloache” (datura) infusion by young boys preparing to enter manhood.
Adolescents were confined to a longhouse for up to 2 weeks sand fed a beverage based in part on datura. During the extended intoxication, and subsequent amnesia (a pharmacological feature of the drug) the young boy forgot what it was to be a child so that he might learn with it meant to be a man.
Ololiuqui (pronounced o-low |
, often in the wee hours. Since 2003, about 75-100 civilians, many retired military, have greeted nearly a million of these tired and despairing men and women as they disembark from planes and come through the airport halls. Troop Greeters form lines, hold signs of encouragement and dispense openhearted hugs, making an immediate positive impact. Even if you don't time your visit to coincide with one of these greetings, you can still see the collection of coins, patches, posters and other paraphernalia donated by grateful soldiers.
15. Visit Stephen King Sites. As most King enthusiasts know, "Derry, Maine" is the author's stand-in for his hometown of Bangor. Many scenes in King's books are drawn from actual attractions and places here. But perhaps the most popular of King's "sites" is his deep coral colored Victorian home, fenced in by black wrought iron spider webs, bats and a big capital K on hefty gates.
16. The Bangor Historical Society is housed in the 1836 home of lumber baron, Thomas Hill, designed by Trinity Church (N.Y.) architect, Robert Upjohn. Of course, you'll find touchstones like the sword that Joshua Chamberlain carried into battle at Gettysburg and John Hancock's bathrobe (?!), but perhaps the weirdest artifact is the 1895 Bangor Band Ceremonial Drum lost in Boston in 1928 and found just this year (2015) on Ebay!BROOKLYN, NY - FEBRUARY 1: Brandon Jennings #7 of the Detroit Pistons is seen during the game against the Brooklyn Nets on February 1, 2016 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
By Dan Jenkins
As the Feb. 18 trade deadline grows nearer, the Detroit Pistons look like they’re still a player or two away from making a deep playoff run.
I know, I know — that sounds ambitious for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs since 2009, but this year’s team has shown flashes of great basketball and has more talent than any Pistons squad in the past seven years. Adding the right players at this point in the season could elevate the Pistons from a barely-over-.500 team (27-25) to one of the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference.
The Pistons’ most valuable trade chip is still point guard Brandon Jennings. Team president Stan Van Gundy made Jennings — a starting-caliber player — expendable when he signed Reggie Jackson to a five-year, $80-million contract over the summer and his expiring $8.3 million contract has valuable to other teams.
Van Gundy has stated in the past few weeks that he wants to keep Jennings and might not make a move at the deadline, but he has surprised us before. Even coming off an Achilles injury, opposing teams still find value in Jennings, who has been the talk of trade rumors for months.
Here’s three trades — all involving Jennings — that the Pistons could pull off before the trade deadline.
Detroit receives: PF Thaddeus Young, PG Shane Larkin
Brooklyn receives: PG Brandon Jennings, PF Anthony Tolliver, PG Spencer Dinwiddie
A trade like this was rumored to have been discussed between the Pistons and Nets earlier last week. Van Gundy shot down the notion that they were shopping Jennings, but reports have indicated that he will be pursued by Brooklyn or New York before the deadline in the summer.
Thaddeus Young would give the Pistons a low-post scorer that they’ve sorely been missing since Greg Monroe left for Milwaukee. He would also be a nice second rebounder next to Andre Drummond that the Pistons desperately need.
Young won’t stretch the floor much, but he plays hard and affects the game in other ways. He shoots 52 percent of his attempts from inside five feet, making nearly 57 percent of such shots.
Shane Larkin would be a serviceable backup point guard that Detroit needs if they deal Jennings.
Detroit receives: PF Markieff Morris, PG Ronnie Price
Phoenix receives: PG Brandon Jennings, C Joel Anthony, PG Spencer Dinwiddie
Markieff Morris was one of the better young, under-the-radar stars in the league before this season. When the Suns traded his twin brother, Marcus, to the Pistons, Markieff was never really the same player.
Ever since Phoenix fired coach Jeff Hornacek, Markieff has been on a tear, averaging 20.3 points, 7.7 rebounds and 5.3 assists in three games under coach Earl Watson.
Despite the recent surge, the Suns could still be looking to deal Markieff — the so-called “better brother” — before the deadline. A reunion with his brother has been rumored ever since Marcus was traded to Detroit over the summer.
On the Phoenix side, the Suns need a reliable point guard while Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe remain out with injuries and could value Jennings’ expiring contract.
Detroit receives: SF Rudy Gay, PG Darren Collison
Sacramento receives: PG Brandon Jennings, PF Ersan Ilyasova, SG Darrun Hilliard
This deal would be a home run for the Pistons.
Acquiring a go-to scorer like Rudy Gay would be just what the team needs to make a playoff run, while getting a proven backup point guard at the same time in Darren Collison.
The Kings made some noise in January by winning eight out of 11 games and jumping up into the playoff picture, but have fallen back down to earth a little bit. Most of Sacramento’s offense runs through DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo, leaving Gay as the odd man out — the odd man out with a big contract that the Kings might want to part with.
Gay’s salary ($12.4 million in 2016) isn’t too outrageous for what the Pistons would need him to be. He and Collison could be the final pieces to a really quality team that would be looking at a deep playoff run.Two months after issuing a public plea for real estate advice, actor Neil Patrick Harris has found his Vancouver "digs."
NPH tweeted Wednesday that he was settling in to Vancouver and loving his new place.
"Vancouver is a delight, especially when the sun is out," Harris wrote in a post thanking realtor Rick Orford for his help securing accommodation.
Orford said there are few details about the home that he's able to disclose, but he told CTV News the place is a "9 out of 10" for the "How I Met Your Mother" star.
Harris's search for a property in the city began in February, when the U.S. A-lister asked his 26.5 million Twitter followers: "Anyone have a sweet penthouse in Yaletown that they aren't using..?"
He even set up a mailbox, [email protected], for people to send suggestions.
So I may be heading back to Vancouver for a while. Anyone have a sweet penthouse in Yaletown that they aren't using..? [email protected] — Neil Patrick Harris (@ActuallyNPH) February 22, 2017
In a true display of Canadian hospitality, some responded to his tweet offering up various other arrangements including an air mattress, a room in a Langley townhouse, a room with a view in Squamish and an RV missing its wheels and motor.
One suggested he check out Trump Tower, something the star actually did while walking through the downtown core in April.
Another poked fun at the city that recently approved a tax on owners of vacant homes – a measure the government hopes will free up some properties for renters – writing, "Good news @ActuallyNPH, Vancouver is filled with empty homes. 26,000 last I heard!"
@CTVVancouver good news @ActuallyNPH, Vancouver is filled with empty homes. 26,000 last I heard! — PortMoodyGuy (@portmoodyguy) February 23, 2017
Airbnb wrote back, letting Harris know the company has "hundreds" of places for him to stay. "Have fun in the city of glass!" the tweet read.
Although the offers poured in, Harris tweeted earlier this month that he was loving Vancouver, but still trying to find the right place for his family.
The actor is in the city for work, filming the second season of "A Series of Unfortunate Events."
He posted a photo earlier this year of his character's signature ankle tattoo of an eye, confirming the show was renewed.
We got picked up for Season 2 of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I got this to celebrate. #firsttattoo #anklebone #oof #olaf #scampstamp @andersonluna @unfortunatetv @netflix A post shared by Neil Patrick Harris (@nph) on Mar 13, 2017 at 1:42pm PDT
The show, which airs on Netflix, is based on a popular children's book series of the same name, and its first season was filmed in Vancouver last spring and summer. According to YVRShoots.com, the series is set to shoot from April 17, 2017, until April 20, 2018.
But Harris, who plays the show's main villain Count Olaf, is no stranger to B.C.
He's been spotted across the province, occasionally with his family in tow. Last year, he went to the Vancouver Pride Parade, hiked the Stawamus Chief in Squamish, spent his anniversary with husband David Burtka in Tofino, and brought their young children up the Grouse Mountain gondola.
Harris has publicly professed his love of B.C., and praised Vancouver as a "fantastic city" in an article published in the New York Times earlier this year.@darkmanits said:
hy the hell would nerf Sorlag
@darkmanits said:
why on earth would you disable LORE FOUND
Because Sorlag is op? Has a press button to kill active when in close range or simply make traps? Has the largest stack in the game? And is still quite fast for a tank. Were have you been the last months? Did you not notice almost everyone also switch to Sorlag in the championships because there is no other counter to her that works?
And the lore vo was disabled so leavers have no clue when it is found hence they can't just drop a match and exit. Don't want to waste time farming it, then don't farm it. A lot of us don't and we still stumble across it from time to time. If everyone stopped chasing lores like it is the essence of life then it wouldn't be a problem to start with. Or, if you want to farm it regardless, make your way to the pots as you fight and add a challenge to yourself. Same way you would make your way to any other pickup. No idea why you can fight when running for a mega but all of a sudden cannot when looking for lore.
If anything, not knowing if it is picked up (which it usually is in the first 10 seconds) should discourage people from wasting their time (myself included sometimes here and there) looking for it rather than playing the actual game. The idea is to play the game and stumble across the lore during the fights.. Not change the whole basis of the game to go lore hunting.
"So what did you expect that everyone does..." Well, I'd say they expected people to simply play the game and give them something on the side to collect to make the longevity of the game better, same as runes that are presented as challenges. The notion that everyone (and trust me, its not everyone) would drop the fight to look for scrolls was not what one would expect from arena fps players. Maybe from mmo gamers or something, sure.Last year, Colorado expanded casino hours, raised maximum-bet limits and permitted roulette and craps, while Missouri eliminated a $500 loss limit at riverboat casinos. Delaware and Pennsylvania have weighed proposals to allow the conversion of slots parlors into full-service casinos, making further inroads into the eroding Atlantic City gambling industry.
Opponents, who only four years ago, when Congress was controlled by the Republicans, secured a law that banned the use of credit and debit cards to pay online casinos, said they were aghast. “People sometimes resort to drastic things when they are strapped for cash,” said Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, who called the new proposals “unfathomable.”
Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who leads the Financial Services Committee, has been the legislation’s champion.
“Some adults will spend their money foolishly, but it is not the purpose of the federal government to prevent them legally from doing it,” Mr. Frank said.
The committee’s top Republican, Representative Spencer Bachus of Alabama, noting the passage of far-reaching changes in financial regulation this month, said that “after all the talk last year about shutting down casinos on Wall Street,” he was incredulous that members would vote to “open casinos in every home and every bedroom and every dorm room, and on every iPhone, every BlackBerry, every laptop.”
Mr. Bachus said lobbyists had spent “tens of millions” to overturn the 2006 law. “They’ve had quite a bit of success in turning votes,” he said.
Supporters of legalization said fiscal considerations played a role in their thinking. “I was looking for the money,” Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said in an interview. He sponsored the companion measure to allow taxation of Internet gambling; he wants to dedicate the money to education.
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Representative Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, said in an interview that the money was an attractive source of financing for other programs. “We will not pass an Internet gaming bill,” Mr. Sherman predicted. “We will pass a bill to do something very important, funded by Internet gaming.”
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He added, “Forty-two billion dollars over 10 years has an effect.”
The legal status of online gambling has long been murky. The Justice Department asserts that the Wire Act of 1961 prohibits it, but prosecutors have largely left individual gamblers alone.
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To crack down on the activity, a 2006 law — inserted at the last minute into an unrelated bill in one of Congress’s last actions before Democrats took control — banned financial institutions from transmitting payments to and from gambling operators.
In the same year, the authorities arrested David Carruthers, a British online-gambling executive, as he changed flights at a Texas airport. He was sentenced to 33 months in prison for racketeering. Last year, the authorities ordered four banks to freeze the accounts of online payment processors that owed money to some 27,000 people who had used offshore poker sites.
But the enforcement actions have barely put a dent in the industry, experts say. Gamblers have used online payment processors, phone-based deposits and prepaid credit cards to circumvent the ban. By some estimates, American online gambling exceeds $6 billion a year.
“Today, any American with a broadband connection and a checking account can engage in any form of Internet gambling from any state,” Annie Duke, a professional poker player, testified in May on behalf of the Poker Players Alliance, which hired a former Republican senator from New York, Alfonse M. D’Amato, to lobby for the bill.
Michael Brodsky, executive chairman of YouBet.com, an online site for parimutuel horse racing, said, “As with Prohibition, illegal online gambling is thriving as an underground economy.”
Banks and credit unions said the 2006 law was poorly drafted — so much so that the Obama administration delayed, to June 1 of this year, the deadline for banks to comply with the law, to address concerns about its enforceability.
In 1999, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission urged the prohibition of Internet gambling. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said he would not support efforts to legalize online gambling, a view shared by most state attorneys general.
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“Because Internet gambling is essentially borderless activity, from a money-laundering and terrorism-financing perspective, it creates a regulatory and enforcement quagmire,” said James F. Dowling, a former special agent with the Internal Revenue Service.
And Mr. Bachus released a November letter from the F.B.I. in which Shawn Henry, the assistant director of the cyber division, said it would be difficult for companies to verify the age and location of their customers.
The bill contains measures intended to protect minors and combat compulsive addiction. It would allow states and Indian tribes to “opt out,” so players from those states and reservations would not be able to make online bets. But those governments would have a potentially lucrative incentive to allow the activity since they could then collect taxes from Internet casinos.
Before voting, the committee approved amendments to delegate enforcement duties to states and tribes, continue a ban on betting on sporting events, ban marketing aimed at children, and prohibit companies that violated the 2006 ban from obtaining licenses.A higher powered console generation means The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — the conclusion to a series widely praised for its visuals — can "go nuts" on graphics for all platforms without worrying about performance on one, the game's studio said in an interview.
"Because we are developing the game for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC, we go nuts in terms of visuals. We want the game to look as beautiful as possible," Tomasz Jarzebowski, global head of marketing for CD Projekt Red, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "I think we are in a good moment, we don't have to choose between better graphics or performance on either PC or consoles now, we can just create the best looking game possible."
Asked if that meant Wild Hunt would push the limits of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Jarzebowski wouldn't say for sure. "If it maxes out the consoles? Well, the future will tell," he said. "There are games that are being released for current-gen that look way better than everything created so far. We are always getting wiser and wiser, so I expect our next game will look even better."
The Witcher, a role-playing game based on the fantasy book series of the same name, was a PC-only game when it launched in 2007 (a Mac OS adaptation arrived later.) The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings also launched in 2012 on Xbox 360.
A hands-off preview shown to the Morning Herald was running on a custom PC, which meant a best-of-the-best showcase of all the game has to offer. The world of The Witcher 3 is described as 35 times larger than the map of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, requiring 40 minutes in-world, on a horse at full gallop, to traverse. CD Projekt Red said the game is expected to offer 50 hours of gameplay in its main story and another 50 with its side quests.
Originally slated to release at the end of this year, CD Projekt Red pushed the launch of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to February 2015. For more on The Witcher 3, see Polygon's impressions from the game's first demo at E3 2013.BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — A federal prosecutor has asked an Argentine court to reopen the complaint filed by the late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman charging that former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner covered up Iran’s role in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing.
The prosecutor, Raul Plee, filed a request Monday to reopen the case with the Federal Criminal Cassation Court.
On Monday, just after the new government voided the Argentine pact with Iran to jointly investigate the AMIA attack, Plee asked the justices to analyze new information collected during the case about the unconstitutiona lity of the Iran memorandum with an eye toward reviving Nisman’s theory that the pact was a bid to cover up Iran’s role in the bombing.
According to the state-run news agency Telam, Plee wrote in his request that during hearings about the unconstitutionality of the pact, the Foreign Ministry presented “secret and confidential” documents that could be considered useful to reactivate Nisman’s accusation against Kirchner, her Jewish former foreign minister, Hector Timerman, and others.
The prosecutor asked that the secret and confidential files be sent to prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita and to the judge, Daniel Rafecas. Pollicita was the prosecutor who took over Nisman’s accusation after his death and presented it to the court in February. Rafecas dismissed the accusation, saying it could not be sustained by the evidence.
Nisman was found dead on Jan. 18, hours before he was to present his allegations to Congress against Kirchner, Timerman and others. Whether his shooting death was murder or self-inflicted has yet to be determined.
Also Monday, during a ceremony in which he officially took office, the new president of the DAIA Jewish political umbrella, Ariel Cohen Sabban, said the circumstances surrounding Nisman’s death “should be clarified.”
“We demand a full clarification of this crime, which is surrounded by doubts and unanswered suspicions,” he said in his first speech as DAIA president.
Cohen Sabban is the first Orthodox Jew to head the Argentine Jewish political umbrella in its 80-year history.Software patents continue to drag down competition and innovation. The troubling news that a consortium of huge companies is using Nortel's patent portfolio to attack competitors underlines the problem. Continuing their war on Android using purchased patents rather than fair competition, the funders of Rockstar highlight the need for both patent reform and patent defenses.
While many open source advocates remain rightly concerned about the chilling effect of software patents on both innovation and collaboration, open source software has additional defenses against patent aggression that aren't available to proprietary software. The Open Invention Network (OIN), a novel patent pool fighting for rather than against open source, plays an important role in these defenses.
[ InfoWorld presents the Bossies 2013, the best open source software for clouds, mobile, developers, and more. | Track trends in open source with InfoWorld's Technology: Open Source newsletter. ]
1. The defensive patent pool
Eight years ago, in November 2005 -- at a time when the challenges from patent trolls and anticompetitive use of patents by market giants were small -- IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony formed the Open Invention Network in order to protect Linux and open source. Back then, it required foresight to see that patents would become a major competitive weapon for technology companies, but today the value of OIN is obvious.
OIN's network of licensees now numbers more than 600 companies worldwide. The list of open source software those licensees are committed to defend extends far beyond Linux to embrace even recent innovations. For example, MongoDB is included in the updated list that became effective in September.
Amazingly, the defenses offered by OIN are free of charge. As long as you are willing to commit to not initiating patent litigation against the software in OIN's list and to offering your own patents in defense of that software, you can benefit from access to hundreds of thousands of patents cross-licensed by the network.
It's easy to sign up, too. OIN recently introduced an online system that allows your company to sign up without the need for paper forms. (Tell 'em I sent you!)
OIN is the first tool on my list, and it's one you should seriously consider adopting. But the defenses that clear-thinking open source pioneers have created extend far beyond OIN's defensive patent pool and cross-licensing network.
2. The open source license
You may not realize it, but you may already benefit from extensive protection against the companies most likely to hold patents on the software you use. Open source licenses aren't just about giving you the freedom to use, study, improve, and distribute the software. Most modern open source licenses -- especially the Mozilla Public License, the GNU GPLv3, and the Apache Software License -- incorporate some form of reciprocal patent agreement.
Since many of the contributors to open source projects are patent-holding companies, this means you are the automatic recipient of patent licenses. When you innovate and contribute to the project, your innovations share the protection provided by the license.
What must you do to be protected? First, make sure the software you use is under one of these modern licenses; older licenses like BSD and MIT don't mention patents. Second, comply with the terms of the license -- easy enough for almost all open source licenses, especially compared with the labyrinthine complexity of commercial licenses and EULAs. As long as you comply with the terms of the license, you benefit from the protection it offers. Third, work in the open rather than making last-minute contributions. This is good practice anyway, but it adds protection too.In the end, the cops never came. But this shop, and the estimated 300 other dispensaries like it in the country, nonetheless operate illegally — at least for now. In Canada, only people with medical prescriptions for marijuana can legally buy it, through the mail, from the 20 companies that hold licenses from the federal government to produce and sell dried marijuana. Six more companies currently hold licenses to cultivate, but not to sell, the product.
"I would suggest getting a prescription so that you can get in on this," said one employee, pointing to the glass jars on the counter with various marijuana strains, such as Aphrodite and California Orange. Below, there were mountains of cannabis-infused chocolates, macaroons, and lollipops. "It's important we do things right here, by providing to people with valid prescriptions," she added.
The pair, like the store's employees, wore white lab coats adorned with green crosses on the front pocket. "The doctor is in!" Marc cheered as he wrapped his arms around girls with bright green wigs and marijuana leaf accessories to pose for a photo. A tray of "slightly medicated" beet and carrot juice shots floated by.
Hundreds of people dropped by 416 Medicinal that day to celebrate and to partake of the special deals — like $100 ounces of medical marijuana and free edibles for new members. Attendees also got to hang out with Canada's cannabis activist power couple, Marc Emery and his wife Jodie, who were flown in to "budtend" the occasion, helping patients select the best product to soothe their ailments.
The air was thick and everyone was giddy at the grand opening of one of Toronto's newest marijuana shops, one of a dozen that have popped up here over the last few weeks. No one seemed to care about, or even notice, the police car idling just outside.
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The air was thick and everyone was giddy at the grand opening of one of Toronto's newest marijuana shops, one of a dozen that have popped up here over the last few weeks. No one seemed to care about, or even notice, the police car idling just outside.
Hundreds of people dropped by 416 Medicinal that day to celebrate and to partake of the special deals — like $100 ounces of medical marijuana and free edibles for new members. Attendees also got to hang out with Canada's cannabis activist power couple, Marc Emery and his wife Jodie, who were flown in to "budtend" the occasion, helping patients select the best product to soothe their ailments.
The pair, like the store's employees, wore white lab coats adorned with green crosses on the front pocket. "The doctor is in!" Marc cheered as he wrapped his arms around girls with bright green wigs and marijuana leaf accessories to pose for a photo. A tray of "slightly medicated" beet and carrot juice shots floated by.
"I would suggest getting a prescription so that you can get in on this," said one employee, pointing to the glass jars on the counter with various marijuana strains, such as Aphrodite and California Orange. Below, there were mountains of cannabis-infused chocolates, macaroons, and lollipops. "It's important we do things right here, by providing to people with valid prescriptions," she added.
In the end, the cops never came. But this shop, and the estimated 300 other dispensaries like it in the country, nonetheless operate illegally — at least for now. In Canada, only people with medical prescriptions for marijuana can legally buy it, through the mail, from the 20 companies that hold licenses from the federal government to produce and sell dried marijuana. Six more companies currently hold licenses to cultivate, but not to sell, the product.
Newly-inaugurated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly promised to "legalize, regulate, and restrict" access to marijuana for recreational use in Canada, making it the first G7 nation to do so. Trudeau has long criticized his Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper for rolling in new mandatory minimum sentences for cannabis-related offenses, and for ignoring evidence-based approaches to cannabis research and policy decisions.
Related: From 'Raving Maniacs' to the 'Prince of Pot': A History of Weed in Canada
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, almost 4,000 adults convicted for marijuana possession were sentenced to prison from 2008 to 2012.
In spite of its pitfalls, Canada's existing federal medical marijuana infrastructure, honed under the Conservatives, has been hailed as the most sophisticated in the world. Estimates suggest that a new recreational market would have as many as seven million customers and a market value of $5 billion a year — setting it up to be the largest government-monitored marijuana jurisdiction on the planet.
It's unclear exactly when or how legalization will happen. And it certainly won't be easy to roll out, with experts and Trudeau himself saying it could take years. But for many, it doesn't matter: Trudeau in power means the drug is as good as legal.
But reality paints a different picture.
So far, under the Liberals' reign that began last month, federal and local police forces across the country have carried out several raids on dispensaries. Marijuana-related criminal charges continue to be pursued. 45 days after Trudeau came to power, cannabis advocates who rejoiced at his victory are getting anxious at the silence.
Some are threatening to "revolt" if he doesn't get down to business soon, as questions abound over who will be included in and pushed out of Canada's new weed regime.
The fruits of an independent grower operating under a former regulatory regime in Ontario. Photo by Anthony Tuccitto
Growing It Alone
One of the first bumps on the long road toward legalization will likely be the standoff between the thousands of people who have held licenses to grow their own plants for more than a decade — a number of whom illicitly supply to dispensaries — and the 26 government-sanctioned companies that have recently superseded them as the official growers of medical marijuana.
Starting in 1999, Canadians could possess dried marijuana and produce their own plants for medical purposes if they got an exemption under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The following year, the government grudgingly set up the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) in response to an Ontario court ruling that found the prohibition of marijuana possession violated basic civil liberties by making it almost impossible for patients to legally access cannabis.
This new system, the world's first national medical marijuana regime, also marked Health Canada's chokehold on a drug the department never believed had medical benefits and refuses to refer to by its correct spelling.
The MMAR allowed patients to get a special license to produce their own plants, get someone else with a license to produce it for them, or allow them to buy one strain of marijuana through Health Canada.
But this wasn't good enough. The MMAR was dealt a series of blows in court, with patients arguing the program still didn't ensure reasonable access to medical cannabis. That being said, the number of people enrolled in the program exploded from 477 in 2002 to almost 22,000 in 2012. Most of them held a license to grow cannabis, though the program was never designed to allow for large-scale grow operations.
For years, police complained about safety hazards associated with these private growers — like heat lamps, electrical malfunctions, and flooding. In 2011, federal police in Mission, British Columbia, sounded the alarm over growers being violently robbed of their crops by an organized crime group, a trend that was seen in other parts of the province. Shortly after, the government decided to take things into its own hands and do away with the MMAR system.
In 2013, the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) came into force, replacing the MMAR. It's the system that's still in place today, in which only companies with government licenses can grow and distribute marijuana under strict conditions. Doctors are the gatekeepers for the system, but because of a lack of research and guidance from Health Canada, most refuse to sign prescriptions for the drug.
Recent stats say the entire number of patients registered for medical cannabis is around 40,000. Individuals must now purchase their products through these companies alone.
Whether MMAR license holders can continue to grow is an ongoing topic of dispute, and the substance of a class action lawsuit by patients who argue that the MMPR is unconstitutional and should be struck down. Until the federal court makes a decision on the matter, it has granted an injunction so that they can continue growing.
Related: Canada's Medical Weed Industry Braces for Legalization if Liberals Win Election
Because this case deals solely with a class of medical, not recreational, users, it's difficult to say whether the court's decision will have any impact on recreational users in the future.
But whatever happens, legalization will need to account for the interests of the people who rely on it for medicine, John Conroy, the lawyer representing the patients, said.
"There is a distinction between medical and social use," he said. "People seem to think that if you can get marijuana socially, you don't need to have special rules for medical users."
That's a concern in some US states where marijuana is legal for any purpose, but which cap how much patients can buy.
"Also, these patients want to be in control of how their medicine is made and how much it costs. They want to buy products that are certified to be medical grade, not compromised by what some huge producer will put in it," he said. "So allowing individuals to produce for themselves and control the cost is the big factor in our case here, and that's something that should be allowed in Canada's future system of legalized marijuana."
Infographic by Jane Kim
Risky Business
A bunch of dachshunds, one very pregnant, looked up at their owners, who were smoking their homemade shatter in a living room in Ontario.
Brothers Jeff and Ben — who requested their real names and exact location be omitted out of concern for prosecution — had spent the morning tending to their cannabis plants, as they do every day. They, along with other members of their family, have MMAR licenses to grow for themselves and a small roster of local patients. They supply to a few dispensaries in Toronto, under law enforcement's nose.
"Our customers all love it, they just eat it up," said Jeff as he opened the concealed door to a room where the plants are kept. It takes a minute to adjust to the bright yellow lights. "Once we started to get recognition for our product, we couldn't keep the stuff longer than a minute."
There are about 50 plants, three different strains, that have a couple more weeks to go until they're ready for harvest. There's another batch starting to grow in a room upstairs.
Ben said he recently tried a friend's product from a licensed producer, but couldn't bear it. "If I could find where I threw it on the floor, I'd show it to you," he laughed. "It's ground up like coffee. There's no smell. It tasted like shit. And the whole thing is just mean because of the prices they charge."
The secret to a high-quality crop, they say, is constant devotion to each and every plant.
"We're here at least two hours a day trimming them, talking to them, playing music for them. Their favorite is Michael Jackson," Ben said.
This family talks about legalization all the time. They hope to expand further and finally bring their business out into the open. They dream of being able to take orders online. "We're definitely not the only ones around here with licenses. Everybody knows about each other, but we don't all talk about it. But we're really proud of what we do. The recreational market could be a big industry in these parts for sure."
A huge part of their business is the extraction techniques they use, with the chemical butane, on parts of the plant to produce concentrated forms of marijuana. "The patients don't want to smoke their bud anymore these days, it's this they want," says Jeff as he unwraps a package of hard brown shatter — also referred to as wax, sap, and budder, depending on what it looks like.
One of the Ontario brothers at home. Photo by Anthony Tuccitto
The product created is smoked or vaporized with a special device and heated with a blowtorch. This is commonly known as "dabbing."
Jeff holds his up to the window as it glows in the sun. "Just look at that color and clarity. Hands down we have the nicest and best out there. It's a monster."
"It gives you that instant pain relief without having to consume a lot. It's like a kick in the ass that you want," he said.
Their operation is radically different from those of the licensed producers, who are subjected to monthly inspections by Health Canada, and must follow strict protocol on how they cultivate and produce their marijuana. All facilities must have high-quality security systems throughout. Anyone who enters the facilities in which the plants are grown must sign in and out, wear a hazmat suit, and cover their hair and mouth. Shoes are also covered. Any recalled products are posted online. Licensed producers are required to destroy any and all product found to be in violation of these guidelines.
Ask any licensed producer, also known as LPs, and they will boast about their "state of the art" facilities and growing techniques.
A big one of those LPs is Canntrust, whose production facility is in Vaughan, Ontario and operates under a a license to produce granted by Health Canada in 2014.
"We're organic," said CEO Eric Paul Sitting, a pharmacist by training. "We want to be pesticide-free and we only use naturally occurring elements. That was our design."
"With this new government, however they are going to legalize it, they want to get the illegals out of the business," he continued. "The back end is the gangs, whoever controls those grows."
"We know there's a lot of pesticides in those products. Heavy-duty pesticides. Unsanitary conditions. Some of that stuff is |
trying to ride a wave of enthusiasm to finally achieve his goals. “Ultimately, it’s never going to be a good time for the Iraqi Kurds to become independent,” Amberin Zaman, a veteran Kurdish analyst, told me. “This has been going on for nearly a century.”
While the referendum poses significant risks for the region, Zaman said that Iraqi Kurdish officials might view the convergence of recent events as giving them their best shot at independence. “[For the KRG], in many respects this is the best possible time, bearing in mind that Kurds were allowed to gain control of disputed territories, the fact that the central government in Baghdad is weak, [and] that potential aggressors, the Shia militias are exhausted by this battle against the Islamic State,” she added.can be used to desensitize predisposed individuals to violence, turning war into a game. When people are reduced to tiny white dots on an infrared display and all it takes to make those dots stop moving is the push of a button, we should acknowledge the similarities, and realize that video games, like any other form of storytelling, affect a small percentage of the population in ways that should make detecting those at-risk individuals a priority. But we know regular folks can kill thousands of virtual people without developing a lust for blood. We're smarter than those empty-headed flap-jaws. We know the REAL danger posed by games; the thing that will take normal people like you and I and fill us with an unfathomable rage, a yearning for chaos, and a disdain for anything that isn't in absolute ruin: licensed games.
Granted, not all licensed games are as bad as E.T. on the 2600. Many aren't half bad, managing to give the player enough things to play with, and a compelling enough reason to play with them. Some are very well-made, respectable games that can easily be played twice (Aliens: Infestation comes to mind). But the ones that linger in our memories like a skunk's spray are the absolute pieces of trash that dare to be called games when they're coming apart at the seams. These disgraces to the medium masquerading as must-play experiences certainly had an easier job back before we could tap into the collective consciousness of our fellow gamers using the very devices on which we play them. We went in blind, braving the concrete jungles in search of digestible digital fruit that would leave us feeling satisfied. Unfortunately, this wasn't always the case. We can only hope poisonous pieces of rot like Disney's Tarzan for the Game Boy Color didn't break the psyches of those children unfortunate enough to receive it back in 1999. Every new artistic medium undergoes a process of initiation; a collective hazing undertaken by talking heads trying to misdirect the masses while the truly evil forces behind the curtains carry on unnoticed. Video games are the newest scapegoat, and have arguably shouldered more blame than any other medium due to their interactive nature. Those talking heads would have us believe that all it takes to turn an otherwise moral person into a deranged psychopath is to kill pretend people in a pretend world on a two-dimensional monitor. Hell, given the training tools used in the military, it's clear that simulationbe used to desensitize predisposed individuals to violence, turning war into a game. When people are reduced to tiny white dots on an infrared display and all it takes to make those dots stop moving is the push of a button, we should acknowledge the similarities, and realize that video games, like any other form of storytelling, affect a small percentage of the population in ways that should make detecting those at-risk individuals a priority. But we know regular folks can kill thousands of virtual people without developing a lust for blood. We're smarter than those empty-headed flap-jaws. We know the REAL danger posed by games; the thing that will take normal people like you and I and fill us with an unfathomable rage, a yearning for chaos, and a disdain for anything that isn't in absolute ruin: licensed games.Granted, not all licensed games are as bad ason the 2600. Many aren't half bad, managing to give the player enough things to play with, and a compelling enough reason to play with them. Some are very well-made, respectable games that can easily be played twice (comes to mind). But the ones that linger in our memories like a skunk's spray are the absolute pieces of trash that dare to be called games when they're coming apart at the seams. These disgraces to the medium masquerading as must-play experiences certainly had an easier job back before we could tap into the collective consciousness of our fellow gamers using the very devices on which we play them. We went in blind, braving the concrete jungles in search of digestible digital fruit that would leave us feeling satisfied. Unfortunately, this wasn't always the case. We can only hope poisonous pieces of rot like Disney'sfor the Game Boy Color didn't break the psyches of those children unfortunate enough to receive it back in 1999.
Disney's Tarzan was a great animated film. The Activision-published GBC game of the same name is the Buffalo Bill of video games, hiding under the skin of something beautiful. On the surface, Tarzan is everything a kid could want in a video game. It's got characters from one of their favorite movies depicted with crisp, vibrant visuals, and more than solid gameplay mechanics. But it's not long before the seams in this grotesque mask become apparent. Upon starting the game, we're greeted by a splash screen featuring young Tarzan and the words "Learning the Ropes". The level starts and we're told to collect 45 bananas. Given the title and task, it's only logical to assume this to be a tutorial of some sort. So you scour the level collecting every banana in sight, swinging on ropes, climbing vine-covered walls, avoiding hanging snakes and charging boars. But look out for that alligator lurking in the water! Be wary not to land right on top of it or it'll jump straight out of the water and... go right through you. Sadly, it only gets worse.
After collecting the arbitrary number of bananas for reasons, it's time to find Terk! Tarzan's hairy gorilla friend is hidden somewhere in the exact level you just laboriously combed for bananas. This segment continues play from the exact spot on which the final banana was collected, which in some cases will be directly beside Turk. At other times, he might spawn directly on top of a snake that they decided to suddenly add to the landscape, taking unavoidable damage. In one level I managed to make a snake vanish by moving it off-screen and quickly back on.
After finding Terk, it's time to collect more bananas. Then it's time to find Terk. Then it's more bananas, more hide and seek... What's this? We get to play as Terk? Finally, a change of pace. What are we--oh... more bananas. More seeking. She plays exactly the same as Tarzan. This pattern repeats more times than I dare replay to properly count, set to the same three-second snippet of crackly music looping over and over and over again. It's insanity. Time flies when you're having fun, but the only thing flying here are the insects swarming around this putrid piece of shit. Finally, after time ceases to exist, a true gameplay variation appears. Fleeing from a stampede of elephants, we guide Tarzan along the X axis, avoiding logs, and occasionally jumping to collect BANANAS. This segment is even more bereft of substance than the bananaganza hide-and-seek one-two punch the game's been dishing out up until now, never mind the fact that it's essentially the stampede segment in the Lion King game.
But not to worry, it's promptly back to the same old routine. It's around this point the mind begins to crack. The fingers become sluggish, and the lives are eventually reduced to zero. Game over. Main Menu. Oh, you didn't notice that "Password" option there before? You probably should have taken a quick look at it before you started the game, because then you would have realized that those four square tiles displayed on one of the level's splash screens that you'd already grown accustomed to button mashing past by that point was a PASSWORD. Even if it were labelled as such, it's only shown for a few seconds before fading to the next banana-laden map.
As far as any reasonable person should be concerned, that's where the game ends. Sure, the passwords are probably all easily found in some online walkthrough, but given the era in which the game was released, it should be held to the standards of someone without access to that information. Maybe later levels feature adult Tarzan with cool moves and no bananas, and maybe they don't. It's simply unfinished. The only way to return to the main menu is to soft reset. The bananas scream placeholder, probably acting as a way for the developers to test each layout before adding the actual gameplay in later. If the game does switch things up in later levels, then it's not so much unfinished as it is artificially expanded. Arbitrary collectathons and backtracking do not a game make.
Believe it or not, there are additional features. Paint'N'Print apparently allows those with a Game Boy Printer to print their own arrangement of characters and props over various backdrops. The Hide'N'Seek game mode is the only slightly redeeming quality to be found. Working within a time limit, one player hides Tarzan in one of the dozens of available spots before passing it off to a friend who then searches for him. Then the roles are reversed, as it is with real hide and seek, which is exponentially more fun than this game, though it might be fun for a car ride.
The developers built a solid foundation, threw up some cardboard walls then proceeded to draw on windows and doorways with their own feces. In the kitchen you'll find a refrigerator, door hanging on a single hinge, overflowing with bananas. Upon closer inspection, they're just dry turds painted yellow. In the bathroom, you'll find a toilet. Aim for the bowl. To your left, you notice a deep pit dug into the floor. Looking in, you notice a copy of Disney's Tarzan on DVD, plastic case shattered to bits. You hear a soft 'clack' behind you and turn to face it. It's a copy of Disney's Tarzan for the Game Boy Color.
It puts the bananas in the basket.
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Released: 1999-06-29
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Digital Eclipse SoftwareFor most of her life, “Little House on the Prairie” star Alison Arngrim hid a painful secret: She’d been sexually abused by a family member during her childhood, before landing the role of TV villain Nellie Oleson on the ‘70s series. Arngrim didn’t share her story with the world until she was 42, after learning about a loophole in California law that allowed sexual predators to avoid jail time ― even if convicted ― if they were related to their victim. Offenders could even have their records wiped clean in exchange for undergoing therapy.
Learning about this so-called “incest exception” left Arngrim outraged.
“It was ridiculous,” she tells OWN Digital in a Skype interview. “The majority of children who are sexually abused are sexually abused by someone they’re related to or someone very close to the family. So, this wasn’t an ‘exception,’ as they were calling it. It was, in fact, the rule. It was insane.”
Arngrim was determined to change the law in California. She began working with the National Association to Protect Children (PROTECT), who brought the loophole to the attention of a state senator. In 2004, Republican Sen. Jim Battin introduced a corrective bill that would eliminate the “incest exception.” However, passing the bill was still difficult.
“Politics are politics,” Arngrim says. “We had quite a fight on our hands.”
With the support of PROTECT, Arngrim testified in front of the California Senate along with other abuse victims with similar stories. It was the first time she’d revealed her molestation. “It was absolutely petrifying,” she says.
Arngrim then took the fight to the media. In interview after interview, she shared her story of abuse. In 2005, the “Circle of Trust” bill passed unanimously.
Via OWN Alison Arngrim, left, testifies in the California Senate to help close the loophole that used to allow child predators to avoid jail time if their victims were related to them.
Today, Arngrim has a message for others determined to affect political change. It’s possible, she says, and it all starts with educating yourself.
First, you need to know who your state and federal legislative representatives are: Look them up on House.gov (federal) and on a site like OpenStates.org (state).
Second, Arngrim suggests doing research to understand what your laws are and how laws are passed.
Third, make sure to vote in local elections (city council, school board, etc.).WASHINGTON—Following a controversial broadcast of CBS's The Big Bang Theory during which vaginal penetration could be seen on-screen for more than a minute, the FCC announced Friday it would not levy a fine against the network, saying the show was "a strong episode," and the cast and crew of the sitcom deserved some leeway to achieve their creative vision. "While the extended full-frontal shot of Howard's penis repeatedly entering Bernadette's exposed vagina is fairly explicit by most network TV standards, we made an exception, seeing as this was the season finale and the scene was sort of necessary to advance the story," said FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who claimed the show's 8 p.m. airtime meant most kids were probably asleep anyway. "Also, a lot of the funniest jokes wouldn't have made sense without actually showing the act of penetration all the way through to Howard ejaculating, so we figured we'd bend the rules just this once." Genachowski added that it wasn't as if the two characters were smoking cigarettes while they were copulating or anything bad like that.Tuition: $14,068. Rent: $2,600. Books: $565. Gas: $53. Parking Permit: $377. Having the financial aid office reduce your funding midsemester without any prior warning: priceless.
After graduating with my bachelor’s degree in English in spring 2017, I returned in the fall to complete my second degree in gender studies. With only a senior seminar and an elective left to take, my advisor gave me the green light to take a reduced course load.
Many student-parents at UC Berkeley have taken advantage of UC Berkeley’s reduced course load policy, which allows student-parents to drop down to eight units while still being considered full-time students. Until this semester, I had personally never taken advantage of this academic plan. Many parents, however, have found that it greatly increases their ability to keep up with their rigorous coursework while still being able to spend quality time with their kids.
Come last week, I logged onto my CalCentral account to make an appointment with my advisor, only to find that I had been billed a hefty $1,400 by Financial Aid. The charge read “Federal Pell Grant.” That was it. No explanation. Nothing.
Cue my panic attack, followed by a two-hour hold to speak with someone at the Financial Aid office who inevitably gave me some kind of variation of the non-answer “these things differ on a case-to-case basis.”
I came to find that many other student-parents were also billed with this ominous charge on their Cal Central account, none of whom had any clue as to why.
After another hourlong hold on the phone and four hours waiting on campus for an in-person appointment, I was finally informed by an advisor that the Pell Grant (which is a federal grant issued by the United States government out of the general federal revenue) only recognizes students enrolled in 15 units as full-time. Thus, student-parents taking reduced course loads had their Pell Grant fundings reduced and were required to pay back their original disbursements.
For many student-parents, unexpected shifts in financial aid such as this are significantly more stressful than they are for the average student.
Don’t get me wrong — financial stress in college happens to more than just student-parents. According to the National Student Wellness Financial Study, seven out of 10 college students feel stressed about their personal finances. For students attending UC Berkeley, which is conveniently located in a city with one of the highest cost-of-living rates in the nation, the personal expenses (rent, food, etc.) tacked onto an already costly tuition bill are overwhelming.
Student-parents, however, have to factor in the additional cost of raising children. According to Time magazine, the average cost of raising a child from birth to adulthood is $233,610. Raising your kid in the Bay Area, where the average cost of daycare sits at a cool $1,900 a month per child? $402,112.
Thanks to Facebook and the amazing student-parent population at UC Berkeley that utilizes it, I found the resolution to my problem.
The post on the UCB Student Parent Association for Recruitment and Retention Facebook page read,“REDUCED COURSE LOAD STUDENTS this week you may notice your Pell Grant funding has been reduced and a charge on your account. However, this reduction should be offset by a ‘UC Pell Grant Replacement’ for the exact same amount. Sometimes this process can take a few days and during that time it can appear that you owe more money.”
I was informed. And I was relieved.
The student-parent community can no longer be left in the dark, as they are with many conversations that go on within campus.
The changes to their financial aid packages were both drastic and imminent, yet there seemed to be no heads-up given by the university to the student-parents who opted to take reduced course loads.
Easily accessible information is the most invaluable resource to student-parents, who are constantly having to think just not about themselves, but about their children, as well. The campus needs to continue to shift its culture to be more student-parent-friendly, especially regarding matters of financial aid. This means keeping students up-to-date with changes to their financial aid packages and making assistance to them readily available when these changes occur.
And no, holding for two hours to speak to financial aid advisor who has to forward your case to their supervisor before they answer any questions doesn’t count.
Mia Villanueva writes the Thursday column on her experience as a student-parent at UC Berkeley. Contact her at [email protected].If progressives fail to seize the populist moment, the authoritarian right will fill the void. The insurgent Bernie Sanders campaign was a big step forward in building the progressive populist political alignment we need. Now that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee, we have to figure out how to keep building after the 2016 election cycle. But first we must mobilize to defeat hate, bigotry, and the growing threat of fascism.
Two populisms
We are living in very exciting times. And we are living in very dangerous times. This year I was thrilled by the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. It’s remarkable how close he came to winning the Democratic Party nomination, considering the resources and organization arrayed against his insurgent campaign. Like many others, I voted for Bernie in the primary and did what I could to work for his nomination. I wish he had won for so many reasons. Obviously there’s the fact that he is genuinely progressive and willing to fight against entrenched power, including his own party’s stale leadership. He signals a potential progressive direction for both the Democratic Party and the country. As important, I think Sanders was the stronger candidate in the general election — for reasons that most in the Democratic Party leadership completely fail to grasp. Why do I think Bernie would have been more viable? For the same reason that I thought Trump had the potential to win the Republican nomination since last summer: we are living in populist times.
Let me be more specific than the pundits who have been throwing around the word populism willy-nilly in recent months, as if it were not much more than a bad mood swing of the American electorate. To be living in populist times is to be living in an era when political authority is no longer seen as legitimate by most people; what’s often referred to as a crisis of legitimacy. During such a crisis, populist movements and leaders emerge, from both the right and the left, in order to forge a new popular alignment of social forces. Populists explain the causes of the crisis, they name ‘the establishment’ as the problem, and they articulate a new vision forward — an aspirational horizon — for ‘the people.’ Left-wing populism and right-wing populism thus share certain rhetorical features (i.e., ‘the people’ aligned against ‘the establishment’), but their contents and consequences could hardly be further apart. The retrograde ‘aspirational horizon’ of right-wing populism tends to be in the rearview mirror: a nostalgic longing for a simpler time that never actually existed. More importantly, despite its ostensible anti-elitism, right-wing populism always punches down, unifying ‘the people’ (some of them) by scapegoating a demonized other: blacks, Jews, homosexuals, immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims — take your pick — depending on the opportunities available to the particular demagogue in the given context.
“Despite displaying the trappings of anti-elitism, right-wing populism always punches down, unifying ‘the people’ by scapegoating a demonized other.”
The signs of the present crisis accumulated for a long time: The Iraq War, crumbling public infrastructure, Hurricane Katrina, growing inequality. But if any single event brought about a popular recognition of the crisis of legitimacy, it was the financial meltdown of 2008. Despite reestablishing some level of relative stability, this underlying crisis has stayed with us since then, even if often out of sight and out of the minds of the punditry and the political class. Their underestimation of the magnitude of the crisis is what has made them so useless in predicting the remarkable success of the insurgencies within both major parties in 2016.
In these two insurgencies we can see the ‘two sides’ of populism and the two very different possible paths. Thus, a crisis of legitimacy is exciting for progressives insofar as it places our potential path right in front of us. It presents our underdog movements with an incredible opportunity to narrate the crisis, to reframe the premises of American society, and to organize a new progressive populist alignment capable of challenging the entrenched power of elites: in short, a political revolution. But a crisis of legitimacy is extraordinarily dangerous for a left that is not ready to take advantage of it. History shows that when progressives fail to realign popular social forces in such populist moments, reactionary authoritarians can suddenly step in with remarkable speed and horrific consequences. That is what we are witnessing with the rise of Trump in the United States, and with the related rise of fascism (leaders, movements, and political parties) throughout much of Europe. The stakes of everything we do right now are extraordinarily high.
Neoliberals, progressives, and the Democratic Party
The Democratic Party establishment ultimately defeated the Sanders insurgency in the nomination contest. In doing so, it shot itself in the foot. Anti-establishment messages and the trappings of the underdog, the outsider, the insurgent are now the effective monopoly of Donald Trump for the remainder of this election season. Hillary Clinton cannot convincingly tap into this populist spirit. The problem isn’t that she’s bad at messaging. The problem is that she symbolizes the establishment precisely because of the political choices she has made over the course of her entire career. And this isn’t just about the person Hillary Clinton or her individual choices; it’s about the choices of the whole Democratic Party establishment over the past few decades.
Occupy Wall Street. Photo credit: Harrie van Veen (CC BY 2.0)
In ingratiating itself to Wall Street and the ‘one percent,’ the Democratic Party has forfeited a resonant moral message on ‘bread-and-butter’ issues that could win over a solid majority of Americans. The Party’s problem isn’t just a “messaging dilemma.” There is no message that can inspire the working people who were once-upon-a-time the predominant social base of the Democratic Party while simultaneously appealing to the neoliberal professional class and the finance cabal that has become the functional base of the Party today. It’s very difficult, for example, to take a $225,000 speaking fee from Goldman Sachs and then deliver a convincing economic populist appeal to voters.
This conflict of political interests brings into focus the huge differences between the Bernie Sanders insurgency and the Democratic Party establishment. Pretending like these differences are insignificant — i.e., that Bernie supporters’ concerns are unimportant — is a terrible strategy for winning these young people’s votes in November. This all blew up at the Democratic National Convention this week, in predictable fashion, exposing the chasm between today’s emerging progressivism and the stale liberalism of yesteryear.
“Minimizing Bernie supporters’ concerns is a terrible strategy for winning their votes in November.”
Economic inequality is central to the emerging progressivism, along with the conviction that the political system has been rigged to serve only an obscenely wealthy few. The same may have been true of liberalism to an extent in the past, but to the younger generation ‘liberalism’ has come to mean only socially liberal and it is also associated with elitism. This negative association is partly the product of a quite effective decades-long conservative project to tarnish the word liberal. But we might ask why this campaign worked so well. Why did it resonate?
Strategic racism (a term elaborated by Ian Haney López) provides a big part of the explanation. Conservative politicians and operatives cynically appealed to white solidarity and white fear as they associated liberalism with a welfare state whose recipients were framed as lazy and taking-advantage, if not outright dangerous criminals; the plausibly deniable insinuation was that this ‘element’ of society was colored black or brown (even if the actual data showed that whites comprised the majority of welfare recipients). It is hard to overstate the significance of this strategy in turning middleclass whites against public institutions and social welfare.
Yet there’s another reason why this negative branding campaign against the liberal label worked so well, which is that there’s more than a grain of truth to the charge against contemporary liberalism — that it is elitist. As organized labor declined, and along with it, unions’ influence as an essential bloc in the (then unraveling) New Deal Coalition, successful baby boomers grew up to become the new creative professional class and a central social base of the new Democratic Party. More individualistic than their parents, this generation of liberals pursued its private dreams, which tended to include living and working in socially liberal highly educated relatively affluent enclaves. Whether or not there is a correlation between affluence and those who identify as liberal, there is certainly a popular association between the two.
Thus, many young progressives today do not identify as ‘liberal.’ And why should we? Those who have brandished the liberal label most visibly over the past few decades — especially Democratic Party politicians — have often gone hook, line, and sinker for neoliberal free trade policies that have further consolidated the wealth and power of the extremely rich. This is precisely why Hillary Clinton is more vulnerable to Donald Trump than the Democratic Party establishment ever dreamed possible — especially in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan (where Trump’s protectionist critique of ‘free trade’ resonates). This is also one compelling reason why many of the most politically developed young progressives have become increasingly critical of the limits of the project of liberalism itself. We want a whole lot more.
And we are on the rise. There’s reason to be hopeful that the future leans left. A new generation that does not accept the lie that ‘there is no alternative’ is coming of age. In 1989 neoliberals and neocons trumpeted the failure of the Marxist historical project. Today in the United States more people under 30 identify with socialism than with capitalism. The ‘end of history’ is obviously over. And is it any wonder? We have entered adulthood to find our nation’s infrastructure crumbling, our government hijacked by a mix of elitist neoliberals and extremist obstructionists, our economic prospects bleak and likely saddled with mountains of debt, our natural world writhing in crisis, our culture’s rampant individualism hollow and unfulfilling, the international scene a hot mess, and our society lacking a collective aspirational horizon. Capitalism’s platitudes do nothing for us. Call us socialists as an epithet, and it will fall flat.
Something profound has been happening in the subaltern spaces of American culture over the past two decades. The upwardly mobile professional class — which of course includes the punditry — has neglected to glance down to notice the ground shifting beneath its feet. On nearly every major issue, relatively progressive positions have come to enjoy a majority of support. From regulating Wall Street to progressive taxation to health care, from mass incarceration to marijuana legalization to gay marriage, the nation has become progressive. The demographics and the culture have dramatically changed. But because progressives lack a foothold on today’s political machinery, and because our voices are marginalized in the mainstream media, few at the top see what’s happening — and what’s coming. They still believe that ‘America is a conservative country.’ Indeed, on issue after issue politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties wildly overestimate the electorate’s conservatism.
“Because progressives lack a foothold on today’s political machinery, and because our voices are marginalized in the mainstream media, few at the top see what’s happening — and what’s coming.”
Republicans, Democrats, and the punditry alike usually take at face value the continual stream of polls that show the relatively low percentage of Americans who identify as ‘liberal’ as compared with those who identify as ‘conservative.’ If one had no other information, it would be reasonable to conclude that such polls suggest that the country is predominantly conservative, and perhaps liberal partisans should lower their expectations about what’s possible. However, when pollsters make the simple move of substituting the label ‘liberal’ with ‘progressive,’ a majority of Americans identify as the latter. Of course, the term progressive can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. A less ambiguous gauge is Americans’ steady shift to the left on specific issue after issue.
Here in a nutshell is the delusion of the old guard of the establishment Democratic Party: they think Americans are still orienting ourselves along a stale liberal/conservative spectrum. In relation to those labels, they fancy that enlightened liberals like themselves are in the slight minority, and so they conclude that the prudent and pragmatic place to position themselves is as close to the center as possible. What they fail to grasp is that Americans today are not only more socially liberal than ever, we’re also increasingly orienting ourselves along a populist/establishment spectrum. When such a spectrum becomes popularly resonant — as happens in a crisis of legitimacy — it tends to eventually become a losing equation for ‘the establishment.’ As populism ascends, those who are dubbed ‘establishment’ can do no right; every action the establishment takes is framed by populist insurgents as a violation of the sovereign will of ‘the people.’ This is why Bernie Sanders was not only the far more progressive Democratic candidate; he was also the more electable one. And this is why Donald Trump may very well become the next President of the United States. By choosing the establishment candidate in populist times, the Democratic Party has effectively ceded a powerful political weapon — populism — to the extreme right.
Again, the character of the populism that emerges out of a crisis of legitimacy is a contingent outcome; it can be progressive or reactionary. With Trump’s nomination, we are seeing just how consequential the choice before us is. Also with Trump’s rise we see the predictable arguments of the liberal establishment warning against losing the center with a progressive vision that ‘goes too far.’ They’re using the same recipe they’ve followed the entirety of their political careers, failing to grasp that the ingredients have changed. In a populist era like the one we are entering, playing to the center is a losing prospect. The present crisis of legitimacy will almost certainly result in a major political realignment. Such realignments are rarely articulated from the safe center. When the priests lose their authority, prophets emerge from the wilderness, from the margins, with visions of a path forward.
And where prophets emerge, so do false prophets. When conditions are ripe for progressive populism, they are equally ripe for the faux-populism of the extreme right — the Mussolinis and Hitlers and Trumps. The central shared characteristic that justifies the placement of these three demagogues in the same list is the way each blends economic nationalism with race- or ethnicity-based national solidarity. The way progressive forces can fight this is not by retreating from populism itself, but by contesting the meaning of populism. In a populist moment, winning the political struggle depends heavily upon our ability to frame a more powerful “we” than our opponents. In times of crisis, people are especially keen on establishing a sense of solidarity and community. The right is framing the we in terms of an ethno-nationalism that shuts out the other. The left can win if it constructs a more compelling we that is inclusive of all pockets of society, and if it names unchecked greed and a corrupt establishment as the enemies, rather than certain kinds of people.
“When conditions are ripe for progressive populism, they are equally ripe for the faux-populism of the extreme right.”
We can find some strategic lessons from our own history here in the United States. We should not forget that at the time of Mussolini and Hitler, there was also FDR and the New Deal Coalition (whose political strength was grassroots social movements). Moreover, fascism wasn’t just a European phenomenon; fascists constituted a strong organized force in the United States in the 1930s. Thankfully, progressive forces won the day on this side of the Atlantic, even if that victory was complicated and left many grievances yet to be redressed. Today our historic task is not merely to repeat the economic populism of the New Deal, but to figure out how to blend it together seamlessly with racial justice, gender justice, sexual liberation, and care for the natural world. This will not be easy, but we have to figure out how to articulate this vision as our aspirational horizon.
Bernie Sanders’ popular insurgent candidacy was a major step forward on that path. The campaign fell short of winning the nomination, but it came close. And its surprising strength signals an end to establishment politics as we know it in the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton is on the 2016 ballot, but the establishment politics that she represents cannot win the future. Given the unprecedented consolidation of wealth and power in contemporary American society, and given the establishment’s unwillingness to curb its further consolidation, all historically informed bets should be on the continued ascent of populism. The candidacies of Sanders and Trump both show us that populism has returned to America. But while these two candidacies may share in common a populist style (or anti-establishment rhetorical form), they represent polar opposite directions for society. One populism represents our most worthy collective and inclusive aspirations, while the other is characteristic of the worst episodes of known human history. In 2016 and in the years ahead we have a critically important choice to make: What kind of populism? Will we succumb to a scapegoating populism that punches down, using fear to appeal to a shrinking homogeneous white base? Or will we embrace a progressive populism that punches up and articulates an aspirational vision of a way forward together — for all of us?
We had a tremendous opportunity with the Sanders campaign to win over a majority of Americans to a progressive populist path forward. As we know, the DNC and party leadership doubled down on the establishment candidate and stacked the deck in her favor, effectively preventing the Democratic Party from taking advantage of the huge opportunity it had to act as a progressive populist vehicle in 2016. Predictably, Trump is now running with the populist momentum.
First we defeat fascism.
So now what? Specifically, what do we do between now and November?
Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party are not entitled to your vote. After decades of pursuing neoliberal policies, they don’t deserve your vote. It is incumbent upon candidates and political parties to earn votes by winning over voters. If they fail to do so, that’s on them. The vast majority of today’s electorate is fed up with the gross inequality that has come to define contemporary American society — the unprecedented concentration of wealth and power; the rigging of the political system to serve the few over and against the interests of the many. For the past three decades, the Democratic Party has put more effort into courting wealthy funders than it has into courting the working people of this country. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment are not entitled to our votes and, frankly, they do not deserve to win.
But we cannot afford for Clinton to lose.
With the nomination of Donald Trump and the dangerous politics of hate that he represents, this election is no longer about Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment. It’s about all of us. And it’s about stopping the worst possible scenario. I have spent more than two decades as a grassroots organizer, immersed in left social movements that have opposed the neoliberalism and frequent warmongering of the contemporary Democratic Party establishment: from Latin America solidarity, to the global justice movement, to the antiwar movement, to Occupy Wall Street, and many local community struggles. As a vocal Bernie supporter, it hurts my heart to know that I will cast my vote for Hillary Clinton in November; it pains me even more to be sitting here writing an article aimed at convincing my friends and comrades to do the same. But if there is one immutable maxim that the left should take from the past century, it is that we absolutely have to unite — specifically with liberals — to defeat fascism.
“If there is one immutable maxim that the left should take from the past century, it is that we absolutely have to unite to defeat fascism.”
I am not arguing that you should not ‘vote your conscience.’ I am arguing that your conscience should compel you to use your vote as effectively as possible to defeat the unprecedented fascist threat before us.
#VetsVsHate calling out Trump’s bigotry.
To be clear, some folks throw the label fascist around casually. I do not. I am using a textbook definition of radical authoritarian nationalism, with a heavy dose of racism and xenophobia. Trump unapologetically exhibits all of the features and he is the only major US presidential candidate in my lifetime to fit the bill. He is masterfully stoking the fear and hatred of the most dangerous and most violent pockets of American society, intentionally empowering them and unleashing them as a political force. We can reasonably expect that an authoritarian demagogue who rises to power by stoking fear and hate will govern using these same tools — the only tools he has. Even as candidate, Donald Trump is making everyday life more dangerous for people who are already vulnerable and living on the margins of society, especially people of color, immigrants, and Muslims. Dangerous explicitly white supremacist groups have reported a huge surge in relation to Trump’s rise, which they appreciatively attribute to the candidate |
after Bahraini officials claimed that they had arrested a number of people over allegations that they had links with Iran and Iraq for ‘terrorist activities.’
A Bahraini Interior Ministry statement said the Al Khalifa regime forces had also uncovered a large stash of weapons at a house in the village of Nuwaidrat, located about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of the capital, Manama.
The cache purportedly included a tonne and a half of powerful explosive materials, automatic rifles, pistols and hand grenades.
A Bahraini protestor sits flashing the sign of victory during clashes with police on May 23, 2015 in the village of Jidhafs, west of the capital, Manama. (AFP)
This is not the first time the Al Khalifa regime has sought to implicate Iran over the ongoing instability in Bahrain.
Iran has repeatedly dismissed the accusations, saying the blame game Bahrain is playing is aimed at covering up the Arab country’s internal problems.
The Islamic Republic has urged the Bahraini government to stop pursuing a security approach toward the tensions in the country and solve its problems through dialog.
Since early 2011, anti-regime protesters in Bahrain have held numerous demonstrations on the streets of the country, calling for the Al Khalifa family to relinquish power.
Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.May 8, 2017 | By Benedict
Aerojet Rocketdyne has conducted hot-fire tests on the preburner for its AR1 rocket engine, designed to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine. The company says the engine, built using 3D printing technology, is on track for flight readiness in 2019.
Although Aerojet Rocketdyne’s partially 3D printed AR1 rocket engine is currently a backup to the Congress-preferred Blue Origin BE-4 (which itself has several 3D printed parts), Aerojet Rocketdyne remains committed to its belief that the AR1 is “the nation's lowest-risk, lowest-cost-to-the-taxpayer and fastest path to replacing the Russian-built RD-180 engine.” The RD-180 is being taken out of service due to political tensions between the U.S. and Russia.
Recent hot-fire tests on the AR1’s preburner have only strengthened the company’s faith in its rocket engine, which could still replace the RD-180 as the primary engine used to launch U.S. national security payloads into space should Blue Origin slip up on the home stretch.
Following the recent successful tests on the AR1, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake commented that the “important milestone,” achieved at NASA’s Stennis Space Center, keeps the AR1 “squarely on track for flight readiness in 2019.”
“Our proven design process and demonstrated manufacturing approaches are key contributors to Aerojet Rocketdyne's unmatched record of mission success,” Drake added. “When replacing the Russian-made engines on current launch vehicles, mission success has to be the country's number one priority.”
3D printing and other modern technologies were used to create the preburner, which drives the engine's turbomachinery, the parts of the engine that transfer energy between rotor and fluid. A high-strength, burn-resistant, nickel-based super alloy called Mondaloy was 3D printed to make certain parts.
“Due to the hot, oxygen-rich environment inside a staged combustion engine like the AR1, burn-resistant materials are necessary to ensure safe operation of the engine under all conditions," said Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of Advanced Space and Launch Programs and Strategy.
“Mondaloy 200™ alloy is the perfect material to use in the AR1, particularly when combined with 3D printing, because it eliminates the need for exotic metal coatings currently used in the Russian-made RD-180 engine that the AR1 is designed to replace.”
According to Aerojet Rocketdyne, the company is following a similar approach used to create engines like the RS-68, J-2X, RL10, and RS-25. This entails testing critical components individually (the AR1’s 3D printed injector was tested over two years ago) before full engine testing. The company says this approach minimizes changes once engine-level testing begins.
In accordance with its original schedule, the AR1 engine design team has now successfully completed a series of 22 component Critical Design Reviews that will be followed by an engine system Critical Design Review to support engine qualification and certification in 2019.
The 2019 deadline has been imposed by Congress, which is evaluating the contenders to replace the Russian-made RD-180. The frontrunner is the BE-4, made by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, though United Launch Alliance is also attempting to build a US-made copy of the RD-180. Development of the BE-4 is ahead of the AR1, with the Blue Origin engine expected to be ready to fly by 2019.
Aerojet Rocketdyne’s contract with the U.S. Air Force to develop the AR1 is said to be worth $115 million.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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Two sources told ESPN.com that the Detroit Tigers have made the largest offer, amid speculation around the industry that that bid is in the range of one year, $7 million. There were indications the sides were still discussing a possible two-year deal. But even the Tigers' one-year offer appears to be the biggest offer on the table.
The Atlanta Braves and Tampa Bay Rays have also remained in the bidding, with both teams talking about one-year contracts for fewer total dollars than the Tigers' offer. MLB.com reported that the Braves' offer was for less than $4 million. The Chicago White Sox also have expressed interest, as ESPNChicago.com reported late last month.
At this point, if Damon landed with any team other than the Tigers or Braves, it would be a surprise. He and Boras have been publicly expressing their admiration for both teams. And both, conveniently, hold spring training close to Damon's home in Orlando.
Officials of both the Tigers and Braves declined to characterize their offers or the state of their negotiations Thursday. However, speculation in the industry, from people who have spoken with various principals, is that Damon will make a decision by the end of the week.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.ATLANTIC CITY -- The owner of New Jersey's former Revel casino is channeling his inner Donald Trump, hoping to follow the President-elect as an Atlantic City casino mogul.
Glenn Straub is parroting Trump, of whom he has often spoken admiringly, in vowing to "Make Atlantic City great again." And he's showing a Trump-like love of litigation as he sues New Jersey gambling regulators to try to get out of having to obtain a casino license for his soon-to-reopen resort.
Straub says he will be nothing more than a landlord renting space to a casino operator, and doesn't need a costly casino license.
He filed a lawsuit Monday against the state Casino Control Commission, asking a judge to force the commission to agree that he doesn't need a full-blown casino license.
"Mr. Straub has spent a lot of time, effort and money in trying to make Atlantic City great again," his lawyer, David Stefankiewicz said. "He remains ready, willing and able to open the casino."
The lawyer said the commission is putting Straub through needless red tape, as Atlantic City's casino industry continues to crumble.
"Instead of creating roadblock after roadblock, the agency should be doing everything in its power to facilitate getting this casino opened," the attorney said. "Doing business here should not be this hard."
The commission had not yet received the lawsuit and had no immediate comment on it Tuesday.
Straub has two matters pending before the agency: a petition asking for a ruling that he does not need a full casino license, and an application for a license, should the petition not be approved.
He has said for months that he should not have to obtain the same level of licensing that other casino owners have because he intends to be a hands-off owner. His lawsuit says Straub "intends to be the lessor of portions of... Revel for use as a casino/hotel and have no involvement in the casino/hotel's operation other than as a lessor."
Stefankiewicz said Straub plans to do what thousands of other property owners do.
"Does it matter what the nature of the business being conducted is?" he asked. "Does a mall owner control the business of its tenants like Macy's or Dick's or GAP or Annie's or any other tenant occupied space? Surely, being a lessor of a property where, among other things, a casino is being operated does not mean the lessor controls or is involved in the tenant's business in any way."
Straub has hired a management team to run the property, which is being rebranded under the name Ten. It plans a spring 2017 opening, assuming the necessary licenses and approvals are obtained before then.
Revel, which cost $2.4 billion to build, shut down in September 2014 after little over two years without having come close to turning a profit. Straub bought it from bankruptcy court for $82 million, or about 5 cents on the dollar in April 2015.
Last summer, Straub unveiled ambitious plans for Ten, including a rope-climbing course; a zip-line ride; an e-sports lounge where fans of online games can follow skilled players; 13 beachfront cabanas, and the conversion of part of the parking garage into a 13-story bicycle endurance course. Surfing, wind surfing and scuba lessons will be available on the beach, and a day-club (different than the former HQ club that operated at Revel) will open, along with a 32-room spa, he said.
Other plans include a reopened nightclub; a comedy club; and a section of white-sand beach called Nikki Beach, including a volleyball court; seven indoor and outdoor pools; horse rides on the beach' virtual reality machines; a rock-climbing wall and skydiving machine, and three 75-seat movie theaters.NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India summoned the Italian ambassador on Tuesday to protest at Rome’s decision not to send two marines charged with killing Indian fishermen while on anti-piracy duty back to India to face trial.
Italian sailors Salvatore Girone (R) and Massimiliano Latorre leave the police commissioner office in Kochi January 18, 2013. REUTERS/Sivaram V/Files
India’s Supreme Court had allowed Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone to return home for four weeks to vote in last month’s general election, provided they returned.
They have not done so and on Monday the Italian foreign ministry announced India had not responded to its requests for a diplomatic solution to the case. It said there was now a formal dispute over the terms of the U.N. Convention of the Law of the Sea.
The two sailors, part of a military security team protecting the tanker Enrica Lexie from pirates, were accused of shooting the two fishermen after mistaking them for pirates off Kerala in February last year.
The incident has caused a serious diplomatic dispute between Italy and India, which have traditionally had good relations.
“Government of India states firmly that it does not agree with the position conveyed by the Italian Government on the return of the two Marines to India,” an Indian foreign ministry statement said on Tuesday evening.
“The Italian Ambassador was summoned by the Foreign Secretary today and Government of India’s position on this matter was conveyed to him in the strongest of terms.”
“It was conveyed to the Italian Ambassador that the Italian Government was obliged to ensure their return to India within the stipulated period as per the terms of the Supreme Court Order.”
India’s Supreme Court said in a long-awaited ruling in January that the country had jurisdiction to try the marines, but Italy has challenged that decision, arguing that the shooting took place in international waters.
The sailors arrived back in Italy on February 23, a day before the country’s election, after the Supreme Court granted their request to exercise their right to vote.
They had already spent Christmas in Italy, after a Kerala court allowed them to join their families for the holiday on condition they returned to India by January 10, which they did.
Italy’s announcement the sailors would not return sparked protests in Kerala on Tuesday. Fishermen marched through the state capital Thiruvananthapuram and burned effigies of them.
“If the government fails to enforce its law, it will encourage foreigners to kill Indians and escape,” said T. Peter, a protest leader. “The government should immediately use its power to bring the marines back and put them on trial.”
Doramma, wife of Jelastine, one of the two fishermen shot dead, demanded justice.
“The monetary compensation the Italian government gave us does not compensate the loss we have suffered. The government should see that the killers are brought back to stand trial in the case in the country,” she said.By Kathleen Parker - August 13, 2008
From President George W. Bush:
Dear Vlad:
Beijing is weird. First of all, you can't breathe the air. Second, how 'bout those drummers? Sure, they're perfect, but that's the point. A billion Chinese see 2,000 drummers in sync and say, "Well done, my little emperor son." I see 2,000 drummers all moving with one motion and I'm thinking: "Whoa." Can anybody say MIL-I-TAR-Y PRE-CI-SION?
Hey, which reminds me. What's up with Georgia? This is not good, Vlad. You and I have had our moments. And, OK, fine, your dog's bigger than mine. A lot bigger. Stronger and faster, too. We got it. But you can't just go invading democratically elected countries that are U.S. allies. You can't have everything, Vlad. If you don't stop, I'm going to have to do something and you know I don't want that. What I want is for you to not make me look like a fool.
Look, Vlad. Seven years ago, it was you and me in Crawford. We had a blast. You loved my truck! We bonded. I went out on a very big limb and told the whole dadgum world that we were soul mates. "I looked the man in the eye," I said. "I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," I said. Oh, yeah, and, "We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul."
Trustworthy, Vlad. Got soul? Why not just hire the Goodyear Blimp and paint "Mission Accomplished" on the side? Here's the deal, Vlad. I love ya, man. But you gotta stop this. If you don't call a cease-fire and leave those Georgians alone, I'm going to have to whomp you upside the head. Just kiddin.' But you know how this looks. Your invasion of a sovereign neighboring state is unacceptable in the 21st century -- blahblahblah -- and you're hurting Russia's standing in the world, not to mention our relationship.
Oh, and by the way. We're talking 4 million people here. Four million, Vlad. You wanna let the big dog eat? Fine. Pick on somebody your own size. And yes, your pecs are bigger than mine. Whatever. Hey, gotta split. It's Kobe time. Take care and give my love to that cute little gymnast of yours.
Ciao amigo,
Bushy
P.S. Did you catch the American women's beach volleyball team?
From Sen. Barack Obama:
Dear (Former) President Putin:
I'm sorry to be writing this e-mail instead of meeting you in person, preferably in the Oval Office, where I belong. Soon, soon.
Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the foregoing, I felt it imperative that I express my deep concern about Russia's invasion of the tiny, democratically elected sovereign nation of Georgia. It would appear that you are not familiar with my platform for change and hope. War does not fit into this template and I am quite frankly at a loss for words to express my deep, deep distress.
As the chosen leader of a new generation of Americans who speak a global language of peace, hope, harmony and change, this is simply unacceptable. Quite frankly, your actions pose potentially severe, long-term consequences. I'm not sure what those might be, but they won't be nice or fun.
Please picture me looking very serious when I say that I respectfully request you to calm down. Life is but a flicker in time and we're but actors strutting and fretting. That is to say, we're all on this planetary journey together and our karma is interrelated and interdependent. Thus, it would seem that our differences are best resolved through words, not bombs.
It is said that war is a failure of diplomacy. I would submit that it is also counterintuitive. If my Kenyan father and my Kansan mother and my multinational upbringing taught me anything, it is that we are all One. That said, I am The One the world has been waiting for -- and you are, quite frankly, blocking my chi.
As soon as possible, I'd like to sit down and begin talking about how we can resolve these and other differences that threaten peace-loving people, which I'm sure includes you. I haven't looked into your eyes and would never presume to know your soul, but I do know that we share a common humanity and that we can all just get along.
Yours in Global Harmony,
Acting President Barack Obama
From Sen. John McCain:
Hey, Putin.
Don't make me come over there.
McCainFotomac have reported Swansea City are looking to sign Fenerbahce central defender Martin Skrtel.
The Slovakian has been linked with a return to Premier League after only one season with the Turkish giants, and according to the Turkish newspaper the Swans are very interested in the player.
It’s been claimed Swansea City want to use the transfer money from the sale of Bafetimbi Gomis to pay for a Skrtel move, although the club’s finances certainly wouldn’t require an exit to bring someone in.
Fenerbahçe manager Aykut Kocaman wouldn’t want to sell Skrtel to Swansea City, but given Fenerbahçe financial problems, the sale of the player could be an option for the club’s board.
After his £5m transfer from Liverpool to Fenerbache last summer, it’s currently unclear if Skrtel would entertain a return to the Premier League. Skrtel was one of the standout players during Fenerbahce’s poor season, and played 47 games in all competitions.
The 32-year-old is under contract at Fenerbahce until 2019.A MACE store has raised eyebrows with an unusual ‘Rag Week Special’ offering, a bottle of vodka and a chicken fillet roll for €8.99.
A MACE store has raised eyebrows with an unusual ‘Rag Week Special’ offering, a bottle of vodka and a chicken fillet roll for €8.99.
Bottle of vodka and a chicken fillet roll offered as part of 'RAG Week Special'
As students across the country prepare to take part in ‘Raise and Give’ Week, where they are encouraged to raise funds for charitable causes, Whitty’s MACE shop in Caherdavin, County Limerick, has been posting a series of discounted alcohol offers hoping to cash in on the seven day event.
Among the ‘Rag Week Specials’ posted to Facebook is a quarter-pounder burger and chips combo alongside a three-pack of Corona Extra for €5.99.
Also listed is a bottle of vodka and a chicken fillet roll for €8.99 and separate Corona Extra three-packs for €1.99.
MORE GREAT VALUE AT WHITTYS MACE.......... Posted by Whittys Mace Caherdavin on Thursday, 11 February 2016
Whitty’s MACE says the offers are available to any university students in the area, which include Limerick IT and University of Limerick.
Most universities have put strict rules in place for RAG Week following a spate of alcohol-related incidents in recent years.
University College Cork, for example, has introduced on the spot fines of upwards of €250 for bad behaviour on campus and in student accommodation.
Contacted for comment, the MACE store said the Rag Week specials were a matter for the owner to discuss.
Online EditorsWe have no interest in going back and forth with Shopify, we are releasing this commentary as a response to the numerous media requests we have received.
Citron understands Shopify’s platform is effective for small and medium sized businesses to launch e-commerce platforms. We never doubted they have good software for accomplishing this task.
That being said, we were unimpressed by the company’s response to Citron’s conclusion that Shopify sells business opportunities through affiliate marketers, and they depend on affiliate marketing to drive their growth metrics.
It is impossible to understand the real strength of Shopify’s core business without getting specifics of their true customer acquisition cost. To accomplish that, churn needs to be analyzed, so investors can discount or strip out the dirty/illegal part of their business that will inevitably be curbed by regulators. Immaturity and hubris of management prevents them from addressing these issues.
Investors owning a stock selling at 15x sales deserve a clear and honest answer about all aspects of the business…especially what is driving growth.
Citron has assembled a comprehensive folder, which we have forwarded to the FTC, and we are certain that the company will face an investigation for selling business opportunities.
Shareholders can just search Youtube for “Shopify” and filter for the videos posted over the past week alone. Below is a montage we found in minutes.Share. Make it ship-shape. Make it ship-shape.
After "actively working" on Fallout 4 DLC, Far Harbor's performance problems on PS4, Bethesda now has a fix - a full re-release of the entire pack.
Announced on the Bethesda forums (and spotted by VG24/7), the developer says you'll have to re-download the pack to fix the issues, and provided the following instructions for installing it:
Confirm Fallout 4 is not running. Highlight Fallout 4 in your PS4 dashboard, press OPTIONS, and select CLOSE APPLICATION to ensure Fallout 4 is not running minimized.
Select RELATED ITEMS. You’ll find this under the Fallout 4 icon in the PS4 dashboard.
Select MY ADD-ONS.
Navigate to the DOWNLOAD ARROW next to Far Harbor and select it.
You should see a notice that Far Harbor has been Added to Downloads.
Wait for the downloadable content to finish downloading and installing before starting Fallout 4.
Exit Theatre Mode
Bethesda adds: "If for any reason these steps do not work, you can delete Fallout 4 (and all add-on content) and simply reinstall the game (and add-ons from scratch)."
Currently, the new version of the DLC is only available in North America, but the Bethesda Twitter account has said the EU update will follow in the "very near future".
It seems like it's worth the effort - we gave Far Harbor and 8.3 score, saying it "adds a large amount of great quests and content within its gloomy but distinctive island setting".
Joe Skrebels is IGN's UK News Editor, and maybe this is all some kind of horrible Lovecraftian test. Follow him on Twitter.Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast. — Peter Drucker (1909-2005)
Weekly Bulletin
Hello folks,
Hope you’ve all had a great week.
Let’s get right into it.
Bitmain announces next generation 7nm ASIC chip
Last week Bitmain announced its next generation 7nm ASIC chip for SHA256 mining.
The new BM1397 chip requires lower power and can offer an energy consumption to computing ratio as low as 30J/TH. This is a 28.6 percent improvement in power efficiency in comparison with Bitmain’s previous 7nm chip, the BM1391.
A 28.6 percent improvement in efficiency.
If you’re interested in what I think about this, you can read a previous letter titled Miner centralization is a meme.
TL;DR - The whole “China mining centralization” thing isn’t the impending doom it’s made out to be.
I think shifts in economic pressure will inevitably lead to a re-decentralization of mining.
And a concentrated mining network doesn’t mean that Bitcoin is centralized.
Samsung Galaxy S10 will include private crypto key storage
As you’ve probably heard by now, Samsung’s new Galaxy S10 will include some sort of private key storage.
Now then, I’m not going to say that this is some government psy-op to steal your private keys.
But what I will say is that you probably shouldn’t store your private keys on a device that engineered to collect as much of your data as possible.
At least not yet.
The normalization of bitcoin infrastructure.
I like the sound of that.
Until then, just think of the bitcoin deflation with all them lost phones.
Ethereum Constantinople / St. Petersburg upgrade
Here’s a link to the announcement.
The Ethereum network will be undergoing a scheduled upgrade at block number 7,280,000, which is predicted to occur on Thursday, February 28, 2019. The exact date is subject to change depending on block times between now and then and could be activated 1-2 days before or after. A countdown timer can be seen at https://amberdata.io/blocks/7280000. You can monitor the network upgrade in real time at http://forkmon.ethdevops.io/.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m not particularly interested in all the technical talk about what this upgrade entails.
And most likely, neither are you.
What I’m interested in is that Constantinople will reduce the ETH block rewards from 3 to 2, decreasing new ETH supply.
Assuming all else remain equal (i.e., the complexity of what they’re working on doesn’t get any less complex), in the long run, this is decidedly bullish.
Coinbase acquired a surveillance company
Soooo Coinbase acquired a surveillance company.
Huh? Do tell? Whatever do you mean? What’s worse then that?
Sold offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations.
sell products that are used by authoritarian governments to commit violations of human rights and freedom of information.
This time it’s going to be something different tho. Ya know what I mean?
Market Sentiment
Technicals
Bitcoin (Daily Overview)
Here’s a link to the Market Update post I put out last week.
I’ll be sending these out to paid subscribers, and making them public the following week.
Here’s what I wrote.
Here’s what happened.
This drop happened quite suddenly (within an hour).
The next major support I’m looking at is the 50 SMA (orange line).
Bitcoin (4h Support/Resistance Levels)
Look how strange this chart looks.
Bitcoin has been ranging WAYY above what are it’s normal pivot points.
Drop was very much expected.
Bitcoin (4h Volume)
Bitcoin (Macro Overview)
Below are the 3 most common bottom scenarios.
Option 1: Fractals analysis bottom (2,300 - 2,600)
Option 2: Fib extension bottom (1,700 - 1,900)
Option 3: Retest support of 2017 rally bottom (900 - 1,200)
As of Feb 24, 2019 my confidence level are:
A bottom between 1,700 and 2,600 = about 70%.
We've already bottomed = about 25%.
Retest 900-1,200 = About 5% chance.
Recommended Readings
Privacy & Bitcoin
A deep-drive on privacy. A monster of a read.
While Bitcoin can support strong privacy, many ways of using it are usually not very private. With proper understanding of the technology, bitcoin can indeed be used in a very private and anonymous way. As of 2019 most casual enthusiasts of bitcoin believe it is perfectly traceable; this is completely false. Around 2011 most casual enthusiasts believed it is totally private; which is also false. There is some nuance - in certain situations bitcoin can be very private. But it is not simple to understand, and it takes some time and reading.
You can read it here.
The end
What do you folks think?
Continue the discussion in our Telegram group.
That’s all for now.
See you later space Cowboy
-DmitriyHow do I apply?
Applying is easy! Use the menu buttons at the top of this page to apply.
How much does this cost?
It’s free. We only ask that you pass on the knowledge, generosity, and goodwill. If participation turns out to be a positive experience for you, then help us promote the project on social media.
What’s the catch?
There is no catch. All we want is to leave our industry as a better place than it was when we started. Ultimately, we all believe in a ‘rising tides’ mentality, and that by helping each other, all of our boats will rise. We all have something to gain by your participation.
Do I have to be a student?
Nope. You can be anyone as long as you’re over 18 years old. Whether you’re brand new or established, you’re welcome. If you want to challenge yourself to learn and grow and are responsible, respectful, and enthusiastic, then we’ll be happy to help you achieve that.
Do I get college credit?
We don’t currently offer college credit.
Will you listen to my demo reel?
If you’re accepted into a mentorship, this will be between you and your mentor, but generally speaking, we recommend laying a contextual groundwork before diving right into a demo reel review.
Can I ask for a specific person to be my mentor?
Not at this time. However, we put a lot of care into making matches. We may not always get it right, but we have an excellent track record so far.
How long can a mentorship last?
Could be one call, could be a lifetime. The AMP Volunteer Council will do what we can to help make your interactions positive, but our involvement will always be limited.
Can I quit after I’ve entered into a mentorship?
Yes, both the mentor and the mentee can quit the mentorship at any time for any reason. However, the expectation going into a mentorship is that both mentor and mentee are committing in good faith to whatever timeline is proposed based on the package.
I just applied, how long until I hear back?
It depends on the package, but it can take a while. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. You can always check in with us, but we’re doing our best to keep things moving forward with your application.
How do I become a volunteer?
We are always willing to consider additional volunteers. The responsibilities of the volunteers will vary. Examples of volunteer work includes vetting mentors and mentees, reviewing and providing feedback on the web site and documentation, hosting interviews, wrangling social media, organizing calls, and a whole host of other stuff that comes up. The benefits are that it feels really good to volunteer and that we love the people that we volunteer with. If you’re interested in helping out as a volunteer, send an e-mail to [email protected].
How much time can I ask for from my Mentor?
Our minimum commitment is defined based on the package, but we don’t involve ourselves directly in the relationship between mentor and mentee. We recommend that the mentor defines their time commitment boundaries up front.
What can I share about my experience? Can I tell all my friends?
Sure, as long as the mentor and mentee are both okay with it. Depending on that, you can share the news of the AMP through social media – we have a Facebook and a Twitter.
I’m very shy or insecure – what should I do if I don’t feel very confident in these first steps?
Know that your mentor wants you to feel as comfortable as possible so that you can grow. You’re welcome to reach out to your mentor by e-mail (if that’s better for you) and highlight any points of insecurity you might have so that you’re both aware and can work around them.
In fact, mentorships can be good for people who are shy. A one-on-one relationship with a trusted partner can provide a safe place to discuss challenging issues.
Can I arrange to meet my mentor in person if we live in the same city, or attend the same event?
Always check with your mentor or mentee before meeting in person. You must respect the privacy of your mentor or mentee. However, if you’re both into it, go for it!
Can I still get a mentor if I’m not a native English speaker?
If you’re not a native English speaker, there’s a few things we can still do for you:BEHIND a small waterfall in the Shale Creek Preserve section of Chestnut Ridge Park in the suburb of Buffalo, New York, you'll find one of the world's weirdest wonders.
A dancing golden flame burning within a waterfall - it's so odd it seems like an optical illusion.
The mystery behind 'killer island'
Scientists are baffled at the mystery of New York's eternal flame, unsure where the gas that keeps the flame eternally alight comes from.
The flame is believed to have been lit by Native Americans thousands of years ago … and eerily it has been burning ever since. What makes it even stranger is that previously scientists thought the flame was kept alight by gas produced by ancient, extremely hot rocks, but have since discovered that the rocks underneath the Chestnut Ridge County Park aren't hot enough to produce this gas.
Mystery light haunts town
So what is keeping the flame alight? Scientists admit they can't identify why the flame continues to blaze and are truly baffled by this peculiarity. There are many other 'eternal flames' in the world, but each one is believed to be kept alight by the natural gas produced from the rocks beneath it. The rocks under this eternal flame have been likened in temperature to a cup of tea - definitely not hot enough.
Ancient ruined cities that remain a mystery
The New York eternal flame is kept alight by gas (and it smells like it too), but not in the same way as the other eternal flames. The assumption at present is that there's a different pathway of gas generation that is somehow keeping this oddity burning.
Here's hoping the flame never goes out.Cleveland Cavaliers player and Brampton native Tristan Thompson received the key to the city at the Brampton Soccer Centre on Friday morning.
Thompson played a key role in the Cavaliers NBA Championship win against Golden State Warriors on June 19. Members of the public got to meet the basketball star, as well as see the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Councilor Gurpreet Dhillon, Wards 9 & 10, a huge basketball fan, introduced Thompson to the stage.
“In his short career, Tristan has become one of the best power forwards in the game.”
With loud cheers from the crowd, Dhillon handed over the key to Thompson.
Councilor Michael Palleschi, Wards 2 & 6, and Rowan Barrett, executive vice present and assistant general manager of Basketball Canada, were also on hand for the celebration.
Thompson had some words for his fans.
“Don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do. Especially being Canadian and trying to play basketball at the highest level.”
“Most Canadians, they go to junior college and they come back home and start life, but my goal was to knock that barrier and kick that wall down.”
When asked how it was like to bring the championship to Brampton, he says “There’s no better feeling. I never pictured this as a kid being a NBA champ.”
Thompson started his basketball career at his high school, St. Marguerite d’Youville Secondary School, which is just up the road from the Soccer Centre.
Thompson says, “I just remember going to d’Youville and having the dream to do something, to be part of special. I didn’t know what I wanted to be.”
“I knew I loved basketball but I never thought I’d make it to the NBA or play the [NCAA] Division 1 level.”
Thompson played for the University of Texas for one year before declaring for the 2011 NBA draft. He has since played five seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
He was also part of Canada’s bronze medal team at the 2008 FIBA America Under-18 Championship in Argentina. Tristan is the first Brampton native to win a NBA Championship.
Listen to Councilor Gurpreet Dhillon and Tristan Thompson at the Brampton Soccer Centre:
All photos by Nikita Brown. Audio from Divyesh Mistry.
Comments
commentsIn a day and age when big organizations like Target have no problem admitting that gender has nothing to do with interests, it’s horrifying to think that a girl could still come home from school still ashamed to be into Star Wars because it’s a “boy” thing. (Tell this to Daisy Ridley, who is playing one of the leads in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, why don’t ya?) But it’s something that happened to Layla, an 8-year-old who discovered Star Wars through her father’s old toys, recently. Thankfully, an charitable group dedicated to the love of Star Wars used the Force to stop this injustice.
As CNN reported recently, the 501st Legion, an organization that “seeks to promote interest in Star Wars through the building and wearing of quality costumes, and to facilitate the use of these costumes for Star Wars-related events as well as contributions to the local community through costumed charity and volunteer work,” got wind of a young Star Wars fan named Layla Murphy after her mother, Nicolette Molina, posted about her daughter on the Facebook page of fellow Star Wars fan Jason Tuttle. In the name of the fandom, Tuttle rallied his troops, including his 501 chapter, to help this girl out.
First Tuttle sent a bunch of fan items (i.e. stickers and patches) to Layla to encourage her fandom. Then Layla was awarded a special set of Stormtrooper armor, previously owned by another young girl (Katie Goldman) who had been bullied for her Star Wars love. And after being given her armor, Layla was taken to a Weird Al Yankovic show, during which a number of members of the fandom were performing. Oh and Layla got to meet Star Wars nerd Weird Al as well. (Layla, us Weird Al fangirls at The Mary Sue could not be more jealous!)
From the sound of it, after getting so much support and love from the fan community to which she always, truly belonged, Layla is back to being her regular, Force-ful self. According to 501st Legion, Layla “now proudly carries the trading cards of her 501st supporters in a Chewbacca backpack and can’t wait for the next opportunity to troop |
of the Taliban to evade attacks, and although penetrated as well, the Afghan army would enjoy a chance ARVN never had. But only the ISI could do this, and thinking of the ISI as secure is hard to do from a historical point of view. The ISI worked closely with the Taliban during the Afghan civil war that brought it to power and afterwards, and the ISI had many Taliban sympathizers. The ISI underwent significant purging and restructuring to eliminate these elements over recent years, but no one knows how successful these efforts were. The ISI remains the center of gravity of the entire problem. If the war is about creating an Afghan army, and if we accept that the Taliban will penetrate this army heavily no matter what, then the only counter is to penetrate the Taliban equally. Without that, Obama's entire strategy fails as Nixon's did. In his talk, Obama quite properly avoided discussing the intelligence aspect of the war. He clearly cannot ignore the problem we have laid out, but neither can he simply count on the ISI. He does not need the entire ISI for this mission, however. He needs a carved out portion — compartmentalized and invisible to the greatest possible extent — to recruit and insert operatives into the Taliban and to create and manage communication networks so as to render the Taliban transparent. Given Taliban successes of late, it isn't clear whether he has this intelligence capability. Either way, we would have to assume that some Pakistani solution to the Taliban intelligence issue has been discussed (and such a solution must be Pakistani for ethnic and linguistic reasons). Every war has its center of gravity, and Obama has made clear that the center of gravity of this war will be the Afghan military's ability to replace the Americans in a very few years. If that is the center of gravity, and if maintaining security against Taliban penetration is impossible, then the single most important enabler to Obama's strategy would seem to be the ability to make the Taliban transparent. Therefore, Pakistan is important not only as the Cambodia of this war, the place where insurgents go to regroup and resupply, but also as a key element of the solution to the intelligence war. It is all about Pakistan. And that makes Obama's plan difficult to execute. It is far easier to write these words than to execute a plan based on them. But to the extent Obama is serious about the Afghan army taking over, he and his team have had to think about how to do this.SARTRE, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
What did the last decade accomplish in the occupation of Afghanistan? Other than streamlining the opium shipment trade, what did this foreign expedition achieve? Wikipedia reports, “As of December 29, 2011, there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001.”
This may seem a small number by recent loss standards, but the excuse of fighting the CIA invention and bogeyman, Al Qaeda, is the height of hypocrisy. Not much comfort for the Pat Tillman family, or confidence in the inept cover-up mission to silence would be whistleblowers. The convenient idiot Osama bin Laden overstayed his usefulness. Too bad that SEAL Team 6 knew too much to risk their loyalty on future escapades. The sick foreign policy that orders the ritual killings of their own military trained assassins offers up their heroes as necessary sacrifices for the New World Order.
The Insider provides several mainstream media references in the article; CIA created al-Qaeda and gave $3 BILLION to Osama bin Laden. “The US government trained, armed, funded and supported Osama bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan during the cold war. With a huge investment of $3,000,000,000 (three billion US dollars), the CIA effectively created and nurtured bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network using American tax-payers money.”
The definitive source in opposition to the Afghanistan debacle, antiwar.com is invaluable. Back in 2009, Philip Giraldi wrote in The Cost of War:
Why are these wars so expensive? The main supply route starts in Karachi, Pakistan, and works its way up through the Khyber Pass, at which point the truck convoys are frequently attacked by insurgents. When a convoy is destroyed the US Army assumes the loss as no one will insure such a perilous enterprise. Sometimes the trucking companies pay off the attackers to be left alone, ironically putting US taxpayer-provided money into the hands of those seeking to kill American soldiers. The Pentagon estimates that the cost of fuel delivered to the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq averages $45 per gallon, including all expenses but excluding legacy costs like interest on borrowing money to buy the fuel in the first place. A total of one trillion dollars has been spent already in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but legacy costs to include paying off the money that was borrowed and medical care for the many thousands of wounded soldiers and marines will drive the total cost of the war past the $5 trillion dollar mark even if the two wars were to end tomorrow.
Over two years ago, a video entitled, Afghanistan War Is a Failure provided a visual account of the so-called progress on the ground. The NeoCon chicken hawks will dismiss the losses as regrettable but necessary. That is the basic issue. What is essential about keeping foreign legions on distant soils when the cause for such deployment is based upon a false premise? As long as the phony war on terror is used to wage aggressive warfare and maintain a permanent garrison presence, victory will never bring national security.
The conflict between using military combat forces and private contractors for implementing search and destroy operations poses a serious issue. While both are voluntary participants, the public would want to deny that each is a mercenary. Separated by the pay scale may seem harsh to many, but the patriotic enlistee is often in training to become a Blackwater thug. Burning Korans is just learning the drill before graduating to work for the corporate elite.
Now the Uniform Code of Military Justice is certainly a welcome standard for conduct, but pirate Xe Services armies, are restrained only by their own demons. Such reliance on using private black-bag enforcers is hardly consistent with the illusive notion of nation building. Endemic corruption is inevitable when money and brute force controls the border. Paying tribute in order to wage war exemplifies the absurdity of the military machine. Their only fear is the ending of the campaign.
The YouTube Blackwater / Xe May Get $1 Billion Afghanistan Training Contract Despite Failure with Border Police video illustrates this sentiment.
Aspiring Rambos fighting the next Charlie Wilson’s exploit lack the self-defense excuse of being the victim of First Blood. The Taliban that was shipped stinger missiles to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were the product of a policy gone awry. Selig Harrison from the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars states:
‘The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.’ The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.
The consequences of this legacy are devastating. The covert army that operates in Afghanistan to engage in Obama’s Wars is a well-known fact. Author of Watergate fame, Bob Woodward, reveals in his book, that the C.I.A. has a 3,000 man “covert army” in Afghanistan counterterrorism pursuit teams called, “C.T.P.T., mostly Afghans who capture and kill Taliban fighters and seek support in tribal areas. Past news accounts have reported that the C.I.A. has a number of militias, including one trained on one of its compounds, but nothing the size of the covert army.
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Mr. Woodward reveals the code name for the C.I.A.’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, Sylvan Magnolia, and writes that the White House was so enamored of the program that Mr. Emanuel would regularly call the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, asking, “Who did we get today?”
The video 3,000 CIA-trained Afghan assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, expands on this operation. Roaming goon squads inflicting increased levels of atrocities is a demented extension of an evil empire.
Historically, Afghanistan is probably one of the least desirable locations to carry on maneuvers. However, the imperialist empire must demonstrate its ability to project and drone anyone to death. It seems that all the hard-learned lessons of Viet Nam are lost. The memory banks of the officers that direct and carry out the dictates of a civilian authority, who love to play soldier, pervert their command. Playing video games is not entertainment when human body parts explode from bombs that rain down from the sky.
Standing down and rejecting unlawful orders are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting gung-ho.
It seems appropriate that military members swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States rather than simply swearing to support and defend the United States simpliciter. This is significant. It means that military members are more than just neutral tools of the political party in power. This oath places an affirmative responsibility on military members to read and understand the Constitution, to recognize the source and limits of the authority they have, and to uphold the specific system of government that the Constitution sets forth.
The Afghanistan adventure, in now the longest imperium war, that even the mass media laments. ABC news observes:
Vietnam and Afghanistan do have this much in common: they are distant, profoundly complex, and ill-understood campaigns. Not surprisingly, then, they defy easy resolutions. And, in their own ways, these two wars have tested the mettle and patience of a nation.
The “mettle and patience” of the military is the real concern. As long as there is no draft, crises of conscience are confined to those who succumb to obeying illegal orders for trumped-up assignments. The American empire is a prime cause and reason for the destruction of the nation. The government is not the country, nor is it legitimate when it acts as a belligerent.
The War on Terror is a pseudo fraud. Claims of an existential threat to America are bogus. The despotic War Party regime that fosters continuous international intervention wants a perpetual state of war. The hysteria that keeps citizens in a self-delusional trance pushes the military into uninterrupted carnage.
American Natural Superfood - Free Sample Alexander the Great discovered the limits of the Macedonian empire in Afghanistan. The English discovered the hard way. Rudyard Kipling’s poem THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER sums it up well. When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier ~of~ the Queen! A CIA report concludes that the lessons learned from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan indicate: There is no single piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier... no single military problem that has arisen and not been solved, and yet there is still no result. Unfortunately, the most prolific attribute of American foreign policy is stupidity. The palpable explanation is that the best interests of the country are suppressed for the benefits of the ruling global elite. It is time to recognize that ill-placed patriotism is a guarantee of destruction. Original article archived here SARTRE is the pen name of James Hall, a reformed, former political operative. This pundit’s formal instruction in History, Philosophy and Political Science served as training for activism, on the staff of several politicians and in many campaigns. A believer in authentic Public Service, independent business interests were pursued in the private sector. Speculation in markets, and international business investments, allowed for extensive travel and a world view for commerce. SARTRE is the publisher of BREAKING ALL THE RULES. Contact [email protected] var linkwithin_site_id = 557381; linkwithin_text=’Related Articles:’This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. We had an extended break because we lost a link with the satellite. And I want to thank Jennifer Robinson for having joined us, a legal adviser to Julian Assange. As we turn now to another film about what some have described as the crime of the century. The new documentary, Fire in the Blood, explores how major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, as well as the United States, prevented tens of millions of people in the developing world from receiving affordable generic AIDS drugs. Millions died as a result. This is a part of the trailer of Fire in the Blood.
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Over two million people were reported to have died in that year alone.
YUSUF HAMIED: The whole of Africa was being taken for a ride.
BILL CLINTON: It’s fine for people in rich countries to say this is what it ought to be. They don’t have to live in these little villages and watch people die like flies.
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Where are the drugs? The drugs are where the disease is not.
DONALD McNEIL: “You fight our patent monopolies, we will make sure you die.”
NELSON MANDELA: As long as drugs are not available to everybody, he will not take them.
JAMES LOVE: It was just kind of a crisis of humanity. People just weren’t really human for a moment.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s an excerpt of Fire in the Blood, the film tracing how Big Pharma refused to allow countries to break patents and allow for the importation of cheap generic AIDS drugs. The problem continues today, as the World Trade Organization continues to block the importation of generic drugs in many countries because of a trade deal known as the TRIPS Agreement. Fire in the Blood just had its North American premiere here at the Sundance Film Festival.
For more, we’re joined by two guests: Dylan Mohan Gray, director of Fire in the Blood, based in Mumbai, India, and Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, a Ugandan AIDS doctor featured in the film, recognized as one of the world’s foremost specialists and researchers in the field of HIV/AIDS. He played a key role in founding Uganda’s HIV/AIDS Joint Clinical Research Centre, and is author of a new book, Genocide by Denial: How Profiteering from HIV/AIDS Killed Millions.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Dylan, let’s begin with you, why you made this film.
DYLAN MOHAN GRAY: Well, basically, I think the story sort of came to me by accident, to be honest. I was working on a film in Sri Lanka in 2004, and I had a day off and just happened to read an article in The Economist, of all things, which—it struck me as very interesting, because it was about one of the characters in our film, Dr. Yusuf Hamied, who’s an Indian generic drug maker, and it was talking about how he was bringing in low-cost antiretroviral medications to Africa. Yet it seemed something interesting was going on beneath the surface. It seemed like this was obviously, you know, to my mind, a very good thing that he was doing, but they were going out of their way, I felt, to attack him, but it wasn’t clear why. So, it piqued my interest. And, you know, not long later, I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Hamied. And through him, I met several of the other people that became contributors to the film.
And I used to be in the academic world, and, you know, the historian in me was just completely shocked and scandalized that, A, I didn’t know more about the story, and, B, that there was so little written about it or, you know, there were no comprehensive accounts of what had happened—you know, something that had killed 10, 12 million people, and it seemed to have happened almost without a record. So, you know, the impetus to make the film, primarily, was actually to create a record, a memorial and a chronicle of what happened. And as you say, I mean, we consider this to be the crime of the century.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mugyenyi is featured in the film. And it’s an honor to have you here with us—
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: —before you head back home to Uganda, where you had been imprisoned, jailed, as you tried to bring generic drugs into Uganda, to get these drugs at a cheaper amount. Explain what Dr. Hamied did, this—I mean, what Cipla, the head of Cipla did, this drug company, how he challenged the rest of the world in saying he would cut the prices of AIDS drugs from—what was it? The amount that people would have to pay for the triple cocktail, before and after Hamied?
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Well, there was a misinformation, worldwide misinformation, that AIDS drugs were too expensive to manufacture. The second misinformation that was there was that Africans would not be able to use these drugs, that it was impossible to use these drugs in the African condition. Dr. Hamied called the bluff of all of those who were propagating this false information that cost so many lives of people.
AMY GOODMAN: How?
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Well, he just literally announced that it is not true that these drugs can only be manufactured at such an exorbitant cost. He demonstrated that they could be demonstrated at relatively affordable cost, which would save millions of lives because of affordability. So it was the issue of affordability and access where Hamied came in and acted.
AMY GOODMAN: So before him, drug companies were charging like $15,000 for a year for one patient to get a triple cocktail for the year. And he cut that price to less than a dollar a day? $15,000 to $350 for the year?
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Yes, and that action was incredible. For the first time, millions of people who were dying stopped dying in Africa, because they started accessing life-saving drugs.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did you end up in jail in Uganda?
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Well, it was—I was arrested, but I was rescued because Uganda government was concerned about the plight of the citizens who were dying in such a big number. So an emergency meeting that rescued me from arrest took place in front of the government ministers, and at that meeting I made it clear: I said to the meeting that, “Look, your relatives are dying of AIDS. Your citizens are dying of AIDS. I’m a doctor working among the AIDS patients, and I have no tools to save my patients’ lives. All I have done is to import affordable drugs, which will increase access. These drugs are at the airport. They are under your care. You can block them from coming in, but as far as I’m concerned, I have done my job of bringing life-saving drugs to Uganda.” And I think they understood. And every one of them had relatives who were suffering from AIDS, or at least a friend whom they knew who had died from AIDS. And so, this was—it was not very difficult to convince them that this action was necessary, and I needed to be out saving lives with drugs instead of being arrested.
AMY GOODMAN: Another of the heroes in the fight to bring life-saving drugs to HIV/AIDS patients is Zackie Achmat of South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign. In 1999, Achmat, who is HIV-positive, went on a treatment strike in solidarity with others who couldn’t afford medication. He’s featured in Fire in the Blood.
ZAKIE ACHMAT: If my sisters or brothers or cousins had HIV or had AIDS and needed medicines, they wouldn’t have been able to get it. And I grew up in a house where your mom would say, “If all the kids can’t have chocolate, one is not going to have it.”
NARRATOR: Having made up his mind, Zackie Achmat announced that he would boycott antiretrovirals until the South African government made them available to everyone.
AMY GOODMAN: Dylan Mohan Gray, talk about the significance of Zackie Achmat and what the whole issue of patents is about in these U.S. companies.
DYLAN MOHAN GRAY: Well, Zackie Achmat, as you said, is one of the great heroes of this story. And I think the boycott that he undertook, very much with a sort of a Gandhian impetus in mind, you know, it was a very deliberate action that he took. And as he says in the film, you know, he grew up in a family where his mother said, if one child couldn’t have chocolate, then none of the children were going to get it. And that’s a very simple way of looking at it, but that’s something I think we can all identify with. He grew up, you know, struggling against apartheid in South Africa, a very strong sense of solidarity with his fellow man. And, you know, he could easily have accessed the drugs, because he was an internationally known activist, but he said, “No, I’m not going to do it.” And he came very close to death by taking that decision. And I think, you know, it had a very, very big impact on waking people, especially in the Western world, up to the reality of the situation in sub-Saharan Africa. So, you know, the gamble paid off, so to speak.
AMY GOODMAN: Say that last part.
DYLAN MOHAN GRAY: I said the gamble paid off. I feel like his gamble that he took—I mean, he risked his life—but in a sense, the gamble paid off, because the impact of what he did, you know, had repercussions throughout the world and woke a lot of people up to the situation of access to medicine in Africa.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain how the patents work.
DYLAN MOHAN GRAY: A patent is a government-granted monopoly or a grant of exclusivity which is given to companies, generally, or individuals, with the idea that by giving a period of the exclusivity, one would incentivize investment. So, what typically happens with pharmaceutical companies is they will purchase technology from others, whether it be universities or small biotech companies or other small innovative outfits, and they will then commercialize these products. And because they will have a monopoly for a period of time, usually a minimum of 20 years, they will be able to set the price at any level they wish. And we have the former vice president of Pfizer in our film, who says very openly the concept is to maximize revenue. It has nothing to do with the cost of research and development.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mugyenyi, what needs to happen right now, in these last 30 seconds?
DR. PETER MUGYENYI: Well, what needs to happen is the realization that an inequitable, unethical situation exists with the related TRIPS Agreement, and that lives, millions of lives, are at stake unless this TRIPS Agreement and patents issue are addressed—not to hurt business, but to make sure that they do not hurt patients and result in a bloodbath, that we have seen in the case of HIV/AIDS.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both very much for being with us, Dr. Peter Mugyenyi from Uganda and Dylan Mohan Gray, director of the new film that has just premiered here at the Sundance Film Festival, Fire in the Blood.One year ago today, PlayStation 4 launched in North America. It arrived on these shores two weeks later. The build-up really couldn't have gone better for Sony; the preceding year had been one of good fortune, smart marketing, aggressive PR and rampant opportunism for PlayStation as its chief competitor, Microsoft's Xbox, had blundered from one hubristic public relations catastrophe to the next. To cap it all off, it had emerged that PS4 had a significant technical advantage, too, with faster memory and a more powerful graphics processor. Sony's executives could scarcely believe their luck; after the tough PS3 years, they had been offered an open goal.
It's a familiar narrative, but the machine's first anniversary offers an opportunity to take stock of the story since then. How well has PlayStation 4 served its users - and how well has Sony served PS4 - since 15th November 2013? (We'll write a similar report card for Xbox One's first anniversary next week.)
Still not OK.
The PS4's launch set the tone for its first year: the games weren't stellar, but it didn't seem to matter. The first-party line-up was thin - Knack was dire, Killzone Shadow Fall was dazzling but hollow, DriveClub was delayed - but Sony was carrying so much momentum and goodwill, nothing could stop it. Gamers weren't even complaining too loudly that online gaming had been locked behind the admittedly good-value PlayStation Plus subscription - something Andrew House, Mark Cerny and Shuhei Yoshida must be pinching themselves about to this day. The only bum note was the quickly disintegrating rubber of the DualShock 4's sticks (still a sore point).
To be fair, Sony made some canny choices and had some natural advantages. The machine's launch feature set was limited, missing some ancillary functions like media playback, but this was managed with care to play into its fanboy-friendly image as a no-nonsense, thoroughbred games machine. Sony's PRs wisely flooded their media and industry contacts with machines; the Xbox 360's early start had made it the default console in industry circles, an influential inner sanctum of friends lists and early code that PS3 could never crack. PS4 would not suffer the same fate.
And the third-party launch games were a gift from heaven. There were plenty of them and some were good, but most importantly, their "cross-generation" engines and the lack of time their developers had been able to put into optimisation showed the PS4's horsepower advantage over Xbox One in the best possible light. A single message from Call of Duty: Ghosts producer Mark Rubin, confirming that the game would run at a higher resolution on PS4, told a story that Microsoft is fighting to counter to this day: multi-platform games are better on PlayStation.
PS4s flew off shelves. The conventional wisdom that must-have games sell consoles was shattered. The exclusives were nothing special and third-party games were mostly available on PS3 as well, never mind Xbox, a state of affairs that has persisted all year. But if publishers were hedging their bets, gamers weren't. It had been a long console generation and, in the intervening years, the rhythm of the consumer electronics industry had changed beyond recognition; mobile phone manufacturers had somehow persuaded a gadget-addicted public to upgrade their equipment every couple of years, whether there was a compelling reason to or not. We were hungry.
Only one console had Colin the dog in native 1080p.
It was thus that a stunned and delighted Sony announced in February that it had smashed its five million sales target ahead of schedule, ahead even of its launch in Japan. PS4 was trouncing Xbox One at the tills even though Microsoft's machine was selling pretty quickly by any previous standards. As early as February and March the sales of cross-generation games like Thief and Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes were an order of magnitude higher on the new machines than the old - and PS4 had the lion's share of the action. No-one had expected the generation to get off to such a flying start.
It wasn't all good news, however. In stark contrast to the US and Europe, PS4's Japanese launch was a disaster; it seemed Sony had no better answer than Nintendo to the death of home console gaming in its native land. Smilin' Jack Tretton, PlayStation's popular American chief, saw an opportunity to drop the mic on a high and retired. DriveClub was delayed, again, to October - which is just as well, because The Order: 1886, Sony's exclusive action game for the end-of-year season, was later delayed until 2015. Suddenly, the major exclusives propping up the latter half of PS4's year were a shaky-looking racer and a handsome but rather cheeky reissue of the 2013 PS3 hit, The Last of Us. Yet still those consoles sold.
Surely it wouldn't be long before PS4 owners started to look for software that really made sense of their new hardware. In late May, a game many had hung their purchases on arrived, with marketing backing from Sony: Ubisoft's crime thriller, Watch Dogs. It was nothing new, and not quite what early videos had promised it to be. Gamers were underwhelmed and getting restive. Why had we bought these machines again?
No Man's Sky: a coup - but not a true exclusive.
You could hardly argue that Sony was on the back foot, though. In Los Angeles in June, it had a solid E3, showing stunning footage of Uncharted 4, announcing Bloodborne, an exclusive game from fan-favourite Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, and hitching itself to the hottest indie hype train around - Hello Games' dreamy sci-fi opus No Man's Sky. Sony's indie charm offensive was paying off: it hadn't yet brought a true sensation to the PlayStation Store, but the PS4 was slowly collecting a critical mass of cool games like Transistor and Towerfall, and the bigger names were being drawn in in their wake.
Sony even felt bullish enough - which is to say, confident enough in its own subscription offering, PlayStation Plus - to refuse to allow EA's Early Access programme on PS4. Its knack for surprisingly hip PR hadn't left it, either. At Gamescom in August, it partnered with Konami and Hideo Kojima to release PT, a free "playable teaser" for horror reboot Silent Hills, which caused a stir and opened a door to new kind of video game marketing that actually benefited players.
If PlayStation 4 owners had one complaint at this point, it was the unreliability of PlayStation Network's online services. PS4's background downloading and updating was a step forward, but connection problems and downtime were still frequent, and the subscription requirement threw a harsh light on a gaming service that still wasn't the equal of Xbox Live. That was unfortunate, considering Sony had spent a marketing fortune aligning another third-party game with PlayStation 4, and this one required an internet connection: Bungie's Destiny.
Destiny seemed like a make or break moment, not just for PS4 but for the promise of a new console generation. It proved to be a make and break moment. The huge hype climax of a big console launch clashed uncomfortably with a game that, like a massively multiplayer PC game, couldn't meaningfully be reviewed before it was in players' hands. Confusion reigned. PSN's servers buckled, and many players were disillusioned with the dry experience they found when they eventually did log in. Was this really the future? Yes, it was: the game could be hamfisted and boring, but also addictive and intense, a bewitching and clever hybrid that gave console gamers their first true taste of the MMO's infinite spiral of engagement. Like it or not - and despite the fact you could play a decent version on the old consoles - Destiny was the first true game of the new generation. Everyone was playing it, and everyone was playing it on PS4. Check your friends list; many still are.
Destiny: brave new world?
Whether or not you chalk Destiny up as a win, it was followed by a painful, ugly loss. Almost a full year after its original release date, DriveClub finally arrived. And it didn't work. Its social-gaming hook, the focus of all its marketing, turned out to be beyond developer Evolution's ability to write server code, and the game broke online. Was this really the future, too? We can only hope not; online games will always have teething troubles, but DriveClub's are still severe enough that the free PS Plus edition, a carrot Sony had been dangling for a year and a half, has been indefinitely shelved. Factor in its lengthy delay and lacklustre core and you have to conclude that DriveClub's failure isn't so much a sign of the times as another example of the mismanagement and erratic quality control that are the unhappy flipside of Sony's adventurous record as a first-party publisher.
And so we find PS4 facing Christmas with one of the weakest exclusive line-ups on record, and a third-party slate that's not much better. PS4's best games, from Shadow of Mordor to Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, can almost without exception be played on PS3. True new-generation games like Batman: Arkham City and The Witcher 3 have retreated into 2015 - and a good thing too, if the shambles that is the one exception, Assassin's Creed Unity, is anything to go by. The rest are remasters. Once again: why have we bought these machines?
Even allowing for DriveClub, and PSN's ups and downs (mostly downs), and those damned rubber sticks, Sony has had a great year. PlayStation 4 has had a great year. But PlayStation 4 owners haven't, not really. We've done our part: bought the machines in good faith and persuaded ourselves that those extra frames per second, those extra lines of resolution, are really worth it. It's getting hard to keep that up. The PS4 must be the most successful console without a killer app there's ever been, but its momentum can't last forever, its feelgood factor has worn off, and its opponent has got its act together. Sony - and all your partners - it's over to you.Video of an uncontacted tribe spotted in the Brazilian jungle has been released, bringing them to life in ways that photographs alone cannot.
The tribe, believed to be Panoa Indians, have been monitored from a distance by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation, a government agency charged with handling the nation’s indigenous communities. Many of the world’s 100 or so uncontacted tribes live in the Amazon.
Until 1987, it was government policy to contact such people. But contact is fraught with problems, especially disease; people who have stayed isolated from the mainstream world have stayed isolated from its pathogens, and have little immunity to our diseases. Brazilian government policy is now to watch from afar, and — at least in principle — to protect uncontacted tribes from intrusion.
Unfortunately, uncontacted tribes usually live in resource-rich areas threatened by logging, mining and other development. There’s often pressure on governments to turn a blind eye. Videos like this, released by tribal advocacy group Survival International and produced by the BBC’s Human Planet program, are legal proof that uncontacted tribes still exist, and deserve protection.
See Also:Speaking out... Dr Philip Freier, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne / Pic: Michael Potter
CHURCHES and community organisations had a culture that helped child sex abuse go undetected, Melbourne's Anglican archbishop has told an inquiry.
Dr Peter Freier has told Victoria's abuse inquiry it has records of 46 complaints against clergy and church workers and has paid out compensation of $268,000 in the past 10 years.
Dr Freier said historically there had been a culture that provided opportunities for people who wanted to breach the trust of children to do so and for children's complaints to be ignored.
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"As you look backwards you can see broadly as a culture we've not readily listened to children when they've made complaints," Dr Freier told the inquiry.
"There have been opportunities for people who wanted to breach the trust of children to do that and often for children's accounts of that trust being broken, being disbelieved."
He said this was the case for many community organisations not just churches.
He said children were sometimes punished for having raised a question about the conduct of an adult.
Dr Freier said the church was unable to change the past, but strove "to have the most robust procedures in place so that the risk of harm to children is reduced as much as possible."
"We believe what Jesus says when he taught, 'The Truth will set you free', Archbishop Freier said in a prepared statement. "Public scrutiny is o be applauded when it brings shameful matters to light."
"I acknowledge that people's faith has been severely questioned and challenged during this process, which is to be expected in such circumstances. However, I want to give the assurance that there are good people doing good things to assist victims."
Dr Freier recalled "the chill of fear that I experienced when it was revealed that a teacher at my son's primary school - in another part of Australia - was a sexual predator of other boys in his class.
"I have listened to a victim of child sexual abuse in the church tell me how a predatory minister insinuated himself into the confidence of his family so that children of that family came to be entrusted to the predator's care and how this trust was betrayed and a vulnerable child abused."
Questioned by the parliamentary inquiry, the church's independent director of professional standards, Claire Sargent, said that of the 46 historic complaints in the church's files, 12 were reported to police, 20 were not and it was not clear what had happened in the remaining 14 cases. The vast majority of those cases involved clergy.
Ms Sargent said the church's policy was to always report current allegations of child sex abuse but not historic allegations.
"If someone has knowledge they are required to report that," Ms Sargent said.She said most cases were opportunistic, but in "a very few" cases a predator had abused a number of victims. She said that of five cases reported in the past several years, charges were laid in one case and dismissed in one case.
Dr Freier said it would be "a sensible thing" to make it a criminal offence to conceal abuse. He told the inquiry, "We would not want to be part of any conspiracy".
The Melbourne diocese has had procedures in place since 1994 to deal with sexual misconduct, its reporting and investigation.
Dr Freier said the church had strived to ensure all priests were made aware of their responsibilities but acknowledged in the past there had been gaps in the system.
"We've always had high expectations and I expect that as a culture, churches generally, and community organisations have not had the necessary checks and balances," Dr Freier said.
Dr Freier said cultural changes had occurred in the church and all ministers were now trained in their responsibilities and child safety before they were authorised to become ministers.
The parliamentary committee conducting the inquiry asked church representatives why record keeping on allegations of child abuse were less than adequate before the 1990s.
"I can't comment on why |
This is something that people like me know from a very young age. It's innate. I couldn't tell you how hard I tried not to be this way and not to feel the way I do. It's just really about people understanding. No matter how much evidence there is, and if you're able to say definitively "This is 100% genetic," there are still going to be people that do the whole "God says..." or whatever their reasons are. Just like racism still exists. You're never going to be able to eradicate it.
Another funny thing is, I competed a really long time drug-free. I actually qualified for the Arnold without ever having touched anything. I was squatting 900, I benched mid-500s, and I pulled over 700 before I ever touched anything. I pushed my weight as high as 269, but I was a very bulky 269 at 5'9".
Ironically enough, what finally made me make the decision to crossover was having cancer. I found out I had testicular cancer three weeks before the Arnold in 2004 and, with hormone replacement after that, I could no longer compete drug-free. Up to that point, I was competing in both tested and non-tested meets. I really didn't care, I just went where the competition was.
And here's an interesting thing I found out when I had cancer. I actually found out that all my hormone levels, naturally, were in-between male and female. My estrogen levels were high. My prolactin levels were three times what a normal male's were supposed to be. My pituitary gland is unusually small for a male's. My body was kind of in-between both genders.
I had assumed, because of how well I'd done in lifting, that I probably had a naturally high testosterone level. But then I had my levels drawn before surgery and it turned out I was actually below normal even beforehand.
So I took about six months and thought about everything, and I made the decision to cross over to "the dark side". It was one of those things, like a love-hate relationship. I liked what it did for my performance, but I hated the secondary masculine characteristics and it made my body more male in those ways.
It made me hairier all over. I was never someone who had a lot of chest hair, but that stuff really bothered me. It made me very uncomfortable. I started getting whole body laser hair removal years ago. The facial hair really bothered me. Then I started losing the hair on my head.
I really didn't like that, but it was part of the sacrifice to achieve the goals I wanted to achieve. If I had it to do all over again, I can't say that I would make a different choice. I don't have any regrets in that arena. To accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, it had to be.
T Nation: When you were training hard for powerlifting, was it ever Janae powerlifting or was it Matt? Has Janae ever done a Kroc row?
Janae Kroc: To be honest, no. I trained as Matt and when I was competing in powerlifting, not that I couldn't do that as a woman and train with that same kind of intensity, but it's just a different aspect of my personality. Totally different goals.
That was definitely my masculine side, and even now I struggle with that. I can't go in the gym and train like that without wanting to get bigger and stronger. So I've had to stop doing that and really just focus on the endurance stuff. I do plan to resume the training just as hard once I've crossed that point where now I'm training as Janae with different goals in mind.
But right now I'm still far too big and muscular to be training as Janae. I just have too much size to lose and right now it'd be counterproductive. It's funny because initially there was a big strength drop with the estrogen. Between the dieting and the estrogen, my strength dropped a ton, but now, it's kind of leveled off. I've lost a couple hundred pounds off my raw bench. I could still probably bench 315, but it wouldn't be that easy.
At one point, after a month or two of being on the estrogen and really dieting hard, it was like every time I went in the gym I was weaker. It was crazy. So now I've kinda stabilized. And because I want to drop another 50 pounds or so, I'm sure when I get down around 170 I'm going to be quite a bit weaker still.
T Nation: Are you still training clients or are you writing more?
Janae Kroc: I'm still doing some training and diet work, but I have cut back on it just because I'm so busy with what I'm still doing, the interviews and everything about all the transgender stuff.
I've already spoken to my publisher and they're very interested in me writing a book about all this, but I haven't really started it yet. I kinda feel we need to see where this journey goes. I feel like I can't really complete the book until I fully transition, because that would leave part of the story untold. I'm working with a company right now that's making a documentary about me and my life.
I'm also getting more involved in activism. The transgender murder rate is ridiculous and so is the suicide rate. About 41% of all transgender people attempt suicide. That's far greater than any other group that exists. It's a tough experience and a lot of people don't do well with it. The biggest thing is that people have supportive people in their life. So my life right now revolves around transition, training for the triathlon stuff, and activism.
T Nation: Is there anything you haven't had a chance to say yet?
Janae Kroc: I've had some people message me and say that I "destroyed their hero". For me, it's just like, nothing's changed, now you just know more. That's all. I am who I am and I've always been this person. It's just that I suppressed a big part of who I was all my life.
I won't say that Matt was a fake person, like I was faking it, but it was a limited part of who I was. Matt was the part of myself I was comfortable sharing with the world. Matt was the person that I was trying to be, that I thought I was "supposed to" be, and that everyone else wanted me to be. I tried very hard to be that person for a really long time.
Especially with relationships. While I could be comfortable in male circles as far as athletics and competition was concerned, I always struggled playing the male in the relationship. Even though I was attracted to women, it was something very foreign to me. It was very uncomfortable and it always felt like acting.
To be honest, one of the things I'm most looking forward to is dating as a woman. That's something I feel I missed out on. I feel like I never got to experience that. I don't know what it's like to be in a relationship and just be able to be yourself.
So yeah, the whole dating as a woman is something I'm very, very much looking forward to, just to finally be myself. Especially where intimacy is concerned. That, more than anything, was the hardest thing for me. I never felt like I was in the right body. It was always very awkward. I mean, I learned how to fake it. You figure things out. I'm not going to say I never had fun or didn't enjoy it.
T Nation: Yeah, you have three kids, so...
Janae Kroc: Exactly. I made it work. There were some good times there, but still, it was always faking. Not faking, that's the wrong word. More like acting. I was playing a role that didn't come naturally. So it will be nice for once in my life to be intimate and not have to be acting and be playing a role, and just be able to be myself because honestly I don't know what that's like. I have no idea what that's like.
Related: Adversity Makes Us Stronger
Related: Five Tools of Mental StrengthHappy Friday loves!
I am feeling good today! How about you? Feeling good? Plans for the weekend?
This weekend J and I are keeping it pretty low key and chilling all weekend with the exception of a fundraiser we are going to on Sunday.
I was feeling a little congested like I was going to catch a bug but thankfully I feel better now! My throat and chest were hurting and were kind of backed up so my mom suggested warm honey and black pepper mixed together.
I have to say. It worked like a charm and got me thinking about the health (and beauty) benefits of honey.
Honey is pretty much liquid gold. I love it. It’s sweet, sticky and just damn right delicious. It is filled with antibacterial and antifungal properties and can be traced back all the way to the Egyptians.
“Honey’s scientific super powers contribute to its vastly touted health benefits for the whole body. The healthy natural sweetener offers many nutritional benefits depending on its variety. Raw honey is the unpasteurized version of commonly used honey and only differs in its filtration, which helps extend its shelf life. A tablespoon contains 64 calories, is fat-free, cholesterol-free, and sodium-free, says the National Honey Board. Its composition is roughly 80 percent carbohydrates, 18 percent water, and two percent vitamins, minerals, and amino acids”
Honey can be used for many benefits including…
Health & Beauty Benefits of Honey:
Alleviates Allergies:
Has anti-inflammatory abilities to reduce and sooth coughs.
An All Natural Energy Booster:
With natural unprocessed sugar it can enter the bloodstream and deliver a quick boost of energy. The rise in blood sugar acts as a short-term energy source for your workout, especially in longer endurance exercises.
Boosts Memory:
The nectar is loaded in antioxidants that may help prevent cellular damage and loss within the brain.
Cough Suppressant:
The golden liquid’s thick consistency helps coat the throat while the sweet taste is believed to trigger nerve endings that protect the throat from incessant coughing.
Sleep Aid:
Similar to sugar, honey can cause a rise in insulin and release serotonin — a neurotransmitter that improves mood and happiness. The body then converts serotonin into melatonin, a chemical compound that regulates the length and the quality of sleep.
Treats Dandruff:
Honey’s antibacterial and anti-fungal properties treat dandruff, which is caused by an overgrowth of fungus.
Treats Wounds and Burns:
Honey is a natural antibiotic that can act both internally and externally. It can be used as a conventional treatment for wounds and burns by disinfecting wounds and sores from major species of bacteria.
Can Be Used As A Moisturizer:
Honey retains moister really well.
Cures hangovers:
Helps your liver speed up oxidation of the alcohol which helps get the toxins out of your body faster.
Helps with acne:
Contains humectants that moisturize the skin to kill bacteria causing acne
Increases sex drive:
A natural aphrodisiac.
I got super excited when I was doing research for this piece when I found out that honey was excellent for a hangover!
Pretty much add 3-4 tablespoons of honey to just about anything (or nothing) and you are good to go. Repeat every 3 hours depending on how serious your hangover is.
I would add it to a yummy smoothie, that way you can get a dose of fruits and veggies (something to put in your body and its HEALTHY) while you are curing that hangover.
What are some hangover methods you have? If any of you know about other spices, herbs, fruits, veggies…whatever….that can help with hangovers please let me know!
If the hangover treatment doesn’t work for you treat yourself to a moisturizing mask, relax and take a nap!
Honey is a natural humectant, meaning it draws moisture from the air into the skin and ensures it’s retained it in the layers where it’s needed most for penetrating, long-lasting hydration.
Try it: Spread one teaspoon raw honey on clean, dry skin, and let sit for 15-20 minutes. Rinse with tepid water.
According to Cosmopolitan Magazine, “the enzymes in raw honey clarify skin and keep pores clear and clean. Plus, the antibacterial properties of honey and jojoba or coconut oil also prevent bacterial buildup that can lead to skin imbalances and breakouts.”
Try it: Stir one tablespoon raw honey with two tablespoons jojoba oil or coconut oil until the mixture is spreadable consistency. Apply to clean, dry skin, and massage gently in a circular motion, avoiding your eye area. Rinse with tepid water.
Have a great weekend! Xx‘Bout time! Battlefield 4 gets an update today, and it sports a long list of fixes.
Battlefield 4 Patch Fixes A Lot Of Issues
Today, Battlefield 4 is set to receive a much needed update that will be solving several issues, including Quantum Leaping and friendly-fire problems. Here is a comprehensive list of everything included in the patch, thanks to our friends at PC Gaming:
Fix for a crash that would cause the game to stall, resulting in a sound loop. This should eliminate most of the problems relating to this.
Fix for the SUAV (introduced in the China Rising expansion pack) not exploding when hitting enemy soldiers. While these indeed should be deadly, they were never designed for “roadkilling” opponents.
Fixed one of the issues related to the so-called “Netcode”
Fix for player tags not always showing when needed to, resulting in players shooting team members.
Fix for graphical flickering appearing on terrain.
Fixed the instance where players suddenly would transition into Spectator Mode while playing the Defuse game mode.
Fix for a Defuse bug where none of the teams would win a round by letting the timer run out. -Fix for players getting stuck in the revive screen after being killed.
Fix for players getting stuck in the kill camera after being revived.
Fix for the game mode specific ribbons being counted twice in the multiplayer progression.
Made NVidia 331.82 or later driver versions mandatory for all players.
Disabled DirectX 11.1 on NVidia cards that have outdated drivers.
Fixed driver version not being properly detected on NVidia Optimus systems.
Fixed a minor crash that could occur when bringing up the scoreboard.
Fix for the issue where the game would get stuck in loading screen when players tried to join a Second Assault map without actually owning Second Assault.
Additionally, a server update will solve these problems:Janice Lee Willhelm's death in 2010 was ruled a suicide, but her children want answers in her death. (Published Friday, March 24, 2017)
A Texas family is seeking justice for the unexplained death of their mother.
Janice Lee Willhelm was found lifeless with a.45 caliber bullet in her neck. Her death was ruled a suicide, but a Dallas private investigator says that is simply not possible. Now, there are allegations from the victim's children about a forged will.
Willhelm, 63, and her husband called Leon County their home until one dark day in 2010.
"I think my wife just shot herself," Janice's husband is heard telling a 911 dispatcher.
"I was sitting there in the chair asleep and I heard a big bang," he said. "I woke up and she's got blood running out of her neck."
It was a 911 call her husband made purportedly seconds after realizing his wife of 10 years was sitting in the recliner dead.
"I didn't touch her, I didn't touch her," he told the dispatcher.
According to the crime scene photos, the weapon was a.45 caliber pistol. Most of the images are graphic, but show the gun on the floor several feet from where Janice Willhelm had allegedly shot herself in the neck. She had no history of mental illness but did have physical ailments.
"She's been without the medicine, and I didn't think nothing about it," her husband told dispatchers.
That statement to the dispatcher about the medicine would be one of several statements her family says they simply could not ignore.
"None of that was true, she had medication in her system," said her daughter Jennifer Davis.
"My brother and I could not believe that she would have taken her own life," Davis said.
She said her mother never ever spoke of harming herself, so the news of her death was beyond shocking. But then, several months later, something even more puzzling surfaced in the copy of her will.
"I realized immediately that that wasn't my mother's handwriting. Part of it was her writing, but the actual signature in the final pages was not," Davis said.
That's when Davis took her concerns nearly 130 miles north to Dallas County, armed with a folder and the knowledge that there was a former chief of police-turned private investigator willing to listen.
"As I looked at the case and I started looking at the physical evidence and the photographs of the crime scene and how it was handled, I became highly suspicious," said Avery Ensley, of Dallas Polygraph Services.
Ensley started getting second opinions outside of the Leon County Sheriff's Office, the investigating agency on the case.
Ensley says a handwriting expert determined the will was likely forged. According to Willhelm's medical records, a surgery prevented her from lifting her left arm any higher than her chest.
"She would have had to hold the weapon upside down and raise her arm completely up over her head in order to shoot herself this way," Ensley said, demonstrating with his hand.
"My opinion, and also the medical examiner's opinion from San Antonio, was that the weapon was placed by someone else," he said.
According to the autopsy report, the Dallas County medical examiner ruled Janice Willhelm's death a suicide in 2010. Ensley says that doctor's determination was based solely on the Leon County sheriff's report.
"The very same week that I reported to them that the will was forged, the gunshot residue kit from the victim disappeared. It's no longer in existence. Nobody knows where it is, it's lost," Ensley said.
The Leon County Sheriff's Office tells NBC 5 that as far as they're concerned, the case is closed and now in the hands of the Texas Rangers. They added that until further evidence is provided, her death will remain classified as a suicide.
Willhelm's children have filed a civil lawsuit against the woman's husband and claim the will was forged. That case is pending.
The Texas Rangers aren't commenting on the case, but Willhelm's husband is. He allowed NBC 5 to videotape him but not record his voice for fear he might incriminate himself in the ongoing civil lawsuit about the will. He denied all allegations. His story remains the same as the day he made the 911 call.
"It was just clear it was not in her makeup to go out like that," said Davis.
"I am doing everything in my power to take down the person that did this," she said.The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) joined with New York State’s attorney general and filed suit against Ron Johnson, the owner of five Papa John’s pizza stores in downtown Manhattan, for “wage theft” back in October. The two interlocked forces are seeking $2 million in damages for failing, according to the two plaintiffs, to pay adequately more than 400 pizza delivery drivers.
According to the Daily Signal, SEIU and New York's attorney general really don’t work out of the same office, but they might as well. The statement from AG Eric Schneidermann contained this comment from Kendall Fells, the organizing director for Fast Food Forward:
Fast-food workers all across the city and country are organizing for higher pay and union rights….
This suit shows why the campaign is so important. And it shows that Attorney General Schneidermann is serious about holding fast-food companies accountable for wage theft.
Fast Food Forward is the current resurrected iteration of the disgraced Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (better known as ACORN) freshly funded with millions from SEIU. It has found a friend in Schneidermann, who successfully exacted hundreds of thousands of dollars (the actual amount of the settlement is unknown) from the owners of six Domino’s Pizza stores in 2013 for allegedly not paying their workers minimum wage, overtime, or personal vehicle reimbursements, along with another $500,000 from the Cisneros Group, operator of a number of New York McDonald’s restaurants.
Efforts to unionize fast-food workers have failed miserably, and so SEIU has decided to focus its attack on the owners, one at a time. Rick Manning, communications director for Americans for Limited Government (ALG), sees the danger in the too-close link between SEIU and the New York AG’s office:
[FFF is] basically out to unionize the fast-food work force and to campaign for a minimum-wage increase. They are targeting non-union companies and applying pressure.
What we are seeing in New York and other parts of the country is an effort to use government as an organizing tool for unions.
The devious subterranean effort is nothing less than extortion, according to ALG’s president, Nathan Mehrens:
ACORN’s abuses of the public trust were so grievous that Congress denied them funding and shut them down.
Now, SEIU is recycling these same bad apples, hoping no one notices that their effort is nothing more than a rotten-to-the-core extortion scheme.
SEIU's brazen frontal attacks to pressure fast-food workers to join their union and pay it dues face nearly insurmountable obstacles. First, most of the minimum-wage workers are just glad to have a job and couldn't care less about being unionized. Second, for many a minimum-wage job is a stepping-stone to a better, higher-paying job, and they don’t want the baggage of union membership sullying their resumés. Third, the rate of turnover in the fast-food industry is legendary — often exceeding 50 percent in a year — so the extraction of dues and replacing those who have left with new members would be a nightmare for the unions.
In addition, public support for union thugs inside SEIU continues to drop. The latest numbers from Pew Research (February 2014) showed the “long downward slide for unions” both in absolute numbers (11.9 million in 1983 to 7.3 million in 2013) and in percentage of all U.S. wage and salary workers (20 percent in 1983 to 11 percent in 2013). Put another way, in 30 years union membership in the United States has dropped by nearly 50 percent.
Attempts to whitewash and tout the success of SEIU’s efforts to unionize the fast-food industry are legion. For instance, Bruce Horowitz, writing in USA Today in September, following the arrests of a few union-subsidized troublemakers in New York, tried to make the most out of them. His union sources told him that the protests organized by SEIU had resulted in the arrests of more than 430 workers, which showed just how much momentum the movement was gaining. This was a success, according to the same Kendall Fells working closely with New York’s AG:
There has to be civil disobedience because workers don’t see any other way to get $15 an hour and a union.
There’s a long history of this, from the civil rights movement to the farm workers movement.
Aside from Kell’s outrageous endorsement of law-breaking by calling it civil disobedience, the numbers simply didn’t add up. The union launched a nationwide “protest” in more than 100 cities, which included sit-downs and lie-downs in front of the stores. But in New York, just 19 workers who had somehow been brainwashed into quitting their jobs (those minimum-wage jobs are easily replaced by others who want to work rather than protest) were arrested. In Milwaukee the union found 25 freshly unemployed minimum-wage workers willing to give up their jobs and get arrested for blocking traffic. As the executive director of the National Council of Chain Restaurants put it: “Unions are calling it ‘civil disobedience’ when in reality this choreographed activity is trespassing, and it’s illegal.”
Union sympathizer Jordan Weissmann, writing in Slate following the “success” of the nationwide protest, stretched the truth in ways that would delight any wordsmith in charge of exaggeration:
Consider the numbers. Over roughly the past two years, 13 states have increased their minimum wage, as have 10 city and county governments, according to a tally by NBC News.
Seattle voted to raise its citywide minimum to $15 an hour by 2018; San Francisco residents will vote on whether to do the same in November.
The mayors of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago have all backed a $13 wage floor.
And just in case you were looking for a rough barometer of overall public interest in the issue, even Google searches for the phrase “minimum wage” have been consistently more common since the start of 2013.
But have these protests actually gained unions any — any — new members? Why, no, not actually, according to apologist Weissmann: “Overall, union membership has continued its long decline.”
And that’s why “tough-guy” tactics such as suing the owners of fast-food restaurants are the final refuge of unions such as SEIU. Only through the force of government will owners kowtow to the union’s wishes. After all, according to Weissmann, “unions won’t ensure their long-term survival without finding ways to expand their rolls,” even if it involves breaking the law.
If lawsuits such as the one announced by New York Attorney General Schneidermann and supported by SEIU organizer Kendall Fells against Papa John’s succeed, the franchise owners will simply close up shop and move somewhere else where their efforts at providing entry-level positions are better appreciated. This will leave behind, of course, those seeking such positions, all in the name of achieving the unachievable: equity, fairness, and equality, as defined by the unions and their government henchmen.
What a legacy for unions: greater unemployment and an increasingly tarnished public image as they try to stave off their continuing decline.
A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics.Preview | Recap | Notebook
Rockets-Hawks Preview
By MATT BEARDMORE
Posted Nov 01 2012 3:43PM James Harden paid immediate dividends for the Houston Rockets. The new-look Atlanta Hawks hope their offseason moves will give them the financial flexibility to move in a more successful direction. Harden will look to build on an impressive team debut Friday night when the host Hawks kick off their 2012-13 season. Just four days after being acquired from Oklahoma City in a surprising deal that sent Kevin Martin, rookie Jeremy Lamb, two first-round picks and a second-rounder to the defending Western Conference champions, Harden poured in 37 points and added a career-best 12 assists in Wednesday's 105-96 victory at Detroit. "That was an awesome performance," said point guard Jeremy Lin, who began his second stint with the Rockets with 12 points, eight assists and four steals. "We just let him go to work and played off of him and it was really nice." So was the five-year, $80 million contract extension Harden signed earlier in the day. "I think I just wanted to get out there and play," Harden said after fellow newcomer Carlos Delfino hit four fourth-quarter 3-pointers to help Houston rally from an 11-point deficit. "All the talking and all the craziness that has been happening this last week - I just wanted to go out there and play basketball." Danny Ferry, the Hawks' new president of basketball operations and general manager, understands the challenge his team faces with Harden now the focal point of the Rockets' offense. "James is one of the really good young shooting guards in the NBA. He'll really make them a better team," Ferry told the Hawks' official website. "It was a trade based off the new CBA and how teams have to make some more financial decisions going forward. Certainly Oklahoma City did that in this situation." The Hawks still have a major decision to make regarding Josh Smith, who enters the final year of his deal after averaging career highs of 18.8 points and 9.6 rebounds last season when Atlanta finished 40-26. Ferry, though, has already shown he's not afraid to pull the trigger on a big deal. Trying to lead the organization in a new direction - the Hawks have failed to advance to the Eastern Conference finals despite making the playoffs each of the last five seasons - Ferry traded Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams in separate deals this summer. The Hawks acquired Anthony Morrow, Jordan Farmar, DeShawn Stevenson, Jordan Williams, and a second-round pick from Brooklyn for Johnson, who has four years and $90 million left on his contract. Atlanta sent Williams and the two years left on his deal to Utah for point guard Devin Harris, whose contract expires after this season. "It's definitely going to be a challenge because we're semi-rebuilding," said Smith, one of five returning Hawks. "You hate to see those guys leave. But we're going to be playing with different teammates now, so we've got to try to make things work." The Hawks will employ a new up-tempo approach, but their guard-heavy roster which includes Jeff Teague as well as newcomers Kyle Korver, Lou Williams - second to Harden in last season's Sixth Man of the Year voting - and rookie John Jenkins could present problems on the defensive end. "When you look at us on paper, everybody says we're a team that has some good players, can make shots, will be able to get up and down the floor, will be able to score," said coach Larry Drew, whose team was sixth in scoring defense last season at 93.2 points per game. "But will we be able to defend? That will be the big question." The Hawks have two-time All-Star center Al Horford back after he missed most of last season with a torn pectoral muscle. Smith gives Atlanta one of the top shot blockers in the NBA - he's averaging 2.2 since entering the league in 2004-05 - but the undersized Hawks will need solid minutes in the post from Zaza Pachulia and Ivan Johnson. Rockets coach Kevin McHale has to feel good about his team's frontcourt after newcomer Omer Asik and second-year center Greg Smith combined for 22 points and 14 rebounds in the opener.
Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited
Harden has 45, Rockets beat Hawks 109-102
By CHARLES ODUM
Posted Nov 03 2012 1:21AM ATLANTA (AP) The Houston Rockets are winning with James Harden performing like the team's new franchise player. The Atlanta Hawks struggled in the start of their new era without their longtime franchise player. Harden continued to shine at the start of his Houston career, scoring a career-high 45 points to lead the Rockets to a 109-102 victory over the Hawks on Friday night. Harden, traded to the Rockets from Oklahoma City on Saturday, topped 30 points for the second time in his first week with his new team. "He's pretty good, I'd say," Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. "He just kept battling and playing." Jeremy Lin, who had 21 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists, said Harden makes a "big time" difference. "He frees everybody up," Lin said. "He knows what he's doing. We're thankful that he showed up." Marcus Morris had 17 points for Houston. Rockets center Omer Asik had a career-high 19 rebounds but did not score, missing seven shots from the field. Lou Williams led the Hawks with 22 points in his Atlanta debut. Josh Smith had 18 points and 10 rebounds. Williams averaged a career-high 14.9 points per game with the Sixers last season when he was runner-up to Harden for NBA's Sixth Man of the Year Award. Williams appears bound for another year as a sixth man. Harden is thriving in his new role as a starter. "It's a lot different," Harden said. "Having the offense run basically through you, it's a lot different, but that's my job now so I've got to get used to it." Harden said he wasn't focused on his impressive scoring in his first two games. "I don't even worry about it," he said. "I just go out there and play hard." The Hawks traded six-time All-Star Joe Johnson to the Brooklyn Nets in July for five players and a draft pick. Johnson averaged more than 20 points in five of his seven seasons as Atlanta's top player. "We're still trying to establish an identity," Hawks coach Larry Drew said. "That may take a little time to do." Drew said his team struggled in rebounding and on defense, especially in helping stop Harden's drives. "When he gets the basketball in transition, he's going to get to the basket," Drew said. "It won't be just one guy's responsibility, it will be a team responsibility." With the game tied 92-92, Harden had consecutive baskets, including a three-point play, to give Houston the lead for good. Chandler Parson's 3-pointer with 1:55 remaining pushed the lead to 100-94. Harden was 14 of 19 from the field and 15 of 17 from the free throw line. Harden's 17 free-throw attempts matched Atlanta's total. Harden, who signed a five-year, $80 million contract extension with Houston following the trade, had 37 points, 12 assists and six rebounds in a 105-96 win at Detroit in his debut on Wednesday night. Houston led after each of the first three periods. The Rockets took a 68-52 lead in the third before Atlanta cut the deficit to 81-74 at the end of the quarter. A basket by Smith with 7:12 remaining gave Atlanta an 88-87 lead, its first since the opening period. "We were just trying to put together as many stops as we could," Williams said. "We battled our way back into the game to even get it to that point." The Rockets are 2-0, but McHale said the team needs work on closing out wins. "We need a few days together in the gym where we can slow some things down and figure out how we want to finish games," McHale said. After a preseason of sampling lineup combinations, Drew had two newcomers - Devin Harris and Kyle Korver - join Al Horford, Smith and Jeff Teague. Drew said he had "a little indecision" about Harris starting at shooting guard as the coach worried about the defensive matchup with Harden, who at 6-foot-5 is at least 3 inches taller than Harris. DeShawn Stevenson, who could match Harden's height - and at least come close to matching Harden's beard - became an important player off the bench for Atlanta. Stevenson had 12 points on four 3-pointers, including one at the buzzer to end the first half. Teague had 14 points and seven assists and Horford had 14 points. The Rockets had a 58-36 advantage in rebounds. "We have some things that we really have to focus in and work on," Drew said. "There were areas in this game where we weren't very good, very polished, particularly on the boards." Drew said his perimeter players were beaten for too many long rebounds. "We didn't play well, yet we gave ourselves a chance in fighting back," he said. Notes: Houston F Patrick Patterson started after missing the opener with a strained left quad. C Greg Smith (strained left foot) did not play.... Harden's previous career high was 40 points against the Suns on April 18.... Hawks C Johan Petro was inactive.... Stevenson fouled out in the final minute.... Harden is the first player to score 40 points against Atlanta since LeBron James had 43 points on March 18, 2011.
Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibitedThis paper reports on two studies which investigated the relationship between children's texting behaviour, their knowledge of text abbreviations and their school attainment in written language skills. In Study One, 11–12‐year‐old children provided information on their texting behaviour. They were also asked to translate a standard English sentence into a text message and vice versa. The children's standardised verbal and non‐verbal reasoning scores were also obtained. Children who used their mobiles to send three or more text messages a day had significantly lower scores than children who sent none. However, the children who, when asked to write a text message, showed greater use of text abbreviations (‘textisms’) tended to have better performance on a measure of verbal reasoning ability, which is highly associated with Key Stage 2 (KS2) and 3 English scores. In Study Two, children's performance on writing measures was examined more specifically. Ten to eleven‐year‐old children were asked to complete another English to text message translation exercise. Spelling proficiency was also assessed, and KS2 Writing scores were obtained. Positive correlations between spelling ability and performance on the translation exercise were found, and group‐based comparisons based on the children's writing scores also showed that good writing attainment was associated with greater use of textisms, although the direction of this association is nor clear. Overall, these findings suggest that children's knowledge of textisms is not associated with poor written language outcomes for children in this age range.
Introduction Text messaging is one of the fastest growing modes of communication, with 135 billion text messages sent worldwide during the first 3 months of 2004 (Cellular Online, 2004), and 32% of adults in Britain are estimated to send and receive text messages every day (Office for National Statistics, 2003). Katz and Aakhus (2002) estimated that over 72% of people in Western Europe own mobile phones. The proportion of young people estimated to be active ‘texters’ is even higher; the Centre of Science Education at Sheffield University estimated that in 2001, 90% of school children owned phones, and that 96% used text messaging. Reid and Reid (2004, 2007) found that roughly half of the young people who used text messaging actually preferred texting their friends to talking to them, particularly the more anxious. These findings include older teenagers and young adults, but among younger children texting is also widespread, with parents often giving their children mobile telephones to keep in touch with them while giving them more freedom (Haddon, 2000). The Guardian ( |
. With exponentially expanding space, two nearby observers are separated very quickly; so much so, that the distance between them quickly exceeds the limits of communications. The spatial slices are expanding very fast to cover huge volumes. Things are constantly moving beyond the cosmological horizon, which is a fixed distance away, and everything becomes homogeneous.
As the inflationary field slowly relaxes to the vacuum, the cosmological constant goes to zero and space begins to expand normally. The new regions that come into view during the normal expansion phase are exactly the same regions that were pushed out of the horizon during inflation, and so they are at nearly the same temperature and curvature, because they come from the same originally small patch of space.
The theory of inflation thus explains why the temperatures and curvatures of different regions are so nearly equal. It also predicts that the total curvature of a space-slice at constant global time is zero. This prediction implies that the total ordinary matter, dark matter and residual vacuum energy in the Universe have to add up to the critical density, and the evidence supports this. More strikingly, inflation allows physicists to calculate the minute differences in temperature of different regions from quantum fluctuations during the inflationary era, and many of these quantitative predictions have been confirmed.[15][16]
Space expands
In a space that expands exponentially (or nearly exponentially) with time, any pair of free-floating objects that are initially at rest will move apart from each other at an accelerating rate, at least as long as they are not bound together by any force. From the point of view of one such object, the spacetime is something like an inside-out Schwarzschild black hole—each object is surrounded by a spherical event horizon. Once the other object has fallen through this horizon it can never return, and even light signals it sends will never reach the first object (at least so long as the space continues to expand exponentially).
In the approximation that the expansion is exactly exponential, the horizon is static and remains a fixed physical distance away. This patch of an inflating universe can be described by the following metric:[17][18]
d s 2 = − ( 1 − Λ r 2 ) d t 2 + 1 1 − Λ r 2 d r 2 + r 2 d Ω 2. {\displaystyle ds^{2}=-(1-\Lambda r^{2})\,dt^{2}+{1 \over 1-\Lambda r^{2}}\,dr^{2}+r^{2}\,d\Omega ^{2}.}
This exponentially expanding spacetime is called a de Sitter space, and to sustain it there must be a cosmological constant, a vacuum energy density that is constant in space and time and proportional to Λ in the above metric. For the case of exactly exponential expansion, the vacuum energy has a negative pressure p equal in magnitude to its energy density ρ; the equation of state is p=−ρ.
Inflation is typically not an exactly exponential expansion, but rather quasi- or near-exponential. In such a universe the horizon will slowly grow with time as the vacuum energy density gradually decreases.
Few inhomogeneities remain
Because the accelerating expansion of space stretches out any initial variations in density or temperature to very large length scales, an essential feature of inflation is that it smooths out inhomogeneities, anisotropies and reduces the curvature of space. This pushes the Universe into a very simple state in which it is completely dominated by the inflaton field and the only significant inhomogeneities are tiny quantum fluctuations. Inflation also dilutes exotic heavy particles, such as the magnetic monopoles predicted by many extensions to the Standard Model of particle physics. If the Universe was only hot enough to form such particles before a period of inflation, they would not be observed in nature, as they would be so rare that it is quite likely that there are none in the observable universe. Together, these effects are called the inflationary "no-hair theorem"[19] by analogy with the no hair theorem for black holes.
The "no-hair" theorem works essentially because the cosmological horizon is no different from a black-hole horizon, except for philosophical disagreements about what is on the other side. The interpretation of the no-hair theorem is that the Universe (observable and unobservable) expands by an enormous factor during inflation. In an expanding universe, energy densities generally fall, or get diluted, as the volume of the Universe increases. For example, the density of ordinary "cold" matter (dust) goes down as the inverse of the volume: when linear dimensions double, the energy density goes down by a factor of eight; the radiation energy density goes down even more rapidly as the Universe expands since the wavelength of each photon is stretched (redshifted), in addition to the photons being dispersed by the expansion. When linear dimensions are doubled, the energy density in radiation falls by a factor of sixteen (see the solution of the energy density continuity equation for an ultra-relativistic fluid). During inflation, the energy density in the inflaton field is roughly constant. However, the energy density in everything else, including inhomogeneities, curvature, anisotropies, exotic particles, and standard-model particles is falling, and through sufficient inflation these all become negligible. This leaves the Universe flat and symmetric, and (apart from the homogeneous inflaton field) mostly empty, at the moment inflation ends and reheating begins.[20]
Duration
A key requirement is that inflation must continue long enough to produce the present observable universe from a single, small inflationary Hubble volume. This is necessary to ensure that the Universe appears flat, homogeneous and isotropic at the largest observable scales. This requirement is generally thought to be satisfied if the Universe expanded by a factor of at least 1026 during inflation.[21]
Reheating
Inflation is a period of supercooled expansion, when the temperature drops by a factor of 100,000 or so. (The exact drop is model-dependent, but in the first models it was typically from 1027 K down to 1022 K.[22]) This relatively low temperature is maintained during the inflationary phase. When inflation ends the temperature returns to the pre-inflationary temperature; this is called reheating or thermalization because the large potential energy of the inflaton field decays into particles and fills the Universe with Standard Model particles, including electromagnetic radiation, starting the radiation dominated phase of the Universe. Because the nature of the inflation is not known, this process is still poorly understood, although it is believed to take place through a parametric resonance.[23][24]
Motivations
Inflation resolves several problems in Big Bang cosmology that were discovered in the 1970s.[25] Inflation was first proposed by Alan Guth in 1979 while investigating the problem of why no magnetic monopoles are seen today; he found that a positive-energy false vacuum would, according to general relativity, generate an exponential expansion of space. It was very quickly realised that such an expansion would resolve many other long-standing problems. These problems arise from the observation that to look like it does today, the Universe would have to have started from very finely tuned, or "special" initial conditions at the Big Bang. Inflation attempts to resolve these problems by providing a dynamical mechanism that drives the Universe to this special state, thus making a universe like ours much more likely in the context of the Big Bang theory.
Horizon problem
The horizon problem is the problem of determining why the Universe appears statistically homogeneous and isotropic in accordance with the cosmological principle.[26][27][28] For example, molecules in a canister of gas are distributed homogeneously and isotropically because they are in thermal equilibrium: gas throughout the canister has had enough time to interact to dissipate inhomogeneities and anisotropies. The situation is quite different in the big bang model without inflation, because gravitational expansion does not give the early universe enough time to equilibrate. In a big bang with only the matter and radiation known in the Standard Model, two widely separated regions of the observable universe cannot have equilibrated because they move apart from each other faster than the speed of light and thus have never come into causal contact. In the early Universe, it was not possible to send a light signal between the two regions. Because they have had no interaction, it is difficult to explain why they have the same temperature (are thermally equilibrated). Historically, proposed solutions included the Phoenix universe of Georges Lemaître,[29] the related oscillatory universe of Richard Chase Tolman,[30] and the Mixmaster universe of Charles Misner. Lemaître and Tolman proposed that a universe undergoing a number of cycles of contraction and expansion could come into thermal equilibrium. Their models failed, however, because of the buildup of entropy over several cycles. Misner made the (ultimately incorrect) conjecture that the Mixmaster mechanism, which made the Universe more chaotic, could lead to statistical homogeneity and isotropy.[27][31]
Flatness problem
The flatness problem is sometimes called one of the Dicke coincidences (along with the cosmological constant problem).[32][33] It became known in the 1960s that the density of matter in the Universe was comparable to the critical density necessary for a flat universe (that is, a universe whose large scale geometry is the usual Euclidean geometry, rather than a non-Euclidean hyperbolic or spherical geometry).[34]:61
Therefore, regardless of the shape of the universe the contribution of spatial curvature to the expansion of the Universe could not be much greater than the contribution of matter. But as the Universe expands, the curvature redshifts away more slowly than matter and radiation. Extrapolated into the past, this presents a fine-tuning problem because the contribution of curvature to the Universe must be exponentially small (sixteen orders of magnitude less than the density of radiation at big bang nucleosynthesis, for example). This problem is exacerbated by recent observations of the cosmic microwave background that have demonstrated that the Universe is flat to within a few percent.[35]
Magnetic-monopole problem
The magnetic monopole problem, sometimes called the exotic-relics problem, says that if the early universe were very hot, a large number of very heavy[why?], stable magnetic monopoles would have been produced. This is a problem with Grand Unified Theories, which propose that at high temperatures (such as in the early universe) the electromagnetic force, strong, and weak nuclear forces are not actually fundamental forces but arise due to spontaneous symmetry breaking from a single gauge theory.[36] These theories predict a number of heavy, stable particles that have not been observed in nature. The most notorious is the magnetic monopole, a kind of stable, heavy "charge" of magnetic field.[37][38] Monopoles are predicted to be copiously produced following Grand Unified Theories at high temperature,[39][40] and they should have persisted to the present day, to such an extent that they would become the primary constituent of the Universe.[41][42] Not only is that not the case, but all searches for them have failed, placing stringent limits on the density of relic magnetic monopoles in the Universe.[43] A period of inflation that occurs below the temperature where magnetic monopoles can be produced would offer a possible resolution of this problem: monopoles would be separated from each other as the Universe around them expands, potentially lowering their observed density by many orders of magnitude. Though, as cosmologist Martin Rees has written, "Skeptics about exotic physics might not be hugely impressed by a theoretical argument to explain the absence of particles that are themselves only hypothetical. Preventive medicine can readily seem 100 percent effective against a disease that doesn't exist!"[44]
History
Precursors
In the early days of General Relativity, Albert Einstein introduced the cosmological constant to allow a static solution, which was a three-dimensional sphere with a uniform density of matter. Later, Willem de Sitter found a highly symmetric inflating universe, which described a universe with a cosmological constant that is otherwise empty.[45] It was discovered that Einstein's universe is unstable, and that small fluctuations cause it to collapse or turn into a de Sitter universe.
In the early 1970s Zeldovich noticed the flatness and horizon problems of Big Bang cosmology; before his work, cosmology was presumed to be symmetrical on purely philosophical grounds.[citation needed] In the Soviet Union, this and other considerations led Belinski and Khalatnikov to analyze the chaotic BKL singularity in General Relativity. Misner's Mixmaster universe attempted to use this chaotic behavior to solve the cosmological problems, with limited success.
False vacuum
In the late 1970s, Sidney Coleman applied the instanton techniques developed by Alexander Polyakov and collaborators to study the fate of the false vacuum in quantum field theory. Like a metastable phase in statistical mechanics—water below the freezing temperature or above the boiling point—a quantum field would need to nucleate a large enough bubble of the new vacuum, the new phase, in order to make a transition. Coleman found the most likely decay pathway for vacuum decay and calculated the inverse lifetime per unit volume. He eventually noted that gravitational effects would be significant, but he did not calculate these effects and did not apply the results to cosmology.
Starobinsky inflation
In the Soviet Union, Alexei Starobinsky noted that quantum corrections to general relativity should be important for the early universe. These generically lead to curvature-squared corrections to the Einstein–Hilbert action and a form of f(R) modified gravity. The solution to Einstein's equations in the presence of curvature squared terms, when the curvatures are large, leads to an effective cosmological constant. Therefore, he proposed that the early universe went through an inflationary de Sitter era.[46] This resolved the cosmology problems and led to specific predictions for the corrections to the microwave background radiation, corrections that were then calculated in detail. Starobinsky used the action
S = 1 2 ∫ d 4 x ( R + R 2 6 M 2 ) {\displaystyle S={\frac {1}{2}}\int d^{4}x\left(R+{\frac {R^{2}}{6M^{2}}}\right)}
which corresponds to the potential
V ( ϕ ) = Λ 4 ( 1 − e − 2 / 3 ϕ / M p 2 ) 2 {\displaystyle \quad V(\phi )=\Lambda ^{4}\left(1-e^{-{\sqrt {2/3}}\phi /M_{p}^{2}}\right)^{2}}
in the Einstein frame. This results in the observables: n s = 1 − 2 N, r = 12 N 2. {\displaystyle n_{s}=1-{\frac {2}{N}},\quad \quad r={\frac {12}{N^{2}}}.} [47]
Monopole problem
In 1978, Zeldovich noted the monopole problem, which was an unambiguous quantitative version of the horizon problem, this time in a subfield of particle physics, which led to several speculative attempts to resolve it. In 1980 Alan Guth realized that false vacuum decay in the early universe would solve the problem, leading him to propose a scalar-driven inflation. Starobinsky's and Guth's scenarios both predicted an initial de Sitter phase, differing only in mechanistic details.
Early inflationary models
Guth proposed inflation in January 1980 to explain the nonexistence of magnetic monopoles;[48][49] it was Guth who coined the term "inflation".[50] At the same time, Starobinsky argued that quantum corrections to gravity would replace the initial singularity of the Universe with an exponentially expanding de Sitter phase.[51] In October 1980, Demosthenes Kazanas suggested that exponential expansion could eliminate the particle horizon and perhaps solve the horizon problem,[52][53] while Sato suggested that an exponential expansion could eliminate domain walls (another kind of exotic relic).[54] In 1981 Einhorn and Sato[55] published a model similar to Guth's and showed that it would resolve the puzzle of the magnetic monopole abundance in Grand Unified Theories. Like Guth, they concluded that such a model not only required fine tuning of the cosmological constant, but also would likely lead to a much too granular universe, i.e., to large density variations resulting from bubble wall collisions.
The physical size of the Hubble radius (solid line) as a function of the linear expansion (scale factor) of the universe. During cosmological inflation, the Hubble radius is constant. The physical wavelength of a perturbation mode (dashed line) is also shown. The plot illustrates how the perturbation mode grows larger than the horizon during cosmological inflation before coming back inside the horizon, which grows rapidly during radiation domination. If cosmological inflation had never happened, and radiation domination continued back until a gravitational singularity, then the mode would never have been inside the horizon in the very early universe, and no causal mechanism could have ensured that the universe was homogeneous on the scale of the perturbation mode.
Guth proposed that as the early universe cooled, it was trapped in a false vacuum with a high energy density, which is much like a cosmological constant. As the very early universe cooled it was trapped in a metastable state (it was supercooled), which it could only decay out of through the process of bubble nucleation via quantum tunneling. Bubbles of true vacuum spontaneously form in the sea of false vacuum and rapidly begin expanding at the speed of light. Guth recognized that this model was problematic because the model did not reheat properly: when the bubbles nucleated, they did not generate any radiation. Radiation could only be generated in collisions between bubble walls. But if inflation lasted long enough to solve the initial conditions problems, collisions between bubbles became exceedingly rare. In any one causal patch it is likely that only one bubble would nucleate.
... Kazanas (1980) called this phase of the early Universe "de Sitter's phase." The name "inflation" was given by Guth (1981).... Guth himself did not refer to work of Kazanas until he published a book on the subject under the title "The inflationary universe: the quest for a new theory of cosmic origin" (1997), where he apologizes for not having referenced the work of Kazanas and of others, related to inflation.[56]
Slow-roll inflation
The bubble collision problem was solved by Linde[57] and independently by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhardt[58] in a model named new inflation or slow-roll inflation (Guth's model then became known as old inflation). In this model, instead of tunneling out of a false vacuum state, inflation occurred by a scalar field rolling down a potential energy hill. When the field rolls very slowly compared to the expansion of the Universe, inflation occurs. However, when the hill becomes steeper, inflation ends and reheating can occur.
Effects of asymmetries
Eventually, it was shown that new inflation does not produce a perfectly symmetric universe, but that quantum fluctuations in the inflaton are created. These fluctuations form the primordial seeds for all structure created in the later universe.[59] These fluctuations were first calculated by Viatcheslav Mukhanov and G. V. Chibisov in analyzing Starobinsky's similar model.[60][61][62] In the context of inflation, they were worked out independently of the work of Mukhanov and Chibisov at the three-week 1982 Nuffield Workshop on the Very Early Universe at Cambridge University.[63] The fluctuations were calculated by four groups working separately over the course of the workshop: Stephen Hawking;[64] Starobinsky;[65] Guth and So-Young Pi;[66] and Bardeen, Steinhardt and Turner.[67]
Observational status
Inflation is a mechanism for realizing the cosmological principle, which is the basis of the standard model of physical cosmology: it accounts for the homogeneity and isotropy of the observable universe. In addition, it accounts for the observed flatness and absence of magnetic monopoles. Since Guth's early work, each of these observations has received further confirmation, most impressively by the detailed observations of the cosmic microwave background made by the Planck spacecraft.[68] This analysis shows that the Universe is flat to within 0.5 percent, and that it is homogeneous and isotropic to one part in 100,000.
Inflation predicts that the structures visible in the Universe today formed through the gravitational collapse of perturbations that were formed as quantum mechanical fluctuations in the inflationary epoch. The detailed form of the spectrum of perturbations, called a nearly-scale-invariant Gaussian random field is very specific and has only two free parameters. One is the amplitude of the spectrum and the spectral index, which measures the slight deviation from scale invariance predicted by inflation (perfect scale invariance corresponds to the idealized de Sitter universe).[69] The other free parameter is the tensor to scalar ratio. The simplest inflation models, those without fine-tuning, predict a tensor to scalar ratio near 0.1.[70]
Inflation predicts that the observed perturbations should be in thermal equilibrium with each other (these are called adiabatic or isentropic perturbations). This structure for the perturbations has been confirmed by the Planck spacecraft, WMAP spacecraft and other cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments, and galaxy surveys, especially the ongoing Sloan Digital Sky Survey.[71] These experiments have shown that the one part in 100,000 inhomogeneities observed have exactly the form predicted by theory. There is evidence for a slight deviation from scale invariance. The spectral index, n s is one for a scale-invariant Harrison–Zel'dovich spectrum. The simplest inflation models predict that n s is between 0.92 and 0.98.[72][73][74][75] This is the range that is possible without fine-tuning of the parameters related to energy.[74] From Planck data it can be inferred that n s =0.968 ± 0.006,[68][76] and a tensor to scalar ratio that is less than 0.11. These are considered an important confirmation of the theory of inflation.[15]
Various inflation theories have been proposed that make radically different predictions, but they generally have much more fine tuning than should be necessary.[72][73] As a physical model, however, inflation is most valuable in that it robustly predicts the initial conditions of the Universe based on only two adjustable parameters: the spectral index (that can only change in a small range) and the amplitude of the perturbations. Except in contrived models, this is true regardless of how inflation is realized in particle physics.
Occasionally, effects are observed that appear to contradict the simplest models of inflation. The first-year WMAP data suggested that the spectrum might not be nearly scale-invariant, but might instead have a slight curvature.[77] However, the third-year data revealed that the effect was a statistical anomaly.[15] Another effect remarked upon since the first cosmic microwave background satellite, the Cosmic Background Explorer is that the amplitude of the quadrupole moment of the CMB is unexpectedly low and the other low multipoles appear to be preferentially aligned with the ecliptic plane. Some have claimed that this is a signature of non-Gaussianity and thus contradicts the simplest models of inflation. Others have suggested that the effect may be due to other new physics, foreground contamination, or even publication bias.[78]
An experimental program is underway to further test inflation with more precise CMB measurements. In particular, high precision measurements of the so-called "B-modes" of the polarization of the background radiation could provide evidence of the gravitational radiation produced by inflation, and could also show whether the energy scale of inflation predicted by the simplest models (1015–1016 GeV) is correct.[73][74] In March 2014, it was announced that B-mode CMB polarization consistent with that predicted from inflation had been demonstrated by a South Pole experiment.[10][11][12][79][80][81] However, on 19 June 2014, lowered confidence in confirming the findings was reported;[80][82][83] on 19 September 2014, a further reduction in confidence was reported[84][85] and, on 30 January 2015, even less confidence yet was reported.[86][87]
Other potentially corroborating measurements are expected from the Planck spacecraft, although it is unclear if the signal will be visible, or if contamination from foreground sources will interfere.[88] Other forthcoming measurements, such as those of 21 centimeter radiation (radiation emitted and absorbed from neutral hydrogen before the first stars formed), may measure the power spectrum with even greater resolution than the CMB and galaxy surveys, although it is not known if these measurements will be possible or if interference with radio sources on Earth and in the galaxy will be too great.[89]
Theoretical status
Unsolved problem in physics:
Is the theory of cosmological inflation correct, and if so, what are the details of this epoch? What is the hypothetical inflaton field giving rise to inflation? (more unsolved problems in physics)
In Guth's early proposal, it was thought that the inflaton was the Higgs field, the field that explains the mass of the elementary particles.[49] It is now believed by some that the inflaton cannot be the Higgs field[90] although the recent discovery of the Higgs boson has increased the number of works considering the Higgs field as inflaton.[91] One problem of this identification is the current tension with experimental data at the electroweak scale,[92] which is currently under study at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Other models of inflation relied on the properties of Grand Unified Theories.[58] Since the simplest models of grand unification have failed, it is now thought by many physicists that inflation will be included in a supersymmetric theory such as string theory or a supersymmetric grand unified theory. At present, while inflation is understood principally by its detailed predictions of the initial conditions for the hot early universe, the particle physics is largely ad hoc modelling. As such, although predictions of inflation have been consistent with the results of observational tests, many open questions remain.
Fine-tuning problem
One of the most severe challenges for inflation arises from the need for fine tuning. In new inflation, the slow-roll conditions must be satisfied for inflation to occur. The slow-roll conditions say that the inflaton potential must be flat (compared to the large vacuum energy) and that the inflaton particles must have a small mass.[clarification needed][93] New inflation requires the Universe to have a scalar field with an especially flat potential and special initial conditions. However, explanations for these fine-tunings have been proposed. For example, classically scale invariant field theories, where scale invariance is broken by quantum effects, provide an explanation of the flatness of inflationary potentials, as long as the theory can be studied through perturbation theory.[94]
Linde proposed a theory known as chaotic inflation in which he suggested that the conditions for inflation were actually satisfied quite generically. Inflation will occur in virtually any universe that begins in a chaotic, high energy state that has a scalar field with unbounded potential energy.[95] However, in his model the inflaton field necessarily takes values larger than one Planck unit: for this reason, these are often called large field models and the competing new inflation models are called small field models. In this situation, the predictions of effective field theory are thought to be invalid, as renormalization should cause large corrections that could prevent inflation.[96] This problem has not yet been resolved and some cosmologists argue that the small field models, in which inflation can occur at a much lower energy scale, are better models.[97] While inflation depends on quantum field theory (and the semiclassical approximation to quantum gravity) in an important way, it has not been completely reconciled with these theories.
Brandenberger commented on fine-tuning in another situation.[98] The amplitude of the primordial inhomogeneities produced in inflation is directly tied to the energy scale of inflation. This scale is suggested to be around 1016 GeV or 10−3 times the Planck energy. The natural scale is naïvely the Planck scale so this small value could be seen as another form of fine-tuning (called a hierarchy problem): the energy density given by the scalar potential is down by 10−12 compared to the Planck density. This is not usually considered to be a critical problem, however, because the scale of inflation corresponds naturally to the scale of gauge unification.
Eternal inflation
In many models, the inflationary phase of the Universe's expansion lasts forever in at least some regions of the Universe. This occurs because inflating regions expand very rapidly, reproducing themselves. Unless the rate of decay to the non-inflating phase is sufficiently fast, new inflating regions are produced more rapidly than non-inflating regions. In such models, most of the volume of the Universe is continuously inflating at any given time.
All models of eternal inflation produce an infinite, hypothetical multiverse, typically a fractal. The multiverse theory has created significant dissension in the scientific community about the viability of the inflationary model.
Paul Steinhardt, one of the original architects of the inflationary model, introduced the first example of eternal inflation in 1983.[99] He showed that the inflation could proceed forever by producing bubbles of non-inflating space filled with hot matter and radiation surrounded by empty space that continues to inflate. The bubbles could not grow fast enough to keep up with the inflation. Later that same year, Alexander Vilenkin showed that eternal inflation is generic.[100]
Although new inflation is classically rolling down the potential, quantum fluctuations can sometimes lift it to previous levels. These regions in which the inflaton fluctuates upwards expand much faster than regions in which the inflaton has a lower potential energy, and tend to dominate in terms of physical volume. It has been shown that any inflationary theory with an unbounded potential is eternal. There are well-known theorems that this steady state cannot continue forever into the past. Inflationary spacetime, which is similar to de Sitter space, is incomplete without a contracting region. However, unlike de Sitter space, fluctuations in a contracting inflationary space collapse to form a gravitational singularity, a point where densities become infinite. Therefore, it is necessary to have a theory for the Universe's initial conditions.
In eternal inflation, regions with inflation have an exponentially growing volume, while regions that are not inflating don't. This suggests that the volume of the inflating part of the Universe in the global picture is always unimaginably larger than the part that has stopped inflating, even though inflation eventually ends as seen by any single pre-inflationary observer. Scientists disagree about how to assign a probability distribution to this hypothetical anthropic landscape. If the probability of different regions is counted by volume, one should expect that inflation will never end or applying boundary conditions that a local observer exists to observe it, that inflation will end as late as possible.
Some physicists believe this paradox can be resolved by weighting observers by their pre-inflationary volume. Others believe that there is no resolution to the paradox and that the multiverse is a critical flaw in the inflationary paradigm. Paul Steinhardt, who first introduced the eternal inflationary model,[99] later became one of its most vocal critics for this reason.[101][102][103]
Initial conditions
Some physicists have tried to avoid the initial conditions problem by proposing models for an eternally inflating universe with no origin.[104][105][106][107] These models propose that while the Universe, on the largest scales, expands exponentially it was, is and always will be, spatially infinite and has existed, and will exist, forever.
Other proposals attempt to describe the ex nihilo creation of the Universe based on quantum cosmology and the following inflation. Vilenkin put forth one such scenario.[100] Hartle and Hawking offered the no-boundary proposal for the initial creation of the Universe in which inflation comes about naturally.[108][109][110][111]
Guth described the inflationary universe as the "ultimate free lunch":[112][113] new universes, similar to our own, are continually produced in a vast inflating background. Gravitational interactions, in this case, circumvent (but do not violate) the first law of thermodynamics (energy conservation) and the second law of thermodynamics (entropy and the arrow of time problem). However, while there is consensus that this solves the initial conditions problem, some have disputed this, as it is much more likely that the Universe came about by a quantum fluctuation. Don Page was an outspoken critic of inflation because of this anomaly.[114] He stressed that the thermodynamic arrow of time necessitates low entropy initial conditions, which would be highly unlikely. According to them, rather than solving this problem, the inflation theory aggravates it – the reheating at the end of the inflation era increases entropy, making it necessary for the initial state of the Universe to be even more orderly than in other Big Bang theories with no inflation phase.
Hawking and Page later found ambiguous results when they attempted to compute the probability of inflation in the Hartle-Hawking initial state.[115] Other authors have argued that, since inflation is eternal, the probability doesn't matter as long as it is not precisely zero: once it starts, inflation perpetuates itself and quickly dominates the Universe.[4][116]:223–225 However, Albrecht and Lorenzo Sorbo argued that the probability of an inflationary cosmos, consistent with today's observations, emerging by a random fluctuation from some pre-existent state is much higher than that of a non-inflationary cosmos. This is because the "seed" amount of non-gravitational energy required for the inflationary cosmos is so much less than that for a non-inflationary alternative, which outweighs any entropic considerations.[117]
Another problem that has occasionally been mentioned is the trans-Planckian problem or trans-Planckian effects.[118] Since the energy scale of inflation and the Planck scale are relatively close, some of the quantum fluctuations that have made up the structure in our universe were smaller than the Planck length before inflation. Therefore, there ought to be corrections from Planck-scale physics, in particular the unknown quantum theory of gravity. Some disagreement remains about the magnitude of this effect: about whether it is just on the threshold of detectability or completely undetectable.[119]
Hybrid inflation
Another kind of inflation, called hybrid inflation, is an extension of new inflation. It introduces additional scalar fields, so that while one of the scalar fields is responsible for normal slow roll inflation, another triggers the end of inflation: when inflation has continued for sufficiently long, it becomes favorable to the second field to decay into a much lower energy state.[120]
In hybrid inflation, one scalar field is responsible for most of the energy density (thus determining the rate of expansion), while another is responsible for the slow roll (thus determining the period of inflation and its termination). Thus fluctuations in the former inflaton would not affect inflation termination, while fluctuations in the latter would not affect the rate of expansion. Therefore, hybrid inflation is not eternal.[121][122] When the second (slow-rolling) inflaton reaches the bottom of its potential, it changes the location of the minimum of the first inflaton's potential, which leads to a fast roll of the inflaton down its potential, leading to termination of inflation.
Relation to dark energy
Dark energy is broadly similar to inflation and is thought to be causing the expansion of the present-day universe to accelerate. However, the energy scale of dark energy is much lower, 10−12 GeV, roughly 27 orders of magnitude less than the scale of inflation.
Inflation and string cosmology
The discovery of flux compactifications opened the way for reconciling inflation and string theory.[123] Brane inflation suggests that inflation arises from the motion of D-branes[124] in the compactified geometry, usually towards a stack of anti-D-branes. This theory, governed by the Dirac-Born-Infeld action, is different from ordinary inflation. The dynamics are not completely understood. It appears that special conditions are necessary since inflation occurs in tunneling between two vacua in the string landscape. The process of tunneling between two vacua is a form of old inflation, but new inflation must then occur by some other mechanism.
Inflation and loop quantum gravity
When investigating the effects the theory of loop quantum gravity would have on cosmology, a loop quantum cosmology model has evolved that provides a possible mechanism for cosmological inflation. Loop quantum gravity assumes a quantized spacetime. If the energy density is larger than can be held by the quantized spacetime, it is thought to bounce back.[125]
Alternatives/adjuncts
Other models explain some of the observations explained by inflation. However none of these "alternatives" has the same breadth of explanation and still require inflation for a more complete fit with observation. They should therefore be regarded as adjuncts to inflation, rather than as alternatives.
Big bounce
The big bounce hypothesis attempts to replace the cosmic singularity with a cosmic contraction and bounce, thereby explaining the initial conditions that led to the big bang.[126] The flatness and horizon problems are naturally solved in the Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory of gravity, without needing an exotic form of matter or free parameters.[127][128] This theory extends general relativity by removing a constraint of the symmetry of the affine connection and regarding its antisymmetric part, the torsion tensor, as a dynamical variable. The minimal coupling between torsion and Dirac spinors generates a spin-spin interaction that is significant in fermionic matter at extremely high densities. Such an interaction averts the unphysical Big Bang singularity, replacing it with a cusp-like bounce at a finite minimum scale factor, before which the Universe was contracting. The rapid expansion immediately after the Big Bounce explains why the present Universe at largest scales appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic. As the density of the Universe decreases, the effects of torsion weaken and the Universe smoothly enters the radiation-dominated era.
Ekpyrotic and cyclic models
The ekpyrotic and cyclic models are also considered adjuncts to inflation. These models solve the horizon problem through an expanding epoch well before the Big Bang, and then generate the required spectrum of primordial density perturbations during a contracting phase leading to a Big Crunch. The Universe passes through the Big Crunch and emerges in a hot Big Bang phase. In this sense they are reminiscent of Richard Chace Tolman's oscillatory universe; in Tolman's model, however, the total age of the Universe is necessarily finite, while in these models this is not necessarily so. Whether the correct spectrum of density fluctuations can be produced, and whether the Universe can successfully navigate the Big Bang/Big Crunch transition, remains a topic of controversy and current research. Ekpyrotic models avoid the magnetic monopole problem as long as the temperature at the Big Crunch/Big Bang transition remains below the Grand Unified Scale, as this is the temperature required to produce magnetic monopoles in the first place. As things stand, there is no evidence of any'slowing down' of the expansion, but this is not surprising |
have never really seen you talk about gays and lesbians and transgender people in a positive way until now. I read your Twitter history for the last year and I saw you tweeting about, you know, national dog month and national shelter dog appreciation day or adopt a shelter dog month. It is gay pride month. You never even tweeted about gay pride month.”
— CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s questions to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi on the Orlando club shooting, June 14.
Detecting a Republican “War on Obama”
“The larger question raised by [Senator Judd] Gregg’s about-face, is it a sign that Republicans have no desire for real bipartisanship? Have they, in fact, declared war on President Obama?...Do developments today also speak to something deeper, a war, an insurgency by Republicans against the President, against Democrats in the House and against their agenda?”
— CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Anderson Cooper 360, February 12, 2009 talking about Senator Gregg’s withdrawal as a nominee for Commerce Secretary.
Wright’s Rant a Bogus Issue?
“At issue now, a video of a sermon given by Barack Obama’s minister at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago....We’re running it because — like it or not, legitimate or not — it has become an issue....All this seems to have nothing to do with actual issues that the country is facing, which these candidates should be talking about and we probably should be talking about.”
— CNN’s Anderson Cooper introducing a story about inflammatory comments made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Anderson Cooper 360, March 13, 2008.
“Swift Boating” of Barack Obama
“We begin with tough talk on the campaign trail today — tough talk, an apology, a disavowal, and now, questions whether what you’re about to hear is a taste of sleazy campaigning and Swift Boating to come....Clearly, for a two-bit radio host, this is the biggest thing to happen to him in quite a long time.”
— CNN’s Anderson Cooper discussing conservative talk show host Bill Cunningham uttering Barack Obama’s middle name Hussein, on Anderson Cooper 360, February 26, 2008.
Raddatz to Hillary on First Spouses; “Is It Time to Change the Role?”
“And we’re going to make a very sharp turn as we wrap things up here. Secretary Clinton, First Ladies, as you well know, have used their position to work on important causes like literacy and drug abuse, but they also supervise the menus, the flowers, the holiday ornaments and White House decor. I know you think you know where I’m going here. You have said that Bill Clinton is a great host and loves giving tours, but may opt out of picking flower arrangements if you’re elected. Bill Clinton aside, is it time to change the role of a President’s spouse?”
— ABC’s Martha Raddatz question to Hillary Clinton at Democratic debate, December 19.
Pressing Pence on Birtherism
“You believe that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement?...What is the proof because we can’t find any. And fact-checkers have checked into that....The reports of people in my industry say there is no proof they can find that Hillary Clinton had anything to do with it.”
— ABC’s Martha Raddatz interviewing GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence on This Week, September 18.
Giddy About Grandmother Hillary
“The story she read her, the dinner table conversation, all that rich detail, just the kind of detail we got the other night, and, of course, there's the reason for that. She wants the voters to know who she is. Voters need to know, is she like us? And there's nothing more relatable than being a mother or grandmother.”
— ABC’s Martha Raddatz after Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech on ABC’s live Democractic convention coverage, July 28.
“Very important question: What do you think Hillary Clinton should be called as a grandma?...I say maybe ‘Glam-Ma.’ Maybe ‘Glam-Ma?’”
— Fill-in host Martha Raddatz to the roundtable, ABC’s This Week, April 20, 2014.
Riveted by “Charming” Hillary’s Benghazi Testimony
“It was truly a riveting day on Capitol Hill. We don’t say that very often, with Secretary Clinton as some have never seen her before. She was at times, combative, charming, disarming and clearly ready for a fight.”
— ABC correspondent Martha Raddatz on Good Morning America, January 24, 2013.
Raddatz Hails Hillary: “She Comes Out Swinging” on Benghazi
Fill-in anchor David Muir: “Tonight, more signs Hillary Clinton is mulling a presidential run and is ready to fight back on Benghazi. With a new book coming, Politico tonight reporting she’s taking on her critics....”
Correspondent Martha Raddatz: “According to the online publication, she comes out swinging. Her anger aimed at congressional Republicans who she accuses of politicizing the tragedy. ‘I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans,’ writes Clinton....”
— ABC’s World News, May 30, 2014.
Martha Raddatz Touts “Cool” Hillary
“Let’s face it, Hillary is cool. Trending. From the dancing and drinking photos during her trip to Colombia, to the iconic shot of the secretary texting on her C-17. When bloggers made up a few scenarios, telling the President and Vice President to get back to work. Rejecting a friend request from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Clinton weighed in with real texts. ‘Rolling on the floor laughing.’ ‘Scrunchie time.’ Ahh, the scrunchie. Those were the days when staff would cringe at Hillary's desire to pull her hair back. The days that eventually led to the glamorous First Lady, the evolving hair styles. Never the same one twice, it seemed. And then, to the buttoned-up candidate Clinton. You know, the polarizing one. But not anymore. Her latest approval rating is 65 percent. Just behind that fashion icon, Michelle Obama.”
— ABC’s Martha Raddatz on Good Morning America, May 9, 2012.San Diego police officials said they are asking the company that makes the department’s cameras to see if technology exists that would automatically turn on an officer’s body-worn camera when they draw their gun from its holster.
Chief Shelley Zimmerman made the announcement at police headquarters Wednesday, a day after a fatal officer-involved shooting in downtown. It was the second time in six months that San Diego officers failed to turn on their body cameras during a deadly shooting.
The first happened in April, when a veteran officer shot a man in a dark lot behind a Midway District bookstore. The officer was criticized for not turning his body camera on before interacting with the man, who ended up not being armed. In response, the department revised its policy to require that officers turn on their cameras before traffic stops, field interviews, detentions, arrests and any other “enforcement related contacts” — as long as it’s safe to do so.
Unlike the Midway shooting, Tuesday’s incident didn’t unfold after officers received a phone call. Instead, two motorcycle officers spotted 39-year-old Lamontez Jones creating a disturbance and disrupting traffic near F Street and Fifth Avenue about 3:10 p.m., homicide Capt. David Nisleit said. Jones ran off as officers rode toward him, and they followed him about a block to F Street and Sixth Avenue.
They had just gotten off their motorcycles when the man pulled what appeared to be a large-caliber pistol from a backpack he was wearing, Nisleit said. The officers shot at him, and he fell to the ground.
They repeatedly demanded Lamontez drop the weapon, but he sat up and again pointed it at the officers. They fired a second time. Paramedics arrived and took him to a hospital, where he died.
Investigators later determined the gun Lamontez brandished was a steel replica.
Zimmerman said she didn’t believe the officers had the ability to turn on their body cameras safely. The department’s body camera policy specifies that officer and public safety is more important than activating the devices.
“When our officers are facing the barrel of a handgun or some other life-threatening situation, we expect their first consideration is protecting themselves and our citizens,” Zimmerman said. “Common sense tells you that is reasonable.”
The department is spending $4 million dollars to deploy a system of body cameras for all its patrol officers.
She said a technology that automatically turns on an officer’s camera in critical situations, such as the one that occurred Tuesday, would allow footage to be captured without putting an officer or the public at risk.
The American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties called on the department to specifically explain why the officers involved didn’t turn on their cameras and how the agency will prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future. The civil rights group also said, if warranted, the officers involved should be disciplined if their actions violated the department’s existing policy.
“Body cameras are a tool to improve community-police relations,” the organization said in a statement. “If policy is weak or not enforced, these tools will not be helpful and could be detrimental in this goal. Body cameras will become a tool only for surveillance and enforcement, rather than accountability and transparency as was promised.”
Police officials also released more information about the man who was shot Tuesday.
Lamontez was wanted by Virginia authorities in connection with a robbery in May and was considered “armed and dangerous.”
“Obviously this is someone who has a violent history who came across our officers yesterday,” Nisleit said.SpiderMad said: Kadano What's your view on Melee's intended design? I don't see how people can say it was designed to be -solely- a party game, when people like us can research just how well designed all their formulas and options/restrictions on the mechanics were so well thought out. I'm also confused as to seriously why there's an illuminati looking triangle inside Dreamland and Shield stun. Click to expand...
THANK YOU. I get so upset when people call Melee an "accident" or similar stuff. Like yeah, I understand the game was not designed to be a global eSport, but even saying it wasn't designed for competition is false as clearly demonstrated by the Tournament mode... I have a few goto arguments I use when people disagree with me.1. PALThe PAL version of the game wasn't released very long after the NTSC, yet almost all of the changes we see (outside of glitch removal) are in line with the goal of a more balanced cast. Marth's and Falco's spikes, arguably the best two in the game, were nerfed. Fox's recovery and KO power were nerfed. Sheik's dthrow was nerfed. etc. The changes made in the transition to PAL show very clearly that Sakurai understand the balance of the cast and also understood how to change as a little as possible and still influence the core of the character.2. Tech timingsOne thing I think gets overlooked a lot is how well designed the teching system is. On average, a character's techrolls or TIP are just out of range of human reaction time. I don't think it's a coincidence that teching in place is just barely within the range of the average human reaction time. I have no trouble believing that a lesser developer would have chosen much more arbitrary timings for techs and would have ultimately led to either super hard reads because you can't cover multiple options with a combination of reaction and prediction, or players would always be able to react to all of their opponent's options easily.3. Everything barely combosEven when you have DI thrown into the equation, the majority of combos (excluding ones with grounded spikes which were clearly designed to combo better) are reliable, but really hard to link. I think this is why even so many years after the game has evolved, there is still a high prevalence of juggles and pseudo-combos (instances where you aren't being true comboed but can't do much, if anything anyway). I have to imagine the KB and hitstun calculations were designed meticulously, and if you need an example of how important it is, just look at the combos in 64 or lack thereof in barlw.4. Grabs are really goodI think people sometimes get a little annoyed grabs are as good as they are. DA Dave's infamous "it's all about the grab game" commentary over Ken vs. Mew2King kind of hints towards this, but I would hope most people realize the significance of having good grabs. When grabs lead to good damage/setups, it tilts the game in favor of aggression. Especially with some of the shields in Melee which seem really safe and abusable (Sheik, Peach), you need to prevent people from spamming shield all game. Melee has the traditional fighting game RPS of shield > attacks > grabs > shield, and buffing the grab game downplays shielding, which keeps things more active and interesting than passive and predictable.5. "But what about the bad characters?"Like I said above, just because Melee was well-designed does not mean it was designed for super serious competition. While I think most of the actual fighting elements are designed for competitive environments, certain characters, stages, and of course items were designed with a more party mentality. I have a hard time believing the same guy that made all the NTSC to PAL adjustments somehow didn't realize Pichu, Kirby, and Bowser were weaker than normal. It seems much more likely that Pichu was just a character added for extra challenge in single player. He is fast and agile and actually has decent KO moves, so to me he is the perfect handicap character that requires the tightest gameplay to get the full potential vs. someone like Ganon who is much easier for a newbie to pick up and smash attack his way through classic mode. Kirby has the copy the ability, so the novelty factor is pretty clear there as well. As far as Bowser and other low tiers, it seems like Sakurai just preferred to include characters with actual personality and unique traits at the expense of balance. He'd rather have Bowser be pretty awful but feel like Bowser should feel than water him down by an overall speeding up and weakening of his attacks.Well, that's my uncalled-for rant for today. Hopefully it didn't come off too much like I'm ****-riding Sakurai, but he did make Melee after all. Even barlw can't make me lose respect for the guy, and that's saying something.I typically don’t give it a lot of thought – as soon as my architectural sketches have served their purpose, they get thrown away. I don’t consider them valuable or even worthwhile to keep. Am I crazy? (with specific regards to this particular item)
Unlike a lot of firms, we do have several stacks of flat files in our office and starting about a 3 months ago, I decided that my sketches might live on in these archives.
Why? I’m not really sure if I’m being honest. Keeping my sketches seems a little odd to me and I am trying to make a slight mental shift in my thinking, so that my sketches go from temporary thoughts destined for the waste bin, to archived treasures worth hanging on to forever.
So, keep my sketches or throw them away … I am struggling with that idea.
I know when the shift in thinking happened – on September 29th, 2014, I wrote a post titled “Architectural Sketchbooks” and in that article I featured the sketches of my business partner Michael Malone. He’s been sketching for decades and while most of his drawings are archived within sketchbooks, he has a number of them stashed away within the flat files of our office as well. As I was searching through his sketches for possible images to use for that article, I was very nostalgic for all the sketches I have thrown away over my professional career.
While a vast majority of the sketches I create aren’t worth hanging on to for any sort of extended period of time, it would be nice to be able to look back at them after a chunk of time has passed. Besides, it would make things so much easier for the people who will want to archive my life for the Museum of Bob Borson (affectionately known as MOBB).
All of this is fine and well for crazy architects like me, but am I alone in thinking that these sketches are worth keeping? It’s not like they are art, they are created as part of a problem solving process. I will concede (to those architects out there that think everything they touch is art) that they are artistic – but that’s about as far as I can go.
Is this floor plan sketch art? Hardly, I think it’s a stretch to even say it’s artistic.
This is a sketch I did when working on my “Lantern Playhouse” … is it worth keeping? I do like it despite the fact that I didn’t create it to live beyond the weekend when I drew it.
Or does it?
It exists digitally on this website. Is that any different from existing in a flat file? I can still go back and look at it as often as I want … assuming that I can find it. As I sit here and write that last sentence, I am looking across the room at an old computer of mine that hasn’t been turned on in several years. My wife wants me to recycle it but since I haven’t gone on there and cleaned off the hard drive, I am a little hesitant to get rid of it. What treasures exist on that computer that I’m getting rid of? Pictures, old resumes, project files, scans of sketches – you name it. I am really good about creating digital copies of stuff but finding it later – or even remembering that it exists – is a different matter. My memory probably isn’t going to be getting better in the future, I’m kind of counting on it getting worse.
My wife Michelle: (walking into kitchen) What are you doing?
Me: (standing over the kitchen sink eating ice cream directly out of the tub) Huh? What’s that?
Michelle: You are eating ice cream at 9am. I told you to stop doing that.
Me: Sorry, I didn’t remember that. (taking another bite)
Michelle: You just took another bite! Quit it!
Me: Quit what?
I can promise you that I WILL have that exact conversation with my wife at some point in my future.
This is really the sketch that started it all – Michael sketched this over 33 years ago and this digital image was made from the original. Pretty cool in my opinion.
This is MY flat file, I have claimed it … for now. I am going to give this little experiment of keeping my sketches for posterity a chance, even though I don’t know what I will do with a massive pile of trace paper drawings. I have thought that it would be nice to frame one or two of the important ones from a project and give them to the homeowners as a move-in present – although that seems a bit presumptuous. Based on the size of this flat file and the speed at which I create these sorts of drawings, I figure I have about two years before I’ll run out of space.
I curious – what do you think of keeping sketches? Do you keep yours – or if you are not an architect – do you think you would want to keep them if you had any sketches to keep?
Cheers,RNC committee members gathered at their annual spring conference in Los Angeles voted unanimously on Friday to approve a number of resolutions, including one to reaffirm that the GOP still opposes gay marriage, Time's Zeke J. Miller reported.
"[T]he Republican National Committee affirms its support for marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and as the optimum environment in which to raise healthy children for the future of America; and be it further resolved, the Republican National Committee implores the U. S. Supreme Court to uphold the sanctity of marriage in its rulings on California’s Proposition 8 and the Federal Defense of Marriage Act," the resolution, first obtained by Chris Moody of Yahoo News, read.
Miller reports that the resolution was submitted by RNC committeeman Dave Agema, a Michigan Republican who has drawn criticism for calling gays and lesbians "filthy" and comparing them to people who were "dying of alcoholism."
While such an anti-gay plank already existed in the party's official platform, confirmed last summer at the Republican National Convention, the latest vote comes after a week of public consternation among social conservatives concerned that the party's aversion to marriage equality was beginning to wither in the name of expanding its outreach.
Suspicious of a recent GOP autopsy that contained suggestions that the party would need to be "welcoming and inclusive" in order to attract younger voters, top evangelical leaders began to turn the screws on Republican leaders. In a letter to RNC chairman Reince Priebus earlier this week, a group of 13 social conservative leaders vowed to leave the party if it abandoned its rigid anti-gay stance. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins later followed up, calling for supporters to withhold contributions to the GOP until it grew "a backbone" on the gay marriage issue.
In a speech before the vote, Priebus appeared to address the criticism.
"Let me make crystal clear something I've said since January," he said, according to CNN. "While we have to do things differently, there's one thing that can't and won't change: our principles. There are some that would like us to abandon them, but as long as I'm chairman, we'll stay true to them. Some would have us turn into Democrats-lite, but I refuse."Nice!!
Thanks. When I finish reading I'll comment! S&F cause this is really cool stuff...
And btw regarding that "nazi bases in antartica" issue which so many people disregard as fantasy, I think that usually myths and legends are always based on something true.
Now we're talking about the guys who had about 3 or 4 different types of jet engines, aerodynamics still good by today's standards when the rest of the world was still in "the dark days of aviation" so yes it probably is true that they reached very far in matters that we dont even have scratched the surface yet.
Sometimes it seems there were two types of nazis, and that all that crap was basically "can you please kill enough people there in europe so noone notices what we're really doing? - now that I have some peace and quiet, lets get to work".Where Are the Android Killer Apps?
Every few weeks or so, I reiterate my wish for an Android analog to the iPod Touch — something more or less comparable to state-of-the-art Android phones in terms of performance, software, and quality, but costing, say, $250 (or less) with no contract.
There are some maybes out there already, I know.1 But why do I even care? Basically it’s that I’d like to stay up to date on Android, and on Android apps. Sort of like how if my primary interest were console video games, I’d almost certainly own both a PS3 and an XBox 360. I have this notion in my gut that if I want to stay current on mobile app platforms, I should have at least one Android device to go along with my iPhone and iPad.
But, the thing I’ve noticed, eight months after returning a Nexus One I borrowed for six weeks from a friend, is that, well, I don’t seem to be missing much.
I’ve complained, numerous times, about the “how many total apps are in your store?” metric — the idea that Apple is “winning” because there are more iOS apps than there are apps for any other mobile platform. If quantity of app titles were all that mattered, we’d all be using Windows, not Mac OS X, right? Having the most apps matters, but having the best apps matters too. The sweet spot for a platform is to do well in both regards.
Quantity of titles is, in some way, a measure of a platform’s strength. But what I care about are the great apps. Where are the great, or even good, exclusive third-party apps for Android?
Let’s sort all Android apps into the following categories:
Apps from Google. Third-party apps that also exist on iOS. Third-party apps that are exclusive to Android.
From my time spent with the Nexus One early this year, I know that Google’s Android apps are pretty good. These include both the core system apps, and the closed-source “Google Experience” apps like the dedicated Gmail client and Google Maps.
There are definitely a fair number of apps in the second category — those ported to both iOS and Android. Examples: Amazon’s Kindle client, Pandora, and a few popular games, such as Angry Birds and Doodle Jump.
But what I find striking is that the apps in the third category — those exclusive to Android — are almost entirely unappealing or irrelevant to iOS users.
That’s not to say there’s nothing in Android, as a system, that appeals to iPhone owners. Built-in turn-by-turn navigation on certain models. A system-wide notification system. Widgets on the homescreen. Over-the-air system updates. Unrestricted background processing for third-party apps, battery-life be damned. But those are things that are built into the system itself, or which otherwise come from Google. What I’m questioning is the strength and depth of Android’s third-party developer support.
Which are the apps, from developers other than Google, that I should feel like I’m missing out on because I don’t have an Android device? Where are the killer apps for Android?
Turn the table and we could be here all day running down the list of high-quality, interesting apps which are exclusive to iOS.
Given the explosive sales growth of Android — that it’s now the best-selling smartphone OS in the U.S., and selling very well worldwide — isn’t this unusual? Or at least unexpected?
Popular third-party Android apps clearly tend to be of a decidedly lower design quality than popular iOS apps. (The key word in that sentence is popular — let’s concede that the majority of all apps, at the unpopular end of the long tail both in the iTunes App Store and Android Market, are junk.)
Not all popular third-party Android apps are sub-par, design-wise. But those that are well-designed, in most cases, are the ones which are not exclusive to Android. And the ones that are both exclusive to Android and well-designed, from what I’ve seen, seem to be apps that only make sense on Android, insofar as they wouldn’t be allowed in the App Store.
One example is Slide Screen, from Larva Labs. It’s a home screen replacement that shows a very attractive list of status information and notifications. Looking at a screenshot, most people would guess it’s an iOS app, not an Android app. (Larva Labs even took the trouble to embed a real version of Helvetica in the app, rather than use the low-brow fonts that ship with Android.) Another home screen replacement for Android that looks good is LauncherPro. Swype, a gesture-based third-party keyboard, is another. But none of these apps could exist for the iOS App Store, because iOS doesn’t support things like third-party home screen replacements.
At this point, I’m guessing, Android fans are ready to exclaim that the fact that Android supports things like home screen replacements (or other system-level tools, such as touchscreen keyboard replacements) — and that iOS does not — is precisely why they prefer Android, and/or consider iOS to be an unacceptable toy, or what have you. But, again, that’s not the argument I’m making. I’m talking about third-party developer exclusives — and the only ones Android has are ones that Apple doesn’t want.
Android’s Top Apps
Two weeks ago, TechCrunch ran a feature by Alex Ahlund: “Top 30 Android Apps of All Time”. (Ahlund seems well-credentialed to assemble such a list; he ran the Android app directory AndroidApps.) It’s really three separate top 10 lists: free apps, paid apps, and games.
In the free list, the top five apps are all available for iOS,2 or, in the case of #5, Barcode Scanner, have equivalent if not superior iOS alternatives. The first app in the list that’s exclusive to Android is #6, Lookout — an anti-virus app.
In the paid list, Android exclusives include Root Explorer (a file system manager), Advanced Task Manager (a process monitor/killer), a collection of home screen widgets, SetCPU for Root Users (a hack for overclocking your device’s CPU), and CacheMate for Root Users (for manually managing system caches). Spot a trend?
And then we get to the games.
Three of them are also available for iOS: Fruit Ninja, Zenonia, and Angry Birds. One is WOW Keyboard, which isn’t itself a game, but rather a remote control for playing World of Warcraft on your Windows PC. Topping the list is Robo Defense, a tower defense game that I’m tempted to say is the Hydrox to Fieldrunners’s Oreos, but I fear that’s an insult to Hydrox. Abduction is an avowed clone of Doodle Jump, the promotional video for which doesn’t even show the game in action. The only exclusive Android game on the list that strikes me as appealing is SNESoid, a Super Nintendo emulator. I.e., the best games exclusive to Android were written for a mid-’90s console system from Nintendo.
Compare and contrast with the library of exclusive games for iOS. Just in the past few days alone, I’ve bought three new exclusive iOS games, any one of which would surely beat any of the exclusive Android games on Ahlund’s list of all-time best ones: Astronut from The Iconfactory, Rage HD from Id Software, and Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner from LucasArts. (Total cost for all three games: $9.) That games of this caliber are all exclusive to iOS is, arguably, the biggest hole in the argument that Android is to iOS what Windows was to the Mac. Say what you want about the quality edge that Mac software holds over Windows, but Windows has always had the games.
The App Console
It’s actually not true that SNES emulation is exclusive to Android. Rather, it’s exclusive to the copyright-violation free-for-all Android Market when compared to the iOS App Store. Cydia, though, has a bunch of emulators available for jailbreak iOS users, including SNES.
In fact, the Android Market, as a whole, bears a lot more resemblance to the Cydia app store than it does to Apple’s official App Store. This is both in terms of content (system hacks, geek utilities, lower-quality UI design) and audience (the sort of users who put “task killers” and home screen replacements at the top of their favorite app lists). Browse the Android Market apps listed at sites like DoubleTwist and AppBrain, particularly the most popular lists. Then browse the listings in the Cydia app store, and tell me there isn’t a strong similarity.
I’m not saying Android is in trouble. The opposite, in fact: I think it’s going to continue growing — in terms of handset sales — despite this. And maybe as Android handset sales grow, this situation will change, and developers will start creating exclusive killer apps for the platform, drawn by the size of the market.
But I am saying that Android, today, is thriving despite the fact that its third-party software library is very weak compared to iOS’s. It’s not that most top-notch mobile apps are written for iOS. It’s that almost all of them are, despite the fact that Android, by most accounts, has surpassed iOS in phone sales and perhaps drawn even in unit sales overall. Android developer support has grown over the past year, but at nowhere near a rate that’s commensurate with the growth in Android handset sales.
So: Why?
When you think about competition between platforms in other fields, like game consoles — Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo — there’s a strong correlation between device sales, developer support for the platform, and software sales. In mobile computing, it’s not so much that there’s no correlation between hardware sales and the app market, but that there really is only one console-like app market: Apple’s. Keep in mind that Symbian is still the best-selling “smartphone” platform worldwide, and that BlackBerry has a larger installed base than Android. I’ve premised this piece on a comparison between only iOS and Android because Android is the one platform that, technically, seems most capable of supporting exactly the same sort of apps that iOS does. But no one has a console-like success story like Apple’s App Store.
My hypothesis hinges on three factors:
Apple has carefully constructed iOS and the iTunes App Store to support this “app console” model. Developers, large and small, have swarmed to Apple’s app console model, with consumer-friendly apps, design, presentation, and pricing. iOS users understand the app console model and have embraced it — both in terms of a willingness to look for and install apps, and a willingness to pay for them.
None of those three things are true for Android.
Android, perhaps, could be an app console, technically, but it doesn’t seem like that’s how it’s being used in practice. Google doesn’t treat it that way, developers don’t treat it that way, and Android users don’t see it that way. In fact, many of the most popular third-party Android apps are ones which treat Android like a PC rather than a console — background apps, task killers, system home screen replacements, alternative keyboards, and the like.
The mere existence of things like task killers and anti-virus apps for Android — let alone that such utilities are popular — erodes consumer trust. Inherent to the console model is that third-party software can’t — not shouldn’t but can’t — damage or gum up the system.
Developers complain, not without merit, that the iTunes App Store is rigged toward low-priced apps. But the Android Market seems rigged toward no-price apps. Apple is making a high-profile foray into mobile advertising, yes, but it doesn’t seem to be displacing the market for paid apps. On Android, on the other hand, advertising seems to be the only way for developers to generate significant revenue. Paid Android apps don’t seem to sell well. Are ads a good revenue model for mobile games?
I spoke to a source at a very successful iOS game development shop earlier this week, regarding the company’s plans for Android. According to my source, the company is investigating skipping the Android Market entirely, and working out exclusivity deals with handset makers to bundle games on Android phones. In addition to solving the revenue problem, such deals would also alleviate the technical fragmentation issues. Rather than try to make a game that runs on all or even most Android phones, they’d just have to support a limited numbers of specific handsets. Such deals may well prove profitable, but they would take Android even further away from the app console model that’s at the heart of Apple’s iOS success.
Things may change, especially if Android unit sales growth continues to outpace the industry. But as it stands, Android is a success mostly as a mobile phone — voice and text messaging — and as a client device for Google’s services and the mobile web. Millions of people have bought Android phones, and many millions more will. But iOS is a roaring success even if you take away the iPhone, and consider only the iPod Touch and iPad.
Put another way, the iPhone is clearly in close competition against Android handsets in the mobile phone market. But iOS, as a platform, almost completely dominates the mobile app console market. In the history of epic tech industry rivalries, I don’t think this situation is similar to anything prior.
A final thought, regarding Android’s relative weakness as a software platform. iOS’s exclusivity for a bunch of big-name mobile games — Need for Speed Undercover, Star Wars: Battle for Hoth, Monopoly, Tetris, The Sims, Assassin’s Creed — has been broken. Not by Android, where none of these games exist, but by Windows Phone 7, a one-month-old platform.Downhill Design makes wheels. Wheels that go fast. Wheels that slide far. That’s why, at first glance, the Spud may seem like the black sheep of the family. The small, clear thane outcast of this performance line of products. However, don’t be fooled by its humble appearance or seemingly self depreciating mockery of a name…once broken in this black sheep becomes a beautiful swan! Or, you know…whatever.
Breaking them in:
So, to continue mixing metaphors…even in its most sheepish state this wheel shits thane like it’s golden eggs. In fact, I regularly have post breaking-in sessions in the parking lot of my work during my lunch break…I rarely break a wheel in completely this way, but it’s quicker to slide well on the hill when I scrub off some skin first. Spuds were the superstar of these flatground sessions…thaning hard on the first slide. There’s no waiting around for these things to leave lines! In fact, the only hint that they were new was the loud honk they had until broken in, and a slight inconsistency in the slide (though slight enough that I’d still pick fresh spuds over many other wheels broken in).
Sliding:
So a few slides in and the parking lot was getting pretty painted up. I had to stop and save it for the hill (and make sure to take some photos of the now semi-fresh wheels). That was a good call on my part…the wheels were already starting to cone due to the inherently poor form of flatground puttery. So the first thing I did on the hill was some nice long standies, to even out my wear. I just leaned until the wheel released on its own, which wasn’t very far. As mentioned before, it doesn’t take much for spuds to thane hard. This results in a surprisingly early release point considering how resistant they are too icing out, so you have avery large margin of error here. Plus, the few times they started to get away from me I was saved by this wheels clean and predictable hook up. If you need practice getting a nice lean without falling every time (it’s skating, you will fall…but the less time falling the more time spent dialing shit in), or you’re already an expert who’s looking for a wheel that will adapt to different speeds/terrains as quick as you do…this is the perfect wheel for that.
Leaving lines:
If you want a wheel that will thane anywhere, then you want a spud. I literally tried them on every surface I could think of: blacktop, sidewalks, parking garages, even brick! What’s cool about spuds is that they don’t leave the pale white lines you’re used to with clear thane…instead they seem to take on the characteristics of the surface they’re on. Blacktop comes out black/tan tie die, brick turns it Orangeish yellow, and pavement gives it a light gray color. Although, like the clear thane you know it wears fast and its therefore prone to defects. I actually tried to flatspot them and it didn’t work…but they coned so hard so fast that I’m pretty sure they just passed the test because wheels only flatspot when you |
could have a remarkable impact at solving problems in health, the environment and other fields over the next year. Yellowstone, a 1.5 petaflops cluster computer in Wyoming, was installed this past summer and will spend 2013 crunching numbers (1.5 quadrillion calculations per second, to be exact) to refine climate models and help us better understand how storms and wildfires move across the planet. Meanwhile, Watson, IBM’s world-famous Jeopardy-winning supercomputer, is currently being trained by doctors to recognize medical symptoms and serve as a diagnostic tool, providing treatment options based on case histories and clinical knowledge. So far, the computer has been trained to recognize breast, lung and prostate cancers.Today, in honor of St. Francis’ feast day on October 4, a lot of spiritual institutions are sponsoring pet blessings. Depictions of the saint always feature him feeding birds, his statues often covered with their by-products. Some churches, like the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine up in Morningside Heights, New York, go all out– sometimes you’ll see camels and elephants waiting patiently in the nave along with weimaraners, kittens, and iguanas.
Blueie the lovebird turned eighteen months old on October 1, so he’s big enough to understand why I’m bringing him to the San Pedro Spiritual retreat Center in Winter Park for their pet blessing today. He reminded me of it, in fact, this morning when I took him out to play in the cool new air. “Don’t think you’re going to lay around reading all day with your bedroom door closed,” he said. “We’ve got an appointment today. And make sure my traveling cage is clean… I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the good Fathers.” Conveniently forgetting that he alone is responsible for any messes inside his cage– after all, I would hardly fit inside)– he made sure I lined the bottom with wrapping paper printed with snowflakes, which necessitated a foray into a closet, and a lot of rummaging.
And so we set off.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
We’re back.
Naturally, I knew that the most popular animal would be The Dog, and The Dog was represented about fifty times, each accompanied by at least two owners. Then there was a turtle brought by one of the friars. And then there was Blueie: terrified, and very quiet lest he attract the attention of some much larger animal who would want to jump on his cage. He needn’t have worried– the dogs, like their owners, basically ignored us.
A song sheet was passed around (illustrated with a graphic of St. Francis and a dog) so that we could sing All Creatures of Our God and King, but I don’t sing; when I do, it sounds like a songbird has built a nest in my throat. Instead, I used the paper to keep the sun out of Blueie’s eyes. Then a prayer was read as a blessing toward the health and comfort of all the animals present, and then some, and then the friars mingled with the pet owners. The turtle friar asked my lovebird’s name, and I told him, and he cooed “hellooo Gloria! Hellooo Gloria!” Gloria? I thought I was supposed to be the deaf one.
Though frightened, Blueie was very well-behaved, unlike some of the other pets who insisted on sniffing one another’s private parts. And while Blueie demands affection, I personally would draw the line.
AdvertisementsOver the last few years I have tried many mushroom goulash recipes, and to be honest, none of them buzzed my taste buds. Some of them were nice and creamy, but I made it all just once, and didn’t have the urge to make them again. But, one cold, rainy afternoon, I looked into my pantry, took various vegetables, spices and mushrooms with me to the kitchen and managed to combine this dish, which can be categorized as the perfect vegan mushroom recipe for the rainy days.
Now, this recipe is a little bit more complicated than usual goulashes, but that’s just because it contains a little bit more ingredients. However, it is quite easy to make, and when you get the hang of it, you will also be able to go into pantry and make your own version of this mushroom goulash recipe – you will still need at least two kinds of mushrooms as the base :)
So, although I specified oyster and shiitake mushrooms as the basic ingredients, since they are not available throughout the whole year, sometimes I make this goulash with other mushrooms as well, and I am always satisfied with the end result, and if you find some nice mushroom combination for this vegan goulash, please let me know… :)
Mushroom Goulash recipe:
Mushroom Goulash Print Author: JasminCookBook Ingredients 300 grams / 10 ½ ounces oyster mushrooms
100 grams / 3 ½ ounces shiitake mushrooms
100 g / 3 ½ ounces mixed dry mushrooms (I prefer to add chanterelles and porcini mushrooms, but you can add your own favorite mushroom mix)
100 g 3 ½ ounces tomato purée (or passata di pomodoro)
2 big carrots
1 big parsley root
1 big parsnip root
½ celery root (approximately same amount as parsley or parsnip)
2 red onions
1 teaspoon mustard (Dijon, or similar kind)
2 tablespoons spelt flour
2 tablespoons of sweet smoked paprika powder
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt
pepper
chili powder
turmeric
basil
oregano
parsley leaves
few slices of sundried tomatoes – optional Tools large heavy bottom pan
wooden spoon
knife
peeler
cutting board
food processor or grater Instructions Take the carrots, parsnip, parsley and celery and grate it on a grater, or if you have food processor, put vegetables into it and let the machine shred all vegetables to approximate size as if they were grated by hand. Peel and cut red onions into small cubes. Take large heavy bottom pan, put it on a stove – low heat, add olive oil and spelt flour in it. Stir it with wooden spoon for one – one and a half minute, or until it becomes golden, then add a smoked paprika in and stir for another minute or so, until paprika darkens. And we made one kind of roux. Now, pour in slowly about ½ cup (120 ml) warm water, while constantly stirring. The mixture should be smooth, with no lumps. Add the onion and shredded vegetables into the pan, season with one teaspoon of salt, add additional water if needed to cover vegetables, put the lid on, bring it to a boil and cook on a low heat, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes. While vegetables are gently simmering, wash and slice the mushrooms; the stems into smaller pieces, and the caps into strips. Add sliced and dry mushrooms into the pan; cook additional 15 minutes, with the lid on. Now, add the tomato purée, mustard, bay leaves, good pinch of basil and oregano, and good pinch of chili and turmeric powder; add about ⅔ teaspoon of pepper, taste it and (if needed) add more salt (this depends on how salty the tomato purée was, but additional 2 teaspoons of salt should do it). Leave it covered to cook for about half an hour on low heat. From time to time stir with wooden spoon, taste it, and (if needed) add some of the seasoning. Before the end add about one tablespoon of chopped parsley leaves. Serve hot with a few slices of rustic bread or boiled potatoes and a glass of red vine. 3.5.3208
Cheers!Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s new show has only been out a few weeks ands it’s already breaking records for the cable news giant.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight,” is not only living up to its goal of being “the sworn enemy of lying, hypocrisy smugness and group-think,” but was also instrumental in making history for Fox News Channel.
It helped give Fox a 71 percent boost from November 2015 with an average 3,283,000 viewers — the highest since 2012 and more than double that of CNN and MSNBC combined, according to Nielsen Media Research.
CNN’s averaged 1,529,000 viewers for the month; MSNBC drew in slightly less, 1,335,000.
Since its premier on November 14, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has seen double-digit increases in both total viewership for the 7 to 8 P.M. time slot, as well as the age 25 to 54 demographic.
Before the show’s inauguration, Carlson was a co-host on FNC’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” as well as editor-in-chief of “The Daily Caller,” a publication he founded. The Fox News weekend morning show will now feature rotating co-hosts until a permanent replacement can be found, and Carlson remains as a “passive owner” in “The Daily Caller,” according top Politico.
“Tucker Carlson Tonight” replaced “On The Record,” hosted by Greta Van Susteren after she left the network earlier this year.
The Daily Caller reported that other Fox News shows enjoyed a boost last month:
“The O’Reilly Factor,” “The Kelly File,” “Hannity,” “Special Report” and “The Five” still hold the top-five, respective positions for cable news’ most watched programs. November was the 192nd month O’Reilly topped all of television — averaging 4,089,000 viewers — and the highest rated month for Hannity since October 2013. November marked the 179th month Fox News led all of cable news in total viewers.
Now if we could just find a way to lure Van Susteren back to the fold. Any suggestions for who she might replace on prime time?
Wake up right! Receive our free morning news blast HEREThe Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, guaranteed every child aged 6-14, the right to free and compulsory education till elementary level. This remains a deeply flawed legislation. I had participated in the Rajya Sabha debate in July 2009 when this Bill had come up for consideration, expressing serious concerns.
First and foremost, it does not factor in important recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee of which the current HRD minister, Prakash Javadekar, was also a member. Second, in emphasising infrastructure and teacher-student ratio while omitting any consideration of learning outcomes its priorities are misplaced. Third, its implications for private schools, which are obligated with 25% reservations with reimbursements below the average cost, are serious. Fourth, there is lack of clarity on its financial implications, and sharing of cost between the Centre and states.
The government was in a desperate hurry to enact the new law. It was an era of entitlement driven legislations. Recent developments are increasingly vindicating apprehensions about the law.
The threatened takeover of 438 private schools by Delhi government has raised broader, endemic policy concerns. The reasonableness of fees for private schools remains a contentious issue. At a conceptual level, the Supreme Court judgment, in TMA Pai Foundation vs State of Karnataka (2002) 8 SCC 481, had settled the basic principles of a reasonable fee structure.
They must be commensurate with infrastructure, facilities provided, salaries paid and future expansion plans. While commercialisation of education and profiteering was prohibited, a surplus between 6-15% could be utilised for expansion and development.
Successive judgments and the findings of the Sikri commission also recognise that institutions should be given liberty to fix their own fees. This was necessary to promote innovation and excellence in private educational institutions. Qualified teachers could only be induced and retained with competitive salary structures. Market economics and competition will prompt an appropriate balance between costs and outcomes.
Eight years after the enactment of the Bill, there is encouraging data on enrolment. For age groups 6-14 it is above 96% for elementary school, while it is 78.5% for secondary and 54.2% for higher secondary. What is worrying, however, is a growing mismatch between rising enrolment and declining outcomes.
Credible action programmes to improve teacher training both quantitatively and qualitatively remain elusive. It is sad that this challenging obligation had no place in the RTE Act. Besides, total teacher vacancies are 9 lakh at the elementary level and exceed 1 lakh at secondary level. This is a huge backlog and will keep rising every year.
The 11th Annual Status of Education Report released by Pratham this year suggests that “today about one in four children in standard 3 in an average rural school is at Grade 1 in reading and mathematics.” Further, nationally, this picture does not seem to have changed very much over the last decade. There has however been a slight increase in these attainments between 2014 and 2016.
Another interesting feature is the wide interstate variations brought out in the survey. If we use, let us say, fluent story reading as the criterion the grade-level achievement for Standard 3 in Himachal Pradesh was close to 50% while for UP it was less than 10% in an average classroom.
Clearly, we need to adopt flexibility in our teaching methods to teach at the right level and what the Pratham report calls CAMaL (Combined activities for maximised learning).
During the period of 2010-11 and 2015-16, government school enrolment across 20 states declined by 13 million while private schools showed an accretion of 17.8 million. Clearly, parents prefer private schools if they can afford it.
The debate between public and private schools has raged for long. This is a false hiatus. Societies with rising aspirations need both equity and excellence. Seeking inclusiveness while ensuring acceptable outcomes is invariably challenging. Public policies must be designed to harmonise a possible asymmetry. Recent initiatives by the Rajasthan government for government schools to operate on a public private partnership model have important lessons.
Another worrying feature is the growing disconnect between education and employment. A recent broad-based survey to assess the efficacy of India’s education system brings out the harsh reality that only 26% respondents in the survey believe that their schooling has contributed to overall development but more importantly, to their employment.
Getting away from the rote learning method, fostering a culture of creativity and an ability to learn multiple jobs in one’s career lifespan, is critical for the jobs of tomorrow. Restructuring pedagogy and course materials designed to serve this inescapable necessity brooks no delay.
Fortunately, technology has the power to change teaching methods dramatically. The prime minister’s programme on digital connectivity, internet penetration combined with skill inculcation programmes is expected to make a decisive difference. Our present complexities and growing pressures for job creation will permit neither ‘business as usual’ nor ‘teaching as before’.
These challenges must be government’s priority rather than discouraging entrepreneurs to set up private schools. One is reminded of the famous saying of Chamfort, “Education is construed on two prongs, the prong of morality and the prong of prudence.” Improving quality of public schools and also encouraging private initiatives can conserve and promote both morality and prudence. Just as schooling and learning are not coterminous, education is not a matter of rights alone.5 June 2017 | amberrenee-02393
8 | I HATE Period Dramas
I hate classical dramas and such because of the loaded vocabulary that means BS to me. Period dramas are boring and dull, until BAM! Sex scenes that are eye catching full with nipples, boobies, and booty. That is all I have to say about the genre of period dramas.
BUT I'll have to make one exception-this exception. This is not a go-to boring old period Drama. I like it on how the cast is very diverse, it breaks boundaries and the stereotypical "black people are slaves" notion. Here black people are royalty instead of slaves in period dramas. Black people exist, and I am glad the creators decided to fall through the the plan based on talent. Though I want to acknowledge other actors/actresses who are a minority in the show as well, who I probably am unaware of their background and such because their chances to "make it big" in the industry are very slim.
There will be negative reviews on how this is not authentic to the source, how cheesy it is, and how this is part of PC culture. This is an extravagant twist on Shakespeare, it is not suppose to be the same as 100+ other versions of a Romeo & Juliet media productions- that is the point. It has it's cheesy moments, as well as soap operas like Days of our Lives that constantly plays every hour and has never gotten cancelled. Yes, it is part of inclusion of actors/actresses who have a slim chance in the TV/film industry during callbacks for lead/supporting roles or finding work-this is a breath of fresh air, welcome it.
I am not surprised because I am in Shondaland. I love Shondaland. Though I understand this is not Netflix, I hope that this show won't get cut. I have fallen in love with shows with diverse casts (specifically black and latinx) but they ended up getting cut from the lineup (talking about Sense8, The Get Down, Underground, Sleepy Hollow, etc). Again, as much as I want to love the show, I am a bit wary of it's impending demise.The story goes that Damian Lazarus, enigmatic head of one of underground music’s most successful imprints – Crosstown Rebels – found himself meeting with a shaman in Tulum, site of an ancient Mayan city back in January. Under the instruction of the shaman, he threw his arms up to the moon in order to draw energy from the universe. The result was an overwhelming spiritual experience, as Damian says, “I was locked into this electric force field”. This convinced him to plan an event that could plug thousands of others into that same raw and powerful vibe.
Thus December 21st not only marks the end of a 25,625-year-long cycle and the end of the Mesoamerican calendar, culminating in galactic alignment and bringing about a perfect moment for universal renaissance, it also marks the Day Zero festival in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. A 24 hour event celebrating Mayan culture and electronic music, with artists such as Massive Attack, T.E.E.D and Jamie Jones joining Lazarus and a plethora of the Crosstown rosta.
In preparation for this, Lazarus has curated the Day Zero album, which assembles thirteen unheard tracks from Rebels past and present into a cohesive package inspired by the Mayan spirit. Although there is a faint drop of irony in capitalising on a supposedly deeply spiritual event with a commercial venture, however if you sidestep all of the cosmic back-story what you’re left with is an album of solid, uniquely atmospheric and in some cases, downright beautiful songs.
Crosstown veteran Pier Bucci opens proceedings with the wonderfully eclectic, melodically dense “Mayas” before handing over to the restrained, slow burning “Prophecy” from Quenum, which flawlessly weaves wind instruments and chants over lush, constantly evolving pads to effectively nail the spirit of the album.
Arguably, the contributions to the album that are the strongest are, at their core, the most formulaic. Francesca Lambardo’s “Cosmic Dancer”, for example, is not just a fantastic assimilation of atmospheres and understated percussion, it’s a great dancefloor record. If you’re likely to hear any of this album played out, it’ll undoubtedly be this track you hear and remember.
Elsewhere, contributions from Mathew Jonson, Fur Coat and Jay Haze playfully intertwine organic flourishes with often bruising electronic beats, occasionally to great effect, whilst Mike Shannon, Metrika and Eduardo Castillo deliver more laid back cuts. Closing moments from Thugfucker & Shaun Reeves and Acid Pauli & Nu in particular stand out as having best harmoniously paired ethereal, otherworldly soundscapes with a backdrop of familiar but unrecognisable synths and percussion, finishing the album on a high.
Day Zero is best approached as a concept album. It daringly treads the boards between dance music and electronica, sometimes leaving the album as a whole confused. Its thirteen contributors, however, all seemed to have reveled in the challenge of fusing the Mayan spirit and electronic music, creating a refreshingly unique LP that is certainly not without charm. Whilst we can’t vouch for its cosmic properties, we can confirm it makes a splendid soundtrack for the dawn of a new day.
Damian Lazarus – Day Zero (Sound Of The Mayan Spirit) – Download Below
Tracklisting
01. Pier Bucci – Mayas
02. Quenum – The Prophecy
03. Mathew Jonson- In Seach of a New Planet with Oxygen
04. Metrika – Jeel, k’eex
05. Francesca Lombardo – Cosmic Dancer
06. Fur Coat – Greed, Insanity
07. Fosky & BOg – Chestionabil
08. Jay Haze – 2012
09. Eduardo Castillo – Ahometa Kuyaxi
10. Navid Izadi ft. KMLN – Kurandero
11. Mike Shannon – Sunrise
12. Thugfucker & Shaun Reeves – Timewave Zero
13. AcidPauli&Nu–12
Rating 7.5/10We are happy to announce the release of Cloudron 0.150.0.
For those unaware, Cloudron is a platform that makes it easy to run apps on your server and keep them up-to-date.
Disable backups
Cloudron always makes a backup before applying an app or platform update. If it is unable to create a backup, the update is not applied. Sometimes it is desirable to disable backups temporarily - for example, if there is a bug in Cloudron's backup mechanism and the incoming update actually fixes it! We have now added a noop backup storage backend that lets you temporarily disable backups.
DNS query subsystem
We use the native-dns module to check if DNS entries have been setup correctly. Unfortunately, this module is no longer maintained :( We have reworked the DNS query system to use dig instead.
Backup cleanup
The backup cleaner periodically removes old backups. The backup subsystem only tracks successful backups and as a result, the backup cleaner never cleaned up the artifacts of an errored backup.
From this release, Cloudron tracks the state of backups and cleans up errored backups.
Backup time limit
On some Cloudrons, the backup task gets stuck and this blocks future backups and updates. The root cause of this issue is unknown (maybe just a very slow network connection?). As a workaround, we have a set a time limit of 4 hours for the backup task to complete. If it takes more time, it is killed and you will receive an email notification of the same.
Email settings
We have moved email settings to a new view in preparation for new email features that we intend to add in the upcoming releases.Just last month Google and Microsoft came together in an unlikely pairing. This was not a software venture, but a bid to help tackle the problem of child porn online. UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said on numerous occasions that ISPs needed to do more to not only block access to torrent sites -- despite the fact they can be used for perfectly legal downloads -- but also to make it more difficult for children to access pornography. Four major ISPs either already have porn filters in place, or have plans to roll them out.
TalkTalk's filters have been in place for a few years now, Sky's were recently launched and Virgin is piloting a scheme due for full scale roll out at some point in 2014. In the past few days, BT switched on its filters, falling in line with government requests for access to legal porn to be made opt-in -- i.e. blocked by default. So is this having the desired effect? Well, it's very early days, but there are a few observations to be made already.
Firstly, the porn filters apply to new users. Anyone joining BT for internet access will find that the porn filter is in place by default, and they'll have to phone up to get the block lifted if they find that it is interfering with their ability to access the content they want to see. Secondly, it has been very quickly revealed to be a "sledge hammer to crack a nut" solution to a problem -- it may be working to some extent, but there are also some unwanted side effects.
The idea of the filter is to prevent children from -- innocently or otherwise -- viewing online porn. But if there's one thing we know about children, it is that if they want to access something, they will do so. Knowledge of proxies and filter bypassing tools are no longer the domain of the technically-minded -- it is the norm. PirateBay is blocked? So what! A quick re-route and 30 seconds later the site is accessible again. Hooray! The same is true for porn or anything else that may be blocked.
Talking about children and pornography in the same breath is always going to raise a few hackles (even if we're not talking about child porn per se), but any form of filtering is flawed from the start. My fear with filtering is that categorization of sites -- the millions and millions of sites that exist -- is all but impossible. Tests carried out by BBC TV show Newsnight found that with 68 test porn sites, TalkTalk -- the longest running filter -- failed to block 7%. With new sites popping up every day, shifting servers, changing names and disguising themselves, achieving 100 percent porn blocking is all but impossible.
But there is a more worrying concern: that these filters block more sites than they are meant to. And this is exactly what is happening. The porn filters that have been put in place are also blocking access to genuinely useful sites. Sites such as sex education programs, pages about getting help with domestic abuse, and even a rape help center. What is worse? Allowing a child to access porn, or preventing them from accessing sites they might need? It seems the two are not mutually exclusive.
We run the risk of creating another Great Firewall of China, a two-tier internet. Yes, children should be sheltered from adult content, but a less drastic solution needs to be found. If Microsoft and Google can work together, why not ISPs? The government understanding of the role of the internet, and appreciating children's knowledge of it, is sadly lacking. If the web is to be filtered a proper, fully funded taskforce needs to be behind it, not a disparate group of ramshackle ISPs all working independently on different systems.
It's great that David Cameron and BT bosses can go to sleep with a smile on their faces in the belief that they're doing something to help. But do the disadvantages outweigh the benefits -- is this the best approach?
Image Credit: alphaspirit / ShutterstockHey guys! Are you ready for a gorgeous home tour that I photographed for decor8 this month? Hello, it's Holly Marder back again to take you through another lovely interior. For February, to chase away those winter blahs, it's all about this bright, peppy and fun family home, packed with sweet accessories and pops of cheerful color. Are you ready? Let's go, and remember, you can click on any image to enlarge!
Pastel hues and quirky pops of neon layered upon a crisp white base have transformed a 1935 Arnhem, The Netherlands, row house into a home with heart belonging to Antoinette te Pas, her partner Henk Jansen and their two sons, Teun and Roef. With a penchant for Scandinavian style, a charming blend of old and new and a feminine color palette, Antoinette has created a happy haven that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
In search of a new home with a garden and space for a growing family, Antoinette and Henk became the owners of their 125 square meter abode in 2001. Though much needed to be done, it was love at first sight. Over the years, the couple renovated the kitchen and bathroom, removed a wall that once separated the kitchen and living room and replaced the downstairs floor. “To start with we painted everything white, and each time we saved some money we had something refurbished,” Antoinette says.
Starting with an all-white base for the floors, walls and furniture, the couple slowly infused their home with bright pops of color and large doses of personality. “I love adding pretty colors to the white backdrop,” Antoinette says. “Although a light base is very risky with a dog and two kids, it makes things so crisp and bright.” The peppy, cheerful atmosphere of Antoinette's home is largely owing to the accessories and art thoughtfully placed throughout, many of which are by Antoinette's favorite brands such as HAY, Donna Wilson, Foekje Fleur and Ferm Living. “I shift things around at home often, and really enjoy shopping for and finding beautiful accessories,” Antoinette continues, “Creating a setting where my family and I feel comfortable is what I love. Sitting on the sofa surrounded by beautiful accessories in a neat and tidy home makes me really happy.”
The sofa, purchased locally 6 years ago, remains a favorite spot for the family of four, who can often be found unwinding together, “I love relaxing on our sofa reading a magazine and drinking a cup of tea during a rare moment alone,” says Antoinette.
The couple’s most prized possession - and undoubtedly the most eye-catching item in the room - is an original Herman Brood painting above the sofa. “I bought this years ago at Herman’s atelier. It was a really fun experience to have a look ‘behind the scenes’. Now that Herman is no longer alive, the painting must be worth a lot more than what we paid for it, but I will never sell it for any price.”
Allowing the striking blue hues of the painting to lead the way, Antoinette acquired a blue replica Eames chair with contrasting pink accessories dotted throughout. A pink Studio Snowpuppe origami lamp and poster by Zilverblauw are a couple of Antoinette's favorites. “I have been following the blog Zilverblauw for quite a while now. I have a few more posters by her hanging around the house.” Among other cherished pieces is the vintage IKEA 'Järpen' wire chair that was rescued from the attic of Antoinette’s mother which was left unused there for over thirty years. Another IKEA piece is the 'PS collection' dresser, originally natural wood and white, which Antoinette painted all white and updated three of the handles for a fun and colorful look. She's added additional whimsy and intrigue to the space with a Kartell gnome stool, too.
The dining room connects the living room through an ensuite walkway with built-in shelving and employs the same white base punctuated by colorful lighting, accessories and fresh flowers taking center stage.
The couple gave their scrap-wood dining table a fresh new look last year by painting it mint green, offsetting their 'Brakig' chairs from IKEA creating cohesion with the neighboring living room and kitchen color schemes.
The antique corner cabinet was painted white and was a gift from Antoinette's aunt. The yellow HK Living pendant light above the dining table is a cheerful addition to the space. So many details abound in this home!
There are vignettes in every corner and the dining room is no different as Antoinette created a small exhibition of plates on the dining room wall, which includes pieces by Donna Wilson, House of Rym, HAY and a metal letter by Stoer Metaal, adding a sculptural element to the vignette. Antoinette uses the shelf below to display accessories and favorite items along with fresh flowers.
The kitchen is filled with color, happiness and is accented by a black and white tiled floor, chalkboard wall and a large yellow cabinet with double glass doors providing storage for the small and very sweet galley kitchen.
The couple’s sons, Roef and Teun, share a large bedroom on the first floor of the house. “They used to each have their own room but Roef always slept with us. One night he slept in Teun’s room on a mattress on the floor, which he really liked, and since then they have shared a room,”Antoinette says. Roef’s former room has become a dressing room.
The bedroom features vibrant Ferm Living wallpaper and a teepee (tent) - adorned with a string of Cotton Light Balls - made by their children’s grandmother. The horse and pouf are by Colorique. Next to the bed is a Fur Neil poster by Martin Krusche.
The boys’ bunk bed is centered in the room, creating various cozy areas within the single large space. To the right of the bed, an oversized vintage map of Holland is suspended above two vintage school desks and chairs, giving the children space to do their homework and create. The map was an online find, the desks came from the kid’s school and the chairs were purchased at Stoer Metaal. Behind the desks, along the back wall, a reading nook has been created out of mattresses placed on the floor - the covers made by their grandmother out of blankets - giving the boys a cozy and comfortable spot to unwind, relax and read.
The master bedroom blends Nordic simplicity with touches of romance and whimsy. The white foundation is offset with grey ‘Brakig’ wallpaper by IKEA, while a single shelf displays a collection of vintage favorites. Playful posters by Sammy Rose and Seventy Tree hang above the bed and a mint green Studio Snowpuppe lamp mirrors the geometric lines seen in the wallpaper. The Tomado-look-a-like book rack was purchased at Bol. The bed and nightstands are IKEA.
Antoinette finds inspiration in magazines, blogs and from her favorite interiors shops, thrift shops and flea markets. “It’s not so much that I want to create a specific style, I just put some accessories together that look pretty. But there are definitely Scandinavian influences here and there.”
The couple has plans to continue fine-tuning their home’s interior, starting with the painting of a few doors and minor adjustments made to the family bathroom. Long term however, they've set their eyes set on a larger scale project promising more space and quality of life for them in their family home. “Our biggest wish is to redecorate the attic because it's old and neglected with a lot of potential and space. A perfect spot for the kids to play and chill. As soon as our budgets allows it, this project will happen!".... And we can only imagine how gorgeous it will be, right decor8 readers?
What do you think about this home?
Photography/Text: Holly Marder / Editorial assistance: Jessica van der Liende / Editor: Holly BeckerAl Jazeera is releasing 12 broadcast quality videos today shot in Gaza under Creative Commons’ least restrictive Attribution license. Each professionally recorded video has a detailed information page and is hosted on blip.tv allowing for easy downloads of the original files and integration into Miro. The value of this footage is best described by an International Herald Tribune/New York Times article describing the release:
In a conflict where the Western news media have been largely prevented from reporting from Gaza because of restrictions imposed by the Israeli military, Al Jazeera has had a distinct advantage. It was already there.
More importantly, the permissive CC-BY license means that the footage can be used by anyone including, rival broadcasters, documentary makers, and bloggers, so long as Al Jazeera is credited.
There’s more information over at Al Jazeera’s CC repository, and in our press release. You can also add the Al Jazeera repository to your Miro feeds by clicking here.Wikistrat recently concluded a three-week strategic simulation called “The EU in 2030” in which our analysts looked into the future of the European Union. One of the policy options they created suggested that the EU should focus on forming an energy union, instead of a fiscal union. A summary is provided here.
After the creation of the banking union, there is no political will in Europe to push forward with integration policies. But the bloc faces a new energy reality. Much of its crude oil production is offshore in the North Sea, where Norway and the United Kingdom face maturing oil fields and declining production rates. Many states in the former Eastern Europe depend heavily on Russian oil and gas — a dependence they would much rather reduce.
Poland, Eastern Europe’s largest member states, should therefore take the lead. It is in a good position to drive the EU in this direction: Poland possesses its largest proven shale gas reserves, is building an LNG terminal and its energy production is heavily dependent on coal — which it is promoting (in spite of the EU’s environmental policies) as an alternative to Russian energy imports.
Under this policy option, Poland should start acquiring the energy portfolio in the European Commission that takes office in late 2014. It should also expand its role in the European External Action Service. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski is already an unofficial candidate for the leadership of this institution. If Poland gets outplayed by other member states, it can follow the example of Germany and rely on its diplomacy to nominate officials to key background positions.
Step two involves quickly finalizing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This would expand opportunities for importing natural gas from the United States after 2017. Poland should enlist the help of especially the Baltic states and the United Kingdom to get the TTIP through as soon as possible. In the meantime, under Polish leadership and insistence, EU countries, especially Western ones, should build the necessary infrastructure for more LNG imports and the required distribution network.
This will set the stage for creating a new energy hub in Europe. Poland should lobby, on the heels of the trade agreement, for the widespread acceptance and the EU-funded development of fracking — at least in certain countries. Building on its own capacities, it should promote Poland-centered projects to link the Baltic states to the pan-European energy network and reduce the energy dependence of former Soviet satellite states on Russia.
Britain would be inclined to support this shift away from fiscal and political union and is one of the most enthusiastic backers of the TTIP. It partners with Poland to reinvigorate its special relationship with the United States.
France, despite its reservations about the transatlantic trade treaty, should also back this policy, seeing it as a way for Europe to “outgrow” its economic problems and avoid painful structural reforms. However, it will need a serious effort at building energy infrastructure, regasifiers and pipeline links in particular.
The Baltic states will support any initiative to decrease their dependence on Russian energy.
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia would support the policy for the same reason and also because it secures their energy supply after the gradual closing of their nuclear power plants.
Finally, Italy, always looking for additional sources of hydrocarbons, is one of the few countries that can afford to diversify from Russia without angering it due to other economic links and being already less reliant on it than most of its neighbors.
Wikistrat Analysts Nataliya Gudz, Gary Hunt, Lorenzo N |
diaries written between 1977 and 2002. That he began with a diary and finds himself returning to the form creates an arc that ties together his fraught and farcical art and life. Sedaris comes to L.A. next week; tickets for his June 28 event at Royce Hall at UCLA are still available. This conversation has been edited.
You’ve said this book ended up becoming something quite different from the one you’d initially intended. How did the collection evolve?
I started reading from my diaries years ago, I think in 1986. I usually end any evening — whether it’s a book tour or a lecture — by reading from my diary. I just find things and think, Oh, I bet this would work. So I thought the book would just be entries from my folder of “things that work.” But then my editor said, “Why don’t you go back to the very beginning and find things that aren’t necessarily funny, and think about adding those?” And then when I did, the original pieces I’d included seemed overproduced, somehow, in comparison, so I wound up cutting them.
Tell me about your process for keeping the diary.
It’s the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning. But along with the diary I also have a Fitbit that rules my life, so sometimes I also have to get my steps in. So like today, I got up and wrote in my diary for maybe 20 minutes at the hotel, and then I had to go to the airport and, since I got there 2½ hours before my flight, I just walked around the Atlanta airport for a couple hours. And then once I finished that, then I could finish writing in my diary.
So you still keep it?
Oh yeah, I can’t imagine not writing in my diary. I mean, the world would spin off its axis and everyone, all of us, would die. I could never stop. It doesn’t have anything to do with me having anything worthwhile to say — it’s a compulsion. I keep it on my computer, so I can scroll back. I have an essay that recently came out in the New Yorker, and my diary was a big help in writing that.
Sedaris comes to Vroman's in Pasadena June 27. Tickets to his reading are sold out but booksigning tickets are still available. »
What did you write in today’s entry?
Yesterday in Atlanta this guy said, “Hey, are you here for the rotary convention?” And I stopped and looked at myself because my first thought was, Oh my God, what am I wearing? That I look like I’d be in town for a rotary convention? So I said, “No,” and he asked, “Can I ask you a question, man to man?” And that’s when I said to myself, “Dammit, he got me.” Like, why did I even stop? “Can I ask you a question?” is always “Can you give me money?” Always, always. And that’s why you never stop. Because he really got me by asking if I was in town for the rotary. I didn’t give him any money, but he ruined my day.
Why did he think he could ask you for money?
Everybody thinks they can ask me for money, because I’m small. If you’re a small man you get asked for money. I can go out with Hugh and nobody bothers him at all, whereas it’s insane how often I get asked for things.
What was it like to dig back into your personal history from 40 years ago for publication? Did you find anything that made you cringe?
I started with the very first day and just read through everything. It took me a couple of years, because there’s only so much of me that I can take. Oh God, I got so sick of me. If I ever sell my papers, I think I’ll rip a lot of pages out.
But for the most part you forgive yourself for being 20. Everyone was 20 once; it’s just that I have a little more evidence of it than most people. What I had a hard time with was being phony. I mean, I was sitting at the International House of Pancakes with a beret on at a table, reading Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” and writing in my diary. So, you know, you have to forgive yourself. I actually laughed a lot when I was reading it, which was a nice surprise.
I can’t imagine not writing in my diary! I mean, the world would spin off its axis and everyone, all of us, would die. — David Sedaris
So will your readers. But your humor is often mixed with elements of darkness, whether it’s violence or tragedy. Is this a narrative strategy, or a form of self-therapy?
I don’t know, I guess I have an eye for two things juxtaposed next to each other. Like my sister Tiffany having that ectopic pregnancy and then she says, “When can I have sex again?” It was funny. Or like when the war in Iraq began, I heard the news from Lauren Bacall who’s wearing a jeweled headpin that says, “I love Paris.” She wasn’t saying it to me personally, but she kind of announced it to the room and I was just in a situation that I didn’t belong in. You take one step back and the horrible becomes the ridiculous.
Comedy aside, your own drug-fueled misadventures figure quite prominently in your younger entries. How do you look back on that period now, with the benefit of hindsight?
Hindsight has allowed me to be incredibly grateful, because if I were addicted to meth now, and my dealer left town, there’d just be another dealer to step in and take her place. But it wasn’t popular back then. So when the woman who sold to me moved to Florida, I had nowhere to get it, so I had to detox, and I’m grateful for that. It’s not like I’m a strong person who could have quit on his own; this is the only way I would have quit.
You say you wouldn’t have had the strength and yet you quit drinking cold turkey decades later. Where did you find that courage?
One of the things I have in my favor is that work was always the most important thing. I figured that booze was helping me as a writer. I had never written anything without drinking. So that was the hard part about quitting drinking: I thought that I wouldn’t be able to write again. But the drinking is a lot to take on the road with the schedule that I have. Because I don’t want to drink in public at a book signing: I want to drink alone, in my room, after I’m finished with all that stuff. A couple nights ago I got back to my room after the book signing at quarter to 5 in the morning, so that’s when I would’ve had to start drinking: at quarter to 5. Quitting just made my life easier. The same with smoking: I used to never be able to write unless I was smoking; so I couldn’t write on a plane or anything. Now I can just do it anywhere. I don’t need to drink, I don’t need to smoke. It’s all just based around work. That was always the first consideration.
"Theft by Finding" author David Sedaris scoured through 25 years of meticulous, handwritten diaries to find the stories he divulges in his new book.
Did getting sober change the way you approach your work?
Yeah, I think the change in my writing process has something to do with not drinking, but I think it has maybe just as much to do with the computer, which made my diaries better. Even though I still only type with one finger, and I have to look at the keyboard. This is after basically 40 years of typing. If I handed you my diary from yesterday, I might be embarrassed for you to know a few of the things that I was thinking, but I wouldn’t be embarrassed by the writing.
Would you really ever let me or anyone else get ahold of it?
No. That’s my nightmare. I’ve never handed my diary to anybody and said, “Knock yourself out.” I wouldn’t.
What did you leave out in the editing?
I’m generally not afraid to make myself look bad. Usually, if you make yourself look bad, that’s a thing that attaches you to people because we’re not all that different. I just looked for the parts that were entertaining or illuminating in some way, so it might look like I wrote four sentences on one day when really I probably wrote pages. And then I had a big relationship before I met Hugh, and I just snipped him out of the book because he didn’t want to be in it.
David Sedaris signing books at Royce Hall in 2004. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Is there anything you won’t even write about in your diary?
I’ve never written about sex. I mean, I’ve written that I’ve had sex with somebody or that we’ve had sex five times, but I’ve never written about what we did.
You were always ambitious, always knew you wanted to “be somebody.” Writing these entries 40 years ago, did you think they’d be published? Were you writing with an audience in mind back then?
No, that didn’t have anything to do with it. When I first started keeping a diary, I was aware of how bad it was. I knew that what I was writing, especially at the beginning, did not look like what you’d find in a book. But you wouldn’t start playing piano and expect to be good by the end of the week. And so I just thought, if I keep doing it, I’m bound to get better. And that’s still what I tell myself every day when I sit down.
What do you think is behind your obsessive need to record? Is it a fear of forgetting?
I don’t think it has to do with forgetting. It’s just something that I have to do. The same way that there was a time I had to feed these spiders in my house. Now I have to pick up trash by the side of the road — I have to do it; I can’t take a day off. But with the spiders, I grew out of it. This diary never ended.To Save a Life was produced on a budget of about $1 million, but nearly doubled that in its opening weekend. The film was released to 441 theaters on January 22, 2010, and has grossed $3,777,210 domestically. It was received with mixed to generally negative reviews from film critics.
Jake Taylor (Randy Wayne), a high school student in the suburbs of San Diego, attends the funeral of his ex-best friend Roger (Robert Bailey Jr.). After Roger's mom comes and asks Jake if Roger had said anything to him, she walks away, and Jake remembers that this all started back when they were young boys and best friends. Roger pushed Jake out of the way of a car, saving him but crippling himself forever. During their freshmen year of high school, after Jake had made the winning basket in a basketball game, a freshman cheerleader named Amy invited him to a party that Roger was not let into. In the years later Jake joined a new popular group of friends, Amy became his girlfriend, and he became star of the basketball team. Jake grew further away from Roger, who became more of a loner due to his condition which he was bullied for. Three years later as a high school senior, Roger came in with a gun and began to shoot. Jake, knowing what Roger was going to do, tries to stop him, but Roger tells him that it was too late. Jake watches in horror as Roger shoots himself. Roger dies from his injuries, prompting Jake to wonder if he could have saved him by being a better friend.
After the final basketball game of his senior year, Jake meets Chris, a youth pastor, who had spoken at Roger's funeral. Jake goes to a party that is broken up by the police and, being slow to orient himself, is the last to sneak out of the house. Amy had taken his truck, and he was without a ride home. With no other options left, Jake decides to call the number on the business card Chris gave him. On the ride home, Chris reveals that Roger had come to church the Sunday before he killed himself. Chris expresses guilt that no one had really welcomed him there.
Jake continues to struggle in dealing with Roger's death, attending church several times and drawing concern from Amy because of his withdrawn behavior. He discovers Roger's social networking page and sees that Roger had openly discussed his hopelessness. Amy joins Jake at church the following Sunday, but leaves during the service, feeling judged. Jake confronts the group angrily about their shallow faith and failure to be inclusive and inviting. Chris asks for a solution, and a girl named Andrea suggests that they all have lunch together at school.
For the next few weeks, they all meet at lunch everyday. Slowly, Jake becomes shunned by all of his old friends, including Amy. Jake invites Jonny (Sean Michael Afable), a boy who had been mocked by a fake invitation to a party, to join them, which he eventually does. Jonny starts to emerge from the darkness he felt following Roger's death as he, Jake, and Andrea become friends.
After some time, Jonny asks Jake for advice on asking Andrea on a date. They go out for ice cream and Andrea sees scars on Jonny's wrist from cutting. She reveals that she used to be a cutter as well, touching his wrist. Jonny tries to kiss her, dropping his ice cream in her lap and causing her to draw back. Meanwhile, Jake finds out that Amy is pregnant with his baby and that she doesn't want to keep the child. He then discovers that his parents are about to divorce after his father had an affair. The next day at school, Jonny wants help from Jake on what to do with Andrea after he blew his chance. Jake takes his anger out on Jonny by brushing aside his concerns, effectively humiliating him in front of his peers.
Jake and Andrea attempt to patch things up with Jonny, but he ignores their calls and resumes cutting his wrists. Danny, the pastor's son, overhears Jake and Chris talking about Amy's pregnancy and posts drawings all over the school announcing the secret to the school. In the weeks that follow, Jake stops hanging out with his old friends for good and spends more time with his new friends. He gives up his dream about going to college, much to his father's disappointment, and talks to Amy, who has decided. Jake promises her that he will help her raise their child. Amy, having been shunned by all her old friends at school, begins spending time with Andrea and the other girls from the church. Jake continues to call Jonny, but he refuses to pick up his phone.
Jonny bumps into Danny, who takes the cell phone Jonny drops. Minutes later, students are evacuated from the school due to a bomb threat. Danny steps forward and tells the police he thinks it was Jonny. The police search Jonny's locker and find horrific pictures of bombs exploding the school. They ask Jonny for his phone, but he doesn't have it, because Danny still does. The police handcuff Jonny and walk him through the crowd of the entire student body. Jake realizes that Jonny didn't make the threats when he calls Jonny's phone and sees Danny answer it. With Amy distracting the teachers that guard the exit, Jake runs past them to the road and steps in front of the police car. Jonny had opened a bottle of prescription pills preparing to overdose on them, but Jake successfully stops the vehicle just before Jonny ends up like Roger.
Danny is then caught by the police, but cannot bring himself to call his father, calling Chris instead. Chris leaves Danny alone, but Jake offers to stay with him. The pastor takes a leave of absence to spend time with Danny and Chris becomes the new pastor in his place.
Jake's life soon begins to look up. His daughter is placed in open adoption, and Amy gets back together with him. The His friends and family gather to see him off to Louisville for college, and his dad comes along with him so they can talk. Jonny gives Jake a note to read on the way there stating that he actually did feel like Roger and had considered taking his life, as well. He stated that if Jake had not invited him for lunch that day, he did not know where he would be at the moment. At that point, Jake and his father stop the trip to Louisville and head home.Okay. There's not a whole lot to it. Well, let's see, we'll start with the—Let's start with sports, what the heck. The Astros survived 8 to 7, the Braves got five or six runs in the—five runs in the ninth inning, but they just made it; and in the other important game of the day, the Cubs were rained out. I have all the rest of the scores, you can tell me if you want any of them. They had earthquakes in Manila and other areas of the island of Luzon. There were three tremors and they kept the buildings shaking for about a half an hour or so, and it was about a 5 on the Richter scale. Okay, let's see. The Beatles have announced they will no longer perform as a group. The quartet is reported to have made in excess of a half billion dollars during their short musical career. However, rumors that they will use this money to start their own space program are false.But the Texas case, and others like it, have invited new scrutiny from regulators and members of Congress about these hospitals’ ability to care for patients who suffer complications after their operations.
While some of these hospitals are large sophisticated operations, like those hospitals specializing in cardiac care, others are much more modest. For example, small surgical hospitals may not have separate emergency facilities or, as in the Texas case, a doctor on site at all times during a patient’s recovery.
A similar case involved an 88-year-old woman two years ago at a small doctor-owned hospital in Portland, Ore., where the nurses called 911 after she was given too much pain medicine following spine surgery. She, too, later died.
As the number of doctor-owned surgical hospitals grows, federal and state officials now acknowledge that the government rules may be too vague about the emergency abilities a hospital must have in place. Regulators are particularly concerned about the very small hospitals that focus on only a few kinds of surgery but perform operations that frequently require an overnight stay. While Medicare’s rules currently say a hospital must “meet the emergency needs of patients in accordance with acceptable standards of practice,” the details are left largely to the hospital’s discretion. Federal and state officials say they are now reviewing the guidelines to toughen the rules and make them more specific.
“We’re concerned about good quality of care in any or all settings,” said Thomas E. Hamilton, who oversees hospital certification for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Medicare recently terminated its agreement with the facility involved in the Texas case, West Texas Hospital, a 14-bed hospital in Abilene that performed procedures ranging from plastic surgery to complex spine operations.
That is where Mr. Spivey had spine surgery.
Sometime during the night following his surgery, the staff grew alarmed by his breathing difficulties and called the surgeon back to the hospital. Ill-equipped to handle a medical emergency, the West Texas staff phoned 911, said Darrell Keith, the lawyer who is representing Mr. Spivey’s family and is still investigating what happened.
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When the paramedics arrived, they inserted a breathing tube before taking him to a nearby full-service hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.
“It is horrific that Steve Spivey had to sacrifice his life in order to expose the problems associated with physician-owned hospitals,” Mr. Keith said.
West Texas, citing patient privacy, said it could not comment, although it defended the quality of its care.
After a review of the hospital following Mr. Spivey’s death, federal officials decided last month that the hospital could no longer continue treating patients covered under the government’s Medicare program. Although the chief executive of West Texas Hospital defended its practices, he said it would not appeal the government’s decision. The hospital has since closed.
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The doctors who set up the specialized hospitals defend them by saying that by running the centers themselves and concentrating only on certain procedures, they can provide the best results for patients.
“This is really about the physicians getting back in control,” said Greg Weiss, chairman of USMD Hospital, a small physician-owned hospital in Arlington, Tex. USMD, which has 18 beds, has an emergency department and a doctor present around the clock, and is also building an intensive-care unit, Mr. Weiss said.
Proponents of the specialty hospitals say the Abilene and Portland cases are aberrations that critics are exploiting to defend the turf of full-service hospitals. They say they are able to handle their patients’ medical emergencies, whether or not they have emergency departments.
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But some members of Congress are now pushing Medicare to take a closer look at how such hospitals are regulated.
“The problem with physician-owned specialty hospitals is that decision-making is more likely to be driven by financial interest rather than patient interest,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who is a longtime critic of such hospitals.
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“You see it in the cherry-picking of patients, and with policies that instruct hospital staff to call 911 for the local community hospital if emergency care is needed,” said Mr. Grassley, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, which oversees Medicare.
Supporting his effort is the committee’s chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California, who leads the subcommittee on health for the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Congress in 2003 temporarily banned new construction of specialty hospitals over concern that they were draining profit away from the full-service hospitals. The moratorium ended in 2005. Congress has asked for various reports on the issue, including a comprehensive analysis last year by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The number of these hospitals, around 100 at the time of the moratorium, have steadily climbed to nearly 140 today, with more than two dozen under construction.
Mr. Hamilton, the Medicare official, says the agency is now reviewing whether its rules need to spell out exactly what emergency procedures a hospital is required to have in place, and whether hospitals must disclose any limitations to patients. Some types of hospitals may merit greater attention and oversight than others, depending on the nature of the operations they perform, he said, and “size may be a factor.”
Because some of the hospitals are so small, they may not have the systems in place to handle an emergency.
“It almost assumes no one is going to get sick,” said Dr. Mark V. Williams, a professor of medicine at Emory University. Without a doctor on premises, a nurse must call a physician for help if there is an emergency, he said, but there is evidence that nurses are often reluctant to do that.
According to Medicare’s review of state records, West Texas Hospital had called 911 for an ambulance 15 times to transfer patients during medical emergencies since it opened in May 2005.
The hospital says that some of those calls may have involved routine transfers of patients to other hospitals.
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Some proponents of doctor-owned hospitals defend calling 911. It is “by no means an uncommon practice,” said Molly Gutierrez, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, which represents many doctor-owned hospitals.
Although stabilizing a patient is essential for any hospital, she said, hospitals of all kinds and sizes frequently rely on emergency services to transport patients to other medical centers.
But among full-service hospitals, such routine transfers are carefully coordinated, according to Carmela Coyle, senior vice president for policy with the American Hospital Association, which represents full-service medical centers.
“The difference is, a community hospital plans for the unpredictable,” she said. Medicare does require all hospitals to meet certain general standards, relying on the states or an independent national accrediting body called the Joint Commission to make sure hospitals meet the requirements.
Beyond any changes Medicare might make, some states are also contemplating new rules. Texas, for example, is considering requiring any hospital in a county with 100,000 or more residents to have a doctor on the premises around the clock and to have certain emergency medical equipment on hand. Indiana and Kansas are also contemplating similar changes.The Power Rangers may remain on TV until the end of time, but there’s one thing that always changes: their uniforms. Some are stylish, some are understated, some are bonkers—and it’s high time that they were ranked. All of them.
Here is every single set of outfits worn by the various iterations of the Power Rangers since Mighty Morphin first debuted in 1993. We also took some time to run each one through the fashion police. Because when you think style, you think about two nerds who sit behind computers and blog all day. Our advice is perfect.
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As we had 23 sets of uniforms to assess, this is merely the first installment, ranking the very best of Power Ranger fashion. Parts Two and Three will run on Fridays at 11:00 am ET, until we reveal the most horrible uniform ever worn by a teen with attitude.
1) Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers
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Katharine: It’s kind of hard to not rank these number one. They’re the standard that all the others are judged against.
James: It’s almost unfair, but sometimes you just can’t beat the classics. But they’re also REALLY great costumes!
Katharine: They really are. The helmets have simple but recognizable animals on them.
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James: They do a great job of thematically tying in the animals without making them look ungainly. The suits are minimalist, but the diamond pattern does a lot to break up the color on each suit.
Each one of those Rangers can look out of that helmet and have a decent field of vision... except maybe the Yellow Ranger with her sabertooth tiger teeth jutting down.
Katharine: If I had to nitpick, it would be that the diamond pattern has a bit of an old timey clown feel rather than a dinosaur one. This is the Power Ranger outfit Harley Quinn would wear.
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James: Prehistoric harlequins HAS to be a theme at some point. Has to be, no matter how many times they’ve done dino Power Rangers.
James: My only nitpick with Mighty Morphin’ is the transition from the Green Ranger to the White. Obviously, in Japan, those suits are from two different shows, one of which never made it over as Power Rangers, so they don’t really fit anyway, but lets be real: the Green Ranger suit is just brilliant. Even his gold armor looks better than White Ranger’s puffed-up jacket.
Katharine: Yeah, it doesn’t fit. which they tried to explain, but Green was still better.
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James: Long live Green Tommy.
Katharine: Anyway, not much to say: classic, functional, well-patterned.
2) Wild Force
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Katharine: I will admit straight up this ranks so high because I love that fucking shark helmet.
James: Animal helmets tend to be some of the best. They’re really easy to make a dynamic looking helmet shape out of, while still remaining “normal” as a helmet. I LOVE the black ranger helmet so much. His little horns!
Katharine: Also I love this version of the Pink Ranger skirt.
James: It’s always nice to see female rangers that aren’t just the Pink Ranger all the time, but I love the pink on the White Ranger’s outfit breaking up the plain look.
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Wild Force is like Mighty Morphin’ in that way—the suits are minimalistic but they’ve got one unified design across all of them that breaks up the color.
Katharine: This one also has uniform feel with a lot of unique touches. Like they all have the gold sash, but it’s slightly different for all of them.
James: The badges are a little *too* much though, I feel. Like, we can already tell which animal you represent guys!
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Katharine: Yeah, I’m not a fan of having the badges AND the sashes.
James: ESPECIALLY when they’re running around shouting their names all the time anyway. It’s the Power Ranger equivalent of having a “Hi, My Name Is...” tag.
Katharine: We say that now, but then we get to eras where the theme is completely gone. I’d rather have them commit than lose it entirely.
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James: At least the pose game gets better the newer you get. These guys are pretending to be vaguely animalistic!
Katharine: Well, James, you know how wolves are famous for their...sword fighting.
James: Correction; he’s a Power Ranger wolf. They can totally hold swords.
Katharine: True.
James: Or be, like, a giant robot.
3) Mystic Force
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James (typing before the photo even loads): CAPES CAPES CAPES CAPES CAPES
Katharine: CAAAAAAAAAPES
James: Screw Edna Mode, capes make the Power Rangers better.
Katharine: These capes are so good that I barely notice the weird eyes on the helmets.
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James: They just DO. They get to twirl around when they morph, they flap away in all the fight scenes.
Katharine: The weird spinning while morphing is given justification with these capes.
James: The capes honestly save these uniforms for me—especially when, like you say, this is when Power Ranger visors started to just be “Hey you’re a superhero, figure out looking through one of these things yourself!”
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Katharine: I also like the black lines here. With the capes, there’s something very dynamic about these.
James: Also, once again, the female ranger suits here stand out as the best. Having the white leggings really breaks up the suits nicely.
Katharine: True.
James: The black lining is great but having it run all the way down the guys’ legs looks a bit weird. Also Mystic Force was on in what, 2006? And I only just got that the black lining on the torso looks like a fancy “M”.
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Also, a shout-out to the special rangers in Mystic Force, who all had great costumes and basically look like people I have raided with in World of Warcraft.
Katharine: I would wear a cape and a stylized ‘i’ to the office. As long as I got to wear the cape.
James: Wolf Warrior literally looks like a dude in armor with WOLVES FOR SHOULDERS. He owns his theme.
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Katharine: This is the year they nailed “actually good” and “so ridiculous it’s good.” At the same time.
James: Exactly! There’s something almost garish about them and over the top, but they completely work. Even though the special rangers are all way more elaborate, they still feel like they belong as Power Rangers heroes, and look badass while doing so.
Katharine: In conclusion: Capes
James: Definitely Capes. If we had to give these a rating, it would be Capes out of 10.
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4) Dino Thunder
Katharine: Why won’t anyone let the Rangers see?
James: They would be even higher on this list if the helmets didn’t let the side down—and unlike Mystic Force, they don’t have an element like a cape that offsets that.
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Katharine: Yeah, these are perfectly good costumes, hampered by some bad helmets.
James: The yellow ranger is the only one who can see more than what’s immediately ahead of her, and even then, not by much!
The Dinothunder team could be beaten if you crouched in front of them. You’d just be completely invisible to them.
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Katharine: Yeah, the Ewoks would handily defeat them.
James: Man, Ewoks would be a great minion army design for a Power Rangers show. Like the putty patrol, but with more Yub Nub.
I will say though that I love the white diamonds on the arms and legs! They’re great, and not only feel like a thematic callback to Mighty Morphin’s suits, they look like scales!
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Katharine: And the badge in the center is very simple and breaks up the color.
James: Not scientifically accurate anymore, but still—they looked great when the Rangers went into super dino mode and they all flared up like spiky little scales. Great enhancement to the costumes.
Katharine: It’s true. We would have ranked this higher but for the failure to be scientifically accurate.
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James: It is, after all, the goal of all Power Rangers teams to be as scientifically accurate as possible.
5) Ninja Storm
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Katharine: Also fairly classic, if lacking some color break up. The similarity to Mighty Morphin’ is what brings these guys up so high.
James: The Blue ninja storm ranger is the best of these. Honestly, most ranger suits look better when they add the little skirt! It almost turns them into brightly colored tunics.
Katharine: This is true.
James: Speaking of the navy Ranger, the random helmet adornments really look weird on these suits.
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Katharine: I swear, it’s a Beetleborg.
James: YES! And it’s so weird because not only has Power Rangers not done a “bug” theme, you don’t tend to think of bugs and ninjas going well together.
Both Navy and Crimson ranger helmets would look way nicer without them.
Katharine: And yet, they are still more functional than several helmets we’ll see.
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James: I’d also like to add that that group photo does not include the Green Samurai Ranger. Who I’d like to add, in contrast to the Ninja Storm rangers, has a TERRIBLE costume.
Katharine: Sight is so underrated by Power Rangers.
James: It’s like they took the original green ranger and then decided “how do we possibly make this worse?”
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HIS SWORD LOOKS LIKE A BASEBALL BAT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, HE’S MEANT TO BE A NINJA.
Or, okay, a Samurai ninja. But still!
I know the sixth Ranger is meant to stand out and be special, but he just does not gel with the rest of the team visually. And that reversible helmet just looks bad both ways.
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Katharine: That is both true and false, because we know that the many peaks are at least more eye-space than the two diamonds. It starts out not great but fine and gets just so much worse.
James: “Look, Samurai Ninja man. You can either choose peripheral vision, or SICK FLAMES. All with the flip of a helmet!”
Katharine: Honestly, the way our elite fighting forces always look, I’m shocked Earth wasn’t invaded more often. No one could take us seriously.
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James: The secret is to make the monsters laugh so hard, they don’t notice you getting in your giant robot to blow them up.
But yes, Ninja Storm is great in spite of the Green Ranger. His terribleness does not drag down an otherwise great theme.
6) SPD
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James: This might seem hypocritical considering we’ve mocked other helmets for silly visors, but I LOVE these ones.
Katharine: I don’t even think these are that bad. They’re exaggerated, but still look like they’d be functional.
James: They almost look like super exaggerated domino masks. And they can SEE out of them! Look Power Rangers, you can have stylish visors that still make practical sense!
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Katharine: James, I don’t really know about the sentai footage, but, uh, how do the numbers fit in? because I kind of like how it’s worked in. But also: numbering people has a very sports jersey feel
James: Errr, they don’t really! In Dekaranger, they’re just a squad of space cops. They’re just numbers of the squad members.
Katharine: It’s just very hard to divine a theme from, “Numbers!”
James: Haha. I agree, though, they’re really nicely integrated into the suit designs—especially the way it runs all the way down one arm.
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Katharine: Yeah. I almost wish there was a little bit more color break up in these. It’s a little bland from chest down.
James: Also, surprising move for Sentai (less so for Power Rangers though, which had already done it in Mighty Morphin), but neither Female Ranger has a skirt on their uniform.
Katharine: It totally works for this one! Where the tunic skirt looks good in other years, it would not have fit the uniform look here at all.
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James: For a space police uniform I guess it makes sense? If you ignore the fact they’re also a technicolor rainbow as well.
Katharine: Yeah, that is the hilarious part.
James: But yeah, these have great torso designs and helmets, that are let down a little by the boring plain trousers and boots.
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Katharine: Every cop I know loves to wear colors so bright they can be easily picked out while chasing suspects. (Note: I do not actually know any cops)
James: The plain bottom halves work a lot better when they’re morphed into SWAT mode though and the Power Rangers suddenly decide having TONS OF POUCHES would make sense for people running around in skintight spandex:
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James: The exo-armor does a lot to make the plain bottom halves more interesting.
Katharine: True. Although man does it now draw a lot of attention to the crotch area. Blue Ranger, what is happening?
James: Look, Blue Ranger is just very excited to be protecting the galaxy from monsters. VERY excited.
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7) Ninja Steel
Katharine: This series isn’t technically out yet, but we know what the sentai it’s based on is.
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James: Yup, these are coming next year—which is a surprising turn around, as Shurkien Sentai Ninninger only finished this past February.
But, as much as I did not enjoy this Sentai, I am VERY excited for them to become Power Rangers, as the suit designs are brilliant. Probably the best Ninja-theme they’ve done.
Katharine: Agreed. I like |
functionality. This practice will automatically reduce the need for many comments.
Discussion
Although the guidelines presented here are used in an educational setting, they also have merit in industrial environments. Students who are educated using these guidelines will most likely use them (or some variant) as they enter industry. To demonstrate this, we have developed an example that applies these guidelines to two very different styles. The first is the Unix style. It is terse, often making use of vowel deletion, and is often found in realistic applications such as operating-system code. This is not to imply that all or most system programmers use this style, only that it is not unusual. Figure 10 shows a small example of this style.
We call the second style the textbook style, as illustrated in figure 11. Again, this in no way means to imply that all or most textbooks use this style, only that the style in the example is not unusual. In this style the focus is on learning. This means that there is frequent commenting, and the code is well spread out. For the purposes of learning and understanding the details of a language, this style can be excellent. From a practical perspective or for any program of some scale, this style does not work well as it can be overwhelming to use or to read. Moreover, this style makes it difficult to see the overall design, as if one is stuck under the trees and cannot see the forest around.
Figure 12 is a rework of the function in figures 10 and11, using the guidelines discussed here to make a smooth transition between academic and practical code. This figure shows a balance of both styles, relying more directly on the code itself to communicate intent and functionality clearly. Compared with the textbook style, the resultant code is shorter and more compact while still clearly communicating meaning, intent, and functionality. When compared with the Unix style, the code is slightly longer, but the meaning, intent, and functionality are clearer than the original code.
Figure 13 illustrates the guidelines presented here in another setting. This is a function taken from a complex program (10,000 lines) related to power-system reliability and energy use regarding PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles). The program makes numerous calculations related to the effect that such vehicles will have on the current power grid and the effect on generation and transmission systems. This program attempts to evaluate the reliability of power systems by developing a model for reliability evaluation using a Monte Carlo simulation.
While the previous examples show the merit of the guidelines presented here, one argument against such guidelines is that making changes to keep a certain coding style intact is time-consuming, particularly when a version-control system is used. In the face of a time-sensitive project or a project that most likely will not be updated or maintained in the future, the effort may not be worthwhile. Typical cases include class projects, a Ph.D. thesis, or a temporary application.
If, however, the codebase in question has a long lifespan or will be updated and maintained by others (for example, an operating system, server, interactive Web site, or other useful application), then almost any changes to improve readability are important, and the time should be taken to ensure the readability and maintainability of the code. This should be a matter of pride, as well as an essential function of one's job.
References
1. Heusser, M. 2005. Beautiful code. Dr. Dobb's (August); http://www.ddj.com/184407802.
2. Kamp, P-H. 2010. Sir, please step away from the ASR-33!, ACM Queue 8 (10); http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1871406.
3. Ledgard, H. 2011. Professional coding guidelines. Unpublished report, University of Toledo; http://www.eng.utoledo.edu/eecs/faculty_web/hledgard/softe/upload/index.php?&direction=0&order=&directory=Reading%203%20Productivity-Management.
4. Molina, M. 2007. What makes code beautiful. Ruby Hoedown.
5. Peters, T. 2004. The Zen of Python. PEP (Python Enhancement Proposals) 20 (August); http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/.
6. Reed, D. 2010. Sometimes style really does matter. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges 25(5): 180-187.
7. Sun Developer Network. 1999. Code conventions for the Java programming language; http://java.sun.com/docs/codeconv/.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank David Marcus and Poul-Henning Kemp for their insightful comments while completing this work, as well as the software engineering students who have contributed to these guidelines over the years.
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Henry Ledgard received his B.A. from Tufts University in 1964, his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, and spent a year at the University of Oxford as a post-doctoral fellow. His first programs were on punched cards in Fortran. His master's thesis was on a program for a graphical display facility to approximate numerical data with confluent equations. His Ph.D. thesis was on an attempt to provide a generative grammar for the syntax and translation of programming languages. He has been on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. In 1977 he joined the design team to create the new programming language ADA, then began a consulting and writing practice. In 1989 he joined the faculty at the University of Toledo. Two of his current interests are on creative ways to help people learn and to simplify interfaces to technology.
Robert Green received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Geneva College, his master's degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University, and is pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Toledo. He has multiple years of experience developing software across a variety of industries. One of his current research interests is writing high-quality, sustainable code.
© 2011 ACM 1542-7730/11/1000 $10.00
Originally published in Queue vol. 9, no. 11—
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queue | Fri, 23 Oct 2015 05:08:47 UTC
/* Better version of Figure 12 routine? (read in fixed-sized courier font) */
#include // For std::string. #include // For std::vector.
/****************************************************************************** PURPOSE: tokenize - Parse string into tokens using delimiter. INPUTS: const std::string& input String to parse. const std::string& delimiter String that separates tokens. OUTPUTS: std::vector& tokens Sequence of tokens. ******************************************************************************/
void tokenize( const std::string& input, std::vector& tokens, const std::string& delimiter = " " ) {
const size_t input_length = input.length(); const size_t delimiter_length = delimiter.length();
tokens.clear();
if ( input_length && input.compare( delimiter ) ) {
if ( delimiter_length == 0 ) { tokens.push_back( input ); //x } else { size_t start_index = 0;
do { const size_t end_index = input.find( delimiter, start_index ); std::string token;
if ( end_index == std::string::npos ) { token = input.substr( start_index ); start_index = end_index; // Stop looping. } else { const size_t length = end_index - start_index; token = input.substr( start_index, length ); start_index = end_index + delimiter_length; }
if ( token.length() ) { tokens.push_back( token ); //x }
} while ( start_index < input_length ); } } }
Ron Burk | Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:37:55 UTC
Choice of IDE is what makes code "clear, maintainable, and understandable"? That's rather like saying that museum lighting is what makes the Mona Lisa a great work of art. A very puzzling claim.
Kevin Wall | Mon, 28 Nov 2011 22:23:07 UTC
Correctness is more important code that is readable. In Example 1, it is doubtful that the code is correct. I suspect that what you intended was to allow either upper or lower case characters for each command, but in reality, you only did this for the first ('q' vs. 'Q') command. If that was not the intent, the superfluous "case" statements should be eliminated.
Roger Ellman | Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:57:01 UTC
How pleasurable to see that good code parallels good design. Clean, clear and user-friendly!
Roger
John Harriott | Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:02:31 UTC
Firstly. Whatever style is used why not pick an IDE that automatically formats the code to a consistent style. Why spend valuable time inserting whitespace to align tokens, when that time could be spent writing real code?
Secondly. I suggest the authors read Robert Martins book "Clean Code", it's gold!!! I used to code in style that is discouraged by the book. But after reading the book I no longer write code that way any more. If methods are small, have a consistent level of abstraction and use intention revealing identifiers, the need for whitespace and other formatting is irrelevant IMHO.
doug65536 | Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:01:51 UTC
While this seems well intentioned, imposing arbitrary rules like this too strictly only serves to annoy programmers, making their work feel less like a passion and more like they are living in a dictatorship. I've had to work under code formatting dictatorship and I resented it. I felt as though non-developers were dictating that the source code look a certain way with no benefit that I could see other than to make me have to pick at the code to make it look a way that I didn't like. It causes you to lose delicate mental context, instead of being able to focus on what you're really doing, implementing an algorithm.
In my opinion, the more deterministic the style, the better. I've always hated programmers indenting parameter declarations to be aligned with the opening parenthesis. It's completely non-deterministic, and you wind up with people spending extra time picking at the whitespace and playing around fixing the indentation to some arbitrary "policy" that causes you to lose context and spend mental cycles on something pretty much irrelevant.
The ruler with which I measure a formatting style: can you write a script that could perform the formatting? Would it require a lot of special cases? Would it require you to maintain a lot of context and backtrack? If so, then it's a bad style. The simpler it is, the less it wipes your mental context.
Too much emphasis is put on making it "easier to read" by someone else. Can they read code or can't they? Some arbitrary strict whitespace policy doesn't make it enough easier to make any significant difference.
I think the only strict rule that should be imposed is not allowing excessively long lines. You should NEVER have to scroll horizontally.
Tim Comber | Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:29:07 UTC
No mention of abbreviations? I do not let my students use abbreviations for a number of reasons: * Cognitive load - unless an abbreviation is very familiar it takes time and effort to work out what the abbreviation means. * How much harder is it to write 'number' than 'num'? Does two more letters really make a variable too long? * Your abbreviation is not necessarily my abbreviation. This is especially important when teaching students as they are quite happy to write 'nuAccount', 'numbAccount', 'nAccount' etc. They do not know that 'num' is a common programming abbreviation. Why teach them new words when there is a perfectly good English word already available. * I believe it is better to base names on the language used in the domain of interest. If accountants use Account Number when talking about accounts then the variable should be AccountNumber not AccountNum.
Ed Kimball | Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:29:41 UTC
@fileoffset -- you may prefer to read YOUR code as a book, but how would you prefer to read someone else's code. As someone looking at the code for the first time and trying to understand it, I find figure 2 vastly inferior to figures 1 and 3.
BTW, the function getBalance in figure 6 violates the principles stated with figure 4. Since the function returns a value without changing any arguments, its name should be a noun or noun phrase, like CurrBal or CurrentBalance, according to figure 4.
Pat LaVarre | Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:31:43 UTC
@aligned as a table:
The Opposition to spacing code out like a table includes the Python Style of http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ that explicitly discourages "more than one space around an assignment (or other) operator to align it with another".
I think me, when working mostly with people who won't teach their tools to maintain vertically-aligned tabulation for us, I give up, write one blank instead of many, and then tabulate the code in my head on the fly as I read it.
I do remember seeing work-groups educated in the mainframe-not-mini culture of tabulating more often go and agree on everyone using editors that treated any string of two and more blanks as a division between one column of text and the next. Then when you edited the value of a cell of the table, the blank text to the right of it could shrink as far as two blanks to keep the remaining cells of the row in place.
I've not seen that parsing rule duplicated in wikitexts, instead I see people make columnar divisions explicit with a quiet | that wouldn't fit in code, or a loud /*|*/, never by making the width of whitespace significant.
paulsj | Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:54:33 UTC
Also - statement "code is beautiful because its constant definitions are aligned as a table" is equivalent to statement "painting is nice, I like form of the frame". IMHO code just reflects beauty of thought, and is too subtle to put it in standards (compare it with sense of humour), also because it cannot be viewed outside of context.
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© 2018 ACM, Inc. All Rights Reserved.Chris Bosh feels like he's getting a taste of his own medicine these days.
"It sucks," Bosh, at his locker in Miami, said on a Wednesday night. "It's not cool. I'm supposed to be the guy doing this stuff."
He should be in a good mood. Just minutes before, the Heat beat the Washington Wizards at home. Beyond that, Bosh has returned to the court after a scary situation with blood clots in his lungs that put him in the hospital for nine days and abruptly ended his 2014-15 season in January. But forget all that, because right now Bosh is miffed. Three years after he famously migrated to the perimeter during the Heat's 2012 championship run, formerly paint-dwelling big men are draining 3-pointers in his face.
Threes are way up overall. Judging from preseason numbers, the average team is shooting 11.2 percent more 3-pointers than last season, and now shoots more 3s (24.8 percent) than the 2004-05 Mike D'Antoni Phoenix Suns (24.7 percent) -- the NBA's seminal run-and-gunners. But the biggest gains are courtesy of the biggest men. Back in 1998-99, only 17.2 percent of NBA players 6-foot-9 or taller shot at least 10 3-pointers all season. In 2014-15, that number stood at 45.6 percent, up from 30 percent in 2010-11.
"It used to be, 'I'm the 4, I'm the low guy and the 5 is out [in the mid-range],' " Bosh said. "Now they're all over the place."
Bosh had better get used to it. And fast. More and more teams are following the Golden State Warriors' blueprint by pushing the tempo and playing at least four shooters at all times. After shirking the 3 last season, the Wizards have devoted themselves to the pace-and-space offense that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra coined five years ago. Welcome to the modern NBA, where you live by the 3 or die.
Though the play occurred more than a decade ago during an uneventful NBA regular-season matchup, Kris Humphries instantly recognized it.
"Oh, I remember this one," Humphries said as he pointed to the screen. "I banged it on 'em."
It's a Wednesday morning in the 2015-16 preseason, and the 31-year-old Wizards power forward is getting his knees wrapped in ice packs after the team's shootaround. I'm showing him a 30-second clip I dug up from early in his career, a nationally televised game on Dec. 10, 2004, against the Portland Trail Blazers. Humphries was a teenage rookie playing for the Utah Jazz alongside Howard Eisley, who is now an assistant coach for the Wizards.
As a nearby Marcin Gortat leaned in to join the viewing party, Humphries watched the film with a knowing smile as coach Jerry Sloan's normally surgical offense began to unravel. On the screen, with the shot clock draining down to zero, Utah backup center Raul Lopez kicked the ball out to Humphries, who had been waving his hands wildly above his head on the perimeter.
Humphries caught the pass, stepped into it with confidence and launched a 3-pointer.
"Bang," Humphries said as he watched the ball splash through the net.
Humphries couldn't believe it. Not the shot result, mind you. He was stunned that the shot existed on film.
"Wait, how'd you get that video clip, man?" Humphries asked. "The video from anything around that era wasn't any good."
If Humphries makes it sound like the play is a relic from a different era, consider this: It was almost 11 years ago, and it's the last time he made a 3-pointer in a real NBA game.
Now? Humphries is firing up 3s more often than Kevin Durant's career rate.
That's right, Kris Humphries is now a floor spacer. Ned Dishman/NBAE/Getty Images
After the Wizards lost in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Atlanta Hawks, coach Randy Wittman sat down with Humphries and presented him with a challenge: Extend your range, extend your career.
The thinking was simple. Wittman liked what he saw when he slotted Paul Pierce at the 4 in the playoffs and how it opened up the floor for John Wall and Bradley Beal to do their thing. With limited salary-cap space this summer, Wittman envisioned Humphries as a possible in-house option as a stretch 4 in case Pierce left.
"We've been successful playing physical, but now we also have to be able to spread the floor," Wittman said. "You've gotta look at who you got. John's strength is getting the ball up the floor and we want to give him driving seams. He's going to find open people."
Wittman drew a comparison to the Warriors, who unleashed Stephen Curry in the open court with shooters. But Humphries would have to comply.
Pierce, of course, did leave. And after that summer meeting, Humphries immediately went into survival mode and got to work in the gym.
"I just went at it," Humphries said. "Trying to expand my game so I can play longer."
"It used to be, 'I'm the 4, I'm the low guy and the 5 is out [in the mid-range]. Now they're all over the place." Chris Bosh
The offseason training was evident during pregame warmups, when he fired off a total of 50 3-pointers from around the arc. After a rotation of standstill 3-pointers, a Wizards player development coach wasn't satisfied with Humphries quite yet. "Good," the trainer said. "Now, in transition."
Humphries drilled five 3-pointers on the move from the left wing, and again on the right. It looked like he had done this his whole career. Little did casual onlookers know that Humphries had shot 0-for-20 from downtown in the past decade.
This preseason Humphries knocked down 10 of 28 (.357) from 3-point range, averaging 5.9 attempts per 36 minutes. For comparison, he's shooting 3s more often than Kevin Love's mark last season (5.6) and more than Durant's career rate (4.2).
"I told him that you evolve in your career, as your career gets further along, you're not the kid that you once were when you first came into the league," Wittman said. "You've got to change and adapt."
Wittman has changed and adapted himself. Last season, only 20.3 percent of the Wizards' shots came from beyond the arc, the third-lowest rate in the league. In the playoffs, that number leapt to 29.6 percent, identical to that of the Hawks. This preseason, the Wizards basically maintained that rate at 28.3 percent, which would have been good enough for 13th in the NBA last season.
The Wizards also played at the second-fastest pace in the league during the preseason, just behind the Philadelphia 76ers. With more spacing, the Wizards averaged 117.3 points per game and posted a 112.7 offensive rating, the best preseason offense we've seen in the past five seasons.
First, it was Cody Zeller who took Bosh by surprise. In Bosh's first game back since battling blood clots, Zeller hit two 3-pointers on him. Zeller had previously taken two 3s in 144 career games. Bosh had to catch up.
"Zeller's shooting 3s now, it's crazy," Bosh said as he motions a shooting stroke. "Like, bop. He surprised me on that one. Now I know, OK, he's shooting 3s now."
Playing defense is a whole lot harder for bigs like Chris Bosh these days. Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Zeller was just the beginning. The next game it was Channing Frye. Then, in order, LaMarcus Aldridge, Terrence Jones, Paul Millsap. Each of those power forwards launched at least one 3-pointer against Bosh this preseason. Years ago, almost all of them would have taken full-time residence in the key. Not anymore.
But Bosh woke up on that aforementioned Wednesday thinking he'd catch a break. The Wizards were in town and their starting power forward was Humphries. No way he takes 3s, Bosh thought. Not Humphries, of all people.
And then the coaching staff handed Bosh a pregame scouting report. Yep, Humphries had joined the 3-party, too.
"We talked about it before the game that Hump is shooting 3s," Bosh said. "But the coaches said, 'No, don't run him off the arc.' "
Bosh followed orders and didn't contest Humphries on the perimeter.
"And then," Bosh said, "he lit me up for two [3s]."Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Orange-Almond Sauce
I very rarely veer off my “tried and true” basic recipe for Vietnamese Nuoc Cham (dipping sauce with lime juice, fish sauce, chili peppers, sugar, water) for Vietnamese Spring Rolls. It’s easy, predictable and I can make the sauce just by taste without measuring anything!
But just because I *LOVE* something doesn’t mean that my entire family loves it too. My fish-fearing husband won’t touch it….and therefore my kids won’t dip in it either. Sigh. I keep telling the kids that, “Buddha is a happy eater (see his belly!?) and he would want you to eat like Mama, not Dad.”
My friend, Blender Girl (okay, her name is really Tess) just came out with a cookbook called The Blender Girl: Super-Easy, Super-Healthy Meals, Snacks, Desserts, and Drinks–100 Gluten-Free, Vegan Recipes.
I found a recipe for Orange Almond Sauce for Vietnamese Spring Rolls. Big massive hit all around. It’s creamy, light and made with almond butter and fresh citrus juices for something a little different.
If you vow to cook a little healthier this summer – take a look at Tess’ book with 100 recipes that are good for you. The blender does all the hard work! The book features smoothies you’d expect from a blender book – as well as sauces, soups, marinades, dressings and desserts.
The book is currently #3 cookbook on Amazon!
Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Orange Almond Sauce Recipe Video
Print Recipe Vietnamese Spring Rolls with Orange Almond Sauce Recipe Servings: Makes 16 rolls Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Recipe adapted from The Blender Girl by Tess Masters Ingredients: FOR THE SPRING ROLLS
6 ounces dried rice vermicelli noodles
16 large dried rice paper wrappers
8 large lettuce leaves, preferably soft ones, halved and hard ribs removed
1 cup, matchstick cut carrots
2 cucumbers, julienned
1-2 avocado, pitted, peeled and sliced
1-2 bell pepper, cored, julienned
1 cup loosely packed cilantro
1 cup loosely packed mint
1 cup loosely packed basil
FOR THE ORANGE ALMOND SAUCE
1/4 cup water, plus more as needed
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup raw almond butter
1/2 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon honey or coconut nectar
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 teaspoon wheat-free tamari or soy sauce
1 teaspoon roasted sesame seeds
Directions: Soak the noodles in hot water for about 20 minutes, until soft. Drain. To assemble the rolls, fill a shallow dish half full with hot water (hot to the touch but not boiling. and submerge one rice paper wrapper for 5 seconds, let excess water drop off. Place wrapper on a clean, dry surface and fold in half to form a half-circle. The wrapper should still be a bit stiff, but will soften by the time you've finished filling with vegetables. Place a lettuce leaf in the middle of the half-circle and top it with a forkful of noodles, and then add a bit of each of the vegetables and herbs. Carefully roll up the Vietnamese Spring Roll and set it on a dish, seam-side down in single layer. Repeat with the remaining wrappers and filling. If not serving immediately, chill in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap. To make the dipping sauce, throw all of the ingredients into your blender and puree on high for about 1 minute, until well combined. You may want to add an additional tablespoon or two of water to thin out the sauce. Stir in sesame seeds. Serve alongside the rolls.
By the way, if you are looking for a juicer to make the orange and lime juice for the recipe, I recommend the Omega Masticating Juicer.The average human head weighs between 10-12 pounds, but the mascot heads for the beloved Washington Nationals Presidents are about five times that. Which means when suited up as Thomas Jefferson during a tryout for the coveted mascot spot, I had one goal in mind: To not fall down.
The tryouts, which were held at the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy, seemed simple at first. Potential future Presidents submitted their applications complete with resumes — many had prior mascot experience or had played college sports — and were chosen to compete in in-person tryouts. During the tryouts, the 32 potential Presidents gathered in heats of three to compete a 40-yard dash, a run from first base to centerfield and back, a victory pose and a freestyle dance. Because of the costume, I can assure you, this was much harder than it sounds.
“I had about three moments where I thought it was going to tip over,” said Matthew, a longtime Nationals fan who was trying out. “If you lean forward at all and don’t catch yourself, you’ll faceplant.”
(It should be noted that someone did in fact faceplant, prompting everyone trying out to breathe a giant sigh of relief that they wouldn’t be the first one to do that.)
Then, there was an interview in front of a panel where potential Presidents were asked questions about their experience, how they felt during the tryout and to do things like use random props like a wig in an improv-comedy like scene.
So what do they look for in a president?
“Definitely someone who has an ability to run, that’s an obvious part because they’re racers,” said Tom Davis, the Nationals’ senior manager of entertainment. “But also personality takes a big part of it as well. Do they understand they need big movements versus a little high five, they need to make it bigger. So personality plays a big role.”
As a reporter, there were certain rules I had to follow to keep the Disney-like mystique of the Presidents alive. I was not allowed to take pictures of people with the Presidents’ suits half-on (the idea being you should never see the face of the person inside the costume.) When wearing the President costume, I wasn’t allowed to talk. I wasn’t allowed to ask for last names. I was allowed to ask if they had tried out to be a President before but could not ask if they had actually made it. The Presidents do have to try out every year — though it wasn’t clear how many were new this year.
“There are a few guys that have tried out before that are here today,” Davis said, the most information he would offer.
And though many of them have now been notified that they will have the privilege of suiting up on gameday next season, they will never be allowed to tell me that they made it. When asked how much they got paid, Davis responded that it was a “part-time seasonal job.” In addition to games, the Presidents also make appearances at private and community events.
I did it because the Presidents, despite having grown up in Baltimore, have always been one of my favorite parts of baseball (at least as long as they’ve been around). They’re perfect: The head bob (which I learned is in fact unintentional and just really a result of the weight of the mascot head) is hilarious. There’s underdog storylines and citywide celebrations when Teddy Roosevelt finally won a race (when asked if the race was ever rigged, Davis said such a suggestion was “blasphemy”.) And it perfectly encapsulates the spirit of a city.
But mostly, having been told before that I wasn’t actually allowed to make it, I was just in it for the fun of saying I had gotten to do it. My competitors? They were much more serious — and had the resumes and preparation to go with it.
Take Jeff, who is a mascot at the middle school where he teaches physical education and also for the minor league club, the Frederick Keys (and also if I had to guess, made it as one of the Presidents). “I’m trying to get called up to the big leagues if I can,” he said.
Of the 32 potential presidents, only one woman tried out — Erin, who spent the week running with her children on her shoulders for practice running with the weight. A lifelong baseball fan who has interned for the Orioles and worked for the Redskins, she saw a tweet from Teddy Roosevelt’s account asking for applications while she was recovering from pink eye.
“When I was little I always wanted to be in (public relations) or marketing in sports and I had teased for a long time that I was going to be a mascot. My parents were like ‘we’re not sending you to 12 years of private school so you can dance on a dugout in tights and blah blah’ and it’s just really funny to me now that I’m 35 and they’re like ‘I can’t wait to come to the tryout.'”
Spectators (other than reporters) weren’t allowed at the tryouts though, so her parents were stuck waiting “with baited breath” to hear how it went. The friends and coworkers she told were beyond excited.
“I literally had people telling me this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Like I would tell someone at work, one of my colleagues, and I would say ‘I don’t know do you think (my work schedule will allow the) flexibility …'”
Their response?
“You have to do this,” they told her. “This is a dream come true for so many people.”Albert Copeland is facing charges of grand theft of a firearm and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said. The gun recovered Friday night was reported stolen from the Port St. Lucie Police Department.
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The march took place two days after Wednesday’s fatal shooting of Dontavious Taylor, 25, who became the city’s fifth homicide victim of 2015.
Marchers had gathered at Carver and North 31st streets, near where Taylor was killed, when a disturbance broke out, the sheriff’s office said. Someone then yelled that a man had a gun and was running from the area. Sheriff’s deputies and Fort Pierce police ran after the man, whom they say had thrown a.9-mm handgun onto a rooftop as he fled.
Earlier Friday, members of a county task force formed to cut down on violence in the area were shot at while in a marked car, authorities said. No injuries were reported, but at least one bullet struck the car.
It was not immediately clear Saturday morning of what previous felonies Copeland has been convicted.Central African Republic - Population living in slums (% of urban population)
Population living in slums (% of urban population) in Central African Republic was 93.30 as of 2014. Its highest value over the past 24 years was 95.90 in 2009, while its lowest value was 87.50 in 1990.
Definition: Population living in slums is the proportion of the urban population living in slum households. A slum household is defined as a group of individuals living under the same roof lacking one or more of the following conditions: access to improved water, access to improved sanitation, sufficient living area, and durability of housing.
Source: UN HABITAT, retrieved from the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals database. Data are available at : http://mdgs.un.org/
See also:
Year Value 1990 87.50 1995 89.70 2000 91.90 2005 94.10 2007 95.00 2009 95.90 2014 93.30
Aggregation method: Weighted average
Periodicity: Annual
Classification
Topic: Environment Indicators
Sub-Topic: Density & urbanizationModern government could be interpreted as a device for projecting corporate power. Since the 1980s, in Britain, the US and other nations, the primary mission of governments has been to grant their sponsors in the private sector ever greater access to public money and public life.
There are several means by which they do so: the privatisation and outsourcing of public services; the stuffing of public committees with corporate executives; and the reshaping of laws and regulations to favour big business. In the UK, the Health and Social Care Act extends the corporate domain in ways unimaginable even five years ago.
With these increasing powers come diminishing obligations. Through repeated cycles of deregulation, governments release big business from its duty of care towards both people and the planet. While citizens are subject to ever more control – as the state extends surveillance and restricts our freedom to protest and assemble – companies are subject to ever less.
In this column I will make a proposal that sounds – at first – monstrous, but I hope to persuade you is both reasonable and necessary: that freedom of information laws should be extended to the private sector.
The very idea of a corporation is made possible only by a blurring of the distinction between private and public. Limited liability socialises risks that would otherwise be carried by a company's owners and directors, exempting them from the costs of the debts they incur or the disasters they cause. The bailouts introduced us to an extreme form of this exemption: men like Fred Goodwin and Matt Ridley are left in peace to count their money while everyone else must pay for their mistakes.
So I am asking only for the exercise of that long-standing Conservative maxim – no rights without responsibilities. If you benefit from limited liability, the public should be permitted to scrutinise your business.
Companies already have certain obligations towards transparency, such as the publication of financial statements and annual reports. But these tell us only a little of what we need to know. In News International's annual report, you will find none of the information disclosed at the Leveson inquiry, though it is of pressing public interest. In fact it is only due to a combination of the Guardian's persistence and pure chance (the discovery that Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked) that we know anything about the wide-ranging assault on democracy engineered by that company.
Privatisation and outsourcing ensure that private business is, or should be, everyone's business. Private companies now provide services we are in no position to refuse, yet, unlike the state bodies they replace, they are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The results can be catastrophic for public accounts.
Just as the Blair government did while imposing the disastrous private finance initiative, the Bullingdon boys now shield their schemes from public scrutiny behind the corporate information wall. Companies are once again striking remarkable deals, hatched in secret, at the expense of taxpayers, pupils and patients. Last week, for example, we learned that Circle Healthcare will be able to extract millions of pounds a year from a public hospital, Hinchingbrooke, which is in deep financial trouble. Crucial information about the deal remains secret on the grounds of Circle's "commercial confidentiality".
The principle of corporate transparency is already established in English law. The Freedom of Information Act has a clause enabling |
, among other things, generates research to develop US defense policy at the highest levels. The white paper clarified the thinking behind the new initiative, and the revolutionary scientific and technological developments it hoped to capitalize on.
The Highlands Forum
The co-author of that NDU white paper is Linton Wells, a 51-year veteran US defense official who served in the Bush administration as the Pentagon’s chief information officer, overseeing the National Security Agency (NSA) and other spy agencies. He still holds active top-secret security clearances, and according to a report by Government Executive magazine in 2006 he chaired the ‘Highlands Forum’, founded by the Pentagon in 1994.
Linton Wells II (right) former Pentagon chief information officer and assistant secretary of defense for networks, at a recent Pentagon Highlands Forum session. Rosemary Wenchel, a senior official in the US Department of Homeland Security, is sitting next to him
New Scientist magazine (paywall) has compared the Highlands Forum to elite meetings like “Davos, Ditchley and Aspen,” describing it as “far less well known, yet… arguably just as influential a talking shop.” Regular Forum meetings bring together “innovative people to consider interactions between policy and technology. Its biggest successes have been in the development of high-tech network-based warfare.”
Given Wells’ role in such a Forum, perhaps it was not surprising that his defense transformation white paper was able to have such a profound impact on actual Pentagon policy. But if that was the case, why had no one noticed?
Despite being sponsored by the Pentagon, I could find no official page on the DoD website about the Forum. Active and former US military and intelligence sources had never heard of it, and neither did national security journalists. I was baffled.
The Pentagon’s intellectual capital venture firm
In the prologue to his 2007 book, A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity, John Clippinger, an MIT scientist of the Media Lab Human Dynamics Group, described how he participated in a “Highlands Forum” gathering, an “invitation-only meeting funded by the Department of Defense and chaired by the assistant for networks and information integration.” This was a senior DoD post overseeing operations and policies for the Pentagon’s most powerful spy agencies including the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), among others. Starting from 2003, the position was transitioned into what is now the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. The Highlands Forum, Clippinger wrote, was founded by a retired US Navy captain named Dick O’Neill. Delegates include senior US military officials across numerous agencies and divisions — “captains, rear admirals, generals, colonels, majors and commanders” as well as “members of the DoD leadership.”
What at first appeared to be the Forum’s main website describes Highlands as “an informal cross-disciplinary network sponsored by Federal Government,” focusing on “information, science and technology.” Explanation is sparse, beyond a single ‘Department of Defense’ logo.
But Highlands also has another website describing itself as an “intellectual capital venture firm” with “extensive experience assisting corporations, organizations, and government leaders.” The firm provides a “wide range of services, including: strategic planning, scenario creation and gaming for expanding global markets,” as well as “working with clients to build strategies for execution.” ‘The Highlands Group Inc.,’ the website says, organizes a whole range of Forums on these issue.
For instance, in addition to the Highlands Forum, since 9/11 the Group runs the ‘Island Forum,’ an international event held in association with Singapore’s Ministry of Defense, which O’Neill oversees as “lead consultant.” The Singapore Ministry of Defense website describes the Island Forum as “patterned after the Highlands Forum organized for the US Department of Defense.” Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden confirmed that Singapore played a key role in permitting the US and Australia to tap undersea cables to spy on Asian powers like Indonesia and Malaysia.
The Highlands Group website also reveals that Highlands is partnered with one of the most powerful defense contractors in the United States. Highlands is “supported by a network of companies and independent researchers,” including “our Highlands Forum partners for the past ten years at SAIC; and the vast Highlands network of participants in the Highlands Forum.”
SAIC stands for the US defense firm, Science Applications International Corporation, which changed its name to Leidos in 2013, operating SAIC as a subsidiary. SAIC/Leidos is among the top 10 largest defense contractors in the US, and works closely with the US intelligence community, especially the NSA. According to investigative journalist Tim Shorrock, the first to disclose the vast extent of the privatization of US intelligence with his seminal book Spies for Hire, SAIC has a “symbiotic relationship with the NSA: the agency is the company’s largest single customer and SAIC is the NSA’s largest contractor.”
Richard ‘Dick’ Patrick O’Neill, founding president of the Pentagon’s Highlands Forum
The full name of Captain “Dick” O’Neill, the founding president of the Highlands Forum, is Richard Patrick O’Neill, who after his work in the Navy joined the DoD. He served his last post as deputy for strategy and policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence, before setting up Highlands.
The Club of Yoda
But Clippinger also referred to another mysterious individual revered by Forum attendees:
“He sat at the back of the room, expressionless behind thick, black-rimmed glasses. I never heard him utter a word… Andrew (Andy) Marshall is an icon within DoD. Some call him Yoda, indicative of his mythical inscrutable status… He had served many administrations and was widely regarded as above partisan politics. He was a supporter of the Highlands Forum and a regular fixture from its beginning.”
Since 1973, Marshall has headed up one of the Pentagon’s most powerful agencies, the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), the US defense secretary’s internal ‘think tank’ which conducts highly classified research on future planning for defense policy across the US military and intelligence community. The ONA has played a key role in major Pentagon strategy initiatives, including Maritime Strategy, the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Competitive Strategies Initiative, and the Revolution in Military Affairs.
Andrew ‘Yoda’ Marshall, head of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and co-chair of the Highlands Forum, at an early Highlands event in 1996 at the Santa Fe Institute. Marshall is retiring as of January 2015
In a rare 2002 profile in Wired, reporter Douglas McGray described Andrew Marshall, now 93 years old, as “the DoD’s most elusive” but “one of its most influential” officials. McGray added that “Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz” — widely considered the hawks of the neoconservative movement in American politics — were among Marshall’s “star protégés.”
Speaking at a low-key Harvard University seminar a few months after 9/11, Highlands Forum founding president Richard O’Neill said that Marshall was much more than a “regular fixture” at the Forum. “Andy Marshall is our co-chair, so indirectly everything that we do goes back into Andy’s system,” he told the audience. “Directly, people who are in the Forum meetings may be going back to give briefings to Andy on a variety of topics and to synthesize things.” He also said that the Forum had a third co-chair: the director of the Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency (DARPA), which at that time was a Rumsfeld appointee, Anthony J. Tether. Before joining DARPA, Tether was vice president of SAIC’s Advanced Technology Sector.
Anthony J. Tether, director of DARPA and co-chair of the Pentagon’s Highlands Forum from June 2001 to February 2009
The Highlands Forum’s influence on US defense policy has thus operated through three main channels: its sponsorship by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (around the middle of last decade this was transitioned specifically to the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, which is in charge of the main surveillance agencies); its direct link to Andrew ‘Yoda’ Marshall’s ONA; and its direct link to DARPA.
A slide from Richard O’Neill’s presentation at Harvard University in 2001
According to Clippinger in A Crowd of One, “what happens at informal gatherings such as the Highlands Forum could, over time and through unforeseen curious paths of influence, have enormous impact, not just within the DoD but throughout the world.” He wrote that the Forum’s ideas have “moved from being heretical to mainstream. Ideas that were anathema in 1999 had been adopted as policy just three years later.”
Although the Forum does not produce “consensus recommendations,” its impact is deeper than a traditional government advisory committee. “The ideas that emerge from meetings are available for use by decision-makers as well as by people from the think tanks,” according to O’Neill:
“We’ll include people from Booz, SAIC, RAND, or others at our meetings… We welcome that kind of cooperation, because, truthfully, they have the gravitas. They are there for the long haul and are able to influence government policies with real scholarly work… We produce ideas and interaction and networks for these people to take and use as they need them.”
My repeated requests to O’Neill for information on his work at the Highlands Forum were ignored. The Department of Defense also did not respond to multiple requests for information and comment on the Forum.
Information warfare
The Highlands Forum has served as a two-way ‘influence bridge’: on the one hand, for the shadow network of private contractors to influence the formulation of information operations policy across US military intelligence; and on the other, for the Pentagon to influence what is going on in the private sector. There is no clearer evidence of this than the truly instrumental role of the Forum in incubating the idea of mass surveillance as a mechanism to dominate information on a global scale.
In 1989, Richard O’Neill, then a US Navy cryptologist, wrote a paper for the US Naval War College, ‘Toward a methodology for perception management.’ In his book, Future Wars, Col. John Alexander, then a senior officer in the US Army’s Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), records that O’Neill’s paper for the first time outlined a strategy for “perception management” as part of information warfare (IW). O’Neill’s proposed strategy identified three categories of targets for IW: adversaries, so they believe they are vulnerable; potential partners, “so they perceive the cause [of war] as just”; and finally, civilian populations and the political leadership so they “perceive the cost as worth the effort.” A secret briefing based on O’Neill’s work “made its way to the top leadership” at DoD. “They acknowledged that O’Neill was right and told him to bury it.
Except the DoD didn’t bury it. Around 1994, the Highlands Group was founded by O’Neill as an official Pentagon project at the appointment of Bill Clinton’s then defense secretary William Perry — who went on to join SAIC’s board of directors after retiring from government in 2003.
In O’Neill’s own words, the group would function as the Pentagon’s ‘ideas lab’. According to Government Executive, military and information technology experts gathered at the first Forum meeting “to consider the impacts of IT and globalization on the United States and on warfare. How would the Internet and other emerging technologies change the world?” The meeting helped plant the idea of “network-centric warfare” in the minds of “the nation’s top military thinkers.”
Excluding the public
Official Pentagon records confirm that the Highlands Forum’s primary goal was to support DoD policies on O’Neill’s specialism: information warfare. According to the Pentagon’s 1997 Annual Report to the President and the Congress under a section titled ‘Information Operations,’ (IO) the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) had authorized the “establishment of the Highlands Group of key DoD, industry, and academic IO experts” to coordinate IO across federal military intelligence agencies.
The following year’s DoD annual report reiterated the Forum’s centrality to information operations: “To examine IO issues, DoD sponsors the Highlands Forum, which brings together government, industry, and academic professionals from various fields.”
Notice that in 1998, the Highlands ‘Group’ became a ‘Forum.’ According to O’Neill, this was to avoid subjecting Highlands Forums meetings to “bureaucratic restrictions.” What he was alluding to was the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which regulates the way the US government can formally solicit the advice of special interests.
Known as the ‘open government’ law, FACA requires that US government officials cannot hold closed-door or secret consultations with people outside government to develop policy. All such consultations should take place via federal advisory committees that permit public scrutiny. FACA requires that meetings be held in public, announced via the Federal Register, that advisory groups are registered with an office at the General Services Administration, among other requirements intended to maintain accountability to the public interest.
But Government Executive reported that “O’Neill and others believed” such regulatory issues “would quell the free flow of ideas and no-holds-barred discussions they sought.” Pentagon lawyers had warned that the word ‘group’ might necessitate certain obligations and advised running the whole thing privately: “So O’Neill renamed it the Highlands Forum and moved into the private sector to manage it as a consultant to the Pentagon.” The Pentagon Highlands Forum thus runs under the mantle of O’Neill’s ‘intellectual capital venture firm,’ ‘Highlands Group Inc.’
In 1995, a year after William Perry appointed O’Neill to head up the Highlands Forum, SAIC — the Forum’s “partner” organization — launched a new Center for Information Strategy and Policy under the direction of “Jeffrey Cooper, a member of the Highlands Group who advises senior Defense Department officials on information warfare issues.” The Center had precisely the same objective as the Forum, to function as “a clearinghouse to bring together the best and brightest minds in information warfare by sponsoring a continuing series of seminars, papers and symposia which explore the implications of information warfare in depth.” The aim was to “enable leaders and policymakers from government, industry, and academia to address key issues surrounding information warfare to ensure that the United States retains its edge over any and all potential enemies.”
Despite FACA regulations, federal advisory committees are already heavily influenced, if not captured, by corporate power. So in bypassing FACA, the Pentagon overrode even the loose restrictions of FACA, by permanently excluding any possibility of public engagement.
O’Neill’s claim that there are no reports or recommendations is disingenuous. By his own admission, the secret Pentagon consultations with industry that have taken place through the Highlands Forum since 1994 have been accompanied by regular presentations of academic and policy papers, recordings and notes of meetings, and other forms of documentation that are locked behind a login only accessible by Forum delegates. This violates the spirit, if not the letter, of FACA — in a way that is patently intended to circumvent democratic accountability and the rule of law.
The Highlands Forum doesn’t need to produce consensus recommendations. Its purpose is to provide the Pentagon a shadow social networking mechanism to cement lasting relationships with corporate power, and to identify new talent, that can be used to fine-tune information warfare strategies in absolute secrecy.
Total participants in the DoD’s Highlands Forum number over a thousand, although sessions largely consist of small closed workshop style gatherings of maximum 25–30 people, bringing together experts and officials depending on the subject. Delegates have included senior personnel from SAIC and Booz Allen Hamilton, RAND Corp., Cisco, Human Genome Sciences, eBay, PayPal, IBM, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, the BBC, Disney, General Electric, Enron, among innumerable others; Democrat and Republican members of Congress and the Senate; senior executives from the US energy industry such as Daniel Yergin of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates; and key people involved in both sides of presidential campaigns.
Other participants have included senior media professionals: David Ignatius, associate editor of the Washington Post and at the time the executive editor of the International Herald Tribune; Thomas Friedman, long-time New York Times columnist; Arnaud de Borchgrave, an editor at Washington Times and United Press International; Steven Levy, a former Newsweek editor, senior writer for Wired and now chief tech editor at Medium; Lawrence Wright, staff writer at the New Yorker; Noah Shachtmann, executive editor at the Daily Beast; Rebecca McKinnon, co-founder of Global Voices Online; Nik Gowing of the BBC; and John Markoff of the New York Times.
Due to its current sponsorship by the OSD’s undersecretary of defense for intelligence, the Forum has inside access to the chiefs of the main US surveillance and reconnaissance agencies, as well as the directors and their assistants at DoD research agencies, from DARPA, to the ONA. This also means that the Forum is deeply plugged into the Pentagon’s policy research task forces.
Google: seeded by the Pentagon
In 1994 — the same year the Highlands Forum was founded under the stewardship of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the ONA, and DARPA — two young PhD students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, made their breakthrough on the first automated web crawling and page ranking application. That application remains the core component of what eventually became Google’s search service. Brin and Page had performed their work with funding from the Digital Library Initiative (DLI), a multi-agency programme of the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and DARPA.
But that’s just one side of the story.
Throughout the development of the search engine, Sergey Brin reported regularly and directly to two people who were not Stanford faculty at all: Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham and Dr. Rick Steinheiser. Both were representatives of a sensitive US intelligence community research programme on information security and data-mining.
Thuraisingham is currently the Louis A. Beecherl distinguished professor and executive director of the Cyber Security Research Institute at the University of Texas, Dallas, and a sought-after expert on data-mining, data management and information security issues. But in the 1990s, she worked for the MITRE Corp., a leading US defense contractor, where she managed the Massive Digital Data Systems initiative, a project sponsored by the NSA, CIA, and the Director of Central Intelligence, to foster innovative research in information technology.
“We funded Stanford University through the computer scientist Jeffrey Ullman, who had several promising graduate students working on many exciting areas,” Prof. Thuraisingham told me. “One of them was Sergey Brin, the founder of Google. The intelligence community’s MDDS program essentially provided Brin seed-funding, which was supplemented by many other sources, including the private sector.”
This sort of funding is certainly not unusual, and Sergey Brin’s being able to receive it by being a graduate student at Stanford appears to have been incidental. The Pentagon was all over computer science research at this time. But it illustrates how deeply entrenched the culture of Silicon Valley is in the values of the US intelligence community.
In an extraordinary document hosted by the website of the University of Texas, Thuraisingham recounts that from 1993 to 1999, “the Intelligence Community [IC] started a program called Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS) that I was managing for the Intelligence Community when I was at the MITRE Corporation.” The program funded 15 research efforts at various universities, including Stanford. Its goal was developing “data management technologies to manage several terabytes to petabytes of data,” including for “query processing, transaction management, metadata management, storage management, and data integration.”
At the time, Thuraisingham was chief scientist for data and information management at MITRE, where she led team research and development efforts for the NSA, CIA, US Air Force Research Laboratory, as well as the US Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) and Communications and Electronic Command (CECOM). She went on to teach courses for US government officials and defense contractors on data-mining in counter-terrorism.
In her University of Texas article, she attaches the copy of an abstract of the US intelligence community’s MDDS program that had been presented to the “Annual Intelligence Community Symposium” in 1995. The abstract reveals that the primary sponsors of the MDDS programme were three agencies: the NSA, the CIA’s Office of Research & Development, and the intelligence community’s Community Management Staff (CMS) which operates under the Director of Central Intelligence. Administrators of the program, which provided funding of around 3–4 million dollars per year for 3–4 years, were identified as Hal Curran (NSA), Robert Kluttz (CMS), Dr. Claudia Pierce (NSA), Dr. Rick Steinheiser (ORD — standing for the CIA’s Office of Research and Devepment), and Dr. Thuraisingham herself.
Thuraisingham goes on in her article to reiterate that this joint CIA-NSA program partly funded Sergey Brin to develop the core of Google, through a grant to Stanford managed by Brin’s supervisor Prof. Jeffrey D. Ullman:
“In fact, the Google founder Mr. Sergey Brin was partly funded by this program while he was a PhD student at Stanford. He together with his advisor Prof. Jeffrey Ullman and my colleague at MITRE, Dr. Chris Clifton [Mitre’s chief scientist in IT], developed the Query Flocks System which produced solutions for mining large amounts of data stored in databases. I remember visiting Stanford with Dr. Rick Steinheiser from the Intelligence Community and Mr. Brin would rush in on roller blades, give his presentation and rush out. In fact the last time we met in September 1998, Mr. Brin demonstrated to us his search engine which became Google soon after.”
Brin and Page officially incorporated Google as a company in September 1998, the very month they last reported to Thuraisingham and Steinheiser. ‘Query Flocks’ was also part of Google’s patented ‘PageRank’ search system, which Brin developed at Stanford under the CIA-NSA-MDDS programme, as well as with funding from the NSF, IBM and Hitachi. That year, MITRE’s Dr. Chris Clifton, who worked under Thuraisingham to develop the ‘Query Flocks’ system, co-authored a paper with Brin’s superviser, Prof. Ullman, and the CIA’s Rick Steinheiser. Titled ‘Knowledge Discovery in Text,’ the paper was presented at an academic conference.
“The MDDS funding that supported Brin was significant as far as seed-funding goes, but it was probably outweighed by the other funding streams,” said Thuraisingham. “The duration of Brin’s funding was around two years or so. In that period, I and my colleagues from the MDDS would visit Stanford to see Brin and monitor his progress every three months or so. We didn’t supervise exactly, but we did want to check progress, point out potential problems and suggest ideas. In those briefings, Brin did present to us on the query flocks research, and also demonstrated to us versions of the Google search engine.”
Brin thus reported to Thuraisingham and Steinheiser regularly about his work developing Google.
==
UPDATE 2.05PM GMT [2nd Feb 2015]:
Since publication of this article, Prof. Thuraisingham has amended her article referenced above. The amended version includes a new modified statement, followed by a copy of the original version of her account of the MDDS. In this amended version, Thuraisingham rejects the idea that CIA funded Google, and says instead:
“In fact Prof. Jeffrey Ullman (at Stanford) and my colleague at MITRE Dr. Chris Clifton together with some others developed the Query Flocks System, as part of MDDS, which produced solutions for mining large amounts of data stored in databases. Also, Mr. Sergey Brin, the cofounder of Google, was part of Prof. Ullman’s research group at that time. I remember visiting Stanford with Dr. Rick Steinheiser from the Intelligence Community periodically and Mr. Brin would rush in on roller blades, give his presentation and rush out. During our last visit to Stanford in September 1998, Mr. Brin demonstrated to us his search engine which I believe became Google soon after…
There are also several inaccuracies in Dr. Ahmed’s article (dated January 22, 2015). For example, the MDDS program was not a ‘sensitive’ program as stated by Dr. Ahmed; it was an Unclassified program that funded universities in the US. Furthermore, Sergey Brin never reported to me or to Dr. Rick Steinheiser; he only gave presentations to us during our visits to the Department of Computer Science at Stanford during the 1990s. Also, MDDS never funded Google; it funded Stanford University.”
Here, there is no substantive factual difference in Thuraisingham’s accounts, other than to assert that her statement associating Sergey Brin with the development of ‘query flocks’ is mistaken. Notably, this acknowledgement is derived not from her own knowledge, but from this very article quoting a comment from a Google spokesperson.
However, the bizarre attempt to disassociate Google from the MDDS program misses the mark. Firstly, the MDDS never funded Google, because during the development of the core components of the Google search engine, there was no company incorporated with that name. The grant was instead provided to Stanford University through Prof. Ullman, through whom some MDDS funding was used to support Brin who was co-developing Google at the time. Secondly, Thuraisingham then adds that Brin never “reported” to her or the CIA’s Steinheiser, but admits he “gave presentations to us during our visits to the Department of Computer Science at Stanford during the 1990s.” It is unclear, though, what the distinction is here between reporting, and delivering a detailed presentation — either way, Thuraisingham confirms that she and the CIA had taken a keen interest in Brin’s development of Google. Thirdly, Thuraisingham describes the MDDS program as “unclassified,” but this does not contradict its “sensitive” nature. As someone who has worked for decades as an intelligence contractor and advisor, Thuraisingham is surely aware that there are many ways of categorizing intelligence, including ‘sensitive but unclassified.’ A number of former US intelligence officials I spoke to said that the almost total lack of public information on the CIA and NSA’s MDDS initiative suggests that although the progam was not classified, it is likely instead that its contents was considered sensitive, which would explain efforts to minimise transparency about the program and the way it fed back into developing tools for the US intelligence community. Fourthly, and finally, it is important to point out that the MDDS abstract which Thuraisingham includes in her University of Texas document states clearly not only that the Director of Central Intelligence’s CMS, CIA and NSA were the overseers of the MDDS initiative, but that the intended customers of the project were “DoD, IC, and other government organizations”: the Pentagon, the US intelligence community, and other relevant US government agencies.
In other words, the provision of MDDS funding to Brin through Ullman, under the oversight of Thuraisingham and Steinheiser, was fundamentally because they recognized the potential utility of Brin’s work developing Google to the Pentagon, intelligence community, and the federal government at large.
==
The MDDS programme is actually referenced in several papers co-authored by Brin and Page while at Stanford, specifically highlighting its role in financially sponsoring Brin in the development of Google. In their 1998 paper published in the Bulletin of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committeee on Data Engineering, they describe the automation of methods to extract information from the web via “Dual Iterative Pattern Relation Extraction,” the development of “a global ranking of Web pages called PageRank,” and the use of PageRank “to develop a novel search engine called Google.” Through an opening footnote, Sergey Brin confirms he was “Partially supported by the Community Management Staff’s Massive Digital Data Systems Program, NSF grant IRI-96–31952” — confirming that Brin’s work developing Google was indeed partly-funded by the CIA-NSA-MDDS program.
This NSF grant identified alongside the MDDS, whose project report lists Brin among the students supported (without mentioning the MDDS), was different to the NSF grant to Larry Page that included funding from DARPA and NASA. The project report, authored by Brin’s supervisor Prof. Ullman, goes on to say under the section ‘Indications of Success’ that “there are some new stories of startups based on NSF-supported research.” Under ‘Project Impact,’ the report remarks: “Finally, the google project has also gone commercial as Google.com.”
Thuraisingham’s account, including her new amended version, therefore demonstrates that the CIA-NSA-MDDS program was not only partly funding Brin throughout his work with Larry Page developing Google, but that senior US intelligence representatives including a CIA official oversaw the evolution of Google in this pre-launch phase, all the way until the company was ready to be officially founded. Google, then, had been enabled with a “significant” amount of seed-funding and oversight from the Pentagon: namely, the CIA, NSA, and DARPA.
The DoD could not be reached for comment.
When I asked Prof. Ullman to confirm whether or not Brin was partly funded under the intelligence community’s MDDS program, and whether Ullman was aware that Brin was regularly briefing the CIA’s Rick Steinheiser on his progress in developing the Google search engine, Ullman’s responses were evasive: “May I know whom you represent and why you are interested in these issues? Who are your ‘sources’?” He also denied that Brin played a significant role in developing the ‘query flocks’ system, although it is clear from Brin’s papers that he did draw on that work in co-developing the PageRank system with Page.
When I asked Ullman whether he was denying the US intelligence community’s role in supporting Brin during the development of Google, he said: “I am not going to dignify this nonsense with a denial. If you won’t explain what your theory is, and what point you are trying to make, I am not going to help you in the slightest.”
The MDDS abstract published online at the University of Texas confirms that the rationale for the CIA-NSA project was to “provide seed money to develop data management technologies which are of high-risk and high-pay-off,” including techniques for “querying, browsing, and filtering; transaction processing; accesses methods and indexing; metadata management and data modelling; and integrating heterogeneous databases; as well as developing appropriate architectures.” The ultimate vision of the program was to “provide for the seamless access and fusion of massive amounts of data, information and knowledge in a heterogeneous, real-time environment” for use by the Pentagon, intelligence community and potentially across government.
These revelations corroborate the claims of Robert Steele, former senior CIA officer and a founding civilian deputy director of the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, whom I interviewed for The Guardian last year on open source intelligence. Citing sources at the CIA, Steele had said in 2006 that Steinheiser, an old colleague of his, was the CIA’s main liaison at Google and had arranged early funding for the pioneering IT firm. At the time, Wired founder John Batelle managed to get this official denial from a Google spokesperson in response to Steele’s assertions:
“The statements related to Google are completely untrue.”
This time round, despite multiple requests and conversations, a Google spokesperson declined to comment.
UPDATE: As of 5.41PM GMT [22nd Jan 2015], Google’s director of corporate communication got in touch and asked me to include the following statement:
“Sergey Brin was not part of the Query Flocks Program at Stanford, nor were any of his projects funded by US Intelligence bodies.”
This is what I wrote back:
My response to that statement would be as follows: Brin himself in his own paper acknowledges funding from the Community Management Staff of the Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS) initiative, which was supplied through the NSF. The MDDS was an intelligence community program set up by the CIA and NSA. I also have it on record, as noted in the piece, from Prof. Thuraisingham of University of Texas that she managed the MDDS program on behalf of the US intelligence community, and that her and the CIA’s Rick Steinheiser met Brin every three months or so for two years to be briefed on his progress developing Google and PageRank. Whether Brin worked on query flocks or not is neither here nor there.
In that context, you might want to consider the following questions:
1) Does Google deny that Brin’s work was part-funded by the MDDS via an NSF grant?
2) Does Google deny that Brin reported regularly to Thuraisingham and Steinheiser from around 1996 to 1998 until September that year when he presented the Google search engine to them?
Total Information Awareness
A call for papers for the MDDS was sent out via email list on November 3rd 1993 from senior US intelligence official David Charvonia, director of the research and development coordination office of the intelligence community’s CMS. The reaction from Tatu Ylonen (celebrated inventor of the widely used secure shell [SSH] data protection protocol) to his colleagues on the email list is telling: “Crypto relevance? Makes you think whether you should protect your data.” The email also confirms that defense contractor and Highlands Forum partner, SAIC, was managing the MDDS submission process, with abstracts to be sent to Jackie Booth of the CIA’s Office of Research and Development via a SAIC email address.
By 1997, Thuraisingham reveals, shortly before Google became incorporated and while she was still overseeing the development of its search engine software at Stanford, her thoughts turned to the national security applications of the MDDS program. In the acknowledgements to her book, Web Data Mining and Applications in Business Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism (2003), Thuraisingham writes that she and “Dr. Rick Steinheiser of the CIA, began discussions with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on applying data-mining for counter-terrorism,” an idea that resulted directly from the MDDS program which partly funded Google. “These discussions eventually developed into the current EELD (Evidence Extraction and Link Detection) program at DARPA.”
So the very same senior CIA official and CIA-NSA contractor involved in providing the seed-funding for Google were simultaneously contemplating the role of data-mining for counter-terrorism purposes, and were developing ideas for tools actually advanced by DARPA.
Today, as illustrated by her recent oped in the New York Times, Thuraisingham remains a staunch advocate of data-mining for counter-terrorism purposes, but also insists that these methods must be developed by government in cooperation with civil liberties lawyers and privacy advocates to ensure that robust procedures are in place to prevent potential abuse. She points out, damningly, that with the quantity of information being collected, there is a high risk of false positives.
In 1993, when the MDDS program was launched and managed by MITRE Corp. on behalf of the US intelligence community, University of Virginia computer scientist Dr. Anita K. Jones — a MITRE trustee — landed the job of DARPA director and head of research and engineering across the Pentagon. She had been on the board of MITRE since 1988. From 1987 to 1993, Jones simultaneously served on SAIC’s board of directors. As the new head of DARPA from 1993 to 1997, she also co-chaired the Pentagon’s Highlands Forum during the period of Google’s pre-launch development at Stanford under the MDSS.
Thus, when Thuraisingham and Steinheiser were talking to DARPA about the counter-terrorism applications of MDDS research, Jones was DARPA director and Highlands Forum co-chair. That year, Jones left DARPA to return to her post at the University of Virgina. The following year, she joined the board of the National Science Foundation, which of course had also just funded Brin and Page, and also returned to the board of SAIC. When she left DoD, Senator Chuck Robb paid Jones the following tribute : “She brought the technology and operational military communities together to design detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the next century.”
Dr. Anita Jones, head of DARPA from 1993–1997, and co-chair of the Pentagon Highlands Forum from 1995–1997, during which officials in charge of the CIA-NSA-MDSS program were funding Google, and in communication with DARPA about data-mining for counterterrorism
On the board of the National Science Foundation from 1992 to 1998 (including a stint as chairman from 1996) was Richard N. Zare. This was the period in which the NSF sponsored Sergey Brin and Larry Page in association with DARPA. In June 1994, Prof. Zare, a chemist at Stanford, participated with Prof. Jeffrey Ullman (who supervised Sergey Brin’s research), on a panel sponsored by Stanford and the National Research Council discussing the need for scientists to show how their work “ties to national needs.” The panel brought together scientists and policymakers, including “Washington insiders.”
DARPA’s EELD program, inspired by the work of Thuraisingham and Steinheiser under Jones’ watch, was rapidly adapted and integrated with a suite of tools to conduct comprehensive surveillance under the Bush administration.
According to DARPA official Ted Senator, who led the EELD program for the agency’s short-lived Information Awareness Office, EELD was among a range of “promising techniques” being prepared for integration “into the prototype TIA system.” TIA stood for Total Information Awareness, and was the main global electronic eavesdropping and data-mining program deployed by the Bush administration after 9/11. TIA had been set up by Iran-Contra conspirator Admiral John Poindexter, who was appointed in 2002 by Bush to lead DARPA’s new Information Awareness Office.
The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) was another contractor among 26 companies (also including SAIC) that received million dollar contracts from DARPA (the specific quantities remained classified) under Poindexter, to push forward the TIA surveillance program in 2002 onwards. The research included “behaviour-based profiling,” “automated detection, identification and tracking” of terrorist activity, among other data-analyzing projects. At this time, PARC’s director and chief scientist was John Seely Brown. Both Brown and Poindexter were Pentagon Highlands Forum participants — Brown on a regular basis until recently.
TIA was purportedly shut down in 2003 due to public opposition after the program was exposed in the media, but the following year Poindexter participated in a Pentagon Highlands Group session in Singapore, alongside defense and security officials from around the world. Meanwhile, Ted Senator continued to manage the EELD program among other data-mining and analysis projects at DARPA until 2006, when he left to become a vice president at SAIC. He is now a SAIC/Leidos technical fellow.
Google |
beaches with clean water for Rio's poorer communities
"The problem is that in case of infection it is possible that treatment involves hospitalisation," said Ana Paula D'Alincourt Carvalho Assef, the study coordinator at Rio's renowned Oswaldo Cruz Institute.
"Since the super-bacteria are resistant to the most modern medications, doctors need to rely on drugs that are rarely used because they are toxic to the organism," she told the AP news agency.
In its Olympic bid, Rio promised to reduce pollution in Guanabara Bay by 80%.
But in June Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes admitted the target would not be met.
"I am sorry that we did not use the games to get Guanabara Bay completely clean," said Mr Paes.
The authorities say they understand athletes' concerns but insist that water pollution will not pose a major health risk during the Olympics, which will be held in August 2016.Demons of the Flesh: The Complete Guide to Left Hand Path Sex Magic
by Nikolas and Zeena Schreck
(Creation Books, 2002)
Demons of the Flesh by Nikolas and Zeena Schreck may be the best book ever written in English about the Left Hand Path of spirituality. Although Zeena is the daughter of the His Infernal Majesty Anton LaVey, she broke rank with her father years before he passed and now considers herself a Tantric Buddhist. The book is a detailed survey of the origins of the concept of LHP, where it originated and how it can be utilized today. Along the way they discuss many of the colorful characters which has made the LHP tradition so media-friendly. The book concludes with a lengthy section on how to apply LHP in your own spiritual life.
Demons of the Flesh is broken up into three sections. The first one, “The Sinister Current in the East”, concerns the history of LHP tantra practices in India and China. The second section, “The Sinister Current in the West” looks at the history of LHP in the West, but focuses on the modern practitioners. The final part, “The Sinister Current in Action” is the “How To” section of the book and shows the reader ways LHP practices can be incorporated into your life.
This is an extremely witty and deep book. Although the writers lack the understanding of Sanskrit and Asian culture to delve too far into it, they more than make up on the “West” section. Furthermore, they demonstrate many ways this knowledge can be applied to life today. The book is richly illustrated with reproductions of classical paintings.
The first section of Demons, discusses the Indian tantra origins of LHP and shows where the name came from. They prefer to use the Sanskrit term Varma Marga (left hand way), which referred to the position where the woman sat in relation to the man during the spiritual services where sex was employed. They point out that the divine feminine is important in these rites. The female principal, Shakti, is the dynamic one where the male principal, Shiva, is static. The tantric texts used sex sparingly and only five percent of tantric writings mention the use of sex to achieve union with the divine. The authors differ with the purposes of traditional sexual working since they feel the adept should strive to become a divine being and not be lost in the fullness of the infinite.
The book is fascinating in its look at LHP in the western nations, especially as they move into the twentieth century. For instance, they give plenty of credit to Paschal Beverly Randolf, a Black American mystic who developed sexual workings with his Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor in the 19th century. They take a dim view of Aleister Crowley as the authors feel he saw women as tools to be used. This runs counter to their belief that the divine Shakti female must always remain supreme. They even delve into modern successors to Crowley, such as Kenneth Grant:
“To glean what may be of actual use for the practice of sinister sex magic in Grant’s writings, one must also work through surreal descriptions of sperm-sucking Mayan squid-bats surviving in abandoned chapels, aetheric monsters that breed in menstrual blood, and the premise that apes are the result of prehistoric human copulation with extraterrestrials, all hung together with obfuscatory detours into Quabalistic numerology. Your head will spin when confronted with such typical Grantisms as “clepydral horologue”, “infra-liminal vibrations” and “sexo-somniferous magnetization”.”
Among other adepts, George Bataille is mentioned and the entire cannon of modern ceremonial magic. There is an extensive section in the book about the rise and fall of The Judgement Church of the Final Process and how they attempted to work the Shakti current. Again, the section on the Western tradition is one of the best I have encountered.
The third section of the book deals with the application of their concepts to the present. There are sections on group sex and bondage. Their material is so well thought out that I urge everyone to give it a read for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
The authors look with amusement at the desire for so many people to create their own groups and give themselves titles:
“Any left-hand path group can eventually become deadened by social obligation and the surrender to routine once the original fire of inspiration that brought the group together subsides. This fire can be ignited afresh only if the celebrants cultivate a willingness to follow new directions, a strength of imagination, and a willingness to break with the desensitizing traditions that inevitably gather like dust over any group activity, even the orchestration of magical orgia.
The burgeoning magical group dedicated to the study of sex magic will remain vibrant and open to transformation only to the degree that its members actively avoid this social disposition to creating itself according to a rigid scheme. Once you have given a name to the group, for instance, you have magically bound yourself to being defined by that name and its associations forever more. Some of the most effective sex magic groups have operated under no official name, which allows for an atmosphere of freedom that encourages evolution instead of stagnation. If the group progresses according to desire and in accordance with changing circumstance, there is a chance for survival. Once the group becomes fixed in an attempt to squeeze itself into an overly cerebral abstract ideal that may no longer be relevant to actual conditions, the magical work becomes brittle and rigid. We have often observed that this is the phase when most groups disperse.”
Their advice is to forget the formal structures, just learn some auto-erotic practices, find a partner for the Great Work and, should you meet with success, find some more couples to engage in orgies or group sex workings. They even have a simplified suggestion on how to start out an evening of these practices.
I’d like to find out how many people took the advice and suggestions of this book to heart. Of course,there might be a huge movement around them, but you would never know about it.
To order this book from Amazon click on this image:
About Rummah Rummah Kasai has written 27 post in this blog. View all posts by Rummah →
BlogReally cool. Self adhesive googly eyes are surprisingly hard to find around, even in craft stores; and even then they usually only have one size option, and they're pretty spendy on top of that. This is a really cool set, all types of sizes, really itty bitty ones about the size of confetti sprinkles; though I wish they were ones that were a little bigger; biggest ones are a little smaller than a dime coin.. They stick well, though the protective paper backings are kind of a pain to peel off sometimes. As others have mentioned, I also received a little baggie with extra eyes. My only complaint is the seller with the cheapest price via Amazon (sorrentocrafts,) also sells this exact product on eBay, but the price difference is pretty big. Here it costs about 11 bucks and over 6 dollars shipping. On eBay, it's 7 bucks for the set and only 3 dollars shipping. I can't fault them considering Amazon and eBay are two different companies and have different shipping/listing policies etc. But just don't make the mistake I did, search around first and buy it for the best price...aka, buy off of eBay.I was scrolling through Twitter the other day (as I do way too often, admittedly) and I saw this tweet from the Omaha World Herald,
From @swmckewonOWH: In wild Big Ten West, stability wins — and that means Wisconsin. https://t.co/JxhBP59xj7 pic.twitter.com/jryNHaJpK0 — World-Herald Big Red (@OWHbigred) August 23, 2017
My first thought was, “yeah, Wisconsin is definitely winning that crap division.” Then I read it again and got stuck on the word “stability.”
What a boring word it is, but one that perfectly describes Wisconsin.
The Badgers have won 71 games over the last seven years. Wisconsin has won two Big 10 titles and played for two more over the same span, while losing at least three games each year over the last six seasons.
They’re a stable, solid bore that wins enough to get noticed but not enough for any of us to really care. Wisconsin is the girl your mom wants you to marry. She’s sweet. She’s nice. She’s smart enough; but there’s no sizzle. There are no late nights out at the bar. No skinny-dipping in the pool at 3:00am.
Wisconsin is Jenny from down the street. She’ll always be there, whether you want her to be or not.
This got me thinking: What other teams are consistent winners, yet terrible products from an entertainment stand point? Which teams win, yet leave you apathetic from an entertainment standpoint? What are the most boring college football programs?
This is a subjective list to be sure. Some people might hate watching Texas Tech refuse to play defense, while others love Ryan Gosling lookalike Kliff Kingsbury’s basketball-on-turf production.
But this is *my* list. Feel free to let me know where I messed up.
Please note that I used a random metric of a minimum of an average of eight wins or more over the last seven years. Again, this is a list of teams that consistently win, so Boston College was ruled out, as it would obviously be No. 1 on everyone’s list. Sorry, Dudes.
1. Wisconsin
Avg. season wins since 2010: 10.14
Why so boring?
See above. You’d think a team with 71 wins over seven years would be fun or even interesting to watch, but Wisconsin is what Alabama would be if they were half as athletic and played in the snow.
2. Kansas State
Avg. season wins since 2010: 8.57
Why so boring?
The Wildcats have 60 wins over the last seven seasons, including four 9+ win campaigns. Yet, if you asked me what Kansas State does well or what they’re known for, I’d say being fundamentally sound. What is more boring than that?
3. Florida
Avg. season wins since 2010: 8
Why so boring?
Have you seen this team play offense? Sure, Florida’s won the division several times since 2010, but my God… that offense is like watching paint dry.
Florida has all of the speed you could want yet it can’t do better than an avg. total offensive ranking of 104th since 2010. That’s coaching malpractice spanning three different regimes.
4. Nebraska
Avg. season wins since 2010: 8.85
Why so boring?
Let me count the ways. One, the Cornhuskers have zero identity. What were Bo Pelini teams known for (other than getting blown out in every big game)? What has Mike Riley done since coming to Lincoln? Unless you’re a Husker fan there’s nothing that gets you to turn on the TV.
Nebraska has won nine or more games in 6/7 years and no one cares because it’s lost at least four games every year since 2008.
5. Alabama
Avg. season wins since 2010: 12.28
Why so boring?
Hear me out. Alabama is so damn good it’s become tedious. I know, it sounds stupid, but living in SEC country you feel it every day when people talk ball. ‘Bama has rendered every other program as an afterthought. It’s not if ‘Bama wins the SEC and plays in the Playoff, but rather how badly does it beat its competition in the process.
To make matters worse, the one thing Bama had going for them from an entertainment standpoint was Lane Kiffin, and he was replaced with a Bill Belichick disciple as offensive coordinator. Yuck.Like so many other people inspired by Emma Watson's impassioned speech in her new capacity as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, I shared it to Facebook.
Like so many other posts on Facebook and elsewhere calling for attention to women's rights, it almost immediately received a comment from someone who took umbrage with the message.
Sharing to Facebook isn't exactly championing the cause, but in my defense it was late at night and I'd been working all day -- not the most ideal time to begin an impromptu egalitarian crusade. I shared it with the byline Fox News Headline: "Hysterical Woman Ruins UN Event, Possible Terrorist" -- wit like this is just a fringe benefit of being on my friends list, folks. It's a thrill ride over here.
The #HeForShe campaign is designed to draw men alongside women fighting for positive change. The idea is a noble one -- challenging the 'us vs. them' mentality that possesses certain elements of both the men and women's rights groups and is poisonous to the ideal of gender equality.
This point was profoundly lost on the commenter in question. He responded by quoting Watson's remark about fighting for women's rights being regarded as synonymous with man-hating, saying that the sooner 'the feminists' quit man-hating, the sooner the synonymy would be forgotten. As if everyone interested in solving problems of disparity in how people are treated based on their gender is necessarily man-hating until proven otherwise.
But that's not the argument that really got me angry enough to write this post. It was the next one. An argument that I've heard before, but until now have never been able to accurately articulate how ridiculous, or cowardly, or irresponsible I find it to be.
The argument is this: feminists blame patriarchy theory for the existence and enforcement of gender roles. In fact, science explains the existence of these roles via evolutionary psychology. Feminists ignore the biology that underpins our behaviour and instead heap the blame on men as a group seeking to oppress women as a group. The blame doesn't lie with anyone, but with the mindless machinations of gene selection and ingrained behaviour. The 'why' is more important than the 'what' -- get your facts straight, feminists.
To this I say "bullshit."
Personally, I don't believe in letting something silly like biology get in the way of human happiness. If I did, I probably wouldn't bother with glasses. I'd sit and reflect on a blurry sunset that my eyes are the way they are for a reason.
Instead, I embrace the ideal of using human ingenuity and reason to conquer primitive shit like that so that my life can be better. It's the same reason we don't have to exile the diseased to preserve the health of our tribes, because of this fancy new thing called medicine. Or why the speed limit isn't enforced by 'how fast your legs can carry you.'
So when people talk about the origins of behaviours that negatively impact both men and women as if these are insurmountable obstacles that we should learn to live with instead of railing against, I can't help but think it as shortsighted as accepting... well, shortsightedness.
I don't buy that the past, whether biological or psychological or cultural, should have any control whether people are happy today. We shoot lasers into our eyes to see better, and one day soon anyone born blind will be able to see as well -- or better than -- the greatest hunters of prehistory. Some of us already walk on bionic legs, free to pass on our genetic material and give natural selection a big metal middle finger at the same time. What measure is gender going to be when people can be as organic (or not) as they want? I find it hard to imagine two virtually identical brain-jar exoskeletons having a conversation about one not being taken seriously because of her outfit, regardless of the monkey hang-ups the brain's bodies used to have.
Biology manufactured the human race as a binary group of men and women. It didn't consult us on how we felt about it or how we would deal with it. And it was culture -- that's us -- which established male and female roles; 'just because' passed down from the ignorant to the slightly less ignorant, generation after generation.
But we're sapient, it's 2014 on the latest calendar, and we can make our own damn choices about how we treat each other.
ALSO ON HUFFPOST:Note
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Developing a game is human work and thus is prone to error, exactly like this guide. Therebonuses that are bugged or not mentioned in the text file but exist in the files and vice versa. Similarly this guide might have misinterpreted bonuses. Future patches will no doubt change veterancy stats, and on that note, I encourage you to bookmark this page, and check back after every patch!This guide will be constantly be monitored and updated. If you want to see the pure files for yourself see COH2 Modding: Getting started with the official tools. With the attribute editor you can see how it all works. This way relies on Relic updating the tool, if you want to see the actual files form the game itself use the Extracting Statistics Guide. This is much less user friendly but always up-to-date.If you have any questions on how the bonuses in this guide work, or if you feel something isn't clear,feel absolutely free to PM the updater: ( CookiezNcreemPassengers was supposed to be the biggest Christmas hit save for Rogue One. But advance word on the space drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt is not good.
The pair star as hibernating passengers on board Avalon, a commercial space liner journeying to a planet called Homestead II, located 120 years away from earth. Pratt’s character Jim’s pod malfunctions 30 years into the journey and he wakes up Lawrence’s character Aurora from cryogenic sleep, duping her that she too has been the victim of a pod malfunction.
Social media movie social justice warriors are taking strong exception to the plot of the film revolving around a man disrupting a woman’s life, accusing the movie of being sexist and perpetuating male fantasies and featuring misogynistic snatches of dialogue such as when Lawrence’s character Aurora asks Pratt’s character Jim, “What do we do now?”
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Furthermore, Pratt has been falling out with the PC police of late, having been Jurassic World, something people aren’t forgetting. Furthermore, Pratt has been falling out with the PC police of late, having been accused of sexism for his role inJurassic World,something people aren’t forgetting.
So is Chris Pratt typecast to play sexist characters or…. — Ashley Joyce-Nyack (@theashleyjn) — Ashley Joyce-Nyack (@theashleyjn) December 19, 2016
It’s creepy and sexist. It would have been easy to make it better by calling out Pratt’s character’s shit. @Shion963 It’s creepy and sexist. It would have been easy to make it better by calling out Pratt’s character’s shit. — SANTA: 76 (@rekicakes) — SANTA: 76(@rekicakes) December 19, 2016
oh good another movie where chris pratt is a creepy sexist weirdo, smashballs for his career surely oh good another movie where chris pratt is a creepy sexist weirdo, smashballs for his career surely https://t.co/nHBMpZ14Ds — Jingle Bell Punk (@pixelpynk) — Jingle Bell Punk (@pixelpynk) December 15, 2016
Whaaaat the Jlaw Pratt movie is sexist garbage, no way. — M. Flores (@devoted_pupa) M. Flores(@devoted_pupa) December 18, 2016
2. Still Pratt has a record for doing particularly grating sexist trash between this and Jurassic World. @NussbaumAbigail 2. Still Pratt has a record for doing particularly grating sexist trash between this and Jurassic World. — Elsworth Amasa (@wfrolik) — Elsworth Amasa (@wfrolik) December 20, 2016
I just saw Passengers, and it was so utterly stupid (and sexist) that it made me angry while I was watching it. Please see Arrival instead — Jo Wright (@kvetchup) — Jo Wright (@kvetchup) December 20, 2016
re: magnificent seven: are we really just gonna see film after film with chris pratt playing ‘lovable misogynist’ — mel(anie). (@likewatercress) — mel(anie).(@likewatercress) April 20, 2016
Passengers is some incredibly sexist bullshit. My review’s coming. — Kristy Puchko (@KristyPuchko) — Kristy Puchko (@KristyPuchko) December 15, 2016
It’s not just random people on the internet expressing displeasure. Movie critics aren’t happy.
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The Guardian of Pratt’s character: “He is still the perv who practically frotteured himself against a woman’s sleep pod before stealing her life to be his chosen playmate.” The Guardian wrote of Pratt’s character: “He is still the perv who practically frotteured himself against a woman’s sleep pod before stealing her life to be his chosen playmate.”
Metro film critic Matt Prigge Passengers for being “one sick male fantasy — essentially a tale of rape in which the victim learns to love her rapist…in space, no one can hear you recommend Hollywood execs read basic feminist literature.” Metrofilm critic Matt Prigge called out Passengersfor being “one sick male fantasy — essentially a tale of rape in which the victim learns to love her rapist…in space, no one can hear you recommend Hollywood execs read basic feminist literature.”
Glenn Kenny, critic for Film School Rejects lashes out at “Passengers’ deep contempt for its female protagonist, and by extension, women everywhere.” Glenn Kenny, critic for RogerEbert.com slammed the film as “spectacularly sexist” whileFilm School Rejectslashes out at “Passengers’ deep contempt for its female protagonist, and by extension, women everywhere.”
Passengers has had a stormy journey of late. Pratt recently received flak for Passengershas had a stormy journey of late. Pratt recently received flak for joking to Lawrence on BBC Radio 1’s Playground Insults segment, “During our sex scene I felt your dick rubbing into me” for which he was accused of transphobia, while Lawrence recently apologized for revealing she scratched her backside on rocks while filming in Hawaii.
Michael Sheen, who co-stars in the film as a robotic barman, has also had to Michael Sheen, who co-stars in the film as a robotic barman, has also had to clarify he’s not going into politics full-time to take on Donald Trump following remarks he made in a promotional interview.
Pratt meantime, appropriately, seems to have constructed his own universe when it comes to the reaction to his latest movie:
Thanks for all the kind words. We worked our butts off. Glad people are enjoying the movie. Thanks for all the kind words. We worked our butts off. Glad people are enjoying the movie. https://t.co/xYC8vQBiGv — chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) — chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) December 20, 2016GALLE, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - Trisha Chetty spent a productive day on either side of the stumps as South Africa kicked off their women’s Twenty20 World Cup campaign with a comfortable six-wicket victory over hosts Sri Lanka in a Group B match on Wednesday.
South Africa captain Mignon du Preez put Sri Lanka in after winning the toss and had every reason to feel vindicated as the home side slumped to 34 for six wickets inside 12 overs.
Pace bowler Susan Benade (2-7) and leg-spinner Dane van Neikerk (2-9) wrecked the Sri Lankan top order before South Africa’s sharp fielding was rewarded with five runs outs as Sri Lanka were dismissed for just 79 runs in 20 overs.
Only two Sri Lankans - Dilani Manodara (24) and Chamani Seneviratna (14) - reached double figures in the match played at the Galle International Stadium.
Wicket-keeper Chetty was involved in six of the dismissals, including four runs outs, one catch and a stumping.
She returned to hit a 40-ball 33 as South Africa chased down the target in 17.2 overs, losing four wickets in the process.
South Africa play New Zealand in their next pool match on Friday at Galle while Sri Lanka play West Indies in the double-header on the same day.
Group A is made up of Australia, England, India and Pakistan in the eight-team tournament being played in conjunction with the men’s World Twenty20 tournament, also in Sri Lanka.Please select your country: United States Argentina Australia Austria Belarus Belgium Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Canada Chile China Colombia Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Czechoslovakia (1945-1992) Denmark East Germany (1949-1990) Estonia Finland France Georgia Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Macau Macedonia Malaysia Malta Mexico The Netherlands New Zealand North Korea Norway Philippines Poland Portugal Romania Russia Saudi Arabia Serbia Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Turkey Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Vietnam U.S.S.R. (1922-1991) Yugoslavia (1945-1992) Africa » Cameroon Africa » South Africa Worldwide Other
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Alternate Titles
"F19" -- Informal title
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Rule the night! Take the pride of American Stealth technology and take on the best the Warsaw pact technology can offer! Dodge between radars, sneak under enemy fighters, and take out your primary objectives and secondary objectives with your limited weapons onboard, then make your way home. Can you survive all the way to general and win the Congressional Medal of Honor?was based around Sid Meier's closest estimate of the stealth fighter based on the data available at the time. You get full 3D graphics, 3D enemies, random objectives and enemy dispositions (so each mission will be different), dynamic radar effectiveness that depends on your position and radar cross section, enemies that search you out if you do "tickle" their defenses, even civilian aircrafts in the air, and ability to play in cold war, moderate war, or all-out war, with very different rules of engagement.
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Trivia
Development
The Design Team
Simulations such as F-I9 Stealth Fighter require a large, talented creative team to produce. The 16-bit version was engineered by that now-famous team of Sid Meier (master of algorithms and data structures that recreate reality) and Andy Hollis (one of the hottest 3-D and assembly programmers in the nation).
Sid’s the founding father of MicroProse (along with President “Wild Bill” Stealey), and brings a veteran viewpoint of game programming and game design. A large number of features in this product started with Sid saying, “Wouldn’t it be neat if The neat part is that Sid then goes and implements the code that very day!
Andy is one of MicroProse’s veterans, and has done fast, tight 3-D code before —in C64 Gunship, and then again in IBM Gunship. Each time Andy finds new ways to get more, faster, in less space. Andy isn’t our only 3-D expert. For example, he used some Scott Spanburg’s secret and magical object logic, which Scott had just finished conjuring for another (future) MicroProse product. Andy’s a great fan of high speed anywhere: in computers and in cars (he races autocross in his spare time).
Jim Synoski, creator of the original C64 Stealth Fighter, was dragged into this version to help out. He was nice about it, especially about all the things Sid changed! He worked with ace computer artist Max (“Maximum”) Remington to create the entire preflight and postf light system. Even an “old guard” expert like Jim, veteran of many other MicroProse games, can be impressed (distressed?) by the complexity and detail involved in Briefings and Debriefings. The apparently limitless variety of IBM graphics modes (VGA, MCGA, EGA, CGA, Tandy and Hercules) doesn’t help!
The 3D databases for the four “worlds” were created by game designer Bruce Shelley and artist Max Remington. It was here that “Maximum” got his nickname. For a while every object he created went right to the data space maximum, causing something new to “blow” in Andy’s code, like an engine overrevving too far. Fortunately 3D graphic glitches are fairly obvious to a trained eye — all were spotted and eventually fixed. Bruce’s job was more difficult. A veteran of many board wargame designs, he worked within the very complicated and often frustrating limitations of a microcomputer’s data space layout. The remarkable fidelity of the data space world to the “real” world is a testament to his perseverence. Fortunately he was a good sport through it all, perhaps inspired by the 7:00 AM basketball games in the warehouse with ‘Major Bill’ and other B-ball fanatics within MicroProse.
All this data and graphics takes up a lot of room. In fact, F-IS Stealth Fighter on our development systems occupies about five megabytes (fifteen 360K floppy disks!). It’s problems like these that David McKibbin was born to solve. His compression schemes “shrank” the code and data to its current size! Every time the disk drive loads something, it runs through a special “decompressor” that expands the code andior data to “full size” in memory. This means you’re getting a product that would otherwise require a hard disk and command a retail price well over $100. So David’s saving you a lot of cash as well as making F-19 commercially viable.
The paper materials were conceived by designer Arnold Hendrick, author of this manual. Usually MicroProse’s marketing department is concerned about the size, weight and cost of our manuals (not that it does any good, the manuals always go over budget). But for this product the word was, “go all out”. Arnold took them at that, although they gulped hard when the page estimate jumped from 128 to 192! The rumor that marketing’s office furniture was pawned to pay for the extra paper is entirely unfounded. Incidentally, the design, layout and artwork of the manual, maps and overlays were all done on computer with final output on Linotronic typesetters. In his alter ego as manager of the game design group, Arnold kibbitzed unmercifully about various aspects of the design. Surprisingly, Sid, Andy, Jim and Bruce even took him seriously (at times).
Murray Taylor, 3-D artist extraordinaire, designed the basic “look” of this manual, executed the weapons illustrations, and did the six full-page computer pictures that grace these pages. How he finds time for the triathlon remains a mystery even within MicroProse.
Barbara Bents did yeoman (yeowoman?) work with the technical drawings, maps and keyboard overlays. MicroProse uses state-of-the-art drafting and layout software on MacII’s for many internal graphics. Barbara’s designs, however, consistently went beyond the abilities of current postscript interpreters. Unfortunately, we didn’t write the software.., so when we phoned the creators they just said, “Oh, gee, sorry. You’ll just have to do less complicated things!” The keyboard overlays were difficult for a different reason: we redesigned about as fast as she could redraw them on the Mac! For surviving these trials and tribulations, she wins MicroProse’s competitive and coveted “most tolerant artist of the year” award.
Everybody at MicroProse takes Ken Lagace for granted. He’s the quiet. silver-haired gent who gave up teaching and performing professional classical music for a career as a computer sounds composer, with scores of brilliant scores to his credit. You’ll probably take him for granted too, since the sounds for F-l9 Stealth Fighter fit right in!
Finally, the QA (quality assurance) staff at MicroProse approached this product like all others: with the maniacal glee of a mad scientist! Al Roireau, Chris Taormino and Russ Cooney just love to find bugs, then torment the poor, exhausted programmers with multi-page bug reports. In fact, they enjoyed itso much they stayed late nights, then came in on Saturdays and Sundays, for weeks on end, for just that purpose. In fact they’re still cackling over the airfield-in-the-ocean bug, or the 1500 kts level flight bug, or... well, you get the idea. Unlike many software companies, at MicroProse QA really does have the final say for shipment. Until “Big Al” gives thumbs up, the product stays in testing and the programmers continue slaving over the bugs.
F-19
Game worlds
Gulf war
Hint book
Sid Meier
F-19 was the last flight simulator that I wrote. I felt that it was everything I knew about how to write a flight simulator, and I never felt the need to write another one after that. That didn't mean that Bill [Stealey] didn't keep asking me to write them, though.
Awards
ACE October 1988 (issue #13) - Included in the Top-100 list of 1987/1988 (editorial staff selection)
Amiga Joker Issue 01/1991 – Best Simulation Game in 1990
Commodore Format May 1991 (Issue 8) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
Computer and Video Games Issue 06/1989 - Runner-up Golden Joystick Award 1989 for Best 8-Bit Simulation Game (reader's vote)
Computer Gaming World October 1989 (Issue #64) – Simulation Game of the Year October 1990 (Issue #75) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #52 in the “150 Best Games of All Time" list
EMAP Image's Golden Joystick 1991 April 1991: Best Simulation - 16 Bit April 1991: Best Simulation - 8 Bit
ST Format January 1991 (Issue #1) – Best Simulation Game in 1990 (Atari ST) August 1991 (Issue #8) – #17 Top Atari ST Classic Games (Editorial staff vote) January 1993 (issue #42) – #50 in '50 finest Atari ST games of all time' list
Zzap! January 1990 (Issue 57) – 'The Best Games of the 80's Decade' (Robin Hogg)
Related Web Sites
The Amiga games database entry (Detailed description of the game
)
A section of themanual explains the process behind its design (and the design of computer games in general:The game was named "F-19" as it was originally thought that this would be the name of the then-unreleased Stealth aircraft. However, it was finally named F-117A, which is the name of the next stealth simulator released by Microprose.Since the game was designed when the F-117A was still classified, the external views of the aircraft were approximate. The F117A has been made "public" around the same time the game was released, so Microprose modified their game so that you could see the real aircraft instead. By default, you got the original; you just had to rename one or two binary files in the game's home directory to enable the new one.The 8-bit versions were calledon the box, butin the loading screen. The fictional Stealth Fighter portrayed in the game is based on a 1982 model kit by Testors. The kit caused a certain amount of controversy at the time; although the design was no more accurate than Craig Thomas' Firefox, the stealth programme was supposed to be top secret, and the US senate - not knowing what the real F-117 looked like - assumed that Testors had been given access to sensitive information. As noted below, Microprose's simulation was overtaken by events.At least in the DOS version it is possible to copy Middle East and Vietnam game worlds from F-15 Strike Eagle II todirectory and switch two of the original worlds with these, so that you can fly in these worlds. The names of the game worlds replaced are still the original ones in the theater selection menu, however, so you must remember yourself which worlds you replaced. Make sure to back up the original worlds before doing this trick.Ironically, the 'Limited War' level of the Persian Gulf campaign in the game involved the US helping Iraq against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war, including protecting 'friendly' vessels sailing out of Basra (particularly oil tankers) from attack by Iranian missile boats and planes. In the wake of the Operation Desert Storm two years later, the Iraqis in the game's sequel F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0 were no longer the allied nation that they had been in the original game, and the new game included a Desert Storm campaign.Compute! books published a full handbook to help you play this game. It helped you develop a strategy and avoid being detected. Sid Meier on--From the gaming history bookby Rusel DeMaria and Johnny L. Wilson (2002)When C.I.A. agent Rex Matheson investigates a global conspiracy, he finds himself unearthing a threat which challenges the entire human race. The answers seem to lie within an old, secret British institute, known only as Torchwood. But Torchwood was destroyed, years ago, and the keys to the institute are held by its only two survivors - former Police Officer Gwen Cooper, who has long since disappeared along with her husband and child, and the mysterious Captain Jack Harkness, a man whose history |
a constructive relationship with Russia through dialogue and cooperation underpinned by NATO's deterrence and defence capabilities. During his tenure, he also emphasised the need to focus on security challenges close to Allied territory.[40]
22 July 2011 terror attacks
Stoltenberg speaks at a service commemorating the one year anniversary of the 2011 attacks.
On 22 July 2011, a bomb went off in Oslo outside the government building which houses the prime minister's office, killing eight people while wounding others.[41] About an hour later, a shooting spree, which killed 69 people, was reported at Utøya, an island forty-five minutes away where the ruling Labour Party was holding its annual youth camp. The PM was due for a visit at the youth camp the next day, and was in his residence preparing his speech at the time of the Oslo explosion.[42]
On Sunday 24 July, Stoltenberg spoke at the church service in the Oslo Cathedral. He named two of the victims at Utøya, Monica Bøsei, who was the camp's leader, and Tore Eikeland, who was the leader of the youth chapter in Hordaland. He again vowed to work for more democracy, openness, and humanity, but without naivety.[43] He also said that "No one has said it better than the AUF girl who was interviewed by CNN: If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we could show, standing together."[44][45] The AUF girl mentioned is Stine Renate Håheim interviewed by CNN's Richard Quest on 23 July 2011.[46] Håheim again quoted her friend Helle Gannestad, who had tweeted this from home, watching events unfold on TV.[47]
On 24 August 2012, 33-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik was found guilty by the Oslo District Court of having perpetrated by himself both terrorist attacks, the bombing of the prime minister's office and the shooting spree on Utøya island, and was convicted to containment, a special form of prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely—with a time frame of 21 years and a minimum time of 10 years, which, in all, is the maximum penalty in Norway.[48]
On 3 September 2012, Norwegian daily Klassekampen wrote that the Gjørv Report on the terrorist attack "is the hardest verdict against a Norwegian cabinet since the Fact-Finding Commission of 1945 ensured that Johan Nygaardsvold's political career was abruptly halted."[49] Stoltenberg said after the report was published that he had "ultimate responsibility for the preparedness in our country, a responsibility I take seriously," but he said he would not resign.[50]
2013 election and defeat
Stoltenberg was the Prime Minister candidate for the Red-Green Coalition in the 2013 elections, seeking re-election for a third term.
On 9 September 2013, the coalition failed to win majority, with 72 of the required 85 mandates, despite the Labour Party remaining the largest party in Norway with 30.8%.[51] In his speech the same night, he announced that his cabinet would resign in October 2013.[52] Stoltenberg returned to the Parliament where he became parliamentarian leader for the Labour Party and a member of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. In December 2013, he was appointed by the United Nations as a Special Envoy on Climate Change, alongside the former Ghanaian president John Kufuor.[53]
Policies as Prime Minister [ edit ]
Stoltenberg has been described as a cautious politician, belonging to the right wing of social democracy.[54] In security policy, Stoltenberg favours increased military spending and dialogue.[55]
Defense and foreign politics
Stoltenberg at the Paris Summit of 19 March 2011 (back row, second from right), which marked the start of a military intervention in Libya
While Stoltenberg was Prime Minister, Norway's defence spending increased steadily, with the result that Norway today is one of the NATO allies with the highest per capita defence expenditure.[56] Stoltenberg has also been instrumental in modernising the Norwegian armed forces, and in contributing forces to various NATO operations.[57]
Stoltenberg is a supporter of enhanced trans-Atlantic cooperation ties. He has also always been a supporter of Norwegian membership in the European Union.[58]
Stoltenberg has criticized Israel over alleged violations of international law in the Palestinian Territories as well as in international waters, such as the Gaza flotilla raid.[59] In 2006, Stoltenberg stated that "Norway condemns Israel's actions against Palestinians. Such collective punishment is totally unacceptable."[60] Stoltenberg praised doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse for their humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza War, stating that "all of Norway" was behind them.[61]
Financial crisis
Stoltenberg took an international role during the financial crisis by promoting international financial cooperation. This was among other arenas done through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a meeting in Chile 27–29 March 2009 where social democratic leaders from around the world met at a Progressive Governance Conference, just prior to the first G20 summit on the financial crisis. President Bill Clinton was among the delegates and panel that would chart a way out of the financial crisis, which included the host Michelle Bachelet, Britain's finance minister Gordon Brown, Brazil's President Lula da Silva and Stoltenberg. A special emergency meeting of the European Social Democratic Forum (PES) was gathered in Oslo in May 2011, on an initiative from Stoltenberg and the think tank Policy Network.
Both nationally and internationally, Stoltenberg emphasised the enormous costs the financial crisis had in the form of a high unemployment rate, and appealed for better international coordination, the balance between austerity and economic growth stimulus, active labor market measures for young people, and investments for increased innovation.[citation needed] Norway came out of the financial crisis with the lowest unemployment rate in Europe.[62]
Environment and climate change
Partnering with tropical countries to preserve more of their rainforest to bind carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions was a policy of the Stoltenberg government. In 2007, the government received support from the opposition to a long-term agreement to finance forest conservation with 3 billion NOK annually.[63]
Stoltenberg through his governing advocated that international agreements with global taxes or quotas are the most effective means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. At the UN Climate Change Conference 2009, a separate proposal on the preservation of rainforests with funding from rich countries, advanced by Stoltenberg and Brazilian Pres. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2009 obtained support from among others U.S. President Barack Obama during COP15 in Copenhagen.[citation needed]
The summit in Copenhagen ended without a binding agreement, but before the subsequent COP16 in Cancún, Stoltenberg succeeded then-British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the leadership of the committee dealing with the financing of climate actions in developing countries, also consisting of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Under a separate forest and climate conference in Oslo in May 2010, a proposal was presented to a number of countries, with final delivery of the report in autumn 2010.
In January 2014 Jens Stoltenberg became United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Change. During the meeting there he met with Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as well as UN Framework Convention director Christiana Figueres and both Achim Steiner and Helen Clark of the United Nations Development Programme.[64]
Vaccines
Stoltenberg has been an advocate for having all the world's children vaccinated against infectious diseases. The first speech he gave in his second term as Prime Minister was during Norway's "Pharmaceutics days" in 2005 under the title "Vaccination against poverty". Stoltenberg was director of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) from 2002 to 2005 and was awarded the Children's Health Award in 2005.
An international initiative, with the UK, the Gates Foundation and Norway in the lead, that GAVI received more than $3.7 billion until 2015 for their work against child mortality.[65] Stoltenberg was one of the key driving forces behind the initiative, and has stressed that this is an important contribution to save 9 million children from dying of the most common childhood illnesses.
In his New Year speech on 1 January 2013, Stoltenberg spoke about vaccination of the world's children as a personal matter of the heart. "Small jabs are giving millions of children the gift of life. Simple medicines can save their mothers. The fact that all these mothers' and children's lives can be saved is – as I see it – a miracle of our time," Stoltenberg said in his speech.[66]
United Nations (2013 to 2014) [ edit ]
In 2011, Stoltenberg received the United Nations (UN) Champion of Global Change Award in New York City, USA, chosen for his extraordinary effort toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals and bringing fresh ideas to global problems. In 2013, Stoltenberg served as a UN special envoy on climate change (global warming), and he has chaired the UN High-Level Panel on System Wide Coherence and the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing.
NATO Secretary General (2014 to present) [ edit ]
Stoltenberg and Montenegro's Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic attend a NATO foreign ministers meeting on May 19, 2016
Stoltenberg with US Secretary of State Pompeo, UK Foreign Secretary Johnson and Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu, Brussels, April 2018
A meeting of NATO heads of States and governmenst on 11 July 2018 in Brussels
On 28 March 2014 NATO's North Atlantic Council appointed Stoltenberg as designated successor of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the 13th Secretary General of NATO and Chairman of the council, effective from 1 October 2014.[67] The appointment had been widely expected in the media for some time, and commentators pointed out that the alliance's policies toward Russia will be the most important issue faced by Stoltenberg.[68] Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, took the initiative to appoint Stoltenberg as Secretary-General, securing the support first of the United States, then of the United Kingdom, and then of all other member states.[69][70] Norway was a founding member of NATO in 1949, and Stoltenberg is the first Norwegian to serve as Secretary-General, although former Conservative Party Prime Minister Kåre Willoch was considered a strong candidate in 1988.[71]
In September 2015, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babiš criticized NATO's lack of response to the European migrant crisis. After talks with Stoltenberg on migrant crisis issue Babiš said: "NATO is not interested in refugees, though Turkey, a NATO member, is their entrance gate to Europe and smugglers operate on Turkish territory".[72]
In January 2018, in response to the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds from the enclave of Afrin, Stoltenberg said that Turkey is "the NATO Ally which has suffered most from terrorist attacks over many years and Turkey, as all of the countries, have the right to self defence, but it is important that this is done in a proportionate and measured way."[73]
Stoltenberg welcomed the 2018 Russia–United States summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland.[74]
In popular culture [ edit ]
Incognito taxi driver in Norway [ edit ]
In August 2013, Stoltenberg said on his Facebook page that he had spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo.[75] Stoltenberg said he had wanted to "hear from real Norwegian voters" and that "taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views." He added that, before driving the taxi, he had not driven a car in eight years.[75] The event was videotaped in a hidden camera fashion, and released as a promotional video by the Labour party for the election campaign.[76] It was later confirmed that 5 of the 14 customers were paid and recruited by the production company that produced the event for the Labour party.[77][78] None, however, knew they would meet Stoltenberg.[79][80]
Controversies [ edit ]"As soon as these new guys start to see a bit of money they buy a flash car, Louis Vuitton man bag and get a place in Docklands or Port Melbourne," a source said. "They're young, violent, just don't give a shit and post all about it on Facebook." The Sunday Age understands that a drug dealer suspected of committing at least two murders and a string of drug-related standovers moved into a Docklands high-rise amid fears his activities were making him a target for revenge.
Sources say booming profits from the ice and meth trade are funding moves into the area for a new generation of criminals, and the trend is accelerating amid fears about the growing drug-related violence in the northern and western suburbs.
Rocco Arico was arrested in 2015 and convicted of drug trafficking, extortion and weapons offences in 2016 and 2017. Credit:Pat Scala
Docklands is already home to a number of notorious residents including ex-bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell and alleged gangland boss Rocco Arico.
Arico has been charged following an investigation by the Purana anti-gangland taskforce into allegations of extortion and blackmail following a drug deal that went bad. A raid of his Docklands apartment allegedly uncovered a gun, ammunition, drugs and stack of cash.
Mitchell, who has been living in Docklands for nearly three years, was arrested and charged with drug trafficking in September after police stopped his car and a search allegedly uncovered a commercial quantity of ice.
A number of businesses in the precinct have also been linked to known and suspected criminals, including a major western suburbs drug trafficker, members of the Calabrian mafia, and an accused money launderer and loan shark.
Convicted drug trafficker Fadi Haddara is often sighted in the Docklands area and has been photographed on a yacht in the harbour.
A proliferation of short-stay hotels and other fly-by-night accommodation providers is also offering opportunities for illegal sex workers and drug dealers to ply their trades.
Residents have been fighting a legal and planning battle to block apartment owners from temporarily letting out their premises via sites like AirBnB, which they claim have become a magnet for poorly behaved holidaymakers.
But the Docklands Community Association has also told residents Victoria Police are concerned about drug trafficking out of residential buildings in the area. "Police stated that short-stay apartments were main places to watch," the DCA warned.
Law enforcement sources say illegal sex workers have also been using short-stay apartments in the Docklands and CBD to service clients they meet via advertisements on sites like Gumtree.
The latest figures from the Crime Statistics Agency show Docklands has experienced a massive jump in crime, up 58 per cent in the past financial year and nearly double what it was five years ago.
A Victoria police spokeswoman said the crime data should be considered in the context of the large population increase seen in the precinct in the past few years but that drugs remain "ongoing challenge" for police in the Docklands and CBD.
"Police regularly meet with local residents and sit on local community groups, where issues of concern can be discussed," she said.
The precinct has also become a magnet for slum housing operators who target vulnerable tenants such as foreign students and illegal workers, charging them each more than $100 a week to live in a two-bedroom apartment crammed with up to 10 others.
Feeding into the problem is a soaring residential vacancy rate caused by expensive buy-in prices, high rents and a perception the precinct is poorly designed and serviced.
It is estimated nearly a quarter of all apartments and units in Docklands are unoccupied. The vacancy rate could be as high as 33 per cent for investment properties, putting enormous pressure on landlords to get tenants.
University of Melbourne urban geographer Dr Kate Shaw said the high rate of unoccupied units is a direct result of the type of housing being built there. "The building product is explicitly targeted to the investor market," she said.
Ex-bikie enforcer Toby Mitchell. Credit:Wayne Taylor
Dr Shaw said the decision to "let the market" determine the shape of the Docklands was now having "unintended consequences".Clarification
Rev. John Hagee's speech was inaccurately quoted.
The Azrieli Towers in Tel Aviv. Tomer Appelbaum
Hagee - known as a great supporter of Israel - referred in his speech to the holocaust as one of the factors that contributed to the establishment of the state of Israel. According to Hagee, his reference was theological and historical interpretation of the holocaust and it was not in any way meant to hurt Jewish feelings.
The Azrieli Group is deeply committed to improving and advancing the community, and social responsibility is an integral part of the company’s business program.” This is how one of the most powerful business groups in the Israeli economy − a shareholder in Bank Leumi and LeumiCard, which has 13 malls throughout the country and a controlling share in the Sonol, Tambour and Supergaz companies − introduces itself. Haaretz Magazine is revealing here for the first time that this “social responsibility” includes a substantial donation to the right-wing Im Tirtzu movement.
Naturally, companies that raise donations for organizations tend to advertise this, and the Azrieli Foundation, which functions as the philanthropic arm of the Azrieli Group, reports on its website about its various activities.
What you won’t find on either the foundation’s or company’s websites is that in 2010 the Azrieli Group apparently donated NIS 30,000 to Im Tirtzu. But following publication of this article in the Hebrew edition of Haaretz Magazine last week, the Azrieli Group Facebook page was updated to include the following comment: “The Azrieli Group, through the Azrieli Foundation, has donated more than NIS 40 million to projects for the advancement of society in Israel. Two years ago NIS 30,000 was donated by Kanit Azrieli [the privately owned company that owns the Azrieli malls] to a project to stop the academic boycott of Israel. This project was spearheaded by Im Tirtzu at the time, and other companies joined the effort. We would like to emphasize that we are not tainted by any political considerations, and have Israel’s best interests at heart.”
Haaretz Magazine has also found that Leo Schachter, Israel’s second-largest exporter of processed diamonds, donated NIS 74,000 to Im Tirtzu last year. That same year, the company, which is headed by Elliot Tannenbaum, who immigrated from the United States in the early 1980s, exported $359 million worth of diamonds. Sources in the company say that Tannenbaum decides with his wife Debbie on the donations made by the company. Tannenbaum’s office said in his name that they are not interested in commenting on the matter.
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Im Tirtzu, registered in January 2007 as a nonprofit organization by Ronen Shoval, calls itself on its website “an extra-parliamentary movement that works to strengthen and advance the values of Zionism in Israel.” Its objectives, adds the site, “focus on working toward a renewal of the Zionist discourse, Zionist thinking and Zionist ideology, to ensure the future of the Jewish nation and of the State of Israel and to advance Israeli society in coping with the challenges it faces.”
But in the past two years, hardly a week has gone by without the organization appearing in the headlines − often in controversial contexts.
Earlier this month, for example, Bank Leumi cancelled its “Two Million Reasons” project, through which it planned to distribute NIS 2 million to welfare organizations, following the uproar that arose when it became known that Im Tirtzu also wanted to participate in the project. In this context, it should also be noted that Im Tirtzu keeps its accounts at Bank Leumi, as evidenced by the association’s 2008 budget report.
It appears that the media fuss surrounding Im Tirtzu’s activity is only helping it. This can be seen in the scope of the organization’s activity, which has been steadily growing since its inception. In 2007 it reported to the registrar of nonprofit organizations on donations totaling NIS 260,000 (including NIS 97,000 designated for the “Winograd Campaign,” which called for the Winograd commission to issue personal findings about the conduct of then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert). That same year, the organization reported hasbara (public relations-related) activity totally NIS 80,000.
According to Im Tirtzu’s most recent financial report, in 2010 it spent NIS 1.14 million on hasbara and advertising (more than 10 times what it spent in 2009). The report also reveals that last year it received donations totaling NIS 1.66 million, almost four times as much as in 2009, when they amounted to NIS 456,000. In 2010 the organization spent NIS 68,000 on “events and activities,” and under the heading “salaries and related expenses” reported spending approximately NIS 250,000. Incidentally, the cost of fundraising efforts in 2010 was close to NIS 70,000 (nearly nine times the sum from the previous year).
Im Tirtzu also reports that it employs 12 people and that 4,200 people did volunteer work for it in 2010. At the top of the salary list are the head of the missions department, Aharon Noam; spokesperson Erez Tadmor; and head of the activists’ department, Amit Barak. Each earns about NIS 77,000 a year, gross.
An interesting comment by the organization’s oversight committee was made regarding a relatively negligible outlay of NIS 33,000 for legal expenses in 2010: “It is important to note that the organization’s legal expenses (as a plaintiff) are purely hasbara activity and so we view this as a legitimate and appropriate expense,” the committee reported to the NPO registrar.
Aside from the Azrieli Group and Leo Schachter Diamonds, the group mentions three other bodies from which it received donations in 2010 exceeding NIS 20,000, the maximum amount for a donation whose source needn’t be listed.
Keren Segal Leyisrael − a fund whose declared objective is “to establish, develop and manage educational and cultural projects about Israel’s heritage and the Jewish community in Jerusalem and Israel,” and which is headed by Jerusalem businessman Yotam Bar-Hama − donated NIS 77,000 to Im Tirtzu last year. In 2008, it donated NIS 190,000 to Im Tirtzu. Bar-Hama declined to explain the motives behind the donation, and said only that the fund’s money comes from his family abroad.
Another organization called The Forum for Religious Zionism donated NIS 74,000 to the movement last year. This is a new organization that was registered in 2010 in the name of Zvi Soibel, former director of the Bnei Akiva yeshiva in Kfar Haroeh. Asked why the forum decided to donate to Im Tirtzu, he said: “Our organization works to achieve its objectives that were properly set, and it means to keep on doing so in the future. Among other things, the organization organizes, directly and through other organizations, cultural events related to the State of Israel.”
Since its founding, Im Tirtzu has also been supported by the Central Israel Fund, a U.S.-based NPO. The fund, which according to its latest U.S. income tax return, raised nearly $10.5 million in 2010, says that it aids the needy and supports various educational and community projects. Central Israel, which transferred NIS 95,000 to Im Tirtzu last year, raises money for strongly right-wing organizations like Women in Green, and the Hananu organization, which provides legal aid to rightists and in the past even gave money to Yigal Amir.
Some of the contributors to Im Tirtzu have been revealed in the past. In 2008, the organization received a donation of NIS 374,000 from the American organization Christians United for Israel, and in 2009 it received the same sum from them. This organization is headed by Father John Hagee, who once said that “God sent Hitler as a hunter to force the Jews to move to Israel in anticipation of Judgment Day.” This money, by the way, was not transferred directly to Im Tirtzu, but rather via the Jewish Agency.
Two weeks ago, Shahar Ginossar reported in Yedioth Ahronoth that in 2008 a man by the name of Adam Horowitz donated NIS 75,000 to Im Tirtzu. according to the report, in Isarel there are three people by this name. Two have denied any connection to the donation and the third, a Likud activist close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said, “It must be another Horowitz.”Watch_Dogs, Killzone Shadow Fall, inFAMOUS Second Son, Thief, more
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the money one way or another," he said. People are often too impatient to wait until Apple has approval from Chinese authorities for products to be used on Chinese networks, as well as wanting the lower prices. And Apple has been relatively slow to roll out genuine stores on the mainland.
At the same time, the enforcement of rights tends to be spasmodic. "The intellectual property [situation] is improving, but not as fast as many people would like," said Duncan Clark of the BDA China business consultancy, and formerly chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in China. "There are periodic crackdowns, but there's still a long way to go."
Clark suggested that changing demand might be having more of an impact than curbs on the supply of fakes. "When it comes to very desirable products, Chinese consumers absolutely know the difference and will pay above the odds to get the real thing," he said.
The surge in fake Apple stores in large part reflects demand for the genuine products. Custer described the iPhone as "a perfect status symbol that's still in the price range of a lot of people"; unlike, say, a Mercedes. White-collar buyers want the real deal.
But for the others, there are plenty of products – and not just phones and gadgets – that appear to be inspired by Apple. At the Guangzhou Sex Culture Festival this month, there were "iPed" sex toys and, this spring, "iPhone 5" ice creams – complete with a trademark symbol – appeared in convenience stores.
Even so, the blogger who first found the Kunming store pointed out that Applemania was not a uniquely Chinese phenomenon. Internet users mailed her images of fake stores from around the world, including one in New York.
"It is more of a global issue, but it doesn't create as nice a story as China ripping off Apple stores," she told the Wall Street Journal.
"[Mitt Romney] uses it as a shorthand to generate outrage about trade practices in China and as a shorthand that he will be quote-unquote 'tough on China'. It's a somewhat meaningless shorthand. I'm not entirely sure he knows what he's referring to at this point."Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT
In a joint press release issued by the foreign ministers of China and Mongolia on December 4, the Chinese government expressed its willingness to give positive consideration to Mongolia's desire to expand its exports of mineral and energy products as well as increasing its beef and mutton exports.
While we are quite familiar with Mongolia's mineral and energy products, not so much attention has been paid to the country's meat exports. In fact, Mongolia in recent years has started to export meat products in order to build up foreign exchange earnings. According to Mongolian media reports, the country has already exported large amounts of meat products to countries including China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Iran, Vietnam and Qatar, with the annual export volume expanding five times compared to the level in 2013. From the perspective of Mongolia's foreign trade in 2017, the Mongolian government obviously intends to promote its economic growth by means of expanding exports of meat products. Such a development trend deserves our attention.
During the 16th session of the Vietnam-Mongolia Inter-Governmental Committee for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, held in August in Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia, both countries reached an agreement on meat exports. Mongolia will export 200 tons of goat meat to Vietnam between 2017 and 2018. The two governments believe that the signing of export agreements on livestock products will be a great boost to the goal of achieving bilateral trade of $70 million by 2020.
Also in August, when a Saudi Arabian government delegation visited Mongolia, both parties conducted extensive discussions on the establishment of a joint-venture meat processing plant and a relevant working team.
In November, during a political consultation meeting between Mongolia and Paraguay, Mongolia showed great interest in Paraguay's experience in beef exports and expressed a desire to strengthen bilateral exchanges and cooperation in relevant fields.
In my opinion, there are several reasons behind Mongolia's growing focus on meat product exports and cooperation in its foreign trade. First, Mongolia's meat production is significant. At present, the country's livestock industry can not only fully meet the domestic demand for meat products, but also has the potential for exports. Statistics show that Mongolia's total livestock herd reached 55.97 million at the end of 2015, and the figure reached 61 million at the end of 2016. The country's current consumption of meat is roughly 11 million livestock per year, with 6 to 9 million livestock available for meat exports.
Second, the government has the need for diversified economic development. For a long time, Mongolia's mineral exports accounted for about 80 percent of its total export value. In comparison, its exports of animal and livestock products was so low that the value was nearly negligible. Mongolia's foreign trade has been heavily dependent on its mining industry, leading to imbalanced development of its industrial structure. Its economic development also appears unstable, and is vulnerable to fluctuations in global market demand for minerals and prices. Thus, in order to promote more diversified economic development, the Mongolian government has started to tap into the potential of meat exports.
Mongolia will continue to vigorously promote its meat exports in the future, but it should be noted that the country's actual meat export volume has always failed to meet the target, with its 2015 exports only reaching 3.8 percent of the planned export volume.
Due to some bottleneck factors, Mongolia still faces many uncertainties in exporting meat products. First, the quality and safety of its meat products is not guaranteed, which directly affects its export prospects given the relatively low level of prevention and control of livestock diseases in the country. Second, its raw meat processing capacity is limited. Official data shows that there are more than 40 meat processing factories in Mongolia, but only 10 have strong productivity and most of them do not operate year-round. Finally, the structure of its livestock also constrains exports. At present, horse meat is what the international market demands the most from Mongolia, and Russia and China also mainly import beef and horse meat from Mongolia. But sheep and goats account for nearly 90 percent of the country's livestock herd, with horses and cattle accounting for only 10 percent.
Mongolia's intention to enhance exports of its meat products and its lack of relevant capacity provides a large amount of potential for cooperation with China. The two countries can expand their trade in meat products by establishing joint-venture meat processing plants or increasing or expanding cold-chain logistics zones for meat trade and processing in their border areas. Also, both parties can strengthen cooperation on prevention and control of livestock diseases and the development of relevant vaccines. In addition, China should attach great importance to technical aid for Mongolia in the prevention and control of foot-and-mouth disease and other livestock diseases, which would provide a great boost to bilateral ties.
The author is a junior research fellow with the Russia and Mongolia Research Institute at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences. [email protected] a dozen years ago, I traveled across the country crashing bar and bat mitzvahs, from Arkansas to Alaska. I sneaked into one swank New York City bar mitzvah party by posing as a security guard. I stealthily trailed a deluxe coach in my station wagon to figure out where the 13-year-olds were going for the after-party. I got mistaken for one of the hired dancers. I ate a lot of free finger food. It was all research for my book Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America. In the end, despite all the pop-culture ridicule that the bar and bat mitzvah come in for, the TV and movie depictions of bitchy, prematurely mature adolescents at lavish parties (e.g. in Sex and the City, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, and many more), I argued that bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies—despite not being in the Torah, not being required, and being widely derided—are valuable coming-of-age ceremonies, and there’s a good reason that Jews who do almost nothing else Jewish nonetheless think that maybe their children should do this crazy thing.
The book is long out of print, probably because I didn’t have the vision to title it The Bar Mitzvah Crasher; the immensely popular movie The Wedding Crashers came out the same year my book did, and if I had piggybacked on the title, and set myself up as the Owen Wilson character, I’d probably still be counting my royalties. (If my book ever comes back into print, we know what we’ll retitle it.) Nevertheless, I still get emails from people who have happened on the book one way or another. And the question they most often have is, “How can we make our kid’s bar [or bat] mitzvah something special? How can we do it right?” How, in other words, can they avoid becoming a cliché, a party in search of a purpose?
I wrote Thirteen and a Day the year that I turned 31, a year before I even had any children, so I was understandably reluctant to offer any prescriptions. But now, years later, as my first daughter approaches bat mitzvah age, I have finally screwed up the courage to offer some wisdom. I still haven’t seen as many bar and bat mitzvahs as the average middle-schooler from a Jewish town on Long Island, but I’ve seen plenty, and talked to the rabbis and caterers, the hired “party motivators,” the florists, the Torah tutors. I’ve earned the T-shirt. I now give it to you. Ready? Here is my wisdom, in a nutshell:
The bar or bat mitzvah ceremony represents the child’s joining the community of Jewish adults.
From that definition, we can infer three big rules, drawing on three key words—ceremony, community, adults. We’ll take those one at a time.
First, it is a ceremony, but one that changes all the time. In the early text Genesis Rabbah, from the first millennium C.E., the bar mitzvah is simply the moment when the father recites the shepatarani prayer, which says, in effect, “Thanks, God, for making my son old enough that if he screws up, it’s on him, not me”—which, if you think about it, is still a workable definition of adulthood, when you are responsible for your own sins. Ages of first marriage or first driver’s license change with time and place, but moral responsibility really does come around early adolescence. Anyway, the ceremony has grown and changed since then, achieving something like its current form beginning in the Middle Ages. But the important thing is that it has evolved, which means that it is not fixed; no one form is commanded or required.
The bar and bat mitzvah ceremony has come to mean reading from a Torah scroll or leading part of the Shabbat service, although it didn’t have to evolve that way (more on that in a moment). But it’s so much more. It can involve a speech by the boy or girl. It can involve a testimony about the boy or girl from the rabbi. Usually, the parents say some words. The grandparents are acknowledged. At one temple near me, the rabbi always speaks about the Torah scroll itself, which in this case was rescued from Europe after the Holocaust. The multifaceted nature of the ceremony, with parts added over time, indicates that it could permit even more innovation—including the abolition, in some cases, of the requirement that the child chant Torah. The bat mitzvah was a 20th-century innovation, and, at first, it did not include reading Torah (and in more Orthodox circles, sometimes still doesn’t—if girls have bat mitzvah ceremonies at all). Throughout Jewish history, chanting Torah has been a specialized skill that only a minority of Jewish men, and a tinier minority of women, have had. There is no reason that we should keep torturing nonmusical children—or shy children, or those with stage-fright—by requiring them to perform a very specific skill that many will never do again.
We need more and different kinds of ceremonies, honoring the special gifts of each child. The child can perform tasks other than chanting Torah—indeed, the nearly ubiquitous inclusion of a speech is a step in that direction. But the ceremony could also be broadened to better include other people. Could multiple members of the congregation stand up to speak about the boy or girl? Should elementary school teachers, some of them gentiles, come to talk to about ways the bar or bat mitzvah has been a leader in school? What about the peer group, the friends—could they have some role other than putting on their best suits and dresses and partying afterward? Becoming a man or a woman is indeed a milestone, and it should be celebrated, ceremoniously. But that could, and should, mean many different things.
Second, the bar or bat mitzvah ceremony welcomes a Jew into a community. So it should not be a private ceremony. I don’t recommend a trip to Israel with some siblings and Bubbe and Zayde. As much as I like off-script, do-it-yourself religious creativity, being a Jewish adult means joining a Jewish community. It means being welcomed by an intergenerational community of elderly people, empty-nesters, young parents, and babies. And, ideally, it means having the poise and training to greet all those kinds of Jews, of different ages, with a smile and an appropriate greeting. It’s a moment when you are expected to deal with Jews outside your narrow age cohort, some of whom you may not know well. Because the Jewish family is diverse and multifarious, and we belong to all of them, and they to us.
So I recommend that if a bar or bat mitzvah ceremony is important to a family, they join a community. Maybe it’s a temple or synagogue, maybe it’s an independent havurah, maybe it’s a group of other Jews struggling to find the right community. Maybe it’s an online community (as a last resort—Shabbat dinners are harder that way, as are hugs). Whatever it is, they won’t all be your kind of people. You won’t love every one of them. Some of them won’t share your politics or your beliefs. Some of them will seem snooty, others tacky. Some will seem too observant, others too casual about observance. But some of them will be loving and bring unexpected riches to your life. Judaism is a communal religion; we don’t do monasticism or hermeticism, and we can only pray fully in a group of 10. A central goal of the adult Jewish life should be spending some time with other Jews, and that bar or bat mitzvah can be a good time to start.
Jewish events are public events, by the way. Brises, for example, aren’t supposed to be by invitation; like shivas, sitting for the dead, they are announced to the community, and anyone can drop by. No reason a bar mitzvah can’t be an occasion to invite lots of people you don’t know, or barely know. They’ll feel honored, and you might make new friends.
And if, for whatever reason, there aren’t other Jews around, then have your ceremony around all your gentile friends (who can be invited even if there are plenty of other Jews). Take the occasion to explain to them, and show them, what your very different tradition is.
Finally, the bar or bat mitzvah is a ceremony welcoming a Jewish child to the community of Jewish adults. So it raises the question of what makes one an adult. Above, I noted that it’s the onset of moral responsibility. OK—so what else? Well, in most Jewish communities today, the adulthood is performed at the bar or bat mitzvah by leyning Torah, a skill the boy or girl may never again use. And, generally, the bar or bat mitzvah functions as a temporary graduation from Judaism, the Jew not to be seen again until his or her wedding (maybe). But what if we treated the bar or bat mitzvah as the onset of new adult responsibilities?
I believe that rabbis should talk with boys and girls approaching their bar or bat mitzvahs and say something like this: “Our community has a range of needs from its adults. We need people to chant Torah, yes. But we also need people to visit our sick elderly people in hospice. We need people to babysit during certain events when parents are busy. We need people to rake leaves and shovel snow. We need people to chop vegetables for the kiddush lunches. We need people to show up to help make a minyan. We need people to stuff envelopes for the monthly mailing. We need people to do tikkun olam for the wider, and non-Jewish, community. So: which of these gifts are you going to give us after you become a bar or bat mitzvah?”
In other words, flip the “bar mitzvah project.” Make it not a yearlong final exam leading up to the day you graduate from Judaism, but rather a commitment that you will undertake as a newly minted adult. Such an approach makes sense theologically. It gives a rabbi better grounds to talk about what Jewish adulthood really means—what we owe each other. And it honors the unique gifts of every child, including special-needs children, children with stage fright, tone-deaf children, and those who love being Jewish but aren’t moved by Jewish liturgy. This would, of course, be an expectation, not a contract; plenty of b’nai and b’not mitzvah would fail to uphold their commitments. But that’s OK. Plenty of much older adults fail, in all sorts of ways, all the time. Jews are human, after all. The point is to think of Jewish adulthood in a fuller way, a more realistic way. A better way.
What do these three rules mean in practice? They mean that, first, a bar mitzvah should have a ceremonial component: a date; an invitation; the child doing something, whether chanting Torah, or giving a talk, or leading a discussion of a Jewish text, or leading a song circle, or going off-site to clean up a park and then concluding with a discussion of Jewish environmental values—somehow demonstrating the gifts she or he plans to give to the Jewish community henceforth; then a celebration, one that is comfortable for, and unique to, the child. Second, the ceremony (and celebration) should go beyond the child’s immediate circle, to suggest an evolving and expanding commitment to Jews, and to humanity. Third, the new adult should be able to speak concretely and meaningfully about what she or he plans to do differently, particularly in a Jewish context, now that adulthood has arrived.
Come to think of it, that’s good advice for all of us. One thing I learned writing my book is that bar and bat mitzvah really are family occasions when everyone from the child to the parents to estranged Great Aunt Estelle has a reckoning with what it means to be Jewish and to be human. Giving us all that opportunity is the central work of the bar and bat mitzvah—not just the ceremonies, but the new adults themselves.
***
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Mark Oppenheimer is Tablet’s editor at large. He hosts the podcast Unorthodox.MohenjoDaro may not be the same after the Sindh Festival gets done with it!
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They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Sometimes, those words carry a sense of agony and irony. Such was the case when I came across a picture depicting the historic mound of MohenjoDaro, surrounded by wooden scaffolding and construction crews.
My first reaction was to do a double take.
I thought I surely had been mistaken for why would anyone allow such an archaeological wonder to go under the proverbial knife and in such a daring fashion?
Upon reading the associated article, I was informed that preparations were afoot to hold the opening ceremony of the Sindh Festival at this heritage site. The festival is a Bilawal Bhutto led initiative which seeks to highlight the social and cultural heritage of the province. In this case, however, the event directly poses a serious threat to the stability of one of the world’s most valuable archaeological treasures.
MohenjoDaro, or Mound of the Dead, is considered ground zero when it comes to the study of Indus Valley Civilisation. Situated approximately 400km north of Karachi, the site was discovered by accident when archaeologist R D Banerji initiated a dig in 1922 to explore the visible Buddhist stupa and monastery in the area. What happened next stunned the world as the expedition revealed one of the world’s first modern cities. It contained dug wells for accessing clean drinking water, unheard of in civilisations dating back over 4000 years.
The wastewater systems, that a significant portion of South Asia lacks today, comprised effluent drains built with brick masonry that ran along unpaved streets. Sir John Marshall, the then Director General of the Archaeological Department of India, remarked in a book that,
“Never for a moment was it imagined that five thousand years ago, even before the Aryans were heard of, the Panjab (sic) and Sind, if not other parts of India, were enjoying an advanced and singularly uniform civilisation of their own, closely akin but in some respects even superior to that of contemporary Mesopotamia and Egypt.”
Nearly a century later, we are still not even half way through exploring the wonders of MohenjoDaro. The archaeologists have taken care not to rush into further exploration since the structures are vulnerable to even the changes in moisture present in the air, among other factors.
Efforts to stabilise the brick structures have run into problems.
Dr Asma Ibrahim, a leading Pakistani archaeologist, ensures that the way things are going, this heritage site will completely disappear in 20 years due to decay.
It is in this context that I find hosting the event on the grounds of MohenjoDaro baffling. Any changes, however minor, to the façade of the site are magnified many times over in the context of its archaeological importance. There is no doubt that installation of light fixtures, scaffolding for a staging area and influx of large number of people will do irreparable damage to the site.
Pakistan has passed a number of legislations protecting such archaeological treasures, not the least of which is the Antiquities Act of 1975. The environmental legislation also calls for a detailed impact assessment whenever such activities are undertaken at protected heritage sites. There is no reason to believe that any such assessment was undertaken by the organisers. Indeed, the authorities, themselves, seem to be the enablers in this instance.
Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, MohenjoDaro is one of the six sites in Pakistan that fall under UNESCO’s World Heritage List and are considered to be of ‘outstanding universal value’.
While the sentiments of the Sindh Festival’s organisers are applauded for trying to bring the world’s attention to our history, it reflects poorly on their judgment and that of the authorities to allow such an event to proceed at this fragile heritage site.
There are a number of other ways that can be used to celebrate the value of our heritage.
Mr Bhutto could have initiated a plan to highlight such heritage through changes in the curriculum. He could have used some of the funds received for this event to develop a television documentary on our collective heritage.
In holding this event at MohenjoDaro, in disregard of relevant laws, Mr Bhutto would find that it would cease to be a cultural event and would be seen as a political stunt.
Pakistan is home to many historic and environmental treasures. We just choose to ignore them at our own peril.BEIJING: The Chinese and US navies are set to hold high-level talks over tension in the South China Sea after a US warship challenged China's territorial assertions in the disputed waters this week.
US chief of naval operations Admiral John Richardson and his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Wu Shengli, would hold an hour long video teleconference on Thursday, a US official said.
A spokesman for China's Ministry of Defence said Wu would present China's "solemn position on the US vessel's entry without permission" into waters in the Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea.
Read: US warship sails close to islands being built by China
Both officers initiated the meeting to discuss recent operations in the South China Sea as well as naval ties, the US official said. It will be the third such video teleconference between the countries' naval chiefs.
Beijing rebuked Washington for sending a guided-missile destroyer within 12 nautical miles of one of China's man-made islands in the Spratly archipelago on Tuesday, saying it had tracked and warned the USS Lassen and called in the US ambassador to protest.
"We would urge the US side not to continue down the wrong path," Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told a regular briefing. "But if they do, we will take all necessary measures in accordance with the need."
Chinese President Xi Jinping will next week visit Vietnam, another vocal claimant in the South China Sea, and Singapore, while Chinese Defence Minister Chang Wanquan will attend a meeting of Southeast Asian defence ministers in Malaysia.
The patrol was the most significant US challenge yet to territorial limits China claims around its artificial islands in one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
"Neither the US nor China desires a military conflict, but the key problem is that the core interests of both sides collide in the South China Sea," said Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.
"It's hard to see either side backing down." Separately, the English-language China Daily newspaper reported that Admiral Harry Harris, commander of US forces in the Pacific, would visit Beijing next week. It cited an unnamed source and gave no further details.
Ministry spokesman Yang said the plan was for Harris to visit before the end of the year, and that both sides remained "in communication" about it. He did not elaborate.
A US embassy spokesman declined to comment.
Harris has been highly critical of China's island building in the Spratlys. This year he said China was using dredges and bulldozers to create a "great wall of sand" in the South China Sea.
China rotates a large number of naval and coastguard vessels through the South China Sea, both for patrols and training missions, security experts say.
Chinese state media said on Thursday a "guided-missile destroyer flotilla" under the navy's South China Sea Fleet carried out a "realistic confrontation training exercise" involving anti-aircraft firing and firing at shore at night.
A state-owned news website carried photos from the drills, saying they took place recently in the South China Sea. One picture showed three warships sailing in a row.
Military exercises
Despite criticism of China's action in the South China Sea, foreign navies from the United States to Europe have sought to build ties with their Chinese counterparts.
A French frigate docked at China's main South China Sea base of Zhanjiang in the southern province of Guangdong on Wednesday on a four-day visit. It will participate in a maritime exercise about accidental encounters at sea.
Two Australian warships will also hold exercises with the Chinese navy in the South China Sea next week, Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne said on Thursday.
Examine: Australia to join Chinese navy exercises in South China Sea
"There have been no changes or delays to the schedule of the HMAS Arunta and HMAS Stuart since the United States activity in the South China Sea on 27 October 2015," Payne said in a statement that gave no details on the precise location for the exercise.
Australian media said it would include live-fire drills.
Australia, a key US ally in the region, expressed its strong support for freedom of navigation this week, while stopping short of welcoming the USS Lassen's patrol.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.
Also read: China says naval ties with United States 'best in history'The city of Los Angeles is being sued over allegations that it misused federal dollars that were to go toward ensuring that the disabled have fair and equal access to public housing.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday that it is intervening in a whistleblower lawsuit that alleges the city of Los Angeles received millions of dollars in federal housing funds without providing the required units for the disabled.
"Recipients of federal housing funds must honor their commitments to accommodate people with disabilities," said acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Justice Department's Civil Division. "Denying people with disabilities equal access to public housing deprives one of the most disadvantaged groups in society of fair housing opportunities."
The suit alleges that as recipients of millions of dollars in funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the city and the CRA/LA – formerly the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles – did not comply with accessibility laws meant to ensure the disabled have fair and equal access to public housing.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Mei Ling, a Los Angeles resident who uses a wheelchair, and the Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley, a nonprofit civil rights advocacy group.
In a news conference at the downtown U.S. Courthouse, Ling said she was homeless for three years and moved into a shelter. Part of the requirement in living in the shelter was that she had to search for housing, but she said she could not find affordable housing in the city that met her accessibility requirements.
"The accessibly features that are necessary for me, it just wasn't there," Ling said.
Sharon Kinlaw, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley, said as a result of the lack of accessible units in the city, she has clients who must use wood planks as ramps, carry their children in wheelchairs up flights of stairs, haven't been able to bathe in years or were stuck in their apartments for weeks or months at a time after the elevator went out.
"What needs to happen is that the units need to be retrofitted so that the people can finally get an opportunity to move into housing so that they don't just have to make do, so they don't have to have plywood for a ramp, and that they can actually use the housing," Kinlaw said.
The lawsuit comes after Los Angeles agreed last August to settle a different suit brought by several advocacy groups by spending at least $200 million over 10 years to provide 4,000 affordable apartments for people with disabilities. The Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley was also one of the plaintiffs in that suit.
Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said the newest suit is "a historical case and deals with action that has taken place in the past,"while the settlement that was announced last year "is proactive and looks toward the future."
Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for City Attorney Mike Feuer, said the city will fight the lawsuit. He said the city of Los Angeles "has demonstrated its commitment to create affordable housing that is accessible to all."
"In a settlement based on the same underlying facts, the city dedicated at least $200 million over the next 10 years to create accessible, affordable housing," Wilcox said. "Yet, the administration's lawsuit seeks to divert tens of millions more from L.A. taxpayers to the federal treasury — without housing a single person. This abuse of power cannot stand."
Among other things, the laws require that 5 percent of all units in certain multifamily housing units be accessible to people with mobility impairments, and an additional 2 percent be accessible to people with visual and auditory impairments.
The city of Los Angeles and the CRA/LA are also required to maintain a publicly available list of accessible units and their accessibility features, and have a monitoring program in place to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against when seeking the housing.
The city did not meet those requirements, the suit alleges.
"This case alleges that the city of Los Angeles repeatedly violated the law by falsely certifying that millions of federal dollars were being used to build housing that included units accessible to people with disabilities," said acting United States Attorney Sandra R. Brown.
"While people with disabilities struggled to find accessible housing, the city and its agents denied them equal access to housing while falsely certifying the availability of such housing to keep the dollars flowing," she alleged. "The conduct alleged in this case is very troubling because of the impact on people who did not have access to housing that met their needs."
Mrozek said the U.S. Attorney's Office had not yet decided on the monetary amount it will seek.
HUD Inspector General David A. Montoya said the case "demonstrates the important role whistleblowers play in the process of uncovering waste, fraud and abuse. It further displays our commitment to fully pursue allegations that are brought to our attention."An anti-vaccine protestor shouts slogans outside the Italian lower chamber in Rome, Friday, July 28, 2017. Italy's parliament on Friday gave final approval to making a slate of childhood vaccinations mandatory for school children up to age 16 — a move aimed at countering an anti-vaccine trend that officials have attributed to misinformation. (Giuseppe Lami/ANSA via AP)
MILAN (AP) — Italy’s parliament on Friday gave final approval to making a slate of childhood vaccinations mandatory for school children up to age 16, a move aimed at countering an anti-vaccine trend that officials have attributed to misinformation.
The packet approved Friday was hotly contested in Italy, where the number of children being vaccinated has sunk since mandatory inoculations were dropped for school admissions nearly 20 years ago.
Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin hailed the 296-92 vote with 15 abstentions as providing “a shield for our children against very serious diseases that are still among us.”
But the sharp tones of the debate before the vote didn’t dissipate. Noisy protesters gathered outside parliament with signs: “Don’t touch our children,” and shouted at lawmakers as they passed by. A top health official in Liguria, Sonia Viale, was quoted as saying the measure marked “a return to fascism,” drawing rebukes.
During the vaccine debate, Italian health officials confronted a measles outbreak that drew a U.S. travel warning and a scandal in northern Italy that involved a nurse who claimed for years to have vaccinated children but had not.
Earlier this week, Italy’s highest court issued a ruling that found no connection between childhood vaccines and autism, as alleged by a parent seeking legal relief. The correlation has been widely dismissed by the scientific community.
Not only in Italy, but around Europe and the United States, parental fears about vaccines’ safety have caused tens of thousands of parents to avoid vaccinating their children. World Health Organization says measles killed 35 children across Europe in the last year, calling it “an unacceptable tragedy” and noting the disease is preventable with a vaccine.
Under Italy’s new requirements, parents must present proof of vaccinations to gain admission into preschools, while parents of children of mandatory school age face fines of up to 500 euros ($588) for noncompliance. The requirements cover 10 vaccinations, including diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox.
Officials dropped two diseases from the initial list of 12, meningococcal B and meningococcal C.It certainly took a while, but the Arts District now has its very own city park. The half-acre little parcel of public space is perhaps the final puzzle piece in the neighborhood’s impressive transformation from Downtown’s industrial core to a thriving live-work community and yuppie wonderland.
The small park’s creation wasn’t an easy process though. Located at the intersection of Hewitt and Fifth, it was first proposed back in 2011 when the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency was still active. Unfortunately, the project failed to receive state funding and when the CRA was dissolved the next year, its future was cast into doubt.
Since then, Councilmember José Huizar, who reps the area, managed to secure $2.1 million in funding for the park by tapping into developer-paid Quimby fees. Of course, the project hit another snare in 2015, when workers unearthed contaminated soil and some truly scandalous 19th century artifacts—including women’s stockings, roller skates, and gonorrhea medicine.
Those developments triggered a long delay, but construction resumed earlier this year and the park officially opened to the public Saturday. The pocket park includes a playground, mural wall (naturally), and a band shell for live performances.
"New green space has been sorely needed in the Arts District for so long," Huizar said at the park’s opening. "[A]nd for the community’s sake, I am pleased that this momentous day is finally here."
The park was designed by the City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering, Architectural Division (Rick Fisher, Chief Landscape Architect), with John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects.
According to a press release from Huizar’s office, prolific local street artist Man One will soon get to work on the park’s first mural.A server-side update has returned the fantasy-draft option to Madden NFL under its new Connected Careers mode, but only for online leagues. Still, anyone present in a league before it begins is able to participate in a draft of all of the NFL's active talent, remaking and rebalancing each of the NFL's 32 franchises.
Fantasy Draft was originally tossed out when EA Sports developed "Connected Careers," which unified the game's Franchise and Superstar modes into the same structure, allowing those who control single players to play games against entire teams controlled by human opponents. The prolonged outcry over the loss of Fantasy Draft evidently pushed EA Sports to reincorporate it, though for now it is only restored to Online Connected Careers. Those playing offline connected careers must evidently wait on a patch.
To access fantasy draft, start a new Connected Careers league as a coach, and wait for anyone else you want to play with to join. Then, when it comes time to select the "Start League" option from the "My Actions" menu in the preseason, the league's commissioner will be presented with the opportunity of beginning the season with the rosters already in place or starting a fantasy draft.
In a draft, every human player will have 45 seconds to make a selection, and can fill up to 54 slots on the team (meaning at least one draftee must be cut in pre-season). The draft may be simulated from any point once all participants are done selecting the positions that matter most to them. Player salaries will be normalized and valued on the basis of the round in which they were drafted, to put every franchise on an even playing field for salary cap purposes.
No word yet on when this feature will be restored to Offline Connected Careers. For those who are still curious about the means to edit player appearances in Connected Careers, EA Sports said the Madden development team is "currently exploring the potential option to include additional functionality in Madden NFL 13 in an upcoming title update."
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Fantasy Drafts Coming to Madden NFL 13 [EA Sports]Democrat Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton |
. The coup ended in pathetic failure on Monday, but by the time it had run its course which featured armed goons taking over the Chess House and talk of UFOs the Kremlin showed that it cannot stomach even a marginal threat to its influence, not even when it comes to comes to the politics of chess. (See more on Garry Kasparov.)
The trouble started in the spring, when two former world chess champions and rivals, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov, decided to join forces to run against the incumbent president of the game's international ruling body, which is known as FIDE. This irked the Russian government. Kasparov's political activism against Russian Prime Minister Putin in recent years has branded him an enemy of the state: He is banned from Russian politics, frequently arrested, and his projects tend to be harpooned by the Russian bureaucracy at every step. Aside from that, the Kremlin already has a loyal ally as FIDE president, and didn't much care to replace him.
For the past 15 years, FIDE has been ruled by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a Putin loyalist who governed the poor Russian republic of Kalmykia for 17 years before agreeing to step down last month. As a consolation prize, the Kremlin is widely thought to have promised him success in the FIDE elections. But Karpov and Kasparov (who served as Karpov's campaign manager and fundraiser) embarked on a globe-trotting campaign that made this promise difficult to keep. After visiting some 30 countries, the duo managed to recruit the support of chess federations in the United States, Canada and most of western Europe, appearing to split the world of chess along Cold War lines ahead of the FIDE vote last month. (Read: "The Master's Next Move.")
Their campaign focused on Ilyumzhinov's alleged mismanagement of chess's global circuit, but Ilyumzhinov's own erratic behavior probably helped their cause. Illyumzhinov likes to tell most journalists who travel to his remote kingdom that he was kidnapped by aliens in 1997. "Go ahead, write it! I want you to write it," Ilyumzhinov told TIME after explaining his belief that Jesus Christ was an alien, and that Earth is set to collide with the planet Nebiru, killing us all, if mankind does not cleanse its "aura" by playing more chess.
The Kremlin, for its part, remains indifferent to these theories. "Kirsan's personal views may sound strange sometimes," says Arkady Dvorkovich, the senior Kremlin official who supported Ilyumzhinov's campaign. "But as long as it does not affect negatively his professional activity, I'm fine with it."
On May 14, however, the members of the Russian Chess Federation, mostly old men with a fondness for tweed and Coke-bottle glasses, gave a rare show of resistance. In a vote that looked more like a revolutionary caucus, they chose Karpov as their official candidate to lead FIDE, and then broke into wild applause. That's when things turned ugly. Dvorkovich, an avid chess player who also serves as chairman of the supervisory board of the Russian Chess Federation, declared their vote invalid, saying that Ilyumzhinov was in fact Russia's official nominee, not Karpov. (See pictures of chess prodigy Bobby Fischer.)
Less than a week later, a group of armed men in black suits came to seize the Central House of Chess, where the vote for Karpov had been held. Carrying an order signed by Dvorkovich, they escorted the head of the Russian Chess Federation, Alexander Bakh, out of his office, sealed it, and placed guards at the door. Asked why he had done this, Dvorkovich tells TIME that an audit had found "serious financial misdoings" at the Russian Chess Federation right around the time of its vote for Karpov. He declined to comment on why, in that case, no charges were ever filed against the federation's leadership. "Finances are under our control now and fully transparent," he says.
Now that his coup has failed, Karpov says that his old foe Kasparov was one of his main liabilities. "Of course this hurt me," he told TIME at a cigar club patronized by Russia's chess elite. "Kasparov's political activity made things very difficult for us in Russia." In Germany, France and Switzerland, however, Karpov had no trouble getting the nomination, so he and Kasparov pushed ahead with the campaign.
The final FIDE elections took place in the Russian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk on Sept. 29, with more than 100 chess federations attending from all over the world. In the words of one western delegate, "It was a circus." When Kasparov was refused the microphone, he stood up and shouted from the audience at Ilyumzhinov, who was sitting on the stage as both a candidate in the vote and its main arbiter. "It was a symbolic moment," Kasparov told TIME a few weeks later. "Ilyumzhinov is a blossom in the field of Putinism, and our partnership against Dvorkovich and Ilyumzhinov was about more than just chess. It had political significance."
In the end, however, the effort failed. Ilyumzhinov won with 95 votes against 55 for Karpov, mostly thanks to the support of small chess federations from places like Zimbabwe. He will now lead FIDE for another four years. (See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)
The postscript to that election took place on Monday, Oct. 11, at Moscow's Central House of Chess. Ilya Levitov, a man whom Dvorkovich calls "a good friend," was put forward to lead the Russian Chess Federation, and its members voted unanimously to support him, ousting the man who had led their mutiny in May. "We do not want any further wars, constructive work only," Dvorkovich says of the vote. (He made clear that his comments were made not in his capacity as senior Kremlin adviser but as chairman of the chess federation's supervisory board.) One of the old chess masters who attended Monday's vote, Semyon Tseitlin, describes it with wounded pride. "It was like a meeting of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Everyone raised their hands and hailed our new dear leader," Tseitlin says. In this latest showdown, then, it's checkmate Kremlin.
Read about rising star Magnus Carlsen.In February 2000, we sent questionnaires to 2700 people who were registered in the category of Japan of our pen pal service and who indicated that they are willing to participate in surveys. We received 269 valid responses from Japanese people who live in Japan; 77% of them were female, 85% single, and 71% below 30 years young. In addition to the unbalance in age, marital status and gender, we must consider the fact that all survey participants are registered in an online international pen pal service, which may mean that they are overall more internationally and less traditionally oriented than the average Japanese.
St. Valentine's Day is celebrated on February 14, and White Day one month later on March 14. It is said that St. Valentine's Day was imported to Japan in 1958 by a Japanese confectionery company. In Japan, it is only the women giving presents - mainly chocolate - to men, but not the other way around. Men are supposed to return the favours received on Valentine's Day one month later on White Day, a Japanese creation. White Day is believed to have been introduced by a marshmallow manufacturing company in the 1960s. The white marshmallows gave the day its name but other kinds of presents such as candy, flowers, etc. have become more popular over the years.
According to our survey, White Day is still less popular than St. Valentine's Day. 67% of the female survey participants indicated that they do celebrate Valentine's Day while only 45% of the men indicated to celebrate White Day. The two events are most popular among participants younger than 20 years with 75% celebrating Valentine's Day and 56% celebrating White Day. Valentine's Day is also more popular among single people than married couples, however, White Day is clearly more popular among married people (51%) than singles (40%). In fact, among married couples, White Day (51.3%) is almost as popular as Valentine's Day (53.9%).
As expected, the most popular Valentine's present is chocolate with over three forth of all women (who celebrate Valentine's Day) following this tradition. One third of the women celebrating Valentine's Day give a present to just one person. Another third gives presents to two to three persons, while the rest (27%) gives presents to more than three. Three out of four women give presents to their boyfriends or husbands, 40% to other friends, 27% to co-workers or classmates, and 24% to relatives.
On White Day, on the other hand, there seems to be a much greater variety of presents. 33% of the men celebrating White Day give cookies as presents. Only 11% give flowers. 55% make presents other than cookies, sweets or flowers. Almost half of the men give presents to two to three women and 29% to just one. The rest (19%) gives presents to more than three women. Two thirds of the men celebrating White Day give presents to their girlfriends or wives. Less than one out of four give presents to co-workers and/or friends. Only one out of ten make presents to relatives.The endocannabinoid system is dysregulated in schizophrenia. Mice with heterozygous deletion of neuregulin 1 (Nrg1 HET mice) provide a well-characterised animal model of schizophrenia, and display enhanced sensitivity to stress and cannabinoids during adolescence. However, no study has yet determined whether these mice have altered brain endocannabinoid concentrations. Nrg1 application to hippocampal slices decreased 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) signalling and disrupted long-term depression, a form of synaptic plasticity critical to spatial learning. Therefore we specifically aimed to examine whether Nrg1 HET mice exhibit increased 2-AG concentrations and disruption of spatial learning. As chronic stress influences brain endocannabinoids, we also sought to examine whether Nrg1 deficiency moderates adolescent stress-induced alterations in brain endocannabinoids. Adolescent Nrg1 HET and wild-type (WT) mice were submitted to chronic restraint stress and brain endocannabinoid concentrations were analysed. A separate cohort of WT and Nrg1 HET mice was also assessed for spatial learning performance in the Morris Water Maze. Partial genetic deletion of Nrg1 increased anandamide concentrations in the amygdala and decreased 2-AG concentrations in the hypothalamus. Further, Nrg1 HET mice exhibited increased 2-AG concentrations in the hippocampus and impaired spatial learning performance. Chronic adolescent stress increased anandamide concentrations in the amygdala, however, Nrg1 disruption did not influence this stress-induced change. These results demonstrate for the first time in vivo interplay between Nrg1 and endocannabinoids in the brain. Our results demonstrate that aberrant Nrg1 and endocannabinoid signalling may cooperate in the hippocampus to impair cognition, and that Nrg1 deficiency alters endocannabinoid signalling in brain stress circuitry.Extraordinary weather at RFK. Whitecaps forming on the field. A post shared by Steven Goff (@stevengoff) on Aug 12, 2017 at 5:06pm PDT
Soccer postponements are uncommon. Aside from sustained lightning, a snowstorm or a severely waterlogged pitch, the game goes on.
But when a monster thunderstorm roared through the area Saturday with D.C. United and Real Salt Lake in a 29th-minute scoreless deadlock, RFK Stadium’s field turned into a newly formed lake and the steps to the locker rooms morphed into raging waterfalls.
The rain and lightning subsided after 90 minutes and the field began to drain, but too much water had fallen and several stubborn puddles stood. At about 9:05 p.m., after inspecting the field, referee Drew Fischer postponed the match.
The MLS teams will pick up where they left off Sunday at 7 p.m.
The postponement continued a strange summer for United: Last month, weather issues cancelled team flights to Montreal and Minnesota and forced D.C. to arrive on the day of the game. (United lost both by a combined 6-0.)
In United’s 22-season history, a few home matches have been postponed because of severe weather and others hampered by power outages.
This is United’s final year at RFK, which opened in 1961. Next summer, the club will move into Audi Field, a 20,000-capacity venue near Nationals Park.
Saturday’s storm interrupted Paul Arriola’s D.C. debut. The U.S. national team midfielder joined United this past week after transferring from Mexican club Tijuana.
He was the only one of United’s four newcomers to start Saturday. Midfielder Russell Canouse and Bolivian forward Bruno Miranda were on the bench, while Hungarian midfielder Zoltan Stieber remains ineligible until his work permit is approved.
Real Salt Lake arrived with three consecutive draws and four individuals with local ties: former United players Nick Rimando, Luis Silva and Mike Petke (now RSL’s head coach) and Crofton native Kyle Beckerman.
United’s busy off-field activities during the week carried into match day with notable upticks in body language and energy.
Arriola worked a combination with Jared Jeffrey, freeing Nick DeLeon for a rising threat that Rimando punched away. Arriola’s speed and one-touch instincts helped United play at a fast pace.
But with the storm approaching, the players hustled to the locker rooms and the fans were instructed to take shelter on the concourse.
Notes: Lloyd Sam (red card suspension), Ian Harkes (ankle), Patrick Nyarko (concussion), Taylor Kemp (hip) and Rob Vincent (knee) weren’t available. … Julian Buescher was on the game-day roster but, to make room on the international classification for Stieber, he is expected to go on loan soon to the second-division Rochester Rhinos.Trump’s presidency could benefit Canada’s oil industry in no small way, one commodity investment adviser has told the Globe and Mail. According to Tim Pickering, Trump’s ambition to put a stop to imports from OPEC and make the U.S. self-sufficient in terms of energy is exactly what would help Canada’s struggling oil economy.
If Trump stays true to his promise for energy independence, it won’t happen overnight, and the most logical alternative to OPEC imports would naturally be Canada. The U.S.’ northern neighbor has suffered a serious economic slowdown because of the international oil price rout.
Canada’s latest GDP reading for August revealed an uptick of 0.2 percent, largely thanks to the recovery in oil prices as well as mining activity. However, it remains susceptible to further fluctuations in oil prices, which may be on the way as the OPEC meeting at the end of the month nears. Those expecting a production cut agreement are losing hope, and prices could once again take a nosedive should OPEC efforts fail.
If Trump-led America does turn to Canada for any oil it can’t produce itself, this would be good news for another industry segment as well: pipeline operators.
The president-elect said during his campaign that he would reopen the approval procedure for the controversial Keystone XL project that incumbent Obama vetoed. Right after the vote, the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline project, told Reuters Trump’s victory was “…favorable not only for our project, but for future infrastructure projects that have been vetted and reviewed as thoroughly as ours has been.”
The oil markets have already reacted to the Republican win of the presidential vote, with WTI recouping the losses sustained during voting day and settling at the highest in a week, at US$45.27 a barrel. The rise came despite another inventory build reported by the EIA.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:So while low-income Americans are more likely to get health insurance through Medicaid, well-off Americans are the ones who reap the benefit of health insurance tax breaks. Poor families might be able to get Section 8 apartment vouchers or spots in public housing, but the mortgage interest deduction overwhelmingly helps people who make more than $100,000 a year buy their homes.
What the government loses to tax expenditures dwarfs spending on welfare programs. Each year, it spends about $17 billion on assistance to needy families and more than $70 billion on food stamps, compared with more than $900 billion that flows out through the tax code. It expends nearly three times as much on tax subsidies for homeowners as it does for rental assistance for the poor.
These facts are obscured for most people. While those who get government benefits through spending programs are often aware — and too frequently ashamed — of that fact, those who get them through the tax system usually don’t realize they’ve received a handout. In a 2008 poll, 57 percent of people said they had never availed themselves of a government program, yet 94 percent of those same people had in fact benefited from at least one — mostly through what the Cornell professor Suzanne Mettler has called the “submerged state,” or the huge but often invisible network of money spent through the tax code.
Jeb Bush, however, is almost certainly aware of the freebies available through taxes. (According to one analysis of his federal income tax returns, he himself has saved at least $241,000 since 1981 through the mortgage interest deduction.) Just days before he vowed not to promise voters more free stuff, he put out a tax plan that would give out a whole lot more of it.
There are a couple of things in his plan that would benefit low-income Americans, like a boost to the earned-income tax credit. But thanks to proposed changes such as lowering the top income tax rate, ending the estate tax paid by the wealthiest 0.2 percent and even further reducing the rate for investment income, the biggest benefit would be handed to those who are already counted in the richest 1 percent slice of America. And it would come at a cost of at least $1.6 trillion over a decade, according to analysis by the Tax Foundation.World leaders are poised to sign a "landmark" UN declaration and commit more than £600 million to fighting what has been termed "our biggest global health threat" - antibiotics.
The rise of so-called "superbugs" that are resistant to antibiotic treatments, and the threat they pose to modern medicine, will be recognised in a pledge signed by officials from 193 countries at the UN General Assembly in New York.
It follows a UK-led drive to raise awareness of the potential impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which England’s chief medical officer described as "the greatest future threat to our civilisation".
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view. From 15p €0.18 $0.18 $0.27 a day, more exclusives, analysis and extras.
Professor Dame Sally Davies, England’s chief medical officer, said: “This declaration is the culmination of six years of hard work and I am extremely proud that every UN member state is now engaged in the enormous task of tackling the greatest future threat to our civilisation.
“Drug-resistant infections are firmly on the global agenda, but now the real work begins. We need governments, the pharmaceutical industry, health professionals and the agricultural sector to follow through on their commitments to save modern medicine.”
Every signatory of the UN declaration will agree to:
Develop surveillance and regulatory systems on the use and sales of antimicrobial medicines for humans and animals
Encourage innovative ways to develop new antibiotics
Educate health professionals and raise public awareness on how to prevent drug-resistant infections
The special meeting on Wednesday will be only the fourth time in its 70-year history that the UN has met specifically to discuss a health issue.
If antibiotics lose their effectiveness then key medical procedures – including gut surgery, caesarean sections, joint replacements and chemotherapy – could become too dangerous to perform.
Health leaders from around the world have raised serious concerns about the growing resistance to antimicrobial drugs, which destroy harmful microbes. Antibiotics are the best known of these drugs, but there are others – such as antivirals, antimalarial drugs and antifungals.
Around 700,000 people around the world die annually due to drug-resistant infections such as TB, HIV and malaria. If no action is taken, it has been estimated that drug-resistant infections will kill 10 million people a year by 2050.
UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Antimicrobial resistance is perhaps our biggest global health threat – it could nullify the progress of over a century of modern medicine and kill millions.
“So I am proud that this country has led the charge and rallied the international action necessary to tackle the problem.
“We are determined to build on our domestic achievements – thanks to the hard work of NHS staff, hospital-acquired infections have been halved, and GPs prescribed 2.7 million fewer items this year compared to last – but we’ll couple that with global leadership as together we face up to a huge challenge.”
Earlier this year, Lord O’Neill called for a $2bn (£1.53bn) investment in global innovation funding to tackle AMR by 2020 following his review on the subject.
At the event in New York, global leaders will pledge $790m (£606m).
Lord O’Neill set out a series of key recommendations to help combat the threat of AMR.
One of his proposals suggests that big pharmaceutical companies should “play or pay” – meaning they either join the search to hunt for new antibiotics or be forced to pay a fine. Those who do and find successful new treatments should be rewarded handsomely.
Another called for better use of diagnostic tools to prevent patients being given antibiotics unnecessarily.
Antimicrobial Resistance Q and A
WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
Germs have higher chances of developing resistance to a drug if the drug is not used properly. If a drug is not used long enough or taken for the wrong reason, or if low levels of the drug are common in the environment, the germs can survive and adapt.
Doctors are already facing situations in which they are helpless against infections that used to be easily treated with antibiotics, Fukuda said. All types of microbes, including bacteria, viruses and fungi have been shrugging off attacks from the medicines designed to stop them. Experts estimate that 700,000 people die around the world each year from drug-resistant germs, and they expect the number to grow sharply.
Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the problem may also affect doctors' willingness to do chemotherapy, organ transplants, or other treatments that might put a patient at risk of uncontrollable infections. "It can undermine modern medicine," he said.
WHY DO WE OVERUSE THESE DRUGS?
Often because of good intentions and bad decisions. For example, antibiotics don't work against viral illnesses like colds and flu. But doctors often prescribe them anyway to patients looking for some kind of treatment for their respiratory infections, experts say. Companies that raise livestock routinely prescribe antibioticsto try to stave off costly infections in herds and flocks.
WHY ARE THERE SO FEW NEW ANTIBIOTICS?
A major reason is that it is very hard for drugmakers to earn any money selling new antibiotics, so they don't want to spend the money needed to develop them. Patients don't need to be on antibiotics for very long, which means they won't be buying large amounts of the drug. And doctors are likely to prescribe any newantibiotics only in cases where older, cheaper ones don't work first.
WHY NOW?
One factor is that world leaders are starting to worry about the economic threats from the problem. A 2014 report commissioned by the United Kingdom projected that by 2050 it will kill more people each year than cancer and cost the world as much as $100 trillion in lost economic output.
The World Bank this week released a report saying drug-resistant infections have the potential to cause at least as much economic damage as the 2008 financial crisis.
WHAT CAN THE U.N. DO?
For now, just draw more attention to the problem. That's what happened on the three other occasions the U.N. held a special session on a health issue — on the AIDS virus in 2001, on non-communicable diseases in 2011, and on Ebola in 2014.
The U.N. will adopt a declaration that endorses an action plan approved last year by an international meeting of health ministers. The declaration recognizes the size of the problem and encourages countries to come up with plans — and money — to cut back on antibiotic use, make better use of vaccines to prevent infections in the first place, and fund development of new drugs.
"We need new antibiotics, but in all likelihood we're not going to invent our way out of this," Frieden said.
Associated Press
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
At The Independent, no one tells us what to write. That’s why, in an era of political lies and Brexit bias, more readers are turning to an independent source. Subscribe from just 15p a day for extra exclusives, events and ebooks – all with no ads.
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Last we heard about The Chronicles of Narnia was in June of last year when Life of Pi and Finding Neverland scribe David Magee sent out a tweet to his private Twitter account saying that he completed a first draft of The Silver Chair after spending more than a year working on the project. It was an unofficial update, but a welcome one for fans of a franchise that seemingly expired quietly without a trace. Today, I’m happy to bring an official update on the progress of the film via producer Mark Gordon, who says Narnia is not only very much still alive, it’s experiencing a bit of a rebirth.
Gordon was on hand at the TCA winter press tour in anticipation his new CBS series Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, and I took the opportunity to inquire about the status of the next Narnia sequel. Gordon confirmed that they’re in active development, and hoping to move into production in the near future.
We’re hoping to be able to make the movie very shortly. We’re very excited about it.
However, it seems that the next film won’t be a sequel at all, but the start of a new franchise entirely. Given the plot of The Silver Chair, the fourth book in the series, which takes places decades in future from where we last saw our heroes in 2010’s Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I also asked if we would see any of the original cast reprising their roles in the new film. The answer is a hard no.
No, it’s all going to be a brand new franchise. All original. All original characters, different directors, and an entire new team that this is coming from.
If the phrase “original characters” causes your hair to bristle, don’t worry, I asked him to clarify if these were entirely new character creations or existing characters in the Narnia mythology that have yet to get the movie treatment, and he confirmed the later. The new characters will come “from the world” of Narnia.SYDNEY (Reuters) - The U.S. aviation lawyer who won compensation for victims of the 1988 Lockerbie aircraft bombing and is now seeking $330 million from Russia for the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 in 2014, says Russian President Vladimir Putin must be held responsible.
An Emergencies Ministry member walks at a site of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 plane crash near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 17, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev
Jerry Skinner, who is leading Australian law firm LHD’s compensation claim against Russia and Putin in the European Court of Human Rights, says he is confident of success but admits the case, like that of Lockerbie, may take years.
The Malaysian Airlines’ Boeing (BA.N) 777 crashed in eastern Ukraine in pro-Russian rebel-held territory on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 people on board, including 28 Australians.
The aircraft, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, the Dutch Safety Board concluded in its final report.
Skinner said he had no personal issue with Putin, but that the Russian president had opened himself to liability through his extensive control over the Russian state.
“Nothing happens in Russia that he doesn’t approve of, therefore vicariously he’s responsible,” Skinner told Reuters in an interview on Monday in Sydney.
Skinner said evidence from witnesses, videos, photographs, radar, air traffic control tapes supported his compensation case.
“All of that stuff is available and even without the Russian’s contribution I am confident in saying that it was the Russians who caused this event to occur,” he said.
The LHD lawsuit is on behalf of 16 victims from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, and 33 next of kin. Each claimant is seeking $10 million in damages.
Skinner won similar compensation for the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 which was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 270 people.
Skinner said international political pressure was needed to uncover the truth behind the downing of MH17.
“I’m hopeful that the Australian government gets involved. We need the leverage of one of the governments whose hands are clean,” he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Monday echoed the sentiment for an independent investigation.
“However painful and however difficult and traumatic it is for them to deal with the loss of their loved ones aboard MH17...we will work very hard to ensure that a system is set up, a mechanism is set up, to hold those responsible for this atrocity to account,” she said.Novelist John Beiswenger has filed a lawsuit against Ubisoft for similarities between his novel Link, published in 2003, and the overarching story of Assassin's Creed. Beisenger claims that his book details "the conception and creation of a link device and process whereby ancestral memories can be accessed, recalled, relived, and re-experienced by the user." Since the Assassin's Creed story is so similar, it therefore breaches his copyright, in particular, the concept of the Animus.
He also points out that his book and the game both reference the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, and Adam and Eve. If that wasn't damning enough, the writer also pointed out that Link frequently mentions assassins and their battle for control of the device.
Yikes.
Beiswenger has filed for $1.05 million in damages and up to $5.25 million if a court rules that Ubisoft deliberately infringed his copyright. His final demand is one that will pain gamers the most: he wants to stop the release of Assassin's Creed III. In considering typical court procedure, it is very likely that this latter demand will be met at least during the process of the lawsuit in the form of a Temporary Injunction.
I haven't read this book, but based on the claims from the Original Petition, it doesn't look good for Ubisoft. If these allegations are true, then I will lose a great deal of respect for Ubisoft, and I doubt I will be alone. I strongly believe that there is a special circle of Hell for plagiarizers that is so terrifying, Dante couldn't bear mention it in his Inferno.
[Source]The Lost Kurgan Artwork
This original artwork by Nick Maley shows the design for a Kurgan creature made of snakes. The design was created to extend the the final fight sequence in HIGHLANDER but was objected to by one of the screenwriters (Gregory Widen, I believe). See The Lost Kurgan for the inside story.
© Nick Maley 1985. If you are a collector of HIGHLANDER memorabilia may like to know that 8 x 10 prints of The Lost Kurgan artwork, (matted to 11 x 14), are available for $50.00. Each one is autographed by Nick and comes with a certificate of authenticity. Add $9.75 for international postage and packaging. You can order here via our encrypted order form. A recreation of the storyboard for this sequence is planned for next year. If would like an update when that is available you should email to this address.
If you were looking for something totally unique.........You found it!
Nick's CineSecrets®........ You make movies? click here....... Nick's Art Online
text © CineSecrets 97/98tech-net archive
Request for project specs to remove the big network lock
To : tech-kern%NetBSD.org@localhost, tech-net%NetBSD.org@localhost
: Subject : Request for project specs to remove the big network lock
: From : Julio Merino <jmmv%NetBSD.org@localhost>
: Date: Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:03:13 -0400
Dear users and developers, The Board of Directors is interested in improving the performance of the networking subsystem of the NetBSD kernel on multiprocessor machines. To help people interested in working towards this goal, the board is willing to fund related projects. The main idea behind any project that attempts to achieve the goal stated above is to get rid of the big kernel lock that surrounds the networking code. This would make the networking subsystem of the kernel more efficient on multiprocessor machines and thus allow the NetBSD kernel to remain competitive with other freely-available operating systems. At this moment, we are asking for interested parties to submit project specifications including a description of the problem, a list of deliverables, a description of the tests and benchmarks that will be performed to evaluate the results of the projects and an estimation of the cost (monetary and timely -wise). Please send any project specifications, questions or comments to board@ and core@ (both at NetBSD.org). Thank you. Julio Merino, On behalf of the Board of DirectorsAdvertisement
Illustration: Elias Stein
The door to mass-market virtual reality is about to burst open. Engineers have solved most of the hardware challenges, driven down the price to just a few hundred dollars, done extensive testing, and gotten software tools into the hands of creative developers. Store shelves will soon be teeming with head-mounted displays and hand controllers that can paint dazzling virtual worlds. And then the first wave of VR immigrants will colonize them.
You might think the first adopters will be gamers, but you’d be wrong. The killer app for virtual reality will more likely be something to enhance ordinary social experiences—conversations with your loved ones, a business meeting, a college class—but carried out with a far richer connection than you could establish by texting or talking or Skyping.
Matter of Fact People who sawed down a virtual tree at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab later used 20 percent fewer paper napkins.
Jeremy Bailenson, founder of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and his coauthors predicted in these pages in 2011 that such “social VR” was on the horizon. “Current social networking and other online sites,” they wrote, “are just precursors of what we’ll see when social networking encompasses immersive virtual-reality technology. When people interact with others for substantial periods of time, much as they do now on Facebook but with fully tracked and rendered avatars, entirely new forms of social interaction will emerge.” With the variety of head-mounted displays—including the Oculus Rift, Sony’s PlayStation VR, and the HTC Vive—going on sale later this year, that future is now here.
At its most basic, social virtual reality allows two geographically separated people, in the form of fairly realistic avatars, to communicate as if they were face-to-face. They can make eye contact and can manipulate virtual objects that they both can see. It’s somewhat like telepresence, but VR denizens won’t have to worry about appearing at a business meeting in pajamas. (Their avatars will, no doubt, be impeccably dressed.) And they’ll be a lot less likely than the users of telepresence systems to struggle with frozen images or interrupted calls, because their VR gear needs to send instructions only about how to move the avatars, not the entire image.
Photo, top: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Image, bottom: High Fidelity Coming Attractions: Sony’s PlayStation VR headgear [top] and High Fidelity’s tools for builders of virtual worlds [bottom] will both launch in 2016.
Of course, this year’s VR technology won’t be perfect. Headsets won’t be able to track exactly where your eyes are pointed; for example, the software will assume you’re looking at the person you are talking to. And they aren’t yet reading detailed facial expressions, in no small part because the gear blocks half the face, although ways around that obstacle are being developed; the gadgets do know when you turn your head or nod.
For the more powerful systems, you’ll be tethered to your computer with cables, because the amount of data needed to transmit high-
resolution video at high frame rates overwhelms today’s standard wireless technology. And the perfect user interface—the VR equivalent of the mouse—has yet to be developed. Still, the input devices coming out this year will be good enough to get social VR off the ground.
As a result, lots of folks are working to make social VR happen. Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind Second Life, a screen-based simulation with a million active users today, is getting ready to roll out a new platform. Linden’s Project Sansar is a host for user-created virtual experiences and tools to build them that will work with VR headsets, standard computer monitors, and mobile devices. The Sansar world will function much like Second Life, with people leasing space for their virtual creations, which will be rendered in 3-D and at a high frame rate. The French company Beloola is building a similar virtual world designed for social networking.
VR Will Grow 200-Fold From 2014 to 2020 Worldwide revenue for VR hardware and software is projected to increase from US $108.8 million to $21.8 billion.
High Fidelity, the latest startup from Second Life’s creator, Philip Rosedale, has a different approach: Instead of building a virtual world, the company is developing open-source software tools and offering a registry, identity verification, and other services for the virtual worlds others build. Still other companies are working on software for sharing experiences virtually: for example, watching movies or TV shows, or recording snippets of your life in 360 degrees and sharing them with friends.
To be successful, these efforts will require a critical mass. To build that, companies are counting first on selling to people who have an immediate need for social VR, say, for cutting down on |
, but Riedlinger said they intended to keep the policy in place for that year, but were “always considering what to do there.”
When it came time for the OPSB vote on Thursday, no one from Lusher spoke in opposition. Lee Reid, an attorney representing Lusher, Audubon, Hynes, Lake Forest, Ben Franklin and Einstein charter schools, praised the OPSB administration’s efforts in the policy negotiations.
“We’re ready to move forward, put this in place and move forward to the next challenge,” Reid said.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- A Grand Junction High School student is dropping out of choir rather than sing an Islamic song he says goes against his strong Christian beliefs.
The song is “Zikr,” and was written by internationally acclaimed composer A.R. Rahman.
Rahman won an Oscar and a Grammy for his songs in Slum Dog Millionaire. Zikr was written for a 2005 movie about an Indian independence leader. The song contains the phrase “There is no other truth but Allah.”
It's that phrase to which senior James Harper objects.
“This is worshipping another God” and prohibited by the Bible, Harper says.
But Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali, from the Northeast Denver Islamic Center says “Allah translated into English is only saying ‘the God, one God.” He says the student is misunderstanding the language.
“I think it’s a lack of knowledge," he says. "There’s some ignorance on his part concerning the name Allah. It’s the same God that Jesus prayed to, Moses prayed to, Mohammed prayed to.”
School District 51 stands by its decision to perform the song and says this is not the school endorsing or promoting any particular religion or other non-educational agenda. The school says the song, which has been performed by other schools, was chosen because of its rhythms and other qualities.
The composer tells FOX31 Denver the song is not intended for worship ceremonies, but respects the student’s decision to opt out of singing it.
Choir is a voluntary club.In the shopping rush of the holiday season, it’s always wise to keep in mind that not everyone is in the giving mood: shoplifters do a lot of damage during this busy time of year, and there are certain things they like stealing better than others.
According to Checkpoint Systems’ Retail Holiday Season Global Forecast [PDF] (h/t MarketWatch), 37% of a store’s annual shrink loss, which is the revenue they should receive for inventory minus what they actually receive, can be chalked up to shoplifting, employee theft, and fraud during the holiday season.
“These increases in losses place an enormous burden on retailers and, ultimately, on honest consumers who pay for it in higher prices,” the report’s authors say.
It’s partly due to the fact that stores are more crowded and will see more visitors during the holiday season. Also, some folks might be able to justify stealing when it’s not for themselves.
“It’s much easier to do so when a child’s Christmas present is at stake rather than an extra bathing suit for the summer,” the report notes.
So what are people stealing the most?
1. Electronics accessories (like cellphone cases)
2. Leather clothing
3. Electronics
4. Accessories
5. Winter clothing
6. Meat and seafood
7. Alcohol
8. Perfume and cologne
9. Children’s toys
10. Gourmet chocolateIt was a call to duty like no other when Senior Constable Pratt from the Mount Surprise Police Station braved the elements to save a life overnight.
‘Daisy’ the cow as named by her rescuers, had not fared well after Mount Surprise, located 300km south west of Cairns received over 14 inches of rainfall in 36 hours.
Police located Daisy bogged, distressed and at the point of exhaustion when conducting patrols in the area. Senior Constable Andy Pratt needed to devise a rescue mission after being advised that the station owner was locked in at his own homestead by flooding and unable to get to Daisy.
Not content to hear that Daisy would have to be humanely destroyed if she couldn’t be freed, Senior Constable Pratt rallied together some locals to assist with the rescue mission. With the assistance of a police vehicle and lots of pushing Daisy was eventually set free.
She was issued with a pat and a friendly warning about the dangers of flooding as she wandered off to re-join her herd. Long-time police officer, Senior Constable Pratt said that this was a job like no other.
“In over twenty years of policing I’ve seen and done some weird and wonderful things, but this is the first time that I have ever helped save a cow’s life,” said Senior Constable Pratt.
“A big thank-you is extended to my fellow rescuers who weathered the rain and mud to lend Daisy a helping hand.”
Local business owner Trish Wallace commented that this is the most rainfall that she has ever seen.
“I have been here for over 40 years and this is the most rainfall that I can ever recall in such a short period of time,” said Trish Wallace.
“We received half of our average yearly rainfall in just one night.”
Visitors and locals are reminded to check road conditions before travelling throughout the Far Northern Region. For road closure information: 13 19 40Six months before Donald Trump won the United States election, Chinese-American blogger Xie Bin and seven others launched a WeChat page aimed at influencing Chinese-Americans to vote for Trump. They called it “The Chinese Voice of America” (CVA), and published several articles each week that drew from right-wing websites in English, as well as concerns people shared in Mandarin in WeChat groups. Headlines included: “Why I Will Vote for Trump: The Issue of Illegal Immigrants Must Be Resolved!” and “Obama publicly encourages illegal immigrants to vote in the election; Virginia paroled 60,000 critics to participate in the election!” CVA was intended to be an experiment, says Xie: “We said we could try it.” Within months, it had more than 32,000 followers on WeChat. Even more people shared its content in private WeChat groups and commented about it on Chinese-language websites that center around WeChat content.
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In November, CVA’s candidate won the presidency of the United States. Though Clinton won the Asian-American vote overall, some polls report Trump did better among Asian-American voters, including Chinese Americans, than his Republican predecessor did in the last election. And anecdotal evidence suggests that Trump supporters were, at the very least, more vocal and impassioned—both online and off.
As debates raged over the role that fake news shared on social networks played in Trump’s election, WeChat barely registered in the conversation. Instead, concern mostly centered around social networks with large American audiences, especially Facebook. But CVA is evidence that fake news isn’t solely a Facebook problem. “When you look at the whole spectrum of mis- and disinformation…the scale and the complexity of the problem is clear,” says Claire Wardle, a fake news expert at First Draft News. “In order to start thinking about ways to solve information pollution crisis…we need to understand the different types of misinformation…and the platforms upon which it is being disseminated.”
With social media activity increasingly moving to private communities on WeChat, Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp, where information is harder to track and verify, understanding how news — and trust — flows on these closed networks is more important than ever.
Though CVA’s influence — or even that of WeChat, central to its rise — was minuscule on its own, and its tactics basic (especially in comparison to the more sophisticated fake news sites running out of Macedonia, bots that artificially amplified popularity, and potential Russian collusion in the election), CVA provides an important and overlooked lessons: The fight to sway public opinion in an election does not necessarily require high tech. It just requires an understanding of how to reach the right audiences, on the right platforms, with tailored and timely messages.
WeChat is the dominant messaging app for the world’s most populous country. By the end of 2016, it boasted 889 million monthly active users around the world, a leap of 35 percent in a year. WeChat’s influence is increasingly global, with over 100 million users — more than a tenth—living outside of China, by owner Tencent’s own measurement.
Created in 2010, WeChat was designed as a mobile messaging app for individuals and small groups. Often compared to Facebook and Whatsapp, it combines the profile features of the first and the mobile messaging of the second, with a higher emphasis on privacy — all personal profiles and both individual and group chats are visible by invitation only.
WeChat’s fast growth comes from the proliferation of group chats, according to Matthew Brennan of the China Channel. In the beginning, these groups were limited to 40 members, expanding over time to 100 and then 500. These small group sizes worked well for their purpose: They were intimate virtual meeting rooms for friends and acquaintances that typically knew each other offline as well as on, creating a built-in system of social vouching. In general, “people feel comfortable having private, small-group conversations,” says Dr. Fu King-Wa, a Hong Kong University journalism school professor and fellow at MIT Media Lab who observes Chinese digital media closely. He adds, “WeChat is basically a small group conversation.”
WeChat groups have become significant for political activism. In a country without the right to free assembly, the digital gathering spaces of WeChat groups offer a welcome alternative. “WeChat has come in at a perfect timing as a revolutionary tool,” said Shue Haipei, the founder of the National Council of Chinese-Americans and an early adopter of WeChat in America. “[It] revolutionized how to form a group.”
Most political conversations happen in smaller private groups, where they are less easily tracked. WeChat offers businesses and other groups “official accounts;” once WeChat approves one of these accounts, any WeChat user can see it. CVA took the unusual step of becoming an “official account,” where it could gain more followers more quickly. It’s the equivalent of standing in a digital town square, shouting out to anyone who can hear over a megaphone. “If I publish on WeChat I can get thousands of hits,” says Xie. “If readers see something of their topic [of interest], they are going to spread it quickly to all their groups.” In a system designed to discourage too much influence, WeChat groups allow for a limited form of virality — albeit one that is hard to track.
But as the platform has become more popular, and group sizes themselves have grown, the reliability of its system of trust based on personal vouching has decreased. Group members’ online connections and interactions are no longer reinforced by offline relationships, making it harder to judge the dependability of any individual. Still, the illusion of closeness fostered by WeChat groups has persisted. It is this perceived credibility, combined with a chat format that does not visually distinguish messages from individuals, official accounts, and group chats, that has made WeChat so rife for the spread of fake news.
“There’s a phrase in Chinese,” Zhang Yilin told me in late November 2016, “that translates to, ‘To be a good person, don’t be too CNN.’ ” An Environmental Protection Agency employee from Pennsylvania, Zhang voted reluctantly for Clinton because of their shared viewpoints on climate change. She didn’t rely on TV news to make her decision, explaining that CNN had gained a reputation for being “fake” and inventing evidence through its critical coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The neologism speaks to a distrust of media that dates back even further. In China, the state media is widely known to tell only the official version of the story, as determined by the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, all news affiliated with official institutions is treated with skepticism.
In such a context of distrust, social media has stepped in to fill a void. But though opinions proffered on WeChat provide a source of information unfiltered through the lens of the state, the same guarantee cannot be made about the biases of the individual doing the sharing.
That’s where Xie saw an opportunity. By identifying and echoing his readers’ biases, he could gain a following and support for his candidate. “Sometimes I don’t put enough facts…but if I write articles more than 2,000 words, then fewer people read [them],” he says.
Xie shared one example of how he caters to his readers’ existing mindsets: a blog post published in September headlined, “Banning pork has quietly begun across the United States.” Similar claims had made the rounds of the conservative sites since mid-August, and already been debunked by Snopes. But for Chinese-Americans seeing this for the first time via CVA, the blog post touched a nerve, as pork has been culturally significant to Chinese cuisine for thousands of years. More recently, its increased affordability has been welcomed as a symbol of China’s economic reemergence. Thus, to read that pork had been banned to account for Muslim sensitivities (as the article continued) was a personal affront — and just another sign of Chinese-American discrimination by the mainstream.
That the CVA’s claim had been debunked elsewhere was not readily apparent to readers. In general, WeChat’s design does not make it easy to fight biases or fake news. Information on the platform spreads quickly within and between WeChat groups, but the sources of information — and therefore their verifiability — are de-emphasized, to the extent that sources are almost completely ignored. As a result, credibility defaults to whomever shared the information last, and whether he or she can be believed.
The litmus test for truthfulness has moved from, “is this argument supported by evidence?” to, “is this argument shared by someone whose judgment I trust?”
In the wake of the US elections last fall, as Facebook raced to tackle its fake news problem, Tencent CEO Pony Ma addressed the topic at China’s World Internet Conference. The state-sponsored event gathered executives from IBM and Microsoft alongside Chinese internet execs and state representatives A huge theme was “internet sovereignty”—the idea that internet governance should be left up to individual countries to decide.
Ma used the occasion to address the spread of internet falsehoods, offering up the strongest statement to come from any social media company: *“*Fake news spreading in US social media, which played a part in Trump’s victory, has sent an alarm to the international community.” He contrasted the implied lack of action by US social platforms with the efforts of his company: “Tencent has always been very strict in cracking down on fake news and we see it as very necessary.” Though Ma’s implication was that Tencent had been leading in a global fight to which the rest of the world was only now awakening, his remarks had a darker undertone, reaffirming the need for the internet surveillance and censorship practiced by the Chinese state.
Fake news in China must be understood “in the context of media control,” says Hong Kong University’s Dr. Fu. “It is usually defined by the authorities, but it’s really hard to identify if it’s really fake, or if it’s inconvenient.”
Lotus Ruan, who is part of the University of Toronto Citizen Lab team that studies censorship on WeChat, adds: “I personally would be cautious of the notion and discourse of ‘fake news’ because it can be used to crack down on dissident voices or discredit opinions that confront those in power.” In other words, fake news is whatever the authorities claim it is.
Those authorities include WeChat, because Chinese internet law holds the platforms themselves responsible for false information, requiring them to self-censor to stay in business. WeChat invites users to help by flagging false news stories and reporting either individual profiles, official accounts, or groups—but the company makes the final call on truthfulness.
Last year, WeChat disabled more than 1.2 million links, deleted over 200,000 articles of alleged false information, and fined 100,000 accounts that either created or spread rumors, according to the Cyber Administration of China. For more serious falsehoods, there are legal consequences: In 2013, China’s top court ruled that if content is viewed by 5,000 internet users or reposted 500 times, the originator can be charged with defamation and jailed for up to seven years.
Not all fake news on the platform is removed for political reasons. Many stories relating to food safety, health, and consumer scams are legitimately fake and dangerous to the public. To deal with these, in 2014, WeChat launched “Rumor Filter,” a Chinese-language official account that debunks rumors on a weekly basis. As with all accounts on WeChat, public and private, Rumor Filter’s reach is limited, by design. To benefit, users must actively seek it out and follow it before receiving updates; most never do.
Even when fake news is removed for legitimate reasons, the ultimate arbiter of truth is a company reflecting the interest of the state. And the reasons for its removal are rarely made clear. Says Citizen Lab’s Ruan, “the company…need[s] to have a better disclosure policy, better transparency in how they determine what is ‘fake news’, [and] what measure was taken to take them down.”
These days, the “Chinese Voice of America” is still active, though Xie has taken a break from both writing and politics. Even without him, CVA continues to publish multiple articles a week, providing conservative and/or pro-Trump commentary on the news and shaping the Chinese-American zeitgeist.
Without Xie, CVA has taken on new contributors, and some posts now contain a disclaimer about representing only the individual authors’ opinions rather than CVA as a whole, though these caveated articles are posted anonymously. Additionally, CVA recently started accepting “tips”— voluntary micro-payments for articles that readers enjoyed.
In other words, the official account that started out as an experiment in grassroots electoral organizing is professionalizing — just not toward the accepted standards of unbiased journalism. Rather, CVA is developing to meet the needs and norms of a closed network shaped by media control, where information travels like a game of telephone with each jump further obfuscating the original source.
The election may be over, but the spread of influence only continues to amplify on WeChat, both inside China and among Chinese speakers in other countries. As it grows, one of the main challenges that WeChat and other closed networks will face is the difficulty of verifying information in a system that does not value verification.
In the meantime, trusted friends — or official accounts like CVA — step in. But when credibility comes from the sharer rather than the source, the danger of social media turning into an echo chamber moves from a potential to the norm.Both the UKanDo viewer and Black Dragon saw updates in week #6. Each of the release contain under-the-hood (so to speak) changes, with UKanDo in particular being something of a catch-up release more than anything else, as noted below.
UKanDo 3.7.24
The last UKanDo update was in October 2014, so it’s been something of an extended period between releases for the viewer. However, there is a good reason for this: Connor Monaron, the man behind the viewer has a good reason for this: he’s been off in the United States tying the knot with his SL (and now real life) partner. So the first thing to do here is offer congratulations to Blackrose and Connor.
Obviously, being away and being focused on such a major event in one’s life means that all things viewer naturally take a back seat. As such, the new release of UKanDo, version 3.7.24.28064, released on Wednesday, February 4th, is more about catching-up with all of the recent output from the Lab. This being the case, the release see the viewer gain parity through and up to the following LL releases:
3.7.18.295539 – the POODLE vulnerability threat fix from October 2014
3.7.19.295700 – Monty Linden’s last round of HTTP updates, also for October 2014, which improve texture and mesh data fetching and which offers significantly faster inventory loading
3.7.20.296094 – the GPU removal update and the subsequent 3.7.22.297128 update which fixed an inherent crash issue within the 3.7.20.296094 release
3.7.21.296724 – the winter open-source contributions release from November 2014, providing improved Japanese language input, improved projectors rendering, fixes for object editing when rotating and for an OS X Yosemite full screen crash issue
3.7.23.297296 – the winter maintenance release from December 2014, which included a range of fixes to voice, texture animation, object rendering, privacy, inventory management, etc., and which included fixes to previously released changes in the way joint offsets in rigged meshes are handled
3.7.24.297643 – the Experience Tool viewer (at the time this article was written, the de facto release viewer from LL).
As well as these LL-derived updates, this release also sees UKanDo reach parity through recent RLV updates from Marine Kelley from 2.9.3 through to the latest 2.9.6.6,
So while this release many not offer anything “new” in terms of TPV updates, it does bring the viewer right up to the cutting edge in terms of formal releases from both LL and RLV, which should be more than enough to keep UKanDo users happy.
Related Links
Black Dragon 2.4.1.8
The latest version of Black Dragon, version 2.4.1.8, was release on Friday, February 6th, and is the latest in a series of nips and tucks to the viewer as Niran continues to integrate code updates from the Lab and also work on refining the UI.
The core update from the Lab with this release is the inclusion of the winter maintenance release code from the Lab’s 3.7.23.297296 release, including the fixes for previously released changes in the way joint offsets in rigged meshes are handled. This means that deformations to an avatar’s shape are more intelligently tracked, and the viewer should be able to correct them without necessarily having to have the attachment causing them removed, or requiring a re-log in order to fix.
The other major update for this release see the Friends List undergo a revision. The accordion tabs separating on-line from off-line friends have been removed, and the Friends list rationalised so that on-line friends appear at the top – their names now in blue – and an duplication of names has been removed.
The release notes also list the following updates / changes:
A possible fix for RLVa detach and re-attach issues via RLVa commands
A possible fix for a crash caused by the connection issues panel when the region becomes invalid
A viewer compile fix
Max VRAM has been changed 1024 Mb in Preferences > Display Settings
Incremental steps for Shadow Blur changed to 0.1 in Preferences > Display Settings
The connection issues panel will no longer briefly appear when logging-in with the viewer
Appearance floater outfit status colour has been changed
Worn items are now listed in italics in the Appearance floater, rather than in bold
Beacon colour has been changed to stream “blue-ish”.
Related Links
AdvertisementsThe chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs told Breitbart News Donald Trump understands the problems facing today’s veterans, and he is the only one who can fix the scandal-ridden Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Donald Trump is the only candidate who understands the desperate need to reform the Department of Veterans to serve veterans in the 21st century,” said Rep. Jefferson B. Miller (R.-Fla.), who represents the northwest section of the Sunshine State. “Hillary Clinton is more of the same.”
Miller said he was personally impressed with Trump’s 10-point plan to address the problems at the VA. “Trump‘s plan hits upon those areas that need reform most,” he said.
“Accountability and transparency are at the top of that list,” said the man, who replaced in Congress Joe Scarborough, who resigned in the middle of his term in September 2001, shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks. The congressman himself retires at the end of the congressional session.
This is the outline of the Trump plan for veterans:
Increase funding for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury and suicide prevention services to address our veterans’ invisible wounds. Increase funding for job training and placement services (including incentives for companies hiring veterans), educational support and business loans. Better support our women veterans. Fire the corrupt and incompetent VA executives that let our veterans down. End waste, fraud and abuse at the VA. Modernize the VA. Empower the caregivers to ensure our veterans receive quality care quickly. Embed satellite VA clinics in rural and other underserved areas. Ensure our veterans get the care they need wherever and whenever they need it. Support the whole veteran.
Miller said Trump will have the strength to talk one of the most stubborn obstacles to making things better for veterans, the department’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees.
The union leaders want to protect the status quo and they are not concerned with the well-being of the veterans, he said.
A classic example of how the union works to protect its workers as the expense of the veterans is when the union got an early draft of the Veterans First Act, he said. The act was a bill sponsored by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R.-Ga.) that would have seriously changed how the VA went about its business.
“They basically demanded that senators water down the bill in four key areas,” he said.
After Senate Republicans met the demands of the union, the AFGE supported the bill, which created the appearance of their supporting reforms, while actually gutting reform, the congressman said.
“Once the union bosses gave their approval to revised Veterans First Act, the Secretary McDonald went around trying to rally support,” he said. “But, the bill does not provide the accountability that’s necessary to transform the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
In the original bill, VA Secretary Robert McDonald floated a plan that would have given the secretary the authority to fire poorly performing members of the Senior Executive Service, Miller said. But “when the White House heard about it, it said: ‘No way, no how,’ and shot it down,” he said.
Miller said he is working up against both a union leadership opposed to reform and at VA leadership politically-allied with the union leaders. Meanwhile, nobody is making things better for the veterans.
“In their perpetual quest to placate Big Labor’s ‘powers that be,’ the taxpayers and the veterans the workers are charged with serving are really paying the price,” he said.The Mars rover Curiosity experienced its first significant malfunction on Wednesday, when one of its two onboard computers became corrupted and failed to turn off and enter "sleep mode" as planned.
The Curiosity team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sent up commands to switch all operations from the corrupted A computer to the twin B computer early Thursday morning, according to a Thursday NASA statement.
Most spacecraft have a backup computer to step in if the primary computer fails. (Related: Meet One of Curiosity's Earthbound Twins.)
Richard Cook, project manager for the Curiosity project, said the problem was the most serious experienced by the rover so far in its nearly seven months on the red planet.
Cook said the team was most concerned Wednesday night, before they got a handle on the nature of the problem. But once they began to understand better, it became clear that switching to the other computer was necessary and unlikely to have long-term consequences.
He said he hoped Curiosity would resume science work in about a week. (Related: Manned Mars Mission Announced by Dennis Tito Group.)
On other space missions, Cook said, similar problems were caused by high-energy solar and cosmic ray strikes. He said that's probably what happened this time.
Curiosity has protections against such high-energy disruptions, but the problem was compounded by what appears to have been the location of the strike—in the directory, or "table of contents," of the computer's memory. Cook said the location of the strike appears to have caused the computer to get stuck in an endless loop.
While previous rovers experienced many so-called "anomalies" during the early part of their treks, the much larger and more complex Curiosity has been almost trouble-free since its dramatic, pinpoint landing last August. (Related: Psychological Challenges of Manned Mars Mission.)
That changed Wednesday when the spacecraft stopped sending recorded data back to Earth, though it did continue sending "current status" information.
The problem was sent to the Curiosity "anomaly team," which decided the computer swap was needed. The swap occurred around Thursday around 2:30 a.m. Pacific Time.
"While we are resuming operations on the B-side, we are also working to determine the best way to restore the A-side as a viable backup," said Magdy Bareh, leader of the mission's anomaly resolution team and a JPL engineer.
After switching to the B computer—which was used during part of Curiosity's flight to Mars but has never been used on the surface—the rover went into "safe mode" and stopped almost all activities.
The vehicle is currently holding powder from the first rock ever drilled on Mars, and analysis of that precious content will now have to wait.
Even if the rover is fully operational again in a week, the amount of science it can perform is limited. That's because the sun comes between Mars and the Earth in early April, partially blocking the path for radio commands for an entire month.Researchers from the University of Stirling have done a study that found that widespread drought is threatening forests around the world.
In an analysis published in the journal Ecology Letters, the authors suggest that forests globally are at risk from the increased severity and frequency of droughts. The results show that trees across the world show a similar response, with death increasing consistently when drought severity increases.
Dr Sarah Greenwood, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Stirling’s Faculty of Natural Sciences, explained that they have noticed that the death of trees caused by drought is consistent around the world and across diverse environments. A thirsty tree growing in a temperate forest, such as those found throughout Europe, and one in a tropical forest, will respond to drought in the same way and will ultimately suffer because of changes in rainfall patterns and rising temperatures on Earth.
The environmental and biological scientists found specific, varying features in different tree types that could alter their resistance to drought. Species with smaller, thicker leaves and denser wood tend to cope better during extended, unusually dry periods.
Professor of Ecology at Stirling and co-author of the paper, Alastair Jump, explained that by identifying specific characteristics in trees that govern how at risk they are from drought, global patterns of tree mortality can be understood better. This sheds light on how the world’s forests react to reduced rainfall and rising temperatures.
She added that mass tree mortality would hit more forests than ever before with the temperature of the planet continuing to climb. Increased tree death will push future global warming to new levels, as forests store a substantial amount of the world’s carbon.
Jump believes that the results of the study has substantial implications for fully understanding the impact of climate change on our world.Sanders: The media forced me to go on comedy shows to discuss "serious issues" https://t.co/IOC9qI1upa pic.twitter.com/KgVoDrEzDy — The Hill (@thehill) November 23, 2016
The problem with guys like Bernie Sanders is that despite being lunatics, they are at times right about what problems exist in our government and culture. This is one of those times. The Hill is reporting that in an interview with GQ magazine the Vermont Senator unloaded on the media for suppressing the discussion of serious issues.
“My major lament of the campaign is that media goes overboard to make sure that we do not have the kind of serious discussion we need,” Sanders said in an interview with GQ magazine published Tuesday, “and that it is kind of a little bit strange that you have to go on a comedy show in order to have five minutes to talk about serious issues.”
Sanders was interviewed for GQ’s “Men of the Year” issue.
“What does that say about American political culture, that you have to go on a comedy show? I’m old-fashioned, and I think that politics and public policy are serious issues that need serious discussion, and as a nation I think we need a revolution in media.”
That’s crazy talk. Everyone knows that the purpose of the media is carrying water for the DNC’s chosen candidate and obsessing over celebrities, right? This election revealed that what often gets addressed as simply a left wing ideological bias in the media is very often a partisan Democrat Party bias. Even though Sanders was the most far left candidate in the race, the DNC had anointed Hillary and their media minions followed suit, some reporters even treated her campaign as their editor.
Sanders is right, there needs to be a revolution—actually a counter-revolution—to overthrow the revolution that turned the fourth estate into the “Democrat-Media complex” described by Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart was leading that counter-revolution before his untimely death, and now what he built has been morphed into the same sort of incestuous mess. The only difference is which politicians are calling the shots.
The problem Sanders brings up is also partly a result of the unfortunate trend of mixing politics and entertainment. Our culture celebri-fies politicians and bestows intellectual authority on celebrities. People literally choose to watch comedy shows in order to get their news.
The media reports on elections like a sportscaster calls a boxing match. They only score who landed the most punches and which did the most damage, often ignoring the fact that in politics you can knock an opponent out by telling lies. They exploit elections as spectacles rather than doing the job of informing the process of self government. I don’t agree with Sanders on most—if not all—of his proposed solutions to our country’s problems but on this criticism of media he is right. When there are so many outlets covering news 24 hours a day, it’s inexcusable that the coverage is so shallow.Jim Rogash/Getty Images
When LeBron James was set to make his NBA debut with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Sacramento Kings hosted a commercial in which both teams took the floor to create a true-to-life promo.
Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels did not start the year in the major leagues, but he is proving to be every bit as sensational as basketball’s super rookie.
The 2003 NBA draft was full of talent, and it produced one of the greatest NBA athletes to play the game. It is way too early to predict that any rookie could carry out one spectacular season to projected legend status. James put the Cavaliers on the path to instant rebuild with 21 points per game and an array of statistical excellence.
But with that disclaimer stated, it would not be ridiculous to consider the potential of a 21-year-old phenom with five-tool ability to become a special player.
Trout shows promise that few rookies do and leadership that few professionals demonstrate at such a young age.
The smiles, pats on the back from veteran class-act Torii Hunter and quick swing through the zone are reminiscent of no one. Comparisons fall short. Relative statistics show a select few of historical archives that warrant no comparison for the short track record of Trout.
What is easy to see is how quickly fans can flock to Mike Trout. His home-run robbing defense, blinding speed and power-contact balance exemplify how to play the game correctly.
Watching Trout put up video-game numbers in the majors after three successful minor league seasons brings into question why the most over-thought game in the world evades outstanding athletes in failed attempts.
Mike Trout and LeBron James both delivered on every ounce of hype. They continue to improve and excel. Trout has an opportunity to be special, and the hype has not dwindled through his first year. I compare the eagerness for the first James dunk in Sacramento to the excitement of each at-bat during this 2012 season for Trout.
Young talent gives us hope for the future, both in sports and in life.America’s largest chain of psychiatric hospitals is the target of a multi-agency federal investigation into whether it systematically holds patients longer than necessary to maximize revenues — an allegation two nurses at one of its facilities raised following a protest at its headquarters in Pennsylvania last week.
According to three sources with direct knowledge of the investigation, officials are examining whether Universal Health Services directs its hospitals to hold patients for as many days as their insurer agrees to pay for, regardless of actual medical need. The probe has been ongoing since at least 2013, when the Department of Health and Human Services issued subpoenas to 10 UHS psychiatric hospitals.
But BuzzFeed News has exclusively learned that the investigation has since broadened to include the FBI and the Department of Defense, which is scrutinizing UHS’s billings to Tricare, the insurance plan for active military and their families. UHS, a $12 billion company, made nearly one-third of its revenues last year from government insurance providers such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Officials working on the current investigation continue to seek witnesses to any alleged fraudulent activity. “Putting together a successful prosecution will require the testimony of patients, intake coordinators, nurses, social workers, providers, and executives,” said one agent on the case.
The allegations against the company were raised during its shareholders meeting last week — both by the nurses who protested outside the event and by an investor in the room. The New York City Comptroller’s office, representing pension funds that own more than $25 million in UHS stock, cited ongoing investigations into the company when calling for it to abandon its shareholders voting system. An investment group for the union coalition Change to Win also voiced similar governance concerns in a 12-page letter to shareholders before the meeting.
The multiple-class voting system gives Alan Miller, CEO and chairperson, more than 80% of voting power, despite owning less than 15% of its total shares, the comptroller’s office complained.
“Insiders have total control of Universal Health Services, despite owning just a small fraction of the company,” NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer told BuzzFeed News in a statement. ”That puts every investor — including the New York City Pension Funds — at risk. From federal criminal investigations to damning exposés, it’s clear why shareowners are calling for change.”
The proposal was rejected by more than 90% of votes cast.
As the shareholders meeting proceeded, nurses from a nearby UHS-owned facility in Pennsylvania staged a protest outside, complaining of issues including understaffing and unsafe working conditions. A recent OSHA citation that found its workers are exposed to “serious physical injuries such as from bites, bruises or strains, sprains,” which underscored the employees’ concerns. (UHS is contesting the findings.)
Two nurses from the facility, Brooke Glen Behavioral Hospital, said they had direct experience with the company holding patients longer than necessary to collect higher insurance payments. They recalled telling doctors that patients were safe to be discharged, but that the doctors would ask when their “last covered day” was — the last day Medicare, Medicaid, or their private insurance would pay for — and discharge them then, regardless of their condition.
“They have lives and jobs,” said Brandi George, a nurse who has worked |
attractive that their website was crippled by a crush of traffic. What’s more, the state of South Carolina even imposed a sales tax holiday on all gun purchases on Black Friday. And the sales are working, it seems, attracting the prime early-bird shoppers: women. According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, 25 percent of the purchases are first-time gun buyers, many of them women.
But firearm frenzy it is not: gun ownership has been on the decline for the past decade. In 1997, 40% of American households owned guns, and in 2004, the last time a widespread survey was conducted, only 36.5% did. While sellers did report a surge in sales after Obama’s election in 2008, concerned that their gun rights would change, the trend tapered off. Can this latest wave of gun sales blast sellers back into profitability?
PHOTOS: The Timeless, Ubiquitous AK-47Grand Coulee Dam is located in Eastern Washington on the Columbia River.... 85 miles West of Spokane WA, 210 miles East of Seattle, and 80 miles South of the Canadian Border.
Welcome to the Grand Coulee Dam Area!
Bring the family!
Try your luck at fishing the many lakes and rivers. (open all year round) Take a nature walk, or hike on one of over a dozen scenic and historic trails.
You'll find The Grand Coulee Dam Area has plenty to offer!
18 Hole Golf, Casino, Abundant
Wildlife & Bird Viewing, Nature Walks, Hiking, Camping, Photography, Hunting & Fishing & lots more!!
Spend the Day and Experience the Wonder of the Coulee!
Come to the Coulee & see what you've been missing!
Fish any or all of our 'Open Year-Round' lakes... to take home a few 'Nice Ones' this weekend!! or just taking a drive or hike to do some Bird Watching and viewing of other local wildlife.
We are only a couple hundred miles from Seattle which is
only a little over 3 hour drive from the West Side!!
Now is a great time to visit the Grand Coulee Dam Area!!
.
Water??? We've Got Water!!
Lake Roosevelt is actually the Columbia River
backed up behind Grand Coulee Dam.
The typical operation of the lake,
even in drought years, has the water
up to a useable level for the summer.
So, when you hear of other lakes drying up because of the
drought, come to Lake Roosevelt!! "We've Got Water."
Click for Daily Lake Roosevelt Level Banks Lake's Water Level does not fluctuate more Activities at Grand Coulee Dam Include:
l All NEW Laser Light Show! - Starts Nightly for the Summer on Saturday, May 26th 2018!!
l Visitors Center - OPEN Daily 9:00AM to 5:0 PM
New Exhibits & More makes this a MUST SEE!!
l Grand Coulee Dam FREE Tour -
Begins again April 2018 - Call the Visitors Center at 509.633.9265 for more info.
l Interpretive Station Walking Tour on the Bridge OPEN
l Colville Tribal Museum is OPEN for the season. More Info: (509) 633-0751
These are a few of the many things you can do while exploring one of
Eastern Washington's best kept secret getaways.It seems that those who were astonished, abhorred, enraged or outraged from finding out that the National Security Agency (NSA) tracked millions of united states citizens and did so with the cooperation of numerous internet service providers, telecommunication companies and web-based hosting services had not even bothered to read the news in the last decade and to see reports on unauthorized searches in computers and about the way that the law authorities act. We, as Israelies, can only be jealous of the public outrage from such authoritarian conduct, because, well, in Israel, the situation is quite worse. The Israeli authorities took George Orwell’s book, Ninteen Eighty Four, and made it in to a master plan.
CC-BY-NC-ND Gerard Van der Leun
To us, as Israelies, the NSA’s authorities sound like a poor joke. Because, the NSA can only pray to get the legal and popular acceptance that the Israeli Police and other investigative authorities obtained. During the last decade, Israel enacted many surveillance laws that allowed unprecedented use of personal information for investigatory uses, and not just for the prevention of terror.
In 2007, the Israeli parliament enacted the Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Authorities – Metadata) Act. The act itself granted the police, as well as other investigative agencies, abhorrent authority to obtain widespread information about nationals, and even without judicial review. The authorities could approach the telecommunication providers (ISPs, mobile operators and phone operators), pay a few Shekels, and obtain answers to queries, as long as such queries relate to specific crimes or investigations. For example, if a murder occurred in a specific street, the police could have approached the cellular providers and request the subscribers who were in the street at a specific time.
In a similar manner, the police could approach an Internet service provider and request a list of subscribers who browsed a certain page, or inquire who was the subscriber who leaked anonymous information to a military correspondent about inadherence to the supreme court’s ruling in the military’s conduct.
The act’s application was so successful that the police requested more information about subscribers, even though it was not authorized to do so; the police, for example, requested to find out who is the sales representative who sold the mobile devices and what payment means were used to pay the bills. The act, which made the courts into a rubber stamp (because no metadata request was denied, apparently) allowed the police to request 9,000 requests in 2009; out of which, almost 2,000 were related to political activities such as public disturbances.
That’s why the Israeli Civil Rights Association appealed against the act (HCJ 3809/08 ACRI v. The Police), but the appeal was rejected. Following the rejection of the appeal, the state decided it wants more authority for more authorities, so that even authorities like the Parks and Forests Authority will be entitled for your GPS location, and that more information will be provided without judicial review, as the courts already approve almost all the requests.
Here, in Zion, we can only be jealous about the US Citizens who are abhorred; Israel addressed Google for subscriber information (not by the Metadata act, as it does not apply to Google), about 350 times since 2009. Google responded to most of these requests; meaning that there are 350 people in Israel that the government obtained their correspondence, and that we cannot be certain that they were informed about such intrusion. But Google is an exemption, it provides us with reports.
Israeli nationals are always subjected to espionage and surveillance: employers read your email, the state sets up traffic cameras, parking cameras, security cameras and protection cameras. And all this time we ask: do we need protection from criminals or the state?
[Originally Published in Room 404 / Haaret’zGujarat scrambled to contain Dalit protests Tuesday as they spread to Ahmedabad and several parts of the state, triggering violence in which a policeman was killed, state transport buses torched and roads blocked.
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At least two more persons attempted suicide — seven tried to end their lives Monday — to protest the flogging of a Dalit family on July 11 for allegedly skinning a cow in Una in Gir Somnath district.
Promising strict action in the Una case and calling for calm, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel announced she would visit Balu Sarvaiya and his family members who were brutally assaulted by a gau raksha group and are now being treated at the Rajkot civil hospital.
In the first of a series of tweets, the Chief Minister said: “Seven more arrested in Una case, total 16 accused held till now. State govt is taking strict action against all accused.”
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As Dalit groups called for a Gujarat bandh Wednesday, Congress leaders said Rahul Gandhi will be visiting Una Thursday to meet the victims.
WATCH VIDEO: Dalit Protests Spread In Gujarat, Voices Rise In Parliament
The AAP said its leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too will travel to Una Friday. The AAP also announced that the party would stage protests over the Una incident across Gujarat Wednesday.
Read | Protest across Gujarat, groups demand to declare private cow protection committees illegal
Congress MP Ahmed Patel, appealing for peace, tweeted: “Failure of authorities to protect Dalits in Gujarat is absolutely shocking. Is it the Gujarat Model? Independent probe is need of the hour”.
Read | My son was forced to assault Dalits, says 17-year-old Muslim boy’s father
Gujarat Patidar quota agitation leader Hardik Patel, according to a PTI report from Udaipur, backed the protesting Dalits, saying they have faced exploitation and their demands are justified. Released after nine months in jail, Patel has to remain outside Gujarat for six months on court orders.
The RSS too stepped in, condemning the attack on Dalits as “an attack on the entire Hindu community which believes in peace and amity”.
RSS Gujarat prant sanghchalak Mukesh Malkan said “atrocities meted out to the Scheduled Caste brothers in the name of cow protection is extremely painful and condemnable. This kind of inhuman behaviour is a heinous crime and its perpetrators should be dealt with severely”.
The Gujarat chapter of Vishwa Hindu Parishad also issued a release, condemning the “atrocity” on Dalits by “some elements”.
Violence erupted Tuesday in Rajkot city, Rajkot district, Surendranagar, Amreli, Junagadh and Ahmedabad. Police said a mob hurled stones at a police patrol in Amreli. Constable Pankaj Rameshbhai Amreliya, one of those seriously injured in the attack, died in hospital later.
Additional DGP (Law and Order) V M Pargi said: “The constable was shifted to Rajkot civil hospital where he died.” He said violent protests were reported from other districts as well. P P Pandey, DGP in-charge, issued a statement, appealing to people to maintain peace.
In Ahmedabad, 40-year-old Mukesh Khodidas, a resident of Kalol in Gandhinagar, tried to commit suicide outside the collectorate and was taken to the civil hospital. In Biliyala village near Gondal, Bharat Boricha (35) attempted suicide by consuming a chemical substance in protest against the Una incident. He was sent to Rajkot for treatment.
On Monday night, mobs took to the streets and set ablaze state transport buses in Rajkot, Dhoraji and other towns of Saurashtra. In Surendranagar, a truckload of cow carcasses were dumped outside the collector’s office.
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In Ahmedabad, OBC leader and convenor of OBC/ST/SC Ekta Manch Alpesh Thakor was detained along with his supporters outside the collector’s office where they were protesting against the Una incident.This is part 15 of a tutorial series about rendering. In the previous installment, we added fog. Now we'll create our own deferred lights.
From now on, the Rendering tutorials are made with Unity 5.6.0. This Unity version changes a few things in both the editor and shaders, but you should still be able to find your way.
Now that we know that it works, enable HDR again.
LDR colors are logarithmically encoded, using the formula 2 -C. To decode this, we have to use the formula -log 2 C.
The light buffer itself is made available to the shader via the _LightBuffer variable.
To make the second pass work, we have to convert the data in the light buffer. Like our fog shader, a full-screen quad is drawn with UV coordinates that we can use to sample the buffer.
Unfortunately, the frame debugger doesn't show any information about the stencil buffer, neither its contents nor how passes use it. Maybe this will be added in a future version.
When rendering in LDR mode, you might see the sky turn black too. This can happen in the scene view or the game view. If the sky turns black, the conversion pass doesn't correctly use the stencil buffer as a mask. To fix this, explicitly configure the stencil settings of the second pass. We should only render when we're dealing with a fragment that's not part of the background. The appropriate stencil value is provided via _StencilNonBackground.
But what about that second pass? Remember that when HDR is disabled, light data is logarithmically encoded. A final pass is needed to reverse this encoding. That's what the second pass is for. So if you disabled HDR for the camera, the second pass of our shader will also be used, once.
Unity now accepts our shader and uses it to render the directional light. As a result, everything becomes black. The only exception is the sky. The stencil buffer is used as a mask to avoid rendering there, because the directional light doesn't affect the background.
After switching to our shader, Unity complains that it doesn't have enough passes. Apparently, a second pass is needed. Let's just duplicate the pass that we already have and see what happens.
Each deferred light is rendered in a separate pass, modifying the colors of the image. Effectively, they're image effects, like our deferred fog shader from the previous tutorial. Let's start with a simple shader that overwrites everything with black.
All objects in the scene are rendered to the G-buffers with our own shader. But the lights are rendered with Unity's default deferred shader, which is named Hidden / Internal-DefferedShader. You can verify this by going to the graphics settings via Edit / Project Settings / Graphics and switching the Deferred shader mode to Custom shader.
To test the lights, I'll use a simple scene with its ambient intensity set to zero. It is rendered with a deferred HDR camera.
We added support for the deferred rendering path in Rendering 13, Deferred Shading. All we had to do was fill the G-buffers. The lights were rendered later. The tutorial briefly explained how those lights were added by Unity. This time, we'll render these lights ourselves.
Directional Lights
The first pass takes care of rendering the lights, so it's going to be fairly complicated. Let's create an include file for it, named MyDeferredShading.cginc. Copy all code from the pass to this file.
#if!defined(MY_DEFERRED_SHADING) #define MY_DEFERRED_SHADING #include "UnityCG.cginc" … #endif
Then include MyDeferredShading in the first pass.
Pass { Cull Off ZTest Always ZWrite Off CGPROGRAM #pragma vertex VertexProgram #pragma fragment FragmentProgram #pragma exclude_renderers nomrt #include "MyDeferredShading.cginc" ENDCG }
Because we're supposed to add light to the image, we have to make sure that we don't erase what's already been rendered. We can do so by changing the blend mode to combine the full source and destination colors.
Blend One One Cull Off ZTest Always ZWrite Off
We need shader variants for all possible light configurations. The multi_compile_lightpass compiler directive creates all keyword combinations that we need. The only exception is HDR mode. We have to add a separate multi-compile directive for that.
#pragma exclude_renderers nomrt #pragma multi_compile_lightpass #pragma multi_compile _ UNITY_HDR_ON
Although this shader is used for all three light types, we'll first limit ourselves to directional lights only.
G-Buffer UV Coordinates We need UV coordinates to sample from the G-buffers. Unfortunately, Unity doesn't supply light passes with convenient texture coordinates. Instead, we have to derive them from the clip-space position. To do so, we can use the ComputeScreenPos, which is defined in UnityCG. This function produces homogeneous coordinates, just like the clip-space coordinates, so we have to use a float4 to store them. struct Interpolators { float4 pos : SV_POSITION; float4 uv : TEXCOORD0; }; Interpolators VertexProgram (VertexData v) { Interpolators i; i.pos = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex); i.uv = ComputeScreenPos(i.pos); return i; } In the fragment program, we can compute the final 2D coordinates. As explained in Rendering 7, Shadows, this has to happen after interpolation. float4 FragmentProgram (Interpolators i) : SV_Target { float2 uv = i.uv.xy / i.uv.w; return 0; }
World Position When we created our deferred fog image effect, we had to figure out the fragment's distance from the camera. We did so by shooting rays from the camera through each fragment to the far plane, then scaling those by the fragment's depth value. We can use the same approach here to reconstruct the fragment's world position. In the case of directional lights, the rays for the four vertices of the quad are supplied as normal vectors. So we can just pass them through the vertex program and interpolate them. struct VertexData { float4 vertex : POSITION; float3 normal : NORMAL; }; struct Interpolators { float4 pos : SV_POSITION; float4 uv : TEXCOORD0; float3 ray : TEXCOORD1; }; Interpolators VertexProgram (VertexData v) { Interpolators i; i.pos = UnityObjectToClipPos(v.vertex); i.uv = ComputeScreenPos(i.pos); i.ray = v.normal; return i; } We can find the depth value in the fragment program by sampling the _CameraDepthTexture texture and linearizing it, just like we did for the fog effect. UNITY_DECLARE_DEPTH_TEXTURE(_CameraDepthTexture); … float4 FragmentProgram (Interpolators i) : SV_Target { float2 uv = i.uv.xy / i.uv.w; float depth = SAMPLE_DEPTH_TEXTURE(_CameraDepthTexture, uv); depth = Linear01Depth(depth); return 0; } However, a big difference is that we supplied rays that reached the far plane to our fog shader. In this case, we are supplied with rays that reach the near plane. We have to scale them so we get rays that reach the far plane. This can be done by scaling the ray so its Z coordinate becomes 1, and multiplying it with the far plane distance. depth = Linear01Depth(depth); float3 rayToFarPlane = i.ray * _ProjectionParams.z / i.ray.z; Scaling this ray by the depth value gives us a position. The supplied rays are defined in view space, which is the camera's local space. So we end up with the fragment's position in view space as well. float3 rayToFarPlane = i.ray * _ProjectionParams.z / i.ray.z; float3 viewPos = rayToFarPlane * depth; The conversion from this space to world space is done with the unity_CameraToWorld matrix, which is defined in ShaderVariables. float3 viewPos = rayToFarPlane * depth; float3 worldPos = mul(unity_CameraToWorld, float4(viewPos, 1)).xyz;
Reading G-Buffer Data Next, we need access to the G-buffers to retrieve the surface properties. The buffers are made available via three _CameraGBufferTexture variables. sampler2D _CameraGBufferTexture0; sampler2D _CameraGBufferTexture1; sampler2D _CameraGBufferTexture2; We filled these same buffers in the Rendering 13, Deferred Shader tutorial. Now we get to read from them. We need the albedo, specular tint, smoothness, and normal. float3 worldPos = mul(unity_CameraToWorld, float4(viewPos, 1)).xyz; float3 albedo = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture0, uv).rgb; float3 specularTint = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture1, uv).rgb; float3 smoothness = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture1, uv).a; float3 normal = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture2, uv).rgb * 2 - 1;
Computing BRDF The BRDF functions are defined in UnityPBSLighting, so we'll have to include that file. //#include "UnityCG.cginc" #include "UnityPBSLighting.cginc" Now we only need three more bits of data before we can invoke the BRDF function in our fragment program. First is the view direction, which is found as usual. float3 worldPos = mul(unity_CameraToWorld, float4(viewPos, 1)).xyz; float3 viewDir = normalize(_WorldSpaceCameraPos - worldPos); Second is the surface reflectivity. We derive that from the specular tint. It's simply the strongest color component. We can use the SpecularStrength function to extract it. float3 albedo = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture0, uv).rgb; float3 specularTint = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture1, uv).rgb; float3 smoothness = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture1, uv).a; float3 normal = tex2D(_CameraGBufferTexture2, uv).rgb * 2 - 1; float oneMinusReflectivity = 1 - SpecularStrength(specularTint); Third, we need the light data. Let's start with dummy lights. float oneMinusReflectivity = 1 - SpecularStrength(specularTint); UnityLight light; light.color = 0; light.dir = 0; UnityIndirect indirectLight; indirectLight.diffuse = 0; indirectLight.specular = 0; Finally, we can compute the contribution of the light for this fragment, using the BRDF function. indirectLight.specular = 0; float4 color = UNITY_BRDF_PBS( albedo, specularTint, oneMinusReflectivity, smoothness, normal, viewDir, light, indirectLight ); return color ;
Configuring the Light Indirect light is not applicable here, so it remains black. But the direct light has to be configured so it matches the light that's currently being rendered. For a directional light, we need a color and a direction. These are made available via the _LightColor and _LightDir variables. float4 _LightColor, _LightDir; Let's create a separate function to setup the light. Simply copy the variables into a light structure and return it. UnityLight CreateLight () { UnityLight light; light.dir = _LightDir; light.color = _LightColor.rgb; return light; } Use this function in the fragment program. UnityLight light = CreateLight() ; // light.color = 0; // light.dir = 0; Light from the wrong direction. We finally get lighting, but it appears to come from the wrong direction. This happens because _LightDir is set to the direction in which the light is traveling. For our calculations, we need the direction from the surface to the light, so the opposite. light.dir = -_LightDir ; Directional light, without shadows.
Shadows In My Lighting, we relied on the macros from AutoLight to determine the light attenuation caused by shadows. Unfortunately, that file wasn't written with deferred lights in mind. So we'll do the shadow sampling ourselves. The shadow map can be accessed via the _ShadowMapTexture variable. sampler2D _ShadowMapTexture; However, we cannot indiscriminately declare this variable. It is already defined for point and spotlight shadows in UnityShadowLibrary, which we indirectly include. So we should not define it ourselves, except when working with shadows for directional lights. #if defined (SHADOWS_SCREEN) sampler2D _ShadowMapTexture; #endif To apply directional shadows, we simply have to sample the shadow texture and use it to attenuate the light color. Doing this in CreateLight means that the UV coordinates have to be added to it as a parameter. UnityLight CreateLight ( float2 uv ) { UnityLight light; light.dir = -_LightDir; float shadowAttenuation = tex2D(_ShadowMapTexture, uv).r; light.color = _LightColor.rgb * shadowAttenuation ; return light; } Pass the UV coordinates to it in the fragment program. UnityLight light = CreateLight( uv ); Directional light with shadows. Of course this is only valid when the directional light has shadows enabled. If not, the shadow attenuation is always 1. float shadowAttenuation = 1; #if defined(SHADOWS_SCREEN) shadowAttenuation = tex2D(_ShadowMapTexture, uv).r; #endif light.color = _LightColor.rgb * shadowAttenuation;
Fading Shadows The shadow map is finite. It cannot cover the entire world. The larger an area it covers, the lower the resolution of the shadows. Unity has a maximum distance up to which shadows are drawn. Beyond that, there are no real-time shadows. This distance can be adjust via Edit / Project Settings / Quality. Shadow distance quality setting. When shadows approach this distance, they fade out. At least, that's what Unity's shaders do. Because we're manually sampling the shadow map, our shadows get truncated when the edge of the map is reached. The result is that shadows get sharply cut off or are missing beyond the fade distance. Large and small shadow distance. To fade the shadows, we must first know the distance at which they should be completely gone. This distance depends on how the directional shadows are projected. In Stable Fit mode the fading is spherical, centered on the middle of the map. In Close Fit mode it's based on the view depth. The UnityComputeShadowFadeDistance function can figure out the correct metric for us. It has the world position and view depth as parameters. It will either return the distance from the shadow center, or the unmodified view depth. UnityLight CreateLight (float2 uv, float3 worldPos, float viewZ ) { UnityLight light; light.dir = -_LightDir; float shadowAttenuation = 1; #if defined(SHADOWS_SCREEN) shadowAttenuation = tex2D(_ShadowMapTexture, uv).r; float shadowFadeDistance = UnityComputeShadowFadeDistance(worldPos, viewZ); #endif light.color = _LightColor.rgb * shadowAttenuation; return light; } The shadows should begin to fade as they approach the fade distance, completely disappearing once they reach it. The UnityComputeShadowFade function calculates the appropriate fade factor. float shadowFadeDistance = UnityComputeShadowFadeDistance(worldPos, viewZ); float shadowFade = UnityComputeShadowFade(shadowFadeDistance); What do these functions look like? They are defined in UnityShadowLibrary. The unity_ShadowFadeCenterAndType variable contains the shadow center and the shadow type. The _LightShadowData variable's Z and W components contain the scale and offset used for fading. float UnityComputeShadowFadeDistance (float3 wpos, float z) { float sphereDist = distance(wpos, unity_ShadowFadeCenterAndType.xyz); return lerp(z, sphereDist, unity_ShadowFadeCenterAndType.w); } half UnityComputeShadowFade(float fadeDist) { return saturate(fadeDist * _LightShadowData.z + _LightShadowData.w); } The shadow fade factor is a value from 0 to 1, which indicates how much the shadows should fade away. The actual fading can be done by simply adding this value to the shadow attenuation, and clamping to 0–1. float shadowFade = UnityComputeShadowFade(shadowFadeDistance); shadowAttenuation = saturate(shadowAttenuation + shadowFade); To make this work, supply the world position and view depth to CreateLight in our fragment program. The view depth is the Z component of the fragment's position in view space. UnityLight light = CreateLight(uv, worldPos, viewPos.z ); Fading shadows.
Light Cookies Another thing that we have to support are light cookies. The cookie texture is made available via _LightTexture0. Besides that, we also have to convert from world to light space, so we can sample the texture. The transformation for that is made available via the unity_WorldToLight matrix variable. sampler2D _LightTexture0; float4x4 unity_WorldToLight; In CreateLight, use the matrix to convert the world position to light-space coordinates. Then use those to sample the cookie texture. Let's use a separate attenuation variable to keep track of the cookie's attenuation. light.dir = -_LightDir; float attenuation = 1; float shadowAttenuation = 1; #if defined(DIRECTIONAL_COOKIE) float2 uvCookie = mul(unity_WorldToLight, float4(worldPos, 1)).xy; attenuation *= tex2D(_LightTexture0, uvCookie).w; #endif … light.color = _LightColor.rgb * (attenuation * shadowAttenuation ) ; Directional light with cookie. The results appear good, except when you pay close attention to geometry edges. Artifacts along edges. These artifacts appear when there is a large difference between the cookie coordinates of adjacent fragments. In those cases, the GPU chooses a mipmap level that is too low for the closest surface. Aras Pranckevičius figured this one out for Unity. The solution Unity uses is to apply a bias when sampling mip maps, so we'll do that too. attenuation *= tex2Dbias (_LightTexture0, float4( uvCookie, 0, -8) ).w; Biased cookie sampling.The Zadroga Act that helps victims and first responders of the 9/11 atacks with related health problems expired at midnight Wednesday.Congress did not approve an extension or make the law permanent.The federal health benefits affect around 70,000 people. The original act only covered five years of care, but was later extended.Some lawmakers said there is enough funding to keep assistance going for another year.Advocacy groups disagree, and fear funding will run out sooner than that.For now, first responders who rushed to the World Trade Center after the 2001 terrorist attacks, worked for weeks and now suffer from illnesses like pulmonary disease and cancers will still be able to get their health care.But federal officials who administer the program say it will face challenges by February and will have to start shutting down by next summer.Letting the program expire creates "enormous anxieties and fears in the minds of very sick people," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who has been lobbying her colleagues to make the program permanent and recently was joined by comedian Jon Stewart.New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was unacceptable for Congress to let it expire."Congress must stop putting politics ahead of our heroes' health," he said in a statement.John Feal, a former World Trade Center demolition worker and leading advocate for sick responders, has pressed lawmakers to pay attention to the Sept. 11 program."People are dying and suffering, and Congress can easily close this wound," Feal said. "But they continue to add salt to it."The Zadroga Act, named after a responder who died after working at ground zero, first became law in 2010 after a debate over the bill's cost. Proponents are seeking the law's permanent extension in part because some illnesses may not manifest until years later, after the statute of limitations for worker's compensation or certain state laws may have run out.House Republicans have been supportive of the program but have opposed its permanent extension because they say they want the chance to periodically review it and make sure it is operating soundly. The Senate has not moved a bill.In a letter to the Senate, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden said if the law isn't extended, the World Trade Center Health Program "will begin to face significant operational challenges" by February. By next summer, the program's 72,000 enrolled beneficiaries will have to be notified that they may not receive health care beyond September 2016 and the program will have to start to shut down. Frieden said that process could cause patients additional stress.Earlier this summer, Dr. John Howard, the administrator of the CDC program, told a House panel that extending the law would help clinicians treat victims and allow administrators to better plan patient care.A Canadian psychology professor has claimed that heavy metal can help promote scientific thinking in the classroom.
In a recently published article, Rodney Schmaltz, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at McMaster University in Edmonton, Alberta, argues that cases where heavy metal has been implicated in graphic and disturbing crimes can provide educators with a way challenge students to consider what evidence they have used to assess the impact of music on behavior.
One of the examples that Schmaltz brings up is JUDAS PRIEST's 1990 subliminal-message trial in Reno, Nevada where the band was found not liable for the deaths of two young men who cited the band's music as the reason they killed themselves. He writes in the open-access journal Frontiers In Psychology for their series "Novel Approaches To Teaching Scientific Thinking: Psychological Perspectives": "[The JUDAS PRIEST] case can lead to an interesting class discussion on how extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim that a backwards, subliminal message can lead someone to take their own life is an extraordinary claim. Students can be challenged to describe how they would experimentally test the impact of subliminal messages on behavior, followed by a class discussion of how the actual research was conducted in the field. This is an engaging example to help students better understand variable manipulation, demand characteristics, and issues of generalizability. At least in the case of subliminal messages, students will learn that music does not lead to problematic or harmful behavior."
Schmaltz also discusses the 1996 case where two teenagers were charged in the murder of a 15-year-old girl and later claimed they took inspiration to commit the crime from lyrics in the SLAYER songs "Postmortem" and "Dead Skin Mask". The parents of the victim sued SLAYER and their record label for unlawfully marketing and distributing obscene and harmful products to minors.
The professor writes: "Students should be challenged with providing the nature of the claim, and then exploring the evidence supporting the claim. Is the evidence sufficient to demonstrate a causal relationship between heavy metal and problematic and deviant behavior? One approach to further engage students is to divide the class into groups to act as the prosecutor or defense in a mock trial of the SLAYER murder case. The value in using this case is that the real-world outcome is known. The case did not go to trial, as the perpetrators of the crime had a history of criminal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other factors that clearly demonstrated that listening to the music of SLAYER was not the cause of the horrific crimes."
Schmaltz goes on to cite the lack of scientific evidence in support of the argument against heavy metal, pointing out that subsequent research has shown that "people who were fans of heavy metal music in adolescence fared better in many aspects of their adult lives than people who were not fans."
He writes: "The value of using examples in heavy metal is that instructors can refer to the research that sheds light directly on the relationship between harm and this style of music. By using examples from heavy metal music, instructors are able to pose the question of the relationship between harm and heavy metal, allow students to consider the claims, apply critical thinking skills, propose how these claims should be tested, and finally solve the mystery with data from the relevant literature."
You can read Rodney Schmaltz's entire article at the Frontiers In Psychology web site.I never wanted this…
I never asked for this…
But here I am – writing you a guide on how to shave your head completely bald.
I would venture to say (with no supporting evidence), that 99% of the men reading this are (and about to be were), in the same boat as I once was…
Struggling over the thought of shaving your head completely bald.
The other 1% are probably those out there who are shaving their head to support their favorite charity despite having luscious locks.
Here’s a quick (2 minute) and very personal story:
Back when I was the ripe age of 20 and still not old enough to drink (legally anyways), I found the harsh realization that my hair was thinning on the crown of my head.
It sucked.
It crushed my confidence.
And needless to say, the lack of a full head of hair left me feeling quite empty on the inside.
So, there I was, making trips to my local Walmart with ballcap on, and discretely loading up on Minoxidil infused products (of course making sure they were stashed under other items in my grocery cart so no one could see it).
Once I got back to my shared apartment with three other college roommates, I would sneak off to the bathroom, lock the door, and begin the process of applying this smelly solution to my scalp, not just once a day, but twice.
Needless to say, it was embarrassing and confidence-busting.
But alas, I tried this for about 6 months and then gave up.
Not only was I seeing very little in the way of results, but I simply just didn’t like putting a solution on the top of my head twice a day…
every.
single.
time.
Between then and a few short years ago, I watched with envy countless late night ads on TV claiming a full head of hair, and read numerous advertorials that exclaimed they could Regrow hair in as little as 3 easy treatments.
But none of these seemed like a financially viable option (at least for a college grad loaded in student loan debt).
As time progressed over the years, I would cut my hair shorter and shorter telling myself I would never fully go completely bald…
But a funny thing happened a few years ago…
One night after watching Breaking Bad (remember Walter White!?), I decided to take the plunge into fully shaving my head.
I mean, at this point in my life, I was visiting the barbershop once every couple of weeks having them cut it down to a size 2.
I figured, what’s the worse that could happen?
After all, what hair I have left will grow back right?
Well of course that’s hindsight 20/20 talking right now.
At the time when I decided to take a razor to my scalp, I was terrified.
I remember thinking to myself a multitude of thoughts:
I am going to look like my grandpa…
My head is going to feel like an egg…
My wife is going to think I look hideous…
I don’t even have a child yet, but I look like I should be collecting Social Security…
This is going to end very badly…
But for some reason, I still had the balls to go through with the very act of shaving my head.
Well needless to say, it took several passes and several learned lessons (described fully below) before I was finished.
And the result…
It was [email protected]*ing awesome!
The best way I could ever describe the feeling was that I felt like a badass.
Like a true Walter White / Heisenberg badass that was ready to take on the world (except for the selling meth part).
It was the best shot of confidence that I have ever given myself in recent memory.
I |
"must": [ { "range": { "@timestamp": { "gte": "now-12M", "lte": "now", "format": "epoch_millis" } } } ], "must_not": [] } } } }, "size": 0, "aggs": { "blah": { "terms": { "field": "remote_ip.raw", "size": 1000, "order": { "_count": "desc" } } } } }) #re print(res)
The output might look a little bit confusing, but I just wanted to show with this example that we could fetch valid data from Elasticsearch using a neat client API in Python.
Now, for a bit more interesting use of the client API, we are going to get the top 100 IP's that performed an http request to our Nginx server. Our Nginx server was configured to log to JSON log file. Let's look at our previous query from Sense and change it to appear like this:
Change the keyword under "aggs". I changed it to "blah" :
POST /nginx_json_elk_example/_search?pretty=true { "query": { "filtered": { "query": { "query_string": { "query": "*", "analyze_wildcard": "true" } }, "filter": { "bool": { "must": [ { "range": { "@timestamp": { "gte": "now-12M", "lte": "now", "format": "epoch_millis" } } } ], "must_not": [] } } } }, "size": 0, "aggs": { "blah": { "terms": { "field": "remote_ip.raw", "size": 10, "order": { "_count": "desc" } } } } }
The response would look something like this:
{ "took": 13, "timed_out": false, "_shards": { "total": 5, "successful": 5, "failed": 0 }, "hits": { "total": 51462, "max_score": 0, "hits": [] }, "aggregations": { "blah": { "doc_count_error_upper_bound": 125, "sum_other_doc_count": 38958, "buckets": [ { "key": "216.46.173.126", "doc_count": 2350 }, { "key": "180.179.174.219", "doc_count": 1720 }, { "key": "204.77.168.241", "doc_count": 1439 }, { "key": "65.39.197.164", "doc_count": 1365 }, { "key": "80.91.33.133", "doc_count": 1202 }, { "key": "84.208.15.12", "doc_count": 1120 }, { "key": "74.125.60.158", "doc_count": 1084 }, { "key": "119.252.76.162", "doc_count": 1064 }, { "key": "79.136.114.202", "doc_count": 628 }, { "key": "54.207.57.55", "doc_count": 532 } ] } } }
Thus, we could loop over the values individually, for example, if we wanted to show the top 5 IPs and hits in an ordered manner. If you look at how the response JSON is structured, we need to loop over aggregations --> blah --> buckets
This is what I mean: We want the values that are in the key section.
aggregations { "blah": { "buckets": [ { "key": "119.252.76.162", "doc_count": 1064 }, { "key": "54.207.57.55", "doc_count": 532 } ] } }
I used the keyword 'blah' to help give a name to the aggregation's return value because otherwise it could've had a number for a name, which would make it hard to loop over the JSON values.
Here is our final Python code to look over our top ten IP's by request and print out the top ten IP's.
#!/usr/bin/env python import requests from elasticsearch import Elasticsearch import json # Eerste maand. # Sit netnou in functions es = Elasticsearch() res = es.search(index="nginx_json_elk_example", body={ "query": { "filtered": { "query": { "query_string": { "query": "*", "analyze_wildcard": "true" } }, "filter": { "bool": { "must": [ { "range": { "@timestamp": { "gte": "now-12M", "lte": "now", "format": "epoch_millis" } } } ], "must_not": [] } } } }, "size": 0, "aggs": { "blah": { "terms": { "field": "remote_ip.raw", "size": 100, "order": { "_count": "desc" } } } } }) #re #print(res) for f in res['aggregations']['blah']['buckets']: print('Request from IP %s' % f['key'])
Conclusion
In this article, you've learned how to use the Elasticsearch Python client API to do something useful from an operations perspective. This is only a simple query, so imagine the power that you have at your disposal with more complex queries using this Python API.
Comments / Feedback? Leave us a message below.DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Whether it’s Mr. Brown or his lovely daughter, President Duterte says he sees ghosts at Malacañang Palace even during daytime.
This is why he prefers to stay at the much smaller Bahay Pagbabago, at the Presidential Security Group grounds across the Pasig River, instead of at the cavernous palace, seat of the country’s government.
“Ako didto ako puyo sa pikas. Kay ang multo sa Malacañang, maski adlaw nagpapakita man (Me, I stay on the other side because the ghosts at Malacañang appear even at daytime),” the President told residents of Barangay Januiay in Mlang, North Cotabato where a solar-powered irrigation system was inaugurated yesterday afternoon.
The President described the ghost as a Filipina looking so pale she could be a “white lady.”
“Iyon bang multo na Pilipina, nakita ko nga, Pilipina na luspad (the ghost that I see is a Filipina who is so pale),” the President added.
Duterte said that another ghost he sees in the Palace sits on a rocking chair and holds a pipe.
“Malacañang, rocking chair nga puti nakagunit ug pipa. Abay linte ni ah. Diri ta, retreat, retreat. Si didto ako katulog sa kagagmay na kwarto sa atbang,” the President said, explaining that he prefers to sleep in the smaller rooms in Bahay Pagbabago which could be reached by a small boat crossing the Pasig River.
The President at first did not relish even holding office at Malacañang because of what he said were just too many doors that he could only guess where one led or opened up to.
Duterte initially just wanted to stay in a nearby hotel but security considerations made him agree to stay at Bahay Pagbabago whenever he is in Manila.
Most weekends, the President comes home to Davao City.Welcome to WHAT NOW, a morning round-up of the news/fresh horrors that await you today.
There’s been a bizarre strain of wishful thinking among the anti-Donald Trump crowd since the mogul became president that maybe, just maybe, he would get sick of the job or be otherwise deposed and America would be left with President Mike Pence. This is wishful thinking because President Pence would possibly be a worse reality by almost any metric.
A lengthy profile in the latest issue of The New Yorker, written by Jane Mayer, contains plenty of reasons why.
In an exchange demonstrating how Trump likes Pence but likes to remind him who’s boss even more, Mayer recounts how the president once openly mocked how hostile the vice president is to LGBTQ rights (emphasis added):
During a meeting with a legal scholar, Trump belittled Pence’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade. The legal scholar had said that, if the Supreme Court did so, many states would likely legalize abortion on their own. “You see?” Trump asked Pence. “You’ve wasted all this time and energy on it, and it’s not going to end abortion anyway.” When the conversation turned to gay rights, Trump motioned toward Pence and joked, “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!”
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How charming.
Marc Short, the Trump White House’s head of legislative affairs, also told the magazine how Pence’s closeness with the Koch brothers helped bring them around on Trump. “The Kochs were very excited about the Vice-Presidential pick,” he said.
Pence’s chumminess with the Kochs is apparently even enough to give former top White House aide and campaign chairman Steve Bannon pause. He told Mayer about the prospect of a Pence presidency: “I’m concerned he’d be a President that the Kochs would own.”
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Obviously, take any concern-mongering from a man like Bannon, who likely feels like he still owns the current president, with a grain of salt.
The only way to make this administration worse would be to deliver it to the hands of an effective, well-connected far-right conservative.
WHAT ELSE?
In a strange move for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who’s cast himself as no friend of the LGBTQ people, the Justice Department dispatched an experienced hate crimes lawyer to Iowa to help prosecute a case against a man charged with murdering a transgender high school student last year.
ICYMI: Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice who alleged last October that Trump groped her when she was on the show, has subpoenaed the president’s campaign for all documented pertaining to “any woman alleging that Donald J. Trump touched her inappropriately,” which was first reported by BuzzFeed.
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For more news and opinions that get under your skin, follow Splinter on Facebook.The socialite had a small part in 'Touch of Evil' but was renowned for her extravagant Hollywood lifestyle, many marriages and penchant for calling everyone "dahling."
Zsa Zsa Gabor, the actress who worked little but wed often and gained fame for her glamorous, outlandish persona and extravagant Hollywood lifestyle, has died. She was 99.
Gabor, who paved the way for the likes of modern-day socialites Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, died Sunday afternoon, publicist Ed Lozzi confirmed to CBS LA. She had battled serious health issues since she fell out of bed, broke her left hip and underwent hip-replacement surgery in July 2010. Months later, her right leg was amputated above the knee to prevent the spread of gangrene.
Wed nine times, the 1936 Miss Hungary contestant made a career joking about her many marriages and luxurious needs. With her diamonds, furs and sense of privilege, she cultivated a comic image of an Old World gold digger and exuded a blond swagger.
Gabor’s former spouses included such well-heeled gents as hotel magnate Conrad Hilton and Oscar-winning actor and bon vivant George Sanders, who later married her sister Magda.
She was the mother of actress Francesca Hilton, who died of a heart attack in 2015.
Although she had a small part in Touch of Evil, she was more recognized for her outlandish persona, extravagant lifestyle and penchant for calling everyone “dahling.”
“I don’t remember anybody’s name,” she once said. “How do you think the ‘dahling’ thing got started?"
Gabor embodied the Hollywood concept of “celebrity": a headline-grabbing, spotlight-attracting Bel Air resident regularly in the public eye not because of any unique accomplishment but simply for “being.”
“Every age has its Madame Pompadour, its Lady Hamilton, its Queen of Sheba, its Cleopatra, and I wouldn’t be surprised if history singles out Zsa Zsa as its 20th century prototype of this exclusive coterie,” Sanders wrote in his 1960 autobiography Memoirs of a Professional Cad.
Magda, who died in 1997, and Gabor’s other sister, Eva, who died in 1995, also were celebrated beauties, though Magda generally shunned the public eye. Eva co-starred with Eddie Albert in the 1965-71 CBS comedy Green Acres, playing scatterbrained city-slicker wife Lisa Douglas.
Zsa Zsa Gabor’s haughty grandeur wore thin on occasion: In 1989, she was convicted of slapping a Beverly Hills policeman and sentenced to 72 hours in jail and community service. In 2002, she was involved in a serious car accident on Sunset Boulevard as the passenger in a car driven by her hairdresser.
In addition to her celebrity status, Gabor was author of 1970’s How to Catch a Man, considered a how-to guide for gold diggers.
Gabor’s zingy humor came to light unexpectedly on an early live TV show where she dismissed a compliment on her gaudy diamonds with, “Oh, dahling, zese are just my vorking diamonds.”
Her straight-faced, diva-style quips made her a popular talk-show guest in the 1970s and ‘80s; in particular, Merv Griffin delighted in plumbing the depths of her shallowness. When queried by the mock-serious host about her housekeeping, she retorted: “I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house.”
Gabor was game for spoofing her own image: She appeared in one of David Letterman’s Late Night gags, accompanying the baseball-capped host to suburban New Jersey, where they appeared on doorsteps with Gabor asking stunned housewives if she could come in and take a look at the shoes in their closets.
She even parlayed her jail term into maintaining a spot in the public eye. She appeared in the main title sequence of The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell of Fear (1991) in a spoof of her jailbird notoriety. In a similar vein, Gabor did a self-mocking turn in the final episode of the 1960s ABC series Batman, playing Minerva, a wily spa owner who fleeces her customers.
She was born Sari Gabor to wealthy parents in Budapest. The birth date, as might be expected, varies, but it is considered to be Feb. 6, 1917. Her starry-eyed mother, Jolie (who lived to be 103), propelled her into the Miss Hungary contest in 1936.
Gabor, her sisters and their mother emigrated to the U.S. about the time of the outbreak of World War II.
Her more serious acting credits include Moulin Rouge, Lovely to Look At and We’re Not Married, all from 1952, and 1953’s Lili. In 1958, she ran the gamut of moviemaking, appearing in Touch of Evil and the camp oddity Queen of Outer Space.
Later, she appeared in such ditzy ditties as Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976) and Frankenstein’s Great Aunt Tillie (1984). She did cameos for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 (1987), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) and A Very Brady Sequel (1996) and voiced a character in the animated Happily Ever After (1990).
Survivors include her final husband, Prince Frederic von Anhalt, whom she wed in 1986 (that was the last of his seven marriages). The union garnered her the title Princess von Anhalt, Duchess of Saxony.Banned Early Xbox One Owner Reaches Agreement with Microsoft, Will Tell More When Cleared to Do So
Giuseppe Nelva November 9, 2013 5:48:16 PM EST
Yesterday Twitter user Moonlightswami made the headlines for getting an Xbox One early due to a delivery mishap by Target. He revealed all sorts of details and pictures on the console, but he was temporarily banned after a few hours. Today he had a chat with Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb and apparently everything’s gonna be ok.
Alright, I talked to @majornelson and all is being resolved. He has invited me to the launch event. Details on it are classified. I won’t be tweeting much about the xbox one until I get cleared to do so, but all is resolved thanks to @majornelson. The console ban also will be lifted prior to launch. I can’t really say much more, but it is all good. Thank you all for the support!!! Had about a 30 minute conversation with @majornelson everything is going well, and will be resolved. When I get cleared to talk more about the system I will.
Moonlightswami also mentioned that he’s available for interviews even if there isn’t much he can say, that he was not threatened, and that he agreed to some sort of NDA.
He finally explained the reasoning behind the agreement and specified that Microsoft has been very gracious in its effort to remedy the situation.
Reasoning for not being able to disclose more is some things have not been announced/not fully ready. All i can say. Microsoft has been very gracious in their effort to remedy the situation since they recognize I was not at fault in this.
All’s well that ends well. We got a lot of info to sate our curiosity, Moonlightswami will get his console back soon, and probably quite a bit more than that, and Microsoft got a marketing pitch that was quite a lot better than what most of its executives with decades of experience did so far. Everyone wins.The education authority in ‘Jazira’ canton approves opening of private institutes for teaching foreign languages.
The Education authority of ‘Jazira’ canton agreed to open institutes for foreign language teaching “in accordance with regulations”.
Welat FM got a copy of the statement issued by the education authority and included : “owing to the need of a large segment in ‘Jazira’ canton for learning some foreign languages, the Education Authority decided to approve opening of private institutes for teaching foreign languages.
The statement specified special licensing controls, among them :
1.granting of authorization for private institutes from the Education Authority in ‘Jazira’ canton.
2.Teaching Kurdish, Arabic and Syriac languages is prevented in the private institutes.
3.The Institute must contain educational means like electronic ones and others.
It is worth to mention that in the 1st of June 2017, the Education Authority of Jazira canton had issued a resolution to close all educational centers for students of basic, preparatory and secondary education in all the region of the canton.
Translated by: Hevin Osman.
Welat FMFour former Vanderbilt football players have been indicted on five counts of aggravated rape each of an unconscious 21-year-old student at a campus dormitory in June.
Safety Cory Batey, 19 of Nashville, Tenn.; defensive back Brandon Banks, 19, of Brandywine, Md.; receiver Jaborian "Tip" McKenzie, 19, of Woodville, Miss.; and tight end Brandon Vandenburg, 20, of Indio, Calif. also have been charged with two counts of aggravated sexual battery for an incident tipped to campus officials by surveillance video. Vandenburg also is charged with one count of tampering with evidence and one count of unlawful photography.
While the players were indicted Friday, the district attorney general pointed out that the investigation isn't over yet.
"Although four people are being charged at this time, the investigation is still on-going into the actions of other individuals and the role(s) they may have played in this incident," District Attorney General Torry Johnson said in a statement.
Vanderbilt dismissed the players June 29 and barred them from the campus pending the investigation. Vice chancellor Beth Fortune said Friday that their first thoughts are for the victim, a Vanderbilt student, and that the university will continue to offer her all of its services and support.
"We are shocked and saddened by the allegations that such an assault has taken place on our campus and that they include members of our football team," Fortune said in a statement.
"The charges brought today against the four former Vanderbilt football players allege conduct which is abhorrent and will never be tolerated. We will review our athletics program to be sure that it, like all other programs at the university, reflects our culture of community and respect for others and that our student athletes are held to the same high standards of conduct as all our students."
According to Nashville police, the four men are charged with raping the unconscious woman inside Vandenburg's room at Gillette House dormitory early on June 23. University officials checking the dorm's surveillance in the hallways on an unrelated matter noticed the four's behavior and notified the Vanderbilt University Police Department the night of June 25. Campus police contacted Nashville's sex crimes unit June 26.
"Their investigation has uncovered compelling, unsettling evidence that was presented to the Davidson County Grand Jury earlier today," chief Steve Anderson said in a statement.
Attorney Worrick Robinson said Batey has been taken into custody at his Nashville home. Police said Batey was taken to a hospital for mandatory blood testing before being taken to the Metro Jail with his bond set at $350,000. Police said they are making arrangements for the other three to be taken into custody as well.
Austyn Carta-Samuels, expected to be Vanderbilt's starting quarterback, is five current Commodores listed in the indictment as witnesses for the prosecution if the case goes to trial. The others include offensive lineman Jake Bernstein, wide receiver DeAndre Woods, tight end Dillon van der Wal and snapper Mack Prioleau.
Vanderbilt did not identify the four players until July 15 before the Commodores headed to Alabama for Southeastern Conference media days. None of the four played a snap for Vanderbilt last season.
Batey came in last season as a receiver and redshirted behind Jordan Matthews and Chris Boyd before switching to safety this spring.
Banks also redshirted as a freshman last season. His attorney Grover Collins declined to comment on the indictment but said last month that Banks is innocent and fully cooperating with police.
McKenzie redshirted in 2012, but the 5-foot-8 receiver had four catches for 83 yards in the Commodores' spring game — the most yards receiving in the game. His attorney, Jodie Bell, did not immediately return a message by the AP. The 6-foot-5 Vandenburg was considered one of the top junior college tight ends nationally coming out of Xavier College Prep, and he became the first junior college transfer at Vanderbilt since Jordan Rodgers in 2010.
The Commodores, who went 9-4 and won the Music City for their best season since 1915 last season, opens the 2013 season Aug. 29 hosting Mississippi.“Extreme measures” taken by the Government during the recession contributed to a rise in suicides among vulnerable people, a conference has heard.
Research on the issue was undertaken by the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) between 2008 and 2011 in Cork.
People who had not benefited from the Celtic Tiger were “doubly affected by the recession”, NSRF director of research Dr Professor Ella Arensman told the Irish Association of Suicidology annual conference in Killarney, Thursday.
An in-depth study of 307 people who took their own lives during the period in Cork City and County included interviews with health practitioners who had dealt with the deceased and reviews of coroners’ files.
It found a link between austerity, economic factors and psychological vulnerability, said Prof Arensman, who is attached to the Department of Public Health at UCC.
A person’s occupation defined them very much and the impact of unemployment on mental health was huge, contributors said.
A new socioeconomic term, “the precariat”, was being used for workers affected by the current precarious nature of employment, and this was having further impacts on mental health.
Significant increase
Everyone knew there had been a significant increase in suicides among males in Ireland during the recession, amounting to 15 per cent. But there was not a simple “one-way” relationship between unemployment and suicide, Prof Arensman said.
Ireland had suffered “extreme measures” of austerity imposed by the Government, she said.
People had lost their medical cards and mental health services were cut “very fast”.
Suicide figures were still 12 per cent more than before the economic crisis, she added.
Sara Leitao, who undertook postdoctoral research into 2008-2011 suicides in Cork, found high rates among construction workers, whom the recession had hit hard. She also found high rates among nurses and medical staff.
‘Big stigma’
There was “a big stigma” about mental health among health workers, and this was not unique to Ireland, Prof Arensman suggested.
“The nurse cannot be sick... The doctor is on a certain pedestal... They can’t admit to having mental health problems,” she said.
Prof Arensman also warned of the dangers of “misinformation” and sensationalism in media reporting of suicide.
The family in the case of the recent Hawe murder-suicide case in Cavan had been painted as “the perfect ideal family” in the community. That had resulted in phone calls to helplines, especially by mothers asking whether such an event could happen out of the blue to them too.
“It caused a lot of fears among mothers,” Prof Arensman said.MSF Launches Women’s Health Speakers’ Tour: An Interview with Dr. Hiller, OB/GYN
In an effort to help raise awareness for women’s health, MSF’s Because Tomorrow Needs Her campaign will be hosting a regional speaking tour in cities around the U.S. These talks will be led by locally-based MSF field nurses, midwives and doctors who have experienced first-hand some of the challenges women and girls face in trying to access equitable, high-quality and affordable medical care.In preparation for the launch of the regional speakers’ tour in Johnson City, TN and Asheville, NC, we spoke with MSF-OB/GYN Dr. Durell Hiller –a Dandridge, Tennessee local who has worked with MSF to improve women’s health in Nigeria and South Sudan. Dr. Hiller is former active duty military with the U.S. Army Medical Corps, providing medical assistance during Operation Desert Storm, and has over three decades of private practice experience.My first mission was in Goronyo in northwestern Nigeria and that consisted of training midwives on care, treatment, and what to do when there are complications in pregnancy. It also involved working with the Nigerian Ministry of Health to try to establish better access for pregnant women to receive care. My second mission was in Aweil, South Sudan, and that involved a lot of surgical treatment for complications in pregnancy.Well my background and experience both in the military and in practice provided me with the knowledge and skills needed to perform these duties. In the military you have only the equipment that they’re giving to you, not like in private practice where you can ask for a lot of things. With MSF we had just what was available and you get used to using that to help the people you’re taking care of.Well there are many major barriers that these women face, just some of them being the inadequate referral system, inadequate transportation to facilities, lack of ambulance services, lack of skilled medical professionals, lack of education and training. Women really need medical care nearer to their villages so that they don’t have to travel great distances.Well there are many. One particular story that really comes to mind is a patient who came to us and required a C-section. She had been in labor for several days and the baby was in an abnormal position. Three of her previous children had died in childbirth. [After a successful delivery] …she came back at her fourth week after surgery for a follow up. She was doing well, the baby was doing well, and she told us that she was so happy to finally have a baby that lived.Yes, the people that we take care of in both of the missions I’ve been on are so appreciative of the care we give them. They are so happy to have healthy babies – it happens frequently.In addition to the medical challenges, just working in another country, you have different cultures, customs, languages, food, housing. Working with our fellow ex-pats was very rewarding. We all get together and attack these challenges and try to work with them to the best of our advantage.Plus, working with the national staff, who are very helpful, especially with the languages, is great. They love the training, they love the teaching – the midwives were just outstanding. They were very receptive to our recommendations on how to do things and in the different ways that we wanted them to treat the patients. It was all very positive.Working with the patients – they were great. They were so grateful for our assistance and they were so nice. That was just a great reward in itself.All MSF projects in some way work with the Ministry of Health in that country. The projects where I worked are also trying to teach the national staff to take over some of the responsibilities. So working with the Ministry of Health is helpful in trying to do that, to give a life-long or prolonged access to care for these women – even if MSF is no longer there.I hope that they will be able to see the risks that women face in developing countries and that MSF has shown that there are simple steps that can help these women. The book, Because Tomorrow Needs Her, shows the experiences of not only the staff, the OB/GYNs, nurses and midwives, but also the patients and how access to care affects their lives and helps them have healthier pregnancies and healthier babies. I hope people will be tuned in to helping through whatever means they can.My work with MSF has been very personally rewarding, just working with patients, ex-pat staff, national staff, the support staff in New York and around the world. I hope that through these talks, people who are not directly exposed to what women are facing in developing countries will see how it affects their lives.Register below for Dr. Durell Hiller’s discussion on some of the challenges that keep women in developing countries from getting the medical care they urgently need.Check out MSF’s event listing to see when a local MSF field worker will be speaking near you!#tomorrowneedsher #womenshealth #Nigeria #SouthSudan Because Tomorrow Needs Her focuses on some of the impediments to women’s health, exposing injustices that disproportionately affect women and girls around the world.With each passing day, everyone worth their salt is trying to take advantage of the Padmavati film controversy to score their own brownie points. On Friday night, actor Shabana Azmi took to Twitter to express her anger at the controversy and show her solidarity with the filmmakers of Padmavati.
She started with saying how action should be taken against the fringe elements who want actor Deepika Padukone, who is playing the role of Padmavati, maimed.
Reprehensible.We demand action against those issuing these threats.CBFC is statutory body mandated to classify the film #Standwith Padmavati pic.twitter.com/wipmMSv16M — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) November 17, 2017
But then, soon she went from showing solidarity for creative freedom to targeting the government, especially Smriti Irani, the Information and Broadcasting Minister.
#Padmavatis application to CBFC has been sent back bcoz of incomplete formalities! Really? Or to keep fires stoked for electoral gains? — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) November 17, 2017
Sabki dukaan chal rahi hai under the patronage not of the fringe but of the Govt in power. Filmindustry must stand as 1 with #Padmavati — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) November 17, 2017
Smriti Irani is preparing IFFI dats possible only bcoz the Indian Film Industry brings such acclaim to it but keeps quiet about Padmavati! — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) November 18, 2017
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Azmi’s meltdown ended with her demanding that the entire film fraternity should boycott IFFI, International Film Festival of India, which begins from 20th November, to protest against the threats.
The entire film industry should boycott IFFI in protest against the threats to @deepikapadukone SLB and #Padmavati https://t.co/VckVB5yRJp — Azmi Shabana (@AzmiShabana) November 18, 2017
Her selective outrage got called out by filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar, who faced violent protests by Congress workers, when his film Indu Sarkar was about to release earlier this year.
He, too, took to micro blogging site to remind Shabana of the hypocrisy and virtue signalling she often indulges in.
@AzmiShabana ji I am equally concerned about threats to @deepikapadukone and SLB over #Padmavati however I feel sad about your biased approach. I would have appreciated similar support from you when I was being violently threatned by Congress workers over my film #InduSarkar — Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) November 18, 2017
One Congress leader had announced a booty of Rs. 1 lakh to blacken Bhandarkar’s face.
The film Indu Sarkar was a fiction based on the 19 month long Emergency imposed by former Prime Minister and Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother Indira Gandhi in 1970s. Despite Bhandarkar’s assurances that the film was not a biopic on Gandhi’s life, Congress workers and leaders came down heavily on him.
Its baffling to see self proclaimed custodians of #freedomOfExpression creating huge ruckus to prevent a legitimate release of #InduSarkar pic.twitter.com/orJVVJULdp — Madhur Bhandarkar (@imbhandarkar) July 15, 2017
Not surprisingly, Azmi had put up no such tweets in support of Bhandarkar.
Reportedly Censor Board is furious with filmmakers for organising private screenings without waiting for CBFC certification. They say the filmmakers sent incomplete documents. Prasoon Joshi said that the private screening held for few journalists was ‘irresponsible way of pressuring’ the board. The application was sent back due to lack of documentation and the filmmakers had to rectify and send it back.
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NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) -- The whistle of the iron horse is often a disturbing wake-up call to residents of one Norfolk neighborhood.
In a video sent in by Ballentine Place resident Francis Laveau, you can clearly hear loud train horns in the neighborhood.
Laveau does not live next to the track near Tait Terrace, but five blocks away. You can go to any house and residents will tell you about the increased noise and frequency of the trains in the middle of the night. While in bed, almost every night, Francis Laveau records the train horns that keep her up.
She wears industrial headphones and sleeps next to a white noise machine to drown out the sounds.
"It's terrible. The headphones are uncomfortable, my ears are sweaty. Awful," said Laveau. "I'm grumpy, and I'm irritable…and the volume is enough to raise the dead."
Laveau has lived here 15 years, but in the last year the train horns are increasingly intolerable.
"There is a change, and other neighbors, they can verify the same thing," she said.
Norfolk Southern confirms train traffic is up about 11 percent in the last year. The Port of Virginia numbers are the same.
Wayne Brown was born in Norfolk and has lived in Ballentine Place for years.
"It's like, 'ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba,'" he said trying to imitate the sounds of the horns.
Brown says it's like locomotive operators don't care at two in the morning.
"The are not concerned that they are coming through a community, and I think each engineer is concerned about his engine and his crossing at that time. He is not concerned about the other three trains that may follow him that night."
10 On Your Side contacted Norfolk Southern who acknowledged the six crossings in Ballentine Plaice in a half mile.
"There are multiple crossings in a row, and federal law mandates that the locomotive horn must be sounded in advance of each crossing at all times of day and night," says Susan Terpay who is Director of Public Relations with Norfolk Southern Corp.
Laveau said, "I don't know how well the personnel is informed as to what is proper. They just free-style and do whatever they feel like they want to do."
Terpay said, "We also have spoken to all of our locomotive engineers that handle trains over this stretch of track to remind them of the horn blowing regulations."
Terpay also says if any changes are made to the six railroad crossings, like closing one or two during night hours then that would become a "QUIET ZONE" and only a City or County can request. There is a formal application process.
10 On Your Side contacted Norfolk's Corporate Communications Director Lori Crouch who said the city is aware of the Ballentine Place concern.
She sent the following statement from a recent civic league meeting:
"For the past several months residents have expressed frustrations with Norfolk Southern regarding what they consider to be an increase in the decibel and the frequency. At their Feb. 18th civic league, Michael Long, Train Master for Norfolk Southern was present. He explained that Norfolk Southern follows federal guidelines and that the duration and sound of whistle is dependent on the speed of the train at the time it crosses an intersection. He said they are required to blow at every crossing and that it is two longs, a short, and a long."
Crouch said, "Mr. Long stated that he would look into conducting decibel readings and follow-up with Mr. Abdul Aswad, the civic league president."
For residents in Ballentine Place, easing the noise that is constant through the night can't come soon enough.Hey guys, I want to put into perspective why the Jones Act must be repealed.
The first most important reason is the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico. People are left with no medications, no fresh water, and no food. Hospitals have no fuel for their generators. Thousands may die in the upcoming weeks because ships can't get there with the supplies Americans worked hard to buy and send.
Shipping restrictions from the Jones Act keeps aid from reaching PR on time. But, it doesn't just affect Puerto Rico, it affects Hawaii and the mainland U.S.. |
even as his father grew ill and died.
“Seeing him laying there, it just hit me. You know, he used to be my best friend.”
Offstage last week Mr. McCray said: “I wish I had forgiven him. Me being older, and me being a father.”
He told the audience it had taken him a long time to decide to give the filmmakers a chance.
“Like Ray said in the film, I lost my religion, I don’t believe in anything, I’m by myself,” Mr. McCray said. “But tonight — I think that might change.”
He wiped his face, then smiled.
“I may be 39,” he said, “but I’m still kind of shy.”In previous installments of this series I focused on using the 2 player starter characters in an attempt to help new players enter this game cheaply and competitively. Today I’m going to move away from those characters but still remain budget. It’s no secret that Mono Blue Heroes is one of my favorite archetypes. In the short history of this game I’ve tried tirelessly to find the right character combo and strategy but it’s always missed something. In the previous format Luke Skywalker tried his hardest but his die is inconsistent and leaning on them makes that strategy weak to die mitigation. Going wide with Rey and two Padawan could deal a massive amounts of damage quickly but was weak to Thermal Detonator. With the advent of Empire at War we have something that is resilient, consistent and robust. And its all thanks to this man…
As of the day of this article’s publishing two Kanan’s cost about 8 dollars US which just boggles my mind, a sound investment for sure. It’s definitely on the top end of rares from this set. His ability is incredibly deadly when combined with his focus side since it will always allow you resolve whichever side of any die you want. This will let you pair your modifiers with base sides without having to worry about pesky die mitigation or just allow for consistent damage. Costing 13 with two dice will give you a variety of possible combinations but today I’m only going to write about the mono blue version. Here is the current budget version I’d bring to an event:
This deck is aggressive, fun and competitive without the need for legendary cards. Thermal Detonator is still a concern but that card is less prevalent then it used to be. If you are worried about that you could swap one of the Padawans for a more robust character like Rey, Force Prodigy or Jedi Instructor but without access to high priced rares and legendaries Padawans are the superior choice because of their ability. I’ve currently been testing a version with legendary and expensive rares and while that’s certainly has more staying power the budget version can still bring home the bacon (or some killer tofu if you’re a vegetarian).
Battlefield
B’Omarr Monastery will let you resolve many of the modified sides of our upgrade dice. This deck is somewhat slow so if you find this effect to be too beneficial for your opponent you can try something like Obi-Wan’s Hut or if you want to go completely dummy you can go with Secret Facility.
Upgrades
The deck can have some explosive starts where it plays multiple 1 cost weapons on the first turns. Shoto Lightsaber and Rey’s Staff are guaranteed 1 drops while Reaping the Crystal can turbo out Lightsaber and Rey’s Lightsaber for 1 cost onto a Padawan. The upgrade suite is rounded out by Makashi Training which is chosen because of its awesome action ability, respectable die and its ability to help consistently play out Guard. Since it’s not a weapon Makashi is a card you mulligan and want to see in the 2nd round or later. Feel free to experiment with other choices, but I feel its the best of the budget options. Makashi costs about 4 dollars on ebay while a Force Training play set is currently 5, if you’re really watching your budget Force Training is serviceable and will actually be better in certain spots. Cards like Vibroknife and Ancient Lightsaber are better in these slots but those are 13 and 41 dollars on Ebay respectively. However, if you happen to have access to those they should find their way into this deck.
Events and Yoda’s Quarters
This deck has opted for the Caution/Riposte combo that can be completed with the help of Return of the Jedi. The mitigation suite of Flank, Force Misdirection and Guard is very powerful although they are conditional. Sequencing your character activations and dice resolutions to maximize your opportunity for their use requires some practice and is the hardest part of playing this deck. Their use can be awkward but the payoff is certainly worth it. I usually roll out Kanan first since his die will allow you to use Force Misdirection and Guard. Reaping the Crystal and Lightsaber Pull will help your explosiveness and consistency. Rend remains a budget player’s dream allowing you to remove monetarily expensive upgrades like Force Speed and Sith Holocron and keeping overpowered supports like Imperial Inspection from ruining your day. Yoda’s Quarters is for the mid to late game giving your bad dice rolls guaranteed value and it’s cost is more palatable with Reaping the Crystal. My testing with this card has been mixed so if you feel its not working for you don’t be afraid to move on from it to try something else.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article. If you have any comments or suggestions for these budget and casual articles please let me know. I want to try and grow the community as much as possible and I hope these articles help new players break into the game without having to break the bank and perhaps inspire established players with deckbuilding ideas they might not have thought of. I’ll be releasing my fully powered version of this deck for our Patrons this week so if you’re one of them keep your eye out.
Take care and as always…
May the Rolls be with You
-NJCuenca
Please consider signing up for our Patreon. Not only do you get this dope playmat after $20 worth of pledging, we’ve got a 90 person discord channel that boasts a near constant discussion of competitive Star Wars Destiny playing. In addition to that we release dozens of extra videos to our $10 tournament prep tier, as well as exclusive articles, decklists, and primers. It’s a wealth of information, and I challenge you to ask around among our subscribers to see if they think it’s worth it. I have an idea of what they’ll say.
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InstagramA Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.[1]
When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its members were directly appointed by the governments of member states from among those already sitting in their own national parliaments. Since 1979, however, MEPs have been elected by direct universal suffrage. Each member state establishes its own method for electing MEPs – and in some states this has changed over time – but the system chosen must be a form of proportional representation. Some member states elect their MEPs to represent a single national constituency; other states apportion seats to sub-national regions for election.
Election [ edit ]
From 1 January 2007, when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, there were 785 MEPs, but their number was reduced to 736 at the elections in 2009. With effect from the elections held in May 2014 the number has risen again and now stands at 751, with each member state having at least six and at most 96 MEPs.
Elections are held once every five years, on the basis of universal adult suffrage. There is no uniform voting system for the election of MEPs; rather, each member state is free to choose its own system, subject to three restrictions:
The system must be a form of proportional representation, under either the party list or Single Transferable Vote system.
The electoral area may be subdivided if this will not generally affect the proportional nature of the voting system.
Any election threshold on the national level must not exceed five percent.
The allocation of seats to each member state is based on the principle of degressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each nation is taken into account, smaller states elect more MEPs than would be strictly justified by their populations alone. As the number of MEPs granted to each member state has arisen from treaty negotiations, there is no precise formula for the apportionment of seats. No change in this configuration can occur without the unanimous consent of all national governments.
The most recent elections to the European Parliament were the European elections of 2014, held in May of that year. They were the largest simultaneous transnational elections ever held anywhere in the world, since nearly 500 million citizens were eligible to vote.
Length of service [ edit ]
The European Parliament has a high turnover of members compared to some national parliaments. For instance, after the 2004 elections, the majority of elected members had not been members in the prior parliamentary session, though that could largely be put down to the recent enlargement. Hans-Gert Pöttering served the longest continuous term from the first elections in 1979 until 2014.
MEPs within the Parliament [ edit ]
MEPs are organised into eight different cross-nationality political groups, except the 15 non-attached members known as non-inscrits. The two largest groups are the European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D). These two groups have dominated the Parliament for much of its life, continuously holding between 50 and 70 percent of the seats together. No single group has ever held a majority in Parliament.[2] As a result of being broad alliances of national parties, European groups parties are very decentralised and hence have more in common with parties in federal states like Germany or the United States than unitary states like the majority of the EU states.[3] Although, the European groups, between 2004 and 2009, were actually more cohesive than their US counterparts.[4][5]
Aside from working through their groups, individual members are also guaranteed a number of individual powers and rights within the Parliament:
the right to table a motion for resolution
the right to put questions to the Council of the European Union, the Commission, and to the leaders of the Parliament
the right to table an amendment to any text in committee
the right to make explanations of vote
the right to raise points of order
the right to move the inadmissibility of a matter
The job of an MEP [ edit ]
Every month except August the Parliament meets in Strasbourg for a four-day plenary session, six times a year it meets for two days each in Brussels,[6] where the Parliament's committees, political groups and other organs also mainly meet.[7] The obligation to spend one week a month in Strasbourg was imposed on Parliament by the Member State governments at the Edinburgh summit in 1992.[8]
In addition, an MEP may be part of an international delegation and have meetings with outside delegations coming to Brussels or Strasbourg or visiting committees or parliaments of external countries or regions. There are also a number of international parliaments that members participate in such as the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly and lately, the Euromed Parliamentary Assembly. This work entails full annual parliamentary meetings and more frequent multilateral committee meetings. Members also make up a portion of European Election Observation missions.
Also, there is the need to keep in touch with constituents in the home state. Most MEPs return to their constituencies on a Thursday evening to spend the Friday and often weekends dealing with individual constituents, local organisations, local and national politicians, businesses, trade unions, local councils and so on. Four weeks without parliamentary meetings set aside during the year and the parliamentary recess (four weeks in summer, two at Christmas/New Year) can also be used for constituency duties.
MEPs may employ staff to help them, typically three or four split between their constituency office and office in Parliament.
Because MEPs sit in a parliament with powers over fewer high-profile subjects than national parliaments (few or no powers over health, education, housing, law & order or defence, but significant powers over environmental standards, consumer protection, trade, employment law) their public profile in their home state is typically lower than that of national parliamentarians, at least those of the latter who are ministers or opposition spokesmen.
Some MEPs choose to make their family home in or near Brussels rather than in their home state.
Powers [ edit ]
Since the ratification and entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon the adoption of nearly all European Union laws requires the approval of both the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Under co-decision procedure, they each have up to three readings of legislative proposals put forward by the European Commission in which they can each amend the proposal, but must ultimately approve a text in identical terms for it to be passed. This amounts to bicameralism.
MEPs also elect the President of the Commission, on the basis of a proposal by the European Council and, following public hearings of the candidates, approve the appointment of the Commission as a whole. The Parliament may also dismiss the Commission in a vote of no-confidence (for instance, in 1999, the Commission presided by Jacques Santer resigned when faced with the certain adoption of such a vote of no confidence). MEPs may table parliamentary questions for Question time or for a written answer.
International agreements entered into by the European Union (e.g. WTO, trade agreements, etc.) must be approved by the European Parliament, as must the accession of new Member States to the Union.
The EU's annual budget is adopted jointly by Parliament and the Council of the European Union, within overall limit on EU spending decided on by unanimous agreement of all Member States and a multilateral Financial Framework laid down by Council with Parliament's consent.
The Parliament may also block certain Commission decisions where there has been a delegation of powers to the Commission and may repeal such delegation of powers.
The Parliament also elects the European Ombudsman and holds hearings with candidates for the President and Board members of European Central Bank, the Court of Auditors and various EU agencies.
Payment and privileges [ edit ]
The total cost of the European Parliament is approximately €1.756 billion euros per year according to its 2014 budget, about €2.3 million per member of parliament.[9] As this cost is shared by over 500 million citizens of 28 countries, the cost per taxpayer is considerably smaller than that of national parliaments.[citation needed]
Salary [ edit ]
Until 2009, MEPs were paid (by their own Member State) exactly the same salary as a member of the lower House of their own national parliament. As a result, there was a wide range of salaries in the European Parliament. In 2002, Italian MEPs earned €130,000, while Spanish MEPs earned less than a quarter of that at €32,000.[10]
However, in July 2005, the Council agreed to a single statute for all MEPs, following a proposal by the Parliament. Thus, since the 2009 elections, all MEPs receive a basic yearly salary of 38.5% of a European Court judge's salary – being around €84,000.[11] This represents a pay-cut for MEPs from some member states (e.g. Italy, Germany, and Austria), a rise for others (particularly the low-paid eastern European Members) and status quo for those from the United Kingdom (depending on the euro-pound exchange rate). The much-criticised expenses arrangements were also partially reformed.[12]
Financial interests [ edit ]
Members declare their financial interests in order to prevent any conflicts of interest. These declarations are published annually in a register and are available on the Internet.[13]
Immunities [ edit ]
Under the protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Union, MEPs in their home state receive the same immunities as their own national parliamentarians. In other member states, MEPs are immune from detention and from legal proceedings, except when caught in the act of committing an offence. This immunity may be waived by application to the European Parliament by the authorities of the member state in question.
Individual members [ edit ]
Members' experience [ edit ]
Around a third of MEPs have previously held national parliamentary mandates, and over 10% have ministerial experience at a national level. There are usually a number of former prime ministers and former members of the European Commission. Many other MEPs have held office at a regional or local level in their home states.
Current MEPs also include former judges, trade union leaders, media personalities, actors, soldiers, singers, athletes, and political activists.
Many outgoing MEPs move into other political office. Several presidents, prime ministers or deputy prime ministers of member states are former MEPs, including former President of France Nicolas Sarkozy, former Deputy PM of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg, former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Belgian PM Elio Di Rupo.
The so-called "dual mandate", in which an individual is a member of both his or her national parliament and the European Parliament, was officially discouraged by a growing number of political parties and Member States, and is prohibited as of 2009. In the 2004–2009 Parliament, a small number of members still held a dual mandate. Notably, Ian Paisley and John Hume once held "triple mandates" as MEP, MP in the House of Commons, and MLA in the Northern Ireland Assembly simultaneously.
Demographics [ edit ]
The proportion of MEPs elected in 2009 who were female was about 34 percent (in 2004 it was 30 percent and back in 1979 it was just 16.5 percent), a higher percentage than most national parliaments. This figure varies considerably among the various national delegations, however. Of UK members, for instance, approaching half of the Labour MEPs are female. The figure for the Parliament elected in 2009 is 35 percent.
The oldest member is Jean-Marie Le Pen, aged 90, born in 1928, the founder and former member of the National Front. The youngest is Andrey Novakov of GERB in Bulgaria, aged 30, born in 1988, who joined the parliament in 2014[14].
Election of non-nationals [ edit ]
European citizens are eligible for election in the member state where they reside (subject to the residence requirements of that state); they do not have to be a national of that state. The following citizens have been elected in a state other than their native country;[15]
2009 figures incomplete
Observers [ edit ]
It is conventional for countries acceding to the European Union to send a number of observers to Parliament in advance. The number of observers and their method of appointment (usually by national parliaments) is laid down in the joining countries' Treaties of Accession.
Observers may attend debates and take part by invitation, but they may not vote or exercise other official duties. When the countries then become full member states, these observers become full MEPs for the interim period between accession and the next European elections. From 26 September 2005 to 31 December 2006, Bulgaria had 18 observers in Parliament and Romania 35. These were selected from government and opposition parties as agreed by the countries' national parliaments. Following accession on 1 January 2007, the observers became MEPs (with some personnel changes).
Social media accounts [ edit ]
An unofficial list of MEPs Twitter accounts can be found here.
See also [ edit ]President Trump might have at least praised his wife’s tiny homeland of Slovenia for being among the many nations that sent troops to Afghanistan after 9/11 prompted the U.S. to invoke Article 5, as NATO's collective defense provision is known.
Trump also could have recognized Denmark, which by a measure first applied to this war by Steve Coll of The New Yorker has suffered a slightly higher per capita rate of combat casualties in Afghanistan than has even the United States.
Trump could have noted that Estonia has nearly the same fatality rate we do. He could have added that a number of the Estonian soldiers had fathers who had also served in Afghanistan—as draftees in the Soviet army before their own country even had one.
He could have also recognized Lithuania, Belgium, Slovakia, Latvia, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia, Norway, the Czech Republic, Greece, Turkey, Romania, the Netherlands. Georgia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and the United Kingdom, all of which answered the call, almost all of which suffered fatalities.
That also includes little Montenegro, whose prime minister Trump smilingly pushed aside so he could get to front at the NATO gathering.
But Trump mentioned none of that as he stood beside a piece of World Trade Center steel known as “Article V Artifact,” and delivered a speech at Thursday’s dedication of the new NATO headquarters.
He did call for a moment of silence for the innocents who had been killed at Monday’s bombing in Manchester. And he did thank the September 11 Memorial and Museum for providing “this twisted mass of steel.” He spoke movingly of the artifact’s meaning.
“We will never forget the lives that were lost,” he said. “We will never forget the friends who stood by our side.”
He said this without acknowledging the lives that were lost by the friends who stood by our side. And he saw no need to reaffirm America’s commitment to Article 5 should our friends ever call on us as we called on them.
Instead, the man who once proudly declared himself the king of debt chose this moment to say they owed us money.
“NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations, for 23 of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying,” he declared.
Never mind that all of those 23 sent troops to Afghanistan.
Rather than laud them, he dunned them.
“This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States,” said the man who stiffed countless people and taxpayers, failing to pay nearly 300 contractors on a single project even as he siphoned off millions.
Maybe those nations that responded so quickly and selflessly to aid us after 9/11 should consider Trump’s prime strategy when faced with daunting debt.
The guy who failed to affirm NATO’s collective defense pact while standing beside the Artifact of Article 5 is himself a living Artifact of Chapter 11.
He repeatedly used bankruptcy to dodge what he now so piously speaks of as “financial obligations” as part of a continuing scheme by which he became REALLY RICH.
Of course, Trump never even would have considered putting himself in harm’s way. His three kids sure didn’t, though they were all of military age in the aftermath of 9/11 and the attack was on their home city.
Donald Jr. and Eric did take up arms and leave our shores, but that was to go big game hunting in Africa thanks to a family fortune built with bankruptcy bucks.
While Danes and Estonians were risking—and too often losing—their lives taking on al Qaeda and the Taliban, Donald Jr. and Eric were shooting an elephant and a cheetah and other creatures who could not shoot back.
Not that the boys had much of an example in their father when it came to 9/11.
The future president spoke of seeing news footage nobody else saw of Muslims in Jersey City cheering the attack. He said he had lost “hundreds of friends,” though he never named even one of them and was seen at none of the hundreds of funerals and memorials afterward. He bragged that with the two towers gone he now had the tallest building in Lower Manhattan.
While Rosie O’Donnell—the woman he loves to insult—reached in her pocket on 9/12 and committed $1 million of her own money to the victims’ families, Trump pledged only $10,000 and apparently failed to make good even on that. He appears to have given next to nothing until he was running for president last year, when made his first ever visit to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and presented it with $200,000. The check was drawn on his foundation, to which he had contributed nothing in eight years. He breezed past the pictures of the murdered innocents, including hundreds of his supposed friends, with less visible effect than when he strides through what he likes to call “the biggest Duane Reade in the world” in his building downtown.
But all that was already known on Election Day, and he still won.
And there he was, our president, at Thursday’s event at NATO headquarters, deciding it was a time to speak of money owed rather than sacrifice beyond measure.
He shamed us all.
But we do not have to share his crass indifference.
Just as we did not need Donald Trump to honor those who died at the Twin Towers, we do not need him to honor those from so many other lands who nobly stepped forward in the years that followed.
As we approach our Memorial Day, consider these words from Daniel Henriken, a 22-year-old soldier from Denmark, which proportionately made a greater sacrifice than we did ourselves.
“Before we went on patrol, I always called my mother and told her that I love her,” Henriken was quoted saying on a Danish website. “It was a kind of code meaning that I might be going on a patrol where it might get dangerous—without those words actually being said. I am proud of what we do, proud of being a Dane. I think that I have made a difference.”
He closed by saying, “Hell yeah, I have done my part in making the world a better place to live.”
Tak, Daniel.
Thank you.TAMPA — There are big changes coming to Tampa International Airport, and that means big changes for people who use the airport.
Starting in December, the airport will turn into a massive construction zone that will affect how people will access the airsides from inside the main terminal and also how they'll be able to catch a cab or bus out of TIA.
"We're doing everything in our power to minimize any potential impacts," airport spokesman Danny Valentine said.
Earlier this year the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority approved a $943 million plan to expand, renovate and upgrade the airport by 2017.
The airport will build a 2.3 million-square-foot consolidated rental car facility south of the main building that will be connected by a new 1.3-mile automated people mover.
The main terminal itself will also be renovated and expanded by 55,000 square feet, creating more space to build new concession options.
It's the biggest project at TIA since the main terminal opened in 1971.
The first change will be on the ground-floor baggage claim area on the east side of the terminal. On Dec. 2, the airport will close the taxi and bus stands there.
Anyone seeking those transportation options will be directed to the west side of the baggage claim area. The airport plans to hire a dozen new customer service representatives to stand in baggage claim and help people get around.
Drivers pulling out of the curbsides there will also have to watch out for increased taxi and bus traffic merging onto the George J. Bean Parkway.
On Jan. 8, construction will move to the east side of the third-floor main terminal. That end of the airport, where the shuttles take passengers to Airsides A and C, will be blocked by a large construction barrier while workers expand the terminal footprint on that end. That's also where the entrance to the new automated people mover will go.
United Airlines is in Airside A, while Southwest Airlines and AirTran Airways are in Airside C. Currently two shuttles run constantly to each airside. When construction starts only one airside shuttle will operate.
Instead of waiting 49 seconds for a shuttle, Valentine said, the wait time will be two minutes. Customer service people will also be stationed there.
"They'll be located there as well, making sure everything is running smoothly," Valentine said, "and making sure people aren't holding the doors open. That's been a problem."
Passengers are allowed to use the pedestrian bridges to walk between the terminal and the airsides, and Valentine said the airport will soon turn them into covered walkways.
The smoking deck on the east end of the terminal will also be closed during construction.
In May 2015, construction will start to affect traffic at TIA. The airport is replacing an overpass at the parkway that planes use to move from one end of the airport to the other, and it also needs to make room for the tracks for the new automated people mover.
Traffic on the George J. Bean Parkway there will be rerouted to a temporary roadway that will be built over the taxiway. Incoming traffic will stay at three lanes on the temporary road, but outgoing traffic will be reduced to two lanes.
However, the airport's expansion plans won't affect the blue and red curbsides drivers use to drop off and pick up passengers.
Things will really get messy on the third-floor terminal when work on the west end starts in August 2015 before the east end is finished.
Next year TIA will also start tearing down the old concession spaces in the terminal and airsides and building new ones.
Patrons can expect more changes in how they use TIA as construction runs through 2017.
"There's going to be a ton of changes that are going to affect the passengers in the near future," Valentine said. "We want to get the word out that there are going to be some changes coming to the airport as we expand and grow."
Contact Jamal Thalji at [email protected] or (813) 226-3404. Follow @jthalji.In India, 600 million people lack access to a clean toilet, and, lately, the government has been on a big drive to build more of them. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Clean India” campaign aims to provide decent sanitation to all Indians by 2019.
SHRI, formerly called Humanure, has a solution it thinks can help. It builds a 16-toilet community block (eight for women and eight for men), with a big collection tank underneath. As the waste degrades, it pipes off the biogas to run an electric generator. Then it uses the electricity to clean groundwater, which it sells to offset the cost of cleaning the toilets.
So far, SHRI has built four blocks in Bihar state, in northern India, and co-director Joan DeGennaro says it’s just getting started. The non-profit now hopes to tap into the billions of government rupees available for toilet projects, as well as billions of dollars potentially on offer in Silicon Valley.
“We’re making a big push to fundraise in Silicon Valley from VCs and angels who normally make startup investments,” she says. “We’re appealing to them because we do have that sustainable element of generating revenue with the water.”
SHRI (which stands for Sanitation and Health Rights) was part of the 2016 crop of non-profits in the Y Combinator accelerator program. And DeGennaro says the experience helped give the group a more business-like approach (as well as a grant for $100,000). “They provide funding as well as the opportunity to gain credibility alongside traditional software startup companies. We were told we were just like any company in the batch and that, just because we’re a non-profit, that shouldn’t distract us.”
Getting sanitation to billions of underserved people is particularly challenging because it’s not just a question of building toilets. Research shows that people often need to be encouraged to use new facilities, and that cultural factors can be a deterrence. Critics say the Clean India program has been insufficiently focused on these human factors, and that the large sums of money on offer has led to corruption.
The SHRI blocks are designed for villages of 1,500 people and DeGennaro says, on average, they’re used by 800 people a day. Access is free, unlike other toilet projects where charging a fee is thought to raise the value of the service in the customer’s eyes.The largest lake in Britain and Ireland, Lough Neagh, has lost more than three quarters of its overwintering water birds according to researchers at Queen's University Belfast.
The study by Quercus, Northern Ireland's Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, found the number of diving ducks migrating to the lake for the winter months has dropped from 100,000 to less than 21,000 in the space of a decade.
The research, published in the journal Freshwater Biology, found the ecosystem of the lake has dramatically changed since 2000/01 leading to a huge decline in the numbers of insects and snails living at the bottom of the lake. This combined with the effects of global climate change dramatically affected the numbers of migratory and overwintering water birds, a feature for which the lake is designated a Special Protection Area.
Dr Irena Tománková, from Quercus at the School of Biological Sciences at Queen's and who led the study, said: "Our research found there was a 66 per cent decline in the numbers of insects and snails in the lake and that this was associated with a decline of algae. As the water birds, which migrate from Northern and Eastern Europe to spend the winter months on the lake, depend on these invertebrates, we partly attribute their decline to the lack of food as well as the effects of climate change.
"Historically the lake was heavily affected by organic pollution as a result of nutrients from agricultural run-off. This artificially boosted its productivity. Now that conservation schemes are beginning to have an effect and reduce levels of pollution we are seeing increasing water quality and the unexpected consequence is fewer invertebrates and as a result less duck food."
An associated study published earlier this year showed that numbers of some key water bird species declined throughout south-western Europe at the same time as numbers equally dramatically increased in north-eastern Europe. The reason is that winter temperatures in
Northern Europe have increased by 3.8oC in the past 30 years, meaning that lakes which used to be frozen over in winter are now available for the birds to feed on. Less food in Lough Neagh and more ice-free lakes closer to the bird's natural breeding grounds mean that ducks simply no longer need to fly as far south-west and as a result Lough Neagh has lost some of its importance for overwintering water birds.
Ian Enlander, from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), said: "It is critically important for conservationists and policy makers to understand the reasons behind the dramatic changes that have been recorded at Lough Neagh. This work has been an outstanding contribution to improving our knowledge for this site. It underlines the need for international conservation measures to apply across the entire range of these migratory species."
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For further information research in Quercus at Queen's visit: http://www. qub. ac. uk/ sites/ Quercus/
Media inquiries to Claire O'Callaghan, Queen's University Communications Office, Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 5391 email: [email protected]
Notes to Editors:At least some of the complications surrounding the story of art found and lost has played out at Djenne-Djenno over the past 35 years. In 1977 the American archaeologists Roderick and Susan McIntosh, husband and wife at the time, began excavating the site and gradually revealed the traces of a sizable settlement. Its origins dated to the third century B.C., but by A.D. 450 it had produced a complex urban society, one that engaged in long-distance trade. The long-held assumption was that both developments came to Africa with the Arab arrival in the seventh and eighth centuries A.D. With new knowledge the continent’s past suddenly deepened.
And the history of its art was expanded. In the upper strata of the excavation at Djenne-Djenno and at the many related neighboring sites in the Inner Niger Delta archaeologists found terra-cotta sculptures of human and animal figures: men riding horses or entwined by serpents, figures sitting or kneeling, their bodies covered with what looked like blisters or welts.
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The revelation was finding the sculptures in situ, in their historical context, though the figures themselves were of a familiar type. Numbers of similar terra-cotta sculptures had already been showing up for sale, as tourist souvenirs in Africa and as fine-art collectibles in the West.
By the late 1960s the supply of wood sculptures that had defined the field for most collectors was growing thin. Malian terra-cottas became the new available “classical“ African art to collect.
To meet the demand Malian diggers, or teams of diggers, in the hire of middleman dealers, were trenching sites in the Djenne-Djenno area and pulling figures out of the ground, in the process destroying the historical record. The workers were paid a pittance for their labor, but in the 1970s Mali was gripped by famine; any money was better than none. The objects were subsequently sent out of Africa, to Western dealers and collectors, increasing in cash value as they went.
Technically, unauthorized trade in such art had been illegal since 1970, when Unesco drew up its Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. But the digging went on, and getting art out of the country — through porous borders, with a payment of bribes — was (and still is) easy.
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Certain archaeologists, the McIntoshes among them, were aghast at the ruinous plundering and took action. They were convinced that any Western attention paid to Malian antiquities increased the market value and encouraged looting. With this in mind they proposed an information blackout on any and all “orphaned“ Inland Niger Delta objects, meaning any that had not been scientifically excavated — most of those in circulation.
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They urged dealers abroad not to sell such objects, collectors not to buy them, museums not to exhibit them, art historians not to publish images of them or write about them, certainly not in seductively aesthetic terms. The main objective was to protect objects that were still in the ground by drawing attention away from this art. Noncompliance with their strictures was punished by public shaming, with its implied threat of professional ostracism.
A hard line had been drawn. On the other side of it stood the dealers, collectors and museum personnel, whose livelihood and identity depended on a continuous flow of art, wherever it came from. Also on that side, though ambivalently aligned with it, were art historians, who didn’t need to own objects but did require some contact with them in order to learn how they were made and to learn how to distinguish genuine ones from fakes. (A large percentage of Djenne-Djenno pieces on the market were, and are, fakes.)
Unsurprisingly, given the negative charge surrounding all but a limited number of sculptures, art historians began to turn their attention to theory-based critical studies. Today, decades |
arms or indirectly, according to information released by the Marine Corps to The Washington Post. He was, however, given a certificate of commendation for engaging three suspected insurgents after an improvised explosive device struck a vehicle in his convoy in 2005. Ritzheimer gained significant notoriety last year after sponsoring a contest in Arizona where participants were supposed to draw the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.
Blaine Cooper
According to Oregonlive.com, two other men in the refuge are Army veteran Ryan Payne and Blaine Cooper. Cooper was once identified as a Marine in an interview in 2014, according to Lilyea, one of the moderators for This Aint Hell, but shortly after released a statement denying that he had spent any time in the service. According to Lilyea, Cooper’s records show that he was enlisted to join the Marines in what is called the “Delayed Entry Program,” or DEP, but never attended bootcamp. The DEP is a program available for all branches that gives enlistees up to a year from their enlistment to show up for initial training.
Ryan Payne
Payne, on the other hand, served time in the Army as an infantryman and was involved in the Bundy Ranch standoff. He left active service in 2006 after deploying twice to Iraq, according to parts of his service record released by the Army to the Washington Post. During the Bundy standoff, Lilyea says that Payne told reporters he had served as an elite Army Ranger but after some digging by former Rangers, Payne was found to be, in fact, not one. Payne served time in a military intelligence battalion and earned a number of commendation medals for doing so. He is also the recipient of the Combat Infantryman Badge.
Ritzheimer, Cooper and Payne could not be reached for comment.
Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.As anyone who’s played a Paradox strategy game before will probably know, there will be paid expansions in Stellaris’ future. Along with these expansions, Paradox will also release some big patches that introduce new features and squash bugs for all players. While the first actual expansion might be a ways off, these patch plans have begun in earnest.
Why not have a look at our list of the best strategy games for more tactical titles.
Stellaris’ updates will be named after famous science fiction authors, and the first of them, ‘Clarke’, will be landing at the end of this month. May’s update will mosty be focused on general UI improvements, with the End Combat Summary and Diplomacy screens getting an overhaul, among others. AI improvements will also be landing in the patch, and it looks like Corvettes might get a nerf.
The highlights for the Clarke patch notes are below:
Fixes to the Ethic Divergence and Convergence issues. Currently, Pops tend to get more and more neutral (they lose Ethics, but rarely gain new ones.)
The End of Combat Summary. This screen looks bad and also doesn’t tell you what you need to know in order to revise your ship designs, etc.
Sector Management GUI: There are many issues with this, and we will try to get most of them fixed.
Diplomacy GUI issues. This includes the Diplomatic Pop-Ups when other empires contact you, but also more and better looking Notifications, and more informative tooltips on wars, etc.
AI improvements: Notably the Sector AI, but also plenty of other things. This kind of work is never “finished”…
Myriads of bug fixes and smaller GUI improvements.
Late game crises bugs. There were some nasty bugs in there, blocking certain subplots and various surprising developments.
EDIT: Remaining Performance Issues. We know about them; they might even be hotfixed before Clarke.
EDIT: Corvettes are too good.
Meanwhile, June’s update will be focused on improvements to the mid-game, which Paradox admit was rushed over. “One area I was not at all surprised to get flak for is the lack of mid-game scripted content, however,” said game director Doomdark on the forums. “We simply took too long getting all the early and late game stuff in, and neglected a whole category of events called “colony events”, which were supposed to be the bread and butter of the mid-game for the Science Ships.”
As such, there are some more diplomatic options heading to Stellaris in June’s ‘Asimov’ update, though the colony events themselves might be coming a bit later on. Have a look at the highlights below, but be aware that they could change:
Border Access Revision: Borders are now open to your ships by default, although empires can choose to Close their borders for another empire (lowering your relations, of course.)
Tributaries: New diplomatic status and corresponding war goals.
Joint Declarations of War: You can ask other empires to join you for a temporary alliance in a war against a specific target.
Defensive Pacts.
Harder to form and maintain proper Alliances.
More war goals: Humiliate, Open Borders, Make Tributary, etc.
Emancipation Faction. We had to cut this one at the last minute. Needs redesign.
Diplomatic Map Mode. Much requested!
Diplomatic Incidents: This is a whole class of new scripted events that causes more interaction with the other empires.
Following that, Paradox have also revealed the possible plans for the update following that, although noted with the caveat that these aren’t promises. With that in mind, the ‘Heinlein’ patch could bring the following:“Under Pressure” is a preseason series we’ll be running on PHT. For each team in the NHL, we’ll pick one player, coach, GM, mascot or whatever that everyone will be watching closely this season. Feel free to play the song as you read along. Also feel free to go to the comment section and tell us we picked poorly.
For the Anaheim Ducks we pick… coach Bruce Boudreau.
Let’s get one thing straight here before we get rolling: Bruce Boudreau has been a great coach for the Anaheim Ducks.
Ever since he replaced Randy Carlyle behind the bench in Orange County, all he’s done is get things turned in the right direction. In his two-and-a-half seasons, the team has only steadily gotten better under his watch. During the lockout-shortened 2013 season, the Ducks won the Pacific Division and were one of the top teams in the Western Conference. Last season they were the best team in the West in the regular season.
As we know, the playoffs are what pays off and that’s where things have gone bad for the Ducks.
Two seasons ago they were bounced out by the seventh seeded Detroit Red Wings in seven games. This past season, they survived the first round against the eighth seeded Dallas Stars in six games only to lose in the second round to their hated rivals – the Los Angeles Kings – in seven.
If the story line about having dominant regular seasons only to come up short in the playoffs sounds familiar for a Boudreau-coached team, just imagine how he feels after his time with the Washington Capitals.
On the upside, it seems like Boudreau hasn’t taken the loss to the Kings as poorly as he did the Caps’ failure against the Montreal Canadiens in 2010, but with great success over the 82-game schedule comes expectations that playoff success will follow. After seeing L.A. win the Cup twice in three seasons, the pressure is even higher for the Ducks to win it again for the first time since 2007.
The Ducks have the talent to compete for the Cup. With Ryan Getzlaf playing like an MVP, Corey Perry scoring goals in bunches, a young defensive corps that will get better each year, and goaltending coming out their ears, everything is lined up to win.
The problem Boudreau has is he’s in a brutal Western Conference where success doesn’t come easily. He has a very good team to work with, but figuring out how to beat the likes of L.A., Chicago, St. Louis, and San Jose is what he’s got to do if he’s going to ever win that elusive Stanley Cup.
Follow @JoeYerdonPHTThe Colorado Rockies and general manager Jeff Bridich have apparently told outfielder Carlos Gonzalez that he will not be traded this winter, according to a report from baseball writer Wilmer Reina on Wednesday morning.
Reina is also the sportswriter who first reported Gerardo Parra's Tuesday morning decision to sign with Colorado. The Venezuelan journalist published the CarGo news in a tweet sent this morning:
Carlos González seguirá con los #Rockies. Jeff Bridich le habría comunicado que no sería cambiado... al menos en este offseason — Wilmer Reina (@WilmerReina) January 13, 2016
Here's the tweet, translated to English:
Carlos Gonzalez will stay with the Rockies, Bridich has told him he won't be moved... at least not during the offseason.
If that's true, that's certainly a significant development for the Rockies' ongoing roster limbo as they try to navigate a quickly-growing trade market for one of their outfielders after Parra's acquisition.
As we've previously noted, CarGo and Parra are good friends with a long history together. Furthermore, MLB.com's Thomas Harding has previously reported on CarGo advocating for the Rockies to sign Parra in the first place.
If CarGo really has been taken off the table in a trade this winter, that conceivably leaves Corey Dickerson and Charlie Blackmon available and allegedly drawing various levels of interest from teams around the Major Leagues.
As always, we'll have more on this and any other developments around the Rockies' glut of outfielders as soon as news becomes available.A "minor planet" with an elongated orbit around the Sun is seen in this undated handout photo. REUTERS/Ohio State University/Handout
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A newly discovered “minor planet” with an elongated orbit around the Sun may help explain the origin of comets, researchers said on Monday.
The object, known as 2006 SQ372, is starting the outward portion of a 22,500-year orbit that will take it 150 billion miles away from the Sun.
The icy lump of rock is just over 2 billion miles from Earth, a bit closer than the planet Neptune, researchers told a symposium on Monday. They will publish their findings in the Astrophysical Journal.
The orbit of 2006 SQ372 is an ellipse four times longer than it is wide, said University of Washington astronomer Andrew Becker, who led the research team. Sedna, a distant, Pluto-like dwarf planet discovered in 2003, is the only other object with a similar orbit, but not nearly as stretched out.
The new object is about 60 miles in diameter. “It’s basically a comet, but it never gets close enough to the Sun to develop a long, bright tail of evaporated gas and dust,” Becker said in a statement.
University of Washington graduate student Nathan Kaib said it is unclear how the object formed, “It could have formed, like Pluto, in the belt of icy debris beyond Neptune, then been kicked a large distance by a gravitational encounter with Neptune or Uranus,” Kaib said in a statement.
More likely, he said, it came from the Oort Cloud, a distant reservoir of icy, asteroid-like bodies that orbit the Sun at distances of several trillion miles (km).
“One of our goals is to understand the origin of comets, which are among the most spectacular celestial events. But the deeper goal is to look back into the early history of our solar system and piece together what was happening when the planets formed,” Kaib said.Loubie the Hugging Dog. View Full Caption Cesar Fernandez-Chavez
This Big Apple celeb won’t mind if you give her a hug on the street.
A 5 1/2-year-old golden retriever has been garnering media attention — and Instagram fame — for the hugs she gives out as she and her owner walk around Chelsea.
And the first #hug of #2017 goes to....my chubby daddy!!! 🐶❤️👴🏽 A photo posted by Louboutina (Loubie) (@louboutinanyc) on Jan 1, 2017 at 7:10pm PST
Loubie, short for Louboutina, first started “hugging” passersby a few years ago, after learning how to shake hands and stand on her hind legs, her owner Cesar Fernandez-Chavez said.
Rise Up and Shine like a 💎!!! 💗💪🏼💗 A photo posted by Louboutina (Loubie) (@louboutinanyc) on Jan 21, 2017 at 12:40pm PST
Fernandez-Chavez started an Instagram account after a photo he took of her hugging actor Gerard Butler blew up on his Facebook page, he said.
Loubie with actor Gerard Butler. (Courtesy of Cesar Fernandez-Chavez)
“[Loubie] just happened to be holding hands with me… and [Butler] just happened to see us, and he was like, ‘No, this is not for real,’” Fernandez-Chavez recalled. “[My friends] said, ‘You need to start her an Instagram.’”
Since then, Fernandez-Chavez has been posting and re-posting photos of Loubie hugging passersby, standing on her hind legs and holding hands with people she meets on their walks.
Repost from @ljs_on_my_feet I messaged a hugging dog on insta just so we could meet up with her after she filmed a tv segment for fox A photo posted by Louboutina (Loubie) (@louboutinanyc) on Dec 20, 2016 at 1:55pm PST
The dog, who has more than 11,000 followers on Instagram, was recently profiled by Time Out New York and the dog-centric blog Rover.
She’s even been able to get tech-obsessed New Yorkers to look up from their phones, Fernandez-Chavez said.
“We’re so glued to our phones, but then [passersby] take a second to admire her and talk to us,” he said. “She’s making random people happy on the street, and that makes me happy too.”This segment originally aired March 14, 2017 on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
The transformation of Hayange, France, a former manufacturing town of about 15,000, has been stark. Once a far-left stronghold, residents elected a far-right National Front mayor in 2014, making the town an emblem of France’s growing embrace of populism.
“We can’t take them in anymore,” National Front Mayor Fabien Engeleman said, referring to the wave of mostly Muslim asylum-seekers. “What job are we going to give them? What about housing? We already can’t find work for the French.”
Much like Donald Trump, the National Front party in France has made itself the champion of workers and businessmen frightened by the effects of globalization. And it seems to be working. Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen is leading the polls ahead of France’s presidential election.
The perception of Le Pen among liberals in Paris and around the world is of an anti-Muslim, racist bigot. But the French working class, a once ardently far-left voting block, have come to see her as the only candidate committed to curbing immigration and rebuilding the country’s struggling economy.As Turkey has begun to emerge as a bigger diplomatic player in the region, its relations with Israel have been strained by the death of Turkish activists on a flotilla trying to break the economic blockade of the Gaza Strip. On Tuesday Mr. Cameron said that “the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable.”
Ankara has made it clear that it will not join new E.U. sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, a decision seen by some as an example of Ankara’s new assertiveness. At a news conference with Mr. Cameron, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was “definitely against nuclear weapons in our region and we routinely say this to Iran,” The Associated Press reported.
Though Britain has been one of the main supporters of Turkish accession since the 1990s, Mr. Cameron’s comments marked a change from that of his predecessor, Gordon Brown, analysts said.
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Sinan Ulgen, chairman of the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, said that while British policy remained supportive of Turkish E.U. membership under Mr. Brown, it was not voiced as clearly as under his predecessor, Tony Blair.
“What we see with Cameron is a return to the Blair policy on this topic of very unambiguous support for Turkish accession,” Mr. Ulge said. “I think it is no coincidence that Cameron, just before he came to Ankara, was in the U.S.”
“There is a certain fear factor in what Cameron said in Ankara” he added. “I think in his contacts in Washington they must have talked about where Turkey is heading and the need to anchor Turkey in the West.”
In one passage of his speech, Mr. Cameron quoted remarks made by Charles de Gaulle in his dismissal of Britain’s European aspirations in the 1960s when he was the French president. “We know what it is like to be shut out of the club,” Mr. Cameron added.
Mr. Cameron argued that those opposed to Turkey’s accession fell into three categories: protectionists who see its economic power as a threat, “the polarized” who think that Turks should choose between East and West, and the prejudiced who misunderstand Islam.
His analysis could raise tensions with the Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, both of whom oppose Turkish membership in the European Union. But Mr. Cameron’s intervention is unlikely to make any practical difference within the bloc, which has 27 member nations.
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With little progress in talks over the status of the divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus, Turkey’s E.U. membership negotiations are stalled. In total, there are 35 “chapter,” or subject areas, that need to be agreed on, of which 13 have been opened and only one — research and development — has been provisionally concluded. Most of the rest are blocked — five by France — leaving the realistic prospect that only a further three could still be opened soon.It’s been a while since we released the Tomoyo After patch, and after a short break, things are moving again. Today, I have a few announcements to make.
Greetings, Doki Legion!
Thought you were rid of me? Ready to read another ‘brief’ wall of text? No? Alrighty then. I’ll make this brief. I have temporarily returned with the sole purpose of providing you with an important update.
Team Fluffy has agreed to merge into the Doki Visual Novel Department effective immediately. As part of the merger, the Little Busters! VN Translation Project has also been transferred to the Doki VN Dept. Any future updates & patches involving ‘Little Busters!’ & Little Busters! Ex’ will be released through Doki.
The rationale behind the merger is as follows: both groups have capabilities and resources which could be utilized by the other to enhance the quality and efficiency of their works. Members from both teams will collaborate to work on enhancing tools for use in the Memorial/CE/Ex translation patches of Tomoyo After, Little Busters!, and potentially Clannad as well. For the most part, those working on Tomoyo After (Orig. or ME) will continue doing so, as will those who have been working on Little Busters! Ex. As each VN being worked on is at a different stage of progress, there will be some crossover between group members who otherwise wouldn’t have much to do, including image editors, translation checkers, etc. As work on TA and LB! comes to a close, work will be redirected to Clannad. In this way, those involved feel the translation patches for Tomoyo After ME and Little Busters! Ex will be checked & released quicker than otherwise possible, in turn allowing Clannad’s final translation patch to be prepared quicker than otherwise possible. What happens beyond then… well, it’s too far in the future for anyone to tell, especially me.
One more time, on behalf of Doki Fansubs and the most passionate VN team in existence, I thank you for your continued support. Look forward to all the great things yet to come from the VN team, and be sure to give the new VN Division Head, Delwack, a proper show of support.
Peace!
– The Clannad ManPresident Barack Obama proved on Thursday that conservatives don’t have a monopoly on using religion to advocate for specific public policies.
Speaking to a group of mostly-conservative politicians at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, the president quoted scripture in a effort to get Republicans to support a fairer tax code and caring for the poor.
“When I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on main street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody,” Obama explained. “But I also do it because I know far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years. And I believe in God’s command to love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“And when I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe at a time when folks are struggling, at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income or young people with student loans or middle class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone. And I think to myself, if I am willing to give something up as someone who has been extraordinarily blessed, give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy — I actually think that’s going to make economic sense.”
He added: “But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.”
“Treating others as you want to be treated, requiring much from those who have been given so much, living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper, caring for the poor and those in need, these values are old and they can be found in many denominations and many faiths and among many believers and among many non-believers. They’re values that have always made this country great when we live up to them, when we just don’t just give lip service to them, and we just don’t talk about them one day a year.”
Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Feb. 1, 2012.You've changed the light bulbs, switched the car for a bike. Across the country, people are ready to take it to the next level.
In September, literally thousands of people will gather in New York to show the force that citizens are bringing to the climate fight. The science is clear and the power of the people is growing. But again and again, real progress has been stopped by dirty money in politics -‒ polluters who are using their political power to block progress. And we're still facing consequences to our climate that are almost too horrible to contemplate, with mounting scientific research telling us we need to act swiftly and decisively.
Now it turns out, saving our planet will also require us to save our democracy too. The systems that take power away from the people are the same systems that are destroying our planet.
Sound impossible to overcome? There's a chance it could happen, when the U.S. Senate votes later this week on the proposed Democracy For All constitutional amendment. This amendment would overturn Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and other harmful U.S. Supreme Court decisions. It would ensure that We the People -- operating through the Congress and the state legislatures -- are empowered to restore our democracy by limiting campaign contributions and campaign spending, including spending by outside groups.
How does this relate to preventing climate catastrophe? It would put a significant time-out on Dirty Energy companies leveraging their political power to block progress.
"The polluters give and spend money to keep polluting," U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) eloquently stated more than a year ago. "Not truth, not science, not economics, not safety, not policy, and certainly not religion, nor morality ‒- nothing supports climate denial. Nothing except money. But in Congress, in this temple, money rules; so here I stand, in one of the last places on Earth that is still a haven to climate denial."
Limits on campaign contributions and spending are sorely needed since Congress has become a platform for climate change denialists and has endeavored to block any meaningful federal government action on climate. Right now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing an important, though incredibly modest, rule to limit carbon pollution from coal plants. The first major threat to completing the rule is a dirty energy-funded Congress. (The second major threat to the new rule will be dirty energy-funded governors and state legislatures that may resist implementing the new carbon pollution-reduction standards.)
As Sen. Whitehouse said, to understand this congressional hostility to measures to avert catastrophic climate change, you have to start with millions and millions in political spending by dirty energy companies. Energy and natural resource companies spent more than $142 million on the 2012 federal elections. Last year, they spent more than $350 million lobbying -- and that was their lowest total in the past half dozen years!
These totals include only the amounts that are disclosed and reported. The real totals are far higher, especially given the post-Citizens United rise of "dark money" -- funds spent by trade associations and social welfare organizations, with the identities of the original donors never revealed. In 2012, the biggest outside spending group in the election was an outfit called Freedom Partners. Virtually no one knew that Freedom Partners even existed until after the election. It turned out to be the primary spending vehicle for the Koch Brothers (whose sprawling Koch Industries is rooted in the petrochemical sector) and their allies. Freedom Partners poured more than $225 million into the 2012 elections.
With this campaign spending backdrop, many Republicans on Capitol Hill are afraid not only to support appropriate climate change policy, but even to acknowledge climate change exists. Only in off-the-record interviews will many acknowledge the science of climate change and the need for action. The problem is, we need on-the-record action, and we need it fast. It's awfully hard to see how we're going to get there with dirty energy money dominating politics.
We need to end secret campaign funding with robust disclosure rules, including a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule requiring corporations to disclose their political spending. We must reduce politicians' reliance on the donor class of the super-rich by adopting public financing systems like that proposed by the Government By the People Act.
And, to reassert basic democratic principles, we must enact the Democracy For All constitutional amendment. It would enable We the People to distinguish between corporations and real, live, breathing people when it comes to campaign spending; impose appropriate limits on outside spending; impose limits on the total amount the superrich can give to candidates; and -- in very real terms ‒- take back control of our government.
Executives from Koch Industries, ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy have the same right to participate in politics as the rest of us. But their big bucks shouldn't give them political superpowers.
Dirty money in politics has enabled the fossil fuel industries to dirty our air and endanger our planet. With clean elections, we will, finally, drive forward the clean energy revolution.Last year, NBC seemingly pulled a one time and one time only switcheroo when Doug Flutie was inserted into the broadcast booth in place of Mike Mayock for the Northwestern-Notre Dame game. But now it appears it was an audition for the 2015 season as NBC has announced that Flutie will be the full-time analyst for Notre Dame football joining Dan Hicks.
Mayock had been the analyst on Notre Dame football dating back to 2010 when he teamed with Tom Hammond. Along with Hammond and later Hicks, Mayock was on the “B” team for NBC’s NFL Wild Card Saturday doubleheader.
We harken back to comments made by former NBC Sports Group President Dick Ebersol who had some harsh words about Mayock despite hiring him: “He did Notre Dame for NBC. He would not listen. [NBC Executive Producer] Sam Flood did everything to get him to knock off [the jargon].”
We don’t know if jargon was the issue in NBC’s decision to replace Mayock with Flutie, but what’s for certain is that Mayock will remain on NFL Network as its draft analyst.
So Flutie will now become the analyst leaving the pregame, halftime and postgame studio. NBC will still utilize Liam McHugh as game host. Hines Ward will be back with McHugh and replacing Flutie in the studio will be former New York Jets and New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma. Kathryn Tappen returns as the sideline reporter.
NBC will once again air all of Notre Dame’s home games including Texas on September 5 and USC on October 17, both of which will be in primetime. And NBCSN will get its first scheduled Notre Dame game on November 21 as the Fighting Irish take on Flutie’s alma mater Boston College at Fenway Park which will also be held at night.
NBCSN has aired Notre Dame in the past, but only when games have been moved from NBC due to time constraints or weather issues.
Here’s the schedule:
DATE TIME (ET) OPPONENT LOCATION NETWORK Sat., Sept. 5 7:30 p.m. Texas South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Sept. 19 3:30 p.m. Georgia Tech South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Sept 26 3:30 p.m. Massachusetts South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Oct. 10 3:30 p.m. Navy South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Oct. 17 7:30 p.m. USC South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Nov. 14 3:30 p.m. Wake Forest South Bend, Ind. NBC Sat., Nov. 21 7:30 p.m. Boston College Boston, Mass. NBCSN*
*Shamrock Series game from Fenway Park
[NBC]Angora is a sheltered young girl who is sent on a mission: to find the center. Her journey will take her from the depths of the southern jungles to the deceptive warmth of the desert cities, to the bitter peaks of the Northern Territories where a new war has broken out after years of uneasy peace.
The story revolves around three very different groups being drawn inexorably towards each other... but to what end?
And as the bonds of civilization slowly weaken, monstrous powers with their own motivations walk the earth once more... but who will be left to inherit it?
The Meek is a long-format, character driven adventure about the gray areas between the good and bad, revenge and forgiveness, life and death. I am overjoyed to finally make a print version of the comic available to readers old and new :]
For years, the only way to enjoy the entirety of The Meek has been online, through the webcomic format. Now, for the first time ever, I will be printing the first three chapters- nearly 150 full-color comic pages- for readers to enjoy in physical form.
This volume contains the first three chapters, along with brand new bonus material!
The art and formatting has been fully refreshed for this volume to bring you the best looking version of the comic that has ever existed. The books will also feature all-new bonus material that has never been available before.
I have been removing all of that weird old art and replacing it with weird new art
Anyone who has followed my work for a while knows I have notoriously resisted merchandising my work. But in honor of my first Kickstarter, I am excited to introduce some stretch goals and special rewards:
Wallpaper - A high resolution wallpaper of the new wraparound cover art made for this book
- A high resolution wallpaper of the new wraparound cover art made for this book Postcard - A 5x7 thank-you postcard featuring art from one of the amazing contributing artists
- A 5x7 thank-you postcard featuring art from one of the amazing contributing artists Mini Print Pack - A set of Limited Edition 5x7 prints featuring art by some of the most incredible artists working today. New artists and prints will be added to the postcard tier as our stretch goals unlock!
- A set of Limited Edition 5x7 prints featuring art by some of the most incredible artists working today. New artists and prints will be added to the postcard tier as our stretch goals unlock! Enamel Pin - Limited Edition enamel pin of Mocheril, the first in a planned series
- Limited Edition enamel pin of Mocheril, the first in a planned series Signed book & a character sketch - A very limited tier for you to get your books signed by me and received a random 4x6 character sketch tucked inside. Since I rarely attend conventions, this is your best chance for a personalized item!
Additionally, as we meet our stretch goals, the physical quality of the book will increase as well with gloss, french flaps and more! These additions will not come at any extra cost to you; as we unlock our stretch goals, the book in your reward tier will simply become more beautiful.
About the creator
I am a biologist, an educator, and a self-taught independent artist.
I've been working on this comic in one form or another since my early teens, and have been hosting and posting the comic online for readers to enjoy for free since 2007. The response to my work throughout the years has been incredibly gratifying. I am so thankful for your readership, and excited to be able to finally give you a physical copy of the comic that means so much to me.
This KS would not be possible without the kind support of
Taneka Stotts (project manager)
all of the incredible postcard artists
Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein
Christina McKenzie
Shirley Jackson
Jared Petker
fabulous readers such as yourself!
Music: Decisions Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Crystal G., 42, figured it was time to move when groups of college students started renting in her condominium complex in Cincinnati, Ohio. She’d bought her apartment in 2005 for $98,000 and had been faithfully paying down a 15-year mortgage. But when the real estate market collapsed and neighbors started suffering foreclosures, her unit’s value plummeted to about $30,000.
As the complex started feeling more like Animal House than home, she approached her bank about refinancing into a 30-year loan so that she could afford to move elsewhere and rent out her condo. But the bank told her it wouldn’t refinance an upside-down mortgage. So she’s planning to stop paying — she heard that missing a payment would encourage the bank to renegotiate her loan.
If it doesn’t, she’s planning to walk away from the mortgage and let the home fall into foreclosure. But she’ll stay in the apartment and save the extra money that would’ve gone toward her mortgage. (She asked that her full name not be used in this story.)
RELATED: Banks Accused of Racial Bias on Foreclosed Homes
Crystal is contemplating what mortgage experts call a “strategic default” — walking away from an underwater home when the borrower has the ability to pay. Her approach appears to dovetail with others trapped in homes worth far less than their original sale price. In a national survey last month by JZ Analytics, 32 percent of the 1,026 U.S. adults polled said homeowners should be able to strategically default on a mortgage without consequences. Seventeen percent said they know someone who’s walked away from their mortgage, and 13 percent said they likely will do so themselves.
“It used to be that a few people might sheepishly admit to having some problems with their mortgage,” says Barry Habib, chief market strategist for mortgage lender Residential Finance Corporation. Today, it’s common for people to suggest to others that stopping payment might be a good financial move, he says.
THE ETHICS OF IT ALL
The ethics of strategic default have been the subject of fierce debate as the number of walkaways has risen. But new research suggests that the argument may be beside the point — the biggest banks might dramatically reduce the number of walkaway borrowers by making inexpensive concessions.
Hard data aren’t available on how many defaults involve people who could pay. But a survey early last year by three economists estimated that the proportion of strategic walkaways rose from 26 percent of all defaults in March 2009 to 35 percent in September 2010. With 15.3 million homeowners (or 31 percent of all homeowners) now paying on houses that are underwater, hundreds of thousands more people may have plans to abandon mortgages that they could continue to pay — a potentially serious hit to a still-fragile housing market.
Strategic defaulters’ ability to pay can range widely, says Frank Pallotta, managing partner at the New Jersey-based Loan Value Group, that develops repayment solutions for lenders. For a single mother who has $10,000 in the bank but is $10,000 behind on payments on a house whose value has collapsed, it may not be wise for her to use her savings to catch up, he says. At the other end of the spectrum are people of means who choose to abandon their loan because their investment will never pay off. These people believe they can improve their financial position in spite of the serious consequences of defaulting — for example, a drop of 200 to 300 points in their credit score or, in some states, the possibility that their bank could attach their other assets.
There’s also a group of accidental strategic defaulters — people told by their bank or loan servicer that they can’t qualify for a modification program unless they skip a payment or two. But when they do, the foreclosure department uses the missed payment to start repossession. In many cases this happens because the servicer has little motivation to modify a loan. Like Crystal G, once the payment has been missed, there’s no guarantee the modification will go through. Many class action suits have been filed around the country over banks’ mishandling of modifications.
Washington, D.C., resident Christie P., 35, and her husband, 48, bought three investment properties starting in 2005 — two in Florida and one in Washington. All three are slightly underwater. But their real problem is negative cash flow; |
to sell cigarettes in their stores.
Despite Epidemic of Opioid-Related Deaths, Doctors Are Still Being Paid to Increase Opioid Sales
Clearly, to really rein in the problem of overprescriptions and addiction, doctors need to change their prescription habits. Patients need to take greater responsibility for their own well-being as well. More than 33,000 Americans were killed by opioids in 2015, and nearly half of them involved a prescription for the drugs.
Knowing that these drugs carry the serious risk of addiction, abuse and overdose, they should be prescribed sparingly and only for the most severe cases of pain, for which no other options are available. Instead, they are often prescribed widely to treat milder cases of chronic pain, such as that from osteoarthritis or back pain, the latter of which has turned into a major “gateway condition” that traps unsuspecting patients in the grip of addiction.
Unfortunately, the current medical system heavily discourages doctors from making much-needed changes in their prescription habits. Patient pain assessment plays a significant role in a doctor’s quality of care indicator, and nothing will eliminate pain as effectively as a narcotic. In other words, if patients report not getting pain relief, a doctor’s rating will go down. On top of that, and in the midst of this epidemic of opioid overdose deaths, drug companies are also still paying physicians to boost opioid sales by writing more prescriptions.
According to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health,28 between August 2013 and December 2015, more than 375,000 nonresearch opioid-related payments were made to more than 68,000 physicians, totaling in excess of $46 million. This amounts to 1 in 12 U.S. physicians collecting money from drug companies producing prescription opioids.
The top 1 percent of physicians received nearly 83 percent of the payments, and the drug fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can be anywhere from 500 to 1,000 percent more potent than morphine, was associated with the highest payments. Many of the states struggling with the highest rates of overdose deaths, such as Indiana, Ohio and New Jersey, were also those showing the most opioid-related payments to physicians. This suggests there’s a direct link between doctors’ kick-backs and patient addiction rates and deaths.
It’s also worth noting that a significant amount of people get their first opioid prescription from their dentist.29 This is particularly true for teenagers and young adults.30 Half of all opioids are also prescribed to people with mental health problems.31
Nondrug Solutions for Pain Relief
It’s extremely important to be fully aware of the addictive potential of opioid drugs, and to seriously weigh your need for them. There are many other ways to address pain. Below is a long list of suggestions. Clearly, there are times when pain is so severe that a narcotic pain reliever may be warranted. But even in those instances, the options that follow may allow you to at least reduce the amount you take, or the frequency at which you need to take them.
If you are in pain that is tolerable, please try these options first, before resorting to prescription painkillers of any kind. If you need a pain reliever, consider an over-the-counter (OTC) option. Research32 shows prescription-strength naproxen (Naprosyn, sold OTC in lower dosages as Aleve) provides the same pain relief as more dangerous narcotic painkillers. However, while naproxen may be a better alternative to narcotic painkillers, it still comes with a very long list of potential side effects,33 and the risks increase with frequency of use.
Eliminate or radically reduce most grains and sugars from your diet
Avoiding grains and sugars will lower your insulin and leptin levels and decrease insulin and leptin resistance, which is one of the most important reasons why inflammatory prostaglandins are produced. That is why stopping sugar and sweets is so important to controlling your pain and other types of chronic illnesses.
Take a high-quality, animal-based omega-3 fat
Omega-3 fats are precursors to mediators of inflammation called prostaglandins. (In fact, that is how anti-inflammatory painkillers work, by manipulating prostaglandins.) Good sources include wild caught Alaskan salmon, sardines and anchovies, which are all high in healthy omega-3s while being low in contaminants such as mercury. As for supplements, my favorite is krill oil, as it has a number of benefits superior to fish oil.
Optimize your sun exposure and production of vitamin D
Optimize your vitamin D by getting regular, appropriate sun exposure, which will work through a variety of different mechanisms to reduce your pain. Sun exposure also has anti-inflammatory and pain relieving effects that are unrelated to vitamin D production, and these benefits cannot be obtained from a vitamin D supplement.
Red, near-, mid- and far-infrared light therapy (photobiology) and/or infrared saunas may also be quite helpful as it promotes and speeds tissue healing, even deep inside the body.
Medical cannabis
Medical marijuana has a long history as a natural analgesic and is now legal in 29 states including Washington, D.C. You can learn more about the laws in your state on medicalmarijuana.procon.org.34
Kratom
Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa) is another plant remedy that has become a popular opioid substitute.35 In August 2016, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration issued a notice saying it was planning to ban kratom, listing it as a Schedule 1 controlled substance. However, following massive outrage from kratom users who say opioids are their only alternative, the agency reversed its decision.36
Kratom is likely safer than an opioid for someone in serious and chronic pain. However, it’s important to recognize that it is a psychoactive substance and should not be used carelessly. There’s very little research showing how to use it safely and effectively, and it may have a very different effect from one person to the next.
Also, while it may be useful for weaning people off opioids, kratom is in itself addictive. So, while it appears to be a far safer alternative to opioids, it’s still a powerful and potentially addictive substance. So please, do your own research before trying it.
Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
EFT is a drug-free approach for pain management of all kinds. EFT borrows from the principles of acupuncture in that it helps you balance out your subtle energy system. It helps resolve underlying, often subconscious, and negative emotions that may be exacerbating your physical pain. By stimulating (tapping) well-established acupuncture points with your fingertips, you rebalance your energy system, which tends to dissipate pain.
Meditation and Mindfulness Training
Among volunteers who had never meditated before, those who attended four 20-minute classes to learn a meditation technique called focused attention (a form of mindfulness meditation) experienced significant pain relief — a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness.37
Chiropractic
Many studies have confirmed that chiropractic management is much safer and less expensive than allopathic medical treatments, especially when used for pain such as low back pain.
Qualified chiropractic, osteopathic and naturopathic physicians are reliable, as they have received extensive training in the management of musculoskeletal disorders during their course of graduate health care training, which lasts between four and six years. These health experts have comprehensive training in musculoskeletal management.
Acupuncture
Research has discovered a “clear and robust” effect of acupuncture in the treatment of back, neck and shoulder pain, and osteoarthritis and headaches.
Physical therapy
Physical therapy has been shown to be as good as surgery for painful conditions such as torn cartilage and arthritis.
Foundation Training
Foundation training is an innovative method developed by Dr. Eric Goodman to treat his own chronic low back pain. It’s an excellent alternative to painkillers and surgery, as it actually addresses the cause of the problem.
Massage
A systematic review and meta-analysis published in the journal Pain Medicine included 60 high-quality and seven low-quality studies that looked into the use of massage for various types of pain, including muscle and bone pain, headaches, deep internal pain, fibromyalgia pain and spinal cord pain.38
The review revealed massage therapy relieves pain better than getting no treatment at all. When compared to other pain treatments like acupuncture and physical therapy, massage therapy still proved beneficial and had few side effects. In addition to relieving pain, massage therapy also improved anxiety and health-related quality of life.
Astaxanthin
Astaxanthin is one of the most effective fat-soluble antioxidants known. It has very potent anti-inflammatory properties and in many cases works far more effectively than anti-inflammatory drugs. Higher doses are typically required and you may need 8 milligrams (mg) or more per day to achieve this benefit.
Ginger
This herb has potent anti-inflammatory activity and offers pain relief and stomach-settling properties. Fresh ginger works well steeped in boiling water as a tea or grated into vegetable juice.
Curcumin
In a study of osteoarthritis patients, those who added 200 mg of curcumin a day to their treatment plan had reduced pain and increased mobility. A past study also found that a turmeric extract composed of curcuminoids blocked inflammatory pathways, effectively preventing the overproduction of a protein that triggers swelling and pain.39
Boswellia
Also known as boswellin or “Indian frankincense,” this herb contains specific active anti-inflammatory ingredients.
Bromelain
This enzyme, found in pineapples, is a natural anti-inflammatory. It can be taken in supplement form but eating fresh pineapple, including some of the bromelain-rich stem, may also be helpful.
Cetyl Myristoleate (CMO)
This oil, found in fish and dairy butter, acts as a joint lubricant and anti-inflammatory. I have used this for myself to relieve ganglion cysts and carpal tunnel syndrome. I used a topical preparation for this.
Evening Primrose, Black Currant and Borage Oils
These contain the essential fatty acid gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), which is particularly useful for treating arthritic pain.
Cayenne Cream
Also called capsaicin cream, this spice comes from dried hot peppers. It alleviates pain by depleting the body’s supply of substance P, a chemical component of nerve cells that transmits pain signals to your brain.
Methods such as hot and cold packs, aquatic therapy, yoga, various mind-body techniques and cognitive behavioral therapy40 can also result in astonishing pain relief without drugs.
Grounding
Walking barefoot on the earth may also provide a certain measure of pain relief by combating inflammation.
Mind-Body Therapies
Methods such as hot and cold packs, aquatic therapy, yoga, various mind-body techniques and cognitive behavioral therapy41 can also result in astonishing pain relief without drugs.
Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Naltrexone is an opiate antagonist, originally developed in the early 1960s for the treatment of opioid addiction. When taken at very low doses (LDN, available only by prescription), it triggers endorphin production, which can boost your immune function and ease pain.
Sources and References
1 Aplus.com April 19, 2016
2 NPR.com July 1, 2014
3 Newsy.com December 18, 2016
4 CDC.gov December 16, 2016
5 CNN October 20, 2017
6 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report December 30, 2016 / 65(50-51);1445–1452
7 CDC Prescription Opioid Overdose Data
8 Washington Post April 2, 2017
9, 10 Drugabuse.gov Overdose Death Rates as of September 2017, Supporting Data Document (XLS)
11 CDC.gov Leading Causes of Death 2015
12 The Atlantic October 18, 2017
13, 15, 18 CBS News October 15, 2017
14 The Guardian October 19, 2017
16 Sharon Herald December 24, 2016
17 Justice.gov January 17, 2017
19 Washington Post October 15, 2017
20 Vox October 17, 2017
21 Washington Post October 17, 2017
22, 23 Washington Post October 16, 2017
24 CNN October 16, 2017
25 Washington Examiner October 22, 2017
26 NBC News September 29, 2017
27 CDC.gov Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report July 7, 2017; 66(26);697–704
28 American Journal of Public Health August 8, 2017
29 STAT News October 17, 2017
30 AL.com April 15, 2017
31 Kaiser Health News June 26, 2017
32 WebMD October 20, 2015
33 Drugs.com Naproxen
34 medicalmarijuana.procon.org, Laws, Fees, and Possession Limits
35 Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry 2011;11(9):1165-75
36 Washington Post October 12, 2016
37 J Neurosci. 2011 Apr 6;31(14):5540-8
38 Pain Medicine May 10, 2016
39 Arthritis & Rheumatism November 2006; 54(11): 3452–3464
40, 41 CNN May 25, 2014
The Best of Joseph MercolaAmalgam
Dental amalgam has been studied and reviewed extensively, and has established a record of safety and effectiveness.
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Bad Breath
There are many reasons for bad breath. Mouth odor, also called halitosis, is a common condition and sometimes a source of embarrassment.
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Cosmetic Dentistry
Is something keeping you from smiling? It could be that whatever it is can be fixed easily and relatively painlessly.
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Dental Decay
Cavities are preventable and caused by certain types of bacteria (germs) that live in your mouth. Find out how to help prevent them.
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Dental Implants
Dental implants offer a way to have artificial teeth that look natural and feel secure.
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Dental Team
Learn who the members of the dental team are and what each member is responsible for.
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Dental Tourism
“Medical tourism” refers to patients traveling abroad for the purpose of obtaining non-emergency health care. “Dental tourism” is a subset of “medical tourism,” and is growing in popularity as an alternative for patient care. A key concern is the consistency of the quality of care provided in other countries.
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Dentures
Replacing missing teeth benefits both your health and your appearance.
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Dry Mouth
Xerostomia (zē′rō-stō′mē-ă) is the medical term for a dry mouth due to lack of saliva.
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Early Childhood Caries
It is now recognized that mothers, or main caregivers, are the most common source of transmission of decay causing bacteria to their infants.
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Emergencies
Learn what to do now in case of a dental emergency later. There are simple steps and urgent timeframes that need to be kept in order to heal properly.
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Fluoride
Everyone can benefit from fluorides ability to help prevent tooth decay. Learn the products that provide fluoride and why its good for your teeth.
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Grills
“Grills,” “grillz,” or “fronts” are decorative covers often made of gold, silver, or jewel-encrusted precious metals that snap over one or more teeth.
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Grinding of Teeth
Its called bruxism; and if the daily grind is wearing on you, you may find that you are more susceptible to it.
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Gum Disease
Learn what could be lurking beneath your gumline. A little knowledge can keep you out of pain.
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Meth Mouth
"Meth mouth" is a name for advanced tooth decay related to heavy methamphetamine use.
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Mouthguards
They aren't mandatory in all sports, but maybe they should be. Losing is tough enough, be sure you don't lose a tooth!
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New Moms
Here are some answers to some of the most frequently asked dental health questions relating to pregnancy, infants, toddlers and children.
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Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide (N2O), aka “laughing gas,” is a gas that, combined with oxygen, is sometimes used during dental treatment to ease anxiety.
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Nutrition
The food you eat directly affects your general health and your oral health.
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Oral Cancer
As with every form of cancer, prevention and early detection are essential.
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Oral Health
A thorough oral examination can detect signs of nutritional deficiencies as well as a number of systemic diseases, including infections, immune disorders, injuries and some cancers.
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Oral Piercing
Are there risks to getting an oral piercing? What if I already have oral jewelry?
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Orthodontics
Do you need braces? Learn how orthodontic problems are corrected.
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Patient Records
You are entitled to a copy of your patient records, according to state law.
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Peer Review
If you are unhappy with the quality of the dental treatment you receive, or you think you may have received treatment that was inappropriate, you have some place to turn.
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Pregnancy
Pregnancy is a time to pay extra attention to your dental health. Some research suggests that serious gum disease (periodontal disease) is linked to premature birth and low birth weight.
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Preventive Care
Prevention is the key to keeping your teeth healthy and your smile beautiful for a lifetime.
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Receding Gums
Receding gumline could be a sign of periodontal disease, the culprit in 70 percent of tooth loss cases for those over 40 years old.
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Sealants
Sealants can be useful in cutting down formation of decay. An application of sealants is a preventative measure to keep teeth healthy.
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Seniors
There are special considerations that need to be addressed as people mature. This fact sheet explains what specific changes take place and how treatment and preventive methods may need to change with time.
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Silver Diamine Fluoride
What is Silver diamine fluoride (SDF) and why does it work?It is a topical medication used to slow down or stop dental decay in both primary and permanent teeth.
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Smokeless Tobacco
If you use smokeless tobacco, or have in the past, you should be on the lookout for some early signs of oral cancer.
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Whitening
Learn why teeth discolor and if whitening can help.
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Wisdom Teeth
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If you need more information, feel free to call us at 800.232.7645 or e-mail your questions or comments.When a freak brain hemorrhage struck out of nowhere a couple of years ago, I became a little depressed, stuck in a rut, and strangely fearful of death. So when I heard about people (in my neighborhood, even) using hallucinogens to push beyond their preoccupations, to help them live without fear, I decided that was a trip I had to take.
icture this: You’re in a house in suburban Baltimore, tripping on four different drugs, watching grown men and women—including at least one grandmother—cuddle platonically on mattresses. Some are weeping, some are stroking each other’s faces, one is reciting the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” in a voice stunned by grief. There are candles and Buddha statues and a watercooler with crystals in it. Filling every room, blaring from Sonos speakers, is Mariah Carey’s version of “I Want to Know What Love Is.” You want to lie down yourself, preferably on a vacant mattress, but someone tells you to stay out of the sunroom because it’s “very angry.” The drugs you’ve been given have cute names, like secret agents: S and K and Ma, a blend of several “sacraments.” Their true identities are MDMA, DMT, psilocybin, and whatever the active compound is in kanna. Still, you feel good but not transformed. You fill up your water bottle. In the living room, a woman claims that Jesus visited her in the middle of the night and told her to pull up her kitchen floor, under which she discovered blood stains. The stains were from a girl who’d been made into soup and fed to the homeless. There’s a hammock in the backyard. You make a journey to it. You lie there, sipping crystal power. When you look at the tree above your head, the branches all burst into ghostly flowers, a continuous bloom. It’s like the tree is auditioning for a part called TREE. Per instruction, you haven’t eaten since lunchtime. Your stomach is in psychedelic pain. Your guide, a suburban mother who’s confessed to tripping over 500 times, is nowhere to be found.* You lie there, waiting for something bigger to happen. Because all this—the drugs, the group work, presumably the Mariah Carey as well—is supposed to cure you of your crippling fear of death.
*Some names and identifying details have been changed.
Why was I, a father of two young children, tripping in a house with a bunch of strangers? It’s a complicated question. At its root is something that happened to me the summer before. I was 44 at the time: no longer in the prime of youth, but certainly someone who anticipated a good thirty or forty more years of life on earth. My blood pressure is normal. I run regularly. I eat shitloads of kale. Aside from the occasional cheeseburger, I pretty much ascribe to the Mediterranean diet. But last July, climbing the stairs on an otherwise uneventful day of writing, my head exploded. I had heard about “thunderclap headaches,” and it was exactly that: a thunderclap of pain that began in my head and flashed down my neck, as though my spine were a lightning rod, before melting away. The experience fit the name so perfectly that I felt a bit of semantic pleasure.
Now, I get a lot of headaches. Little ones, migraines, the whole gamut. The neck thing worried me—I’d never felt that before—but I wasn’t horrendously concerned. I took a piss and went downstairs, feeling a vague lingering pain. I sat on the couch for a while and then called my wife, who insisted we go to the hospital just to be safe. In the car, my head started to hurt again: no thunderclap this time, but a slow storm rolling in from the horizon. By the time we got to the ER, I was crying. It felt like my head was being laboriously crushed. A nurse sat me in a wheelchair, where I started to howl, clutching my head as if I could maybe tear it off my neck. I threw up all over myself. The doctors seemed alarmed. I was past all pride at this point, bellowing like a madman, pausing only to heave up bile. They tried to give me an MRI, but I puked in the MRI machine and they had to start over. If someone had offered to kill me, I would have given them the thumbs-up. The world and my elaborate, one-of-a-kind past in it had evaporated: I was Present Pain. When the doctor returned with the results—“You’ve had a brain hemorrhage, a significant bleed”—they seemed obvious to me, as if someone had diagnosed me as a man.
Thus began a week in the ICU, the worst of my life. A subarachnoid hemorrhage is like a bruise in your brain—I heard this many times, from a battalion of doctors—and like a bruise, it takes a long time to heal. Even on Dilaudid and oxycodone, surfing in and out of consciousness, I had abominable headaches. I threw up for days, sometimes in front of my children. I had my penis shish-kebabbed by a catheter, which hurts exactly as much as it sounds. I was shaken from the depths of sleep, once an hour, for the same torture test: Where are you? What’s the date? Why are you here? I endured an angiogram without anesthesia—my heart rate was too low—which squirted my head with pyrotechnic bursts of pain. I discovered that walking is a triumph, a subconscious alignment of highly skilled maneuvers that requires a perfectly unbruised brain. Once a day, feeling like I’d stepped off the Pequod after a year at sea, I minced around the ICU with my wife’s help, the nurses cheering at the end of two or three laps, as if I’d won the Olympics. And I was in good shape, relatively speaking. If you ever want to remind yourself that we’re all animals, clinging to our humanity by the thinnest of threads, hang out in the neuroscience ICU of a major hospital. The guy next to me, fresh from brain surgery, couldn’t speak but only moan-bellow over and over again at the top of his lungs, as if calling for the rest of his brain to come home. He sounded uncannily like Chewbacca, when the walls of the trash compactor close in on him.
They never found the source of my bleeding—apparently a good thing—but it added to the sense I had of Death as mad sniper, poised to drop me for no reason. I was in His sights. Even being told by two neurosurgeons that the hemorrhage was a fluke thing, that it would never happen again, failed to assuage my dread. I wondered, perhaps to make my brain-clap seem less random, if my lifelong fear of death had somehow brought it on. It didn’t help things that it took me a couple months to recover, or that for some strange reason I felt compelled to keep it a secret from all but my closest friends. I was too nauseated to eat; I lost over 30 pounds; people stopped me in the halls at work and asked me why my lips were white. The two biggest toes on my left foot stayed numb, as if I’d dipped them in the grave. I worried about dropping dead while taking a dump. I was losing sleep. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night, heart drumming, that poor man’s Wookiee-like howls haunting my head.
I lay there immobilized, trying to hold on to the fact that I was doing this for a reason—that I was supposed to go spelunking in the void and therapeutically return, purged of my fear of death. Then: BOOM.
o when I read about psychedelic therapy for terminal-cancer patients in The New Yorker, in an article by Michael Pollan, I was immediately intrigued. Here were people far worse off than I was, people staring their own deaths in the face, who after a hefty dose of psilocybin seemed to have made their peace with dying. They spoke of venturing into the void and then returning with an ineffable sense of well-being, of touching “the face of God.” The article made it sound like a miracle cure.
Which all leads me to what I was doing in a suburban house with a trampoline in the backyard, trying to swan-dive into my essential self. My guide for the evening had accepted my 400 dollars, the price for my journey, in tie-dyed pants. It was my own fault I wasn’t tripping very hard—I’d told her, out of nervousness, I didn’t want to travel to other planets—though I suspected she knew less about the “sacraments” she was prescribing to us than she purported to. (“Do you know that Peruvians drip ayahuasca into the eyes of their newborns?” she’d told me earlier. “All Peruvians?” I’d asked, and she’d blushed.) Still, I liked her, partly because there was something in her eyes that made me think of the Wordsworth line from “Elegiac Stanzas”: “A deep distress hath humanized my soul.” I sensed there’d been some suffering in her past. Many of the participants, I noticed, had the same benignly haunted look. An ex-physician told us that ten years ago she’d been diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer; she’d recovered, but couldn’t shake the feeling that it would return any second to finish her off. To allay her lingering fear of death, she’d enrolled in a psilocybin trial, and her “whole reality changed.” She divorced her husband and began to juggle motherhood and what full-time psychonauts call “The Work,” traveling the world to partake in aya ceremonies.
The more I talked to my fellow journeyers, the more I realized that almost all of them were dealing with death in some way. One guy—an ex-stockbroker who’d quit his job at a brokerage firm and was developing a health app called, mind-bogglingly, Nurse Ratched—told me he’d managed to purge his own fear of death by dying.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean I died on Ma. I stopped breathing for a long time. I couldn’t move or speak. But I was still there nonetheless. There was continuity—I continued.”
“You believed you were dead.”
He touched my shoulder. “You don’t understand,” he said. “I was actually dead.”
I nodded. Was he off his nut? Was it possible that if you “die” in Ayahuasca Land, it was somehow as real as brushing your teeth? Is our boring analytical mind only showing us half the truth? One of the four hallmarks of a mystical experience, according to William James, is the “noetic”: the conviction that the experience has illuminated some authentic truth. But don’t crazy people also believe—just as passionately—in their delusions? If I tripped hard enough, would I emerge with the conviction that I was immortal and could shine divine light out of my ass? If it got rid of my fear of death, would it matter?
The ex-stockbroker proceeded to tell me a story about a train running over someone, actually cleaving the guy in two and stopping with its wheel in the middle of his body. As long as the train didn’t move, the person was able to survive that way for a while. There was enough time to call his loved ones and have them say good-bye. I wasn’t sure what this had to do with me.
“Maybe you just need a deeper journey,” he explained.
That was it. Maybe I just needed to trip harder. To die without dying. I was determined, in any case, to try it.
I was not new to hallucinogens; in fact, I’d experimented with all manner of drugs in my youth. This was partly why the question of authenticity intrigued me. Over time I’d come to regard my drug experiences as resolutely inauthentic: quaint little escapades, akin to the stupid-drunk tales you trot out at parties. They weren’t trips so much as “trips,” pratfalls that made people laugh. Inevitably the stories ended with a punch line, the moment of disillusionment after I’d come down and recognized that the profound epiphany I’d experienced had been trite and farcical. There was the day, shrooming in Santa Barbara, when I brought a random twig home from the beach, convinced it was a priceless souvenir. Or the time my buddy Pete and I thought we’d unlocked the secret of the universe and wrote it down on a strip of paper, which we stashed in one of those wooden puzzle boxes with the trick latches. (When I opened the box the next morning, to discover what we’d written, I found SPECIFICITY INTO CHAOS.) Or the first time I tried Ecstasy. I bonded with a guy I’d never met, convinced he was the other half of me that Zeus had torn asunder. For two hours we sat with our arms around each other, listening to Jane’s Addiction’s Ritual de lo habitual and trading awestruck faces as each new song became THE GREATEST SONG EVER. After I’d started to come down, and to wonder why as a straight man I’d been snuggling with a dude on the couch, I wandered into his kitchen and discovered that my soul mate had a “Garfield” comic strip taped to his fridge.
And I’d had some bad trips as well, which worried me. This is why I’d stopped doing mushrooms in college. Once, after a party in which I covered myself head to toe in mud, I returned to my dorm room to shower, only to discover too late that the mud was my natural-born carapace, my naked body the repulsive lobster-like innards of an alien species. I cowered in the bathroom for an hour. Far worse was the time, in my twenties, when I tripped by accident. My best friend from high school came through town with his rock band, and I stupidly ate a cookie from a bowl sitting on the dashboard of their van. It tasted like shit. When I looked up, the whole band was staring at me. My friend asked me solemnly if I’d eaten the entire cookie.
“Yes,” I said.
He massaged my shoulder, very gently. This was someone who traveled with his own drug supplier. “Just remember, no matter what happens, it’s only hash.”
The rest of the band passed a single cookie around, taking little nibbles. At dinner, my enchilada began talking to me. It was not a pleasant conversation. I don’t remember the details, except that the enchilada had a strong survival instinct. I ended up in the fetal position for eight hours, whimpering like a dog. For the next couple days I called in sick to my construction job, terrified I’d never return to normal. Except for the occasional puff of weed, that was my last experience with mind-altering drugs.
o it was with trepidation and hope that I ended up at a “psychedelic salon” at Red Emma’s bookstore, the sort of place whose Fiction section is smaller than its Prison Literature one. That’s how I met Dr. Albert Garcia-Romeu, a research psychologist at Johns Hopkins and an expert in the field of psychedelic science. He gave a talk about the psilocybin study he was running, working with nicotine addicts to get them to quit smoking. (So far, they’ve had an 80 percent success rate at six months, about a 40 percent improvement over the best treatment on the market.) Unlike most of the journeyers I talked to, Garcia-Romeu is smart and scientifically-minded, with a handy chemical knowledge of the brain. He has a doctorate in psychology and publishes papers with titles like “Self-transcendence as a Measurable Transpersonal Construct.” If there was ever a trustworthy ambassador for the transformative effects of psychedelics, he was it.
“Neurons that fire together, wire together,” he explained to me when I met him a week later over beers. We were at a historic Baltimore watering hole called The Owl Bar, most likely the only patrons talking about the ruminative patterns of the brain. “That’s what they say in neurological circles. We think particular thoughts—obsessive ones, anxious ones, all those elements of cultural programming that we accept without questioning—and then it gets chemically easier and easier to think them. It’s like wearing ruts into a carpet. These pathways can be very unhealthy. Sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to reset them completely.”
He used the metaphor of a sand castle; you spend years and years building one in your brain, without even knowing it, and it becomes a permanent fixture. Psilocybin, at least in high dosages, serves as the wave that wipes it away.
“How high?” I asked.
He put down his beer and looked at me. “It’s supposed to be an epic experience.”
On his iPhone, Garcia-Romeu showed me a pair of circles meant to represent people’s brains. The graphics were taken from a recent Journal of the Royal Society Interface study, which involved doing fMRIs on subjects who’d either taken psilocybin or hadn’t. The first circle—a normal brain—had a few colored lines arcing across it, whereas the second one looked like one of the rubber-band balls my friend’s mother used to keep in her pantry. These were the neural pathways of a tripping brain. “On psilocybin, all these parts of your brain that don’t usually communicate with each other start chatting. It literally reorders |
certainly not all the time.” Murray explains that this led to situations where the programmer’s created mountains players couldn’t climb, or caves they couldn’t get into, or oceans that were too shallow or too deep. One team member’s novel idea become another’s headache.
Murray’s day to day consists of chipping away at the code, like an obsessive editor tweaking sentence phrasing or punctuation. He’ll hammer away at terrain or mountains or hills, for instance, observing the effects of his alterations until he’s happy with the results, then check his changes into the main game. “And instantly the rest of the team will start sending me screenshots with messages like ‘Sean, I’m stuck in this hole,’ or ‘I’m trapped here,’” he jokes.
Even Minecraft, studio Mojang’s hugely popular sandbox that also relies on procedural generation, struggles with the noise problem. On occasion its generational algorithms will hang aberrant blocks of turf in the sky like periods in search of a sentence. Travel too far from your inception point in Minecraft and, in earlier versions of the game, you’d run into the so-called “Far Lands,” where the generational “noise” gets so wonky it can turn the world inside out. Not so No Man’s Sky, which resembles a Hugo Gernsback pulp mag cover sprung to life. It’s perhaps testament to the prowess of Hello Games’ programmers that their universe looks so exquisitely non-random.
The result is otherworldly and intimidating. In a pre-production demo of the game, I strode across an unearthly planet beneath persimmon skies, blue-green fronds of grass-like vegetation underscoring herds of creatures that resembled gazelles. I crawled into a nearby space vehicle that looked suspiciously like an X-Wing and lifted off, pulling up through the atmosphere and out into space. There’s no loading screen and no transitional pause. Then I was staring out at moons, distant stars and some lumbering trade ships with shepherding fighters, their contrails arrowing through the void like staves on a music sheet. This is every player’s starting point: as infinitesimally tiny specks amidst endless worlds wheeling through incalculably vast vacuum.
It’s also, weirdly, a kind of optimism simulator. “A friend of mine, who is massively into science fiction, feels like there’s nothing out there that might inspire a love of science fiction in his kid,” says Murray, referring to a problem sci-fi writer Neal Stephenson’s touched on in recent years. Stephenson worries a turn toward fetishizing dystopian versions of the future has real-world implications that might discourage people from daring to invent grander or bolder things. “I think it’s reasonably true. Like over the last 20 years, it’s hard to think of a film that’s sci-fi that doesn’t have a big focus on zombies or robots who get out of control,” Murray says. “If you see a scientist at the start of a film, then they’re evil or they’re inept and they’re about to accidentally cause the destruction of humanity.”
No Man’s Sky’s countercultural retro-majestic visuals even caught Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons’ eye. And that led to his becoming involved in helping craft a comic that’ll come bundled with a limited edition version of the game. “He was like, ‘This is the kind of stuff I’d like to draw, but it’s been gone for years,’” recalls Murray. “It was like he was saying, ‘I love this stuff but there is no market for it right now, or people aren’t interested in it.'”
Some of it may be down to what studios like Hello Games are seeing that the rest of the industry can’t (or refuses to). A game like Minecraft came from nowhere, plying old ideas in such profoundly novel ways that it prompted radically new ways of thinking about game design. Its influence on the industry has become its own procedurally generated archetype. “The Minecraft thing is really interesting, because I’ve talked to a lot of journalists who’ve never really played it, or they’ve bounced off it, or they see it as a kid’s thing,” says Murray. “They’ve watched it on videos and feel they understand it, but I think it’s a really important thing to experience, this sandbox idea that you’re letting systems interact with each other and the gameplay stems from that. I actually think it’s important for all of games. Like it’s this wave that’s going to crush across triple-A, and then people will ask for more freedom.”
“My theory is that with people like [Braid and The Witness creator] Jonathan Blow, they’re creating these little time machines,” continues Murray. “It’s like Blow went back to the aesthetic of the late ‘80s and created a rift in time, like an alternate universe where we’d have gone in a different direction. Because Braid could have existed on the Amiga, and at the time it would have blown people’s minds. It would have completely changed how games developed, and it could have functionally existed back then. It’s like Blow created an alternate path. And The Witness is another. And there are tons of these. Minecraft is another timeline.”
Murray’s own forte lies in designing the look and feel of the game’s innumerable planets (18 quintillion in all), a skill that involves interpolating three-dimensional figures from math. “You can be reading a paper and even see something in 2D as a graph and then just start visualizing that in three dimensions, and it’s quite a natural thing to be able to do,” he says. “But I’ve seen things now that I’ve built terrains out of certain formulae where I can understand those formulae much better. When you can walk around inside it, it gives you an innate special awareness of it.”
But he’s quick to downplay any sense that his team’s cobbled together some sort of genius-level equation actuator. When asked about his mathematics background, he demurs. “Most of what we’re doing is reasonably simple, actually, and then we just layer simple things on top of each other and it creates something that’s reasonably complex from the outside,” he says. “I think most other developers are going to look at the game and think, ‘Oh, I kind of know how they’re doing that.’” He laughs, then pauses, thinking. “I feel a bit weird if somebody’s saying ‘These are really clever guys’ or whatever.” No Man’s Sky players will have a chance to weigh in soon enough.The man who wrote Arizona's "Papers Please" law before running for Kansas secretary of state in 2010 on the premise of stamping out "voter fraud" there -- before winning and subsequently not being able to find much, if any of it, at all -- is nonetheless still at work attempting to keep legitimate voters from being able to cast their vote under the premise that thousands of non-citizens are somehow, secretly, illegally voting in the state of Kansas.
"In Kansas, the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive," Kris Kobach's personal website still reads today. He just can't seem to find any.
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Despite that annoying little truth, he now has a new plan to try and keep those "alien voters" from voting, even if it involves keeping 17,500 or more perfectly legal U.S. citizen residents of Kansas from voting as well.
Last month, we explained how Kobach's new law, requiring proof of citizenship in order to register Kansans to vote, had left more than 15,000 otherwise legal voters in limbo.
Voters who had registered to vote using the federal registration form -- as mandated by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA or "Motor Voter Act," since it requires local government facilities, such as DMVs, to provide a nationally standardized voter registration form) -- are now being blocked by Kobach from voting in Kansas, unless they have been able to prove their citizenship to the satisfaction of a new state law written by Kobach and passed by state Republicans last year.
That new proof-of-citizenship law took effect at the beginning of this year and has resulted in thousands of previously legal voters becoming "suspended" until such time as they present documentation to prove they are citizens. The burden is now on them to prove they are innocent, rather than on the state to prove they have broken any laws. If they don't, according to Kobach, they will not be allowed their right to vote.
Over the summer, however, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the portion of Arizona's version of the law, where they were similarly attempting to keep voters who used the national registration form from being able to vote unless they later provided proof of citizenship. The national form requires registrants to sign an oath, under penalty of perjury, attesting that they are U.S. citizens, but it does not require actual documentation, as required under the Arizona and Kansas laws.
The Court determined that barring voters under such state laws is unconstitutional, but found that Arizona has a right to petition the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to add that requirement to the federal form, if they like. Until then, however, states cannot deny voters the right to vote simply because they used the federal form to register.
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Arizona and Kansas are now in court, attempting to require the EAC to add that requirement. But Kobach is reportedly laying the groundwork for what to do if he loses that court case.
According to the Wichita Eagle -- which pegs the number of currently "suspended," but otherwise legal, voters at 17,500 -- Kobach's plan involves creating several different classes of voters: some who can vote in all elections, others who can vote in only federal contests, and still others who will not be allowed to vote at all.
The plan creates three classes of registered voters, according to the Legislative Research report provided to [Democratic state Rep. Jim] Ward on Thursday: Voters using either the federal or Kansas form and providing state-required documents proving their citizenship would be able to vote in all federal, state and local elections. Voters who use the federal form but don't provide citizenship documents will be allowed to vote only for candidates running for president, vice president and Congress. Registrants who file a Kansas form but don't provide citizenship documents will be put in suspension and won't be allowed to vote in any election.
As the Eagle notes, "The citizenship requirement is separate from Kansas' requirement that voters provide photo ID at the polls. While most people use their driver's license for that, it's generally not sufficient proof to register to vote in Kansas."
Kobach's interpretation of the SCOTUS ruling, that he may legally create different tiers of access for voters, barring some from voting in state and local elections, is itself questionable, but has some basis in constitutional authority.
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"The federal government doesn't have the authority to tell Kansas what to do in Kansas elections," according to Kobach's legal analysis of the Supreme Court's decision in the Arizona case. His argument likely rests on Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, allowing state legislatures to determine "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives." Generally, federal election laws, such as the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) have mandated requirements for federal elections, but have left states to otherwise determine the way non-federal elections are run.
"That, too, will probably have to be decided by a court," says the Eagle, which notes that the ACLU "has notified Kobach that it intends to sue in mid-November if he doesn't stop suspending voters for not filing citizenship papers." The civil rights group charges Kobach is defying the Supreme Court by creating "unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles (that) have deprived thousands of Kansans of their right to register to vote."
Election officials are also concerned about the additional problems Kobach's two-tier voter plan will cause them, in the event that the state loses the current case against the EAC and the plan for two different classes of voters is implemented. They worry they will then have to prepare two different sets of ballots for use in each election, for each of the two classes of voters allowed to vote. One ballot with all races, and another with only federal races.
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"It would be a nightmare for us," says Sherman County Clerk Janet Rumpel, the immediate past president of the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association.
Despite his complete inability, since coming to office in 2011, to demonstrate the "pervasive" illegal voting that he claims he was running to stop, Kobach, a hard right-wing Tea Party favorite, seems unconcerned by either the thousands of his own constituents whom he's prepared to keep from voting at all, or the difficulty new voters in Kansas now face in attempting to become enfranchised.
The Eagle reports that since the proof-of-citizenship law took effect on Jan. 1, "voting registration drives ground to a halt because of the impracticality of getting the needed documents to complete the process."
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Opponents of the law, like Democratic Rep. Jim Ward, who told the paper that he registers about 400 voters "as he walks his precincts each election," hopes to be able to use the federal form in the future instead.
Ward says he once asked Kobach how voter registration workers should collect the documentation now needed to register under the new law.
"Carry a copy machine with you," he claims the secretary of state told him. "It was a snarky response, but I think it tells you his attitude toward the right to vote."
[Hat-tip Right Wing Watch...]
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* * *When people discuss some of the NFL's greatest team's of all-time, the 1985 Chicago Bears are always in the discussion, winning Super Bowl XX in a commanding fashion against the Patriots.
Even 30 years later, the players from that team demand attention when they make appearances in the media. The most recent example of that is when Steve McMicahel and Otis Wilson shared their frustrations about quarterback Jay Cutler.
"Cutler has been paid, so he thinks he’s off the hook to do whatever he wants to do whenever he wants to," McMichael said, via Mark Konkol of DNAinfo. "When you’re out there trying to be a star for yourself, make a play for yourself, the team loses. Other guys look at you like you’re a selfish [expletive]."
Wilson echoed those comments and was just as harsh in his criticism, saying he simply wouldn't want Cutler to be the quarterback of his team.
"If I had to pick a quarterback, he wouldn’t be on my team. In all honesty, when you’re the quarterback you’re the focal part of the team, you’re the leader whether you want to be or not," Wilson said. "He does everything the opposite of that, and his attitude is he doesn’t care."
Related: Bears' Cutler, Kristin Cavallari expecting baby girl
Cutler is set to start again under center following a 5-11 season in 2014 where he set career-high's in passing yards and touchdowns, but also led the NFL in turnovers. He's still in the middle of a massive, seven-year, $126.7 million deal he signed under former general manager Phil Emery.
Cutler remains as polarizing as ever. With new head coach John Fox and offensive coordinator Adam Gase, Cutler may finally get over that hump of careless turnovers. If he does, the Bears can get out of the cellar of the NFC North.He may have died in the seventeenth century but in his Mysterie of Rhetoric Unvail’d of 1657 John Smith showed he understood how sneaks such as Andrea Leadsom operate. Defining the rhetorical device of ‘apophasis’, Smith described it as
A kind of irony, whereby we deny that we say or doe that which we especially say or doe
Leadsom proved herself the queen of denying what she says and does: the apotheosis of apophasis. She made a political issue of the childlessness of Theresa May, a loss we know is a matter of sorrow to the Home Secretary and her husband, as it is to many couples, while denying that she was politicising the private life of her opponent.
I am sure she will be really sad she doesn’t have children, Leadsom said of May with a slipperiness worthy of Uriah Heep, and continued
So I don’t want this to be ‘Andrea has children, Theresa hasn’t’, because I think that would be really horrible but, genuinely, I feel being a mum means you have a very real stake in the future of our country, a tangible stake. She possibly has nieces, nephews, lots of people. But I have children who are going to have children who will directly be a part of what happens next.
It was a naked appeal to the Tory grassroots to consider a prejudice many among them did not know they possessed. A childless woman, is incomplete, a decadent failure without a stake in the future of her country.
Until that moment, believers in the emancipation of women were enjoying the shortest of celebrations. They were able to say how pleased they were that the two candidates for prime minister were both women. What progress we have made! What a new world we live in where the triumph of women leaders is taken for granted!
Ms Leadsom took an all-women shortlist as an opportunity to mount a sexist attack no man would dare employ, and I am delighted to say it has ruined her ambitions.
Before her, right-wing men had used this tactic only against gay men. Niall Ferguson said Lord Keynes had urged the piling up of debt for future generations to pay off because he was gay and did not have children, Ferguson retracted not least because Keynes was bisexual. He and his wife wanted children, and were again heartbroken, that they could not conceive.
Helen Goodman, a thug from the Gordon Brown charm school, who everyone has now forgotten (not that there was much to remember), is the only woman politician I can find who anticipated Leadsom. In the 2015 Labour leadership election she tried to diminish the childless Liz Kendall by saying that she was supporting the fecund Yvette Cooper because ‘as a working mum she understands the pressures on modern family life’.
But hardly any Labour voters noticed Goodman’s bitch whistle. In any case, her attack did not begin to compare with the dripping insincerity, the simpering unctuousness, the ‘who me?’ pseudo-naivety, the fake tears and feigned compassion of Leadsom’s ‘I am sure she will be really sad she doesn’t have children…But…’
It was too filthy an attack to justify. So the right did what it always accuses the left of doing, and turned Leadsom from the perpetrator into the victim. She was the target of a ‘black op’ cried that hysterical oaf, Iain Duncan Smith. It was a plot by the establishment, the Murdoch press, her supporters continued, as they signalled their Corbynista determination to deny the obvious.
Julie Burchill has coined the indispensable phrase ‘cry-bully’ : a hideous hybrid of victim and victor, weeper and walloper, who attacks someone, then runs off screaming when their opponent responds in kind. The right is full of them.
This morning Leadsom apologised. At lunchtime she resigned. Optimists about British politics will find some consolation that her dirty tricks have found her out. I will wait and see how the end of her ambitions are greeted on the right, however.
Perhaps her supporters will admit the obvious. Perhaps they will say she was wholly unsuited to be prime minister at a time of national crisis, or indeed at any time. She did not have the experience or the ability to cope under pressure. If Andrea Leadsom could not give an interview to the Times without wailing on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that she had been stitched up, how would she cope with Vladimir Putin? Maybe they will say that her attacks on Theresa May spoke to her character as well as her experience. Decent people – and conservatives always insist that they are the decent backbone of England – simply do not behave as Leadsom behaved.
I doubt it. By tomorrow morning, a stab-in-the-back myth will be growing. Andrea Leadsom will be a lost leader, destroyed by an establishment, which wanted to silence the voice of the grassroots and the millions who voted to leave the EU. The Daily Telegraph and Iain Duncan Smith, Louise Mensch and all the other right-wing twitter trolls, will say that she was the victim of a smear campaign by the elitist enemies of the people. Leadsom will be the wronged heroine, whose assassination they must avenge.
The Brexit result has released the demons of the radical right. They feel, with justice, that British history is on their side. Far from weakening it, the martyrdom of St Andrea will only strengthen the cult, as the blood of martyrs always does. As I write, a Conservative MP is on the news saying that Leadsom was a victim of the ‘manoeuvres’ of her enemies. He won’t be the last.The fine art market is booming: Seems like every day, another auction record is set for "the highest price ever paid [fill in artist's name here]." So what does that mean for the painting you bought to match your sofa a few years back? It may increase in worth, or it may be as salable as your kid's pasta-filled craft project.
So how do you tell? Well, as with any investment, you need to do your research and go beyond your comfort zone. The art market is fickle, and there are no guarantees of profitability, but with a little legwork and forethought you can fill your home with images that may prove worthy assets down the line. Consider these tips for choosing fine art and identifying the Michelangelo from the macaroni.
Original Ideas: Paintings and Giclées
You walk into a gallery and fall in love with a $5,000 painting, but you just can't justify the price tag. The gallery owner shows you a selection of the same artist's work for a humble $500, explaining that the pieces are giclées. A giclée is a machine-made print, a reproduction printed on fine paper or canvas with color and clarity that can rival the original. But it's still a copy.
The rarity of a work of art is what gives it value, so an original will always be worth more than a reproduction. While a giclée may come labeled with superlatives like "museum quality" or "archival" and the seller may hawk a certificate of authenticity, it will never be as valuable as an original. Some artists and appraisers even view giclées as a gimmick for novice artists and neophyte collectors.
Still, there's no denying that a giclée puts fine art within reach for many art enthusiasts, and while a certificate doesn't lend much value to the reproduction, a fresh signature and especially a remarque (an original drawing made by the artist in the margin of the giclée) could bump up future value.
You may hear stories of giclées being proudly exhibited at such noble institutions as the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the pieces held in these collections are limited edition Iris prints of digital images or digital manipulations – such as "Nest and Trees" by Kiki Smith at the Met. They are not reproductions of original paintings. Museums do, however, sell giclée versions of masterpieces to generate income. These giclées, though pleasing to your eye and soul, won't pull in any future income for you.
Doing the Loupe de Loupe: Prints and Posters
In the mid-19th century, Currier & Ives brought art into the homes of America with their mass-produced prints. During the first half of the 20th century, a quarter of U.S. households were decorated with prints by artist Maxfield Parrish ("Ectasy," one of his most popular, illustrates this article).These images are the predecessors of the posters sold in malls and museum shops today. Posters, like giclées, give you access to a masterpiece, but a poster is not the same as a fine art print, which can be in the form of a hand-pulled silkscreen, lithograph or block print.
You can often distinguish an artist print from a poster with the naked eye, though in some cases you may need a loupe or magnifying glass. The process of offset printing leaves a tiny dot matrix on the paper: Think of a comic book or a Roy Lichtenstein painting with its exaggerated dots of color.
Several factors determine the value of an artist's print: the size of the edition (that is, the number of prints the artist makes of one work); the significance of the work; the condition of the print; and whether it is signed and numbered by the artist. In the prints market, it is rarity that bestows value. A low run of limited edition prints is more valuable than a mass-produced image. Even an earlier pull of a print – say No.10 of 100 (rather than No. 80 of 100) – can mean better value.
Cruising Cruise Art Auctions
A cruise art auction is exactly as it sounds: it's a sea cruise that displays and sells fine art. With name-brand artist prints, drawings and paintings that come hyped with certificates of authenticity, the cruise auction can seem like a boon to the aspiring art investor. The artwork changes each day as lots are sold off, and written appraisals suggest pieces are offered at a fraction of their value. You might feel like you've stumbled into a floating investment paradise.
The artwork at these auctions is genuine, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good investment. Cruise auctions work on the principle that buyers believe authenticity equals high value. Unfortunately, authenticity does not guarantee the rarity of a piece or its importance in the art world. The critical guideline for buying art cannot be repeated too often: Art that is valuable is art that is rare.
But how can you know whether your auction find is a rare commodity? Do your research. Hit the internet café on your ship before you plunk down the plastic. You can google the artist and the specific artwork to get some history, and check sites such as artfact.com or eBay to get a representative sample for pricing.
Selling Your Art Investment
Most people who buy paintings don't end up selling them later on, and that fact can skew pricing samples for art. When a painting is auctioned, it's often because the owner of the work thinks the piece will attract a handsome price. Auction prices reflect only a tiny amount of art resales, and some experts estimate that only 0.5% of paintings bought are ever resold.
If you have a true find hanging on your wall and you're ready to part with it, your best shot at a decent payout will be a fine art auction house, which will typically charge as little as 3% or as high as 50% of your sale price for auctioning your piece, according to ChicagoAppraisers.com. The do-it-yourself internet auction sites usually draw far less coin.
Still, art is a long-term investment, and while the art market can be stable or even show gigantic returns on an investment during boom times, it is one asset that can easily plummet in value during seasons of recession.
Final Tips for Investing in the Arts
Gallery owners will tell you that buying art is an emotional decision, but don't fall for that line if you are thinking of it as an investment. Research any living artists who catch your eye. Learn about their education, their commissions and their exhibits.Back in July, Unlocking the Truth — the metal band comprised of three Brooklyn 8th graders — inked themselves a mind-blowing, two-album Sony recording contract worth upwards of $1.7 million. Not one to rest on their laurels (yes, even those with a price tag of nearly $2 million), the trio has continued its meteoric rise, appearing on last night’s episode of The Colbert Report.
During the interview portion, Colbert spoke to the three-piece about the band’s origins, their whopping record deal, their forthcoming EP entitled Free As You Wanna Be, and of course, junior high. Choice moments from the interview include when:
— Colbert asked them to pick their favorite school subject and drummer Jarad Dawkins answered with a super straight face: “Nothing.” — Frontman Malcolm Brickhouse explained the meaning behind the band’s name: “We’re unlocking the truth about life … and that you could do whatever you wanna do. Kids think that they can’t do anything ’cause that’s what other people tell you to do, but if you look past that and just believe in yourself, you can accomplish anything you wanna do.” Well said, little man.
Later, Unlocking The Truth took the stage to play two tracks off Free As You Wanna Be, “Monster” and the title track. If you were somewhat skeptical about the group’s legitimacy, their impressive live performance will surely put your doubts to rest.
Below, watch the interview and their performance of “Monster”, followed by a web-exclusive performance of the title track.The EPA’s internal watchdog said this week that the Obama administration cut corners in evaluating the science it used to back up its 2009 finding that carbon is a dangerous pollutant and can be regulated under existing federal law.
The report by the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, dated Sept. 26 but released Wednesday, is certain to be used in court by those seeking to overturn EPA’s claim that it can write global warming rules under existing law, and doesn’t need new authority from Congress.
Investigators did not question EPA’s scientific conclusions that human-caused global warming is occurring, and said the agency did follow basic rules. But investigators said EPA didn’t treat the finding as seriously as the situation required, and failed to meet administration guidelines for peer review of such a major issue.
“EPA had the [science] reviewed by a panel of 12 federal climate-change scientists. However, the panel’s findings and EPA’s disposition of the findings were not made available to the public as would be required for reviews of highly influential scientific assessments,” the investigators said. “Also, this panel did not fully meet the independence requirements for reviews of highly influential scientific assessments because one of the panelists was an EPA employee.”
The inspector general said EPA failed from the outset to identify the Technical Support Document, or TSD, as “influential,” which would subject it to heightened standards of scientific review.
EPA rejected the report, saying the science it did use was peer reviewed, and that its findings were based on the work of other major bodies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“No weighing of information, data and studies occurred in the [technical document],” the agency said in its official comment submitted to the report. “That had already occurred in the underlying assessments, where the scientific synthesis occurred and where the state of the science was assessed.”
EPA said it used the best science available, as compiled and reviewed by the IPCC, the U.S. Global Climate Research Program and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
The agency said those other bodies all did the peer reviews required for research of this magnitude, and then EPA summarized their conclusions, and that summary was then submitted to a panel of climate scientists for final review.
At issue is EPA’s claim that it can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Under its 2009 “endangerment finding” that emitting greenhouse gases poses a threat to human health.
If it stands, that finding means that EPA can use existing laws to control emissions.
But the finding has been challenged in court, with opponents questioning the science EPA used for its finding — and they said the inspector general’s report will give them ammunition to use.
Sen. James M. Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, called for hearings into EPA’s decision-making.
“EPA needs to explain to the American people why it blatantly circumvented its own procedures to make what appears to be a predetermined endangerment finding,” said Mr. Inhofe of Oklahoma.
David Doniger, the climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Mr. Inhofe’s accusations were “laughable,” and that EPA’s conclusions are backed by climate science.
“By the way, what peer-review procedures does Sen. Inhofe follow before he posts his ‘climate hoax’ theories? Teapot calling the kettle black?” Mr. Doniger said in a blog post after the inspector general’s report was released.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.NAGA CITY — Using the P175-billion overseas development aid to be borrowed from China, the Department of Transportation (DOTr) will revive the operation of the Philippine National Railway’s Bicol Express with reconstruction of a new railway system from Manila to Bicol, Undersecretary for Rails Cesar Chavez said.
“It is not a rehabilitation,” Chavez said at the Bicol Express Modernization Forum held here on Friday. “It will be a reconstruction. Everything will be new. New railways. New train wagons. New stations. New modalities.”
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Chavez said China and the Philippines is set to sign the loan agreement of P175 billion payable in 20 years at 2 percent interest per annum on Nov. 16 and 17 at the time of the 31st Asean Summit and Related Meeting in Manila.
He said the revived Bicol Express would take six hours to reach Bicol from Manila with a design speed of 120 kph and operational speed of 80 kph.
With a timetable from 2018-2022, he said the reconstruction of the new railway system would be undertaken through Chinese general consultancy services while the determination of the firms to undertake the actual construction was still under negotiations.
He said there would be nine new train stations from Paco in Manila to Matnog town in Sorsogon, stretching 683 km of newly constructed railways following international standards.
He enumerated the nine train stations to be constructed as Paco, FTI, Los Baños, Lucena City, Gumaca, Pili/Naga, Legazpi/Camalig, Sorsogon City and Matnog.
Chavez said China wpi;d bring in and transfer technology and operational expertise to Filipino engineers and operators while utilizing Chinese consultants and contractors. Filipino engineers would handle the maintenance and operation, he said.
Chavez said the Chinese government has agreed to start the reconstruction of the new railway system for the PNR’s Bicol Express after the national government had done with the right-of-way aspect of the trunk line from Manila to Sorsogon.
The third quarter of 2018 is the target period to complete 50 percent of the right-of-way aspect involving payment and relocation of settlers occupying spaces within the 15 meters trunk line from Manila to Matnog.
Demolitions and relocations
Depending on the situation, Chavez said, the reconstruction of the railway system might utilize the same alignment of the previous railway system of the PNR. But whenever practical and necessary, a new alignment for the railways would be established.
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He warned occupants within the 15 meters of te right-of-way of the PNR that, after due process, the DOTr would implement demolition of structures.
From Manila to Malolos in Bulacan alone, some 443 structures are for demolition, he added.
Chavez said that from Paco to Matnog about 100,000 families would be affected by the reconstruction of the PNR railways of the Bicol Express of which 60,000 families have to be relocated from Pagbilao, Quezon to Legazpi City in Albay province.
He said they had outlined two strategies to hasten the relocation of families living around the railways, which include the mobilization of the local government units or the national line agencies.
Chavez said P45 billion of the project cost would be spent for the resettlement of affected families living within the trunk line while some P9 billion would be spent for land acquisition for the new alignment of the railways.
He said the civil works would cost P102.72 billion; station development and depot, P1.4 billion; electrical and mechanical system, P4.08 billion; rolling stock (trains), P11.60 billion; machinery and equipment, P1.37 billion; and pre-operating expenses, P400 million.
Wait and see
Though elated by the news of the revival of the Bicol Express with the reconstruction of the railways going to Bicol, businessman Aping Olivan would only believe the good news once it had become operational.
“There are so much opportunities for business and trade, but we must first wait and see,” Olivan said. “Presidents have come and gone and the talks about the revival of the train operation is always raised by not achieved.”
Vic Nierva, an environmental activist and instructor at the Ateneo de Naga University, expressed doubt about what Chavez had presented to the forum.
“I have mixed feelings and reactions towards what took place at the Bicol Express Modernization Forum,” Nierva said in a post on his Facebook page. “Honestly, aside from the picture of a perspective of a DMU, nothing was new in the presentation of DoTr Usec. Chavez.”
He added: “Year after year since the time of Pres. Ramos, we have been presented with the same plans. We have been loaning billions from other countries. We have been rehabilitating the railroad. Yet, we continue to experience the same problems in our railway system.”
He said there were no evaluations or assessment about whatever happened to previous rehabilitation projects. /atm
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MOST READIt’s back to the original home of the UFC this Saturday night as the mile high city of Denver, Colorado hosts a phenomenal UFC on FOX card.
In the main event, the next challenger for the women’s bantamweight title will be decided as Valentina Shevchenko takes on gritty up-and-comer Julianna Pena.
A multiple time kickboxing world champion, Shevchenko started her MMA her career with a series of stoppage wins in 2003. And although it went well to start, it took 12 years for her hit to the bigtime due to inactivity in the art of 8 limbs.
A consistent run of wins after that stint in Fusion FC and Legacy FC saw her signed by the UFC in 2015. Since then Shevchenko has had three fights in the UFC and impressed on each occasion. A loss to current champion Amanda Nunes is sandwiched between wins over Sarah Kaufman and, last time out, Holly Holm.
Pena, on the other hand, started in 2009 and in short order took her career to the next level – but not before a few setbacks. Four wins in 18 months had her on a steep upward trajectory but a couple of losses in a row quelled that for a while.
That run was followed by a an opportunity in the ultimate fighter house and was quickly forgotten as Pena emerged victorious from a pretty strong season. A horrendous knee injury meant Pena has only had three fights in as many years since, but taking out Jessica Eye and Cat Zingano in her last two instantly made her |
his name and featuring it prominently — and that time he, Luigi and Peach made playable appearances in NBA Street V3 on the GameCube — it might be time for Mario to show them why he’s called Jumpman.About
Risks and challenges
We are trying to reach as many people we can to join our community as a cook. Also anyone who knows someone would be interested please refer them to Cook Social.
It's difficult to predict any unforeseen circumstance, such as political events, emergency holidays, custom clearance, that delay shipping of the rewards. But we are ready to face unexpected challenges throughout our journey and will do as effective we can at our best. Shipping rewards is always challenging but we will do our best. We will try to ship our rewards as gifts with low price amount from mentioned amount to reduce the custom duty if any to be paid by our backers.
We are putting our best effort to make you happy as you are helping us support this project. If there is anything wrong happens with the rewards in the shipping process we will try to replace that. Thanks for keeping patience with us!Every language has its own collection of phonemes, or the basic phonetic units from which spoken words are composed. Depending on how you count, English has somewhere between 35 and 45. Knowing a language’s phonemes can make it much easier for automated systems to learn to interpret speech.
In the 2015 volume of Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics, MIT researchers describe a new machine-learning system that, like several systems before it, can learn to distinguish spoken words. But unlike its predecessors, it can also learn to distinguish lower-level phonetic units, such as syllables and phonemes.
As such, it could aid in the development of speech-processing systems for languages that are not widely spoken and don’t have the benefit of decades of linguistic research on their phonetic systems. It could also help make speech-processing systems more portable, since information about lower-level phonetic units could help iron out distinctions between different speakers’ pronunciations.
Unlike the machine-learning systems that led to, say, the speech recognition algorithms on today’s smartphones, the MIT researchers’ system is unsupervised, which means it acts directly on raw speech files: It doesn’t depend on the laborious hand-annotation of its training data by human experts. So it could prove much easier to extend to new sets of training data and new languages.
Finally, the system could offer some insights into human speech acquisition. “When children learn a language, they don’t learn how to write first,” says Chia-ying Lee, who completed her PhD in computer science and engineering at MIT last year and is first author on the paper. “They just learn the language directly from speech. By looking at patterns, they can figure out the structures of language. That’s pretty much what our paper tries to do.”
Lee is joined on the paper by her former thesis advisor, Jim Glass, a senior research scientist at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and head of the Spoken Language Systems Group, and Timothy O’Donnell, a postdoc in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Shaping up
Since the researchers’ system doesn’t require annotation of the data on which it’s trained, it needs to make a few assumptions about the structure of the data in order to draw coherent conclusions. One is that the frequency with which words occur in speech follows a standard distribution known as a power-law distribution, which means that a small number of words will occur very frequently but that the majority of words occur infrequently — the statistical phenomenon of the “long tail.” The exact parameters of that distribution — its maximum value and the rate at which it tails off — are unknown, but its general shape is assumed.
The key to the system’s performance, however, is what Lee describes as a “noisy-channel” model of phonetic variability. English may have fewer than 50 phonemes, but any given phoneme may correspond to a wide range of sounds, even in the speech of a single person. For example, Lee says, “depending on whether ‘t’ is at the beginning of the word or the end of the word, it may have a different phonetic realization.”
To model this phenomenon, the researchers borrowed a notion from communication theory. They treat an audio signal as if it were a sequence of perfectly regular phonemes that had been sent through a noisy channel — one subject to some corrupting influence. The goal of the machine-learning system is then to learn the statistical correlations between the “received” sound — the one that may have been corrupted by noise — and the associated phoneme. A given sound, for instance, may have an 85 percent chance of corresponding to the ‘t’ phoneme but a 15 percent chance of corresponding to a ‘d’ phoneme.
“We compared two models, one that models phonetic variability and one that doesn’t, and there’s a huge difference,” Lee says.
The researchers tested their system on six different recordings of lectures given at MIT and found that it was able to accurately identify the words used most frequently in each. There were some aberrations, however. In analyzing one of the lectures, delivered by The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, the system concluded that “open university” was a single word.
That’s probably because Friedman not only used the term repeatedly, but rarely used either of its constituents. “If it observed ‘open’ and ‘university’ separately, then you may be able to discover that ‘open’ and ‘university’ are two words,” Lee says.
“Recent experimental research points to the fact that infants learn phonemes and words simultaneously,” says Emmanuel Dupoux, director of the Laboratory of Cognitive and Psycholinguistic Sciences, which is associated with the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. “Up to now, however, only a handful of studies have modeled the interaction between these two levels using a machine-learning approach.
“Past studies have either studied only one side of the interaction — phoneme to words, or vice versa — or, when they modeled the full interaction, it was on a ‘toy’ version of the problem, with only a few phonemes and words. The Glass and Lee study is the first one to tackle the full interaction at scale, using a large speech corpus. The technical difficulties in doing this are enormous, and hence their achievement is a real tour de force.”Cyan Worlds, the development studio behind the classic point-and-click adventure game Myst, is putting together a new project, according to CEO and co-founder Rand Miller.
Kickstarter to me is an awesome opportunity, and so yeah, we’re putting together something for a larger project in the future.
Miller was on hand at the IndieCade conference this weekend in Los Angeles to discuss the 20th anniversary of Myst, the game he co-created with his brother Robyn Miller. That’s right—it’s been two decades since players first found themselves standing on an abandoned dock and began cracking Myst Island’s many secrets.
Myst through the ages
Over the course of the hour-long talk Miller gave a broad overview of Cyan’s history, from simple HyperCard developer to what Miller called the studio’s “very traumatic experience with Myst Online.”
Myst Online, also known as Uru Live, was supposed to be a massively multiplayer continuation of the franchise. The project was ambitious; Cyan planned to add new worlds, or “Ages” to the game regularly, and wanted fans to create custom content also.
Myst Online was lauded during the panel for it's friendly community and imaginative worlds.
It never quite got off the ground—a euphemism for “Myst Online almost killed Cyan.” In 2005 Cyan put out Myst V: End of Ages, laid off most of its staff, and announced an end to the company’s software development.
But maybe not quite.
“We’ve been keeping ourselves alive, which is unusual for an independent developer,” said Miller. “We’ve had a lot of people employed, we’ve had a few people employed, but we’ve managed to stay alive—sometimes barely, but the mobile market has helped us at least get a foothold by converting [Myst].”
Cyan’s released products since Myst V, but it primarily focused on porting its old games to new platforms, particularly iOS.
Myst
Miller even discussed the Oculus Rift, which is a natural fit for the exploration-oriented Myst. “We just had realMyst on Oculus Rift and we were wandering around in there,” said Miller. “It’s a really cool feeling…and then you go throw up in the bathroom and then you come back and try again. But it feels like you’re there in some really amazing ways…I think it’s another level that’s intriguing.”
A port does not a new game make, however. While Cyan’s efforts undoubtedly exposed new players to Myst and Riven, it’s far from comfort for those of us who figured out that damn subway maze ages (no pun intended) ago.
And then in the midst of this insightful talk about the development of Myst, Rand Miller managed to make me shed a single nostalgic tear. Okay, maybe I wept with joy.
“We’ve got some bigger ideas, some of them we’ve had for a while that we’d love to do and publishers were kind of like, ‘Yeah we want something new and different,’ and we’d show them and they’d go, ‘...Yeah, not that,’” said Miller.
Rand Miller
“Kickstarter to me is an awesome opportunity, and so yeah, we’re putting together something for a larger project in the future.”
While Kickstarter made it easier for anyone to get an independent game funded, it has proved an especially big boon for renowned developers (like Miller) who can capitalize on their name and history.
Double Fine raised over three million dollars in early 2012 for an adventure game by making sure people knew it was a Tim Schafer adventure game, just like the Maniac Mansion and Grim Fandango of old, and Star Citizen just surpassed $20 million in crowdfunding thanks in part to headliner Chris Roberts, creator of the beloved Wing Commander series.
As for Cyan, is this possibly the “Latus” project the company teased a few years back? Potentially. I don’t even care. I just want to see Cyan get back into things. I want to fill entire pages with scribbled puzzle notes. Blue pages.
For now, we wait. Besides this tease, we’ve got nothing else to go on. Well, except Miller’s positive outlook.
“We’re not rich, and we’re not making tons of money and lots of that old money’s gone, but just having control and owning your destiny and being able to do what you want, it’s very satisfying,” said Miller—a sentiment the crowd full of independent developers certainly sympathized with.Did you know that U.S. banks have more than 1.8 trillion dollars parked at the Federal Reserve and that the Fed is actually paying them not to lend that money to us? We were always told that the goal of quantitative easing was to “help the economy”, but the truth is that the vast majority of the money that the Fed has created through quantitative easing has not even gotten into the system. Instead, most of it is sitting at the Fed slowly earning interest for the bankers. Back in October 2008, just as the last financial crisis was starting, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced that the Federal Reserve would start paying interest on the reserves that banks keep at the Fed. This caused an absolute explosion in the size of these reserves. Back in 2008, U.S. banks had less than 2 billion dollars of excess reserves parked at the Fed. Today, they have more than 1.8 trillion. In less than five years, the pile of excess reserves has gotten nearly 1,000 times larger. This is utter insanity, and it will have very serious consequences down the road.
Posted below is a chart that shows the explosive growth of these excess reserves in recent years…
This explains why all of the crazy money printing that the Fed has been doing has not caused tremendous inflation yet. Most of the money has not even gotten into the economy. The Fed has been paying banks not to lend it out.
But now that big pile of money is sitting out there, and at some point it is going to come pouring in to the U.S. economy. When that happens, we could very well see an absolutely massive tsunami of inflation.
Posted below is a chart that shows the growth of the M2 money supply over the past several decades. It has been fairly steady, but imagine what would happen if you took the hockey stick from the chart above and suddenly added it to the top of this one…
The longer that the Federal Reserve continues to engage in quantitative easing and continues to pay banks not to lend that money out to the rest of us, the larger that inflationary time bomb is going to become.
In a recent article for the Huffington Post, Professor Robert Auerbach of the University of Texas explained the nightmarish situation that we are facing…
One reason that the excess reserves grew to an extraordinary level is that in October 2008, one month after the financial crisis when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the Bernanke Fed began paying interest on bank reserves. Although it has been 1/4 of 1 percent interest, this risk free rate was not low compared to the Fed’s policy of keeping short-term market rates near zero. The interest banks received was and is an incentive to hold the excess reserves rather than lend to consumers and businesses in the risky environment of the major recession and the slow recovery. The Bernanke Fed is now facing a $1.863 trillion time bomb, they helped to create, of excess reserves in the private banking system. If rates of interest on income earning assets (including bank loans to consumers and businesses) rise, the Fed will have to pay the banks more interest to hold their excess reserves.
If interest rates move up dramatically (and they are already starting to rise significantly), banks will have an incentive to take that money out of the Fed and start lending it out. Professor Auerbach suggests that this could cause an “avalanche” of money pouring into the economy…
Eighty five billion a month will seem tiny compared to the avalanche of the $1.863 trillion excess reserves exploding rapidly into the economy. That would devalue the currency, cause more rapid inflation and worry investors about a coming collapse.
So the Fed has kind of painted itself into a corner. If the Fed keeps printing money, they continue to grossly distort our financial system even more and the excess reserves time bomb just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
But even the suggestion that the Fed would begin to start “tapering” quantitative easing caused the financial markets to throw an epic temper tantrum in recent weeks. Interest rates immediately began to skyrocket and Fed officials did their best to try to settle everyone down.
So where do we go from here?
Unfortunately, as Jim Rogers recently explained, this massive experiment in financial manipulation is ultimately going to end in disaster…
I’m afraid that in the end, we’re all going to suffer perhaps, worse than we ever have, with inflation, currency turmoil, and higher interest rates.
The Fed and other global central banks have created the largest bond bubble in the history of the planet. If the Fed ends quantitative easing, the bond market is going to try to revert to normal.
That would be disastrous for the global financial system. The following is what Jim Willie told Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com…
Everything is dependent on Fed support. They know if they take it away, they’re going to create a black hole. The Treasury bond is the greatest asset bubble in history. It’s at least twice as large as the housing and mortgage bubble, maybe three or four times as large.
But even if the central banks keep printing money, they may not be able to maintain control over the bond market. In fact, there are already signs that they are starting to lose control. The following is what billionaire Eric Sprott told King World News the other day…
It’s total orchestration. And it’s orchestration because they might have lost control of the bond market. I find it such a juxtaposition that central banks on a daily basis buy more bonds today than they ever purchased, and interest rates are going up, which is almost perverted. I mean how can that happen? They’ve lost control of the market in my mind, and that’s why they are so desperately trying to get us all to forget the word ‘taper.’ In fact, we probably won’t even hear the word ‘taper’ anymore because it has such a sickening reaction to people in the bond market, and perhaps even people in the stock market. They will probably do away with the word. But the system is totally out of control. And then we’ve got this quadrillion dollars of derivatives. It just blows blows my mind to think about what could really be going on behind the scenes.
Sprott made a really good point about derivatives.
The quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could bring down the global financial system at any time.
And remember, interest rate derivatives make up the biggest chunk of that. Today, there are 441 trillion dollars of interest rate derivatives sitting out there. If interest rates begin skyrocketing at some point, that is going to create some absolutely massive losses in the system. We could potentially be talking about an event that would make the failure of Lehman Brothers look like a Sunday picnic.
We are moving into a time of great financial instability. People are going to be absolutely shocked by what happens.
Our financial system is a house of cards built on a foundation of risk, leverage and debt. When it all comes tumbling down, it should not be a surprise to any of us.(U//FOUO) The FBI San Antonio Division recently reported that groups of young individuals in Texas, and possibly other states, were attempting to elicit information regarding residences of firefighters, military personnel, police officers, etc. The subjects knocked on neighborhood doors, telling residents they worked for an organization that helps young people with public speaking by sending them out to contact random people at their homes and ask about their professions. The youths reportedly received points based on the professions they located, with the potential of winning a college scholarship and a large sum of money. Police officer had the highest point value.
(U//FOUO) The individuals had cards indicating that constitutional law permitted this activity, they were not required to show any identification (they did not carry state-issued identification), and they could not be restricted from their duties by state or local officials. This is consistent with sovereign citizen terminology.
New Jersey Nexus
(U//FOUO) The NJ Suspicious Activity Reporting System has received reports of threats to government officials in New Jersey, including but not limited to:
July 25, 2013: An identified and self-professed sovereign citizen, upset with a Superior Court judge regarding a delinquency notice for court penalties, told a probation officer he would not pay the fines and would harm the judge. The caller indicated he knew where the judge and his family lived.
March 26, 2013: An identified subject complained to a Judiciary secretary about issues he had with a Superior Court judge, stating the judge “is going to have a problem in the next couple of days.”
February 5, 2013: An identified subject sent the Middlesex County Board of Chosen Freeholders a letter that made some alarming and somewhat threatening statements and comments regarding his right to bear arms.
Assessment
(U//FOUO) The NJ ROIC currently has no information that individuals in New Jersey are soliciting information regarding the residences of government personnel. The NJ ROIC reminds government personnel to maintain the operational security of their personal information.
(U//FOUO) Generally, subjects who make threatening statements do not conduct attacks, and subjects who conduct actual attacks do not make threats. However, law enforcement personnel must take such statements seriously and investigate them fully. The NJ ROIC currently has no indication of any pattern or trend associated with the threats, but provides this information for situational awareness.
Recommendations
(U//FOUO) To protect personal information, the NJ RIOC recommends the following best practices:
Secure or shred documents with personal information, such as your home address.
Do not give personal or security-related information to strangers, including over the telephone.
Use caution in sending sensitive information to unsecure or unofficial email systems.
Avoid transmitting sensitive personal information such as passwords and credit card numbers when using unfamiliar or publicly available wireless hotspots.
On forms or applications, omit any information that is not explicitly required. Information from surveys, sweepstakes, and applications may be sold and become publicly available.
Treat any information on social networking websites as though it is publicly available information.
Do not post personal or sensitive information or photos and use appropriate security settings.
Report suspicious activity to local law enforcement, supervisors, and the NJ ROIC.
Request for Information
(U//FOUO) The NJ ROIC Intelligence & Analysis Threat Unit is requesting any information regarding potential threats to government officials in New Jersey. The NJ ROIC also requests information regarding incidents of individuals soliciting information regarding the residences of government personnel. Suspicious activity should be reported immediately, per existing protocols. Activity can also be reported 24 hours a day to the NJ ROIC Counter Terrorism Watch at (866) 4-SAFE-NJ (866-472-3365) or [email protected] Lhundub Sopa Rinpoche passed into clear light meditation on August 28 at Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wisconsin, US. Geshe Sopa was a preeminent scholar of Tibetan Buddhism, a gifted teacher and an embodiment of the qualities of humility, tolerance and compassion.
Born in 1923 in Tsang, Tibet, to poor farmers, Geshe Sopa took novice vows and entered Ganden Chönkhor Monastery at age eight. A decade later, he entered Sera Je Monastery in Lhasa, where he distinguished himself as a devoted and talented scholar. At Sera Je, he taught many important future teachers, including Jangtse Chöje Lobsang Tenzin Rinpoche, Khensur Jampa Tegchok and Lama Yeshe. Geshe Sopa served as a debate partner for His Holiness the Dalai Lama during His Holiness’ geshe exams. He went into exile in 1959 in India and received his lharampa geshe degree in 1962 while at Buxa Duar.
In 1963, His Holiness sent Geshe Sopa to the United States, accompanying three young Tibetan reincarnate lamas to learn English. A few years later, he was invited to teach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he went on to become a full professor, retiring in 1997. The long list of students Geshe Sopa taught and advised at University of Wisconsin includes many internationally recognized Buddhist studies and Tibetan language academics.
In 1976, Geshe Sopa Rinpoche established Ganden Mahayana Center in his home in Madison, which later became Deer Park Buddhist Center in Oregon, Wisconsin. He invited His Holiness the Dalai Lama to give the first Kalachakra initiation in the West, which was held in 1981 at Deer Park. In 1996, Geshe Sopa became a trustee of the International Peace Council, an interfaith organization that promotes peaceful resolution of differences. In his last decade, Geshe Sopa oversaw the construction of the impressive large temple at Deer Park, which was consecrated by His Holiness in 2008.
Lama Zopa Rinpoche visited Geshe Sopa at Deer Park a month ago and attended a long life puja for Geshe Sopa. “Geshe-la is not talking anymore and always has his eyes closed,” Ven. Roger Kunsang, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s assistant, reported after the visit. “Geshe-la seems to be constantly in meditation.”
In 2012, Wisdom Publications released Geshe Sopa Rinpoche’s autobiography, Like a Waking Dream. In it, Geshe Sopa shares detailed memories of his youth and early days in the Tibetan monastic system and offers a first-hand perspective on exile and establishing Tibetan Buddhism in the West. In coordination with the publication of the autobiography, Mandala published remembrances and essays by more than a dozen students of Geshe Sopa and an excerpt from Like a Waking Dream.
On the evening of August 28, Deer Park Buddhist Center wrote in an email, “For our friends who do not live in the area and would like to recite prayers on their own, it would be greatly beneficial at this time to recite the ‘King of Prayers,’ and the mantra of the Buddha of Compassion, OM MANI PADME HUM.”
UPDATE: The Wisconsin State Journal has published an obituary of Geshe Lhundub Sopa.
Deer Park Buddhist Center offers a concise biography of Geshe Lhundub Sopa. You can find more stories from Mandala on Geshe Sopa online.
Mandala brings you news of Lama Zopa Rinpoche and of activities, teachings and events from over 160 FPMT centers, projects and services around the globe. If you like what you read on Mandala, consider becoming a Friend of FPMT, which supports our work.Still, scattered news reports over the last five years have identified several Democratic-leaning donors who have provided millions of dollars to Mr. Podesta’s project, and Ms. Palmieri did not dispute those names.
They include the billionaire investor George Soros; Peter B. Lewis, chairman of Progressive Insurance; the Hollywood producer Steve Bing; and Herb and Marion Sandler, who made billions in the mortgage industry before selling their company in 2006 and who have given about $20 million to the project.
In addition, a database of grants from charitable foundations that is maintained by the Foundation Center, a philanthropy group, shows that from 2003 to 2007, the Center for American Progress received about $15 million in grants from 58 foundations.
Professor McGann said such research organizations all shared the problem of maintaining independence from donors. But, he said, Mr. Podesta’s may be less susceptible to conflicts of interest than those financed primarily by a single patron.
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“When there is a range of funders,” he said, “even if they are all left of center,” the beneficiary is not “beholden to any one of them or any single group.”
Mr. Podesta did not respond to an interview request made through Ms. Palmieri. But she emphasized that he had set up the Center for American Progress in a way to keep it at arm’s length from its patrons.
“You want to be careful that you are able to maintain autonomy in your work,” she said. “So our donors and our board members don’t direct policy projects or weigh in on our policy positions. And we don’t accept donations for directed work” — that is, work in which donors want their money used to study a specific issue.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
After the Clinton administration, Mr. Podesta initially worked as a lobbyist, taking on clients like the Nevada Resort Association and the American Insurance Association. But after the Republican sweep in the 2002 midterm elections, he decided to focus on helping Democrats rebuild.
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He observed that a leading source of the Republicans’ success was their superior intellectual infrastructure: institutions outside government that helped develop and communicate pragmatic conservative ideas, even when the party was not in power.
Mr. Podesta focused on building a liberal counterweight to the conservative Heritage Foundation, a well-financed group that has funneled experts into government positions and produces readable policy reports for Congress. That counterweight became the Center for American Progress.
Among those he has recruited there are Jeanne M. Lambrew, a former White House health adviser, and several former officials of the National Security Council, including Morton H. Halperin, Gayle Smith and P. J. Crowley. The center was also home to other prominent Democrats looking for a perch during the period of Republican hegemony, including Tom Daschle, the former majority leader who lost his Senate seat in 2004, and Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator John Edwards.
Mr. Podesta has also poured money into building up liberal political communications. The center schedules events that often end up being shown on C-Span; sponsors about 60 liberal college newspapers; hosts a prominent blog, ThinkProgress.org; and provides a free downloadable daily news package called Mic Check for liberal radio stations to broadcast.
With Democrats back in control of the executive branch, the question now, Professor McGann said, is whether the center will keep going. If its policy experts all leave for government jobs, he said, it could collapse as quickly as it rose.
Mr. Podesta, for one, plans to stay. On Wednesday, when he was named to the transition team, he sent an e-mail message to the center’s staff pledging that “I will not be joining the new administration and will return to American Progress after the transition ends.”Image copyright PA Image caption Magician Paul Daniels has had a TV career spanning nearly four decades
Magician and entertainer Paul Daniels, 77, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, his family has said.
A statement from his publicist said the entertainer had been diagnosed with "an incurable brain tumour", and thanked well-wishers for their support.
Middlesbrough-born Daniels, whose career has spanned nearly four decades, found fame in the 1980s with his BBC TV series The Paul Daniels Magic Show.
His wife, Debbie McGee, tweeted: "With great sadness."
Mark Linsey, acting director of BBC Television, said: "We're sorry to hear this sad news and our thoughts are with Paul and his family."
Catchphrases
Daniels, whose real name is Newton Edward Daniels, developed his magic skills in working men's clubs.
He made his TV debut on talent series Opportunity Knocks in 1970, and came second.
He was then given a regular slot on ITV variety show The Wheeltappers And Shunters Social Club, hosted by the late comedian Bernard Manning.
Image caption Daniels is married to his former assistant Debbie McGee, seen here in The Paul Daniels Magic Show in 1992
He made the move to the BBC in 1979 and launched The Paul Daniels Magic Show, which ran for 15 years.
He became one of the biggest stars on British TV, becoming known for a string of catchphrases, including the line: "You'll like this... not a lot, but you'll like it."
He said he had first used the line at a club in Yorkshire as a way of dealing with a heckler.
Daniels and his wife, a fellow performer and his on-stage assistant, married in 1988.
Image copyright @steveallenshow Image caption Fellow Magic Circle member Steve Allen, also a LBC radio presenter, was among those to tweet their reaction
As well as numerous appearances on magic shows, Daniels has presented game shows including Wipeout and Odd One Out.
He appeared as a contestant on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, and was the second person to be voted off in the series.
In a 2014 interview, McGee explained how, having left the Iranian national ballet where she was a soloist, she was initially unenthusiastic about working with a magician.
But she said she was converted after seeing Daniels on quiz show Blankety Blank.
"He was very funny - he took his jacket off and had a Superman T-shirt on and red knickers over his trousers. I was in hysterics.
"He still makes me laugh, all day long, even when I want to be angry," she said.
Image caption The Paul Daniels Magic Show ran from 1979 to 1994
In recent years, the couple has toured regularly with a magic and comedy show, but a planned appearance at the Leicester Comedy Festival two days ago was cancelled at short notice, as was another date in Nottingham the following night.
Daniels' manager said all his future shows had been cancelled.
A statement said: "We can confirm that one of our greatest magicians and entertainers of all times, Paul Daniels, has sadly been diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour.
"On behalf of Paul, Debbie and their families, we thank you for your kind concerns and support at this sad time and ask that their privacy continues to be respected. There will be no further comments at this time."
Image caption Daniels was a Saturday night staple for BBC viewers throughout the 1980s
Illusionist Dynamo, whose real name is Steven Frayne, wrote on his Instagram account: "Just read this sad news! Sending my love and respect to Paul, Debbie and all the family! #MagicLegend".
A tweet was also published on the official Dick and Dom page of children's entertainment presenters Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood, saying: "Heartbreaking news of my true hero @ThePaulDaniels. You inspired and encouraged me to do the job I still do today. Sending strength and love."An air search was launched Monday after a cargo plane disappeared from radar between Vancouver and Prince George.
Naval Lt. Paul Trenholm of the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre said contact with the Carson Air cargo plane with two pilots and no passengers aboard was lost shortly after 7 a.m.
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Trenholm said no contact was made with the pilots in the white twin-engine turboprop Sweringen SA 226 aircraft before it disappeared from radar.
The plane is believed to be missing northeast of Vancouver.
FlightAware.com, which provides online tracking of flights, shows a flight path for the plane ending near Mount Seymour Provincial Park on Vancouver's North Shore.
Trenholm said two Cormorant helicopters and C-130 and Aurora aircrafts were helping in the search effort.
He said the helicopters are looking in an area where it's believed the aircraft may have gone down, while the Aurora will follow the entire flight route the plane was expected to have taken.
Anyone who may have seen the plane is asked to contact the JRCC, Trenholm said. The JRCC can be reached at 1-800-567-5111 or cellular #727.
The plane had left Vancouver at 6:43 a.m. and was supposed to arrive in Prince George at about 8 a.m., Prince George Airport Authority spokeswoman Lindsay Cotter said.
- with files from Canadian PressNASA has a likely new head, and like other people the Donald Trump administration has put in top science-related jobs, he’s not a big fan of climate-change research.
Trump’s NASA nominee is Jim Bridenstine, a congressman from Oklahoma. In 2013, he told Congress that global temperatures “stopped rising 10 years ago” (not true) and that “global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with sun output and ocean cycles” (there is a small correlation, but plenty of research shows greenhouse gases play a far larger role). Two years ago he needled “climate-change alarmists” on Twitter.
But assuming the Senate confirms his nomination (a formality), Bridenstine will lead a space agency that spends nearly a tenth of its budget on “earth science,” which includes research into both weather patterns and climate change. Trump originally said he wanted to scrapthe earth science program entirely in favor of space exploration, but his proposed 2018 budget took a milder approach, cutting the program by a little under 10%, to $1.8 billion. NASA’s overall budget is $19.6 billion.
Bridenstine evidently knows the importance of weather research. “People often say, ‘Why are you so involved in space issues?'” he reportedly said (paywall) at a commercial space transportation conference this year. “My constituents get killed in tornadoes. I care about space.” In his 2013 speech in Congress, he chided president Barack Obama for spending “30 times as much money on global warming research as he does on weather forecasting and warning.” (That’s false too.)
From this one may infer that Bridenstine believes it’s important to, say, track and study major storms, but less important to investigate why they’re becoming more severe, even though researchers have found over and over that global warming is making phenomena like hurricanes, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires more devastating than they would have been otherwise.
The trouble is that weather research and climate research are not so simple to disentangle. NASA’s 16 earth science satellites (plus three other instruments attached to the International Space Station) make up the core of the agency’s climate science program. They don’t just collect data on climate change; they also monitor, among other things, the oceans, soil health, wildfires, air quality, and hurricanes. That makes the program useful for emergency response during major, fast-developing storms.
Hurricane #Irma is maintaining it's strength with maximum sustained winds of 185 MPH. The eye is approaching the island of Barbuda. #GOES16 pic.twitter.com/85fHMLVr5H — NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) September 6, 2017
Right now, Hurricane Irma, the second-strongest hurricane ever observed over the Atlantic Ocean, is barreling through the Caribbean en route to Florida—and a team from NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is watching its path with the most advanced weather satellite the agencies have ever built. The GOES-16 satellite, launched last year, can take far higher resolution images of the developing storm than any of its predecessors.
Saint-Martin and Anguilla appear to have taken a direct hit by cat 5 Hurricane #Irma. #GOES16 pic.twitter.com/1CN1JL0GEC — NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) September 6, 2017
While Bridenstine’s climate-denying comments from 2013 are sure to come up in his Senate confirmation hearings, a former colleague told told Science magazine that Bridenstine does believe the planet is warming and that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. As for his climate change-denial comments from 2013, he’d “probably say it differently today.” In an editorial, the editor of The Tulsa World said the same thing—that Bridenstine told him he would have phrased it differently now.
But he also told the editor he had opposed the US’s involvement in the Paris climate accord, from which Trump has said the US will withdraw, and that while he does believe carbon dioxide is warming the planet, he would probably disagree “about the severity of the problem” with people who accept the scientific consensus. The editor noted that he doesn’t believe Bridenstine has “moderated much” since his 2013 speech on the House floor.
Columbia University climate law professor Michael Gerrard was more forceful, calling Bridenstine a “climate denier” on Twitter.
Trump's nominee to lead NASA: Rep. Jim Bridenstine, a climate denier like fellow Oklahomans J Inhofe & Scott Pruitt. https://t.co/z |
Bobby Madden pulled the play back for an earlier foul.
Hearts were frustrated and they were soon rueing the decision more.
Dean Shiels squeezed a pass through to Vuckic on the right side of the penalty area and he cut onto his left foot and steered a shot past goalkeeper Neil Alexander's reach and into the far corner of the net.
Rangers were still vulnerable, though, particularly to their own flaws.
A recklessly aggressive McCulloch launched an elbow into Sow's head as he challenged for the ball just before half-time and was sent off by Madden.
The home side switched to a back three at the interval and played with enough organisational discipline that Hearts became increasingly frustrated.
The second half belonged to the visitors, in terms of possession, but Rangers did not suppress all of their ambition.
Nicky Law set off on a weaving run that ended with a cross to Nicky Clark, but the forward side-footed tamely at Alexander when he had enough time to measure a more effective strike.
Rangers defended stoutly and mostly kept Hearts at a safe distance, but pressure eventually told when Sow's header was saved by Bell, but Zeefuik was on hand to convert the rebound from a yard out.
Hearts fans were out in force at Ibrox sporting "champions" banners
Kenny Miller opened the scoring by firing past former Rangers goalkeeper Neil Alexander
On-loan Newcastle United midfielder Haris Vuckic fired Rangers 2-0 ahead at Ibrox
Lee McCulloch (left) was shown the red card by referee Bobby Madden
Genero Zeefuik scored from close range to give Hearts some hope late onBaby, It’s Cold Outside – A Twilight Struggle Review Posted by dicehateme on Thursday, December 16, 2010 · 19 Comments
“Russians don’t take a dump, son, without a plan.” – Admiral Painter, The Hunt For Red October
A funny thing happened in the world of board gaming on Dec. 9, 2010; the top-ranked game for the better part of 7 years running on BoardGameGeek was usurped by a very unlikely candidate – Twilight Struggle, a massively strategic, chit-laden, brain-grinding, two-player game about the Cold War, released in 2005. Huh. And this is why I love the board gaming community. This is also why, four hours after learning the news, I walked out of my favorite local game store with Twilight Struggle under my arms and my wife and I proceeded to get about 4 hours sleep over the next five days.
Upon opening the heavily-compacted box, we discovered that there were about 1,687,241 little cardboard chits, divided amongst two cardboard sheets. While the wife practiced her chit-punching skills, I dove into the rulebook. The instructions read like the missile codes for silo 237 near Tribune, Kansas, or the operations manual for a 1968 Dodge Dart. There were numbers everywhere, and every single line in the rulebook is coded so that rules earlier or later in the rulebook can use this code for cross-referencing. It’s all a bit reminiscent of a large-print Bible or the 8 volume statute laws for housing in Brooklyn, and can be a bit intimidating. Luckily, this was not my first “war” game, and so the concepts were far from alien.
After about an hour of surveying the territory and going over the rules for the third time, the wife took on the side of the free world, while I readied the Red Tide. After that first game, I was tempted to call the game Twilight Imperium Struggle because of its length. That first game took us almost 3 hours, and we only made it to round 5. Things seemingly got better when our second game ended at round 6 and it only took us 1.5 hours. Of course, that’s when we realized that we had missed rule 23.1.10.z.5x.B that made the game much, much more complex.
Despite the thickish, cross-indexed rulebook, the underlying gameplay and concepts of Twilight Struggle are fairly simple. The period of play begins at the end of World War II, as Germany is split between Soviet and US occupation; the two players of the game assume the roles of these burgeoning superpowers. The game is broken into ten rounds, each representing a particular span of time in the Cold War, ending in 1989. The goal of the game is to spread enough influence throughout the world to become the reigning superpower by the end of round 10.
OPERATIONS
Each player spreads influence and affects their standings in the world through play of cards that are received each round. Every card contains a starred number, the color of which indicates which side benefits from the event listed on the card, should that event be activated. The number represents how many Operations (Ops) Points that card provides the player when the card is put into play. These Operation Points can be used in various ways to try and control a country and therefore score more points in that region when the region is scored.
Operation Points may be used in the following ways:
INFLUENCE. Ops Points are used to Influence a country for control. If a country contains no influence of another superpower, then the player may place one Influence Point per Ops Point spent. When that player has an equal or greater amount of Influence than the country’s Stability score, then that player controls the country. When a country is controlled by another superpower, cost of another player placing influence there is doubled.
. Ops Points are used to Influence a country for control. If a country contains no influence of another superpower, then the player may place one Influence Point per Ops Point spent. When that player has an equal or greater amount of Influence than the country’s Stability score, then that player controls the country. When a country is controlled by another superpower, cost of another player placing influence there is doubled. REALIGNMENT ROLLS. These high risk, high yield rolls are used to reduce the amount of Influence an opponent has in a country while raising the player’s own. The risk is that, with a bad die roll, the opponent may gain more Influence there than was present previously.
. These high risk, high yield rolls are used to reduce the amount of Influence an opponent has in a country while raising the player’s own. The risk is that, with a bad die roll, the opponent may gain more Influence there than was present previously. COUPS. In a coup, a player uses Ops Points to boost a die roll in an effort to use military force to take control of a country. The outcome of a coup is more easily controlled than a realignment roll, but attempting coups on “battleground” countries will cause the Defcon level to drop. When the world hits Defcon 1, nuclear war breaks out and everybody loses. This is, of course, a very bad thing.
EVENTS
Each card, with the exception of Scoring cards, is also playable as an Event. If the color of the numbered star matches the player’s superpower – blue for the US and red for the USSR – then that player may opt to activate the event associated with the card, instead of using the number inside the star as Ops Points. When played, the effect on the game is thematically tied to the event, creating not only a reason for the event, but also a close tie to the overall theme. For instance, the Fidel card allows the Soviet player to take control of Cuba. This card is an Early War card, which means that it comes into play within the first three rounds of the game.
If a card displays a numbered star with a color opposite of the player’s superpower, then that Event is activated if the player uses the card for Ops Points. The good news is that the player receives some Ops Points – the bad news is that your opponent is going to get a nifty little bonus with which you’ll have to contend.
SCORING
Mixed in amongst the Event cards are certain Scoring cards which, when played, force players to tally up controlled countries in a certain region and determine scores. Typically, players will have one or two cards left over each round that they can hold in their hands to the next round, hoping to make a big play or minimize the effects of a particularly nasty Event that will benefit their opponents. Scoring cards cannot be held from round to round; all Scoring cards must be played before the end of the round, even if that means holding onto cards that may help a player to gain more Influence.
STRATEGY
Twilight Struggle is all about balance – how best to keep your Influence spreading in the world while containing your opponent’s Influence, matching lost Scoring opportunities, minimizing the effects of detrimental Events, and figuring out the right mix of long-term strategy with immediate tactical play. Here are a few key points that are essential for solid play in Twilight Struggle:
EVENT MANAGEMENT. Each player will typically find a healthy mix of both red and blue cards in their hand each round, so it is essential to calculate when to play a card that will trigger an Event that is detrimental to your superpower and then diffusing the effects of that card through clever use of Ops Points.
. Each player will typically find a healthy mix of both red and blue cards in their hand each round, so it is essential to calculate when to play a card that will trigger an Event that is detrimental to your superpower and then diffusing the effects of that card through clever use of Ops Points. THE SPACE RACE. Each superpower can discard card(s) of a certain Ops Point value to try to advance in the Space Race each round. By advancing, the player can gain both victory points and/or special abilities, as well as get rid of a card that would trigger a particularly nasty opponent’s Event.
. Each superpower can discard card(s) of a certain Ops Point value to try to advance in the Space Race each round. By advancing, the player can gain both victory points and/or special abilities, as well as get rid of a card that would trigger a particularly nasty opponent’s Event. PATIENCE AND DILIGENCE. This game is mostly a struggle for the US player. US players must not get discouraged. Just like in the real Cold War, the Americans are up against a Red Tide and they have to stick it out for the long war. My wife and I have played Twilight Struggle over eight times now, and each time the US has lost to the Soviets; however, each time the strategy of the US become clearer and clearer. It is very important for the US player to make wise tactical decisions in the early game to contain the Soviets, then focus on their long-term plans for scoring around mid-game as the mix of helpful US Events will begin to outweigh the strong Soviet Events from the Early War. The last game my wife and I played I managed to take the US all the way until the final round and then eventually lost in final scoring because of a tactical error in Europe in round 8. Had I stayed completely focused on controlling Europe, I likely would have celebrated as the Berlin Wall fell.
Overall, Twilight Struggle can be a grueling, grinding experience, but the end rewards are rich. Rarely have I played a game more balanced in strategy and tactics, where every decision is crucial. The mechanics of the game are incredibly tight, which, when combined with abilities and historical flavor of the cards, can create a truly immersive experience.
One of the game’s amazing qualities is how well the cards and the situations around the board can recreate history; at one point, my wife and I spent almost an entire round fighting a long, prolonged struggle for influence over Cuba while the Cuban Missile Crisis loomed. In a later game, we fought vehemently for control of East Germany at about the time that Reagan asked for Gorbachev to tear the wall down. It is this attention to detail and the resulting gameplay which makes you feel as though you are not only living history, but influencing it, that makes Twilight Struggle transcend the ordinary and chronicle this extraordinary period of the 20th century all in the placement of a single chit and the smooth roll of a die.
Gameplay/Replay Components & Theme Fun There's barely another adjective that can express Twilight Struggle's gameplay other than intense. For the 3+ hours of a typical game, your mind is on full throttle the entire time. The game is fully card-driven, which makes for a very immersive, unique and variable experience. This variability also lends the game a very high replay value. Rarely has any round of the game that we've played been the same, and that bodes well for those who relish the challenge this game offers. The board is massive, and the wave of chits that cover its breadth impressive. The colors are limited, but magnificent, nonetheless. It's very easy to see the scope of the situation at any given moment given the components. The theme is inherent in almost every conflict, card and decision; the game plays out the events and hard tactics of the actual Cold War so perfectly, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble had it been invented in 1945. Judging this category is difficult for Twilight Struggle. Is the game fun? In the traditional sense - where you all sit around and laugh at the misfortune of Johnny Adderall or the silly answer that your Aunt Sally gave in Trivial Pursuit - Twilight Struggle can't even register on the same scale. The game is an entirely different animal; the fun in reenacting the Cold War lies in the experience and the thrill of matching wits with a wily and often devastatingly offensive opponent. Much of the fun comes in the long, detailed analysis in which you and your opponent will engage after the battle is long over. Despite the long conflict and sometimes-fatigue-inducing gameplay, even the most devastating defeat will leave you clamoring for more. That's not addiction, or hubris - that, my friends, is pure, unbridled love for a game and of The Game. Nothing can be more fun than that. Overall score: 17 out of 18 - Definitely not for the timid, but huge rewards for the bold and the brave.
Twilight Struggle is a game for 2 comrades, preferably old enough to at least know what the Cold War is all about, from GMT Games. It retails for $49.95 (but ask your favorite local game store for a holiday deal).
Related posts:Budget Commander: Coin Flips! ($70)
budget commander coin flips
The results from the last Budget Commander are in, and the message is clear: you guys love janky decks! Fortunately, I love jank too, so off I went to brew a Coin Flip deck! It turned out to be a much easier task than Tribal Elephants, so that's nice.
You guys asked for it, so for the first time ever, here's a Deck Tech Video of Budget Coin Flips! Now you can listen to my smooth, sultry voice describe the deck and its key cards!
The Most Important Card
If you look over the list of coin flip cards available, you'll notice that almost all of them are terrible—except for one major exception, which happens to be one of the most powerful cards in Commander: Mana Crypt. However, since this is Budget Commander and Crypt is currently $95, we're going to ignore it and focus on the crappy stuff. Off to a good start, right?
There is still hope, dear readers! We have a wonderful card that holds up the Coin Flip archetype, the Chosen Digit that points the flock of crappy jank into the direction of playable mediocrity. Behold, our savior:
$ 0.00 $ 0.00
Krark's Thumb. With this sweet support card, our coin flip cards go from 50% chance of doing something to a whopping 75% chance! Stitch in Time goes from "garbage" to "kinda neat"! Krark's Thumb is the foundation of our deck, and we will need to make sure it gets on the battlefield ASAP every game. We have a couple other powerful tricks up our sleeves, but Thumb is definitely the most important one.
Who's Our Commander?
There's no legendary creature that directly supports Coin Flips. Maybe we'll get one in the future (Krark?), but for now we have to settle for whatever suits our needs best.
All the coin flip cards are either Red or Colorless (artifacts). A few add Blue to their casting cost, and only one has White in its identity (Odds // Ends). I highly recommend going Red/Blue (Izzet) because that gives you access to the best coin flip cards and to some of the best artifact tutors to consistently find Krark's Thumb each game.
Adding White (Jeskai) has some merits as well. You get access to at least one more artifact tutor (Enlightened Tutor), a few more ways to get back Krark's Thumb from your graveyard (i.e. Sun Titan and Argivian Find), and enchantment removal. If you want to expand the Coin Flip theme to a general Chaos theme, you could use Ruhan of the Fomori as your commander too.
For this article I've decided to stick with Izzet colors and run Nin, the Pain Artist as the commander. It narrows the focus of the deck and helped me keep the overall price down. Plus, Nin herself is an amazing commander, drawing you tons of cards which increases your chances of drawing into Krark's Thumb. Yes, I keep mentioning the Thumb because it's that important!
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Flipping Coins
Many of the coin flip cards are terrible. Aleatory is a horrible card even if you removed the chance of failure. We won't be running those cards. Instead, we'll be focusing on the cream of the crop, or the slightly bruised apple in a rotten pile. Of those apples, there are a few that I'd like to highlight as being the very best:
That's a pretty sweet haul! We have some other coin flip cards that aren't quite as good, but decent enough to be worth running. Surprisingly, we have a ton of interaction in the deck already due to these coin flip cards, with plenty of creature removal and even some lockdown pieces. Even if our strategy isn't the most optimal we can at least police the board until we're ready to win.
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Winning
Can janky coin flip cards win games? Surprisingly, yes! In fact, the Coin Flip archetype has its very own "you win the game" card: Chance Encounter. All you need to do is plop this baby down and then win ten flips. That's simple enough in theory, but the problem is that it takes a while to gather ten luck counters, which gives your opponents time to take out the enchantment before you win.
Luckily for us, we can abuse a coin flip card to easily acquire ten luck counters in no time at all: enter Frenetic Efreet. This lil' guy has an ability that you can activate for free that lets you flip a coin; winning means it phases out and losing means it's sacrificed. There's a trick though. You can activate the ability, then activate it again and again before the ability resolves. It doesn't matter if you lose a coin flip and sacrifice Frenetic Efreet while there are more of its ability on the stack. You will still have to flip for the other activations. You can activate it an arbitrarily large number of times to guarantee you get at least 10 won coin flips for Chance Encounter.
Drop Chance Encounter and Frenetic Efreet for 7 mana total, then collect 10+ luck counters before the start of your next turn. If Chance Encounter is still around on your next upkeep, you win! Easy peasy. Bonus points if you spend an extra 3 mana to take an extra turn off Stitch in Time and win immediately!
If that's not enough, there's always the generic Blue/Red win conditions you can jam to win the game out of nowhere. Insurrection and Rite of Replication are classic options.
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Putting It All Together
The rest of the deck is devoted to finding Krark's Thumb each game and those tutors make up the bulk of this deck's price tag. The rest of the deck is the usual ramp / card draw / removal / protection / yadayada. Add all those ingredients, tweak to taste, and here's what you get:
Upgrades and Fiddly Bits
The most notable upgrade to the Coin Flip deck is Mana Crypt, hands-down the best coin flip card ever printed and one of the best cards in the format. The other good coin flip card that I excluded due to price is Ral Zarek. He's mostly used for ramp and spot removal, but hitting his ultimate will win games too.
Another sweet way to grab Krark's Thumb from your library is Transmute Artifact. Gamble is another great tutor that can pick up the Thumb or anything else you need at the time.
If you want to make your Chance Encounter + Frenetic Efreet combo harder to disrupt, either invest in ways to play them right before your upkeep (i.e. Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orrery) or take extra turns (i.e. Time Stretch).
The rest of my upgrade suggestions are typical Izzet goodstuff.
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If you're mad enough to fully bling out a Coin Flip deck, then here's a list for you to ponder:
Next One's A Secret!
No voting this time around. I've got something sweet planned for you guys! Let me know if you like the inclusion of the Deck Tech Video and if you're interested in seeing gameplay footage of future Budget Commander decks. Thanks for reading!Two days after he took a dig at the UPA government over its failure to implement the Assam gas cracker project on time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Sunday slammed it again – this time over the delay in adhering to the timeline of any project.
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Inaugurating the Rs 35,000-crore 15-million metric tonnes per annum (MMTPA) oil refinery of Indian Oil Corporation in Paradip, Modi said Congress leaders are criticising him for inaugurating projects started by their government.
“Let me tell them that I feel happy when inaugurating a project. But as the Prime Minister, I don’t feel happy,” he said. “I would have felt happy had this project been completed at least 15 years ago…(there isn’t) any pride in inaugurating a project that should have been completed years ago.”
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Pointing out that projects become expensive due to inordinate delays, he said, “We need to have a culture where a project, once started, is completed on time. The bureaucracy and policymakers need to ensure that they are completed on time so that people get the benefits on time.”
The Paradip refinery was planned in the early 1990s by the state government then led by Biju Patnaik, but its foundation stone was laid only in May 2000 by then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Modi said the new refinery will ensure that rural households in the country do not cook with firewood or coal. “When a rural woman cooks for an hour, the smoke she inhales is equivalent to 400 cigarettes. The LPG gas produced at this refinery would be enough for poor women in rural areas to start using LPG,” he said.
Praising Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Modi said Odisha added 11 lakh new LPG connections within a year since he became the petroleum minister, while it had just about 60 lakh gas connections in the 60 preceding years before that. “This is an example of how work should happen,” he said.
Emphasising the need for energy-sufficiency and less dependence on crude oil, Modi said he has asked officials to bring down total crude oil import by 10 per cent by 2022. “For this, we have to use ethanol from sugarcane and jatropha, and mix them with crude oil,” he said. “After producing sugarcane adequate for sugar (factories), farmers should be encouraged to give away the rest of the cane for ethanol.
While Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik thanked farmers for agreeing to leave their land for the refinery project, Modi said: “The Paradip project has shown that farmers here are ready to give their land so that lakhs of youths get jobs,” he added.
Earlier in the day. Modi inaugurated the permanent campus of National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER) in Jatni near Bhubaneswar.
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“Our priority should be to make science and technology affordable to the masses with zero-effect and zero-defect,” Modi said. He explained that by ‘zero-effect’ he meant it should not adversely affect the environment. While stressing on energy conservation, the PM said: “If 100 (smart) cities use LED bulbs, the country will save 20,000 MW power. A small technological advance can save crores of rupees,” he said.Get the biggest daily news 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
An Egyptian terrorist will be named this week as a likely suspect in the Lockerbie jet bomb horror.
A shock report called Operation Bird points the finger at Mohammed Abu Talb, who was later convicted of a campaign of bombings, the Sunday People reports.
If it is correct, Libyan Abdelbaset al-Megrahi may have been wrongly jailed for the pre-Christmas blast on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland that killed 270 people in 1988.
The material, seen by The Sunday People and investigative news website Exaro, alleges a cover-up by the CIA led to a travesty of justice.
Other devastating findings claim a key piece of evidence in the prosecution case against al-Megrahi – a fragment of circuit board for a timer – was faked and remnants of a Slalom-branded shirt in which the timer fragment was supposedly found had been doctored.
Furthermore, the bomb was allegedly planted in luggage that was put on the plane at London’s Heathrow airport, NOT, as the prosecution claimed, loaded by al-Megrahi in Malta to connect to a feeder flight from Frankfurt to London.
The new theory was put forward by a London-based team of private investigators, Forensic Investigative Associates.
They were commissioned by lawyers for al-Megrahi, who died of cancer last year aged 60.
And their findings will spark calls for the case to be re-opened.
The report places Talb in key meetings with other Middle East terror suspects in the run-up to the attack.
It also reveals he was a suspect in the initial investigation.
But he ended up giving evidence against al-Megrahi at his trial in 2001 in return for immunity from prosecution.
The new report will be aired in an Al Jazeera TV documentary this week.
Its respected authors are Jessica de Grazia, a former New York chief assistant district attorney, and Philip Corbett, who was chief security advisor to the Bank of England after a career as a top-ranking Met police officer.
They conclude: “We have never seen a criminal investigation in which there has been such a consistent disregard of an alternative and far more persuasive theory of the case.”
The report was written in 2002 and was due to form part of al-Megrahi’s appeal in 2009. But it was never used and its sensational contents have been kept under wraps until now.
Part of the document details the wicked past crimes of Talb.
He was jailed for life in Sweden in 1989 after being convicted of carrying out terrorist bombings in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Amsterdam, Holland, in 1985.
The attacks – on offices of Northwest Airlines and El Al, the Israeli airline – killed one person and reportedly injured another 20 people.
A further seven people were injured in an attack on the Great Synagogue in Copenhagen.
Talb, now 59, has always denied any involvement with the Lockerbie bombing. But the report alleges that he had close links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was initially blamed for Lockerbie.
It also places Talb in Britain on the day an explosion tore a Boeing 747 apart over the town of Lockerbie 25 years ago next Saturday.
He is alleged to have met other terrorists to place the bomb on the plane at Heathrow.
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera has tracked down Talb, who has been living a quiet life in Sweden since his release. But he refused to comment on claims in the Operation Bird report.
The allegations are spelled out in this week’s documentary, If not Megrahi, then who?
Al-Megrahi’s conviction on the basis that the bomb was placed on a flight from Malta was key to the case.
It was then allegedly transferred in luggage at Frankfurt on to a feeder flight for Pan Am 103, which left Heathrow bound for New York on December 21 1988.
But the private investigation uncovered evidence that Talb had previously bribed a Heathrow worker to smuggle a suitcase through security.
And the report says that is how the Lockerbie bomb could have been planted.
Paid
Operation Bird also points to claims by Robert Baer, a retired CIA expert on the Middle East, that Talb was paid 500,000 dollars months after Lockerbie.
In his book See no evil: the true story of a ground soldier in the CIA’s war on terrorism, Baer also raises the possibility that Iran made the payment.
The 2002 report would have been central to a second appeal by al-Megrahi – had it not been abandoned because of his controversial release from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds in 2009.
Former Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi has been accused of ordering the Lockerbie atrocity.
(Image: Getty)
But the investigators concluded that police were misled in their investigation into the bombing – and that a government agency, probably the CIA, was to behind the cover-up.
De Grazia and Corbett wrote that their five-month inquiry “leads us to believe the investigation into the Lockerbie bombing was directed off-course as a result of government interference”.
They go on: “In our experience, the decision to intervene would have been made at the highest level of government, most likely a top executive of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.
“The decision would have been communicated in both blunt and subtle ways down the chain of command to the line investigators.
"Since political interference in investigations runs counter to the professional ethos of US and UK law-enforcement agents, superiors would have played on fear, timidity, gullibility, greed, ambition, patriotism, and other human frailties to silence the qualms of the line investigators.”
It is not clear what the motive for a cover-up might have been.
But British doctor Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died aged 23 in the Lockerbie bombing, told Exaro: “Talb is a life-long, proven terrorist.
“He has completed 20 years in prison for bombings in Scandinavia, and is now out of prison and living in Uppsala in Sweden.
"I believe he played a crucial part in causing the Lockerbie disaster.
“My elected government actively prevented me from obtaining my human rights to know why my daughter’s life was not protected, and who it was who killed her.
“That still makes me extremely angry and also very sad.”
Lockerbie - 25 years on
The Lockerbie bombing remains the single biggest act of terrorism committed in the UK.
The device on board Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the small town in the Scottish borders on December 21, 1988.
A total of 270 people were killed - 259 on the doomed Boeing 747 and 11 on the ground.
Debris was scattered over 845 square miles and eyewitnesses described the sky as ‘raining fire’ as the burning wreckage fell.
FBI agents teamed up with Scottish Police to try and find those behind the horror.
The three year probe saw more than 15,000 people in 30 countries questioned and thousands of pieces of evidence gathered.
Two men accused of being Libyan intelligence agents were eventually charged.
Authorities said Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhima had manufactured a Semtex bomb and placed it in a cassette recorder.
They were then alleged to have hidden it in a suitcase aboard an Air Malta flight before it was transferred to flight 103.
Al-Megrahi was jailed for life in January 2001 after an 84-day trial under Scottish law, at Camp Zeist in Holland. Alleged accomplice Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was found not guilty.
In 2002 Al-Megrahi’s appeal against conviction was rejected.
But his declining health saw him released from jail in 2009. He died last year in Libya aged 60.The Comic Market 91 (Comiket 91) event in Tokyo drew approximately 210,000 attendees on its third day on December 31, 2016 for a total of approximately 550,000 attendees over three days. The event's first and second days each attracted about 170,000 attendees.
Comiket does not have unique passes for visitors, so a person who attends all three days would be counted three times.
Total attendance was up from last winter's Comiket 89, which attracted 520,000 attendees. Attendance was also up from this summer's Comiket 90 event, which attracted 530,000 attendees.
Comiket 89 attracted 200,000 attendees on its third day, and Comiket 90 attracted 210,000 on its third day.
Comiket 84 in 2013 holds the summer event and overall event record of 590,000 attendees. Comiket 87 in 2014 holds the winter event record at 560,000 attendees.
Comiket 92 will be held on August 11-13, 2017.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan WebThe New York Times Co. and Gannett Co. have requested that the New York Supreme Court unseal records from 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’s divorce from his first wife, Ivana Trump, according to USA Today.
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The couple was granted a divorce because of “cruel and inhuman treatment,” though they later reached a settlement.
In their filing, the two media companies said that the records of the divorce "have become directly relevant to the issues being debated in the hotly contested presidential campaign.”
"It would be deeply incongruous to American democracy to bar the public from seeing the official court records pertaining directly to the credibility and character of a person they must soon decide whether to elect as their president," they wrote.
The Daily Beast reported last year that Ivana had once accused her ex-husband of rape in 1989. She walked back the comments after the report came out, saying that the two are now “the best of friends.”
Trump and Ivana, a former model, had three children: Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr.Aside from the two missed field goals, and Georgia passing the ball on first and goal from the South Carolina 4-yard line late in the fourth quarter, two penalties cost Georgia points at pivotal times in the ballgame.
A Todd Gurley 54-yard touchdown run in the first half was called back to due a holding penalty on Brandon Kublanow. On that same first and goal play, quarterback Hutson Mason was flagged for intentional grounding which led to the missed 28-yard field goal by Marshall Morgan.
Richt discussed the two penalties during his Sunday evening teleconference.
“On that particular play, we thought Kublanow was in the framework of the defender,” Richt said according to the Athens Banner-Herald. “We thought it was legal. What happened was, I don’t remember if it was one of his teammates or one of our guys, but somebody actually kind of clipped the back of the defender’s leg as they were running through there. It might have been a back running a route, I don’t know what happened, but he kind of got tripped up and it looked like Kublanow kind of grabbed him and swung him to the ground but in reality, he got tripped up by someone behind him so it may as appeared as if it was kind of a takedown. I really don’t think it was. We’ll turn it and see what they think after reviewing.”
To be clear, the Georgia coaching staff video clips that they viewed differently than what was called to the SEC office in Birmingham, Ala. weekly. These calls will not be overturned, but Richt and his staff are simply looking for clarification.
“I think it’s helpful to hear it and I also think it’s good for them to keep training up their officials on a weekly basis,” Richt said. “Just like they’re trying to get better, we’re trying to get better, too.”
Richt said the coaches looked at the film regarding the intentional grounding call on Mason and that “it definitely hit the defender.”
“I’m going to be asking the officials what the ruling is on that,” Richt said. “I don’t know if they saw it while it happened or not. As it deflected off the defender, it certainly looked like there was no one in the area where the ball landed, I know that. If the ball didn’t get hit by the defender it would have landed a lot closer to one of our eligible receivers. I don’t know if we would’ve been called for that or not. It’s a good question, it’s one I’m going to ask our officiating crew … Right now I don’t know the answer to that, but we’re going to ask the question.”Australian documentary maker Malcolm Douglas, known in the industry as the original crocodile hunter and the man who managed to match, if not surpass, TV documentary legend Steve Irwin was killed on Thursday at the Wilderness Wildlife Park in Broome, after the 4x4 he was driving hit a tree.The body of the filmmaker was supposedly found caught in between the tree and his car, with the police ruling the death as accidental. The causes of the accident are however not clear at this point.With his passing, the Australian documentary making industry feels it has lost the man who was considered the “last true bush characters.” The croc hunter gained fame back in 1976, when his documentary,, hit the TV screens."These days, a lot of the bush characters are really tailor-made. They're designed for the viewers, they're not as genuine as Malcolm was,'' Janek Gazecki, the man who spent three months with Malcom back in 1999 told AAP."He was a true bushie. What you saw was real. He said what he thought. Some |
Or maybe he just liked clinging to stars.
[Also: Mike Moser picks Oregon, filling immediate need for Ducks]
No one knows for sure, but in the end you have one extremely savvy adult, armed with cash and gifts, with a clear motivation to use these kids. And then you have the kids, in Webber's case just an eighth-grader, in the cross hairs.
That isn't a fair relationship. That isn't a level playing field. This isn't a consensual situation. It's predatory.
Chris Webber never stood a chance. Not at the start. And not later, when Webber tried to end the relationship, whatever gifts he was given could've been used to blackmail him – NCAA rules and all.
(Webber was so caught in the web that he eventually lied to a grand jury about taking money from Martin, a mistake that forced him to plead guilty to criminal contempt and make everything worse than it should've been.)
Much is made that Webber wasn't poor – his family was middle class and he attended a prestigious high school in the suburbs. Others see him as this big, powerful physical figure he became, capable of standing up to anyone. Still others consider him some kind of arrogant jerk and couldn't care less.
All of it is so self-centered.
Apparently no one in the NCAA, no one at Michigan saw it for what it also could've been: an old manipulative hustler sweeping up naïve kids before they even knew what hit them.
The NCAA and Michigan apparently never bothered to even consider that these guys were victims. They thought the players could just breezily walk away from a guy of that influence anytime they chose. Could they have done that? Could they have handled things better? Of course. To assume this was simple and easy, however, is wrong.
Yet when things didn't go as the NCAA rulebook demanded, well, the system couldn’t just punish the program with vacated seasons and other sanctions. No, it had to go further, it had to determine the players themselves deserved a special decade of shame courtesy of a scarlet letter of “disassociation.”
Yeah, all these years later, someone sure does owe a phone call and an apology.
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• Former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe not sure why he was cutIn his essay on the pervasive evil of "neoliberalism" George Monbiot demonstrates confusion similar to that of Philip Mirowski in his book More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature’s Economics.
In a lengthy review of Mirowsky's book, Philipp Bagus notes that Mirowski is rightly critical of many aspects of neoclassical economics, including the Chicago school. But Mirowski runs into trouble when he must display a greater understanding economic schools of thought. Either out of laziness or ignorance, Mirowski is incapable of distinguishing between the Chicago School and the Austrian School, to list one example. Moreover, as Bagus notes, the differences between the Chicago School and the Austrians are significant on matters such as spontaneous order, entrepreneurship, government planning, "efficiency" business cycles, and many other topics. These differences produce sizable disagreements in terms of favored policies and world views in general.
You wouldn't know any of this from reading Mirowski, or from reading Monbiot for that matter, who simply classifies anything other than Eduard-Berstein-style democratic socialism as "neoliberalism."
This becomes immediately apparent as Monbiot speaks of Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman as more or less ideologically indistinguishable. Monbiot also implies that the Mont Pelerin society is essentially Misesian in its outlook since Monbiot begins with a discussion of the Society by pointing out that Mises was one of the founders.
Factions at the Mont Pelerin Society
Of course, in real life, Mises quickly became uneasy with the MPS due to significant ideological differences between the laissez-faire liberals (namely, Mises) and the neoliberals such as Ludwig Ehrhard. Jorg Guido Hulsmann notes in his essay "Against the Neoliberals":
The coexistence within the Mont Pèlerin Society of groups with such different orientations was well known by its members.It was also fairly obvious even for newcomers. A case in point was Jean-Pierre Hamilius, a young professor of business and economics in Luxembourg, whom Mises knew through correspondence. Hamilius had recently discovered the literature of classical liberalism, which he devoured and translated into French and German. Mises had him invited for the 1953 Mont Pèlerin Society meeting in Seelisberg. Hamilius immediately noticed that the society was divided along the lines of ideological orientation and language into "different groups and clans." He himself felt closest affinities to the American group of Mises, Hayek, Hazlitt, Morley, Fertig, and Miller. From the other participants, who did not know that he had gotten his invitation through Mises, he heard reservations about "the old guard (Mises, Hayek, … )" who were sometimes called the "old conservatives." The young professor from Luxembourg was eagerly taking notes and discussing the interventionist schemes of various members who were not yet part of the old guard. Thus John van Sickle proposed taxing rich heirs, Wilhelm Röpke favored subsidies for homeowners, and Otto Veit argued that heavy taxation would not deter entrepreneurs from working.
Monbiot ignores all of this and makes no distinctions at all between the third-way interventionists — which, according to Hulsmann, Mises regarded as "hardly better than the socialists he had fought all his life" — and the laissez-faire libertarians.
For a journalist like Monbiot, these differences are possibly assumed to be personality conflicts, but anyone with actual training in economics knows that it's absurd to classify people who support central banking and people who oppose central banking into a single category.
Naturally, one of the most obvious and major fault lines between neoliberals and actual liberals are the divergent views on central banking. These differences also cause a sizable divergence of views on business cycles and monopoly.
Monbiot appears blissfully unaware of all of this. In his essay, Monbiot notes (correctly) that neoliberalism played a significant part in the 2008 financial meltdown, but then goes on to label Ludwig von Mises a neoliberal, signaling that Monbiot doesn't know that Mises and his intellectual heirs are thoroughly opposed to neoliberal views on business cycles and recessions, and the role of central banks in such crises. Does Monbiot even know, for example, that the neoliberals reject the view of Mises and the Austrians on the causes of the Great Depression? These are not minor personality disagreements since how one views the Great Depression has immense implications for how one views economic crises today.
These oversights help explain why, for Monbiot, neoliberalism is simply code for "free-market capitalist" in spite of the fact that neoliberals from Ehrhard to Friedman (as noted by Mises) endorse a wide range of very sizable interventions in the markets.
To hear Monbiot tell it, though, you'd think the views of Mises are triumphant today, and that everywhere regimes are becoming less interventionist, are lowering taxes, and generally becoming dominated by free-market radicals. Monbiot claims that the Labour Party and Democratic Party were "once part of the left" but have today been co-opted by right wing, free-market, laissez-faire zealots.
Perhaps Monbiot simply hasn't noticed that was was once considered "left wing" such as government healthcare, government pensions, and widespread regulation of business at every level, is now just mainstream and no longer the far-off dream of leftist utopians.
Or perhaps Monbiot imagines that the United States is some kind of social-darwinist free-market free-for-all when, in reality, the US has a massive welfare state and spends more government money on health care than all but three countries.
Monbiot's Nostalgic Pessimism
Monbiot has a list of social ills that have been caused by the triumph of imagined hard-core laissez-faire non-interventionism:
[Neoliberalism] has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
Except for "the epidemic of loneliness" which is apparently to be blamed on tax rates being too low, Monbiot provides no links or documentation of the "resurgence" of child poverty, "the collapse of ecosystems" or the other ills listed. Child poverty is resurgent compared to when, exactly? Compared to the 19th century? That's a laughable assertion, as is the idea that poverty is more grinding in Latin America today than it was 50 years ago before the free-marketers supposedly established their death grip worldwide. Ecosystems are collapsing because of neoliberal triumph in recent decades? Monbiot obviously isn't aware of what the Cuyahoga River looked like 50 years ago.
Indeed, reading Monbiot's essay, I got the feeling that I had encountered the same thing somewhere else. And then I realized: Monbiot has the same world view and ideology as Pope Francis. The Francis view is relentlessly pessimistic and devoted to the idea that everything it getting worse everywhere all the time. Monbiot also apprently shares Francis's unsupportable view that the world economy is primarily dominated by essentially unregulated markets. As I noted about Francis's views in 2015:
According to Francis, the world is very nearly falling down around us. The poor are getting poorer, he claims. The inequalities between rich and poor are worse than ever, he says. Pollution is making us sicker than ever, he implies. And the basic requirements for sustaining human life are becoming more inaccessible than ever. These claims serve a purpose: to illustrate that the rise of industrialization and market economies (a modern phenomenon) are the cause of these social and environmental ills... In painting a picture of a world that Francis says resembles "an immense pile of filth," Francis is ignoring a wealth of empirical data through which his assertions can be shown to be simply and factually wrong.
Under Neoliberalism, Free Markets Win a Partial Victory
Unlike the Marxists, laissez-faire liberals do not have to assert that their ideology, only partially applied, makes things worse. For example, when Marxism is applied, a decline in the standard of living is usually observed. This occurred under Lenin who — in order to avoid mass starvation — quickly had to retreat and implement the New Economic Policy allowing some market activity within the soviet economy. For Marxist purists, the failure of the "pure" Marxist economy was to be blamed on the fact that Marxism was not applied enough. That is, if any remnants of the old bourgeois society is allowed to remain, Marxism won't work. Only total and pure Marxism will actually make people better off.
Laissez-faire liberals have never had to claim this since only a partial movement toward freer markets can be shown to increase standards of living, ceteris paribus. This was certainly the case in China after Mao, and in Eastern Europe after the USSR. In neither place was liberalism applied "fully," as both places are today dominated to varying degrees but government interventionism and government sponsored monopolies. We might also see this at work in Latin America as in comparisons between Chile and Venezuela. Neither Chile nor Venezuela are "free-market" regimes by any sttretch of the imagination. However, the difference in relative economic freedom between the two countries is significant.
Neoliberalism's Many Faults
Neoliberalism's support for central banking, huge corporate bailouts, and the regulatory state are indeed damaging and the source of much poverty. These neoliberal policies contribute to business cycles while rewarding politically-favored firms and industries at the expense of ordinary taxpayers.
Pundits like Monbiot see this in reverse, though. The problem with neoliberalism isn't the movement's support for huge monopolists like the central banks and their favored crop of bailed-out commercial banks. For the Monbiots of the world, the problem is too much economic leeway granted by governments to be entrepreneurial, to be innovative, or to exercise freedom.
Unfortunately, neoliberalism, being a third-way ideology, is a mix of government intervention and limited laissez-faire. For anyone lacking a grounding in sound economy theory, then, one could see that neoliberals are indeed influential in many areas, and then walk away drawing any conclusion that happens to support one's existing biases.
In other words, if one seeks to find a correlation between the existence of poverty in some areas and the existence of neoliberalism, then that won't be difficult. If one wishes to find a correlation between the existence of neoliberalism and a rising standard of living, one could do that as well.
The problem is that correlation does not show causation, and the only way out of this is to get back to examining core economic principles.
Monbiot doesn't do this, of course. He constructed an interesting historical and sociological theory — sans any economic arguments — in which the rise of neoliberalism has created many social ills. If we rely on Monbiot's analysis, though, what aspects of neoliberalism have caused these alleged problems is anybody's guess.Federal State Of Emergency Over Lead-Laced Water Ends In Flint, Mich.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Carlos Osorio/AP Carlos Osorio/AP
The federal state of emergency in Flint, Mich. expires today, as the city continues to navigate a public health crisis caused by lead-laced water.
Officials are trying to reassure Flint residents that they will still have access to free bottled water, filters and cartridges, as Michigan Radio reported.
"We have heard from many residents... that's there's a deep concern that the federal government and state are going to pack up and pull out of Flint after August 14," State Police Captain Chris Kelenske said Wednesday, according to Michigan Radio. "I'm here to tell you that that assumption is completely false. I want to be extremely clear: August 14 is just a date on the calendar."
Since President Obama issued an emergency declaration in January, the federal government has paid for 75% of the costs of the bottled water, filters and cartridges. Now, the state will pick up the entire bill. That's estimated to cost about $3.5 million every month, as Michigan Radio reported.
We've gone into depth about the roots of this crisis in a timeline that you can find here. As we have reported, the problem began when Flint switched to a new water source in 2014 in order to save money but failed to implement corrosion controls. Here's more:
"Almost immediately, residents of Flint — a majority-black city where 40 percent of people live in poverty — started complaining about the quality of the water. City and state officials denied for months that there was a serious problem. "By that time, supply pipes had sustained major corrosion and lead was leaching into the water. The city switched back to its original water supply late last year, but it was too late to reverse the damage to the pipes."
Lead is especially dangerous for children, and can cause "learning disabilities, behavioral problems and mental retardation," the World Health Organization said.
An independent task force determined that primary responsibility for the crisis lies with a state environmental agency called the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality — though others are also to blame.
And while Flint is still in the slow process of treating its water system, the city received good news yesterday from Virginia Tech researchers who were among the first to expose the lead problem. They found "no detectable levels of the toxin in nearly half of 162 homes tested in July," as The Associated Press reported.
"This is nearing the end of the beginning of the end of the public health disaster response," said environmental engineering expert Marc Edwards, according to the wire service. "Flint water now looks like it's entering a range that's considered normal for other U.S. cities."
Flint deserves "more than what we've gotten so far," the city's mayor Karen Weaver told Morning Edition last week. She described what has gotten better in Flint – and what hasn't. "Anytime you can't just turn on your tap and drink the water, you have a problem," she said. Here's more:
"Things are, I would say, more organized as far as the distribution of the water and the filters. We have more school nurses in place than when this first started. We only had one in place and now we have nine. We've been able to hook up young people to employment opportunities where we had the National Guard doing things before. "We had so many young people who were unemployed and weren't in school, and should be part of this process of healing their own community. And so what we've done is employing them to do the water distribution. We're employing them to deliver the food. And we've also been able to hook some of them up with the plumbers and pipe-fitters and other kids of I guess trade jobs, where they can be in an apprenticeship program and get paid and have a skill that no one can take from them."
She added: "We should not be in year three and we cannot drink our water."
The crisis in Flint has put new focus on the issue of lead in water across the country. As NPR's Jessica Pupovac reported earlier this week, approximately 6 million homes in America get their water "delivered through a lead service line."
NPR has this handy guide to find out if lead pipes bring water into your home:By Felix Corley, Forum 18
Esadullakh Bairov, a deputy head of Crimea's Muftiate, became the first individual since the Russian annexation of Crimea in March to be prosecuted for "extremist" religious literature seized during a raid on a madrassah (Islamic religious school). Dzhankoi District Court in northern Crimea today (26 August) fined him 2,000 Russian Roubles, the court told Forum 18 News Service. Prosecutor Andrei Oliyar, who brought the administrative case, described the raid on the madrassah as an "inspection". He refused to say what confiscated books had been the basis for the prosecution. "It was such a long list," he told Forum 18. "Just to read it would take 15 or 20 minutes." At least seven Crimean madrassahs, as well as mosques, private homes and the Muftiate itself have been raided in the hunt for religious literature controversially banned as "extremist" by Russian courts.
is credited as the source.
In the first known prosecution over religious literature since Russia forcibly annexed Crimea in March, a Crimean court has punished a senior Muslim leader on "extremism" charges. Dzhankoi District Court in northern Crimea today (26 August) fined one of the deputy heads of the Muftiate, Esadullakh Bairov, after religious books were seized during a raid on a madrassah (Islamic religious school) which he oversees. He was punished because the books have controversially been banned in Russia.Several madrassahs, private homes and even the Muftiate itself have been raided in the search for "extremist" materials. The vast majority of Crimea's Muslims are from the Crimean Tatar minority.The fine came soon after nearly 20 Turkish imams and lecturers who have been in Crimea on a long-standing arrangement were forced to leave. The Russian Federal Migration Service told the Muftiate it is not legally empowered to invite anyone until it has been re-registered (see F18News 3 September 2014 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1992 ).The compulsory re-registration under Russian law of all religious organisations in Crimea which wish to obtain legal status began on 1 July. Many religious communities are unsure how the re-registration process will affect their enjoyment of the right to freedom of religion or belief (see F18News 10 September 2014 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1995 ).Hunt for "extremist" religious literatureRussia regards the Crimean peninsula as an integral part of Russia, but Ukraine and the international community do not recognise the peninsula as part of Russia. The peninsula is now divided between two Russian federal regions, the Republic of Crimea (with its capital in Simferopol) and the port city of Sevastopol. The city has equal status with two other federal cities, Moscow and St Petersburg.The Russian authorities have also established branches in Crimea of federal agencies, including the Justice Ministry and the FSB security service. However, many local officials appear to have been already in post before March and have simply had their posts transferred to the new authorities.Russia insists that Russian federal law – including the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offences – now applies in Crimea. This means that its inhabitants can fall foul of Russia's anti-"extremism" laws.Many Islamic texts – including numerous translations of the writings of the late Turkish theologian Said Nursi and the contemporary Istanbul Naqshbandi Sufi teacher Osman Nuri Topbas – as well as Jehovah's Witness publications have been banned in Russia as "extremist". Anyone who distributes or possesses such works risks criminal prosecution and punishment (see Forum 18's "extremism" Russia religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1724 ).Soon after the annexation, the Russian authorities began hunting for religious literature which is banned in Russia.Jehovah's Witnesses told Forum 18 that so far their communities and adherents have not faced searches in the hunt for literature on the Federal list.The Crimean Muftiate published an announcement on its website on 5 August, drawing the attention of all its communities, imams and ordinary Muslims to the existence of the Federal List and the punishments attached to violating the ban on the listed works. "In connection with this, we ask you to familiarise yourselves with the List and take measures to liquidate the banned materials if any are present," the Muftiate wrote.The Muftiate has also conducted its own audits of its mosques and colleges in a bid to remove literature on the Federal List to avoid prosecution by the Russian authorities."We can't understand on what basis it was banned"A spokesperson for the Muftiate insisted that the FSB had not ordered the Muftiate to make the announcement. "We chose to do so to inform people so that they are in the picture," the spokesperson told Forum 18 on 13 August. "We want to ensure none of our people get into any difficulty.""We want to protect our Muslims from any excesses that could happen tomorrow," Bairov of the Muftiate told the QHA news agency on 6 August. He vigorously opposed the banning of any bona fide religious work, including the collection of prayers, Said Wahf Al-Qahtani's "Fortress of the Muslim", three Russian-language editions of which have been banned in Russia since 2012."We can't understand on what basis it was banned," Bairov told QHA, "it's a prayer book simply including prayers." He noted that it is one of the most widely-owned books among Crimean Muslims. "But fact is fact – this book is banned." He said Muslims should put any banned books on one side and wait for further instructions from the Russian authorities as to what should be done with them.After "Fortress of the Muslim" was confiscated in a raid on a madrassah, Aider Ismailov, another Deputy Chair of the Muftiate, noted on the Muftiate website on 13 August that "perhaps every second Muslim here has a copy of it". He urged the Russian authorities to take account of the fact that no list of banned literature existed under Ukrainian jurisdiction, before Russia annexed the peninsula.Russian courts have frequently ordered that confiscated religious literature which is on the Federal List should be destroyed (see F18News 19 August 2014 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1986 ).First raidThe Muftiate announcement came more than a month after Russian police and FSB security service officers had begun raiding their schools and mosques, as well as private homes.One of the first raids came on 24 June. About 30 armed Russian security agency officers raided the madrassah in the village of Kolchugino (Bulganak in Crimean Tatar), some 20 kms (12 miles) west of Simferopol. The madrassah – which is part of the Spiritual Administration of Crimean Muslims (the Muftiate) – teaches boys how to recite the Koran in Arabic.Officers – some of them masked – were from Russia's FSB security service, OMON riot police, ordinary police, and Berkut (security units originally formed under Ukrainian Interior Ministry jurisdiction). Officers broke glass on windows and doors to gain entry to the building, where 13 teenage boys and two teachers were asleep. Madrassah officials were questioned and a book, computers and phones were seized (see F18News 26 June 2014 http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1972 ).The First Deputy Chair of the Crimean branch of the FSB security service, R. Ibragim, described the raid to Forum 18 on 7 July as an "inspection of the premises". He claimed the raid had been carried out "in strict conformity" with the Russian Law on Operational Investigative Activity.The Muftiate compiled a 30-page dossier documenting their complaints about the way the raid had been conducted and sent it to the Prosecutor-General's Office in Moscow in late July. "We collected all the documents, as well as testimony from eyewitnesses to the raid and parents of the students," the Muftiate's lawyer Ibraim Kaimakan told Forum 18 on 26 August. "We have received no reply."Forum 18 was unable immediately to reach anyone at the Prosecutor-General's Office in Moscow to find out what response it will be sending to the Muftiate."Those conducting the raid claimed it had all been done in accordance with the law," Kaimakan complained to Forum 18. "But they're just showing their power – they can do whatever they want."More raidsNext to be raided were the Azovskoe men's and women's madrassahs in the village of Maiskoe in Dzhankoi District of northern Crimea, as well as the Gvardeiskoe madrassah. Numerous religious books were confiscated from the Azovskoe madrassah.On 13 August, three further raids took place on Muslim colleges in Simferopol District, Bairov told the local media. The FSB security service, police, Prosecutor's Office, Fire Service, Sanitary Epidemiological Service and Educational Services (among others) raided the Educational Centre, the women's madrassah in Kamenka and the Seit Settar madrassa in Simferopol.Bairov said the main aim of the raids was to uncover religious literature on the Federal List. In one of the colleges, three books on the Federal List had been found and confiscated. He lamented that the raids had been conducted without warning and during the college holidays when many staff members were away.On 19 August, five or six armed and masked officers raided the home of the Muslyadinov family in Bakhchisaray District, a friend of the family Nariman Memedeminov wrote on his Facebook page the following day. Police claimed to have been looking for a car radio stolen six months earlier. However, officers claim to have found a pistol (which Memedinov implied had been planted) and "banned" religious literature.On the morning of 21 August, FSB security service, police and Prosecutor's Office officials raided the madrassah attached to the mosque in the western Crimean town of Saki. "They examined the literature, apparently looking for banned books, but found nothing. They checked the legal documents for the building, applications from parents and contracts," Sherif Osmanov of the inter-ethnic relations department of the town council told the Caucasian Knot website on 26 August. "They found no violations - the only thing was they recommended drawing up work contracts for the teachers." He expressed the frustrations of many local Muslims who point out that as the activity of such madrassahs is open, such raids are "unpleasant and incomprehensible".The Muftiate's headquarters in central Simferopol were also raided, its lawyer Kaimakan told Forum 18. He said several religious books were seized and a record was drawn up.First known prosecutionFollowing the raid on the Azovskoe madrassah and seizure of religious literature, Prosecutor Andrei Oliyar of Dzhankoi Inter-district Prosecutor's Office brought an administrative case against Bairov under Russian Administrative Code Article 20.29. This punishes "Production or distribution of extremist materials" with a fine or imprisonment of up to 15 days and confiscation of the banned literature.The 33-year-old Bairov – whose secular name is Ruslan Bairov – is in charge of all education within the Muftiate.The case was handed to Dzhankoi District Court on 19 August, but Judge Larisa Kuznetsova had to send back the case to the Prosecutor's Office because it had not been properly formulated, the court chancellery told Forum 18.The case was returned to court on 26 August. That same day Judge Kuznetsova found Bairov guilty under Article 20.29, the court chancellery told Forum 18. She fined him 2,000 Russian Roubles (750 Ukrainian Hryvnas, 350 Norwegian Kroner, 40 Euros or 55 US Dollars), the minimum fine under this Article for an individual acting in their official capacity.A 26 August statement on the Crimean Prosecutor's Office website noted that in addition to the fine, the court ordered that the religious books be confiscated. The statement - which did not name Bairov - also noted the role of the Crimean branch of Russia's FSB security service in the prosecution.The Judge's assistant refused to put Forum 18 through to her, or to comment on the case.Prosecutor Oliyar, who was present in court, told Forum 18 that Bairov "completely recognised his guilt".Oliyar (who was in post before the Russian annexation of Crimea in March) described the raid on the madrassah as an "inspection". He refused to say what confiscated books had been the basis for the prosecution. "It was such a long list," he told Forum 18. "Just to read it would take 15 or 20 minutes." He also refused to say where the confiscated books are now being held or what will happen to them. "This is a secret of the investigation." He then put the phone down. (END)Reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Crimea can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=86 A printer-friendly map of the disputed territory of Crimea, whose extent is not marked, can be found in the south-east of the map entitled 'Ukraine' http://education.nationalgeographic.com/mapping/outline-map/?map=Ukraine&ar_a=1 Reports and analyses on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia within its internationally-recognised territory can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10 All Forum 18 News Service material may be referred to, quoted from, or republished in full, if Forum 18'It's devastating. It's tearing the place apart.'
Forget feral cats, says Graeme Sawyer; cane toads are threatening to destroy Northern Territory wildlife and its ecology.
Mr Sawyer is a member of Frogwatch, a group of researchers, conservationists and volunteers who work to stop the spread of cane toads across the region.
He suggests cane toads have brought some native species to the point of localised extinction in the Top End, but of most concern is how little is known about the broader damage they might be causing.
'One of the saddest things is that we don't know the full extent of the impact yet,' said Mr Sawyer.
As Frogwatch's contracted $200,000 of government funding now comes to an end, so too could the school visits and community sessions that form a central part of the program.
Mr Sawyer says in the town of Palmerston near Darwin, the sessions had led some families to conduct weekly 'toad-busts' to contain their population numbers.
'It just shows the huge amount of community concern and the ability for the community to respond to these things,' he said.
'If it's coordinated and facilitated properly, it can be a really positive force for the environment.
'Quite small amounts of funding are massively amplified through the community.'“First Ghostbusters now a female Doctor? Somebody think of the childhoods that will be ruined!” – Random, angry internet fan
Today the internet worked itself up into a frenzy as BBC confirmed that they’ll have a female lead as the 13th Doctor in their long running Doctor Who series:
Actress Jodie Whittaker succeeds Peter Capaldi, who took the role in 2013 and will leave during this year’s Christmas special and in the process will introduce the world to the first ever female Doctor.
Following the news, many took to social media to voice their excitement over the obvious change:
It’s great mate. My nieces can grow up in a world with a good Wonder Woman, a female Jedi, female ghostbusters & a female Dr Who. — simon_tucker (@simontucker1979) July 16, 2017
My youngest daughter loves new Ghostbusters. We watched it together almost daily at one point. Super excited to watch Dr Who with her! — Peter (@BlackRyu82) July 16, 2017
Wow. I don’t even watch #DrWho & this made me choke up a little. I will def be tuning in #DoctorWho #Doctor13 #JodieWhittaker — carla joanne🕊🌎 (@TheOneHeLuvs) July 16, 2017
However not everyone was elated by the news, with some fans commenting about the show becoming more PC, to being downright misogynist:
Now I know we’re going catch some heat for this, but I want to give some insight from someone who stood on the frontlines with regards to managing not only a website about Ghostbusters but several social media accounts before the release of last year’s female-led reboot.
I’ve read and been told (by visitors) time and time again that they believe the actual sexism geared towards ATC was only around 10%, with the majority of fans instead angry with the film being reboot or they didn’t like one particular actress. I’d love to believe that, I REALLY would, but from my experience, I’d venture to say it actually hovers around 25-35%, with another 5-10% in denial.
The above is the YouTube reaction to the original Ghostbusters trailer released last year. Ouch, right? Roughly 78% of those signed into YouTube clicked thumbs down as of July 16th, 2017. Keep in mind Ghostbusters fans were certainly upset over a variety of topics and not just it being female led. You had nearly 25 years since the last film, the fact that this was a reboot, some feel it shouldn’t have been done due to the passing of Harold Ramis, the Sony hack emails, a new director…
Now, let’s take a look at today’s Doctor Who reveals:
As of this post, we’re sitting at around 33% negative and the ONLY THING the BBC has done is changed the lead character from male to female.
Could our 25-35% sexism assumption on the Ghostbusters trailer actually have some merit?
Anyone wonder what YouTube had to say three years ago when Peter Capaldi took over as the Doctor:
Now that’s a pretty huge difference, especially considering the only thing that changed is the sex of the actor playing the lead.
Switching gears back to the 13th Doctor, Whittaker commented:
“It feels completely overwhelming; as a feminist, as a woman, as an actor, as a human, as someone who wants to continually push themselves and challenge themselves, and not be boxed in by what you’re told you can and can’t be,” “I want to tell the fans not to be scared by my gender. Because this is a really exciting time, and Doctor Who represents everything that’s exciting about change,” Whittaker added. “The fans have lived through so many changes, and this is only a new, different one, not a fearful one.”
Be sure to catch Jodie Whittaker as she debuts as the 13th Doctor during this year’s Christmas special!Hours after North Korea said it successfully set off a hydrogen bomb in its sixth nuclear test, President Trump took aim at the nation in a series of tweets, calling its words and actions "hostile and dangerous" to the United States.
He also tweeted about China and South Korea.
"North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success," Mr. Trump tweeted.
"South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!" he added.
North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017
..North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017
South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2017
Mr. Trump's apparent criticism of a diplomatic approach toward North Korea follows a Wednesday meeting in which U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis met with his South Korean counterpart, emphasizing the notion that diplomatic means are still not off the table in its handling of the regime.
"We're never out of diplomatic solutions," Mattis said. "We always look for more. We're never complacent."
North Korea's state-run television broadcast a special bulletin Sunday afternoon to announce its latest test, claiming that it tested a |
great venue for comedy and it's just 20 minutes outside Downtown Chicago. TICKETS
Who were your biggest influences in comedy?
Well of course Howard, Howard Stern. I was listening to him since I was thirteen. He's probably the biggest one, but John Belushi, Bill Murray, Richard Pryor. Stand up-wise, probably Richard Pryor. He turned tragedy into comedy, that's something I've tried to do my entire career. Those guys are pretty much it. A lot of people, but those are the big ones.
When did you first feel like you made it in show business?
When I first saw my name in a TV Guide crossword puzzle. It was on a plane, I used to read TV Guide all the time, it's probably obsolete with the internet now. I was on Mad TV... I saw a clue "Lange of Mad TV," and the word was "Artie." I got to fill it in, it was the only clue I got in the whole crossword puzzle. I had my friend finish it for me and I framed it. That made me think, "Ah sh*t, I must be on television at least."
Have you ever used stand up as a type of therapy?
Yes, always. That's a good question. I use it as therapy big time. I think every comedian does. If you're able to do stand up, it's the best way to vent on the planet. You just make believe the audience is some shrink or psychologist you're yelling at about your problems and hopefully they find them funny. To me, all a comedian is is someone who complains in a funny way.
Most people bitch about stuff, but a lot of people are annoying when they're complaining. Like Seinfeld is just a guy who bitches about stuff. He just bitches about this, that, and the other thing, but he happens to be hilarious whe he does it. Especially now in my life, I'm using stand up as an absolute modem for therapy, it's great.
How has what you went through changed your stand up?
It directly changed the material. The last couple years I've been in psych wards and rehabs and I have a lot of jokes and stories I do about that in my act. Usually a comic gets a solid hour that he does for a stand up special and by the time you see it he's been doing that hour on the road for a couple years. And I think that hour, whatever area you're going through in your life, reflects your outlook on things, and where you're at emotionally. So it's different because I have a totally different perspective on the world.
Going through what I did the last couple years, I saw the Abyss. I was looking at the end. I didn't think I was going to come out of the hole I was in. Now coming out of it, I appreciate a lot more things. I hate certain things more, but I love certain things more. It all comes out in the act. So it affected it quite a bit.
Are you worried about discussing anything onstage that could trigger something?
Yeah everything (laughs). People say what's a trigger for you? I say when the sun comes up and when it goes down... One of the perspectives I have on life is that triggers are going to be all over the place. I live in New York, I work in New York. I do stand up on the road. I have a house on the Jersey Shore, twenty minutes from Atlantic City.
Triggers are never going anywhere unless I build a cabin in Colorado... It doesn't matter. I just have to be strong. I have to say I'm not going to let potential triggers let me ruin my life or let me prevent myself from bringing stuff up in stand up. I've always worked where nothing is taboo in stand up for me. I just go into it head first.
How did Howard reach out to you after the incident?
By phone... He called me in a psych ward. Right after I came out of intensive care I went into a psych ward and Howard called me a couple times there before he even got me. There's a direct line into the psych ward that the patients are allowed to pick up at certain hours and the first couple times he tried me, these other crazy patients picked up.
There's this one crystal meth kid who had bags under his eyes, big Howard fan. He kept talking to me about stuff, and one day he came knocking on my bedroom door there and I opened the door and he goes "Howard's on the phone," he was shaking like it was God on the phone. I just imagine Howard having a small talk with this guy. We talked for a good forty-five minutes to an hour. He was very very encouraging and I just said, "I'm thinking about you." That's how. It was very nice how he called me in the psych ward, it's crazy.
Are you able to listen to the show anymore?
Sure. In the beginning it was kind of hard, I just listened the other day. Howard loved his dog so much, I almost considered calling him as if a person in his life had died to console him, but I was like, "I don't know, that's a little goofy." But listening to him talk about Bianca dying... I just remember when they got that dog, how much they loved that dog, and I felt bad for him and Beth when I heard about it. I heard about it on the show like other fans would. So no, I try to listen when I can, but my hours are weird now. I'm not the kind of guy that downloads shit or listens to repeats, but whenever I hear it, it's always funny.
Was the hardest part of what you went through being in the public eye?
It was the hardest and the easiest. When it first happened I thought I disappointed my family, my friends, and that included my fans at Stern. Howard created a family-like atmosphere there, and God, radio fans... I've been lucky enough to work in TV, movies, stand up, writing a book, radio fans are more intense and more intimate than any kind of fans you'll have. For ten years I drove to work with them every morning. So in the beginning I felt like I let them down and it was hard. But when I was coming out of it, when I started to surface and go out in public, it was like I had this entire extended family that always told me how much they missed me and it made me feel good, it was a good thing.
Still now at gigs when I go to a different city I haven't been to since it happened... we were in Philadelphia, the Boston area recently, the New York area, after the show we do this meet and great, people hug me as if they know me, like they're my cousins, "We're so happy you're alive, we miss you." It's such an outpouring of love you can't even make a joke about it. The most cynical person in the world can't be weird about it, it's just so nice. So it's good and bad, but the good outweighs the bad.
In Artie's Book, Too Fat to Fish, it seemed some of Artie's drug and alcohol problems could have stemmed from an accident involving his father. Artie skipped going to work with his dad one day when he was 18 years old, and his father took a bad fall from a ladder. The injury left him a quadriplegic and after living in pain for four years, he passed away due to complications from the injury. Artie blamed himself for not being there to hold the ladder.
Were you able to stop blaming yourself for what happened to your dad?
My father fell off a ladder and it was my job to hold the ladder when I went to work with him. I was hung over and blew off going to work with him and he fell off the ladder. He never blamed me for it, obviously. But in my head it was very hard to get over and instead of dealing with it, I self-medicated and stayed high and drunk.
I don't blame everything on that, I used it as an excuse for a long time. I think I got over that years ago but I used it as an excuse for years after because people give you sympathy and stay away from you, "Look man, you're not going through what I'm going though," and I really got over it a long time ago. I basically learned to bullsh*t. Stop bullsh*tting people, I've been using that excuse, my father falling and the guilt as a crutch for far too long and there's something deeper to it than that.
What was your first set back like?
I went to the Comedy Cellar. It was in the heart of my bad depression, it was like in December of 2010. I had come out of two psych wards and two tries in a rehab. I was at home doing nothing and I went to a psychiatrist and he said, "The first thing we have to do is to get you out of bed." I said "Well how are you going to do that?" He said "Well, we're going to give you this stuff (a pill) but if you google the sh*t it's a methamphetamine, just like Aderoll, it's what they give these poor teenagers now to get them hooked on speed.
So I take this medication one night and I feel f**king great, go figure. I'm like, "I'm doing a set." So I call up the Cellar, they let me come down, I did 15 minutes and I kill. I have all these stories with psych wards and they all work great and I saw some friends there. Dave Attell had called in for his availability and they put me on with Dave, I talked to him, and I felt good about myself.
I saw Craig Gass there and he took a picture with me and put it up on Twitter and somebody called page six and it was all over page six that I had come back. They said nice stuff, that the set was funny. That was good and bad too, that attention. It was great that they cared, but I was like the lead story, it would be better to do this quietly. It was right around then that my agent called me and told me that Giraldo had died. It was how he died. At the Hilton there, the Stress Factory where I had been before, some crazy woman and pills and it really hit home because the Cellar too was always a place where I saw Greg. The next time I went after he died I sat in a chair, and he'd always sit across from me for some reason in the same seat and we'd talk, and I started thinking to myself, "Giraldo's not on the road, he's not in Milwaukee, he's not in Kansas City, he's dead. He'll never be here again. It's not like he's on the road and we'll see him." The finality of death hit me like crazy. It was hard. It was hard. I write about Greg a little bit in my next book.
What's something you've carried with you from your recovery process?
The biggest thing is changing the people in your life, even the people who mean to be good but aren't, because they don't understand what you're going through and they never will. And it could be a girl, or a friend who will outright just drink in front of you and you explain to them, "Look I'm not preaching to you, you do what you gotta do, I'm envious you're able to do that and have a normal life, for some reason I'm not, so either you can't do it, or I can't be around you and that's just how it is."
I'm not saying it's every situation, but some situations it's hard for you and you need some support around you, like, "I'll have a club soda with you and hang out." Some people can't do that and I respect that, but they have to respect I can't be around them. Those are hard decisions to make but I had to make them. A big part of my living is stand up. I work at casinos and halls and places that sell booze, theaters that sell booze, every comedy club lives on booze, so you're going to be around it, but it's nice to have maybe a couple of real close people who even though there's still drinks around you say, "Hey man, I'm with you, let's just have a cigarette and a water... or something."
What's your favorite moment from the Stern Show?
Okay, the "Biggest Hemorrhoid Contest" right... This guy, the guy that ended up winning, bent over and opened his a** cheeks and he had an alien in his a**. I've never seen anything like it. They had a real doctor there checking him to make sure they weren't fake.
The guy had like a red, big air balloon that came out of his a** and when he bent over Howard looked at me laughing and almost throwing up because he had to turn his head, and I looked at Howard and said, "Howard, what are we doing?" He Looked at me and said, "I don't know." Then I said, "Well if you don't know then we're all in trouble." (laughs hard) To me that sums up the show, it's just third grade humor at its finest and sometimes even we were like, "What the hell are we doing?" It was always just nothing but fun.
Who's your favorite Wack Packer?
You gotta give it to Beetlejuice. That's tough, Jeff the Drunk has a dear place in my heart. The most grotesque is High Pitch Eric, I just don't know what he is. Jeff the Drunk is a close second, Crazy Alice I love. Eric the Midget obviously... the Sinatra is Beetlejuice.
Where did you and Norm (MacDonald) first meet?
At the audition for Dirty Work. I got off of Mad TV, another time in my life where I screwed up my life, I got thrown off of Mad TV in early 97 for getting arrested for possession of coke and like five months later I started doing stand up again. I was ready to start driving a cab, then I got a call from my manager and he said, "Hey, Norm MacDonald has a movie it's like a buddy comedy. He wants to audition you to be the other guy. Saw you on Mad TV and thought you'd be good for it..." I was like, "Really?" I was a big fan of Norm. I never met him.
I flew out to audition, then that's when I met him, at the screen test for Dirty Work. It was like I knew him forever. Norm likes people who have an edge. We shot dirty work in Toronto, I went up there for two months, and the first day that we worked together was a rehearsal day and that night before the first rehearsals Norm said, "Hey, man you want to get dinner and shoot some pool at this pool hall on Young Stree in Toronto?" I said "Yeah." I'm a pretty good pool shooter. I used to make money at it a little bit.
I won two thousand dollars off of Norm in Nine Ball the night before. So we started gambling and it got crazy. I told my agent. He said, "He can fire you! Let him win! Let him win!" But Norm is an honorable guy. He gave me two grand in Canadian money, which to me was like Monopoly money, it was meaningless. I spent it at the first strip club we went to, but he didn't rip me off. Norm and I got to be friendly quick.
What's your favorite Norm story?
A review came out in one of the papers of Dirty Work and the review of my performance said "Artie Lange has all the charm of a date rapist," and my mother read it and she almost started crying, like the guy was calling me a date rapist. Norm said, "Put your mom on the phone, I'll cheer her up." I put Norm on the other line and Norm said, "Mrs. Lange, a date rapist has to have way more charm than a regular rapist. A date rapist has to get a date." Then my mother started crying harder. I said, "Norm, why don't you just hang up." That's Norm's way of consoling. Just a brilliant comedic look at that situation.
What's behind your great chemistry with Nick on the show?
We're kindred spirits, man. He's like a long lost brother, he's the Boston version of me. I'm not a political guy, Nick is, but my belief is probably more to the right than anything, so I like joking about it that way. Nick and I have comedy based on hating political correctness. The mortal enemy of comedy is politcal correctness and sensitivity. Nick and I are like soldiers in that war. We're both kind of like outlaws.
It's hard for Nick to ever compromise what he thinks and I really respect that. He won't meet show business halfway, he's just going to keep thinking the way he thinks and do comedy that way. In the age of apologizing for everything, we just look at... comedians are trying to make people laugh, so you have to give us a little leeway, it's what we do. If we say twenty things and one of them is offensive you can't make us apologize for it. Everyone has to go back to having a sense of humor and Nick and I operate on that. That's why I think we like each other so much.
With the backlash to things said during comics' sets such as Tracy Morgan's and Daniel Tosh's, do you think comics are being held too accountable for their words?
Anyone that gets mad at Tosh and Tracy for what they said, and I'm not defending them for what they said, what they said is harsh, but I'd be a hypocrite to be offended by it because I've said stuff probably worse on stage, it just hasn't been publicized. It used to be when you were in a comedy club in Cincinnati at midnight, you were there all by yourself, it was you and those people. You said whatever you had to to get a laugh and you got a check.
Now with Twitter, and phones and cameras, every motherf**ker around you has a camera and a video camera and a picture album on them, it's crazy. Now it takes one jerkoff on Twitter to start a thing. All of a sudden you're trying to defend yourself, people are trying to get you to apologize, you might lose your job. It's so ridiculous, there's gotta be a revolution soon. There's not any other way.
Mel Gibson's phone call to that Russian broad, I don't defend what he said, but I've had conversations with broads who've gotten me so mad it makes that phone call look like an episode of f**king Glee. It's just when a woman gets you mad you say whatever you want. You never hit a woman, but I'm all for saying whatever you want, and calling them c**ts sometimes washes over me like heroin, I love it.
Try stand up for a living if you're mad at Tracy or Tosh and then see if you don't get pissed off at a heckler. You're trying to make a living, you're trying to entertain the people that paid a lot of money in that room and some a**hole is yelling out over you, you get insanely mad and you lash out at them and the only real weapon you have is your mouth and sometimes it doesn't come out so right. I defend and support Tosh and Tracy, obviously. Big time, any comic that doesn't is a pussy.
Some critics of Alternative Comedy have called it "safe." Do you feel it's a safe form of comedy?
No form of comedy is a safe form of comedy. When you get up there and try to make people laugh on any level it's dangerous, but Alternative Comics take a lot of hits from comics like me who are maybe more traditional, but what's funny is funny. I have nothing against Alternative Comedy, I have nothing against guys who tell one liners. If it's funny, it's funny.
It's just that some of the people in Alternative Comedy get these attitudes offstage that are so self-rigtheous that you want to strangle them. It's just like, "Shut the f**k up, nobody cares what you think about the rainforest and nobody cares what you think about my act and that I sound mean. If I sound mean go f**k yourself." Don't critique me, I won't critiuqe you. But if they can get onstage and be funny then I respect it.
They asked Eddie Murphy once, "Is anything offensive to you?" He said, "If something is funny it's not offensive." If it makes you laugh it can't be offensive because it's funny. In the early 60s the Republicans were really uptight people, so George Carlin and Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor would f**k with them and it would make you laugh, and the liberals had a great sense of humor. Now the direct opposite is true, these ultra-liberal f**ks who might be in Alternative Comedy have no sense of humor, they're completely uptight about political sh*t, and the Republicans seem to have a sense of humor so it's fun to f**k with the liberals.
A comic will f**k with anybody who can't take a ball breaking. Like a playground, you tease them more. Now it's more fun to f**k with liberals because they're more uptight and I think Alternative Comics fall into that category. If somebody calls themself an "Alternative Comic" that's fine, to me if you're funny, you're funny, call yourself whatever you want, I don't care.
Can the White Sox go far in the postseason this year?
Baseball is weird this year. The Yanks are insanely good, they just got Ichiro. Jeter has been in the league eighteen years, he's made the playoffs seventeen. It's just boring as a Yankee fan, the season starts October first. I can't get psyched for a Yankee / Oriole game in June, I don't care.
But the White Sox are one of those teams that could surprise people. Like how Detroit ousted the Yankees in the first round last year, and the Yanks could choke again, and they will as long as A Rod's in the line up... I see the White Sox as one of those teams that could be surprisingly good in the postseason, so I like their chances. They're as good as anybody is in the postseason, that's for sure.
How bad are the Cubs?
They're Theo Epstein bad. What he did in Boston I guess was great, but you don't give a guy that doesn't suit up twenty-five million dollars. You just don't do it. The guy has to at least wear cleats if you're going to give him that kind of money. I think that was a mistake. You need the players. I think the best thing about the Cubs' season is Ron Santo's going into the Hall of Fame. But I love games at Wrigley. When we go out there for the gig, I'm going to go see a game at Wrigley.
When can we expect the second book? and what will it cover?
Almost positive it's coming out in November. It's called Crash and Burn, Joe Buck wrote the forward for it. It's a real honest account of the last few years of what happened to me and what I went through. Some things that happened before that, that might have lead up to it and relate to it, and it's a very honest look at what happened to me. Which is kind of extraordinary. I was real f**ked up and I lived to tell about it, so that's what it is.
Follow Artie on Twitter @ArtieQuitterLA VERNE >> Tom Carroll, athletic director at Damien High School for 40 years until his retirement in 2013, passed away late Wednesday night after a lengthy illness at 84, according to current Spartans AD Jeff Grant.
There is no immediate information on services, although Grant said the school will hold a memorial mass on campus at a later date.
“It’s going to be a monumental task” to replace Carroll, said Grant, who was a co-athletic director with Carroll for two years. “I hope I do as well as Tom did, he did it for the kids. It was not a job for him, it was his main priority.”
Grant was a baseball player under Carroll while a student at Damien and returned to the school to work with Carroll.
“I got to see both sides,” said Grant. “He needed help when I started in athletics. He always had the best interest of the kids in mind.”
Carroll was an assistant coach in 1997 when Bob Sheridan directed the Spartans to the CIF Division II baseball championship with a 6-5 win over La Mirada in nine innings.
He was also AD when future Major League star Mark McGwire attended Damien before the slugger played at USC.
In 1998, McGwire set the Major League Baseball record with 70 home runs.
“I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t enjoy all the hype and hoopla that went with Mark McGwire’s home run records,” Carroll said in response to his favorite Damien player. “It was a magical time, and it was fun because Mark was a good ol’ boy.”
When told of Carroll’s passing, McGwire said, “At the time (Carroll) was just a great AD at the school. There was a time when I quit baseball to play on the golf team. He was understanding of that. He helped the baseball coach understand. He took care of the athletes at Damien. That’s one of the reasons I went to Damien. They were an athletic powerhouse back in the day.”
In fact, Damien named its refurbished baseball stadium after Carroll.
Carroll was also an assistant football coach under Dick Larsen when Damien won the Southeastern Conference in 1977 with a 12-0 win over Ganesha at Anaheim Stadium. In 1982, Damien shared the Eastern Conference title with Riverside Ramona with a 28-28 tie at Anaheim Stadium.
He also had an influence in area basketball.
Carroll hired John McNally, currently at Upland High School, as head basketball coach and had current head coaches Bill Burke (Rancho Cucamonga) and Jerry DeFaiis (Colony) as assistants.
“He was one of the nicest men I ever met,” said McNally, who left Damien to coach at Fontana. “He cared about you not just as a coach, but as a person. He was actually more like a grandfather, positive and supportive.
“Even after I left Damien, he was always supportive.”
Upon graduation from Long Beach State, but unemployed at the time, Carroll started his Catholic school career at St. Catherine’s Military School in Anaheim. He also taught and coached at Chaminade, Long Beach St. Anthony and Santa Ana Mater Dei before Damien.
Carroll had five children, daughters Lynn, Lisa and Laurie and boys John and Brian.
John is currently on staff on the Damien football team as defensive coordinator.
— J.P. Hoornstra contributed to this storyFormer President George W. Bush has said that Mr. Obama “deserves my silence,” but Mr. Cheney, who told Mr. Hannity he has spoken with Mr. Bush just once since leaving office, does not share that view.
“I think he feels compelled to make clear why, particularly related to national security issues, it is so important that we don’t abandon those policies and that we remember the fact that we are at war,” Ms. Cheney said Thursday. “When he sees the current administration making decisions that he believes are making the nation less safe, he does not believe there is any obligation under those circumstances to be silent.”
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At a time when his party has no high-profile leaders on Capitol Hill, Mr. Cheney is in effect the ranking Republican speaking out against Mr. Obama. His message has been amplified — on television, in op-ed pieces and elsewhere — by an informal band of supporters, including Ms. Cheney.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly repudiated the Bush administration; in the interviews, Mr. Cheney has hit back. Speaking to Politico in February, he warned of a “high probability” of another terrorist attack. On CNN, he suggested that Mr. Obama was using the economic crisis to justify a big expansion of government. On Fox, he agreed when Mr. Hannity asked if Mr. Obama was “telegraphing weakness.”
To Democrats, Mr. Cheney is the perfect person to remind the nation of all the reasons Republicans were turned out of office. “I think the country has rendered a pretty clear verdict last fall on Cheney and Cheneyism,” said Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Axelrod.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content, updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Even some Republicans say they wish the former vice president would disappear. Among them is Meghan McCain, the daughter of the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, who appeared Thursday on the ABC show “The View.”
“You had your eight years,” Ms. McCain declared. “Go away.”
Other former vice presidents have kept a much lower profile, at least this early after leaving office. Al Gore was supportive of Mr. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but in September 2002 delivered a speech critical of Mr. Bush’s plans for the Iraq war. After John F. Kennedy bungled the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, Richard M. Nixon, the former vice president who lost to Mr. Kennedy, visited the new president at the White House and said the nation should support him.
But some conservatives, feeling beleaguered these days, are grateful that Mr. Cheney is speaking out. John R. Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a close ally of his, said that after having to hew publicly to Mr. Bush’s views, Mr. Cheney might be feeling liberated. “It’s about time he had a chance to get his voice back,” Mr. Bolton said. “There’s no cone of silence now.”
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For its part, the Obama White House is trying to figure out just how to handle the lifting of the cone. After the former vice president appeared on CNN last month, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was dismissive, declaring, “I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so they trotted out the next most popular member of the Republican cabal.”
But now Mr. Cheney is gaining some traction with his argument that the Obama White House, which prides itself on transparency, should declassify the memorandums he is seeking. Mr. Gibbs faced a string of questions Thursday about whether Mr. Obama had read them (he said he did not know), and Mr. Axelrod said the White House would consider declassifying them after intelligence and national security agencies had weighed in.Copyright by WIVB - All rights reserved
CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB) -- Last Friday night may have seemed like the prime time for dessert, but those who frequented an ice cream truck in Clarence met a rude surprise.
Officials say the driver of the truck acted belligerently by yelling at kids, but that wasn't all parents had to complain about. Police say the driver drove while wearing nothing but his underwear.
Erie County Sheriff's Deputies who responded to the complaint Friday arrested 24-year-old East Amherst native Ryan Duff. They say following investigation, they realized he was driving high on drugs through the Emily Court neighborhood.
While in police custody, officers say he refused to cooperate with testing, and a drug recognition expert made the final determination that he was under the influence..
Police charged Duff with DWI-drugs and others charges, then released him to a sober driver.
He's scheduled to return to Clarence Town Court on Aug. 25.Iconic Brand Becomes Official Athletic Apparel and Athletic Footwear Partner of the Conference and for All Pac-12 Championship Events
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (July 29, 2015) – The Pac-12 Conference and adidas announced today a three-year partnership that makes adidas the Official Athletic Apparel and Athletic Footwear partner of the Conference and all Pac-12 Championship events.
In addition, the new agreement makes adidas the presenting sponsor of Pac-12 Sports Report, Pac-12 Networks’ weekly one-hour flagship studio show. Pac-12 Sports Report showcases each week’s big events with commentary, recaps, interviews and feature stories that elevate the profile of the Conference’s outstanding teams, student-athletes and coaches. adidas will also be integrated into some of Pac-12 Networks live event programming with on air talent and production staff wearing adidas apparel. Pac-12 staff and volunteers will also be outfitted in adidas apparel at Conference championship events.
“We are thrilled to reach a strategic partnership with such an iconic company that shares our passion for innovation,” said Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. “As they do with athletes around the world, adidas will now help support Pac-12 student-athletes by improving their championship events and bolstering our coverage of their success on Pac-12 Networks.”
The Pac-12 hosts championship events in football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, wrestling, women’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s track and field, women’s rowing, and women’s beach volleyball.
"It is an exciting day for adidas as the Pac-12 is one of the elite conferences in all of collegiate athletics,” said Chris McGuire, Senior Director of Sports Marketing, adidas America. “This new partnership continues to highlight our commitment to U.S. college sports and our focus on aligning with championship-level schools, teams and student-athletes. The Pac-12’s rich athletic and academic tradition and consistent success on and off the field make them a perfect fit for the adidas family. We look forward to our brand appearing on field and court, in stadium, across the Pac-12’s digital properties and on-air during Pac-12 Network broadcasts starting this season.”by Massimo Pigliucci
Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer has gotten onto the same “science can determine moral values” bandwagon as other scientistically-minded writers such as Sam Harris. But this commentary isn’t directly about Shermer’s latest book [1], and even less about Harris (about whose ideas I’ve written more than enough [2]). Rather, it concerns a more specific claim about science-driven moral progress made by Michael in a recent article that appeared in the libertarian Reason magazine, entitled “Are We Becoming Morally Smarter? The connection between increasing IQs, decreasing violence, and economic liberalism” [3]. The piece is an interesting mix of good points, good reasoning, bad points, and bad reasoning. I am going to try to sort things out in the interest of stimulating further discussion.
Shermer begins by talking about the famous (and still poorly understood) “Flynn effect” [4] the observation that IQ test scores, when non standardized to the population average, have increased by two standard deviations throughout the 20th century: we have become “smarter.” Of course, one has to buy into the idea that IQ tests actually measure “intelligence,” or that the latter is even a sufficiently coherent concept to be quantified effectively. But for the sake of the argument, let’s say that cultural evolution (obviously, as Shermer himself readily acknowledges, this has nothing to do with biological evolution) has made it so that people are getting better at scoring high on a certain class of standardized test that has something to do with intelligence, at the least when the latter is understood in certain ways.
The controversy really heats up when we move from the observation of the Flynn effect to what it means and what is causing it. Shermer quotes Flynn himself as attributing “the effect to an accelerating capacity for people to view the world through ‘scientific spectacles.’” I’m not sure what that means, but the publisher of Skeptic magazine should be cautious about this sort of conclusion. If people really have increasingly been donning scientific spectacles during the past several decades, wouldn’t we expect, say, a correspondingly decreasing degree of acceptance of anti-scientific notions? Alas, this is clearly not the case, as demonstrated by repeated Gallup and NSF surveys about Americans’ beliefs in ghosts, telepathy, creationism, and so forth. These beliefs have been holding steady for decades, Flynn effect be damned.
Shermer (and Flynn) shift into an even more speculative mood immediately afterwards: “Flynn and his colleague William Dickens suggest that the increases in reasoning abilities may have started centuries ago with the industrial revolution, which required certain cognitive abilities not needed in a predominantly agricultural society.” It’s too bad we don’t have data on IQ going back to before the industrial revolution, though I seriously doubt that the history of humanity until that point had been characterized by low cognitive abilities. More likely than not, the Flynn effect is part artifice (because of substantial problems with the whole idea of IQ testing) and part the result that more people have become educated in certain ways of thinking, exactly those ways (not at all by coincidence) that lead to high scores on IQ tests. None of this is a bad thing, mind you, but grand claims about historical levels of intelligence ought to be tempered by the utter lack of corresponding historical data.
In the last paragraph of the first section of the article, Shermer tells us where he wants to go next, and why he began by talking about the Flynn effect: “Our improved ability to reason abstractly may also be the result of the spread of scientific thinking — reason, rationality, empiricism, skepticism. Thinking like a scientist means employing all our faculties to overcome our emotional, subjective, and instinctual brains to better understand the true nature of not only the physical and biological worlds, but the social world (politics and economics) and the moral world.”
Notice a few preliminary points, before we get to the meat of Michael’s argument: i) the assumed equation of scientific thinking with “reason, rationality, empiricism, skepticism,” as if these were inventions of the scientific revolution, rather than some of the very attitudes that contributed to make the scientific revolution possible; ii) the artificial, and both philosophically and scientifically flawed, opposition of reason and emotion, where of course the latter is bad, the former is unquestionably good, David Hume (and modern neuroscience) be damned; iii) the overt suggestion that scientific thinking leads to moral development. The latter is the true main focus of the rest of the article.
At the |
arled into the readers cynical interpretation. One disgruntled reader took it a step further.
“[The] guy that ate Supergods!” Morrison laughs. “Cooked it and ate it on the basis that it was my fault that people couldn't find alternative comics in their local comics stores. And I was standing in the way, pretending to be the face of alternative comics, and how I actually stood for corporate this or corporate... you know, I’m the man – again as I say, I’m a freelance writer, I'm not on staff at any company. But this guy ate the book!”
That's quite impressive.
“It certainly is! His shit must have looked like a William Burroughs cut-up!”
His move away from superheroes is not entirely unexpected, then, but it has surprised many that the biggest champion of superhero comics is stepping back. Has Morrison simply done what he set out to do when he first hit the Batman big time with Arkham Asylum back in 1989?
“Yeah, it just felt like I’d said a lot, you know,” he says. “I knew I was coming to the end of Action comics in [issue] 16, I knew I was coming to the end of Batman in issue 12, of Batman Incorporated, and it just seemed like I had all this other stuff building up that was completely different from that, and it seemed like a really good time to stop doing the monthly superhero books. And also having to work with so many artists on Action Comics, it's not that the artists are bad but I’m sometimes working for three or four guys at a time, which means you’re writing issue 14 before you've written issue 12 and then you're sending in six pages of issue 13 to someone else. So it was just too hectic. I just didn't want to do it any more. And since things were reaching that natural end... It wasn't like an announcement but it was treated like an announcement, because I think I’d already said I was leaving these comics at that time.
“But yeah, it fits into this general kind of script that's going now where we're all leaving and moving on to do creator-owned work, like we've never done it before. [laughs] So I’m just going along with that.”
There has been a recent exodus of writers and artists from the DC stable, some slipping out quietly, others angrily, and a couple leaving in protest at various ethical concerns. Morrison is keen to point out that he is leaving on good terms with DC, and still has work in the pipeline with them for the next year.
“We have disagreements,” he acknowledges, “but to me disagreements are things that you deal with, problems are things you solve, and everyone stays friends, and negotiations are done. So I kinda felt that.. it just began to feel too unpleasant to work within a comic book fan culture where everyone was mad at you all the time and giving you responsibility for legal cases and things that Ihaveve got honestly nothing to do with in my life and will shortly have zero connection with.
“But I felt that. There was a sense of, a definite sense of the temple was being burned down and it was time to run away.”
There's a perception that this move towards creator owned titles is something modern and funky, but comic writers have long kept a foot on both sides of the fence, playing in a superhero sandbox to fund their own paper universes.
“I hate the words 'creator-owned,'” Morrison interjects, “it sounds so crap. [But] in the language of comic books, that's what they're called.”
Morrison has been writing his own comics for as long as he's been writing for any of the larger publishers - not as an ethical stance, but as good business, and artistic, sense.
“I own my stuff from Near Myths and all through the 80s, and St Swithin's Day,” he says, the latter title featuring the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher which caused it to be raised in parliament at the time. “That's what you did. If you want to own something you go and own it. So I don't understand how you could get yourself into the position where you don't own it and you're angry about it. And again, it's not a position I would endorse, other than saying, 'I really feel sorry for you, for genuinely getting this wrong and being regretful,' but honestly am I gonna leave my job and protest on your behalf? Of course not.”
Is it a slightly classist thing, I wonder, the idea that you can just drop your job at work as a protest?
“Yeah, it's the idea that you don't have to work and that everything will be okay,” he agrees, “and what you just phone your dad and he'll come down and dump a bunch of money on you? So no, it's like, yes, I blame the middle classes for everything.”
I can almost hear the finger-wagging storm that is approaching, but Morrison grew up working class in Glasgow, an origin that instils a high work ethic that extends long past your own financial security. He may now have a home in Los Angeles too, and he probably didn't have to scramble for loose change down the back of his sofa for a bus ride to the interview, but he's still a world apart from those born into financial comfort. At the Glasgow Comic Con this year, he apologised for having a bit of a raspy voice due to having just delivered messages (groceries to the non-Scots) to his mum and sister, who both smoke.
Throughout our chat, Morrison is laughing and grinning, invested in conversation rather than just talking to a tape recorder. Much of this is often stripped out in print, the jokes and dry humour edited to arseyness and the enthusiasm poisoned to conceit. Quizzed on his upcoming Wonder Woman story last year, Morrison stated that he wanted her to be able to have both her sexuality and her personality, the former often being glaringly omitted. This was summarily regurgitated as “Morrison says Wonder Woman needs sex!”
Wonder Woman has long been a character I've wanted to like, yet it's only her earliest very daft adventures that entertain me, I tell him.
“I feel the same,” Morrison says, “There's something fantastic here but it's never quite been focused on. And the earliest stuff comes closest to it but you want to see it done in a more contemporary way.
“The trouble is the men were a bit weak and that's what I’m trying to also resolve in Wonder Woman – why is that Steve Trevor guy so dull, you know? You just think he's not fit to be Wonder Woman's boyfriend, he's terrible. So I’ve done a lot of work on him and it really became about, in a lot of ways how men see women and how women see each other. So it's been a lot of research this one, talking to people. But it's going good. The opening image is quite shocking.”
With Batman and Superman already under his belt, Wonder Woman will complete Morrison's DC trifecta. With the recent focus on women in comics, and debates on the inherent sexism within the comics themselves, is he prepared for a feminist backlash?
“No, no, I'm hoping, I’ve really done my research.” He pauses before continuing. “And again I find that a lot of that stuff, and I know it gets me into more trouble, it's just all artificial to me. I don't give a fuck what gender you are, or whether you're a worm or a zebra. Honestly as long as you're friendly and can communicate, that's all I care about. And I can understand why you might take certain separatist positions but I just don't feel that way.
“Honestly I’m really trying to make it work and again, the sexuality – it's there, but it's really weird, because I thought it had to be quite weird. These are women who've allegedly been cut off from all male contact for three thousand years or something, since the days of Hercules. And none of them have died. And none of them have given birth.
“So it seems like it's actually quite stifling and weird the more you think about it. So I wanted to deal with that, what happens to eroticism and sex when it's [three] thousand years after men, you know when even the women who've been doing it to one another are bored shitless after twenty five [hundred] years. So I think there's something a lot weirder than what people anticipate coming up with this!”
Also due next year is Multiversity, a series of interlocking titles that span the DC multiverse, a construct that allows multiple Earths to exist without destabilising the core continuity of the DC universe (for many comic fans, continuity is as necessary as oxygen). One of the titles most talked about is Pax Americana, partly because it reunites Morrison with fellow Glaswegian artist Frank Quitely, and partly because it focuses on the world harbouring the Charlton characters, the same characters that in turn inspired the cast of Alan Moore's Watchmen.
Originally scheduled for 2012, it appears we must now ride out the Mayan Apocalypse first.
“Yeah, we waited till the end of the universe to publish this one – that's how long it takes for Frank Quitely to finish a book!”
The gentle ribbing is nothing compared to the bizarre vitriol some fans hold for artists who work more slowly, but having seen some of the pages myself, it is definitely worth the wait.
“It's my Citizen Kane, this comic, I’m so proud of it.” Morrison smiles. “We've really worked hard to make it worthy of not only its source but to do all that in 38 pages and in a new way. So yeah it's a big deal, but there's other great ones. The Captain Marvel one's great, the Ultra comic, which is the Earth Prime comic is the one that's gonna really freak people out because I’ve come up with a way... it's a haunted comic. The comic will do things to people that they will never forget. And it's like technology, I’ve discovered a kind of technology that I don't wanna tell because someone else will nick it and they'll ruin it! But that one'll freak people, it's things comics have never ever done before.”
Comparisons to Watchmen will be hard to escape, particularly in light of the current Before Watchmen comics that DC are publishing, much to the distaste of Alan Moore.
“It's so not like Watchmen,” Morrison states. “In the places where it is like Watchmen people will laugh because it's really quite... it's really faithful and respectful but at the same time satiric. I don't think people will be upset by it, in the way that they've been upset by Before Watchmen which even though it's good does ultimately seem redundant. You know, it's actually good – I mean, Amanda Conner's stuff is brilliant, I’m really enjoying it, and Darwyn Cooke's Minutemen is great, the rest of them [I'm] not so hot on but they're really nicely written comics, really quite adult but kind of redundant.
“This one is its own thing but it deliberately quotes the kind of narrative techniques used in Watchmen and does something new with them.”
Morrison's other upcoming projects are mostly shrouded in mystery and will be published through Vertigo, DC's adult imprint, and Image Comics, the favourite of many an independent creator. The long-awaited third instalment of Seaguy is the only announced title thus far, along of course with the series that starts this month, Happy. The latter looks like dark fare, borne from Morrison's observation that those who create things, the actors and singers of the world, are constantly put down no matter how hard they try.
“It was the notion of all these people dancing for us and everyone just going 'neh,'” he explains. “You know, everyone being judged on their stupid little dances and their croaky little voices. And I thought, well let's just kinda concretise that in this story, where it's like the worst possible world that I can imagine, this super crime noir, everybody's a bastard, everything's shit, where everything that can go wrong will go wrong, everyone will be hurt.”
And then Happy the horse wanders into this existence, a super sweet little cartoon character of eternal optimism. His appearance is a closely guarded secret, with Morrison describing his design as “like a special effect”. I get the sense that the writer has put a lot of anger into this book, a purging of sorts. Even with a Christmas theme, the amount of swearing makes Bad Santa look like a Disney film.
“It's the most offensively sweary book I think I’ve ever written,” Morrison grins. “It gets to like, you're just thinking, I cannot read the word fuck again. Please do not put the fucking word fuck back in this comic, and you're only on page 3 and there's twenty four pages. It's actually exhausting!”
Morrison fans are descending on Las Vegas at the end of this month for MorrisonCon, a festival of sorts for which Morrison is the figurehead rather than the organiser. The writer himself will be doing a reading, set to music by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, about “Howard Hughes versus Liberace for the soul of Vegas.”
If that sounds pretentious, then bear in mind what he's hoping to see from Frank Quitely at the event.
“Well they wanted, they had this big idea, they said we want Frank Quitely to come on and design an entire universe.” he laughs. “I went, what the fuck?! You've gotta be joking! And then I told them about this thing... he draws these grotesques, these anatomical creatures who've got like heads hanging between their legs, but they all work. And he's got like years of work on this stuff – he calls them the Bumheids. It's them sitting smoking and having tea and everything, but everything’s wrong, it's all in the wrong place, and legs coming out the top. So I kind of want to divert it... he won't have time to create a future world, but he has created this alternate reality where people have arses for faces!”
And that's the Glasgow boy again, swirling his drink and smiling at the enthusiastic leaflet ninjas who keep hovering on the sidelines of our table. He's written the greatest comic characters in the world, created his own highly acclaimed works, and won a clutch of Eisners, Eagles and Harvey awards. Factor in his other work as an award-winning playwright, and his various screenplays (including the upcoming Dinosaurs vs Aliens), it's perhaps no surprise that he was nominated for an honour from the Queen.
“I just felt it's really nice to be acknowledged at all!” he laughs. “I was so shocked... I don't even know who put me up for it. Is it some weird Lib Dem guy who's been reading The Invisibles all these years?”
It seemed to me like many of the detractors were coming from a distinctly middle class perspective.
“I couldn’t help notice that myself,” Morrison says. “There’s a particular miasma of totems and taboos surrounding contact with the trappings of high privilege that appears to arise from specifically middle class prejudices. In Glasgow, there’s also an element of working class sectarian bias in the condemnation, so it’s not all about the middle. I noticed also that previous histrionic public refusals of medals and honours had achieved exactly nothing.”
“To me, the Queen can't help who she is any more than anybody else can. I’m more of a nihilist to be honest, none of it means anything to me. This is an object that will in fifty years be lying on a table in a flea market. I don't have kids, it's going nowhere. So to me, I don't attach all those values to it, and again maybe that's a class thing you know, I’m starting to see more things in terms of class all the time.
“I still feel the same way I do about the monarchy, the class system, about everything I’ve ever written, about everything I will write. So the idea that it doesn't change anything, that people can be so wound up by something that has no effective meaning in the world kinda says it all to me.
“It's okay because it's no biggie, honestly you're not buying into anything - because you can't. By your intrinsic nature, who you are and where you were born, you can't buy into that system. They don't get it, you know, we'll never buy into it. We're the common people, as Jarvis Cocker said, and they'll never understand that.”
Laura Sneddon is a freelance journalist. Read more of her work at comicbookgrrrl.com. The original version of the image used to illustrate this article can be found here.Compiled from the EU forums.
„Hey guys!
As it was pointed out to me in another thread (thanks for that!) we haven’t given you any update on the ongoing issues for a while. Sorry about that! Our developers are working on the problem, but it is proving harder to solve than expected. If there is any more information to share about when you can expect the solution or about the compensation we will let you guys know!
While the micropatch fixed some of the personal mission issues, it didn’t solve some of the other problems you guys have been experiencing. The devs are working on the solution as fast as possible and if someone wants to get this fixed even faster than you guys, it is them. We will update you as soon as (!) we have more info to share.
As far as the compensation is concerned, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to send out the compensation while the actual problems are not entirely fixed, however as soon as we manage to get that done the minimum we are going to compensate you with is the previously promised female crew member and order. We are are also considering increasing the compensation since you guys have to put up with this for longer than expected. Once again we are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.
The situation looks like this: We promised the compensations initially assuming that we will be able to fix the issues by the time we issue the female crew member and the order to the players. That didn’t happen though, so we haven’t sent the compensation out just yet. The reason we are waiting is because, and I think you guys will agree, we want to actually get the fix done and see how long it takes before we compensate you guys for it. Also, since the fix takes longer and you have to put up with it (once again, sorry for that) we are considering more compensation.
– Ph3lan”
AdvertisementsPolice get more stupid with every new day.
In October 2015 they arrested a teen on suspicion of robbery when he only attempted to get money out of the ATM.
A violent takedown occurred after police responded to a call of a suspicious person who was allegedly trying to rob people at the ATM.
Jason Goolsby,18-year-old freshman at University of the District of Columbia was approached by police, shoved into the ground and handcuffed. The cop is seen twisting the teen’s arm behind his back. The boy is crying in pain.
He was racially profiled because a white couple felt uncomfortable!
Video of Goolsby being detained was posted on Twitter Tuesday and quickly went viral, sparking Black Lives Matter protests
Luckily, Goolsby was released without charges. But is there anyone to charge those pig cops???
Now the teenager is scared. Because of his skin. Because he is a black boy.President Trump plans to call for an initial $5.95 billion in emergency relief funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, according to multiple reports Thursday.
Trump is considering attaching the disaster aid funding request to a measure increasing the U.S. debt limit, Bloomberg reported, citing two administration officials.
The request, which could reportedly come as early as Friday, would allocate $5.5 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the rest to the Small Business Administration.
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White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney John (Mick) Michael MulvaneyOvernight Defense: White House eyes budget maneuver to boost defense spending | Trump heads to Hanoi for second summit with Kim | Former national security officials rebuke Trump on emergency declaration Overnight Health Care — Presented by National Taxpayers Union — Trump, Dems open drug price talks | FDA warns against infusing young people's blood | Facebook under scrutiny over health data | Harris says Medicare for all isn't socialism White House spokeswoman leaving to join PR firm MORE is calling lawmakers on Capitol Hill to support the funding, Axios reported.
The administration believes the funding would cover the hurricane recovery demands through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, Bloomberg reported.
The move is reportedly aimed at easing early passage of the measure to increase the debt limit and avoid a congressional standoff.
Some lawmakers, including the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, have called for Harvey relief aid to not be used as the vehicle for raising the debt ceiling.- Advertisement -
There has been much public hand-wringing over, "women's health v. religious freedom", in the last few weeks, as pretty much everyone except the extreme right wing of the Republican Party has tried to wrap their collective brains around why the GOP seems so hell-bent on self-destructing over a seemingly settled issue like women's rights. Instead, it's been one incongruous visual after another of Right Wing religious men attempting to interject themselves into the most intimate areas of women's lives. And Rush.
You can see the stunned amazement on the faces of women under 40, wondering how professional male politicians, whether in their state legislature or Congress, could think for even a single moment that they could possibly have the right to tell women whether or not they should be able to get birth control? Or, yes, even have the right to tell them whether or not they can get an abortion?
It's preposterous on it's face that there is an actual, concerted effort to roll back woman's rights, and not just to a pre-Roe v. Wade era, but all the way back to before the 1965 Supreme Court ruling that established that it was none of the state's business to tell women whether or not they could use birth control, Griswold v. Connecticut. It can't be true, it's too nuts. Why are they doing it?
98% of women use birth control, and a solid majority of American women -- and men - support the right of women to make their own decision regarding all of their reproductive choices, including abortion. Why would even the most extreme Republicans be so incredibly tone deaf as to think that trying to roll back women's reproductive rights is any kind of good idea?
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Next Page 1 | 2ICELAND
WheelTug picked up its eleventh airline yesterday — Icelandair. I know the Arctic is not technically a continent — just frozen water — and that probably the folks at the Iceland Tourism Department would rather identify their country with Europe than with the Arctic anyway. But if the Arctic were the eighth continent, and the island of Iceland were on it instead of just sort of rising up out of the ocean near it, that would allow us to say “11 airlines on four continents.”
QUICK CORN
Just in time for summer, Cooking Like A GuyTM, part 63. I haven’t posted a recipe in a long time because since we switched to WordPress I haven’t figured out how elegantly to insert the TRADEMARK symbol. And still haven’t, but I trust you. [UPDATE: Thanks to Mark L., I now do! Cooking Like A Guy™.]
So here, to compensate at least a little, two new recipes. Starting with corn.
Step one: buy corn.
Step two: microwave to taste.
Seriously, it’s that simple. If it’s good corn, just three or four minutes, husks and tassles and all, and it should be amazing. When it cools down a little, shuck, salt, pepper, eat.
INSTANT BAKLAVA
The simplest way to cook baklava is just to buy some. But who ever thinks to do that? Instead:
1. Pour a little granola into a small bowl. Or corn flakes, raisin bran — whatever.
2. Dip a spoon into a jar of honey. I know, honey is not that manly, but everyone should have a jar – it’s honey. How can you not? Bears love honey, and bears are manly. You could name a football team after bears. So just dip the damn spoon into the damn jar and then...
3. Putting the base of the spoon onto the floor of the bowl, push some of the granola on top, and then – still holding the now-honey-and-granola-laden spoon level with one hand, take a small knifeful or forkful of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Light (or actual butter, but I’m trying to delight you, not kill you) and dab it on top of the granola, scraping it off the knife or fork with the edge of the spoon.
4. Put the spoon in your mouth, close your lips, and, as you pull the spoon back out, leaving all the granola and ICBINBL in your mouth — but just some of the honey to swirl around and just make you crazy it’s so good, just as baklava does, but without having had to bake anything or clean anything (read on).
5. Repeat until all the granola from the bowl and all the honey from the spoon are gone and you’ve licked the spoon and any honey that dripped onto the bowl, so everything is perfectly clean, as if you were a cat – though, being a guy, you have a dog. By which I mean a dog – a large, sloppy Labrador retriever or somebody, not one of those dogs that really are so tiny and (let’s just come right out and say it) French, they’re barely dogs at all.
And that, my friends, is how a guy makes baklava.Drawing Pixels is Hard
Way harder than it should be.
Back in 2009 when I first started to work on what would become my HTML5 game engine Impact, I was immediately presented with the challenge of scaling the game screen while maintaining crisp, clean pixels. This sounds like an easy problem to solve – after all Flash did this from day one and "retro" games are a big chunk of the market, especially for browser games, so it really should be supported – but it's not.
Let's say I have a game with an internal resolution of 320×240 and I want to scale it up 2x to 640×480 when presented on a website. With the HTML5 Canvas element, there are essentially two different ways to do this.
a) Creating the Canvas element in the scaled up resolution (640×480) and draw all images at twice the size:
var canvas = document. createElement ( 'canvas' ); canvas. width = 640 ; canvas. width = 480 ; var ctx = canvas. getContext ( '2d' ); ctx. scale ( 2, 2 ); ctx. drawImage ( img, 0, 0 );
b) Using CSS to scale the Canvas – In my opinion this is the cleaner way to do it. It nicely decouples the internal canvas size from the size at which it is presented:
var canvas = document. createElement ( 'canvas' ); canvas. width = 320 ; canvas. width = 240 ; canvas. style. width = '640px' ; canvas. style. width = '480px' ; var ctx = canvas. getContext ( '2d' ); ctx. drawImage ( img, 0, 0 );
Both methods have a problem though – they use a bilinear (blurry) filtering instead of nearest-neighbor (pixel repetition) when scaling.
For the internal scaling approach (method a), you can set the context's imageSmoothingEnabled property to false in order to have crisp, nearest-neighbor scaling. This has been supported in Firefox for a few years now, but Chrome only just recently implemented it and it is currently unsupported in Safari (including Mobile Safari) and Internet Explorer (test case).
When doing the scaling in CSS (method b), you can use the image-rendering CSS property to specify the scaling algorithm the browser should use. This works well in Firefox and Safari, but all other browsers simply ignore it for the Canvas element (test case).
Of course Internet Explorer is the only browser that currently doesn't support any of these methods.
Not having crisp scaling really bothered me when I initially started to work on Impact. Keep in mind that at the time no browser supported either of the two methods described above. So I experiment a lot to find a solution.
And I found one. It's incredibly backwards and really quite sad: I do the scaling in JavaScript. Load the pixel data of each image, loop through all pixels and copy and scale the image, pixel by pixel, into a larger canvas then throw away the original image and use this larger canvas as the source for drawing instead.
var resize = function ( img, scale ) { var widthScaled = img. width * scale ; var heightScaled = img. height * scale ; var orig = document. createElement ( 'canvas' ); orig. width = img. width ; orig. height = img. height ; var origCtx = orig. getContext ( '2d' ); origCtx. drawImage ( img, 0, 0 ); var origPixels = origCtx. getImageData ( 0, 0, img. width, img. height ); var scaled = document. createElement ( 'canvas' ); scaled. width = widthScaled ; scaled. height = heightScaled ; var scaledCtx = scaled. getContext ( '2d' ); var scaledPixels = scaledCtx. getImageData ( 0, 0, widthScaled, heightScaled ); for ( var y = 0 ; y < heightScaled ; y ++ ) { for ( var x = 0 ; x < widthScaled ; x ++ ) { var index = ( Math. floor ( y / scale ) * img. width + Math. floor ( x / scale )) * 4 ; var indexScaled = ( y * widthScaled + x ) * 4 ; scaledPixels. data [ indexScaled ] = origPixels. data [ index ]; scaledPixels. data [ indexScaled + 1 ] = origPixels. data [ index + 1 ]; scaledPixels. data [ indexScaled + 2 ] = origPixels. data [ index + 2 ]; scaledPixels. data [ indexScaled + 3 ] = origPixels. data [ index + 3 ]; } } scaledCtx. putImageData ( scaledPixels, 0, 0 ); return scaled ; }
This worked surprisingly well and has been the easiest way to scale up pixel-style games in Impact from day one. The scaling is only done once when the game first loads, so the performance hit isn't that bad, but you still notice the longer load times on mobile devices or when loading big images. After all, it's a stupidly costly operation do to, even in native code. We usually use GPUs for stuff like that.
All in all, doing the scaling in JavaScript is not the "right" solution, but the one that works for all browsers.
Or rather worked for all browsers.
Meet the retina iPhone
When Apple introduced the iPhone 4, it was the first device with a retina display. The pixels on the screen are so small, that you can't discern them. This also means, that in order to read anything on a website at all, this website has to be scaled up 2x.
So Apple introduced the devicePixelRatio. It's the ratio of real hardware pixels to CSS pixels. The iPhone 4 has a device pixel ratio of 2, i.e. one CSS pixel is displayed with 2 hardware pixels on the screen.
This also means that the following canvas element will be automatically scaled up to 640×480 hardware pixels on a retina device, when drawn on a website. Its internal resolution, however, still is 320×240.
<canvas width="320" height="240">
This automatic scaling again happens with the bilinear (blurry) filtering by default.
So, in order to draw at the native hardware resolution, you'd have to do your image scaling in JavaScript as usual but with twice the scaling factor, create the canvas with twice the internal size and then scale it down again using CSS.
Or, in recent Safari's, use the image-rendering: -webkit-optimize-contrast; CSS property. Nice!
This certainly makes things a bit more complicated, but devicePixelRatio was a sane idea. It makes sense.
Meet the retina MacBook Pro
For the new retina MacBook Pro (MBP), Apple had another idea. Instead of behaving in the same way as Mobile Safari on the iPhone, Safari for the retina MBP will automatically create a canvas element with twice the internal resolution than you requested. In theory, this is quite nice if you only want to draw shapes onto your canvas - they will automatically be in retina resolution. However, it significantly breaks drawing images.
Consider this Canvas element:
<canvas width="320" height="240"></canvas>
On the retina MBP, this will actually create a Canvas element with an internal resolution of 640×480. It will still behave as if it had an internal resolution of 320×240, though. Sort of.
This ingenious idea is called backingStorePixelRatio and, you guessed it, for the retina MBP it is 2. It's still 1 for the retina iPhone. Because… yeah…
(Paul Lewis recently wrote a nice article about High DPI Canvas Drawing, including a handy function that mediates between the retina iPhone and MBP and always draws in the native resolution)
Ok, so what happens if you now draw a 320×240 image to this 320×240 Canvas that in reality is a 640×480 Canvas? Yep, the image will get scaled using bilinear (blurry) filtering. Granted, if it wouldn't use bilinear filtering, this whole pixel ratio dance wouldn't make much sense. The problem is, there's no opt-out.
Let's say I want to analyze the colors of an image. I'd normally just draw the image to a canvas element retrieve an array of pixels from the canvas and then do whatever I want to do with them. Like this:
ctx. drawImage ( img, 0, 0 ); var pixels = ctx. getImageData ( 0, 0, img. width, img. height );
On the retina MBP you can't do that anymore. The pixels that getImageData() returns are interpolated pixels, not the original pixels of the image. The image you have drawn to the canvas was first scaled up, to meet the bigger backing store and then scaled down again when retrieved through getImageData(), because getImageData() still acts as if the canvas was 320×240.
Fortunately, Apple also introduced a new getImageDataHD() method to retrieve the real pixel data from the backing store. So all you'd have to do is draw your image to the canvas with half the size, in order to draw it at the real size. Confused yet?
var ratio = ctx. webkitBackingStorePixelRatio || 1 ; ctx. drawImage ( img, 0, 0, img. width / ratio, img. height / ratio ); var pixels = null ; if ( ratio!= 1 ) { pixels = ctx. webkitGetImageDataHD ( 0, 0, img. width, img. height ); } else { pixels = ctx. getImageData ( 0, 0, img. width, img. height ); }
(Did I say it's called getImageDataHD()? I lied. You gotta love those vendor prefixes. Imagine how nice it would be if there also was a moz, ms, o and a plain variant!)
The "Good" News
Ok, take a deep breath, there are only 3 different paths you have to consider when drawing sharp pixels on a scaled canvas.
Check the backingStorePixelRatio. If it's not 1, divide your canvas size and the destination size of all image draw calls by it, then scale the canvas element up using CSS and the image-rendering property. (Safari)
, divide your canvas size and the destination size of all image draw calls by it, then scale the canvas element up using CSS and the property. (Safari) Check if the imageSmoothingEnabled property is available and if so, set it to false. Create your Canvas in the final, scaled size and draw all images with your scaling factor. Don't use CSS to scale the Canvas. (Chrome, Firefox)
property is available and if so, set it to false. Create your Canvas in the final, scaled size and draw all images with your scaling factor. Don't use CSS to scale the Canvas. (Chrome, Firefox) Use JavaScript to scale up all images at load time. (Internet Explorer)
The CSS image-rendering property and the Canvas' imageSmoothingEnabled really make things a bit easier, but it would be nice if they were universally supported. Especially Safari is in desperate need for imageSmoothingEnabled -support, with all the crazy retina stuff they have going on.
Let me also go on record saying that backingStorePixelRatio was a bad idea. It would have been a nice opt-in feature, but it's not a good default. A comment from Jake Archibald on Paul Lewis' article tells us why:
<canvas> 2D is a bitmap API, it's pixel dependent. An api that lets you query individual pixels shouldn't be creating pixels you don't ask for.
Apple's backingStorePixelRatio completely breaks the font rendering in Impact, makes games look blurry and breaks a whole bunch of other apps that use direct pixel manipulation. But at least Apple didn't have to update all their dashboard widgets for retina resolution. How convenient!
Update September 18th 2012: To demonstrate the bug in Safari, I build another test case and filed a report with Apple.Plans and quickly progressing to display some of the finest bonsai in the country at the 5th US National Bonsai Exhibition on September 10-11, 2016. The venue, a 55,000 square foot sports facility is composed of TWO indoor soccer fields. Once inside, the soccer field on the right will contain over 300 bonsai, all formally displayed. The sales and demo area is in the left side soccer field. Both soccer fields are carpeted with comfortable green artificial grass, easy on the feet and superb lighting.
All layout maps subject to change
All layout maps subject to change
Vendors
Fifty vendors are bringing their finest bonsai, pre-bonsai, containers, tools, supplies, suiseki, scrolls, display tables as well as a variety of soils to the US National Exhibition from Japan, Sweden, Canada as well as 25 states throughout our country. Everything you could ever want will be for sale in the sales area. If its not there, you probably don’t need it.
All layout maps subject to change
Special Invitational Exhibits
This year we are fortunate to have eleven special exhibits from private and public bonsai |
or right. The study participants were asked to determine which way they were moving, and the researchers timed how long it took. During the same experiments, the participants were given a standard IQ test.
The key feature of the work was that the size of the image—the degree to which the grey bars filled the screen—varied during the tests. In some cases, the bars filled most of the screen, while in others they covered only a small portion directly in the middle.
The researchers found that when the image was small, the IQ scores generally correlated with a quick response—the higher your score, the faster you could pin down the direction of motion. This, the authors surmise, is probably related to the ability to bring focus to tasks. But when the target image was bigger, the exact opposite happened. Here, the higher the IQ score, the longer it takes for someone to recognize which way the pattern is moving.
This, the authors suggest, is also a product of people's ability to focus. When an image takes up most of the screen, it can usually be dismissed as a background, and thus as little more than a distraction that's vying for your attention. So in this view, people who are better at IQ tests are better at filtering out distractions and therefore are more likely to ignore the big image as nothing more than background. As a result, it takes them longer to focus enough to actually register what it's doing.
So why would this be the case? Lots of studies have shown that people have limited cognitive resources. In many cases it doesn't matter; the cognitive resources involved in having an annoying song running through your head are probably different from the ones needed to solve differential equations. Sometimes, though, you can find things that tax the same bits of your brain—for example, you might not be able to recite the song's lyrics as you solve the equations.
Although we think of this in terms of ignoring background distractions and focusing on a task, the authors suggest that what we're really seeing is two things competing for the same mental resources in a brain's visual processing system. One of them is trying to figure out what our conscious brain needs to be aware of and what it can ignore. That's sharing time with whatever part of the brain is trying to identify motion in the scene. In this view, those who score higher on IQ tests tend to give more time to the process that filters out background visuals that we don't have to distract our conscious thoughts with.
So if you forget to notice something like your significant other's new haircut, can you safely conclude that it's okay because it just means you've got a high IQ? Maybe. These are just general tendencies and there's lots of variability among individuals, even if they collectively show a clear trend. And that's without even getting into the value of the aspect of intelligence measured by the IQ score.
Current Biology, 2013. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.04.053 (About DOIs).Target Trump: Use of Police State Tactics Is Un-American
Never in American history has a sitting president (and his family) been hounded with unfounded criminal investigations as has President Trump. While still a candidate, the Democrats and their propaganda arm in the mainstream media brought forth the scurrilous charge of Russian collusion with not a shred of evidence to support their charge. It's a fishing expedition in search of a crime. Not a week goes by without a new revelation of an alleged meeting between members of President Trump's cabinet or family members with perceived Russian agents. General Michael Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and now Ivanka Trump whose security clearance is now being challenged have all been accused of collusion. That and the recent announcement by appointed Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller of his intent to broaden the investigation into Trump's businesses is symptomatic of tactics used by police states to threaten their opposition into compliance, surrender or removal. It is un-American and a danger to our Republic.
Last June, Fusion GPS, a Washington firm that specializes in opposition research for the Democratic Party hired Christopher Steele, a former M16 British spy to create a fake dossier to hurt Trump's candidacy and his Presidency. The plot was paid for by a reported Hillary Clinton backer. Although the dossier was unverified, John McCain, a vocal critic of President Trump, brought the unverified dossier to the United States and gave it to the FBI. Fusion then released the unverified dossier to the press and they along with Democratic operatives have been using it ever since to continue to harm the Trump administration. In a similar effort, a plot was concocted to ensnarl Donald Trump, Jr. in a Trump Russia narrative through an arranged meeting between him and Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya. Veselnitskaya was a paid Russian lobbyist, photographed at anti-Trump rallies and photographed sitting in the front row, behind the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul,at a House Foreign Affairs Committee just five days after her meeting with Donald Trump, Jr. last June. It should be noted that McFaul was a frequent guest on NBC and MSNBC during the 2016 campaign and after the election discussing the Russian conspiracy narrative. The meeting between Donald Trump, Jr. and Veselnitskaya was arranged by Rob Goldstone who, too, is associated with Fusion GPS. Although her visa had expired, it is unclear why the Obama administration granted her permission to remain here. It raises the possibility the meeting was a set up by the deep state to justify the FISA warrant used by the Obama administration to spy on the Trump team What we do know is that Gen. Flynn's conversation with the Russian ambassador was illegally recorded by the Obama administration which routinely spied on the new incoming administration and the new president. The unmasking of that conversation was then illegally leaked to the press. The leaker has yet to be identified, but it is widely perceived that holdovers from the Obama administration are leaking like a sieve classified information within a highly politicized Justice Department and Intelligence Community created during Obama's eight year reign. The entire Russian collusion affair stinks to high heaven. There is no smoking gun to justify an independent counsel. Nada! Yet, Robert Mueller, best buddies with fired FBI director James Comey, who admittedly leaked classified information to ensure a special prosecutor would be appointed is now extending his investigation to include the Trump Organization. Mueller as a former FBI director purged all anti-terrorism training material at the request of the Council on American Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist financing trial here in the United States. In 2007 Mueller met with CAIR and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), both Muslim Brotherhood front groups here in America and he caved in to their demands to purge material they deemed offensive to Muslims. Today he is stacking his staff with former Clinton donors who are in search for a smoking gun which will lead to the removal of President Trump from office. This witch hunt could not take place without a complicit Republican Establishment in control of the House and Senate. Instead of Democrats standing together in front of news cameras with continuous new charges against President Trump, why are we not instead witnessing McConnell and Ryan center stage asking for an investigation into Obama's collusion with the Iranians or for spying on the Trump transition team? Why are Republicans not calling for an investigation into John Podesta's ties to Russia or into Comey's leaks while head of the FBI, or into Clinton's sale of 20% of our uranium to Russia which led to substantial kickbacks to the Clinton Foundation? Why are Republicans silent about former Attorney General Loretta Lynch's secret meeting with Bill Clinton while Hillary was being investigated by the FBI or why Lynch asked Comey not to call it an "investigation", but instead to call it a "matter"? Why is there no call for an investigation between the Clinton campaign and Ukraine? Why is there no call for an investigation into the corrupt Clinton Foundation? The silence of the Republican House and Senate in the face of evidence of real corruption speaks volumes about a spineless failing GOP. Police State tactics are commonplace in authoritarian Third World dictatorships, but not in the United States, a country once governed by laws and not men. Unfortunately, the left and their cohorts in the Democratic Party have become a criminal enterprise which poses an existential threat to our liberty and to our Republic. They must be stopped! Shari Goodman is an educator, activist, and journalist. Her articles have appeared in American Thinker, World Net Daily, Israel Today and other publications.Daly City police try to ID man arrested in May DALY CITY
San Mateo County investigators are trying to identify this man, who was arrested on May 30, 2012 at a Daly City grocery store and hasn't spoken a word since. San Mateo County investigators are trying to identify this man, who was arrested on May 30, 2012 at a Daly City grocery store and hasn't spoken a word since. Photo: Courtesy, San Mateo County Jail Photo: Courtesy, San Mateo County Jail Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Daly City police try to ID man arrested in May 1 / 1 Back to Gallery
A man is caught leaving a Daly City grocery store with two frozen pizzas and several candy bars he didn't pay for.
Employees at the Lucky's on Mission Street recognize him as the same quiet and weary-looking man who tried to steal those same items twice before.
They alert the authorities, and he is placed under arrest. He goes with them calmly, in tattered clothing that led officers to write in the police report that he looked like he had been living on the streets.
As they process him - taking his fingerprints and mug shot and bringing him to his cell in San Mateo County jail - he doesn't make a single peep.
Nearly a month later, he still hasn't - and investigators said they have no idea who he is.
Since Daly City police arrested the man May 30, he hasn't once opened his mouth to speak, nor has he responded to other attempts to get him to communicate.
The man had no identification on him, and fingerprint scans through state and criminal databases haven't turned up any results, said Rich Fischer, an investigator who works with the county private defender's office.
Missing persons queries in nearby cities turned up no reports that match him, Fischer said.
Doctors found nothing wrong with his vocal cords, and psychologists are having difficulty making a diagnosis without being able to communicate with him, Fischer said.
But the man responds to simple commands such as, "Raise your arms," given in either English or Tagalog, a language spoken in the Philippines, Fischer said. He does not maintain eye contact with the person trying to engage him.
"When I would sit next to him, I'd give him a tablet and a pen and I'd ask him, 'Can you write some letters?' No response," Fischer said.
The man is being held in a mental health unit, Fischer said. Investigators will flood the Daly City neighborhood this weekend where the man was arrested to look for leads.
Despite the strange circumstances, the man does not seem distressed or pained about his situation, Fischer said. In fact, in the one breakthrough investigators had with him, he seemed to be saying he was fine.
"In response to a nurse's question asking, 'Are you happy or are you sad?' he drew a happy face," Fischer said. "That is the only response anyone has gotten from him."
Anyone with information is asked to call Fischer at (650) 344-8727.Santwana Bhattacharya By
NEW DELHI:Even as the hopes of crores of fans were dashed after the Men In Blue exited the World Cup in the semi-final with Australia, Shipping, Road and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari vigorously batted for holistic development of India’s “impoverished” coastal zone and internal waterways, raising hopes of a 2 per cent boost to the country’s GDP.
With the promise of modernising and upgrading 200-odd ports, starting with 12 major ones operated by the Centre, 12 smart cities, Coastal Economic Zones, new railway connectivity and a new legislation to nationalise 101 internal waterways for cheap transportation and granting infrastructure status to ship-building in Kochi and Kandla, Gadkari on Thursday unveiled what looked like a rather ambitious blueprint of coastline development.
Calling it “Blue revolution — Sagar Mala project” that would not just rival China’s port-land infrastructure but would be comparable to any of the first world facilities, Gadkari said, “It is the priority project of the Prime Minister.”
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday, for the first time, gave “in principle” approval to what is essentially a “project proposal”. As part of the project, 101 internal waterways have been identified with special focus on Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, Gujarat and NE states, which would be developed as national waterways.
The ambitious project “will boost India’s GDP by 2 per cent”, Gadkari added.
For starters, an allocation of Rs 4,000 crore has been made for the SEZ at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which is one of the 12 major ports to be developed. A National Perspective Plan for the entire coastline will be prepared within the next six months, he said, adding that potential geographical regions that would be called Coastal Economic Zones are also being identified. Maharshtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal will be the focus areas, Gadkari said, adding that he has also sought “infrastructure status for the shipbuilding industry, particularly keeping Cochin and Kandla in mind”.
Work on 40 projects that include last mile rail connectivity to ports will begin this year. Nearly 612 km of railways would be improved at Rs 2,372 crore. Gadkari will head the multi-disciplinary panel which will oversee the project’s implementation.
1,208 Islands to get more Touristy
Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said that 1,208 islands have been identified for development to attract tourists. As many as 189 light houses that are on the islands will also be developed for the entertainment and hospitality industry as part of the project.The boy quickly developed into a chess prodigy, winning dozens of tournaments before representing England in competitions. By the age of 13, he had reached the standard of chess master, and he went on to win the World Games Championship a record five times. The DeepMind offices on Fenchurch Street, London. Credit:Bloomberg These memories acquired new significance this week when Hassabis sold his company to Google. The firm, DeepMind, specialises in Artificial Intelligence, and is apparently attempting to develop computers that can think spontaneously like humans, rather than having to be pre-programmed. Multinational firms are in a race to be first to produce this new era of sophisticated technology, explaining why Google – which has already established its own robotics division – reportedly paid $757 million. At a stroke, the deal made Hassabis one of Britain's most successful technology entrepreneurs. What is it, then, in this multimillion-dollar mind that Google values so highly? Friends describe Hassabis, now 37 and married with two children, as shy but determined. "He is not a showman, and he keeps his head down," says Professor Geraint Rees, director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, where Hassabis studied for a PhD. "Nerdy is the wrong word, but he is definitely of a technical bent. His determination and drive are quite striking."
A glance at his CV will vouch for that. He left school at 16, having taken his A-levels. He spent his gap year gaining experience in computer games programming, which was to become his first career, by co-writing Theme Park, one of the most successful games of the nineties. After graduating with a double first in computer science from Cambridge, he set up his own games business, Elixir Studios, which was responsible for such hits as Evil Genius and Republic, the latter being nominated for a BAFTA award. "He is extraordinary, a real one-off," says Joe McDonagh, who co-founded Elixir with Hassabis. "He was only 21 when we set it up [McDonagh was 25], but he had an incredibly old head on such young shoulders. When I saw the news this week, I wasn't remotely surprised. I've always expected he would do something like this." Although he credits Hassabis' intelligence, McDonagh says his more important ability was to inspire a team. "He truly believes the thing you are working on will change the world and will be remembered for ever. That is incredibly inspiring. Most of us are held back by fear, but Demis takes the attitude that everything is possible." He was not reclusive at Elixir, and took an active role in organising social events. "We'd be working on all this brainiac stuff during the day," says McDonagh. "But at night, Demis would lead the five-a-side team in a [football] league in Tottenham where we'd get kicked around the park. He'd be just as happy to argue with you about Liverpool versus Spurs as he was about Artificial Intelligence."
He is extraordinary, a real one-off Demis Hassabis But he could also be competitive and would challenge colleagues to bout after bout of video game competitions. McDonagh recalls one occasion when Hassabis was transfixed by a colleague's ability to win repeatedly in the science fiction game Starcraft. "Demis wanted to beat this guy," he explains. "He would lock himself in a room with the guy night after night. He'd handicap him, by getting the guy to play without a mouse or one-handed so he could analyse exactly what he was doing to be brilliant. It was a bit like going into the boxing ring and getting beaten up, and then returning every night. It showed his incredible will to win." This competitive edge also drove Hassabis to the Mind Sports Olympiad, to prove his worth alongside other "mental athletes". He spent a week at the competition in 1997, and has returned every year since. He was champion of the elite "Pentamind" contest – where competitors challenge each other in five different disciplines, including chess – in five of the first seven years. Despite his business interests, he still makes time for the Olympiad each August. "It's for the competition," explains Corfe, who is one of the organisers. "He has had his name on the trophy more times than anybody else."
These days, however, it is Hassabis' seven-year-old son, Alexander, who is touted as a prodigy. After he accompanied his father to last year's championships – and collected the junior gold prize – the competition's website speculated "whether we might be seeing a dynasty in the making". Hassabis' path has not been completely smooth. According to friends, he grew frustrated with the more mundane aspects of managing Elixir. "The direction of the business became too much dictated by accountants and people other than himself," says David Levy, who founded the Mind Sports Olympiad. Instead, Hassabis returned to academia, completing his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at University College London in 2009. In three years, he wrote a dozen research papers and succeeded in systematically linking memory with imagination for the first time. The journal Science trumpeted his achievement as one of the breakthroughs of the year. His former computer programming colleagues were more succinct, telling him he had "a brain larger than a planet". He was soon awarded a prestigious Henry Wellcome postdoctoral fellowship. "Those kind of fellowships are given to people not on the basis of their entrepreneurial ability or because they are chess prodigies, but because of their scientific achievement," says Professor Rees. Even so, he adds, "Demis always had an eye on the bigger picture." For the moment, however, that picture remains blurred. Despite the glut of publicity surrounding the sale of DeepMind, nobody seems sure exactly what it does – and those who know won't tell. Hassabis politely declined to comment for this article, saying he has been "instructed by Google not to respond to interview requests at this time".
Frank Meehan, who helped secure much of the initial investment, is equally circumspect. "[DeepMind's function] is the one thing I can't tell you. I'm completely locked down," he says. He does, however, explain that computer scientists such as Hassabis are trying "to get to the point where machines can learn rather than being taught". "If they can learn from their surroundings and their actions, that's a massive step forward because you don't have to spend huge amounts of time programming everything." Loading This may seem a daunting mission, but it is unlikely to faze Hassabis. "I'm actually more worried about not taking risks and playing safe [than taking chances]," he once said. "I've always been prepared to jump in at the deep end and see if I can swim or not." Telegraph, LondonMy best guess for the next big enormous thing, on the scale of the arrival of humans, farming, or industry, is the arrival of whole brain emulations, or “ems.” This raises the obvious question of whether we should try to hurry or delay the techs that would enable this change.
I see seven relevant considerations:
Some think subsistence-wage ems an abomination, and so prefer to delay or prevent them. Conversely, others think that vast em numbers times lives worth living makes the em world a good well worth hurrying. Some want to delay the em transition, to give more time for its serious consideration. Others want visible em efforts to start sooner, fearing that serious consideration won’t start before then, and expect an earlier start to give a better total discussion. Still others think that, as with nanotech, early public anticipation of such events tends to make them go worse. The richer and more capable our civilization gets, the lower seem its chance of being extinguished by most disasters. Ems would make us richer faster, and ems survive biological disaster especially well. During the em transition our civilization is especially vulnerable to collapse, or to a central power grab. This transition is less disruptive when the last tech to mature is computing power, and most disruptive when that last tech is cell-modeling. This argues for hurrying scan and cell-model tech, relative to computing tech. Many fear that a single self-improving AI will suddenly grow vastly in power and take over the world. Some want to delay this event until they see how to pre-provably control such an AI. So such folks want to delay most other AI tech advances, including ems. Assuming pre-provable control is infeasible, on-the-fly control seems better when the people controlling are many and fast relative to the controlled AI. Since ems can be much faster and numerous than humans, this argues for hurrying ems. Great filter and anthropic selection considerations greatly raise our estimates of existential risks that could leave the universe empty. These do not much raise AI risk estimates, however.
On #1, I confidently estimate em lives to be numerous and worth living. On #2, I weakly estimate little benefit from delay or early publicity. Points #3,4 are the strongest I think, especially #4, and both argue for speedup. Since I think a single machine suddenly taking over the world is pretty unlikely, I give #5,6 less weight, especially when taking #7 into account. So on net I favor hurrying em cell-modeling tech most, em scan tech less, and weakly favor delaying em computing tech.
Added 11a: More considerations from the comments:LXD Backup script
This small Bash script will create an online backup your LXC container with help of Rclone and a custom bash script called lxdbackup I wrote to facilitate backups. With this combination you can backup your LCX containers to Amazon S3 or Openstack Swift.
What does it do:
This scripts creates a backup image from a snapshot from your LXC container that is managed with LXD.
The script will upload your image to a cloudstorage with Rclone.
Online backup of your LXC container
Creates an easy and ready to use LXC image to import with the LXC import command.
What it does not cover:
Create a constant database backup, this does not work with backups.
Handle your data retention, still work in progress.
Installation instructions
You can run the script from the command line, or place it in your cron.
Prerequisites:
Install Rclone: Repository: https://github.com/ncw/rclone Installation instructions: http://rclone.org/install/
Or for a Linux 64 Bit Installation (Directly copied from rclone.org):
Fetch and unpack
curl -O http://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip unzip rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip cd rclone-*-linux-amd64
Copy binary file
sudo cp rclone /usr/sbin/ sudo chown root:root /usr/sbin/rclone sudo chmod 755 /usr/sbin/rclone
Install manpage
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/man/man1 sudo cp rclone.1 /usr/local/share/man/man1/ sudo mandb
Run rclone config to setup. See Rclone for more details.
rclone config
Make sure rclone works with your Cloudstorage provider
rclone lsd mycloudstorage:
This action should list your cloudstorage bucket or container.
Install the lxdbackup script
Install it by cloning this repository on your LXC host:
git clone https://github.com/cloudrkt/lxdbackup
Then copy the lxdbackup to your $path:
cd lxdbackup && cp lxdbackup /usr/bin/
Don't forget to make it executable:
chmod +x /usr/bin/lxdbackup
Then test it with:
lxdbackup container-name
How do I set it to run automatically?
Use a cronjob like this to backup your container every day of the week on 01:10:
10 1 * * * flock -n /tmp/lxdbackup.lock lxdbackup container-name
You can check your system messages for information about the backup run.
How do I restore a container?
Download your container image from your cloudstorage and import it with LXC or even import it directly if your cloudstorage provides a HTTP(S) download for your image.
lxc image import < file > -- alias < name >
Import from HTTPS directly:
lxc image import https : // cloudrkt. com / lxdbackup -- alias restored - image
This should give you a running server from the snapshot you made earlier.
Recap
This script will help you do your basic LXC backup tasks, and keeps it in a format you can restore easily without a lot of extra dependencies.
Please keep in mind that you need to check your backups regularly, and if possible as automated as possible to verify it.
Please check and try the lxdbackup and let me know if it works for you.A photo of Obama at his half-brother's wedding in Maryland in the 1990's. (photo: Fox News)
Fox News took a beating after tweeting a photo appearing to show Obama “in Muslim garb.”
“Photo of Obama in Muslim garb shows deep ties to faith, O’Reilly says,” the news network tweeted on Thursday night, attaching a photo of Obama at his half-brother’s Maryland wedding in the 1990’s.
Photo of Obama in Muslim garb shows deep ties to faith, O'Reilly says https://t.co/D2p966cpZW pic.twitter.com/0PGnNxWwwJ — Fox News (@FoxNews) July 8, 2016
Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly released the photos on his show, The O’Reilly Factor, on Wednesday. O’Reilly claimed that the images are evidence that Obama has “deep emotional ties” to Islam. O’Reilly suggested that these ties are why Obama “allows” Daesh (aka ISIS or Islamic State) to “run wild” and “murder thousands of innocent people.”
Twitter users around the world immediately pounced on Fox for being racist:
Others rebuked the network for inaccuracy, claiming that the robe Obama is wearing in the photo is a traditional Kenyan garment more than it is a Muslim one:
@RenaSummersLtd @FoxNews thats Kenyan garb. How is that disgusting? He was at a family members wedding> Weird July 8, 2016
His father is from Kenya. This is the traditional costume of the country of his father's heritage. You bigot idiots. https://t.co/kS14r94aGC — Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) July 8, 2016
I want to know what Katie Perry has to say about her disturbingly deep ties to Cheetos. pic.twitter.com/XNVa2desyD — Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) July 8, 2016
I mean,if it came down to it, who would she side with? The FritoLay corp or the US Constitution? This photo should have all of us wondering. — Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) July 8, 2016
Others attacked Fox for choosing to focus on something the president wore twenty years ago, when the nation is still reeling from a historic massacre of police officers in Dallas:
@FoxNews bad timing for this tweet. Dicipline or fire whoever okayed this. — Fawks News (@JosephPruitt) July 8, 2016
@FoxNews I mean if you're going to say bad protocol for Obama to be out golfing during important stuff isn't it bad taste to report this now — Fawks News (@JosephPruitt) July 8, 2016
Fox News may have more important matters to deal with right now. The company’s chairman, Roger Ailes, was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging that he sexually harassed a top news anchor and forced her to leave the company in part because she refused his sexual advances.
-Hunter StuartLeslee Wagner (Photo: Louisville Metro Police Department)
A Louisville Metro Police officer faces a jury trial this week, accused of intentionally misleading a grand jury about a man she said shoved her, cursed at her and attempted to flee arrest.
Prosecutors allege Officer Leslee Wagner perjured herself when she recounted to a January 2014 grand jury an altercation involving repo man Adam Hannahs, who attempted to repossess a car in her apartment complex's parking lot around 3 a.m. Sept. 5, 2013.
That testimony led to misdemeanor and felony charges against Hannahs, 35, of Lexington.
"Many of the things she stated happened that day simply weren't true. They didn't happen," said assistant commonwealth's attorney Emily Cecil. "Leslee Wagner has to create this whole story to justify her actions from that day."
Perjury allegations arose when a video of the incident recorded by Hannahs surfaced, highlighting discrepancies between the confrontation and Wagner's testimony.
But those inconsistencies were not intentional, said Wagner's attorney, Steve Schroering.
"You're also going to see she did not intentionally make one false statement to the grand jury," Schroering told jurors Tuesday in opening statements. "She made some mistakes in the minor details about what happened, but the guts of what happened is 100 percent accurate even four months later."
She and her husband — who was an LMPD officer at the time — were awoken by the sound of a car alarm at their home in the 11000 block of Perthshire Lane. Larry Wagner went outside first, and Leslee Wagner soon followed.
Hannahs was disturbing the peace by setting off the car alarm, and as a courtesy officer for the apartment complex, Wagner's husband was investigating the noise, Schroering said.
When confronted, the man was "extremely uncooperative," Leslee Wagner wrote in an arrest citation. He put his hands into his pocket where a knife was visible before he walked away cursing, she said, calling him "extremely irate" during the grand jury presentation.
Hannahs' recording shows Leslee Wagner brought out a badge after the altercation began, refuting her testimony that her husband showed his badge upon confronting Hannahs. Schroering said his client believed her husband did leave their home with his badge.
Wagner also testified that Hannahs responded to Larry's badge by cursing at the off-duty officers, saying, "I don't give a f---" and "That doesn't mean s---."
Hannahs does not curse in the video. He does say, "I don't care. Let's get a uniform, a uniformed officer." Schroering noted the man whose car was being repossessed, who was on scene, did once mention Larry Wagner was an officer.
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In court Tuesday, Hannahs maintained he wasn't sure if the Wagners were actually officers, as they were dressed in pajamas, barefoot and acting as though it were their car being repossessed. He testified Leslee Wagner did flash a badge as she neared him but it was too dark to see clearly.
On the video, Wagner's husband asks Hannahs for identification and tells him, "There's two police cars. I'm going to bring you a badge. I'm going to bring you an ID card with my picture on it, and you're gonna give me an ID."
Hannahs repeatedly states he wants a uniformed, on-duty officer. The two go back and forth, with the Wagners both eventually yelling and pointing their guns at the man.
Leslee Wagner also told the grand jury Hannahs pushed her as he tried to flee. Hannahs testified Tuesday she did make contact with his forearm but he jerked it away and started running, believing he would be shot. In his opening statement, Schroering said his client was pushed, albeit off camera.
Neighbors who were eyewitnesses told police investigators they never saw Hannahs shove Wagner, the LMPD investigation found.
Prosecutors Cecil and Critt Cunningham also highlighted the Wagners' language toward Hannahs.
On the video, Leslee Wagner is heard cursing at the man when telling him to get on the ground. Later, once Hannahs is in handcuffs, Leslee Wagner is heard telling Hannahs she is going to shoot him in the face before using a slur against him.
Wagner's on-camera language was "rude, aggressive or improper," but that's not what the trial is about, Schroering told the jury.
Following an internal LMPD Public Integrity Unit Investigation that concluded Wagner's testimony was "at best, inconsistent with the video evidence," Wagner was charged with two counts each of first-degree perjury and false swearing.
The third-degree assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct charges against Hannahs were ultimately dropped.
Wagner, a 13-year veteran of the police department, is currently assigned to the Homicide Unit's Cold Case Squad. Her husband has since retired and does not face any charges.
The trial is set to resume Wednesday morning before Jefferson Circuit Judge Judith McDonald-Burkman with more prosecution witnesses. Wagner is eventually expected to take the stand.
Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at (502) 582-4989 or [email protected].
Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/1LgMLU5* Elderly woman publicly stripped naked, her home torched
* Attack prompts huge outcry in minority Copt community
* Coptic bishop says attackers must face justice
By Ahmed Aboulenein and Omar Fahmy
ALKARM, Egypt, May 30 (Reuters) - Soad Thabet’s house no longer has a door. Inside, its walls are blackened with soot and a television lies shattered on the floor. The remains of a red nightgown stand out among the ashes.
Thabet, 70, describes being dragged outside by Muslim villagers and stripped naked in the dirt roads of Alkarm, the Egyptian village where she spent her most of her adult life.
Her crime? Her son, a married Christian, was rumoured to have had an affair with a married Muslim woman. The woman has since denied the affair took place on national television.
“They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes. I was just as my mother gave birth to me, screaming and crying,” Thabet told Reuters a week after the attack.
Orthodox Copts like Thabet, who make up about a tenth of Egypt’s 90 million population, are the Middle East’s largest Christian community. They have long complained of discrimination in the majority-Muslim country.
Sectarian attacks occur so frequently in Egypt that they rarely attract wide publicity. But Thabet’s ordeal, the public humiliation of an elderly woman, prompted an outcry among Copts and led to the case becoming national news.
“If it were just a burning we could handle it, but what can we do about what happened to the woman? How can you compensate for this insult?” Ishak William, Thabet’s neighbour and relative, told Reuters at his house in Alkarm.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has denounced the Alkarm attack, which underlines that Copts remain vulnerable three years after he took power and pledged to unite the country following years of political turmoil.
Sectarian violence often erupts on the back of rumours about inter-faith romances or suspicions that Christians are building churches without the required official permission.
Homes are burned, crops are razed, churches are attacked and, occasionally, Copts are forced to leave their villages, say human rights groups and residents of the southern province of Minya, home to Egypt’s largest Christian community.
Then come the reconciliation sessions, processes informally backed by the government that see local Coptic priests and Muslim clerics attempt to mediate a communal peace without resorting to the legal system.
Christians interviewed by Reuters said the sessions often end with them making concessions, such as agreeing that certain families leave town or that the church not bear a visible cross, while those who perpetrated the attacks often go unpunished.
Muslim residents and religious officials say the informal process helps broker compromises to avoid a cycle of escalation and retribution.
Copts often go along with it to avert more trouble.
But the latest attack has left a new bitterness among the Copts of tiny Alkarm, in the agricultural hinterland of Upper Egypt. This time, they say, reconciliation is not enough.
“We answer to the law, not to reconciliation sessions. Whoever did this must be held accountable,” said William.
‘PEOPLE WON’T HAVE IT’
Thabet’s ordeal led to the Diocese of Minya releasing a statement demanding justice. The attack subsequently drew condemnation from the government and Al Azhar, Cairo’s ancient centre of Islamic learning.
“We have people getting killed and there is no one answering for it, money stolen, houses looted, girls kidnapped... and we bear it all and let it pass, but now there is escalation,” Bishop Makarios, the highest Coptic church official in Minya, told Reuters by telephone.
“We get told, take reconciliation because it is better for you than other |
to justify it as an acceptable practice, but just trying to describe the pickle it puts the manager in trying to make a sound business decision without compromising the ethical and legal obligations of the company.
So what’s your plan B?
Assuming you aren’t fabulously wealthy, accepted to clown college, or the fatal victim of a Red-bull induced heart attack by 40 a mitigation strategy is in order. Here are some viable options.
Work for the one person who would never discriminate against you.
No. Not your mother. You! If you aren’t the entrepreneurial type, consider a consultancy. For some reason that I don’t completely get, a little gray hair and a smattering of experience in different technologies can create a beneficial bias for companies when they are renting brains instead of buying them outright. It may have something to do with the tendency for consultants to be vetted from higher up in the management chain where the silver foxes live.
Give in to the dark side and go into management.
I’d argue that a career in programming does precious little to prepare someone for management, but clearly management thinks that everyone including technologists harbors a deep longing to “graduate” into their ranks. I think it a fallacy that no one would continue to design and build software for 20 years unless they had no ambition or growth potential. However, people like me that respect such dedication to the craft are in the minority. Maybe it is best to just stop fighting it, but consider the following before taking the plunge:
Mid-level managers often make very little more, if not the same as high level engineers.
It gets progressively harder to keep up with new technology because you don’t work directly with it.
Meetings, politics and dealing with unrealistic requests will pretty much become your life.
You may try to avoid it, but management-speak will creep into your vocabulary (did you notice my “paradigm” comment earlier?)
Even when it isn’t your fault, it’s your fault.
Even when you make it succeed, your team should get the credit.
Being the wunderkind as a technologist is much easier to do in technology than management, you’ll have to check your ego at the door.
You will be forced to make decisions that affect people’s personal life (pay, bonus, firing, etc.) and this is hard to stomach sometimes.
It is very empowering, enjoyable to be able to set the agenda and sometimes say, “No. We ain’t doing that shit.”
Computers are predictable, people are complicated. You will eventually fantasize about robot employees.
Mentoring can be very rewarding, but also very challenging.
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
-Theodore H. White.
You’ve got a cash cow, milk that sucker!
I know you love programming because you like technology, so this may go against your very nature, but no one says you’ve got to jump every time some snot-nosed kid invents a new way to run byte-code. You have invested a lot of time and energy mastering the technology you use, and your experience differentiates you. Money follows scarcity, and snow-birding on an older technology, if you can stomach it, may just be the way to protect your earning potential. The industry turns on a dime, but is slow to retire proven technology. It is highly likely that you will still be able to earn some decent coin in the technology you know and love even after a few decades.
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Filed under: Careers in Software Development | Tagged: age discrimination, career, programmers |There is an airline that does not frown on its customers trying to join the mile high club. In fact, it offers private flights for the express purpose of allowing passengers to have sex in the air.
That airline is Flamingo Air, and it is located in—of all places—Cincinnati, Ohio.
As you might expect, the decision to start advertising the chance to join the mile high club began with a bet. President and CEO David MacDonald, who introduces himself as “MacDonald: like ‘Old MacDonald had a farm,’” had owned a large security firm. He sold the company to “go play with airplanes,” and as he explains over a phone call, you’re not in the aviation business very long before the topic of romance comes up. As he sat with a group of buddies discussing the mile high club, his entrepreneurial instincts kicked in.
“I could sell that!” he told the group. As they all lived on the edge of the Bible Belt in Ohio, his friends protested that the area was too conservative. But MacDonald would not be talked down.
That was 20 years ago, and MacDonald and Flamingo Air have now helped thousands of couples in straightlaced Ohio join the mile high club. Far from succeeding in spite of the location, MacDonald believes the reason why he has operated “romantic flights” all these years, while other mile high club airlines have come and gone, is that he marketed them with a very Ohioan sensibility.
***
There’s nothing too complicated about running a mile high club airline. For $495, a couple gets a private, hour-long flight. A Flamingo Air pilot sits up front wearing headphones (“He’s busy flying the plane,” MacDonald assures us), while the couple enjoys the back of the plane, where the center row of seats has been removed and replaced with a pile of cushions.
Flamingo Air operates an average of three romantic flights per week, which makes it a small piece of MacDonald’s business. Flamingo Air originally offered regional charter service, but when those flights became uneconomical, MacDonald switched to offering sightseeing tours and romantic flights. Flamingo Air now also has a flight school and trains aircraft dispatchers and professional drone operators. MacDonald can sound like an ordinary, if unusually cheery, aviation CEO, talking about the potential of drones to deliver cargo and explaining that aircraft dispatchers are the people who plan the details of commercial flights. Business seems good.
But romantic flights are what David MacDonald is known for, and they’re a hell of a marketing opportunity. When MacDonald talks about Flamingo Air, he does so with the cadence of someone who has told his story to friends and reporters countless times. “This lends itself so well to publicity,” MacDonald tells us, beaming through the phone. “We were even on Letterman!”
Priceonomics first reported on MacDonald and Flamingo Air in 2013, when Flamingo Air was the only airline in the United States (and one of the only in the world) to offer a chance to join the mile high club. (At least with permission.) Many airlines had tried and failed.
In MacDonald’s opinion, the reason the others failed was that “they all tried to sell sex, not the sizzle. They all came at it from the mile high club angle, and it didn’t work. You’ve gotta think romance, not sex.”
This is the surprising secret of mile high club airlines: it has to be marketed as a romantic adventure, not a sultry fantasy. Flamingo Air does not use the term “mile high club” on its website. It describes its flights as “romantic flights” or “flights of fancy.” Challenging our expectation that men would clamor for this, MacDonald says that it is almost always women who calls to book a flight, and they “take it very seriously, and they’re all about the romance.”
Every flight of fancy includes chocolates and champagne. On Valentine’s Day, demand skyrockets. Flamingo Air has done several weddings in the air (“They weren’t consummated,” MacDonald adds hurriedly. “The priest was in the airplane!”) and 60th anniversaries (“Yes they did, to answer your question!”).
Whether it’s because Flamingo is located in Cincinnati, or because we overestimate the “sex sells” mantra, MacDonald has found that the key to selling an experience associated with slipping into a tiny lavatory has been to make it classy. Sure, he and the other pilots take a high heel to the back of the head now and again. But their customers “show up and you think they came from the Young Republicans Club,” MacDonald says. “Very straightlaced.”
Today, in 2016, Flamingo Air has a competitor: Love Cloud in Las Vegas also offers the chance to enter the mile high club.
Unlike MacDonald, Love Cloud founder Andy Johnson calls a spade a spade. He uses the term “mile high club” on his website, and his slogan is “What happens over Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
This is the mile high club airline one would imagine: located in Vegas, and attracting customers from Europe, China, Australia, and all over Europe. And yet, much of Johnson’s experience has mirrored MacDonald’s, teaching him to prioritize romance.
Over the phone, Johnson explains that he expected lots of wealthy men to show up with escorts. But that didn’t happen. Instead, like MacDonald, he got “real couples looking to make an experience they’ve talked about and joked about.” Johnson says that it’s usually women who call to book a flight, and that his customers are not red-blooded twentysomethings but middle aged and elderly couples. He’s done 25th, 30th, and even 50th wedding anniversaries.
According to Johnson, “What they all say is: ‘We’ll never forget this.’ It’s a bucket list item.”
Both Johnson and MacDonald have also been surprised to have couples who don’t join the club. One husband and wife who paid for a Flamingo Air flight arrived with a large picnic basket and asked the crew if they could remove the cushions from the back of the plane. “This couple had eight children and just wanted an hour alone without the kids!” MacDonald recalls with a chuckle. “So we took off and they had a nice, quiet time. They were as happy as you could be.”
A mile high club airline is the kind of thing that makes you say “only in Vegas.” Except it’s also in Ohio.
Our next article explores why some athletes say they use cannabis for athletic purposes. To get notified when we post it → join our email list.
An earlier version of this article was published on August 14, 2013.
Want to write for Priceonomics? We are looking for freelance contributors.Sunday, April 9th, 2017
A Mercedes-Benz sedan stuck between a big rig and sidewalk after the driver attempted to pass up the semi-truck in Costa Mesa on Saturday, April 8, 2017.
COSTA MESA, Calif. (KABC) -- A 59-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of DUI after attempting to squeeze his sedan past a big rig in Costa Mesa and failing.Costa Mesa police said the truck driver was turning right onto 17th Street from Placentia Avenue shortly after noon on Saturday when the suspect in the Mercedes-Benz tried passing up the semi-truck on the right side.The not-so-slick move didn't work.Though the Mercedes-Benz sustained major damage after getting stuck between the big rig and the sidewalk, no injuries were reported, police said.The suspect, identified as Brian Elder, was arrested for DUI. nullThese are incredibly quick, incredibly easy and incredibly good! I keep all the ingredients made up in my freezer and refrigerator so that such lunches are a snap for me! These little gems can’t be picked up and eaten like regular pizza as they are too wet/messy, so get out a fork to enjoy these. This recipe is not suitable until you reach the nuts rung of the Phase 2 OWL carb ladder. They are OK for Primal diners, but not Paleo. These would be lovely served with a nice green salad. These can also be made with ground beef, or with a bit of shredded, cooked chicken.
More delicious low-carb recipes can be at your fingertips with your very own set of Jennifer Eloff and friends’ best-selling cookbooks LOW CARBING AMONG FRIENDS. She has collaborated with famous low-carb Chef George Stella and several other talented chefs to bring you a wealth of delicious recipes you are going to want to try. Even a few of my recipes are in her cookbooks! Order your 5-volume set TODAY! (available individually) from Amazon or: http://amongfriends.us/order.php
DISCLAIMER: I do not get paid for this book promotion or for the inclusion of my recipes therein. I do so merely because they are GREAT cookbooks any low-carb cook would be proud to add to their cookbook collection
INGREDIENTS:
12 oz. breakfast sausage (I make homemade sausage)
1 egg, beaten
¼ tsp. each fennel seed and dried oregano leaves (or ½ tsp. Italian seasoning)
¼ c. low-carb spaghetti sauce (I use Lucini basil pesto sauce)
¼ c. pesto sauce (or use commercial pesto)
1 c. grated mozzarella cheese (about 4 oz.)
½ oz. thin sliced red or green bell pepper, cut into strips
DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 350º. In a medium mixing bowl, well mix the sausage, egg, fennel and oregano with a fork or your hands. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of meat into each of 12 muffin cups and press down with the back of the spoon. I used a silicone muffin pan. Pop into your 350º preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove, tilt and blot off excess grease with paper toweling. Top each meat pattie evenly with 1 tsp. spaghetti sauce. Next spread 1 tsp. pesto sauce on top. Sprinkle each with about 1T. of the mozzarella cheese, going back and using it all up evenly. Top with a piece of bell pepper. Pop back into oven and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. Cool slightly and gently lift them out with a fork onto your serving platter.
NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 12 mini-meatzas, each contains:
161 calories
13.4 g fat
1.44 g carbs,.36 g fiber, 1.08 g NET CARBS
8.5 g protein
136 mg sodiumScience Is Changing - And Sharply Segregated Expertise Is Obsolete
The world's challenges demand science solutions - and fast - but it doesn't need the old style of detached experts, write a team of scientists in, ironically, one of America's most prominent and detached corporate science publications; Science magazine, a reputable legacy publication with a politician leading them.
Segregated expertise, like segregated articles of taxpayer-funded science, is obsolete.
Disciplinary approaches to crises like air pollution, biodiversity loss, climate change, food insecurity, and energy and water shortages, are not only ineffective, but also making many of these crises worse because of counterproductive interactions and unintended consequences, said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability at Michigan State University, lead author of the paper and a prominent critic of mainstream science.
"The real world is integrated," Liu said. "Artificially breaking down the real world into separate pieces has caused many global problems. Solving these problems requires systems integration - holistic approaches to integrate various pieces of the real world at different organizational levels, across space and over time."
Using examples that are both far-flung and tightly intertwined, these scientists show how systems integration can tackle the complex world, from unexpected impacts of biofuels to hidden roles of virtual resources such as virtual water.
The paper's first illustration wraps Brazil, China, the Caribbean and Saharan Africa into an example of how the world demands to be approached not just for its singular qualities, but for its lack of boundaries over time, distance or the organizational levels mankind imposes.
The rapidly growing food export to China from Brazil destroys tropical forests and changes food markets in other parts of the world, they believe, including the Caribbean and Africa. Agricultural practices in the Sahara Desert in Africa stir up dust which enters the atmosphere and floats as far as the Caribbean. They contend that African dust contributes to coral reef decline and increased asthma rates in the Caribbean. It also affects China and Brazil that have made heavy investment in Caribbean tourism, infrastructure, and transportation. All these interactions, and the many more that exist in one example, defy borders both on maps and in academic disciplines.
Yet conventional research and decision-making often have taken place within separate disciplines or sectors. They advocate systems integration frameworks -- human-nature nexuses -- to "help anticipate otherwise unforeseen consequences, evaluate tradeoffs, produce co-benefits and allow the different and often competing interests to seek a common ground."
For example, the energy-food nexus considers both the effects of energy on food production, processing, transporting, and consumption, and the effects of food production, like corn, on the generation of energy, such as ethanol. Other systems integration frameworks also bring multiple aspects of human-nature interactions together. Natural systems provide benefits like clean water and food to people, but human activities often inflict harm on natural systems. Considering a variety of benefits and costs simultaneously can help evaluate trade-offs and synergies among them. The environmental footprints framework helps quantify resources consumed and wastes generated by people.
Telecoupling - a way to make sense of a complex world
Many studies on sustainability have focused on one place, but the world is increasingly "telecoupled" - a term which embraces socioeconomic and environmental interactions over distances, sometimes several thousand miles away. For example, the large amount of coal from Australia sold to far-away markets like Japan, the European Union and Brazil affects not only those markets, but has global impacts far beyond. The money and environmental impacts such as CO2 emissions that flow with the coal, along with the mechanisms of transporting and burning the fossil fuel, spill over to countries between the partners.
Acknowledging that everything must be integrated is critical for scientific advances and effective policies, the authors say. So is the engagement between researchers and stakeholders. For example, Liu has partnered with environmentalists and sociologists to show how policies in China to curb human's role in deforestation and panda habitat degradation were strengthened by enlisting nature reserve residents to receive subsidies to monitor the forests. The innovations were spurred by careful observation of the push-and-pull dynamics of managing a system to allow both people and the environment to thrive.
The paper says that effective policies and management for global sustainability needs the human and the natural systems to be more integrated across multiple spatial and temporal and awauthors think it is essential to quantify human-nature feedbacks and spillover systems. Science has largely ignored these, but they can have profound impacts on sustainability and human well-being.
It is time to integrate all disciplines for fundamental discoveries and synergetic solutions because of increasingly connected world challenges, Liu said.
"Furthermore, the world no longer has the luxury of the past, when there were fewer people on the planet and resources were more abundant," Liu said. This will require funding agencies and universities to make more drastic changes to alter the reward mechanisms and transform the scientific community from isolated experts to integrated scholars."
Liu was joined by Harold Mooney of Stanford University, Vanessa Hull of MSU CSIS, Steven Davis of the University of California - Irvine, Joanne Gaskell of the World Bank, Thomas Hertel of Purdue University, Jane Lubchenco of Oregon State University, Karen Seto of Yale University; Peter Gleick of The Pacific Institute, Claire Kremen of University of California, Berkeley, and Shuxin Li, also of MSU CSIS. The work was supported by the National Science Foundation's programs on Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems, and MacroSystems Biology; and Michigan AgBioResearch.Researchers have revealed the molecular structure of a protein produced by the Zika virus that is thought to be involved in the virus's reproduction and its interaction with a host's immune system.
The results provide scientists around the globe with new information about the NS1 protein's role in Zika virus infections, and expands scientists' understanding of the flavivirus family, which also includes dengue, West Nile and yellow fever.
The study was led by the University of Michigan and done in collaboration with Purdue University.
"Having the structure of the full-length Zika NS1 provides new information that can help guide the design of a potential vaccine or antiviral drugs," said senior author Janet Smith, director of the Center for Structural Biology at the U-M Life Sciences Institute, where her lab is located, and professor of biological chemistry at the U-M Medical School.
"Researchers are still working to understand precisely how Zika and other flaviviruses interact with an infected person's immune system," she said. "Having these atomic-level details can help scientists to ask better questions and to design more thoughtful experiments as we continue to learn new information."
The findings are scheduled for online publication July 25 in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Earlier this year, scientists in China published a partial structure.
The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been around for decades, but recently grew into an international health emergency following its association with severe birth defects and with Guillain-Barré syndrome, and its rapid spread in Central and South America.
There is currently no treatment or vaccine, though several companies have announced plans to try to develop one.
"Despite its similarity to other related viruses, we found the Zika NS1 structure had a few important differences," said W. Clay Brown, scientific director of the Center for Structural Biology's high-throughput protein lab and co-first author of the study.
The new 3-D structure, which was obtained using X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy, revealed that the outer surface of the Zika NS1 protein has substantially different electrical-charge properties than those of other flaviviruses--indicating it may interact differently with the members of an infected person's immune system.
This study was also the first to capture the molecular structure of flexible loops on the wing domains of the protein, which had been hidden from view in previous studies.
"From NS1 structure studies in dengue, it was thought this loop flipped up, but our study in Zika virus shows it flips down from the wings," said co-author Richard Kuhn, professor of biological sciences at Purdue and director of the Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease. "This is very important because it indicates an interaction with the cellular membrane of the host and a possible mechanism by which NS1 carries out its multiple functions.
"Seeing this difference provides new insights that help us better understand the NS1 protein," said Kuhn, who was a member of the research team that first determined the structure of the Zika virus. "Understanding its structure and functions help us identify targets for inhibitors to block important viral processes and treat infection."
The team also looked at changes in the genetic sequence of the Zika NS1 protein over time, noted David L. Akey, a research scientist in Smith's lab and the study's other lead author.
"Just as the common cold and flu viruses change over time, Zika virus changed during its spread around the world so that NS1 in Brazilian infections looks different to the immune system than its African ancestor," Akey said.
The NS1 (nonstructural protein 1) protein plays several roles in viral infections. Inside infected cells, it is essential to making new copies of the virus to infect additional cells. Infected cells also secrete NS1 packets into the patient's blood stream, where higher levels have been associated with more severe illness.
The cross-shaped protein has two distinct surfaces. The inner surface is "greasy" and is believed to interact with cell membranes, while the outer surface, once secreted into the blood, can interact with the patient's immune system.
Even without the virus present, the secreted version of some NS1 proteins can create vascular bleeding, such as is seen in severe dengue infections.
In 2014, many of the same team members participated in the first study to isolate and map the NS1 protein from dengue and West Nile viruses, which appeared in the journal Science. "Isolating the protein in order to study it has been a challenge for researchers," Smith said at the time. "Once we discovered how to do that, it crystallized beautifully."Costco
Costco wants to build a new store in southwest Henderson, not far from the M Resort and Interstate 15, according to plans filed with the city this week.
It would become the fourth full-size Costco in the Las Vegas area and the second in Henderson. The chain also has a smaller “business center” near downtown Las Vegas, which carries a more limited selection than the full-size stores it calls warehouses.
The new 150,000-square-foot Henderson store would be on now-vacant land east of St. Rose Parkway, just north of Executive Airport. It would also have 10 gasoline pumps.
An architect working on the project filed plans with the city on Monday, and they’re scheduled to be reviewed by staff next week.
The new Costco would be in a fast-growing area of Henderson, with planned communities including Inspirada nearby.
City spokesman Keith Paul said the gasoline pumps require approval by the Henderson Planning Commission following a public hearing. The store alone would not require a public hearing, since the land is already zoned for it.
The City Council will only consider the project if someone appeals the Planning Commission’s decision to the council.
The plans submitted Monday don’t include an estimated opening date for the store. A spokeswoman at Costco headquarters in Issaquah, Wash., didn’t return a call seeking comment. The architects who submitted the plans declined comment.
The Planning Commission might hear the application in October, but Paul said city staff could have questions or suggested changes before then that push the hearing back.
Costco, a membership club that sells food and household goods in famously mammoth sizes — along with clothes and electronics — has 680 stores in nine countries, 480 of them in the United States.
Its existing Clark County warehouses are in Summerlin near Red Rock Resort, on the north side of the 215 Beltway off Decatur Boulevard, and near the Galleria at Sunset mall in Henderson.
Contact Eric Hartley at [email protected] or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartleyEgypt plans to deluge the area along the border with the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip with water in an attempt to destroy the underground tunnels between the country and the Palestinian territory.
“The Egyptian army has begun to build huge pipelines along the border with the Gaza Strip,” a Palestinian security source said on Wednesday, the Turkish news agency, Anadolu, reported.
He explained that the Egyptian plan “aims to destroy underground tunnels by filling the area with water.”
Egyptian authorities have made no comments on the project, yet.
The border tunnels are used by the Palestinian people in Gaza to bring in supplies to the besieged strip.
In mid-June, the Egyptian military said Cairo had demolished nearly 1,430 underground tunnels between the country and the blockaded area over the previous 18 months.
The Egyptian army claims that the tunnels are “used by terrorists and criminals” to smuggle weapons to militants in the Sinai Peninsula.
The World Food Program (WFP), however, said in a report in February 2014 that the tunnels have represented “the main supply and commercial trade route for goods into Gaza” since 2007.
Dozens of people, mostly Palestinians, have lost their lives during the destruction of tunnels, which has intensified since the 2013 ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi.
The coastal strip has been under the Israeli air, sea and land blockade since 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standards of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
'An outrage'
In an interview with Press TV, James Henry Fetzer, an American scholar and analyst, described Egypt's flooding of the Gaza tunnels as "outrageous," adding that the move proves the extent of the influence of the Israeli regime on Egypt's military government.
"The decision by Egypt to build water pipelines in order to flood the Palestinian tunnels out of Gaza is completely outrageous and inhumane and illustrates the reach of the Zionist political machine to inflict more and more pain on the Palestinian people," he said.
Fetzer further condemned the connivance of the military government in Egypt with the Israeli regime in Tel Aviv's acts of terror against the Palestinians and the silence of the international community in this regard.
"That Egypt should become complicit in these acts of tyranny and terror is an outrage, which the whole world should condemn."This week on DineSafe a number of restaurants landed yellow cards including a ubiquitous local coffee chain, a deep dish pizza joint and a popular spot for South Indian eats.
See what other Toronto restaurants got in trouble this week on DineSafe.
Coffee Time (3622 Dufferin St.)
Inspected on: November 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 1 (Significant: 1)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Kairali (1210 Kennedy Rd.)
Inspected on: November 27, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 9 (Minor: 4, Significant: 4, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated.
Crafty Coyote (511 Bloor St. West)
Inspected on: November 28, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 7 (Minor: 3, Significant: 3, Crucial: 1)
Crucial infractions include: Operator failed to ensure food is not contaminated/adulterated.
Club 120 (120 Church St.)
Inspected on: November 29, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 4 (Minor: 1, Significant: 3)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
King Place Restaurant (236 Sherbourne St.)
Inspected on: November 29, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 6 (Minor: 2, Significant: 4)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Inspected on: November 30, 2017
Inspection finding: Yellow (Conditional)
Number of infractions: 2 (Minor: 1, Significant: 1)
Crucial infractions include: N/A
Pizza Rustica (270 Wellington St. West)Metal for Muthas was a New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) compilation album from breaking bands in the first months of the new decade. Metal for Muthas was released in February 1980 and amongst others, contained a track by Samson and 2 classic tracks by Iron Maiden, Sanctuary and Wrathchild.
In iron Maiden's early years 1975 - 1981 there is a lot of talk about the instability of the numerous members of the band who came and went, whilst Steve Harris remained. Here is a perfect example of the transcient nature of British Heavy Metal, particularly London, back in those early years.
This recording of Wrathchild was made by Barry Graham Purkis at a 1977 Iron Maiden rehearsal session at Scarf Studios. It appeared on Metal for Muthas recorded by a 1979 line-up. Samson also appear on the compilaion album amd Barry Graham Purkis was to leave Iron Maiden and move to Samson, appearing as the drummer Thunderstick who played in a leather mask. Clive Burr went in the opposite direction and left Samson to play drums with Iron Maiden. And a singer, known as Bruce Bruce, swapped Samson for Iron Maiden and also changed his name. Welcome Bruce Dickinson - see his first Iron Maden gig hereCognition and comportment are subserved by interconnected neural networks that allow high‐level computational architectures including parallel distributed processing. Cognitive problems are not resolved by a sequential and hierarchical progression toward predetermined goals but instead by a simultaneous and interactive consideration of multiple possibilities and constraints until a satisfactory fit is achieved. The resultant texture of mental activity is characterized by almost infinite richness and flexibility. According to this model, complex behavior is mapped at the level of multifocal neural systems rather than specific anatomical sites, giving rise to brain‐behavior relationships that are both localized and distributed. Each network contains anatomically addressed channels for transferring information content and chemically addressed pathways for modulating behavioral tone. This approach provides a blueprint for reexploring the neurological foundations of attention, language, memory, and frontal lobe function.Perhaps this viewpoint also stems from the fact that typed text typically requires a machine to be properly done, (whether it be a typewriter or a computer,) because, in a way, machines are seen as being superior to the fleshy elegance of humanity. After all, we don't expect perfection of spelling or grammar in the mad scribbles of a physician, the love-notes we find wedged in the strangest (and yet always most familiar) places by our own special someone, or the handwritten letters we get from highschool students or children studying abroad. Not convinced? Consider any science fiction film or television show- the machine is always far more capable, advanced, and less likely to make mistakes than the actors. As a society, we've grown to accept this odd fact, we've almost been conditioned by various forms of media to believe that machines have been programmed not exactly to be perfect, but to be somewhat above the human mind in their analytical capacity. To err is human, as the saying goes, but we expect better from the clearly legible etches left on the amorphous walls of cyberspace by the millions upon millions of individuals that go tracking through its depths every day. After all, how hard is it to use a spellchecker, right?Room is a heart-wrenchingly charming movie, it’s quite possibly my biggest surprise of 2015. The way it toyed with my emotions left me in awe of how wrong my perceptions were. Like many of the Oscar movies of this year, I went into this without even seeing the trailer and if you haven’t already, don’t, just go and watch it.
It tells the story of Ma and her 5-year-old son who have been kidnapped by a man called Old Nick and are being held inside a small shed which Jack affectionately, and Ma resentingly, calls Room. Ma was captured 7 years prior and Jack is the child of both her and Old Nick. Jack has never seen the outside world and to facilitate this, inside such a small area, Ma tells Jack lies in the form of stories about Room being all there is. Upon Jack’s 5th birthday, Ma finally decides to begin telling Jack the truth.
The movie opens with a montage of their daily activity with moments of joyful intimacy, however; these are equally balanced with shots of their inevitable frustration with eternal closeness. It’s done in a way that you don’t even question why they are only in one room until the first 5 minutes are over. This focus really helped draw the audience into this relationship and strengthens the movie’s dramatic moments from the opening alone.
Ma, Brie Larson, and Jack, Jacob Tremblay, have outstanding chemistry. Jacob Tremblay, aged 9, has to be one of the best child actors I’ve ever seen. Everything feels so incredibly genuine that their moments of intimacy can bring a tear to your eye as it did mine. The brave face Larson puts on can be incredibly convincing one moment, but her pain seeps through in the next simply through changes in eye movement and posture. The two of them together are truly remarkable to watch.
Due to the nature of the story, it also has its serious downs. The story is dark and horrific which Jack being an unconsented child that Ma won’t let Old Nick even look at, locking him in the wardrobe as Old Nick drops off groceries. However, although this seems the sort of movie that would present such issues in a dramatic style, the camerawork displays the story almost from the perspective of Jack himself. It uses many tropes from horror films which work wonders, not only in presenting Old Nick as villain instantaneously but also strengthening the audience’s connection to the leads. The movie left me breathless at moments in ways no other character drama ever has.
Obviously, Jack has never seen outside the 4 walls he’s always been contained within. Jack has the ability to fully articulate what he thinks and his views of the world are so completely ridiculous but touchingly beautiful that it’s impossible to not adore him. This is where the movie hits me the most. It stirred so many emotions in me at once that I cannot even name it. It brought tears to my eyes not only of joy, due to Jack being so wonderfully charming with lines such as ‘Monster are too big to be real, just like the sea,’ but also anger and frustration. I wanted to hold Jack so much, showing him all the lies that he’s been told are false and setting him free to experience the world with his childish wonder. This again can only be attributed to both of their incredible performances.
The movie is shot in wide lens to make the room feel much bigger than it is. This works well when looking at the movie through Jack’s eyes. Alongside this, the movie is also shot incredibly close to the actors, assisting their intimate performances wonderfully.
Despite this, the movie ended rather abruptly in my eyes. The ending worked and I understand the intention, but it left a fair few plotlines dangling. The sort of plot points that if they were excluded, I would have raised questions about their absence. These plot points aren’t the centre of the story, but it would have been nice to see a more subtle conclusion to these arcs rather than them feeling just dropped.
Room is one of the most wonderfully touching and emotionally draining movies I’ve seen in a long time. Not since Her (2013) have I been so presently surprised by an Oscar movie. The poster and description made the movie feel like Oscar bait, but the performances are truly unique. Larson is a strong contender for Best Actress and it’s an absolute travesty that Jacob Tremblay hasn’t been nominated. Their chemistry is a beautiful balance between support and need thereof it, making their relationship gorgeously bittersweet.
Advertisementsgh is kind of like cd except it’s used to navigate to local github repos. It either enters the project directory by github username and repo name, or if it hasn’t been cloned, it clones it first then enters the directory.
It’s useful for people that navigate between projects frequently. OSS contributors, microservices, Go, and Node developers will see this as the most useful since we often jump from project to project many times during our coding sessions. If this doesn’t apply to you, you may not see as much value.
Navigating around projects
Here what I’m doing is entering the heroku/heroku-pg-extras repo with gh heroku heroku-pg-extras. I already have it cloned so it’s simply a cd into ~/src/github.com/heroku/heroku-pg-extras. Then I run gh npm npm which I do not have cloned, so gh clones it to ~/src/github.com/npm/npm and cd’s into it.
This means you no longer have a ~/projects directory with a bunch of projects you have to keep a mental map of. Conflicting project names are not a problem because nothing could conflict on github. No more ~/projects/test-proj-22. Or ~/projects/companyapp- |
his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give.
He needs no eulogy from me or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy's breast. But when I think of his patience under adversity, of his courage under fire, and of his modesty in victory, I am filled with an emotion of admiration I cannot put into words. He belongs to history as furnishing one of the greatest examples of successful patriotism. He belongs to posterity as the instructor of future generations in the principles of liberty and freedom. He belongs to the present, to us, by his virtues and by his achievements. In 20 campaigns, on a hundred battlefields, around a thousand campfires, I have witnessed that enduring fortitude, that patriotic self-abnegation, and that invincible determination which have carved his statue in the hearts of his people. From one end of the world to the other he has drained deep the chalice of courage.
As I listened to those songs [of the glee club], in memory's eye I could see those staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs, on many a weary march from dripping dusk to drizzling dawn, slogging ankle-deep through the mire of shell-shocked roads, to form grimly for the attack, blue-lipped, covered with sludge and mud, chilled by the wind and rain, driving home to their objective, and for many, to the judgment seat of God.
I do not know the dignity of their birth, but I do know the glory of their death. They died unquestioning, uncomplaining, with faith in their hearts, and on their lips the hope that we would go on to victory. Always, for them: Duty, Honor, Country; always their blood and sweat and tears, as we sought the way and the light and the truth.
And 20 years after, on the other side of the globe, again the filth of murky foxholes, the stench of ghostly trenches, the slime of dripping dugouts; those boiling suns of relentless heat, those torrential rains of devastating storms; the loneliness and utter desolation of jungle trails; the bitterness of long separation from those they loved and cherished; the deadly pestilence of tropical disease; the horror of stricken areas of war; their resolute and determined defense, their swift and sure attack, their indomitable purpose, their complete and decisive victory — always victory. Always through the bloody haze of their last reverberating shot, the vision of gaunt, ghastly men reverently following your password of: Duty, Honor, Country.
The code which those words perpetuate embraces the highest moral laws and will stand the test of any ethics or philosophies ever promulgated for the uplift of mankind. Its requirements are for the things that are right, and its restraints are from the things that are wrong.
The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training — sacrifice.
In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those divine attributes which his Maker gave when he created man in his own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of the Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.
You now face a new world — a world of change. The thrust into outer space of the satellite, spheres, and missiles mark the beginning of another epoch in the long story of mankind. In the five or more billions of years the scientists tell us it has taken to form the earth, in the three or more billion years of development of the human race, there has never been a more abrupt or staggering evolution. We deal now not with things of this world alone, but with the illimitable distances and as yet unfathomed mysteries of the universe. We are reaching out for a new and boundless frontier.
We speak in strange terms: of harnessing the cosmic energy; of making winds and tides work for us; of creating unheard synthetic materials to supplement or even replace our old standard basics; to purify sea water for our drink; of mining ocean floors for new fields of wealth and food; of disease preventatives to expand life into the hundreds of years; of controlling the weather for a more equitable distribution of heat and cold, of rain and shine; of space ships to the moon; of the primary target in war, no longer limited to the armed forces of an enemy, but instead to include his civil populations; of ultimate conflict between a united human race and the sinister forces of some other planetary galaxy; of such dreams and fantasies as to make life the most exciting of all time.
And through all this welter of change and development, your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable: it is to win our wars.
Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment. But you are the ones who are trained to fight. Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed; that the very obsession of your public service must be: Duty, Honor, Country.
Others will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men's minds; but serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the Nation's war-guardian, as its lifeguard from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiator in the arena of battle. For a century and a half you have defended, guarded, and protected its hallowed traditions of liberty and freedom, of right and justice.
Let civilian voices argue the merits or demerits of our processes of government; whether our strength is being sapped by deficit financing, indulged in too long, by federal paternalism grown too mighty, by power groups grown too arrogant, by politics grown too corrupt, by crime grown too rampant, by morals grown too low, by taxes grown too high, by extremists grown too violent; whether our personal liberties are as thorough and complete as they should be. These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a ten-fold beacon in the night: Duty, Honor, Country.
You are the leaven which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds. The Long Gray Line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
This does not mean that you are war mongers.
On the contrary, the soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.
But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished, tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
But in the evening of my memory, always I come back to West Point.
Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.
Today marks my final roll call with you, but I want you to know that when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps.
I bid you farewell.My name is Rae and I am bisexual. I can't begin to tell you guys how many times people have told me to pick a side or when they heard I was Bi cringed a little. As a orientation bisexual people have a pretty bad rap. So this is a blog for fun,laughs,advice,love, and smiles. A place without the demand to pick a side.
Following:
Likes: My name is Rae and I am bisexual. I can't begin to tell you guys how many times people have told me to pick a side or when they heard I was Bi cringed a little. As a orientation bisexual people have a pretty bad rap. So this is a blog for fun,laughs,advice,love, and smiles. A place without the demand to pick a side.The eternal question for us book-loving folk is always: What should I read next? We turn to friends and our favorite blogs for ideas, but there's always the standby of checking out the trusty New York Times bestseller list. After all, paying attention to what everyone else seems to be reading will keep you in the know with all the best'ships, books that desperately need sequels, and the hot authors hiding behind every e-reader on the subway. And lucky for us New York Times bestseller list changes mean the list will become even more effective at pointing out the most exciting, talked about new books to put on your must-read list. But this isn't just about us; young adult authors are positively stoked about this grand new plan.
Without getting too "inside baseball," The New York Times previously made one list that combined both middle grade and young adult books. In addition, the list had not only new hardcover titles, but paperbacks, too. With the new changes going into effect August 21, middle grade and YA will be two separate lists. And, perhaps more importantly, hardcover lists will be separated from paperback lists — as it currently is for adult bestsellers — with the paperback lists appearing online only. Further, middle grade and YA series will be together, but will appear in a separate list from standalones, and each individual book in the series will combine into one listing.
But, sure, what does this mean really? In the current system, paperback titles were overwhelming new hardcover titles, and often, the same authors were dominating the list for weeks at a time, despite the book being several years old. To put it in perspective: John Green appears at No. 2 right now for Paper Towns. OK, fine, well the movie is coming out, you say. But add this: the bestselling books of 2014 looked like this:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Paperback) Divergent by Veronica Roth (Paperback) Insurgent by Veronica Roth (Paperback) Allegiant by Veronica Roth (Paperback) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul by Jeff Kinney (Hardcover) The Fault in Our Stars (Movie Tie-in, Paperback) Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Paperback) The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Hardcover) Killing Patton: The Strange Death of World War II's Most Audacious Generalby Bill O'Reilly (Hardcover) Looking for Alaska by John Green (Paperback)
Look, I adore The Fault in Our Stars. But it's taking up a whopping three places on the top 10, pushing out other incredible YA books that could have made a place if we were just counting paperback, or hardcover, or movie tie-in paperback. And Veronica Roth's killer Divergent series dominated the top five in paperback. Who can compete?
Pamela Paul, editor of the New York Times Book Review, agrees, saying to Publishers Weekly:
...Given the relative unit sales of paperbacks, they would overtake the [bestseller] lists. New authors would find it hard to break into the list, and it was difficult for readers to discover new writers from those lists. So it made sense to return to the model we use in adult.
The New York Times even gave us a peek at the modified list, implementing these changes and they are just plain thrilling:
Rainbow Rowell, Jenny Han, Sarah Dessen, Tommy Wallach, Colleen Houck, Rick Yancey, Victoria Aveyard, and E. Lockhart? This is a YA lover's heaven. And plus, we still get to see Melissa de la Cruz killing it with her Descendants series, and you don't have to worry because Roth is still standing strong with Divergent.
If Twitter is any indication, YA authors are just as excited as I am.
(Oh, we definitely noticed, Leigh.)
Game changer, indeed. But what are you all still doing reading this post? Go, go start crossing off the entire new top 10 from your TBR list.
Image: caligula1995/flickrFor months, each article on Donald Trump on the Huffington Post was accompanied with an editor’s note branding Trump as “serial liar”, “rampant xenophobe”, “racist” and “misogynist.” However, the note is no more now, Politico reports.
The Huffington Posts’ disclaimer read: “Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the US.”
However, as Trump is on the brink to win the White House, relations are starting to warm up, it would seem.
Staff members of the outlet have received a memo from the Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim, telling them to scrap the editor’s note, a source in the newsroom has told Politico.
“The thinking is that (assuming he wins) that he’s now president and we’re going to start with a clean slate,” the memo reportedly says.
“If he governs in a racist, misogynistic way, we reserve the right to add it back on. This would be giving respect to the office of the presidency which Trump and his backers never did.”
Huffington Post spokeswoman Sujata Mitra wrote to Politico in a statement that the disclaimer “was added to stories about presidential candidate Donald Trump during the election cycle. Now that the election is over, we will no longer be adding the note to future stories, as he is no longer a presidential candidate.”Federal prosecutors have charged a previously convicted hacker with illegally accessing millions of records sent by Twitter users requesting technical support. The allegations shed new light into the hijacking of Burger King's Twitter account 17 months ago, a case many assumed had gone cold.
Cameron Lacroix, a 25-year-old resident of New Bedford, Massachusetts, agreed last month to plead guilty to a hacking spree that targeted computer networks around the country, some belonging to law enforcement organizations that stored sensitive data. He was also reportedly one of several hackers to steal racy pictures stored on Paris Hilton's poorly secured cell phone in 2005.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors in San Francisco alleged that from February 16 to 19 in 2013, Lacroix hacked into Zendesk, a provider of customer support services, and used his illegal access to download millions of records belonging to Twitter, one of the many companies that used Zendesk. The support tickets included users' e-mail addresses and contact information. He then used the information to breach at least two high-profile Twitter accounts, according to charging papers filed in US District Court in San Francisco. Prosecutors wrote:
Lacroix identified the email addresses that were used to register Twitter accounts for Jeep and Corporation A. After compromising and taking control of those email addresses, he submitted password reset requests for those accounts; Twitter's responses were sent to the compromised email addresses, which Lacroix now controlled. Lacroix changed the passwords to Jeep and Corporation A's Twitter accounts, assumed control of those accounts, and proceeded to deface them with text and pictures. (For example, Corporation A's feed falsely reported that the company had been sold to its chief competitor.) Lacroix also deleted the incoming support tickets those companies attempted to submit to Zendesk reporting that their Twitter accounts had been hijacked.
Prosecutors didn't identify Corporation A by name. Based on the facts provided, however, the Zendesk compromise was almost certainly the one used to hamburgle Burger King's Twitter account and falsely announce the sale of the restaurant chain to arch-rival McDonald's. As Ars reported at the time, the parties that took credit for the account hijacking even gave a shout-out to the Defonic Team Screen Name Club, a hacking group that also claimed responsibility for hacking Paris Hilton's Sidekick handset and airing the faux-celebrity's contacts.
Compared with some of the other breaches that Lacroix has been accused of perpetrating, the one involving Twitter is innocuous. Still, it underscores the way a relatively minor hack on one platform can be a mere starting point. A small hack can often be escalated by combining it with technical weaknesses and social engineering on other platforms. According to prosecutors:
Between February 16 and February 19, 2013, Lacroix identified and exploited a website vulnerability to create Zendesk accounts with elevated privileges. He used this heightened access to disable a security measure designed to ensure that only Twitter employees could view Twitter helpdesk information stored at Zendesk, such as support tickets, customer email addresses, and other contact information. Lacroix was thereby able to see all support tickets for any of Zendesk's customers, including Twitter. Lacroix then exported approximately one million Twitter support tickets to computers outside of Zendesk's network. Those support tickets included email addresses and contact information for each customer.
According to a February 2013 post on Wired, a Zendesk breach affecting Twitter also compromised support tickets belonging to Tumblr and Pinterest. Wednesday's charges make no reference to either of those services.In addition to exercising regularly and eating right, I make it a top priority to commit suicide every couple of years. Little girls might dream of the picture-perfect wedding, planning and envisioning the ideal bridal gown and the glorious release of white doves, but since I was little I've been planning my supreme self-murder. I've edited and honed the tableau: me as corpse with as little mess as possible. Nothing fancy, no shotguns or nooses, no swan dives from high windows of the Chrysler Building.
As a newspaper reporter, I was sent several times every winter to cover the same scene: a family found dead after they'd tried to heat their home by bringing a charcoal barbecue indoors. In each case, the carbon monoxide had suffocated them while they slept, and I'd visit the location with paramedics and police. And those dead nuclear families, Mom and Dad and the kids tucked into their beds, they looked... really great. So peaceful. Without any sign of rictus, vomitus, or spasm. Their faces so smooth and relaxed they might still be asleep.
If you ask me, that's the way to go. I'm probably prejudiced from living in a state where it's legal to ring down your own curtain, next door to another state where you can choose to die. Sometime I should tell you about being invited to a going-away party where the host drank phenobarbital. I didn't know a soul there, especially not the host, who was only weeks away from a natural death from colon cancer. A friend of a friend of a friend had phoned me in tears and begged me to escort her, because it seemed bad form and a touch pathetic to show up stag for such an event. It's amazing, but between Judith Martin and Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt, no one has covered the etiquette for this situation—what to wear, what to bring as a bread-and-butter gift, how to address the dying stranger. What's worse is I didn't know about the Final Exit aspect of the party until the guests were asked to join hands and light candles. This was my blind date with death.
Self-euthanasia is major trend in the making. Each year in the United States, some 26,000 men die by their own hand, including some smarter, braver men than you and me. Hunter S. Thompson. Kurt Cobain. Spalding Gray. David Foster Wallace. These were men of infinite accomplishment, finances, and talent, and we will miss them. But if you're going to check out, you must first promise to take on a more difficult task. You'll have to wait 7 days, and in that last week of your life, you'll have to perform what I glibly refer to as the Three C's. Don't worry, the time will fly by. Like the final week at a job you hate, every moment will be gilded with nostalgia and sweetened with the knowledge that you're a dead man walking. The Ultimate Temp. The game's almost over, and you're just running out the clock.
The first C stands for Clean. Clean your bathroom. Clean your car. Do the laundry and scrub the grout. Pull out the refrigerator and wipe behind it. Wash the windows. Do everything. The second C stands for Cull. Ransack your files and discard everything except your most important papers. The same goes for your closets and memorabilia—really, all your possessions. If you haven't looked at it recently, toss it. Donate it. Destroy it. Throw all your history and secrets into the garbage. Do the same with the aged contents of your medicine cabinet and kitchen. Also, spring for a really good haircut. Despite popular superstition, human hair does not grow beyond death, so you might as well look good. Treat yourself. Pamper, pamper, pamper; you have my permission.
Any man will tell you that it's not the big disasters that finish you. No, given an invasion by hostile space aliens or an attack of flesh-eating zombies, most guys will grab their coats and hats and run out to join the fray. Even a run-of-the-mill earthquake or forest fire constitutes a nice change of pace. Instead, what grinds us down are the parking tickets. The spoiled food in the back of the fridge. The dirty clothes at the bottom of the hamper that haven't seen daylight since 1995. Once you allow a critical mass of these petty annoyances to collect, you're sunk.
Regarding Culling, my point is: If you can shave, you can live.
The third C stands for Connect. This means contacting everyone you've known and saying something nice. No matter how much you hate them, let go of that bitterness. Identify some aspect of each person, something you've secretly admired or envied or coveted, and praise that something. Say how jealous you were of his career or happy marriage or a particular merino wool mock-turtleneck sweater.
Yes, this process feels like a huge humiliation, but what do you have to lose? Forget your self-pity. Forget your anger and defensiveness. Forgive everybody and forgive yourself. In another week they'll be gazing down into your casket, feeling just awful. So for now, throw them a bone. Give them a break.
Beyond that, fully imagine your death: the cozy warmth, the pleasant wooziness. The sound of your favorite film or music playing in the background. Envision your sparkling bathroom and empty filing cabinets. Then imagine the world without you. The same traffic jams and famines. The same political crap fights and your team never making the playoffs. People will forget you. Everyone will forget you. You're no Kurt Cobain, so just light your barbecue and toast a marshmallow....
But if you've completed the Three C's, chances are good that you won't bother. Because by then you'll be surrounded by friends who now recognize you as a valuable, sensitive guy. Your oven will be clean, your car vacuumed. In the same way you procrastinated on your taxes, you can procrastinate on your death. And, at least for the moment, your hair looks... really great.
Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club, Choke, and Inivisible Monsters, among other books.
10 things worth living for
1 The word "sex" plus any of the following: sweaty, grinding, make up, exculpatory, oral, and, of course, hot monkey.
2 The sweet torque of a perfectly thrown ball: curve, foot-, bowling, doesn't matter.
3 Your favorite band's next tour. Why the hell didn't you go last time?
4 The new: People. Places. Tastes. Sensations. Profanities you haven't tried, like "Balls!" Gadgets. Cars. Players on your favorite team. Blacktop on your street. Information. Instruction. Friends. Lovers. Things that grab your imagination, even fleetingly, and make you hunger for more.
5 The surprise of receiving something unsolicited from a woman.
6 Inception's release. Don't know it? O brother, go forth and google.
7 Midsummer, when you can slap an obscenely thick tomato slice on every meal for a week.
8 Novels way better than their movies: The Beach, by Alex Garland; A Simple Plan, by Scott Smith; and Leaving Las Vegas, by John O'Brien.
9 The morning after uninterrupted sleep.
10 Sticking around to stick in the craw of those who cannot stand you.President Barack Obama announced Thursday that he’s inviting Republican and Democratic congressional leaders over to his place (that’s the White House) on Nov. 18 for talks.
Why does he want to host such a meeting so soon after bruising losses in the 2010 midterm elections? Because he’s trying to prove that he’s still relevant.
By taking the initiative and announcing this tentative get-together for the first week of the congressional lame-duck session, Mr. Obama has a chance to at least appear to be still driving Washington’s policy agenda. The president told reporters Thursday that he wants discussion to focus on the economy, tax cuts, unemployment insurance, and passage of a new nuclear-arms treaty with Russia.
“This is going to be a meeting in which I want us to talk substantively about how we can move the American people’s agenda forward,” said Obama. “It’s not just going to be a photo op. Hopefully, it may spill over into dinner.”
Obama also announced that he’s invited newly elected Republican and Democratic governors to the White House for a Dec. 2 get-acquainted meeting. So in general, the president is doing his best to act the role of national paterfamilias, apparently.
Presumptive House Speaker John Boehner has been getting a lot of attention in the past couple of days, so maybe the White House is trying to regain the spotlight. Presidents can be touchy that way. Remember what Bill Clinton ended up doing after he and his party got body-slammed in the 1994 midterms?
Republicans had gained control of both House and Senate then, and Speaker Newt Gingrich and was very much ascendant. At a news conference on April 18th, 1995, Mr. Clinton finally said, “The president is still relevant here.”
Presidents are always relevant in a way, just by virtue of the office, and Clinton’s words sounded a touch self-referential. Some critics called them whiny. This is just the sort of thing that Obama probably wants to avoid.
Also, by being the first to reach out to the other side, Obama at the least gets to look as if he’s attempting the bipartisan outreach that voters say they want. In contrast, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday is scheduled to deliver a speech to the Heritage Foundation that calls on the White House to move toward the GOP or expect no help from its lawmakers.
Whether newly empowered Republican leaders will consider Obama’s meeting proposal as bipartisan outreach is another matter. Representative Boehner was not fond of February’s White House seminar on health-care reform, which also was billed as a bipartisan conference where both parties could consider the other’s ideas.
Boehner at the time accused the administration of “engaging a largely handpicked audience in a televised ‘dialogue’ according to a script they have largely pre-determined.”
It’s also likely that Obama wants to make an impression of some sort on the national dialogue before he leaves Friday for a four-country trip to Asia that will last until Nov. 14. Absent some similar proposal, the president might have appeared to be just fleeing his troubles for foreign climes, while leaving the Washington policy field to the GOP.
“What’s going to be critically important over the coming months is going to be creating a better working relationship between this White House and the congressional leadership that’s coming in,” said Obama.Nickajack Lock is located 35 miles west of Chattanooga, Tennessee near the city of Jasper.
The lock is at river mile 424.7. It is 46.3 miles below Chickamauga Lock and 75.3 miles above Guntersville Lock.
The lock's address is:
3490 TVA Rd.
Jasper, TN 37347
Lock History
Construction began on the 600 foot-long Nickajack Auxiliary Lock in March of 1964. TVA completed it for operation in December 1967. The foundation for an 800-foot-long main lock was also laid, but it remains incomplete. This lock will not be completed until the amount of traffic exceeds the capacity of the current auxiliary lock.
More About Nickajack Lock and Dam
Nickajack was not the first Dam on this stretch of the river. Built by private interests in 1913, Hales Bar Dam was an engineering milestone. At the time, it was the world's highest single-lift lock. It marked the first use of caissons in dam construction to penetrate rock and was one of the first instances of pressure grouting a dam foundation. Hales Bar had problems though. Its foundation leaked. Several contractors went bankrupt while attempting to excavate and construct the facility. Even then, the leakage was never fully corrected. Eventually, it was decided that creating a new project was more economical than maintaining Hales Bar.
Nickajack helped eliminate the area's navigation problems, but it also caused the older Hales Bar Dam to be flooded.
Area History
The name Nickajack is generally thought to come from a free African American man who was taken prisoner by a band of renegade Indians. The band was a mix of Cherokee and Creek warriors, white fugitives, and some African Americans. The band collectively took the name Chickamauga. They settled in an area called the Five Lower Towns below present-day Chattanooga.
One African American named Jack Civil became a leader of the band, and one of the towns was given the name Nick-a-Jack. Like other Chickamauga towns, Nick-a-Jack was located along a narrow and perilous stretch of the Tennessee River. The river contained hazardous places with names like the Suck and the Whirl. The towns were also protected by Lookout and Sand mountains.
Their strategic location allowed the Chickamauga band to pillage and murder parties of frontiersmen and settlers as they headed west. A secret cave called Tecallassee (now called Nickajack Cave) was both a hiding place and a storage area for the band.
The natural hazards as well as the fierce Chickamauga prevented migration through the basin until 1794. General James Robertson of Nashville sent an expedition that year to destroy the Five Lower Towns. Ironically, the guide to Tecallassee was a young man named Joseph Brown. Brown had been orphaned by the Chickamauga and reared in the tribe until he was ransomed.
Tecallassee also played a role in the Civil War. More than 100 men mined saltpeter there as a source of the nitrate needed for gunpowder.
(Go to the Tennessee Valley Authority Nickajack Reservoir web page for more information about this project)A three-month Fusion investigation that reviewed hundreds of pages of records from five police departments with body camera programs reveals that the way body cameras are used usually serve police more than citizens charging misconduct. And in the data from two cities provided to Fusion, there was little evidence police body cameras reduced police involved shootings or use of force incidents.
One key problem: officers control the record button. They decide when to turn on and off the cameras and have little to fear when violating department policies about recording, Fusion’s analysis found. In many use of force incidents, camera footage doesn’t exist, is only partially available, or can’t be found. And when body cameras are turned on, the footage usually favors the officer’s account, according to police, law enforcement experts and public defenders we spoke with.
“This is one of our biggest concerns – the promise of this technology as a police oversight mechanism will be undermined if individual officers can manipulate what is taped and what isn’t,” ACLU Senior Policy Analyst, Jay Stanley told Fusion.
“There needs to be very strong policies that make very clear when police officers are expected to be recording and back that up with strict enforcement,” he said.
This has relevance in light of President Obama’s plan, announced last week, to get more body cameras onto the vests of police officers nationwide. Michael Brown’s family has demanded that all police officers wear cameras.
The cameras are marketed to police departments as a way to reduce citizen complaints and litigation against officers. Steve Ward, CEO of body camera manufacturer Vievu, told Fusion, “If police officers wear body cameras, 50 percent of their complaints will go away overnight.” He said the cameras “overwhelmingly” help the officers.
That’s what Fusion found in records obtained from five cities currently using police body cameras: Albuquerque, NM, New Orleans, LA, Salt Lake City, UT, Oakland, CA and Ft. Worth, TX.
In Albuquerque, the number of police-involved shootings has not fallen since the cameras were first introduced in 2010. In fact, there has been an increase in the police involved shootings compared to the six years before the cameras were introduced.
The Albuquerque Police Department’s most recent annual report shows there have been 598 citizens complaints investigated by the department between 2011 and 2014 and in nearly 74 percent of those cases, the police determined the allegations were “unfounded,” “not sustained,” or the officers were exonerated.
Albuquerque Police Department spokesperson Tixie Tanner told Fusion that video evidence played a role in the outcome of these cases.
Albuquerque police department policy states officers should record “all contacts with the public that could result in complaints against the department’s personnel.” But the data obtained by Fusion found that police officers failed to follow the department’s body camera policies 60 times in 2013. So far this year, the department has recorded 28 violations of the policy. The Albuquerque police didn’t say how many of the violations involved officers not recording when required to.
The police body camera wasn’t rolling when 19-year-old Mary Hawkes was shot and killed by an Albuquerque police officer in April. The police officer’s camera was turned off when the officer fired his weapon. Just this week, the officer involved was fired after an internal probe found he turned off his camera at least four times. It’s very rare for officers to be fired for failing to properly use body cameras.
In New Orleans this summer, a police officer had her body camera turned off when she shot a 26-year-old man in the forehead during a traffic stop. The case is still under investigation. The department told Fusion there have been 39 internal affairs investigations involving the use of body cameras this year. So far, 17 of those officers were investigated and sanctioned while four were cleared of any wrongdoing. A report conducted by an independent monitor assigned by the U.S. Department of Justice released in August found cameras, including body cameras and the more prevalent police dashboard cameras, were not used in 60 percent of the use of force incidents reported between January to May 2014.
In an email to Fusion, the New Orleans Police Department said it is working to “build a solid system of accountability,” recently introducing “new activity sheets that officers must fill out in the field to “document that they are wearing a working body-worn camera.”
In Salt Lake City, Utah, there have been nine use of force incidents by police officers so far this year. But only one was recorded on a body camera, despite official department policy that states cameras should be on “at all times” when interacting with the public.
“I can give you a body camera but if you don’t turn it on, what’s the point of having a camera,” said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sam Gil.
“The majority of police officers do their job honorably, but the legitimacy of a process is not measured by the actions of 99 percent of police officers, it is measured by the one or two that need to be held accountable and they aren’t,” he said.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank told Fusion the department did not fully implement the body camera program until September of this year and that might justify the lack of video evidence.
“My policy is when you are wearing cameras, when you are in contact with the public, they have to be on,” he said.
Burbank added there is a “false perception” that body cameras will decrease use of force incidents.
“They don’t prevent police misconduct or use of force, they are just an avenue to document officers encounters with citizens and in most cases capture the good work of police officers,” said Burbank.
In Oakland, CA, which has used body cameras since 2011, body cameras were not on during at least two officer involved shootings. A report from an independent monitor found that between July and September of this year some officers failed to activate cameras at critical times, while others went weeks without recording while waiting for broken cameras to be repaired.
The Ft. Worth, TX Police Department didn’t provide detailed data about violations of body camera policies. According to documents provided to Fusion, the police department found all allegations made against police officers since Jan. 1 of this year – with or without body camera evidence – were either “unfounded” or “did not result in discipline.”
“A lot of people are pinning their hopes on the cameras, but the reality is we have to change the culture of policing,” said Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez. “That’s changing peoples’ hearts and that’s very difficult to do.”
Miami-Dade County approved $1 million in spending this year to equip 500 officers with cameras, almost half of the total police force. The department plans to start the program next year.
Events of the last week have shown that even seemingly strong video evidence doesn’t always result in charges against officers. The failure to secure an indictment in the Eric Garner case – despite what many believe is clear, compelling video – resulted in nationwide protests.
“The Eric Garner case really illustrates the limit of body cameras. They might play an important role in federal or civil lawsuits but in terms of imposing criminal charges, the result is the same with or without video,” Florida International University law professor Howard Wasserman told Fusion.
Another case earlier this summer in Salt Lake City, Utah left many wondering if 18-year-old Dillon Taylor had to die when police fatally shot the unarmed mentally ill man outside a 7-11 convenience store.
A graphic 9-minute body camera video helped clear the three police officers involved of any wrongdoing |
he was also very green.
Dokos, who heads one of the most prominent Greek foreign policy think tanks, said he met Papadopoulos because he was the assistant to a researcher with the Washington-based Hudson Institute who was conducting interviews in Athens.
"He was basically serving as the note taker," Dokos said.
Less than two years later, after a short stint with the Ben Carson campaign, Papadopoulos was in Washington to meet Trump and join the team of the man who would become America's 45th president.
As it happened, Kammenos was in Washington the same day, for a meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The Greek defense minister had largely been shunned by the Obama White House for his bombastic rhetoric — he once threatened to unleash a wave of jihadists on Berlin if the European Union did not back off its austerity demands — and for his Moscow links.
Throughout the worst of Greece's economic crisis, Kammenos had been outspoken in arguing that the country could pivot to Russia for help if negotiations with Europe turned sour.
He also pushed for an end to sanctions imposed on Russia, championed a plan for Russia and Greece to jointly manufacture Kalashnikov assault rifles and befriended a number of influential Moscow players, including the wealthy Greek Russian businessman and politician Ivan Savvidis.
"He's been one of the strongest Putin supporters in Greece," said Adonis Georgiadis, vice president of Greece's center-right New Democracy party.
Greece, an E.U. and NATO member, has a long-standing strain of its geopolitics that looks east to Russia rather than to the West.
But Kammenos, leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks, was also eager to improve his ties to Washington. Perhaps sensing that would be unlikely under a President Hillary Clinton, he became one of the few senior government ministers in Europe to enthusiastically back Trump.
And that support extended to Papadopoulos, whom Kammenos publicly embraced on social media and introduced around town during late spring 2016.
"Papadopoulos was totally unknown. But then Kammenos took him by the hand and promoted him everywhere," Georgiadis said.
In short order, Papadopoulos had soon had meetings not only with the defense minister, but also with Greece's foreign minister, its president and a former prime minister — a remarkable level of access for such a young aide.
All are considered relatively pro-Russian. At the time of the meetings, internal Trump campaign documents show that Papadopoulos was working aggressively to connect with senior Russian officials and was hoping to broker a meeting between Putin and Trump.
It is not known whether Papadopoulos met any members of Putin's entourage in May 2016, when both were in Athens and the president was accompanied by his foreign minister, plus state oil and gas executives. But Georgiadis said he believed that Kammenos would have been able to put the two sides in touch — and had good reason to do so.
"He would have wanted to show Papadopoulos that he had good ties with the Russians and he would have wanted to show the Russians that he had good contacts with the Americans," Georgiadis said.
Kammenos did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article. Attorneys for Papadopoulos said they would not comment on his meetings with Greek officials.
Others who met with Papadopoulos around that time described him as acting as though he were on a secret mission, refusing to confirm the location of meetings until half an hour before they began.
"Every so often, he would lower his voice so as not to be overheard or drop hints of major contacts," Alexis Papachelas, editor of the well-regarded Greek daily Kathimerini, later wrote of his meeting with Papadopoulos.
Kammenos was not Papadopoulos's only important link to Greek power circles. Soon after Papadopoulos was named to Trump's campaign, he reached out to the Rev. Alex Karloutsos, a senior official with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and an influential player in the Greek American community.
Karloutsos, who said he has visited the Oval Office under every president since Jimmy Carter, helped Papadopoulos make some early contacts in Greece.
But he soon noticed that the young adviser was prone to exaggerating his own importance as a conduit to Trump. He was also troubled by Papadopoulos's reaction to his swift transformation from an outsider hungering for insider connections to a player the insiders all wanted to know.
Papadopoulos, Karloutsos said, lapped up the perks of being romanced by the Greek business and political elite.
"He was caught up in the euphoria. 'No one knew me, then everybody knew me,' " Karloutsos said. "He loved being in the limelight."
The glare grew many times brighter after Trump's surprise victory. Within hours, Kammenos tweeted his congratulations to the president-elect — along with a picture of Papadopoulos and a note saying the young Greek American was "now important for Greece."
When Papadopoulos returned to Greece the next month, he told Marianna Kakaounaki, an investigative reporter for Kathimerini, that he had "a blank check" for any job he wanted in the Trump administration because of his services to the campaign.
"Everyone knows I helped him [get] elected, now I want to help him with the presidency," Papadopoulos boasted in a text message.
When prominent Greeks and Greek Americans gathered at Washington's Metropolitan Club for a party the night before Trump's inauguration, Kammenos and Papadopoulos were both there to celebrate.
Eight days later, Papadopoulos was interviewed by the FBI — and lied, according to his plea agreement, about the timing and nature of his interaction with the Maltese professor. There would be no White House job. In both Athens and Washington, Papadopoulos virtually disappeared from view.
But he became a frequent guest on Mykonos, the Greek island that's a paradise for the well-heeled.
During the late spring and into the summer, locals said he was a regular if discreet visitor at the island's poshest clubs. He judged a beauty contest — watching impassively as bikini-clad contestants marched by — and onlookers at the clubs described him as partying hard and spending freely.
"He didn't say where he got the money," said one witness to an expensive night of revelry. "He just told us he worked for the Trump administration."
Papadopoulos's lawyers, Thomas Breen and Robert Stanley, disputed the descriptions of their client's behavior on Mykonos. "Like many of the unflattering statements made by those who have an agenda to discredit George, those statements are flat-out lies," they said.
By midsummer, Papadopoulos was telling people on Mykonos that he had grown disenchanted with the United States and planned to settle permanently in Greece.
But on July 27, he flew to Dulles International Airport and was arrested by federal agents upon arrival.
He soon began cooperating with Mueller's investigation in return for a sentence sharply reduced from the five years in prison that he could have faced for lying to the FBI.
His whereabouts afterward are not known. In mid-October, Kammenos visited Chicago, Papadopoulos's home town, as the defense minister traveled the United States with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. At the White House, Kammenos beamed as he extended a hand to greet Trump.
On Oct. 30, Papadopoulos's plea was made public. Since then, Greek officials have largely avoided talking about him.
Karloutsos, the priest, said he called and emailed Papadopoulos to express concern but never heard back. He now lights a candle each Sunday for the 30-year-old.
Papadopoulos's story, he said, is an old one.
"The Greeks create their gods, then they destroy them," Karloutsos said. "It's called hubris. It's called an Icarus complex.
"He flew too close to the sun."
Elinda Labropoulou in Athens and Tom Hamburger in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more
Trump calls Papadopoulos a ‘young, low level volunteer’
Trump questions need for NATO, outlines noninterventionist foreign policy
Is there more than meets the eye with the professor at the center of the Trump-Russia probe? Or less?
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsRabat: More than 80 civilian members of a UN mission have left Western Sahara under a Moroccan expulsion order, airport sources and an AFP correspondent in the disputed territory said today.
It was the latest chapter in a row between Morocco and the world body since UN chief Ban Ki-moon angered Rabat by using the term "occupation" to refer to the status of Western Sahara.
"The last civilian members of the UN mission... took off on Sunday at 6 pm on a flight to Casablanca," said an airport source in the territory's main city of Laayoune.
The departures raised to 83 the number of staffers of the MINURSO mission in Western Sahara who have left since Saturday, leaving behind a pregnant member who was unable to travel.
The United Nations has said the removal of the civilian staff from the 500-strong MINURSO would deal a crippling blow to the mission, affecting drivers, technicians and communications experts.
The military force would not be able to operate without the civilian component, the UN's top political affairs official, Jeffrey Feltman, warned last week.
The United Nations has been trying to broker a Western Sahara settlement since a 1991 ceasefire ending a war that broke out when Morocco deployed its military in the former Spanish territory in 1975.
Rabat demanded a scaling back of the UN mission in retaliation for Ban's remarks during a visit to a Sahrawi refugee camp in early March in Algeria, which supports the territory's pro-independence Polisario Front.
Morocco, which considers the territory to be part of the kingdom and insists that its sovereignty cannot be challenged, has also decided to cut USD 3 million in funding for the UN mission.
Ban is to raise the MINURSO issue with UN Security Council ambassadors in New York on Monday, after the Council met last week but failed to urge Morocco to reverse the drastic cuts.Storm-battered Oklahomans again faced the risk of severe thunderstorms and even tornadoes on Tuesday as another storm system moved through the Plains and the Mississippi Valley, forecasters said.
Weather Channel meteorologist Kevin Roth said that isolated tornadoes were possible, along with damaging wind gusts and hail.
Severe thunderstorms were possible in the east and south Plains and the Mississippi Valley on Tuesday and the south Plains and north Texas on Wednesday, Roth said.
“Hard-hit Oklahoma has the severe threat both Tuesday and Wednesday,” he added.
He said there was a tornado risk for Oklahoma City late afternoon and evening on Tuesday.
“Strong thunderstorms” were also expected to hit Kansas City on Tuesday afternoon.
Millions of Americans were in the path of a major storm on Sunday that caused flash flooding and devastation throughout the middle of the country, The Weather Channel's Chris Warren reports.
The National Weather Service published a map showing a large swath of the central and eastern U.S. at risk of thunderstorms and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri had a slight risk of severe storms.
“Primary threats will be large to very large hail and damaging wind gusts. Isolated tornadoes will also be possible,” the weather service said.
Residents of West Alton, Mo. were ordered to evacuate the town after a levee breach near Highway 67 that sent water gushing over the roadway, Fire Chief Richard Pender told NBC News affiliate KSDK.
A flash-flood warning was in effect for parts of McClain, Grady, and Cleveland counties in Oklahoma until 7:15 am local time, the National Weather Service reported, as heavy rainfall was expected to move through the area.
The nation's midsection has been battered by relentless storms in recent weeks. On Friday, severe weather began to sweep across through the region, leaving 21 dead from twisters, hailstorms and flash floods - most of them in Oklahoma and Missouri.
And on May 20, an EF5 tornado packing 210mph winds struck the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 23 including 7 children who died at an elementary school.
Related:
This story was originally published onOntario Premier Kathleen Wynne is entering some bizarre territory in her ongoing verbal assault on Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Wynne’s latest effort is the suggestion that, had Harper been prime minister instead of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s national railway would never have been built.
Wynne seems set on reviving the days when Ontario sought to dictate policy to Canada.
“If Stephen Harper had been the Prime Minister instead of Sir John A. Macdonald and B.C. had said ’well we need a railway,’ he would have said ‘well, you know, we’re not going to help you with that, build it yourself,”’ Wynne said while appearing with Bill Blair, the former Toronto police chief who is running as one of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal candidates in the October election.
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This is an odd statement, considering the considerable efforts Ottawa has put into convincing Ontario to get behind Energy East, the transcontinental pipeline that would move crude from Alberta and Saskatchewan to Saint John. It’s a truly national project, it would work to the benefit of the country as a whole, would create jobs and expand domestic refining activity, and the provinces at the east and west ends of the pipeline are strongly in favour. It would unite an NDP government in Alberta with a Liberal government in New Brunswick, but is being held up by the Liberal governments in two provinces in the middle – Ontario and Quebec – which have no real skin in the game except for the fact the pipeline would cross through their territory. The Ontario leg already exists, in fact. TransCanada Corp., the builder, would simply convert it from gas to oil. Canada has been building pipelines for decades; there is no question of our expertise. There is no reason to hold up the project, in fact, but narrow provincial political gamesmanship, which is exactly what Wynne is practicing.
Wynne and Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard have issued a list of conditions they want met before they will deign to support the project. The aim is mostly to please environmental concerns that TransCanada is well aware of. If Sir John A. had faced similar efforts to derail the railway over patently partisan provincial antics, the great project might indeed never have been completed. But it wouldn’t have been Ottawa’s fault, it would have been that of petty, narrow-minded premiers protecting their flanks at the expense of the country as a whole.
Wynne’s motives are no secret. She doesn’t get along with Harper, a situation for which they both carry some blame. The Ontario premier’s latest complaint is Ottawa’s refusal to help her collect the deductions to be imposed on Ontarians as part of the province’s new pension plan. There has been plenty of criticism of the plan: it would apply to only about half the workforce, add costs to business when they are already struggling with a downturn, remove more money from paycheques that are already stretched, and put pressure on Ontario’s sliding economy. Ottawa contemplated expanding the Canada Pension Plan but passed on the idea for exactly those reasons. Now Wynne is having a tantrum because it won’t ignore its own findings and save her the cost of collecting the pension payments on her own.
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Article is so true. The nutbar is doing Ontario no favors. Had Ontarioian’s given her a minority government she would not be so bold. Sadly we have 3 more years of this lunacy. All we can hope for is Harper wins a solid majority and does not forget those in Ontario that voted for him, despite nutbar Wynnie.
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I guess her deep love for Canada is what is hidden in those emails that got deleted.
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These comments represent the standard of debate we aspire to on www.nationalpost.com
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Article is so true. The nutbar is doing Ontario no favors. Had Ontarioian’s given her a minority government she would not be so bold. Sadly we have 3 more years of this lunacy. All we can hope for is Harper wins a solid majority and does not forget those in Ontario that voted for him, despite nutbar Wynnie.
-Vic
I guess her deep love for Canada is what is hidden in those emails that got deleted.
-moderate_observer
These comments represent the standard of debate we aspire to on www.nationalpost.com
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Wynne complains that Harper prefers dealing with premiers one-on-one rather than submitting himself to the regular provincial get-togethers at which problems are discussed and avoided. The premiers can’t even agree among themselves at these talk-fests – the most recent broke up after failing once again to come to agreement on a joint energy strategy, other than to continue taking 10 separate approaches as they see fit.
“We need provincial and federal leaders working together to make sure that decisions that are made benefit their shared constituents, because Ontarians are Canadians, they’re not a different group of people,” says Wynne. Except the premiers rarely manage to “work together” with Ottawa other than to demand it send them more money, or collect more on their behalf.
Wynne is banking heavily on Justin Trudeau emerging as prime minister in October. If he fails – and a Liberal victory remains a long-shot – she will do Ontario no favours by alienating it from the federal government. While Alberta’s new NDP government makes a point of seeking cooperation with other leaders, Wynne seems set on reviving the days when Ontario sought to dictate policy to Canada. She’s on very slippery ground where that’s concerned. A have-not province with the country’s biggest deficits and a falling credit rating has no place issuing edicts to others.
National Post
KellyMcParland<Champions League football is poised to disappear from free-to-air television for the first time after BT paid more than £900 million to bolster its sports coverage David Ramos/Getty Images
BT has landed its biggest blow yet in the battle for pay-TV and broadband customers after launching a knockout bid, thought to be worth almost £1 billion, for the rights to broadcast live mid-week Champions League games from 2015.
The Times has learnt that the telecoms company has knocked out both BSkyB and ITV, the current holders of the rights, during bidding this week and has entered exclusive talks with Uefa for the rights packages. BT has yet to finalise the deal but appears almost certain to land the rights in the coming days.
A deal to sell the entire rights package to BT could raise the prospect of Champions League football disappearing from free-to-air television for the first time in Britain. BT offers its…This has long been a discussion among my peers and the industry in general. $0.99? $0.00? $9.99/album? $1.99/album? All of these prices are being tried now in various guises (OK Computer was $1.99 this week at Amazon.com’s MP3 store).
There are very smart people conjecturing on the various benefits of each price point. Terry McBride in a recent must-read paper for UK Media studies group MusicTank posited that $0.25 was a “sweet spot” – a position he described as a price that would draw just enough of current P2P users to legal, paid-for services to increase the volume of paid-for downloads enough to significantly increase incoming revenue for artists and labels.
Then came this piece in the LA Times – it comes on the back of Universal pulling the album of their artist Estelle off of iTunes in an attempt to create scarcity. Estelle is one of those artists who’s single is more important than the album – and just like the old days – Universal wants customers to buy the whole album, not just the single. As an alternative to pulling the album, The Times piece suggests that labels should raise the price of the single to $1.99.
So which is it?
What I have to agree with is that the inflexibility that iTunes holds on price (i.e. ONLY $0.99/track) is damaging to all parties here – customers, artists and labels. The closest thing to real price elasticity is AmazonMP3 allowing this kind of radical price experimentation (see the Radiohead classic album for $1.99 above), and so might be the closest thing to a real test of Terry McBride’s pricing suggestions.
Personally, I have to lean toward Terry’s idea of the $0.25 track – unless you’re a major label act like Estelle, you’ve no need to try and play the artificial scarcity game, even with the particular challenges that offering cheap, or even free, music presents.
So what do you think? What’s a reasonable per-track price in your world?
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedGary Morgan responds to the Federal Court decision regarding Linkhill.
“This is madness. It all began when the CFMEU and ETU approached tradespeople who were working at a non-union site, and encouraged them to support a case against Linkhill. It is suspicious to me because the workers did not make any complaint to the ABCC, the unions did! What’s more, the workers were told ‘there will be some money in it for you if you co-operate with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), and those workers who informed the ABCC that they did not want to be involved were threatened with potential jail sentences if they didn’t make a statement.
“When Linkhill was initially approached by the ABCC about these allegations, we told them that everyone was paid more than any Award, and if there is anyone who has been underpaid, we will correct the error and pay them immediately. There was no error in our calculations.
“It ended up with the Director of the former ABCC (now the Fair Work Building Industry Inspectorate) commencing litigation against Linkhill, and spending well over a million dollars, and probably closer to two million dollars, in legal fees, in a case where ten people were all paid more than the Award would entitle them to, and no-one suffered any loss or disadvantage.”
“The ABCC gave misleading and false information to the Court”, Mr Morgan said.
The ten tradespeople, ranging from an electrician and carpenters to several short term labourers, were all found by Federal Circuit Court Judge John O’Sullivan to be employees (rather than contractors) and were found to have been underpaid despite each receiving payment for their services that was substantially more than their full Award entitlements (including overtime, leave and redundancy payments).Linkhill has appealed the Judge’s findings, and will be appealing the penalty order. The appeals are expected to be heard before the end of the year.In response to the ABCC’s actions, Gary Morgan has applied to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, and will pursue criminal charges against the Director of the ABCC.Linkhill is a small private company that holds units in a Trust and employs less than ten permanent staff.
For further information:The Rangers and Phillies are still talking about a deal that would send top lefty Cole Hamels to Texas, Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reports. While the sides are talking about possible prospect packages, nothing is close at the moment.
Heyman notes that “there is no evidence the Red Sox and Phillies have talked seriously in recent weeks” on a deal involving Hamels, meaning that the Rangers could be the most promising landing spot at present. Philly is reportedly looking to add three legitimate prospects in a deal, with at least one potential impact player among them.
In addition to its impressive list of youngsters, the Rangers have some payroll flexibility, according to Heyman. After foregoing any significant spending this winter, the team appears likely to open the year with just under $140MM committed to its 25-man roster (and disabled list). Looking forward, Texas has over $100MM already on the books for 2016 and at least $50MM in each of the three years that follow. Hamels’s contract would tack on $22.5MM to those tallies over each of the next four years, and it also includes a $20MM option for 2019 that carries a $6MM buyout.
Yu Darvish’s season-ending Tommy John surgery has left a void atop the Rangers’ rotation, and it is surely tempting to replace him with Hamels. Of course, such a deal probably would have made as much or more sense prior to that injury, given the team’s other rotation questions. Part of the motivation for continuing to talk with Philadelphia could well be that the club already had designs on adding another long-term arm at some point in the near future.Amy Schumer's most recent TV episode is about gun control. But she forgot the most important thing about comedy shows: they should be funny.
Amy Schumer received a ton of favorable media attention for the most recent episode of her Comedy Central show “Inside Amy Schumer.” That’s because she devoted most of it to gun control. Unfortunately, she devoted nearly none of it to comedy.
Seriously, it was awful.
Factless Gun Control Sketch
The show began with a send-up of a QVC-type program. Schumer and a sidekick finish selling Steve Irwin commemorative coins and then offer a gun for $39.95 They fail to practice any gun safety while showing the gun and say things like, “pretty much anyone can purchase this.” They tell a caller — claiming to have committed several violent felonies — that he can purchase a gun (it’s illegal to sell to someone you even suspect of being a felon). Schumer says she’s an unlicensed seller who can sell guns no-questions-asked because she’s running a “gun show” (except that her character is selling thousands of guns, meaning she’s the very definition of a “high-volume seller” covered by federal regulations) and could also do it if she were on the internet. Nope, nope, and nope.
There are some faux-sexist, faux-anti-gay, and anti-blind lines that smell like jokes. Then a man with a Middle Eastern accent calls in and says he’s a suspected terrorist on the No-Fly List, and could he buy a gun. And since that list — which had 900,000 names on it in 2013, including Weekly Standard writer Stephen Hayes and various other law-abiding citizens — has precisely zero criteria as to who gets placed on it, it’s a civil liberties trainwreck that should not be used to deny the constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
And then the sketch somehow gets worse. One of the hosts shoots himself in the foot while Schumer lists politicians who support the Second Amendment to the Constitution.
Are you laughing?
No, because it’s not funny. It’s also complete horse crap, but that’s not the problem. The problem is it isn’t funny.
There are many ways to speak on the very complicated issue of violence other than Schumer’s lazy approach.
Schumer then explains that she has turned this episode into advocacy for gun control because of the horrible event that happened last summer when a man killed two women at a screening of her movie “Trainwreck.” She admits that nobody likes when celebrities get involved in politics but says the parents of the girls asked her to speak on the issue.
Fine! Good! Absolutely! And there are probably many ways to speak on the very complicated issue of violence other than the lazy approach she took.
Lazy Anti-Twitter Sketch
The next sketch featured someone pretending to be a VP of Communications for Twitter introducing a new button for Twitter users. Right now Twitter users can click a button to indicate they like a tweet. The new button would allow them to say, “I’m going to rape and kill you.”
The reasoning, the VP explains, is that “over 120 percent of tweets directed at women refer to raping and/or killing them.”
As a Twitter user, I can attest to having received threats and being called names. All such threats and harassment are wrong, but it’s an enduring myth that women suffer more abuse on social media than men. In fact, the opposite is true. As this Pew study shows, men are more likely to be harassed online:
Overall, men are somewhat more likely than women to experience at least one of the elements of online harassment, 44% vs. 37%. In terms of specific experiences, men are more likely than women to encounter name-calling, embarrassment, and physical threats.
Sometimes, to take a random example I came across this past weekend, this abuse is done by well-respected writers from Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, Foreign Policy, and various other publications.
So yes, we need to encourage civility toward women on Twitter. Also men. And we need to stop perpetuating the false stat that women are uniquely harmed by online abuse.
Or if we’re going to perpetuate that falsehood, could we at least be funny while doing it?
A Sketch About ‘Game of Thrones’ Forgets to Be Funny
Then there was an unending and shockingly unfunny sketch about how Schumer doesn’t want to get on a horse.
Followed by, granted, a funny sketch about Liam Neeson running a mortuary. It’s called Don Cheadle’s I Don’t Bury Cowards Funeral Home. And he buries only those people who die bravely. Nicely absurd.
Going Shallow on Everytown
Each show ends with a chat. Usually Schumer talks to someone about his or her sex life. This time she talked to someone from Everytown for Gun Safety. The puffball interview has the spokeswoman saying that the biggest misconception about the group is that they’re trying to take guns away. “Why would anyone think that?” Schumer asks. Yes, after The New York Times was a Pulitzer finalist for a front-page editorial advocating gun confiscation, why in the world would anyone think that the gun control movement wants to grab guns? Oh wait.
In any case, Schumer then asks if the gun control advocate is turned off by NRA members. She says something to the effect of “most NRA members are reasonable but the leadership is crazytown.” To which Schumer responds, “crazy bat**** nuts.”
Then the gun control advocate agrees and says they’re “totally crazy — there’s this great myth that they’re untouchable and unbeatable, but they’re way too extremist for the American public.”
I mean, really. Not only has the current executive of the NRA been in that position for something like 25 years, the idea that there is a notable mismatch between the five million members and the leadership — much less that the mismatch would go in the direction described by the gun control advocate — is hi-freaking-larious.
The show ends with a number to text to get involved in gun control.
I tweeted out my dislike of the episode, for which Amy Schumer blocked me on Twitter.
Which is fine. I doubt I can endure another episode of her show as is. I never need to agree with the politics of comedians (or else I would never watch them), but I do require them to be funny. Schumer’s crime isn’t that she put forth a hackneyed call for gun control, as unfortunate as that is. It’s that she wasn’t funny. Not at all.The former Agriculture Minister presents the Breakfast show on the stations at the weekday morning slot from 630am to 10am.
He will be departing in July and also stepping down from his roles as a presenter on TV3 and as a columnist with the Irish Independent.
Mr Yates has presented the programme since 2008, apart from his 16 months in Wales when he emerged from bankruptcy.
He worked alongside Claire Byrne initially on the show and was later joined by co-presenter Chris Donoghue on his return from Wales.
Speaking to independent.ie Chris Donoghue has paid tribute to Mr Yates saying they worked brilliantly as a team.
He's such a drama queen! Trying to overshadow Enda and Micheal's meeting.... pic.twitter.com/KLGHHGjn83 — Chris Donoghue (@chrisrdonoghue) April 6, 2016
"Ivan has been a great partner on air, where most 'big names' want all the limelight to themselves Yates has always been happy to share with the people he works with.... He just wants all the money,” he joked.
"He's never been boring and it's been a real pleasure to share a studio with him. We've been talking about this day for a couple of months and will see out our last three months of Newstalk Breakfast with great energy."
He added: "As for Newstalk, it has so many talented people there's a great opportunity now for a fresh new breakfast show with a fresh new line up."
Read more: How does the nation feel about Ivan Yates' departure from Newstalk?
The former Fine Gael TD will be stepping back from public life and travelling with his wife, Deirdre, for a year.
Mr Yates has categorically denied his departure from his media roles is related to his wife’s financial difficulties after AIB secured a €1.6m debt judgment against his wife, Deirdre.
“I am saying categorically this is completely unlike my departure to Wales and which was quite brutal. This is absolutely by choice,” he told independent.ie.
On whether this time out, the departure was down to Deirdre’s finances and if she was now seeking bankruptcy, he said this was “absolutely” not the case.
The debt arises out of a guarantee Deirdre Yates gave on loans obtained from AIB to her husband for his Celtic Bookmakers business, which went into liquidation in 2011.
Mr Yates was later declared bankrupt in the UK, having lived for 16 months in Wales to qualify under that country's more relaxed bankruptcy laws.
AIB said that as Mrs Yates was a majority shareholder, director and company secretary of the bookmakers, it was entitled to recover from her €1.6m arising out of the single guarantee that she signed on her husband's debt.
Mrs Yates, a primary school teacher, claims that when she signed the guarantee she did not receive, and was not advised to receive, legal advice about the implications of doing so.
Online EditorsTheir weird-looking device promised to turn dirty air into oxygen on your face. It was a groundbreaking invention. It just wasn't real.
With all the air pollution today, it’s no wonder that people are turning to tech for oxygen. That’s why this weird-looking device uses DNA from plants to turn carbon dioxide into oxygen on your face.
Thousands of people have signed up to try the device. Dozens of venture capitalists are clamoring to invest in it, and hundreds of stores are begging the makers to distribute it. It’s had hundreds of media mentions, including some with The Huffington Post, Vice and New Scientist.
There’s just one problem: it’s not real.
It all started in the country of Georgia, where two guys sat on mismatched chairs in a borrowed office space, trying to figure out how to save the world. After taking an entrepreneurship course at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, Bacho Khachidze and Lasha Kvantaliani started a business called Treepex to help people plant trees, but the press just wasn’t interested.
“Everyone knows we have to plant more trees, but nobody cares,” Khachidze told me later. So he and his partner grew determined to come up with a green idea that would gain worldwide attention. They enlisted the help of a creative agency and deliberated for days. Eventually, they realized that, if there’s one thing people pay attention to, it’s techy gadgets. Especially ones involving DNA.
Bacho Khachidze and Lasha Kvantaliani, cofounders of Treepex, when I visited them in their new coworking space in New York. (Photo: Ilana E. Strauss)
“Guys, are you ready?” asked Bibi Asatiabi, a creative director at one of their meetings in downtown Tbilisi. He flipped on the TV. “Let me introduce this.” He pulled up a digital 3D model he’d designed the day before. They all looked at the strange, respirator-like device meant to fit over a person’s nose and deliver clean air using DNA from tree cells. It was futuristic. It was ridiculous. It was perfect.
“Wow,” said Khachidze. “Let’s go for it.”
For many companies, developing a new product takes years. But when you don’t actually have to develop anything, the process moves much more quickly. Khachidze and Kvantaliani threw everything together in two months. They had almost no budget, but favors got them far. They had a designer build the useless device, made a professional-looking website and sent out a press release, gaining the attention of some media outlets in Georgia.
“The DNA of millions of leaves” has been “compressed into the brain of the device” read their press release, a scientific claim that, in retrospect, was pretty dubious.
Then they made a commercial. They had to shoot one scene in their supposed DNA lab. Unfortunately, they hadn’t heard of any DNA labs in all of Georgia. So they filmed in a hospital. In the video, you can see a scientist looking at nothing under a microscope; nobody had remembered to put oil on the plate.
They shot other scenes on the street. As they filmed, passersby would come over. “Oh hey, it’s Treepex!” shouted one young woman. Khachidze told me that just about everybody in the country heard about it.
Once they put the video out, they got even more attention. In a month, the Treepex device had gone viral. Companies had found ways to turn carbon dioxide into fuel, but no one had ever created a wearable device that turns it into oxygen before. Treepex went on to get about 600 media mentions and untold Facebook shares and tweets. One famous Georgian journalist, George Gabania, took a selfie while using it.
“Everyone who used Facebook in Georgia during these two or three weeks at least saw this commercial,” Giorgi Tsitlidze, a 22-year-old Georgian marketer not connected with Treepex, told me.
That's around when I found out about Treepex. Interested in exploring the business for an article, I reached out to Khachidze, but he told me I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before he'd let me interview him. That was weird since, as a journalist, my whole purpose was to disclose things. Not wanting to get into legal complications, I didn’t sign it or write the story. (He later told me that he wanted me to sign it so he could let me in on the hoax.)
Still, there were some |
, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellHouse to push back at Trump on border Democrats block abortion bill in Senate Overnight Energy: Climate protesters storm McConnell’s office | Center-right group says Green New Deal could cost trillion | Dire warnings from new climate studies MORE (R-Ky.) has acknowledged the bill would be a dead letter.
He has instead vowed to pick apart the healthcare law “root and branch,” though lawmakers say details on his plan won’t emerge until after next week, when House and Senate Republicans meet for their first joint retreat in years.
House Republicans’ conservative caucus, the Republican Study Committee (RSC), is also working out details on its ObamaCare plans but intends to keep repeal at the top of its list, an aide said. The RSC released a bill to replace the law in 2013.
“The top priority of the members is getting something that repeals the employer mandate while also pressing for vote on repeal as soon as possible,” the aide said.
The White House has remained defiant in the face of a new GOP assault on the law, threatening on Wednesday to veto the House version of the 40-hour workweek bill.
Democrats are hoping Republicans overreach on ObamaCare, and are highlighting what they argue are the law’s positive effects.
On Wednesday, the party circulated a Gallup survey that found the percentage of U.S. adults without health insurance had dropped to 12.9 percent — a significant decrease from the 17.1 percent rate one year ago.
With the GOP taking full control of Congress, healthcare lobbyists say they’re getting a long-awaited chance to tinker with the edges of the Affordable Care Act.
Former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh (Ind.), an adviser to the business-focused law firm McGuire Woods, said the Republican Party appears increasingly willing to address pieces of ObamaCare, such as the medical device tax, compared to the early years of the law when small tweaks were off-limits.
“I just think a majority [of Republicans] will ultimately conclude that, after they’ve tried to get everything they want, that something’s better than nothing,” said Bayh, who consults on healthcare issues and has worked to eliminate the medical device tax.
— Bernie Becker contributed.0
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Spoilers ahead for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
Rogue One has a pretty ballsy ending. While we’ve been conditioned for franchises to keep carrying characters for as long as they’re popular, everyone dies in Rogue One. Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) is killed in the destruction of Jedha. K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) and Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) are shot to death; Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) and Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed) are both blown up; and Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) both die when the Death Star blows up the Imperial base. None of the heroes are coming back in a sequel.
And yet, THR reports that of the lead actors, Jones has one sequel option in her contract. While Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and reps for the castmembers both say there will be no sequel for Rogue One, Jones has a sequel option that the studio could exercise if they wanted to bring her back to play Jyn Erso.
So why is that clause there in the first place? We know that Rogue One went through a lot of reshoots, and it’s possible that when Jones signed on to the film, the script had Jyn surviving the mission. However, THR speculates that Jyn could be used in a “a young Luke Skywalker stand-alone in the future.”
However, that’s far more confusing. Rogue One ends right where A New Hope begins, so we’re left to assume that up until this point, Luke Skywalker has been living a boring life on Tatooine. He has no adventures; that’s why he’s all mopey and whiny. He wants to get away from his tedious existence and go join the rebellion. That makes a lot less sense if he went on some adventure with Jyn Erso in the past. If there are adventures to be had on Tatooine, why leave the planet?
While you could do a Jyn Erso standalone movie without Luke Skywalker, you’re stuck with the problem that we’ve already seen her greatest adventure. Setting aside the fact that when we meet Jyn in Rogue One she seemingly wants nothing to do with the rebellion and just wants to be left alone. Even if we’re on some adventure with her that takes place before the events of Rogue One, how can her mission in that film be greater than stealing the plans for the Death Star? Also, her character trajectory would be in the wrong direction. Rather than the uplifting resolution that finds a wannabe loner deciding to fight for something greater than herself, a prequel would leave her disenchanted and disheartened.
Jones may have a sequel option in her contract, but I believe that option came about when there was the possibility that Jyn might be the lone survivor of the mission to retrieve the Death Star plans. Now that the character is dead, it’s probably best to let her rest in peace.0:33 Intro. [Recording date: January 30, 2015.] Russ: That book, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, by Benn Steil. Now Bretton Woods was a legendary international conference in 1944, toward the end of WWWII with the goal of creating an international monetary system, to correct some of the perceived problems in international trade and the health of the world's economies. But to understand what happened there, we have to go back, as you do in your book, to before WWII. What went wrong with monetary policy and trade in the 1930s? Guest: If you want to understand what went wrong with monetary and trade policy in the 1930s I think you have to go back to the eve of WWI. That was formally the ending of the classical gold standard. When countries went back on the gold standard in the 1920s, they were really operating under very different premises. In the late 19th century, for example, when a dollar was sent out of the United States for the purchase of goods abroad, gold would flow out of the United States and interest rates would have to come up in order to attract it back. And this natural correspondence between money flows and gold flows tended to alleviate what we today call global imbalances. But in the 1920s, countries were no longer obeying what you might call the Golden Rule of the Gold Standard. That is, when gold flowed out, they did not raise interest rates; when gold flowed in, they did not lower interest rates. The United States and France in particular were "sterilizing" gold inflows. That is, they were hoarding gold, but they were not allowing monetary conditions to be determined based on the movement of gold. This particularly created grievous problems for Britain, which went back onto the gold standard--which is now really a gold exchange standard in 1925: at the same parity it had left the gold standard in 1914 despite the inflation it had suffered during the war, and this created enormous economic and political frictions among these three countries. Now, from the perspective of the United States, it was Britain exiting the gold standard in 1931 that set off a series of currency and trade wars that spread the Great Depression globally and created the environment of misery and anger that paved the path to aggression for the European dictators, Hitler and Mussolini. So they were very much, the U.S. Treasury in the 1940s, economic determinists in explaining how we came to the eve of WWII. And they were determined to create a new international monetary system founded on the U.S. dollar that would eliminate competitive devaluations permanently. Of course these were competitive devaluations against the U.S. dollar. This is what they were fundamentally most concerned with. Russ: We've done a bunch of episodes and encourage listeners to go back and listen to--we had one with Tom Rustici on Smoot-Hawley and the role of tariffs in creating the Great Depression. And Doug Irwin, an extensive conversation about France's behavior in this period that you're alluding to.
4:46 Russ: Before we go into the details of what happened at Bretton Woods, and the players, which are utterly fascinating--it's an amazing book and I learned a shockingly large amount, I'm both proud and ashamed to say--but let's talk just for a second about the inherent tension between being part of an international monetary system and having control over your own fate. So it seems to me that the history of these efforts, Bretton Woods being one of them, is this tension between, you want to be able to trade with your neighbors, interact with your neighbors, accept their currencies--your people--and yet, at the same time you want to be able to control your interest rate, your inflation, stimulate your economy if you need to. And these goals conflict often, and there's an inherent tradeoff there that nobody really likes to deal with. Guest: That's right. In the 1930s there was a mass scramble for gold which was still really the foundation of the global monetary system. And it was very much embedded in people's psyches. Gold was to people around the world money. It was the foundation of the national monies that were printed up. And over the course of the 1930s into the 1940s, as the United States was accumulating more and more gold, the U.S. dollar became the only credible surrogate for gold in the world. So if you didn't have significant reserves of gold or U.S. dollars you were forced basically to resort to barter in order to trade. Russ: What's wrong with that? Explain what that is. Because barter in everyday life is different from barter at the national level. Guest: Basically, we're talking about one country sending, say, commodities to another country in return for a fixed amount of finished goods. Countries, for example, today, like Iran, that are faced with economic sanctions often have to resort to barter. And it's naturally a very inefficient way of trading. So, the monetary chaos of the 1930s, as you had this mad scramble for gold and dollars was one of the causes of the collapse in international trade.
7:25 Russ: So, let's turn to the Bretton Woods conference. I'm going to confess that I always thought that John Maynard Keynes had crafted the institutions that had emerged from that--the International Monetary Fund--the IMF--the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization--the WTO. Your book explains that's not true. It was really the vision of Harry Dexter White, a figure whose name I've heard of but who turns out to be a rather extraordinary figure in this story and in the ramifications for all kinds of things, including Soviet espionage. Which is really remarkable. But forgetting the details of White versus Keynes, which we're going to get to, what was the idea behind what emerged from Bretton Woods? What was the goal of the IMF--we'll put the WTO to the side. The WTO is simple, relatively--it was to try to get the world to lower tariffs and to trade more. But let's talk about the IMF and the World Bank. When they were conceived in 1944 and in the aftermath of Bretton Woods, what role were they going to play in the international monetary system. Guest: Let's start with the World Bank so we can get that off the table relatively quickly. By the time we get to the Bretton Woods conference, there really is very little controversy about the World Bank. It's not going to be a very important geopolitical institution, at least in comparison with the IMF. It was called, at the time, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Notice that the word'reconstruction' comes before 'development.' It's main role was going to be to assist in financing the reconstruction of Europe after the War. Now, a number of nations, particularly those in Latin America, objected to having their scarce dollars put to use reconstructing Europe, and that was part of the reason why the development function of this institution was tacked on. Russ: That was a compromise. Guest: Yeah. And eventually of course it became the dominant role of the World Bank. But there was enormous controversy in the two-year run-up to the Bretton Woods conference between the United States and Great Britain over the IMF, which was clearly going to be a very, very important geopolitical institution. The biggest controversy between the two of them was over the role of the U.S. dollar in the post-War order. John Maynard Keynes, who was the head of the British delegation at Bretton Woods fought relentlessly with the Americans about this. He wanted the U.S. dollar to have no special role in the international monetary architecture. He had proposed a new supranational currency which was to be called Bancor, which he hoped over time would come to supplant the dominant international role of the U.S. dollar. The Americans and Harry Dexter White in particular would have absolutely none of this. They actually wanted to give the United States even more of a privileged role than it had on the eve of the conference in 1944. And they were in a powerful negotiating position because of the fact that the United States at the time controlled about two-thirds of the world's monetary gold reserves. Now, at Bretton Woods, Harry Dexter White used a number of rather remarkable ruses in order to have the U.S. dollar and only the U.S. dollar declared the equivalent of gold for the purposes of carrying out the operations of this new powerful International Monetary Fund. Keynes, as I said, had objected to any special status for the U.S. dollar, was forced to sign the agreement as he was being told to check out of the hotel with the other delegates and later complained bitterly that he hadn't even had time to read the document properly. Russ: But, it's unlikely, had he had that time, he would have gotten much different in terms of results out of the negotiations, according to your story about where the power stood. Guest: Absolutely. And even though he had a number of fights with Harry Dexter White after the conference--he was trying to revise some of the provisions--he didn't even raise this one any longer because he knew he was going to lose this battle and didn't want to draw any more public attention to it. Russ: So, what would the IMF do in the post-War era, the way White structured it? Guest: The way White structured the IMF, countries would contribute gold, securities, U.S. dollars, and a limited amount of their own domestic currency to a pool of valuable assets. That would be used to help finance countries that were running what were seen as temporary balance of payments deficits. What White was trying to achieve was to stop those countries' running balance of payments deficits from erecting trade barriers and making it more difficult for the United States to export. In particular that's what he was concerned with. He knew that in the 1930s that--at least in his mind, this was the way it had happened--that trade broke down when currency conflicts rose up. Again, he blamed the British in particular for destroying the gold exchange standard in 1931. So, he was determined to establish a mechanism that would discourage countries which were running balance of payments deficits from interfering with the operation of a new multilateral trading framework. Which interestingly enough would not be established till 3 years after the Bretton Woods Conference--the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) was only agreed in 1947. Russ: General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Guest: Which was a precursor to the World Trade Organization.
14:37 Russ: And it turned out that we have seen a steady growth in international trade since 1946, more or less. But he gets some other problems along the way, which we'll get to in a sec. It wasn't a free lunch there. Before we do that, I want to focus on a really eye-opening set of economic issues between the United States and Great Britain, during the War and after, which I was unaware of. And to get there, let's start with a thumbnail sketch of Harry Dexter White and Keynes. And you start with White; and I have to read one line that you used to describe him, because I really loved it. You said, "Now in his mid-forties, White was on the tall side of short." He was 5'6", and that's me. I have a new way to describe myself. I used to be 5'6 and 3/4", maybe 5'7", but as I've gotten older, I have to be honest: I'm really 5'6". And I love calling that the tall side of short. But carry on. Tell us about White and Keynes's careers and personalities as they arrived at Bretton Woods. Guest: Right. White was 9 years Keynes's junior. He was born in 1883. He was the youngest of 7 children of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. His father was a hardware peddler. He grew up in working class Boston. His parents died when he was very young--his mother when he was 9, his father when he was 16. He actually dropped out of college in his first attempt to get a degree in order to go back into the family hardware business. This was a very intelligent, ambitious man. He eventually made his way back to college: he got his undergraduate degree from Stanford in 1924 at the age of 32. Went on to Harvard to do his Ph.D. in economics, which he finished in 1930; but he was not able to get tenure there. He moved on to a small college in Appleton, Wisconsin, Lawrence College, where he was very unhappy. And he wrote to his former supervisor at Harvard, Frank Taussig, that he was studying Russian and hoped to get a scholarship to go to Moscow to study Soviet economic planning. This man was very much a political romantic, somewhat out of the mainstream. When he was at Stanford, for example, he was a passionate supporter of Fighting Bob La Follette's independent Progressive Party campaign for the Presidency on a policy of nationalizing key American industries and ending American imperialism in Latin America. Russ: He fought for it, right? He agreed with it. Guest: Oh, very passionately. Harry Dexter White was a man whose political passions always came first, and his economics he saw as a tool to advance his political agenda. And he was fascinated with the Russian Revolution and in particular with what he saw as a great success of Soviet state economic planning. But before he could go off to Moscow, he was invited by Jacob Viner, U. of Chicago, economist who was working temporarily at the U.S. Treasury, to come to Washington, D.C. to work temporarily on a study of U.S. monetary and banking institutions. And to make a long story very short, he arrived there in 1934, just have Henry Morgenthau, and old friend of FDR's (Franklin Delano Roosevelt's) with no background in economics, had become Treasury Secretary. And he makes himself absolutely indispensible to Henry Morgenthau. And the two in the next 12 years develop a very complicated symbiotic relationship, where Morgenthau becomes dependent on White for actionable policy ideas, which he can sell to the President. And White becomes dependent on Morgenthau in order to be able to stay in Washington and to advance with the U.S. Treasury, and to avoid having to go back to Appleton, Wisconsin. Now, this whole idea of an international monetary conference had been at the forefront of White's mind from the time that he arrived in Washington. For example, I found a fascinating memo in White's archives, dated 1936. He is a man literally obsessed with the relative geopolitical and economic positions of Britain and the United States, and he writes, 'The more sterling countries there are in the world'--that is, the more countries that use the pound sterling or which tie their currency to the pount sterling--'the stronger will be England's position around the bargaining table, should an international conference take place.' Now, in 1936 is no more than a bureaucratic temp at the U.S. Treasury. But he's already planning, 8 years before Bretton Woods, a major international monetary conference at which he, Harry Dexter White, will best the British. Russ: Now, talk about Keynes. A lot of us know something about Keynes. But your portrait of him is very--it's very subtle; it's very revealing. I learned a lot about Keynes I didn't know. Talk about Keynes and then we'll talk about the positions they found themselves in. Guest: One of the things that makes the story so fascinating and compelling on a personal basis is the enormous differences--cultural, lifestyle, the way the grew up--between Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes. Keynes was the son of two upper middle class Cambridge academics. He was raised by a governess and servants. He was expected to go on to great things in life. This was certainly very different from Harry Dexter White. He had worked in the U.K. Treasury briefly during the First World War, and that's where he cut his teeth in international diplomacy. All of his official missions to Washington, throughout his entire career, were begging missions. So, he was very, very sensitive to the fact that his ideas on monetary architecture needed to be actionable ideas that would help insulate Britain from economic and geopolitical pressure from the United States. He and White became sort of intimate interlocutors after 1942. Both he and White were working on their own monetary plans for a new international monetary fund. They had enormous disagreements over the institution, on the role of the U.S. dollar, on the ability of countries to devalue their countries' currencies independently, on whether the IMF would be a powerful institution as the Americans wanted, or basically an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine)--a cash machine for debtors, as Keynes had wanted. But because of their very, very different backgrounds and temperaments, the exchanges between the two were truly memorable. My favorite one is in October of 1943. White presents Keynes with a new version of the White Plan for Bretton Woods; Keynes hurls the document on the floor and yells, 'This is intolerable. It is yet another Talmud.' Of course, the word 'Talmud' is a reference to White being Jewish. Russ: And he calls White the 'Talmudist' occasionally. Guest: Exactly. He also refers to him as the 'Grand Rabbi.' Russ: Yeah. I view those as compliments. I don't think Keynes did. That's not my impression. Guest: He did not. But White's response was also memorable. He bowed and said, 'We will try to produce something which Your Highness understands.'
24:08 Russ: So, the part of this story that I was really unaware of--I'm a casual student of WWII; I've read a bunch of books on it but I don't read systematically on it. You think about the War, and you think about the fact--it's well known there's a strong isolationist part of the United States, that Roosevelt was more eager to get into the world, perhaps, than the American people; that Pearl Harbor is what eventually precipitated our involvement in the War in Europe, because Germany declared war on the United States--which is a fascinating part of history. They had a treaty with Japan, and when the United States and Japan were at war, Germany held up the treaty. Which is shocking, really. Really bad move on Germany's part; ultimately could argue cost them the war. So, when we think about the U.S.-British relationship, my thought is, Well, we got into the world later but we helped a lot before because we gave them a lot of stuff. And you talk very informatively of how that relationship worked, which I didn't know much about, which is the Lend-Lease Program. What I learned--and I'm going to give away the punchline, because there's some details to go through, but the punchline is amazing. The war broke Britain, financially. And the United States' relationship over this was remarkably contentious. I didn't realize how contentious it was. So, talk about how Lend-Lease got started and why it was important and why it ultimately affected Keynes's and the British delegation's bargaining position. Guest: Well, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously referred to American Lend-Lease during the War as "the most unsordid act." But Churchill was painfully aware of the fact that Lend-Lease aid came with very objectionable economic and geopolitical conditions, all of which interestingly enough had been devised by the U.S. Treasury. FDR certainly had quite a bit of anti-British animus; but he had no intention of using Lend-Lease in any way to reduce Britain's role in the post-War world. This was very much an object of the U.S. Treasury. The Treasury exploited the fact that Congress insisted that the United States should get "consideration" for Lend-Lease aid. And the Treasury basically devised three types of consideration that they were demanding from the British. Russ: Before you talk about the 3 types--say what it literally was. We were sending munitions--right? We were sending weapons. Guest: Yeah. Absolutely a brilliant contrivance of FDR to get around the fact that Congress didn't want to give Britain any more financial aid.Russ: Didn't want to take sides. Guest: Yeah. And Britain had defaulted on its WWI debts. And there was a lot of bitterness toward the British. So, FDR came up with this idea that we would not give them aid. We would not simply lend them money. We would have a swap. We would give them things that they need; they would give us things that we need. If they couldn't give us these things now, they would just return the items that we loaned them after the War. Russ: It's such a strange idea. These are airplanes and tanks-- Guest: Yeah. Absolutely. Russ: And food. It's a marketing plan. Guest: Yeah, of course it is. But brilliant political marketing. He used a garden hose analogy. He said, if your neighbor's house is burning down, you don't try to sell him a garden hose. You lend him your garden hose. And after the fire is put out, he gives it back to you. So this is the way FDR tried to sell aid to Britain, politically. But this, as I said, was not enough for Congress. And it was certainly not enough for the U.S. Treasury. And two men in particular: Henry Morgenthau and Harry Dexter White--who--you brought up the fact that White had engaged in some fascinating freelance diplomacy on behalf of the Soviet Union. But the counterpart to that was that he was very anti-imperialist. He was very much against the old European imperial powers-- Russ: Colonial order-- Guest: Britain and France in particular. And he was determined to force liquidation of the British Empire after the War. So the three things the Treasury demanded were, first, that after the War, Britain would have to end imperial trade preference. This was the arrangement by which Britain gave itself privileged access to the markets of its colonies and dominions. Second, it would have to make the pound sterling once again fully convertible into U.S. dollars at a fixed and overvalued exchange rate, on a fixed date after the War. That date was ultimately set at July 15, 1947--a day that would live in infamy for the British, because it effectively marked their bankruptcy. Their colonies and dominions were braying[?] to convert their worthless sterling into dollars. And July 15, 1947, they were finally able to do so. And, finally, Britain would, at Bretton Woods, accept the U.S. dollar as the foundation of a new world economic order after the War. These were all seen as very objectionable conditions in Britain. But as British Bretton Woods delegate and famous economist in his own right, Lionel Robbins put it at Bretton Woods: "We needed the cash." Russ: They were out of money. They couldn't buy any more tanks. They couldn't buy any more stuff. And they couldn't produce enough on their own, obviously, at the time. They were desperate.
31:04 Russ: So, these of course were remarkably unpleasant, as you point out, from the British perspective. But they felt like they were over a barrel. They didn't have a choice. Guest: Right. But there was, I should emphasize, quite a bit of controversy within the British Civil Service about what to do. Some top civil servants, one of whom I talk about in the book, Sir Richard Clarke, Otto Clarke, as he was known, was scathing about Keynes's strategy of cooperating with the U.S. Treasury. He did not want to go into Bretton Woods under the conditions that the Americans were demanding. He said, 'Look, we can borrow this money from other sources. We can borrow more from the Canadians. We can borrow from the American Import-Export Bank, which didn't have this geopolitical agenda-- Russ: And we're all from the--go ahead, sorry.-- Guest: And most importantly, we can borrow the money privately. And in fact there was a rear-guard action, launched in May of 1944, just before the Bretton Woods Conference, by a group of influential New York bankers, who very much hated the Bretton Woods agenda. They offered to lend Britain at least $3 billion dollars after the War, in return for which Britain would walk away from the Bretton Woods Conference. Clarke and others in the British Treasury wanted to pursue this idea. But Keynes would have none of it. And this, I think, was perhaps Keynes's most conspicuous weakness as a diplomatic--that he really had a vested interest in the Bretton Woods agenda. He knew that White's blueprint for Bretton Woods would win out in the short term. But he hoped that his blueprint would win out in the long run. Because he wanted to be known as the man who overthrew the gold standard and replaced it with a new, rational, managed international monetary system. So he very much had his own personal legacy at heart here. And I don't think he always fully recognized the options that he could have pursued in order to avoid these terms that the Americans were requiring. Russ: Well, he was an economist. And he had a characteristic, which many economists do, which disturbs me deeply as a fellow economist: that we want to run the world. And a single system, someone gets to run it. And probably should be the smartest person. And that would be Keynes. So I think he probably thought somewhere down the line he would continue to influence, if not manage, such a world system. I think it's true he certainly thought he would influence it. But going back to Lend-Lease for a minute: So, at the end of the War--this is the part that again, I know nothing about, at the end of the War, we presented the British with a very large bill, of money that they owed us. How did that interact? That was Lend-Lease? That was? Guest: We didn't really expect to get that money back. The big conflict with the British after the War was over British demands that the Americans should basically give them a gift of a few billion dollars--this was Keynes's idea--to account for the fact that Britain had entered the War much earlier than the United States. And had effectively been forced to fight on its own in a common cause. And the Americans naturally found this perspective extremely offensive. So, when Keynes went to Washington in September of 1945 for his last major begging trip, he had convinced the British government that they should not accept any more loans from the United States--that that would be extremely offensive, would just put the United Kingdom further in hoc to the Americans: We should demand "justice." We should demand that the Americans pay us for the services that we rendered in the common cause. The Americans scoffed at this idea and basically offered Britain a loan. Which Keynes, as usual, was ultimately forced to accept. The British government was furious at him, because he had convinced them that they should not take a loan and ultimately would not have to take a loan. This loan was ultimately paid off--you know when, Russ? Russ: I do, because I read your book. Guest: 2006. Russ: That's what blew me away. It's stunning. But of course along the way, Britain went from being a world power to being an important country with important things that it contributes and great achievements. But it did not, it was not on top of the world the way it had been, or at least close to, in the run-up to WWI or even WWII. It was marginalized as a player, at least at the national level at least in the international monetary system. Now, you could argue that's not really important. Some of that's ego; some of that's national pride--which I think, silly. But the part that is important is that England just was broke. They didn't have much economic capacity. And what economic capacity they had in the aftermath of WWII--a lot of it went to--is it true? How much of it went to finance the debts they had run up in the War? Guest: Enormous. On the eve of WWI, Britain's debt-to-GDP ratio was about 25%. By the time we get to Bretton Woods it was about 250%. So, Britain had gone from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation. And this is a very, very important part of my story. I think in terms of understanding contemporary affairs, is, well, this was effectively Bretton Woods a negotiation between the world's largest creditor nation, the United States, and the world's largest debtor nation, Great Britain. Over the terms of a new monetary architecture. Naturally, the position the position that the U.S. government took was very creditor-friendly. Of course, today the disputes are mainly between China and the United States, today China being the world's largest creditor nation; the United States being the world's largest debtor nation. And the position that the U.S. government takes today in such discussions is almost precisely the position that Keynes and the British had taken during WWII. Russ: Explain. Guest: Uh, well-- Russ: And I say 'explain' because the dollar remains the closest thing to an international currency. Guest: Absolutely. Russ: It's threatened. But that's the situation--the pound sterling was not the world's currency at the time of Bretton Woods. So, explain what you say--the U.S. position today is like the British. In what way? Guest: Right. You might remember back in 2010, former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed that there should be caps imposed on persistent current account surpluses. That is, that there should be financial consequences for countries--of course this was directed first and foremost at China--that run persistent current account surpluses. That were essentially abusing their creditor position. This was precisely the position that Keynes and the British had taken at Bretton Woods. Keynes actually wanted to impose financial penalties on the United States for running these persistent creditor positions. And Harry Dexter White and the U.S. Treasury would have absolutely none of this. He warned the U.S. delegation before they went off into negotiations at Bretton Woods that the British and others were going to be demanding this. But we would not tolerate any foreign interference in the operation of our current account surpluses. And of course this is really the position that China takes today. So, where you stand depends on where you sit. Russ: Absolutely. Guest: The United States supported fixed exchange rates during WWII when the pressure on its currency was up. And the United States supports floating exchange rates today when the pressure on its currency is down. And it sees countries like China that try to fix their exchange rate as interfering with the more competitive dollar.
40:54 Russ: So, I just want to clarify one thing, going back to the British debt. Two things. One of course: I cannot but note the irony, and I think this is half humorous but it's half very serious, which is that Britain ran large deficits during WWII. Which did not stimulate their economy. I just want to get that in. I hate it when people say that war spending is good for the economy. Or borrowing to finance war is good for the economy. I think that's a terrible argument. I don't think it's true, and I think it leads to encouragement of war. I think it's a bad idea. But I want to make sure I understand: When you say Britain's debt-to-GDP ratio was very high in 1945--I think you said 250%--who did they owe that money to? Was that to the United States, as a result of the Lend-Lease Program? Guest: The United States, the Canadians, their colonies and dominions mainly. Russ: And did anybody in England say, Well, we just need to walk away from it? Rather than pay it? Guest: Walk away from the-- Russ: the debt? Guest: the debt? Well, they certainly hoped to walk away from their U.S debts. And Keynes had argued that their debts to some of the colonies and dominions, for example, South Africa, should be written off. Because those countries, he argued, had in many cases benefited from the war. And certainly benefited from the efforts that Britain had made on behalf of the collective. So, Britain didn't want to "walk away" from the debts. But they wanted other countries to acknowledge that they had made great sacrifices on their behalf and that those countries should therefore willingly write off some of Britain's debts. Russ: And, you can certainly tell that story, that Britain did make great sacrifices. They lost a lot. They were bombed every night. And they died. And they went to France when France lay down its arms. The war was very expensive in the real sense of the term. Not just in money. But you point out that most Americans at the time didn't feel any gratitude. Europe's always getting itself in a mess and we always bail 'em out, which was WWI-- Guest: Quite the opposite. Exactly. Russ: That's just fascinating. Guest: Exactly. That the Europeans keep dragging us into their conflicts, and this has become extremely costly for us not just in terms of national treasure but in terms-- Russ: lives-- Guest: of American lives.
43:42 Russ: So, let's talk just for a minute--it's a side note but it's an interesting one. Henry Morgenthau was Secretary of the Treasury. Talk about what his plan for Germany--this is just extraordinary, again an episode of history I knew nothing about. What was his plan for post-War Germany? And what was the impact of that plan being announced, even though it was never implemented? Guest: Yeah. Let me |
.. like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine... C’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?]... There’s other really bad shit happening, but no one says anything about the other stuff.”
One valid answer to why Israel? is simply: why not Israel? This was, in effect, the answer that Curtis Marez, president of the American Studies Association, gave: “one has to start somewhere.” Whatever other really bad shit is happening does not erase the deaths of several hundred civilians in the last Gaza war, the destruction of Palestinian farmers’ livelihoods, or the confiscations of land. That many other countries might better deserve to be the rogue or pariah nation is, for many on the left, a side issue; Israel is on the agenda now. Fair enough.
Yet we must ask why Israel is the first and, for many, only nation on the moral outrage agenda. The critics provide several answers, but they are strained, post hoc rationalizations.
One often hears some variant of this explanation: Israel earns her singular damnation because of her singular privilege in American foreign policy. One version, also provided by the president of the American Studies Association, argues that critics place Israel on the top of the list because she is the largest beneficiary of U.S. military aid (an almost-fact; right now, Afghanistan is the largest recipient).
This logic, however, has not been consistently applied. First, over the years, American aid has gone to many tainted nations in East Asia, Latin America, and more recently Egypt, Iraq, and Pakistan, but the left has not and does not target them for boycotts. Second, the greatest aid the United States delivers is not money but the lives of its military men and women. American soldiers have not fought and died for Israel, as they have for, among others, South Korea in the 1950s, South Vietnam in the 1960s, Kuwait in the 1990s, and Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s. While leftists often opposed these wars, they did not argue that American assistance should make the assisted nations targets of boycotts. (Conversely, apartheid South Africa, which the left did boycott, was never an American aid favorite.) Third, although the volume of U.S. financial aid might rationalize Americans scrutinizing Israel, it cannot explain western Europeans doing the same.
A variant of the claim that America’s unique treatment of Israel accounts for the left’s unique interest in Israel is that the Jewish nation’s political clout in the United States gives it unique protection and immunity. If normal politics cannot get the United States to rein Israel in, then a movement of private citizens must target the malefactor.
The logic fails here, too. First, the premise of Israeli clout is exaggerated. Were it so great, the United States would long ago have bombed Iran, never have sold advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, not repeatedly pressed Israel to retreat from conquered territory, and so on. Second, it is not true that Israel gets a unique pass from the United States. American presidents routinely waive official human rights restrictions on aid to and trade with sketchy countries such as Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, and Colombia. While the left has objected to those policies and to those regimes, it has not called for boycotts of their institutions. Third, Israel hardly has unique clout or immunity in Europe (except perhaps in Germany) and, yet, the European left treats it uniquely.
Other explanations for singling out Israel are similarly weak—and are also striking for their de-legitimation of the state. One hears, for example, complaints that Israel is a religiously defined state. But this is hardly unique. Just count the national flags bearing crosses, crescents, Koranic texts, or similar images; there are dozens, though Israel’s is the only one with a Star of David. And one hears that Israel is an ethnically defined state. Yet, most states, including European ones, are ethnic states. What is the former Yugoslavia today if not seven states for seven peoples? And, of course, one hears that Israel is xenophobic and anti-Arab (even an apartheid state). Again, hardly unique. Though deplorable, Israeli episodes cannot match the daily accounts from across the globe of state-sponsored ethnic attacks, expulsions, and massacres (e.g., Gujarat, 2002).
One argument, more tailored to the Israeli case, is that the state is the West’s bastard creation—specifically, Europe’s compensation to the Jews for the Holocaust. This history is wrong. The Arab-Jewish struggle in Palestine had commenced years before Hitler, the British were aching to leave Palestine, and cold-blooded analysts would have bet on the Jews winning. Israel was probably coming anyway. And, even if Israel were the West’s child, she would not be a unique in this respect either. Consider all the cross-ethnic nations that the colonial powers drew up as they sailed off and that have suffered civil wars since.
• • •
Israel’s partisans have their own answers to the why Israel? question. One is the influence of Arab oil money and Muslim numbers. This may help explain the obsession with Israel in international forums (un peu trop, non?), but Cambridge dons’ and Berkeley radicals’ outrage are not bought by Saudi money. The major explanation Israel’s defenders offer is plain: anti-Semitism. This is unsatisfying, as well.
To be sure, anyone who knows Western history, the genteel anti-Semitism of old European elites, and the long thread of leftist anti-Semitism (including Karl Marx on the “Jewish Question”) must grant anti-Semitism some role. Research shows that people today with classic anti-Semitic attitudes—for example, agreeing that Jews cheat at business—are more likely than others to condemn Israel.
Yet, the activist circles I am speaking about are not classic, racist anti-Semites. Many, perhaps most, boycotters can say without irony that some of their best friends are Jews. They descend culturally from the Dreyfusard circles a century ago. Moreover, anti-Semitism has declined in recent decades while anti-Israel views have grown.
• • •
What then does explain the singling out of Israel? I am most persuaded that a key part of the explanation is the development of media storylines. The spotlight, which once flattered Israel, now casts it harshly. Before the 1960s and ’70s, the Western media’s Israel was a plucky nation of hard-working farmers who ingeniously made the desert bloom, built an egalitarian society in the kibbutz and a socialist one in the state, sheltered traumatized Holocaust survivors and refugees from Arab countries, and defeated the armies of several reactionary states in near-biblical fashion. Importantly, Jews were victims—the past victims of fascism and the present victims of terrorism. Whatever the mix of myth and reality in this romance, the narrative made Israel a favorite of the left. Historian Colin Schindler describes the European left’s “sympathy for Zionist aspirations and the construction of socialism in Palestine.” In the aftermath of World War II it was “common for the cause of Israel to be compared to that of the Spanish civil war.”
Starting in the ’60s and accelerating afterwards, the images and storylines shifted. Israel became more closely aligned with the United States in the Cold War and thus tainted with America’s sins. Soviet bloc anti-Zionism grew. More important, Israel was no longer underdog and victim. Triumphant in war and now ruler of many Arabs, Israel started looking more like Goliath than David. In response, left-wing media such as The Guardian, once a supporter of Zionism, became fierce critics. The BBC made the same journey. By the new millennium, Israel had ended airplane hijackings and nearly ended terrorist bombings. Pictures of Jewish children blown up in buses were replaced by pictures of Arab children hit by Israeli ordinance. The long-running, widely watched Holy Land drama continued, but the plot had turned. Live by the camera; die by the camera (or 5 Broken Cameras).
Some might ask who turned the media. I suspect it largely turned itself, that it is in the nature of dramatic tropes to simplify heroes and villains, to rest on moral certainties. Over the last few decades, the growing power of Israel, growing permanence of the occupation, and far more widely available images of Palestinian suffering have turned the storyline.
Israeli leaders complain that Western media single out Israel unfairly and that those pictures, in effect, lie. Israeli citizens complain about their leaders’ amazingly tone-deaf hasbara (“explaining”; really, public relations). But, as many have noted, smarter PR won’t change the story—not in an open society. Nor will efforts inside and outside Israel to silence critics. Rulers in places such as Iran and China can black out the bad news, and rulers in many other nations can assume that Westerners don’t care, but Israel is almost fully revealed. The botched reaction to the Gaza Flotilla raid, defiant settlement expansions, checkpoint harassment, and xenophobic resolutions in the Knesset cannot be kept from today’s episode of myth and reality.
Occasional, passing events disrupt the new story line—Israel dragging its settlers out of the Sinai in 1982 and dragging its settlers out of Gaza in 2005, for example. Occasional suicide bombings and periodic rocket attacks briefly revive the image of victimized Israel. But the storyline is pretty much set for the time being. To dislodge herself from the top of the outrage list, boring the left so that it looks elsewhere for a cause, Israel will need to make major alterations to the reality on the ground. It is unclear whether the politics of the country—it is, uniquely in its neighborhood, a democracy, and voters continue to back parties that support the occupation—will allow that.
Why Israel? Israel’s defenders charge double standards and attribute them to anti-Semitism (a position adopted by the U.S. State Department). However, realism—and Israelis pride themselves on being hard-headed realists—suggests that such complaints, valid or otherwise, will not change the narrative. Until new facts on the ground challenge the narrative, the left’s selective focus on Israel will probably continue.After White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Wednesday refused to discount the possibility that President Donald Trump might name Sarah Palin as the next ambassador to Canada, Twitter exploded with negative comments north of the border.
But first to complain were politicians. New Democrat Party member of Parliament Nathan Cullen told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation it would be difficult to take the former Alaska governor and onetime vice-presidential candidate seriously because she wouldn’t know the truth “if it jumped up and knocked her on the head.” He also compared her to “another Donald Trump.”
Another NDP member of Parliament, Charlie Angus, characterized such a choice as insulting, saying it shows “how little” Trump and Steve Bannon “think of Canada.”
Sarah Palin as ambassador? Well that would show how little Steve Bannon and his pal @realDonaldTrump think of Canada https://t.co/Js4B2Qseah — Charlie Angus NDP (@CharlieAngusNDP) February 8, 2017
Then the rest of Canada piled on their Alaska neighbor.
Speculation first arose last month after the resignation of ambassador Bruce Heyman, who was appointed by Barack Obama. It kicked up Wednesday when Spicer, pressed specifically on a Palin ambassador appointment at a White House news conference, did not count her out. “We have no additional ambassador nominations or announcements to make on that front,” he said. “I’m sure at some point we will have, soon.”
A headline in the Ottawa Citizen warned that Palin could “bring her carnival show here.” Twitter users’ #SarahPalin comments ranged from the hilarious to the horrified. Lots made fun of her notorious geographical mistakes (she boasted during the 2008 presidential campaign that you could “see Russia” from Alaska, as evidence of her global experience) and apparent general cluelessness about foreign affairs.
Sarah Palin is being considered for job as ambassador to Canada. She's presently on a flight to Europe to meet with us. #sarahpalin — Rob Willcott (@advantagephysio) February 9, 2017
Others were mostly stunned. One asked Trump instead to simply bomb the country, and signed the tweet: “All intelligent life in Canada.”
A number of Americans apologized for the potential nomination, with one saying a Palin appointment was “no way to treat a friend.” One reminded Palin to “drive on the other side of the road.”
Dear Mr. Trump: Rather than appoint Sarah Palin as ambassador to Canada, please bomb us. Signed, all intelligent life in Canada. #killmenow — Doug Youmans (@dippedbanana) February 8, 2017
As an American citizen, I want to apologize to Canada. Appointing #sarahpalin as Ambassador is no way to treat a friend. https://t.co/UZRGLqmvvj — Marion Swan (@BlueEyesSwan) February 9, 2017The anti-Brexit campaigner, who won a Supreme Court case ensuring Theresa May could not begin official talks without parliamentary consent, said she was “bitterly disappointed” the legislation had been passed unamended. The unelected House of Lords backed down over the issues of securing EU residents’ rights and a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal on Monday. The Prime Minister is now poised to begin the UK’s divorce from the bloc and has promised Parliament will be given a vote on any eventual deal.
GETTY•SKY NEWS Gina Miller warned she would take the UK Government back to court over Brexit
I will take them back to court to find out whether they can do as they are intending to do Gina Miller
However, a seething Ms Miller warned she would not hesitate to return to the courts if such commitment was not delivered on. Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday, the businesswoman argued: “The political landscape will change incredibly over the next 18 months. “The judgement in my case was very clear, only Parliament and an act of Parliament can do when it comes to people’s rights being changed. “That’s what will happen when that negotiated package comes back, so a resolution won’t do, a promise won’t do, if they don’t deliver on that I will take them back to court to find out whether they can do as they are intending to do.”
SKY NEWS The businesswoman is demand a final vote in Parliament on the Brexit deal in 2019
On Monday, MPs rejected recommendations by the House of Lords to amend the bill intended to give the Government legal power to begin the Brexit process. Ms Miller, who previously admitted spending more than £200,000 on fighting the Brexit process, raged at politicians for passing the legislation unamended. She continued: “Everything I’ve invested in this, I’ve taken the horse to water, they didn’t necessarily drink, but if they fail to scrutinise the Government on the Brexit passage then I will seek the certainty of courts.”
Things you may not know about remoaner Gina Miller Thu, March 2, 2017 Gina Miller is leading the challenge that has blocked Theresa May triggering Article 50 without the consent of Parliament Play slideshow Getty 1 of 10 Gina Miller has won the case to block Theresa May from Article 50Exotic stag caught at Houston high school
A red stag wanders the grounds of Waltrip High School while Harris County Sheriff's deputies and wildlife officers attempt to tranquilize it, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2015, in Houston. A red stag wanders the grounds of Waltrip High School while Harris County Sheriff's deputies and wildlife officers attempt to tranquilize it, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2015, in Houston. Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Exotic stag caught at Houston high school 1 / 18 Back to Gallery
What started as a regular Sunday morning for Tamara and Joe Pearce quickly became a bizarre quest to capture an exotic red stag running loose on the campus of the nearby high school.
Joe Pearce was on his way to the store around 8 a.m. when he spotted a large antlered animal roaming near the entrance of Waltrip High School in Oak Forest. Pearce and his wife, who live adjacent to the school on Lou Ellen Lane, initially thought it was an elk.
Even as the couple puzzled over what exactly the animal was and how it got there, they did the only thing that made sense: Shutting the gates to the tall chain link fence surrounding the school's campus to contain the creature.
"We kind of corralled it," said Tamara Pearce. "I didn't want it going in the street and hurting anybody."
The situation consumed the rest of the Pearces' morning, as they contacted everyone from SPCA to the local homeowners association for help. Neighbors periodically dropped by, observing the animal as it galloped across the campus and charged at the fence.
By mid-afternoon, numerous agencies and two local deer farmers converged on the scene, teaming up to formulate a plan to capture the 450-pound, 5-year-old red stag native to regions of Europe and Asia.
Houston ISD police were able to contain the animal in a fenced-off area next to train tracks where a portable classroom sits. A representative from a private animal control organization brought a tranquilizing gun. The deer farmers and Harris County game warden Billy Lucio advised on how to best subdue the stag. The sheriff's office provided a trailer to transport the animal to the county's livestock division.
By 3 p.m., they moved in on the stag as it nervously trotted around its enclosure. At 3:15 p.m., the animal control representative shot the animal's right hind leg. Several minutes later, the stag ambled into some shade and lay down.
Minutes after loading the stag into the trailer, a train passed by, prompting sighs of relief – if it had come by any earlier, it would have spooked it, complicating the capture. Dale Mitchell, the school's principal, was thankful the incident happened on a weekend and while the school was under construction — the additional chain link fences across campus made trapping the stag easier.
"Not that it's ever a good situation, but at least it's contained, and it's not running in the neighborhood," Mitchell said. "It's actually the safest place for him to be."
Authorities do not know where the stag came from. It is possible it escaped from one of the exotic animal ranches scattered across the state that operate largely outside the purview of Texas law.
Since animals like red stags are not native to this country, few laws concerning them exist.
"It's an exotic animal, it's not a game animal," Lucio said. "There's no regulations to the possession of it or the transport of it."
Harris County will keep the stag in custody as they try to determine who owns it and if it damaged any property.
Phillip Thompson, who has raised deer in Hockley for more than a decade, said he'd be interested in buying or taking the stag if no one claims it, especially since animals are often put down in these situations.
"Red stags to me are among the most magnificent animals," he said.Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
In a somewhat obscure legal ruling, a judge has declared that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission does not have the power to prevent network carriers like AT&T from regulating the content that goes over their wires. Here's why this could mean the infopocalypse.
Over at the New Yorker, law professor Tim Wu (author of The Master Switch) has a terrific breakdown of the ruling, and how it could destroy network neutrality. He writes:
Since 1970 or so, carriers like A. T. & T. and Verizon have been barred from blocking or degrading whatever is transported over their lines. Although, at the time, the rule primarily concerned long-distance voice calls, that principle, applied to the Internet, has become known more recently as net neutrality. It offers a basic guarantee: that content providers on a network—whether it be YouTube, Wikipedia, or bloggers—can reach their users without worrying about being blocked, harassed, or forced to pay a toll by the carrier. Policing that rule in its various guises has been a core mission of the Federal Communications Commission for the past four decades—and keeping carriers away from Internet content has been among the F.C.C.'s most successful policy initiatives since its creation, in 1934. It is the Magna Carta of the Web; today, there's not a tech firm or a blog that doesn't owe something to the open, unblocked Internet.
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So what's the big deal? Wu continues:
Without net-neutrality rules, a firm like Verizon or Comcast can do whatever it likes to content moving across its network. If it wants, it can make a blog that criticized its latest policies unreachable, or block T-Mobile's customer support. Acting together, the Internet service providers could destroy Netflix by slowing its data to a crawl, making movies impossible to watch. Such obvious outrages are unlikely; the firms will surely promise to behave themselves. But they might, instead, slowly begin bleeding money out of the Internet economy with quiet threats and expensive carrots, extracting fees and tolls wherever they can. "You better pay for 'turbo' access, Mr. Blogger, otherwise who knows how long it will take readers to reach your content." Or, to a new video-streaming service, it might say, "We're going to put Hulu ahead of you, unless you pay up"—meaning that its customers would have an easier time watching Hulu videos than content from the new guy... That's not all. These days, Internet firms like Google and Facebook are so powerful that they could decide to turn around and demand that Internet providers pay them for the right to access their sites. This is the norm in cable television, and the situation was painfully illustrated to Time Warner Cable's customers, this fall, when they lost CBS programming for a month during a fee dispute between the two companies. (CBS ultimately prevailed in extracting higher fees to carry its content.) In the absence of net-neutrality rules—which set a norm of zero prices—we face the prospect of pricing wars pitting all against all, in the Hobbesian sense. The losers will be smaller speakers, nonprofits, and the consumer, who will be forced to pay more for less.
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We've talked before about how a lack of net neutrality could destroy the future of the internet. Now Wu says there's a simple legal strategy that FCC head Tom Wheeler can implement to prevent carriers and content providers from going to war — and leaving the little guys with no way to speak up online and get heard (and no way to get a decent streaming movie either).
To find out what this strategy would be, read Wu's essay at the New Yorker.A lot of infants born prior to the mid-1960s rode home from the hospital cradled in nothing more secure than Mommy's arms. Today all 50 states have laws regarding child safety seats in automobiles. The very first specialized child car seats appeared on the market in 1898, but at that time, safety was aimed toward the driver and not Baby. Child seat restraints were little more than a drawstring sack that contained Junior so he didn't crawl around or flail his little arms and legs and distract the person in the driver's seat.
In 1933 the Bunny Bear Company introduced a car seat for babies that fastened to the rear seat and elevated Baby so that the driver could keep an eye on him in the rear-view mirror.UC Berkeley health officials are warning students about the norovirus after several dozen students became extremely ill with symptoms.Officials said UC students from all over the country got sick after they attended a dance competition at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, as originally reported by The Daily Cal Some were participating in the Bollywood Berkeley dance competition at the venue where Prince performed last weekend.Health officials are distributing flyers around campus with how to stop the extremely contagious virus from spreading even further.Since February 20, officials received 29 reports of students with norovirus-like symptoms, with three confirmed cases of the highly contagious bug.Students have been showing up at Berkeley's Tang Health Center, complaining of vomiting, nausea and diarrhea.A handful, but certainly not all of those who became ill attended the dance competition on February 20.A South Asian student group called Indus puts on the Bollywood Berkeley event every year. "Yeah, it was pretty bad. Pretty severe Sunday, pretty severe Monday, but after that I just completely went away. So, it was very abrupt and then it went away," Ronak Ahir said.Of the 200 dancers who came from all over the country, about three dozen got sick on the way home. They all recovered within a couple of days.Berkeley health inspectors have cleared the event food vendor and UC Berkeley crews are now cleaning all common areas of the campus.Officials emphasize no single location or event ties all the cases together.Norovirus is easily spread in a college setting where people live closely together.Officials are advising people to wash their hands frequently with soap and water; clean surfaces after an illness using a cleaner with bleach; wash contaminated clothing or linens right away and to stay home when you're sick.Rafael Nadal has been struggling with a minor knee injury during the late fall and has now withdrawn from the Masters tournament in Paris.
“I have to pull out. Of course it’s a very tough decision for me, especially here in Paris, which has been the most important city in my career without a doubt. It’s a tough situation but I tried my best … I did one treatment yesterday night to try and play today”, said Nadal according to Tennis.com.
If the world No. 1 can participate in the World Tour Finals in London remains to be seen. However, the Spaniard’s withdrawal seems to be mostly out of precaution – perhaps taking a leaf out of Roger Federer’s book:
“It’s not about London, it’s about the longer term,” Nadal said. “It’s important to play tennis as long as possible. I’m going to go back, check again with the doctors (like) I did after Shanghai. Let’s see. I’m going to do my treatment. In the past it worked well,” Nadal said.
With Nadal pulling out of the tournament, Filip Krajinovic gets a free pass to the semifinal where he will face either Juan Martin del Potro or John Isner.Ambeth Ocampo is the recipient of this year's Fukuoka Academic Prize
Published 8:18 PM, May 30, 2016
MANILA, Philippines – Historian Ambeth R Ocampo is the recipient of this year's Academic Prize from the Fukuoka Prize award-giving body in Japan. The announcement was made on May 30, Monday.
Ocampo, a public historian, newspaper columnist, author, and cultural administrator, joins Grand Prize winner AR Rahman, a prolific Indian composer, songwriter and singer famous for his Oscar-winning work for the film Slumdog Millionaire. Yasmeen Lari, an architect, architectural historian, heritage conservationist, humanitarian aid worker from Pakistan, is also this year's Arts and Culture Prize awardee.
The awarding of the laureates will be on September 16 at the ACROS Fukuoka in Fukuoka City, Japan. Ocampo will receive ¥ 3 million (or approximately P 1.26 million*) as the Academic Prize winner.
The Fukuoka Prize, according to its official website, is given to individuals or groups who have made "outstanding contributions to the preservation and creation of Asian culture and have exhibited the significance of Asian culture to the world through the internationality, universality, popularity and/or creativity of their work."
The Academic Prize, meanwhile, is presented to individuals or groups who "have made outstanding achievements in the field of Asian studies, contributing to the world's understanding of Asia."
Candidates from East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia are deliberated upon by selection committees and a jury.
His award citation reads: "As an outstanding historian and intellectual, Dr. Ambeth R. Ocampo has made a great contribution to academic, cultural and social progress in the Philippines, through his university teaching, his writing for newspapers and magazines, and his service in historic and cultural administration."
"His clear and accessible explanations of the wider global context in which the country developed during the period of the Spanish and American colonial regimes have helped promote a more open sense of nationalism, and facilitated the advancement of international exchanges both with Asia and with the West."
Ocampo is an Associate Professor at the Department of History in Ateneo de Manila University, where he teaches a course for undergraudates – among others – about Jose Rizal, the Philippines' pre-colonial period and its Spanish occupation, and its "emergence" as a nation (History 165). He also sat as the department chairperson from 2010 to 2012.
He served in government as the chairman of the National Historical Institute (NHI; 2002 to 2010) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA; 2005 to 2007). His tenure at the NHI also saw its reorganization as the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) in 2010, where he also sat as chairman until 2011.
During his term at the NCCA, he inked cultural agreements with North Korea, Pakistan, and Vietnam, and set up cultural exchange programs with China, France, and Mexico.
A multi-awarded public intellectual, Ocampo authored several books, including his bestsellers Looking Back (1990) and Rizal Without the Overcoat (1990). He maintains a newspaper column, also called "Looking Back," which is published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He also regularly gives public lectures.
His citation commended his written works, saying that "he provides his readers with a clear insight into the actual thoughts and actions of the heroes and notables of history."
"By describing these luminaries as real people, with real feelings and emotions, and by effectively including into his writing the details of their lives, the atmosphere of the time and even a distinctive cultural fragrance, he presents history as a compelling narrative."
It concludes: "For his achievement in reclaiming history as the property of ordinary citizens, for his contribution to promote an open-minded nationalism and global sensibility in the Philippines, and for his great service to international cultural exchange, Dr. Ambeth R Ocampo is a truly worthy recipient of the Academic Prize of the Fukuoka Prize." – Rappler.com
* ¥1 = P 0.42 as of May 30Image copyright Maija Unkuri Image caption The unemployment rate in Finland has risen to 10%, slightly above the European Union average
The Finnish government is considering a pilot project that would see the state pay people a basic income regardless of whether they work.
The details of how much the basic income might be and who would be eligible for it are yet to be announced, but already there is widespread interest in how it might work.
Prime Minister Juha Sipila has praised the idea. "For me, a basic income means simplifying the social security system," he said.
The scheme is of particular interest to people without jobs. In Finland, they now number 280,000 - 10% of the workforce.
With unemployment an increasing concern, four out of five Finns now are in favour of a basic income.
Basic income
Paid without any need for work
Paid irrespective of any income from other sources
Additional income subject to income tax
Finland to initiate pilot project
Dutch city of Utrecht to experiment with basic income this autumn
UK Green Party advocated similar "Citizen's Income" at 2015 election
"A basic income? Yes, I'd gladly have €1,000 (£700, $1,100) a month," says one man at a centre for the unemployed in Pori, near Finland's west coast. But the amount is unlikely to be anywhere near that high.
He is the among the jobless who have come to an old, wooden building in city, where they can get cheap food, shop at a second-hand market, and take part in a variety of activities on offer.
Image caption The local unemployment centre provides a focal point for Pori's jobless
"It's a nice place to socialise," says another man sitting on a bench outside, enjoying the summer sun. People here have been out of work for a long time.
"A basic income would encourage people to take a temporary job," says Paivi Hietikko, who helps out at the centre. Although she has no regular income at the moment, she does receive a payment for her work here.
"Having a basic income would mean the bureaucracy I´ve encountered at the employment agency would decrease."
Finland labour market 5.4 million people live in Finland 2.5 million are employed 10% of the workforce is unemployed
22.7% is the level of youth unemployment
Image copyright Getty Images
In Finland, taking on work can cost you money if you are unemployed.
A paid temporary job means lower welfare benefits.
And if that job comes from a low-wage sector, you lose out because there is a delay before the authorities allow your benefits to be restored once you have left the job.
Fundamental change
Many Finns nowadays have what are described as atypical working lives, in that few spend their entire lives in the same occupation and with the same employer.
This fundamental change has prompted a need for reforms to the social security system.
Supporters of the basic income believe it could offer an alternative to Finland's complex and costly benefit models.
Paivi Hietikko certainly sees its potential advantages - but she also wonders whether it would deter people from looking for work.
Image copyright Maija Unkuri Image caption In Finland, equality of sex, age and origin is enshrined in the constitution
"The young especially might lose the motivation to look for a job, if it was, say, €700 a month. That would be too much," she says.
This has become one of the main concerns surrounding the idea.
But experts say it is too early to tell what the outcome would be.
"What would be the impact of a basic income to employment in Finland - positive or negative? We can't really foresee how people would behave with a basic income," says Ohto Kanninen, from the Tank research centre.
So the pilot project aims to get some answers.
Equality obstacle
The prime minister has expressed support for a limited, geographical experiment. Participants would be selected from a variety of residential areas.
Mr Kanninen proposes testing the idea by paying 8,000 people from low income groups four different monthly amounts, perhaps from €400 to €700.
"If the impact on employment during the experiment was catastrophic, basic income would of course not be implemented on a large scale," he says.
One obstacle to staging a pilot project is Finland's constitution, which states that every citizen must be equal.
Even a small-scale experiment would put its participants in an unequal position.
However, Finns may be prepared to waive that principle of equality, if an experiment produces valuable information for society.Among its other geologic oddities, Pluto has clusters of hills floating in a frozen "sea" dominated by nitrogen ice. These bobbing bumps might hold clues to the plain's depth and evolution.
Within days of New Horizons' historic flyby of Pluto last July 14th, mission scientists released snapshots showing unexpectedly tall mountains partially rimming a vast and very flat plain. The plain, informally named Sputnik Planum, is dominated by frozen nitrogen (and some frozen carbon monoxide), whereas the surrounding uplands are mostly frozen water.
Sputnik Planum is a fascinating expanse of Plutonian real estate. Comparable in size to Hudson Bay, it's criss-crossed with shallow fractures that carve it up into crude polygons. And it's moving, slowly, pushing outward at its margins very much like the slow inexorable downhill movement of glaciers here on Earth.
But recently the team unveiled an image of Sputnik Planum that reveals something new, quite strange, and perhaps very telling: clusters of hills that stick up through the plain's surface. Up to a few kilometers across, they appear to be bobbing along in the icy floes and become concentrated where the polygonal slabs meet. The New Horizons team suggests that the mysterious hills might be fragments of water ice from the uplands that partially surround Sputnik Planum.
Importantly, these water-ice "islands" appear to be analogous with ocean-going icebergs here on Earth — and, as such, they might offer a hint of the depth of Sputnik Planum's frozen nitrogen "sea." So how deep might that be? Let's do the math!
Assuming that these hills are truly free floating and in what geologists call isostatic equilibrium, the fractional mass of each hill below the surface is proportional to the ratio of its density divided by that of its surroundings. Very cold pure water ice has a density of 0.934 g/cm3, and that of frozen nitrogen is 1.027 g/cm3. Now, some caveats are in order here: the water ice is probably a frozen brine of some sort, and the nitrogen ice probably isn't pure, but those are second-order details in this admittedly back-of-the-envelope calculation
The ratio of those two values, 0.934/1.027, is 0.91. So something like 91% of the mass (and thus volume) of each floating hill lies beneath the surface of Sputnik Planum. If each hill were a perfect cube, then 91% of its height would likewise lie hidden below the surface. If the hills are 100 m tall (a guess on my part — NASA's press release doesn't say), then their "roots" should extend downward for at least 1 km below.
But these hills are not likely solid ice throughout. "If you take a reasonable value of 15% porosity," explains Jeff Moore (NASA Ames Research Center), "the blocks will be significantly more buoyant." Even so, he continues, "We suspect that the N 2 deposit of Sputnik Planum is several kilometers deep — maybe on order 10 km in places."
Interestingly, one large cluster, nicknamed Challenger Colles (honoring those lost aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986), measures 60 by 35 km. This grouping isn't out in the middle of Sputnik Planum but rather located near the eastern margin, near the uplands of central Tombaugh Regio (another informal name), so perhaps these hills became "beached" once the nitrogen ice got too shallow.
It's truly fascinating that Pluto exhibits to much geology — and ongoing geology at that. All this activity might not strengthen the case to reclassify Pluto as a "major planet." But it's surely making the (convoluted) decision to build and launch New Horizons a very sound one.This article is over 3 years old
A police officer responding to a report of a suspicious person was fatally shot at a suburban South Carolina mall on Wednesday, and police say a suspect is in custody.
The incident began when the report came in just before 8am, the Forest Acres police chief, Gene Se |
on Calvinist theologian David Fergusson for his information about Arminianism. (Has he bothered to read Arminius or any standard evangelical Arminian theologian to find out what Arminians really believe?)
According to Fergusson (and by implication Habets), what separates Barth’s viewpoint “from that of synergistic semi-Pelagianism, or Arminianism is his employment of something [Thomas] Torrance also utilizes, the recognition that ‘there is no symmetry between acceptance and rejection, and no sense in which the trust we show is of equal weight to God’s mercy’.” I would ask both Fergusson and Habets to justify from Arminius’ own writings or from any leading classical evangelical Arminian theologian the claim that Arminianism gives “equal weight” to “the trust we show” and “God’s mercy.”
A few Arminian theologians do show up in the book (e.g., John Wesley, William Abraham), but they are rarely, if ever, used as sources or authorities for supporting claims made about Arminianism.
One reason this matters to me is that I believe these authors would discover, if they plumbed deeply enough into classical evangelical Arminianism that their “evangelical Calvinism” shares much in common with the former and may even be closer to it than to what usually goes under the name “Calvinism” in Britain and America today.
Evangelical Calvinism consists of fifteen essays (including the editors’ introduction) on a variety of subjects relevant to Calvinism and Reformed theology from Scripture to original sin to election to the sacraments and infant salvation. One “string” that ties most of the essays together is the name “Torrance.” Clearly most of these authors are disciples of brothers Thomas and James Torrance, two of the leading British interpreters of the theology of Karl Barth.
The editors and authors make clear that there is no uniformity among what they are calling evangelical Calvinism. One thing they share in common is misgivings about so-called classical, orthodox or “federal” Calvinism stemming especially from Beza and channeled through Gomarus, et al. In other words, scholastic Calvinism. So far as I can tell, having read much but not all of the book, none of the authors ascribes to limited or particular atonement.
Before continuing, let me say that I highly recommend the book and am very glad it is published. We need other voices among Calvinists—other than the often loud and shrill and harsh voices of those associated with the “Young, Restless, Reformed” movement. (Here I am not speaking so much about the run-of-the-mill young people associated with it as about its theological “gurus.”) So-called evangelical Calvinism, as represented by this book’s editors and authors, is a breath of fresh air that will probably be dismissed as revisionist by the die-hards among the high federal, TULIP Calvinists.
According to this book’s editors and authors, Calvinism comes in several flavors and theirs, evangelical Calvinism, has been handed down primarily by Scottish chefs. As mentioned, the two main ones are the Torrances. Many other names are mentioned, but I won’t go into all of them. Suffice it to say that this flavor of Calvinism has a Barthian taste but is not limited to Barth or the “Barthians.” For example, British turn-of-the-century evangelical theologian Peter Taylor Forsyth is treated by some of the authors as a forerunner of contemporary evangelical Calvinism who was not influenced by Barth (because he wrote before Barth).
I should mention that one theme running throughout evangelical Calvinism is an emphasis on union with Christ as the heart beat of Calvinism. Of course, classical, high, federal Calvinists will claim that as their own heart beat as well. Arminians could say the same (although I like to say that the character of God as unconditionally good is what drives Arminianism).
When I see a book like this I always look for the chapter on salvation. That’s the heart of the dispute, is it not? I mean the dispute between classical Calvinism and classical Arminianism and even among various branches of Reformed theology. So, I read with special interest Habets’ chapter “’There is no God behind the back of Jesus Christ’”—a sentiment with which I heartily agree!
Here is what Habets says about salvation according to evangelical Calvinism:
What then happens in salvation? When confronted with God, humans for the first time become free to decide for God. “The personal encounter of Christ with forgiveness on His lips, singles out a man…and gives him freedom to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’…freedom is only possible face to face with Jesus Christ.” [Quote from T. F. Torrance] If there is a universal atonement, as we shall consider shortly [there is], then surely it is a corollary that all who are confronted with God’s forgiveness, and as a consequence are free, will repent and receive salvation. Torrance disagrees. [So does Habets.] While freedom is possible face to face with Jesus Christ “the mystery is—and this we shall never fathom—that such a man may commit the sin of Adam all over again.” (p. 181)
How is this different from classical, evangelical Arminianism? I don’t see that it is different at all. It is only different from a distorted image of Arminianism.
Am I saying that evangelical Arminianism and evangelical Calvinism are identical? No. But, then, there are varieties of evangelical Arminianism, too. There are so-called “Reformed Arminians” and there are Wesleyan Arminians. There are Arminians who believe in inamissable grace and ones who believe in the real possibility of apostasy. And so on. So “identical” would not be a felicitous word when comparing any two theologies.
I’m not trying to place evangelical Calvinism under the Arminian umbrella anymore than the other way around. I’m not trying to place evangelical Arminianism under the “Calvinist” umbrella. (Although I think a good argument can be made that classical Arminianism is a flavor of Reformed theology broadly defined.)
Apparently, however, evangelical Calvinism and evangelical Arminianism share much common ground. (I’m sure that makes some people in both camps shudder.) Both believe in total depravity in the sense of utter helplessness to do anything spiritually good apart from supernatural grace. Both believe Christ died for all people. Both believe election is conditional IN ITS ACTUALIZATION for the individual who must freely accept the saving grace of God. Both believe even people for whom Christ died can resist grace.
Wherein exactly lie the differences (besides history and ecclesiology)? I suspect the MAIN difference lies in evangelical Calvinists’ distorted ideas about Arminianism. For example, on page 280 Jason Goroncy (Chapter 10 on the atonement) rejects both “monergism” (salvation is “all of God, nothing of humanity”) and “synergism” (I assume he is thinking of Arminianism) (“partly God, partly humanity”). That is not, of course, what Arminian synergism believes. We believe salvation is all of God involving humanity.
Could evangelical Calvinists and evangelical Arminians talk to each other and perhaps find our common ground and forge an alliance to oppose the dominance of high federal Calvinism in contemporary American evangelicalism? (By “dominance” I don’t refer to numbers but to books published, voices loudly heard, etc.) Or will evangelical Calvinists continue to view evangelical Arminians through jaundiced eyes, looking down on us as (biblically and theologically) weaker brothers and sisters?Ashanti Region has recorded its first cholera death while 21 others are in critical conditions since renewed outbreak of the disease in parts of the country in recent months.
Three districts in the region have recorded more than one case each since the beginning of this month, health authorities said.
Public health officials warn the situation could get worse if sanitation is not improved.
This will be the worst cholera outbreak in the region in four years.
It comes after the Greater Accra Region reported 47 deaths from over 4,000 confirmed cases since the outbreak of the disease in June.
Adansi South District, where the infection claimed one life, has recorded five cases while the Kumasi metropolis leads with seven.
A chunk of Kumasi’s cases were recorded at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and the Kumasi South Hospital.
The death occurred at Kokonteng where many residents engage in open air defecation.
The Komfo Anokye Hospital has treated 10 cases, including five Kumasi residents while the others came from outside the city.
Authorities say conditions and factors that prompted the outbreak in Accra are prevalent in Kumasi and other parts of the region.
They cite piled-up refuse, open defecation and general insanitary conditions as the causes.
Deputy Regional Director in charge of Public Health, Dr. Joseph Oduro, warned until open defecation is completely discontinued, more people will fall victim to cholera.
“People are practicing open defecation and if a fly take some piece of the stool and lands on your water or your food, you are likely to get infected and get cholera.
“The community that we are talking about, Kokonteng in the Adansi South District, there’s a lot of open defecation around those areas. Probably that’s why we recorded five cases of cholera”, Dr. Oduro explained.
Head of Public Health Unit at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Dr Dennis Odai Laryea, who has been involved in massive health education told Nhyira News the situation calls for urgent attention.
“If you go to Kejetia in the night, the kind of refuse you see around, you know we don’t manage our waste properly including human excreta and these are very fertile grounds for the germs that cause cholera to grow”, a worried Dr. Laryea explained.
Dr. Laryea and other public health workers in the region are however surprised at the small number of people affected by the disease since, with the prevailing insanitary conditions, it could be worse.
“If we continue this way, we could even have a bigger outbreak than there is in Accra. Kumasi is a transit point between the north and the south. If there’s an outbreak here, we could also be distributing it to other parts of the country so we should be worried”, revealed Dr. Laryea.
Meanwhile, the Regional Health Directorate says it has stepped up public education on the disease.On tap this week:
Canadian Tire getting out
Boys still will be boys
Exclusive access at a price
1,000HP brings fringe benefits
Gordon on his first Daytona 500
Money troubles continue in F1
Canada's top stock car series needs to look for a new title sponsor.
Canadian Tire will end its decade-long partnership with the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series (NCTS) at the end of 2015, a move that may leave stock cars on shaky ground in this country.
"For over eight years, Canadian Tire and NASCAR have shared a successful partnership that has helped grow the sport of auto racing in Canada," the company said in a written statement.
"We've shared with NASCAR our decision to end the partnership at the end of the 2015 season. We are proud to have brought The NASCAR Canadian Tire Series to racing enthusiasts across the country. We will continue to be a sponsor of the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and support Canadian drivers and racing where it makes sense in the future."
The exit also includes ending sponsorship of three-time NCTS champion Scott Steckly. The move comes 10 years into NASCAR's ownership of the series, which was supposed to breathe new life into the old CASCAR Series. In reality, it's almost impossible to see any difference, and it's tough to blame Canadian Tire for jumping ship because it's doubtful the retailer gets much value for its sponsorship money.
With almost non-existent live television exposure, its visibility is almost zero. That, in turn, makes it difficult for young talent to get backing and move to bigger and better things, which is supposed to be a regional series' raison d'être. It's also no surprise that young star J.R. Fitzpatrick announced this month that he'd rather go back to late model racing than spend $1-million in NCTS.
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The retailer's decision may now open the door to spend money elsewhere. For example, IndyCar driver James Hinchcliffe is probably the most popular Canadian racer and a marketer's dream and Canadian Tire may want to look at riding his rising star.
Although IndyCar isn't breaking any audience records lately, its races are on live TV, its audience is bigger than NCTS and growing, and it has the added lure of the Indianapolis 500.
Random thoughts
If anyone had doubts that the boys won't "have at it" this year in NASCAR's Sprint Cup, the end of Saturday night's 75-lap exhibition Sprint Unlimited at the Daytona International Speedway should put them to rest. After Joey Logano's late race push put fellow driver Kevin Harvick into the wall, the pair took things into their own hands and banged fenders a couple of times going into the pitlane following the chequered flag.
While their post race confrontation in the pitlane stayed relatively calm, don't be surprised if the pair end up battling again.
"It was really dumb driving there at the end," Harvick said. "You've got to be aggressive but you still have to use your head. You can't just detach it and lay it on the floorboard."
By the numbers
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Fans wanting VIP access to the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix will have to shell out a pretty penny for the privilege. Three-day passes to the tony Paddock Club above the pitlane garages at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve may be purchased from Abu Dhabi-based KHP Consulting for US$4,800 plus tax, which also includes a complementary Friday pass so you can bring a friend. Three-day pass holders can also attend an exclusive dinner on the Friday night, which takes place in the F1 paddock between the team buildings and garages. It costs US$850 per person.
Technically speaking
Talk of 1,000-horsepower engines continue in F1, with the sport's strategy group agreeing earlier this month to look into ways of increasing the amount of fuel in the car and the flow rates to pump up the motors. The estimated 25 per cent increase in horsepower may also go a long way to silencing those who dislike the quieter exhaust note from the new 1.6-litre turbocharged engines introduced in 2014.
"To make it louder, you've got to pump more fuel through the engine and you have to have more revs and a bigger engine — a World Superbike or a MotoGP bike is very noisy with a small engine, but they are pumping a hell of a lot more fuel through it than we are," said McLaren driver Jenson Button.
"The funny thing is there are some positives of being quieter: you can hear the tires squeal when we lock up and you can have a conversation while you are watching a grand prix. You can take your kids now and they don't have to wear headphones and they can experience it a little more. It's a tricky one."
Quote of the week
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"I was sitting there going, I don't belong here, but this is really cool and I remember kind of taking the whole thing in going, 'damn, look at all those people in the grand stands. What's Dale going to do? What's Dale Jarrett going to do? What am I going to do?' And I screwed it all up because of that."
— NASCAR star Jeff Gordon recalling running at the front with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Jarrett before finishing fifth in his rookie Daytona 500
The last word
In a demonstration of how tight money can be in F1, it seems that neither of Force India's race drivers Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Pérez will drive in the F1 this week in Barcelona. After missing the opening test earlier this month because the car wasn't ready — apparently due to slowdowns caused by cash flow, Force India will leave its pairing at home in favour of giving seat time to Mercedes reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein, who races in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters series. The move is thought to be part of the team's "payment" for its supply of Mercedes engines. With the VJM008 still now ready for track action, Force India's race drivers will now have to wait until the final pre-season test at the end of the month to get a chance to try out their new 2015 car.
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Sign up for our weekly newsletterIn the past several years the Men’s Rights Movement has been gaining a greater presence, not only on the web but in legislatures and courts around the world. Finally, members of the British Parliament are openly criticizing feminists and feminism, calling them out as hate mongers. Groups such as Fathers and Families, The National Coalition for Men and S.A.V.E. are gaining ground on Capitol Hill and legislatures across the U.S., gaining traction and claiming victories in the areas of family law reform, domestic violence law reform and other issues concerning what has now become broadly identified as the war on fathers, men and boys in our society.
Additionally, sites like Antimisandry and other online forums that invite people to discuss, openly, issues that affect men are seeing increasing membership. A Voice for Men, The Spearhead and similar sites are all experiencing increased traffic and readership.
Despite what we may hear from our detractors from outside of the MRM, and our more pessimistic members within, we are gaining ground in a tangible and conspicuous way.
Perhaps the most concrete proof of this is the recent emergence of the Good Men Project, or what is more colloquially (and appropriately) known by MRAs as “The Good Mangina Project.” Their purpose is the “daunting task of introducing, unlocking and dismantling the so-called Men’s Rights Movement” as stated by Ms. Magazine, the same people that gave us the hateful idea that one in four women will be raped in their lifetime. Funny how a group of people describing us as a “so called” movement would describe our dismantlement as “daunting.”
And they are not the only ones getting in on the game.
Huffington Post Columnist Tom Matlack wrote an article titled “Why We Don’t Need a ‘Men’s Movement’ to Be Good Men” in which he writes:
“In many ways, the Good Men Project was born not out of the men’s movement, or the Men’s Rights movement, masculism, anti-misandry or MGTOW (men going their own way), but out of the brutal facts of our own lives as fathers, husbands and guys trying to make a living. In fact, I had never even heard of any of these philosophies until I started writing about my own life and publishing the stories of other men. In the process, I somehow got myself in the middle of a political issue that to me completely misses the fundamental challenge for men in 2011. There are plenty of ways the law (particularly family law) and popular culture, as represented by the media, have limited men. But we have no one to blame but ourselves. We made the laws. We control the media. We have, in the end, suffered too long in silence. Too many of us have knuckled under and become absentee fathers.
Mothers have more rights than fathers, more women are going to college and Oprah rules the gender discourse. So what? Do we allow ourselves to be emasculated by feminism, by divorce law, by women, who, God forbid, want to break the glass ceiling once and for all? Or do we embrace their successes while developing our own powerful voice for good in the world, most particularly when it comes to be being fathers and husbands? To me, having guys beat drums or set up some grand zero-sum gender war ignores the opportunity — an opportunity that’s right in front of our faces — that we might figure out a way to get out of the cave of our own suffering.”
Tom Matlack is trying to convince his already convinced readers that the Good Men Project didn’t come from the Men’s Rights Movement. When Ms. Magazine itself stated that they had the task of dismantling it?
These guys need to compare notes.
By blaming men for the problems that feminism has caused; accusing people who champion shared parenting laws, parity in reproductive rights, a return to due process and the presumption of innocence of setting up a “zero sum gender war,” they conclude we can “get out of the cave of our own suffering.”
Please.
It doesn’t stop there. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and author of an interesting political blog posted recently about the Men’s Rights Movement in which he commented:
“Now I would like to speak directly to my male readers who feel unjustly treated by the widespread suppression of men’s rights:
Get over it, you bunch of pussies.”
Now that doesn’t sound like a very good MRA to me. He went on to state:
“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.
How many times do we men suppress our natural instincts for sex and aggression just to get something better in the long run? It’s called a strategy. Sometimes you sacrifice a pawn to nail the queen. If you’re still crying about your pawn when you’re having your way with the queen, there’s something wrong with you and it isn’t men’s rights. ”
Now that definitely does not sound like an MRA. The whole movement is geared towards treating women as the adults they are and not children, right? Yet amazingly, simply because he compared women to children and mentally handicapped people, he was called an MRA by feminists around the blogosphere. In fact, because of this comparison to children and mentally challenged people he deleted his post and put this in it’s place: “I deleted today’s post. My regular readers have the capacity to deal with this sort of topic but it gained a bit too much attention from outside my normal reading circle. Knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
Actually, Mr. Adams, with all due respect as a Dilbert fan, sticking your nose into gender politics is a dangerous thing when you don’t know what you are talking about.
One of the many publications that featured the idea that Scott Adams was an MRA and that it may be proof that the MRA is growing was none other then our lovely friends over at Slate, who employed reporter, Peter Finocchiaro, to cover the Scott Adams fiasco. Finocchiaro wrote an article titled “Is the men’s rights movement growing?” featuring an interview with Michael Kimmel, a self proclaimed expert on the Men’s Rights Movement. Kimmel, a sociologist at Stony Brook University and author of such books as “Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States, 1776-1990” and “Manhood in America : A Cultural History” (oh joy!) seems to have a misguided view of the men’s rights movement if not a completely misinformed one. He goes on to state in the interview:
“Fathering is not just an existential state of being. It’s things people do. When you do it — when you’re a really good father — you’ll retain connection with your children.
Here’s an interesting factoid for you: After divorce, virtually no mothers who do not retain custody — none of them actually lose contact with their children. But about half of all non-custodial fathers lose contact with their children. It’s not because the mothers are keeping them away, but because they just drift off. Mothers don’t do that. I’d love to hear a zero number for fathers who don’t drift off, not because they’re prevented, but because they just don’t. ”
Ah yes, Dr. Kimmel, and what is motherhood? An existential state of being or something that you have to prove yourself to be in our society? I have a feeling society treats it as the former. And we are to believe that fathers loose contact with their children simply because they don’t care? Did you ever consider that non custodial fathers must pay child support or go to jail so they have to go to more fertile job markets in order to avoid imprisonment, often separating them from their children? Did you ever consider that mothers can relocate to far away places with the children and there is nothing the father can do about it as the visitation rights of fathers are rarely enforced? Did you ever consider that there are actually vindictive, personality disordered mothers out there that alienate their children from their fathers?
Oh that’s right, parental alienation doesn’t exist. I forgot. Sorry, Dr. Kimmel, you’re the expert after all.
When asked whether or not he thought the men’s rights movement was gaining ground he said “No, I don’t, first of all because I don’t see women in any way buying this stuff. You know, women aren’t suddenly going to say, ‘Oh, you’re right!’.” When I read this I had a vision of Dr. Kimmel,tied up naked in a prone position with a gag ball in his mouth, being whipped in turn on his behind by Erin Pizzy, Uma Challa, Sue Price and Christina Hoff Summers with a riding crop and all the while Kimmel enjoying it tremendously. I could ad to this cavalcade the army of young women aged 19 to 27 joining the MRM in droves because feminism has destroyed marriage as an institution making it untenable for men to marry; but things would get a little too tawdry.
You will notice that whenever the Men’s Rights Movement is mentioned in any of these news outlets there is never any consultation or interview with a real MRA such as Glenn Sacks, Paul Elam, Harry Crouch, Stephen Baskerville or any of the women mentioned above.
Why?
The truth for both MRA’s and the editors of the publications cited above is obvious. If you get just one well spoken MRA in front of a camera or a microphone with an objective reporter reporting for a major news outlet people will hear the real message of the MRM.
You would hear that mothers and fathers should have equal rights to their children and those rights should be enforced; that there is a war that has been raging in our education system for the past thirty years against men and boys; that the criminal justice system is biased in favor of women and not holding them to proper accountability; that it results in murderers, child molesters and false accusers going free; that rape shield laws, mandatory arrest laws and predominant aggressor laws that deny men accused of sexual assault and domestic violence their constitutional rights be repealed so individuals accused have the same protections as those accused of any other crime, thus keeping innocent men out of jail and leaving their lives and families intact; that no fault divorce and alimony be abolished and many other issues for which there is not enough space here to mention.
And you would hear all the objective research that backs all this up.
For a great many people in our society these ideas are very dangerous. Think about all of the academics who make their living off of misandry and research for women’s issues in our schools as well as the administrators who rake in millions for women only programs. Think about the mainstream media who’s advertisement revenue is heavily dependent on women feeling superior to men in every way. Think about the many thousands of petty bureaucrats, lawyers and judges who make their living exclusively off of family disillusion. Think of what is collectively known as the Sexual Grievance Industry, which demonizes all men and male sexuality for profit. Think of the millions of young women who are just a hairs breath away from realizing, as so many have already, that this blind faith in feminism has screwed them royally and that it needs to be countered.
The entire purpose of the Good Men Project and the commentaries concerning the Men’s Rights Movement is to deflect attention away from the MRM and direct it towards our detractors and the decoy that is the Good Men Project. The idea is to sabotage our momentum by calling in so called “experts” who deliberately distort our cause and redirect attention to those who say they speak for men but are, in fact, impostors.
Anyone familiar with military history will note that the use of deflections and decoys are often an act of desperation or a fatal error such as the propaganda of Tokyo Rose and the French Defeat in Indo China when they chose to create a massive decoy base in the remote village of Dien Bien Phu with the intention of drawing the enemy out for a more conventional battle and got their asses handed to them. Could this be one such instance between two social movements? Not an inaccurate analogy I would think considering what has been going on.
So what are we going to do about it?
The same thing we have been doing! Lobbying, writing and speaking out. We must also identify and point out the actions or our opponents for what they are-a rouse. What we have been doing thus far is working and our growing numbers prove it.
The fear on the faces of our enemies proves it as well.1P-LSD is an extremely novel lysergamide with no existing literature. It is a potent psychedelic with effects and dosage similar to that of LSD.
Though it contains an indole moiety it is unusually substituted at the nitrogen of the indole and as a result questions have been raised about its ability to form a chromophore when reacted with the ehrlich reagent which occurs at the carbon adjacent to the indole nitrogen (C-2).
Testing of 1P-LSD using the improved ehrlich reagent gave a slow reaction to light purple. In the photo to the right this can be seen alongside a comparison to tryptamine, which displays a more intense colour change.
In conclusion, it is possible to verify the absence of 1P-LSD using the ehrlich reagent. A non-reaction indicates that 1P-LSD is not present.
Results obtained with ehrlich reagent which is not fresh may differ significantly.
EDIT: We have had a few reports and confirmed ourselves that the reaction can be extremely slow, even to the point that it looks like it’s not going to react. So it seems like the ehrlich reagent may actually be detecting traces of unreacted precursor. If none is present then we must wait for a very slow hydrolysis to give a reactive species. Tread carefully!The Greatest HiFi in the World!...that I've heard
I have standards for sound reproduction when reviewing gear. Once a minimum threshold is met; each system will have its own merits and compromises.
For my stereo I have a higher standard. I require it to have super powers. The kind of machine that is worthy of saluting when you enter the room. Power ultimate, shredding all of the world's problems and replacing them by force. When the world is collapsing around me - kids jumping in my face, back hurting, the wife giving me a look of distain, and responsibilities knocking on every door - I can lean back, up the volume, close my eyes, let musical emotion wash over me and I shed a tear of joy. A good stereo is man's best friend.
The Selah Audio Mejor Supreme is an experiment gone right. With the top cabinet being Mejor, and the subwoofer stands Supreme, translated means "Better Superior."
Back in 2008 Rick Craig of Selah Audio wanted to make a 2-way speaker using the new Scanspeak Illuminator 7 inch driver, but the driver has issues where it would normally crossover to a smaller ribbon or even most dome tweeters. To make it work he would need a high order crossover slope, only available with DSP, and use the larger RAAL ribbon, which you won't normally find in even the most high of the highend. Using this plan the DEQX system was speced as the right tool for the job. The larger RAAL ribbon covers as much as possible while keeping it free from distortion and self destruction. Given that the DEQX is designed as a three way digital crossover, subwoofer stands for the monitors were designed using two 10 inch, new at the time, Audiopulse drivers from TC Sounds, making a solid foundation for the system.
Tweeter
The Serbian made RAAL Ribbon tweeter took the industry by surprise back in 2007 when it showed up in a few designs at RMAF, making nearly everything else sound lacking by comparison. With specs like 13,000G's of acceleration and an extremely wide horizontal but controlled vertically dispersion pattern this thing is built for speed. On the Mejor they are surface mounted, and do not seem to be affected by the baffle at all, projecting sound from almost in front of speakers with 90 degrees off axis horizontally being just as flat and clear as directly on axis.
Holding a big RAAL in hand you feel the weight of about 5 pounds of neodymium, transforming the holder into Magneto.
Midwoofer
The prettiest of all of the Scanspeak drivers. A sequel to the more industrious Revelator line, the Iluminator's have neodymium ring magnets and a embossed multilayer paper cone to reduce breakup distortion.
The basket design gets everything out of the way, reducing backwave interference.
Woofers
These are the definition of not fucking around. 11 inch diameter, 20 pounds, 2 inches of peak to peak excursion, and 600 watt power handling each mounted in a sealed box. With a large shorting cap and a faraday ring they play cleaner and more efficient than most subwoofer drivers. To prep these monsters for use with standard power amps the dual 2 ohm voice coils in each driver are wired up in series as an 8 ohm load.
Massive 8 inch spider with lead wires threaded helps avoid rattles and keeps the cone movement linear. The blue basket is a bit much, but at least it's not visible once the driver is mounted.
Crossover
The heart of the system, making it all possible. The Australian made DEQX corrects the system using multiple layers of 24 bit 96k FIR filters to +-0.5dB on axis using linear phase higher order crossovers between drivers, and digital delay to create perfect anechoic time/phase alignment above 150Hz. For bass response a Parametric EQ is provided to tame room modes or extend bass response. As the subwoofers have the headroom I boost the.54 Q subs to flat out to 20Hz, and do only minimal cutting of the room modes to keep the sound balanced.
This 2.6 unit has been upgraded to a 3.0 housing and separate toroidal power supplies for the digital and analog sides of the preamp.
This is the only passive component in the system, a cap that protects the RAAL ribbon from self destructing during the DEQX calibration process. And I do mean process, the DEQX manual is about 1 inch thick and can easily overwhelm someone new to speaker design.
Cabinet
The cabinets are 1.5 inch thick MDF veneered in ribbon striped mahogany. The fit and finish on these speakers is top notch. They are very heavy with the sub cabinet weighing in at 90 pounds each, and the tops about 40 pounds. That foam is Sonic Barrier acoustic sound damping. When taking the speakers apart I noticed this one panel had partially come unglued from the raging maelstrom that the cabinets contained over the past 7 years. A helping of hot glue fixed it up good as new.
Amplification
This stereo has headroom. It can get loud enough to push walls and stay flat without congestion at 110dB levels. Because this is an active setup it required 6 channels of amplification: two for the tweeters, two for the midwoofers, and two for the subs. I use a variety of amps depending on the weather. Class A(300wpc) for winter supplied by my stack of old Kinergetics KBA-75's, an Adcom GFA7707 Class A/B (600wpc) for spring/fall, and I'm putting together a new group of class D iNuke amps(1400wpc) for Summer. The power being pulled from the walls varies inversely, with the class A regularly throwing 20 amp breakers and heating the whole house, and the Class D pulling only a couple hundred watts from the wall at listening volume.
This Adcom is a beast, it weighs 125 pounds.
Setup
This is my room. It's too small for my stereo, way too small.
The room width is fine, I get 5 feet from the tweeters to the side walls, so my brain can do a good job of separating reflections from direct sound. In a perfect world there would be at least 8 more feet behind my couch, but we play with the cards we are dealt.
Listening Impressions
Standing in the room you are too close to the speakers, all of the high frequency information sounds reflected, like the stereo is in another room.
Sitting down on the couch, and the sound is transformed. Given a few seconds for your brain to adjust to the energy in the room and then it happens, the direct sound fully engages you. Imaging is pin point, well beyond the speakers and even the room's reach. For a soft ballad you can place everything on the sound stage, not separate from you, but there with you. You can't just listen, and are forced to hear the music. When a song comes on that wants to attack, your animal brain goes into protection mode and you hold your breath instinctively like your head was just shoved under water. The illusion becomes real when a bass note hits and vibrates your bone structure with speed like a hammer to your kneecap. Speed rare in even larger dedicated rooms.
This system gives music power over the listener.
Now it's not perfect, no stereo is. Occasionally a bass note will blur into a room mode and hang for a little longer than they should, and I've heard other systems do tricks this one can't. Those systems had their own problems which I consider to be too much of a compromise. All things considered, especially the room, this system is as good as it's going to get.
Conclusion
In the past I've said that my stereo is frustratingly good. It is, because I have searched far and wide looking for something better and have yet to find anything that measures up. I truly believe this is one of the |
issue with the requirements Puerto Rico has to meet — like making damage assessments — in order to use the funds.
"They're not going to be able to do that in a timely fashion because they're still out there trying to restore power and get water and food to people," he said.
Rubio warned that the situation has grown so drastic in Puerto Rico that their government could shut down "in the next 30-45 days."
Rubio said he was told Thursday morning in the briefing with the governor that the Army Corps of Engineers has yet to begin executing power restoration on the island -- though Rubio cautioned that he needed to confirm that information.
"If that's not accurate and there's another side of that story, we need to learn it. But if that's accurate, then obviously we need to start asking questions as to why," he said.In the post-war economic boom years, prosperity and the giving hand of social welfare went a long way to closing the gap between rich and poor in Western democracies. But since the 1970s - or the 1980s at the latest - the gulf has been widening again. That doesn't mean the societies in question are home to rampant poverty, but that many people - those with minimum qualifications and training, and who often work in the service industry with no job security - are running on the spot. And as they run, others, such as academics and the self-employed are striding ahead, and incomes and fortunes at the very top of society reach unimaginable proportions.
If one were to imagine the social structure of a society as a pyramid, it would be like watching the tip grow ever higher. The Occupy movement fights against this small minority at the very pinnacle of society; against the 1 percent that has cut free from the other 99 percent, yet which still rules over its fortunes.
It is not only a matter of social inequality and justice, but of power and political dominance. That the Occupy movement bangs its drum in the name of democracy is no coincidence, for democracy means equality, equal rights and influence. An elite leadership will undermine the credibility of democratic institutions, including elections and parliament, if the global dominance of the very capital that politicians push about at will has not already done so.
Democracy's success story?
Democratic crisis, or at least unease, consequently is emerging in step with the growing inequality. Increasingly, one hears how at the start of the 1970s, Western democracies were blossoming - before the oil crisis and globalization, before public budget cuts and the privatization of state businesses. Since then they have been in decline, if not in a state of decay. Is that an inaccurate, distorted way of seeing things? Could the past four decades not, in fact, be described as a great success story for democracy?
To trace the march of democracy on maps of Europe and the world would be to begin in southern Europe, to move onto Latin America and eastern and central Europe, and end in parts of Asia. And there besides who really wants a return to the democratic West of the 1960s, when street protests were regarded as inappropriate, citizen's movements and NGOs were shadows of what they are today, and when the only democratic right granted to women was suffrage? So perhaps democracy and inequality have nothing to do with each other.
Democracy and equality's sibling rivalry
Oh, but they do! Democracy and equality are siblings, and their relationship is aptly close and complicated. Sometimes they walk arm-in-arm, and sometimes they go their separate ways, but they have the same origin. Even in Athenian democracy more than 2,500 years ago, political rights were granted on the basis of equality for male full citizens. Those who were not "equal" - women, foreigners and slaves - had no place in democracy.
Modern revolutions underscore this connection; In the France of 1789, "Equality, Fraternity, Liberty" was the refrain. But in the 19th century there were widespread efforts, both there and in Germany, to gradate political rights according to wealth and fiscal capacity. Those who had nothing were not allowed to vote, and the ballot of a rich man carried more weight than that cast by a worker.
Such an approach would not stand up in a real democracy. In the 20th century everyone was granted the right to vote, and in post-war Germany there was a especially close connection between democracy and affluence. Because Germans didn't particularly like democracy, Ludwig Erhard sold it to them as a form of leadership that meant "affluence for everyone." Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the promises made were of "blossoming landscapes" - as in material prosperity - for everyone.
Different standards
On the flipside, however, democracy is also highly compatible with extreme social inequality. It does not promise equality in absolute terms, in the sense of radical alignment, but principally as "equality of freedom." equal rights and equal opportunities for involvement.
Within the Western world there are different takes on how much inequality democracy can handle. The Scandinavians and continental Europeans have a different view to that of England and the United States. In material terms, American society is far less equal than German society, but it is certainly no less democratic.
And then there are the Asian and Latin American democracies with their vast social chasms. Or India, the country that has been the largest democracy in the world since 1947 and is an unequalled success story despite extreme poverty and its caste society.
Promised participation
What is decisive here is not the gap between the top and the bottom, but the promise of participation and gradual improvement in situation. In developing countries in particular, is it a tense process, because the path towards greater affluence and participation often initially means an increase in social injustice. As companies tap into new wealth and millions of people enter the urban middle classes, enjoying education, comfortable homes and consumer goods, others remain bitterly poor in rural areas or on the outskirts of major cities, waiting in vain for their chance.
In established Western democracies the situation is no different. Democracy is threatened when social injustice is ignored, when people have no chance to improve their situation, and when feelings of frustration and helplessness become widespread. Democracy is also endangered when participation and inclusion cease to work, and a state's citizens no longer regard themselves as a community.
The employment market in Germany has developed relatively well, so that young people are not left behind in the way they are in southern European countries. But at the same the rigidity of the German education system, which doesn't really support children from less well-educated backgrounds, makes social advancement difficult.
Society's digital divide
On top of that, the forms of democratic participation have changed. While parties and unions used to be the mouthpieces for the proletariat, giving factory workers had the chance to be heard in parliament, these days it is other things that count: Citizen's initiatives, involvement with international organizations such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace or Attac, or suing in courts for individual rights.
These domains are all the preserve of the well-educated, the articulate: the middle class. The same is true of digital communication, of online campaigns, blogging and Twitter. It is this divide in the heart of society that is more dangerous than the growing wealth of the super rich.
Does social inequality threaten democracy? Do you share Paul Nolte's opinion that the social gulf in society is dangerous? Or do you have a different view? We look forward to your feedback on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter.
Paul Nolte is a German historian, sociologist and publicist. He has been a professor of history at the Free University of Berlin since 2005. In his latest book, "Was ist Demokratie? Geschichte und Gegenwart" (What is Democracy? - Past and Present) he deals with the historical consequences and current challenges of political co-determination.THE internet campaign for Stephen Colbert to hold a "Restoring Truthiness" rally has picked up steam with a mention from the comedian on his US TV show.
After a week-long break, The Colbert Report host today opened his show with a 10-minute segment about the campaign.
"I have been informed that there is a movement afoot on the internets to get me to hold my own rally," he said.
"It was started Monday on Reddit, and that led to a hundred thousand strong for Colbert on Facebook and a new petition website colbertrally.com.
"As of today, 12.30, I became the number one search in the world on Google."
The online campaign began after Fox News personality Glenn Beck held a conservative rally in Washington DC titled "Restoring Honor".
Reports of the number of attendees have varied, with some outlets putting the figure below 90,000 and others at up to half a million.
On his show, Colbert mocked the discrepancy between the figures and then offered several teasing statements about a potential rally of his own.
He began by joking about Beck's statement that his rally was blessed by God as evidenced by a flock of geese flying overheard.
Then he revealed a goose on the set and asked it whether he should hold his own rally.
"Ladies and gentlemen my important announcement will be announced on a date to be announced," he said.
"And whatever I'm announcing, it will be BYOG — Bring Your Own Geese."
Colbert also took the joke to Twitter, posting from his official account: "This tweet is to officially announce that this tweet is not my announcement."
Reddit is a social news website and online community that lets users vote on how relevant submissions from other users are.For other ships with the same name, see USS Langley
USS Langley (CV-1/AV-3) was the United States Navy's first aircraft carrier, converted in 1920 from the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3), and also the US Navy's first turbo-electric-powered ship. Conversion of another collier was planned but canceled when the Washington Naval Treaty required the cancellation of the partially built Lexington-class battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga, freeing up their hulls for conversion to the aircraft carriers Lexington and Saratoga. Langley was named after Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American aviation pioneer. Following another conversion to a seaplane tender, Langley fought in World War II. On 27 February 1942, she was attacked by nine twin-engine Japanese bombers of the Japanese 21st and 23rd Naval Air Flotillas[2] and so badly damaged that she had to be scuttled by her escorts.
Service history [ edit ]
Collier [ edit ]
President William H. Taft attended the ceremony when Jupiter's keel was laid down on 18 October 1911 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. She was launched on 14 August 1912 sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Ruhm; and commissioned on 7 April 1913 under Commander Joseph M. Reeves.[4] Her sister ships were Cyclops, which disappeared without a trace in World War I, Proteus, and Nereus, which disappeared on the same route as Cyclops in World War II.
Jupiter 16 October 1913, the collier, before conversion to Langley, the aircraft carrier. 16 October 1913, the collier, before conversion to, the aircraft carrier.
After successfully passing her trials as the first turbo-electric-powered ship of the US Navy, Jupiter embarked a United States Marine Corps detachment at San Francisco, California, and reported to the Pacific Fleet at Mazatlán Mexico on 27 April 1914, bolstering US naval strength on the Mexican Pacific coast in the tense days of the Veracruz crisis. She remained on the Pacific coast until she departed for Philadelphia on 10 October. En route, the collier steamed through the Panama Canal on Columbus Day, the first vessel to transit it from west to east.[4]
Prior to America's entry into World War I, she cruised the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico attached to the Atlantic Fleet Auxiliary Division. The ship arrived at Norfolk, Virginia on 6 April 1917, and, assigned to the Naval Overseas Transport Service, interrupted her coaling operations by two cargo voyages to France in June 1917 and November 1918. The first voyage transported a naval aviation detachment of 7 officers and 122 men to England.[5] It was the first US aviation detachment to arrive in Europe and was commanded by Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting, who became Langley's first executive officer five years later.[5] Jupiter was back in Norfolk on 23 January 1919 whence she sailed for Brest, France on 8 March for coaling duty in European waters to expedite the return of victorious veterans to the United States. Upon reaching Norfolk on 17 August, the ship was transferred to the West Coast. Her conversion to an aircraft carrier was authorized on 11 July 1919, and she sailed to Hampton Roads, Virginia on 12 December, where she decommissioned on 24 March 1920.[4]
Aircraft carrier [ edit ]
Langley being converted from a collier to an aircraft carrier at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1921. being converted from a collier to an aircraft carrier at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1921.
Jupiter was converted into the first US aircraft carrier at the Navy Yard, Norfolk, Virginia, for the purpose of conducting experiments in the new idea of seaborne aviation. On 11 April 1920, she was renamed Langley in honor of Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American astronomer, physicist, aeronautics pioneer and aircraft engineer, and she was given the hull number CV-1. She recommissioned on 20 March 1922 with Commander Kenneth Whiting in command.[4]
As the first American aircraft carrier, Langley was the scene of several seminal events in US naval aviation. On 17 October 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane—a Vought VE-7—launched from her decks.[6] Though this was not the first time an airplane had taken off from a ship, and though Langley was not the first ship with an installed flight deck, this one launching was of monumental importance to the modern US Navy.[4] The era of the aircraft carrier was born introducing into the navy what was to become the vanguard of its forces in the future. With Langley underway nine days later, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier made the first landing in an Aeromarine 39B.[6] On 18 November, Commander Whiting was the first aviator to be catapulted from a carrier's deck.[4][7][8]
An unusual feature of Langley was provision for a carrier pigeon house on the stern between the 5” guns.[9] Pigeons had been carried aboard seaplanes for message transport since World War I, and were to be carried on aircraft operated from Langley.[9] The pigeons were trained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard while Langley was undergoing conversion.[10] As long as the pigeons were released a few at a time for exercise, they returned to the ship; but when the whole flock was released while Langley was anchored off Tangier Island, the pigeons flew south and roosted in the cranes of the Norfolk shipyard.[10] The pigeons never went to sea again and the former pigeon house became the executive officer's quarters;[9] but the early plans for conversion of Lexington and Saratoga included a compartment for pigeons.[10]
By 15 January 1923, Langley had begun flight operations and tests in the Caribbean Sea for carrier landings. In June, she steamed to Washington, D.C., to give a demonstration at a flying exhibition before civil and military dignitaries. She arrived at Norfolk on 13 June, and commenced training along the Atlantic coast and Caribbean which carried her through the end of the year. In 1924, Langley participated in more maneuvers and exhibitions, and spent the summer at Norfolk for repairs and alterations, she departed for the west coast late in the year and arrived in San Diego, California on 29 November to join the Pacific Battle Fleet.[4]
In 1927, Langley was at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.[11] For the next 12 years, she operated off the California coast and Hawaii engaged in training fleet units, experimentation, pilot training, and tactical-fleet problems.[4] Langley was featured in the 1929 silent film about naval aviation The Flying Fleet.[12]
Seaplane tender [ edit ]
Langley after conversion to a seaplane tender, 1937 after conversion to a seaplane tender, 1937
On 25 October 1936, she put into Mare Island Navy Yard, California for overhaul and conversion to a seaplane tender. Though her career as a carrier had ended, her well-trained pilots had proved invaluable to the next two carriers, Lexington and Saratoga[4] (commissioned on 14 December and 16 November 1927, respectively).
Langley completed conversion on 26 February 1937 and was assigned hull number AV-3 on 11 April. She was assigned to the Aircraft Scouting Force and commenced her tending operations out of Seattle, Washington, Sitka, Alaska, Pearl Harbor, and San Diego, California. She departed for a brief deployment with the Atlantic Fleet from 1 February-10 July 1939, and then steamed to assume duties with the Pacific Fleet at Manila arriving on 24 September.[4]
World War II [ edit ]
On the entry of the US into World War II, Langley was anchored off Cavite, Philippines.[4][13] On 8 December, following the invasion of the Philippines by Japan, she departed Cavite for Balikpapan, in the Dutch East Indies. As Japanese advances continued, Langley departed for Australia, arriving in Darwin on 1 January 1942.[13] She then became part of the American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) naval forces. Until 11 January, Langley assisted the Royal Australian Air Force in running anti-submarine patrols out of Darwin.[4][13]
Langley went to Fremantle, Australia to pick up Allied aircraft and transport them to Southeast Asia. Carrying 32 P-40 fighters belonging to the Far East Air Force's 13th Pursuit Squadron (Provisional).[13] At Fremantle Langley and Sea Witch, loaded with crated P-40s, joined a convoy designated MS.5 that had arrived from Melbourne composed of the United States Army Transport Willard A. Holbrook and the Australian transports Duntroon and Katoomba escorted by Phoenix departed Fremantle on 22 February.[4] Langley and Sea Witch left the convoy five days later to deliver the planes to Tjilatjap (Cilacap), Java.[4]
Langley scuttled via torpedo on 27 February 1942 off Java scuttled via torpedo on 27 February 1942 off Java
In the early hours of 27 February, Langley rendezvoused with her anti-submarine screen, the destroyers Whipple and Edsall.[4][13] Early that morning, a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft located the formation. At 11:40, about 75 mi (121 km) south of Tjilatjap, the seaplane tender, along with Edsall and Whipple came under attack by sixteen (16) Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service's Takao Kōkūtai, led by Lieutenant Jiro Adachi, flying out of Denpasar airfield on Bali, and escorted by fifteen (15) A6M Reisen fighters. Rather than dropping all their bombs at once, the Japanese bombers attacked releasing partial salvos. Since they were level bombing from medium altitude, Langley was able to alter helm when the bombs were released and evade the first and second bombing passes, but the bombers altered their tactics on the third pass and bracketed the directions Langley could turn. As a result, Langley took five hits from a mix of 250 and 60 kilograms (550 and 130 pounds) bombs as well as three near misses, with 16 crewmen killed.[16][note 1] The topside burst into flames, steering was impaired, and the ship developed a 10° list to port.[4][13] Unable to negotiate the narrow mouth of Tjilatjap harbor, Langley went dead in the water, as her engine room flooded. At 13:32, the order to abandon ship was passed.[4] The escorting destroyers fired nine 4-inch (100 mm) shells and two torpedoes into Langley's hull,[4] to ensure she didn't fall into enemy hands, and she sank. (Her approximate scuttle coordinates are: S 8° 51′ 04.20″ × E 109° 02′ 02.56″ Ap)[13] After being transferred to Pecos, many of her crew were lost when Pecos was sunk en route to Australia.[18] Thirty-one of the thirty-three pilots assigned to the 13th Pursuit Squadron being transported by Langley were lost with Edsall when she was sunk on the same day while responding to the distress calls of Pecos.[13]
Film appearance [ edit ]
Langley appears in several scenes of The Flying Fleet, a 1929 silent film about naval aviators.[12]
Awards and decorations [ edit ]
The USS Langley (as AV-3) earned two battle stars on its Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Streamer: One for the Philippine Islands Operation, December 8, 1941 – May 6, 1942; and one for Netherlands East Indies Engagements, January 23 – February 27, 1942.[20]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ [17]which incorrectly attributes the attack to nine Langley's own action report (no longer available online?) cited the attackers as twin-engined horizontal bombers, which the report compared to Note that some English language sources rely on Roscoewhich incorrectly attributes the attack to nine Aichi D3A1 "Val" dive bombers of the Japanese 21st and 23rd Naval Air Flotillas, howevers own action report (no longer available online?) cited the attackers as twin-engined horizontal bombers, which the report compared to German Junkers Ju 86 bombers; and the multiple passes taken would be impossible for dive bombers with a single bomb each, to carry out.
Citations [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]
Coordinates:StudioCanal has announced that it is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the cult classic Highlander with a fully restored 4K re-release of the action fantasy.
The restoration will receive its world premiere on Saturday June 18th at the Edinburgh Film Festival, with The Kurgan himself Clancy Brown in attendance, before making its way to Blu-ray and DVD on July 11th with brand new bonus material.
1985 New York City; the Battle to end all battles. The last remaining Immortals gather together to fight to the death: decapitation alone can kill them, and the victor alone can lay claim to “The Prize”. Amongst the contestants is Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert), who fought his first battle in 1536 on the highlands of Scotland, swordsman Ramirez (Sean Connery) who mentored MacLeod and taught him the ways of the immortals, and the evil and brutal barbarian The Kurgan (Clancy Brown).
Starring Christopher Lambert (Mortal Kombat, Fortress), Sean Connery (Dr. No, The Hunt for Red October), Clancy Brown (The Shawshank Redemption, Starship Troopers) Roxanne Hart, Jon Polito, Sheila Gish and Celia Imrie. The film was directed by Russell Mulcahy (Swimming Upstream, The Real McCoy) and features an original score by Michael Kamen and Queen. Highlander went onto inspire four sequels and a television series.
Restored by Deluxe London, the restoration of Highlander is based on a 4K scan of the original camera negative, followed by a full 4K workflow, with the approval of director Russell Mulcahy.The bases were loaded. It was the bottom of the eight. This was it: first place was on the line. Toronto and Newark headed into that Saturday afternoon battling for the lead in the International League — along with the team in Jersey City. With only a couple of weeks left in the 1887 season, every win was vitally important. And with only an inning left in their second game of the day, Toronto was losing to Newark by three runs.
That’s when Ned “Cannonball” Crane came to the plate. He was the ace of the Toronto pitching staff; a giant of a man: big and tall and impossibly strong. He once threw a ball more than 400 feet — a world record; impressive even by today’s standards — and he could throw a ball faster than anybody else could, either. He was one of the game’s first big power pitchers. He combined the blistering speed of his fastball with a “deceptive drop ball” that baffled opposing hitters. It was a deadly combination. He won 33 games for Toronto that year — more than any other pitcher has ever won on any Toronto team.
And he could hit, too. Crane was one of the best hitters in the whole league that year. His.428 average is still considered to be the best batting average by a pitcher in professional baseball history. (If he’d hit that in the Majors, it would put him sixth on the all-time list for any position.) On the days when Crane wasn’t pitching, he was in the outfield or at second base so they could keep his bat in the line-up. On that Saturday afternoon in September, Crane had already done more than his fair share. Toronto and Newark were playing a double-header — two games at the Torontos’ new stadium at Queen & Broadview, on a spot overlooking the Don Valley. It was originally known as the Toronto Baseball Grounds, but it would soon be nicknamed Sunlight Park in honour of the nearby Sunlight Soap Works factory. Spectators could walk in off Queen Street or ride up in their carriages and park their horses on the grounds. Admission was a quarter — plus an extra dime or two to sit in the best seats in the house. The sheltered grandstand had enough room for more than 2,000 people, and there was standing room for another 10,000 — a capacity not that much smaller than a Leafs game at the Air Canada Centre today. But the stadium had never seen attendance like this. Those two games against Newark drew a record-setting crowd.
In the first game, Crane pitched all nine innings, keeping the Newark hitters at bay while the Toronto bats smashed their way to victory. The final score was 15-5.
But there was still one more game left to win. And now the Torontos had already used up their ace. The scheduled pitcher for the second game was a fellow by the name of Baker — and as the first pitch drew near, he was out on the field, getting ready just as everyone expected. And then, a surprise: as the Toronto team took the field to start the second game, Baker didn’t head toward the pitcher’s box. Instead, it was Cannonball Crane who came back to take his spot in the middle of the diamond. A reporter from the Globe was there: “As soon as it was made clear that Crane was to pitch the second game, hundreds leaped to their feet and cheered frantically, a mighty whirl of enthusiasm took everybody within its embrace and an astounding volume of sound shook the stands and swept down toward the city and out over the grounds like the march of a tornado.” Cannonball Crane was going to pitch two games in one day. Still, even with Crane in the pitcher’s box, the second game didn’t get off to a good start. Toronto fell behind and stayed there. It wasn’t until the eighth inning — behind by three runs — that they rallied to load the bases, bringing Cannonball to the plate with a chance to play the hero. And that’s exactly what he did. The slugger hit a double, clearing the bases. Three runs scored. The game was tied. It would head to extra innings. Crane kept pitching. He held Newark scoreless in the tenth. And then again in the eleventh. He had now pitched 20 innings in one afternoon. In the bottom of the eleventh, Crane came to the plate with a chance to play the hero yet again. He crushed a pitch high into the sun above the Don Valley: deep, deeeep, gone. A walk-off home run. Toronto had won both games. According to the Globe, as Crane rounded the bases “the mighty audience arose and cheered and stamped and whistled and smashed hats… the frantic fans dashed on to the field and carried Crane aloft as his foot touched home.” The team’s owner — a stock broker by the name of E. Strachan Cox — headed over to the scoreboard. He wrote a message for the crowd:
“CITIZENS, ARE YOU CONTENT? TORONTO LEADS THE LEAGUE.” The team had taken first place — and they would keep it for the rest of the season, winning every single game for the rest of the year. By the time it was all over, they’d won 16 in a row. Toronto had our first baseball championship.By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)
The Iraqi military and allied Shiite militias are mounting a campaign to take the largely Sunni town of Tikrit (original pop. 300,000), which is alleged to have been planned and is being directed by the Jerusalem (Quds) Brigade, the foreign special ops arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Quds Brigade commander Qasim Solaimani has been photographed on site.
Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi appears to have ordered this campaign despite the fears of the US that the Iraqi army was not ready for it and that insufficient effort had been expended to raise Sunni tribal levies. As it is, perhaps two thirds of the attacking forces are Shiite militiamen trained and equipped by Iran. The US is not giving it close air support, allegedly as part of a deal Washington made with PM al-Abadi that Iran could take part in the Tikrit campaign but the US as a result would not. The US does not want Iran involved in the coming Mosul campaign because the largely Sunni city of some one million would not accept Iranian special forces.
Tikrit is from all accounts a ghost town. Much of its population fled last summer when Daesh took it over. In the past week, another 30,000— ten percent of its prewar population— has fled. Sunni townspeople hitting the road have torn up sheets to wave as white flags of surrender if they encounter Shiite militiamen, of whom they are terrified, saying that the militiamen are often seeking revenge. Iraqi government sources say that this fear is overblown, and that 4000 Sunni fighters have joined in against Daesh.
The Iranian press in Arabic, al-`Alam, reports that the Iraqi Army and Shiite militias had surrounded Tikrit and cut off resupply routes for Daesh. [The Iraqi press contradicts this allegation, saying that the Daesh position in Tikrit is receiving reinforcements from the north.] They also chased Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) from villages southeast of Tikrit and were now at the threshold of al-Dur district. It claimed that the Baghdad forces had inflicted a terrible toll on the Daesh fighters, and had managed to defuse two truck bombs in the district. The Iraqi army has, it says, liberated a housing complex in al-Dur, killing dozens of Daesh fighters. There were 33 casualties among the Shiite militias and the Iraqi army.
Daesh sources deny that the army and the Shiite militias have in fact made much progress toward the city.CLOSE USA TODAY Sports' Lorenzo Reyes recaps the latest in Tom Brady's ongoing talks about a Deflategate settlement. USA TODAY Sports
Brady on the sideline during a preseason game on Aug. 13. (Photo11: Charles Krupa, AP)
NEW YORK – NFLPA lead counsel Jeffrey Kessler, commanding the attention of the surrounding lawyers, leaned in and whispered a joke.
Laughs filled the room.
If their body language didn't deliver the message, the smiles stretched across their faces finished the job.
The group stood in the eighth-floor cafeteria at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, just moments after completing what was a masterful day in court. They needed a breather.
They exhaled. They exuded confidence. They knew that – at least on Wednesday – they won.
Attorneys for both the NFL and the players union participated in an oral argument conference before Judge Richard M. Berman in a hearing that is part of an expedited timeline that seeks to resolve the Deflategate legal process, and Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's four-game suspension, before Sept. 4.
Wednesday's hearing allowed both sides to present their most compelling case — and for Judge Berman to point out the flaws in each, always with the goal of getting both sides to settle.
But after Judge Berman grilled NFL lead counsel Daniel Nash for the second consecutive week, we may have gotten our first glimpse as to which way Berman is leaning if he were to rule in this case. For the 60 minutes that Nash stood at a lectern on the 17th floor of the courthouse before approximately 60 spectators, Berman peppered him with questions.
"Why wouldn't you produce Mr. Jeff Pash, who is the league's general counsel, and make him available for testimony in Mr. Brady's June 23 appeal?"
"The union created this issue," Nash replied. "What Commissioner Roger Goodell issued was a judgment that he was not a relevant witness."
"But he edited the Wells Report," Berman interrupted. "He's a lawyer. He's an executive on the NFL's staff. Why not make him available?"
Nash didn't have an answer.
"How could Mr. Goodell, in his decision to uphold the (four-game suspension), equate the act of intentionally deflating footballs to a player taking performance-enhancing drugs?"
"Mr. Goodell found that the deflation of the balls was to gain a competitive advantage, which he deemed an example of conduct detrimental to the league," Nash said. "The judgment involves the integrity of the game."
"I have a little trouble with that," Berman responded. "Everything involves the integrity of the game."
Nash, again, didn't have an answer.
There were more examples just like those, too.
You know that time in a fight when you can pinpoint one side starting to take advantage? The exact moment when one side begins to build momentum?
Wednesday was that moment in Deflategate.
Though Berman continues to push for a resolution before the start of the NFL season, after today's clear victory for the NFLPA, it's hard to envision a settlement happening. The union knows it has steam and may be past the point of settling.
The NFLPA thinks it can win. And if it does, Brady wouldn't have to accept a reduced suspension. Or any suspension.
The problem is that the NFL also appears to think its argument can't be trumped. Citing the power of the CBA, Nash dismissed Kessler's arguments as "misstating the record."
The next step is another court date, set for Aug. 31, for which Berman requested Brady and Goodell be present.
If there was one instance, however, that captured the essence of the day, it was when Kessler was about to outline the fourth and final ground on which the union is basing its argument.
Berman stopped and posed an innocent question.
Of those four grounds, he asked, was there one that carried more significance?
"Well, you can put this one first," Kessler shot back, "because we would win with any one of them."
If Wednesday's hearing was any indication, he may just be right.
Follow Lorenzo Reyes on Twitter @LorenzoGReyesCopyright by WAVY - All rights reserved
Andy Fox - VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - Virginia Beach's longest-serving mayor, Meyera Oberndorf, passed away Friday morning, the city confirmed. She leaves behind an incredible legacy.
For many years, former Mayor Meyera Oberndorf was Virginia Beach's loudest, most effective, most believable cheerleader.
She began her rise as a library board member, moved to Virginia Beach City Council for 12 years, became the city's first elected mayor, and then the longest serving mayor, for 20 years.
When Oberndorf was not yet a political force, she was once told by the powers that be -- all men, smoking cigars in the back room at a steak house -- that she wasn't the right candidate to run.
Her longtime friend Drew Lankford remembers what happened next: "They said, 'you are going to have problems getting on city council. One, you are a woman. Two, you are Jewish, and three, you're too short. So, this is not your time.'"
Oberndorf then told them, "I really do appreciate that, and I'm going to take that to heart."
Copyright by WAVY - All rights reserved
Lankford said she then walked out, rode down to the municipal center and filed to run. Oberndorf would later say, "The nice thing, they are no longer around, and I am. I'm still too short, Jewish, and I'm still a woman."
Long time Virginia Beach City Clerk Ruth Fraser started serving in 1978, and that was two years after Oberndorf was on City Council. "She was probably the most influential person in Virginia Beach, and the best public relations person we could ever have or pay for," Fraser said.
Oberndorf loved Oceana, the military, and she liked to do unusual things.
"When the troops in Desert Storm were at war, she collected enough M&M candies to take them to the troops, and the ship took them," Fraser said. "Three years later, a young Scottish girl came here to Virginia Beach, thanked her. She had the M&M's that came from Virginia Beach."
Fraser added, "No matter what her personal feelings were, she was always smiling, and always making other people happy and figuring out how to do something special for them."
When the Greekfest Riots rocked Virginia Beach, it was Mayor Oberndorf who stood up to be the face of a city for the entire country and world.
"She was very concerned about the citizens when that happened," Fraser said. "Very concerned about the city, and what our reputation would be throughout the world because she was very world minded."
Mayor Will Sessoms remembers that too: "She reached out to everybody. I know she brought people together... I don't think anybody can represent Virginia Beach as well publicly as Meyera. The bottom line was: be open, honest, and people could see that."
Oberndorf's long time friend Drew Lankford, who now heads the city's public works department, said |
, not just the White House. Google/YouTube should offer this same "tracking-free" viewing to others. Human rights videos, politically sensitive videos, or even ordinary videos where viewers may want privacy should all be available without tracking. This is all the more important given the recent announcement that your YouTube viewing habits are being linked to your general Google dossier.
In addition, the government should adopt "tracking-free" videos across the board for all government websites. Viewers of videos from the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, your member of Congress and other governmental entities deserve the same privacy protection that viewers of the President's speeches. And since we're on the subject, we'd like a response to our January 27 and February 11 letters to the White House Counsel seeking the waiver that he provided to Whitehouse.gov to allow it to use cookies in the first place.
As we've said before, privacy concerns don't begin and end with the use of cookies. Along with CDT, we've proposed a better approach to privacy on government websites. Nevertheless, YouTube has taken a good step in the right direction with this change.By Rainer Schulze
In a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on October 20, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Haj Amin al-Husseini, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, of “inspiring the Holocaust” and urging Hitler to exterminate the Jewish people.
Netanyahu then explained that he wanted “to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy Jews even without occupation.” These comments led to widespread condemnation and outrage. But who was al-Husseini, and what was his role and involvement in the Holocaust? Rainer Schulze sets the record straight.
Who was the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini?
Born in the mid-1890s, and appointed Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921 (Grand Mufti in 1922), Haj Amin al-Husseini was one of the most prominent nationalist Arab figures in Palestine during the time of the British Mandate. He opposed both British rule in Palestine, and the Jewish-Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland in the region, aiming instead to establish a pan-Arab federation or state with himself as the spiritual leader.
His political activism led him to organise and support protests against Jewish immigration and Jewish settlements, which peaked in the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine. In 1937, in order to evade arrest, he fled Palestine and took up residence first in the French Mandate of Lebanon and then in Iraq. In October 1941, he escaped to Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
Al-Husseini had welcomed the Nazi seizure of power in Germany in 1933 and the evolving anti-Jewish policy in the following years, requesting, however, that no Jews be sent to Palestine. He sought an alliance between the Arab-Muslim world and the Axis powers Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, demanding that Germany and Italy recognised the independence of the Arab states and their right to reverse steps taken towards the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
What happened at the meeting with Adolf Hitler?
After escaping Iraq under Italian protection to Nazi occupied Europe in October 1941, al-Husseini met with German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin on November 20. One week later, on November 28, the meeting with Hitler took place which gave rise to Netanyahu’s comments.
However, the course of the conversation was quite different from what Netanyahu would have us believe, as the official German records show.
During the meeting, al-Husseini assured Hitler that: “The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews and the Communists”, and that “they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts”.
He said the Arabs “could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews.”
Hitler in return confirmed that “Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews”, including “active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine”. He set out to al-Husseini that:
Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.
Could their conversation have influenced Hitler’s plan for the Holocaust?
Even if one assumes that the official records would not state in writing how exactly the “Jewish problem” was to be “solved”, it is ludicrous to think that the Grand Mufti could have inspired Hitler during this meeting to move from a plan of mass expulsion to industrial annihilation.
While Nazi policy had officially encouraged Jewish emigration – albeit after depriving them of their property – this had never been a realistic option for the solution of the “Jewish question” after the outbreak of World War II. The last of these plans, the plan to deport the Jews of Europe to Madagascar, a French island colony off the southeast coast of Africa, became technically unfeasible when Germany lost the Battle of Britain in 1940.
The “Final Solution” evolved in stages and the mass murder of Jews had already begun in June 1941 with the invasion of the Soviet Union. Mobile killing squads, the so-called Einsatzgruppen, followed the regular troops and were specifically tasked to kill Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and Soviet political commissars. The most infamous massacre at Babi Yar (a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev, Ukraine), when some 34,000 Jews were killed in a single operation, took place on 29–30 September 1941.
On July 31 1941, Herman Göring, under instructions from Hitler, had ordered Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SS Reich security main office, to develop a plan “for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question”. On December 8 1941, ten days after al-Husseini’s meeting with Hitler, Chełmno extermination camp, the first killing centre in the East which used gas for the annihilation, began its operation. Killing by gas was a method of extermination which had been successfully experimented with during the “Euthanasia” killings, the murder of disabled people in 1940-41, and the expertise acquired in this process was now applied on an industrial scale to the extermination of the Jews.
It is, therefore, absurd to suggest that al-Husseini inspired Hitler to switch his anti-Jewish policy from expulsion to extermination: the mass killings were already underway at the time of their meeting.
Why has Netanyahu arrived at this interpretation?
It is not the first time Netanyahu tried to suggest that the Arab leader was somehow behind the idea of the physical extermination of the European Jews. He did so before, in 2012. There have been some scholarly attempts exploring the role of al-Husseiny that Netanyahu might feel support his claim, among them most recently by Middle East scholars Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz in their book Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East.
Netanyahu’s comments are not so much a trivialisation of the Holocaust or even a denial, but a deliberate and dangerous distortion of historical facts. Netanyahu no doubt feels that by accusing a prominent Palestinian leader during the Nazi period of being somehow behind the Holocaust, perhaps even being the inspiration for it, he can successfully discredit today’s Palestinian leadership and their concerns and worries.
By claiming that there exists a century-old tradition of anti-semitism among Palestinians culminating in active participation in the annihilation of the Jewish people, Netanyahu wants to establish a line of direct and straight-forward historical continuity from the Holocaust to today’s ongoing tensions. He implies that today’s Intifada has nothing to do with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the separation barrier, the question of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands or the general socio-economic situation of the Palestinians, but that at its core is simply ingrained anti-semitism.
There’s no doubt: Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was anti-semitic and anti-Israel. He collaborated with Nazi Germany as a broadcaster and propagandist, and he helped recruit Balkan Muslims to fight for the Nazis. There is little doubt that he knew about the Holocaust and did not object when he learned about it (probably following a meeting with Himmler in 1943): however, he was not the inspiration behind the Holocaust. This must never be confused.
As the German chancellor Angela Merkel emphasised again after Netanyahu’s comments: the Holocaust is and remains the sole responsibility of the Germans.
The history of the Holocaust is too sensitive a topic to be allowed to be exploited and abused in inflammatory speeches. Netanyahu’s comments are not supported by scholarly evidence. But now that the genie is out of the bottle, academics will find it much more difficult to get through with their evidenced arguments. Holocaust deniers and right-wing extremists could well hijack Netanyahu’s comments for their agenda as proof that they were right: the Holocaust was not Germany’s original doing, and they can now cite an Israeli prime minister as suggesting exactly that.
The damage that this poses to an evidence-based discussion of the Holocaust is as yet immeasurable – but it could well be a very high price to pay for what Netanyahu probably hoped would give him a short-term political advantage in the upcoming negotiations.
Rainer Schulze, Professor of Modern European History; General Editor “The Holocaust in History and Memory”, University of Essex
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Note: The above opinions are the personal views of individual contributors and do not reflect the views of IRIA.With seven games left, the Coyotes sit last in the Western Conference and 29th overall in the NHL. One more regulation loss will ensure that 2014-15 goes down as the worst season in team history since moving from Winnipeg in 1996. While the season as a whole has been a struggle, there have been some positives. Oliver Ekman-Larsson has had an incredible season offensively, which continued on Thursday night in Buffalo as he set a new NHL record for goals in a single season by a Swedish defenseman. In addition, both Tobias Rieder and Mark Arcobello have given Coyotes fans a glimpse of what the future might hold for this team. Here is a look back on some great Coyotes moments that happened during an otherwise terrible year.
2006-07
Coyotes Record: 31-46-5, 67 points, 29th overall
In Wayne Gretzky’s second season as a head coach, the Coyotes turned in their worst year under his tenure. Their dismal 67 points (31-46-5) was only better than one other team, with Philadelphia’s 56 points (22-48-12) taking last place overall. Despite the dreadful end result, this season had a pair of notable highlights. One was a game on December 30, 2006 where Jeremy Roenick turned in a performance reminiscent of his time in Phoenix during the late 1990s. Roenick recorded a hat trick as the Coyotes crushed the San Jose Sharks in Glendale, 8-0. The other moment came courtesy of enforcer Georges Laraque, who was wearing a microphone during a game against the Los Angeles Kings and provided this memorable bit of dialogue prior to a fight.
2003-04
Coyotes Record: 22-36-18-6, 68 points, 26th overall
A pair of streaks characterized the 2003-04 campaign. One was a dreadful stretch where Arizona went fifteen games without a win, going 0-11-4. The winless streak was part of a tailspin that saw Arizona win just four games in their final 34. However, the streak that is remembered more fondly is one that captivated the hockey world. In late December 2003 and early January 2004, goaltender Brian Boucher put together five consecutive shutouts and set a modern NHL record, going 332:01 without allowing a goal. It was the peak of the final pre-lockout season for the Coyotes, who finished 23 points out of the postseason picture.AUSTIN, Texas -- A former math teacher was arrested last week for allegedly having an improper relationship with two of her students, reports CBS affiliate KEYE.
Haeli Noelle Wey, 28, was reportedly charged with two counts of improper relationship between educator and student. Wey had been teaching at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, until Oct. 30 of this year.
According to court documents obtained by the station, Wey had been communicating with one of the victims through social media since the beginning of the current school year.
The arrest affidavit listed a series of texts between Wey and the victim that alleged she invited the victim on a hike in September and then asked him to delete the conversation from his phone.
Court documents also say a juvenile witness found the exchanges on the victim's phone and alerted authorities. The victim then provided details on the alleged encounter to investigators during an interview, reports KEYE.
The alleged incident with the second student occurred during the summer, according to the station. The affidavit reportedly states that Wey invited the victim to her home, where they had sex. The alleged relationship lasted several months and authorities were notified after the victim told their parents.
Wey bonded out of jail Thursday night and has been ordered by the court not to have contact with the two alleged victims. According to the Texas Education Agency, she had voluntarily surrendered her teaching certification on Dec. 15.
In October, school officials released a statement to parents and staff of Westlake High School following the initial report of inappropriate behavior, according to the station. The district released a second statement on Thursday.
"This incident is shocking and upsetting," Eanes ISD Superintendent Dr. Tom Leonard wrote.
The district is reportedly making counselors available for staff and students that have been affected by the incident.Bravely Default Blends Elements From Final Fantasy V And Tales Series
By Spencer. July 22, 2012. 11:27pm
Dengeki Online has a detailed look at Bravely Default: Flying Fairy’s job system, which the publication compares to Final Fantasy V. As mentioned earlier, players will be able to select staple jobs like knight, monk, white mage, and black mage. It appears Bravely Default has 24 different jobs, if this screenshot is anything to go by.
Tiz and the other heroes will earn job points and unlock, at most, ten abilities per class. Players can further customize characters by adding command and support abilities. By selecting support abilities you can give a white mage HP 10% up for a life boost or the knight’s ability to cover injured characters.
By selecting command abilities you can give white magic to a knight which allows the knight to use recovery magic like cura. White mages also have buffing spells like protect and shell plus aero, typically a wind elemental attack in the Final Fantasy series. Or if you want a master attacker you can make a monk with black magic. Want a more balanced character? Add physical skills to the usually frail white mage class.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy also has party chat scenes. These events are just like the skits from the Tales of series where two characters, like Tiz and Agnes in these screenshots, share their thoughts. These scenes give players a better look at the personalities of the characters and if you pay attention you hear a hint.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy comes out on October 11.Miley Cyrus and Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, both fans of recreational drug use as well as being bottomless pits of need for attention, have become tight buds—which only makes sense. Over the weekend, Cyrus and Coyne partied together in Los Angeles, culminating in getting matching tattooed portraits of Miley’s deceased dog Floyd, who she has previously paid tribute to in the form of a giant inflatable stage prop.
Today, they followed that up by releasing a new video they made together. “Blonde SuperFreak Steals the Magic Brain” isn’t exactly a music video but rather a very brief psychedelic heist movie scored by what seems to be a heavily deconstructed version of a Flaming Lips track that harkens back to the band’s early years as a face-melting acid-pop band, well before they smoothed out enough of their lysergic edge to find mainstream success. Cyrus, who was bedridden at the time due to an allergic reaction to antibiotics, plays the custodian of JFK’s brain, which holds “the original formula for the drug LSD,” according to Coyne, which is stolen by a naked blonde woman. The Flaming Lips play rainbows and mushrooms.
Moby, Santa Claus, and “a lesbian Bigfoot” also make appearances in the five-and-a-half-minute short. NSFW for nudity, drug use, and Miley loudly dropping F-bombs.The Traveller's Mass
Introduction
Before that, the Holy Mass used to be celebrated only in Latin, the Roman Catholic Church's official language. This goes along with the interpretation (again, according to the Vatican Council II) that the Holy Mass is actually celebrated by the whole assembly of the faithful, not just by the priest or bishop, who properly "presides" the Mass. Therefore, it was natural to allow that the sacred office of the Mass was performed in the same language spoken by the faithful, namely, the modern language of that particular country and time, as opposed to Latin.
This situation may of course cause problems to a traveller, who happens to visit a foreign country, would like to attend the Mass there, but doesn't know the local language. The Holy Mass can be celebrated in commonly known languages (say, the modern koin? viz. English) in cathedrals or other major churches, but this may apply only to important centres, and their schedule may require additional travelling, if you are living far from there.
I was once told of a "traveller's dispensation", namely the permission not to attend the Holy Mass during a journey. I could not verify the existence of such a dispensation, but I could personally experience the need of regularly attending the Holy Mass while travelling, especially for prolonged stays abroad (say, weeks or months).
You can certainly follow the Liturgy of the Word (the two Readings, the Responsorial Psalm, and the Gospel) by equipping yourself with a missal in your own language (or bringing copies of the relevant pages for the few Sundays you plan to stay abroad). The rest of the service can be followed "by heart", i.e. remembering the various parts of the Mass by memory, and answering to the priest accordingly.
However, I found that having a two-columns version of the Order of the Mass (i.e., the whole text of the liturgy, perhaps excluding the readings), in both the local and your own language, can help you considerably. Not only it helps you not feeling "dull", perhaps answering mechanically to the service as recited by the priest, as soon as you manage to "catch the rythm of it". But it can eventually help you integrating in the local community, have a true community worship, and be able to repeat to yourself the words of Jesus: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them (Mt 18:20).
The project
In 2005, which had been proclaimed the Year of the Eucharisty by the late Holy Father John Paul II, I undertook a project I initiated then, namely having two-columns versions of the Roman Catholic Holy Mass in as many languages as possible.
I started with the few languages I can manage (Italian, English, Spanish, Latin), and with Norwegian, of course (although I can't speak it). Then I added all those in which I could find an official version of the Order of the Mass on the Internet.
Currently supported languages are:
Albanian (al)
Croatian (hr)
Czech (cz)
Dutch (nl)
English (2011 version) (en2)
English (old version) (en)
Finnish (fi)
French (fr)
German (de)
Greek (modern Greek) (gr)
Italian (it)
Latin (la)
Lithuanian (lt)
Norwegian (no)
Polish (pl)
Portuguese (pt)
Romanian (ro)
Slovenian (si)
Spanish (es)
Swedish (sv)
Tagalog (Philippine) (tl)
Notably, the source of some of them is precisely the website of Catholic Church of Norway! A few more useful links and resources are listed below.
The result is a collection of self-contained, two-columns versions of the Order of the Mass in any pair of the above languages, which I hereby offer to the perusal of the occasional traveller (and keep here for my own reference), in PDF format. Here is the table of the available files:
Only the main passages are reported, with the aim of helping the traveller, as is in the scopes of this resource, with a simple and self-contained document. Some passages or headings are missing in certain languages, due to the lack of information in the public domain. Corrections, integrations and suggestions are certainly more than welcome.
Concerning the Eucharistic Prayer and the Preface, only the second (out of several, four being the main ones) is given (whenever available). Future versions may include other Eucharistic Prayers. I have also omitted other, less frequent, variants.
The files are written in LaTeX, using the ledpar package, which enables to have several pairs of text divided in small paragraphs or even lines, aligned in pairs in two-columns format, so to help the reader following the same text in the two languages. The final output has been converted into PDF, which can be viewed and printed with several free programs, even on a PDA (Get Adobe Acrobat Reader). Although there exists an official subdivision of the order of the mass (poem-wise, thus recommending "pauses" where appropriate to the priest or to the reader), I am adopting a somewhat arbitrary subdivision, in order to have a more compact text (the subdivision is finer for the passages which have to be read by the faithful or the assembly). A small cross reminds the reader of cross-signing, kneeling, etc, as appropriate.
How to contribute
An even simpler, but still most appreciated, way to contribute is of course to check for typos or missing items in the versions already available. Some of the mistakes should be ascribed to me, others to the available sources, which often make use of OCR scanned texts, and therefore already contain typos which is difficult for me to check, when in languages I don't know.
Note on ASCII vs LaTeX: I am using
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc} \usepackage[T1]{fontenc}Image copyright EPA Image caption Sao Paulo state has received only a third of the rainfall expected in the wet season
Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira has said the country's three most populous states are experiencing their worst drought since 1930.
The states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais must save water, she said after an emergency meeting in the capital Brasilia.
Ms Teixeira described the water crisis as "delicate" and "worrying".
Industry and agriculture are expected to be affected, further damaging Brazil's troubled economy.
The drought is also having an impact on energy supplies, with reduced generation from hydroelectric dams.
'Poor planning'
The BBC's Julia Carneiro in Rio de Janeiro says Brazil is supposed to be in the middle of its rainy season but there has been scant rainfall in the south-east and the drought shows no sign of abating.
The crisis comes at a time of high demand for energy, with soaring temperatures in the summer months.
"Since records for Brazil's south-eastern region began 84 years ago, we have never seen such a delicate and worrying situation," said Ms Teixeira.
Her comments came at the end of a meeting with five other ministers at the presidential palace in Brasilia to discuss the drought.
Image copyright AP Image caption Ms Teixeira says the government will promote awareness campaigns in the areas affected by the drought
Image copyright EPA Image caption "Welcome to the Cantareira desert," reads the graffiti on a car that used to be submerged in Sao Paulo's main reservoir system
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Rationing has been avoided so far in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo
The crisis began in Sao Paulo, where hundreds of thousands of residents have been affected by frequent cuts in water supplies, our correspondent says.
The city's Cantareira reservoir system, which serves over eight million people, has now dropped to 5.2% of its capacity despite recent rain, Brazil's TV Globo reported.
Accumulated rainfall in the area of Cantareira is said to be only 33.5% of that predicted for the month, Globo's G1 news site added.
Sao Paulo state suffered similar serious drought problems last year.
Governor Geraldo Alckmin has taken several measures, such as raising charges for high consumption levels, offering discounts to those who reduce use, and limiting the amounts captured by industries and agriculture from rivers.
But critics blame poor planning and politics for the worsening situation.
Political opponents say the state authorities failed to respond quickly enough to the crisis because Mr Alckmin did not want to alarm people as he was seeking re-election in October 2014, allegations he disputes.
In Rio de Janeiro state, the main water reservoir has dropped to level zero for the first time since it was built.
Environment Secretary Andre Correa acknowledged that the state was experiencing "the worst water crisis in its history".
But he said there was enough water in other reservoirs to avoid rationing in Rio de Janeiro for at least another six months.
Mr Correa described the situation in Sao Paulo as "infinitely worse".
However, Rio and Minas Gerais are asking residents and industries to reduce water consumption by as much as 30%.Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi may have met with a North Korea diplomatic delegation in late February. The meeting did not prevent the latest round of missile tests. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
March 6 (UPI) -- North Korea's launch of four ballistic missiles on Monday into the Sea of Japan is a slap in China's face, according to government sources in Beijing.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had met with Pyongyang's Vice Foreign Minister Ri Gil Song on Feb. 28, days before the tests in Beijing, Yonhap reported Monday.
The meeting marks the first time a North Korea delegation was dispatched to China since May 2016, when Ri Su Yong, vice chairman of the central committee of the Korean Workers' Party, met with Chinese officials.
North Korea may have requested aid during the meeting, but there is a likelihood Beijing may have asked Pyongyang to lower provocations, citing a joint U.S.-South Korea decision to deploy THAAD.
RELATED North Korean missiles launched into Sea of Japan
China has been strongly opposed to the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system, because THAAD's powerful radar could monitor the Chinese military from its location in South Korea.
When officials from both sides met, it is unlikely the North Koreans informed Wang in advance of plans for missile launches, a Beijing diplomatic source told Yonhap.
"Wang met with Ri to stress 'blood' ties, but the missile launches today are throwing cold water on China's intentions," the source said.
Only two days after Ri returned to North Korea, Pyongyang test-fired four ballistic missiles early Monday.
China's foreign ministry told reporters during a regular press briefing the government condemns North Korea for violating United Nations Security Council sanctions resolutions, and that Beijing is "closely monitoring trends," according to South Korean news service Newsis.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said U.N. resolutions explicitly ban North Korea's use of ballistic missile technology.
RELATED Malaysia expels North Korean ambassador in Kim Jong Nam death
The four missiles that were fired early Monday from Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province, flew a range of distances between 160 and 620 miles.This year Ryane Clowe will be looking to fight more than opponents on the ice, but for the right to be in the Devils top-6
General Manager Lou Lamoriello was able to address the Devils need of goal-scoring players this offseason with the free agent signings of Mike Cammalleri and Martin Halvat. After signing a nice 5 year 25 million dollar contract, we can assume Mike Cammalleri was brought in on July 1st to play the wing along side of Jaromir Jagr and Travis Zajac come opening night in Philadelphia. With a solid first line set, the Devils potentially have an opening on their second line, likely to be teamed up with the pair of Adam Henrique and Patrik Elias. As New Jersey fans know, coach Pete DeBoer loves finding pairs of forwards that work well together, like in Henrique and Elias, and then find a player who complements the pairing best to create his lines. With plenty of quality forwards on the payroll to choose from, the Devils would be smart to give Ryane Clowe the first look.
Ryane Clowe signed with the Devils last summer, with the two sides agreeing to a 5 year 24.25 million dollar deal. In his first year for New Jersey, Clowe was able to tally 9 goals with the Red & Black along with 19 assists. 26 points in Clowe’s first season may not seem significant, however it is when you realize he only played 43 games.
43 games, which is a game more than half the season, is the amount on record that Clowe suited up in a Devil’s sweater for, but it was clear from the start of the season he was not 100% okay. From October 3rd to the 13th, Clowe played in 6 games, and only contributed a single assist on the offensive side of the puck. Unfortunately, Clowe struggled on defense as he accumulated a +/- rating of -5, which was a clear sign something was wrong. With concussion like symptoms, Ryane remained off the ice until after the Christmas Break in December.
Lets now look at Clowe’s stats from the 2013-14 season during the 37 games which he was playing at full capacity. During that span, Ryane Clowe was able to register a point in 19 of them, about 51% of his games played. Taking away the assist from early October, Clowe’s numbers would read 9 goals and 18 assists in that span. Why is this important you ask?
If Ryane Clowe played at last season’s production rate for a full 82 game season, it can be estimated that he would have recorded about 60 points, collecting 20 goals along with 40 assists
If Ryane Clowe played at last season’s production rate for a full 82 game season, it can be estimated that he would have recorded about 55 points, collecting 20 goals along with 40 assists. With numbers like that, Clowe would have been second on the team, only trailing Jagr’s 67 points. Clowe’s estimated contribution of 60 points would place him ahead of players like Patrik Elias (53), Zajac (48), Henrique (43). With 20 goals, he would finish behind the Devils leading scorer, Adam Henrique (25), and the ageless wonder, Jaromir Jagr (24). 40 assists would again place him behind Jagr, who contributed 43 last season, but does place him ahead of Patrik Elias (35), both Zajac & Zidlicky (30), as well as defensive MVP Andy Greene (24).
Sadly for the Devils and its fans, this is only an estimation. No promise can be made that Clowe would have kept up at his pace of 0.729 points per game, because there is no promise that a player as injury prone as Clowe can stay on the ice. In the shorten 2012-13 season, Clowe believed to have suffered a total of 3 concussions during his season split between the San Jose Sharks and New York Rangers. Concussion like symptoms kept him off the ice for the Devils early last season, and may hinder his ability to play in the future. If concussions or injuries continue to keep Clowe off the ice for Jersey in the coming years, the huge contract Lamoriello signed him to will be evaluated as a poor decision. On the other hand, if next season Ryane stays healthy and on the ice surrounded by the some of the team’s most talented forwards on the second line, these estimations could become a reality, and Clowe could easily become one of New Jersey’s offensive leaders.
Thanks for reading. This was my first post for Pucks and Pitchforks and am excited for the opportunity to post more in the near future. What do you think? Feel free to comment below with your opinions on Ryane Clowe as well as potential topics you would like to hear discussed!A woman comes face-to-face with Donald Trump at a rally (Reuters)
While polls show that the vast majority of people who voted for President Donald Trump are happy with their decision so far, the Washington Post managed to track down one Trump voter who has major regrets about her choice.
As part of a series of interviews with voters in North Carolina, the Post talked with a woman named Nancy Stevens who said she and her husband, Raymond Lee Stevens Jr., both supported Trump this past fall.
Although her husband was willing to give Trump more time to make good on his promises to bring jobs back to rural America, Nancy Stevens told the Post that she had already seen enough to render judgement.
“I regret my vote,” she said bluntly. “I don’t know why you don’t see what’s going on. He’s embarrassing our country every day, and making us look weak to the world. He’s spilling secrets. I can’t believe it’s going so badly.”
Despite this, her husband pleaded for patience.
“He needs time,” he said. “It’s only been 100-something days.”
Trump finished his first 100 days with the lowest approval ratings in recent history. According to polling averages at both Pollster and Real Clear Politics, his current approval rating is hovering at around 39%, while his disapproval rating stands at 55%.Listening to neoconservative mastermind Richard Perle at the Nixon Center yesterday, there was a sense of falling down the rabbit hole.
In real life, Perle was the ideological architect of the Iraq war and of the Bush doctrine of preemptive attack. But at yesterday's forum of foreign policy intellectuals, he created a fantastic world in which:
1. Perle is not a neoconservative.
2. Neoconservatives do not exist.
3. Even if neoconservatives did exist, they certainly couldn't be blamed for the disasters of the past eight years.
"There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy," Perle informed the gathering, hosted by National Interest magazine. "It is a left critique of what is believed by the commentator to be a right-wing policy."
So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? "My name was on it because I signed up for the study group," Perle explained. "I didn't approve it. I didn't read it."
Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a "moral" basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? "I don't have the letters in front of me," Perle replied.
Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? "I don't know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements," Perle maintained. "My guess is he didn't."
The Prince of Darkness -- so dubbed during his days opposing arms control in the Reagan Pentagon -- was not about to let details get in the way of his argument that "50 million conspiracy theorists have it wrong," as the subtitle of his article for National Interest put it. "I see a number of people here who believe and have expressed themselves abundantly that there is a neoconservative foreign policy and it was the policy that dominated the Bush administration, and they ascribe to it responsibility for the deplorable state of the world," Perle told the foreign policy luminaries at yesterday's lunch. "None of that is true, of course."
Of course.
He had been a leading cheerleader for the Iraq war, predicting that the effort would take few troops and last only a few days, and that Iraq would pay for its own reconstruction. Perle was chairman of Bush's Defense Policy Board -- and the president clearly took the advice of Perle and his fellow neocons. And Perle, in turn, said back then that Bush "knows exactly what he's doing."AshleyMadison, noted online home of serial adulterers, has confirmed that yes, someone did rummage through its 37 million-strong blackmail database. But the company also denies that it was swindling customers over the ‘paid-delete’ option, and has managed to take down any information leaked thus far.
In a statement issued earlier today, AshleyMadison owners Avid Life Media (ALM) confirmed a “criminal intrusion” into its systems, although it doesn’t comment on the extent of any data loss.
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We originally learned about the hack thanks to a post from the hackers themselves, a group dubbed The Impact Team, who posted a sample of information online, along with a manifesto demanding the takedown of AshleyMadison and related site CougarLife. That post quickly vanished, along with the leaked user data. Keeping a secret on the internet — especially one with such salicious details — isn’t normally easy, but ALM seems to have succeeded, using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to quash any mirrors.
In its slightly-rambling manifesto, The Impact Team claimed that ALM’s paid-delete option, a $19 service that promised the deletion of your personal info from ALM’s servers (which, for the record, sounds like bullshit from the outset), was actually a bunch of crap. According to the hackers, ALM retained credit card and address info even after you’d paid your $19 — but according to ALM, that’s not the case: “Contrary to current media reports, and based on accusations posted online by a cyber criminal, the “paid-delete” option offered by AshleyMadison.com does in fact remove all information related to a member’s profile and communications activity.”
Notably, that doesn’t mention the credit-card info used to pay the $19 removal charge — which is what the hackers claimed that ALM was hanging onto in the first place.
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In either case, it’s been 24 hours, and AshleyMadison is still very much online.
The full statement is posted below:
We were recently made aware of an attempt by an unauthorized party to gain access to our systems. We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent |
Alice Brady appeared in more than 50 silent films and didn't make her talkie debut until 1933.
Became the first actress to be Oscar nominated twice for Best Supporting Actress as well as the first to be nominated in consecutive years, for My Man Godfrey (1936) and In Old Chicago (1938). She won the award for the latter.
She is buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.
She was a liberal Democrat.
On the television show, The Brady Bunch, the housekeeper, Alice (who was portrayed by Ann B. Davis), was named in honor of Ms. Brady.Excerpt: 'Fallout'
Free Press
Fallout: The True Story of the CIA's Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking
By Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz
Hardcover, 304 pages
Free Press
List Price: $26.00
Chapter One
Jenins, Switzerland
Six people -- five men and a woman -- approached a whitewashed house in the postcard-pretty village of Jenins in eastern Switzerland. Glancing cautiously up and down the narrow, darkened street, two members of the team walked to the door while the others hung back. They knew that no one was home. The owner was a few miles away, just across the border in Liechtenstein. One of the men pulled out a leather pouch and extracted a slender piece of metal. He slipped the metal into the lock and gently wiggled it deeper into the mechanism. As he twisted the pick, the slight torque turned against the lock’s internal pins and, one by one, they fell into place and the lock opened. Less than a minute later, the pick man and four other team members slipped silently into the apartment and drew the curtains. The sixth stayed outside, motionless in the shadows, watching the street.
Inside, the intruders moved with an economy of motion, each carrying out a preassigned task. Their instructions were precise: Search for and copy every document and computer file in the house. One of the intruders sat down at a desk in a spare bedroom being used as an office and powered up the computer. Removing two screws from the back of the computer, he exposed its hard drive. He plugged a small device about the size of a deck of cards into the computer. The device enabled the technician to download the entire contents of the computer quickly. Two other team members were busy opening drawers and rifling through the bookshelves. They photographed every document that appeared to bear any relation to the occupant’s business. While the others were doing their jobs, the team leader moved into the other bedroom, where he pulled open dresser drawers, searching beneath the socks and underwear for anything suspicious. It did not take long. He was short, barely five foot eight, so all he could do was run a hand along the top shelf of the closet. That was where he found the first laptop. Pulling it down, he took the laptop to the person sitting at the computer in the other room. “Have a crack at this,” he said.
The team leader, who was known by his nickname Mad Dog, took out his cell phone and hit speed dial. It was just after midnight on June 21, 2003. Back in Langley, Virginia, where it was early evening, the call was answered on the first ring. Mad Dog used clipped, careful language to tell the person on the other end that the operation was going according to plan. The team expected to be back on the street within a couple of hours.
The call contributed to a building sense of anticipation four thousand miles away. On the third floor of the Central Intelligence Agency’s main building on the campus at Langley, a handful of senior officers from the agency’s Counter-Proliferation Division had been waiting for word from Switzerland. One of them picked up the telephone to relay the status of the first phase up the chain of command. The call went to Stephen Kappes, the ambitious ex-marine who was the deputy director of clandestine operations. Kappes had a strong personal interest in the goings-on in the small village in eastern Switzerland that night. He was no doubt pleased with the news.
The break-in was an ultrasensitive, “compartmentalized” operation. Only a handful of agency personnel with a “need to know” were aware that a specially formed CIA team was inside the home of a private citizen in an allied nation. Certainly, the Swiss authorities knew nothing of the operation. Even the CIA station chief in Bern was in the dark so that he would have deniability if events went sour. The B&E squad had been assembled outside Switzerland. There were two pick-and-lock specialists from the agency’s secret facility in Springfield, Virginia. In a warehouse-like building there, the CIA trains a cadre of technical officers to bug offices, break into houses, and penetrate computer systems. A third team member was a nuclear weapons expert who actually worked for the national weapons laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He had come along to provide an instant analysis of documents that would later be scrutinized far more carefully back at Langley. The team’s chief, Mad Dog, was a veteran case officer who had spent his career carrying out delicate and sometimes dangerous assignments overseas. These days, he was posted to the counterproliferation unit at Langley. The four-man crew from the States had been augmented by two agents from the CIA’s huge station in Vienna, Austria. One of them was the woman in charge of the counterproliferation section there; the other was a case officer who had been left outside the house to watch.
The team members had arrived in the country via separate flights a few days earlier. They held a final planning session to make sure everyone understood the mission and their individual responsibilities. Then there had been an initial break-in at the target’s office to copy information from files and computers there. Entering the office was relatively easy because it was in a fairly isolated industrial area, surrounded by a small parking lot, other businesses, and open fields. There had been little chance of someone stumbling across the operation. Entering an apartment in a tiny village was a riskier enterprise. A neighbor or passerby might catch a glimpse of what was going on and call the police.
Despite what you read in thrillers or see at the movies, break-ins are rare in the world of espionage. This is particularly true for the CIA when it involves an allied country like Switzerland. A few months earlier, two CIA counterterrorism officers had come from Washington to interview an Iraqi defector in Zurich. While they were conducting what they thought was a secret meeting with their asset, someone had slashed the tires of their rented car. They were certain the vandalism was a not-so-subtle warning from their Swiss counterparts: Swiss law prohibited foreign intelligence agents from operating on Swiss soil without prior approval. Frankly, no country likes having the CIA or any foreign intelligence service operating on its soil. Intelligence operations are tolerated only when they are compatible with the interests of the country and remain secret. Simply interviewing an Iraqi defector was a minor infraction, meriting nothing more than a warning. As part of their professed neutrality, the Swiss had a reputation in intelligence circles for being particularly rigorous in enforcing the legal restrictions imposed on foreign intelligence operatives.
The break-in that June night was a much riskier operation. It had the potential for embarrassment that would extend far beyond slashed tires and Swiss borders if the Swiss authorities found out about it or, far worse, if it ever became public. But Kappes and Mad Dog had decided that the potential rewards far outweighed the risks.
Excerpted from Fallout by Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz. Copyright 2011 by Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz. Excerpted by permission of Free Press.Hamas has dismissed as a sign of weakness warnings from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for Gaza residents to leave any site where Palestinian fighters are operating, saying the locations could be attacked.
In a statement on Sunday, Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said: "The [Israeli] occupation has failed in confronting the resistance in the field, and has resorted to threats of assassination and other threats designed to scare us.
"But the will of our people will not be broken."
Speaking earlier, Netanyahu said: "I call on the inhabitants of Gaza to vacate immediately every site from which Hamas is carrying out terrorist activity. Every one of these places is a target for us."
Netanyahu's comments came as Israeli air strikes pounded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 16 people.
Hours after Netanyahu spoke, a strike killed a mother and three children from the same family in northern Gaza, medics said. The strike hit a home near Jabalia.
Earlier in the day, strikes killed a one-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
A cluster of four homes were destroyed by strikes in Khan Younis, along with a strike on a car which killed Mohammedal-Ghoul, described by Israel as a Hamas official responsible for "terror fund transactions".
Israel said it hit 20 targets in Gaza on Sunday morning, while Palestinian fighters fired at least 20 rockets rounds at Israel, the army said. Sixteen Palestinians were reported killed.
On Saturday, the Israeli military warned residents of Al Zafer Tower, a 13-storey building to leave, shortly before launching air strikes. It said the tower had housed a Hamas command centre.
The residential block in the centre of Gaza City collapsed wounding 22 people, including 11 children. Local residents said the building housed 44 families.
At least 11 Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli strikes on Saturday.
Truce talks
The Israeli prime minister said that his Gaza offensive would continue as long as necessary, a day after an Egyptian call for a ceasefire and new truce talks.
"Operation Protective Edge will continue until its aims are achieved... it may take time," he said of the Gaza Strip operation launched on July 8, in remarks broadcast by public radio.
Netanyahu also added a veiled warning to neighbouring Lebanon and Syria after overnight rocket fire into Israel.
"There is not and will not be any immunity for anyone who fires at Israeli citizens, and that is true for every sector and every border," he said.
Amid the violence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks with senior officials of the Arab League on Saturday night in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Earlier that day, Abbas stressed his willingness to achieve a long-term ceasefire between the two enemies.
The Egyptian foreign ministry on Saturday urged Israel and Hamas to resume indirect talks and agree to an open-ended ceasefire.
Palestinian health officials say 2,108 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the deadliest fighting since the 2005 end of the second intifada. Three Israeli civilians, a Thai national and 64 soldiers have also been killed.Weather vane and bell on the roof of the Cathedral Saint-Étienne of Bourges (France)
Admiralty boardroom, 1808; a wind indicator can be seen on the end wall.
The Douglas DC-3 that now serves as a weather vane at Yukon Transportation Museum located beside the Whitehorse International Airport.
A " jin-pole " being used to install a weather vane atop the 200 foot steeple of a church in Kingston, New York.
A weather vane, wind vane, or weathercock is an instrument for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word vane comes from the Old English word fana meaning "flag".
Although partly functional, weather vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows and horses. Not all weather vanes have pointers. When the wind is sufficiently strong, the head of the arrow or cockerel (or equivalent depending on the chosen design) will indicate the direction from which the wind is blowing.
The weather vane was independently invented in ancient China and Greece around the same time during the 2nd century BCE. The earliest written reference to a weather vane appears in the Huainanzi, and a weather vane was fitted on top of the Tower of the Winds in Athens.[1]
History [ edit ]
The oldest textual reference to a weather vane comes from the Chinese Huainanzi dating from around 139 BCE, which describes a "wind-observing fan" (hou feng shan, 侯風扇).[1] The Tower of the Winds on the ancient Greek agora in Athens once bore on its roof a wind vane in the form of a bronze Triton holding a rod in his outstretched hand, rotating as the wind changed direction. Below this was a frieze adorned with the eight Greek wind deities. The eight-metre-high structure also featured sundials, and a water clock inside. It dates from around 50 BCE.[2]
Military documents from the Three Kingdoms period of China (220–280) refer to the weather vane as "five ounces" (wu liang, 五兩), named after the weight of its materials.[1] By the 3rd century, Chinese weather vanes were shaped like birds and took the name of "wind-indicating bird" (xiang feng wu, 相風烏). The Sanfu huangtu (三輔黃圖), a 3rd-century book written by Miao Changyan about the palaces at Chang'an, describes a bird-shaped wind vane situated on a tower roof, which was possibly also an anemometer:
The Han 'Ling Tai' (Observatory Platform) was eight li north-west of Chang'an. It was called 'Ling Tai' because it was originally intended for observations of the Yin and the Yang and the changes occurring in the celestial bodies, but in the Han it began to be called Qing Tai. Guo Yuansheng, in his Shu Zheng Ji (Records of Military Expeditions), says that south of the palaces there was a Ling Tai, fifteen ren (120 feet) high, upon the top of which was the armillary sphere made by Zhang Heng. Also there was a wind-indicating bronze bird (xiang feng tong wu), which was moved by the wind; and it was said that the bird moved when a 1000-li wind was blowing. There was also a bronze gnomon 8 feet high, with a 13 feet long and 1 foot 2 inches broad. According to an inscription, this was set up in the 4th year of the Taichu reign-period (101 BCE).[1]
The oldest surviving weather vane with the shape of a rooster is the Gallo di Ramperto, made in 820 CE and now preserved in the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia, Lombardy.[3][4]
Pope Leo IV had a cock placed on the Old St. Peter's Basilica or old Constantinian basilica.[5]
Pope Gregory I said that the cock (rooster) "was the most suitable emblem of Christianity", being "the emblem of St Peter", a reference to Luke 22:34 in which Jesus predicts that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows.[6][7]
As a result of this,[6] the cock gradually began to be used as a weather vane on church steeples, and in the 9th century Pope Nicholas I[8] ordered the figure to be placed on every church steeple.[9]
The Bayeux Tapestry of the 1070s depicts a man installing a cock on Westminster Abbey.
One alternative theory about the origin of weathercocks on church steeples is that it was an emblem of the vigilance of the clergy calling the people to prayer.[10]
Another theory says that the cock was not a Christian symbol[11] but an emblem of the sun[12] derived from the Goths.[13]
A few churches used weather vanes in the shape of the emblems of their patron saints. The City of London has two surviving examples. The weather vane of St Peter upon Cornhill is not in the shape of a rooster, but a key;[14] while St Lawrence Jewry's weather vane is in the form of a gridiron.[15]
Early weather vanes had very ornamental pointers, but modern wind vanes are usually simple arrows that dispense with the directionals because the instrument is connected to a remote reading station. An early example of this was installed in the Royal Navy's Admiralty building in London – the vane on the roof was mechanically linked to a large dial in the boardroom so senior officers were always aware of the wind direction when they met.
Modern aerovanes combine the directional vane with an anemometer (a device for measuring wind speed). Co-locating both instruments allows them to use the same axis (a vertical rod) and provides a coordinated readout.
World's largest weather vane [ edit ]
According to the Guinness World Records, the world's largest weather vane is a Tío Pepe sherry advertisement located in Jerez, Spain. The city of Montague, Michigan also claims to have the largest standard-design weather vane, being a ship and arrow which measures 48 feet tall, with an arrow 26 feet long.[16]
A challenger for the title of world's largest weather vane is located in Whitehorse, Yukon. The weather vane is a retired Douglas DC-3 CF-CPY atop a swiveling support. Located at the Yukon Transportation Museum[17] beside Whitehorse International Airport, the weather vane is used by pilots to determine wind direction, used as a landmark by tourists and enjoyed by locals. The weather vane only requires a 5 knot wind to rotate.[18]
A challenger for the worlds tallest weather vane is located in Westlock, Alberta. The classic weather vane that reaches to 50 feet is topped by a 1942 Case Model D Tractor. This landmark is located at the Canadian Tractor Museum.
Slang term [ edit ]
The term "weathervane" is also a slang word for a politician who has frequent changes of opinion. The National Assembly of Quebec has banned use of this slang term as a slur after its use by members of the legislature.[19]
See also [ edit ]
Weather vane (video)
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Media related to Weather vanes at Wikimedia CommonsHristov’s seven created chances are second on the team, adding to his three goals, which have him in a six-way tie for the USL lead going into the weekend’s action.
That ability to create chances as well as put them away has created some flexibility for Head Coach Stuart Campbell to implement as many of his attacking players as possible. While Deshorn Brown was out with an injury in the first two games of the season, Hristov acted as the lone striker in the Rowdies’ 4-2-3-1 formation. With Brown available for his first start this past Saturday, illustrated to the right, he moved into a left-sided role and completed 35-of-45 passes and created two chances. He also, of course, notched the only goal in Tampa Bay’s win against Ottawa, its third straight to start the season.(This piece is a satiric rebuttal to an article that appeared on Salon called “How to beat libertarians on the economy”)
When it comes to debating communists on the future of the American economy, libertarians are at a disadvantage. Communists are united behind a single vision of the ideal economy, while libertarians are divided amongst three rival schools of economic strategy.
On economics, there is no distinction between liberalism or communism. The mainstream left’s economic vision is communist, pure and simple. Bigger government, more taxes, no free trade and regulate everything that moves. Add to this the goal of instituting socialized healthcare, expansion of Social Security and Medicare and you pretty much have instituted all of the planks of the Communist Manifesto.
Nothing like that consensus exists with free marketeers. Instead, three distinct and conflicting traditions of political economy coexist under the rubric of conservatism and libertarianism. The three are Hamiltonian Mercantilism, Jeffersonian Republicanism and Anarcho-Capitalism.
The three schools of right-wing economic thought have coexisted, sometimes as rivals and now as allies, since the founding of the American republic. Each has had its own constituency and social base.
Hamiltonian Mercantilism is the economic concept that the American government should lead the way in enforcing free trade around the globe. The full might of the U.S. military should defend merchant ships bearing an American flag, anywhere in the world. The first Treasury Secretary of the United States, Alexander Hamilton played a large role in creating the current economic system we have and many of today’s conservatives adhere to this philosophy. Mercantilism is the regime whereby the state controls economic life in favor of political strength and independence, as well as creates a favorable money balance on foreign trade.
Jeffersonian Republicanism is the economic concept that a limited federal government may enforce simple rules, with the majority of states deciding the most complex matters in their own localities. A “laboratory of democracy,” can arise to create an “empire of liberty,” in a land where individuals are free to make most of their own decisions. Jeffersonians believed in a republic as a form of government, as well as political opportunity. They have a preference for the yeoman farmer, planters and the plain folk. Economists such as Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman might be comfortable in this sort of a libertarian republic.
Anarcho-Capitalism is the radical economic concept that the individual owns their own lives, liberty and property, and they may freely choose to dispense with any of these at any time, however they please, provided they harm no one else. It is the pure laissez-faire. The tradition of anarchy capitalism denounces its two rival minarchist philosophies. The students of the school of thought preferred by economists such as Murray Rothbard or Walter Block would feel comfortable in this system of self-governance.
RELATED: Has a libertarian society ever existed?
Only the abolition of much of government can serve as a remedy to the evils of progressive taxation, socialized medicine, wage and price controls. The abolition of payroll taxes and corporate gains taxes would be good for the economy, as well as removing the authority of the alphabet agencies to write law.
Universal economic freedom and personal liberty as a matter of rights for all individuals should be the libertarian agenda for America in our time. The sooner that the economic right unites behind one of these three main schools of economic thought, the sooner the battle for the future of America can be successfully taken to the communist liberals.7 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do with CSS
CSS and JavaScript, believe it or not, are starting to overlap as CSS adds more functionality. When I wrote 5 Ways that CSS and JavaScript Interact That You May Not Know About, people were surprised at how CSS and JavaScript have come to overlap. Today I will highlight seven tasks you can accomplish with CSS -- no JavaScript or imagery required!
Every good front-end developer feature-tests before using features which a browser may not have. Feature testing has always done with JavaScript, and many people use Modernizr, an impressive utility packed with loads of well-tested routines, to do that feature testing. A new API, however, has come along to let you do feature tests with CSS: @supports. Here are a few samples of how @supports works:
/* basic usage */ @supports(prop:value) { /* more styles */ } /* real usage */ @supports (display: flex) { div { display: flex; } } /* testing prefixes too */ @supports (display: -webkit-flex) or (display: -moz-flex) or (display: flex) { section { display: -webkit-flex; display: -moz-flex; display: flex; float: none; } }
This new @supports feature, which also has a JavaScript counterpart, is well overdue and we can look forward to using it soon!
Write a service to modify an image's color shades and you can sell it to Facebook for a billion dollars! Of course that's an over-simplification but writing image filters isn't exactly a science. I wrote a tiny app my first week at Mozilla (which won a contest, BTW...just sayin') which used some JS-based math to create image filters with canvas, but today we can create image filters with just CSS!
/* simple filter */.myElement { -webkit-filter: blur(2px); } /* advanced filter */.myElement { -webkit-filter: blur(2px) grayscale (.5) opacity(0.8) hue-rotate(120deg); }
This type of filtering only masks an image's original view and doesn't save or export the image with said filter, but it's great for photo galleries or anywhere else you'd like to add flare to an image!
The CSS pointer-events property provides a method to effectively disable an element, so much so that clicks on a link don't trigger a click event through JavaScript:
/* do nothing when clicked or activated */.disabled { pointer-events: none; }
/* this will _not_ fire because of the pointer-events: none application */ document.getElementById("disabled-element").addEventListener("click", function(e) { alert("Clicked!"); });
In the example above, the click event wont even fire due to the CSS pointer-events value. I find this of massive utility as you don't need to do className or attribute checks everywhere to see if something is disabled.
CSS affords us the ability to create transitions and animations but oftentimes we need JavaScript libraries to give us a hand in modifying a few things and controlling the animation. One such popular animation is the slide up and slide down effect, which most people don't know can be accomplished with only CSS!
/* slider in open state */.slider { overflow-y: hidden; max-height: 500px; /* approximate max height */ transition-property: all; transition-duration:.5s; transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(0, 1, 0.5, 1); } /* close it with the "closed" class */.slider.closed { max-height: 0; }
A clever use of max-height allows the element to grow and shrink as needed.
We'll always have a giggle at what the term "counter" means on the internet, but CSS counters are another thing entirely. CSS counters allow developers to increment a counter and display it via :before or :after for a given element:
/* initialize the counter */ ol.slides { counter-reset: slideNum; } /* increment the counter */ ol.slides > li { counter-increment: slideNum; } /* display the counter value */ ol.slides li:after { content: "[" counter(slideNum) "]"; }
You often see CSS counters used in slideshows at conferences and even in lists like a table of contents.
There are loads of CSS best practice documents out there, and they'll all start with how to name your CSS classes. What you'll never see is one of those documents telling you to use unicode symbols to name your classes:
.ಠ_ಠ { border: 1px solid #f00; background: pink; }.❤ { background: lightgreen; border: 1px solid green; }
Please don't use these. Please. BUT YOU CAN!
CSS triangles are a neat trick but so are CSS circles. By abusing CSS border-radius, you can create flawless circles!
.circle { border-radius: 50%; width: 200px; height: 200px; /* width and height can be anything, as long as they're equal */ }
You can add gradients to your circles and you can even use CSS animations to spin them around! CSS has a more uniform API for Shapes coming but you can create circles with this hack now!
There you have it: seven things you can do with CSS that you may be surprised at. A few are quite useful, a few are more edge cases. Let me know if I've missed an awesome CSS task that you use frequently!This is the first installment in a series of articles to research and unravel the mysteries of swimming. These mysteries range from serious to silly, but always in good fun, and will hopefully help to satisfy your inner swim-nerd. If you have any good mysteries (or bad ones, we’re not picky!) please send them our way via the “submit content” page, and we’ll see if we can figure them out!
When is a mile not really a mile? When it’s measured in a pool.
Today’s question was inspired by an email I received from a guy named Paul Arvin. He is a life-long swimmer, having swum in high school, taught swimming in Malaysia, and done underwater photography for the World Wildlife Fund. He wondered why the 1650 yard freestyle is known as a “mile” when in fact it is 110 yards short of an actual mile (for those not familiar with feet and yards, a true mile is 1760 yards). It’s something I’ve always wondered, but have always just written off some strange misnomer that had something to do with the mathematical evil that is the Imperial system of weights and measures.
But no longer will I accept that as an excuse. So I set off across the internet and swimming community to discover why we call 1650 yards a mile.
The first person I spoke with was Glenn Schroeder, a former age-group swim coach in Nevada.
TSC: Glenn, why are there only 1650 yards in a swimming mile?
Glenn: It probably has to do with those neat lap counters they use. If they went to 1750 yards, they’d have to add a 7 to the 10’s digit
TSC: But which is older, lap counters or the 1650?
Glenn: You got me there.
TSC: And why not go to a 1700. That would still only require a 6.
Glenn: Because “1700” sounds too long.
I didn’t buy it, so I moved on. I started looking through results of old Olympics, and discovered that only one Olympics ever was swum in yards, which were the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis. The 1904 games included a mile swim that was a true mile. Unfortunately, the 1904 Olympics were swum in an artifical lake, rather than a pool, and as such was no help.
But if open-water swimming has a true mile (they still do today), then why can’t pool swimming get any closer? A 1750 or 1800 yard swim would be much closer. A key clue comes in looking through historical swimming records, such as these pool records from the North Sydney Olympic Pool.
Swimming pools in the United States, Australia, and the UK were often built in 55 yard distances in the early and middle part of the 20th century. Similar to 440-yard tracks, 55 yard pools were used because races could be made in convenient, even proportions of a mile (880 yard half mile, 1760 yard mile, etc.). Looking through the records above, you’ll notice that there is both a record for the 1760 freestyle and the 1650 freestyle. That’s because, for a long time, the official mile distance in the United States was 1760 yards.
But then things changed.
The AAU (predecessors to USA-Swimming) relented and changed their long course meets from 55-yards to 50-meters in order to better prepare their swimmers for the Olympics. But the United States held firm with its short course pool at 25 yards, instead of the international meters. Large organizations training Olympians could afford the expense of converting their pools to 50 meters (which is about a foot short of a 55 yard pool) or building new ones, but to the tens of thousands of neighborhood and high school pools, this cost would’ve been prohibitive.
In international swimming, beginning with the 1908 Olympics (which were actually swum in a massive 100m pool built inside of a track oval), the 1500m freestyle was a logical standard distance event. At 1.5 kilometers, it made sense to the other 95% of the world that uses the metric system, and sporting fans were already familiar with the 1500m run that was a standard distance in the more familiar track & field discipline.
Once the United States switched to a system of 50-meter long course and 25-yard short course pools, they had to find a way to keep the two systems as similar as possible, so that when its athletes did travel to international competitions, they weren’t at too much of a disadvantage.
And this is where the 1650 freestyle came from. The closest emulation of a 1500m swim in a 25-yard pool is the 1650 freestyle (to be precise, 1500m=1640 yards, 1 foot, and 3.12 inches, give or take), so the AAU likely decided to replace the true old-fashioned mile with a newer, more worldly distance. People were so used to calling this distance the “mile” that the name lived on. So there you have it. It was that crazy Imperial system after all.
[Update: We got a great suggestion from one of our readers that the 66 lap swim was a result of Phillips 66’s major USA-Swimming sponsorship. Although it was an intriguing and amusing idea, from a marketing standpoint, the 1650 is not really a glamor event.
Our research shows that the Phillips 66 sponsorship of American Swimming started in 1973, whereas the earliest incarnation of a 1650 we can find is in 1959 in Australia. But that’s the kind of creativity we like here at the Swimmers Circle Mysteries!]
Now, as to whether USA-Swimming, the NFHS, and the NCAA should switch from 25 yards to 25 meter short course swimming is a whole different discussion for a different time. But for now, chalk this one up as a mystery solved.September 16, 1997
Scientists Use Light to Create Particles
By MALCOLM W. BROWNE
trailblazing experiment at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California has confirmed a longstanding prediction by theorists that light beams colliding with each other can goad the empty vacuum into creating something out of nothing.
In a report published this month by the journal Physical Review Letters, 20 physicists from four research institutions disclosed that they had created two tiny specks of matter -- an electron and its antimatter counterpart, a positron -- by colliding two ultrapowerful beams of radiation.
The possibility of doing something like this was suggested in 1934 by two American physicists, Dr. Gregory Breit and Dr. John A. Wheeler. But more than six decades would pass before any laboratory could pump enough power into colliding beams of radiation to conjure up matter from nothingness. The Stanford accelerator finally provided enough energy to do it.
Dr. Adrian C. Melissinos of the University of Rochester, a spokesman for the group, said in an interview that the weaker of the two light beams used in the experiment was produced by a trillion-watt green laser. That in itself fell far short of the needed energy, even though the pulsed green laser is one of the world's most powerful.
But the opposing beam of radiation was another story; boosted by energy drawn from electrons whizzing down the two-mile-long Stanford accelerator, this second beam of radiation was some 10 billion times as powerful as the green laser beam.
The paths of colliding electrons and photons in the experiment were as complicated as those choreographed by an expert pool player planning a difficult shot.
Photons of light from the green laser were allowed to collide almost head-on with 47-billion-electronvolt electrons shot from the Stanford particle accelerator. These collisions transferred some of the electrons' energy to the photons they hit, boosting the photons from green visible light to gamma-ray photons, and forcing the freshly spawned gamma photons to recoil into the oncoming laser beam. The violent collisions that ensued between the gamma photons and the green laser photons created an enormous electromagnetic field.
This field, Melissinos said, "was so high that the vacuum within the experiment spontaneously broke down, creating real particles of matter and antimatter."
This breakdown of the vacuum by an ultrastrong electromagnetic field was hypothesized in 1950 by Dr. Julian S. Schwinger, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 1965. The creation of matter by colliding photons of radiation is believed to take place in some stars, but it was never observed in laboratory experiments before, largely because the required energy is beyond the reach of conventional laboratory equipment.
With his special theory of relativity, Einstein showed that matter and energy are equivalent and can be transmuted through the equation E equals mc2; that is, energy in ergs is equal to mass in grams times the speed of light squared, in centimeters per second. This accounts for the vast energy released by small amounts of matter in nuclear explosions, but it also means that staggering amounts of energy are required to create even the tiniest particles of matter.
The hardest part of the project, in which scientists employed by the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center collaborated with colleagues from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Princeton University and the University of Rochester, was synchronizing the timing of laser and electron pulses, Melissinos said. The green laser pulse, traveling at the speed of light, was only one half millimeter long. That pulse had to be timed to collide with an electron pulse almost as it emerged from the two-mile-long beam line.
The experiment, Melissinos said, is unlikely to have many practical applications, although it might help in the design of a new generation of research accelerators. Existing accelerators use particles of matter as projectiles -- protons, electrons or entire atoms. But a possible future accelerator that physicists call a "gamma-gamma machine" might work by colliding opposing beams of photons, especially gamma-ray photons.
Meanwhile, Melissinos and his colleagues expect to use photon collisions as a way to explore the intricacies of quantum electrodynamics -- a highly successful but complex theory explaining the interactions of electromagnetic fields with matter.Game 7 played out in a surprisingly quick draw compared to the last few games, and Magnus Carlsen defended his two-game lead over Vishy Anand. There are five games left, so we won’t count Anand out, but he’s really going to need to swing momentum back his way to defend his title. Can he do it in Game 8?
[Update – 4:21AM ET] Here’s the stream! Anand really needs a win here to try to swing things back his way. If Carlsen takes Game 8 then Anand would have to go four-in-a-row for the rest of the match to come out on top. A draw keeps him alive, but still leaves him with an uphill fight.
We’ll have the live stream for you as soon as it’s available, which should be roughly 4:00AM ET Tuesday morning.
[Update – 3:58AM ET] Here’s the live board! We expect to have the stream any moment now.
Live chess broadcast powered by ChessBomb |
dissolved the salt pillars that supported the ceiling of the mine, causing the shafts to collapse.
The widening of the hole and the collapse of the mine gave strength to the whirlpool on the surface of the lake, which caused major damage. Docks, another drilling platform, a 70 acre island in the middle of the lake, eleven barges, vehicles, trees and a parking lot near the lake were all sucked into the mine below. The pull of the whirlpool was so strong that it reversed the flow of the 12-mile-long Delcambre Canal that drained the lake into the Gulf of Mexico.
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Three hours after the first signs of trouble, the three to four billion gallons of water that had made up the lake were almost all gone, having dropped into the mine below, leaving a gaping crater. The backward-flowing canal formed a 160 foot waterfall that gradually refilled the lake, this time with salt water from the Gulf.
The 10-foot deep freshwater lake was now a saltwater one, approximately 1,300 foot-deep in a good sized portion of it.
Amazingly, there were no deaths or serious human injuries as a result of the disaster, though the ecosystem of the lake was forever changed. Further, three dogs died in the event. Many lawsuits were filed, all settled out-of-court, costing Texaco about $45 million in damages, with about $32 million of that going to Diamond Crystal.
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If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:
Bonus Fact:
Another bizarre lake disaster of the 1980s occurred on August 21, 1986 when Lake Nyos in Cameroon suddenly emitted approximately 100,000 – 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide which asphyxiated 1,700 people and 3,500 animals in nearby towns. How did this happen? A vein of magma lies beneath Lake Nyos. Carbon dioxide leaks from the lava into the water resulting in the lower, cooler levels of the lake water ultimately becoming supersaturated. The lake normally remains stable this way, but a tipping point was reached on August 21, 1986 and the CO2 erupted from the lake, in something called a limnic eruption. To prevent a recurrence, tubes have been installed that siphon water from the bottom layers of the lake to the top, allowing carbon dioxide to be vented continually over time, rather than building up.
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Staci Lehman writes for the wildly popular interesting fact website TodayIFoundOut.com. To subscribe to Today I Found Out's "Daily Knowledge" newsletter, click here or like them on Facebook here.
This post has been republished with permission from TodayIFoundOut.com.The number of evictions in crisis-hit Spain is turning into a national scandal, as a second homeowner committed suicide on the day a foreclosure order was served.
53-year-old Amaya Egaña threw herself from her fourth floor appartment in the Basque town of Barakaldo.
Three hundred and fifty thousand people are said to have lost their homes over unpaid mortgages since the crisis began.
Senior judges in Spain have joined in the criticism of the legislation and there are calls for politicians to act.
“This kind of situation, like the one we had today here, shouldn’t happen. It would be good if those responsible for changing the law did so – and they’re not the judges,” said local judge Juan Carlos Mediavilla.
The European Court of Justice has also criticised Spain’s mortgage legislation and rules over evictions for being incompatible with European norms. Consumers, it says, are not sufficiently protected against abusive clauses in contracts.
Protest groups have sprung up and there have been demonstrations outside banks.
There have been calls for people facing eviction to pay a “social rent” rather than being kicked out of their homes.
The conservative government and the opposition socialists have agreed to take urgent measures to help the most vulnerable mortgage defaulters.Ben Stansall / AFP / Getty Images Foreign secretary Boris Johnson leaves 10 Downing Street.
The UK foreign secretary has been warned about allegations the London embassy of Bahrain – one of Britain's brightest trading hopes after Brexit – has been "colluding" in reprisals against the family members of a UK-based human rights campaigner.
A senior MP has accused the embassy of "colluding" in the torture and interrogation of family members of Bahrain exile and human rights campaigner Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, after the embassy told the MP his family had been convicted by an "independent Bahraini court" – a week before their actual conviction on 30 October. Tom Brake, the Lib Dem spokesman for Brexit and international trade, has urged Boris Johnson to summon the ambassador of Bahrain to seek to end the threats to and detention of the campaigner's family.
Brake wrote in a letter sent to the foreign secretary: "I hope that you will agree that the reprisals against Mr Alwadaei and his family must immediately cease, and an apology issued from the Bahrain Embassy in London to the Alwadaei family for its conduct should be expected and will be encouraged by your department."
He said the Bahrain government had previously accused Alwadaei of smuggling arms and used this claim to interrogate his wife, and said Alwadaei's other family members had been arrested, tortured, and interrogated about the work of the campaigner in the UK.
Supplied/ Moosa Satrawi Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei speaking at a demonstration.
Alwadaei is the director of advocacy at human rights group the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD). Bahraini authorities have sentenced his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and maternal cousin to three years in prison. BIRD campaigners maintain that after the family members were arrested in March 2017, they were tortured and interrogated about Alwadaei's activities in the UK. They face their first appeal court hearing on 20 November.
BIRD Alwadaei's mother-in-law Hajer Mansoor, 49, and brother-in-law Sayed Nizar Alwadaei, 18
In a statement, the kingdom's London-based embassy wrote: "In this case, the reality is that evidence emerged, DNA and material evidence, linking members of his extended family to acts of terrorism, which required a full and proper investigation." The embassy has denied that the arrests were linked to the family members' relationship with Alwadaei.
BIRD Mahmood Marzooq, 30, cousin of AlwadaeiBeing a skateboarder is like being part of a secret society. There's a certain language, etiquette and history that skaters all know and follow. When you meet another skater, you instantly have a whole host of things that connect you. It's a difficult way of life to simply quit, and some would argue it never really leaves you.
If you used to skateboard, you'll know exactly what we're talking about.
1. Authority. You still have a problem with it.
And this image always causes some uneasiness and frustration.
2. You now realize that cops and security guards were just doing their jobs, but some of them didn't have to be such dicks about it.
(Overzealous vigilante citizens, though, still have no excuse.)
3. Your ability to quickly count stairs on the fly is unrivaled.
4. This looks very different to you than it does to non-skaters. So much possibility.
5. So does this. Just heartbreaking.
6. Marble stairs and ledges still illicit a euphoric feeling.
7. Every month, 411 Video Magazine released a video. Remember gathering at a friend's, popping it in a VCR, and getting goosebumps when you heard the opening drumroll? Yes, so do we.
8. Once in a while you Google "Chad Muska," "Tom Penny," "Andrew Reynolds" or "Eric Koston" to see what they're up to, because you miss them, like an old ex.
9. You take a nostalgic trip through skate video memory lane on Youtube, aaaaaaaaaaaand twelve hours is gone.
10. Skate noises still cause your ears to perk up.
You have a weird response to the rolling CLACK-CLACK, CLACK-CLACK, CLACK-CLACK over the sidewalk cracks, or the snap of an ollie. Maybe one day you'll get up the courage to ask someone if you can take their board for a spin, just for old time's sake.
11. It wasn't realistic, but you loved playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
12. Thanks to skating, you learned the true meaning of, "One man's trash is another man's treasure."
And, if you had no alternative, improvising became a necessity.
13. You still look at Target/K-Mart/Wal-Mart boards and just... NO.
14. Sorry, longboarding doesn't = skateboarding.
And being friends with bladers? Hmm... inadvisable.
15. You know the "Skate And Destroy" video, the Leap of Faith and who the Bones Brigade are.
16. Camp Woodward sounded like Eden, and you would've sold your soul to go there.
Especially when this is was your idea of a skate park.
Now, kids have it a lot better.
17. You don't care who is out there these days, no one skates like Rodney Mullen.
18. There is nothing funny about skateboarders wiping out. Except maybe this.
19. But this? This is the stuff of skater nightmares.
You always hated falling -- which you did a lot -- but you certainly learned how to do it like a pro. You probably have the poor ankles, wrists, knees and elbows to prove it.
20. Pebbles are still your arch-nemeses. They always got the best of you, which is one reason why you rarely fight them anymore.
21. You know that the words "Nollie Varial Heelflip" aren't jibberish. In fact, they look like this:
22. Kids are just too damn good these days. Like 13-year-old, Rene Serrano.
23. Stickers. Stickers still everywhere.
24. This image used to scare the shit out of you and your young, usually very empty, bank account.
27. Shoe-goo or hot glue. Shoe lifespan: Doubled.
28. You're actually considering this.
And this?
29. You remember learning a ton of tricks, and the freakout when you landed one for the first time.
But then you realized you'd have to relearn them switch.
30. In the end, it gave you a huge advantage playing S-K-A-T-E.
31. Kids these days with their new-fangled boards and clothes and shoes and attitudes.A BJP candidate from south Mumbai has come under the scanner for allegedly distributing cash for vote inside a restricted defence area of Mumbai. The workers of the candidates are allegedly seen distributing cash in a video made by rival Shiv Sena workers.
The incident took place in the Cuffe Parade defence area where entry is restricted to common man, therefore raising serious questions. BJP candidate Makrand Narvekar, on the other hand, while speaking to India Today said that the allegations are false, and that he was in fact not even allowed inside the area for campaigning.
A case of distributing money during elections came forward in Navy Nagar area of Mumbai on Saturday. In a video, which has been provided to the police, workers of a Bharatiya Janata Party candidate could be seen distributing money in the defence area of Mumbai. Based on the complain a complaint was filed and further investigations are on.
According to the complaint registered at Cuffe Parade police station, workers of BJP candidate Makrand Narvekar from ward 227 have been allegedly distributing money in the Nofra area of Colaba.
"A case has been registered at the police station. The police will seek permission from the court to prosecute the concerned people. The case was registered as per the video evidence. When police tried to reach the spot where video was made they were not allowed to enter by the navy," said the concerned election officer.
As per the video accessed by India Today, workers are seen at a household where they are given a paper to write their names and address. Each member of the family signs the paper and all sign along with their name. In the video a family of three is then seen signing that document. A woman then gives them pamphlet of BJP candidate with the candidate's symbol. Later, the person who was taking the video then frisked the woman's wallet and found cash in it. The person found cash in new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2000 denominations.
The allegations have been made by BJP's rival part Shiv Sena. Narvekar termed the allegation as baseless and said that it's an attempt to defame him.
"The area mentioned in the complaint has stage 2 security. Even I have not been there to campaign as civilians don't have access there. How can political workers enter that area and distribute money?" Narvekar said.
Watch Video: Cash for vote: BJP candidate accused of distributing money in MumbaiWhile the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) held a series of panels over the last two days in order to investigate the cause of the financial crisis, two panels on Thursday wound up focusing more on mortgage fraud and the government’s attempt to circumvent it.
Thursday’s panels, which included Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, spoke of the attempts the state and federal government were taking to prosecute mortgage fraud. Holder noted that the FBI is currently in the process of investigating over 2,800 cases of mortgage fraud, an increase of more than five times from 2004.
Of those cases, 1,842 involved more than $1 million in losses. As of November, federal charges relating to mortgage fraud were pending against 826 defendants. Reverse mortgage fraud was alluded to in the written testimony of Lanny Breuer, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, but was not specifically a focus of the inquiry or any of the panelists.
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During the panels, an interesting issue was raised by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Colorado Attorney General John W. Suthers. Both attorney generals complained that the federal government had impeded their attempts at investigating mortgage fraud—especially on a larger scale.
Suthers, in his written remarks, wrote, “With respect to the few laws we did have back in 2005, we were largely powerless to enforce those laws against national banks and their lending affiliates and subsidiaries due to the aggressive stance federal regulators took to preempt state law, even with respect to predatory lending and deceptive advertising.”
Wrote Madigan, “In fact, in response to aggressive actions at the state level, federal regulators took unprecedented steps to shield national lenders and their subsidiaries from state enforcement and from the growing number of state anti-predatory lending laws on the books. The states have been leaders in enacting regulation to address the worst abuses in the mortgage industry.”
These issues were expanded upon during the panel testimony. Alleged Madigan, “In the years preceding the crisis, federal regulators often showed no interest in exercising their regulatory authority, or worse, actively hampered state authority.” It remains unclear what recommendations will emerge as a result of the FCIC’s investigation. Their report is due on December 15, 2010.In an interview with Yahoo News, Dr. Ben Carson seemed to praise the efficacy of a political attack in which Donald Trump compared Carson’s “pathological” temper to the behavior of a child molester. “You have to admit that to some degree it did work,” Carson told Yahoo News.
Back in November, Trump attacked his then rival Carson’s temper saying, “That’s a big problem because you don’t cure that … as an example: child molesting. You don’t cure these people. You don’t cure a child molester. There’s no cure for it. Pathological, there’s no cure for that.” Trump’s seemingly off-hand referece to a child-molester made headlines at the time
Asked about the comments today, Dr. Carson, who endorsed Donald Trump last week, tried to deflect the question saying, “It’s not really about me. If it were about me, yes, I would be outraged…but it’s not about me it’s about America.”
Pressed to explain how he can endorse someone who uses such attacks, Dr. Carson offered this revealing insight, “Well, he said, you know, it was political, you know, he was concerned about the fact that he couldn’t shake me.” Asked later in the interview if Trump’s behavior should be the status quo, Carson replies, “It shouldn’t be status quo, nor should retaliating and fighting back, particularly when the person has admitted that they were doing it for political reasons and that of course they didn’t believe that, nor does anybody else.” So Carson is giving us a window into how Trump operates, i.e. he will say anything to shake a rival.
But the oddest part of the interview comes when Dr. Carson seems to praise Trump’s ends-justify-the-means approach to politics saying, “You have to admit that to some degree it did work. A lot of people believed him.” Dr. Carson added, “Unfortunately we live in a society where that kind of thing works and people use things that work.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5La32QSFEMFirst-half goals from Kennedy Eriba and Gints Freimanis proved enough for holders FK Jelgava to see off FK Ventspils and claim a third Latvian Cup in five years – despite playing 87 minutes with ten men.
Everything seemed to favour Ventspils before kick-off, with the game taking place at the home of the league champions for the first time in the competition's history. The two sides had played out a 0-0 draw in the league on the same pitch four days earlier, but for anyone fearing another stalemate, doubts were quickly put to rest.
Jelgava defender Abdoulaye Diallo received a straight red card three minutes into the game but the ten men defied their numerical disadvantage to go ahead in the ninth through Eriba. Ventspils were unable to get their game going and Cheikh Diagne spurned a number of chances to bring the scores level.
Jelgava took advantage and doubled their lead in the 33rd minute as Freimanis rounded off a swift counter with a powerful shot. The holders withstood pressure after the break and held on to win a third cup, and a first in the coaching career of Vitālijs Astafjevs, Europe's most capped international footballer.
"This is a big victory for our club and our city," said Astafjevs. "Jelgava showed cup character, I am thrilled. You wish no one to be with ten men after three minutes, but the team reacted with an iron will, scored two goals and deserved this victory."
Midfielder Artis Lagzdiņš added: "We're immensely happy as Ventspils were favourites. We are a single unit where everyone helps everyone. We had no other choice after the red card. We would like to thank our supporters. What can be better than to see happiness in their eyes after the game?"The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) has given NASA two Hubble-sized spy telescopes that the NRO built but never launched, the Washington Post and New York Times reported June 4.
The unusual donation was discussed at a meeting in Washington of the National Research Council’s Committee of Astronomy and Astrophysics, which advises NASA on science priorities.
According to the Washington Post, the two surplus telescopes both have 2.4-meter primary mirrors, the same diameter of Hubble’s.
“They also have an additional feature that the civilian space telescopes lack: A maneuverable secondary mirror that makes it possible to obtain more focused images,” the Washington Post reported.
“The two new telescopes — which so far don’t even have names, other than Telescope One and Telescope Two — would be ready to go into space but for two hitches. First, they don’t have instruments. There are no cameras, spectrographs or other instruments that a space telescope typically needs. Second, they don’t have a program, a mission or a staff behind them. They’re just hardware,” the Washington Post reported, quoting NASA officials who said 2020 is the earliest the agency could conceivably afford launching one of them.
The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that the surplus telescopes and some spare parts are stored in a clean room at ITT Exilis Geospatial System in Rochester, N.Y.
The New York Times quotes Matt Mountain, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, calling them “Stubby Hubbles” since the telescopes have the same sized primary mirror, but a shorter focal length, giving them a wider field of view.
Hubble, weighing some 11,000 kilograms at launch, was carried into orbit in April 1990 by a space shuttle piloted by current NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.
John Grunsfeld, NASA’s associate administrator for science, told the Times that his initial reaction was that the gifted telescopes would be a distraction.
“‘We were getting something very expensive to handle and store,’ he said.
“Earlier this spring, he asked a small group of astronomers if one of the telescopes could be used to study dark energy.
“The answer, he said, was: ‘Don’t change a thing. It’s perfect.’”ADVERTISEMENT
There would appear to be few drawbacks to locking up a durable majority in the House, which was what the GOP accomplished in once-in-a-decade redistricting that followed the 2010 census. But Alex Isenstadt at Politico touched off a debate this week by noting that, while the creation of a string of "ruby red districts" will keep Republicans in control of the lower chamber through 2014 and possibly even 2020, "the party could pay a steep price for that dominance."
GOP strategists and candidates are reportedly warning that the overwhelming conservative majorities in these gerrymandered districts make primary battles tougher to win than general elections. That, Isenstadt said, is "pushing House Republicans further to the right and narrowing the party's appeal at a time when some GOP leaders say its future rests on the opposite happening."
If you're looking for a root cause of the recurring drama within the House Republican Conference — from the surprise meltdown on the farm bill to the looming showdown over immigration reform — the increasingly conservative makeup of those districts is a good place to start. [Politico]
Robert Schlesinger at U.S. News & World Report agreed, arguing that the GOP's success in the last round of redistricting, which created an estimated 200 safe GOP districts in the 435-member House, was "proving Pyrrhic." Some conservatives think their challenge is not wooing moderates but more forcefully making the case for their own beliefs, but even some hardline Tea Party politicians are starting to recognize that their views aren't going over too well, even in some safe GOP districts. "That's a real problem for Republicans and it's one their redistricting success is only exacerbating," said Schlesinger.
Of course, carving out safe districts is a "two-way street," Sean Trende pointed out at Real Clear Politics. Democratic-controlled state legislatures also engaged in gerrymandering, leaving both parties with supporters concentrated in safe districts. Furthermore, Trende argued that it is wrong to conclude that the proliferation of safe districts is what's driving the two sides farther apart, noting that the Senate is as bitterly divided as the House.
The real underlying cause of the increasingly stark ideological divide in Congress, Trende said, is something more complex:
We have an ideologically polarized House and Senate because our country has become politically more polarized... Both parties are nearing historic lows in their approval ratings with the American people, although Democrats are faring a touch better than Republicans. Polarization is a boon to neither party. But it's being driven primarily by shifts in the country, not by gerrymandering. [Real Clear Politics]Early in September former UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk announced his official retirement from the sport of mixed martial arts. It didn’t take much thought for Sherk to make that decision.
It just came down to injuries, they just kept piling up, the old ones won’t go away and new ones are popping up and I just figured I wouldn’t get back in the cage if I wasn’t anywhere near 100%.
2001
Sherk (36-4-1) made his debut with the big show at UFC 30, where he picked up his 11th straight victory against Tiki Ghosn. Unfortunately for “The Muscle Shark” he fought his next six fights outside the Octagon due to the fact that the organization wasn’t holding as many events back then.
The UFC was a goal of mine from the time I got in to MMA because the whole reason I got in to the sport was because I watched the UFC. I was a fan. I watched UFC 2 and I knew who all those guys were. I knew their stats and where they were from and their styles. I was a huge fan of the sport. So for me to actually walk in to the Octagon and fight for the UFC was a dream come true and I just knew that was what I wanted. I wanted to spend the rest of my career there but unfortunately the UFC cut me after the first fight. It wasn’t because I lost or it was a boring fight it was because they were doing only 2/3 shows a year at that time and they didn’t have room for me and they had Matt Hughes who was a mirror image of me and he had already had 3/4 fights before my debut. So back to the smaller organizations for me.
2003
He made his return to the organization in 2002 and after a three-fight winning streak under the UFC banner, he earned a welterweight title shot against divisional leader Matt Hughes. At the time Hughes had defended the belt three times and wound up beating Sherk via unanimous decision to retain the title.
Hughes was ranked pound for pound number one in the world, he was the number one guy in my weight class, he was the champion and he was basically considered unbeatable at that time. I don’t think anyone came close to him in that era. I had a 4 month training camp for that fight and if he was going to beat me he was going to beat me because he was better than me – not because of conditioning or technique. Or anything like that. I trained my ass off and I was in the best shape of my life. We went to war – I wish that fight had of been on the feet a little longer as that was the fight I trained for. We trained for that and he used it to his advantage and took me down. After the second round my corner said “no more boxing”, so I started to wrestle and that is when the fight became more competitive. He was a great champion and it was a honor to step in the cage with him.
2004
After the loss to Hughes, Sherk was released from the UFC. After back-to-back wins, Sherk decided to make the trek across the pond to Japan to fight for the world famous PRIDE FC organization at PRIDE Bushido 2. This was a one-fight deal, but definitely stood out in Sherk’s mind.
I wish I had more chances to fight over there. PRIDE was the biggest promotion in the world at that point and back then the fighters were hot like they are now in the UFC. Sapp and Shamrock were huge stars doing TV endorsement deals and I had never seen that before so it was phenomenal. So walking down the street people knew who we were and were given us presents and I was like “holy heck” because in America they were calling us brutal! They called it cockfighting and it was looked down on but you come over to Japan and you are a superstar. It was cool and fighting in front of 20,000 Japanese fans was great, they are so quiet. I could hear my cornermen. Unfortunately I didn’t go back. I had a great fight over there and beat one of their guys and after the fight they offered me another fight but the money was really bad and they wanted it exclusive. I had a kid at that point and a house with a lot of bills so it didn’t make sense. I turned it down and that was the end of that.
2005
After fighting in Japan he went on to fight for a number of regional promotions and after winning twelve fights in a row he earned his way back to the promotion. In his return bout he took on the current welterweight kingpin, Georges St-Pierre. “Rush” had won two in a row against Jason Miller and Frank Trigg, but was nowhere near the phenom he is today.
I knew at that time that he (GSP) was a big deal, the guy was undefeated and he was just manhandling everybody and he was beating everyone. I knew he was good so I knew it was a tough fight. He was number 2 in the world and I was number 3 or 4 so we were close in rankings but I had a lot more experience than him. I went in there and had a good training camp, wasn’t injured and he just was the better fighter you know. He was 2 or 3 moves ahead of me and his game plan was phenomenal and he did real well in the stand up. I always felt when I started to get competitive on the feet he would shoot and take me down and it really threw me off.
2006
Following the loss to St-Pierre he went on to defeat Nick Diaz and earned himself a shot at the vacant lightweight championship. In one of the bloodiest bouts in the history of the Octagon, Sherk won the lightweight title against Kenny Florian.
I had a lot of adversity going in to that fight, I tore my shoulder before that fight but there was no way I was pulling out of that fight with a shoulder injury. Not when I had a chance for a world title. I fought that fight with a tore shoulder but they cancelled the fight as they found out I had a torn shoulder – someone snitched on me – I had to convince them I was okay. They let me fight, I got a real bad cut above my eyebrow and forehead and their was blood everywhere. Blood was everywhere it reminds me of oil it is slippy so it really affected my ground game it was hard to hold on to Kenny and hard for me to see. He couldn’t see as blood was falling on to him and I could hear him complaining to the referee that he couldn’t see. The referee was asking him he wanted to quit and he said no so we had to fight it out. My comments on that are if you don’t want to swim in someone else’s blood don’t get inside the Octagon. But that was some bad stuff!
2008
After winning the vacant lightweight championship against Florian and defending it against Hermes Franca. One of the most heated rivalries of his career came in his next bout against B.J. Penn at UFC 84. The two fighters had an honest distain for each other and it showed in the moments leading up to the fight.
That was the first time I fought somebody where I really disliked them. I think that was part of his game-plan to get in to my head and he eat me up and make me angry. I think BJ is the kind of guy who fights better angry whereas me, I had never hated an opponent before. I don’t look at it personal, I just want to get in there and win and that is what drives me. That fight we didn’t like each other. I wanted to hurt him and all the smack talk got to me and about a month before the fight the game-plan went out the window and I decided I wanted to box him and I just want to hit him in the mouth and shut him up. So yeah, BJ outboxed me and outpointed me. I threw twice as many punches as he did but his movement and his accuracy is what really got to me in that one. My punches were an inch off and were just missing by a little bit and all of his were right on the money on the jaw the eyes and if you saw what my face looked like after the fight you could tell. His accuracy was on the money. Was a great fight and after the fight we shook hands and ever since then we have been cool.
The 40-year old has fought in professional MMA since 1999; he has fought all over the world for numerous different fight promotions and he has held the highest title of them all – the UFC championship. He went out on a high, winning his final bout against Evan Dunham at UFC 119 in 2010. Were there any regrets in the ten-plus year career? Sherk says, “no regrets at all.”
No regrets at all. I set out to be a professional fighter and be one of the best in the world and I wanted to fight for a UFC title and win a UFC title and I accomplished all of those things. And to be a part of an industry like this where when I started it wasn’t cool. We had to go fight in Casinos as state law didnt work there. There was no money in it, I had a full-time job for my first 15 pro fights. I did it because I loved it and I fought all the way up to my last fight because I love the sport. From grassroots to the mainstream.
In the future, the Minnesota native would love to stay active in the sport, but as a coach of some sorts. He also has a couple other hobbies that he has been dabbling in as well.
I would like to coach and become one of the TV analysts on Fox I think something like that would be fun. To help out up-and-coming fighters with seminars would be fun. Besides that I have two businesses I own, Training Mask is one of them and I am house-flipping. Training mask has been going for two years and I have been flipping houses now for 9 months. It is something I can do until I am 70.
In the end Sherk had a very illustrious career with a 36-4-1 record, winning UFC gold and being able to fight in the sport he loved.
The above quotes were from Sucka Radio the official podcast of MMASucka.com and MMAOpinion.co.ukModels display their bikinis made from bacon strips at Steve Lightfoot's restaurant as part of an event to benefit a charity that doesn't exist.
ROSEVILLE (CBS13) — A Call Kurtis investigation exposed a Roseville Restaurant owner who didn’t hand over the money he raised for the family of a teen killed in a car crash. We’ve uncovered this same man raised money for a charity that doesn’t exist.
By all accounts, the event on October 22nd at Lightfoot’s California Cuisine in Roseville was quite the contest.
In front of a room full of chanting gawkers, women wearing bikinis made of strips of bacon appeared on stage. (You can see images at baconbikinibabe.com)
The proceeds from the event were to go to charity. An organization called the Jordan Lightfoot Foundation for Juvenile Diabetes. The only problem? The charity doesn’t exist.
19-year old Jordan Lightfoot is the daughter of Steve Lightfoot who owns the restaurant. That night the crowd was pushed to buy raffle tickets.
“It’s all going for a very good cause,” the emcee is heard saying on video taken of the event.
Jordan was called up on stage to talk about the charity. “I’ve been diabetic for almost 14-years,” she told the crowd. “I want to be able to help kids go through what I went through.”
And while she does have diabetes, she says she was shocked to learn the charity her dad says he set up in her name isn’t real.
I asked her, “Do you think he was using this fake charity to raise money for himself?”
“I hope that’s not what his intentions were, but it seems it has been,” she said.
“What do you think of that?” I asked.
“It disgusts me. It’s not right.”
Emcee Troy Goings of Get Me Goings P.R. and Marketing Firm says he was duped. He says he donated his time last minute after a local radio station pulled out of the event.
Goings thought the proceeds were going to Jordan’s charity.
“How could somebody do that to their kid,” he said. “I have three daughters of my own, and I would never do something like this.”
Last night we showed you Traci Ditri confronting Steve Lightfoot. The grieving mother says Lightfoot pocketed 14-hundred dollars from a benefit he held this summer in honor of her teenage son Jared who was killed in a car crash.
It wasn’t until we showed up to the restaurant unannounced; he finally agreed to come clean, admitting he spent the money. “I needed it and I used it,” he told Ditri.
Lightfoot promised to get her the money and came through hours before our first story aired.
But now we have more questions for him.
Outside his restaurant, I asked him, “How did you have a charity event for a charity that doesn’t exist?”
“The Jordan Lightfoot Foundation, the paperwork has been filed,” he responded.
“The charity does not exist.” I told him.
“The paperwork has been filed,” he said.
“You can’t have an event for a charity that does not exist.” I said.
“I did not know that”.
I asked his daughter Jordan if he lies. “He sounds like he has a tendency to,” she responded.
I asked him if he could show us paperwork he filed for the charity.
He responded, “uh, that’s in my other records, I have a home office all that stuff is at the home office.” He later admitted, he didn’t have any paperwork he could show us, and he says he didn’t follow all of the necessary steps to create the charity.
“I’m not the evil person everyone is trying to portray here.”
“It upsets me because it makes me look bad,” Jordan told us.
She says she’s sorry to anybody who thought they were helping a foundation in her name. When asked what her message was for her dad, she responded, “Stop lying”.
Steve Lightfoot says this was all a misunderstanding.
He says the $110 raised from the bacon bikini contest will be donated to the Sacramento Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He plans to do that tomorrow.
Restaurant update:
As of November 16, 2010, Lightfoot’s California cuisine is no longer in business. The property manager and Lightfoot confirm he was kicked out last night.
Lightfoot’s name has been removed from all the signs outside.
Property manager Len Travis told CBS13, “He (Lightfoot) and his restaurant no longer operate here, and he is not to be on the property ever again”.
Travis says the move comes after learning what we uncovered in our investigation, and over several other issues. The Station’s Bar which operates on that property is still open for business.Kurt Vonnegut — prolific author, anarchist, Second Life dweller, imaginary interviewer of the dead. And, apparently, troubled soul. At least that’s what’s behind the curtain Charles Shields (of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee fame) peels in And So It |
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